American Sniper.

This Clint Eastwood biographical war drama can be viewed from two different perspectives’. The first is obviously the politically incorrect standpoint and the second is as a gung-ho cowboy film, but this does depend on whether you can detach yourself from the dreadful reality of a story involving the deadliest legalised assassin in American military history.

 

Chris Kyle.

Texas born Chris Kyle was taught to shoot and kill animals by his father, to protect his younger brother from bullies and to hold America in reverence above everything else. In 2002 he married Taya Renae Kyle (played by British actress Sienna Miller) with whom he had two children.  Following the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers he volunteered for the military and was chosen for the USA’s special operations force known as the Navy Seals. In this rather unique force he became a legend as a sniper with a 160 confirmed kills with his actual tally probable nearer 255. During this period he served four tours in the Iraq War (2003 – 2011) being awarded several commendations for ‘acts of heroism and meritorious service in combat’ and receiving two Silver star medals, five Bronze Star medals, one Navy and marine Corps Commendation Medal, two navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals along with numerous other unit and personal awards.

America love their war hero’s and its no surprise that American Sniper (2014) is the highest grossing war film in the USA, its also Director Eastwood’s highest grossing film to date and received six Academy Awards nominations but only won Best Sound Editing. Kyle is played by Bradley Cooper (American Hustle 2013, The Place Beyond the Pines 2013, Silver Linings Playbook 2012) and received a nomination for Best Actor. The screenplay was written by Jason Hall, based on the book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History co-written in 2012 by Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. 

 

Taya Kyle at the movie premier. 

This fact-based drama was shown as part of the new Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club season and was hosted by Rachel Findlay who did a good job of introducing a difficult subject matter. The discussion that followed the screening was quite intense, tackling such diverse topics as whether the film was pro or anti-war, and if the movie delved fully into the problems that soldiers encounted when they return from the battlefield and how they adjust back into civilian life. My own personnel view was that it was neither a pro nor an anti-war movie, but was certainly one that refused to give any legitimate reasons for the troops being there in the first place. This act of war that has since destabilised the complete Middle East, giving rise to the Islamic Brigades and ISIS. We also discussed how it appears that Americas liberal gun laws and constant reports of violent aggression has anesthetise the US public into excepting that this and many other theatres of war are not illegal when obviously they are and have been down throughout the ages. This is a film primarily about the glorifying of bloodshed, death and patriotism, and the misguided credence of ‘God, family and country’ and how men are so easily dehumanised. The United States of America must revise their gun laws.

A Fistful of Dollars and the Spaghetti Western.

As Johnny Cash once sung 'But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die’ explaining  “I sat with my pen in my hand, trying to think up the worst reason a person could have for killing another person, and that's what came to mind[1]”.

On Monday night the RBC Film Club presented a western, which is a rare occurrence in its self (we don’t many westerns) But its not just any western but one of a type that in my opinion changed not only that particular genre (the western) but also how films and TV series have been presented ever since.

The spaghetti western[2] was allegedly born around 1963 and its classic period lasted until 1973 although the first was allegedly a British/Spanish co-production made in 1961/2 called Savage Guns. It was directed by Michael Carreras, the son of the Hammer Studios founder, and was said to be the reason for Hammer not making westerns!  Incidentally this was the first western to be made in Europe’s only desert, located at Tabernas near Almeria in Southern Spain[3]. It’s an unforgiving desolate landscape, barren, hot, dry and dusty surrounded by mountains including the beautiful Sierra Nevada range, this desert area was a mecca for spaghetti western filmmakers and many were made in this area including A Fistful of Dollars (1964). It was this desolate landscape that helped give the ‘Italian’ western its unique look. 

 

Tabernas near Almeria.

The reason that Sergio Leone's movie made such an impact was that it did extremely well in the box office, not only in Europe, released in 1964, where this type of film was very popular but in the UK and America when it was finally released in 1967. (Re-released in 1969). Turning out to be a very high grossing movie at the box office. Leone went on to make two other films that were to form what was known as The Dollar Trilogy they were, as I am sure you are aware, For A Few Dollars More in 1965 and what is considered the best of the three The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in 1966. Each of these three movies turned out to be even more popular than the previous one. 

 

Leone directing on the set of A Fistful Dollars.

These films were scored by Ennio Morricone, and his music was as unusual as Leone’s visuals: not only did he use instruments like the trumpet, the harp or the electric guitar, he also added whistle’s, cracking whips and gunshots to the concoction, described by a critic as a ‘rattlesnake in a drum kit’. Morricone went on to score over 30 Italian westerns and was a key factor in the genre's success.

 

Our anti-hero softens only for the German actress Marianne Koch.

The Dollar Trilogy starred a virtually unknown actor called Clint Eastwood, who you may have heard of but at that time he was in TV series called Rawhide; in it he played a young cattle drover called Rowdy Yates. It was when various actors turned down the role of “the man with no name”, including Leone’s favourite James Coburn who wanted to much money, that Eastwood was offered a chance to escape from his Rawhide image explaining in an interview that "In Rawhide I did get awfully tired of playing the conventional white hat. The hero who kisses old ladies and dogs and was kind to everybody. I decided it was time to be an anti-hero." And it was this anti-hero that was so different from the standard American western in which it was made so obvious who was the good guy (the white hat that Clint refers too) and who was the villain (he would wear a black hat, perhaps silver spurs and pearl handled guns!).

 

Rawdy Yates.

The Man With No Name.

Leone was the best-known director in the spaghetti western genre and went on to make three other genre films including[4] one of his best westerns Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) successfully casting Henry Fonda against type as a villain, but don’t get me wrong he was not the only director of spaghetti westerns - just the best known. But it was Sergio Leone who defined the look and attitude of the genre. Although it was Eastwood whose chose the clothes he wore bring them from America along with the guns he used in Rawhide. Leone’s West was a dusty wasteland of whitewashed villages, howling winds, scraggy dogs and cynical heroes, as unshaven as the villains.

 

A close up facial shot, the type Leone was famous for 

In general spaghetti westerns are more action oriented than their American counterparts. Dialogue is sparse and some critics have pointed out that they are constructed as operas, using the music as an illustrative ingredient of the narrative. From a long time past westerns had been called ‘horse operas’, but like professor of cultural studies Christopher Frayling pointed out, it took the Italians to show what the term really meant. Many spaghetti westerns were quite violent, and several of them met with censorship problems, causing them to be cut or even banned in certain markets.

 

Violence was a big ingredient of the spaghetti western. 

Quentin Tarantino has been quoted as saying that his main inspiration for Django Unchained (2012)  ‘pretty much began and ended with Sergio Corbucci. Corbucci made thirteen dark and brutal westerns, with characters portrayed as sadistic anti heroes. These westerns were famous for a very high body count and scenes of mutilation. Generally they were not as well known as Leone's Dollars trilogy and none of them truly cracked the American market but they were very popular in Europe. The best known of these was Django (1966) which established the masochistic aspect of the spaghetti western hero, the use of a coffin to store something other than a body and a format that included rivalry between two factions, in Django its between the white skinned red hooded "fanatics" led by Major Jackson and the "Bandidos" Mexicans led by General Hugo Rodriguez. Even our 'hero' is again far removed from the standard American western hero who would fight for love or loyalty where as Django and his like fought only for money and self-gratification, a cynical mercenary who would never hesitate to kill.  This prototype spaghetti western was adjudged to have set a new level for violence in westerns. The film was banned out right in the UK, unable to get a BBFC 18 certificate until 1993 and downgraded to a 15 certificate in 2004. Also similar to A Fistful of Dollars it was influenced by Akira Kuroswa’s Yojimbo (1961). Yojimbo in turn had been influenced by American westerns like High Noon (1952) and Shane (1953). Incidentally Franco Nero, who stared in Corbucci’s film as Django, had a cameo appearance in Django Unchained,

 

Tarantino based his western on Corbucci Django. 

The main influence on the Leone and Corbucci was Kuroswa's Yojimbo.

The Civil War and its aftermath is a recurrent background and instead of regular names such as Will Kane or Ethan Edwards, the heroes often have bizarre names like Ringo, Sartana, Sabata, Johnny Oro, Arizona Colt or, the most famous of all, Django. It has been alleged that the genre is unmistakably a catholic genre (some other names in use are Hallelujah, Cemetery, Trinity or Holy Water Joe!), with a visual style strongly influenced by recognisable catholic images of, for instance, the crucifixion, the last supper. The surreal extravaganza Django Kill! (1967), by Giulio Questi, a former assistant of Fellini even has a resurrected hero who witnesses a reflection of Judgment Day in a dusty western town.

Many spaghetti westerns have an American-Mexican border setting and feature loud and sadistic Mexican bandits. A sub-genre of Spaghetti Westerns known as Zapata Westerns, after the Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata, used the Mexican revolution as an allegory of American imperialism past and present. The revolution lasted from 1912 up until around 1920 during which most of these films were set. Arguable one of the best examples of this sub-genre was A Bullet for the General (1966). 

 

The magnificent A Bullet for the General which also starred Gian Maria Volonte. 

As I said at the beginning of this piece the Spaghetti Western changed how films, and TV series are presented mainly how the main protagonist is sometimes portrayed, the excess violence, the landscape and even the soundtrack. No longer are good and bad obvious and we the audience are invited to support a character that is not necessarily a “good” man, or woman come to that, and generally to support his or her violent actions. Is this reflected in the political actions of so-called civilised countries, I can’t help but feel that the answers is yes. Perhaps A Fistful of Dollars has got more to answer for than how we view Peaky Blinders?

 

'But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die’

---

[1] Johnny Cash Folsom Prison Blues 1955

[2] It got its name from the fact that most of them were directed and produced by Italians, often in collaboration with other European countries, especially Spain and Germany. The name ‘spaghetti western’ originally was a depreciative term, given by foreign critics to these films because they thought they were inferior to American westerns. Most of the films were made with low budgets, but several still managed to be innovative and artistic, although at the time they didn’t get much recognition, even in Europe. In the eighties the reputation of the genre grew and today the term is no longer used disparagingly, although some Italians still prefer to call the films western all’italiana (westerns Italian style). In Japan they are called Macaroni westerns, in Germany Italowestern. A handful of westerns were made in Italy before Leone redefined the genre, and the Italians were not the first to make westerns in Europe in the sixties. In Germany a series of immensely successful westerns based on the works of Karl May had been produced.

[3] The outdoor scenes of many spaghetti westerns, especially those with a relatively higher budget, were shot in the Spain, in particular the Tabernas desert of Almeria (Andalusia) and Colmenar Viejo and Hoyo de Manzanares (near Madrid). In Italy the province of Lazio (the surroundings of Rome) was a favourite location. Some spaghetti westerns were shot in the Alpes, North Africa or Israel. The indoor scenes were usually shot in the western towns of the Roman studios like Cinecittà or Elios. The Elios studios also had a ‘Mexican town’ next to the western town.

[4] A Fistful of Dynamite (1971) starring James Coburn ,some of which was shot in Spain, and My Name is Nobody with Terrace Hill and Henry Fonda. Shooting this time took place in New Mexico.

J Edgar.

J Edgar Hoover.

This weeks Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre’s Film Club screening had all the right ingredients, a celebrated director, two of modern days best acting talents and the opportunity to tell a very interesting ‘true’ story. But before we had a chance to see if these ingredients worked themselves into a great movie Mrs Pat Pickering, who was our host for the evening, gave a very well researched and executed introduction.

Pat informed the large audience that the film we were about to see J Edgar (2011) was a American biographical drama, directed by Clint Eastwood, focusing on the long career of the director, of initially the Bureau of Investigation and then the Federal Bureau of Investigation up until his death in 1972 serving under a total of eight presidencies. The story started in 1919 with the Palmer Raids, they were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport, what they deemed, radical leftists and anarchists from the United States.

Helen Gandy Hoovers personal secretary.

While researching her introduction Pat realised how little she knew about Hoover, she understood that he was a strong personality, the head of the FBI and therefore an influential man in the politics of the USA. Most of her knowledge, like most other people in this country was gleamed from old films, like 1959’s The FBI Story showing the Bureau in a shining light and starring James Stewart, and The FBI TV programmes, the G-men who saved America from gangsters and terrorists. But the more she researched the more she recognized that there was a scary shadowy side to this man. These included privately kept files, investigations into people of a differing political persuasion to himself, communists, blacks and civil rights activists and strangely enough in Hoover’s case as it turns out, homosexuals. 

John Dillinger after he was shot dead by FBI Agent Melvin Purvis.

Hoover founded the FBI in 1935; Pat went on to tell us, and is credited with building the organisation into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency including the introduction of modern day police techniques including centralised finger printing and the use of forensic science in investigating crime. He was the power behind the capture, or as in the case of John Dillinger, the killing of dangerous criminals. These successes led to the broadening of the Bureau’s power. Prior to and during WW2 the FBI had primary responsibility for counter espionage and was credited with preventing German saboteurs and spies from gaining a foothold in the US. All this raised the profile of Hoover and he was seen as the protector of the ‘American way of life’.

Hoover with his close associate Clyde Tolson.

Continuing with this ever more interesting introduction Pat explained that later in life and certainly after his death Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive actions became public. His critic’s, and there was many, accused him of exceeding his jurisdiction and using the FBI to harass politicians, amassing clandestine files by any means at his disposal including illegal methods.  Pat pointed out that since the days of Hoover, FBI Directors are now limited to one ten year term because of the power that Hoover had acquired over his long tenure.

Dorothy Lamour getting close with J Edgar.

The final part of the introduction touched of his private life as an alleged closet homosexual and cross dresser dedicated to, and dominated by, his mother (reminding this viewer, on seeing the film, of Hitchcock’s Psycho) and that Clyde Tolson, an Associate Director at the FBI may have been his lover. Suffice to say there has been a great deal of controversy about this side of John Edgar Hoover. All we know for sure is that that both men worked closely together and were also very close friends. When Hoover passed away Tolson inherited the Hoover estate and consequently moved into his home excepting the Stars and Stripes from the burial casket. Tolson is buried a few yards away from his close friend in the congressional cemetery.

Hoover ran a campaign to denigrate Martin Luther King.

It was obvious from Pat Pickering’s introduction that Hoover was a complex character that amassed considerable power during his lifetime and is still to this day an enigma. So, did the ingredients mentioned in my first paragraph succeed in making this movie an intriguing story about this rather enigmatic figure? I afraid in my humble opinion it turned out to be a missed opportunity. As Peter Bradshaw described it ‘a lot of pulled punches and fudged issues’ which I could not help agree with. Considering the films running time Clint Eastwood could have included some far more interesting peripheries like the killing of Dillinger, rather than just showing a death mask, his inability to investigate the Mafia and the campaign to denigrate Martin Luther King. The film, I felt, was preoccupied with looking at Hoover and not flushing out his fascinating story also skirting round the sexual ambiguities. Its told in drab rooms, under lit by Eastwood’s normal cameraman Tom Stern, the story mainly happens in flashbacks with Hoover seen dictating his life story to some young assistant, its these constant flashbacks that get annoying after a while, one minute with the young J Edgar and next with the much older man. Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed the young Hoover far more convincing than the older reincarnation. The part of Helen Gandy, Hoovers secretary for fifty four years, does not stretch a wonderful actress like Naomi Watts relegating the character to a bit part. Like a lot of modern movies of late its tedious, with no real emotion, tension or excitement, words not normally associated with a director of Mr Eastwoods class.

Hereafter

Tsunami!!!!!

Clint Eastwood’s latest movie Hereafter (2010) has such a realistically stunning special effects opening sequence in which a tsunami sweeps over an Asian holiday resort that in Japan it was pulled shorty after release on the grounds that it was not appropriate following the recent devastating earthquake and tsunami in that country. The main theme of this film, number 31 from the director, is death, or to be accurate, life after death. 

The film tells parallel stories about three very different characters, each one affected by death in one way or another. George Lonegan (Mat Damon) a American factory worker and former professional psychic, French television journalist Marie Lelay (Cecile de France) who survives the tsunami and a working class English lad that has just lost his older twin brother in an accident on a London street (played by real life twins George and Frankie McLaren).

Not one of Eastwood’s best movies by a long chalk but with the great mans trademark of unhurriedly telling a straightforward story in a straightforward manner its entertaining all the same and quite moving at times. His next directorial duties involve a biopic of J. Edgar Hoover focusing on the scandalous and controversial side of the man’s life, due for release next year.

Dirty Harry

“I know what your thinking, did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well. Do ya punk?”

The question punk: is this the most memorable quote in cinema history? For those of you who are to young to remember, or perhaps you have been living on the moon for the last forty years the quote comes from one of Clint Eastwood’s most famous roles, Inspector Harry Callaghan. A role he played in a series of five films starting with the successful 1971 Don Siegel directed and produced Dirty Harry. The plot of this movie revolves around a sadistic psychopathic serial killer who calls himself Scorpio (Andy Robinson). He kills an innocent young women swimming in a San Francisco swimming pool using a high-powered snipers rifle from the top of a high-rise building. He leaves behind a ransom message informing the city that if they do not pay the ransom demanded then his next victim will be “a Catholic priest or a nigger” Inspector Callaghan is assigned to the case.

If you can imagine Eastwood as the “man with no name”, from Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, reprocessed as a policeman in a contemporary setting your get the basic feel for the character of Harry Callaghan: a professional killer just this side of the law bringing the violent justice of the lawless West to modern day San Francisco. He demonstrates his credentials early in the film when he foils a bank raid and utters the famous ‘punk’ quote for the first time, scarcely bothering to put down a hamburger he is eating.

The film was based on a story Dead Right, written by Harry Julian Fink and his wife and various actors were approached to play the strong central male lead. These included Frank Sinatra, who was forced to pull out because of an injured hand, and Paul Newman, who it is reputed suggested Eastwood for the part. It was reported at the time of release that Dirty Harry is what the mass public want from a Clint Eastwood ‘Hero’ someone with the cool, but not the class of James Bond, reassuringly indestructible with the mastery of the cult western loner, a man that can be beaten up but never beaten by criminals or by the authorities. Today the movie would be deemed politically incorrect and even when released (during the Nixon era) the film was met with a great deal of controversy i.e. the equal amount of violence dealt out from both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ and the fact that the movie was seen as a liberal backlash, with the villian wearing long hair and a peace badge. Considered to be one of the most influential police movies ever made, a film that still carries a punch even after forty years.

Invictus

A Clint Eastwood directed film always has a solid storyline, and Invictus (2009) is no exception. Adapted for the screen by Anthony Perkin, who also wrote the screen play for the recent Sherlock Holmes film, Invictus is an account of the relationship between two men from totally different backgrounds. A black South African, Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for state terrorism and sabotage who became the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election and the working-class Afrikaner Francois Pienaar captain of the South African Springboks rugby team. Mandela, released from prison in 1990 and elected president in 1994, was no fool when he seconded the 1995 rugby World Cup to help unite the divided South African nation attempting to bring black and white together to support the predominately white rugby team. Crucial to this was the Mandela’s controversial decision to risk alienating his black followers by preventing the new sports council from abolishing the Springboks rugby team and its distinctive green and gold uniform. The film was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Mandela’s release from prison and is based on John Carlin's book Playing the Enemy. Morgan Freeman plays Mandela; although he does not resemble him physically he does however manage to convey his characteristics, Pienaar is convincingly played by Matt Damon. Almost anyone else other than Eastwood could have made a cheesy triumphant sports movie but he does not allow this to happen, although the match sequences look very convincing and you do find yourself getting quite involved. An interesting and entertaining look at recent history.