Hitch Hike (Autostop rosso sangue)

Basically this over acted Italian crime film is about a couple towing a caravan through a desert type location made to look like Northern California, but actually filmed in the mountains of the Gran Sasso around the city of L’Aquila in central Italy, who get taken hostage by a sadistic escapee from an institution for the criminally insane. 

 

Franco Nero.

David Hess.

Walter Mancini (Nero) is a washed-up alcoholic writer traveling with his wife, Eve (Corinne Clery), whom suffers at his hands from abuse and humiliation. But, when they pick up a seemingly stranded motorist named Adam (Hess), their trip takes an unexpected turn for the worse. Adam, a deranged and murderous fugitive, orders them to drive him to Mexico, tying up Walter and torturing him for fun and raping Eve. Pursued by Adam's former partners, from whom he has stolen two million dollars, the trio journey through the desert as each plots their escape from one another.

 

Corinne Clery.

The movie is based on Peter Kane’s novel The Violence and the Fury and is directed by Italian screenwriter and novelist Pasquale Festa Campanile. It stars Franco Nero an actor best known for his role of Django in Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western of the same name, the French actress Corinne Clery who had the lead in Story of O in 1975 and American actor David Hess.  The film score also has a spaghetti western connection in that Ennio Morricone wrote the rather attractive score.  A movie that will not be to everyone’s taste with its graphic rape scene and bouts of violence but I thinking given the right frame of mind you may find it a enjoyable diversion.

Battle of Neretva.

‘On Neretva in occupied Europe, we have fought one of the most famous and most human battles – battle for saving the wounded. The fate of the revolution was at stake, and here the brotherhood and unity of our nations won’.[1]

 

The brave Partisan Army.

In the beginning of 1943 Hitler ordered the destruction of the free Partisan Republic of Yugoslavia. The German high command had become concerned about the possibility of an Allied landing in the Balkans. This was of particular concern due to the substantial resources they were extracting from Yugoslavia, including timber and copper. In the event of an Allied landing, resistance forces in Yugoslavia would be likely to interfere with German defensive operations as well as continued resource extraction. Hitler’s orders were to take no prisoners sparing neither the women nor children. The partisans and thousands of refugees, including the wounded and these sick with typhoid, left the city’s behind and begin a hazardous trek northward to the Bosnian Mountains. Their goal was to cross the treacherous Neretva gorge over the only bridge in an attempt to get to safety. Their trip was fraught with danger having to face German tanks and air force, Italian infantry, Chetnik Cavalry, disease and the natural elements. This mammoth exodus was an attempt to move a nation and its culture to beyond the iron grip of Germany and their allies and on to safety. Those that refused or could not join this gigantic migration were hung or shoot by the multinational force that was close on the heels of Tito’s brave partisans and his people.

Picasso's Film poster.

Based on a true story of WW2 that depicts the historically correct patriotic battles between the Yugoslavians and the combined enemy axis.[2] The first class cinematic depictions of this epic cross country flight and final battle was the most expensive motion picture ever made in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the seventh most expensive non-English movie ever produced. The budget for the extras alone would, I imagine, be able to finance a small modern day production! The movie has some familiar faces that European audiences will recognise including Yul Brynner as Viado the man in charge of the Engineers that booby trapped the roads and blow up the giant railway bridge over the Neretva River in Jablanica. A bridge that was actually blown up, rebuilt and blown up again but because of the excessive smoke coursed by the explosion the footage was never used, instead the scenes of the bridge being blown up that eventually ended up in the movie were shot using a small scale table size replica at a sound stage in Prague. We also have Orson Welles as the Senator in charge of the Chetnik’s, Curd Jürgen’s as General Lohring leader of the German High Command, Hardy Kruger as Colonel Kranzer head of the German ground forces and Franco Nero as Captain Michele Riva the Italian commander who deserts and joins the Partisans because of his hatred of the fascist regime. But the real stars of the film are the Yugoslavian and East European actors like the beautiful Sylva Koscina,[3] Segey Bandachuk, Lyubisa Sanadzic and Boris Dvornik, names that that you will not be quite so familiar with, but who make this movie totally convincing. 

 

The bridge.

The Croatian film director Veljko Bulajic who also wrote the screenplay directed the movie.[4] He is best known for directing state sponsored Yugoslav WW2 themed Partisan films and you can see why. The authentic battle scenes where the male and female partisans fight side by side must rank as some of the best ever filmed and certainly compare with modern WW2 films. I’m not always sure that the subtitles always allowed you to understand the subtleties of the story and the DVD transfer is a little lacking but this does not detract from a film that shows what state sponsorship of the film industry can produce. Watching the film you can’t help but wonder how man can do these things to each other?

 

Sylva Koscina.

See also Cinema Komunisto for further information on the Yugoslavian film industry.  

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[1] Marshal Josip Broz Tito President of Yugoslavia 1953-1980

[2] Pablo Picasso created the poster for the film.

[3] Her English film debut was in 1964 when she co-starred along side Dirk Bogarde in the comedy Hot Enough for June.

[4] The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Querelle.

This is Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film, posthumously released just months after his death in June 1982. Based on an obscure book written in 1947 and set in the French Port town of Brest by Jean Genet called Querelle de Brest. It was originally to be filmed by Werner Schroeter the German film director, screenwriter and opera director whom RWF cited as an influence on himself and on German cinema in general, but he was unable to raise the finance. Then the script, written by the wonderfully named Burkhead Driest, was offered to Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci of Last Tango in Paris (1972) fame who refused on the grounds that the cinema going public was not ready for such a film.  Fassbinder had always wanted to film Genet’s novel but by the time he got around to it he did not live long enough to see the première of either the original English language version or the German dubbed version.

The movie did not attempt to transform the novel into what could be conceived as normal cinematic form instead he used spoken commentary, fading out to a blank white screen and allowing a written text, which appears on screen at regular intervals, explain what’s happening. For example this text accompanies a scene where we witness Querelle ass-fucked by another man  ‘for the first time Querelle kissed another man on the mouth. It seemed to him as if he was thrusting his face against a mirror, which reflected his own image, as if his tongue were rooting in the stony interior of a granite head’ another follows an incident where Querelle offers to help an individual that resembles his brother, he dresses him in his brothers clothes, kisses him, declares his love and hands him over to the police. ‘Querelle had entered into a kind of unspoken pact with the devil. He didn’t sign away his soul or his body, but something just as precious: a friend. And the death of this friend sanctifies his crime. It is our task to express what is universal in a particular phenomenon. It’s no longer about a work of art – for the work of art is free’. I think you probable get the idea.

Bred Davis as Georges Querelle.

Everything was filmed in a studio with the use of ‘lurid expressionist colour’ it’s obvious that the sets are nothing more than cardboard cut outs, which make the whole film seem like a theatrical production. The film stars Brad Davis as Querelle, Franco Nero as Lieutenant Seblon, Jeanne Moreau, who had lost none of her sexual allure at the age of 54, plays Lysiane and RWF regular Gunter Kaufmann as Nono. The story is about a sailor Georges Querelle whose ship the Vengeur arrives in Brest. Going onshore with a quantity of opium he makes a deal to sell it to Nono the landlord of the Feria brothel.  Subsequently he murders his accomplice to keep all the profit. Nono’s wife Lysiane is the lover of Querelle brother Robert with whom he has a love hate relationship. He also wants to sleep with Nono’s wife but to do so has to enter into a game of dice, if Nono loses Querelle will be allowed to make love to Lysiane, if Nono wins he will have to submit to anal sex with the bar owner first, allowing Nono to proclaim ‘That way, I can say my wife only sleeps with assholes’ Continuing with a life style of murder, thieving and sex Querelle embarks on a journey of self discovery. It’s not until the end of the film that Lieutenant Seblon reveals his love for our main protagonist.’[1]

The sexually alluring Jeanne Moreau.

In his last interview Fassbinder stated ‘Someone who wants to liberate himself for a new society must go down to the deepest depths of this society. Someone who does that, in whatever way, is fascinating. That’s obvious’ a statement that the Danish author Christian Braad Thomsen claims has to do with living out all your repressed desires, something RWF describes as ‘doubling one self’ which is, I believe, the core component of the directors film, is it a coincidence that the final shot in RWF’s final film is a mirror image? He also sets out to prove that all human relationships are artificial and that life is just an extension of a three-act play: he does have a point. As normal with his films, violence and murder are interchangeable with sex although sex is temporary and death is the final release with Braad Thomsen opining that the whole film can be understood as Querelle’s journey into the realm of the dead! He also offers the opinion that our sailor is a Jesus substitute but without seeing the film again and watching from that point of view I would not presume to agree. Subject of much controversy, not least because of its free and provocative depiction of homosexuality and criminality, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final movie is a return to the early avant-garde films and one that the viewer would benefit from multiple viewings.

The final embrace.

Epitaph

In the thirteen years during which he made films, he changed the face of cinematic art and our idea of what film can be. Until one day he disappeared as suddenly as he had come.[2]

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[1] Interview with Dieter Schidor from the film Der Bauer von Babylon

[2] The Life and Work of a Provocative Genius Christian Braad Thomson

Django Unchained.

When I did the introduction for the screening of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) for the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club a couple of weeks ago we discussed at length how his movies are known for various characteristics. These include extensive and diverting dialogue, an ironic mix of humour and violence, a strong storyline and a host of cinematic references, some obscure, some more obvious.  This week’s film is no different; Django Unchained (2012) has a strong dialogue driven linear narrative, in contrast to the circular narrative we saw in Pulp Fiction, which is only interrupted when bouts of gross violence take place. Like his previous body of work, the film veers back and forth between humour and violence, a film where your never sure if you should be laughing or cringing?

Dr King Shultz with his apprentice bounty hunter.

The cinematic references in this film are very interesting especially for lovers of spaghetti westerns.[1]. Tarantino has been quoted as saying that his main inspiration ‘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 Sergio Leone's world-renowned 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). 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. It was influenced by Akira Kuroswa’s Yojimbo (1961) as was in fact Leone’s For A Few Dollars More in 1965. Yojimbo in turn had been influenced by American westerns like High Noon (1952) and Shane (1953)[2]. Incidentally Franco Nero, who stared in Corbucci’s film as Django, has a cameo appearance in Django Unchained, which also shares the main theme music with the original. Two other Corbucci westerns have been sited as an influence for the film, The Great Silence (1968)[3] with its bleak winter snow passage’s, and Navajo Joe (1966) a racially themed western that Tarantino credits with ushering additionally realistic violence into cinema. Mix these with blaxploitation movie’s like 1975’s Mandingo, a blunt sexual saga about slave masters, traders and lovers, and the crudely named The Legend of Nigger Charley (1972)[4] which is about an enslaved blacksmith granted freedom on his masters deathbed only to be goaded into living as an outlaw by his hatred of a loathsomely depicted white society.

Tarantino references classic Corbucci westerns including The Great Silence (1968) 

Django Unchained begins in 1858, three years before the American civil war and five years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Two ruthless guards are transporting a group of shackled slaves overland; they are stopped by a German bounty hunter, Dr King Shultz, (Christoph Waltz) who is looking for a particular slave that can give him information about the Brittle Brothers. That slave turns out to be one called Django (Jamie Fox) who Shultz takes with him after killing one of the guards and leaving the other to the ‘mercy’ of the remaining slaves. When Django turns out to be a useful assistant, the good Doctor agrees to help him find his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) who, it turns out, is one of Calvin J Candy’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) house slaves on his vast Candyland Estate.

Because of the award winning Sally Menke’s premature death Fred Ruskin took on the editing duties, a man best known for editing three instalments in the Fast and Furious franchise although he had worked as an assistant editor on the Kill Bill films. The soundtrack as usual comprises a variety of music genres, but relies heavily on spaghetti western type music. 

Jamie Fox with Franco Nero.

As normal with Tarantino’s body of work this latest film has again raised areas of controversy. As with Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown (1997) the heavy usage of the word ‘nigger’[5] was criticized by some commentators, including film director Spike Lee who accused it’s use as being ‘disrespectful to his ancestors’ but defended by others pointing out that the word was part of the historic context of race and slavery in the United States. It’s arguable a film that deals head on with the full extent of slavery, its bottomless obscenity and violence, and bravely attempts to show the full vileness of this evil trade. A subject of which modern Hollywood’s film making machine is traditionally nervous. The filmmaker Michael Moore commented, "(Django) is one of the best film satires ever? A rare American movie on slavery and the origins of our sick racist history."

The lovely Broomhilda.

Secondly some reviewer’s criticized the film for being too violent raising the old chestnut about whether there is a relationship between screen violence and actual acts of violence however I’m afraid that Tarantino’s films would not be the same without it! Incidentally the planned premiere of Django was postponed following the mass murder of twenty young children and six staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut on the 14^th December 2012 an event that I would say had more to do with America’s liberal gun laws than Tarantino’s films.

The not so lovely Calvin Candy.

This western, which follows three-crime dramas, two Asian influenced action thrillers, a slasher action thriller and a war film, could be seen as a companion piece to Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012). It received very positive reviews and included one that I think sums up the movie "Bold, bloody, and stylistically daring, Django Unchained is another incendiary masterpiece from Quentin Tarantino”[6] certainly his best work since Pulp Fiction. It was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Waltz) and Best Original Screenplay (Tarantino). At the 85th Academy Awards, Christoph Waltz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, after already having won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor and Quentin Tarantino won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, after having won the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film has been commercially successful, grossing over $380 million in theaters to date.

It's goodbye to one of the Brittle Brothers!!!

[1] The classic period for these westerns was from 1963 until 1973.

[2] The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 American western film directed by John Sturges. It is a western-style remake based on Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai, which in turn was influenced by John Ford’s westerns.

[3] The movie features a score by Ennio Morricone and stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as Silence, a mute gunfighter with a grudge against bounty hunters, assisting a group of outlawed Mormons and a woman trying to avenge her husband (one of the outlaws). They are set against a group of ruthless bounty hunters, led by Loco (Klaus Kinski).

[4] It had a sequel called Run Nigger Run (1974). Both films featured Fred Williamson.

[5] 110 times in Django Unchained

[6] Rotten Tomatoes