Heavens Gate.

Its not often that the sheer brilliance of a movie makes you want weep with joy, please don’t let anyone tell you that Michael Cimino’s Heavens Gate (1980) is not a masterpiece, because they would be lying! 

This giant of cinematic history was much maligned on its release. Originally it was considered to be one of the biggest box office flops of all time, costing in the region of $44 million and allegedly earning less than $3 million dollars in return. It brought its studio, United Artist, to near collapse and destroyed the career of an award-winning director. United Artist had given Cimino a free hand after the success of 1978’s The Deer Hunter but never again allowed a director driven film production! Problems with budgetary overspends, originally in the region of $11.4 million, time overruns, the planned release was for December 1979 but did not open until November the following year, and bad press added to its problems.

Written and directed by Michael Cimino its gripping narrative is really another demonstration of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, a story about capitalism and greed and ethnic cleansing, showing the America system at its worse? The Wyoming Stock Growers association lead by Frank Canton is convinced the European immigrant settlers are looting their herds of cattle. Gaining the approval of the state, Canton and his fellow cattlemen draw up a death list with a 125 names of settlers from Johnston County who are accused of being thieves and anarchists.

The beautiful cinematography.........

The film boasts a well-known cast that includes Kris Kristofferson as Jim Averill an 1870 graduate of Harvard College who 20 years later finds himself the Marshall of Johnson County. A fair man who has no time for the cattleman’s association preferring the company of Ella Watson a Johnson County bordello madam who accepts cattle as payment for use of her prostitutes. Depicted, in her American feature film debut, by French superstar Isabelle Huppert. Watson also shares her affections with Nate Champion a friend of Averill and an enforcer for the stockmen who is portrayed in his normal laid back style by Christopher Walken. Also included in the cast are Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, a very young looking John Hurt and Sam Waterston as the evil Frank Canton.

and the wonderful set pieces...........

The 2013 Glasgow Film Festival showed the restored version of the film, the 216-minute directors cut and not the massacred cut of 149 minutes. Released in 2012 and first shown at the 69^th Venice Film Festival and subsequently at the New York Film Festival it now clearly demonstrates the stunning cinematography, the wonderfully choreographed set pieces and a sound that is incredible. The critics had finally woken up to the fact that it was “one of the few authentically innovative Hollywood films[1]” This “wounded monster” as David Thomson called it has found its rightful place up there among the great films of all time and finally been given the credit a film of this stature disserves.

make this one of the finest films your ever have the privilege of watching. 

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[1] Robin Wood 1986.

Holiday Viewing 2011.

As many of you know we finally managed to take a break after a very busy year, revisiting Southern Spain. You can read about our exploits at Fort Bravo by following the link. Texas Hollywood - Spain 2011. This time I did not have to take a portable player and a pile of DVD’s! Thanks to the genius of Apple we have the iPad on which you can down load your viewing pleasure before you depart and watch a movie anywhere. So just to keep up to date I submit a short ramble on each of the films I managed to watch.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988) 

It was Charles Crichton most successful film, other than of course the brilliant Ealing comedy The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) in which Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway hatch a plan to smuggle gold bullion out of the country disguised as Eiffel Tower paperweights, A Fish Called Wanda (1988) that I selected for the outward plane journey.  Not being a great lover of travelling at hundreds of miles an hour thousand of feet above earth I thought this particular movie would take my mind of it, and I was quite right.  The film is a cracking UK comedy crime drama co-directed and written by its star John Cleese. It boasts a first class cast headed up by two Monty Python stars the afore mentioned John Cleese as the lawyer Archie Leach and Michael Palin. The plot, which in this kind of film is never that important, involves one Wanda Gershwitz who is involved in a diamond hoist. Not satisfied with her share she attempts to manipulate the three men involved and the defence solicitor of one of them, endeavouring to keep the proceeds all for her self. The greedy Wanda is played by the attractive Jamie Lee Curtis, the other three villains are her so called ‘brother’ Otto West brilliantly overplayed by Kevin Kline, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the London based gangster George Thomason who thinks he’s the brains behind the operation is played by the British actor Tom Georgeson best known for television work and Thomason’s right hand man and animal lover Ken Pile is amusingly portrayed by Palin.

Jig (2011)

Wigs and Dresses!!!!!

This movie, part funded by BBC Scotland, is the first time the competitive world of the Irish Dance has ever been filmed by an outsider. Sue Bourne, a documentary filmmaker, produced and directed Jig (2011), which documents the 40^th Irish Dancing World Championships that were held in Glasgow in March 2010. The competition lasts for one very intense week and involves three thousand dancers from all around the world, their families and their teachers. This obsessive world involves young competitors dressing up in wigs and outfits that can cost thousands of pounds, they sport fake tans and heavy makeup and reputedly love every minute of it, but after watching this rather melancholic affair I would suggest that these very determined youngster’s are in fact under extreme stress! An enjoyable film for around 60 minutes but after that it gets a little tedious.

Among Giants (1998)

Sheffield Yorkshire: A team of men lead by middle aged Ray and his young flatmate Steve find cash-in-hand employment painting electricity pylons.  When Gerry, a young fancy-free Australian backpacker, joins the team its not long before Ray, who has two kids and is separated from his wife, falls in love with her and wants to settle down. Problems arise when Steve realises that he is also in love with the girl and both men find out she is not quite ready for domestic bliss. Among Giants (1998) star’s the late Pete Postlethwaite as the ganger Ray with James Thornton as the slightly immature Steve and Rachel Griffiths as the worldly-wise Gerry. Direction is by Sam Miller, best known for the TV series This Life, and its written by Simon Beaufoy, who won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Danny Boyles Slumdog Millionaire (2008). The original idea for the film came from a documentary Beaufoy wanted to make about painting giant pylons, an idea that was eventually turned into this work of fiction. It was on the back of Beaufoy’s other big writing success The Full Monty (1997) that a producer was found and the film was made. After training given by the Electricity Board’s climbing experts some of the shooting actually took place on real pylons, which looked hellishly scary. An interesting British romantic comedy drama with believable acting from both Postlewaite and Griffith but the script could have done with a little more oomph.  

The Informant (2009)

Maybe it was me, but I did not find The Informant (2009) very entertaining or exciting, to be honest I thought it was a bit confusing! Perhaps I was just not in the mood for this very talky political parody? The film is an American fact based “comedy” drama about Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a high level corporate executive who was involved as a whistle blower in the Lysine price fixing conspiracy, which was a deliberately organised attempt during the mid 1990’s to raise the price of animal feed.  This collusion involved five different worldwide companies including the American company that Whitacre worked for, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). He was the highest-level executive in US history to become an FBI informant. Directed by Steven Soderbergh whose quality of work, does vary from the sublime (Sex, Lies and Videotape 1989,Traffic 2000) to the ridicules (Oceans Twelve and Thirteen, Che 2008).

Arlington Road (1999)

My journey home, accompanied by a strong head wind, included the very interesting conspiracy thriller Arlington Road (1999).  The plot involves the widowed University professor Michael Faraday (the ever dependable Jeff Bridges) who begins to suspect his new neighbours Oliver (Tim Robbins) and Cheryl Lang (Joan Cusack) are involved in a terrorist plot. Faraday gradually becomes obsessed with proving to the FBI that his suspicions are correct. Director Mark Pellington, who has been named to direct the remake of the brilliant Spanish/Mexican horror movie The Orphanage (2007), cleverly allows the viewer to continually question whether the Lang’s are really terrorists or is the professor, who we discover is a specialist on the subject and lectures a class, imagining the whole thing? Although not well received by the critics I thought it to be a stylishly tense and exciting movie, perhaps my opinion was affected by the turbulence?

Cutters Way

Alec Cutter.

It’s not often that Jeff Bridges is in a movie where another actor outshines his performance. The actor in question was the 35 year-old John Heard and the movie in question? The classic American independent film Cutters Way (1981). Heard plays a crippled Vietnam War veteran Alex Cutter maimed in both body and mind. His best friend is Richard Bone (Bridges), a beachside gigolo who sells his body to elderly rich ladies and goes through the motions of being a yacht salesman for his friend George Swanson, without a lot of success. This Californian film noir takes place in the wealthy confines of Santa Barbara where our two companions are low down the social order.

Richard Bone.

One rainy night on the way back from a gainful liaison Richard Bone’s car breaks down in a dark side street, he spots another car, the owner dumps something in a rubbish bin, Bone gets distracted by the horrendous weather and goes on his way. The next morning a young girl is found brutally murdered in the same side street that Bone abandoned his Austin Healey. Questioned by the authorities but due to lack of evidence linking him to the crime, he’s not under suspicion. Later the same day he spots a man he thinks resembles the guy that dumped the body in the rubbish, local tycoon and big wig J.J. Cord! Cutter, along with the dead girls sister, persuades Bone to join them in a plan to prove that Cord carried out the murder.

Mr and Mrs Cutter.

Directed by Czech New Wave émigré Ivan Passer, who defected to the US in 1969, this excellent movie deserved its 30^th anniversary reissue in June this year but surely warranted a much wider release. The literate screenplay by Jeffrey Alan Fiskin was based on the 1976 novel Cutter and Bone by author Newton Thornburg who also wrote the novel that the 2009 Australian film drama Beautiful Kate was based upon. John Heard, who was virtually unknown at the time, performed probably the best role of his distinguished career quietly emphasising the hidden motives for the war veterans’ actions i.e. to strike back at a system that sent him to an unjust war and ruining his life. Even this performance tends to be overshadowed by the role of his mentally battered and bruised alcoholic wife Mo played so brilliantly by Lisa Eichhorn, an American actress that been seen more on British TV than in US feature films, both of whom merited far greater recognition. This film is a real gem and proves what good films come out of the USA at times and I can highly recommend it.

True Grit 2010.

For the more discerning cinema lover the western still holds a special appeal proved by the fact that Ethan and Joel Coens master class in the genre is packing cinemas and Monday nights RBC Film Club showing was no exception.

Mattie Ross.

Based on the 1968 Charles Portis novel of the same name True Grit (2010) relates the story of 14 year-old Mattie Ross who sets out to avenge the shooting and killing of her father Frank Ross by his drunken low life employee who goes by the name of Tom Chaney, amongst other’s. The strong minded Mattie hires the one eyed fat whisky drinking US Marshall Reuben J “Rooster” Cogburn to track the outlaw who is now riding with the Ned Pepper gang across the Choctaw terrain. Texas Ranger LeBoeuf, who is pursuing Chaney for killing a State Senator, joins them on their manhunt.

Rooster Cogburn

Originally adapted as a film in 1969, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring the American icon that is John Wayne, a role that won him his only Academy Award for Best Actor, True Grit has now been resurrected by Joel and Ethan Coen. The “two headed director” wrote the screenplay, based more on the novel than the previous movie, edited under their normal alias of Roderick Jaynes and produced with a little help from a certain Mr Spielberg.  The Coen’s version narrates the story from the prospective of Mattie Ross who in 1928, as an older churchgoing spinster, recounts her adventures. Marshall Rooster Cogburn is portrayed as a complex character who was an unsuccessful family man, a member of William Quantrill’s guerrilla band during the American Civil War and its hinted, that he was once on the wrong side of the law?  The Texas Ranger LaBoeuf is a buckskin clad pipe smoking Texas Ranger who has been hunting Chaney for a cash reward for four months for killing the senator and his dog.

The Texas Ranger.

This western is pure entertainment from the start to the finish, it’s a film marked by its humour, its realism and its brutal social commentary. In my opinion its due to the brilliant cast and crew including long time cinematographer nine time Oscar nominated Roger Deakins, his eleventh film for the Coen’s. The soundtrack, based on 19^th-century church music, is the 15th scored by another long-time collaborator Carter Burwell. There is no doubt that we will certainly hearing a lot more of Hailee Steinfeld, chosen out of 15000 girls for the role of the resolute Mattie Ross. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress she even outshone Jeff Bridges who made the part of Rooster Cogburn his own just missing out to Colin Firth for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Bourne Trilogy star Matt Damon plays the Texas Ranger and Josh Brolin who was in the Coen’s award winning movie No Country for Old Men (2007) plays the psychopathic simpleton Tom Chaney. The directing style is undoubtedly  Coen brothers, with their attention to detail, the humour, the strong characters and their tremendous writing ability. It’s not before time that the brothers turned their clever genre skills to the best of all genres: the western.

The Fisher King.

‘A good old-fashioned story of guilt, poverty, love, madness and free video club membership’ is the tagline on the DVD of Terry Gilliam film The Fisher King (1991). It stars Robin Williams as Parry, a homeless history professor who lives in his own fantasy world that includes Castles, Red Knights and damsel’s in distress. Jeff Bridges plays Jack Lucas New York’s number 1 shock jock whose off hand arrogance on his radio programme inadvertently prompts a depressed caller to commit multiple murders in a crowded restaurant, one of the victims was Parry’s wife! The incident stops Jacks career in its tracks he becomes depressed and turns to alcohol. The attractive Mercedes Ruehl take the part of Jack’s strong willed girl friend. With Pulp Fiction’s Amanda Plummer cast as Lydia, a shy insecure young women who gives both Parry and Jack a reason to engage again with ‘normal life’. The story involves the search for the Holy Grail, a flaming Red Knight on a giant horse and lots of other Gillianest nonsense. To be honest the first 30 minutes made me wonder why I was watching this and I’m not a fan of Robin Williams madcap style of acting, but once Amanda Plummer joined the on screen cast the story picked up and I’m glad I stayed the course. There are comparisons with Jeunet’s recent Micmacs (2009) and similar to that movie it’s filled with humour, heartbreak, and romance and like the French comedy it leaves you with a curious warm glow.

Crazy Heart

The usual suspects stayed behind at the RBC Film club on Monday evening to discuss, amongst other things, Crazy Heart (2009). Directed by Scott Cooper it’s the story of a broken down alcoholic country and western entertainer who attempts to turn his life around after beginning a relationship with a young journalist and her four year old son. Cooper initially wanted to do a biopic on Merle Haggard but encountered problems getting the rights to the story. Instead he adapted the 1987 novel of the same name by Thomas Cobb, allegedly based on the life story of Hank Thomson an American country star whose career spanned seven decades and who sold 60 million records worldwide. 60 year-old Jeff Bridges plays 56 year-old, four times married, Bad Blake, a man with a 28 year-old son whom he has not seen since the lad was four. Other than the occasionally poorly paid gig his current life consists of whisky and a string of one-night stands with his middle-aged fan base. The director built the film around Bridges and was justly rewarded for his efforts with the star turning in a magnificent performance that’s totally convincing. The movie also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as Jean Craddock, Blake’s reason for living. Robert Duvall is a Houston bar owner and Bad Blake’s confident and great friend. Colin Farrell plays Blake’s former protégé, Tommy Sweet, the current toast of Nashville. With music being a very important part of the narrative T-Bone Burnett, who has contributed musically to many films including producing the original music for O Brother Where Art Thou (2000) and Walk the Line (2005)’ shared the Academy Award with Ryan Bingham for the Best Original Song The Weary Kind. With a conventional plot and fairly obvious ending this back to basics film is arguable The Wrestler to music but as Philip French summed up in his recent critique ‘the movie had dramatic fibre and a sense of lived in experience’ quite right Philip.