R.I.P. Roger Ebert (1942 - 2013)

First things first - we lost a great critic and a great human being yesterday, and not to put such a dramatic spin on the whole thing, but the world is a lesser place without him in it.  Now, on with what I thought/think of this great man.  I consider Roger Ebert to be one of the best, and one of my favourite film critics of all-time. When I used to watch Siskel & Ebert back in my younger days, I usually agreed with Gene more often, but almost no one could match Roger for his romantic poeticism toward cinema (possibly only Pauline Kael and Manny Farber). His reviews, both on the show and in the Chicago Sun-Times, led me to many wonderful films I may never have known about back in those pre-internet days, and his highly influential criticism and style of writing, helped to make this youthful cinephile and once-budding film critic, fall even more in love with the movies than I already had been. 

I never met Roger in person, but we had conversed on several occasions through social media, and his wonderful spirit, his unbridled enthusiasm and his endless passion for film and media and culture, and his general optimistic outlook toward life - even while battling cancer - were, and  are, a great boon to anyone who came across him, and he will be sorely missed.  Before sitting down to write this brief look at one of my critical writing idols, I rewatched some of the shows Roger and Gene did back in the day, mostly from the early days of the show in the late 1970's through the mid 1980's (At the Movies first aired in 1986, but Gene and Roger had already made a buzz on PBS's Sneak Previews, beginning in 1975), and it brought back veritable floods of nostalgic feelings.  Like I was living my youth all over again.  Yes, Roger will be missed, and missed by many people, but luckily, we have a lifetime's worth of critical writing, all filled with a genuine love of the cinema, to keep our hearts and minds warm at night. Goodbye Roger, you will be missed.

I would like to close with a cartoon that was published in Roger's so-called rival newspaper, The Chicago Tribune yesterday.  Not to go all cliché on you, and talk about how a picture is worth a thousand words and all, but it does kind of say it all - and much more eloquently than I ever could.  Again, goodbye Roger.

Andrew Sarris, Goodbye To You

As a kid, I loved movies.  What kid doesn't, right?  But back in those days, I really knew nothing about them except for how much I enjoyed or did not enjoy them.  That was before I became an unapologetic auteurist.  That was before I read The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris.  The American Cinema, for all you silly kids out there that have no idea what it was, is and always will be, is pretty much the bible of any and all cinephiles born after 1950 or so.  Originally published in 1968, one of the most important years in the history of cinephila, it spoke to several generations of cinephiles and movieheads as if it, and therefore its author, Village Voice film critic Andrew Sarris, was the word of god.  In many ways, it was.  Granted, being born in 1967, I came to the book one generation removed from its original audience, but it had no less of an impact on me because of it.

Sarris and his book were what brought the Auteur Theory, first posed by a certain François Truffaut in the pages of Cahiers du Cinema, across the Atlantic and into the colleges and art house cinemas of America.  Claiming that a director was more than mere director, but the author of their film, with a unique yet discernible artistic signature to their work, Sarris helped to create a generation (or two or three) of fellow unapologetic auteurists - myself very much included.  Even if there were some opposition from other critical corners, the auteur theory has gone from theoretical slapdashery to sanctified critical canon.  Sarris' book, with its classic sectioning from Pantheon Directors (Hawks, Hitch and the boys) on down through such lower rankings as Expressive Exotica (Jacques Tourneur, Edgar G. Ulmer) and Strained Seriousness (Kubrick!?  Really?), can be found, and quite dogeared most likely, in just about any respectable cinephile's bookshelves.  And if it isn't found in your bookshelves, then you need to get a copy asap.  I know mine, quite dogeared of course, sits right beside my desk, just waiting to be given yet another perusal.  

With Mr. Sarris' passing Wednesday, at the age of 83, we are all left with a void in our cinematic hearts, but at the very least, we will always have his book - the book - to dogear forever.  In 1970 Mr. Sarris wrote, in the forward to another book (Confessions of a Cultist), explaining his profession: "Still, I suppose we represented a new breed of film critic.  The cultural rationale for our worthier predecessors - Agee, Ferguson, Levin, Murphy, Sherwood, et al. - was that they were too good to be reviewing movies.  We, on the contrary, were not considered much good for anything else."  I too have written in other fields (attempts at poetry and fictional prose litter my literary past) and I would have to jump on board with Sarris' definition of our joint profession.  Like him, I feel as if I too was not much good for anything else - and I mean to take that in the most complimentary manner.  Now even though we were in the same field - he on top, me down closer to Earth - I never had the privilege of meeting the man, but that doesn't mean that I will not miss him and his writings.  I might even have to finally forgive him for categorizing Stanley Kubrick as Strained Seriousness.

R.I.P. Peter Falk

What a terrible loss.  I know it is what everyone says in such a situation and therefore it has lost its punch in may ways, but I really mean it.  What a terrible loss.  Instead of the normal close-up shot that is the norm in these kind of things, I give you a long shot of the great Falk with costars Gazzara and Cassevetes in Cassevetes' film Husbands.  This is meant to symbolize the depth that Falk had as an actor, but you probably already knew that.  Anyway, since I am not very good at the whole obit thing, here is a link to a great write-up by Andrew O'Hehir at Salon.   Again, what a terrible loss.

Sidney Lumet, 1924-2011

After decades of refusal (even when he won) to appear at the Academy Awards, Woody Allen was finally persuaded to make a special appearance at the Oscars in 2002, to introduce a segment honouring New York and the movies that were made there.   In his opening remarks, Allen acknowledged that though he may have been a reasonable choice for such an invitation, he thought that someone like Martin Scorsese or Sidney Lumet would have been a better choice.  Indeed, when one thinks about New York and the movies, one invariably pictures directors such as Allen and Scorsese, and sadly overlook the solid work of Lumet.  Perhaps he never received the pomp and circumstance of a Scorsese or a Woody Allen, but Lumet's films are just as ensconced in the fabric of New York City as anyone's.

A quote attributed to Lumet goes, "If a director comes in from California and doesn't know the city at all, he picks the Empire State Building and all the postcard shots, and that, of course, isn't the city." and Lumet would regularly put his money where his mouth was.   The Philadelphia-born, but New York-raised actor-turned-director would become known for making a string of NYC-based movies that were just as gritty as Scorsese and just as acerbic as Allen.  From Serpico to Dog Day Afternoon to Network to Prince of the City to Long Day's Journey Into Night to Q&A to Garbo Talks and The Wiz even, Lumet gave us New York City not from the postcard shots, but from the real (and often down-and-dirty) city that he grew up in and made his own right up until the end.

Film historian Stephen Bowles notes, "Lumet's protagonists tend to be isolated, unexceptional men who oppose a group or institution. Whether the protagonist is a member of a jury or party to a bungled robbery, he follows his instincts and intuition in an effort to find solutions. Lumet's most important criterion is not whether the actions of these men are right or wrong but whether the actions are genuine. If these actions are justified by the individual's conscience, this gives his heroes uncommon strength and courage to endure the pressures, abuses, and injustices of others."  It is in this aspect that Lumet allows his actors to give everything they have to their roles.

Lumet was possibly the best director (aside from perhaps Kazan) when it came to working with actors and getting as much out of them as he could.  Lumet's final film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, though perhaps not up to par with his seventies output (but then what seventies American director still working today, can claim otherwise!?) is nonetheless a sharply designed thriller that easily fits in with both this descriptive of Lumet's style and his way with actors.  Lumet (and those under his direction) could do corruption (of body, mind and soul) better than just about anyone out there.

In the end, Lumet leaves us with a legacy of important and demanding films (including several, such as The Anderson Tapes, Bye Bye Braverman and Lovin' Molly, that I have never seen but intend to soon in a sadly posthumous retrospective) that not only honour the great city he loved so much (even when his film's seemed to rail against it at times) but help to define a certain generation of filmmakers and filmmaking. 

As always, David Hudson has collected a slew of pieces on Mr. Lumet, which can be perused here.

Farley Granger, 1925-2011

Farley Granger on making movies: "I love to see them. I just don't like to make them."  We will miss you dear Farley.

The first time I remember seeing Farley Granger was in the film that most people first saw Farley Granger.  The young actor had done two films prior to starring in Alfred Hitchcock's experimental suspense thriller Rope, but it was his portrayal of the reluctant murderer Phillip Morgan in Hitchcock's classic (inspired by Leopold and Loeb) that brought him to the attention of the public - or at the very least, the critics.  Granger's fame actually is predicated on just four movies - the aforementioned Rope, the tense film noir They Live by Night (the directorial debut of Nicholas Ray), Hitchcock's (again) Strangers on a Train and the gorgeous Visconti epic, Senso.  I suppose one could include the often wrongly overlooked Side Street in there as well (for those more die hard among us), but his film career was sadly short-lived, and he never reached the heights of stardom his ability should have granted him.

The always intensely grounded Granger would concentrate more on the stage (and TV) later in his career (perhaps the stage was more welcoming for an openly gay actor in the fifties and sixties than Hollywood), but for all those cinephiles all over the world (your humble narrator included), his roles as the doe-eyed youth gone bad (usually by circumstance, not character) will forever be in our minds.  The image of him asleep on Cathy O'Donnell's shoulder in They Live By Night (my personal favourite Granger performance) and enjoying, albeit unknowingly, one of the few moments of peace his troubled forgotten youth receives in the film, will always be first and foremost in this particular cinephile's mind.

Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011

"I've been through it all, baby, I'm mother courage." - Ms. Taylor

Jane Russell, 1921-2011

"I like a man who can run faster than I can." -Jane Russell

R.I.P. Mr. Mars

Kenneth Mars 04/19/36 - 02/12/11

Maria & Lena: R.I.P.

Maria Schneider 03/27/52 - 02/03/11 (for tributes, go here)

Lena Nyman 05/23/44 - 02/04/11 (for tributes, go here)

Anne Francis (1930-2011)

Claude Chabrol (1930-2010)

I have never been very good at eulogizing, but since my budding cinephilia wings were given flight by the likes of the French New Wave (way back in my misbegotten youth!) I should give this one a try - so here goes.  

The one that started it all is gone.  Considered the first of the Cahiers du cinema critics to release a feature film and kick off what would come to be known as the Nouvelle Vague (aka, French New Wave) with his 1958 debut Le Beau Serge.  I must admit to never being quite attuned to M. Chabrol as I have to his compatriots Truffaut, Godard and Rivette (Rohmer is in the same boat so to speak), and must also sadly admit to only having seen four of the auteur's films, but what I have seen I have enjoyed and his unique brand of Hitchcockian neo-noir (or should I say Hitchcocko-Hawksian as Bazin said of M. Chabrol and his pals?), many starring the great Isabelle Huppert, will certainly be missed in and around the cinephiliac world.

Hopper 1936-2010

"And with a whimper, I'm fucking splitting, Jack."

R.I.P. ya big fucking freak.  We'll miss U.

Farewell & Adieu Monsieur Rohmer

1920-2010

"You can't think of nothing." - Eric Rohmer

R.I.P. Roberta Hill (and the Crazed Cinephile That She Was)

The film world lost one of its most avid fans recently.  Roberta Hill, a staple of New York screenings - as well as the nemesis to some theatre employees - died on July 18, finally succumbing to the cancer that had been fighting her (I actually did not find out about it until I read her obit in the new Film Comment - lovingly written by fellow cinephile Jack Angstreich).  Roberta, who was one of five cinephiles highlighted in the 2002 doc Cinemania (along with the aforementioned Angstreich), was liked by some, hated by some and feared by some (scared to death is a more apt term I suppose) but one thing is for sure - the lady loved movies.  All movies.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  I never actually met Roberta - I had seen her at a few movies, but never actually deigned to talk with her (I was one of those that were scared to death of the woman) - but I could see, in both her attitude and fortitude, that she loved going to the movies more than anything else in the world - many times seeing as many as five or six a day (a thing yours truly has been known to do on many an occasion).  For those who liked her, hated her or were scared to death of her, she will be missed.  Hopefully she is watching movies wherever she may be now - just don't strangle the ticket taker Roberta.