As with previous editions, this consists mainly of shots of actors and directors caught in off-camera moments during the making of a movie, sometimes off-set, at home and elsewhere. Some are candid while some are obviously posed for promotional purposes. I’ve indicated photographer credits when I know who took the shot.
Rossellini was in a relationship with David Lynch from 1987 to 1991, as well as acting in Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986). The carefully composed photo below left was taken by Helmet Newton, while the shot at right seems candid.
The photo of Rossellini below is something else. It almost like it’s from an earlier historical period. Doesn’t feel American. I don’t know who shot it or when.
The Mummy (1932). Below, Boris Karloff gets a light in what must be a colorized photo (taken by Fred Archer). Below that, the film’s director, Karl Freund, sets up a shot with Karloff.
A young fan meets a mummy (probably Lon Chaney Jr., though could be Tom Tyler, depending on which film) on the set of one of Universal’s mummy movies in their series in the 1940s.
Julia Adams, off camera with the Gill Man (Ricou Browning) on a break from filming The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Browning was the Creature for all the underwater scenes. Ben Chapman donned the suit for scenes out of the water.
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, while making Cape Fear (1991), one of the rare misfires among Scorsese’s films, doesn’t compare well to the 1962 original. Robert Mitchum is much more effective and truly menacing in the Max Cady role, while De Niro is over the top and not at all credible. My opinion, of course.
On set with Alien (1975). At top, tweaking the face-hugger while Tom Skerritt and others look on. Below that, Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm between takes of beating each other up, followed by Skerritt and Veronica Cartwright just waiting. Finally, the xenomorph takes what looks like a much-needed break.
Stanley Kubrick’s daughter Vivian shooting a making-of documentary of Full Metal Jacket (1987). Below that, Kubrick talking with actor Vincent Donofrio during filming. Both photographs were taken by actor Matthew Modine.
Raging Bull, 1980. Deceptive shot. Appears the cameraman has just clocked the boxer with his camera. I know Scorsese likes realism, but that would be taking things a bit too far.
Cast of Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). Christopher Walken, Robert De Niro, Chuck Aspegren, John Savage, John Cazelle. Photo by Greer Cavegnaro.
As with previous editions, this consists mainly of shots of actors and directors caught in off-camera moments during the making of a movie, sometimes off-set, at home and elsewhere. Some are candid, some are obviously posed, and some are portraits. I think all of them are interesting. I’ve indicated photographer credit when I know who took the shot.
Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock on the set of North by Northwest (1959). Unusual to see them both out of uniform, so to speak, especially Hitchcock, who’s always wearing a suit in photographs.
That’s probably enough for now. I’ll close out with 12-year-old Natalie Portman in her first feature film,Léon:The Professional (1994). See you next time. — Ted Hicks
As with previous editions, this consists mainly of shots of actors and directors caught in off-camera moments during the making of a movie, sometimes off-set, at home and elsewhere. Some of these are candid and some are obviously posed, but more than a few are really special.
Steven Spielberg, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw while making Jaws(1975). Harrison Ford and Spielberg on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). James Cameron directing Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio during Titanic (1997).
John Wayne plays chess on the set of Rio Bravo (1959) while cast members John Russell, Walter Brennan, Angie Dickinson (definitely not in costume), and Dean Martin pretend to look on. Just noticed Duke is sitting in Dean Martin’s chair.
On the set of Cape Fear (1962). Lori Martin, who plays Gregory Peck’s daughter, with an unidentified boy on her lap, Robert Mitchum behind her. He looks threatening just standing there looking at the camera. Of course, his lethal performance as Max Cady makes it easy to project that onto him.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder through the years. He made a lot of films and put in some hard miles. Died in 1982 at age 37. Color photo by Helmut Newton, which says a lot.
Marilyn Monroe in a probably posed rooftop shot in New York City. Below that, a more interesting, seemingly off-guard, shot. There’s something sad about it.
Filming the changing room scene at Coney Island with Buster Keaton and Edward Brophy in The Cameraman (1928), the last great Keaton silent. Below this is a clip of the scene itself. It’s a hoot.
This is a follow-up to the two previous installments of Selected Takes. In 1996, I started keeping a record of films I saw. Initially, I wrote notes for each film expressing my reactions to them, but eventually wrote less and less until I basically stopped sometime in 2001. Got lazy. I wrote these just for myself and had no thought or intention at the time that they might one day be released into the wild, so to speak. The films from 1998 in this post aren’t the only ones I saw that year, far from it, just those I wrote about and want to include here.
As before, when I mention a Sony or Loews theater, these are now AMC. Except for minor edits and a few notations, I’ve left these entries as they were originally, though I’ve added posters and several clips..
1/1. AFTERGLOW at the Regency. Another quirky film from Alan Rudolph, quirky in irritating ways. Very stylized dialogue, which bugged me. Lara Flynn Boyle’s performance was another problem. Nick Nolte and Julie Christie were pretty good, more grounded in reality. Thought the stuff about their daughter who’d left them 8 years before, and how that continued to hang over their heads, had the most power, especially when Nolte actually runs into her near the end, and then we see her show up at Nolte and Christie’s home at the very end. But the rest of it was very problematic for me, very uneven. Though I liked it more as it went on, not quite sure why.
1/23. THE GINGERBREAD MAN at Lincoln Square. Pretty conventional film for Robert Altman. First hour or so is good, involving; then it gets frantic and unlikely. Kenneth Branagh is good, as is Robert Downey Jr. Robert Duvall is good in the courtroom scene. Didn’t even recognize Daryl Hannah. Forgot she was in it until I saw her name in the final credits roll. The continuous opening shot under the main credits is amazing. Turns out to be an aerial shot of country near Savannah, though takes a while for that to become clear. Something about it is just magical. It’s hard to describe the effect. Thought first it might be a shot of a model landscape, then when the road and car appears was surprised that it was at a much lower altitude than I thought. Overall, though, the film shows very little of Altman’s stamp.
1/28. DON’T LOOK BACK at Film Forum. Hadn’t seen this for quite a while. Glad I caught it again. Really fascinating seeing Dylan at this period (England tour 1965) of his life and career. This movie will always be memorable for me as the first time I heard the word “fuck” in a motion picture when I first saw it at the Surf Theater in San Francisco, 1967 or ’68. That really startled me, made me a little nervous. There were certain scenes I’d remembered, such as Dylan and the guy from Time, Dylan and the science student, Dylan blowing Donovan away with “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” after Donovan had sung a song. But I’d forgotten a lot of the other stuff. Quite a time capsule.
1/30. ZERO EFFECT at Lincoln Square. Really liked this. First feature written and directed by Lawrence Kasden’s 22 yr. old son Jake. Stars Bill Pullman as the “world’s greatest living detective.” Also Ben Stiller and Ryan O’Neal. Some of the stuff doesn’t work. The convoluted instructions O’Neal is given for delivering the blackmail money are simply not credible; nobody could set it up to work out like that. Some of Pullman’s eccentricities, such as writing and badly performing songs, are more distracting, or just oddball, than anything else. Kim Dickens plays the blackmailer Pullman falls in love with. Not aware of seeing her before, but I liked her (especially liked her later in the HBO series Deadwood and Treme). Angie Featherstone, who seems to be turning up everywhere, has a nothing role as Stiller’s girlfriend. Weird to remember seeing her around the Upper West Side.
2/5. PHANTOM LADY (Robert Siodmak) and BLACK ANGEL (Roy William Neill) at Film Forum. Two film noirs I hadn’t seen, or thought I hadn’t, though started to feel like I had seen BLACK ANGEL when the scene shifted to Lorre’s nightclub. Anyway, both are pretty good, if unexceptional, examples of ’40s noir. Similar situations of someone who’s innocent convicted to death for a murder he didn’t commit, and the efforts of others to prove the person’s innocence before he’s executed. PHANTOM LADY is probably the better of the two, though I really like Dan Dureya in BLACK ANGEL.
Elisha Cook’s frenzied drum solo in the jazz club in Phantom Lady really jacks the energy level. Here’s the scene.
2/7. FOUR DAYS IN SEPTEMBER at Lincoln Plaza. Brazilian film directed by Bruno Barreto. Not sure what else this guy has made, though the name seems familiar. I basically liked this, particularly the relatively low-key tone, though got to admit I wanted something a little “bigger” at the end. I don’t remember when these events happened; of course, I was in Thailand at the time and out of it, so it’s no surprise. And there were a lot of things like this going on during the late 60s and into the 70s. Alan Arkin plays an American Ambassador in Rio who’s kidnapped by a militant group protesting the military dictatorship then in power. Interesting to see Caroline Kava playing his wife. And Fisher Stevens with about two minutes of screen time and three or four lines of dialogue. Wonder what happened there? The film’s focus is on the kidnappers, a group of student-types kind of out of their depth, except for two older men who come in to run the kidnapping. The most character development is with one intellectual guy, a writer and speaker, who’s a bit clumsy with guns etc. Turns out this guy wrote the book the movie is based on, so makes sense he gets more attention. Some scenes with a member of the secret police don’t work as well. Would’ve needed more development. Also, some of the movie seems a little underproduced, but it’s pretty effective for the most part. There’s a sort of DAY OF THE JACKAL approach that clashes a bit with the more political aspects. Arkin is very good.
2/13. SPHERE at Lincoln Square. Just awful. Can’t see how it could be any worse. Completely incoherent and half-baked from top to bottom. How could a “serious” actor like Dustin Hoffman have gotten into this; what could he have seen at the outset that made him feel like this was something worth doing? Maybe the paycheck was enough. I was pretty staggered by how inept the whole thing was.
2/14. MA VIE EN ROSE at Lincoln Plaza. Liked this a lot. It’s been around since Christmas, but have put off seeing it. The actor who plays the 7 year old boy with the gender issue is quite a presence. Found myself attracted to the character as a girl rather than as a boy. Interesting. The parents are really great characters. There’s a scene I particularly liked when Ludovic, the boy, goes outside to find his father, who’s stormed off in anger, but has calmed down a bit now, and Ludovic silently takes his father’s hand and they walk together back inside. Totally wordless scene, very powerful and emotional, it touched something in me.
2/22. SHOCK CORRIDOR at Film Forum. This Samuel Fuller film seemed very disappointing to me today. Have seen it before and remember liking it more then. Most of his movies are pretty overheated, but this one is just too hysterical. Some pretty good moments, but some irritating ones too. Overall I think it makes a better premise than it does a movie, or at least the one he made. I much prefer NAKED KISS and the war films. Still, Fuller wasn’t afraid to take things to extremes, which I like.
2/23. PALMETTO at Loew’s 84th Street. Pretty bad. Doesn’t do much with the rather over-done neo-noir femme fatale fucks over not-too-smart guy premise. Elizabeth Shue, Chloë Sevigny, and Gina Gerson are good here, but the movie just doesn’t fly. By the time Woody Harrelson is recruited to be the DA department’s press liaison, it’s all pretty much out the window. Volker Schlondorff has done much, much better.
2/28. DARK CITY at Loew’s 84th. Kind of evaporates after seeing it, but I liked it. Very striking stuff. Reminiscent of the BRAZIL landscape in a way. Rufus Sewell was good as the protagonist. Has a very comic book look, like some European comics I’ve seen, also Mr. X and the Radiant City scene. Impresses with images more than logic. I thought there would be more twists and turns, though. The bits and pieces of explanations we get along the way are never revealed to be something else, so it’s pretty straight forward about what’s “really” going on.
3/6. TWILIGHT at multiplex in Burbank, California. Not very good. Too bad, because this has a lot of good people involved; Newman, Hackman, Sarandon, James Garner, Robert Benton. Was kind of shocked at how old Newman looks. Doesn’t even sound like himself much of the time. The noir story isn’t very interesting, so we’re really left with the characters and the mood, which don’t deliver as strongly as they should. Elmer Bernstein’s score is pretty good. It’s just that this has been done much better. Occurs to me that it lacks energy. Everybody seems so tired and the film feels tired. But I wanted to like it.
3/7. THE BIG LEBOWSKI at multiplex in Burbank. Well, it’s no FARGO, that’s for sure. Didn’t think it was very good while watching it, but not so sure now. From some other filmmakers I’d probably say it’s a mess, but with the Coens I’m not sure. I think the messiness is a deliberate part of the style, but the movie seems so scattershot. Jeff Bridges is good. By the end, he & John Goodman have become a kind of Laurel & Hardy. But what the hell is David Thewlis doing here, what’s the point? Liked Julianne Moore, though she was one in a series of very off the wall characters. Bridges’ character was the one most grounded in “reality,” with the most recognizable reactions to what’s going on around him. There’s an overload of funny stuff and bizarreness, but it doesn’t add up.
Subsequent viewings showed me how off the mark my initial reaction was. I think I was hoping for another Fargo, but expectations often lead to disappointment. I love it now. John Goodman’s frequent eruptions are especially great.
4/10. LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY at Film Forum. Good Werner Herzog documentary about German-born Dieter Dengler who saw his first airplanes when Allied fighters strafed his village during WWII. Became a Navy pilot who got shot down on his first mission over Vietnam, spent 6 months as a POW, then made a miraculous escape. Amazing story. Dengler tells most of it to the camera, with Herzog coming in occasionally on narration. I really liked Dengler.
In 2006, Herzog made a narrative feature film, Rescue Dawn, based on these events, with Christian Bale as Dieter Dengler.
4/11. CITY OF ANGELS at Sony Lincoln Square. Okay remake of Wim Wenders’ great WINGS OF DESIRE. Nicolas Cage & Meg Ryan give good performances. Dennis Franz is also very good. The ending is fucked.
4/24. AFFLICTION at Avignon/NY Film Fest. Just great. Paul Schrader’s adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel. Nick Nolte and James Coburn give awesome performances. As much as anything else it’s about the violence and dysfunction of a father passed down to his son. Mounting sense of impending doom; you know this isn’t going to turn out happy. The music is low-key, creates a disturbing, uneasy feeling. Sissy Spacek is very good as Nolte’s girlfriend. Willem Dafoe seems a little wasted as Nolte’s brother, the one who got away, surviving his father’s violence by becoming “careful” (as his character puts it) and ultimately ineffectual, I think. Actually, it’s not that he’s wasted; he just doesn’t have much screen time, though he does narrate the film (beginning, end, several places in between). This movie seem to be right in every detail.
James Coburn is especially great in this. Check this scene for proof of that.
6/20. THE X-FILES at the Ziegfeld. Since this was playing at the Ziegfeld, I made the extra effort to see it there, even though I don’t like their new reserved seat policy. Got there at 10am with idea of getting ticket for later in the day, or maybe for right then. Decided to to go for the 10am show, then was pleased to find out they weren’t doing the reserved seat deal for the morning show, so where I sat was totally my choice. Liked the movie. It was like a big episode, which is pretty much what I expected. Didn’t think some of John Neville’s “explanation” dialogue played very well, but what the hell. Will be curious to see how successful the movie is for people who don’t follow the TV series. I wish Mitch Pileggi had had more to do. The short, sudden appearance of the Lone Gunmen will be meaningless to people who haven’t seen them on the show. It wasn’t great, didn’t transcend itself, but wasn’t a disappointment by a long shot. The explosion at the building in Dallas and Mulder & Scully trying to outrun the snow-covered ground caving in in Antarctica were amazing sequences.
7/11. BUFFALO 66 at Lincoln Plaza. Excruciating, irritating in the extreme, very difficult to watch, thought of walking out several times. Christina Ricci is good, but I really didn’t like this movie. Didn’t believe one minute of it. Based on this, Vincent Gallo has no talent for making movies, other than to act in other people’s. Ben Gazzara’s and Anjelica Huston’s performances are just awful, which I blame on the direction and the script, since they’re both otherwise terrific actors.
7/25. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN at Sony Lincoln Square. Great. The combat sequences are amazing, intense and frightening. A sense of being on the brink of death is strongly conveyed. There’s a kind of calvary-to-the-rescue aspect to the fighter planes hitting the village just as the Germans are about to take the bridge, but so what. Plus I kind of wish the grown up Ryan hadn’t saluted Hanks’ grave marker at the end. But the whole thing is such an overwhelming experience, these are small objections.
8/15. GADJO DILO at Lincoln Plaza. Boy, this was great! Third in a gypsy trilogy directed by Tony Gatlif. First one was LATCHO DROM, which I’ve heard of, but not seen. I was really with this up to the point when Adriani, Izador’s son, returns from prison, after which the movie takes a turn I don’t quite get, or like. Seems like all of a sudden there’s this whole other thing going on, and I don’t know how it fits in. Maybe I missed something. When Adriani kills the guy in the bar, then is chased back to his village and burned to death, I don’t know what to make of it. Also don’t know why Stephane smashes and buries the music cassette tapes & notes he’s made of gypsy music during the movie . But at least Sabina is with him in the car. Rona Hartner, the actress who plays Sabina is amazing, or at least the character is amazing. Very very sexual presence in a kind of animal way, very sensual way. The sequence when they go to a nightclub in Bucharest is just wonderful.
9/25. CELEBRITY at NYFF. Opening night of the New York Film Festival, new Woody Allen movie. Thought it was terrible, except Leonardo DiCaprio and Charlize Theron, who were great. Kenneth Branagh plays the Woody Allen character and does an imitation of Allen’s vocal & physical mannerisms that’s really irritating. Just doesn’t work. Nothing in the movie seems to come together at all. This is an inexplicable misfire. He shot it in black & white for no apparent reason I can think of. Oddly enough, the lab credit at the end lists “Color by Du Art.” Strange. Judy Davis is pretty good, also Joe Mantegna, but Branagh is seriously miscast, given the way his character is written and directed.
11/28. CITIZEN KANE at UA 14. Nice to see this in a new theater. Pretty good print, too. The ending always gets me, the sled burning in the flames with Hermann’s music swelling up. Like the door closing on John Wayne at the end of THE SEARCHERS.
12/24. THE THIN RED LINE at Ziegfeld. Great, weird, abstract, sad, intense. Not sure quite what to make of it. There’s almost no real story, very little characterization, more mood than plot, but it’s nevertheless very compelling.
I love this film. After multiple viewings over the years, I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. What I am sure of is that it’s some kind of great film that’s had its hooks in me all this time. It has an ethereal quality, and seems to take place in a space apart from the physical world. Feels like you’re in the presence of something you can’t pin down.
Going over this list I’m struck by how many of these films you don’t hear about, or even remember, such as Zero Effect, Four Days in September, Sphere, City of Angels, Buffalo 66, and Celebrity. I mean, Palmetto? They aren’t revived or written about, mostly for obvious reasons, but not always.
There are other films I saw in 1998 that I didn’t write about, but wish I had. These include The Spanish Prisoner (David Mamet, director & writer), The Butcher Boy (Neil Jordan, director & co-writer), Ronin (John Frankenheimer, director), My Name Is Joe (Ken Loach, director), Rushmore (Wes Anderson, director & co-writer), and The Siege (Edward Zwick, director & co-writer). These are good films, but you’d have to go looking for them, because as far as I know, they don’t get revived or talked about. Maybe someday.
As with previous editions, this consists mainly of shots of actors and directors caught in off-camera moments during the making of a movie, sometimes off-set, at home and elsewhere. Some of these are candid and some are obviously posed, but I think they’re all of interest.
François Truffaut with daughter Eva, 1962. Followed by Marcello Mastroianni with daughter Chiara, Julie Andrews with daughter Emma, and Jerry Stiller with son Ben, 1978, then Martin Scorsese, presumably with himself.
George Lucas and Martin Scorsese in 1977, followed by Robert De Niro and Sergio Leone, Leone and Michelangelo Antonioni, followed by Fellini, Giuletta Masina, and Leone.
Truffaut going over a script with Catherine Deneuve (1969). Below that on the set of Bed and Board (1970), and then hanging on the outside of a train for an unidentified film.
I love this shot. Carolyn Jones in 1956, probably best known as Morticia Adams in The Addams Family TV sit-com (1964-1966), she also appeared in The Big Heat (1953), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).
For his post, I originally intended to list only films I’d actually seen, which are the first eleven title below. Normally I’d say that’s how you ought to do it, but when I started reading up about some of the ones I hadn’t seen for whatever reasons, I felt I the need to include them as additional titles. Those five films are at the end of this post. I plan to see the ones available for streaming, but for now I’ve just got my fingers crossed that they’re as good as I’ve heard. I’m sure there are many other docs from last year that I don’t even know about. Well, what can you do?
Eno (Gary Hustwit, director) Brian Eno is a genius, musically and otherwise. If you read his interviews or listen to him speak, you know his brain is wired up in ways that elude most of us. This film is unique, a “generative” documentary that changes each time it’s shown. I don’t understand how it works, but it does. I saw it at Film Forum three times on separate days. Some scenes didn’t change, but enough did to keep it interesting. I don’t know how they’ll handle a streaming or home video version. Seems like they’ll have to pick one version out of the near infinity of possible combinations. But to the extent that any iteration let’s you inside Eno’s head, it will be interesting. The two trailers below are different enough that I think it’s worth seeing both.
Film Geek (Richard Shepard, director & writer) This deep dive into Richard Shepard’s life as a hopeless film geek growing up in New York City’s movie houses in the 1980s is a real trip and a treat for fellow film geeks such as myself. His belief that Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) is a great film is inexplicable to me, but other than that, I was with him all the way. This is a very personal account. The way he describes his relationship with his rather shady father is quite moving at times.
How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer (Jeff Zimbalist, director & co-writer) Excellent study of the controversial, larger-than-life author who, like Ernest Hemingway, was a personality in his own right. An often brilliant writer, Mailer had a take-no-prisoners approach in his public life. He could be appalling and charming, often at the same time. He wanted to be taken seriously, yet often played the clown. This film gives us examples of all this, while becoming quite moving by the end.
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton, director) Excellent documentary about the great filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, narrated by the always enthusiastic Martin Scorsese. This is an excellent account of their lives and films. I learned a lot. One of the best things about it is that it makes you want to see these films again.
Merchant Ivory (Stephen Soucy, director & co-writer) This would make a great double feature with Made in England. As with Powell and Pressburger, we learn a great deal about James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, and the 44 films they made together from 1961 until Merchant’s death in 2005. It makes me want to see their films again, too, included the many I hadn’t been aware of.
On the Adamant (Nicolas Philibert, director & co-writer)
Edited from Jordan Mintzer’s review in The Hollywood Reporter:
“The observant documentaries of Nicolas Philibert often focus on either a single character or location — the latter usually a French public institution — exploring them with painstaking detail and plenty of compassion.
“For his eleventh feature, On the Adamant (Sur l’Adamant), the 72-year-old filmmaker spent months aboard a barge anchored on the Seine in Paris, chronicling a mental health care facility that caters specifically to its patients’ creative needs. What emerges is not only a depiction of psychiatric treatment administered with plenty of warmth and enthusiasm, but a portrait of several individuals who, despite their noticeable disabilities, are capable of producing original and moving works of art.
“Like Frederick Wiseman, Philibert never provides voiceover or explanatory titles in his movies, and rarely do they feature interviews (though his latest includes a few talks with patients). They are more like discreet immersive experiences, and therefore the opposite of the shock-and-awe docs currently popular on Netflix and other streamers.”
Available for streaming on Kino Film Collection and rental on Prime.
Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat (Johan Grimonprrez, director & writer) This is my pick for the best documentary of those I saw last year. It’s a history lesson that plays like a jam session. The ideas and detail ricochet off the screen. You’ve got to pay attention. I’ve included as many quotes as I have because I hope to at least partially suggest the importance and depth of this film, and give you a sense of it. Don’t be mistaken, this is not a music documentary, though the music here is wonderful.
Per the IMDb description: “Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Patrice Lumumba.”
Per Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times: “In making Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, the director Johan Grimonprez used every instrument cinema affords. His documentary is rhythmic and propulsive, with reverberating sound and images juxtaposed against one another to lend more meaning. The result, in a word, is marvelous.”
PerWikipedia: “To retain control over the riches of what used to be the Belgian Cong, King Baudouin of Belgium finds an ally in the Eisenhower administration, which fears losing access to one of the world’s biggest known reserves of uranium, a metal vital for the creation of atomic bombs. Congo-Léopoldville takes center stage to both the Cold War and the scheme for control of the UN. The US State Department swings into action: jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong is dispatched to win the hearts and minds of Africa. Unwittingly, Armstrong becomes a smokescreen to divert attention from Africa’s first post-colonial coup, leading to the assassination of Congo’s first democratically elected leader. Malcolm X stands up in open support of Lumumba and his efforts to create a United States of Africa while also reframing the freedom struggle of African Americans as one not for civil rights but for human rights, aiming to bring his case before the UN.
“As Black jazz ambassadors are performing unaware amidst covert CIA operatives, the likes of Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Melba Liston face a painful dilemma: how to represent a country where segregation is still the law of the land.”
Per Phil Concannon, Little White Lies: “To make moves in Africa, the Americans needed a smokescreen, and the most fascinating strand of Grimonprez’s film shows how many of the greatest jazz musicians of the era – Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone, et al – were often used as unwitting stooges in CIA operations. …This musical angle ensures the film bounces along to a vibrant, eclectic score, but it also helps Grimonprez organise and structure the enormous wealth of archive footage, soundbites and quotations that that he uses to tell this complex story.
“…Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat is as exhilarating and illuminating a history lesson as you’ll ever have.”
P.S. There are several clips in the film of Malcolm X speaking to the camera. I must have never heard him actually speak before, because I was stunned by the clarity and persuasiveness of what he said, and his incredible charisma. Just another way Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat gives the audience electric jolts.
Available for streaming on Kino Film Collection and rental on Prime.
Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces (Morgan Neville, director) Morgan Neville has made many films, including 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (2015), Won’t You Be My Neighbor (2018), and Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021). This one is simply wonderful, a total gas. Part 1 is Steve Martin then, part 2 is Steve Martin now. Part 2 includes a lot of Martin Short. He and Steve seem like a really weird married couple. But it’s great to go back and remember where he came from as he became “Steve Martin,” a wild and crazy guy. I’d forgotten that for a time he was about as big as you could get, rock star famous filling huge arenas. It’s fascinating to see how he evolved over the years, always maintaining a high level of creativity and freshness, always on his own terms. Which is what Neville has done in working with obviously a huge amount of material, archival and new.
Sugarcane at Film Forum. (Directors: Emily Kassie, Julian Brave Noisecat) Per Wikipedia, this film “…follows an investigation into the Canadian Indian Residential School System, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and descendants.” It’s a tragic story of a search for truth and accountability.
Uncropped (D.W. Young, director) I love this film. I’d been seeing James Hamilton’s photos in the Village Voice since I moved here in 1977, but didn’t know who he was. It’s great to see the person behind that work and get to a sense of him. Uncropped really took me back to that time in the city. He’d covered war zones and civil unrest in Central American countries, Haiti, Grenada, and Tiananmen Square, but his main focus was the film, art, and music scene in New York City in the ’70s and ’80s. Always nice to see artists at work.
Will & Harper (Josh Greenbaum, director) Will Ferrell met Harper Steele on his first day at Saturday Night Live in 1995, where Harper was a writer. They connected and havebeen good friends for 30 years. When Harper told Will he had transitioned to female gender, they decided to take a 17-day road trip across America to talk about it. And film the journey while they were at it. The result is very funny, as you’d expect, but also serious and touching.
I saw a total of 350 films in 2024, both new and old, 218 in theaters and 132 streaming or on video discs. I’ve come up with 30 films that are the best of what I saw, or at least my favorites. I don’t claim that all of these are great films (though some of them are), but they got my attention and engaged me in one way or another. Sometimes it’s just a performance, a feeling, more often it’s the whole package. You’ll also notice that most of these films were written or co-written by their directors. I think this makes a difference in the result. My picks for the top two films of the year are The Brutalist and A Complete Unknown. The rest are listed in alphabetical order.
In the interest of economy and attention spans (mainly mine), I will be keeping comments to a minimum..
The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, director & writer) I’d wanted to see this at the New York Film Festival last year, but couldn’t get tickets to the numerous screenings. I’m glad I had to wait, because we were fortunate enough to see it in 70mm IMAX, with the image filling the entire IMAX screen. This format definitely added to the experience. The Brutalist has an epic scale and narrative, and I was amazed to learn that it apparently cost only $10 million dollars to make. When super hero movies now routinely have budgets north of $200 million, $10 million seems like a joke. Something’s not right. Whatever, it looks and sounds great. The music score by Daniel Blumberg is of immense importance. Adrien Brody, and especially Guy Pearce, give stellar performances. The entire cast is excellent. There’s an event later in the film I have mixed feelings about, but that doesn’t diminish my feeling that this is a great piece of work, an achievement that brings to mind Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012).
A Complete Unknown (James Mangold, director & co-writer) I was apprehensive, but it turns out this is a great movie. James Mangold is an excellent director. Films of his I’ve especially liked include Copland (1997), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), Logan (2017), and Ford v Ferrari (2019). Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), not so much. Mangold really scores with one. Timothée Chalamet is completely convincing as a young Bob Dylan, both in appearance and in his singing. Edward Norton is great as Pete Seeger. Covering the years 1961 to 1965, the film focuses on arguably the most formative years of Dylan’s career, when he became Bob Dylan. Being of a certain age, as they say, myself and some of my Minneapolis friends have a lot invested in our love of Dylan and his music. A Complete Unknown did not disappoint.
Anora (Sean Baker, director & writer) Neck-snapping rollercoaster ride with sharp turns and jolts, going almost too fast for the curves. After 20-30 minutes of sexual acrobatics, it becomes the screwball comedy it intended all along. Something very endearing about all this. Mikey Madison in the title role is really great.
The Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols, director & writer) When I first heard of this film and then saw the trailers that seemed to run for months in advance of the release, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it. But the presence of Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, and Jodie Comer in the cast was very promising. Then I learned that Jeff Nichols was the writer and director, which sealed the deal for me. I’ve been a big fan of his work since seeing Shotgun Stories (2007) and Take Shelter (2011), both starring a stellar Michael Shannon. This is an exceptional film, on a different level than what I might have expected, definitely not The Wild One (1953) or Roger Corman’s The Wild Angels (1966). Tom Hardy is great, and Jodie Comer plays a character unlike anything I’ve seen her in before.
Conclave (Edward Berger, director) Great performances from Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci, as well as Isabella Rossellini, who shines in a brief but important role. Terrific Vatican thriller, could be set in medieval times except for the cell phones. Not sure the final reveal works, but hey, it’s a very good film.
Emilia Perez (Jacques Audiard, director & co-writer) With all the attention it’s getting and a bunch of Oscar nominations, this film can’t be ignored. It has musical numbers with people singing and dancing, but somehow doesn’t feel like a musical, certainly not a traditional one. The premise is both way out there and timely. Zoe Saldaña is outstanding.
Flow (Gints Zibalodis, director & co-writer) Simply wonderful. I loved it. A refreshing and unusual aspect is that all of the characters are animals – cats, dogs, birds, fish – and none of them speak, plus they largely behave the way the creatures they are would, which is atypical for animated films.
Hard Truths ((Mike Leigh, director & writer) Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s character Pansy is hard to take at times. Most of the time, actually. She’s just too much, but the pain and loneliness and damage behind her extremely hostile behavior invites empathy and compassion. Authentic, lived-in performances from all. There’s nothing casual about Mike Leigh’s films.
His Three Daughters (Azazel Jacobs, director & writer) Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olson, and Natasha Lyonne are all great as three daughters who’ve come together in a deathwatch for their father.
The Old Oak (Ken Loach, director) Edited from a previous post: Loach is a great director whose films reflect committed humanist, social, and political concerns. My favorites include Kes (1969), Land and Freedom (1995), My Name Is Joe (1988), The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Sorry We Missed You (2020). Loach is nearlyt 89 years of age, and The Old Oak is strong evidence that his craft, skill, and sensitivity have not diminished in the least. His films are about everyday people, working class, the common man (and woman). Working with his frequent collaborator, screenwriter Paul Laverty, Loach has created a deeply heartfelt film.
The Order (Justin Kurzel, director) Didn’t even know this film existed until the day before I saw it. There was virtually no advertising that I was aware of. It’s a gem. Jude Law is excellent as a burnt-out FBI agent who in 1983 gets re-energized by his pursuit of bank robbers in Idaho who are in fact white supremacists stealing money to fund an armed revolution. Based on real events, The Order resonates with current times in disturbing ways.
A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg, director & writer) Didn’t think I’d want to see this, based on the trailer. Seemed like Kieran Culkin was going to be really annoying. But when we saw it at the New York Film Festival, I liked it a lot. It’s more than a comic, quirky road movie.
The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, director & writer) The fact that this film and especially Tilda Swinton did not get any Academy Award nominations is inexplicable to me. She gives a truly great performance here.
The Substance (Corolie Fargeat, director & writer) Gets nuttier and nuttier until it’s so far over the top by the end that you can barely believe what you’re seeing. Boy, talk about body horror. Demi Moore has been getting a lot of praise for her fearless performance, and I’ve liked Margaret Qualley since seeing her in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And no one who remembers Dennis Quaid’s bug-eyed portrayal of Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire should be surprised by his performance here. I found him really repulsive, but I guess that’s the character. Acting!
Tuesday (Daina Oniunas-Pusic, director & writer) After I saw this film last June, I noted that it was “Amazing! Like a weird folk tale or fairy tale, but very real.” Had not seen anything quite like this magical realism look at dying and letting go. Very unusual and quite moving.
The Vourdalak Adrien Beau, director & co-writer) Very unsettling vampire film. Robert Eggers’ misbegotten remake of Nosferatu could have used some of what makes this one so effective.
Okay, time to take a breath. Stay tuned for my selection of best (or favorite) feature films and documentaries from last year, coming in a few days. Meanwhile, I think I’ll close this out with David Lynch. — Ted Hicks
Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini, 1981. They were married from 1979 to 1982. No explanation for the helmet.
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Films etc. 