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Best Films of the '60sby Jose, Karla, and Lons
Part Two
Jose:
The Lion in Winter - Anthony Harvey: When Henry II (Peter O’Toole) decides he needs to pick one of his sons as successor, he calls for his estranged, and imprisoned, wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) to spend Christmas holidays with them and aid in his decision. But Eleanor, embittered about the way her husband has treated her, begins to concoct a plan that ends up with more backstabbing, betrayal and scandal than anything you’d read in the tabloids today. Based on a play, the film’s action is in its biting dialogue, which gives the cast, and especially the leads, a chance to shine. Anthony Harvey’s direction succeeds the most in making the film feel authentic, the set design is minimalist and seems dirty with farm animals prancing around everywhere, the costumes seem lived in and even the performances are less polished than what anyone would expect. O’Toole is gently charming, while the always breathtaking Hepburn infuses Eleanor with two qualities she imprinted on every character: a flawless attention to detail and delivery, and a life force that feels timeless enough to convince you that the characters might be barbarians, but the actors playing them are legends at their most dazzlingly elegant.
Federico Fellini’s love song to filmmaking can be mostly remembered because it feels exactly like the type of thing that would make any aspiring filmmaker turn to another career choice. Marcello Mastroianni plays a famous director trying to deliver the next big thing after his previous film was a complete success, but instead of concentrating on something in particular, his life starts unraveling when his mistress, his wife and the object of his current affection all end up together in a spa, while the producers keep pressuring him to start working on something. Inspired by what Fellini himself was living after the global smash that was La Dolce Vita, this film lets Mastroianni become Federico’s alter-ego, and the stream of consciousness like storytelling makes for an experience that results as absurd as it is realistically heartfelt. It deals with situations and characters that would be an essential part of his filmography. A hilarious comedy that taps into the creative process, it’s the kind of film where Fellini would wink at his audience who will forever wonder if it was all planned or merely a happy accident.
Edward Albee’s play about the destructive relationship between married couple George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) is about enough to make anyone think twice before getting married. The film centers on their mind games with a young couple (played by George Segal and Sandy Dennis) who they use to channel all their anguish, bitterness and rage in the sight of fresh love. It is hard to conceive that this was Mike Nichols’ directorial debut, especially because the film always feels right on the spot as both the screenplay and the direction let the actors tear into their characters with the kind of passion and fire reserved for only once or twice a generation. While Segal and Dennis both give underrated performances, one can’t blame them from being overshadowed by the titans that were Burton and Taylor. Burton’s outrage after all of his wife’s degradations is a thing of inhuman beauty, while Taylor’s sexy, lunatic Martha can’t get crazy enough for us to avoid wondering what drew these people to become so damaged…and try to avoid turning into them at all costs.
Camelot - Joshua Logan: Yes, vocal purists, neither Richard Harris nor Vanessa Redgrave can sing their way out of the proverbial wet paper bag. However, it should come as no surprise that these two act the hell out of this visually splendid film version of the 1960 Lerner and Loewe Broadway version of the legend of King Arthur. Like Rex Harrison before them, Harris and Redgrave so effectively perform their musical numbers - Redgrave's version of "The Lusty Month of May" is a sexy tour de force-that their lack of singing skills matter little; when Harris utters the lines "Never let it be forgot/That there was once a spot/Camelot," all but the most staunch anti-musical grinches will literally feel a chill up their spines. Comic relief in the form of David Hemings as Mordred, the King's perfidious bastard son, and eye candy as embodied by Franco Nero (the father of Redgrave's third child, Carlo) in the role of Lancelot add a welcome light touch to this sometimes overwrought epic.
In Cold Blood - Richard Brooks: Forty years after its debut, Richard Brooks' stylized, mannered realization of Truman Capote's "true-life novel" (Capote also co-wrote the screenplay) may not pack quite the cinematic punch it did before Marty Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, et. al. redefined the American crime filmscape in 1970's; nonetheless, this unsettling account of the murder of the Clutter family in 1950's Kansas still works. With Robert Blake as Perry Smith, the hapless conscience of this Leopold-and-Loeb-esque operation (irony!) and Scott Wilson as Richard Hickock, the sociopath-in-chief, In Cold Blood remains a gripping, haunting take on the criminal mind, the relative speediness of the 1950's judicial system, and that era's puritanical, horrified response to so-called deviance.
To Sir, with Love - James Clavell: This tough, yet unashamedly sentimental classic about a brilliant young engineer (Sidney Poitier) forced to take a teaching job in a hopelessly chaotic secondary school in London's East End is perhaps best known amongst the youngsters as the source of the titular pop song as sung by '60's Brit pop star Lulu, but it's Poitier's quietly commanding, dignified performance that elevates this film above simple nostalgia. Like its contemporary Up the Down Staircase, To Sir, with Love is a remarkable, idealistic vision of the impact one good teacher can have on a group of students believed irredeemable; it's also a wistful look back at an era in which we still believed firmly that such an impact was genuinely possible.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - Martin Ritt: Like his friend and contemporary Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Richard Burton was either an unbearable ham or the greatest actor who ever lived. Happily, he's the latter, in spades, in this riveting thriller (based on the John LeCarre novel of the same name). As British espionage agent Alec Leamas, Burton's embodiment of the dehumanizing aftereffects of his decision to pursue one final mission in Cold War-era Berlin is so strong, at times it's difficult to appreciate the other members of this fine cast; however, such notables as Claire Bloom, Cyril Cusack and, most notably, Oskar Werner as Fiedler, Burton's wily German adversary, still offer up a tremendous supporting cast.
Hud - Martin Ritt: Yet another fine effort from director Ritt, this is perhaps one of the first Westerns in which we can see Lee and Paula Strasberg's interpretation of Method Acting, as embodied in one Paul Newman, whose tough-yet-sensitive performance as rogue cowboy Hud Bannon transcends the John Wayne performance-free performance that had long characterized Westerns of that era. With Melvyn Douglas as Newman's strict, moralist father and Patricia Neal (who won an Academy Award for this performance) as Alma, Newman's love interest/possible rape victim, don't rent Hud expecting a mindless shoot-'em-up-this is a highly psychological, emotionally wrenching tale, and it's all the more effective for that.
Torn Curtain - Alfred Hitchcock: You can't get much more 1960s than this thriller from the old master, what with the presences of Mr. Paul Newman and his equally lovely co-star Julie Andrews, effortlessly shedding the Maria Von Trapp/Mary Poppins good-girl veil in this curiously underrated tale of-wait for it! -Cold War-era espionage. Glibness aside, Torn Curtain is, again, a fine psychological take on the very real human conflicts that emerge when Newman, as rocket scientist Michael Armstrong, attempts to defect to the East Germans; it's at once refreshing and infuriating to watch this one in today's era of CGI special effects and bloodlessly crafted "tension."
Sweet Bird of Youth - Richard Brooks: The illustrious, prodigious Paul Newman again, this time as sexy drifter Chance Wayne in this screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams' romantic tragedy about the hero's affair with the washed-up alcoholic actress Alexandra de Lago (the always wonderful Geraldine Page). While Sweet Bird of Youth isn't perhaps one of Williams' better efforts-those familiar with the playwright's work will likely roll their eyes at the similarities with Orpheus Descending-this film is still a keeper thanks to Newman, Page, and a strong supporting cast that includes the likes of Rip Torn, Ed Begley Sr., and Mildred Dunnock of Death of a Salesman fame. Theater geeks (like…um, me?) will likely evince an obnoxiously vocal appreciation of this film; if you are not a theater geek, don't watch it with one.
Splendor in the Grass - Elia Kazan: If you're still maintaining your embargo on Elia Kazan's films, do yourself a favor and lift it, if only to load this heartbreaker into the DVD player. Natalie Wood stars as Wilma Dean Loomis, the innocent, small-town girl who compromises her sanity (but not, alas, her virtue) at the hands of local charmer Bud Stamper (Warren Beatty) amid the suffocating sexual mores of 1920's Kansas. William Inge, who wrote the screenplay, examined this theme ad nauseam in such previous stage/screen forays as Picnic and Come Back, Little Sheba; thankfully, he spares us the maudlin simpering this go-round. Splendor in the Grass is not just a four-hankie weeper, it's also a clear-eyed depiction of the ridiculous sexual double standard between men and women, and it's cause for reflection that we've come as far as we have since then and still have made crushingly little progress.
La Dolce Vita - Federico Fellini:
This aesthetically stunning film about sex on the other side of the pond (assuming you're reading this in the Western Hemisphere) is no mere morality tale, nor is it quite the libertine celebration you might expect. Starring Marcello Mastroianni as the tabloid journalist hooked on the easy lure of wine, women, and song, so to speak, this is perhaps the most visually lovely portrayal of one man's downward spiral ever put to film. Costars Anita Ekberg as the gorgeous Swedish film star on whom Mastroianni is fixated, Anouk Aimee as his bit on the side, and Yvonne Furneaux as his long-suffering girlfriend teetering on the brink of sanity are all perfect embodiments of the truism about that which glitters; it's Fellini's consummate skill that turns this hoary theme about the perils of superficiality into the classic this film has long since become.
Romeo and Juliet-Franco Zeffirelli: If you were lucky enough to have the cool English teacher the year you studied this in English class, your strongest memory of this version of Shakespeare's old warhorse is probably that of Leonard Whiting's (who?) gorgeous, post-coital ass, provided, of course, that's your thing. Ahem. At any rate, while this period film is more redolent of that in which it was made (to wit the beautiful Olivia Hussey's raven tresses, which look straight out of the Monterey Pop Festival), it's still an engaging take on the classic tale, mercifully sans unnecessary overt attempts to modernize it (paging Baz Luhrmann). Also, this time around you might recognize Milo O'Shea as Friar Laurence and Michael York as Tybalt, who likely failed to register on your ninth-grade radar, except perhaps as the guy from Austin Powers.
Hands Over the City - Francesco Rosi: Edoardo Nottola, the greedy developer played by Rod Steiger in Francesco Rosi's brutally honest Neo-Realist masterpiece, realizes that he can only truly control the city of Naples by taking over its economy and its government simultaneously. When his questionable business practices are implicated in the collapse of a residential building, the City Council takes the opportunity to challenge Nottola's authority. Steiger, fuming behind the massive windows of his penthouse office, towers over the Naples skyline, pouring over his various blueprints, plans and schematics, their very existence boasting of the vastness of his ambition. He gives one of his very best performances here, as a man more compelled than driven, desperate to accumulate wealth. There is dissent to his plans, of course, from populists and competing factions alike, all scrutinized by Rosi's unflinching lens, who insists on peering behind every good intention for its self-serving motivation.
Petulia - Richard Lester:
Initially a lightly-entertaining screwball riff about an uptight recent divorcee (George C. Scott) and a kooky young married woman (Julie Christie) who bond over some half-seen, grim circumstances, Petulia eventually descends into a cold, vaguely sinister allegory about artificiality and emotional distance. What begins by celebrating the eccentric Outsider archetype becomes a purposefully disjointed and occasionally baffling critique on the very notion of a counter-culture or "outsiderism," trading in Lester's usual joviality for a tone more closely approximating sarcasm. Watch for some masterful photography from future directorial genius Nicholas Roeg (and possibly an influence on his non-chronological editing style?), as well as cameos from The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company.
A Shot in the Dark - Blake Edwards: Not just the best of Blake Edwards' films starring the accident-prone Inspector Clouseau, A Shot in the Dark rates as one of the greatest sequels ever made. 1963's The Pink Panther was really about David Niven and the heist and the exotic locations and the romance, but the only thing memorable about the film was the inspired supporting turn by Sellers as Clouseau. Thankfully, the very next year, Edwards scuttled all the other business and made an entire movie just about Clouseau bumbling his way through a police investigation. The result is one of the best slapstick comedies ever made, featuring Sellers' finest hour as Clouseau along with Herbert Lom's debut as the put-upon Inspector Dreyfus. I like some of the later Clouseau films, but none of them is as well-written or sharp as Shot in the Dark. "I believe everything and I believe nothing. I suspect everyone and I suspect no one."
Repulsion - Roman Polanski: Carole (Catherine Deneuve), a child-like and asexual young woman, is left alone in her apartment when her sister goes on a trip. She manages to keep the semblance of her routine for a little while, but eventually descends into madness, living as a crazed shut-in and turning violent with little provocation. This is not a terribly exciting story. It all takes place in a single location, a small apartment. There's only one major character, and she's nearly-silent and completely inscrutable. Yet Roman Polanski's Repulsion remains one of the most riveting, unnerving films ever made. It's one of the few movies that genuinely earns the title "psychological horror" - nothing scary happens in the physical reality of the movie, only in Carole's thoughts. Yet Polanski has shot the entire film through with sheer unadulterated terror, forcing us to view the world from the perspective of a paranoid sociopath, recoiling in horror from a man's gaze and leaping from the imagined grasp of invisible hands.
Sword of Doom - Kihachi Okamoto: A somewhat unhinged roaming samurai (Tatsuya Nakadai) kills a sparring partner during a non-fatal kendo match, after which he takes the dead man's wife as a mistress. He earns the ire of the dead man's associates and brother, Hyoma (Yuzo Kayama). Eventually, the samurai's violent misdeeds catch up with him, driving him to madness. That's the plot of Sword of Doom. Kihachi Okamoto's film seems to exist outside the boundaries of morality. He shows her hero behaving like a villain unapologetically, and he shows the deadly aftermath of these deeds, but he also shows external forces pushing Ryunosuke's hand. A truly evil man purposely involves himself in cruelty, conflict and violence. Ryunosuke simply finds himself in these situations, as when his rival's wife throws herself at his feet, and simply reacts in whatever way pleases him. Perhaps he's neither good nor evil, but neutral. A force of destruction, but one not pointed in any particular direction. Okamoto's direction throughout is graceful and immaculate, as is the crisp black and white cinematography. The final sequence, a swordfight set in a brothel, is just ridiculously stellar.
Eva - Joseph Losey: Like a lot of Joseph Losey films, Eva has aged, and not always for the better. Some of the jazzy background music and much of the set design pegs the film as early '60s in a way that's distracting, and it's self-conscious in a way most modern audiences will mistake for camp. Really, Eva was and always will be a vehicle for the mesmerizing Jeanne Moreau, who doesn't so much play a character in the film as she does drape herself across a movie screen for two hours. This is one of the most defiantly sexy performances of all time, as if she's outright daring you not to find her at least somewhat enticing. The plot concerns a writer living in Venice (a largely forgettable Stanley Baker) who becomes obsessed with the cruel but beautiful Eve (Moreau). She's openly using him for his money, and seems to get a cheap thrill out of humiliating and degrading him, but Baker's Tyvian Jones just can't stay away. The thing is...we don't really blame the guy. How can you?
The Professionals - Richard Brooks: This is quite possibly the best American action-Western of all time, there I said it. Richard Brooks' ludicrously entertaining adventure The Professionals came out just one year before the director's classic Capote adaptation In Cold Blood. Yowza, what a double feature. A team of experts, played by Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode, team up to rescue the kidnapped wife of outlaw and radical Jesus Raza (Jack Palance). Naturally, all is not what it seems and there's various twists and turns and blah blah blah blah blah. What matters here is the tremendous charisma of the entire cast, who either had great natural chemistry or were just awesome enough actors to make it feel that way, and Brooks' inspired train-set action sequences. The whole film really revolves around the railroad, right from the opening sequence, in which billionaire Joe Grant (Ralph Bellamy) rides a private train around the West rounding up his band of professionals, and no film I can think of has made better use of locomotives as a setting for these kinds of elaborate set pieces. Well, okay, Back to the Future 3. (Just kidding...)
Belle de Jour - Luis Bunuel: Another film in which Catherine Deneuve plays a distant, unknowable mystery woman. What can I say? I have a thing for icy '60s French actresses. In this case, it's really the unknowableness that I love the most. Deneuve's character, a a distant housewife who takes a job weekday afternoons in a brothel, is driven by insatiable desires that we get a sense for, but never really understand. This is, of course, Bunuel's whole point. We are all driven by these sorts of lusts; they seem desperately important to us inside our own heads, but of course come off as completely ridiculous to the rest of the world. Séverine's fantasy of being whipped in a forest is never explored or explained, even though she's the main character in the film and this is her driving motivation. Who we are is defined by what we do, not the silly urges that compelled us at the time. Those die with us.
Point Blank: - John Boorman:
Mel Gibson and Brian Helgeland turned this same story - based on a novel by Donald Westlake - into Payback. Boorman's film shares with Payback a wryness, a pitch-black sense of humor, and a penchant for bloody fisticuffs, but beyond that there's very little to connect the two. Gibson and Helgeland's film is pulpy mainstream entertainment, buoyed by one of the world's biggest stars and goofy cameos by the likes of Lucy Liu and Kris Kristofferson. Point Blank is nothing less than a meditation on morality, memory and death as seen through the twisted mind of a man obsessed with revenge. Lee Marvin gives one of the great tough guy movie performances here, slashing and burning his way through an entire criminal organization trying to get a little restitution. I should also mention Philip Lathrop's amazing cinematography. Los Angeles takes on real menace in this movie, set during bright, sunny days, when the shadows from palm trees partially obscure everyone's faces.
Fists in the Pocket -Marco Bellocchio: Marco Bellocchio's debut is a nearly impossible film to classify. What begins as a troubling portrait of a dysfunctional family crippled by a host of unfortunate illnesses morphs into, at various times, a bittersweet coming-of-age saga, a satirical look at middle-class Catholic values and a gothic horror film. The film shocked Italian audiences in the 60's upon its initial release, probably as much for its sour, nihilistic tone as any actual content. Bellocchio seems to share with Bunuel a disgust with the complacent social mores of his countrymen, and similarly reacts with surreal visions of selfishness and depravity, intended to provoke, confuse and outrage the viewer.
L'Avventura - Michelangelo Antonioni: Is it unbearably snooty of me to have picked Antonioni? When I first saw this one, it was like a young film student's worst nightmare. Almost no dialogue. No real plot to speak of. Black and white. And yet...and yet...something about it shook me. Antonioni's films don't have the same focus as other films. Most directors are, at heart, showmen. You pay them $8 and they deliver to you some emotion that you'd particularly like to feel, unless you want to feel exhausted with laughter, in which case they will typically give you some fart and/or doody jokes. Antonioni is not a showman. His films are about atmosphere and mood; I'd even go so far as to say they are about scenery. This film, in which some sad, wealthy Italians search around for a missing friend for a while before giving up, becomes an almost pointillist cinema: small moments that would normally go unnoticed, if they weren't the subject of a film, add up to a surprisingly complete portrait of someone's life.
Accattone - Pier Paolo Pasolini: Pier Paolo Pasolini's first film, based on his own novel, follows the day-to-day life of a violent pimp in a Roman slum. Today, it's not particularly rare to have a pimp as the main character in the film. In fact, not only do we regularly have pimps as the main characters in films, but sometimes they're even allowed to be heroic! In 1961, however, the project was fairly transgressive. Variety said this: "This world of men and women who skirt legality, often flaunting laws and mores, is particular to Pasolini. It's naturally repellent, but has a certain earthy poetry." In this case, I take "earthy" to mean "realistic," which it was, particularly by the standards of the time, but also to reflect Pasolini's obsession with depicting the daily life of the poor on the streets as epic and eventful and significant. In this case, he makes the point beautifully by offsetting a street fight with a tasteful Bach arrangement.
Purple Noon - René Clément: This 1960 masterpiece was the first and by far the best adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley." Rene Clement's dryly funny thriller about a conman's journey of self-discovery features Alain Delon in one of his best performances as the nefarious Mr. Ripley. Tom ventures to Europe on a lark to return a millionaire's spoiled son and decides that, all things considered, he'd rather become the spoiled son, if it's all just the same. In Anthony Mingella's later adaptation, Matt Damon seems to overthink the role, to intellectually determine just what is the matter with Tom. Where he went wrong. Delon understands that the guy is just warped, a psychopath narcissist who doesn't understand things from any perspective other than his own. (The scene in which Ripley studies himself in the mirror has become one of Delon's most iconic film moments). So committed is Ripley to his own success and comfort, he comes close to justifying his horrible crimes to the audience. Clement seems to taunt us at the conclusion - do we want Ripley to have we had too much fun playing along with the caper?
Chimes at Midnight - Orson Welles: Only Orson Welles would combine several plays by Shakespeare into a single autobiographical film. Not only does he dare to mess with the Bard, but he does so in the service of his own life story. Now that, my friends, is what they mean when they say "auteur." Welles stars in his remix of Henry IV (among others) as Sir John Falstaff, and appropriately tells the play's story from his own point of view. (I should note that the play contains only original dialogue by Shakespeare, and has simply been rearranged to morph into Falstaff's story). Welles' typical low-angle shots give the pub in which the bulk of the action is set a shadowy, otherworldly feeling, an ideal setting for Falstaff's sour alienation alternating with drunken abandon. The enormous battle sequence, which really blew me away in its scope and invention, ranks among Welles' career-best. Chimes at Midnight, engaging, charming and even funny though it may be (it's certainly full of self-deprecating humor) really finds Welles at his most morose and meditative; it's clearly a reflection on his feelings of personal failure.
Don't Look Back - D.A. Pennebaker: Martin Scorsese's 4-hour No Direction Home is probably the most complete, definitive film yet made about Bob Dylan, but this 1967 D.A. Pennebacker documentary will always remain the most iconic. This is the Dylan that inspired a generation of Baby Boomers to name their snotty, blandly suburban kids "Dylan." He's inscrutable. He's cranky. He's a fucking genius. And the film kind of dares you to try and figure this guy out, even though the whole point of his routine was that he was beyond being "figured out," that figuring out singers was a waste of time. I'd say that the opening sequence, which has become the music video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues," is a highlight, but this entire film is a highlight. Maybe the best music documentary ever made.
The Ipcress File - Sidney J. Furie: Ipcress File came out in the wake of Goldfinger, when the James Bond franchise was starting to turn more towards campy theatrics and away from the grittier, more realistic world of the novels. Ipcress File, based on another series of spy novels popular in Britain at the time, introduces us to Harry Palmer (Michael Caine), who's meant as a kind of antidote to the impossible suave, slick Bond. (He shares more with the Bond of Daniel Craig than Sean Connery, though without the abs). Palmer's a thief, pressed into Her Majesty's Service to get out of going to jail, and he's reluctantly roped into solving the kidnapping of some of Britain's top scientists. The film can be a bit dry at times, but it's all worth it for Caine's performance as Palmer, a man who's always discounted or ignored, right up until the moment that he wins. Two Palmer sequels followed, the underwhelming Funeral in Berlin (from Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton) and Ken Russell's goofy Bond-esque adventure Billion Dollar Brain. Neither is near as good as the 1965 original.
Through a Glass Darkly - Ingmar Bergman: To me, this is Ingmar Bergman's most haunting and disturbing film. A woman named Karin (Harriet Andersson) has just been released from a mental asylum, but she's not actually "better." She's staying at a remote cabin with her husband, her father and her younger brother, and over the course of a single day, she goes from kind of unstable to full-blown insane, nearly driving several family members insane in the process. It's a harrowing journey, reminiscent in many ways of a play (particularly "Long Days' Journey Into Night"). In addition to Sven Nykvist's amazing, gorgeous, woozily bright cinematography (the film takes place during one of those Scandanavian days without a nighttime), what stands out to me is Bergman's frank, clinical look at Karin's insanity. This is not some hallucinatory, sensory glimpse into the mind of a madwoman, but an intense attempt to scrutinize the nature of insanity; what can cause it, whether it can be stopped, and what it can do to a family. Harrowing, but worth the effort.
Continue to Part III
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