FilmFanatic.org

Synopsis:
In 15th century Russia, iconographer Andrei Rublev (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) attempts to carry out his work in the midst of societal upheaval and raids.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Artists
• Christianity
• Historical Dramas
• Medieval Times
• Russian Films

Review:
Andrei Tarkovsky’s second feature film — made after Ivan’s Childhood (1962) (not listed in GFTFF) — was this lengthy historical drama very loosely “based” on the life of a Russian iconographer, about whom we know very little. Andrei Rublev is well described by Steve Rose in his review for The Guardian, where he writes that it’s:

“… a film that people often feel they don’t, or won’t get. It is 205 minutes long (in its fullest version), in Russian, and in black and white. Few characters are clearly identified, little actually happens, and what does happen isn’t necessarily in chronological order. Its subject is a 15th-century icon painter and national hero, yet we never see him paint, nor does he do anything heroic. In many of the film’s episodes, he is not present at all, and in the latter stages, he takes a vow of silence. But in a sense, there is nothing to ‘get’ about Andrei Rublev. It is not a film that needs to be processed or even understood, only experienced and wondered at.”

With that extensive caveat noted, the various episodes are as follows: in the “Prologue,” we see a random man (Nikolay Glazkov) floating up to the sky in a hot air balloon, looking down at the vista below him. (This brief sequence does nothing to inform us about what we’re about to watch, though it’s beautifully shot.)

In the first formal episode — entitled “The Jester (Summer 1400)” — we see our title character (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) and two other monks, Danil (Nikolay Grinko) and Kirill (Ivan Lapikov), wandering into a barn where a jester (Rolan Bykov) is performing. (The jester does not meet a happy fate.)

Next we see jealous Kirill encountering “Theophanes the Greek (Summer–Winter–Spring–Summer 1405–1406)” and hoping to apprentice with him — but much to Kirill’s displeasure, Theophanes is more interested in working with Rublev.

“The Passion (1406)” depicts a snowy, violent passion play:

… while “The Holiday (1408)” shifts gears to show Rublev encountering a party of reveling pagans.

“The Last Judgement (Summer 1408)” includes a hideous scene of vengeance in the forest, which Rublev responds to by angrily throwing paint onto the wall of a church he’s working in.

The next episode — “The Raid (Autumn 1408)” — is undoubtedly the most disturbing of them all, showing the ruthless invasion of a village by Tatars on horseback; only Rublev and a mute female “fool” (who we were introduced to in the last sequence) are left alive.

In “Silence (Winter 1412),” we see that Rublev is now in a monastery, having taken a vow of silence after killing someone during the raid. Kirill comes and begs for forgiveness, too.

The last episode — entitled “The Bell (Spring 1423-Spring 1424)” — is surprisingly gripping, though we’re suddenly following an entirely new character/artist: the son of a deceased bell-maker who is attempting the dangerous work of overseeing the casting of a giant bell (if it doesn’t work, he will be beheaded).

“The Epilogue” is finally in color, showing images of the real Rublev’s actual work.

If you don’t feel like you understand much about Rublev himself from this overview of the film, you’re not alone — however, it’s an engaging enough visual experience that it should be seen at least once.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Truly impressive sets and historical recreations of medieval Russia
  
• Vadim Yusov’s cinematography
  
  

Must See?
Yes, for its historical relevance as Tarkovsky’s first significant film, and as the most elaborate Soviet-era epic since Eisenstein’s work. Listed as a film with Historical Relevance and a Cult Movie in the back of Peary’s book.

Categories

• Historically Relevant
• Important Director

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Criterion Essay
• Guardian Review
• ArtandFilm.org Essay
• Far Out Magazine Review

Synopsis:
In 16th century England, Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) risks his life to uphold his beliefs regarding the divorce and remarriage of King Henry VIII (Richard Shaw).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Fred Zinnemann Films
• Historical Drama
• John Hurt Films
• Orson Welles Films
• Paul Scofield Films
• Play Adaptations
• Robert Shaw Films
• Royalty and Nobility
• Susannah York Films
• Wendy Hiller Films

Review:
Peary doesn’t review this Oscar-winning adaptation of Robert Bolt’s Tony-winning 1960 play in his GFTFF, but he does discuss it a bit in his Alternate Oscars, where he refers to the “strained politeness of Zinnemann’s classy but strangely dispassionate work” (I disagree) “about how Sir Thomas More (an Oscar-winning Paul Scofield) chose to give up his life rather than sanction Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and remarriage to Anne Boleyn.” In comparing A Man For All Seasons with his personal pick for Best Picture that year — Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-Sac — he notes that each film “contains scene after scene of confrontational, power-play conversations”; each is “about a man who loses everything while battling for his integrity”; and each “uses the catalytic appearance of intruders/visitors into a couple’s home to cause them to confront what’s drastically wrong with their marriage.” (That last point is a bit of a stretch for A Man of All Seasons, though More’s marriage — to Wendy Hiller’s Alice — does indeed become seriously strained.)

While Peary doesn’t award Scofield the Best Actor — he gives it instead to Richard Burton for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — he does concede that Scofield “gave a disarmingly dignified performance, quite unlike what moviegoers were used to in historical dramas.” He adds, “Until More’s outburst at his trial,” Scofield “delivers almost all of his lines quietly, with patience and restraint” — yet “his every word has both eloquence and force.”

I agree. I went into my viewing of this historical drama intentionally fuzzy on details (hoping to maximize impact), and given that I was unprepared even for well-known final outcomes, I found myself entirely gripped — thanks largely to Scofield’s consistently compelling (and, yes, understated) performance. However, the film itself is wonderfully mounted in its own right, with rich cinematography, opulent sets, colorful costumes, and excellent supporting performances across the board. Among the cast we see an appropriately larger-than-life Robert Shaw as King Henry VIII:

… Orson Welles as an appropriately larger-than-life Cardinal Wolsey:

… John Hurt (in his first significant cinematic role) as the socially aspirational Richard Rich:

… Susannah York as More’s daughter Margaret:

… Leo McKern as Thomas Cromwell:

… and, in a very brief cameo, Vanessa Redgrave as Anne Boleyn.

Note: If you’re curious to know what happened after the film’s infamous final shot, click here.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Paul Scofield as Thomas More
  
• Fine supporting performances
  
• Ted Moore’s cinematography
  
  
• Elizabeth Haffenden and Joan Bridge’s Oscar winning costume design
  
• Georges Delerue’s score

Must See?
Yes, for Scofield’s performance and as an overall good show. Listed as a film with Historical Importance in the back of Peary’s book.

Categories

• Noteworthy Performance(s)
• Oscar Winner or Nominee

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TCM Article
• DVD Savant Review

Synopsis:
A middle-aged revolutionary (Yves Montand) fighting against Fascism in Spain tries to decide whether to retire with his lover (Ingrid Thulin) or continue supporting the cause — a choice made even more difficult when the beautiful young daughter (Geneviève Bujold) of a compatriot makes herself available to him.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Alain Resnais Films
• French Films
• Genevieve Bujold Films
• Mistaken and Hidden Identities
• Revolutionaries
• Yves Montand Films

Review:
Alain Resnais followed up his first three art-crowd favorites — Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961) and Muriel (1963) — with this more accessible but still heady film about an aging revolutionary confronting the potentially interminable nature of his work. In my write-up, I’ll cite DVD Savant’s review, in which he explains his own appreciation for the film:

Although its style is definitely that of Alain Resnais, La guerre est finie‘s subject is not an abstraction, but a real man’s revolutionary politics. Although some people will be frustrated, it has a compelling story, big stars, romance and intrigue that seems far more ‘real’ than similar mainstream movies.

He adds:

La guerre est finie is a remarkable film, beautifully photographed and acted, and probably a lot more accessible to American audiences now that storytelling styles have caught up with the avante garde of 1966. Resnais uses flash-forwards and stream-of-consciousness associative editing that can become quite confusing. But unlike some of his earlier successes that seemed to exist on a mental plane outside of time, Guerre is for the most part quite linear.

Yes — refreshingly so! Having fairly recently watched Resnais’ first three films, this one is remarkably easy to follow and relate to — a good thing, given the intense subject matter. We are watching a man who has literally given his life to a cause yet must still live on edge (he could be detained at any moment), is unable to settle down without feeling a sense of resignation, and has to track numerous running threads of false personal narratives at any given point.

On the aftermath of revisiting The Battle of Algiers, seeing what the long-game might look like for someone this committed to revolution was especially poignant; as DVD Savant writes, “Montand, playing a Spaniard who passes for French, is a soulful soldier whose war was lost long before he began to fight. The tension of being an outlaw to the state shows on his tired face.”

Film fanatics will likely enjoying seeing an impossibly young, faux-cherubic Geneviève Bujold in her very first cinematic role:

… and Ingrid Bergman-favorite Ingrid Thulin in a non-Scandinavian film.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Yves Montand as “Diego Mora”
  
• Sacha Vierny’s cinematography
  

Must See?
No, but it’s worth a look. Listed as a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary’s book.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Village Voice Review
• DVD Savant Review
• New Yorker Review

Synopsis:
Inhabitants in New York’s Chelsea Hotel interact with one another while engaging in a variety of activities.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Documentary
• Paul Morrissey Films

Review:
Andy Warhol’s experimental split-screen film — with two video “narratives” but just one audio stream running at all times — was (according to Wikipedia) his “first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films (both feature-length and short).” Here is a little more context on Warhol’s vision:

Once principal photography wrapped, Warhol and co-director Paul Morrissey selected the 12 most striking vignettes they had filmed and then projected them side by side to create a visual juxtaposition of both contrasting images and divergent content (the so-called “white” or light and innocent aspects of life against the “black” or darker, more disturbing aspects.) As a result, the 6.5 hour running time was essentially cut in half, to 3 hours and 15 minutes. However, part of Warhol’s concept for the film was that it would be unlike watching a regular movie because the two projectors could never achieve exact synchronization from viewing to viewing; therefore, despite specific instructions of where individual sequences would be played during the running time, each viewing of the film would, in essence, be an entirely different experience.

Such a precise goal is now moot given the film’s availability on DVD, but one could still argue that the constant attempt to shift views between either side of the screen induces Warhol’s desired differential effect. (Indeed, it’s fairly exhausting enduring this film — more on that below.)

Appearing as themselves at various times are, among others, Nico (who actually bookends the film):

… Mary Woronov and Ingrid Superstar:

… Eric Emerson:

… Brigid Berlin:

… and International Velvet.

(How may of these names and faces will be familiar to and/or relevant to younger film fanatics is debatable; the only clear stand-out is Woronov, given her starring roles in other GFTFF-listed titles — mostly notably Eating Raoul.)

I dare you to attempt one or more of the following (I succeeded in none):

• Watch this film without fast-forwarding.
• Watch this film without almost falling asleep.
• Watch this film without checking how much more time is left until it’s over.
• Watch this film in precisely one sitting.

To that final point, this is most definitely the kind of experimental movie that is best placed in an art museum, where viewers can come and go at will; indeed, I can easily see myself being drawn in for part of it, and staying a little longer due to wondering what might come next. But sitting and watching it all in one go simply isn’t tenable. After all, as Stephen Koch wrote in his review for Art Forum:

… The Chelsea Girls does not imagine time. It attaches itself to literal time, and by drawing it into a context of total disjunction, confounds the sense of duration under the suzerainty of the steadily ticking clock. True, like a conventional feature, it concerns itself with the relation between time and event, but it presents both in a state of radical dissociation, a structured but irresolvable disarray in which the life of narrative is disjoined and made a function of the machine.

Exactly.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:
Whatever floats your boat!

Must See?
Nope. Listed as a film with Historical Importance in the back of Peary’s book.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• SF Gate Review
• Art Forum Overview

Synopsis:
In Nazi-occupied post-WWII Britain, an apolitical Irish nurse (Pauline Murray) accepts work for the British Union of Fascists, not realizing how much she is severely compromising her values.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Doctors and Nurses
• Historical Drama
• Resistance Fighters
• Science Fiction
• World War II

Review:
Made over an eight year period (from 1956 to 1963) by novice filmmakers Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, this alternative history flick offers a deeply disturbing vision of how easily England could have become a Fascist nation if events had transpired just a little bit differently. Non-actor Murray suits the bill well as a widowed villager who is horrified to see some of her friends killed in partisan cross-fire:

… and thus crosses the murky line over into being employed as a nurse by the medical branch of her nation’s quasi-paramilitary Immediate Action Organisation (IAO), figuring it’s better to work towards social stability of some kind (any kind) than to be part of continued violent resistance. Her entrance into London shows us a truly eerie vision of what the city might have looked like under German Fascist control:

… and watching Murray insidiously indoctrinated (she barely blinks an eye while sitting and listening to reprehensible talk by English Nazis):

… is a frightening reminder of how easy it is for humans to simply accept the reality around them as normal. It’s only once Murray re-encounters old anti-Fascist friends — a doctor (Sebastian Shaw) and his wife (Fiona Leland) — that glimmers of her conscience begin to emerge.

Her acquaintance with these brave resistance fighters is seen as betrayal, and she’s sent to a seemingly idyllic countryside hospital — where the unthinkable occurs.

What’s most impressive about this low-budget film is how effectively Brownlow and Mollo manage to create an alternative vision for a 1940s England infested by Nazis; particularly helpful is a highly realistic faux-newsreel filling us in on the past few years and how things came to this state.

Speaking of history, this movie’s production story is (not surprisingly) absolutely fascinating — ranging from how young Brownlow and Mollo were when they first had the idea for this film (just 19 and 16!), to the direct financial and material support they received from bigger-name directors (including Stanley Kubrick), to how they managed to secure all the costumes and props necessary to recreate the era. According to IMDb’s Trivia section:

The production used hundreds of volunteer actors and a few professional filmmakers such as Sebastian Shaw and Reginald Marsh. Some extras were members of British science fiction fan clubs. Some British fascists in the film were actual ex-members of the British Union of Fascists. Some SS and Wehrmacht soldiers portrayed in the film were actual German army ex-servicemen.

This all adds up to a cinematic universe that’s as freaky as all get-out, and the storyline ends on an appropriately bleak note; we are reminded, as one character says, that “the appalling thing about fascism is that you’ve got to use fascist methods to get rid of it.”

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Impressive low-budget sets and costumes
  
• Peter Suschitzky’s cinematography
  

Must See?
Yes, as a most unique independent film.

Categories

• Historically Relevant

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Moria Review
• SF Gate Review (Mick LaSalle)
• SF Examiner Review (Wesley Morris)
• DVD Savant Review

Synopsis:
In the wake of the failed 1848 Hungarian revolution, prisons guards attempt to locate the leader of a guerrilla band, using whatever tactics necessary to get inmates to betray fellow outlaws.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Betrayal
• Eastern European Films
• Falsely Accused
• Historical Drama
• Living Nightmare
• Prisoners of War

Review:
Miklós Jancsó directed this utterly bleak historical drama set exclusively in a prison camp for individuals suspected of formerly working with revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth. Although Jancsó publicly denied it, the film was clearly an allegory for the aftermath of the more recent failed Hungarian revolution of 1956 against Soviet Russia. While it’s praised by many as one of the best Hungarian films, there is little for viewers to hold onto narratively-speaking, given that we quickly see what a hopeless situation these prisoners are in. János Görbe’s János Gajdar is the first recognizable protagonist — a pathetic man willing to sell out his fellow prisoners for his own freedom:

… but will his efforts succeed? And if so, then what? There are really no good solutions. Eventually we watch another pair of men in a similarly no-win situation, being forced to identify an infamous outlaw named Sandor — will they? Can they?

Suffice it to say that this film gives very little hope for the future of humanity, given the banality of evil that’s on ample display. Visually speaking, the film is always interesting:

… but given that we’re watching torture and betrayal of one kind or another for 90 minutes, it’s decidedly draining.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Stark cinematography by Tamás Somló
  

Must See?
No, unless you’re curious.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Loud and Clear Review