Miscellaneous Movie Musings: Part XLI

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Werner Herzog sees Tom Cruise running over the mountain to see the other side of the mountain

See Tom Run

I recently finally read Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed, and have thought of a short film I would love to see the great man make – ‘See Tom Run’. In which Herr Herzog assembles a super-cut from the last four decades of cinematic footage of his former co-star Tom Cruise, running. And running. And running. And running. At times Werner would let the footage play out in silence. And at other times he would let it run, pun intended, with whatever music Werner might feel appropriate to the rapid movement of the Cruise. (It is impossible to guess what music he would guess: Mongolian throat warbling? Russian Orthodox bells? Peruvian folk accappella? Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony?) And holding together all this running and jumping he would tell us in his Bavarian-inflected narration what he thinks the meaning of all this running is. Why does Tom run? Does who Tom is meant to be change how he runs? Why does he run more as an old man than as a young man? What is he running from? What is he running towards? As runs Cruise so runs American history? These are questions that need to be asked. Maybe.

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Knowing what you need, knowing what you can do without

The Italian Job was on ITV 4 last weekend, so of course I watched it. Yet again. This time round I was struck by how Quincy Jones emulates Bernard Herrmann in his scoring, not musically, but by his supreme confidence in stepping aside. Just as Herrmann was content to remain silent for minutes of North by Northwest at a time, Jones opts not to score great chunks of The Italian Job. Safe in the knowledge that not only does he have his Matt Monro-warbled ‘Days Like These’ to play with orchestrally for much of the film, but, biding his time bar a brief preview in the installation of the doctored computer tape, he is audiciously keeping in reserve one of the great film themes for the last minutes – ‘The Self-preservation Society’.

*On a sidenote does Matt Monro singing theme song after theme song for films in the 1960s in a way prefigure the synergy of the music video of a film song acting as a quasi-commercial in the 1980s and 1990s?

Any Other Business: Part LVII

As the title suggests, so forth.

Ventilation is the new Masks

The Atlantic was months ahead of the government here, and in many other countries listening to the WHO’s idiocy, in recognising the importance of everyone wearing masks in preventing the spread of coronavirus. So I have a sinking feeling when they publish two articles one after the other on the importance of ventilation, which nobody wants to address. The coronavirus is an airborne disease and yet it took forever to wear masks here as a step against it, instead there was an obsessive focus on hand-washing and surface-cleansing, despite the fact that fomite transmission of the coroanvirus is negligible; the super-spreading events globally all involve people unmasked indoors spraying each other with their vocal stylings – singing, speaking, coughing, or just breathing.

Venue, ventilation, vocalisation: These are the three Vs to look out for, and all of them spell doom for the winter.

Pubs cannot open here because it’s too dangerous to have a lot of people indoors for a short space of time, but it’s a priority for the government to open schools here because it’s not too dangerous to have a lot of people indoors for a long space of time. So tell me, how exactly will schools operate in the winter months here without any consideration for ventilation? How can a serious plan not flag providing HEPA filters for crowded confined spaces?

Well, Mrs Peel, I think we deserve to listen to some good music after all that running around, don’t you?

Spotify these 60 songs for a 60s mood

John Barry – The Ipcress File // The Lovin’ Spoonful – Summer in the City // The Beatles – Drive My Car // Bob Dylan – Most Likely You Go Way And I’ll Go Mine // Led Zeppelin – Ramble On // Maurice Jarre – Lara’s Theme // Quincy Jones – Killer Joe // Donovan – Mellow Yellow // The Kingsmen – Louie Louie // The Turtles – Happy Together // The Kinks – Waterloo Sunset // The Beach Boys – God Only Knows // The Rolling Stones – Under My Thumb // The Doors – Moonlight Drive // Elmer Bernstein – The Magnificent Seven // Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze // The Kinks – Sunny Afternoon // The Chordettes – Mr Sandman // Donovan – Sunshine Superman // The Who – I Can See For Miles // Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced? // Led Zeppelin – What Is and What Should Never Be // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Run Through the Jungle // Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit // John Barry – Capsule in Space // The Rolling Stones – Gimmer Shelter // Cream – White Room // Donovan – Hurdy Gurdy Man // Led Zeppelin – Bron-y-aur Stomp // Dave Brubeck – Unsquare Dance // The Kinks – Dedicated Follower of Fashion // The Byrds – Turn Turn Turn // The Rolling Stones – Ruby Tuesday // Petula Clark – Downtown // Quincy Jones – Soul Bossa Nova // Betty Everett – The Shoop Shoop Song // The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations // Ennio Morricone – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly // The Who – Pinball Wizard // Bob Dylan – I Want You // Simon and Garfunkel – Mrs Robinson // The Beatles – Help // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son // Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited // The Beatles – Paperback Writer // The Beach Boys – Wouldn’t It Be Nice // The Mamas and the Papas – California Dreamin’ // The Beatles – Here Comes the Sun // Miles Davis – It Never Entered My Mind // Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Chile // The Who – Baba O’Riley // Simon and Garfunkel – America // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Proud Mary // The Doors – Light My Fire // Herbie Hancock – Cantaloupe Island // Tom Jones – Delilah // Quincy Jones – The Self-Preservation Society // John Barry – Goldfinger March // The Doors – When the Music’s Over // Simon and Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence

Hail the 1930s Generation!

Leonard Cohen’s morbid remarks about waiting for death some weeks before his death had made me think about the 1930s generation who were actively working and not thinking about death. So the day that Clint Eastwood (86) releases his latest film Sully into Irish cinemas, and a day after Woody Allen turned 81 having recently made his first TV show, I thought I’d round up some people born in the 1930s who are still very much alive and well and working as hard as ever.

Clint Eastwood

Woody Allen

Donald Sutherland

Glenda Jackson

Michael Caine

James Earl Jones

Vanessa Redgrave

Martin Sheen

Dustin Hoffman

Anthony Hopkins

Maggie Smith

Ian McKellen

Quincy Jones

Harvey Keitel

Morgan Freeman

Diana Rigg

William Shatner

Robert Redford

Ridley Scott

John Williams

Judi Dench

 

Judd Hirsch

George Takei

Philip Glass

Lily Tomlin

Jane Fonda

Terence Stamp

Derek Jacobi

Eileen Atkins

Steve Reich

Top 5 Michael Caine Movies

I wouldn’t like to give the impression that I was mean-spiritedly making fun either of Michael Caine or of cockney accents in last week’s sketch, so as a gesture of atonement here’s a Top 5 of my favourite Michael Caine movies. I’ve picked only ones in which he’s the lead.

(5) Get Carter
“You’re a big man, but you’re out of shape”, “She was only thirteen”… A movie plundered both by Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan to sharpen their Caine impressions in The Trip, and arguably by Martin Campbell and Daniel Craig to make the last image of Casino Royale iconic. This gritty thriller, which is still director Mike Hodges’ calling card, sees Caine’s implacable London hard-man Jack Carter head north to avenge his brother’s death with a shotgun. Shot in stylish long-takes with a distancing aesthetic this is an imposing British crime movie that loomed over all that followed.

(4) Educating Rita
“There is more insight in the telephone directory…and probably more wit”. Caine’s jaded English professor helps Julie Walter’s discontented housewife better herself thru an adult education course in a sparkling adaptation of Willy Russell’s play, itself almost a spin on Pygmalion. But this Henry Higgins is on a serious downward spiral; drowning in drink and self-pity in equal measures, cheated on by his wife and despising his own volumes of poetry. Caine’s showy role encompasses glorious high verbal comedy and drunken slapstick, as well as the quiet drama of alcoholic misery. This finally won him a BAFTA.

(3) The Quiet American
“Oh, shit” .Caine’s dead-pan delivery of that line is emblematic of his quiet, measured and ultimately devastating performance in Philip Noyce’s 2002 film. This subtle work is arguably the finest adaptation of Graham Greene’s work since the 1940s. Caine plays the archetypal Greene character. His foreign correspondent boasts of simply observing the chaos of 1950s Vietnam and offering no point of view, no political allegiance. An unwelcome romantic rival (Brendan Fraser’s titular do-gooder) and pressure from London to break a story sparks a belated moral engagement with the ethics of American interference, and opposition to it…

(2) Sleuth
“Be sure and tell them it was all just a bloody game!” Joseph L Mankiewicz’s riveting adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s play sees a rich aged writer invite his young wife’s lover, a cockney hairdresser, to his rural mansion for some vindictive head-games. Caine’s regional accent and film acting technique go head to head with Olivier’s RADA accent and stage acting style in a contest Caine was easily winning till a desperate Olivier produced a moustache… If you want to empirically measure Caine’s acting ability note how Sleuth’s entire structure disintegrates in the remake because Jude Law can’t act.

(1) The Italian Job
“You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” A truly flawless film; from Quincy Jones’ impossibly catchy original soundtrack and the glorious turn by Noel Coward as the imprisoned crime-lord masterminding proceedings, to the implausible gang apparently composed solely of gay aristocrats and cockney wide-boys and the deranged Carry On antics of Benny Hill, and on to the wonderfully staged Austin Mini car-chase and the definitive cinematic cliff-hanger, it’s impossible not to sit back with a smile pasted on your face throughout as Caine motors the whole film along with a performance of winning charm.