queue de grace: The General and My Man Godfrey



Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.
                                                            ~Saint Francis of Assisi

Many years ago I started SCUBA diving and my first dive post certification was in Cozumel, Mexico at Palancar reef.  It was in a section of the reef called the "gardens", so named for its extensive variety of coral and altogether stunning display of massive coral pillars that stretches for hundreds of yards.  It is something like an underwater forest, comprised of coral and Caribbean fish and utilizing every color you've ever imagined (and then a few you haven't yet).  You literally, dive down into the reef, then spend a good thirty minutes (or so) floating in and around the giant coral pillars, with angelfish the size of dinnerware for company.

I was expecting it to be fun, and it was.  I was expecting it to be beautiful, it was.

I wasn't expecting it to be so quiet.

The silence adds to the intensity of the experience as your entire world shrinks down to breathing and looking.  It is very peaceful and when you eventually surface, it takes a few minutes before you even really want to talk again, because talking breaks the spell.

Watching The General (1926) was a similar experience for me.  Engaging a silent film in this way and removing the spoken word, made it more focused somehow and it was simply delightful.  I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I've never actually sat through a full length silent film before.  I'd seen shorts, and snippets of Keaton and Chaplin and others, but never a full feature.

The How:

Bouncing between the occasional slide of written word (in a nice font by the way) and the visual movement of the black and white scenes, the story propels forward on the tracks of Keaton's grace.

What an amazing physicality Keaton has, a simple marvel of expression and groove in the way he moves from place to place. He embodies the moments of childhood fearlessness where you're jumping around with unbounded joy, before you almost get seriously hurt and remember to be more careful.  

I really didn't see any points where the action seemed to cut away from Keaton, he seems to be his own stunt man, which is alarming and fun in tandem.  He's dancing around an actual moving train for crying out loud!  In front of the "cow catcher", with what appears to be a real railroad tie... on the engine itself, springing from car to car on top of the train and at least one death defying leap from car to woodpile to steam engine in a go.

In modern stuff, we watch people outrunning explosions, etc... and even in our suspension of disbelief, we know that this is smoke and mirrors and the "danger" isn't real.  No disrespect to stunts or stuntpeople intended or implied.

With the stunts and visual gags Keaton is doing, you have the sense that most of this is first take material and you know that he's actually doing these things.  The choreography, the sense of actual danger and the coordinated execution of the physical movement he is engaged in throughout makes it more compelling.  The "please don't break your leg and get run over by the train that isn't a model" sense you're feeling makes the funny funnier and connection you feel with the action even stronger.

There's just something cool and distinctive about the vaudeville era of physical comedy we simply don't encounter outside of it.

It may go without saying, but the movie was really funny.  Both Karen and I laughed out loud enough times to lose count... the example I'm thinking of is when he gets the Lieutenant's uniform and immediately strikes a civil war pose - completely hysterical.   Even remembering it just now made me laugh again.  Has there ever been anyone else who could pull that kind of thing off as well as he does?

Keaton's ability to convey unpretentious expression is a joy to watch.

The What:

The General (1926) is about making the most of opportunity.  To flesh that out a bit, to make the most of opportunity by adjusting to changing circumstances well when our plans just don't work out, and holding to perseverance as you go.

Consider the following gags, but in the context of my proposed direction:

- Johnny alerts the army and gets dozens of men to climb aboard a car to go after the union soldiers, but then the engine isn't attached to the car and he leaves without them

- He deals with multiple obstacles on the track that are blocking his way

- He deals with the flaming car, intended to burn the bridge and block passage

- He runs out of wood to fuel the steam engine

- He's separated from his train by fire, by a fall into the river, through the train's reversing course...

This list could go on, but none of these occurrences are a reason to give up.  They provide the context for everything from stunts to silliness, but it really isn't ever an option to just call it quits and go home.

Even the final scene, where he is trying to kiss the girl, but also salute the enlisted men... the answer isn't to either stop kissing the girl, or ignore the saluting.

The answer is to move her to the other side and do both, which is silly but we get the point.

Three cheers for, in some small way, having our cake and eating it too.

This was an entirely uplifting and hopeful film.  I felt better after watching it, and I'm confident that you will too.

William Powell and Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey

You have a wonderful sense of humor. I wish I had a sense of humor, but I can never think of the right thing to say until everybody's gone home.  ~Irene in My Man Godfrey (1936)

The How:

I haven't talked much about the actors yet, though they have been superlative without exception so far.  In this one I'll talk about little else.  

In My Man Godfrey (1936) the leads of William Powell with his patience and presence, contrasting with the geniusly manic machine gun fire dialogue of Carole Lombard are as good as it gets.  

I adored them both, but especially Lombard, I've just never seen anything quite like her. My goodness, she's a force of nature, speaking at 200 words a minute and not even considering stopping for a breath in her stream of consciousness hopping from one thought to the next.  It's funny, charming, ditzy, impressive, endearing, tiring, brilliant and screwballarific all at the same time.  I was looking for the handle to make it stop, while thoroughly enjoying everything she did.

The quote above might be better read as, "Youhaveawonderfulsenseofhumor. IwishIhadasenseofhumor, butIcanneverthinkoftherightthingto sayuntileverybody'sgonehome."

Don't try that at home, it's harder than it looks.  

Powell is the soothing and sarcastically careful counterpoint to her wackball melody.  He speaks with such a quiet dignity that you know from the start there is more to his story than meets the eye.  

The rest of the cast was pretty perfect as well, with the vacuous non-sequitur mother, the ice cold Cornelia with cat like posture and phrasing, desperate for approval, the sarcastic deadpan delivery of the father, the acerbically clever maid and my personal favorite - Carlos, in his starving artist, gorilla imitating, piano playing, "Ochi Chornya" goodness.

To the writers, casting agent, director and actors - I salute you, nicely done everybody.

The What:

This movie is about kindness, in a practical sort of way.

We first see this in how Cornelia approaches Godfrey, and then how differently he is approached by Irene.  They both want the same thing, but Irene is checked by kindness, where Cornelia really isn't.  And Godfrey doesn't have a chance.

Godfrey is really our paragon here, having gotten ahead of this learning curve through his experience discovering and living among the forgotten men.  In small ways they are shown sharing, speaking kindly to and helping each other and in their approach Godfrey finds something beautiful and determines to repay them.

He is kind to the mother throughout, but especially in delivering her breakfast after the initial party.  He shows kindness to the maid by doing the dishes when she wasn't feeling well, to the father by selling his stock short and giving him the proceeds to help him recover, to Cornelia by not immediately revealing her betrayal... but returning her pearls late and speaking to her kindly in a way she can understand.  And of course, the forgotten men are not forgotten by him at all.

One of my axioms of analysis is that there is meaning in repetition, so when I see something repeated, I tend to fasten on it. 

One of my axioms of analysis is that there is meaning in repetition, so when I see something repeated, I tend to fasten on it. (insert rimshot here)

Stepping back, this movie makes me wonder a couple of things:

One, why can't people doing romantic comedies now write this well?  Is it really that hard to find someone with game, pay them a million dollars and have them write something on this level?  Truly, not everyday is your birthday and I'm betting that not every movie made in the 1930's was this good, but I can't think of anything in the last 10 years that could hold a candle to this in terms of dialogue or execution.

Two, why do we settle for less?  Couldn't we pass a law that anyone making a bad movie has to watch this one 72 times until they understand where they missed it and make a solemn vow to do better?

Just a thought.  

Finally, if Shakespeare taught us anything, it's that the comedy ends with a wedding, and then the show is over.  The final scene where Irene corrals Godfrey had me grinning like an idiot.

So as the curtain draws, I'll leave you with this:

Stand still, Godfrey. It'll all be over in a minute. 

                                              ~Irene, My Man Godfrey (1936)

queue de grace: The Third Man (E)

Lego Homage to The Third Man

That's a nice girl, that.  But she ought to go careful in Vienna.  Everybody ought to go careful in a city like this. 

~Popescue, The Third Man (1949)

The Third Man (1949) has a title fraught with possibility even before we get started.  Who are the first and second men?  Why is he separated or called out from what must be a group of three men?  What the deuce is a zither?  By the way, Karen immediately identified the zither, because that's how she rolls (seriously).

She's just forgotten more about music than the rest of us will ever really know. 

Still, she didn't know who the third man was, or how he factored into the looming narrative. 

We do know he's important, to merit mention in the title, and it seems that truth and identity will be firmly in play.  We don't have a name, but we do have a hint of our path forward, and what looks to be a mystery.  I'll apologize now for the length of this post, I'll make a concerted effort to be more brief as we go.

You could write a book on this one and not fully capture it.

The How:
I'll stick to the How and What lines for now, even though that is an overly simplistic way to approach the complexity of film as expression.  Part of that is an attempt to understand the literal before moving to the figurative, but since movies hit us through multiple senses at once, "how" a movie is presented provides a powerful commentary on "what" content is delivered.

As such, it's a place to start.

The first thing I have to say is that this movie utilizes light and shadow better than anything I've ever seen.  It simply has to be definitive in this regard.  I hadn't considered this, but of course black and white movies would be better with the effect of shadow than films in color overall. When your visual palatte (in terms of color) is comprised entirely of shades of grey, awareness of the impact of contrast would be a primary move.

The film was beautiful, in a "bombed out" sort of way.  It was dark, literally and contextually and having seen it, I can't imagine this being done in color, without diminishing the film's power.  I just can't overstate it, the play of visuals in terms of light and shadow complimenting the context of what is happening here was genius throughout.  Especially in the sequence where the third man's identity is revealed (might be one of the most interesting sequences ever filmed) and the final chase scene in the sewers.  In comparison with a world of CGI characters, universes and stunning visual complexity, it was surprising to me to watch a film in black and white that was so superior in visual execution.

The use of foreign language without subtitle was also brilliant in creating a world where we share the character's perception of a setting where meaning and intelligibility is elusive and has to be overcome to some extent.  The German / Austrian lines counterpointed the dialogue and in some sense, became word shadows that obscured our vision somewhat.

Set in Vienna, post WWII, the sound was also flawlessly executed, with the brakes squeeling in the background at the perfect moment during the description of Harry's fatal accident and the use of music which was haunting and seemed to come from a single instrument.  This isn't Vienna, center of culture and art in the Renaissance, this is Vienna that is recovering from being bombed and is a picked over ghost of it's truer self.  The piles of bricks and rubble set the perfect stage for the events surrounding the post traumatic setting and relationships we find. 

I think it would be fair to say that Vienna (in this state) is the right city for Holly, Anna and the Third Man, all of whom are arguably bombed and shelled versions of their better selves.

I wonder how many amazing movie moments are basically lifted all but directly from this film? I was reminded of the scene from The Fugitive of Harrison Ford in the dam... and the final confrontation of DeNiro and Pacino in Heat. I didn't realize how much of an homage those things were paying to The Third Man, but now it seems obvious that these are deliberate nods.

A couple of other more random observations.  Like the contrast of light / darkness, the humor in this was all the more contrasted from the darker theme and feel and it seemed to supercharge the funnier moments.  More than that, the humor is also very carefully placed to reinforce the message of "things are not what they initially appear to be."

When Sergeant Paine hits Holly, knocking him down early on, then says, "Oh!  Be careful!" and then helps him up, being really nice about it, it is very much a Groucho moment and oddly perfect. More, it was communicating that there was real goodness and this wasn't just a simple case of police power run brutally amok.

They really brought the funny with the mysterious driver, waiting in the shadows to shanghai Holly into a vehicle then embarking on a death ride that has Holly shouting at the driver through the bars, "HAVE YOU BEEN HIRED TO KILL ME?!"  From the perspective of someone who did not see that coming, the film had me exactly where it wanted me for that scene and the reveal.  I haven't laughed that hard in months.

Wilkommen! 

The last random thought I had about form was the names of two of the primary characters, Holly Martins and Harry Lime. 

It might be overplaying it but the only thing I can think of that holly (as a plant) and limes have in common is that they are both green.  And our author is none other than Graham Greene.  It is very possible that this is just a coincidence, but given the humor present, I would like to believe that Greene is taking a poke at me from beyond the grave in a clever and amusing fashion.

The What:
This movie is about identity.  But genius of this level slips out of categorization pretty readily.  The closest I can come briefly, is that this is an exploration of the inexorable nature of will and acceptance, in how that relates to the shaping of identity.

It isn't a sense of fatalism, but rather the idea that once we decide, that choice becomes real and becomes central to a sense of self that is either impossible or devilishly difficult to change or deny.

I don't know Greene well enough to be be aware of his influences, but I was reminded of two great thinkers of the era previous to Greene that may have been in the background to some extent.

First would be Dostoevsky (though Anna may be a nod to Tolstoy instead), in that the character's behavior seem to stem from their central ideas chiefly.  Character becomes a specific type or a way of looking at the world.

So, as a few ham handed examples: Harry would be our amoral pragmatist, Holly our resident idealist who believes reason will lead to truth, the doctor is our positive scientific empiricist, Calloway is organized around justice, with the ends justifying the means and Anna is centrally focused by a love that is blinded to other circumstance. Taken together, they form a mosaic of possible ways to look at the world and those perspectives help drive the plot forward.

Second would be Charles Saunders Peirce, a mathematician and philosopher who did ground breaking work in the area of philosophy of language and semiotics. He specifically had a notion of Thirdness, that while not quoted directly, I just couldn't get away from, even while the movie was still running.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirdness

It's a bad summary, but Peircian Firstness would be a quality in metaphysical sense. Secondness would be a response or relational reference to the quality at hand and Thirdness would be a further expansion and reflection of the first two. As an overly simplistic example:

Firstness: thought (in the sense of possibility of thought)
Secondness: a specific actual idea someone is thinking
Thirdness: metacognition (thinking about the idea, or thought in general)

Peirce held that there couldn't be anything truly new or creative without Thirdness.  It's ironic that in the movie, it is Holly who is the catalytic Third and not Harry Lime.  Holly is the one who brings the extra outside perspective that leads to the mystery of the accidental death unraveling in full.

With Peirce as a filter, let me take a run at Anna, Holly and Harry, in that order.

First, up, Anna Schmidt.
Lovely, mysterious, with hints of a difficult past, it's easy to see how Holly would fall for her quickly.  Anna had a number of fantastic noiriffic quotes, but I think my favorite was:

A person doesn't change just because you find out more. ~Anna

Holy cats. Check please. So running Anna through the Pierce colander might look like this:

Firstness: love can be constant
Secondness: she chooses to love Harry (and eschew Holly) in spite of Harry's actions
Thirdness: love must be loyal at all costs, even after (in some sense) betrayal and death

In a move that would make Freud proud, Anna repeatedly calls Holly, “Harry” by mistake. The obvious chemistry between them leads us to believe (maybe even to hope) that they would eventually connect, and some part of Anna wants this as well it seems.  Her loyalty to Harry, misguided though it seems, keeps Holly at arm's length.

We don't get the final verdict until the very last scene where Anna keeps walking and never even looks at Holly (or the camera). As it was happening, I truly didn't know what she would do. Would she stop? Would they go off together? Would she look at him and sadly walk away?  When I saw it to completion, I'm not too proud to admit that goat noises were involved.  Wow.

I admit that what she finally ends up doing is perfect, but it's interesting to me that while I didn't see it coming,it was flawless in concept and execution.

Second, Holly Martins.
The jaunty, quirky stylings of the zither were a pitch perfect introduction to Holly.

I'd make comic faces... and stand on my head and grin at you between my legs... and tell all sorts of jokes. I wouldn't stand a chance, would I?  ~Holly

That would be a no, really big no nope nopers, you don't stand a chance. But it's encouraging that he still hopes that he does, even at the very end. For Holly, I would slap him with Pierce like so:

Firstness: a world of disappointment and death can still end well
Secondness: think clearly and pay attention, the clues will lead to truth and that will be good
Thirdness: the truth and even heroic action can still know real sorrow and loss

There is something noble in how much he loves his old friend and even the decision to betray him isn't unloving. Even the decision to ultimately kill him, wasn't borne in revenge or hatred. True, he doesn't “get himself a girl” but there is still the sense that he'll somehow be OK.

Third, Harry Lime.
This being set in the literal, actual rubble of WWII gives a horrible weight to Harry's speech about the unimportance of the individual.

Nobody thinks in terms of individuals. Governments don't. Why should we? ~Harry

Well, Boo Boo, you should, because if you don't millions of innocent people die and cities like Vienna get “bombed up a bit” and are reduced to rubble, causing problems for generations. But for Harry, this is a real question and his answer comes up differently.

Firstness: a world that gives us WWII isn't good or evil, it just is
Secondness: be practical then, Vienna in dire straits is a place to make some easy money
Thirdness: from the right distance, people are just “dots”, and if they die because of your actions, well, they would have died eventually anyway

One of the things that makes Harry interesting, is that in spite of his arguably evil philosophy, he is likeable. The grin when he was revealed was delicious. That he doesn't kill Holly on the Ferris Wheel humanizes him to some extent, and there is the sense that he wants Holly to help Anna escape to a better life. The last exchange, where he acknowledges Holly and seems to give him permission to do what he feels he must was sublime.

What I'm wondering is if Greene and Carole are using this film as Thirdness (or something like Thirdness) to get us to ask questions that are truly new, without dictating to us a prescribed answer. Wouldn't be cool if they could actually pull that off?

If The Third Man has a definition of virtue, I would say that Harry's approach to life and opportunity isn't the right way to go. But it also seems that Holly's approach and Anna's approach are flawed as well, paying a terribly high price for doing what they see to be right.

For my part, it seems right to watch this with a friend and talk about what it might mean over a tasty beverage afterwards.

For us, it was some freshly brewed tea.

queue de grace: parmesian encrusted with taste buds ringing in delight

For years I didn't like fish.

I mean for eating, I wasn't somehow enraged by halibut, should I ever happen to meet one. 

But fish tasted bland and lifeless, with a texture that was a bit like crumbly epoxy, accompanied by a side of bad fishy smell, and undercooked soggy fries, with the last dregs of watery ketchup from a bottle long past it's prime.  Or it tasted really scary and too alive to be dealt with.  My appendix isn't active, and I don't want to think about my body trying to digest that nasty thing I just managed to choke down.

Delicious.

Then I discovered that, growing up in Oklahoma, I'd never had fish before.  Not really anyway.  My understanding of fish as non-edible was based on Mrs. Paul's Fish Sticks, and the little bars of leftover oceanic pieces / parts that were served in the school cafeteria.  Fish don't have fingers, you pirates, you're not fooling anyone here.

Amazing how 20+ years later I can still vividly remember that smell.  It's like a visit to the fish dentist.

To be fair, if you bother to look, Oklahoma has amazing catfish and there are folks and restaurants who can prepare it properly.  Done right, it will rival almost any dish I can think of.  For whatever reason, that experience was outside my circle and I was stuck with swillfish and re-processed bass innards.

My ephishany happened with friends on the coast of North Carolina.  Apparently there was a seafood place of southern renown and they were all buzzing about it.  I was along for the ride, and didn't want to be too much of a downer, so was planning to quietly order something safe and hope for the best.

To the horror of the entire table, I ordered chopped steak and some shrimp on the side as a meager attempt at participating in "seafood."   One of the more colorful natives said, "Son, what the hell are you doing?  Did you see any cows on the trip out here?"

Ouch, good point.  I timidly explained that I didn't like fish, from my extensive seafood-sampling experience from completely landlocked Oklahoma.  They all thought that was pretty funny.  It's like a Canadian who doesn't like Mexican Food, because Taco Bell in Calgary gets meat from a bag... you get the idea.

So the same gregarious southerner, who knew our waitress by name, ordered a gigantic sampler of basically everything the restaurant served... with the goal of forcing me to eat a bite of everything while a crowd looked on.  A fishocopia of 17 kinds of aquatic phylum, shrimp, scallops, clams and things I didn't catch the name of arrived and several people started arguing about what I should be force fed first.

Can I just say, that this was not fun for me?  I have simple tastes, I know what I like and please leave me alone.  Please.  I don't need to expand my horizons to bricks and centipedes and fish.

Until the first bite.  The clouds parted and light shone down from heaven on the absolute miracle that was fish done well.  Holy smokes was it wonderful, and everything I tried just got better and better.

Over the years, I've not liked Chinese Food, Thai Food, Sushi, Bluegrass, Opera and Classical Music, among other things.

It's been a fun ride of similarly mind blowing experiences when someone has rightfully told me that I'm an idiot and here, open the hangar and let something new wing it's way into your piehole.

So, it's time for Old Movies to have a go.  The simple tonnage of things I don't know, to borrow a line from West Wing, would stun a team of oxen in it's tracks.  I get that, but old movies have been boring for me.  At least the 14 minutes of them in total that I've watched in between endless stints of car chases and explosions.

Of course there are exceptions.  I lost a bet to my wife and she made me watch On the Waterfront (1954).  OK I'll give you that one, great movie.  Part of my issue is that, for me, movie watching is all about expectations and there are two basic categories:

One: I want explosions and car chases and popcorn.  92 minutes of escapist fun.  Dialogue and plot are optional, I really don't care.  It has to be truly, truly bad, before a movie will irritate me if I've put it in bucket number one.

Two: I want to see something really good.  True Grit, Gladiator, A Few Good Men, Raising Arizona, Dark Knight, 3:10 to Yuma, The Shawshank Redemption, Unbreakable, Gran Torino... you get the idea.  I want a score that is genius, I want camera work that looks like a series of paintings, I want dialogue that Shakespeare would smile at, I want a plot that isn't a bad retelling of something done better 400 years ago.  I want to be challenged and surprised and I want to mull it over for a few days before I feel like I get it.

And surprisingly often, that happens.  People are making good movies from time to time.  As long as I'm not confused about which category movie I'm watching, I'm good to go.

I really enjoyed the Star Wars films.  They were bucket number one.  I'm not there for dialogue or philosophical revelation.  I'm there for special effects, light sabers and at some point, a girl with cinnamon rolls on her head (last movie had that accomplished in 4minutes 11seconds).  I get those things and I'm golden.

I really hated the last Matrix movie.  I thought it was going to be bucket #2, but instead it was a giant digital hairball that lasted for two hours and violated every great thing about the first two movies.  Even during the movie, someone I was with said, out loud, "this sucks" and the room applauded that assessment.   I WAS there for a philosophical revelation, and all I got was a monkey throwing his own poo at the screen.

It felt like the writers died, and brought in their crazy cousin Eddie to finish the screen play.  Boo.

But alas, my simple movie going world is about to get taken off the rails.  I know this because I've avoided old movies like I avoid flu shots. 

I know people that I love and trust who adore dozens, hundreds of old movies and go on and on about how great they are.  It's been on my list of things to do (appreciate old movies better), but I haven't dug in, because I knew I would get sucked in to this weird little world... and because I really didn't know where to start.

Second problem solved.  My friend Cole, purveyor of vitagraph, american and writer of things you should know about movies at http://vitagraphamerican.blogspot.com/ has taken my plea for help and generated a starting list of old movies for Karen and I to watch.  The notion is called the "queue de grace" and basically involves turning over your viewing of movies for a period of time over to some crazy person, and then writing about them.  It's a cool idea and Cole has done this a couple of times on his blog.

He's a talented movie critic, who is making all the noises of an expert in the field.  It will be a matter of time before someone pays him to do this full time, or there is no justice in the earth. 

The reverse queue was also a rousing success (at least it was delightful to me) in watching Cole generate a list for Thomas Lazlo, 8 year old and author of http://awesome9000.blogspot.com/?zx=78bfe3fed5e0a9b9.

So here we go, I'll get as close to a single week as I can in watching these and responding... and will do my best to trick Karen into posting as well.  The queue is:

the third man (1949)
the general (1926)
my man godfrey (1936)
brief encounter (1945)
m (1931)
laura (1944)
the bride of frankenstein (1935)
the battle of algiers (1966)
the exiles (1961)
a man for all seasons (1966)
arsenic and old lace (1944)
the wages of fear (1953)

I don't like fish.  I especially don't like sea bass from the Chart House, here in Old Town Alexandria.

And I don't like old movies. 

I figured I would get that in one last time, before my ill informed and ridiculously prejudiced opinions get crushed by irritating people who think they can show me something really cool that I don't already know.