Movies to Study: Psycho

There are many reasons why Hitchcock's 'Psycho' is one of the best films ever, but I think one of the real treasures of the film is the performance by Anthony Perkins. He has a very boyish quality that plays perfectly with the relation to his mother, and we have no trouble believing that his best friend is his mother. But what makes a role great is that when watched repeatedly, things are always taken in new and different ways.

The first time watching the film, one sees him as an innocent victim to a sheltered life and an overbearing mother. He cares about her, cleans up her mess, and really did kind-of like Marion Crane. Then, when you watch it for the second time, it's much clearer. He is a great liar to strangers, but when we know what's going on, it seems so obvious. This also works, though, because his character, Norman Bates, really is innocent of murder; what he's guilty of is covering up his mother's crimes. He clearly doesn't enjoy having to send Marion's car into the swamp, but there's never a question that he wouldn't.

Norman Bates, so often calm, only trips up once, and that's when Arbogast comes to question him. He stutters, which is an obvious tell, but Norman still escapes because he subconsciously tosses the onus to his mother--and obviously she's not going to incriminate anyone. Later, in the third act when Sam and Lila visit to check it out, Norman is back to form, and despite getting caught, plays until the final beat.

The film is also a master of subtlety and coincidence. In the third act, a few times, the Sheriff attempts to explain the situation to Sam and Lila, but they cut him off or he gets sidetracked. Because of this, our curiosity is prolonged until the final scene where we get an secondary school psychology lesson. Questions arise before this point: Did his mother fake her death? Was someone else killed and buried instead of her? What does Norman mean when he says she's 'invalid'? Just who the hell is walking around the house in woman's clothes? And it all makes sense, back to the very beginning, when Norman said he liked to stuff birds. He mentions the chemicals that preserve them, which he clearly used on his mother's corpse.

One of my favorite lines comes from Norman (who else?): "She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes." On the first run, we assume he's just defending his mother. Why should he put her in "some place"? He belittles Marion and makes her feel cruel for even suggesting such a thing, but OH, the sweet irony of those words. Norman is literally 'mad' in the film, which is a mean twist on its own, but every other character also goes a little 'mad'. Marion steals $40,000, Arbogast walks in on an old lady who he knows he shouldn't barge in on (both on legal terms and from Norman's verbal contributions), and Sam not only becomes stand-offish with Norman, but almost seems to be making the switch from Marion to her sister. Lila appears to be the only rational person in the film, because even though she busts into the house and finds Mrs. Bates, wouldn't any sister do the same?

One could make the case for Sam as they have for Lila: Wouldn't any lover do anything to save them? I doubt it, because as we saw in scene one, Sam won't marry Marion because he's got alimony. I don't know about you, but if I cared so much about someone, I would want to marry them no matter how much money I did or didn't have. But Marion cares about him; that's why she stole the $40,000.

There have been many essays written on Hitchcock's direction, and I feel no need to rehash those here. But when his mastery of storytelling came together with this perfect script and these great actors, it made one of the best films of all time.

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Movies to Study: Bringing Up Baby

I usually try to keep the Movies to Study column about films that are fairly recent. You can go almost anywhere and find essays on why Citizen Kane or The Godfather are perfect films. Tonight I was watching Bringing Up Baby and my sister came into the room. I paused the movie and said, "Do you know who that is?"

"No," she replied.

"Katherine Hepburn. Do you know who she is?"

"No."

Then I went forward a couple frames and did the same thing for Cary Grant. Same response. It's sad how most people in the young generation have no clue who these people are, yet they are icons and have been in more great films than almost any of the actors working today. So in order to champion my cause of pushing older classics, that is why Bringing Up Baby is the newest Movie to Study.

The heart of this film is a romantic comedy, and for a film made in 1938, the material is still fresh. A lot of these jokes and setups are still used in comedies today. There's some slapstick, some puns, some general turmoil, misunderstandings, crazy characters, cross-dressing, and leopards. All necessary elements for a successful comedy.

The main reason this film succeeds is simple: because of Katherine Hepburn. There are no two ways about it. The script is fantastic, and Cary Grant sells his part well, but Katherine Hepburn does her best work in this film. Not one film historian will agree with me on that, but damn them all. With so many great performances on her resume, I still love Susan Vance the best. In this film she is described as on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Is she really going a little crazy, or is it that being around Cary Grant makes her feel that way? She admits late in the film that nothing she did was ever thought through other than how it would keep him with her. In old movies like this there didn't have to be a crazy stalker agenda, or a strong sex drive, or relentless pursuing of another person. The only thing we feel is that Susan needs David (Cary Grant). It also helps that Kate Hepburn was quite young in this role and played a part dependent on another person, whereas in a lot of films (and in her life) she was controlling. Nothing wrong with that, but when her character is the other way around, it's more endearing.

The film digresses to calamity towards the end when everyone is in jail. It feels like a cut reel from a Marx Brothers film. My one gripe with the film is that the jail scene goes on a tad bit too long, but that is more than made up for when, in one of my favorite scenes from any movie, Susan returns to the jail dragging in 'Baby.' Oh. Baby is a leopard that has come into Susan's possession. It's one of the many trifles that tie her and David together, along with a dinosaur bone (he's a paleontologist [or, as Susan would wrongly call him, a zoologist]), a suit, a million dollar grant, and a stolen car.

The plot of the movie is sort of a roundabout of events, one piling on top of the other. Most comedies do do that. Fortunately, Bringing Up Baby manages to keep everything in line and is very subtle in the details it brings up. When Susan first gets the tame leopard from her brother Mark, she reads the letter: " 'He's three years old, gentle as a kitten, and likes dogs.' I wonder whether Mark means that he eats dogs or is fond of them?" When one person reads the letter, I'm sure they interpret that one way and one way only. Interesting that Susan would think both ways. Also, of course, they have a pet dog named George.

One problem with modern comedies is the predictability pattern. At least with bland comedies. Irony has become so commonplace that it almost never surprises anymore. If a character goes to a bar and says, "I hope Mike isn't here," every single time Mike is going to be there. Movies like Bringing Up Baby had it right. I don't want to ruin it, but there is a scene in the woods (when they are hunting the escaped leopard) where Susan mentions that something should not be a problem, and then immediately after, the characters fall and we see she was wrong. There is no time to really comprehend what happened, because the joke knows it doesn't have to linger. The film understands that the audience should not be given time to think--they must be forced to move with the film. Oh, and in that scene, Susan's justification for her error is also brilliant.

I haven't even addressed the issue of David's fiancee from the beginning and end of the film. What's also great here is that we get all of our exposition in, literally, the first 3 minutes of the film. We find out David is engaged to Alice, that they won't have a family of a honeymoon, but she wants to marry him because they share a career. Obviously he's unhappy with this. We also get that he's awaiting the delivery of the last bone to complete his brontosaurus (this bone is another plot device). Afterward, we can focus completely on David's relationship with Susan.

The film was a complete failure when it was originally released. Why? Who knows. We could possibly put it down for 'ahead of its time.' Since this was 1938, that's not too hard to imagine.

I promise that if you watch this film you will be entertained. It is better than 99% of the 'comedies' released these days. And if you don't like it, honestly, you have no appreciation for good humor and should go back to watching 'Meet the Spartans.' Bringing Up Baby is on par with the best.

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Movies to Study: Clueless

A couple days ago, through a string of conversation, one of my friends attempted to insult another friend by saying that he liked the movie 'Clueless.' In response, the other friend said, 'Clueless is like a critically acclaimed movie, like Mean Girls was.' I don't know about 'critically acclaimed,' though it does have an 83% Fresh on Rottentomatoes.com, but what I do know is that the movie is a strong lesson in writing comedy.

Cher Horiwitz, our protagonista of the film, has a very unique perspective of the world around her--she's a pleasant blend of an egocentric personality and naivete to the world around her. Listen how she first describes her Dad:

Daddy's a litigator. Those are the scariest kind of lawyer. Even Lucy, our maid, is terrified of him. And daddy's so good he gets $500 an hour to fight with people. But he fights with me for free because I'm his daughter.

The movie is, if nothing else, a strong mesh of great one-liners. "Searching for a boy in high school is as useless as searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie." I'm sure all high school girls would agree, though today I doubt any of them even know who Pauly Shore is.

My favorite part of the movie goes in three phases (like all traditional comedy). When Tai goes over to Cher's house, Cher explains how she tries to learn a new word each day, and it helps to use it in a sentence.

"Sporadic means once in a while. Try using it in a sentence," Cher says to Tai.

That's the setup.

Then, later in that scene, Josh (Paul Rudd) comes in, talks for a beat, and then as he's leaving, he says, "Be seeing you...."

To which Tai responds, "I hope not sporadically."

Hardly a strong grasp of vocabulary, and the awkwardness Tai imposes is the immediate laugh.

But to show how subtle the film is, think about later in the film. Christian comes over to Cher's house to watch movies. Cher tells us, Christian had a thing for Tony Curtis so he brought over "Some Like it Hot" and "Sporadicus."

Sporadicus? Clearly she means 'Spartacus,' but makes a mistake. Her own attempts to become intelligent work against her every once in a while--maybe Cher can't overcome her natural blond lifestyle.

Another interesting thing about the film: Christian is a gay character in the movie, but it is kept hidden as long as possible, ideally to reveal it to us at the same time it's revealed to Cher. And then, in the mall during a scene right after the reveal, Christian is wearing a pink jacket. Odd how he never wore pink before, but now that we know, it's fine.

My only real gripe with the film is in the ending, where Cher and her step-brother Josh get together. Sure, they aren't blood related, but it's still a bit weird. But hey, it's a comedy. Whatever.

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Movies to Study: The Savages

In my original review of 'The Savages,' I stated: "Both of our protagonists are intelligent, yet fail to grasp on to the essentials of traditional happy living. Raised by their irritable father and abandoned by their mother, Wendy is trapped in an affair with a married man, while Jon can't commit to marrying his girlfriend from Poland, even though that means her visa will expire and she has to leave the country. These characters have a good heart, but are simply unaware of how to use it." 'The Savages' is a film about dealing with dementia, but the subtext here is the story of Jon and Wendy's realization that they have more in common than just their father.

The film begins with mellow music and a montage of elderly people dancing, swimming, playing golf, riding bikes. First impressions: Is this a musical disguised as a drama? No, no it is not. It's us being shown what Lenny Savage is missing since he is confined in his home not by his age, but his illness.

The film is a lesson in subtlety. Notice how in the first scene, while Lenny's longtime girlfriend Doris is being dressed by the home care technician, he does not put her ring on her ring finger, but her pinky finger. A small sign of things to come, and one that is easily overlooked because of common assumptions that, A) old people living together are married, and B) we saw the photograph on the fridge moments earlier. And sometimes the subtlety plays into the comedy of later scenes, like when Wendy takes Lenny's suspenders and hat off because they're "not your style," and then when he stands up on the plane... well, you can guess what happens.

Both Laura Linney (Wendy) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Jon) are outstanding in their roles, proving that they're two of this generation's best actors. Linney, so great in movies ranging from 'Love, Actually' to 'The Truman Show' to 'Kinsey,' delivers another touching performance. Take the scene where she tells Jon that she got the Guggenheim fellowship. She's timid and doesn't say much -- which at first we think is because of the situation: Her father has dementia and her brother doubt her talent and called her life "portable," which she interprets to mean like a portable toilet. But knowing how things turn out, it's clear to see she's hiding something in plain view. And since Jon, her brother, couldn't pick up on it, it's no wonder we can't. Again, subtlety.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Jon straightforward. He is always rational and blunt in dealing with their father. His philosophy is that a nursing home is a nursing home, and the landscaping is all for the family. True, though no one wants to acknowledge this -- especially Wendy. But where Jon succeeds in getting their father into a nursing home, he fails in his personal life. He claims he isn't ready to marry his Polish girlfriend of three years, yet he cries when she cooks him eggs in the morning. Not just the morning before she leaves, but every morning since he realized that their time is finite.

The movie flows like poetry, with one scene almost always leading into the next. I usually dislike cheap gimmicky transitions, such as, "I wonder where he is now," and then the next scene shows where he is now. 'The Savages' uses a little more finesse. When Jon and Wendy first talk on the phone, Jon concludes that they'll really be in trouble when they reach the red zone, but right now they're in orange, maybe yellow. The next shot if of Ravishing Red, the nail polish Lenny's girlfriend Doris is getting just before she dies. Another example is when Jon and Wendy go to a dementia support group. The scene, while having the undercurrent of humor in their eating of refreshments, shows that they do care about Lenny. Support groups are often for the individuals attending, but the group leader mentions ways to help care for your elder, and one of them is talk about old movies. The next scene is Movie Night presented by Lenny Savage. Unfortunately this experience does not go nearly as well as the Savages expected when Lenny screens 'The Jazz Singer,' a film that seems racist by today's standards, but as Jon said, you have to judge it in historical context.

The color red is also an important symbol in this film. We have the red nail polish before Doris dies, the big red pillow that Wendy buys for her father, and just before Lenny's toes curl up (like the Witch in the Wizard of Oz, meaning he's about to die) the scene fades in over the red lava lamp that lights up Lenny's room. There was another great movie that did this with oranges, maybe you've heard of it. It was called 'The Godfather.' Though, obviously, 'The Savages' isn't quite 'Godfather' quality.

Here, Tamara Jenkins makes a wonderful film that I hope will last a long time in the hearts of movie-goers. She knows when the film should be charming, when it should be silly, and when it should be sincere. She achieves something fewer and fewer movies these days seem to accomplish: She makes us care about the characters.

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Movies to Study: Zodiac

The first movie in my official Movies to Study column will be the 2007 movie Zodiac. As always, be warned that a decent amount of spoilers will be ahead. But probably not enough to ruin the experience for you, just enough to get my point across.

We shall begin here with the director, David Fincher, who has also directed Fight Club, Seven, and Panic Room, all of which are good, if not great movies. But where Fight Club lacked in motif, and Panic Room lacked in ethos, Zodiac manages to encompass all of these criteria. The movie clocks in at 158 minutes and is split into two very distinctive halves. The first half is spent showing the murders, victims, and suspects hinting at the identity of the Zodiac. Yet when we arrive at the second half, the story focuses on Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his obsession over finding out the identity of the killer. Both halves are imperative to the success of the film.

The story opens vividly on July 4th, and we begin not with the first murder, but with Zodiac's first letter to the SF Chronicle. We jump right into the story, and James Vanderbilt's screenplay wastes no time giving us a punch in the ribs. We see the killings, and not only do we witness a mere shooting, but we see the Zodiac turn around, after nearly walking away, to finish the job.

The first part of the story is held together by the Zodiac's letters to the SF Chronicle, yes, but also with the actions the police take throughout the years. So we have the Zodiac, the newspapers, and the law. If any of these elements were absent the film would have failed. They serve to compliment each other, but more than anything, it gives us some grounding because when Graysmith eventually takes this into his own hands, we believe all the information he digs up and finds.

And there is so much information. Had this been a string of newspaper articles, the film could have been thirty minutes. But the way details are given in short supply (after the first few scenes) make the unfolding of the story a pleasure, despite the fact it's about multiple homicides.

In Zodiac there are many great moments, but two of the most impacting ones come close to the end of the film. The first is when suddenly, about two hours into the film, everything clicks for Graysmith. His wife/girlfriend/whatever Melanie gives him a copy of Arthur Leigh Allen's driver's license. Graysmith pounds on Inspector Toschi's door, screaming that he knows who it was. Toschi's out. He wants to beat up Graysmith for even coming near him. But in the rain, Graysmith slams the license up on the door. What follows, at the coffee shop, is a complete catch-up which seems like immense evidence against Allen. The time line, the weapons, the watch, the books, the military history, the stories, everything. But as Toschi tells him, he cannot prove this. Handwriting and fingerprints. It's both satisfying and crushing to watch this scene.

The second moment that seals the film is the end, when Graysmith visits an Ace Hardware store just to look Allen in the eye, as he said to Melanie much earlier. He wants to look at him, and just know. I've watched hundreds of movies where the bad guy goes to jail or gets killed in some way or form, simply because it is a movie, and none of those endings were as satisfying as this one. There is no arrest of the Zodiac -- the case is still supposedly open -- but we know, as does Graysmith, that Arthur Leigh Allen did it. And that's closure. That is a great story.

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New Column: Movies to Study

The other day I did a post about how Hot Fuzz is a movie that should be studied. Now that it has sunk in, I think this will be a good trend for my blog.

This new column, Movies to Study, will serve multiple purposes. First, it will be a venue for me to spread the word about movies that you readers may not have seen nor heard of. But even if you have, hopefully this will give you something to think about--to discuss.

Also, this will be a way for me to practice analyzing movies, as well as share some of my favorites. The articles will be focused primarily on the screenplay, but naturally acting, direction, cinematography, etc will come into play.

Lastly, I plan to attempt to stick to more recent movies. Sure some Hitchcock or Billy Wilder films are bound to pop up, but I'll try to stick to some recent flicks that are more easily accessible.

With that said, expect a new article tomorrow. Or later tonight.

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Hot Fuzz is a Movie to Study

For any who have not seen last year's Hot Fuzz, you are thoroughly missing out. Two nights ago I watched the movie for a second time, with a much greater appreciation. On a first viewing I enjoyed it, but seeing it a second time solidified it as a film instead of a movie.

[note: there will be a decent amount of spoilers after the jump]

The film works on multiple levels. First, we have the whodunit, the cop trying to find a murderer, some brutal deaths (which work because they are so over-the-top vivid), and it all fits together seamlessly. A lesser movie would have had Nick Angel been right in all his research and guesswork that Skinner was the main bad guy. That would have been the climax of the film, with more fluff inserted before. However, this film has our hero go astray, completely missing the more basic point of how every one of the victims was hurting the town's chances at the award. This ridiculous end-game leads us to the second point.

On another level the film works as a comedy. And it works well. There are many subtle, but also many slapstick moments. Elements of parody (which are also comedy) fall into my third level, so we'll pass on those for now. Consider, though, how the movie gets away with jokes. Toward the very beginning of the movie the police are talking about going through the whole phone book, and how they will start with Aaron A. Aaronson. The comedy works immediately, but at almost the closing moments of the film, we actually meet Aaron Aaronson in person. Most movies would have pulled this out sooner, but Hot Fuzz catches us off-guard. While we're still contemplating all the twists and turns of the mystery up to this point -- completely forgetting that small scene earlier -- we meet Aaron, and I erupted in laughter.

The third way this film works is as a parody. And not a parody like Epic Movie or Meet the Spartans, but Hot Fuzz is self-aware. We're not surprised when Nick and Danny do all the things from Point Break and Bad Boys II, but the moments parodied are fluid, not forced, and that is why it works so well.

I don't like writing conclusions, so I will finish this later. Maybe.

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