Thursday, February 8, 2018
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Sex, art, and sweets!: a review of Turkish Delight
Sex, art, and sweets!: a review of Turkish Delight
Turkish Delight is an ambiguous title for this film since the film can be best described as the bittersweet dream of a rebelious sculptor's (Rutger Hauer) discovery of perfection in a young vivacious redhead (Monique van de ven) and inevitable discovery that not all things are what they seem to be on the surface. Remember this as you watch the initial montage of brutal crimes perpetrated by Eric upon Olga. Their stormy relationship begins after this in flashback, culminating in their split. But there's a lot in between that will help you to understand the context of these few details I've provided that you won't see the end coming when it does.
This is a sweet entertaining film and an excellent primer for those unfamiliar with foreign films. Very very funny at times, though often raunchy, and, as common in Verhoeven's Dutch film offerings, there are no special efforts to cover up male and female private areas. When discussions come up about the greatest actors, Hauer's name should be among them.
Monday, February 5, 2018
A review of Titanic and how it stacks up against Roy Ward Baker's 'A Night To Remember'
A review of Titanic and how it stacks up against Roy Ward Baker's 'A Night To Remember'
Everything about the 1997 film Titanic was epic from its $200,000,000.00 budget--the biggest budget for any film up to that time--to the unreasonable ambitions of its gangly 6 foot 2 director who came to the project with a legendary work-til-you-drop ethos that only longtime collaborators Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Paxton could understand and appreciate on a consistent basis. But when I heard the rumors of Director James Cameron following up his '94 action film True Lies with a movie about a boat whose history is well-known I was very disappointed because he'd been rumored since the 80s to make Spider-man. But then I recalled the level of integrity in all the films he'd done prior to 1997 and realized that if anybody could make an exciting film of a boat sinking in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, that man could only be James Cameron. And when I saw the movie when it came out on December 19, 1987, I was right.
James Cameron's 1997 disaster epic Titanic is based on the ship's ill-fated 1912 maiden voyage from Southhampton to New York but instead of the disaster itself, the film uses the disaster as a backdrop for steerage passenger and aspiring artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and 1st Class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) who become romantically involved to the chagrin of her groom-to-be, Cal (Billy Zane) and her mother, Ruth (Frances Fisher) who prearranges the marriage due to financial difficulties and the debts of her deceased husband. This relationship occupies the foreground for much of the film and used by the director to parallel the ship's sinking by acting as Jack and Rose's relationship and the opposition they faced from her society.
On the film's documentary, Cameron is very open about the fact that he watched Roy Ward Baker's 1958 film A Night To Remember for inspiration, and if you've seen that film you see the strong pedigree between them as they are almost word-for-word the same exact film with the exception of the Jack and Rose story thread which was ingenious on the part of Cameron because their story--getting to follow these 2 characters whose relationship from the beginning (like the ship itself) is ill-fated--humanizes the wholesale and generic statistic of the 1,500 faceless and nameless people who lost their lives that night. Jack Dawson dies as the ship dies but the film itself will be around for generations to come.
Everything about Titanic was miraculous and unprecedented. When I saw it on opening weekend I started counting down for it to come out on video tape which, at the time, was the dominant format. It was number 1 that 1st weekend and it usually takes a film about 2 months to fall out of the top 10; Titanic took around 52 weeks to fall to number 2! The movie was the 1st to cross the billion dollar threshold the equivalent of someone going from an amateur talent show to Michael Jackson in just 1 year. His 2009 film Avatar topped Titanic but it doesn't have the same magic of its predecessor in any way, shape, or form. I got this on blu ray not too long ago and the picture and sound quality are excellent as are the documentaries on the making of the film.
Sunday, February 4, 2018
Michael Corleone steals a page out of Sun Tzu's playbook: an analysis of The Godfather Part 2
In this presentation, I will use the Bible and Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ to examine key scenes from Director Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 film The Godfather. Thanks.
Clip 1:
The film opens with Don Corleone hosting his daughter’s wedding. According to Sicilian custom, a Don cannot refuse any reasonable request on the day of his daughter’s wedding.A mortician named Bonasera stops by to ask the Godfather to avenge his daughter whose jaw is wired shut after being beaten by 2 young White men. The Don is insulted by this request but agrees to avenge the young woman after the mortician humbles himself and shows the proper respect by addressing him as ‘Godfather.’ Family and marriage are extremely important to God so the film opening with a wedding is no coincidence.
The opening scene introduces the Don’s 3 sons: Fredo, Sonny, and Michael. Santino or Sonny is the oldest of the 3 and next in line to assume his father’s empire. But, to the Don’s dismay, Sonny is hot-tempered and an unfaithful husband. Fredo, the middle son, has a good head for business, but he is weak when it comes to alcohol and lacks the masculine force essential to be a Don. Michael, the youngest son, possesses his father’s intelligence, discipline, and force; he’d make the perfect successor to his father. However, he wants nothing to do with the Family business and to distance himself further joins the army and marries a White woman instead of a Sicilian. The fact that he, Michael, has pledged his loyalty and his life for a country and not his own father is, in a sense, infidelity. Nevertheless, the Godfather, though disappointed by this, is patient with this wayward son. Clip 5: Mark 3:25: “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand” Virgil Solozzo is an up-and-coming figure in the New York underworld. He meets with the Don to talk business. Solozzo wants to sell drugs and he needs the judges and prosecutors that are under the Don’s control. The Don’s answer to Solozzo’s deal is no. However, Sonny is also in this meeting and perks up at Solozzo’s deal, which would mean a big profit for the Corleone Family. This break in the wall of the Family is no wider than a strand of hair but Solozzo catches it and, in his mind, he believes that he can strike a deal with Sonny if the Don were out of the way. This division among the Corleone ranks is exploited by Solozzo later.
Sonny, in this clip, violates the following warning by Sun Tzu from The Art of War, Chapter 6 Weak Points and Strong, “In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.” Sonny openly contradicts his father and plants in Solozzo’s mind the seed to murder the Don. Clip 6: The Art Of War, Chapter 9: The Army On The March “The sudden rising of birds in their flight is the sign of an ambush at the spot below. Startled beasts indicate that a sudden attack is coming.” In this scene, the Don has his son Fredo to drive him to the market to buy some vegetables. The Don’s regular driver named Paulie Gatto called in sick for the 3rd time in a month and on this occasion, when he happens to call in sick, the Don is ambushed and shot 5 times as he runs to the car calling out for his son Fredo who is armed but so startled and inexperienced that he can’t get a shot off before the gunmen get away. Paulie Gatto is a seasoned soldier and would have had the composure to shoot the gunmen but, again, he is, conveniently, sick. Art Of War, Chapter VIII: Variation Of Tactics “When in difficult country, do not encamp. In country where high roads intersect, join hands with your allies. Do not linger in dangerously isolated positions.” This is the mistake the Don makes on 2 fronts: 1, he knows for himself—and he is also warned by Hagen, his lawyer, that saying no to the Turk Solozzo will mean trouble. This is why the Don put off meeting with Solozzo until after his daughter’s wedding because he knew telling the Turk no would mean trouble. And, as Hagen pointed out to the Don, there is too much money to be made selling drugs, as Solozzo wants to do. The Don controls many judges and prosecutors and these judges and prosecutors can give light sentences to those caught and convicted of selling narcotics—this is why Solozzo needs the Don. The other Families also want in on the drug action and this isolates the Don, who doesn’t care for drugs at all. The Godfather violates Sun Tzu’s warning not to “encamp” in “difficult country” because all of his businesses are unprotected and of easy access. The Don’s 2nd mistake according to Sun Tzu was not following the precept that “In times of peace, prepare for war; in times of war, prepare for peace.” The long years between wars has made the Don careless and sloppy. Solozzo points this out later when he asks the Don’s lawyer if he could have gotten to the Don 8 years ago.
This scene also foreshadows later scenes in the movie by depicting life and death simultaneously. The Don is laid out after being shot five times and is surrounded by fruits and vegetables in a scene that is almost identical to a latter scene where he eventually dies in a garden while playing his his grandson. Clip 7: Art Of War, Chapter 10: Terrain: “Ground that can be abandoned but is hard to reoccupy is called entangling. From a position of this sort, if the enemy is unprepared, you may sally forth and defeat him. But if the enemy is prepared for your coming, and you fail to defeat him, then, return being impossible, disaster will ensue.” In this scene, having attempted and failed to kill the Godfather, Solozzo seeks a truce to keep Sonny from seeking revenge. Solozzo believes that he and Sonny can strike a deal to go into the drug business, which the Godfather opposed on moral principles. Having failed to kill the Don, Solozzo realizes that he must try again, this time, however, he won’t have the element of surprise in his favor. Clip 8: Hebrews 11, 1—3: “ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” After finding out about the attempted murder of his father, Michael goes by the hospital and discovers that the men assigned to protect his father have been taken off their detail. Michael gets the help of a nurse to move his father’s bed to another room; whoever removed the security detail was going to return to kill his father. The Don is completely vulnerable in this scene, unable to protect himself, completely powerless.
A visitor stops by the hospital with flowers. Enzo had heard about the shooting and came to show his respect and gratitude for the Godfather’s help in keeping him from being deported. He and Michael stand out in front of the hospital. A carload of men cruise by slowly. Michael, as unarmed and as vulnerable as his father in his hospital bed, tells Enzo to reach inside his coat like he has a gun. The car speeds off. This scene is the perfect example of faith being “the evidence of things not seen” because we see 1st the Godfather, stripped of all protection, being protected by his son, Michael, who just happens to stop by the hospital at the precise time that Solozzo’s killers are going to finish him off. When Michael kisses his father and tells him that he is going to be fine, the Don’s smile conveys the fact that he has no doubt that he is going to be OK. Michael’s faith kicks in by the act of “faking” like he has something that he doesn’t have, which is the essence of faith—believing in something invisible as though it were real. To further reinforce this point, when the car speeds away from the hospital, Michael’s hands are steady, unlike Enzo’s hands which are shaking. Clip 9: John 1, Verse 29: “The next day, John[a] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Captain McCluskey, a dirty cop on Solozzo’s payroll, pulls up to the hospital and is so angry upon seeing Michael has 2 officers to hold him and punches him in the jaw, breaking it. Sonny plans to assassinate Solozzo and Michael volunteers to kill both Solozzo and the police captain, McCluskey, who is Solozzo’s bodyguard. Michael, an army veteran and war hero, goes from being a private citizen to a participant. He also sees the hypocrisy of America in that she can be bought and paid for with drug money as symbolized through the relationship between the police captain and the drug dealer he protects.
But their relationship is a reflection of his own relationship to his father who is also invested in illegal activities. It comes down to which world he wants to be a part of: a world in which he isn’t respected and even despised and walked on; or, a world where a man like his father is respected and controls his own destiny, a world where he isn’t a puppet dancing on strings held by others as he was as a U.S. soldier fighting wars started by others.
This scene is a crossroads in which he leaves his old life—his wife, his neutral status—and starts down the path to his ultimate destiny. Also, like Jesus, Michael represents the Lamb or innocence in this particular scene in which they are setting up a meeting between Solozzo and a member of the Corleone Family. Michael seems the perfect choice to represent the family because he is considered a “civilian” and not directly involved in family operations. Therefore, he is the perfect agent to “take away the sins of the world” by eliminating Solozzo and McCluskey. Clip 10: A meeting is set up for Solozzo and Michael Corleone to negotiate a truce. Solozzo is afraid for his life after failing to assassinate the Don and invoking the wrath of Sonny. But in letting the Corleone Family know the site of the meeting, Solozzo commits a grave error: Art Of War, Chapter 6, Weak Points and Strong: “The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known, for then the enemy will have to prepare against a possible attack at several different points; and his forces being thus distributed in many directions, the numbers we shall have to face at any given point will be proportionately few.”
If Solozzo hadn’t have allowed the Corleone Family to know the time and place of the meeting, the chances of an ambush would have been diminished because they—the Corleones—wouldn’t have known where, how, or what time to plant the gun that Michael uses to kill both Solozzo and Captain McCluskey.
Clip 11: In this scene, Sonny visits his sister, Connie, who has a black eye after fighting with her husband, Carlo. Sonny leaves the safety of the compound, finds Carlo, and beats him up.
Clip 12: Following the attempted assassination of the Don, Sonny orders the Family’s button-men to “go to the mattresses” against the Tattaglia family. To equalize the attempt on the Godfather’s life, Sonny orders the hit of Bruno Tattaglia, the eldest son of his family. Since then, Sonny has been under lock and key in the Corleone compound, occasionally venturing out with bodyguards to see his mistress, Lucy Mancini. Later, Carlo beats Connie, who is pregnant, with a belt. Sonny flies out of the Corleone compound in a rage and drives over to straighten out Carlo again. But this time he is gunned down at the tollbooth on the Jones Beach causeway. One of the gunmen even kicks him in the face so that he can’t have an open-casket funeral. Sonny’s downfall is his lack of emotional discipline:
Art Of War, Chapter 9: The Army on The March: “he who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.” Proverbs 25 Verse 28: “Like a city that is broken down and without walls is a man whose spirit is without restraint.” Art Of War,Chapter 1: Laying Plans: “If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.”
It also never occurred to Sonny that the so-called fights between his sister and her husband were deliberately staged to smoke him out into the open where the enemy could get to him: Chapter 6, Weak Points and Strong: “If the enemy is taking his ease, harass him; if quietly encamped, force him to move; if well supplied with food, stare him out. Appear at points that the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected.”
Chapter 6, Weak Points and Strong Points: “If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is to attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve. If the enemy is the invading party, we can cut his line of communications and occupy the roads by which he will have to return…” Clip 13: This scene opens on a Sicilian countryside, as a shepherd is steering a herd of sheep downhill and Michael and two bodyguards are moving uphill in the opposite direction. Michael becomes acquainted with his father’s homeland and discovers a beautiful young woman, a virgin, named Appolonia. He is struck by the “thunderbolt” and forgets about the danger he escaped in America. He even forgets about his wife.
Clip 14: Art Of War, Chapter 11: The Nine Situations “Walk in the path defined by rule, and accommodate yourself to the enemy until you can fight a decisive battle. “At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening; afterward emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.”
In this scene, the Don is fully recovered from the gunshots he suffered earlier in the film and calls the heads of New York’s 5 Families to a meeting in the conference room of a bank that he owns— unofficially. At this meeting, the Don calls for a truce between himself and Frank Tattaglia, both of whom lost sons in the war following the murders of Captain McCluskey and Virgil Solozzo. Sonny ordered the hit on Bruno Tattaglia in whose nightclub Luca Brasi, the Godfather’s top enforcer, had been executed. In retaliation for Bruno’s death, Sonny’s life was taken. The Don wants to ensure Michael’s safe return from Sicily to America.
The Don knows that the Tattaglia and Barzini Families have spies in Sicily hunting for Michael. So, in this meeting, the Don gives his famous “Iron Curtain” speech where he promises that he won’t be the one to break the peace and afterwards, to seal this treaty, he and Tattagla embrace. The Don knows that to secure his son’s safe return to America that he must lay low for the time being humble himself, and suffer insults and trespasses against his territories until he can build the family back up to full-strength. It is not in the movie, but the book describes how the Don engineers Michael’s return to America. There is a young man named Felix of the Bocchicchio Family, which is different from the other Families in the respect that their trade is in supplying themselves as hostages. Disagreements among Families are leveraged with Bocchicchio hostages. If one side fails to uphold its promise in this arrangement, the other side could kill its hostage. The Bocchicchio Family would then turn its wrath on the side that broke the promise that had the hostage killed. This is how the Bocchicchios got paid. But Felix Bocchicchio was different and possessed enough intelligence to not want to be in his Family’s trade.
Felix attended law school, married a nice American White woman, and after getting his law degree and having difficulty finding work, got involved with a friend who worked at a prestigious law firm. This “friend” asked Felix for a favor, for Felix to use his law skills on a complicated bankruptcy scam. There was a one-in-a-million chance of getting caught, this friend promised, but when Felix did get caught he took the whole rap. His friends got reduced sentences by telling the court that Felix strong-armed them into going along and Felix did 5 years in prison. As soon as he got out of prison, he got a gun, found the 2 men who’d framed him eating in a restaurant, and blew their brains out. He waited on the police to arrive at the scene, confessed to the murders, went to trial, was found guilty, and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Someone from his family went to the Godfather for help.The Don sent his lawyer to the prison to make Felix an offer: to see to the comfort of his widow and the education of his children in exchange for confessing to the murders of the police captain and Solozzo whom Michael had killed. Felix confessed to everything with details supplied to him through the Don’s lawyer. Once the switch was thrown and Felix was dead, the Don sent for Michael’s return to America. Clip 15: Art Of War, Chapter 9: The Army on the March: “Pass quickly over mountains, and keep in the neighborhood of valleys” “The Godfather’: “Every man has but one destiny” Michael is still in exile in Sicily after murdering a New York police captain and a drug dealer. He marries a young Sicilian woman named Apollonia and a local Don indebted to the Godfather lets them stay in his villa but only for a short time. Enemy spies are also in Sicily and Michael can’t stay in one place for long. His car is booby-trapped with a bomb that kills his new wife and this death of an innocent is his baptism, or rebirth, into his father’s world and seals his destiny to take over the Corleone empire. The Biblical metaphor here is that his love for Apollonia represents the one thing that could come between himself and complete devotion to his father. Apollonia’s death and the poverty of his homeland enables Michael to fully understand his father’s determination to not be a puppet on a string. Also, as explained in the previous clip, the Don has cleared the way for Michael to return to America and if Apollonia had not died, Michael may not have made the decision to return to America and stand by his father. Throughout this film, death and life are 2 sides of the same coin. Clip 16: Amos 3:3: “Two cannot walk together unless they be in agreement” Mark 6:24: “Man cannot serve 2 masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other.” Mark 2:22: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.” Michael returns to America and his wife, Kay, sees him for the first time in years looking less like the American-looking Michael who’d left and more like his Sicilian father. In this scene, Kay represents the America Michael strived to be a part of and now, after the death of Apollonia and acceptance of his father’s world and ideology, Michael is more distant from her now and Kay feels this disconnnection. But traces of his former love of Kay remain and he wants to somehow make their relationship work. Where before he tried to become a part of her greater society by rejecting his father, joining the army, and marrying her, a non-Sicilian, he now wants her to forsake her world for his world. Kay rejects his world and rejects him and this is made very clear in the sequel when she aborts his son. This conflict is the unifying thread from this point in the storyline and throughout the sequel. Clip 17: As I’ve demonstrated earlier, Christian symbolism is the key to understanding this film. The resurrection and the inseperable relationship between life and death are cyclical in this movie. When Sonny was murdered, the Don rose from his deathbed; when Apollonia was murdered, Michael was reborn, in a sense, and embraced his family, his father, and his own unalterable destiny. Now, in this clip, we again see the Christian symbolism of life, death, and the resurrection as represented by the Godfather dying while playing in a garden with his grandson. A fitting and perfect death, surrounded by life. Also, as 2 objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, the Godfather’s death marks the birth of a new generation under his son Michael. Clip 18: Art Of War, Chapter 4: Tactics “The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.”
Weak Points and Strong: “All men can see the individual tactics necessary to conquer, but almost no one can see the strategy out of which total victory is evolved.” Again, in this clip we see the duality of life and death as Michael attends the baptism of his godson as his soldiers kill off the heads of the other 4 New York Families. By the time the godson is baptized and the heads of the 4 New York Families are executed, Michael emerges in all of his glory as the undisputed Don of Dons, the spiritual reincarnation of his father, Vito Corleone. By pretending to be weak, closing the Family’s New York businesses, and moving everything out to Vegas, Michael and his Family were not only underestimated, but their enemies became arrogant to the point of letting their own guard down as the Bible says in Proverbs 16 and verse 18: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Clip 19: Matt. 13 Verses 37-42: “He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Michael settles all Family business in New York by punishing the traitors in the Family. First, Carlo Rizzi, Connie Corleone’s husband who had Sonny killed; then, Tessio, the Godfather’s own Caporegime, or Lieutenant, who had also, like Carlo Rizzi, sold out to Barzini. The Family accounts in New York are all settled now and we see the cycle of life and death once again repeated as Michael takes the empire his father created to Las Vegas, Nevada. Clip 20: In this scene, we see the seeds being sown for the Family’s slow disintegration. To appease his wife, Michael denies any involvement in the execution of New York’s 4 Families. When she sees Michael through a doorway, having his hand kissed by his bodyguards, he reminds her, according to Mario Puzo’s novel, “Of statues in Rome, statues of those Roman emperors of antiquity, who, by divine right, held the power of life and death over their fellow men. One hand was on his hip, the profile of his face showed a cold proud power, his body was carelessly, arrogantly at ease, weight resting on one foot slightly behind the other. The capo regimes stood before him. In that moment Kay knew that everything Connie had accused Michael of was true (that Michael had murdered her husband, Carlo). She went back in the kitchen and wept.”
The opening scene introduces the Don’s 3 sons: Fredo, Sonny, and Michael. Santino or Sonny is the oldest of the 3 and next in line to assume his father’s empire. But, to the Don’s dismay, Sonny is hot-tempered and an unfaithful husband. Fredo, the middle son, has a good head for business, but he is weak when it comes to alcohol and lacks the masculine force essential to be a Don. Michael, the youngest son, possesses his father’s intelligence, discipline, and force; he’d make the perfect successor to his father. However, he wants nothing to do with the Family business and to distance himself further joins the army and marries a White woman instead of a Sicilian. The fact that he, Michael, has pledged his loyalty and his life for a country and not his own father is, in a sense, infidelity. Nevertheless, the Godfather, though disappointed by this, is patient with this wayward son. Clip 5: Mark 3:25: “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand” Virgil Solozzo is an up-and-coming figure in the New York underworld. He meets with the Don to talk business. Solozzo wants to sell drugs and he needs the judges and prosecutors that are under the Don’s control. The Don’s answer to Solozzo’s deal is no. However, Sonny is also in this meeting and perks up at Solozzo’s deal, which would mean a big profit for the Corleone Family. This break in the wall of the Family is no wider than a strand of hair but Solozzo catches it and, in his mind, he believes that he can strike a deal with Sonny if the Don were out of the way. This division among the Corleone ranks is exploited by Solozzo later.
Sonny, in this clip, violates the following warning by Sun Tzu from The Art of War, Chapter 6 Weak Points and Strong, “In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.” Sonny openly contradicts his father and plants in Solozzo’s mind the seed to murder the Don. Clip 6: The Art Of War, Chapter 9: The Army On The March “The sudden rising of birds in their flight is the sign of an ambush at the spot below. Startled beasts indicate that a sudden attack is coming.” In this scene, the Don has his son Fredo to drive him to the market to buy some vegetables. The Don’s regular driver named Paulie Gatto called in sick for the 3rd time in a month and on this occasion, when he happens to call in sick, the Don is ambushed and shot 5 times as he runs to the car calling out for his son Fredo who is armed but so startled and inexperienced that he can’t get a shot off before the gunmen get away. Paulie Gatto is a seasoned soldier and would have had the composure to shoot the gunmen but, again, he is, conveniently, sick. Art Of War, Chapter VIII: Variation Of Tactics “When in difficult country, do not encamp. In country where high roads intersect, join hands with your allies. Do not linger in dangerously isolated positions.” This is the mistake the Don makes on 2 fronts: 1, he knows for himself—and he is also warned by Hagen, his lawyer, that saying no to the Turk Solozzo will mean trouble. This is why the Don put off meeting with Solozzo until after his daughter’s wedding because he knew telling the Turk no would mean trouble. And, as Hagen pointed out to the Don, there is too much money to be made selling drugs, as Solozzo wants to do. The Don controls many judges and prosecutors and these judges and prosecutors can give light sentences to those caught and convicted of selling narcotics—this is why Solozzo needs the Don. The other Families also want in on the drug action and this isolates the Don, who doesn’t care for drugs at all. The Godfather violates Sun Tzu’s warning not to “encamp” in “difficult country” because all of his businesses are unprotected and of easy access. The Don’s 2nd mistake according to Sun Tzu was not following the precept that “In times of peace, prepare for war; in times of war, prepare for peace.” The long years between wars has made the Don careless and sloppy. Solozzo points this out later when he asks the Don’s lawyer if he could have gotten to the Don 8 years ago.
This scene also foreshadows later scenes in the movie by depicting life and death simultaneously. The Don is laid out after being shot five times and is surrounded by fruits and vegetables in a scene that is almost identical to a latter scene where he eventually dies in a garden while playing his his grandson. Clip 7: Art Of War, Chapter 10: Terrain: “Ground that can be abandoned but is hard to reoccupy is called entangling. From a position of this sort, if the enemy is unprepared, you may sally forth and defeat him. But if the enemy is prepared for your coming, and you fail to defeat him, then, return being impossible, disaster will ensue.” In this scene, having attempted and failed to kill the Godfather, Solozzo seeks a truce to keep Sonny from seeking revenge. Solozzo believes that he and Sonny can strike a deal to go into the drug business, which the Godfather opposed on moral principles. Having failed to kill the Don, Solozzo realizes that he must try again, this time, however, he won’t have the element of surprise in his favor. Clip 8: Hebrews 11, 1—3: “ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” After finding out about the attempted murder of his father, Michael goes by the hospital and discovers that the men assigned to protect his father have been taken off their detail. Michael gets the help of a nurse to move his father’s bed to another room; whoever removed the security detail was going to return to kill his father. The Don is completely vulnerable in this scene, unable to protect himself, completely powerless.
A visitor stops by the hospital with flowers. Enzo had heard about the shooting and came to show his respect and gratitude for the Godfather’s help in keeping him from being deported. He and Michael stand out in front of the hospital. A carload of men cruise by slowly. Michael, as unarmed and as vulnerable as his father in his hospital bed, tells Enzo to reach inside his coat like he has a gun. The car speeds off. This scene is the perfect example of faith being “the evidence of things not seen” because we see 1st the Godfather, stripped of all protection, being protected by his son, Michael, who just happens to stop by the hospital at the precise time that Solozzo’s killers are going to finish him off. When Michael kisses his father and tells him that he is going to be fine, the Don’s smile conveys the fact that he has no doubt that he is going to be OK. Michael’s faith kicks in by the act of “faking” like he has something that he doesn’t have, which is the essence of faith—believing in something invisible as though it were real. To further reinforce this point, when the car speeds away from the hospital, Michael’s hands are steady, unlike Enzo’s hands which are shaking. Clip 9: John 1, Verse 29: “The next day, John[a] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Captain McCluskey, a dirty cop on Solozzo’s payroll, pulls up to the hospital and is so angry upon seeing Michael has 2 officers to hold him and punches him in the jaw, breaking it. Sonny plans to assassinate Solozzo and Michael volunteers to kill both Solozzo and the police captain, McCluskey, who is Solozzo’s bodyguard. Michael, an army veteran and war hero, goes from being a private citizen to a participant. He also sees the hypocrisy of America in that she can be bought and paid for with drug money as symbolized through the relationship between the police captain and the drug dealer he protects.
But their relationship is a reflection of his own relationship to his father who is also invested in illegal activities. It comes down to which world he wants to be a part of: a world in which he isn’t respected and even despised and walked on; or, a world where a man like his father is respected and controls his own destiny, a world where he isn’t a puppet dancing on strings held by others as he was as a U.S. soldier fighting wars started by others.
This scene is a crossroads in which he leaves his old life—his wife, his neutral status—and starts down the path to his ultimate destiny. Also, like Jesus, Michael represents the Lamb or innocence in this particular scene in which they are setting up a meeting between Solozzo and a member of the Corleone Family. Michael seems the perfect choice to represent the family because he is considered a “civilian” and not directly involved in family operations. Therefore, he is the perfect agent to “take away the sins of the world” by eliminating Solozzo and McCluskey. Clip 10: A meeting is set up for Solozzo and Michael Corleone to negotiate a truce. Solozzo is afraid for his life after failing to assassinate the Don and invoking the wrath of Sonny. But in letting the Corleone Family know the site of the meeting, Solozzo commits a grave error: Art Of War, Chapter 6, Weak Points and Strong: “The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known, for then the enemy will have to prepare against a possible attack at several different points; and his forces being thus distributed in many directions, the numbers we shall have to face at any given point will be proportionately few.”
If Solozzo hadn’t have allowed the Corleone Family to know the time and place of the meeting, the chances of an ambush would have been diminished because they—the Corleones—wouldn’t have known where, how, or what time to plant the gun that Michael uses to kill both Solozzo and Captain McCluskey.
Clip 11: In this scene, Sonny visits his sister, Connie, who has a black eye after fighting with her husband, Carlo. Sonny leaves the safety of the compound, finds Carlo, and beats him up.
Clip 12: Following the attempted assassination of the Don, Sonny orders the Family’s button-men to “go to the mattresses” against the Tattaglia family. To equalize the attempt on the Godfather’s life, Sonny orders the hit of Bruno Tattaglia, the eldest son of his family. Since then, Sonny has been under lock and key in the Corleone compound, occasionally venturing out with bodyguards to see his mistress, Lucy Mancini. Later, Carlo beats Connie, who is pregnant, with a belt. Sonny flies out of the Corleone compound in a rage and drives over to straighten out Carlo again. But this time he is gunned down at the tollbooth on the Jones Beach causeway. One of the gunmen even kicks him in the face so that he can’t have an open-casket funeral. Sonny’s downfall is his lack of emotional discipline:
Art Of War, Chapter 9: The Army on The March: “he who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.” Proverbs 25 Verse 28: “Like a city that is broken down and without walls is a man whose spirit is without restraint.” Art Of War,Chapter 1: Laying Plans: “If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.”
It also never occurred to Sonny that the so-called fights between his sister and her husband were deliberately staged to smoke him out into the open where the enemy could get to him: Chapter 6, Weak Points and Strong: “If the enemy is taking his ease, harass him; if quietly encamped, force him to move; if well supplied with food, stare him out. Appear at points that the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected.”
Chapter 6, Weak Points and Strong Points: “If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is to attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve. If the enemy is the invading party, we can cut his line of communications and occupy the roads by which he will have to return…” Clip 13: This scene opens on a Sicilian countryside, as a shepherd is steering a herd of sheep downhill and Michael and two bodyguards are moving uphill in the opposite direction. Michael becomes acquainted with his father’s homeland and discovers a beautiful young woman, a virgin, named Appolonia. He is struck by the “thunderbolt” and forgets about the danger he escaped in America. He even forgets about his wife.
Clip 14: Art Of War, Chapter 11: The Nine Situations “Walk in the path defined by rule, and accommodate yourself to the enemy until you can fight a decisive battle. “At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening; afterward emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.”
In this scene, the Don is fully recovered from the gunshots he suffered earlier in the film and calls the heads of New York’s 5 Families to a meeting in the conference room of a bank that he owns— unofficially. At this meeting, the Don calls for a truce between himself and Frank Tattaglia, both of whom lost sons in the war following the murders of Captain McCluskey and Virgil Solozzo. Sonny ordered the hit on Bruno Tattaglia in whose nightclub Luca Brasi, the Godfather’s top enforcer, had been executed. In retaliation for Bruno’s death, Sonny’s life was taken. The Don wants to ensure Michael’s safe return from Sicily to America.
The Don knows that the Tattaglia and Barzini Families have spies in Sicily hunting for Michael. So, in this meeting, the Don gives his famous “Iron Curtain” speech where he promises that he won’t be the one to break the peace and afterwards, to seal this treaty, he and Tattagla embrace. The Don knows that to secure his son’s safe return to America that he must lay low for the time being humble himself, and suffer insults and trespasses against his territories until he can build the family back up to full-strength. It is not in the movie, but the book describes how the Don engineers Michael’s return to America. There is a young man named Felix of the Bocchicchio Family, which is different from the other Families in the respect that their trade is in supplying themselves as hostages. Disagreements among Families are leveraged with Bocchicchio hostages. If one side fails to uphold its promise in this arrangement, the other side could kill its hostage. The Bocchicchio Family would then turn its wrath on the side that broke the promise that had the hostage killed. This is how the Bocchicchios got paid. But Felix Bocchicchio was different and possessed enough intelligence to not want to be in his Family’s trade.
Felix attended law school, married a nice American White woman, and after getting his law degree and having difficulty finding work, got involved with a friend who worked at a prestigious law firm. This “friend” asked Felix for a favor, for Felix to use his law skills on a complicated bankruptcy scam. There was a one-in-a-million chance of getting caught, this friend promised, but when Felix did get caught he took the whole rap. His friends got reduced sentences by telling the court that Felix strong-armed them into going along and Felix did 5 years in prison. As soon as he got out of prison, he got a gun, found the 2 men who’d framed him eating in a restaurant, and blew their brains out. He waited on the police to arrive at the scene, confessed to the murders, went to trial, was found guilty, and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Someone from his family went to the Godfather for help.The Don sent his lawyer to the prison to make Felix an offer: to see to the comfort of his widow and the education of his children in exchange for confessing to the murders of the police captain and Solozzo whom Michael had killed. Felix confessed to everything with details supplied to him through the Don’s lawyer. Once the switch was thrown and Felix was dead, the Don sent for Michael’s return to America. Clip 15: Art Of War, Chapter 9: The Army on the March: “Pass quickly over mountains, and keep in the neighborhood of valleys” “The Godfather’: “Every man has but one destiny” Michael is still in exile in Sicily after murdering a New York police captain and a drug dealer. He marries a young Sicilian woman named Apollonia and a local Don indebted to the Godfather lets them stay in his villa but only for a short time. Enemy spies are also in Sicily and Michael can’t stay in one place for long. His car is booby-trapped with a bomb that kills his new wife and this death of an innocent is his baptism, or rebirth, into his father’s world and seals his destiny to take over the Corleone empire. The Biblical metaphor here is that his love for Apollonia represents the one thing that could come between himself and complete devotion to his father. Apollonia’s death and the poverty of his homeland enables Michael to fully understand his father’s determination to not be a puppet on a string. Also, as explained in the previous clip, the Don has cleared the way for Michael to return to America and if Apollonia had not died, Michael may not have made the decision to return to America and stand by his father. Throughout this film, death and life are 2 sides of the same coin. Clip 16: Amos 3:3: “Two cannot walk together unless they be in agreement” Mark 6:24: “Man cannot serve 2 masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other.” Mark 2:22: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.” Michael returns to America and his wife, Kay, sees him for the first time in years looking less like the American-looking Michael who’d left and more like his Sicilian father. In this scene, Kay represents the America Michael strived to be a part of and now, after the death of Apollonia and acceptance of his father’s world and ideology, Michael is more distant from her now and Kay feels this disconnnection. But traces of his former love of Kay remain and he wants to somehow make their relationship work. Where before he tried to become a part of her greater society by rejecting his father, joining the army, and marrying her, a non-Sicilian, he now wants her to forsake her world for his world. Kay rejects his world and rejects him and this is made very clear in the sequel when she aborts his son. This conflict is the unifying thread from this point in the storyline and throughout the sequel. Clip 17: As I’ve demonstrated earlier, Christian symbolism is the key to understanding this film. The resurrection and the inseperable relationship between life and death are cyclical in this movie. When Sonny was murdered, the Don rose from his deathbed; when Apollonia was murdered, Michael was reborn, in a sense, and embraced his family, his father, and his own unalterable destiny. Now, in this clip, we again see the Christian symbolism of life, death, and the resurrection as represented by the Godfather dying while playing in a garden with his grandson. A fitting and perfect death, surrounded by life. Also, as 2 objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, the Godfather’s death marks the birth of a new generation under his son Michael. Clip 18: Art Of War, Chapter 4: Tactics “The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.”
Weak Points and Strong: “All men can see the individual tactics necessary to conquer, but almost no one can see the strategy out of which total victory is evolved.” Again, in this clip we see the duality of life and death as Michael attends the baptism of his godson as his soldiers kill off the heads of the other 4 New York Families. By the time the godson is baptized and the heads of the 4 New York Families are executed, Michael emerges in all of his glory as the undisputed Don of Dons, the spiritual reincarnation of his father, Vito Corleone. By pretending to be weak, closing the Family’s New York businesses, and moving everything out to Vegas, Michael and his Family were not only underestimated, but their enemies became arrogant to the point of letting their own guard down as the Bible says in Proverbs 16 and verse 18: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Clip 19: Matt. 13 Verses 37-42: “He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Michael settles all Family business in New York by punishing the traitors in the Family. First, Carlo Rizzi, Connie Corleone’s husband who had Sonny killed; then, Tessio, the Godfather’s own Caporegime, or Lieutenant, who had also, like Carlo Rizzi, sold out to Barzini. The Family accounts in New York are all settled now and we see the cycle of life and death once again repeated as Michael takes the empire his father created to Las Vegas, Nevada. Clip 20: In this scene, we see the seeds being sown for the Family’s slow disintegration. To appease his wife, Michael denies any involvement in the execution of New York’s 4 Families. When she sees Michael through a doorway, having his hand kissed by his bodyguards, he reminds her, according to Mario Puzo’s novel, “Of statues in Rome, statues of those Roman emperors of antiquity, who, by divine right, held the power of life and death over their fellow men. One hand was on his hip, the profile of his face showed a cold proud power, his body was carelessly, arrogantly at ease, weight resting on one foot slightly behind the other. The capo regimes stood before him. In that moment Kay knew that everything Connie had accused Michael of was true (that Michael had murdered her husband, Carlo). She went back in the kitchen and wept.”
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Searching for love in Rome: my review of Nights of Cabiria
Searching for love in Rome: my review of Nights of Cabiria
Life wears a mask: falsehood hides behind the truth; loneliness hides behind fame; poverty hides behind wealth; lies hides behind love.
The magician takes off his hat to show Cabiria his horns.
Nights of Cabiria is a 1957 Italian Neorealism drama written and directed by Federico Fellini, director of La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2. The film stars Giulietta Masina as a prostitute in search of love and her perfect idea of life in the city of Rome. The film also stars Amedeo Nazzari, François Périer, Franca Marzi.
The film opens with Cabiria being led to the Tiber River by her boyfriend Giorgio who pushes her in and runs off with her purse. This scene sums up the entire film in which Cabiria acts as a microcosm of a generation that judges people, things, and--most of all--happiness by outward appearances and a generation where love is conditional. In this film, Fellini holds Cabiria up to us like a mirror to show us how we hurt ourselves chasing ideals and also how others use our desires to manipulate us out of what we have.
This is 1 of Fellini's best films. The lessons in the film are light enough not to overpower Giullietta Masina’s powerful performance. As always, the woman knew how to use her face and entire body as eloquently as anyone who has ever done it. When those "greatest actresses" lists are put out, Giullietta Masina's name should always be on them. Italian Neorealism at its best!
The feminist themes in The Bride of Frankenstein
The feminist themes in The Bride of Frankenstein
Director James Whale's 1935 science fiction horror film The Bride of Frankenstein is the sequel to his 1931 film Frankenstein, both films based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel about a scientist who cobbles together a man made from the body parts of cadavers. The script for Bride of Frankenstein was written by William Hurlbut and John L. Balderston and stars Boris Karloff reprising his role as the monster along with Elsa Lanchester who plays both Mary Shelley and the Bride. The film also stars Colin Clive reprising his role as the monster's creator and an entirely new character named Dr. Praetorius played by Ernest Thesiger.
Bride of Frankenstein picks up where the 1st film leaves off with Frankenstein's monster on the run for murdering a child in the 1st film. But unlike the 1st film, in this film the monster can talk. The monster's loneliness dominates the outset of the film as he finds himself chased from 1 place to another and judged and feared by his outward appearance. This tension is somewhat relieved when he makes the acquaintance and brief friendship of a blind man but this respite is short-lived setting up the monster’s fateful meeting with Doctor Praetorius who persuades the monster to strong-arm Dr. Frankenstein to build a female monster to be his mate.
This film contains very strong references to the Bible along with existential questions posed by both theologians and philosophers throughout history. Through the monster, mankind searches for acceptance from God who leaves him with a mate to serve him which sets up the battle of the sexes. Notice what God tells Adam and Even in Genesis Chapter 3 and verse 15:
"And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
The film takes a feminist position in the Bride's reaction to the monster she was created for. Again let’s continue reading what God tells Eve in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 16:
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
The Bride’s reaction to the monster is rebellious and, most of all, feminist! Motifs in the film’s art design reinforce religious and existential themes as well. Hollywood banned most of the overtly religious symbolism in the film which forced the director to reshoot those scenes to conform with the Hays code. According to Wikipedia, countries such as England and China banned the film for promoting necrophilia citing the way that the monster looked at the Bride prior to her being given life.
The Bride of Frankenstein is much more than a horror film and most film critics rank it with Citizen Kane as among of the best films ever made. The Bride of Frankenstein was also 1 of the 1st sequels that many rank over the original film and is as iconic as Fritz Lang's 1927 science fiction masterpiece Metropolis which Whale drew inspiration from in designing the look of the Bride.
Universal Pictures distributed the film which was made for around $400,000.00 and went on to gross $2 million which was good for its day. The studio gave James Whale more creative freedom over the sequel and he took advantage of this by introducing the quirky Dr. Praetorius into the storyline. There’s a great documentary on the DVD that includes the great Clive Barker sharing his thoughts on the film. They also released the film on blu ray. If you like old horror movies and haven't seen The Bride of Frankenstein I think you’ll like it and add it to your collection.
My review of Fritz Lang's 1931 film 'M'
My review of Fritz Lang's 1931 film 'M'
M is a 1931 German murder mystery film directed by Fritz Lang about a pedophile played by Peter Lorre. M was Lang's 1st sound film and he and his wife Thea Von Harbou wrote the script which drew inspiration from a real life serial killer named Peter Kurten--also known as the Vampire of Dusseldorf--who terrorized Germany in the early part of the 20th century.
M starts with a young girl being abducted while on her way home from school and from this goes on to show the crimes altering the tactics of law enforcement such as random house searches and also how the crimes and the fact that no one knows who the perpetrator is creates paranoia and also how certain groups of people are victimized as a result of stereotypes. The film raises questions as to whether the parents of missing children do enough to protect their daughters. But the main question the film poses though is whether or not pedophilia is a crime or a sickness that one has no free will to control. Lang also complicates this question by having child killer Hans Becker tried in a kangaroo court organized by the criminal element who the police have been cracking down on since the disappearance of the little girls.
M is remarkable in the level of detail it shows in police procedurals and how they narrow down witnesses and evidence. The film also gives an accurate example of how the public is willing to give up its privacy and rights to feel safe by going along with house searches after Elsa Beckman's abduction. A present day comparison with this is 911 and how we allowed our elected officials to pass the Patriot Act afterwards.
M is a pretty good film and my 3rd favorite Fritz Lang film behind 1927's Metropolis and his underrated 1945 film noir Scarlett Street starring 1 of my favorite actors Edward G. Robinson. I'm not a huge fan of Peter Lorre but his creepy performance in M is up there with the best even though he has limited screen time and his performance is limited to the kangaroo court at the end of the film. Despite M's subject matter, there are funny moments throughout the film, especially where Inspector Lohmann--played by Otto Wernicke--is involved. I have the film on DVD and it looks great as always with most of Criterion's films.
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