CinemaRian Blog

Under discussion:

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars  (1983)

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is probably the worst concert film that I ever seen, and that is a huge disappointment, considering the fact David Bowie's live shows on this tour were legendary. But based on this movie, they kind of sucked.

I've often maintained that while it had several great songs on it, the Ziggy Stardust concept album was not the rock and roll masterpiece many critics claim it to be. It doesn't really have much narrative cohesion and starts to run out of gas on Side Two (with the exception of "Hang On To Yourself"). I always thought that perhaps the live shows on the tour, performed with Bowie in costume, would be a more exciting experience and be truer the Ziggy Stardust concept.

But instead of the huge sci-fi spectacle I expected, this movie presents Bowie and his small band singing mostly in place. Bowie's charisma is strong, but nothing outside of the realm of the usual rock star (he's no Jim Morrison) and the Ziggy tunes are sung all out of our, with even less of a narrative.

Of course, perhaps this concert, given on July 3^rd, 1973 in England, the last of the tour dates, was really exciting if you saw it live. But D.A. Pennebaker, director of Don't Look Back and Monterary Pop, doesn't do much to get us in the mood. He doesn't use enough cameras to cover the action, meaning that most of the time we see Bowie in one interrupted shot, often from a distance so we don't see his facial expressions. The lighting cues of the concert (mostly just a red or blue spotlight on Bowie, with Spiders in near darkness), made it difficult to shoot and a lot of the footage is out of focus.

Also, the sound sucks. On the DVD's bonus features, Bowie's music producer Toni Visconti describes how the original recording was so bad that he Bowie had to go back and re-record much of the Spider's backing vocals. Perhaps it the fault of the recording and not the musicians, but none of these tunes sounds particularly good, and none are certainly better than the studio version. For me, the highlight of the set was hearing Bowie perform "All the Young Dudes", a song he wrote but never recorded in studio, but it's over too quickly.

The most interesting scene in the film occurs at the very beginning, as Bowie is getting made up his then wife, Angela, comes in and the two have a surreal conversation about his mother seeing a spaceship. Angela is very excited and has a great screen presence, so it's too bad that there little other backstage footage of any consequence.

At the end of the movie, Bowie famously tells the audience that this is the very last concert he will ever give. In interviews, Bowie claims that he was totally exhausted and really meant it at the time. By the time this movie was released (a full ten years after it was shot) he had already gone on multiple tours and released two live albums. This movie would have at least some merit as a historical document- had Bowie never toured again. Knowing that the artist would return, with better and more complete material makes this movie of what is supposedly his greatest accomplishment a bit sad in retrospect.

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1983)

Under discussion:

The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima  (1952)

It kind of says something about Hollywood filmmaking in the 1950’s when a movie has to make up a stupid subplot because it thinks that a MESSAGE FROM GOD is not enough to carry a film. If you were writing a screenplay, what would you think would be more interesting: three children who have been chosen by the Virgin Mary to receive visions, or their atheist friend, Hugo?

 For those of you who are sadly not familiar with the historical events in question, be assured the title of this movie is not hyperbole. On May 13th, 1917, three children in the small town of Fatima, Portugal received a visitation from the Virgin Mary, who instructed them among other things to return on the 13th for the next six months. The Lady revealed to them the Three Secrets of Fatima, predicting the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II, as well of the deaths of two youngest children. The children were imprisoned by local authorities, but were eventually let go. On the day of the final appearhersion, the Miracle of the Sun occurred- an amazing event that was witnessed up to thirty miles away. No empirical explanation has ever explained what was happened, probably because there is no explanation. That’s the defination of a miracle.

 What has always made this story so fascinating to me are the photographs of the Fatima children and the story of what happened to them afterwards. The three look frightened, as if the fear of Hell had been put into them, which, apparently was what happened. They were deeply effected by a vision of Hell they were given (the First Secret). Furthermore, the two youngest died in the flu pandemic of 1919, just as they had predicted.

This story has always spoken to the most basic part of us- the spiritual level. It says, yes, their something beyond the mundane aspects of our everyday lives, and it is big, big BIG. The movie about the occurrence is not surprisingly a letdown. To say that no movie could capture the experience of being their would be an understatement, but this picture is too much of a Hollywood studio film to come of as being real. For this story to work, someone like Herzog or Bergman needs to direct it, and John Brahm is not in their league.

Even if he was, he would still have a hard time doing much with the stupid subplot involving Hugo (Gilbert Roland), the town atheist who seems to be a lot more popular than he probably would be in that situation. The script resort to creaky Christian movie clichés. Without revealing anything, I think most of us will probably suspect that there is very high probability that Hugo will not be an atheist by the end of the picture.

I am still giving the movie a recommendation on account of the basic story, which is compelling to say the least. I would argue that every human being needs to know the story of Fatima, but not necessarily from this movie.

The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952)

Under discussion:

Othello  (1965)

It’s hard to imagine two Shakespearen adaptations that are more different, yet almost equally impressive as the Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier versions of Othello.  Welles took the Bard’s tragedy and reduced to the level of a fable, shooting on location in Italy with a highly expressionist, formalist style that was stylized as Shakespeare’s prose.  The director of Olivier’s version, Stuart Burge, emphasis the psychological aspects of the characters, with sparse sets that make us focus on the actors and little else.  Welles’s film runs ninety one minuets, Burge’s is nearly twice as long at two hours and forty five minuets. 

According to the super reputable site known as Wikipedia, Olivier was unable to raise the money for a full film version, so used his meager budget to adapt his award winning stage version produced by the National Theatre of Great Britain.  However, as the actor explains in a bonus short on the DVD, it is not a filmed stage play (thank God).  “It is a film of  a stage play” he explains and he’s right.  Burge is not a respected director, and his credits are mostly for TV, but he makes the National Theater production a real move. 

He is helped immeasurably of course, by the actors, all of which tone done their performances for the film and four of whom were nominated for Oscars.  It is understandable why some may object to the idea of a white actor playing Othello and I while agree that in general it is a bad idea for actors to play characters outside of their own ethnic group, it is sometimes not a bad idea in the particular.  Laurence Olivier wears realistic black makeup for the part, learned a new accent, and endows Othello with a deep humanity, based on real psychology.  There are no stereotypes here. 

Although cineastes can deabate whether Welles, Olivier or Laurence Fishburne was the Othello, there is no question that the greatest of all Iagos is Frank Finlay, who is one of the great screen villains, a force of evil right up their with Hannibal Lecter or, yes, Dracula.  The remarkable thing about Finlay’s performance is that we kind of get why Iago is so bad- he is negative, mistrusting type, and failed promotion was the last straw, so he’s gone postal. Iago is like a force of nature- he’s evil, he can’t help it, he just is.

The entire cast is great.  Unlike Welles film, which was essentially a two character show (Welles and Michael MacLiammoir) this picture features an amazing Desdemona (Maggie Smith) and even a complex Cassio (Derek Jacobi), usually seen as a boring character.

The sparse sets, lack of music and focus on dialogue are reminiscent of the of early films of the sound era, we are drawn in to the lives of these character.  The film is features nearly the unabridged text of the play, is never boring, and is one of the screen’s great Shakespearean achievements. 

Othello (1965)