jjgittes Blog

Under discussion:

Bad Day at Black Rock  (1955)

Believe it or not, I had never seen BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK before discovering it this past Saturday on Reel 13. I had seen several other John Sturges films and even suggested in the blog for THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1/26/08) that he was primarily an action director, but seemed to struggle when it came to character development (this is a label that followed Spielberg around for many years as well, until he made the likes of SCHINDLER'S LIST and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN). BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, however, can be called nothing short of a masterpiece. It is nearly perfect on every level – from cinematography to direction to performance to editing to story. I absolutely loved experiencing this film.

Sturges and co. don't waste any time – there is a sense of urgency right away, driven by Andre Previn's score that follows a speeding train toward a completely desolate area in the middle of Arizona. One of the first comments uttered in the film is Spencer Tracy telling the train conductor that he will only be in Black Rock for 24 hours. From that point on, the clock is ticking and the tension doesn't let up for the entire 100 minutes that the film rolls. I can't remember a film that was so consistently interesting GONE BABY GONE came pretty close.

The question then becomes what is different about BLACK ROCK in comparison to Sturges' other work that makes it so compelling. Well, for starters, he is working with great source material. The script, written by Millard Kaufman as based on a story by Howard Breslin, is air-tight. Its mystery isn't overly complex. The magic is all in how it is unraveled – suspensefully without ever seeming contrived or forced. Secondly, Spencer Tracy – not known for doing action movies or westerns – is outstanding as the stoic John Macreedy. His able and proven screen presence is powerful enough to give Sturges the kind of anchor he needs to rest his narrative upon. The story doesn't provide much back story for his character, but it isn't necessary because Tracy manages to make you feel the character's history, all without the use of his left arm (the character had a war injury).

As far as Sturges himself goes, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK is the most beautiful of his films. Each frame is carefully composed and lit – so many stills within the film could be paintings hanging in the Met. The production design is detailed and is in complete concert with both the story and the lighting scheme. Additionally, Sturges wisely avoids too many close-ups, not that I wholly advocate letting all the action play out in masters, but the atmosphere of the town and the characters' surroundings play such a pivotal role in creating the sense of desolation, desperation and tension. Close-ups would have interrupted and interfered with those goals.

In short, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK is one of the smartest, most complete films I've seen in a long time. It is one of two real "discoveries" I've made (RAGE IN PLACID LAKE is the other) during this Reel 13 process and stands as an example of what this series should be putting forth and representing.

Under discussion:

Fiddler on the Roof  (1971)

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF has been a beloved musical for decades and the movie, which aired this past Saturday on Reel 13, was enormously successful when it first came out in 1971. I, however, have never been interested in the show. Though I do like some of the more famous songs ("Matchmaker" is catchy, "If I Were a Rich Man" is universally appealing and "Sunrise, Sunset" is beautifully written), I have always found the overall show to be pretty dull and very frustrating in terms of its repetitive nature.

Director Norman Jewison (who also directed last week's THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING) did manage to do some interesting things in his adaptation, however. I liked how, on several occasions, he opted out of having characters sing out on screen. Instead, he used their voices non-diegetically, as if they were thinking the song in their heads. Even though the song itself is incredibly annoying, he turned the "Tradition" number into an effective montage introducing us to life in Anatevka. I also liked how Jewison handled the iconography of the fiddler itself. In the show, it's a bit heavy handed, but Jewison shoots it just right, keeping the fiddler mostly in background or shadow and cutting to him infrequently enough that he is an effective symbol for their way of life – subtle enough while maintaining its accessibility. To be honest, I wasn't a big fan of the talking to the camera device (has any film been able to pull this off except for FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF?). Additionally, Jewison employed the zoom lens several times throughout the film, a common tactic in the late 60's/early 70's, but it felt out of place in a period piece such as this.

I was surprised at how weak many of the performances were – much of the cast had an air of theatricality about them, as if they were plucked right off the stage and never got accustomed to screen acting. The mother and the eldest daughter (a dead ringer for Barbra Streisand) are two exceptions. The primary exception, of course, is Topol as Tevye. Tevye is one of the most iconic characters is musical history – the male equivalent of Mama Rose – and Topol knocks it out of the park. He is funny, charmingly foolish, boisterous without being obnoxious, extremely caring and tender with a booming, powerful (singing and speaking) voice that perfectly fits this larger-than-life character. It ranks as one of the all-time best movie musical performances.

In spite of all these positive qualities, FIDDLER the film still doesn't seem to overcome the flaws of FIDDLER the play. The second act is mostly strong with many emotionally impactful moments, but the build-up to get there is way too long and too slow. Several scenes in the film drag on mercilessly and some seem superfluous altogether (I don't think we needed the "Wonder of Wonders" number, for example). I imagine that Jewison and his team felt some pressure to include everything so the stage fans wouldn't be disappointed, but their priority in adapting the musical has to be to the film itself. When it's transferred to celluloid, it's a new animal and there are a different set of rules. More than anything, what FIDDLER really needed before relocating from Broadway was a good diet – to trim all the fat.

Under discussion:

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming!  (1966)

Russia and Communism seems to be of particular interest to the Reel 13 programmers what with this film, ONE, TWO, THREE last week and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF next week. Perhaps they’ll want to replace BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK on April 19th with DOCTOR ZHIVAGO or WAR AND PEACE – just to keep the streak going.

Not that I’m complaining really. This film, in particular, which I was seeing for the first time, was quite good and much more effective at political satire than ONE, TWO, THREE. It is frequently funny, led by the Oscar-nominated performance by Alan Arkin as a Russian sailor stranded with eight comrades on an island in the Cape Cod area. As a matter of fact, it’s almost disturbingly funny, given that the hysteria of the townspeople in the film feels all too real and possible (though heightened here for comic effect). Even if the Russian-as-bad-guy theme is old news, it can easily be substituted with some sort of terrorist threat, which makes the film just as relevant today as it was in 1966.

The film isn’t without its hiccups, however. It’s a little slow-paced for a comedy, though I realize it’s a very different kind of comedy. There are a good number of clunky scenes to balance out the ones that hit all the right notes. The love story, for example, between the young, blonde Russian and the blonde babysitter is EXTREMELY lame and should have either been paid attention to more (the babysitter has something like four lines total) or abandoned completely. Additionally, I think Carl Reiner was miscast. He may be a comic genius, but more as a writer and sometimes a straight man on the variety show circuit. He never has been that strong of an actor and that is proven once again with his uninspired performance in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING.

Still and all, the film was really strong and you have to really give a lot of credit to director Norman Jewison, who, in spite of a very impressive track record, isn’t much talked about among the elite filmmaking talents of the last forty years. Given that April is, to some degree, Norman Jewison month on Reel 13 (He also directed next week’s FIDDLER), I got to thinking about his canon. I’ve decided that what’s most impressive about his body of work is how eclectic it is in terms of style (he is very good at altering his style to fit the story he’s crafting) and genre (he can do comedy, satire, drama, fairy tale and musicals). There is a connection in his work in terms of theme – he seems to be particularly interested in social injustice, whether it be racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism or what have you. Another consistency I noticed in the Norman Jewison oeuvre is a series of outstanding performances, too numerous to list here. So what we have here is a filmmaker that adapts his style to the story instead of vice versa with a particular focus on performance and character development. He may not be as celebrated as Hitchcock, Ford, Scorsese or Spielberg, but it seems to me if we had a few more young filmmakers emulating Jewison instead of Tarantino, we’d be a lot better off.