Risselada Blog

Under discussion:

The Green Pastures  (1936)

I have asked certain users on Spout to recommend a movie to me.  I will be blogging about these films as I watch them.  This film was recommended to me by Puhnner

The Green Pastures

Although I have met so many wonderful people on Spout over the years, my friend Puhnner or "Puhn" for short may very well be the most dear to me.  As one of the first people I met at Spout, he was immediately mysterious.  First of all, his name.  What did that mean?  I think it is derivative of his actual surname.  Then there was his avatar picture.  Taken from an album cover of a man with no arms sitting at a piano.  Puhnner soon showed me the website where he found this gem which features countless other fascinating album covers.  He could always be counted on to discover these strange websites as well as unusual movies or works from every other kind of media I had never heard of before.  The names of some of his overflowing lists on Spout have such lively names as "I love these; they are horrible ", "I must see this, nnnnnnnnnnooooo oooooo!!! ", "see this; it is a real stinkeroo ", "please don't make me watch this bilge water", and of course "john mayall's reeking, sweaty, armpits ".  And his tags for movies are even more specific and amusing.  But it is his bluntly titled "see this one " that keeps me coming back to browsing.  The man has some observations that come from different angles than you are used to seeing, and that's something I always am looking for.  He knows what he likes and what he doesn't and can be critical when necessary, but I've never heard him say a man thing and find his joviality and apparent excitement in most interactions to be infectious!

Puhnner presented me with exactly what I hoped from him.  First of all he suggested a movie I had never heard of before.  When you spend as much time as I do looking around for titles of new movies (most of which I'll probably never get a chance to see in my life) I'm always still surprised when I come across something new.  This is especially true when I come across a movie of a kind that I had never knew existed before.  And this is also true of the movie Puhnner recommended to me.  An all African-American cast depiction of a retelling of the Old Testament produced by Hollywood.  Puhnner even noticed my penchant for certain stories with a Christian spirituality in there.  Right on!

The DVD begins the film with a disclaimer about certain racist attitudes of the time that are present in the film and that Warner Brothers in no way condones this, but also will not deny they existed and were present in their films at the time.  Of course this is no surprise.  This film was released in 1936 and I can hardly think of another Hollywood film around the same time that even had a lead African-American character, so a skewed view in a movie where they make up the entire cast would be expected.  The film is based on a play that became very successful.  Written by Marc Connelly a white man however.  I believe except for the performers, no other major film collaborators were black.  The film begins with a fish fry and people smoking cheap cigars, already signs of stereotypes, but even right after we are introduced to this setting, a small child rides by on a cloud patting his hand against his mouth and saying "I'm an Indian".  Already another entire race of people is marginalized.

However the tone of the film was certainly not to mock African-American culture but to celebrate it.  Although sometimes misguided, this celebration comes through well most of the time.  My primary point of discomfort came from the attempt to portray God himself, specifically with inventing new dialogue deviating sometimes quite a bit from anything found in the Bible.  I am however all for dramatizing situations familiar only through text.  Especially in the cast of Biblical stories, the text is so rich yet can become stale to those who have heard it so many times and are not investing in revisiting it from different angles.  A dramatic portrayal can make the story seem more real or allow us to consider aspects of the story that may not have been visualized or recognized from just a reading of the text.  In this case, I love what this film is doing.  However it's not just an attempt to show historically what the story most likely looked like, but to filter it through a perceived African-American worldview.  This has benefits of showing even further angles and relevancies of the stories within another context.  Although there is also the danger of presenting important aspect of the story falsely, especially when regarding the nature of God himself.  Some of the words they put in the mouth of God made me a bit uncomfortable.  These different aspects of how things were portrayed were both my reason for enjoyment and the reasons for my aversion.  Also, while the film points towards Christ at the end of the film, he is quite absent from the film, at least in a blatant sense.  I would have liked to see a bit more about the wrestling of the idea of the Triune God.

One of the biggest pleasures was seeing all of the great actors in this film though.  Actors who would not get as big of parts in such big productions at the time really put a lot into their performances.  And probably my favorite thing about the film was the gospel choir.  It starts right out at the beginning of the film, and if there's anything that elicits the setting of heaven in this film, it is the music.

Sorry I didn't completely fall in love with this film Puhn, but I would still say that your recommendation was a complete success in that I was very glad I was able to find out about this movie and see what it was all about.  It's one I won't forget at any rate.

Rating: 7/10

Under discussion:

Film Name  Production Year

The Bicycle Thief  (1948)

Shoeshine  (1947)

Umberto D.  (1955)

A Brief Vacation  (1973)

Million Dollar Baby  (2004)

This is the fourth feature length film I've seen by director Vittorio De Sica.  I chose to watch this film based on previous good ratings I've given other films by this director and to better my favorite directors by algorithm listing.

Una breve vacanza (A Brief Vacation)

My previous three film experiences from Vittorio De Sica were from his earlier and probably most acclaimed neo-realism period of the late 40s/early 50s, specifically Shoe-Shine, The Bicycle Thief, and Umberto D.  All of them being fantastic, the latter two being perfect masterpieces.

Jump a couple decades into the future with this, his second to last film.  I'm not sure what a lot of his films in between were like.  I suspect some of them may have been a bit livelier since many are billed as comedies, in which case this may have been a bit of a return to form.  The beginning of the film seems very familiar setting in a simple and somewhat impoverished abode.  Despite this, it's hard to like or feel much sympathy for the protagonist Clara or anyone else at the beginning of the film.  She seems so upset, although we can't quite tell if her attitude is justified yet.  Soon however we see what a rather kind hearted person she is and how much she has to put up with.

Actually there are a lot of cases in this film of feeling one way towards a character when we are first introduced to them and then completely different by the end.  For instance, the rich and egotistical woman singer is completely obnoxious and unlikeable at first.  I thought I would hate the movie because of her and that fact that I was so annoyed whenever she appeared on screen.  Shocking to find that she would be one of the most sympathetic characters by the end.  Unfortunately a few characters came off a bit one dimensional and almost unbelievable unlikeable for the purpose of producing specific emotions.  The portrayal of the Clara's annoying and selfish family was almost as bad as the girl boxer's family in the horrible Million Dollar Baby.

Like films like The Bicycle Thief, this film does a great job at showing a rather harsh world of working class Italy.  Unlike most of that film however, we at least get a brief vacation.  Brief because by the end of the film it's over and we are thrust back into that world once more.

Vittorio De Sica:
Total feature length films seen: 4
Previous average film score: 9.6667
New average film score: 9.25

Rating: 8/10

Under discussion:

The Hustler  (1961)

I Was Born, But...  (1932)

This blog entry is part of my "movie recommendation site suggestions".  Read more about that here.

Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo (I Was Born, But...)

An old silent Ozu film.  On the surface, a simple film about children moving to a new town and the and the problems they face in making new friends and dealing with bullies.  There's a contrast between the world of children and adults and how children see the adult world and judge each other based on who their parents are and how they act.

I couldn't find as much profundity here as a lot of critics seem to.  Maybe there are aspects of Japanese culture I just don't get here.  I'm not too sympathetic to kids who show too much pride and disrespect their parents so that got a little frustrating at the end there.

But it's well done for what it is and the children actors are pretty good.  Not as good as I was expecting for something suggested so highly on my movie recommendation sites though.

Rating: 7/10