Top 70 Musicals Countdown at Wonders in the Dark



I want to make sure to acknowledge the massive effort going on over at Wonders in the Dark. They have just begun the Top 70 Musicals countdown, put together by a voting panel of resident experts. It should be a fun and educational undertaking that I will be checking on every day. In honor of this, I will be posting a few reviews of musicals over the coming months here at Films Worth Watching, and will be a guest blogger making an appearance during the countdown.

Dodes'ka-den (1970) - Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Kurosawa made Red Beard in 1965, which was a massive critical and financial success. At the end of 1965, it was in fact Japan's highest grossing film, but for many reasons, Kurosawa would not finish another film for 5 years and would enter into the darkest period of his career. Kurosawa suddenly had a difficult time getting funded for his projects, as they were usually expensive endeavors. So, he turned to Hollywood and became involved in the production of Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and was slated to direct the Japanese section of the story, but this turned into a huge debacle and Kurosawa left the film to work on something else. He decided to begin a new project, one which would not contain his longtime collaborative actor Toshiro Mifune. It would also be in color, something that Kurosawa had never used before. This film would be shot in only 9 weeks and would go on to be one of his biggest box-office failures. During the following year after the film's release, after health and mental problems, Kurosawa attempted suicide. He would miraculously recover and would go on to have a late bloom to his career. But this central film to this difficult period in his life is one that cannot be easily digested or ignored. It is Dodes'ka-den.

Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den is the darkest film of his that I’ve seen and I can’t quite think of a close second, although I Live in Fear (1955) might be a candidate. Here, the story is boiling over with sadness and regret, abuse and social impotence, addiction and all manner of sadness and injustice. This is the closest that Kurosawa ever came to Bergman-esque territory. Kurosawa’s story revolves around a ragtag assemblage of people living in a garbage dump. There is a boy with mental development issues, who pretends he is a trolley driver and runs around the dump all day making noises mimicking a trolley. There is a girl who lives with her abusive uncle who works her night and day tying flowers together to make a living. Another thread follows two very poor individuals, a man and boy living in an abandoned car barely scraping by, begging for food at restaurants. Several other stories are told as well, involving infidelity between a man and wife, an attempted suicide by a man at the end of his rope, among many others. All of this is very dark and the depressing atmosphere is truly enveloping. Life is cruel in Dodes’ka-den.

In perhaps the most compelling moment in the film, the man and boy who live in the car become food poisoned and are subject to intense stomach pains and sickness. One can almost feel the pain and suffering they are going through. Even the color of their faces takes on a surreal green pall to it. This is due to the makeup, but also the lighting, which strikes at odd angles and bathes them in this repulsive green color. Kurosawa makes excellent and continued use of color at fascinating moments, highlighting the toxic environment these people live in with neon colors, both in the clothing palette but also in the background colors. The sunlight glows with an otherworldly orange-yellow at times and swirls of color appear in the background as if out of a Van Gogh painting. These moments are beautiful and memorable both for their expressiveness and surreal qualities. It's amazing that it took Kurosawa so long to use color in his films, but his use of color here is one of the film's most striking and memorable aspects.

All the stories have very dark elements that are punctuated at times by slight attempts at grace or persistence in the face of adversity. However, there generally is an endless cycle of disappointment and heartache at the center of these stories. These people can’t rise above their ramshackle dump and move themselves out of it, precisely because they can’t bring conclusion to their internal emotional and psychological suffering. They persist and subsist because they can’t bring themselves to do anything else. It’s hard to say whether Kurosawa is calling this a noble venture or not. This is the question at the heart of one of Kurosawa’s most challenging and rewarding films: is life worth living under these circumstances? He wouldn’t make another film for five more years, and following his suicide attempt it would take a special project to get him going again. His Dersu Uzala (1975) is essential viewing following Dodes’ka-den in that it portrays a healing, humanity, and companionship that is in direct contrast to the continued suffering and struggle in Dodes’ka-den. These two films together constitute the psychological breakdown and recovery of one of the true masters of cinema.

Paisan (1946) - Directed by Roberto Rossellini

Burgeoning out of the tremendously harsh economic and social period following World War II, Italian neorealism was a vital movement screaming to be heard. Giving voice to the people, it was a way to convey stories of the suffering and injustice facing Italians during and following the war. Amazingly, through the use of mostly non-professional actors the movement maintains a vital freshness and poeticism to this day. Roberto Rossellini, along with Vittorio De Sica made probably the best films of the movement, each grabbing the audience through humanistic portrayals and vital truth, infusing stories with a yearning for justice and grace under harsh conditions. Rossellini’s Paisan is the 2nd installment of his War Trilogy coming between his equally important works, Rome Open City (1945) and Germany Year Zero (1948). Paisan is a wonderful distillation of a collective yearning for understanding and reflection on war’s scope and effect on people.

Six short stories are presented over the 120 minutes of the film and they all deal directly with war’s effects- psychological, physical, environmental, economical, spiritual etc. The film is set during the year of Italy’s liberation from German occupancy. In the first episode, a group of GIs attain the assistance of a teenage girl to help them navigate some difficult terrain. A beautiful moment of attempted communication and understanding between a GI and the girl is undercut by the cruel insistence of violence. In the third episode, a GI in Rome is so disenchanted and fed up with the economic and relational difficulties of the city that he doesn’t realize the same woman he fell in love with and lost track of 6 months prior, is the woman who picks him up on the street. Love, in this case, is thwarted by ennui and mental paralysis. In perhaps the most tragic sequence, episode 6, a few GIs are behind enemy lines trying to support the partisans in defeating the Germans. Their futile attacks on the enemy, coupled with the deaths of some local family members are incredibly haunting, leaving only a screaming child on the roadside wandering among dead bodies.

Although the film is in somewhat rough shape (although it used to be in much worse shape) and the dubbing is pretty far off, it does not impact the watchable quality of the film, nor the ability of the film to impact the audience. In fact, I think the scratched and rough quality of the film today only enhances the harshness of the stories and the difficulty in producing such a film on the streets and in the rubble. Rossellini’s insistence on using these natural locations and using mostly amateurs to wander these cities and locales makes the stories incredibly vital and heartpounding, mysterious and tragic. In fact, though the film presents 6 different episodes, they are remarkably connected and related, as the presentation covers all of Italy, from the south to the north, bringing the collective of a country and the terrors and hardships it faced to a full awareness.

Continually, themes of miscommunication and the futility of understanding are underscored as GIs try to communicate with the local Italian people. Furthermore, love and family being thwarted or snuffed out by swift violence or mental ineptitude is another theme brought forward. Although Paisan is filled with deeply humanist perspectives and moments of shared beauty, the continual presence of injustice and violence, economic squalor and deprivation usually refutes any attempts of transcendence or joy. It’s hard to imagine the hardships facing the local Italian people of the time, but this film does a particular service in that it’s a forever reminder of the true cost of war, both for the soldier and the innocent bystander. 

The Tree of Life (2011) - Directed by Terrence Malick

Note: My review contains spoilers so that if you haven't seen the film please read with caution. 


Preface: It has been pointed out by multiple critics and bloggers that the film takes place within the context of Western religion, specifically Christianity. My review and analysis takes place within that context as that is how I have viewed the film and its meaning.

Terrence Malick's newest magnum opus is a gushing, uninhibited look at life and its purpose. It's a nearly 2 1/2 hour film filled with lots of ideas, and it could have easily been hours longer. In plot, the film basically follows the summer experience of a boy named Jack. He has two younger brothers and a father and mother. He lives in a Neighborhood, which is a stand-in for a universal neighborhood of sorts, a place where one plays, learns, experiments, experiences life in all its glories and tragedies but still under the guidance and love of ones parents, so there is a safety net. Later in life, the family is stricken with the news that the middle child has passed away at age 19, from what we do not know. The mother and father clearly have their faith challenged. This is where the early reference to Job in the film's opening passage comes into play. It's also clear that Jack as a grown man, played by Sean Penn, is clearly searching in the void to fill a vacancy in his life. 

Malick’s title, The Tree of Life, references the passages in Genesis 2:9, "And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground -- trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." It’s clear that God presented two choices to Adam and Eve and gave them the option of following their own intent, or following the way of everlasting permanence with God. Adam and Eve followed the way of “Nature” and ignored the salvation/tree of life in the garden. This of course leads to the need for grace or salvation following The Fall of Humanity in Christian theology. This is synonymous with the film’s subject matter. I believe the film is basically about the boy coming to the understanding that his parents are fallible, reaching the point in time where he cannot rely on them to be his saviors. He realizes that there is death, that life is finite, that this innocent boyhood will come to an end. His parents try as they might, but they cannot save him through their human love. He has to be saved through his own search. Jack is reminded of this through the behavior of his father and mother. Both love their children but in different ways. The father is a perfectionist and strict disciplinarian but he loves his children and teaches them that they must stand up for themselves. Mr. O'Brien wants so badly to have his children obey him though that he gets frustrated easily and has a temper. The mother is eternally loving, providing comfort, warmth, and grace, but she is meek and not able to convey the strength that the boy needs at times. Jack doesn't find complete solace in either of them and instead tries to find his own way. There's a specific moment where Jack says, "What I want to do, I can't do. I do what I hate." which seems to directly reference a passage from the Bible, Romans 7:19 where Paul says, "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep doing." It's moments like this where perhaps Malick tips his hand as to where the film's theology and philosophy lie.

There have been many readings and interpretations of the film and the characters. Some might make the assumption that The Father, Mr. O'Brien is a God figure. I can’t go down that path. Mr. O'Brien is clearly not perfect nor without sin and I can't substitute him for God in this way at all. On the flipside, if Malick were making some parallels between Mr. O'Brien and God, making him out to be a strict disciplinarian and domineering figure, then it really wouldn't fit with themes of the film regarding forgiveness and grace. Another point of contention for many, the beach sequence at the end of the film, has been claimed to be the afterlife or heaven. It does not feel like a heaven experience to me in the strict sense. In Christianity, one knows that when believers die, they go to heaven. There is no indication that the Sean Penn character dies. He clearly talks to his Dad on the phone in one instance, so we know his father is not dead either. In the film, he goes in his mind to a place of understanding and where his memories are reconciled to himself. So, I don't believe it's a heaven sequence but a spiritual birth sequence and moment of reconciliation and forgiveness. In fact, it is his moment of salvation or accepting of God's grace. The imagery used and repeated during this sequence is of entering through a doorway, which happens at least twice during this sequence. In the Bible, Mathew 7:7 reads, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Again, Malick's references to biblical passages are more than just coincidental here. 


I think all of these spiritual overtones lead some to feel that this film is heavyhanded (where everyone would know exactly what is being said). I don't think it's heavyhanded, but more a film that is unrestrained. It is unrestrained in its efforts to display the power of creation, the comparison of father and mother, the realization of our speck of existence, childhood and the loss of innocence, the portrayal of salvation. This unrestrained quality gives the viewer a challenge in that one must view it actively. You can't just tune out, but you must meet the film on an equally active level of engagement to appreciate what Malick is trying to say.

There are some troubling aspects to interpreting the film through the lens of western Christianity though. If the film is truly a distillation of Christian themes, why does the creation sequence resemble more of what would be considered The Big Bang? There clearly is chaos in effect during the sequences and furthermore, there is more than a hint of Evolution portrayed through the development of single cells and gradually more complex organisms brought to life. I don't think that creation and The Big Bang are completely mutually exclusive, but traditional evangelical views do not espouse a belief in The Big Bang or Evolution. Does this mean that the interpretation of the film through the lens of Christianity is not valid? I'm not sure. I think it's a troubling aspect, and one I am not clear is reconcilable depending on how one views the remaining of the film.   

Philosophically and spiritually, the film provides a lot to think about. But, as a film experience it holds great power as well. The sequences of childhood are probably some of the best distillations of youth ever put on film. Even the camerawork by Emmanuel Lubezki seems to have the perspective of youth imbued upon it. Everything seems to be regarded with the naïveté and the mischief of a young mind. A window is regarded from the perspective of whether it should be broken with a rock or not. A lizard is not just a reptile to marvel at, it’s something to scare your mother with. This perspective really provides the lens of credibility that the films needs to convey its aura. As for the acting in the film, I'm never one to directly provide much praise to Brad Pitt. But, his performance here really strikes the right notes and is probably his best and most nuanced performance of his career. Jessica Chastain as Mrs. O'Brien also gives a breathless and near wordless performance filled with graceful and stern looks. I'm hoping we see more of her in the future. However, the star of the film is Hunter McCracken as Jack, who steals nearly every scene he's in and is able to carry the emotional weight of the film on his young shoulders. Sean Penn though is not given nearly much to do as the adult Jack and one wonders whether there was a larger plot thread involved at one point in the film's development. 

Outside of the “creation” sequence, most of what follows is similar to other Malick films in terms of its storytelling manner and are familiar to Malick-ites: Mostly wordless sequences involving individuals, distilled to actions or looks, shots of nature to convey mood and tension, and enhanced with musical interludes. All of the middle sequences are just stunning as the poetry of life unfolds in all its beauty and tragedy. However, the structure of the film is deliberately fractured, and at times nearly impenetrable. I think there is evidence of much more storyline involving Sean Penn's adult Jack. In the beach sequence we witness a woman who might be his wife and a girl who might be his daughter, but there is no attempt to explain who they are in this version of the film. There are rumors of a 4-6 hour version in the works, so it's entirely possible that the Sean Penn sequences could contain a great deal more information than we're given in the current version.

The Tree of Life is beautiful, transcendent and spiritual, but so are Malick's other films in different ways. So, I won’t go so far to say it’s his best one. I also will stop short of conveying any sense of this being the most ambitious or important film in multiple decades, as I’ve seen some call it. For me it’s no more ambitious than Lynch’s work, Von Trier's, or Kieslowski’s among others. Malick belongs to a family of filmmakers intent on conveying, in their own way, their outlook and perspective on life and the artistry of conveying it. This film is an important work that demands to be seen and should be seen by anyone interested or believing in film that is capable of grandeur. The Tree of Life is ultimately a challenging, sometimes messy, and rewarding work of cinematic art because of its ability to convey the ineffable of a spiritual journey and life itself through the medium of film. It’s as simple as that for me.

Magnificent Obsession (1954) - Directed by Douglas Sirk

Douglas Sirk’s melodramas are elegant and precise films that appeal directly to the audience’s emotions, featuring wildly entertaining stories that contain improbable circumstances that have you wondering whether you should smirk and laugh at the events taking place. But….and this is the genius of it…. in that split instance before you laugh, you realize you are already invested in this story. You also realize you like, even love the characters you are watching and you are wrapped up cozily in a Technicolor dream world, one in which you really don’t want to leave. So instead of laughing at the moment, you become filled with childlike innocence and you grab your blankie, curl yourself up and become even more absorbed. You are totally entranced and you can’t help it. You completely submit to the charm and you worship at the alter of melodrama and Douglas Sirk, embracing the wild swings in plot and emotion and are begging for more, more, more.

Okay so maybe I exaggerate a bit, but not by much. I don’t know if any director leaped so headlong into true and classic melodrama as Douglas Sirk, embracing it both as glorious entertainment and artistic expression. He is truly the Godfather of Melodrama and all those after him who utilized it - Fuller, Fassbinder, Almodovar – owed him gratitude and in many cases, made direct homage to his work. Magnificent Obsession is Douglas Sirk’s first great foray into melodrama. He would follow it with more artistically and thematically ambitious films, like All That Heaven Allows (1955), but I think this one ranks up there among the best of his work, if for nothing other than the script itself. It's easily the wildest plot that Sirk ever filmed. I don’t even want to go into the plot much because part of the real fun of the film is not knowing what will happen next. To set up the story, playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson) wrecks his boat and needs to be resuscitated with the only resuscitator machine in town. It so happens that Dr. Phillips, who is loaning the equipment, has a heart attack the same day, and dies, probably because the resuscitator was not available. Enter Helen (Jane Wyman), Dr. Philips’ widow, who crosses paths with Bob Merrick and they soon become linked together, as Bob tries to somehow repay her for the grief he has seemingly caused.

Rock Hudson’s character Bob Merrick is fascinating in that we’re never sure exactly why he feels so compelled to repay Helen and make things up to her, and ultimately lots of other people as well. Is it for love? He seems to be able to get whatever girl he wants with the money he has and those looks, so that wouldn’t seem to be a problem for him. Is it to clear a guilty conscience? This option is quite likely although we’re never really convinced that he’s ever felt guilty about anything in his whole life. He meets up with an Edward Randolph (Otto Kruger), an artist, who becomes a sort of angel-like mentor to him, dispensing advice, caring for him after a night of drinking. This old guy convinces him that doing good and repaying others, without asking for anything in return, creates a Karma of sorts that can be addicting. It seems it’s more this latter option, that Merrick embarks down a path of doing good and cannot stop, that makes the most sense. He seems like the obsessive type, and this giving to others becomes his new impulsive obsession, and we see this type of impulsiveness play itself out in the film at other times as well. Hudson's counterpart, Jane Wyman, was never the most beautiful of actresses. She is good at playing the wholesome, honest, average woman type. Here this comes to great fruition in that we believe her and the actions that she takes in the film because she’s not too glamorous, giving her credibility in this convincing role, necessary for a melodrama of this stature. We have to believe her because the film rides on her ability to convey and project an inner calm and goodness. It should also be mentioned that Barbara Rush gives an incredible performance as Joyce, Helen's stepdaughter. She's as emotional and as fiery as it gets and provides a good contrast to Wyman's stoic poise.

Sirk’s melodramas never feel like reality to me. I think that’s why they succeed so much. There’s no hiding the fact that the stories take place in their own movie world, devoid of apparent realism for the most part, despite the fact that they highlight prejudices and repression in some of his films. The glossiness of the films only superficially covers over the underlying themes. But beneath the gloss you can see truth. This camouflage allows Sirk the ability to not hold back. You can’t go half way with a melodrama, otherwise it comes across as contrived. When you sell it 100% and don’t pretend you’re trying to be something else, it really works. Taken as a whole, Magnificent Obsession requires some leaps of faith, but the leaps come in several smaller increments so that by the time you would question the reality of what you’re seeing, you’re already so invested and love the film.  As I mentioned, Sirk would become more ambitious in All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Imitation of Life (1959) regarding themes. But, Magnificent Obsession is a glorious entertainment in its own right and a worthy introduction to Sirk’s films.

Judy Garland - Suddenly You're Older (An Article by Dan Callahan)



Dan Callahan of Altscreen.com posted this great article on Judy Garland, covering her career, her acting style and her vocal talent. I loved the article so much that I had to post it as a link here and I direct anyone who is interested in Judy to read it and even if you're only interested in cinema I think it still has some fascinating elements regarding her work with Minnelli and Cukor. Dan's honesty and in-depth analysis of her singing are brilliant stuff. There's also a ton of great YouTube videos embedded that kept me busy for an hour. I especially love the duet Judy had with Barbra Streisand. It's a fun one.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961) - Directed by Alain Resnais

I’ve never been comfortable with any associations that were made between Alain Resnais and The French New Wave movement. Although his most popular films came out at the same time as Godard and Truffaut were taking off with Breathless (1960) and The 400 Blows (1959) respectively, the connection had to have been based on his being French and making innovative films. Other than that, his films share little in common with the movement. Night and Fog (1955) was Resnais’ coming out party, a painfully moving documentary on the Holocaust, filmed at Auschwitz, it was a haunting piece on the lingering aftershocks that such a horror can leave. Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959) was a beautiful love story between a Japanese man and a French woman who seem to be connected cosmically through both personally tragic moments, and larger scale horrors, like the bomb on Hiroshima. Somehow Resnais was able to make the connection between past and present in both of those films in ways that are original. I’ve always felt Resnais had more of a kinship in a way with Jean Cocteau, the surrealist director of Blood of a Poet (1930) and Beauty and the Beast (1946). The way Cocteau played with mirrors and time and space are reflective of what Resnais does with his masterwork, Last Year at Marienbad.

Though not as tragic or humanely compelling as his previously mentioned works, Marienbad is one of cinema’s great enigmatic puzzles. It’s a rule-breaking kind of film that was structurally innovative then and in its own way, still compels, exasperates, and inspires deep reflection of what film can be. Resnais’s film opens with a cryptic repeated voiceover as we’re introduced to a grand and stately hotel through tracking shots down the halls, replete with visions of the gilded and artful ceilings. There is almost no one seemingly occupying the place. After several minutes of this, we see people. We have no idea who they are or what their purpose is but they are watching a play of sorts. It's the presence of a noticeably artificial stage play presented to the audience that should be a clue to us as we watch Last Year at Marienbad. What we are about to see cannot be trusted. 

We’re introduced to a woman, “A” (Delphine Seyrig), a man “X” (Giorgio Albertazzi), and another man “M” (Sacha Pitoeff). We witness scene after scene of questions that X asks to A, exchanges of cryptic dialogue, moments between them that may have happened last year or may have not, remembered as if they just occurred a moment before, or didn’t at all. Then of course, M comes into the picture and throws the whole thing for a loop, creating a love triangle perhaps. Resnais directly plays with our consciousness of time in that he cuts directly from one moment that may have been to another moment that either may be, or may have been as well. There’s little delineation between what happened, what is happening, or what might have happened. It appears that M is married to A and their interaction reflects a jealous husband suspecting a cheating wife. My question is whether A knows X at all from any previous interaction. Sometimes it appears like they are remembering their happenings from one year ago, and at other times we think they’re meeting for the first time.

Of course the whole thing could also be interpreted as a grand ghost story. More than once, there are indications that one or two of the characters might be dead and that we are witnessing their ghostly interactions. Although there are numerous other people filling the old hotel, they feel distant from the action as if they are wandering aimlessly, filling up the scenery but not really there. Adding to the haunted house quality would be the weird/ghoulish organ music composed by Francis Seyrig, played nearly constantly over the soundtrack. Resnais’s film holds a kinship with Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), where the reality of what we see cannot be trusted. Also several more recent films play with reality in its many forms like this: Shutter Island (2010), Inception (2010), and several of David Lynch’s films like Mulholland Drive (2001). Last Year at Marienbad still feels innovative and unique though because of its never ending ability to puzzle us and unlike the films I mentioned, it doesn't really tip its hand, as far as I can tell, leaving the viewer to bask gloriously in the mystery even after the film is over. It's a cold and distant film emotionally, but its artful and carefully composed shots, the smooth pans of the camera through the glorious hotel, the labyrinthine structure, and the haunting ambiguity are a testament to Resnais’s unique vision, making it an art-house classic that continues to beguile us.