Trailer for Elena et les hommes.

And Juliette Greco is in it, too.  It is a musical!

Number four on the 2012 Sight & Sound Greatest Films Poll

And one of my all-time favorite films.  Criterion have this available for you on dvd, bluray, and  for digital purchase through iTunes.  Do yourself a serious favor, buy this, and cuddle up with a bottle of Champagne or Bordeaux, and be prepared to be swept away.  Renoir was an absolute master and genius.

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Coeurs sensibles, coeurs fideles.

Qui blamez l'amour leger,

Cessez vos plaintes cruelles:

Est-ce un crime de changer?

Si l'Amour porte des ailes,

N'est-ce pas pour voltiger?

N'est-ce pas pour voltiger?

N'est-ce pas pour voltiger?

And, 

"Everyone has their reasons."

AH

In times like these,

When the GOP seem to have hoodwinked the "liberal Lamestream media" that programs like Medicaid/Medicare and Social Security are all going bankrupt, and are desperate for ree-form, i.e. abolishment, sitting down with your friends and loved ones and watching Make Way for Tomorrow makes absolute perfect sense.

The director, Leo McCarey (no liberal, he- more a true conservative Catholic Christian, in the best senses of all three of those words [and notice how I did not capitalize conservative]) was best known for comedy.  He directed many of Laurel and Hardy's best films and, in fact, was nominated for Best Director twice in 1937.  One nomination was for The Awful Truth, starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunn, and that dog.  The other nomination was for Make Way for Tomorrow.  McCarey won for The Awful Truth.  He was very gracious upon accepting his Oscar but did tell the Academy, That they gave him the award for the wrong picture.

You see, there were forces and incidents at work here that made Make Way for Tomorrow, a massive box office disaster, an absolutely essential project for McCarey.  First and foremost, his father had just died and second was the creation of Social Security in 1935.  And, lastly, the country was still mired in the Depression.  1937 was a crucial year for FDR in the Depression, much of the progress from The New Deal was negated by the GOP boondoggling FDR in to repealing key work programs and the country fell in to another swoon, starting that year.

The story is bleak and unremitting.  Mom and Pop have been married for fifty years but Pop has not had a job for quite a while. They gather their children together for dinner to tell them that the Bank owns the house now.  (Another brutal twist of the knife is that the owner of the bank was one of Mom's old suitors who Pop had bested for her hand.)  None of the children have enough room or are even willing, really, to take on both parents at their own homes.  Mom and Pop will have to be separated until arrangements can be made later.

The separation does not go well.  The oldest, favorite son, eventually sees fit to put Mom in a nursing home whilst Pop has health problems, prompting a doctor to tell him that he must move across the country to California if he intends to keep on living.  Mom and Pop get one last five hour magical "date" in Manhattan before Pop catches the train and they are most likely separated for good.

It is remarkable the knife's edge McCarey and his actors walk on, keeping this film from becoming sentimental or melodramatic.  McCarey was very fond of improvising scenes in his films (which drove Cary Grant crazy, apparently) and whenever he was stuck or frustrated with how a scene was playing he would go play piano on the set until he could find his way out.  Perhaps it was McCarey's method that revealed all those awful truths from the story and the actors to play without telegraphing or pushing the audience's buttons in a cheap, condescending way?

And McCarey is like Renoir in this film.  He takes on Renoir's hyper-objectivity and never stoops to take sides.  The children, even with their failures and flaws, are not villains.  It is like the quote from Renoir's 1939 masterpiece, The Rules of the Game, "Everyone has their reasons."

I imagine there was some grumbling from the studio about the bleak, unhappy ending.  But McCarey had been so successful that probably what happened was the Moguls just decided it would be better for McCarey to get his way this time and get it out of his system.  It would be many years before McCarey made another film as heartbreaking as Make Way for Tomorrow and by then he was near forgotten, a pariah for testifying for HUAC (though he did not name names) and near the end of his career.

There are numerous scenes to bring to your attention but I am just going to mention three here, quickly.  The first, is the Bridge scene, with Mom talking way too loud on the telephone to the love of her life, desperate to hear his voice.  The second and third come back to back:  The oldest son about to tell Mom that the Old Folks Home is best for her, except Mom spares him the guilt and shame, being wise to what is planned for her, by suggesting it herself and then embracing him says, "You were always my favorite, George."; and then George with his wife at her dressing table, staring at himself in the mirror, acidly saying, "We'll always remember this day."

Naturally, despite great notices, the film was a massive flop.  And who could blame folks? This was not the sort of film Depression-era folks would be likely to spend their last nickel on.  But with the current war on good, solid commonweal government programs fully engaged, Make Way for Tomorrow is especially relevant today.  And the fact that it is a film about how shabbily we treat older citizens in our country makes it relevant in any era.

An absolute essential must-see but do not forget your handkerchief.

Renee and I really want to see

The documentary, We Were Here.  The only place it is playing, though, is the Castro Theater.  I do not know if we are man enough to do that.  I will not mind the anger and indignation.  I will join the queens and hoot and holler and boo Reagan, Falwell, Robertson, and the rest of those fucking enemies of love.  With relish.  It is the tears I am wary of.  The entire theater will be infused with such pain, loss, and sorrow.  Still, it is a pain I feel I must confront and absorb.  And I will.

On somewhat the same topic, last night I saw Stonewall Uprising and I have two things to discuss:  first, I did not think the film was v good.  I thought the filmmakers spent too much time setting the "riots" up.  I understand that this was a film that spent some time on The American Experience and had to really really really spell out how awful and suicidal our culture made gays feel prior to Stonewall.  Most straight society in this country even in 2011 have no clue what our gay/lesbian godparents went through.  (Even now, many straights do not get it, still.)  But for the filmmakers to make such an effort to describe the uprising in numerous details, incl using animation, and yet cram all of that in to the last twenty minutes was confusing and frustrating to this viewer.

The other thing I would like to talk about re Stonewall Uprising relates to Gus van Sant's, Milk.  The reason that Milk is ultimately a failure to me, despite its' many virtues, is the opening title sequence.  Van Sant opens his film with documentary footage of gays, hiding their faces, being turned out of gay clubs, arrested, etc, ... And that, for me, was by far, the most moving part of the picture.

Maurice Conchis from Fowles' novel, The Magus, states flatly that he stopped reading fiction ages ago. As awful as Conchis is, I am on the same boat re fiction and non-fiction.  How can van Sant expect us to seriously consider his "story" (based on someone's real life) after submitting us to that kind of poignant, sorrowful, infuriating prologue? Sure, as a Major Hollywood Entertainment it satisfies (and the Oscar for Sean Penn was a swooning plum) but in terms of being a moving, serious statement about an unsung, great American's life it fails.

I am sticking to the Oscar winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk (1984).  Seeing the real Diane Fienstein confront the press after the horror is much better than any Hollywood slow motion death scene.

And the good news is that The Times of Harvey Milk will be coming out on blu-ray from Criterion very soon.

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(I know, I know) but I finally saw Grand Illusion.  Jean Renoir may be the finest filmmaker ever.  No one gets at the subtleties and nuances of real human life better than him.  No one else understands how complicated life is and expresses that complexity better on film.  Philosophers are constantly wrestling with paradoxes.  It is their life.  It is what we expect from them and pay them for.  Renoir is the master of negative capability.  (And I am using Keats' definition of the term, which I feel best defines this esoteric, pretentious sensibility.)   He is able to show every side of the story in a refreshing, honest humanistic way that constantly uplifts the spirit and makes one thrilled to be alive.  The most obvious tool he uses to achieve this is his revolutionary use of deep-focus.  But it is those scripts and stories that constantly challenge me politically, make me walk in my enemies' shoes.  And Renoir does it as if I am enjoying a meal at a three star Michelin restaurant.  Genius.  Yet nearly artless.  The true master of panache by Ardent Henry's standard.

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I had the delicious pleasure of enjoying Grand Illusion as part of TCMs 31 Days of Oscar.  I also had the supreme treat of watching Amadeus on the day Renee got the job.  So, even though she thinks Amadeus is an overwrought rococo creation, she was so busy celebrating real-time on her cell that I had the film at my leisure.

I have seen Amadeus innumerable times.  I have always loved it.  I loved it a week ago, too.  The music is first rate, natch.  F Murray Abraham deserved his Oscar.  Tom Hulce is brill.  (What is he doing now?) Cynthia Nixon is so young, so vulnerable.  Simon Callow was such a good sport and is still so good.  The vaudeville scenes are treasures, making an olde theatre boie (like myself) hurt.

But the reason I love this film so much is that like the seminal Masterpiece Theater series, I, Claudius, Amadeus makes you feel as if you were there, that life really has not changed that fucking much in all the years that have passed.  You can take your iPads, iPods, MacMinis, Kabletown, teevees, and all the rest, and really we are all still the same.  We are still hearts beating, arms reaching, theater-going, book-reading, elated, (sometimes) sorrowful souls walking the pavements which have not much changed.  


As wonderful as Amadeus is, my favorite Forman film will always be Loves of a Blonde.  Amadeus was a prodigal son story.  Forman returns to Czechoslovakia and turns Prague in to Vienna.  Loves of a Blonde was shot by the same man as Amadeus.  Loves of a Blonde captures the mittel-european sense of humor better than any film I have seen. (Still fucking waiting for the US release of Cristian Mungiu's, Tales of the Golden Age.) And the  scene where the kids flood the dance hall will live with me forever.  


Loves of a Blonde is like the Stones' song, Factory Girl. But a lot better.  

City boy meets factory girl in Loves of a Blonde

But right around the time I was born (and MLK was assassinated) the Soviet tanks rolled in to Prague and the Czech New Wave was dead.  Forman ran off to New York (good for him) and made films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Hair, and Amadeus.  His return to Prague was seen as a major triumph and this was before  Havel's Velvet Revolution.

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There is more to come:  discussions on The Pink Floyd, Giant Sand, and the Wisconsin situation.  I love you all, Mwah!, ...