In Memoriam: Gerald aka Gordon Pasha

"The only way men can respond to a star is to gaze at it from their remote planet. And even when a star passes out of our sight in the sequence of orbits; we believe that it exists still and feel the gravitational pull it exerts."

Over at Laura's Miscellaneous Blog and Matthew Coniam's Movietone News I was saddened to learn of the death of fellow blogger Gerald, aka Gordon Pasha. Gerald often posted insightful and humorous comments here at Hollywood Dreamland, and I particularly enjoyed his remarks about Katharine Hepburn, like the following comment on my review of Dragon Seed which hilariously sums up that misfire of a movie. I'll miss your wit and wisdom, Gerald.

ck:

"I think you have it just right. This is always a “making dinner” movie for me – I put it on when moving sauté pans around the stove, readying a table, and stirring something that needs stirring. I am a fierce Katharine Hepburn advocate and both an Agnes Moorehead and Aline MacMahon worshipper, but this puts my top 50 list to the test. All three are on my list, and all three are in this movie -- and I am worrying about what’s in the oven. And I cannot help thinking that Turhan Bey must have accidentally reported to the wrong lot, and had to take off his Sudan costume."

Gerald

Midnight In Paris (2011)

"Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present... the name for this denial is golden age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in - its a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present."~Paul (Michael Sheen) in Midnight In Paris

Legendary writer-director and Golden Age devotee Woody Allen's latest movie, the airy and light Midnight In Paris, has become a favorite of mine.

This review contains spoilers, so consider yourselves warned.

What it's About: With Midnight In Paris, Woody Allen continues his exploration of nostalgia, romance, and of course, chronic dissatisfaction. The film tells of hack Hollywood screenwriter Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) who travels to Paris with his fiancé, Inez (Rachel McAdams), and her conservative-to-a-fault parents, who are in Paris on business. An unwelcome addition to their Paris trip is the coincidental appearance of Inez' college crush, the know-it-all Paul (Michael Sheen) who takes advantage of every opportunity to rub his encyclopedic knowledge of the arts in Gil's face.

Gil realizes that he'd like to chuck his unsatisfying screenwriting career and move permanently to Paris in order to work on his novel about a man who runs a nostalgia shop. Gil is convinced that Paris in the 1920s with the Lost Generation of writers and artists was the greatest time to be alive. in Midnight In Paris, Gil gets to see that era firsthand and meets the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and most memorably: Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll; in a scene-stealing but not movie-stealing, performance).


It was wonderful that my cinematic hero has paid tribute to my literary hero. I was unaware that Allen even liked Hemingway! Whatever the case, Woody has captured enough of their essence to (hopefully) inspire newbies as well as those who've loved this stuff for years.

It's also great to know that the film has gotten some young people interested in the 1920s. I've long since wanted a movie with this kind of content to capture the imagination of those who may not have known anything about that time but leaves the viewer wishing to learn all about it.


As someone who's worshipped Hemingway for the past seventeen years, I have to say that I was thrilled at how Woody made those knowing references (despite some minor anachronisms; but really, no big deal) and how he paid attention to the little details, like Gertrude Stein's sitting room--it looked just like its photographs--and how Kathy Bates even sat like Stein. Fitzgerald was dapper and charming, Adrien Brody's Salvador Dali was another comedic turn. I was so happy while watching Midnight In Paris. I'm pleased that Woody's getting praise--and good box office receipts--for his work once again.


While I am a Hemingway buff, there was a scene in a car where Hem was discussing passion and women that I didn't recognize as coming from a specific book of his. It seemed more like an approximation of Hemingway rather than something from his actual work. Hats off to Woody the screenwriter for "channeling" Hemingway with the following hilariously dead-on send up of "Papa."

 "I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving, or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face like some rhino hunters I know, or Belmonte, who's truly brave. It is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds, until the return that it does to all men. And then you must make really good love again. Think about it." 


~Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) in Midnight In Paris

A Few Hemingway Quibbles: In the movie, Hemingway asks Owen Wilson if he's ever shot a lion. There's also further mention by Gertude Stein (Kathy Bates) that Hemingway and Adriana (not the Adriana that Hem went koo-koo for in 1948) went on safari, when in fact Hemingway's first safari was in 1933-34 (can't remember if it overlapped; I think it did), which inspired The Snows of Kilimanjaro, so it's unlikely that Hemingway had shot a lion during the 1920s. Once again, minor quibbles.


Owen Wilson's performance was quite good. Before this, I always viewed him as Ben Stiller's sidekick who never appeared in any good movies. I didn't think one way or the other about his actual ability since those movies were so atrocious. I'm glad that he's put in a fine Woodylike performance and I hope he and Allen work together again. I think Owen struck a perfect balance with his performance. He wasn't unlike the typical Woody character, but he was still different enough to avoid a dead-on (and distracting) caricature like Kenneth Branagh and Edward Norton have done in previous Allen films.


There has been criticism over Woody's dipping into the same well in recent movies and borrowing from himself, but Allen has always expressed chronic dissatisfaction with his own films and as a result has revisited the same themes multiple times. Many great artists re-interpret their own work--yes, I consider Woody Allen a great artist--Walt Whitman re-edited Leaves of Grass during the course of his lifetime, Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus constantly re-arranged their compositions during their careers in jazz, with Ellington doing so over a fifty-year period. John Ford and Howard Hawks continued to work in the Western genre and focused on the same themes. In Hawks' case, even remade one of his own films (Rio Bravo later remade as El Dorado; both of which are excellent). Martin Scorsese has revisited the gangster genre, and Barry Levinson has most every one of his movies set in Baltimore. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a filmmaker returning to certain themes and storylines during the course of their work; in fact, I'd be disappointed if an artist of Woody Allen's stature didn't return to the themes found in most of his films.

The bottom line is that I loved Midnight In Paris, though I agree that while it's by no means a high concept film, part of its enjoyment--at least for me--came from the amusing characterizations of the artists. It probably helps to have some knowledge of their work and lives beforehand, but I don't see any evidence that Allen was attempting to make some big intellectual point or trying to fool anyone with the movie. While Woody has always been smitten with the 1920s-1940s, his inner New Yorker can't help but cast a cynical eye over all he surveys. The fact that the know-it-all Paul is correct in his analysis of Gil's romanticism of the past shows that Woody himself is just as wary of the existence of any "Golden Age."

The film's dual messages--live and love your life today and understand that there is no one "Golden Age"--is about as deep as it gets here. I enjoyed Midnight In Paris for being an affectionate tip of the hat to some of the writers and artists Allen--and perhaps his audience--admires. It's a film that many Golden Age film fans will enjoy.

TCM Does as I Tell Them...

...at least I like to think so!

Yesterday TCM featured French actor Jean Gabin (though NOT Quai des Brumes (1938), pictured above) by airing his films in its annual August Under the Stars showcase. Yes, I'm quite pleased!

The poll results of last month's question, "Should TCM air more foreign films?" ended 19-16, with the yays edging the nays.

If yesterday's Gabin marathon is any indication, perhaps enough viewers want to see more foreign films on TCM, or better still, a separate channel dedicated to foreign far, with a Euro-Robert Osborne type--or Elvis Mitchell--taking on the hosting duties. It would be a refreshing change...for a change.

The Gabin festival reminded me once again of how little of international film I've seen. My own preference is for the Nouvelle Vague films of the 1950s and '60s, but seeing movies from a pre-WWII vintage would be an exciting and no doubt eye opening experience and tie in with this blog's focus, as well.

For posterity's sake, here are the Gabin films that Turner Classic Movies played yesterday:

6:00 AM Gueule d'amour (1937)
A retired cavalry officer discovers the woman who won his heart was in love with the uniform.
Dir: Jean Gremillon Cast: Jean Gabin, Mireille Balin.
94 min
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8:00 AM Remorques (1941)
A married tugboat captain falls for a woman he rescues from a sinking ship.
Dir: Jean Gremillon Cast: Jean Gabin, Alain Cuny.
81 min
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9:30 AM Jour Se Leve, Le (1939)
A young factory worker loses the woman he loves to a vicious schemer.
Dir: Marcel Carne Cast: Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty.
93 min,
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11:00 AM 110 Air de Paris, L' (1954)
An over-the-hill boxer stakes his fortune on training a young railroad-worker.
Dir: Marcel Carne Cast: Arletty, Jean Gabin, Roland Lesaffre.
110 min
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1:00 PM Leur derniere nuit (1953)
A schoolteacher falls for a librarian who's secretly the head of a criminal ring.
Dir: Georges Lacombe Cast: Jean Gabin, Madeleine Robinson.
95 min
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2:45 PM Desordre et la nuit, le (1958)
A homicide detective tries to protect a pretty drug addict implicated in a murder.
Dir: Gilles Grangier Cast: Jean Gabin, Danielle Darrieux, Nadja Tiller.
93 min
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4:30 PM Maria Chapdelaine (1934)
A Canadian frontierswoman must choose from among three suitors.
Dir: Julien Duvivier Cast: Madeleine Renaud, Suzanne Desprès, Gaby Triquet, Jean Gabin, Jean-Pierre Aumont.
90 min
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6:00 PM La Bandera (1934)
A murderer escapes France to join the Spanish Foreign Legion, where he finds love while pursued by the law.
Dir: Julien Duvivier Cast: Jean Gabin, Annabella, Robert Le Vigan, Raymond Aimos, Pierre Renoir, Gaston Modot.
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8:00 PM Pepe Le Moko (1941)
Love for a beautiful woman draws a gangster out of hiding.
Dir: Julien Duvivier Cast: Jean Gabin, Mireille Balin, Gabriel Gabrio.
94 min
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10:00 PM Grand Illusion (1937)
French POWs fight to escape their German captors during World War I.
Dir: Jean Renoir Cast: Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Marcel Dalio.
Erich von Stroheim, Dita Parlo, (Julien) Carette, Gaston Modot, Jean Daste.
113 min.
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12:00 AM La Bete Humaine (1938)
A railroad engineer enters an affair with his friend's amoral wife.
Dir: Jean Renoir. Cast: Jean Gabin, Simone Simon, Fernand Ledoux.
97 min
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2:00 AM Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954)
An aging gangster comes out of retirement when his best friend is kidnapped.
Dir: Jacques Becker. Cast: Jean Gabin, René Dary, Dora Doll.
94 min,
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4:00 AM Des gens sans importance (1955)
An unhappy waitress starts an affair with a married truck driver.
Dir: Henri Verneuil. Cast: Jean Gabin, Françoise Arnoul, Pierre Mondy.
101 min.

No Holiday from Holiday (1938)

Holiday (1938; Dir. George Cukor) is among my all-time favorite movies, but while watching it this morning I noticed the boom microphone shadow across Lew Ayres' face. Ayres' performance, along with the rest of the cast, is impressive. The fact that Holiday is one of the most overlooked films of the Golden Age of Hollywood still baffles me. Perhaps it's due to it coming among Katharine Hepburn's "Box Office Poison" period, during which she made such "failures" as Bringing Up Baby. But unlike that Howard Hawks masterwork, Cukor's Holiday hasn't garnered the overdue praise that befits a movie of its quality...visible boom notwithstanding.

I've written about Hepburn's excellent performance in this film before, but the things that draw me to Holiday time and again are the social commentary and class distinctions, all set during the powderkeg economic conditions of the 1930s.
The most famous--and amazingly prescient--line of dialogue is spoken by Cary Grant's Johnny Case character, a footloose and happy-go-lucky guy who's nonetheless seriously trying to "find himself" decades before baby boomers made that phrase commonplace. It's no surprise that Holiday enjoyed a small surge in popularity during the late sixties and early seventies, when another round of social upheaval was present:

"When I find myself in a position like this, I ask myself what would General Motors do? And then I do the opposite."

Oh, the irony.

The film also touches on the political instability of the era. The fascist states in Germany and Italy were reviving the economies shattered by the 1929 stock market crash. There was much speculation about Capitalism's viability in those dark times, so the idea of Fascism--and Communism--seemed like options worth considering to many people. However, Holiday doesn't embrace any of those totalitarian systems, but it does raise the questions on peoples' minds in 1938. The Setons' cousins, Seton and Laura Cram (Henry Daniell and Binnie Barnes) areseen as cold, almost sinister beings and it's a more-than-subtle warning about those other systems. The liberals, Professor and Mrs. Potter (Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon) take exception to the beliefs of the Crams, as this exchange indicates:

Seton Cram: "It wouldn't take that long [to make more money] if we had the right kind of governement."

Susan Elliot Potter: "Like which country for example, Mr. Cram?"
-------

It's these social commentaries that help make Holiday such an interesting movie. Yes, the romance between the leads is the main focus, but in these class distinctions it's fascinating to see how American society is portrayed here. Like all great works of art, Holiday holds something new for the viewer with each viewing. It's one of the great--if forgotten--films of the 1930s.