The Falcon and the Snowman (1985, John Schlesinger)

The best scene in The Falcon and the Snowman is when Sean Penn tries to sell his Russian handlers—a wonderfully bemused David Suchet and Boris Lyoskin—on a coke enterprise. They’ve got embassies all over, Penn figures, so why not make some money moving blow through them up from Peru or whatever. It’s maybe halfway through the movie and before any of the high dramatics start, but it’s this perfect moment in Penn’s performance. One where he, the script, and director Schlesinger sync. They rarely sync. It’s a problem. But this one scene is just magic.

Penn’s the only reason to watch Falcon and the Snowman, unless you want to study middling mainstream eighties writing and direction. Or if you want to see how having an exceptionally bland leading man—Timothy Hutton—hurts when he’s supposed to be the sympathetic one but Penn’s the one you’re always hoping is going to get out of this jam or that jam. It might help if Hutton had any conflict in his subplot. He screws over work partner Dorian Harewood—performatively tattles on him—and nothing comes of it. His father and son subplot with Pat Hingle goes nowhere, which is too bad because Hingle yelling at Hutton at least energizes the scenes. And Hutton romance with Lori Singer is the most miserable, thanks to them both being charmless and terrible.

But then there’s Penn and everything Penn touches is golden. Even a strange almost vignette sequence with Chris Makepeace briefly showing up as Penn’s brother—like a visit—and they go on a car ride together and Penn’s got this fantastic monologue. While Makepeace isn’t a particularly dynamic screen partner for Penn… he doesn’t come with all the Hutton baggage. Makepeace is a little bland, but it’s appropriate for him; he’s barely in it. Hutton’s bland and he’s in the movie a bunch and he’s always bland. He’s always dragging the scenes down, not just the ones with Penn.

Oh, right; the story. It’s the mid-seventies, Nixon’s just been impeached, Hutton is disillusioned but when his temporary post-seminary, pre-college job turns into a top secret government gig, he starts discovering how the CIA is messing with Australia’s elections and politics. Someone has to do something. Who better than Hutton, because he can get lowlife drug dealer best friend Penn to do all the legwork getting the information to the Russians. What kind of information? Details, schme-tails, look how funny it is when CIA satellite ground clerk contractors Hutton and Harewood make margaritas in their paper shredder.

Steven Zaillian’s script treats every anecdote and peculiar detail as one-offs, not indicators of anyone’s personality. Why does Hutton such an interest in falconry, outside possibly a pathological hatred of pigeons? Doesn’t matter. We get these really cool shots done from the falcon’s point-of-view, which are technically well-executed by cinematographer Allen Daviau but not actually very good shots. Schlesinger doesn’t have any very good shots in Falcon. If he were concentrating on the performances, it might be okay, but it’s a very boring looking film and Schlesinger can’t be bothered with the actors.

In some ways, it makes sense. On one hand, you have Penn doing this great thing and on the other, you have Hutton making drying paint look compelling. They even have Hutton driving this weird old pickup to try to give him personality but never establish him getting the pickup so it’s just this pointless quirk. Like when it turns out Singer is a movie theater ticket seller in her last scene. Falcon is so concerned with getting in “real” details everything seems forced.

Or, even worse, those are the fake details.

There’s no misfire so great I wouldn’t believe it to be intentional on Falcon and the Snowman. It’s a competent mess, a waste of Penn’s performance and the potential of the story—presumably the real guys were actually friends. There’s no sign of any history or friendship between Penn and Hutton, which also could just be Schlesinger’s atrocious direction of them together. Hutton’s never worse than in his scenes with Penn… okay, wait, no.

Hutton’s never worse than his scenes with Singer. Those scenes are his worst.

Then his scenes with Penn. But still the ones with Penn need to be the best scenes in the movie and instead they’re always disappointing.

The score, from Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays, has a lot of personality. If you use personality as a pejorative.

Good support from Richard Dysart and Priscilla Pointer as Penn’s parents. Joyce Van Patten has nothing to do as Hutton’s mom but she’s not bad. Harewood’s not great. Suchet’s good. Lyoskin’s fine.

Basically everything in the movie needs an overhaul except Penn.

Penn, the locations, and Jim Bissell’s production design (although it does feel like a very anti-seventies-style seventies period piece).

Everything else is middling or worse.

Midnight Cowboy (1969, John Schlesinger)

Midnight Cowboy gets to be a character study, but doesn’t start as one, which is an interesting situation. About forty-five minutes into the film, which runs just shy of two hours, Midnight Cowboy chucks the narrative urgency. Maybe not chucks, maybe just shuts down, because it does take the film a while to lose that pressure. Until eventually leads Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are sitting around starving to death and the film’s not treating it as problem to be solved; it’s a feature of the characters’ lives. Midnight Cowboy is never a wish fulfillment picture–even when it’s not absent hope, it’s not hopeful–but it goes from being a bad dream to a nightmare without reflecting on the change. And the nightmare runs a lot differently.

The nightmare also starts when Dustin Hoffman becomes the costar who’s taking top billing. When the film initially introduces Hoffman, it doesn’t hint at where the narrative’s going; it also doesn’t forecast what to expect from the actors. Voight and Hoffman have got a lot of character development with almost no expository assistance. Midnight Cowboy is a film with two exceptional performances, both independently ambitious and both agreeably codependent. Director Schlesinger keeps it together–Hoffman and Voight squat in a hovel, their domestic normality utterly shocking and utterly not because the actors and Schlesinger have done such a good job conveying the physicality’s of their performances. It’s like a stage play, those scenes in the apartment, perfectly choreographed, even more perfectly edited by Hugh A. Robertson. It’s an acting ballet, with these two actors playing their previously established caricatures with immediate depth.

The bad dream part of the film, which has Voight arriving in New York City to hustle his cowboy-attired bod out to the wealthy ladies of the Big Apple. Voight has a troubled past, which Schlesinger and screenwriter Waldo Salt introduce through flashbacks, usually as dream sequences. Both sleeping and napping dream sequences. Basically, Voight’s always flashing back to something to explain why he’s reacting the way he’s reacting. There’s some narrative efficiency to it, I suppose, but they’re not incorporated well. Voight actually does the best with them, intentionally or not.

It all changes, soon after the nightmare begins, when Hoffman gets his own daydream. It’s a gently done sequence, both actors silent to the audience; excellent editing from Robertson on it. Midnight Cowboy never glamorizes–until this daydream sequence–and it’s mind-blowingly effective in establishing the new angle on the characters. Oddly, Hoffman entirely downplays having the daydream–which is the opposite of Voight–and hits some of the same effectiveness notes for that inverse approach.

In the second half of the film, once Hoffman shares the narrative focus, Midnight Cowboy works more as truncated vignettes. The main plot line is still Voight trying to make it as a hustler, but it’s narratively reduced. Instead, it’s Voight and Hoffman’s bonding over this idea, usually unspoken in every way. It’s a lot of amazing acting from both of them. Hoffman’s loud, Voight’s quiet.

There are some excellent supporting performances–Brenda Vaccaro in particular, John McGiver, Sylvia Miles.

Fine photography from Adam Holender. Midnight Cowboy’s about the editing and Holender keeps up with where Schlesinger needs the camera to be for the cut. Schlesinger just seems impatient until Hoffman gets into the picture full-time. He rushes the first part of the film, then drags it down with the acceptable and pragmatic but way too obvious flashback sequences.

And it all kind of falls apart when Vaccaro’s vignette is over. It’s like the film’s running late, so Schlesinger is rushing again only now he’s got two actors instead of one to hurry along. But the film’s still quite good and the lead performances are phenomenal.

This post is part of the You Gotta Have Friends Blogathon hosted by Debbie of Moon In Gemini.

The Day of the Locust (1975, John Schlesinger)

The Day of the Locust is a gentle film, at least in terms of Schlesinger’s direction, Conrad L. Hall’s cinematography and John Barry’s score. The film’s softly lit but with a whole lot of focus. Schlesinger wants to make sure the audience gets to see every part of the actors’ performances. He also wants the actors to exist in this dreamland. It’s Hollywood in the thirties, it’s supposed to be a dreamland. Except everything is a threat, possible danger is everywhere. Only Schlesinger doesn’t break that gentle direction until the third act, so he has to figure out how to suggest that danger as gently as possible.

Luckily, he’s got great actors, he’s got Hall, he’s got Barry, he’s got editor Jim Clark who does an unbelievable job cutting the film. Day of the Locust is a film about terrorized people who don’t realize they’re terrorized until its way too late.

The film opens with William Atherton moving into a not great apartment complex and getting a job in the art department at Paramount. He’s got a rather attractive neighbor, Karen Black, who works as an extra. Black lives with her father, played by Burgess Meredith. The first twenty or so minutes of the film beautifully establishes the grandeur of thirties Hollywood through Atherton’s perspective. Once Meredith shows up, however, the film becomes more and more Black’s.

Eventually, as Atherton’s attempts to woo Black go unsuccessful, Donald Sutherland shows up. He’s not in L.A. for the showbiz. He’s an accountant and a delicate person, something Sutherland essays beautifully. The thing about the acting in Locust is all of its great, it’s just great in completely different ways. Atherton’s story arc, for example, eventually becomes entirely subtext. A long take on him here, a cut to his reaction somewhere else. His character development becomes background, even though he’s somehow always the protagonist.

Sutherland falls for Black too. Just like Bo Hopkins does. Just like Richard Dysart does. Black doesn’t convey malice or even indifference to her suitors, she just doesn’t return their affections. Waldo Salt’s script is extremely complicated in how it deals with Black’s character. She’s never kind, but occasionally gentle. She’s rarely mean when sober, but when drunk she’s vicious. Her character, just like most of them in Locust, is inevitably tragic.

The Day of the Locust‘s characters’ tragedies stem from their unawareness. They’re victims, whether they know it or not. And they only way to succeed is to victimize someone else, which can even be a mutually beneficial arrangement. It’s a rather depressing film. Of course, Atherton’s protagonist is never looking for happiness so much as he is for beauty.

Black’s performance makes the film. Sutherland’s great, Meredith’s great, Atherton’s excellent in a slimmer role than the others, but it’s Black who makes The Day of the Locust so devastating. At least until the final devastation, where Schlesinger and Salt shatter the already shattered dream. For all Schlesinger’s excellent fine, gentle filmmaking, when he unleashes at the end of Locust, it’s even better. And editor Clark ably handles it all.

The Day of the Locust is exceptional.

Cold Comfort Farm (1995, John Schlesinger)

Do the Brits have any major film movement? In the 1920s, the Germans had the expressionist movement. In the (what?) 1960s, there was the French New Wave. In addition to contributing more Greenhouse Effect-causing pollutants to the atmosphere, the United States has perfected the over-produced blockbuster. The British, however, have never really had a movement. There are some great (and good) British filmmakers, but the Archers never caused a revolution…

Cold Comfort Farm has no distinct style. It’s inoffensively directed, with a poor narrative structure, and some decent performances. It might be–obviously silly ones aside–Kate Beckinsale’s worst performance, because her character is as flat as an LCD screen. Rufus Sewell (whatever happened to him?) turns up with a similarly depth-less character. On the other hand, Ian McKellen has a lot of fun with his character. I always find it amusing when Ian McKellen’s good, since he’s since become such a ham (thanks, in no small part, to Bryan Singer).

So, while British cinema seems to lack any spectacular definition, Britain itself certainly contains quite a bit. There’s something charming about the British countryside, it’s a very definite setting and very obvious. Batman Begins used a British manor for an American mansion, something quite impossible. See, I’m even using words like “quite” and “definite.” That’s a bit of the problem with Cold Comfort Farm, it tries really damn hard to be charming. Even the theme. I listen to the theme and think, how charming. But that’s because of the theme, not because it’s the Cold Comfort Farm music.

Beckinsale improves (somewhat) throughout the picture, but she’s miscast. There’s no mischievousness, not even the hint of it, and the character needs some. Without it, she’s boring (and wholly unaffected by the momentous changes–though for good–she’s causing in people’s lives).

In the end, Cold Comfort left a defining plot thread undefined, something that gets it brownie points, but not enough to really change my opinion of it. Damn nice music though and British countryside. Shame about their cinematic output.

I realized, during the film, Britain’s best efforts seem to be in television, not film. Makes you wonder what PBS could do if nitwits weren’t trying to kneecap it.

Still, Cold Comfort is one of the last undefined films… Made in 1995, I don’t watch and think about that production date, something hard to do with current film output. Hmm. Maybe not “one of the last,” but certainly a fine example of an undated film.