Nomadland (2020, Chloé Zhao)

Nomadland becomes even more of an achievement when you find out the supporting cast is entirely amateur. The film’s a character study of lead Frances McDormand as she adjusts to her life as a modern nomad, traveling the country in her van (where she also lives), working seasonal jobs, and coming across a variety of people. All those people—with the exception of David Strathairn—are amateurs. Their effectiveness (or the outright quality of their performances) is stunning; because while McDormand is potentially an eccentric—the film takes a while giving that information—none of the folks she meets on the road come off as quirky Americana tropes. Director, screenwriter, and editor Zhao hones in on their humanity immediately.

The film takes place in 2011, after tragedy and the recession has ravaged McDormand’s life; after losing her home (she lived in a company town), she moves into her van while working a seasonal job at Amazon. She’s got a good friend at that job, Linda May (starring Linda May as Linda May, as it were). Zhao introduces the nomad lifestyle initially through May, before they both end up at a nomad retreat led by Bob Wells. That retreat might be the longest McDormand stays in one place, long enough to meet Strathairn, who’s immediately smitten with her, deepen her friendship with May, and meet a new good friend in Charlene Swankie.

Those four—May, Swankie, Strathairn, and Wells—will be the supporting cast, even though Nomadland never settles long enough for it to seem like a firm commitment. Zhao employs a lyrical structure to the film overall, with McDormand leading the film into excursions into the wilderness around her, but there’s some epical drama involving Strathairn, where the film—quite frankly—comes the closest to derailing. Zhao pulls it all together again and pushes up and over, saving the best for last as far as character revelation goes on McDormand. During her travels, we find out more and more of her backstory, with sister Melissa Smith doing one of the great character study monologues to explain their relationship, but Zhao and McDormand resist any actual reveals on the character until the very end. Then they knock it out of the park with a perfect finish.

I had been expecting Nomadland to be a depressing piece about the ravages of the Great Recession, but Zhao finds an entirely different story. Not one of resilience or survival but of contentment and wonderment. The way Zhao and McDormand do the nature scenes, when McDormand takes a walk off the beaten path, is divine. Zhao isn’t showing the world through McDormand’s eyes, rather McDormand’s eyes on the world and then McDormand carries through with showing her experience of those sights. It’s breathtaking.

And gets added heft thanks to some of the choice exposition throughout the film, all building—not epically but in energy—towards the conclusion. McDormand’s got an arc, the film hasn’t. If there’s a third act, it’s where Zhao figures out how to delineate between the two. Not because she’s been avoiding it, but because there’s an end to the film even though the entire picture’s about how there isn’t an end. It’s got to be done.

The film identifies some of the locales McDormand ends up, like Wall Drug (dollar ice creams are not a plot point, however), but not expressly. The Where isn’t important, rather the What, and how Zhao showcases that What. Nomadland showcases its scenery separately from how McDormand observes it, with Joshua James Richards’s gorgeous, lush photography—the stuff he and Zhao do with foreground and background is glorious—Ludovico Einaudi’s music, and then Zhao’s exceptional cutting. It’s in the first twenty minutes or so it becomes clear how good the editing is going to be throughout Nomadland; the photography’s the photography, it’s an obvious success, but the editing is simultaneously sublime and bombastic. Zhao does superior work, so even when it seems like they’re going to take an easy route to a traditional narrative in the second half, the editing’s still superb.

But then, of course, Zhao and McDormand figure out how to make that seeming short cut to didacticism into just another place where McDormand wanders off the path to look around on her own.

McDormand’s performance is singular. Nomadland is all her (or her van). The character reveals late in the film line up with the performance we’ve already seen; they don’t inform because it’d be too intentional and Nomadland takes wandering approach; McDormand doesn’t respond well to being constrained. It all comes together in that exceptional finish.

In the supporting cast, while Strathairn’s excellent, Swankie’s the best. She’s prickly as opposed to May, who’s all heart. Swankie’s prickle provides an excellent contrast to McDormand, who’s muted. Swankie challenges McDormand, while May reinforces her. And Strathairn (tries to) tempt her.

Nomadland’s a singular picture, exploring a very specific character in a very specific—albeit wandering—setting. Zhao and McDormand (and the cast and crew) make a very special and decidedly outstanding film.

Best in Show (2000, Christopher Guest)

Best in Show is a masterpiece of editing. Guest’s direction is spectacular as well—the way he creates space for the performances—but it’s all about how Guest and editor Robert Leighton construct the narrative. Even in the second half, when Best in Show becomes a singular tour de force of buffoonery from Fred Willard, it’s all about the editing.

The film opens with an introduction to its cast–Show is a mockumentary about a fictional dog show, specifically the contestants (well, their humans) in the “Best in Show” category. For the first act, Show is going to go through a variety of comedic tones, ranging from the very acerbic (super-yuppies Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock) to the nearly absurdist (Floridians Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, with the Florida doing a lot of the lifting). Posey and Hitchcock are trying to get their Weimaraner (Sporting Group) mentally prepared for the big show (the dog’s been in a rut since walking in on them in the bedroom apparently), while O’Hara and Levy’s biggest problem is O’Hara running into one of her numerous ex-boyfriends, which causes Levy intense jealousy. Their dog, a Norwich (Terrier Group), probably has the least to do in the film.

Then there’s John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean, who have a Shih Tzu (Toy Group). They don’t have much melodrama in their story—I misremembered them at one point running into McKean’s ex-wife (who he left for Higgins), but no—and it’s mostly just Higgins being hilarious and McKean providing support for him. The dog’s adorable. They will be the most aware of the competition aspect of the prizes, with the previous winner their clear nemesis. The previous winner is a Standard Poodle (Non-Sporting Group), owned by trophy wife Jennifer Coolidge. Coolidge doesn’t do the training, instead having handler Jane Lynch do it. Since Coolidge and Lynch won the last two years, the film follows them the most of any of the groups once it’s dog show time.

Finally, there’s director Guest, who’s got the Bloodhound (Hound Group).

The first half of the film is the lead-up to the dog show, tracking the eventual contestants as they prepare and travel to the show. It’s a showcase for each of the actors, with Guest careful not to showoff his own performance too much. Technically, Guest playing a Southerner who loves his dog is probably the best technical performance. It’s seamless and sincere; Show’s very careful in how it joshes dog ownership. With Guest in particular, then probably Higgins and McKean, it does convey the emotional regard the owners have for the animals—no one’s going to be worse than Posey and Hitchcock (the scenes with Hitchcock berating the dog are simultaneously hilarious and horrifying to the point you hope the dog was deaf). Show’s very good at how it jokes about its characters and their eccentricities.

Other first half interviewees include Bob Balaban as the dog show president, Don Lake as the show floor supervisor, and Ed Begley Jr. as the hotel manager. Begley gets some of the best material in the film—as the only person outside the dog show world who isn’t an ex perving on O’Hara in front of Levy, he’s got the angle closest to—presumably—the viewer (not sure how Show plays to dog show contestants, though outside the the interviewees, everyone seems “normal”). But Begley gets to intersect with various characters; otherwise it’s chance encounters.

Once they get to the show proper, the film brings in Willard as one of the announcers—Jim Piddock is his hilariously suffering straight man—and Best in Show becomes the “Fred Willard Show,” in the best possible way. Willard’s profoundly, intentionally unaware host knows less about the dog show than anyone who’s watched the first half of the film; all the procedure and absurdity focuses on Willard and reflects out, with Willard’s ignorance giving the viewer a chance to know more about dog shows than the announcer. It’s a relatively easy idea but Willard’s so spectacular it becomes singular.

All of the performances are good, with O’Hara and Levy the standout couple—at one point they both have to do physical comedy and are superb—with Guest, Higgins, and Lynch all fantastic solo performances. Coolidge and Hitchcock are on the next tier, just based on material (though Coolidge’s lack of material is part of her joke), then I guess Posey and McKean. They’re both good, they just don’t have the best parts in their couples.

Guest’s direction—and the importance of the editing—comes through most in the first half, before the film can rely on Willard to move mountains; again, Best in Show is a comedy masterpiece, with Guest leveraging the cast’s abilities (not to mention his own) and he and Leighton’s phenomenal editing of the material. Roberto Schaefer’s photography is also excellent, although not as consequential to the film’s big successes. Some of the lighting is so good you wish the interview segment could go on longer just to showcase it.

While it may very well be possible for a comedy mockumentary to be better than Best in Show… it seems very unlikely. The film’s a (quietly) remarkable achievement.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972, Luis Buñuel)

Buñuel arranges The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie as a series of vignettes. Occasionally there will be a surreal bridging device—the cast walking in search of a meal on a highway in the country—sometimes it will turn out to be a dream, sometimes it will be another layer (a narrated flashback, a dream-in-a-dream), sometimes it will be more traditionally epical. Mostly in the first act.

The film opens with four people getting to a dinner party, only they’re a day early so they have to go out. But then it turns out fate’s against them having dinner that night. They’ll try again.

The initial dinner guests are Fernando Rey, playing the ambassador from the South American republic Miranda, Paul Frankeur as his friend, Delphine Seyrig as Frankeur’s wife, and Bulle Ogier as Seyrig’s sister. They go out to dinner with Stéphane Audran, who was expecting them for dinner the next night. Because it’ll turn out her husband, Jean-Pierre Cassel, is kind of flakey. Though everyone in Charm is flakey at one time or another, though only a few with any malice behind it.

In the first act we also learn Rey, Frankeur, and Cassel are coke traffickers. Rey brings it in via his ambassador bag—diplomatic immunity—selling to Frankeur and Cassel. The wives don’t appear to know anything about it. There’s a bunch of funny dialogue about ambassadors as smugglers. Charm is often very obviously, intentionally funny. Buñuel will occasionally break out the jokes–especially when introducing Julien Bertheau as the local bishop who moonlights as Audran and Cassel’s new gardener. Bertheau even becomes one of the dinner-seekers—tagging along to various events before his subplot goes its own way.

Because Charm’s also got a some very strong narrative arcs. The second act, after the film introduces the layering device (starting with a great narrated flashback from Christian Baltauss), slowly becomes about centering the narrative focus on Rey. He’s always kind of the lead—he’s sleeping with someone he shouldn’t be and he’s also a cocaine smuggler so he’s on edge; also there are revolutionaries from Miranda in Paris trying to assassinate him—but the process of making him protagonist and directing the narrative, even passively—takes Buñuel a while.

Every one of the dream sequence reveals in the film is a surprise. Even as the events become more absurd—eventually there’s a ghost and it makes perfect sense because ghosts are real in Charm—Buñuel never lessens the intensity of the scene. The drama is always very real. So we gradually come to understand Rey’s self-conscious about being a South American diplomat with these bourgeoisie white French people. There’s never a clarifying scene about whether or not he should be—Buñuel always leaves the judgment of the characters up to the audience; especially when it’s part of the story. Charm’s narrative distance and how Buñuel adjusts it throughout is stunning.

All the acting is excellent. Rey gets the biggest part, obviously, then probably Audran—who gets one more scene without her significant other than any of the other women—then actually Bertheau as the priest. Bertheau’s arc is one of the film’s standout successes. Because Buñuel introduces Bertheau as another angle giving insight into the main cast; he’s an observer too, one who’s socially acceptable to have out to dinner, unlike Milena Vutokic as Audran and Cassel’s maid; Vutokic gets a lot to do (and even gets one of the last big jokes) but she’s all reaction to the cast, she’s got nothing of her own, which ends up being part of the joke.

Ogier and Seyrig both get a couple really good spotlight scenes. Cassel’s always support, but getting more to do than Frankeur, which is kind of funny because from the introduction it seems like Frankeur’s going to be a scene-stealer, which raises a question about whether or not Charm is unpredictable. I mean. Ghosts exist so anything’s on the table, which affects plot anticipation.

Because even though all the dream reveals are surprises, they’re never “gotchas.” Discreet Charm is never about being fantastical; the film’s incredibly grounded. Otherwise a bunch of the jokes wouldn’t work and Buñuel makes sure they work. There’s one about Americans where it’s edited to wait for the laughs. Excellent editing throughout from Hélène Plemiannikov.

The other technicals are similarly strong. Edmond Richard’s photography is a lot less flashy than Plemiannikov’s editing, Pierre Guffroy’s production design, or Jacqueline Guyot’s costumes, but Charm’s photography is appropriately clinical in its presentation. The film never feels stagy, but it does have long scenes in single locations. There’s a personality to the photography’s lack of personality, especially as Buñuel even trades on how reliably the photography showcases the sets. It’s all wonderfully intentional.

While The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie sometimes takes darker turns, it’s always genial and well-mannered, which is just the perfect tone.

Charm’s a rare, strange delight.

The Green Mile (1999, Frank Darabont)

The Green Mile takes place in a world where racism wasn’t really a big problem in 1930s Mississippi—not even grieving father Nicholas Sadler is going to say something racist to the Black convicted murderer of his daughters, Michael Clarke Duncan—but it also takes place in a world where the Christian God is real so… I mean, if you’re going to give them God, might as well let them magic away the racism. Because while the film’s a character study, it’s not about death row cell block captain Tom Hanks overcoming racism—no saviors, white or otherwise, possible here—it’s about him learning the cost of betraying a miracle. But without much religiosity. Screenwriter and director Darabont has to tow a very fine line to pull it all off and tow that line he does. Unwaveringly.

Even in the exceptionally tricky second-to-third act transition. Even at the finish with the lengthy narration. Whatever Darabont tries, he accomplishes, but not without a lot of effort from everyone involved. Green Mile is downright fastidious.

The film opens with old man in a retirement home Dabbs Greer living a somewhat mysterious life. Residents aren’t allowed unaccompanied on the grounds—one imagines it’s Maine, because Green Mile’s Stephen King—but he sneaks out every day to a mysterious cabin in the woods. He’s got a lady friend, Eve Brent, and pretty soon he’s sitting her down to tell his story.

We know younger Greer is Hanks because of one of boldest moves in film narrative—we know Matt Damon’s not going to end up turning into Greer because of a bladder infection. It is the story of Greer’s worst bladder infection, cut to multiple Academy Award winner Tom Hanks essaying peeing with an untreated bladder infection in a prison in Mississippi in 1935.

And from that moment, Hanks nails the part. All the way through the next two hours and fifty minutes or whatever. No matter what happens—no matter who shows up in a stunning performance—it’s always Hanks’s movie, it’s always about his performance. When Darabont’s got to close his bookend, he takes it into account and figures a way to plug it in (though, post-CGI de-aging, there’s now a lot to say about using actors of different ages playing the same part and how it affects the verisimilitude of a picture).

Hanks runs the death row cell block–The Green Mile—as a place of serenity. No reason to agitate anyone. When the film starts, there are two prisoners awaiting execution—Graham Greene and Michael Jeter. The film takes place over a summer, with the time somewhat tracked by the executions. All of the execution scenes are tough, a couple more than others, and Darabont takes the time to inspect the men conducting the executions.

Green Mile’s a man movie. There are a couple significant parts for women, but it’s about the guys. It doesn’t try to comment toxic masculinity, but still does so because of the nature of the piece and of Darabont’s interests in the relationships between the characters. It gets into class a bit—and intentionally—while directly avoiding the race issues; Green Mile is kind of Norman Rockwell Gothic; Capracorn but sour. None of the characters are allowed to express themselves fully at work—Hanks and main work sidekick David Morse have an almost entirely silent understanding of one another—and contemporary, religiously informed gender roles don’t allow them to speak about it at home. But not even the inmates are allowed to express themselves, though sometimes it’s because they’re not able.

For example, Duncan’s character. He arrives almost immediately once the flashback starts, during an incredibly efficient introduction to Doug Hutchison’s vile twerp of a prison guard, and towers over the rest of the cast. Duncan’s just over 6’5” but Morse’s 6’4”, so they exaggerated things. Now, Duncan being a gentle giant—convicted of terrible crimes but afraid of the dark—allows Darabont to keep him passively imposing. More on the scenery than the scenes. Not having Duncan’s lack of character arc be a monumental cop out is kind of Darabont’s most incredible work, at least in how he plotted the script. It does help, of course, Duncan’s character’s initials are “J.C.” Because if you’re going to do space wizard magic, you can be obvious about it.

With Duncan and then final death row addition, Sam Rockwell, we don’t see them experience their time on death row. We see how guards Hanks, Morse, Hutchison, Barry Pepper, and Jeffrey DeMunn react to their experience of it. Greene and Jeter (especially Jeter), we see them experience it. Jeter works as a common ground between the narrative distances, which generally stick to Hanks with occasional exception. Nothing like someone not at Normandy having a video game flashback of D-Day, but, you know, not being present for mouse tricks.

East of Eden (1955, Elia Kazan)

As intentional as Kazan gets with his direction of James Dean, he’s orders of magnitude more intentional on Julie Harris. Harris is top-billed and the natural protagonist, but Dean’s a supernova. He’s the lead, he’s the star, he’s dynamite, a press agent’s dream. Only he’s got a really quiet part for most of the movie; he’s an extrovert we only ever get to see as an introvert because the movie’s from 1955 (and about 1917) and when he’s not being a top-notch farmhand, he’s bedding every Hispanic girl in town. The film manages to find some honesty in how racism is playing a factor, but it can’t exactly address it.

It’s not just it’s 1955… men are men, after all. And East of Eden is a gloriously turgid mix of toxic masculinity, chauvinism (in both senses), and some kind of religiosity. The religiosity is mostly in the ground situation and revealed backstory; it’s important and it informs everything, but more in how it protects Dean’s twin brother, Richard Davalos, and their father, Raymond Massey, from ever having to take personal responsibility. Massey’s been a single dad since they were born—their mother died in childbirth, he told them—and he’s parented with the Bible. Except Massey’s a very kind, empathetic, curious person—Massey’s performance is startling in its earnestness and warmth, even when he’s being a complete jackass to Dean—so he’s had to arrange his life a certain way. It works with Davalos, who models the piety of his widower father as a way to navigate through as well—masking his core-deep insecurities and jealousies—but not with Dean. Because Dean’s the same as Massey, only Massey wants Dean to be like dear departed mother, Jo Van Fleet.

Who, it turns out, lives just a train ride away.

Van Fleet is a successful madam in the shitty coastal town, while Massey and sons live in the more Christian in-land farming community, where you can meet a nice girl like Harris.

The film opens with Dean following Van Fleet home, where she sends out Timothy Carey to deal with the lurking teen. Carey might be looped; he’s uncredited and Eden’s full of looped audio (quite obviously because Kazan wanted something just right; the film’s exquisite in its precision); either way he’s awesome. He runs Dean off, with some exposition to at least foreshadow and establish this plot line with Dean and Van Fleet. It’s a great sequence.

Once Dean’s back on the right side of the mountains, the film introduces Davalos and Harris. They’re a morally upstanding teenage couple, very chaste, very appropriate; Harris finds Dean concerning—so peculiar he’s scary—while Davalos just thinks his twin is a hilarious goof, at most a prankster.

Davalos and Dean is Eden’s most complicated relationship and the one the film gives the least amount of time. The film’s about Dean getting up the courage to confront Van Fleet, but more about how the many-layered revelation of Van Fleet affects Dean’s relationship with Massey. And, unintentionally, Davalos and Harris. They become collateral damage in this brewing family drama no one realized was brewing. Van Fleet’s the catalyst for the explosion, which is appropriate as she’s the one who got it brewing in the first place.

At least, the way the men see it.

Once Dean has a heart-to-heart about his parents with sheriff Burl Ives (who’s phenomenal in this picture), he starts trying to play the good son. And those attempts—the successes of those attempts—are going to bring ruin to everyone. Some more ruined than others. And there’s enough ruination going around it’s not all Dean’s fault. He is, after all, a sixteen or seventeen year-old kid who has a lot going on in his life and the easy access to alcohol. Massey’s good and evil dichotomy runs Dean and Davalos’s lives, with Harris’s outsider perspective and questioning starting to make Dean ask some questions. In conjunction with the rest of the world making Dean ask some questions too.

War’s almost on and Dean has a profiteers take on it. Davalos and Massey are devout pacifists, but Dean’s a mercenary. Only he’s not because he doesn’t understand what’s going on because he’s a kid. He’s a drinker and a fighter and a lover, but he’s still a kid, something Van Fleet sees in him and is willing to help him too. The relationship with Dean and Van Fleet, Dean and businessman Albert Dekker, with sheriff Ives, they’re all helping push his character development. Right up until we remember Adam had two sons (literally, of course, Adam is Massey’s character’s name) and then everything explodes. Even though we’ve only ever seen Davalos from Dean’s perspective and in Dean’s scenes… he’s had his own subplots brewing and boom.

The third act is then this tightly constrained melodrama where Kazan does everything he can to max out the intensity without getting too loud. And it’s where that direction of Harris gets so important.

Harris has figured out what’s going on with this family and she knows how to fix it but she has to get Dean, Davalos, and Massey to do that work. So it’s not just Dean’s going to be a golden god and get all the camera’s attention, it’s also the story doing it too. It’s treating Harris as a function.

Kazan doesn’t let it.

He, cinematographer Ted D. McCord, and editor Owen Marks figure out this way to showcase Harris, especially in the second half, when it becomes obvious she ought to be the protagonist of this story. Except men.

Harris is great. Dean is singular. No one’s made the adjective. Massey’s great. Ives, Van Fleet, Dekker. Davalos is fine. He functions. Lot of help from Kazan. With everyone else, it’s Kazan figuring out how to best convey his actors’ performances; with Davalos… he’s making it work.

Lois Smith is excellent in a small part.

Technically, it’s almost perfect. There’s a repeated shot of Dean riding the train back to the bad town two scenes and a few hours after we saw it used for him coming home to the good town; it’s now night, the shot’s day. It’s bewildering. Kazan and crew make up for it. He and McCord do a lot with camera angles, including some really awesome showy stuff; the repeat footage gets a pass.

And Paul Osborn’s script. Like, East of Eden has got to be a pain to adapt, but Osborn finds a chunk of the story (presumably the end, I’ve never gotten through it) and writes this great family drama; when I said earlier Kazan had to defend Harris against the script, it’s not Osborn working against her even, it’s the plot. Osborn makes sure Harris has excellent material. It wouldn’t work otherwise.

It’s just not easy to contend with Dean and his presence in the film, visually onscreen and then in general with the plot. He’s so exceptionally good and the film’s able to do so much more because it can leverage him.

East of Eden’s exceptional. I think I’d forgotten just how exceptional.

Gun Crazy (1950, Joseph H. Lewis)

We don’t see John Dall court Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy. We get to see them meet cute when Dall—back home after the Army (and reform school before the service)—and his pals go to carnival and see Cummins’s shootist act. Dall was in reform school for breaking into a store to steal a pistol and has been obsessed with guns his entire life. He won’t kill anything—there’s an exceptional flashback sequence while young Dall (played by a wonderfully tragic Russ Tamblyn) is in court and everyone testifies about his love of guns and his abhorrence of violence. He’d never use them to shoot anyone, everyone tells the judge (a very good Morris Carnovsky), he just wants them around all the time and maybe to, like, shoot the channel switcher on a TV someday.

But never to kill anyone.

The film never addresses Dall’s military service in that regard and is able to avoid it because right after Dall becomes bewitched with Cummins, he joins the traveling carnival as another shootist. He quickly starts romancing Cummins, running afoul of carnival owner Berry Kroeger who’s been blackmailing Cummins into his company and has no plans on letting up. Kroeger is the one who gives the insight into what the courtship must look like—they look at each other, Kroeger complains, “like a couple of wild animals.” Thanks to Kroeger, the whirlwind courtship ends with Dall and Cummins married and jobless. They try to make an honest go of it, but once the money runs out—they try to beat Vegas (Cummins is a British expat and in some ways more naive than the very naive Dall) and fail—Cummins gives Dall an ultimatum.

Either they start sticking places up for cash or she’s leaving him. It doesn’t take Dall much thought. It takes him a little bit of thought and we get to see it on his face and we get to see Cummins waiting for his decision because director Lewis is all about how the couple is experiencing their tragedy. But pretty soon they’re sticking up everything from hotels to banks, but never hurting anyone because Dall says no killing.

There’s eventually a great conversation between Dall and Cummins about the no-killing thing, which turns into this great contrast of their respective naiveties as well as a fine character development reveal for Dall. The film’s got a very simple, very linear plot with director Lewis and screenwriters MacKinlay Kantor and Dalton Trumbo focusing on the character relationship between Dall and Cummins when they’re not sticking up the joint, rather coming off the high.

Towards the end of the film, we get to see what Kroeger was talking about with the wild animal looks. At least from Cummins; we’ve seen them some from Dall, who’s usually the one trying to keep the couple from breaking apart under the stress, but the scene where we finally get to see Cummins gazing hungrily on Dall. It is indeed a little scary. It’s closest to the terrified look Cummins gets when she’s feeling cornered and like she needs to shoot her way out, not worrying about who or what the bullets are going to hit. But Dall’s not in the same place as Cummins, who’s alone, a stranger in a strange land; Dall’s got loving big sis Anabel Shaw and his hometown pals, cop Harry Lewis and reporter Nedrick Young. The film occasionally checks in with them during the montages to show how Dall’s life of crime is affecting the loved ones who never gave up him for being, you know, Gun Crazy.

Dall and Cummins keep trying to get stable financially but something always goes wrong and they always need to pull another heist, leading to some exquisite chases sequences, both in cars and on foot. Lewis, cinematographer Russell Harlan, and editor Harry Gerstad are always inventive with how they present Dall and Cummins in rooms versus outdoors versus in cars. They’re trapped together in rooms; outdoors they’re free, in cars they’re hunting and hunted. Lots of extreme close-ups, perfectly lighted, perfectly cut, lots of very particular composition where the actors work together in an unbroken shot. Lewis perfectly balances the showiness of the characters with the intimate. The character development in Gun Crazy is one of its reassuring successes—the film implies it’s going to stick with it, even after it could get rid of it—for a movie called Gun Crazy, it’s not particularly sensational in how it depicts Dall and Cummins (outside when they’re running around dressed in Old West outfits). Lewis and the writers always make sure the film’s an endless fount of empathy and compassion… all while making no promises about hope or redemption.

It’s an exceptional film with singular direction from Lewis. He makes it all happen. I mean, the script does quite a bit, but Lewis (and his crew) make it magic.

The Informer (1935, John Ford)

Smack-dab in the middle of The Informer is a romance between IRA commander Preston Foster and his gal, Heather Angel, sister to an IRA man (Wallace Ford). Foster and Angel steal moments together on one fateful night, tragic circumstances giving them unexpected time with one another, but those same circumstances sort of foreshadowing their very sad future together.

The Informer is Victor McLaglen’s movie. The whole thing is about his performance. Everything is about supporting his performance, even this subplot because it’s going to get into the ground situation of the supporting cast—see, McLaglen is the titular Informer and Ford is his victim.

The film opens with a title card setting the time and place—a particular night in Dublin in 1922. The entire film takes place over twelve to fourteen hours, at night, with fog covering the city. The fog’s so dense, it encourages Ford out of hiding in the hills so he can visit with sister Angel and mom Una O'Connor. The fog’s so cold, it sends McLaglen’s girl (Margot Grahame) out onto the street looking to make some money for food and rent. When McLaglen interrupts Grahame’s potential customer’s approach, they get into a fight about money. The film’s already established Ford’s wanted by the Black and Tans (the cops, working for the British against the IRA) and there’s a reward too. Just enough to cover passage to America for McLaglen and Grahame.

Once he gets to town, the first person Ford looks up is McLaglen—they’re besties, Ford the brains of the operation, McLaglen the brawn; all McLaglen’s recent troubles started after Ford had to lamb it. After a brief expository catch-up to lay out McLaglen’s ground situation, Ford’s off to visit his family. It’s okay, McLaglen tells him, the cops aren’t surveilling anymore.

We then get to watch McLaglen crack with desperation—not greed—and inform on Ford.

Until this point in the film—now, hopefully the Fords won’t get confusing—director Ford has been keeping a tight focus on McLaglen’s performance in close-up. High contrast black and white photography from Joseph H. August, every line and thought visible on McLaglen’s face. The first act of The Informer is mostly dialogue-free, relying on McLaglen and the exceptional diegetic sound use.

Until McLaglen informs, the cast is him, Ford, and Grahame. There are background players but as they’re the only three who matter, which separates it a little from the second and third acts; after McLaglen goes to the cops—and after the cops raid Ford and family’s home—the cast gets very big, very fast.

Foster has head sidekick Joe Sawyer bring McLaglen in for a meeting—McLaglen’s been booted from the IRA, which is why he’s broke and starving—because Foster assumes McLaglen will know who informed on his best pal. McLaglen’s already had about half a bottle of whiskey and he finishes another while bullshitting Foster and Sawyer. Foster buys it, Sawyer doesn’t; they’re meeting at 1:30 a.m. to figure it out.

McLaglen’s going to spend that time getting drunker and drunker, picking up a repulsive little sidekick in J.M. Kerrigan, who thinks McLaglen’s got money but doesn’t realize he’s got money. During their drinking and carousing, much of McLaglen’s early sympathy gets burned off. He’s not too bright—hence needing Ford’s brains and Kerrigan’s ability to sway him—plus he’s exceptionally drunk. Sawyer’s trailing him, counting the money he spends, but it’s more impressive how much whiskey McLaglen consumes.

He’s 6’3”, towering over everyone else in the film, and the drunker he gets, the more uncontrollable he gets. He’s a floundering bull, lashing out all around.

The film culminates in a trial, where McLaglen confronts the man he’s accused in his place—Donald Meek in an incredible performance; his accent is Irish-y McIrish-y but still deep and earnest—as everyone starts to realize maybe McLaglen’s got more going on than just being dim and drunk. The conclusion is very, very good and very, very Catholic. Director Ford goes all out.

In addition to McLaglen, fantastic performances from Ford, O’Connor, Sawyer, Meek, and Kerrigan. Kerrigan’s so loathsome you don’t want to give him any credit but he’s also really good at it. Angel and Grahame are fine plus; when they have their big scene together, they’re both better than when playing off the boys (sort of amusingly—it’s 1935 after all—every syllable seems to fail Bechdel, yet the whole film hinges on it). Foster’s… maybe the only part to recast. He’s fine too, he’s just a little too stoic. While Foster gets to show his humanity in the romance with Angel, Sawyer gets to show it in his bloodthirstiness, which is far more striking.

The film’s impeccably directed by Ford. Wonderful use of sound, composition, music—Max Steiner—August’s photography, George Hively’s editing, the sets—it’s all outstanding. And all of it is to showcase McLaglen’s exceptional turn as a tragic, dumb lug. In the end, the only one who can almost compare is O’Connor, but she only has to be exceptional for three minutes, McLaglen’s onscreen most of the ninety minute runtime.

The Informer’s great.

Stagecoach (1939, John Ford)

Until the action-packed last thirty minutes, Stagecoach is a class drama. A group of strangers and acquaintances are in a stagecoach, traveling West, post-Civil War. It takes fifteen minutes at the start of the film to get them in the coach, with some of the time spent on establishing the characters (and why they’re traveling), but there’s also the danger setup. Infamous Apache leader Geronimo has escaped the reservation with a war party and all the settlers are worried.

Luckily for the stagecoach passengers, Army calvary lieutenant Tim Holt and his men will be escorting them part of the way, then another unit will take over their safety. Everything’s going to be fine, even if coach driver Andy Devine (in a wonderful comedic performance) is very worried about it.

Riding shotgun with Devine is marshal George Bancroft. He’s got to find John Wayne—who also escaped and is on the run, him from a penitentiary—before John Wayne goes off to try and revenge kill Tom Tyler because Tom Tyler is a bigger badass. Just wait until you see Tyler’s hat. Bancroft knew Wayne’s dad and he’s sympathetic to Wayne’s plight but the law’s the law. And Tyler’s the bigger badass.

The passengers are an appropriately mixed bunch and where the class drama is going to arise. Claire Trevor and Thomas Mitchell are both being run out of town by the temperance league. Trevor for being a woman of ill-repute and Mitchell for being a drunkard of a town doctor. Trevor and Mitchell’s friendship is one of Stagecoach’s bedrocks; they’re great together. We also get the initial hints at Mitchell’s potential through his empathy towards Trevor.

Then there’s fidgety, obnoxious banker Berton Churchill (who’s got an amazing “why businessmen should be president” rant no different or more intelligent than modern ones), whiskey salesman Donald Meek, soldier’s wife Louise Platt, and professional gambler John Carradine. Platt’s going to meet her husband and Carradine’s along as her escort; he’s a Southern traitor who served under her father. There’s a great argument between Carradine and Mitchell over how to talk about the war.

All of the class differences are going to flare up once the stagecoach comes across Wayne, who’s looking for a ride, not knowing Bancroft would be riding shotgun. See, Wayne takes an immediate liking to Trevor, who Churchill, Platt, and Carradine have been treating like shit and Churchill and Carradine are terrified of Wayne so they can’t really be mean to her anymore. It leaves Platt in a lurch too, but she’s just following the societal norms and is a little naive about the world.

Of course, Trevor and Mitchell just assume Wayne’s naive about the world too and doesn’t really understand Trevor’s circumstances. But Wayne’s a simple guy; he’s going to kill the guys who wronged him and his family and go down to his ranch across the border… and he daydreams about Trevor joining him.

As much as he can daydream as things start going bad to worse for the cast; they can never find the right soldiers and it seems like the war party is ahead of them, burning down settlements.

They have an extended stopover at Chris-Pin Martin’s stagecoach stopover place, where everyone’s kind of got to get over themselves in a crisis—the war party’s close, very drunk Mitchell’s got to play doctor, and Wayne’s got to decide if he’s going to escape a distracted Bancroft.

Pretty much every performance is great, particularly Mitchell and Bancroft, but Carradine’s also got some excellent moments—with some intense character reveals—ditto Meek, who starts displaying a lot of depth fairly early on and it gradually increases quite well. Devine’s scene stealer funny (to the point you almost wonder if director Ford told anyone else he’d be interrupting them to take over); Trevor and Wayne’s arc is lovely and where Ford expends the most effort outside the action. He spends a lot of time getting the performances right (Wayne’s got one delivery where you wonder who came up with it because it’s so perfect and so unlike his subsequent work, even with Ford). And Trevor’s bigger arc, which requires her to stay quiet and react more than anything else, is quite good. The romance arc makes Wayne’s character and performance work; Trevor would’ve been fine on her own, but the romance just adds to it. Bert Glennon’s photography of that very gentle romance is, like Ford’s direction, only beat by the exceptional action sequences.

Platt and Churchill are both fine. They just don’t have the arcs the other characters get so there’s only so much they’re going to be able to do.

Technically, Stagecoach’s stunning. Ford’s direction, Glennon’s photography, Otho Lovering and Dorothy Spencer’s editing, which nimbly scales from silent resentment reaction shots to the stunt-heavy, grandiose action. The film’s frequently breathtaking, full of these wonderful gradual, patient sequences from Ford where he lets the action unfold for the camera instead of moving the camera until it finds the action.

Stagecoach is exquisite.

L’Atalante (1934, Jean Vigo)

L’Atalante begins with a wedding procession; village girl Dita Parlo has married commercial barge captain Jean Dasté and is going off to live with him on the barge. The wedding guests drop all these details through exposition—we’re not privy to the newlyweds’ conversations as they walk through the village to the barge. Juxtaposed, first mate Michel Simon and cabin boy Louis Lefebvre race ahead to have the boat ready for the captain’s wife’s arrival.

Both Simon and Lefebvre bumble comically while the guests’ exposition establishes Parlo’s never even left the village before and is also a bit more of a dreamer than the rest of the town. The exposition drops turn out to be important as one of Parlo and Dasté’s problems is going to be their inability to talk to one another. It’s also going to allow director Vigo to do these wonderful sequences inspecting how Parlo’s experiencing her new reality. There’s never any discussion of what she expected or what Dasté told her, but she arrives readier to work than he’s comfortable with, leading to a fine comedy sequence involving the laundry.

Life on the barge is initially as idyllic as it’s going to get with outrageously eccentric Simon making things interesting, but the newlyweds have discovered the pleasures of the flesh so they can put up with a lot from Simon. In addition to being a tchotchke and junk collector, Simon has an uncounted amount of cats aboard the barge, leading to some adorable comic relief moments.

But when Parlo starts to get bored—after Dasté’s back to piloting the barge instead of keeping her warm in bed—things start getting testy. Especially after Dasté gets into a fight with Simon, which acts as the inciting incident for the rest of the couple’s troubles.

All Parlo wants is to see something besides the barge and the riverbank, but Dasté’s responsibility is to the barge and Simon’s not in the mood to do him any favors. Pretty soon Parlo (and the audience) learns Dasté’s jealous outbursts aren’t rare but rather the norm. And neither of them wants to talk things through, leading to a couple impulse decisions, but one with far greater consequences for the couple and the film.

L’Atlante has a handful of dreamlike sequences, usually from the perspective of the characters, though sometimes Vigo gets so enthusiastic he lets the film get lost in them. Most impressively he’s able to maintain the dream in one character’s plot while toggling back and forth to another’s; the latter threatens to turn the former into a nightmare, but Vigo doesn’t let it intrude, with Maurice Jaubert’s helping keep the two threads in balance. It’s precise and glorious work.

Starting towards the end of the second act, Vigo’s also able to tighten the focus on Dasté’s performance, something the film had never suggested would be an emphasis. Not with Simon able to handily walk off with any scene, his costars and Vigo enthusiastically giving him all the room he needs or wants. So when the focus tightens on Dasté, Parlo and Simon maybe not fading but definitely given some distance, everything all of a sudden hinges on Dasté being able to be sympathetic without the narrative giving him any help in deserving it. Vigo changes up the narrative distance, but maintains the same approach to characterization. It ends up letting Vigo leverage the supporting cast, which works out and keeps from letting Dasté get mawkish.

The film’s a technical delight. Boris Kaufman does a great job shooting it all, with he and Vigo getting some amazing shots on the barge and of the barge. Louis Chavance’s editing is magical, especially with Jaubert’s music running under his cuts.

Parlo and Dasté are both good. The film incidentally builds their character relationship, letting everything else take precedence—okay, usually Simon, but how isn’t he going to walk away with a scene, but again, Vigo makes it work—so once they start having troubles, there’s no real inherent sympathy. Because L’Atalante can be a fairy tale, a day dream, a nightmare, and a dual character study all in one. No one—not Vigo, not Dasté, not Parlo, not Simon—even has to toggle. They’re able to do all of them simultaneously, no doubt thanks to Vigo, but the cast keeps up.

Of course, Simon’s the best performance. He’s an aged sailor who’s traveled the world and ended up on the barges, he likes his drink, he likes his cats, and he likes ladies. Maybe too much. The way Vigo and Simon balance Simon right up until the end is phenomenal. Even as Dasté gets more and more volatile, the energy always buzzes off Simon. So good.

Lefebvre’s fine as the cabin boy. He’s entirely support. Gilles Margaritis’s good as a flirty traveling salesman who happens across the naive but separately so newlyweds.

L'Atalante’s glorious.

Destry Rides Again (1939, George Marshall)

There are a lot of great shots in Destry Rides Again, with director Marshall finding a lot of raw human emotion in a comedic Western; it starts with opening titles, which are a long tracking shot introducing the setting—the town of Bottleneck. The tracking shot is at night (cinematographer Hal Mohr’s black and white photography is gorgeous and never more than in low light or night exteriors, it’s just glorious) and the town is hopping with drunk cowboys shooting off their pistols in glee as they file in and out of the single saloon. Brian Donlevy owns the saloon, Marlene Dietrich is the headlining star, though we don’t find out about Donlevy right away. Initially, he’s just a guy losing at cards.

Only he’s got an ace in the hole—Dietrich. After she does her first song, she heads upstairs to help out, introducing some of the the supporting cast on her way. Marshall’s really big on continuous movement, whether a shot or between them, and Dietrich quickly establishes drunk Charles Winninger, devoted fan Mischa Auer, and town mayor Samuel S. Hinds.

Turns out Donlevy and Dietrich aren’t just a couple, they’re a criminally enterprising couple—they’re cheating ranchers out of their land to set up a toll road for cattle (when they cheat yet another victim, it’s hard not to just think, well, it’s capitalism)—and eventually sheriff Joe King’s going to have to do something about it.

Now King is just a regular sheriff, not a mythic Old West sheriff, though Winninger used to be deputy to one those—name of Destry—something he can’t stop talking about. At least when he’s conscious. If only they could get someone like Destry again.

Good thing there’s a Destry Jr. out there, James Stewart, who Winninger calls in Donlevy goes too far.

It takes twenty minutes before Stewart shows up (Dietrich is top-billed so character name in the title doesn’t matter here) and he’s not what anyone’s expecting. Not Winninger, not Donlevy or Dietrich, not new-to-town rancher Jack Carson… or his sister, Irene Harvey. Stewart’s an amiable fellow who tries to deescalate situations instead of shooting things up, speaking in Old West dad jokes.

Destry’s got a lot of things going for it—Marshall, Stewart, Dietrich, Winninger, Donlevy, all the other actors (especially Auer and Una Merkel)—so maybe all things—but the script is something spectacularly spectacular. Felix Jackson, Gertrude Purcell, and Henry Myers only have seventy-six minutes (starting when Stewart shows up—that first twenty mnutes is continuous action set in a night); they do a lot with it. There are full subplots for Winninger, Auer and Merkel (they’re a married couple), Dietrich (separate from Donlevy and Stewart; she’s got arcs with both of them too), and also Carson. Tom Fadden gets sort of half a subplot to himself before son Dickie Jones takes it over. Plus minor subplots for Harvey, Lillian Yarbo, and….

Everyone. Basically everyone who doesn’t die right away gets at least a minor subplot for the film to keep running to give the film its verisimilitude. It’s a short film with a limited setting (they leave town—and presumably back lot—once to go to a ranch), it’s got three big musical numbers, and the arcs for Dietrich and Stewart, Stewart and Winninger, and Stewart and Donlevy are all rather complex but they still make time for the background. Turns out to be particularly important for the twist in the finale.

Because the script is phenomenal. All of the great moments (save probably that opening title tracking shot) come through thanks to the script. Getting Stewart and Dietrich into the room in the right way, getting Stewart and Harvey their brief moments, a subplot change in the Dietrich’s style, the way Marshall holds on Donlevy’s bravado until the layers become visible—ditto Dietrich—there are a lot of great scenes.

But nothing compares to the deus ex machina. All of a sudden Marshall slows Destry down and zooms in hard on Stewart and demands an entirely different moment. The film—again thanks to the script and Stewart, Dietrich, and Winninger’s performances—all of a sudden needs Stewart to show a precise depth he’d only ever implied implying before. It’s classic movie magic in that way the ingredients all have to be right for the film to succeed so well and it’s breathtaking good. Marshall maybe seems a little lost during some of the musical numbers—he’s focusing on Dietrich whether he should be or not—but otherwise his direction is outstanding.

Destry is an exceptionally subtle yet often uproarious comedy, an always sultry and always sincere morality play, and an exciting action movie. It’s truly wonderful and rather charmingly casual about it.