Tag: Ramon Bieri

Sorcerer (1977, William Friedkin)

It’s incredible how much concern director William Friedkin is able to get for his characters in Sorcerer. Now, the film’s really kind of like four or five movies in one–there are four prologues, with very full ones for Bruno Cremer and Roy Scheider, then there’s the story of Cremer, Scheider and Amidou (who also gets a prologue, just not a substantial one) in South America, then there’s the story of Ramon Bieri and his American oil company and how it affects the local South American population, then there’s the story of these four guys who have to drive dangerous chemicals to an oil well fire.

Sorcerer is packed.

The “real” movie, the actual drive across dangerous terrain, starts almost halfway into the film. It’s amazing stuff. The film’s beautifully edited by Bud S. Smith; he and Friedkin create impossibly tense situations. The success is even more impressive because none of the characters, save Cremer to some degree, are likable. Scheider’s a bit of a jerk, a bit of a moron.

But for about seventy-five percent of its run time, Sorcerer is glorious. Friedkin aims high and hits every note just right. Then things fall apart. There’s a lengthy, silly hallucination sequence. There’s odd characterizations, there’s too emphatic Tangerine Dream (who Friedkin usually let take a back seat to the great sound design). Sorcerer unravels in the home stretch.

The good stuff and the great stuff still makes the film worthwhile. It’s masterful work from Friedkin and Smith.

Bad finish though.

The Frisco Kid (1979, Robert Aldrich)

The Frisco Kid is a Western, but it doesn’t open like one. It opens more like a seventies Gene Wilder theme comedy (composer Frank De Vol starts out like it’s Young Frankenstein, but quickly gets bad… especially at the end). The film takes a little while to ground itself. Before Harrison Ford shows up, much of the film is Wilder making his way—a rabbi from Poland headed to San Francisco—across the United States. There are comic moments, comic dialogue, but it’s not really funny. When there’s humor, it’s not stupid—Michael Elias and Frank Shaw’s script, which has its bumps, is actually very thoughtful.

Obviously, Wilder being a rabbi in the Wild West is going to produce some comedic situations, but that religious aspect of the character is thoughtfully portrayed.

The problem is Aldrich, who apparently doesn’t know how to direct something like Frisco Kid. He doesn’t seem to get it’s not a spoof; he shoots it like a sitcom.

He also is a disaster with some of the actors. Ford, in particular, is weak. He’s likable, but his performance constantly sputters (much like his accent). Then there’s Val Bisoglio, who—along with Aldirch’s weak handling of it—turns a potentially sublime scene with American Indians into something good, but clearly failing.

The directorial failings don’t affect Wilder—he never plays the caricature he could. He’s superb.

It’s unfortunate Elias and Shaw never wrote another feature.

The film’s a moderate success, but some of its parts are amazing.

Badlands (1973, Terrence Malick)

I was in high school the first time I saw Badlands. I’d seen a lot of movies–I think by that time, I’d even made a top one hundred list. I know I’d seen True Romance, so I must have been at least fifteen. There’s nothing else like Badlands in cinema, which is a bit of an easy statement, a bit of a cop-out–it’s an attempt to describe something indescribable. I haven’t seen it in years–the last time would have been April or May of 1999, just after the DVD came out. I don’t think I know enough adjectives to write a more traditional response to the film–a person can only read (or type) stunning, amazing and singular so many times. Didn’t I already write singular once before that sentence?

Badlands is so difficult to describe because of Malick’s approach to the story. There’s no attempt to explain Martin Sheen’s personable, affable mass murderer. Malick never attempts to give him any humanity to make spending ninety minutes with him easier. Instead, Sheen charms the viewer too–he’s a likable guy and understanding why he starts killing people and doesn’t stop isn’t part of the viewer’s purview, or the film’s. Malick’s no more interested in explaining Sheen’s actions than he is explaining why he likes Eddie Fisher. Sheen does a lot of things–goes to see Warren Oates (a significant scene, not just for Sheen’s effort, but for Oates’s inexplicable, slow to anger response), fixes his hair before he gets caught, lets some couples live and others not–and Malick understands explaining them, or even drawing attention to them, would kill the film.

I’d forgotten three things about Badlands. First, its supreme quality. Second, the use of lighting (I won’t forget to discuss that aspect). Third, Malick’s dialogue. Sheen and Sissy Spacek rarely talk about the events in the film, something they both seem to recognize near the end. They have conversations about everything else, detached from their actions. Malick’s dialogue never seems evasive; it’s perfect.

Before the technical aspects–Spacek. Spacek narrates the film. What Badlands does, what very few other films have ever done (I’m at a loss for examples, the famous narrated films do not apply), is present a first person narrative in the finest sense. The details Malick includes aren’t necessarily filmic, they’re the details Spacek’s character would include. The short shot–and corresponding narration–of her putting on make-up while on the run… it’s one of the finest moments in film. There’s no other narration like Badlands. It puts Malick above as a screenwriter.

The lighting is wondrous. The way Malick uses shadows to establish scenes and to portray movement and action, that technique is special, but Badlands doesn’t have a single ordinary shot. The dance scene, the way the light hits the characters’ faces, the open plains. There’s nothing else like it. The shot of the mountains, where Malick pauses to give the viewer a chance to imagine it, then the shot surpasses. There’s nothing like it.

Malick’s montages are also breathtaking. Whether they’re set to Spacek’s narration or the perfect music.

It’s so hard to talk about Badlands, because it just begs to be watched over and over. I’d forgotten the last shot, for instance, where the film becomes something else entirely.

Or maybe it doesn’t become something else. Maybe in an effort to fill in the blanks, my bewilderment forces me to expect a deeper layer of meaning. It’s entirely possible Badlands is just Giotto’s circle.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Written, produced and directed by Terrence Malick; directors of photography, Tak Fujimoto, Stevan Larner and Brian Probyn; edited by Robert Estrin; music by George Aliceson Tipton; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Martin Sheen (Kit), Sissy Spacek (Holly), Warren Oates (Father), Ramon Bieri (Cato), Alan Vint (Deputy), Gary Littlejohn (Sheriff) and John Carter (Rich Man).

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