WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (Béla Tarr, 2000, Hungary)

 

Music is the language of the gods…and the gods lie. What begins as a celestial ballet ends in chaos and confusion even though the eclipse has ended. Amid a stark cold winter in a small Hungarian town, a corrugated tin trailer appears like a leviathan slowly surfacing in the dark surf. The Prince of Lies hides behind this decomposing Lovecraftian nightmare. His hateful words instigate the villagers, who are like violent lost children, towards a cleansing, a purging of the weak and sick. The rampaging townsfolk assault and murder patients in a hospital, their humanity sacrificed to the Prince of Deception, their allegiance pledged to Death.

We experience the madness through Jànos whose gaunt visage haunts the film, his sunken eyes staring into the Abyss seeking revelation. But his soul is swallowed by the Whale and, after the tempest, vomited out broken and desolate forgotten by everyone but his uncle. Béla Tarr’s bleak vision strips bare human nature and reveals the animal inside: hidden and repressed but always present. His deep focus black and white photography creates a foreboding sense of doom because it grimly depicts reality’s hidden side with characters disappearing into the pervasive fog and darkness.

The narrative is driven by visual and aural language: each languid frame an emotional composition and the rhythm of clacking boots, shuffling feet like a lonely harmony. 

Final Grade: (A)

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Mike Nichols, 1966, USA)

 

The pugnacious spirit of Virginia Woolf haunts this viscous drama about the dissolution of reality and the emotional and intellectual walls we hide behind in our relationships. As children, we are taught that “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. This is not true: words are terribly destructive and are the most insidious instruments of torture. 

After a night of partying, George and Martha invite a new couple over their house for a nightcap. The verbal barbs and violent behavior shocks Nick and Honey (who was once puffed-up) as the married couple rips and tears into each other, their sweaty booze-soaked words polluting the atmosphere. At first it seems a bit embarrassing but soon becomes obvious that these two people loathe each other and will stop at nothing to destroy themselves…and those caught in their path. Nick and Honey are drawn into this madness with games like Humiliate the Host, Get the Guest, Bringing Up Baby, and Hump the Hostess. As their resolve diminishes, the guests begin to join in these sadistic games until they are fractured and broken pawns manipulated by George and Martha to be witness and participant to the debauchery. 

The acting is first rate and, though Sandy Dennis and Liz Taylor won Oscars, I think it’s Richard Burton who really plays the heavy. His performance is like a riptide, calm on the surface but with a violent undertow. Mike Nichols direction is perfect but it's Haskell Wexler's Award-Winning photography that creates both distance and intimacy, as he is able to film in close-up and move the camera around the tight, private spaces. After a night of total war, George and Martha embrace in one of the most touching and sublime endings in movie history. “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? I am, George. I am.” 

Final Grade: (A+)

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (Rankin/Bass, 1964, USA)

 

Hermie and Rudolph must shed the cloak of conformity and fight a desperate battle against their tyrannical oppressor: Santa Claus. Rankin Bass Productions have created a Cold War parable concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Soviet Union’s incursion into the Western hemisphere.

Rudolph is a freak of nature, spurned by his own father, a rebel with a cause: he is Che Guevara with a fiery streak of individualism and bulbous glowing nostrils. He meets another expatriate, a would-be Dentist named Hermie, full of dangerous knowledge, an elf whose philosophical enamel armors him from abuse and allows him to earn his egoistic authenticity: he is Jean-Paul Sartre. For years, they struggle under the illusion of a Communist regime that preaches Equality and Justice for all but soon learn that friends are dangerous enemies: Santa is a Dictator who is an allegorical stop-motion Fidel Castro.

Together, they fight against Santa and escape the island prison, only to meet a Capitalistic silver and gold companion in Yukon Cornelius: he is obviously an undercover CIA agent bent on the assassination of our heroes and the destruction of this tiny economy. Their travels bring them in conflict with the Abominable Snow Monster, a secret weapon genetically engineered by the US government. It is no coincidence that Yukon knows of the Bumbles bouncing ability, as he plans to fake their own deaths and endear them to the Communist population.

The trio flees to the realm of King Moonracer, the Czar of his own nation, who allows Santa a portion of his diabolical wealth: the sadistic misfit toys, mystical armament meant to infiltrate North America in the guise of holiday gifts; an allegory of the nuclear missiles poised to strike the United States from the shores of Castro’s Eden. After the final battle where the Bumble is apparently defeated, a political rally brings them all together where Santa manipulates Che into one last sacrifice.

When Yukon appears with the Bumble, it is only a matter of time before Rudolph will meet his lonely doom upon a bloody snowbank. Even Santa senses the deathly presence and escapes into the sky, murdering one of his misfit soldiers, a bird that can’t fly, by dropping him from the sleigh without an umbrella. Hermie must realize that there is No Exit and Hell is indeed other people.

Final Grade: (A)

SEVEN SAMURAI (Akira Kurosawa, 1954, Japan)

 

Kurosawa’s allegory of class distinction amid feudal anarchy during Japan’s Sengoku era remains one of the greatest achievements in cinematic history. His innovative storytelling techniques and unique aggressive cinematography captures the frisson of conflict: both the writhing emotional turmoil of hopeless poverty and the katana slashing bloodletting of moral justification. With no laws or central government, a small commune of farmers is at the mercy or bandits, who raid them every year, killing their young men, raping their women, and stealing their crops. But they decide to fight back. How can a village of impoverished farmers, with nothing to offer but food, hire protectors to willingly risk their lives in a battle against well-organized bandits? Find hungry samurai. 

The farmer’s hire six Ronin who decide to help; though these masterless samurai don’t turn away the food, their rationale seems to be retribution for this perceived moral injustice. Maybe each hides a shameful secret and seeks cosmic exoneration for a good deed, especially at the risk of their lives. A seventh nameless warrior jokingly called Kikuchiyo, who plays the violent jester and offers slapstick relief, is a counterpoint to the other’s stoic and grim disposition. The samurai aren’t even welcome in the village they have sworn to protect: the farmers cower and hide; even disguising their daughters to look like young boys. True to their code, the samurais repress their disgust and humbly prepare the village’s defense and remain willing to fight to the death. 

Kurosawa structures this narrative in chronological order and slowly develops important characterizations: each farmer and samurai is described with a unique quality or attribute thus creating believable individuals. His compositions and choreographed movements within rioting crowds or during quick slashing duels explode with spring wound tension. The rain-soaked apocalypse is violently beautiful: a ballet of blood, a dance of death, and the bandits slaughtered to the last man. Kikuchiyo proves himself a virtuous warrior but as the farmers begin the cycle of growth and rebirth once again, it’s the samurai who are spiritually defeated. They have become an anachronism; their time and need are past. 

Final Grade: (A+)

EASY RIDER (Dennis Hopper, 1969, USA)

 

Creators Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda capture the tumultuous zeitgeist of the late sixties landscape as sea change drowns the status quo, seeking independence from political tyranny and fascist morality. Their goal is freedom, but the Wardens of the Old-World Order do not take kindly to those who rattle the cages and shake the foundations of their archaic beliefs. 

The film begins with a rustic vignette of static junk, a drug deal in a timeless sweaty and grimy Mexican villa that match cuts to twentieth century technocracy, as sleek jets airliners dominate the sky above while the same drugs change hands: this time to a wealthy American businessman. Hopper films an interesting visual dichotomy between the poor farmer who is selling drugs to probably feed his family and the wealthy American whose aim is pure profit, the disease of rogue Capitalism. But the protagonists become a willing cog of the machine they despise, a vehicle that transports profit without remorse or morality, and Wyatt eventually realizes this conundrum. The systemic change cannot begin outside; it must begin in the mind and spirit of the individual, but they hide their troubles and sorrows in the fog of opaque opiates and fractured lucidity. They are typecast and victimized by narrow-minded yokels, but they play the part of the stereotype and are unable to understand that the more they attempt individuality the more conformist they become. This is evident in the “Maggie’s Farm” sequence where they discover superficial brotherhood but sense Desolation Row. Wyatt is most at home on a simple homestead with an honest farmer and his large family, people living off the land with hard work. Again, Hopper utilizes a great match cut between shoeing a horse and changing the rear tire on the patriotic Harley. 

The stunning cinematography by Lazlo Kovacs reveals bleeding sunsets and the jagged bones of unknown spaces, a seemingly alien landscape that shares an oblique existence with splintered ideologies. The superheroes partake in the runaway American Dream and their epitaph is a lonely chorus of the Star-Spangled Bummer. Wyatt and Billy brutally learn that he not busy being born is busy dying…but it’s alright, Ma it’s life, and life only. 

Final Grade: (A)

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (Lars von Trier, 2018, Denmark)

 

This is the house that Jack built.
This is the girl
with the flat tire
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the woman,
who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,

that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is woman with two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

These are the five men tied in a row,
near the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

Now appears Virgil to guide the Architect,
leaving behind the five men tied in a row,
near the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

Through concentric circles of Hell until the bottomless pit,
Virgil guides the Architect,
leaving behind the five men tied in a row,
near the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

Now falls the Architect into the pit he deserves,
guided by Virgil,
leaving behind the five men tied in a row,
near the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

Final Grade: (C) 

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (Werner Herzog, 2007, USA)

 

Werner Herzog excavates the human condition, metaphorically buried under the thick Antarctic ice, revealing those exhumed from cultural bondage, those chosen few who have become the sensory organs of an awakening universe. Here at the end of the world, Herzog discovers a new spiritual continent as intelligent and profound people drift towards this elusive abyss; sometimes wandering without purpose towards some primal goal, like a little lost penguin whose doom is certain. Layered with his philosophical and erudite musings, Herzog shows us the alien landscape of our own world both internal and external: from the lurking horror of a monstrous starfish to a freakish frozen cod, or the gruff stoicism of a Biologist to the upside-down frozen sky of the Dante’s underworld, we experience the painful beauty of life. 

Superficially, Herzog dictates the dichotomy between the sublime environment and our ecological rape of Antarctica: the film begins with a squat steel and aluminum monstrosity gouged into the ice and snow, habitat for hundreds of travelers. But Herzog is concerned with deeper meanings, knowing that we must change the world in which we live and that this same planet must also change us. And here is where we find the film’s warm beating heart, its living magma, in the companionship and reasoning of seemingly lost people who have been altered by this awesome landscape. He seeks out disparate types; scientists, a forklift driver, a welder, a truck driver, and frames them in a warm celluloid embrace: his sometimes-obtuse questions are presented to generate an emotional response, to observe a reaction, to understand, but not to hold the individual in contempt. Though Werner Herzog captures some interesting and inspiring images, this is truly a film about human beings and our passionate relationship to Mother Earth. Unfortunately, we seem to always hurt the one we love the most. 

Final Grade: (B+)

IT HAPPENED HERE (Kevin Brownlow & Andrew Mollo, 1966, UK)

 

After the Dunkirk debacle, England is conquered by the Swastika and its inhabitants subsumed by the need for order...even if its name is National Socialism. Independent filmmakers Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s “what if” scenario was shot on a shoestring budget without professional actors, utilizing grainy 16mm film, but these constraints help add a veneer of violent reality, of a large world shrinking and contracting towards political collapse.

The compositions are in full-frame and capture the story in mostly medium shot and close-up. The moving images are accentuated by the bombast of Wagnerian grandiosity, a percussive score that shouts Hitler's triumph of the English will. The establishing shots have a feel of “home movie” authenticity as we see Nazis goose-stepping with Big Ben towering in the background or within the shadows of other landmarks. Though we see the world through a limited exposure, the attention to detail is remarkable with realistic uniforms, tanks, vehicles, and the Nazi propaganda that litters the walls, newspapers, television and airwaves. All of this is even more remarkable because the directors never resort to stock footage! A recent film (with a much higher budget!) that mirrors this attempt to create a violent society from the tiniest details is Alfonso Cuaron’s masterful CHILDREN OF MEN.

The story begins with World at War inspired exposition explaining the history of the German occupation and utilizes flash-cuts and close-ups to depict the bloody conflict. The story then focuses upon a nurse named Pauline whose neutral political ideals are soon corrupted by the New World Order. After her friends are caught in the crossfire of a partisan ambush, she is routinely indoctrinated into the Fascist ranks. The chilling lesson offers law and order at the cost of individual rights and how easy it is to accept and rationalize, to quickly become a participant in a murderous hierarchy. Pauline soon becomes a woman without a country, her conscience blind to the Jewish ghettos and euthanized immigrants. In one scene, the directors allow modern fascists to vomit their inane beliefs, and it becomes obvious that not every Englishman would veto a Nazi occupation. IT HAPPENED HERE is a prescient tale, a dire warning that freedom comes at the price of flesh and blood, and that the ghost of Hitler still haunts the Earth.

Final Grade: (B+)

BREAKING THE WAVES (Lars von Trier, 1996, Denmark)

 

Absolute faith corrupts and destroys…. absolutely. Bess McNeill is a lonely beautiful young woman filled with a childlike fascination towards life, discovering the joys of her sexuality as she explores the naked unexplored terrain of her body, her heart aching to love and to be loved, but poisoned by the cruel tyranny of the Church. She marries Jan, an outsider to her small zealous community, and though their relationship has been brief, it seems to be deep and profound. 

Lars von Trier films with a hand-held digital camera in realistic settings where the background sounds often overwhelm the dialogue and the ambient light degrades the image into jagged darkness and overblown whites, desaturating the color palette like a home movie. This creates a sense of intimacy and immediacy, which strengthens the narrative and connects us to Bess and Jan’s ordeal. We become part of their environment, active in the drama, emotionally invested in Bess’s heartbreaking predicament. Trier then structures the film into seven distinct chapter; it makes us step backwards into an objective vantage point. When Jan is paralyzed, we experience the unselfish love that Bess has for her new husband, as she is willing to care for him and not leave his bedside. Through a haze of medication and despair, Jan asks her to screw other men and describe these acts to him: crippled, he cannot appease her physical desires and must live vicariously through these encounters. But we begin to smell the burning flesh of religious bonfires, the heavy burden of the unsympathetic Church Elders and their destructive doctrine that has permeated and stunted her intellectual growth and wisdom. Bess prays to an insane god who brings violence and chaos into her life because she deserves it, her punishment far outweighs any imaginary sin. But this god is only her own irrational voice, condemning her as wicked in a religion where women don’t speak, second-class denizens of their perverse Reformation. 

Bess struggles to do what is right: to save Jan’s life she sacrifices the sanctity of her own body to appease this Hellish god as she believes he is getting better the more she suffers. As Bess’s coffin is surrender to the hard unforgiving earth and eternally damned by her Church, Jan proves his love as the ocean’s waves embrace her body carrying it to a final peaceful rest. The bells final pronouncement eases Jan’s burden and begins to heal his grievous wounds. 

Final Grade: (A)

THE DEVIL, PROBABLY (Robert Bresson, 1977, France)

 

Charles cannot see the forest for the trees, lost in a philosophical conundrum: it is not the absence of compassion to be considered, but rather the absence of awareness of compassion. Director Robert Bresson creates a cerebral tempest of ennui and disillusionment, a militantly nihilistic drama of a young man imbued with Nietzschean superiority, whose invisible humanity is like vibrations that disturb the air around him…but makes no sound because there is no receptor.

This utterly bleak and pessimistic worldview could be the genesis of Michael Haneke’s emotional glaciation trilogy: we see the world through frozen eyes. Bresson’s characters wander through the story with a pretentious lethargy, teenagers purposely severed from their bourgeois lineage, a cruel bloodletting that becomes a ritual of apathy. Charles is surrounded by a few acquaintances, and he is cold and shallow, manipulating them to fuel his wants and desires…but even this leaves him empty like a sputtering prayer in a deserted church, dying embers upon an altar of despair.

Bresson often crosscuts between Charles’ indifference and two students who view caustic films of pollution and extreme violence: the modern reality of oil spills and baby seals being clubbed to death, while a neutral voice narrates this apocryphal documentary. Bresson contrasts one extreme with the other, unconcerned with the plot’s linear structure but focused upon the montage’s fervent denouement. Charles haunts the streets and homes of his friends, and though his cohorts like him he is unable (or unwilling) to reciprocate. This dichotomy shows the lower depths of his palsied morality: the others offer kindness without charge or attachment while he can only take advantage of their good will.

Finally, Charles agrees to seek enlightenment from a psychiatrist but all he understands is the money exchanging hands, his counsel written on blank checks. He steals a gun and convinces a drug-addled acquaintance to shoot him, because Charles lacks the nerve to kill himself. The murder’s rapport cracks the night open, and another young man palpitates with a heart of darkness. And what is the cause of this spiritual malaise, a parallel concerning creation’s fall from grace into the gutter of chaos? Just a cynical mantra…the Devil, probably. 

Final Grade: (B+)

HEAVEN'S GATE (Michael Cimino, 1980, USA)

 

FRUIT OF THE POISONOUS TREE

The DEER HUNTER is a tale that focuses upon character, specifically the love story between two men: the war is a means to propel the characters towards resolution. But here at HEAVEN’S GATE, Cimino is concerned with the war first, the grand sweeping epic that deconstructs American Mythology; the characters of Averill, Nate, and Ella exist as secondary elements, as a means to reflect upon the injustices and frustrations of the main theme.

The plot of HEAVEN’S GATE is based very loosely upon the true account of the Johnson County War in 1892. But Cimino is only tangentially interested with historicity (like THE DEER HUNTER, this is not a film based on fact but based on theme) so he makes dramatic changes to the characters and plot. However, he is very interested in making a real world of three dimensions for the tale to inhabit, of birthing a dirty and sodden reflection of the American West which is atypical in historical dramas or genre films. The plot involves the Association, a morally bankrupt organization that has the backing of the US President and his Cabinet which becomes a doppelganger of the US Government itself. This organization hires a cadre of criminals to execute without warrant or trial 125 immigrants named on a Death List. These citizens are accused of stealing cattle and procuring and settling land that is needed to propagate the Association’s big business opportunities. Cimino shows two distinct scenes of local immigrants stealing or possessing the Association’s cattle, but the reason is quite obvious: they are poor and starving. What Cimino quite rightly points out in the narrative (and Averill mentions more than once) is that there is a lawful remedy for the Association. It’s called the Rule of Law. But the Association has its own ideas about Law and decides that vigilante Justice is the quickest and most economical Final Solution.  

THE OUTSIDERS

James Averill is a rich man playing at being poor and Nate Champion is a poor man playing at being rich. This is a story of outsiders, of people struggling to attain equal rights, to become something more, to struggle against the situation they are born into. This is the gateway to salvation (not starvation) where immigrants risk everything to come to America, the Land of (In)Opportunity. Averill is a wealthy man who comes to Johnson County as a Sheriff, to fight against injustice, to stand up for the rights of the poor immigrants. He is a good practical man who is respected but he has another life: he has a home elsewhere. This is explained through a photograph of his Harvard days that he keeps by his bedside, as he smiles next to a beautiful young lady beside a tree. (Which is a visual cue for the entire conflict: from the mock battle in the first act at Harvard twenty years before to the slaughter in the final act. Here Cimino joins the past and present, in one simple image, metaphor and reality are superimposed). Though Averill may have the best of intentions (and he does) he remains an outsider to the community, arguing against an armed conflict that cannot be won. It is revealed that he at one time belonged to the Association, but he was banned because he stood up against their unethical practices.

Billy is a minor character who is a friend of Averill’s but still belongs to the Association, but he also stands against their decision to execute immigrants for stealing cattle. Billy doesn't quit, he follows along in a drunken haze, never participation and offering only a tepid voice of irony and sarcasm. Billy is also an outsider to this country: he’s English and therefore a neutral observer (because that war has already been fought and won by our county). He acts like a cipher of reason and subverts the events with barbed humorous insights condemning this travesty without actively participating. It’s no coincidence that Billy is shot in the jaw during the final battle while taking a slug of whisky: once again spoken truth is obscured and irrelevant and makes no difference to this Final Solution.

Nate Champion is an immigrant himself who now works as a hitman for the Association. He is raised above the impoverished community and has made a place for himself, saved money and brought civilization to the wild. He executes farmers who steal his company’s cattle without warrant to charge, arrest, or trial. He is a specter of Death riding the range. Cimino aggravates (in a good way) our expectations by revealing Nate as a complex human being, a man who is not a cold-blooded killer but one who struggles to become something more than his caste. Though he murders a man in his first scene, he spares another young boy in another. He curses at the wagon trains of immigrants to go back to where they’re from (a modern American sentiment) though he’s one himself.

Ella is also an outsider in her own community: she is a Madame of the local brothel. Cimino relies on the typical Hollywood cliché of the beautiful hooker with a good heart, but this doesn't seem to upset the narrative. Excellently portrayed by Isabella Huppert, she also becomes a complex persona and not a trite characterization. She provides a service for the community and takes money and cattle as payment: unfortunately, much of the cattle are stolen property. The men would rather fuck than feed their families it seems. But she is largely irrelevant to the story until the halfway point of the film when Averill and Champion, both visit her. Not only do they know her, but they are friends with each other or were close at one time. They both love her, and Champion asks for her hand in marriage while Averill only wants her hand, her physical body, to remove her from the danger.

DEATH OF A NATION

This affair is only one variable of the whole equation. Ella agrees to marry Nate because she wants to stay at Heaven’s Gate, to be a part of the community of her peers and not a stranger in Averill’s strange land. When Nate takes her to his home (which sits outside of the town, isolated) it is wallpapered. He says this brings civilization to the wilderness and she smiles touchingly. So, in a later scene when the building is on fire, the call-back is important: the fire curling and blackening civilization: the wilderness (or chaos) has won. Ella is a reactive person and joins the entire community (she warns them too) in the final battle.

In a typical story, this love affair would generate the fuel for conflict and would be important to resolve but here Cimino focuses upon a much greater theme. This anarchic narrative structure baffles many viewers who would prefer to be spoon-fed exposition, to be given every narrative link in an orderly fashion to reach some understanding of the linear story. But Cimino deconstructs the typical Western melodrama by revealing these character interactions much later in the film because the story is not about their love triangle: it is about the (still)Birth of a Nation and its impact, as these characters become victims of a corrupt notion, avatars of a repressed and impotent society. It is the Rule of law that levels the playing field and when it is manipulated by the powerful few (the 1% in modern terms) then Justice can never prevail, and oppression is the norm.

Cimino’s use of circular motion fulfills at least two important functions for his theme of a class conflict. First, it ties together the privileged graduation celebration and the mock battle in the first act and the Immigrants roller skating dance and very real battle later in the film. This contrast between the rich and wealthy dancing to a classic waltz for entertainment, to come together and join in community, is exactly like the citizens of Heaven’s Gate who join together around their own folk music. This juxtaposition alludes to the elite and poor being not so much different after all. The use of The Blue Danube also hints of the European influence upon the upper class, that they are (or are children of) immigrants into this great Melting Pot. The fact is that the only true American is the Native American Indian, and they are not overtly represented in this narrative. So, the circular motion of each dance thematically overlaps to become one, tying together two disparate social classes into one shared school of thought and emotion. The two battle scenes (the mock scene were Averill climbs the tree and grabs the bouquet) and the brutal conflict upon the windswept and bloodstained field (were Averill never reaches the tree) are also circular, possibly representing the corruption of society, of group conformity spiraling out of control. The motion also agglutinates the battle and dance, violence and entertainment as one movement, a prescient audience desire that often confuses the two, confounding both meanings. After all, this is a movie about war and people go to the movies to be entertained (at least viscerally or superficially). I believe this post-modern reading of the film stretches Cimino’s intent but struck me as visually and emotionally acute.

The title of the film denotes a Christian belief concerning the entrance to the ethereal realm of Heaven, an allusion that here in the United States is the gateway to a better life. But the reality of the gritty narrative seems pessimistic and pejorative, that this allusion is nothing but an amoral illusion. God is either absent or dead and the nearly powerless victims are left alone to fend for themselves. Bu the immigrants come to the New World with the best of intentions and work ethic, to raise families and own their own parcel of land, to gain a modicum of equality and political power. Since it’s self-evident (though not explicitly stated) that the town was named by the immigrants, the title of the film is full of hope and promise. Cimino subverts the original intent and offers a cynical reading: HEAVEN’S GATE is often the name of cemeteries too.

ORIGINAL SIN

The original one-sheet poster (see above) is also very interesting in what it depicts or, more precisely, what it redacts. The film is advertised as a passionate romance between Kris Kristofferson (as James Averill) and Isabella Huppert (as Ella) that reflects and encompasses their patriotism (which comes a close second). The story does indeed mirror their relationship and their patriotic fervor but not in a melodramatic way: the tragedy of their romance is contrasted against their (and our) national tragedy. Also, the All-American love story that the poster wants to promote is actually exposed upon viewing the film to be a sordid extra-marital affair, subverting the message from romantic ideal to polemic concerning patriarchal authority and entitlement. Then there’s the ghost of Nate Champion haunting the frame, a monochrome spirit imposed over the US flag. Note the three stars of the flag to hint at the lover’s triangle. Again, the image promotes a story that is but a shade to the film’s true narrative, revealing a love story that isn't even mentioned until the half-way point of a nearly 3 1/2-hour film! Does this represent the fracture between Cimino’s intent and the studio’s vague understanding of his vision? This could help to explain the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of HEAVEN’S GATE upon initial release. It’s like expecting to see Lean’s DR. ZHIVAGO and being shown Godard’s WEEK END instead. Both are masterfully constructed but for competing purposes, and audience expectations are set quite differently. The poster can also be read as the joining of two cultures or social strata, Averill the wealthy and Ella the poor, with the obvious Capitalist dominance of the privileged protagonist in the composition, towering above the meek and nearly powerless.

The final act depicts Averill arguing against an armed battle with the Association and their hired guns. He seems to be as frustrated as the townsfolk but here he is powerless, as his station as Sheriff is now an empty philosophy. He can do nothing but leave because, as I stated before, Averill has a home to return to. He cannot even save Ella from the coming storm because she is already home, an outsider now subsumed into this microcosm. Her intention is also one of revenge, of anger in discovering Nate murdered.

Averill does indeed join the final battle which revolves around a large tree, analogous to the tree at Harvard during his youthful idealistic days. Cimino once again displays a circular motif as the battle goes round and around like clockwork, as if metaphorically this is a conflict that will last forever. The people and places may change but the war is always the same. Averill is able to bring his education to bear and help build wheeled fortifications as shields to advance and attack. He is able to help the immigrants go on the offensive. And they almost win a Pyrrhic victory.

Suddenly the cavalry arrives to save the day, the American flag snapping in the cold hard wind. But the soldiers are not here to save the victims: they arrive to save the criminals. The government does end this cowardly charade but fails to right the wrongs, to see that the guilty are held accountable. It supports the status quo.

Cimino begins and ends the film with James Averill. He is full of lightening energy in the opening shot as he races through the maze-like streets of Harvard to attend his graduation. He is brimming with reconstructive anticipation towards a better and brighter future, not just for himself but the country. As the pretty women look on, Averill wins the bouquet during the mock battle scene as he climbs the tree, playfully pummeled and beaten by his adversaries. His bloody nose is a badge of courage and victory. Then Cimino cuts to twenty years later and the road map of frustration and violence has been written upon his face. Averill has experienced the real world but still holds on to his ideals. The final shot of Averill upon his yacht floating upon a calm sea has the feel of a funeral barge. As if the proceeding lifetime was nothing but a fever dream, unreal, and he has only ever existed in this purgatory of quiet desperation.

James Averill has suffered the death of his passion and ideology. Is the fruit of his labor corrupted by the poisonous tree? 

Final Grade: (A+) 

DARK STAR (John Carpenter, 1974, USA)

 

Three astronauts trapped for the past twenty years inside the metallic skin of Dark Star have become as unstable as the planets they destroy. Director John Carpenter and writer Dan O'Bannon turn their student thesis into a theatrical release, a conflated parody of Kubrick's masterpiece while under the influence of Philip K Dick. The results are uneven but interesting, as DARK STAR has itself birthed such classic science fiction shows as Grant and Naylor's RED DWARF and Douglas Adams' HITCHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.

The unfocused plot involves a group of four astronauts (The Commander recently died in a radiation leak) whose mission is to destroy unstable planets by dropping "smart bombs" into their atmosphere. The ramblings capture the boredom and routine of deep space travel where most time is spent between missions. The astronauts have devolved into hebephrenic habits and have become emotionally isolated and depressed, looking more like Hippies than scientists (though one is only a fuel technician). The ship's artificially intelligent computer has a sultry feminine voice contrasting the gently reflexive tenor of the HAL 9000. The conflicts involve fighting amongst the crew, an alien beach-ball, and finally a computer malfunction that enables a bomb to discuss its conscious perceptions and develop a god complex.

DARK STAR is light on science and comedy but heavy with concepts, ideas, and visuals. The sequence when Pinback chases the gaseous mascot through the air ducts eerily foreshadows events in O’Bannon’s ALIEN, as does the computer control room. The direction and editing of the theatrical version are clumsy though serviceable, padding the runtime without any visual flare or style. The synthetic score is a bit monotonous and redundant but the country song Benson, Arizona that bookends the film is classic, evoking the satire of Slim Pickens’ Major Kong from DR. STRANGELOVE.

Finally, the bomb discards all sensory input and realizes it is the only consciousness in an empty cosmos and creates a universe with these fateful words: let there be light.

Final Grade: (B-)