THE SIXTIES! WOOO!
The Apartment is of a rare breed in best picture winners. It starts off interesting and entertaining, and it stays that way throughout. It has a PERFECT Billy Wilder screenplay, quality-wise and otherwise-wise. What's funny about it is that I felt The Apartment actually got worse about 3/4 of the way through and never got as good as it had been in the beginning, and somehow, it was still a great movie. In terms of other BP winners we've watched, it was most similar to Marty, in that it felt like a play instead of a movie (and in that it featured a charmingly pathetic protagonist).
The plot was GREAT, the characters were GREAT (especially the neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss, played by Jack Kruschen), and the actors were GREAT. The Apartment does not have everything I ask for in a best picture winner, but it has everything I ask for in a likeable movie. 9/10
Showing posts with label billy wilder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label billy wilder. Show all posts
Friday, March 21, 2008
The Apartment (1960): Eitan's Take
The 30's and 40's gave us rich and dark films about masculine ambition, but in the 50's and now 60's, we're being treated to stories of human kindness and decency -- no surprise, considering that these were the years of quaint domesticity, Ozzie and Harriet, and white picket fences. But beneath the nice-guy veneer of The Apartment lies an incredible meditation on sadness, human communication, and the kind of loneliness so big and so overwhelming that it fills up a whole home. Billy Wilder directed this movie right after Some Like It Hot, which, for all of its traipsing joy, has a hint of sadness to it as well. And we first witnessed his skillful arrangement of sad human drama in The Lost Weekend, which remains one of my favorite Best Picture winners so far.
In Jack Lemmon, Wilder finds an incredible, tragic everyman -- the kind of guy it's possible to both sympathize for and empathize with. The way he carries himself, the neuroses, the runny noses, the expression on his face when he opens up the box with his new bowler hat, the sad way flips through his rolodex trying to manage the appointments for all the corporate thugs who commandeer his apartment for their adulterous charades... Woody Allen spent years trying to recreate this sort of pathos, but Jack Lemmon does it so much better because he looks like, talks like, acts like, and could be anyone. Jaded by years of watching romance fail, Lemmon's C.C. Baxter is a portrait of resignation. He's sweet and chivalrous, but he also has deep flaws and deep emotional scars. When he tells Ms. Kubilek (the radiant and smart Shirley MacLaine, who we saw previously as an imprisoned Indian princess in Around the World in Eighty Days) about his suicide attempt, he adds a punchline so as not to disturb her -- or us -- too deeply, but it's impossible to escape the tragedy of the moment. Luckily, he reaches out to her and her famous reciprocation, "Shut up and deal," is all the more rewarding for it. The whole time, I kept thinking, "This is like Marty... but sophisticated."
Pinned up next to the lives of his colleagues, Baxter's own life has a strange twist of lemon to it. Though he's continually "sexiled" from his own home, the love he finds is so much deeper and more resonant than anything they could ever hope to experience. Halfway through the film, during the Christmas party, Kubilek learns from her lover Sheldrake's secretary that she's not the first -- and won't be the last -- of his illicit affairs. As an audience, it's natural for our heart to sink with her, and in her case that moment of despair seems to last forever, as she recedes into herself and begins to rethink the value of love. But then we're reminded of the graciousness and generosity of Baxter and the endless emotional support he lends (often at his own expense), and everything feels aligned again. The world can be a great place when the right people find each other and make love and life and hope work. Over and over, the movie breaks your heart, but then bends down next to you to help pick up the pieces. That's why the ending of The Apartment is so brilliant. There's nothing cliche about it. There's no cutesy kiss or wedding bells or grandiose speech. There's just the recognition -- on the characters' parts, as well as our own -- that after the reel flips up and the theater lights come up, life goes on. There's just optimism and uncertainty and honesty, laid out on the table like gin rummy cards. It's rarely so important for me that my friends and family see the Best Picture winners that Shira and I watch, but this one is a must-see. It crumbles to a 9/10, cookie-wise of course.
In Jack Lemmon, Wilder finds an incredible, tragic everyman -- the kind of guy it's possible to both sympathize for and empathize with. The way he carries himself, the neuroses, the runny noses, the expression on his face when he opens up the box with his new bowler hat, the sad way flips through his rolodex trying to manage the appointments for all the corporate thugs who commandeer his apartment for their adulterous charades... Woody Allen spent years trying to recreate this sort of pathos, but Jack Lemmon does it so much better because he looks like, talks like, acts like, and could be anyone. Jaded by years of watching romance fail, Lemmon's C.C. Baxter is a portrait of resignation. He's sweet and chivalrous, but he also has deep flaws and deep emotional scars. When he tells Ms. Kubilek (the radiant and smart Shirley MacLaine, who we saw previously as an imprisoned Indian princess in Around the World in Eighty Days) about his suicide attempt, he adds a punchline so as not to disturb her -- or us -- too deeply, but it's impossible to escape the tragedy of the moment. Luckily, he reaches out to her and her famous reciprocation, "Shut up and deal," is all the more rewarding for it. The whole time, I kept thinking, "This is like Marty... but sophisticated."
Pinned up next to the lives of his colleagues, Baxter's own life has a strange twist of lemon to it. Though he's continually "sexiled" from his own home, the love he finds is so much deeper and more resonant than anything they could ever hope to experience. Halfway through the film, during the Christmas party, Kubilek learns from her lover Sheldrake's secretary that she's not the first -- and won't be the last -- of his illicit affairs. As an audience, it's natural for our heart to sink with her, and in her case that moment of despair seems to last forever, as she recedes into herself and begins to rethink the value of love. But then we're reminded of the graciousness and generosity of Baxter and the endless emotional support he lends (often at his own expense), and everything feels aligned again. The world can be a great place when the right people find each other and make love and life and hope work. Over and over, the movie breaks your heart, but then bends down next to you to help pick up the pieces. That's why the ending of The Apartment is so brilliant. There's nothing cliche about it. There's no cutesy kiss or wedding bells or grandiose speech. There's just the recognition -- on the characters' parts, as well as our own -- that after the reel flips up and the theater lights come up, life goes on. There's just optimism and uncertainty and honesty, laid out on the table like gin rummy cards. It's rarely so important for me that my friends and family see the Best Picture winners that Shira and I watch, but this one is a must-see. It crumbles to a 9/10, cookie-wise of course.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Lost Weekend (1945): Shira's Take
What an unpleasant film. Not bad, of course, but very unpleasant. Do people really have such vivid hallucinations when they've been binge-drinking?
Okay, so my only real complaint is that it seems that his girlfriend and brother have tried EVERYTHING, but in the end, it only takes a few compliments and a nudge in the right direction to fix Don Birnam's (Ray Milland) alcohol problem. Somehow I doubt that it's that easy after three straight years (at least) of on-the-wagon, off-the-wagon. In general, it was a very well-written and well-acted movie. Unsettling, sure, but I really got a sense of each character (even the bartender). I think that's Billy Wilder's gift. I could understand Don's need to drink, because he got so much chattier and more verbose when he was drunk. And sometimes in a good way. He really could express himself after twelve shots through three hours more than I've ever seen anyone do. I don't have much more to say. It's not really my kind of movie, but I can appreciate it for what it is. Notes to myself: Ray Milland IS Chris Noth. Jane Wyman (Helen St. James, girlfriend to Don) was married to Ronald Reagan when this movie came out. "Somebody Stole a Purse" is one of my favorite bits in any movie so far. 8/10
Okay, so my only real complaint is that it seems that his girlfriend and brother have tried EVERYTHING, but in the end, it only takes a few compliments and a nudge in the right direction to fix Don Birnam's (Ray Milland) alcohol problem. Somehow I doubt that it's that easy after three straight years (at least) of on-the-wagon, off-the-wagon. In general, it was a very well-written and well-acted movie. Unsettling, sure, but I really got a sense of each character (even the bartender). I think that's Billy Wilder's gift. I could understand Don's need to drink, because he got so much chattier and more verbose when he was drunk. And sometimes in a good way. He really could express himself after twelve shots through three hours more than I've ever seen anyone do. I don't have much more to say. It's not really my kind of movie, but I can appreciate it for what it is. Notes to myself: Ray Milland IS Chris Noth. Jane Wyman (Helen St. James, girlfriend to Don) was married to Ronald Reagan when this movie came out. "Somebody Stole a Purse" is one of my favorite bits in any movie so far. 8/10
The Lost Weekend (1945): Eitan's Take
Watching Billy Wilder's uncompromising, grim, and deeply unsettling The Lost Weekend, I was reminded of great episodes of the Twilight Zone. It wasn't just the eerie theremin music wafting through the background; it was the entire mood -- a mournful dirge on a member of humanity lost forever to a hidden and psychotic demon. In the case of Don Birnam (Ray Milland), this demon is alcohol, but for all intents and purposes it could have been anything. The genius of The Lost Weekend lies in its shocking honesty and its deep concern for its protagonist, who cycles painfully through self-deprecation, violence, hallucination, utter self-hatred, bizarre confidence, brutal honesty, and back again as he slips into bottle after bottle of rye, whiskey, and gin. Wilder the director is concerned with Birnam the sad and angry alcoholic not because he's the most fascinating character in the world, or because he's wholly redeemable (in most ways, he's completely unredeemable as a human being), but because he's so frighteningly real. At times, I forgot I was watching a film, and instead felt like I was looking through a muddy glass window into any bar on any street in any city in the country.
In bringing Birnam face to face with reality (including one night in a stark sanitarium filled with shrieking withdrawal sufferers and a planned rendezvous between his face and a pistol), we're reminded not of the grisly effects of alcoholism -- mind you, this is not a morality play or an expose as much as it is, simply, a pull-no-punches exploration of madness -- but of the power of film to convey the utter sadness and depravity of human beings when pushed to the edge. Wilder is so effective at conveying this dark truth that he is able to direct the audience's reaction with absolute precision (a talent he shared with Hitchcock, who directed the similarly dark but much more whimsical Rebecca); we are never allowed to feel schadenfreude for Birnam, nor are we ever allowed to truly identify with him. The Lost Weekend leaves us paralyzed, wishing we could do something to stop his pain and the pain of all who surround him, but watching with an unstoppable and sick fascination nevertheless. It is one of the great early Best Picture winners, and one of cinema's sickest and most compulsively watchable masterpieces about a train wreck of a human being. 9/10.
In bringing Birnam face to face with reality (including one night in a stark sanitarium filled with shrieking withdrawal sufferers and a planned rendezvous between his face and a pistol), we're reminded not of the grisly effects of alcoholism -- mind you, this is not a morality play or an expose as much as it is, simply, a pull-no-punches exploration of madness -- but of the power of film to convey the utter sadness and depravity of human beings when pushed to the edge. Wilder is so effective at conveying this dark truth that he is able to direct the audience's reaction with absolute precision (a talent he shared with Hitchcock, who directed the similarly dark but much more whimsical Rebecca); we are never allowed to feel schadenfreude for Birnam, nor are we ever allowed to truly identify with him. The Lost Weekend leaves us paralyzed, wishing we could do something to stop his pain and the pain of all who surround him, but watching with an unstoppable and sick fascination nevertheless. It is one of the great early Best Picture winners, and one of cinema's sickest and most compulsively watchable masterpieces about a train wreck of a human being. 9/10.
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