Hit Me With Your Best Shot - The Bad And The Beautiful

This post will be brief only by necessity, as I'm in rehearsals right now and am just flat exhausted. But this week's selection for Hit Me With Your Best Shot was on TCM last weekend, when I actually had a moment to breathe, so I watched it and just had to write about it.

This was the first time I had seen Vincente Minnelli's The Bad And The Beautiful, and I enjoyed every delicious, Hollywood-insidery moment of it (I don't know what Gloria Grahame was doing winning an Oscar for a glorified cameo when Jean Hagen was digging up comic gold right and left in Singin' In The Rain, but the Academy's shocking disdain for Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's masterpiece is neither here nor there). The whole thing is a movie-lover's wet dream, with Lana Turner being fabulous, Kirk Douglas being despicable, and tons of backstage so-THAT'S-how-they-make-movies tidbits and stunning tracking shots following the filming of tracking shots.

But as much as it is about the making of Hollywood films and the making (and un-making) of Hollywood careers, what the film was really about, to me, was the pull of artistic genius. In my life in the theater, I've come across my fair share of brilliant people who exert this strange pull on all those around them. You can't quite describe it, except to say that they could talk you into doing just about anything, despite the fact that you know there are invisible, potentially dangerous strings attached. No matter how many times they burn you, you keep coming back when they call, because they bring something out of you that no one else does. It's very much like a disfunctional relationship with a toxic lover - you know they're bad for you, but the sex is so good that you can't stay away.

Anyway, that's part of why the final shot of The Bad And The Beautiful seemed so perfect to me. While Kirk Douglas's defeated asshole of a producer pitches his new film idea, the one that will bring him back from poverty, to his old partner, the actress, director, and writer he burned along his way to glory listen in, going from this:

to this:

Come ON. That is a perfectly lit and composed shot. And, as each of them slowly comes into the light, it mimics the film's trifurcated structure. It also shows the irresistible pull of those damned artistic genius assholes. Even when your better judgment is begging you to leave them alone, there's always that little voice inside you, nudging you ever closer to their orbit, stroking your ego if only to prepare it for the inevitable crash to earth. For all the fun this film is, that's a pretty powerful note to end on.

Mary Poppins - Step In Time

This week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot is Mary Poppins, and I desperately wanted to participate, both because I haven't done so at all in the second half of this season (much less blogged at all), and because I have always loved Mary Poppins. But, lo and behold, I find myself incapable of truly doing so! You see, so many of my favorite parts of Mary Poppins, the parts I really want to talk about, didn't really include any shots that made me sit up in my seat and take notice. It's a remarkably well-constructed film, one that actually gets better as it goes along, but most of the cinematography is unremarkable, except for some stunning nighttime shots of the London roofscape...

"A trackless jungle!"

...which I largely suspect to be matte paintings.

I really wanted to go with something from "Feed the Birds", the most haunting lullaby Disney ever produced, because it always exerted a strange hypnotic pull over me when I was younger. Those shots of the cathedral, blurred around the edges, with the almost see-thru birds flying around it are incredibly affecting, but not a single one of them really summed up the number.

Mary Poppins is quite sneaky that way, bringing in some things quite radical for a children's film. For one, there isn't really a plot, for another, there are several ballads (like "Feed the Birds") that threaten to put kids to sleep but actually deepen the film and the characters. And for another, it's very anti-establishment: Mrs. Banks is a suffragette, at one point making sure that her maid put rotten eggs in her bag so that she can throw them at the Prime Minister in Downing Street, and Mr. Banks is a banker at quite possibly the creepiest bank ever in the history of the world:

And I so love how little Michael starts what must be a total economic meltdown after he tries to take back his tuppence from the greedy Bank President (who, let's be honest, basically stole it from him anyway). A surprisingly prescient moment, teaching children how silly adults get about money. But again, there are no really great shots in that bank melee.

So, I am forced to instead talk about one of the greatest dance numbers ever filmed, "Step In Time". And even here I find myself at a loss for words, except that I adore the way choreographer Marc Breaux (whose next project was Julie Andrews'  next film, The Sound of Music) uses absolutely everything you could conceivably find on a rooftop, having the chimney sweeps dance on railings, climb up and down smokestacks, dance over and balance on the lip at the edge of the roof... it's ingenius, fun choreography, and takes a very silly, overly simple song and turns it into a major production number entirely worth it's eight-minute length. It's filmed really smartly, balancing mid-shots, long shots, and close-ups quite well, letting us in on the fun while still letting us see the dancing as much as possible (although there are probably a few too many reaction shots from the kids, who are, shall we say, not the greatest actors Disney ever found). Yes, now that I'm older I can see the seams show when Julie Andrews jumps up in the air for her multiple tours, but when I was a kid, my jaw always dropped. The performances of Dick Van Dyke and the rest of the ensemble help greatly, too - they make it infectious. Seeing this number, you would think it would be great fun to be a chimney sweep, no?

And I love when the soot-stained crew travels down the chimney into the spic-and-span Banks household, possibly even more than the rooftop shenanigans, as they flip the maid, chase the cook, march for women's rights with Mrs. Banks, and leave a befuddled Mr. Banks shouting "What's all this?!?" over and over and over (David Tomlinson never fails to make me lol when he gets frustrated). And that final shot of them all dancing, jigging, and backflipping down the street is a glorious fade-out to the number.

And yeah, I know the silhouette of the dancers dancing on the chimneys is a beaut, but my favorite shot has always been this one, which immediately precedes that iconic shot:

It's an ever-so-slightly vertiginous shot, totally selling that this entire number is actually taking place on the rooftops of London and not on a soundstage somewhere, maybe 5 feet off the ground. With the added danger of dancing over a hole! One foot wrong and down you go!

Down you go, step in time!

Down you go, step in time!

Never need a reason,

Never need a rhyme!

Down you go, step in time!

Dammit, now I'm never going to get that song out of my head. Ah well, the movie's been in there for years, and it's quite delightful to have around.

Favorite moment: walking on hands between the rooftops, then dropping down, hanging on only by the feet
Length: approx. 8:10
Number of cuts: 96

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Fantasia

Curse you, Nathaniel!

Choosing a best shot from Fantasia is (as I mentioned earlier), a fool's errand, even when you're allowed to pick one shot from each sequence. Not to mention the fact that I haven't seen the film since I was a child, and even then I tended to fast-forward through the entire middle (the entirety of Rite of Spring and portions of Pastoral Symphony, both of which have exciting moments but are far too long for a child's attention span). On top of that, the purpose of choosing Fantasia is to celebrate the centennial of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which has always been my least favorite section of the movie.

And on top of all that, I have been super busy this week.

But rewatching some of the sequences over the past week, I've been reminded just how freaking gorgeous Fantasia is. Practically every frame is a work of art, even in the sequences I dislike. I mean, Disney itself has marketed just about every frame from The Sorcerer's Apprentice in one form or another, and for good reason. It's possibly the most iconic piece of animation in the Disney canon. Which is exactly why picking anything from Mickey's big moment would be way too easy. But upon watching the sequence again, I was struck by this moment:

Foreshadowing the last sequence in an anthology film? Has any other anthology film ever done that? Because, come on. Even if Yen Sid (heh heh) is conjuring a butterfly, in the beginning it totally looks like the malevolent terror Chernabog, the mountain/demon star of Night on Bald Mountain and scourge of countless childhood nightmares.

Fantasia - Dance of the Hours

For this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Nathaniel has chosen Disney's Fantasia, which poses a near-impossible task. Whole sequences of Fantasia are true works of art - how can you choose just one shot from the whole film as "best"? I haven't seen the whole film in years (since I was a kid), but I remember a lot of it vividly. Given the nature of this blog, it should come as no surprise that my favorite sequences are the Nutcracker Suite and this one right here:

I defy anyone to hear "Dance of the Hours" and not instantly see those dancing ostriches, hippopotamuses, elephants, and crocodiles. What I love about this sequence is how the animators constantly play with expectations. The piece starts with the ostriches, who are appropriately light and graceful, but far more flexible than you might expect. Next come the hippos, and boy do they not move according to expectations, even if all that effort tires them out. The elephants are like the hippos, only more playful. But it's those kooky crocs who steal the show. Much as I love this piece, it never really captures my attention until they show up, with their silly capes and mile-wide mouths. They should be the villains of the piece, but because of their goofy grins, they end up being far more funny than menacing, to the point that you're never sure if they want to eat the hippo or romance her.

Animator John Hench apparently resisted working on this segment because he knew nothing about ballet, so to appease him Walt Disney gave him season tickets and backstage access to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The end result is a perfect blend of ballet technique and animalistic movement. Little things like the way the ostriches walk, the literal shifting of weight in the hippos and elephants, and the way the crocodiles slither and curl up all speak to the real-life animals that inspire them, but are incorporated seamlessly into how they dance.

Taking full advantage of the possibilities of animation, the laws of physics are given a big ol' heave-ho, allowing the lead ostrich to be thrown up very high in the air very quickly, and then float down with enough time to do at least a hundred changements. It also allows the crocodiles to lift the hippos in any number of different, exciting, sometimes funny ways, like just using their tails!

Fantasia has lots of dance in it, but this is the only sequence that really uses dance (ballet specifically) as its driving force. It's also arguably the most fun, which should quiet all those people who decry ballet as boring. There are plenty of comic ballets, just as there are comic operas. Plus, if you picture people performing this instead of animated animals, it's still pretty great. Actually, seeing as how the whole thing is even structured like an actual ballet (the various ensembles each dance separately, followed by a pas de deux, then a grand finale with everyone dancing together), I would love to see some adventurous ballet company attempt this. They'd need some wires and some crazy costumes, but it could be a lot of fun.

Favorite Moment: the crocodiles' entrance, at first menacing, until they throw back their capes and have the silliest look on their faces - in perfect unison, of course (at 7:50 in the clip); and hippo's run-and-jump onto the croc, who attempts to catch her (at 9:10 in the clip) - because some (poor) partners really do feel like that when you try to lift them.
Length: Approx. 11:50

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Summertime

Hello. My name is Daniel and I am a hopeless romantic.

I can't help it. I live for a very specific kind of romance in films: Love that comes unexpectedly, burns bright for a very short amount of time, and cannot, must not last. Star-crossed lovers who don't end up together, for whatever reason. I can't help it. Casablanca, In the Mood For Love, Brief Encounter, Before Sunrise... these films are like crack to me. And one of my favorites, one that has kind of sadly fallen through the cracks of history a bit, is David Lean's Summertime.

I was thrilled when Nathaniel announced this Katharine Hepburn-Rossano Brazzi picture, because I first saw it about a year ago and haven't seen it since. I was eager to give it a revisit. It is swooningly, heartbreakingly romantic in the best way, and it takes place in that most captivating of Italian cities (at least for me), Venice. And while Summertime is certainly a beautifully-shot film in a very beautiful place, every single shot I thought about choosing for this piece was just of Katharine Hepburn.

This is one of The Great Kate's Oscar nominations, and it's well-deserved. I'd even go so far as to say she should have won the Oscar for it. I can't count the number of shots in this film in which she amazes me with her ability to show that her heart is blooming and breaking at the same time. She's the main reason why Summertime works as well as it does. It could very well have worked with another actress (Bergman, say, or Bancroft), because, hey, it's pretty damn hard NOT to fall head over sensible heels for Rossano Brazzi (SWOON). But I can't think of another actress that could have made Jane Hudson work as well as Hepburn, solely because the character runs almost completely contrary to our thinking about her - or at least, to the image she tried to cultivate of herself.

When we think of Kate, we mostly think of Tracy Lord, or Eleanor of Aquitaine, or Amanda Bonner, or Susan from Bringing Up Baby, or any other number of strong, forceful women. We may think of her as a romantic, but not in the sad, shy way of Jane Hudson. We do not think of her as someone who has never taken a vacation abroad, and certainly not as someone who would have trouble calling a waiter in a café. But Jane Hudson is all of these things, and Hepburn plays her as someone who resents that she is those things, even as she half-heartedly struggles to overcome them. She may laugh off her falling into a canal while wearing a white dress, but the second men start trying to dry her off, she finds the little boy who has attached himself to her and tells him to get her the hell out of there. Jane does not like attention. Perhaps being in her forties she has gotten used to not having it, and any time she gets it she finds it a strange, unnerving experience. Why would anyone pay attention to her? Why should they?

Well, they would because she looks like Katharine Hepburn, and even at her meekest, Kate has a presence about her. She just does. There's no hiding it or glossing over it. Perhaps this is what attracts Rossano Brazzi's Renato to her. That presence combined with her silence. She may be in her forties, but in many ways she is still an awkward teenager, amazed that such a beautiful, suave Italian man would take an interest in her, and not entirely sure if she wants it. There are very brief moments when you can see Kate rebelling against Jane - when Jane gets angry at herself for not being strong enough to do something she wants, that's clearly Kate - but it actually works in the character's favor. In the great scene when she tells Renato she is leaving later that day: She begins to cry, and Kate turns her head away from the camera, not willing to let the audience see her this weak, this sad. But at the same time, that makes the scene play much more interestingly than it might have, with Jane instead turning to the camera, or shaking her head back and forth. It's a simple motion that adds interest to the character where there really isn't on the page, and Hepburn's performance is filled with moments like that.

Which brings me to my Best Shot. It's from the final scene, one that has played out on the silver screen since time immemorial: Jane is getting on the train that will take her away from Venice, away from Renato. Will he come for her or not? This type of film is dependent on this scene to work. If this scene doesn't work, the film doesn't - it falls flat on its ass. As usual, the one leaving told the one that is being left specifically not to follow them, not to come after them, even though they really wanted the opposite. Even as she gets on the train, you can see the hope in Jane's eyes that Renato will disobey her. She wants him to; she doesn't want him to. She hates her self for wanting him to; she hates herself for hating herself. She must leave; she can't leave. She will leave.

And then, as usually happens, Renato does show up. With a gift. Just as the train is departing. She sees him. Even from very far away, she knows it's him. He runs with all his might to try and get the gift to her, but man is never faster than locomotive. So, standing at the end of the platform, he throws open the box and holds up the flower that was inside for her to see.

And then, this happens:

In six seconds, Kate goes from being down in the dumps to walking on cloud nine. Screenshots don't do it justice (sorry, I'm good with Photoshop but suck at making gifs). In motion, it's wondrous (you can see the whole scene here). This one shot made the movie for me the first time I saw it, and the second time it was the same punch to the gut. That's great acting. But more than that, it's great filmmaking. For a film like this to work just as well (if not better) the second time around, it has to hit some pretty deep emotions, and hit them well. Summertime, thanks to Katharine Hepburn, does just that.

*     *     *

I feel like I'm understating the importance of Rossano Brazzi in all of this. He is perfectly swoon-worthy as Renato, and he is personally on my list of Top Ten Sexiest Male Stars of All Time. Great as Kate is, this type of film doesn't work unless BOTH the leads are easy to fall in love with, and he is. OH, he is.

David Lean, too. Was there are an auteur as versatile as he? Great Expectations, Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai and this? The guy mastered practically every genre.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - A Star is Born

Written as part of The Film Experience's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

A Star is Born must be one of the most durable properties in Hollywood's archives, having been made first in the 30s (with Janet Gaynor and Frederic March), then in the 50s (with Judy Garland and James Mason), and then in the 70s (with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson). There was even talk recently that Clint Eastwood of all people wanted to do a new version with Beyoncé (of all people). Each version has its ardent fans, but when people talk about A Star is Born, they're usually talking about Judy Garland - at least in my experience.

And it's with good reason. This is Judy at her Judy-est, digging deep within herself and coming up gold right and left. There isn't a single scene here where she isn't on fire. It's not just a great performance, it's Judy Garland at her absolute peak, giving the kind of performance that would define any actress with a less-impressive resume than Garland's. Judy's "Mrs. Norman Maine" is everything you want and expect from Judy Garland, dialed up to eleven.

Director George Cukor knows from well-crafted women's pictures, so the entire enterprise is well-shot and perfectly pitched (if a little long). Picking a best shot should be difficult, but it isn't. At all. There may be other more beautiful, more meaningful shots, but there is only one shot that matters in A Star is Born, and I will not hear anything otherwise. The shot comes at about a minute into the clip below.

Jesus Christ, but has there ever been an actress who can get to such deep emotions so purely, not to mention so easily?

Yes, Judy is amazing here, but this isn't the best shot of A Star is Born just because of her. Literally every single thing about this shot is perfection. Even though she's constantly moving around, Judy is always in the center of the frame, because Cukor is so in tune with the (ridiculously high) artistic level she's working on that he knows just when she's going to move, and where to, and how far. And he knows exactly when to zoom close and when to pull back. It's incredible.

Shooting a solo musical number is a tricky, tricky thing, and this one is aces not just because of the performance (which earns its legendary status about a hundred times over), but because of the directorial decisions involved. Other directors would have cut to Norman watching her at least once during the number, and given how good James Mason is, that might have worked. But Cukor knows that when Judy Garland is singing like this, you don't cut away. You keep the band mostly in shadow, you keep her in mid-frame except for the big moment when she comes right at you, you pull back to let the audience catch their breath, and then you pull in again ever so slightly for the quiet end. It's the movie in miniature, it's a brilliant performance, and a master class in how to stage, light, and shoot a solo musical number. Brava!

Flashdance - The Audition

Ah, Flashdance! Dance movies made a comeback in the 1980s, and it started right here 30 years ago today. Well, dance movies never really went away, I guess, but Jennifer Beals certainly got more people interested in seeing dance on the big screen. Pity she didn't do most of the actual dancing. Flashdance also pretty much set the template for every dance movie that followed: You can see all the story beats and pretty much this exact sequence in Save the Last Dance, Center Stage, all the Step Up films, and others.

Not that I'm complaining, exactly. Formulas wouldn't become formulas if they didn't work, and Flashdance works really well. It even holds up a lot better than you might think. I'm just glad that later films did a better job of capturing the actual dancing.

The one precedent Flashdance set that I'm not at all happy about is the editing style. In just over two minutes there are thirty-three cuts in the dance, and they aren't used in the best ways. The best parts of the dance are when the camera follows Beals's Alex as she dances. In fact, director Adrian Lyne nearly ruins this final sequence, Alex's big audition, with countless cutaways to the panel of judges' reactions, which run from silly facial expressions to cigar-smoking to toe-tapping to nose-blowing. Trust me, no one cares about them. We just want to see Alex tear it up on the dancefloor.

And tear it up she does. Jeffrey Hornaday's choreography might include a few too many of those punch-the-air-and-kick moves for my taste, but Beals (and/or her body doubles) looks so fantastic doing them that I don't really care. This a truly go-for-broke audition piece, throwing everything in the dancer's arsenal on the floor in the hopes that the panel will see not only technique, but the raw passion present in all the greatest dancers. It's also incredibly of its time. You can see this mostly in the technique; the arms closed in tight when pirouetting, the height of the battements (high kicks), the style of the jetées (leaps) - these are all indicative of 80s technique. If a dancer were performing this piece today, you would see much higher battements, rounded arms in the pirouettes, and straighter legs in the jetées. The gymnastic and breakdancing elements are also very 80s, but in a more fun, cultural way.

Lyne also throws pretty much every editing and camera trick in the book at this sequence to maximize how cool it looks. He films the pirouettes from three different angles to make it look like she's doing far more than she actually is. He zooms in on the really cool moves (almost as if to say, "look at how cool that is!"). He shoots her in silhouette against the light from the windows (a callback to the first dance sequence when she dances in silhouette). He films her flying leap in slow-motion and from angles which emphasize how high and how far she jumps. He shoots just her feet to emphasize the footwork (a trick which I particularly hate, as it leaves out the rest of the body entirely).

This last trick works far better in the beginning of the sequence, before the dance actually begins. The set-up of the scene does a great job of building tension - following Alex's feet as she walks through the room, a slow pan across the people behind the table, and my favorite bit, the close-up of Alex's trembling hand as she puts the needle on the record player. (For the record, I would be unbelievably nervous about dancing to a record. What if it starts skipping?) And then, she falters. It almost looks like she's going to continue, but instead she gets up, excuses herself, and starts again. Forget that this would likely never happen in any real audition situation, but it's really effective and setting up both the people auditioning Alex as well as the audience. Even though we know what Alex is capable of, will she be able to hold it together and win over the old fuddy-duddies?

Maybe Lyne lays it on a bit thick here - we're already on Alex's side, and the stakes have been set well enough in the previous hour and a half - but it still works as a shock. Alex is human. She can falter. This might just be too much for her, like it was for her friend Jeanie (who falls in a skating competition earlier in the film). But she rallies. And that makes all those punch-the-air-and-kick moves feel even more triumphant. My favorite critical line on Flashdance comes from The Guardian, which called the film "a preposterous success," which is just about a perfect description. The characters and plot are preposterous, as are many of the directorial choices, and yet Flashdance does nothing but succeed. The whole thing is greater than the sum of its parts, because... well... because what a feeling it leaves us with!

Favorite Moment: The flying leap into the backspin. Isn't that everyone's favorite part? It's certainly the red-headed judge's favorite. I love how ballsy it is.
Length: approx. 2:15
Number of Cuts: 33