Akira Kurosawa' s "Dersu Uzala" is a cinematic treasure chest. Last night I had the good fortune of viewing a rare print at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum. As a historian I have profound respect for Archives. The UCLA film & television archive has an extensive catalogue of rare films. The Archive was having a centennial celebration of Kurosawa. Getting a clear print of Dersu Uzala on dvd is almost impossible. King Video, Mosfilm, the former Soviet Union, and Japan have all been tangled in bueracratic red tape to work with Criterion to distribute the movie to dvd and honor, arguably the best motion picture Kurosawa ever shot. In revisiting the picture last night some things became apparent.
The background history on the film is quite intense. Akira Kurosawa had just tried to commit suicide a few months before the cameras started rolling. The Japanese studios would no longer fund the aueter because his condition was a security risk. So he looked for funding elsewhere and the Soviet Union welcomed the master with open arms and financed the picture. The shoot took place for two years and when I saw the shots last night it still looked impossible.
"Dersu Uzala" is my personal favorite Kurosawa picture. I realize this is a bold statement, but allow me to state my case. There is no film in the history of cinema that is similar to "Dersu Uzala" and the story is quite unique. The narrative structure reminds me of a western, but mainly is about friendship. Captain Vladimir Arseniev is a Russian surveyor for the army. His duty is to chart all of the remote and unexplored regions of Russia. The regions represent the frontier. The unknown, the daunitng, and the bitter cold. In looking at Soviet history the Transibberean Railroad wasn't completed until Stalin utilized slave labor from the gulag. Without the railroad traveling the entire distance across the Soviet Union was almost impossible.
So Captain Vladimir Arseniev is given one hell of an assignment. Survey Siberia and chart the regions no one has ever seen from Moscow. The film is set in 1900. One night out in the frontier with his troops around the campfire, Arseniev is visited by a man who is one tough son of a bitch.
He comes up to the campfire where he gets a lit twig and starts smoking his pipe. He does not say how are you doing? He yells at the fire and speaks to it as a living being. Then he asks Arseniev for food. The man, the myth, the legend, is none other than Mr. Dersu Uzala. Arseniev complies and an amazing friendship ensues. Through the elements comrades for life are developed.
My personal favorite scene is when the winds start whipping across the Siberian landscape and the arctic tundra goes on as far as the eye can see. Dersu and Captain Arseniev are all alone. They have lost there way and everything looks the same. In frontier American history this happened many times to the Frontier Army and buffalo hunters in the Great Plains region during a snow storm. In "Dersu Uzala" the music Kurosawa provides starts building the tension as the sun starts to set on the Siberian landscape. Last night at the Billy Wilder theater many people in the audience started to put there coats on during this scene. The wind howls and the snow flurries start swirling. Dersu and Captain Arseniev start cutting down grass, cat tails, and reeds, to form a hut for warmth. Watching this scene when Siberia looks overwhelmed with nature and two men work frantically for survival is amazing. It's one of my favorite scenes of all time in cinema. On the same level as the steamboat being dragged over the mountain in "Fitzcaraldo." There is no CGI and Kurosawa captures the shots of an endless ocean of ice and tundra during a snowstorm at sunset. The colors are some of the most unique in film history and the way the wind swirls against the landscape is magical. The tundra looks similar to sand at the ocean. Cheers Kurosawa and happy centennial! You just reached the Summit of Cinema!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
As Slayer say's "were all Expendable Youth!"
Jump in Marty Mcfly's Delorean and travel back to 1980. The Berlin Wall is still up and David Lee Roth keeps rocking the vocals for Van Halen. Wait what is that it's a bird, it's a plane, it's Stallone and Dolph Lundgren and it's not Rocky X? That's right ladies and gentlemen let's get ready rumble! The time for the 1980s action hero is now!!!
In an era where Jason Bourne and Vin Diesel have tried to steal there thunder "The Expendables" retakes the championship belt. Enter Stallone, Staham, Li, Lundgren, Couture, Willis, Schwazanegger, Rourke, Crews, Austin, and especially the one and only Eric Roberts. Eric Roberts must have gotten the slot because of Mickey Rourke's acceptance speech at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards in which he won the award for "The Wrestler" and then proceeded for 10 minutes straight to ask any director in the audience to hire Eric Roberts. Stallone must have been watching or in the audience because Eric is the perfect villain in the Expendables. He is a throw back to the type of character played by Jack Palance in "Tango and Cash" a man whom wears the same suit the entire movie and holds a woman hostage with a gun to her head and asks Stallone to put his gun down!
Oh "The Expendables" is a wild ride. From the opening in taking down Somalian pirates it became apparent to me that I haven't seen laser scopes since Jean Claude Van Damme and Seagal made them famous in the 80's. Hyper color hasn't been used since the first "Predator". And a body hasn't exploded into that many pieces since the "Dawn of the Dead" by George A. Romero. The simple pleasures of life as a moviegoer.
I do not want to give away any details about "The Expendables" because with Stallone in the director chair he delivers the classic goods. An evil South American dictator, Mickey Rourke on a chopper with a blonde stripper, Dolph Lundgren with a knife the size of a surfboard, and hundreds of steel barrels of gasoline filled for 1980s "Terminator" style explosions. What more can a summer movie fan ask for? Stallone duking it out with WWF sensation Stone Cold Steve Austin. And last, but not least a meeting in a church between Willis, Stallone, and the one and only Governator. Where Stallone actually say's to Willis about Schwarzie "don't worry about him he wants to be President!" Rocky meets Rambo and bites off Evan Holyfield's ear like Mike Tyson. Don't Miss This One!!!! (it could change your life and the way CGI has taken away real muscles!!!) (or are the Australian Airport Police still holding on to Sly's steriods from his gym bag???) [too bad Van Damme and Norris thought the Expendables would have been a poor career choice: eat your hearts out fellas, because you missed the boat!!!]
In an era where Jason Bourne and Vin Diesel have tried to steal there thunder "The Expendables" retakes the championship belt. Enter Stallone, Staham, Li, Lundgren, Couture, Willis, Schwazanegger, Rourke, Crews, Austin, and especially the one and only Eric Roberts. Eric Roberts must have gotten the slot because of Mickey Rourke's acceptance speech at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards in which he won the award for "The Wrestler" and then proceeded for 10 minutes straight to ask any director in the audience to hire Eric Roberts. Stallone must have been watching or in the audience because Eric is the perfect villain in the Expendables. He is a throw back to the type of character played by Jack Palance in "Tango and Cash" a man whom wears the same suit the entire movie and holds a woman hostage with a gun to her head and asks Stallone to put his gun down!
Oh "The Expendables" is a wild ride. From the opening in taking down Somalian pirates it became apparent to me that I haven't seen laser scopes since Jean Claude Van Damme and Seagal made them famous in the 80's. Hyper color hasn't been used since the first "Predator". And a body hasn't exploded into that many pieces since the "Dawn of the Dead" by George A. Romero. The simple pleasures of life as a moviegoer.
I do not want to give away any details about "The Expendables" because with Stallone in the director chair he delivers the classic goods. An evil South American dictator, Mickey Rourke on a chopper with a blonde stripper, Dolph Lundgren with a knife the size of a surfboard, and hundreds of steel barrels of gasoline filled for 1980s "Terminator" style explosions. What more can a summer movie fan ask for? Stallone duking it out with WWF sensation Stone Cold Steve Austin. And last, but not least a meeting in a church between Willis, Stallone, and the one and only Governator. Where Stallone actually say's to Willis about Schwarzie "don't worry about him he wants to be President!" Rocky meets Rambo and bites off Evan Holyfield's ear like Mike Tyson. Don't Miss This One!!!! (it could change your life and the way CGI has taken away real muscles!!!) (or are the Australian Airport Police still holding on to Sly's steriods from his gym bag???) [too bad Van Damme and Norris thought the Expendables would have been a poor career choice: eat your hearts out fellas, because you missed the boat!!!]
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Farewell: Review
"Farewell" by Christian Carion is a mesmerizing Cold War spy film. The film touches on acts of espionage by a Soviet colonel named Sergei Grigoriev in Moscow during 1981. Grigoriev played superbly by Emir Kusturica is a fascinating character. He believes in the tenets of Communism, but like Lenin argues that in order for a system to be free it must be continually destroyed and rebuilt in order for it to remain pure. Kusturica is a fabulous actor and was fabulous in Neil Jordan's, "The Good Thief." He has an unusual look and simply from his eyes he reveals so much without saying anything.
Kusturica in Farewell plays a Soviet who is responsible for dismantiling the system which he has devoted his life to. His rationality for this move is he believes he will make the U.S.S.R. better for his son. Being a colonel he has access to the KGB archives. From this location he compiles data, which is prized by the Reagan administration. There are parallels to Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn in "The Falcon and the Snowman." Kusturica in Moscow steals the blueprints of the Soviet space program, reveals a paper trail that accounts for 40% of the Soviet defense budget that has been spent on espionage, uncovers the whereabouts of nuclear warhead locations in both America and the U.S.S.R. as well as Reagan's travel itinerary, Reagan's food service, and the blueprints of Air Force One. The intermediary between the CIA and Kusturica is a French engineer working in Moscow. Played on point by Guillame Canet. Canet is a reluctant intermediary who really doesn't realize the extent to which he is involved. Kusturica and Canet both have to lie to their families about their espionage involvement. There are many parrallels to "Farewell" and "The Lives of Others" in both films relationships and privacy are abused by the nature of a totalitarian state. "Farwell" is one of the first Cold War films to have actors playing world leaders Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Fred Ward plays Reagan as a cowboy president who constantly watching a scene from John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" his reason for watching this scene repeatedly is the scene reveals that John Wayne not Jimmy Stewart killed Liberty Valance. In "Farwell" this a fantastic way of revealing Cold War policy. Arguably it reveals that the Soviet Union with help from the DST dismanteled itself. The Cold War was not won by Ronald Reagan and his Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall speech, but instead ruined from the interior. Unfortunately Mikhail Gorbachev has one scene in the entire film and it reveals very little. There were many scenes of Reagan, but sadly the actor portraying Gorbachev was not utilized to his potential. My biggest criticism of "Farwell" was the lack of Gorbachev. In my personal opinion Mikhail Gorbachev was the last of the mohicans. He was the last Soviet Premier who believed in the ideology. Like Kusturica he thought communism would last forever. Gorbachev felt that if Soviets were given their choice between democracy and communism that they would still choose
communism. Gorbachev wrote his doctoral thesis on how Soviet grain production was superior to American agricultural methods. However, Gorbachev with Pereistroika wrecked the Soviet Union. In America he is championed as a great leader and peace maker. In Russia he is seen as the man who wrecked the Empire. Gorbachev refused to shoot to maintain empire and this in my opinion is why the Berlin wall really fell. In Tianemmenan Square the response of the army of the People's Republic of China kept the nation under the communist umbrella. Without terror communism cannot work.
"Farwell" is a good film and is responsible for putting many fresh ideas on the struggle to understand the Cold War in a motion picture. However, Gorbachev needed to play a more central role in the film in order to balance the amount of screen time Fred Ward had as Reagan.
The look, pace, and tone of the film is on point.
Kusturica in Farewell plays a Soviet who is responsible for dismantiling the system which he has devoted his life to. His rationality for this move is he believes he will make the U.S.S.R. better for his son. Being a colonel he has access to the KGB archives. From this location he compiles data, which is prized by the Reagan administration. There are parallels to Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn in "The Falcon and the Snowman." Kusturica in Moscow steals the blueprints of the Soviet space program, reveals a paper trail that accounts for 40% of the Soviet defense budget that has been spent on espionage, uncovers the whereabouts of nuclear warhead locations in both America and the U.S.S.R. as well as Reagan's travel itinerary, Reagan's food service, and the blueprints of Air Force One. The intermediary between the CIA and Kusturica is a French engineer working in Moscow. Played on point by Guillame Canet. Canet is a reluctant intermediary who really doesn't realize the extent to which he is involved. Kusturica and Canet both have to lie to their families about their espionage involvement. There are many parrallels to "Farewell" and "The Lives of Others" in both films relationships and privacy are abused by the nature of a totalitarian state. "Farwell" is one of the first Cold War films to have actors playing world leaders Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Fred Ward plays Reagan as a cowboy president who constantly watching a scene from John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" his reason for watching this scene repeatedly is the scene reveals that John Wayne not Jimmy Stewart killed Liberty Valance. In "Farwell" this a fantastic way of revealing Cold War policy. Arguably it reveals that the Soviet Union with help from the DST dismanteled itself. The Cold War was not won by Ronald Reagan and his Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall speech, but instead ruined from the interior. Unfortunately Mikhail Gorbachev has one scene in the entire film and it reveals very little. There were many scenes of Reagan, but sadly the actor portraying Gorbachev was not utilized to his potential. My biggest criticism of "Farwell" was the lack of Gorbachev. In my personal opinion Mikhail Gorbachev was the last of the mohicans. He was the last Soviet Premier who believed in the ideology. Like Kusturica he thought communism would last forever. Gorbachev felt that if Soviets were given their choice between democracy and communism that they would still choose
communism. Gorbachev wrote his doctoral thesis on how Soviet grain production was superior to American agricultural methods. However, Gorbachev with Pereistroika wrecked the Soviet Union. In America he is championed as a great leader and peace maker. In Russia he is seen as the man who wrecked the Empire. Gorbachev refused to shoot to maintain empire and this in my opinion is why the Berlin wall really fell. In Tianemmenan Square the response of the army of the People's Republic of China kept the nation under the communist umbrella. Without terror communism cannot work.
"Farwell" is a good film and is responsible for putting many fresh ideas on the struggle to understand the Cold War in a motion picture. However, Gorbachev needed to play a more central role in the film in order to balance the amount of screen time Fred Ward had as Reagan.
The look, pace, and tone of the film is on point.
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