Jonathan Rosenbaum

The Marx Brothers, in their last film for MGM, are let loose in a department store; regrettably, so are Tony Martin and Virginia Grey (1941). Charles Riesner directed, and Margaret Dumont is around to take up part of the slack. Not the brothers at their best, but there are some delightful moments. (JR) Read more

A two-hour Swedish documentary by Peter Cohen, narrated in German by Bruno Ganz, that addresses the fascinating subject of Hitler’s aesthetics, with particular emphasis on the art that he made, admired, bought, and commissioned; his taste for Greek and Roman antiquities and grandiose architecture; and the ideological relationship between this taste and his extermination programs. Regrettably missing from this historical survey is Hitler’s cinephilia (before the war, according to Albert Speer, he used to screen two movies a night) and the grander perspectives offered by Hans-Jurgen Syberberg’s Hitler, a Film From Germany (1977). Solid (if a little stolid) as an essay film, it offers an excellent introduction to Nazi ideology. (JR) Read more

In style and overall approach, Amy Greenfield’s adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy (including some elements from Oedipus at Colonus) harks back to experimental filmmaking of the 60s and early 70s, particularly in the uses of modern dance and nature. Greenfield basically keeps the text offscreen, works with aggressive modernist music by several hands, and depends quite a bit on gestures, highly composed frames, and percussive, eclectic editing; at times the film seems divided between the idea that the tragedy is taking place in the deadpan faces and the idea that it’s happening in the bodies, settings, text, and music. (By and large, the music and dance are more compelling than the faces or the readings of the text, both of which aim at stoicism.) Not an easy film, nor one that entirely escapes the charge of rigor artis, but one that grapples constantly and seriously with the problem of translating dance into film, the camera playing as important a role in the choreography as Greenfield or any of the other dancers. (It lacks the humor and fleetness of The Red Shoes and Mammame, but given the source this is hardly surprising.) The ghost of Maya Deren seems to hover over the proceedings, for better and for worse. Read more

A fascinating and masterful melodrama from Japan, written by Goro Nakajima and directed by former independent Shunichi Nagasaki, that may remind you in spots of both Vertigo and Lilith, although the treatment is strictly Japanese. A Tokyo psychiatrist (Masao Kusakari) who is engaged to his receptionist (Kiwako Harada) becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with a beautiful tourist guide (Kumiko Akiyoshi) who claims to have been beaten by her lesbian lover; further events reveal that this lover is dead and that her identity is being schizophrenically re-created by the tourist guide. A film that juxtaposes two kinds of obsession and implicitly asks the spectator to determine which is sicker (or healthier); it’s all done with effective plot twists and a sure story-telling hand (1989). (Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Saturday, June 1, 8:00, 443-3737) Read more

An English feature written and directed by playwright Anthony Minghella, about a young woman (Juliet Stevenson) stricken by the death of her cellist lover (Alan Rickman) who appears to be revisited by his ghost. This comes across as an English realist variation on the sort of quasi-supernatural stories that producer Val Lewton specialized in during the 40s: that is, the supernatural elements are used to enhance the realistic psychology rather than the other way around. If the relatively prosaic Minghella, making his movie debut, lacks the suggestive poetic sensibility of Lewton, he does a fine job in capturing the contemporary everyday textures of London life, and coaxes a strong performance out of Stevenson, a longtime collaborator. Full of richly realized secondary characters and witty oddball details (e.g., the home video tastes of the dead lover’s ghostly male companions), this is a beguiling film in more ways than one. (Piper’s Alley) Read more

Not only is Jane Birkin at her best in this low-key, realistic drama; she’s also the element that ties everything else together. Directed by Bertrand Tavernier from a script by his ex-wife, Colo Tavernier O’Hagan (he wrote some of the dialogue), this is basically a chamber piece for three voices about a Parisian screenwriter (Birkin) separated from her husband who visits her ailing English father (Dirk Bogarde) and her French mother (Odette Laure) in a small villa on the Cote d’Azur, trying to create a closeness with her father that she has never felt. She mainly speaks English with her father and French with her mother (from whom she feels even more remote), and the characteristic strength of Tavernier’s direction is its capacity to take these unexceptional people as he finds them. A few fleeting flashbacks and snippets of offscreen narration barely intrude on the relatively eventless but finely nuanced action. Contributing to Antoine Duhamel’s score is jazz pianist Jimmy Rowles, and Birkin herself and Rowles sing “These Foolish Things.” (Fine Arts) Read more

It seems appropriate that the blockbuster that broke the Hollywood blacklist in 1960–by crediting a blacklisted filmmaker (screenwriter Dalton Trumbo) and adapting a best-selling novel by leftist Howard Fast–should be the apotheosis of Kennedy liberalism, to the same degree that The Ten Commandments (1956) was the apotheosis of Eisenhower conservatism. This movie is special in other ways as well: perhaps the most literate of all the spectacles about antiquity, it is probably the first major Hollywood film with a central character who is bisexual (a fact made more evident in this restoration, which includes a scene originally cut by the censors); and it is the only movie on which Stanley Kubrick has served as a hired gun, having been brought in after Anthony Mann (who directed the first sequence) was fired. Kubrick has remarked that he enjoyed the most freedom in the scenes without dialogue, and one can spot eye-filling, dynamic sketches for both the battle scenes in Barry Lyndon (albeit realized here on a much larger scale) and the training sequences in Full Metal Jacket. Executive producer Kirk Douglas stars as the eponymous rebel slave, and he and Jean Simmons are both appealing as the romantic leads; no less juicy is the Roman triumvirate of Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, and Peter Ustinov; the embarrassing accents and performances of Tony Curtis, John Dall, and Nina Foch, among others, and some outright kitschy stretches are some of the drawbacks. Read more

Yuri Illyenko, the master Ukrainian cinematographer who shot Sergei Paradjanov’s Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1965) and directed the long-banned A Spring for the Thirsty (1965) and The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968), based this striking 1990 allegorical film on stories by Paradjanov that were inspired by his long sojourns in prison. The film was shot at the prison where Paradjanov was confined, using contemporary prisoners as extras, and it might be said that the documentary and poetic-symbolic aspects of this movie are equally germane to its overall impact. Three days before his sentence is to end, a prisoner (Victor Solovyov) escapes and hides out inside a giant hammer and sickle that borders the prison grounds, where he is discovered and nursed back to health by a beautiful woman (Liudmyla Yefymenko, Illyenko’s wife) who becomes his lover, until her resentful son (Illyenko’s son) betrays his whereabouts to the prison authorities. One of the first independent Soviet productions, partially financed in Sweden and Canada, the film tells its story with a minimum of dialogue and very striking imagery. (JR) Read more

The unlikely team of Carole Lombard and Randolph Scott costar in this rarely shown 60-minute chiller by Victor Halperin (White Zombie) about an executed strangler (Vivienne Osborne) whose spirit threatens to overtake Lombard (1933). It starts off with quotes from Confucius, Muhammad, and Saint Matthew (and a wild montage shortly afterward), and features a fake spiritualist (Alan Dinehart) with a poison ring as well as a genuine psychologist experimenting with ultraviolet rays. This is too good to be camp, though not quite accomplished enough to qualify as a classic. It does, however, manage to generate some creditable acting and a fair amount of atmosphere. (JR) Read more

The eponymous heroine, a mysterious stranger, enters the life of Francoise, a suicidal young woman, and they share an intense fantasy life together. This 1984 French film, directed by 19-year-old Christine Ehm, has been praised for its subtle wit and imaginative use of color. Read more

This lively and enjoyable Indonesian feature (1982) in ‘Scope, directed by Gautana Sisworo Putra from a screenplay by Ignatius Sukardjasman, is based on an ancient Sunda legend with oedipal overtones; the hero accidentally kills his father (although sometime after the latter has been turned into a dog) and almost marries his mother. It’s full of enchantment, alternately campy and exhilarating in its employment of fantasy and magic (with some beautifully choreographed martial arts that include Superman-like flights), but unfortunately censored somewhat for stateside consumption. (JR) Read more

Jean Seberg’s screen debut and one of Otto Preminger’s most underrated features (it was slaughtered by reviewers and ignored by moviegoers when it came out). This 1957 adaptation by Graham Greene of George Bernard Shaw’s famous play was shot in black and white and has a strong secondary cast, including Richard Widmark as the dauphin, John Gielgud as the earl of Warwick, Richard Todd, Anton Walbrook, and Felix Aylmer. (JR) Read more

Otto Preminger’s grappling with rural Georgia during the civil rights movementan adaptation by Thomas C. Ryan and Horton Foote of K.B. Gilden’s southern gothic novelmight seem hopelessly dated in its depiction of decadent whites and noble blacks. In fact, it seemed hopelessly dated when it was released in 1967, though this doesn’t prevent it from having an enjoyable over-the-top quality at various junctures (catch Jane Fonda performing fellatio on Michael Caine’s alto saxophone, for instance). The last of Preminger’s overblown adaptations of best-sellers (his later films became smaller-scale and much weirder), this may have a lot more juice than sustenance, but at least Preminger keeps the juices flowing. With Rex Ingram, Diahann Carroll, Burgess Meredith, John Phillip Law, Robert Hooks, and Faye Dunaway. (JR) Read more

For at least its first half-hour or so, when the beginnings of a genuine psychological profile seem to be promised, this is a fascinating look at the life, fantasies, and empire of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, directed by Robert Heath and written by Heath, Gary H. Grossman, and Michael Gross. But the rest of the film bears such a resemblance to an authorized version that it might as well have been subsidized by Hefner himself; it’s fawning in its hushed tones and so minimal in acknowledging feminist objections to Hefner’s worldview that they are made to seem like distant thunder. Shot on video and transferred to film, this is an industrial in almost every sense, though certainly a well-made example of the genre. David Lynch’s erstwhile partner Mark Frost served as executive producer and James Coburn delivers the reverential narration. (JR) Read more

This is a personal documentary about the homeless in New York City that raises a lot of important issuesincluding media perceptions of the homeless, middle-class mythology about them, and the legacy of Reagan-era cutbacks in social serviceswithout pursuing any of them to the point of yielding a political position or agenda. Despite serious intentions, director Bill Brand’s self-consciousness about his middle-class vantage point tends to get in the way of the material, often serving more as an apologetic disclaimer than as a basis for sustained analysis. Most of the homeless people interviewed are articulate and intelligent about their plight on a day-to-day level, but apart from some telling statistics and familiar generalities, the larger question of what produces homelessnessor what can be done to alleviate itnever coheres into a clear and urgent statement. Still, the film certainly has value as a preliminary discussion. Edited and cowritten by Joanna Kiernan, who also served as associate producer. (JR) Read more