Inherit the Wind

Stanley Kramer's Inherit the Wind is a 1960 film about the famous Scopes 'Monkey' trial of 1925 but ironically it's still relevant in today's society. John Scopes, a high school teacher, was accused of violating a state law that made teaching evolution in any state funded school a crime. This film is not just about evolution vs creationism, it is a jibe at the religious fanaticism that always has been clouting the minds of millions. The performances from Spencer Tracy and Fredric March and the strong dialogue makes the film a Hollywood classic.

 The story takes place in the small town of Hillsboro, Oregon. The case of Bertram Cates, the high school teacher, suddenly becomes famous when Mathew Brady (Fredric March), three time presidential candidate and a biblical scholar decides to fight for the prosecution. E.K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly) a journalist for the Baltimore Herald decides to bring Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) , a lawyer known for his staunch atheist views. The trial that follows is surely one of the most entertaining trials in American film history.

The high point of the movie occurs when Drummond decides to put Brady on the box as a witness for the defense. The dialogue between Drummond and Brady raises some fundamental issues about the way organised religion is practised. When Brady asks Drummond if nothing is holy to him he answers, "The individual human mind. In a child's ability to master the multiplication table, there is more holiness than all your shouted hosannas and holy of holies." The film is not against religion, it is against the way religion blurs the clarity of the human mind. The film acknowledges the necessity of faith in our lives. I am myself a theist turned agnostic. Our lives are filled with pains and miseries. Some people have the courage and mental strength to bear everything without believing in any higher power, but most people don't. People need to place their belief in something which is an eternal source of hope. Throughout the centuries perpetrators of organised religion have used this weakness of man to manipulate them. Organised religion has turned man into a God fearing species instead of a God loving species. It is our foremost duty to make sure the wheels turn the other way.

Breathless (À bout de souffle)

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All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.                                                  -- -- Jean-Luc Godard

Films from the crime genre has always attracted me the most. And a blend of passionate romance can only be the icing on the cake. Forties and fifties gave us the best blend of crime and passion. Most movie buffs know these movies as film-noir, a term which got popular in the seventies, although first applied by French critic Nino Frank to American films in 1946. Godard,once told that he wanted Breathless to be a "gangster" film. Breathless was so much more, surely one of the most unique stories of crime and passion. Although being highly influenced by contemporary American film-noirs, a fact which is explicitly mentioned in the movie, this film is quite different from noirs of that time. This was a story of two people who are trying to find an escape route.

Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a car-thief who is on the run after killing a cop during one of his heists between Marseille and Paris. He comes back to Paris and meets Patricia (Jean Seberg), an aspiring journalist from New York, who sells Herald Tribune on the streets and wants to enroll in Sorbonne. (the perfect stereotype of an east coast intellectual). Michel, a frequent womanizer, has spent only five nights with Patricia but he feels something special with her. He wants to flee Paris and go to Rome with her.

Michel's character, even his mannerisms, is inspired by the classic noir male character, specially Humphrey Bogart. He always has a cigarette on his lips, dark glasses and continuously rubbing his lips. There is a scene where Michel looks at the poster of Bogart's "The Harder they Fall" and he stares at Bogart's picture as the camera zooms into it. (Godard's way of acknowledging his inspiration). Michel has a certain aura of chauvinistic charm which defines him and his love for Patricia. 

Patricia is an independent, educated girl who is looking for something different in life. In the first half of the movie Patricia is unaware of the fact that Michel is a wanted criminal. But when she gets to know this fact she doesn't desert Michel. It depicts her knack for thrill and adventure but she is not sure about her actions. There is an interview of Patricia with an author. When she asks him about his greatest motive he answers, "To become immortal and then die". This statement highly resonates with her feelings. 

The famous hotel room scene between Michel and Patricia shot in a shabby Parisian hotel without lights defines Patricia, Michel and the essence of their relationship. There are direct visual references to Renoir and Picasso. This long scene is shot with jerky camera movements and beautiful close-ups. In this scene both of them discuss their love for each other and their views on life. I just love the way the scene ends. They kiss, the camera closes in and the scene cuts to aerial shots of the Louvre and Notre Dame.

Breathless, one of the flag bearers of French new wave, changed the way of movie making. The famous use of "jump cuts" (which was actually an accident and not a conscious decision) added a nervy feeling to certain scenes. Most scenes were shot with hand held camera, even the moving shots were shot on a wheelchair, making the film a visual marvel. I just adored the way Parisian streets were used to shoot certain scenes. The background music also adds to the thrill. In a word Breathless is a heart-wrenching tale of crime, love, passion,escape and inner doubts of two totally opposite individuals.

Modern movies begin here, with Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" in 1960.
             -- Roger Ebert

Silence of God : A trilogy of beliefs

 

When I first watched Through a Glass Darkly I didn't know about the Silence of God trilogy. I perceived it to be more about the human mind, but it seemed to me as if there was something Bergman left unsaid in the movie. After watching Winter Light I could understand what he left unsaid in the first episode of the trilogy. The Silence was about asserting the truth that was expressed in Winter Light. The Silence of God trilogy is Bergman's personal rebellion against his troubled religious upbringing. 

These three films deal with reduction. Through a Glass Darkly– conquered certainty. Winter Light – penetrated certainty. The Silence – God's silence – the negative imprint. Therefore, they constitute a trilogy.

         -- Ingmar Bergman.

More than being a personal statement this trilogy also depicts how Bergman changed as a director. When I was watching The Silence I could understand how both Cries and Whispers and Persona had touches of the former. In his review of The Silence Richard Broudy aptly writes, "The Silence is in part a prelude to later films, in which Bergman has shifted his focus from God to people, from theology to psychology."

1. Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

   Through a Glass Darkly deals with the idea of God's Silence implicitly.On the forefront it does a brilliant job of portraying different aspects of the human mind. The story is about the events that happen in a day in the lives of four people who are on a vacation on an island. Bergman has always been a master in portraying interpersonal relations. In this film each character acts as a medium to understand the other three.

The film deals with the musings of a schizophrenic girl who has just been released from a mental institution but is not fully cured, the frustration of her husband who loves her dearly but feels utterly helpless knowing the fact that she is incurable, the thoughts of her emotionally repressed brother, and the guilt and inner voids of her father.

Martin (Max von Sydow) is presented as a loving husband. But his frustration is also approaching its zenith. He knows he can only be a witness to his wife's gradual and tormenting end. He yearns for some love from Karin, but she fails to give any. 

David (Gunner Bjornstrand) is a father who is highly guilt ridden because he deserted his children to pursue his writing career. He tries to escape from all the realities of the world but the love for his family draws him back. This movie has some beautiful dual encounters which allows the viewer to study the concerned characters. In such an encounter between Martin and David we get to know the inner voids and doubts of David.

Karin (Harriet Andersson) is stuck between two worlds. She hears voices, she is confused between her reality and her dreams. She only confides in her brother about her feelings. She hears voices  through a wall (used in both literal and metaphorical sense). Her other world is a place where she escapes to find peace, a place where people are waiting for God's arrival but are not anxious about it. In the later part of the film when she possibly seduces her brother into incest (the film only implies it) on the request of the voices she decides to choose between one of the worlds. She is aware of her illness but thinks that some part of her dreams is also a part of her reality.

 In the climax of the film Bergman presents the cruel stony face of God through Karin. Bergman describes God as a spider monster, a term he also uses in Winter Light. 

Minus (Lars Passgard) is a teenager who is confused about his own feelings. He is emotionally repressed, he wants to get it out in front of his father but has been unable to do so. At last when he does so after his sexual encounter with his sister his father gives him the much needed strength. He wants a proof of God. His father says that the thought of "God and love being the same helps him in his emptiness and dirty despair". Bergman implies how trying to find God in any form other than love will lead you into a life of doubt and pain, a thought he asserts in Winter Light.

2. Winter Light (1963)

 Winter Light is the most personal movie from Bergman's point of view. Roger Ebert writes that after Bergman's death the first film he could remember was Winter Light. This film is a head on encounter of Bergman with his personal realisations. The Wikipedia article about Bergman mentions that despite his strict Lutheran upbringing he had lost his faith at the age of eight but  could only come to terms with it while making Winter Light.

                                                                                                                                                                     The protagonist is a Pastor (Gunner Bjornstrand) who is plagued by serious doubts about his religious beliefs he has built his life on. Having lost his wife he is angry with God. He has started to question the idea of a benevolent God. When Jonas (Max von Sydow), a man on the verge of committing suicide, comes to the pastor for help he fails to give any advice. On the other hand he says that he thinks he is a wretched clergyman. Through the pastor's self doubts Bergman expresses his anger against organised religion. In the later part of the film Bergman even points out how even Jesus felt God's Silence in his last minutes. Although this film seems totally theological it actually portrays man's futility when he tries to find the ultimate truth.  

I refused to accept reality. My God and I resided in an organized world where everything made sense.

          -- Pastor Tomas

Marta, a schoolteacher, (Ingrid Thulin) is deeply in love with the pastor. She wants to devote her life to her love. But the Pastor wants to get rid of the affection. He doesn't want anyone to occupy his wife's position. He wants to find the truth, the reason behind God's Silence. This film clearly asserts how the absence of love can drive any man into the dark trails of self doubt and despair.

3. The Silence (1963)

      The Silence  is the most mature film among the three films. Bergman plays a masterstroke by using a world devoid of theology to portray God's Silence. This film originally titled as God's Silence is surely a movie ahead of its' time. The movie bagged quite amount of controversy because of its' explicit sexual content. The title of the movie surely serves a dual purpose as the movie has very less dialogue. 

The Silence deals with the emotionally strained relations between two sisters Ester (Ingrid Thulin), Anna (Gunnel Lindblom) and her son Johan (Jorgen Lindstrom). Anna and Johan are travelling with Ester who is suffering from a lung disease. They end up in a city where no one speaks any of the common European languages. 

The film portrays the cold relation that exists between the three characters. Anna is a frivolous young woman who tries to find joy in fulfilling her bodily needs of hunger and sex. Ester is an educated woman who finds joy in intellectual pursuits. She finds sex disgusting and only a matter of hormones and secretions.

Johan being trapped in the utter loneliness roams around the long corridors of the hotel. The cinematographer brilliantly captures these moments of loneliness using long shots. Desperate for company he tries to befriend anyone he sees in those corridors. When he finds out that his mother is sleeping around with strange men he goes to his Aunt Ester who gives him his much needed company. There is a scene where Johan enters Ester's room  to find her sleeping. His attention is drawn by a tank that is patrolling the road. The camera focuses on the tank for quite some time. It seems Bergman wanted to emphasise the horror of loneliness in a child.

Ester being ill is taken care of by the hotel's old manger. Although he can't speak German or English he feels a connection with both Ester and Johan. He even shares his story with Johan through some old pictures.There is a scene where Ester confronts Ann while her sexual encounter. Ann spills out the hate she has for Ester. Ester being the more conserved and moral person is an antithesis of Ann. But Ester loves Ann despite her actions which are in direct conflict with Ester's principles. Ann doesn't understand her and even wants her dead. Ann leaves the hotel with Johan deserting her ill sister.

Throughout the trilogy Bergman equated God with love. In The Silence  he shows how the tiniest bit of love and affection can bring peace even in the times of utter loneliness. Within a day Johan and his aunt Ester grow a bond which is stronger than the bond with his mother. 

   

The film is both a directorial and a cinematographic marvel. Sven Nykvist, Bergman's long time cinematographer has done a fantastic job of capturing all the expressions of the captures with bold use of strong light and darkness. Since the film has very less dialogue it was a very difficult job to portrary most ideas through visuals and Nykvist surely does it with utmost perfection.

This has been a long post. I think I should conclude with the idea that Bergman mostly wanted to show.

There has been no direct proof of God's existence. If anything the day to day events of our lives assert is God's non-existence (the atheist version) or God's Silence (the theist version). I think Bergman wanted to say that the pursuit of a higher truth or God is not an easy path. We don't know what is at the end of such a road. But one thing is for sure that absence of love in one's life will surely bring misery and even the tiniest presence of love can bring endless joy.

The 400 blows : a peek into an young mind.

I can't remember watching a French film which didn't deal with some aspect of romantic relationships. Francois Truffaut's "the 400 blows" is quite an exception to this. The film depicts the struggle of an adolescent mind in the simplest way possible. To quote Wikipedia "The English title is a straight translation of the French but misses its meaning, as the French title refers to the idiom "faire les quatre cents coups", which means "to raise hell". This film shows us how sensitive an young mind can be and how often parents forget this simple fact.

I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between.

          --  Francois Truffaut

"the 400 blows", being inspired by Truffaut's own life depicts the agony. Young Antoine, the protagonist of the film, is disliked by his teachers, his mother doesn't quite like him and his step dad doesn't have a lot of expectations from him. His only companion is his best friend Rene. The director very aptly uses this friendship to depict some of his key ideas. Although Rene belongs to a rich family he is also a neglected child. His parents are busy with their clubs and parties whereas Antoine's parents are busy with their work. Truffaut rightly shows how important parental care is in bringing up a child.
An adolescent boy needs proper guidance. All adolescent minds are rebellious by nature. The film shows how parental negligence can turn that rebel into a disoriented mind.There is a scene where Antoine and Rene are planning to steal a typewriter from Antoine's dad's office. This scene is shot in a theatre where kids of age 4-5 are watching a puppet show. The camera pans across all the innocent faces in the audience and then focus on Antoine and Rene who are busy deciding how they can hock the typewriter. The camera again  pans across the audience to depict the innocence of the kids. I think with this scene the director subtly shows how society can destroy a child's innocence.

The film brilliantly captures the struggle that Antoine faces within himself. He is in search of something where he can find happiness. Antoine is caught when he tries to return the stolen typewriter. His step-dad sees this as an opportunity to straighten him and sends him to a juvenile observation centre. At the observation centre he tells the psychiatrist his true feelings. This is the only time he opens up. The feelings are of a neglected child who is disgusted by being misunderstood by most people. 

The last scene of the film is surely one of the best scenes ever shot in the history of world cinema. Antoine manages to escape the centre and he runs continuously and at last reaches the sea shore. This the first time he witnesses the vastness of a sea. But he doesn't know where to run anymore. He turns back and the camera zooms into Antoine. The movie ends there. His expression speaks a thousand words.Antoine had naively hoped that he can run away from all the miseries of his life. But after running into the sea he understands that he cannot escape the grim realities of this life. He has to face them, only something as vast as the sea (I think the sea metaphorises death in some way here) can relive him from his pains and miseries. His expression is a perfect blend of  the realisation of the fact that he cannot escape reality and the fear of the uncertain future that awaits him.