Love Story (1970)

This was another one of those films that I heard my mom talk about when I was growing up.  I knew it needed to be on our list--the score is also quite famous.  I didn't know what the plot was, but I was pretty sure one of the lovers would die.  I mean, why else would people love it?  I knew there had to be some element of tragedy.  And I was right.


And the opening scene is Oliver Barrett (Ryan O'Neal) sitting on snowy bleachers with his voiceover, "What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?"


Boom.  First expectation met--instant gratification.  Now, I asked myself why would the filmmakers tell you at the beginning of the movie that a lead character would be dying.  The only thing I could think was that this was an attempt to build tension throughout the film, to keep you interested, waiting and watching for the moment when the Grim Reaper would arrive.  It worked.  But this movie isn't really about death.  This was merely a vehicle for keeping you interested in the love story--and for bringing a strong sense of irony to the story.


This story is a love story and fairly predictable--boy meets snarky girl, and they engage in "verbal volleyball," taunting and swearing at one another so that at the end of their first interaction, Barrett declares himself to be "in love" with Jenny Cavalieri (Ali Macgraw).  These kinds of romances only happen in Hollywood!  They're two kids in ivy league college who fall in love, despite Barrett's family snobbery, get married, and then are separated by Jenny's death.


What is so true and beautiful about this film is the dichotomy--Oliver falls in love with Jenny--and his father, who doesn't approve of Jenny's low social background, disapproves of his son's choice.  Oliver, already a rebel to his father, pushes him away, and basically disinherits himself from his family's millions.  Of course, his relationship with Jenny was the straw that broke the camel's back.  He already had a growing hatred for his father and his father's plans for him.  But this final straw drew the line, and Oliver turned his back on his family.  Jenny urges reconciliation--she pleads with Oliver to restore his relationship with his father, knowing that life is too short not to be on good terms with those we love.  Yet, when Jenny ends up in the hospital, Oliver finally speaks to his father, requesting money without a true explanation of why he needs it.  His father later finds out that the money was actually for Jenny, comes to talk, but Jenny has already died.  He begins to apologize to Oliver, but Oliver, having learned from Jenny says to his father, "Love means not having to say you're sorry."  While we don't see an on-screen, dramatic restoration of their relationship, this line plants hope in the viewer that the bitter feud was over.  It was Jenny's death that brought the reconciliation between the father and son who were ultimately estranged because of her union with Oliver.


So, yes, this is a love story, but the ultimate message wasn't about "love at first sight" or "all your wildest dreams coming true."  Rather, the message is that true love is about making things right with each other--loving even when things aren't easy and when people aren't lovely.  Jenny loved Oliver despite the way he treated his father--and we find our hope as viewers that her love and constancy helped him learn to love the man he had grown to despise and to gain perspective on the fleeting nature of life.


Next up: The French Connection

From Here to Eternity (1953)

This is the scene--the one everyone remembers--the one that advertises the movie.

But the scene was so brief, and honestly, it didn't live up to the hype, in my book.  But, sex sells, so there you have it.

From Here to Eternity is a film about army life in Hawaii just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  It was based upon a very controversial novel by James Jones.  It was controversial because of the alarming homosexual content and use of expletives.  The screenplay obviously cut out both, although there was one scene where I had questioned the sexual orientation of one character.  I also later read that Montgomery Clift was a homosexual and was tortured by his guilt (though he wasn't the character I held in question).

The setting of the story is a slow, uneventful, and a seemingly perfect and peaceful time in a Hawaiian paradise.  I say "seemingly" because it was anything but perfect and peaceful for the characters of this film.  Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is continually punished for refusing to box for his company's boxing team.  Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) is the wife of Captain Dana Holmes (Phillip Ober), a continually and unashamed unfaithful husband.  Then there's Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra), Prewitt's "buddy-boy" (an oft used nickname in this movie--borderline annoying), who is both bothered and harassed by the stockade Sgt. Judson aka "Fatso."  Though he wasn't particularly troubled, Sgt. Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) was bored out of his mind--a slave to a desk job with no challenges in life...until he meets Cpt. Holmes' wife, Karen.  And finally, Alma 'Lorene' Burke (Donna Reed), a gentlemen's companion at the "New Congress Club," is trying to make enough money to go home and show her hometown (and specifically an ex-boyfriend who left her for someone with money and position) that she, too, can be a proper woman with rank and fortune.

I love the way this movie was filmed--until this point, I haven't really seen a film track the stories of so many different characters with such depth.  I find it difficult to point to a leading man or lady in the film because each character's story was important and not secondary to another.  Lancaster and Kerr got top billing for the film, but Clift and Reed and Sinatra had stories just as compelling.  The romantic stories were layered so that you could compare and contrast the relationships of Warden and Holmes and Prewitt and Burke.  Sinatra's story was both for comic relief and to add depth to Prewitt's story.

Many of the characters ended up in the Hawaiian paradise in hopes of a new beginning.  But, like Adam and Eve, a paradisical location doesn't ensure eternal bliss.  These tortured souls duke it out in their carnal humanity, and every single one of them comes up empty-handed.  This film is all about human frailty, struggle, desire, a lack of fulfillment, and emptiness.  They realize that they don't have control over their destinies because of the choices that others make in their lives.  The conclusion with Pearl Harbor's bombing was like nails in their coffins--two men dead, one man left fighting, one man dismissed, and two women, on a boat, questioning if fate would allow them to return.

As I pondered the title, From Here to Eternity, I struggled with the meaning.  When I put this all together in my untrained film brain, I can only surmise that both the novel and the film are trying to communicate that our perception of bliss and pursuit of it are pointless.  It is the choices we make that determine our course.  These characters would continue living their lives as they were in the pseudo-Edenic existence, but their choices made their lives a warzone even before the Japanese started bombing.  Their lives were disintegrating before war came to them--"eternity" was suddenly out of their grasps.  This is the human story:

Paradise lost.

Next up: Lawrence of Arabia (Ben Hur was next on the list, but Netflix is saying it is unavailable.  We'll pick it up whenever they get it!)

Citizen Kane: The Human Condition

Citizen Kane was our first film in the project.  We actually ended up watching it in two installments because we're so tired we can't seem to finish a movie in one sitting (since we've had the twins).

We liked it.  We found it humorous, at times, but more so, we were drawn in by the cinematography.  I've done minimal research because I didn't want to skew my perspective of the film as it stands on its own (and because I don't have that kind of time).  However, our Netflix movie sleeve did tell us that the film was based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper tycoon and mogul from the late 19th century and early 20th century.  We read up on him a bit, and though Orson Welles (the director and principle actor) denied the film was about Hearst, you can't deny that it is when you read about Hearst's life.  The similarities are numerous: his education, his work, his marriages, his politics, his art collection, and his CASTLE.  Yes, he built a castle.

Citizen Kane begins with the death of Charles Foster Kane, his last words on his lips, "Rosebud."  The plot follows an investigator who is trying to figure out what "Rosebud," meant.  He interviews people who were important in Kane's life and learns the story of this powerful and sad figure.

As a boy, Kane was sent away from his parents with a fat pile of money (from success in gold mines, I believe) to be well-educated.  He was kicked out of many schools and ultimately decided he wanted to run a newspaper.  He ended up owning newspapers all over the country and running for political office.  His life ends in his castle, Xanadu, fashioned after the one described in Coleridge's "Kubla Khan."  The film chronicles his life and his search for love and acceptance along the way.

While the film was a parody on Hearst's life, we didn't feel that was the supreme reason why Roger Ebert declared Citizen Kane the greatest film of all time.  It was many other things, in our oh-so-humble opinions.

The cinematography in this film is amazing for 1941.  The fades, the lighting, the camera angles, the zooms through glass, and so much more!, really gave the film an artistic appeal that is often lacking in the stationary camera films of the mid-20th century.  Dave typically hates to watch old movies because they are visually boring and feel like plays to him.  I think (though I didn't ask) that he actually enjoyed this film because it was unique in how it was shot.  He remarked on different camera effects throughout the film.

The makeup was also great--people were aged in such a way that it didn't appear cheesy or unrealistic.  We were surprised at their techniques.  Many of the characters were aged as they related the events to the investigative reporter.  Yet, they were still recognizable as their younger counterparts in the flashbacks.

Sound and music were impressive as well.  We appreciated the use of sound to convey moods--there were a lot of echos, both at the library and at Xanadu.  They contributed to the distant feeling everyone had about Kane and his illusive persona. Dave also commented on the music overlaps from scene to scene (I didn't notice, but that isn't surprising.).

The obvious allusion to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, "Kubla Khan" gives a bit of insight into what Kane's motives in life were.  In the poem, there is an Abyssinian maid who sings for Khan (the very opera that Susan, Kane's second wife, performs).  It gives him a bit of power.  In the same way, Kane's pressures for Susan Anderson to continue singing despite the public's rejection of her were merely a power play on his part.  He could and would show the masses that he would not be rejected any further.  Susan gave him power, and he took his power to the press.

Kane's misuse of his newspaper by printing news that wasn't quite true also empowered him.  He printed things the way he wanted them to be to save face--especially concerning Susan's career in opera.  It was his way to one-up everyone else by giving himself good press.  This also preaches a message about the power of the news media--this film came out in the middle of World War 2.  News was full of stories--some substantiated and some not so much.  Perhaps Orson Welles was drawing attention to the half-truths and poor publishing?

Truly, the most compelling part of the film for me was the ways in which Kane tried to earn love and acceptance.  His first wife found him lacking as he immersed himself in work, and then his affair with Susan Anderson ended their marriage.  His marriage to Susan wasn't much better as she grew tired of bowing to his demands for her singing career.  She too left him.

In summary, his mother had sent him away, his wives deserted him, and the American public wouldn't elect him into office.  He ended up isolating himself at Xanadu, and he died alone.  It is really sad and pathetic, but it does show that the ultimate desire of the human heart is to be loved and accepted. Kane never found it.

I hope you were able to watch and enjoy the film as well.  Feel free to provide your own commentary; just be nice if we're way off on our synopsis!

Next up:  Spellbound with a review by Dave (Casablanca had a long wait on Netflix, so we will have to get back to it later)