On Blu-ray - David Hare reviews a new Japanese disc of John Ford's WAGON MASTER

Ben Johnson (left, click to enlarge image) in his first "major" (non stunt) role for Ford opens wide as the town's alpha males sniff him out like dogs circling the new pack in the second sequence of my favorite Ford of all time, Wagon Master.

The screen is from a new Blu-ray from IVC Japan, one of a dozen or more RKO titles curated from that label by Serge Bromberg and Lobster FIlms who own the non US rights to the RKO library. It has to be said while this is wonderful to have in HD the video sources held by Lobster from RKO are never going to equal a properly mastered rescan and 2K remaster from Warner and its incomparable MTI facility in Los Angeles. In the meantime however this is one of those major cinephilic titles, like I Walked with a Zombie and The Fugitive which don't have any hint of a home base 2K resurrection from the Warner Archive label in the foreseeable future. The transfer from IVC is nice without being stellar, and while black levels are less than pitch as they are in all the IVC RKO titles so far, contrast and detail are good, and the image has natural film grain quality and sharpness. Maybe one day something better will come along.

Wagon Master is surely Ford's most apparently spontaneous movie, opening as it does with the credits and Hageman's theme music playing right over the inexorable westerly (right to left) movement of a Wagon Train announcing the movie's debut, but with one brief interruption by the train's dog who wanders momentarily out of the visual plane of the train screen forwards to briefly acknowledge and sniff Bert Glennon's camera, and then barks approval as he rejoins the line of the train. Every actor of the dozen or so leads, all wonderful has moments in the movie which evoke almost reckless improvisation and such sheer joy at the seeming realization they are participating in this greatest of collaborative movies. Ford's tendency to introduce characters as archetypes or even thumbnail satires is here often extended into full movie length characterizations to the point where a character like Joanne Dru's charming and beautiful "Denver" gets her big tipsy climactic scenes very late in the piece during the magnificent choreography of the campfire sequence in which most of the narrative's strands coalesce. In the process she gives us one of the best drunk scenes in Fordian cinema, with humor to spare. 

Ford's absolute control of every element and detail down to the improvisatory quality of performance and timing is so total that many so called serious critics who otherwise overpraised some of his more literary adaptations like The Informer or Tobacco Road have failed to see the true spirit of Fords' genius here in all its Shakespearean glory. I was going to call the movie Jonsonian, but the collision of that name with Ford's new leading man's and his ascension to the Fordian galaxy is probably too cute.

Up till Wagon Master Johnson served his time for Ford as a major stuntman and double, with some bits, along with Yakima Canutt, indeed he did most of Wayne's riding wide shots and stunts for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon among others. According to reports Ben Jonson was terrified of Ford on set. Ford was known for tyrannical behavior towards his actors, but the results paid off and Johnson's easy, incredibly sexy, casual authority is one of the great star debuts in Ford, surely a worthy successor to Wayne's first big Close Up in Stagecoach.

On Blu-ray - David Hare has some thoughts about mid-career Robert Aldrich and HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE

Bette Davis (left, click to enlarge) as the hunted in Aldrich's second Grandes Dames Guignol operetta, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (USA, 1964). Released on Blu by Twilight Time from a first tier Fox 2K remaster. 

Some people feel ambivalent about these turning point 60s Aldriches, and I confess to enjoying not much more than their camp aspects. Although the camp here is less accidental than wrangled into place. Still and all they are a kind of death throe of the studio (and star) system and valuable as such. TT has also released Twilight's Last Gleaming (USA, 1977), and this along with Flight of the Phoenix (USA, 1965) represents possibly more interesting late Aldrich for aficionados. The title I am really holding out for is Hustle (USA, 1975) a remarkably charged and perfectly written and cast neo-Noir with Burt Reynolds and Catherine Deneuve as two damaged souls making the most of their perilous relationship who are ultimately outwitted by fate. Unfortunately for posterity Hustle was filmed in Eastman but processed by Metrocolor in the mid 70s, and was very likely the victim of the dreaded CRI intermediate stock which tended to fade and lose density within months of printing. Whatever the case the existing DVD is barely serviceable and the film's generally invisible reputation guarantees it near oblivion. It would surely be part of a major Aldrich retrospective. 

Meanwhile we have the scream queens in this and the previous Bette and Joan outing with forever memorable moments like, "It's ya lunch Blanche, it's ya LUNCH."

More Verhoeven Conversation - Serious cinephiles analyse the great man's past

Editor's Note:  Eddie Cockrell's review  of Paul Verhoeven’s latest film Elle got some conversation going about the director's life and career. The next iteration lifted from my Facebook page, follows,  if you want to follow all of this this strand click here for the middle episode as well, 

Now read on for the latest.....Bruce Hodsdon I have yet to see Elle so cannot contribute directly but can contribute a quote on Verhoeven from the book 'Surrealism and Cinema' (2006) by Michael Richardson who has published widely on surrealism. Richardson notes that V is the one Hollywood director who has genuine links with surrealism. "As a young man in the sixties, he was a member of the Dutch Surrealist Group. This is not something he brings attention to either he has ceased to be interested in surrealism or because , as a genuine surrealist, he doesn't wish to make cultural capital from it. Yet there remains in V's work clear traces of a surrealist attitude, even if these are mingled with a deep cynicism (born doubtless of the environment of Hollywood as well as the considerable difficulties he had making films in his homeland) both gives his films a particular edge while leaving the spectator dissatisfied with an apparent lack of sincerity; at times this cynicism seems forced, suggesting that it may be a strategy to establish his credentials."

….I remember seeing V's breakthrough film Turkish Delight at the SFF c1973- " an aggressively erotic satire of an unhappy marriage." It has stuck in the mind - the satire shifts gear into something more confronting when the wife develops cancer. Richardson's reference to V's early difficulties with making films in his home country is intriguing since Turkish Delight was a domestic and international box office success which according to Katz "brought recognition not only to V but to the then merging Dutch feature film industry. "

David Hare Very pertinent observation of PV's "attitude" Bruce. It’s the same thing that led so many commentators to respond to something like Starship Troopers which is so broadly pitched which as in fact some kind of nuanced allegory of 21st century fascism. He’s always on target when he' s wallowing in the muck. Like the church scene in The Fourth Man where the "straight" boy gives the "bisexual" artist a blowjob at the foot of the crucifix. Now THAT"s my kind of cinema.

Eddie Cockrell I grew up on the writings of Robert A. Heinlein, and Verhoeven's take on Starship Troopers is a brilliant subversion of what the novel set out to do. A great film.

David Hare It's hugely enjoyable and the naked shower scene with barely "legal" age boys and girls together is one of the great censor twisters. And of course he makes us finally sympathize with the creatures because they are more realistic than the kids who are simply too pneumatic, But reading it as a fascist political allegory (because Verhoeven grew up in occupied Holland like everyone else then) is bollocks.

Eddie Cockrell The book is pretty right-wing, though, so that reading has some merit I think.

David Hare It certainly would if that was the film Verhoeven was making. But he just can't help himself. His movies just wanna have fun! I just wish he'd made an x rated version with real sex etc...

Eddie Cockrell Well, sure, but I'm surprised Tri-Star/Touchstone let him get away with as much as he did.

David Hare He is a master of the censor dodge. Viz the uncut and cut Robocop violence. I admire him for this need I add. I do notice throughout this discussion no=-one has even hinted at any trace of misogyny. Turk Fruit anyone? I found the second half almost nauseatingly unpleasant in that respect.

Eddie Cockrell I admire him for this as well; the early, jagged violence in TOTAL RECALL announces a popcorn film in which all bets of decorum are off.

David Hare …..and thank the lord for that!! Only PV could have gotten Arnie into drag.

Eddie Cockrell …as we're saying, he has a talent for pushing things on all levels.

Bruce Hodsdon  I think you a being a bit harsh David. I would not call Black Book exactly "wallowing in the muck". I assume it has some kind of base in WW2 experience (V was born in 1938 so would have some first memory of the effects of the War). Richardson is prepared to give him some benefit of the doubt which he does not so readily extend to David Lynch for example saying L "has learned a lot from repeated viewings of Un Chien Andalou" his films having at best affinities with surrealism -'playing (stylistic) mind games with the viewer 'Cocteau-like' Stronger affinities R thinks can be be extended to a number of other directors like Altman, Huston and Welles and Edwards and Gilliam. He is suggesting V is in also in this category but qualifies it because unlike Lynch, V has had a genuine early engagement with Surrealism which marks his work.

David Hare Bruce the material is, but what I am trying to outline is PV's basic approach or perhaps rather the way he ends up realizing his material. He plays with it, especially character and motivational elements like someone torturing a fly, and manipulates the audience (often brilliantly) into adopting sometimes conflicting sympathies. Example. The gang bang in Spetters when the gay bikers rape the asshole boyfriend of the blonde heroine. He wants you to sympathize with the bikers to the extent he shows the boy then magically experience a Paul at Tarsis moment after the rape when he realizes he's gay Wow. (as they say.) ....

Bruce Hodsdon It's kind of enjoyable i would think being paid like that to successfully play (cynical?) mind games based on the pleasure principle.

David Hare I welcome him as a transgressor in the current hideous world of post PC decorum. The world needs more "artists " like PV and Refn. But not in things like Elle. (And surely Isaabelle can by now be acknowledged capable of doing these roles blindfolded by telegraph etc. So we can all finally be spared any more torturing of her beshat upon persona as indeed the successor to Uncle Ingmar's Poor Ingrid Thulin cutting off her clitoris in high toned shit like Cries and (fucking) Whispers.

Eddie Cockrell Is that a literal translation of the Bergman title?

David Hare …if it isn't it should be

Eddie Cockrell You make an excellent point, however. I bet if he'd found that elusive American actress willing and able to take on the demands of the role (a la Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT) you might've liked the film a bit more, yes?

David Hare Well here' my first heresy of the day. I think Sharon is a far more compelling actor than Isabelle, if only for the reason La Hupps lost her edge not long after her best part (Chabrol's La Ceremonie) and has since made a monotonal career attaching herself to roles of pathological suffering and angst. a trajectory of kink which climaxes in the spectaularly bad and unintentionally hilarious role as Mum in Christophe Honore's Ma Mere (from the George Bataille high porno novella)..., She is the one genuinely bad thing in Claire Denis' White Material. And Denis a director I adore, whose work with actors is so exemplary close and intimate. But not here. If I were heterosexual Sharon Stone would be on my bucket list. In the end it all comes down to sex, Eddie.

….

Bruce Hodsdon Now you mention it David there is for me some affinity between the last part of Turkish Delight (as far as I can remember it) and C&W although the stylistic means are somewhat different.

Digitisations and Restorations (13) - New York City,The Metrograph & Paul Verhoeven at Lincoln Centre

Associate Editor (Restorations and Revivals) Simon Taaffe has come across the following screenings and other information. Click on the links for times etc where indicated.

The Metrograph

Time to take note of New York’s latest seriously good repertory, revival and restoration house,The Metrograph  at number 7 Ludlow Street. Click on the link for its “Mission” which includes “From exclusive premieres to rare archival print screenings, book signings, special dinners, and events, Metrograph offers experiences for a wide spectrum of audiences, attracting diverse communities all drawn to the excitement of cinema and the magic of having a place to celebrate it.”

OK. Sounds like the Cremorne Orpheum...no?  Well if you click on this link you get a different perspective with a seriously good program. Among the many on offer is a screening on 35mm of Robert Kramer & John Douglas 1975 countercultural classic Milestones.  

Verhoeven

The Lincoln Centre Film Society in New York advises: Get ready for Total Verhoeven, a complete retrospective of the fearless director’s work on the occasion of the U.S. release of his acclaimed new film Elle taking place November 9-23.

Few contemporary directors have inspired more debate than Paul Verhoeven, whose smartly entertaining films push the boundaries of sex, violence, and accepted good taste to daringly subversive ends. After a string of groundbreaking works in the Netherlands, Verhoeven eventually found his way to Hollywood, where he lent his complex, morally ambiguous worldview and facility for action spectacle to some of the most fascinating—and often controversial—studio films of the eighties and nineties.

An ironist who frequently works in so-called “disreputable” genres—science fiction, erotic thriller, melodrama—he combines a formal mastery with a satirist’s sensibility, delivering visceral thrills alongside provocative critiques of capitalism, militarism, and masculinity.

Verhoeven in New York