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Reviews
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
More of a documentary, really
"A Woman Under the Influence" (John Cassavetes, 1974) could easily be re-titled "An Audience Under the Influence." Through the use of confining technical tricks, Cassavetes manages to have a serious affect on those who view this film, drawing them into the lives of Mabel and Nick Longhetti (Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk). The desired result is to produce a film that is more like a documentary than a scripted drama, a controlled "cinema verité" piece.
Cassavetes shot the film in a real house, which from a technical standpoint means that it is going to be very cramped. Most of the film occurs in the house and with all of the equipment that is required to shoot a film plus the actors and staff, there really wasn't much of a choice of how to shoot the film. Hand-held cameras are used throughout most of the shooting in the house, and the shots aren't usually very clean or wide. Cassavetes had them stay close to the actors, whoever was speaking usually, and as the movie progresses, the shots tighten in more on faces. They get so close, that not even the whole face is visible in some shots. This style of jerky, close up filming adds to the feeling that the movie is merely documenting a family rather than portraying a screenplay. In some instances this style of filming disrupts the suspension of belief that the audience is expected to have, but in this instance, with the high quality and intensity of Cassavetes script, it actually heightens the experience. After watching Mabel and Nick argue and run around the house with the cameras close on them for a while, the audience is pulled into the story and is affected by it.
The brilliance of Gena Rowlands' performance in the film is perhaps a major reason that the film is so powerful. Unlike Karen Black's performance of a simple and expressive woman in "Five Easy Pieces," Rowlands manages to convince the viewer that she is "different" and often prone to fits. Black took her similar role a little too far and just made he character seem dumb, instead of naïve as the role might be better played. Rowland stuck with what Cassavetes intended and added her own likability to the character. Her simple, though entirely "real" gestures and facial expressions throughout the film added to its validity.
But Rowlands' performance overshadows the one given by Peter Falk. The frustration and confusion that is portrayed by Falk as Nick Longhetti is no less convincing than his "wife's" whimsical and confusing mannerisms. He didn't so much bring the character alive, as one usually says of a good actor playing a role well, so much as he played the character truthfully. His wonderful performance certainly helps to solidify this film as a quasi-verité piece.
One final note on the length of film: Although it is longer than most of the New American Cinema canonic films, it makes the film more real. Cassavetes has a good amount of patience with letting a scene play out instead of editing it down to a few concise shots. The dining room scene where they're all eating spaghetti# happens almost in real time. The audience is invited to sit at the table with them and listen to these "real" conversations as they unfold.
The Last Detail (1973)
Naval Lifers are bad for recruitment images
The Last Detail (1973, Hal Ashby) depicts a side of the US Navy that the Navy didn't want the public to focus on. The country at the time was in an uproar over the Vietnam Conflict. These were the days of The Weatherman (The Weather Underground Organization) and the SDS. The country was divided severely over the US involvement in Vietnam and the military was falling out of the public favor. The movie carefully skirts talking about the conflict by setting the action on the Eastern Seaboard (from Norfolk, VA to Portsmouth, NH) and having the main characters be Navy Shore Patrol. As the odd pair, played by Jack Nicholson and Otis Young, get their unusual assignment and venture north with their captive, an odd side of Navy life emerges: the career "lifer." The plot of The Last Detail is a little far-fetched. Billy Buddusky (Nicholson) and Mulhall (Young) are ordered to escort Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid) from Norfolk, VA to the Naval prison in Portsmouth, NH (which closed the year after the film was released). Meadows is sentenced for 8 years in the brig for attempting to steal $40 from a polio donations box. "The Old Man's Wife" was big into the polio cause and had her husband put the screws on Meadows, thus the harshness of his sentencing. Yet, this is really commentary on the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Nowhere else in the US would someone be sentenced for 8 years for attempting to steal (not actually even stealing) $40. They might be morally shunned and given some jail time, but certainly not time in prison. This sentencing shows the "corruption," if you will, of the justice system in the military. Moral judgment was wrought upon Meadows because he had deeply offended "The Old Man's Wife." Along the journey from VA to NH, Buddusky and Mulhall try to show Meadows, who is presumably under 18, a good time by fulfilling all of the "masculine" desires, such as drinking, smoking marijuana, sexual involvement (with a prostitute), fighting (with Marines), etc.
During this adventurous trip, the characters of all the sailors emerge and we see what being a lifer in the Navy is like. The only thing these two guys can do is their job in the Navy: they've nowhere else to go. We discover that Buddusky's nickname is "Bad Ass" and he tries to live up to that image in a very conscious way. "I am a bad-ass!" he exclaims more than once. He provokes a bartender after Meadows is refused a beer, pulling and aiming his (unloaded) gun at the barkeep. He suggests getting drunk, getting laid, getting high, and getting into a fight with some Marines for no reason whatsoever. "I have a flair for this sort of thing." There has always been "brotherly" tension between the Marines and the Navy, but Buddusky provokes a fight for no reason other than to show how manly he is and get Meadows into a brawl. "Bad Ass" Buddusky clearly depicts one type of naval lifer. He is hyper-masculine and feels the need to assert this at every opportunity, whether that means starting a fight in a train station bathroom or saying he doesn't give a damn about a kid going to prison for an unjust amount of time. Mulhall, or "Mule," depicts another type of lifer. He is into doing his job, thus the name "Mule." He isn't bright, but he can carry a task to its completion. He helps to balance Buddusky, who'd probably not made it to NH in the allotted 5 days without him. He still likes to do masculine pastimes, but he's more conscious of the task at hand.
The Navy doesn't like to discuss lifers, really. They're in the Navy because they had nowhere else to turn to. They need the fraternity, the protection from social norms and conventions, the steady check, and the structure of military life (and consequently the liberties that this also allows for). While the military was struggling to gather new recruits to fight in Vietnam, there were these other guys goofing off on the Eastern Seaboard, having the time of their life. This is not an image that helps to reinforce the sense of duty and commitment that the military tried to instill on new recruits.
Easy Rider (1969)
The Hells Angels and others in the national news led to Easy Rider being a hit
Following World War II the United States saw an influx in two separate demographics: a growing population of juvenile delinquents and the organization of major motorcycle gangs. Free-wheeling, adventurous and marauding, these gangs tore up pavement of Southern California (for the most part). The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was founded in San Bernardino, CA in 1948, but it was not until 1965 that the club erupted into the national spotlight following the allege rape of two young women in Monterey. And with the growing demographic of delinquent youths as movie go-ers, the studios started to cater to their lust for action and lawless-ness. An event in 1947 set the plot for the Marlon Brando film The Wild One (1953, László Benedek) but the movie eventually faded from the lime light. As the '60s got going, the Angels, and other gangs such as The Diablos and The Bandidos and The Gypsy Jokers, started to rev their engines and start to go out into public more often in formation. With their colors flying and their numbers in full swing, the gangs (or clubs) would sweep into a town for a weekend of debauchery and good ol' fashioned fun. The public started to take notice. Hunter S. Thompson, noted "Gonzo" journalist, went on the road for one year with the Hells Angels and released the book recounting their story, Hell's Angels: The strange and terrible saga of the outlaw motorcycle gangs in 1966. '66 also saw the release of The Wild Angels (Roger Corman). California Senators hurriedly put together investigations into these motorcycle clubs (MC) and the findings were published and quoted in newspapers, Newsweek, and even ever skeptical Time. It was clear that the motorcycle gangs were going to be the media sensation of the late 1960s.
With the studios paying closer attention to the fragmenting demographics of movie go-ers, films started to cater to this lust for action. And Peter Fonda was right on top of things when it came to making MC films. He starred in The Wild Angels as "Heavenly Blues" and according to J Hoberman, Fonda cooked up the idea for Easy Rider while smoking dope in his hotel room at 3 am. It dawned on Fonda, allegedly, that the modern cowboy was the motorcycle outlaw. (There is another story explaining the origin of Easy Rider which actually includes a Hells Angel as told by Peter Coyote in his memoir.) (J. Hoberman. The Dream Life. p.191) With the idea revving and some accidental funding, Fonda and a very paranoid Dennis Hopper embarked on relaying the life of the motorcycle outlaw to the drooling public.
Although the film was a low-budget exploitation of the lust for MC debauchery in the theatres, it succeeded in capturing some of the essence of the time period. The desire to find a lost freedom in the vast expanses of paved California and across the States was real. The communes and reliance on rice as a food source, hospitality as a way of surviving day to day, and the necessity of drugs were all well known to the youths watching the film premier in '69. Some people, now in their 50s, glance back and the film with a sentimental eye, but realize how cliché some of the devices and characters were. All in all the film was a huge success because it played off a national hype surrounding the outlaw MCs of the period and represented the very real struggle to find America despite America.
The Graduate (1967)
Ben stays in the fish tank
Jeff Baker Prof. Niemi New Amer. Cinema 27 Jan 2006 The Graduate "You're not one of those agitators?...one of those outside agitators?" "Oh - no sir."
Although some have made The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) out to be a film of social rebellion, the main character Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) remains just as trapped at the end of the film as he is at the start. Besieged by 'the normal life' of an upper-middle class milieu, Ben seeks the blank pleasure in just "drifting here in the pool" after graduating from college a track star and Frank Helpingham Award Scholar. He is "a little upset" about his future, which seems void of anything real or substantial. In an ominous exchange during his graduation party in the beginning of the film, Mr. McQuire tells him, "There's a great future in plastics," and it is clear to the audience that Ben views his future as an expanse of plastic thereafter. He attempts to 'rebel' against this inevitable-seeming future, but manages to simply run away and generate a whole new slew of problems for himself and Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross).
The beginning of the film has Ben being passed by on the people-mover at LAX by a fair amount of interesting characters, most notably a sailor and a cowboy. Ben is just cruising along there on after having just finished college. When he arrives at home to find his parents have thrown him a party and invited all of their friends, he asks his father (William Daniels), "could you explain to them that I have to be alone for a while?" Ben needs time after four years of intense academic achievements to digest what he's just done. He needs to focus his experiences and make sense of them all in order to figure out what's next. Everyone thinks he'll go on to graduate school, but he doesn't seem too enthused about more school. And he doesn't want a job in plastics, which is what his parents' friends are into. Aligned with the spirit of the late '60s, Ben is mortified at the thought of becoming his parents. So instead of continuing school, he decides to just float on his raft and to float on Mrs. Robinson, metaphorically speaking of course (in reference to the jump cut that starts with Ben jumping onto his raft and cuts to him landing on Mrs. Robinson).
But Ben wants more, or at least thinks he does. So he tries to drop his fling with Mrs. Robinson and take off after Elaine Robinson. He realizes that a relationship with Mrs. Robinson is hopelessly off limits to him in any conventional sense, but Elaine is. She is a younger version of her mother and by going after her, Ben is rebelling against his pseudo-parents, the Robinson's (Mr. R. told be he thinks of him as a son). This strange incestuous rebellion keeps him within the familiar, within the family unit and he doesn't need to extend himself out into society for love or relations.
In the end, when Ben and Elaine run off from her wedding to Carl, they are both still trapped. They may be fleeing from their old suburban life, but where are they headed? She is now legally bound to Carl, but she is with Ben. This will lead to a reckoning at some point where she'll need to go back and sever the ties (or be sucked back in). And where is Ben? He's in another fishbowl. The imagery of the rounded bus, the camera looking in the windows at him elicits a sense of being adrift again in a fish tank (imagery from the beginning of the film). There is nowhere for them to go, and they haven't proved anything except their determination to provoke Mr. & Mrs. Robinson.