Cinema Komunisto (2010)

When he wasn't busy oppressing the people and leading North Korea into starvation and ruin, Kim Jong Il loved to relax with a movie, either from Hollywood or from his own subsidised state dream factory. However, he was by no means the first Communist dictator to do so. Over in 1940s Yugoslavia, Marshal Josip Broz, better known by his nickname, Tito had similar ideas, lapping up Westerns starring John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, and planning to harness the power of cinema to promote and build his authoritarian Communist regime. Cinema Komunisto tells the fascinating and poignant story of the Avala Studio and the Yugoslav film boom of that era, an industry that at its height attracted the likes of Orson Welles, Richard Burton and Yul Brynner.

What is obvious from the beginning is how much pride so many of the people involved in the industry still have in the work they did, some of which revolves around the opportunities to rub shoulders with the big Western stars of the day, and show them that their work was just as good as anything from America. Where their Hollywood counterparts might have had to use model work to show a bridge being blown up, in Yugoslavia, they would simply ring up their beloved leader Tito, who would grant them permission to blow up the real thing.

What is not so obvious is what to make of the films themselves. The clips provided are too fragmented and diverse to be able to judge the style or quality, and most seem overly derivative of Hollywood war films and Westerns of the 1940s to 1960s, with their easily definable good and bad guys, and bloodless shootings. The propaganda is pretty blatant and unsophisticated at times, with songs about how breaking rocks is fun, and endlessly quotable dialogue such as "Tell the Communist party we have exceeded our quota by 70%"

The figure towering behind all of this is Tito, with his love of film and understanding of its use as a tool to invent the story of the revolution. This understanding would sometimes see him getting involved in the production side of things, personally annotating scripts with handwritten suggestions, or corrections to things he felt were factually incorrect. Tito is still held in genuinely high regard by many of the interviewees, perhaps not surprisingly, given how well they did professionally out of their leader’s cinematic obsession. Some of the Hollywood types seem a little star-struck themselves, with Brynner singing Tito's praises in a French TV interview and, in a particularly unedifying clip, Welles proclaims that “…it is a self-evident fact that Tito is the greatest leader on earth”. To his credit, Richard Burton, who ended up playing Tito in The Battle of Sutjeska, seems, from the footage shown, more reserved and detached, with the real life Tito fawning over him like a breathless fan. Only towards the end of the documentary do we get an admission of a darker side to the Utopia, with hints at the repression, and purging of dissidents and enemies of the state, all too familiar in totalitarian regimes.

Nothing lasts forever though, and with the death of Tito, the once mighty Yugoslav film industry began to disintegrate. More chillingly, as we are shown, without his presence to unify and bind the country together, so did Yugoslavia itself, descending into barbaric conflict that led eventually to NATO intervention (including bombing the very mansion where Tito sat watching films nearly every night). The studio now lies rotting and abandoned, the films lie rotting and unwatched, and the communist revolution that powered them has been consigned to history. Cinema Komunisto does an excellent job of shining a light on a previously neglected side of World Cinema, and by charting the rise and fall of Avala Studio, presents a perfect metaphor for the rise and fall of the country of Yugoslavia.

The Hitchhiker (1953)

The Hitchhiker is a taut, edgy affair from the classic “Film-noir” era, and one of the few examples of the genre to be directed by a woman. 

The plot sees two friends, Roy Collins (Edmund O'Brien) and Gilbert Bowen (Frank Lovejoy) heading off to Mexico on a fishing trip, only to be hijacked by fugitive serial killer Emmett Myers (William Talman). He needs them alive because, unlike them, he does not speak "Mexican", and a deadly cat-and-mouse game unfolds as Myers bullies, tortures and provokes the two men. Can they keep their cool and escape before they are no longer useful to him?

Although some Film Noir movies were proper Hollywood productions with A-list stars, many more were shot cheaply and quickly for smaller scale studios, and as a result, made a virtue of their limitations. The Hitchhiker is a great example of this, eschewing elaborate sets for the wide-open desert spaces of California, and with no time or money to waste, the script moves quickly, with barely a word or scene feeling extraneous.

By the 1950s, Ida Lupino was an established, respected actress who had moved into writing, producing, and directing, and deserves recognition as one of the pioneers of feminist cinema (although, interestingly, in this film, there are no female characters shown at all). Here, in her fourth outing behind the camera, she makes great use of the desert locations, and far from representing freedom, the wide-open spaces, when juxtaposed with the tiny car the characters are trapped with, only emphasise the claustrophobia of the situation.

Aside from the locations, the real star of the show is William Talman. His ferociously evil and sleazy performance as Myers is underpinned with some original character touches, such his paralysed right eye lid, the upshot of which is that he sleeps with one eye open, daring his captives to guess whether or not he is watching them. This is typical of the mind games that he plays with the other two, designed to slowly but surely break them. However, this is not a one-note performance, and Myer’s cockiness repeatedly shifts to paranoia whenever he needs his captives to act as translators, the one time when he is completely in their power, and that, combined with his itchy trigger finger leads to some very tense moments.

Film Noir usually revolves around crime, and the protagonists are either those who are involved with it professionally, such as cops, detectives or crooks, or, as here, ordinary people who are unwittingly dragged into it, often as a result of a completely random event. These two are not macho tough guys, but utterly normal individuals, family men ("Except for the war, this is the first time I've been away from the kids") who normally do very little that could be considered adventurous.

Their friendship is their greatest asset morally, and their compassion and empathy for each other and the other human beings that they encounter along the way is the major thing that sets them apart from their low life tormentor. It is also, however, the thing that on several occasions sabotages their chances of escape, as they both seem unable to leave the other person behind in order to save their own lives

The ending feels like a bit of an anti-climax, but that is more a reflection on the intensity of what has gone on before, and does not spoil what is an excellent piece of Film-Noir that deserves its place alongside more well-known examples.

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Although lacking the extravagant set pieces or psychological depth of some of his other work, Dial M for Murder is still classic Hitchcock, and a great example of a confident and assured director at the top of his game.

Former tennis pro Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) thinks he has devised the perfect way to get rid of his cheating wife Margot (Grace Kelly, in her first collaboration with Hitchcock) and get his hands on her money. Blackmailing an old college friend into murdering her, it looks like the plan has come unstuck when Margot manages to kill her attacker, but then the police charge her with murder. Can her boyfriend stop her being sent to the gallows?

Dial M for Murder (originally shot in 3D, but rarely seen in that format since) is based very closely on the stage play by Frederick Knott, and it is to Hitchcock’s credit that he resists the urge to expand the location or plot any further. The original story is elaborately but tightly plotted, with hardly an extraneous word or action, and the single location, the Wendice's London flat gives the film a claustrophobic feel.

Ray Milland gives an excellent performance as Tony, smooth, charming, confident and virtually unflappable. Grace Kelly plays Margot across as vulnerable and sympathetic, not easy to achieve, as she is the one cheating.

They are backed by an excellent supporting cast, especially John Williams as Chief Inspector Hubbard, who goes for the Columbo method of crime solving, by making out he hasn’t got a clue what is going on, while all the time playing cat and mouse games with Tony. Only Margot’s boyfriend Mark (Robert Cummings) comes across as stiff and unappealing, but this may be more to do with Hitchcock playing with the audience expectations, by making the evil schemer much more appealing than the clean cut good guy.

The other star is, of course, Hitchcock, who, with Dial M for Murder, is wise enough to realise that with the right cast and the right script, sometimes it is enough to just point the camera and let them talk.

Slade in Flame (1975)

In 1974, Slade were at the height of their powers and popularity, with six number 1 singles under their belts, so, like Elvis and The Beatles amongst others before them, the next logical step beyond music was to break into films. However, unlike Viva Las Vegas and A Hard Day's Night, they chose to make a movie that takes a cynical and unflattering look at the music industry, and the villains and victims who work in it.

The story of Flame charts the rise of four working-class men from an unnamed part of 1960s England (the locations look like the North, but the band speak in their native Black Country accents). Picked up by a marketing company, headed by slimy Robert Seymour (played by Tom Conti), and pushed as the next big thing, they quickly go from poverty, dead end jobs and run down houses, to mansions, Bentleys, and screaming fans. However, along the way a sinister figure from their past reappears, their former manager Ron Harding (Johnny Shannon, largely reprising his role in Performance), and he is looking to claim a slice of their success, by any means necessary.

By using non-actors as the main characters, and keeping to a low key, almost documentary style, director Richard Loncraine is working in the same league as many of his British contemporaries, such as Ken Loach and Mike Hodges, in particular, the latter's Get Carter, with its grim post-war housing estates and grimy social clubs.

The script is, according to Slade singer Noddy Holder, pretty much based on anecdotes and incidents that happened to the band or other musicians that they knew. Slade, while not great actors, come over as believable and not too wooden, probably due to the fact that they are largely playing themselves, and in situations they are more than used to, such as playing in front of huge crowds, playing in front of small crowds, getting ripped off by dodgy agents etc. The dialogue is sharp, with some good one-liners (“I'm not the vocalist, I'm the singer”), emphasising the fun loving (at the start at least), unpretentious nature of the band.

What is most surprising is the growing air of pessimism throughout the film, something in total contrast to everything Slade appeared to represent. I have always assumed that one of the reasons for their huge UK success in the early to mid-70s was that their music and image provided a bit of relief and escapism to a country caught in the middle of the Three Day Week, power cuts, strikes, and assorted other grimness. Flame, while not overwhelmingly bleak, constantly undercuts any happiness with a scene of people being hurt (physically and emotionally), ripped off, or humiliated.

I also think it is interesting that out of all of the live performances we see from Slade/Flame, by far the best is the very first time they play together for an audience in a small smoky club. After warming the crowd up with some X-rated banter, they race through a great raucous, high-energy song (“Them Kinda Monkeys Can’t Swing”). After that, the music gets slicker, the crowds get bigger, but nothing ever recaptures that raw power and fun, both for the audience and the musicians.

By the end, nobody comes out as a winner. Harding is left with a pyrrhic victory; he has his band back, precisely at the moment they split. The band have had enough, the simple fun of four friends playing music, crushed long ago by an industry interested in everything but that music. Seymour has had his family traumatised and their cosy home life ruined.

Given the aforementioned gulf between Slade’s image, and their downbeat film, it might not be surprising to hear that Flame was not a box office success. However, the soundtrack was a commercial and critical hit, getting to number six in the UK album charts and appearing on a list of the top 50 film soundtracks ever. This is not a jolly uplifting film by any means, but highly recommended for fans of Slade, and of gritty British cinema.

The Camerman (1928)

The Cameraman is Buster Keaton's last truly great work,charming, hilarious, and an indication of how far the medium of film had come in a relatively short time

Here, Buster, once again, is trying to win the heart of a pretty girl, the secretary at a newsreel production company. Trading in his tintype camera, he tries to make it in the world of moving pictures, battling, amongst other things, a jealous rival Cameraman, his own lack of experience, and an interfering monkey.

The plot moves along at a brisk pace, with more than enough of the three vital ingredients for a Buster Keaton movie; plenty of memorable scenes, particularly the trip to Yankee stadium (“Aren’t the Yankees playing today?” “Sure – in St. Louis”), where,in the absence of an actual game, Buster mimes an imaginary one against himself;brilliant physical comedy (such as Keaton being squeezed into a small changing room with a huge man); and jaw dropping stunts (watch how he loses and regains his seat on the bus next to his date)

Special mention also must go the real co-star, an Organ Grinder’s monkey, whom Keaton adopts. Apart from providing some vital plot strands, she gives an excellent funny performance, as full of pathos and well-timed comic moves as her human co-star.

I recently saw The Cameraman on the big screen as the second half of a double bill with the 1910 silent version of A Christmas Carol. Watching them back to back provided a fascinating insight into how the language and techniques of cinema had progressed in two decades. In A Christmas Carol, the camera does not move, as if filmmakers cannot yet get past the idea that film should be a static record of a performance. By the time we get to The Cameraman, not only does it move, but also the movement helps tell the story and at times, by forcing the audience viewpoint, helps set up visual jokes. The wildly different running times of the two films also demonstrates how the makers of the latter had learned to be unafraid to take time to tell a story. These are all techniques Keaton had refined and introduced into film, often against the wishes of nervous studio heads, and because of this, I don’t think it is unfounded to call him a cinematic pioneer, along with his comedy contemporaries Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin

The Cameraman was the first of a three-picture deal with MGM, after years of working as an independent producer. This does seem to have had any great impact on the making or content of this film, other than the endless product placement for the MGM brand name and some of its product.

Unfortunately,this state of affairs was not to last, as studio head Irving Thalberg seemed unwilling or unable to understand Keaton's working methods, namely, using the same small crew, and keeping an air of spontaneity in the creative process. The result would be control over the personnel and product wrenched away from Keaton, leading to a steep drop in the quality of his films, and his eventual decline into poverty, obscurity and alcoholism, before his rediscovery in the1960s, a few years before his death.

However, this was all much further down the line, and The Cameraman still gives us “The Great Stone Face” in his prime, risking everything for the girl and the laughs, somehow always keeping both his body and his deadpan expression in one piece.