Jane Wyman, A Confederacy of Dunces, and the lost review - Reviews #234

I had a week off, so I have quite a few reviews to put up. Here's the first batch:

BOOKS



A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980) - This near-mythic helping of acrid Southern Gothic is at times almost wilfully offputting, as its verbose, over-educated and oversized hero Ignatius J. Reilly gorges himself on rank hot dogs, unveils yellowing, stained bed sheets during a workers' revolt, or updates us for the thousandth time about the status of his "valve" - the God-given contraption in his stomach regulating his chronic flatulence. But it's also hypnotically original, full of virtuosic passages of bilious wit, as Ignatius and a gallery of hysterically funny supporting characters go almost aimlessly about their daily business in a vividly-realised nightmare of New Orleans, before you realise that Toole has been shuffling everyone expertly into position for a quite brilliant finale. Jones, the sarcastic, jive-talking black "vagran" who takes an interest in Reilly, would rightly walk off with just about any other book, but this isn't any other book: often revolting and sometimes repetitive, it's also a unique artistic vision, with a mesmerising anti-hero, that has to be experienced to be believed. (3.5)

***



Little Children by Tom Perrotta (2004) - A modern masterpiece that entirely transcends its suburban trappings, becoming universal through its specificity, because its characters aren't broad and aren't archetypes, no matter how much they may seem to be at first. From a jock-turned-stay-at-home dad to a feminist Madame Bovary apologist and a sarcastic child molester, this portrait of overgrown children, with little children either in tow or in their eyeline, gives every character their due, as each is crushed or raised high by their flaws and failings. One of Perrotta's gifts is his compassion for characters that you don't really like, and another is his ability to shift seamlessly from sarcasm to sentiment, and both are in ample evidence here. He writes with such pace and grace, and such alarming, beguiling honesty, that he changes the way you see the world. (4)

***

TV



Misfits: Season 1
Misfits: Season 2
Misfits: Xmas Special
An antidote to morality plays, Marvel movies and just about everything else, this high-concept comedy-drama about young offenders getting superpowers can genuinely be called great: acerbic, inventive and ironic, with a smart, sweary and avowedly juvenile sense of humour that's all its own, but also invested with a humanity that's expressed in unusual and surprising ways. You get the feeling that writer-director Howard Overman came up with some of these storylines simply because he thought they'd be funny, then couldn't help himself dealing with them seriously and empathetically (that's how the best episode of Freaks and Geeks, 'The Little Things' came into being), and the results are overpowering. Just when you think it's beginning to run out of ideas near the end of Season 1, it properly explodes into life, leading to a second series that's even better. That's dominated by a storyline about recovering social cripple Simon (Iwan Rheon) which provoked that back-of-the-throat feeling of nostalgia and complete immersion I haven't had since finishing Veronica Mars, though Robert Sheehan's tousle-haired, perma-quipping and unfailingly inappropriate Nathan is also a continuing joy. (4)

***



Johnny Belinda (Jean Negulesco, 1948) - Dark, near-classic Americana (though set in Nova Scotia) that blends all sorts of influences, from folksy dramas about rural doctors, to a pair of classic late silents: The Wind (a thematic cousin) and Lucky Star (a spiritual and aesthetic big brother). It's best known, though, for Jane Wyman's performance as the mute, brutalised heroine, Belinda, which won the late-developing actress, and first wife of Ronald Reagan, the Best Actress Oscar. And she is transcendent: gentle, steely and extraordinarily appealing as she blossoms under the tutelage of sympathetic doctor Lew Ayres.

I'm a huge fan of Ayres, particularly his performance in Holiday, as a dissolute, self-loathing playboy, but here his turn − though lit by moments of brilliance ("Forgive me, I didn't know") − strays a little far into corn, with many of his line readings given in identikit fashion, and the slow-paced delivery enforced by his need to translate for Wyman occasionally tips over into parody. It's probably only noticeable because Charles Bickford and Agnes Moorehead are so damn good: Bickford giving surely the best performance of his erratic career as Belinda's loving but quick-tempered father, and Moorehead once again taking a little while to adjust to, since her work − given direction by the young Welles − was bigger and more extreme than most actresses of her generation, at first emitting the whiff of melodrama, before you realise that actually there's a hell of a lot more going on here.

As well as boasting three truly great performances, it's also notable for its simply empathy and for some of the best photography of the decade. Ted McCord shot East of Eden for Kazan, but did most of his best work in black-and-white: the sleazy Flamingo Road, Huston's matchlessly evocative Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and this film, McCord busting the rule of thirds as he throws the horizon up to the top or usually down to the bottom of the frame, and finds astonishing compositions: Wyman pumping water as inky branches stretch into the blanched sky; the heroine writing up a tree, as her father watches her in the distance; or McCord sticking his camera inside the shop, fixed on the gift, as Ayres buys his protégé a veil. Images you could hang in your living room.

Not everything's as great: the shopkeeper is made-up as ridiculously as Lee J. Cobb in Golden Boy, Ayres' speech about "intuition" undoes some of the film's good work by suggesting that people who can't speak aren't really like the rest of us after all, and the denouement is somehow unsatisfying, not giving its heroine the chance to save herself, which for so long felt like the point of the film (the weird trailer, incidentally, neglects to mention the basic premise at all!). All this set against an isolated world that is intriguing and atmospheric, but also not entirely convincing, and peopled by supporting characters too underdeveloped to really connect.

It's imperfect then, certainly, but there's artistry here in both the acting and the cinematography that's often breathtaking to behold, as well as a human story that despite its ultimate shortcomings is extremely powerful and moving. Wyman's performance is so genuine and so far from the mannered, Oscar-ogling fodder I thought it might be, that I felt almost ashamed, as well as completely blown away. I always assumed that Dorothy McGuire's performance in The Spiral Staircase was an unassailable highpoint in the 'mute heroine' genre, but now I'm not so sure. (3.5)

***



La collectionneuse (Eric Rohmer, 1967) - Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales don't have a moral lesson (that would be terrible), but instead are six variations based on F. W. Murnau's classic silent movie, Sunrise - about a protagonist caught between two lovers. That protagonist narrates the story, so the tale is about their personal morality (or lack of), and how that informs their actions.

The fourth of the series (though released before #3, My Night at Maud's) is oddly nasty and vitriolic, as a smug art dealer (Patrick Bauchau), holidaying with a vindictive painter (Daniel Pommereulle), tries to explain away in voiceover his burgeoning obsession with the promiscuous Haydée (Haydée Politoff), amidst the hills and beaches of sunlit St Tropez.

Politoff is perfect, and so is the seductive, sensual yet clear-headed way that Rohmer uses her, but the film's central story, at times ironic, affecting and entrancing, is often hard to watch, as the two male protagonists − and another who enters later and can't act − are so misogynistic and cruel.

Those problems come to a head in a final act that makes you so hostile to Bauchau's character, playing a weird sexual mind game with Politoff, that it switches off our in-built affinity with a narrator, though the final scene is so brilliantly conceived that you can't help but be crushed by it.

Rohmer's second full-length feature and his first of any kind shot in colour (superbly by a debuting Nestor Almendros) is a really interesting film: philosophically dense yet filled with red herrings, but so difficult to warm to that I can't class it among his best. For all that, I won't forget Haydée in a while. (3.5)

See also: The first two entries in the series are reviewed here and include the best film I've seen this year: The Bakery Girl of Monceau.

***

I wrote this review when the film came out, then didn't post it as I was looking for jobs and didn't want my prospective employers to read all my wanking jokes. It's fine now.



CINEMA: Don Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 2013) - Joseph Gordon-Levitt's debut as a writer-director is an entertaining, sometimes thought-provoking movie that doesn't quite go all the way. That's a joke about sex, like reviewers in newspapers do. Did you like it?

JGL, just about the most exciting man-actor in movies today, casts himself as Don Jon, an Italian-American stud with a silly haircut. He's muscular, handsome (apart from the silly haircut) and a hit with the laydeez: hence the nickname, which is a pun on Don Juan, off of the legend and the Byron poem. He's also addicted to porn, which is apparently a thing on the internet that shows men and women having full sex!

Be right back.

*returns three hours later*

I can confirm this is a real thing.

The film follows Jon as he tries to reform for the sake of a "dime" (an alleged 10/10 hottie, portrayed by Scarlett Johansson; I'm actually more of a Thora Birch kind of Ghost World fan), who-

Sorry, I've just got to go and "make a drink".

*returns four hours later, looking guilty*

-has some unrealistic expectations of her own, perpetuated by Hollywood romantic comedies.

At first Gordon-Levitt appears to be merely doing an impression of a young De Niro, having contracted smirk-itis, but after a while he disappears into the part, as the movie begins to cleverly and astutely shift our sympathies towards this arrogant, preening and conflicted young man. I'm not sure that he quite makes sense as a character, but at least he's arresting, and his story is a largely interesting one. And if his Italian-American family is less nuanced and interesting than the one in Moonstruck (or The Godfather), at least it's superior to the one in Full of Life. As the love interest, Johansson is better than usual, trying out a Jewish New Jersey intonation that suggests her character is a real human being rather than merely another of her appearances as herself-

Sorry, I've remembered another thing I have to do.

*returns 10 minutes later wearing different trousers*

-though Gordon-Levitt succumbs to cartoonish triviality at least once behind the camera, getting her to coo, goggle-eyed at her rom-coms (presented as a distractingly phony film-within-a-film), a point that could have been made with a bit more finesse. His other flourishes include a fondness for fast, rhythmic editing to hammer home a routine - a trick he presumably learnt while appearing in Scott Frank's The Lookout, but also done by Aronofsky in Requiem for a Dream - and, as a writer, that predictable gimmick of having an otherwise silent character (Brie Larson) whose one spoken contribution is something incredibly profound.

Speaking of profound, there's something profound I need to urgently research on the internet.

*returns three days later, appearing entirely drained of fluid*

Julianne Moore appears in a key supporting role as a nightschool classmate of Jon's, who isn't employed by the story in anything like the way you might expect. In that sense, and in its basic subject matter, Don Jon is quite original, and there's plenty to chew over in the movie, as it raises some interesting questions above love, desire and the presentation of sex in the media and beyond. Having said that, it doesn't necessarily have many answers, and seems too rigid and clichéd in its presentation of the sexes, making it a good film rather than a great one, and an intriguing experience rather than a satisfying one. Much like the way that Don Jon has sex at the start of the movie, which you're welcome to put in your newspaper.

*unpacks Kleenex*
*fires up laptop*
*removes trousers*
*dies of exhaustion*

(3)

***

Thanks for reading.

Bogie, High-Rise and another astonishing Philip Roth book - Reviews #232

Here's that update I promised.

FILMS



CINEMA: The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

“You go too far, Marlowe.”
"Harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom."

I saw The Big Sleep on the big screen for the first time, revelling in Bogie and Bacall’s badinage, the great gallery of desperate supporting characters – especially Agnes (Sonia Darrin), a wry, selfish accessory to blackmail who keeps betting on the wrong guy – and the sheer sardonic poetry of the dialogue, provided by no fewer than four exceptional writers: original author Raymond Chandler, legendary southern novelist William Faulkner, Hawks regular Jules Furthman and the extraordinary Leigh Brackett, who went on to co-write Rio Bravo and The Empire Strikes Back.

There’s an awful lot of plot, and the sets could be better, but this notoriously troubled production – two years in the making, with whole chunks of story chucked out and replaced by love scenes after it had already screened to troops overseas – is a heady proposition: sometimes sleazily, hazily nightmarish in the vein of Mulholland Drive, at others so frenetic and sarcastic that there’s nothing quite as much fun. While it’s not my favourite Marlowe film, and Bogart isn’t my favourite Marlowe (Murder, My Sweet and its star Dick Powell take those honours, and Altman’s The Long Goodbye gives this one a run for its money), there are new things to discover even on the fifth time round – the sixth if you count a recent viewing of the compromised original cut – including a throwaway line I’d missed that reveals just why Eddie Mars has held onto that crap henchman of his: it’s to keep the decent one company.

“My my, such a lot of guns around town, and so few brains.” (3.5)

See also: I've done a scene-by-scene breakdown of the differences between the pre-release and finished versions, on the off chance that you are also a big nerd.

***



In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009)

"Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult."

"'Climb the mountain of conflict'? You sounded like a fucking Nazi Julie Andrews."

"Within your purview? Where do you think you are, in some fucking regency costume drama?! This is a government department, not a fucking Jane fucking Austen novel."

"Yeah, apparently your fucking master race of highly-gifted toddlers can't get the job done."

This alternate-universe spin-off from The Thick of It is a little less specific, vitriolic, rapid-fire and British than the unimpeachable TV series that spawned it, but in dealing with the prelude to the Iraq War in that rough-edged, foul-mouthed, shamblingly cynical style, it comes armed with a hefty black comic edge that's simultaneously hysterical and chilling. Plus some of the best one-liners in the history of anything.

The story sees Tom Hollander as an ineffectual, gaffe-prone British government minister caught in a tug-of-war between the doves and hawks, as America limbers up for war.

Though not everyone is up to the standard of regulars Chris Addison, Paul Higgins and particularly Peter Capaldi (as the series' breakout character, psychotic spin doctor Malcolm Tucker), Hollander and a cameoing Coogan are in fine form, and at its sporadic best Armando Iannucci's satire is as funny as just about any film I've ever seen. (3.5)

***


This is actually one of the better bits of the film.

*MINOR SPOILERS*
Merry Wives of Reno (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1934) – A mediocre Warner Bros programmer in the studio's usual slangy style, with cheating wife Glenda Farrell causing two other couples to break up, sending Margaret Lindsay and Ruth Donnelly to Reno, with all the men involved (Donald Woods, Guy Kibbee and Hugh Herbert) pitching up too.

It's dated more poorly than most of the studio's comedies, with too much time spent on Herbert's familiarly irritating persona, and unfunny running gags about a sheep and a mentally fragile attorney, but there are a handful of very funny lines, and while the wonderful, fast-talking Farrell is largely wasted, Kibbee is good value playing his usual slightly pathetic ruddy-faced philanderer, and the great character comic Frank McHugh has a funny part as a hotel fixer, strolling off into the sunset with a wad of cash, two hotties in fur coats and that unmistakable 'one-two-three' laugh - as he called it - "Haaerrr haaerr haaerrrrr." The bit where he is chased by the sheep almost justifies that whole endless subplot. (2)

***



SHORT: Les mistons (Francois Truffaut, 1957) – Well this could be better. Truffaut's second film deals with the preoccupations that dominate most of his best (kids, eros, American gangster movies) without much of the instinctive genius evidenced by his debut feature, Les 400 Coups, released two years later.

Partly it's the bad dubbing, partly the charmless, faceless performances from a bunch of kids who never did anything else, partly the voiceover-itis that afflicts too many of his misfires, though at least the narratSuch ion here is erudite and in the first person.

Bernadette Lafont (later the star of the director's risible A Gorgeous Girl Like Me, arguably his worst film) is Bernadette, whose nascent love affair with the blameless Gerard inspires an explosion of confused, spiteful jealousy in the gang of pre-pubescent children who idolise her.

Shot outdoors, mostly in the woods but also in a striking, part-ruined amphitheatre, it's atmospheric but bitty, and hampered with curious gimmickry, including a sped-up sequence with a hosepipe that wouldn't look out of place in a Benny Hill episode (though he would have turned it on Lafont). Despite that, the 'shoot out' sequence is a little gem, and the ending is poetic and oddly profound, if not quite satisfying.

By 1959, Truffaut's ingenuity and innovation had reached a white-hot peak, allied to a pitch-perfect semi-autobiographical narrative of aimless adolescent alienation. That breathtaking film makes Les mistons look like the largely amateurish effort it is. (2)

***



CINEMA: High-Rise (Ben Wheatley, 2015) – Wheatley's supreme visual sense, gift for juxtaposition and staggering use of sound can't rescue Amy Jump's aloof, incoherent script, which is neither a capitalist critique nor a study of man: just a senseless, pointless wallow in moral and material degradation. The first 40 and the final two minutes are quite good, the rest is just extremely boring. Watch Skyscraper Souls instead. Or Attack the Block. (2)

***

BOOKS



The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004) – An astounding, chilling, completely believable piece of alternate history, with heroic aviator and fascist sympathiser Charles Lindbergh ascending to the US presidency in 1940 and agreeing an ‘understanding’ with Adolf Hitler. Against the slow-burn of burgeoning anti-semitism, the young Roth comes of age, while the older brother he idolises is co-opted by the establishment, his cousin is crippled by war and his parents are torn between pragmatism and self-respect. Occasionally the context that makes it so credible can drag, as you slog through the names and roles of those on opposing sides of the debate, but Roth’s gift for phrasing, impeccable personalisation of the narrative and jolting handbrake turns are beguiling to behold, while the unpredictable explosions of futile violence peppering the work are no mere plot devices, but rich manifestations of the irony central to Roth’s worldview. It's also the perfect time to read the book, as another racist demagogue approaches the White House on a wave of public euphoria. (4)



The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (2011) – When millions of people simply disappear in the Sudden Departure, the residents of a small American town try to come to terms with their losses, some looking for love, some going off the rails, others seeking answers or solace as they join cults like the Guilty Remnant or Holy Wayne’s Church of the Healing Hug. Perrotta’s novel, since adapted as an HBO mini-series, is very readable, excellently plotted and frequently moving, with memorable, sometimes surprising characterisations and a few superb vignettes, but its sense of humour is bafflingly blunt and broad considering it’s from the writer of the intensely funny Election, while the suburban backgrounds and preoccupations of its characters can be irritating and trivial, even as Perrotta uses them as a subversive counterpoint. Studying a major catastrophe on such a small-scale is a smart juxtaposition (Roth did much the same in The Plot Against America, above) but a re-draft cutting out some of the clichéd language and putting in a few decent jokes would have kicked this up a level. (3)



Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938) – A smug, underwhelming comic novel about journalism, with nature correspondent William Boot erroneously sent to cover a pre-war conflict that could have global ramifications. It's too much a self-satisfied hymn to language, with innumerable thin characters about whom it's difficult to care anything at all, though there are some funny passages, particularly in the mid-section. (2.5)



Hatchet Job by Mark Kermode (2013) – A lively, self-justifying polemic that's at its best when articulating its author's sheer love of film, but is ultimately both repetitive and shapeless, hopping from one subject to the next with a curious lack of narrative clarity, and grating when he ill-advisedly strains for comic effect. (2.5)



Duel in the Sun by Niven Busch (1944) – I read Busch's 1948 book, The Furies, last year and was impressed by his economic prose, sharp, shrewd characterisation and fatalistic plotting born of a bracing, cynical and deeply Freudian view of humanity - virtues familiar to anyone who's come across his peak-era screenwriting. A shame, then, that his earlier bestseller, Duel in the Sun, seems to be mostly descriptions of horses. The story sees fiery 'half breed' Pearl Chavez welcomed into the bosom of the powerful McCanles family, where her overpowering sexual connection to the nasty, feminine Lewt turns brother against brother, and unsurprisingly leads to cold-blooded murder. This one's a real slog, though, full of dislikeable characters, dense phrasing and tedious specifics relating to the minutiae of Western life, creating not a richly-textured evocation of a vanished world, more a shopping list of items seen on various ranches. Afterwards, you'll feel like a bath and probably something with which to prop open your eyes. Incidentally, the film adaptation (nicknamed 'Lust in the Dust') became one of the biggest hits of the decade, and gave Lillian Gish one of her few notable sound roles, as the gentle but opinionated Mrs McCanles, pickled by drink but still sure she knows what's best for her sons. (2)

***

TV



The Thick of It (2005-7) – Season 1 is an unpolished gem, Season 2 the programme at its darkest - the 'special needs' episode so extravagantly cynical and cruel that you may temporarily forget to breathe – and the specials slightly compromised by circumstance but a convincing, non-stop parade of back-stabbing, finagling and Machiavellian intrigue. At the centre of it all is Capaldi's exquisite, hard, impeccably nuanced performance, which could so easily have been cartoonish, but never is. Each of these early episodes is magnificent to some degree, though even better was to come. (4/4/3.5/3.5)



Elementary: Season 1 (2012-3) – One of the biggest TV-themed backtracks in recent memory concerned Elementary, the Conan Doyle update that followed lukewarm on the heels of BBC's Sherlock, sending Holmes to present-day New York and giving him an American, female Watson (Lucy Liu), a move that was ridiculed by everybody with access to a computer, telephone or broadcasting station. Imagine their surprise when it turned out to be really quite good. This first season takes a while to hit its stride, but the self-contained mysteries become increasingly neat and the warm, evolving friendship between recovering heroin addict Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and his sober companion (Liu) increasingly moving, helped by a pair of largely irresistible performances. Miller is occasionally gimmicky, Liu sometimes less than assured uttering putdowns, but mostly their story of mutual reliance and growing respect is persuasive and affecting, augmented by Miller's often intense emoting and Liu's innate implacability. The guest stars are largely a disappointing bunch (the first one I recognised was Vinnie Jones, and he couldn't act his way out of a Premier League midfield), though towards the end F. Murray Abraham adds some big-pored class to proceedings, a coup that augurs well for Season 2. I'm in two minds about the double-length final episode, with its ambitious reveal, but it certainly wasn't dull. And while the programme's look is rather too gory and murky for my tastes, the way it treats Holmes, his struggles and his addictions manage to warp Conan Doyle's creation without losing sight of who and what he is. A flawed but compelling first season. I'll be back for more. (3)



Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold (2008) – Between it being a late-night cult favourite and a dying staple of Saturday afternoon TV, this show managed to occupy a cherished place in the country's affections whilst also being pretty good. This first DVD captures that period of peak popularity, and while the programme had lost any teeth it had ever had and begun to lean on formula, it's still a diverting watch with a handful of massive laughs. "Marlon. Lanky Marlon." (3)

***

LIVE


(c) Christie Goodwin/Royal Albert Hall

CHVRCHES at the Royal Albert Hall (31 March 2016) - One of the best gigs I've seen at the Hall in my ongoing capacity as resident PR weasel: an irresistible collision of loud, satiating synth pop (in a Scottish accent), endearingly irrelevant between-songs verbiage and as much hopping, twirling and attention-swallowing stagecraft as you could possibly want. An intense, intensely enjoyable and extraordinarily cathartic experience. (4)


Probably the least interest thing in the exhibition... but the only picture I can find.

States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness (Wellcome Collection) - This study of the fringes of the mind begins simply enough, with paintings representing synaesthesia and photos attempting to capture dreams, then becomes increasingly unsettling as it journeys through somnambulism, resistance to anaesthesia, temporary paralysis and memory disorders, augmented by eerie soundscapes and alarming, atmospheric installations. If you want to be terrified by reality, I would highly recommend going. (3.5)

***

Thanks for reading.