Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread IV

[Jevo]

My general belief is that many of the same problems expressed about media today, particularly on issues of bias or interest or sensationalism, have always been present in media and have been complaints/concerns from the public probably since the first newspaper ever existed. We just have an infinitely greater volume of media and information today. But issues (real or perceived) haven’t really changed much.

I feel this section also applies to a film like Network. It feels prophetic now if you watch it for the first time. But was it prophetic or just putting some very real and contemporary criticisms of the state of TV news on display?

 

[Jevo]

Three Colors: Red (1994) dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski

Valentine is a young model living in Geneva. She has a boyfriend who lives in London, who seems to at the same time not care about her, but is also very possessive of her. One day while driving she hits a dog named Rita. She takes Rita to her owner Joseph Kern, who doesn't show much concern. Valentine ends up taking the dog to vet, and takes it home with her. A few days later Rita escapes and runs to back to Joseph. When Irene finds her, she learns that Joseph have been listening in on his neighbours conversations for years, learning all their secrets. Valentine is appaled but also intrigued about Joseph. While she threatens to reveal what he has done, she can't bring herself to do it. The two end up developing a friendship despite their many differences. In the background Irene's neighbour Antoine have quietly been living the life of Joseph with a 30 year delay.

Both Joseph and Valentine are lonely people. Joseph knows it, and uses his spying to get connected to people, although he doesn't seem interested in real connections with his neighbours. Valentine doesn't know it. She has a long distance boyfriend, but it seems like a one-sided relationship, where she lusts for him, but he doesn't for her. Without her boyfriend she doesn't appear to have any close relations. They find something in each other that they didn't know they were missing. It makes Joseph give up his spying and he turns himself into the police and tells his neighbours about what he has done. Valentine slowly starts to realise that she is loveable, and deserves better than what her boyfriend is giving her. But she still decides to go to London to see him at the end of the film. Platonic love like we see between Valentine and Joseph is rarely portrayed as beautifully in film as it is here. Irene Jacog and Jean-Louis Trintignant are both very good, and have a very good chemistry. They make very compelling friendship.

One of the most standout things about Red is the cinematography. Red is (obviously) a theme and almost constant presence in the film. Nothing about how Red is filmed is done by routine. Every colour, every angle, every composition has been conciously been picked, and nothing is done as you usually would. It makes for a very engaging viewing, and the cinematography tells as much of the story as the rest of the film.

Red is probably my favourite movie out of Three Colours movies. But I think my answer usually depends on whether or not Red or Blue is the most recent movie of the two that I have watched. They are both masterpieces in my opinion.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Red
Kieslowski (1994)
“Would you smile for me?”

It’s funny how little the idea presented here – fraternity – is ever presented in film, especially in a pairing such as this. It’s not that it’s never done, but with so much film made by men and often older men it feels like a story like this ultimately has romantic tendrils, which this does not, at least not overtly. Movies are often about that more base bond – love or lust – and not a simple matter of human understanding. (Though this does wind up in a place with a parallel love story).

Basic human goodness isn't really a selling point for the poster.

Fate brings the model Valentine and the retire judge cum with a penchant for eavesdropping on his neighbors. She accidentally hit his dog. He doesn’t seem to care much though he does offer her too much money for the vet bill. She learns of his spying on his neighbors. Her disgust (and her base, human compassion) at his actions prompts him to confess, a revelation that sends him to court. She won’t rat on him, which is part of what fuels his decision. Meanwhile in the background is Auguste, the eventual judge in Kern’s case who is navigating choppy romantic waters of his own. The bond between Valentine and Kern drives her to want more for himself and him to right his wrongs. These paths all converge first at the court and then in an ill-fated boat trip across the English Channel where Valentine and Auguste are among the survivors (as are the leads of the previous two movies in the trilogy). Kern, relieved that she lived, smiles.

As with the previous two movies, Kieslowski nails not just the theme, but also the visual match to it with color and composition. Also, as with the previous two movies, there are just dynamite performances here with both Irene Jacob and Jean-Louis Tritintignat bringing the slightest shading to their characters that make them feel human and not just a type. I’m plagued by making this sort of hypothetical comparison but it’s easy to image an American version where Valentine is made a much more stereotypical model and Kern a much sterner judge.

And then, that Kieslowski gives us brief addendums to Blue and White as well is a bonus almost akin to the kiss in Wong-Kar Wai’s 2046. Art house MCU that makes you smile and point at the screen.

This was Kieslowski’s last film. I can think of few filmmakers who have ever departed on such a strong note.

 

[kihei]

Three Colors: Red (1994) Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Three Colors: Red is the final film in a trilogy. While many critics, among them the late Roger Ebert, rate Kieslowski's work as one of the most important trilogies in film history, it is questionable Ebert could have gotten Kieslowski to agree. While much has been made about the relationship between the title, the French flag and, specifically, the themes embodied in the country's national motto of liberte, egalitie and fraternitie, Kieslowski is on record as saying that France just picked up the tab. If it had been another country, say Germany, it would have been a different flag, though he thought the movies he made would likely be pretty much the same.

Regardless of that, Red rounds off the trilogy with a tale of fraternite, focusing on platonic love between a young good-hearted French woman named Valentine (Irene Jacob) and Joseph, a gnarly old codger (Jean Louis Trintignant), who has basically retreated to his domicile from which he views the world's struggles with a jaundiced eye. Another thing Ebert said was he thought the three movies represented respectively an anti-tragedy, an anti-comedy and an anti-romance. Think he is onto something there as there is another dimension to the film beyond the literal that seems to float just above the surface like a vague mist, more about which later. If the movie relationship to fraternite seems tenuous, well, that is the way Kieslowski usually likes to play things. His great masterpiece The Decalogue is made up of ten films, one for each of the Ten Commandments. The relationship between the specific film and the accompanying commandment is sometimes so vague as to be almost non-existent....that is, until you think about it for awhile, usually a long while, and then suddenly little connections start appearing.

So basically what is going on in this film? There is a density to the themes of the movie that seems to transcend most of the story telling. As in another of the director's great masterpieces, The Double Life of Veronique (which stars an eerily similar Irene Jacob), Red seems much, much greater than the mere sum of its parts. In the earlier film, Kieslowski somehow got at feelings that could not be put into words, that only a visual medium could communicate. Here a different, though just as subtle, game could be at play, one more symbolic than ethereal. Kieslowski could just be having fun with God here--an insight not original to me that I stumbled upon reading academic criticism of the film years ago. Sounds far-fetched but I like the idea if only because it reveals a dimension of humour that is otherwise not immediately evident in Red.

To start with, one of Kieslowski overwhelming preoccupations in his films is the role of fate or chance in people's lives. This concern pervades almost all of his works, much the way the silence of God haunts Ingmar Bergman's mid-career films. In Kieslowski's case, so much is determined by things we have no control over and can't foresee. Enter Valentine with her career as a model, her jealous boyfriend, her problematic relationship with family members, and her general sense of feeling just a little worn down by her cares. By chance she hits a dog and begins a relationship with the dog's owner, a retired judge named Joseph who seems reclusive and bitter. He doesn't even want his dog back. As the movie progresses and Valentine and Joseph's relationship develops, Joseph displays in a ramshackle and rather witty way some god-like powers. For one thing he is not dead, but he seems to have rejected the world almost entirely (if we have rejected God, perhaps God has rejected us--too much trouble). His powers include, well, being a judge, but also knowing people's thoughts (he taps phones), predicting people's future (Valentine will have a happy life with a man beside her whom she will love), having a hot line that provides him with the weather throughout Europe before anyone else, and the kind of almost whimsical curiosity to figuratively stick his finger in a socket to see what results from such a impetuous, almost random act (he deliberately confesses his crime to his neighbour and the police seemingly out of curiosity to find out what happens next or maybe it is just to stay in tough with Valentine). In the movie's cleverest piece of slight of hand, he also would seem to literally make his dream about Valentine comes true, as what seems like an inconsequential subplot turns out to be a miracle thirty years removed from Joseph's actual experience. In a darkly funny and fateful move, he may also have saved only characters who appear in the trilogy from drowning while a thousand or more people perish in a tragic and fateful ferry sinking.

So if Joseph is a sort of decrepit, not really into it anymore, god figure who is as subject to fate as the rest of us, what does Valentine represent? The best I can come up with is goodness, something Joseph may have not seen in a long time. She is a kind and vulnerable human being and fate may prevent her from getting what she deserves, might keep her from happiness. Fate here is the ultimate trickster, the ultimate wild card, something that might be out of control and depressing even to a god. As she was in The Double Life of Veronique, Jacob is perfect not because she is a great actress (think of Juliette Binoche in this role; doesn't work, too much of Valentine would be transparent), but because she is a great physical presence, beautiful sure, but with a doe-in-the-headlights quality, a fragility that makes her seem a poor match for fate's crueller jokes. Jacob's ability to be opaque but compelling seems to me just like the kind of woman God might be interested in. And take an interest Joseph certainly does, especially as he realizes his attraction does have limits, self-imposed or otherwise (fate, again). (It is also fun to watch the power shifts in this movie as people seldom speak to one another on the same level, one is either above or below the other--just one of endless masterful cinematic touches). I may be wrong about what is going on, but concede me this: it takes a great director to play the kind of games Kieslowsk plays with the medium. Maybe in his last film he is just letting us know that in movies, the director is God.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick will be The Lives of the Others

 

[Jumptheshark]

Three Colors: Red (1994) Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Three Colors: Red is the final film in a trilogy. While many critics, among them the late Roger Ebert, rate Kieslowski's work as one of the most important trilogies in film history, it is questionable Ebert could have gotten Kieslowski to agree. While much has been made about the relationship between the title, the French flag and, specifically, the themes embodied in the country's national motto of liberte, egalitie and fraternitie, Kieslowski is on record as saying that France just picked up the tab. If it had been another country, say Germany, it would have been a different flag, though he thought the movies he made would likely be pretty much the same.

Regardless of that, Red rounds off the trilogy with a tale of fraternite, focusing on platonic love between a young good-hearted French woman named Valentine (Irene Jacob) and Joseph, a gnarly old codger (Jean Louis Trintignant), who has basically retreated to his domicile from which he views the world's struggles with a jaundiced eye. Another thing Ebert said was he thought the three movies represented respectively an anti-tragedy, an anti-comedy and an anti-romance. Think he is onto something there as there is another dimension to the film beyond the literal that seems to float just above the surface like a vague mist, more about which later. If the movie relationship to fraternite seems tenuous, well, that is the way Kieslowski usually likes to play things. His great masterpiece The Decalogue is made up of ten films, one for each of the Ten Commandments. The relationship between the specific film and the accompanying commandment is sometimes so vague as to be almost non-existent....that is, until you think about it for awhile, usually a long while, and then suddenly little connections start appearing.

So basically what is going on in this film? There is a density to the themes of the movie that seems to transcend most of the story telling. As in another of the director's great masterpieces, The Double Life of Veronique (which stars an eerily similar Irene Jacob), Red seems much, much greater than the mere sum of its parts. In the earlier film, Kieslowski somehow got at feelings that could not be put into words, that only a visual medium could communicate. Here a different, though just as subtle, game could be at play, one more symbolic than ethereal. Kieslowski could just be having fun with God here--an insight not original to me that I stumbled upon reading academic criticism of the film years ago. Sounds far-fetched but I like the idea if only because it reveals a dimension of humour that is otherwise not immediately evident in Red.

To start with, one of Kieslowski overwhelming preoccupations in his films is the role of fate or chance in people's lives. This concern pervades almost all of his works, much the way the silence of God haunts Ingmar Bergman's mid-career films. In Kieslowski's case, so much is determined by things we have no control over and can't foresee. Enter Valentine with her career as a model, her jealous boyfriend, her problematic relationship with family members, and her general sense of feeling just a little worn down by her cares. By chance she hits a dog and begins a relationship with the dog's owner, a retired judge named Joseph who seems reclusive and bitter. He doesn't even want his dog back. As the movie progresses and Valentine and Joseph's relationship develops, Joseph displays in a ramshackle and rather witty way some god-like powers. For one thing he is not dead, but he seems to have rejected the world almost entirely (if we have rejected God, perhaps God has rejected us--too much trouble). His powers include, well, being a judge, but also knowing people's thoughts (he taps phones), predicting people's future (Valentine will have a happy life with a man beside her whom she will love), having a hot line that provides him with the weather throughout Europe before anyone else, and the kind of almost whimsical curiosity to figuratively stick his finger in a socket to see what results from such a impetuous, almost random act (he deliberately confesses his crime to his neighbour and the police seemingly out of curiosity to find out what happens next or maybe it is just to stay in tough with Valentine). In the movie's cleverest piece of slight of hand, he also would seem to literally make his dream about Valentine comes true, as what seems like an inconsequential subplot turns out to be a miracle thirty years removed from Joseph's actual experience. In a darkly funny and fateful move, he may also have saved only characters who appear in the trilogy from drowning while a thousand or more people perish in a tragic and fateful ferry sinking.

So if Joseph is a sort of decrepit, not really into it anymore, god figure who is as subject to fate as the rest of us, what does Valentine represent? The best I can come up with is goodness, something Joseph may have not seen in a long time. She is a kind and vulnerable human being and fate may prevent her from getting what she deserves, might keep her from happiness. Fate here is the ultimate trickster, the ultimate wild card, something that might be out of control and depressing even to a god. As she was in The Double Life of Veronique, Jacob is perfect not because she is a great actress (think of Juliette Binoche in this role; doesn't work, too much of Valentine would be transparent), but because she is a great physical presence, beautiful sure, but with a doe-in-the-headlights quality, a fragility that makes her seem a poor match for fate's crueller jokes. Jacob's ability to be opaque but compelling seems to me just like the kind of woman God might be interested in. And take an interest Joseph certainly does, especially as he realizes his attraction does have limits, self-imposed or otherwise (fate, again). (It is also fun to watch the power shifts in this movie as people seldom speak to one another on the same level, one is either above or below the other--just one of endless masterful cinematic touches). I may be wrong about what is going on, but concede me this: it takes a great director to play the kind of games Kieslowsk plays with the medium. Maybe in his last film he is just letting us know that in movies, the director is God.

I still love the trilogy, it is one of those things that is not for everyone

 

[Pink Mist]

Three Colours: Red / Trois Couleurs : Rouge (dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1994)

Three Colours: Red, the final installment in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s iconic Three Colours trilogy, is an emotionally charged and thematically rich meditation on fate, connection, and the unknowable intricacies of human relationships. This film, which centers on the chance encounter between a young model, Valentine (Irène Jacob), and a cynical retired judge, Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant), is a profound and contemplative work that resonates on both intellectual and emotional levels.

Kieślowski weaves a web of coincidences and moral complexities, making Red feel like a philosophical puzzle wrapped in a quiet, poignant drama. The relationship between Valentine and Kern forms the core of the film, with both characters finding unexpected solace in each other despite their vast differences. The film’s exploration of interconnectivity and parallel lives gives it a cosmic quality, particularly with the recurring motif of unseen forces guiding their actions, whether through a simple phone call or a more abstract sense of destiny.

Irène Jacob’s performance is magnetic, embodying a blend of innocence, empathy, and quiet strength. Trintignant’s portrayal of the disillusioned judge adds a layer of melancholy, as his deep cynicism contrasts with Valentine’s hopefulness. Their unlikely bond is beautifully captured, and the film’s visual language heightens this, with its masterful use of the color red—a symbol of both love and danger, running like a vein throughout the film.

What makes Three Colours: Red exceptional is its ability to balance an intricate narrative with poetic imagery and thematic depth. The film’s conclusion, which brings the trilogy full circle, is both haunting and satisfying, reinforcing the idea that all lives are interconnected, often in ways we cannot foresee.

A masterpiece of European cinema, Red is an unforgettable, contemplative journey that remains a pinnacle of Kieślowski’s career.

 

[Bahama Mama]

Really enjoyed this movie, Ludacris was hilarious.

 

[Pink Mist]

Funeral Parade of Roses / 薔薇の葬列 (dir. Toshio Matsumoto, 1969)

Funeral Parade of Roses, directed by Toshio Matsumoto, is a groundbreaking piece of avant-garde cinema that offers a visceral and kaleidoscopic portrayal of Tokyo’s underground gay and drag queen culture in the late 1960s. Inspired by the Oedipus myth, the film weaves together the themes of identity, alienation, and rebellion, all within a surreal, non-linear narrative that continually pushes the boundaries of cinematic form.

At its heart, Funeral Parade of Roses follows Eddie, a young trans woman who works in a Tokyo gay bar. Eddie’s romantic entanglement with the bar’s owner Gonda, and the jealousy it ignites in Gonda’s partner Leda, slowly spirals toward tragedy. However, the film is far from a straightforward narrative, mixing documentary-style interviews, Brechtian asides, and absurdist humor in a way that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, past and present. Matsumoto’s use of jump cuts, rapid montages, and experimental editing techniques lends the film an anarchic energy, placing it alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and Stanley Kubrick in its bold stylistic approach (the latter allegedly was influenced by Funeral Parade of Roses when making Clockwork Orange).

The visual flair of Funeral Parade of Roses is perhaps its most memorable feature. With its stark black-and-white cinematography, psychedelic sequences, and deeply symbolic imagery, the film is both a time capsule of 1960s counterculture and a timeless exploration of sexual and social identity. It is as much a commentary on Japan’s post-war social upheaval as it is a deeply personal story about the search for self in a world that marginalizes and ostracizes.

While some viewers may find its fractured narrative challenging, Funeral Parade of Roses is a mesmerizing cinematic experience that rewards those willing to embrace its experimental form. It's a daring, poignant, and visually stunning film far ahead of its time, but also very much of its time.

 

[Pink Mist]

My next pick will be Uptight directed by Jules Dassin

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Funeral Parade of Roses
Matsumoto (1969)
“Her.”

I was just commenting on Freaks and I called it a one-of-one. Something that felt unlike anything before or since. I don’t know that I can fully go there with Funeral Parade of Roses but damn if the more I think about the more I think I might … And I’ve thought a lot about this since I first saw it. It really lingers.

Kinda doc. Kinda experiential. Kinda fiction. It’s a look at transgender and gay individuals living their lives in late 1960s Tokyo headlined by Eddie played by Pita (also sometimes credited as Peter, as in Kurosawa’s Ran). She works at a gay bar. She loves a gangster. She draws the ire of her boss. There’s drugs and dating and dance and everyday life. We get a gnarly Oedipus Rex twist in the end. This is all cut with poppy flourishes and documentary moments of the actors (characters?) answering direct questions to the camera. There’s a little horror. There’s some genuine eroticism in the extremely close shots Matsumoto uses during the love scenes. Manic in the streets, gentle in sheets.

It’s trippy in a very 1960s way but again, also in a genuine way. There’s a there there. It’s not a hollow showiness. It’s an artsy collage-like, kinda surreal style that made me think a little of Andy Warhol and a little of Nobuhiko Obayashi, though it’s black-and-white. (I’ve also seen a few Obayashi movies lately so he’s imprinted a bit on my brain).

Like Freaks, there is a real verisimilitude here by centering an actual transgender person here. That casting probably would happen today – but that’s only a recently developed openness, like literally probably the last five years or so. (Glenn Close and Felicity Huffman both have been Oscar nominated for playing trans people in the last 20 years). The story is a work of fiction, but the details and sentiments feel true, further smudging those lines. Despite its more extreme flourishes there's a real frankness here that's still rarely put on display on film.

 

[kihei]

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) Directed by Toshio Matsumoto

An important watershed in Japanese film histor, I had never heard of Funeral Parade of Roses before a month or so ago. This manage a trois with Oedipal overtones about Eddie, a transgender woman, trying simultaneously to hold on to her man and move up in the pecking order of a hostess club in Japan is most notable for its style. You need a scorecard to count the influences here. The movie looks like an attempt to stretch the French New Wave across the globe to Japan. There is Godard's willingness to experiment and break the fourth wall, Resnais' Hiroshima, Mon Amour eroticism and time scrambling, and Truffaut's sense of playfulness and humour, with a sped-up scene that could be right out of Shoot the Piano Player. There is also an homage to Hitchock's shower scene in Psycho, and I would guess that Matsumoto has a close knowledge of Fellini, especially La Dolce Vita, and, in addition, the work of several American noir directors shape Matsumoto's sensibility. Still, the overriding vibe of the film is French, though with a huge nod to Andy Warhol in terms of both the use of gay and transgender characters, a staple in Warhol's largely experimental, occasionally genre-bending films, and the sometimes casual, off-the-cut film organisation. Though I may have forgotten something, I don't remember any gender exploration or gay themes in French New Wave, but I sure do in Warhol. Certainly for 1969, Funeral Parade of Roses must have been a bit of a shocker in Japan.

All that being said, the movie feels much less derivative than one would expect. For a movie that trades so much in trauma, despair and conflict, there is an energy and sheer love of shooting film that sets the film apart from many other quasi-experimental works at the time. Upon completing my viewing of the film, I felt like I had been on something of a trip, not always a comfortable one, but exhilarating all the same. I don't believe one viewing is enough to do Funeral Parade of Roses justice. I was too dazzled by the technique and all the references flying around to get anything like all the nuances that this walk on the wild side almost certainly has to offer. Some people are just born to make movies and Toshio Matsumoto is obviously one of them.



subtitiles

 

[Jevo]

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) dir. Toshio Matsumoto

The story, as loosely as there is one. Follows Eddie, a transgender woman working at a hostess club, where she has an affair with the owner, and is trying to usurp the lead girl of the bar, who also happens to the owner's partner. While that happens, there's a wonderfully subversive and experimental film happening in the foreground. It's French New Wave in Japan, but also not. Because it's deeply embedded in the LGBT+ subculture of late 60s Tokyo. While that subculture is a big part of the film, there's a universiality about the film, that makes it accessible for all. Accessible probably requires an asterisk here, since the non-linear story can be hard to follow at times, and the film probably requires multiple viewings if you want to fully understand it.

There's many indirect references to prior films in Funeral Parade of Roses. But what the film most reminded me of was Sion Sono. Someone who has undoubtedly watched this film before, and probably wishes he could have made it. It's got that energetic feeling that the best Sono films have, where you have the feeling that it's being made in the moment, because that's what the director sees in the moment. There's not a feeling of a grand plan being put into film, instead it feels spontaneous. When that works it's quite unique. Sono has made it work a few times. And Matsumoto makes it work here, probably better than Sono has ever managed to do it.

I'm not sure I will revisit Funeral Parade of Roses, even though there's no doubt a lot more to uncover on subsequent viewings with this film. But I respect it more than I enjoy it. It's the type of film that makes film history more rich and exciting, and I wouldn't wish for it to be anything but what it is. And I'm happy to have seen it. But I think once is enough for now.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Breaking Away
Yates (1979)
“Ciao papa!”

Dave and his friends are stuck in that netherworld of having graduated high school, but still uncertain if college (or whatever) is the next step. They’re still just lazing about their little college town of Bloomington, Indiana. Dave’s primary interest is competitive cycling followed very closely by pretending he’s Italian, two interests that put him at odds with his used-car salesman father. In fairness to Dave, I imagine a young man could be pursuing many much more harmful interests and vices that would be much more concerning to his dad. Kinda quaint, actually … but I digress. The boys do boys stuff. They hang out, get into scraps with rivals (town v. gown), meet girls and ponder a future that likely means repeating the same small-town life of their parents. In a wonderfully acted scene Dave’s mom shows him the passport she has but has never used and gently tells him, “I think you should do all those things while you can.” Keep dreaming while you can, kid. Well, except about Italian cyclists, who are jerks. Never meet your heroes. Good triumphs over evil in a climactic bike race.

There’s a sort of movie we’ve chatted about in this space before … a movie that is the best example of that type of movie. Nothing revolutionary. Nothing really innovative. Just doing a certain thing at a really high level. To me, that’s Breaking Away which gives you both some classic coming-of-age blended with a rousing sport story. I think the sports stuff is what folks remember the most, but I’ve always found the friends and their wrestling with the future to be the more compelling part. I’ve never heard Richard Linklater talk about this movie before but I have to believe it’s a favorite and an influence. This certainly predates the term “dramedy” but it qualifies as such for its low stakes blend of humor and emotion.

I’m kinda spinning my wheels here because I’m not sure I have much to say other than “this is very good.” (Yes I know this was my pick). Our core four characters are both well-cast and well-acted. Three of the four (Dennis Quaid, Jackie Earle Haley and Daniel Stern) would go on to greater fame. Quaid who is the coolest, the angriest and the most self-aware gets a key speech or two. Haley and Stern are reliable comic relief with just enough development to make them not just that. Dennis Christopher certainly peaked here but still worked for decades. His Italian schtick gets right to the line of annoying, but he’s so gentle and human I can’t hold it against him. I had dumb obsessions at that age too. Though I criticized his dad’s constant harumphing, I feel like the parents are given more depth than parents typically get in these things. Barbara Barrie was actually nominated for an Oscar. The father-son relationship pays off in the final race. Hart Bochner as the preppy college rival Rod is a great touch too. Between this and his cocaine-fueled jabber jaws Ellis in Die Hard he’s got a pair of world-class a-hole performances.

Director Peter Yates is one of those interesting directors to me who are too good to just be called a journeyman but yet maybe not good enough to be more than an “Oh, yeah, I like that guy’s movies” guy. He does action/motion well between Bullitt’s car chases and Breaking Away’s cycling.

I grew up on this movie (thanks to constant cable TV repeats and parents who really loved it). Glad it held up.

 

[kihei]

Breaking Away (1979) Directed by Peter Yates

I saw Breaking Away in 1979 when it came out, liked it, but haven't thought of if much since....it only ever slightly comes up when the question of whether it is really a sports movie or not pops up somewhere, which is like once in a blue moon. My immediate reaction to to the movie this time surprised me: "For Christsake, is this the whitest movie that I have ever seen." It's a weird reaction in a way. Like I already knew that people of colour are grossly underrepresented in Hollywood movies....but not there at all? And why is this occurring to me now at this late date all of a sudden? I think I must have done something very liberal: way back when this reality was brought up by sources I respected. I recognized the problem, agreed that it was unfair and should be redressed, and then never gave it another thought. That attitude, combined with the fact that I don't rewatch many American films from this time period, may explain why it hit me so directly this time how white Breaking Away is. But, of course, back then, I wouldn't have noticed it because I never once thought about it. Total blind spot--never ever really occurred to me. Though it is obvious people of colour are nowhere to be seen, I somehow managed to never notice it, to never think about it. That in itself is pretty embarrassing in too many ways to count. Looking at the damn thing now, though, man, it sure seems a pretty extreme exclusion.

So movies from this general time period, the '70s, started sailing through my head, Five Easy Pieces, Shampoo, The Way We Were, Jaws, The Day of the Locust, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and so on, just at random. I couldn't remember a single person of colour in any of those movies. Obviously I had seen almost all of them a half century ago. So I rewatched their trailers and a few others beside, and nothing. Not a single black face in any of the trailers. I even rewatched Breaking Away again. I spotted maybe one black extra in a bar scene and another in a crowd scene. Total screen time combined: less than two seconds, tops--the camera just whizzes by them and the rest of the extras in the proverbial flash. In retrospect, this seems unnatural--like people of colour being airbrushed out of movies nearly entirely. While there are some notable black actors in these years, they are few and far between. Outside of Sydney Poitier, how many black actors can you name from this time period who weren't relegated to Blacksploitation movies? I came up with James Brown, Willie Strode and Ossie Davis, only the latter of whom is an actual actor of range. And Diana Ross and Billie Dee Williams popped up later. Outside of Davis I couldn't name another character actor who was a person of colour. Here was something that I never thought about that must have been pretty damn oppressive for any person of colour who wanted to attend a Hollywood movie. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I know how angry that would have made me and how bad it would have made me feel. Then add the stereotypes that were created when black people were in movies, and it somehow makes it all seem grossly worse.

In one way, it is kind of interesting, though, how apolitical these omission initially appear to be--there are far more movies with liberal themes than conservative themes, but the situation remained in both equally. And although I think how unpolitical most of these movies are at face value, there was something about Breaking Away that looked like a Reagan wet dream (he was just around the corner), but with some surprisingly spiky edges--the class distinctions, which almost never come up in US films, are front and centre here; the kids with not much hope of a meaningful future after graduation sully the homey small town atmosphere; the college degree appears no longer the guaranteed escape hatch that it once was. Definitely the movie had more on its mind than the usual coming-of-age tropes.

I did have another problem with it that I didn't have the first time I saw it, also a problem with US movies of this nature in general. We get a bunch of kids but they are all reduced to types, the feisty little guy, the nerdy smart guy with a tongue, the soon-to-be bitter jock, the happy kid still wet behind the ears. Then there are all the rich kids. European movies of the coming-of-age variety very seldom reduce their characters to types; rather the focus on them is as distinct individuals, for better or worse. Stereotyping is a lazy short-hand form of character development. This movie did it better than most, but it still wrankled me.

And, no, in no way in hell, in any way, shape or form, do I think Breaking Away is a sports movie. Coming-of-age, yes; sports, no.