History of Violence (2005)

Directed by David Cronenberg; produced by Chris Bender and J. C. Spink

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) has a good life with his wife and children in a small Indiana town. He is well liked and his diner is popular. One night, though, two murderous robbers invade his business and threaten his staff. Tom, with no choice, kills them both. Following the ensuing publicity, he is visited by a thoroughly unsavoury man named Fogarty (Ed Harris), who opens up a chapter of Tom’s past he tried to forget, and threatens the future that Tom hopes to have.

In February, 2023, on this blog, I reviewed Eastern Promises (2007), a crime-thriller directed by Cronenberg and starring Mortensen, and thought highly of it. Two years before that film’s production, the pair collaborated on History of Violence, a more thoughtful, though bloodier story. As the title implies, death and mayhem figure prominently but they have a point and are not included just for the sensation of it.

The story, adapted from a comic book, allegedly did not meet with Mortensen’s approval when first submitted to him. Largely re-written by Cronenberg, it became less about the violence and more about what the violence does to people. There are several episodes of brutality and killing, but each introduces an element of a character’s personality, or changes it in some way. Rather than a tale of events, it becomes one of cause and effect.

The script itself does not provide much in the way of memorable dialogue, but it doesn’t try: it provides ordinary conversations about ordinary things. It does, however, create interesting and thought-provoking situations. A good sub-plot involves Tom’s son Jack (Ashton Holmes) being bullied at school. That situation demonstrates that, contrary to the old adage, violence really does solve some problems. It almost always, however, creates new ones, problems which are sometimes worse, or at least harder to solve, than the original.

The characters are well-written. Tom Stall is an mundane man. In his previous life, he was also an mundane - though criminal - man. In both phases, though, he comes up against extraordinary conditions, and these are what determines the direction of his character. His aforementioned son is an atypical movie teen, humorous, caring toward his parents and decent. This made his sub-plot involving.

While the actions of the characters share the spotlight with the characters themselves, it is the actors that make or break History of Violence. Mortensen is excellently cast. He manages to make Tom Stall both ordinary and unusual, and successfully conveys the impression of a man who is violent but doesn’t want to be. Maria Bello plays his devoted wife who suddenly discovers she isn’t sure who it is she’s devoted to. Holmes is a thoroughly believable young player, while Harris delivers a chilling portrayal of a man who would be most likeable, if he weren’t a sadistic killer. Note should be taken of the almost amusing interpretation by William Hurt of a mob-boss, the main characteristic of whom is exasperation that things are not working out for him. Filmed in Canada, the smaller roles are filled by Canadian actors, most notably veteran Stephen McHattie, as one of the robbers.

Though not for all tastes, History of Violence is not a bloody free-for-all, but, rather, a study of how physical destruction, even if it helps a situation, is nonetheless corrosive and hurtful.

Shanghai Express (1932)

Directed by Josef von Sternberg; produced by Adolph Zukor

An assortment of passengers fill the first-class carriages of the train travelling from Peiping to Shanghai. Captain Harvey (Clive Brook) is a doctor in the British Army; an old love of his is now better known as the ‘coaster’ - prostitute - Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich); an enigmatic Eurasian, Mr Chang (Warner Oland), has a secret agenda. But this is no ordinary journey: China is in the midst of a civil war, and nothing is certain. As one character responds to a wager as to how late the train may arrive: “This is China; there is no guarantee that we will arrive at all.”

An intriguing film for a number of reasons, Shanghai Express stands out today principally for the direction and cinematography. Sternberg worked a great deal with the contrasts between light and dark; shadows were a method of his telling a story, and that method is shown to full effect here. Anyone interested in film history, or interested in how images in a movie can tell a story, as opposed to actions and dialogue, will be entertained by Shanghai Express.

The writing brings out some intriguing incidents and characters. Based loosely on a real-life event of a warlord holding a train’s passengers hostage, Shanghai Express creates a genuinely tense situation, partly due to the direction and partly to Oland’s depiction of a rebel general’s unpredictable behaviour. The characters are a diverse lot, and not as stereotyped as they first appear. Mr Chang and Mr Carmichael (Lawrence Grant), in particular, develop as the movie progresses, and Anna May Wong, as another ‘coaster’, gives a fine performance.

The dialogue can seem stilted by today’s standards, though this is partly the fault of the delivery. That delivery is mainly flawed due to Brook’s stiff manner of acting. A Silent Era star, Brook made a successful transition to sound, but carried with him a certain woodenness that worked better (though not really all that well) without sound.

Dietrich was a bit of a revelation to me. I had seen her in later films (eg. Witness for the Prosecution, Judgment at Nuremberg) but not in her early roles. Her manner in Shanghai Express is a combination of cynical, breezy and amused, and it fits very well with her character. She is most convincing in every mood her character adopts. The supporting roles are well filled.

The use of location is successful. Some of the footage is actually from China, and gives a lively impression of some of the country in the early 1930s. The dress, the mannerisms, how technology blends - or doesn’t - into the setting, are all captured almost incidentally, yet fashion a convincing atmosphere. Such episodes as the train stopping for a cow on the line, the railway passing through markets, so close to the stalls that soldiers on the train spear fruit from merchants with their bayonets, undoubtedly came from real life.

An enjoyable movie in its own right in many ways, Shanghai Express is also entertaining as a slice of cinema history and technique.

Dream Scenario (2023)

Directed by Kristoffer Borgli; produced by Lars Knudsen, Ari Aster, Tyler Campellone, Jacob Jaffe, Nicolas Cage

Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) is a tenured professor at an American university with a bland and mildly unsatisfactory life. He loves his wife and daughters but is a little disconnected from them. His lectures are attended perfunctorily by his students. Then, a former girlfriend meets him and tells him he’s been in her dreams. When she writes about it on her blog, others - many others - relate Paul’s appearances in their dreams. Soon, he is famous, being interviewed on television and looking to secure a long-coveted book deal. But fame is arbitrary, and it isn’t long before Paul’s life turns nightmarish.

Though not a comedy, Dream Scenario has doses of humour, especially black humour, throughout, but is more a study of an average man and what can happen when he is overwhelmed by fame, or infamy. It is an analogy of popularity in our modern, North American culture.

The movie depends upon Nicholas Cage, whose choice of roles throughout his career has been exapnsive and varied. I have the feeling that he has probably taken every part he’s offered. Whatever his motives, he always comes across as enthusiastic for his part and willing to give it everything. The result, in terms of films and acting, has been both horrendous (eg. Trapped in Paradise and The Wicker Man) and superb (eg. Leaving Las Vegas and Adaptation). Cage’s performance in Dream Scenario definitely comes close to the latter.

The other performers are equally good, but have much less to do than Cage. Julianne Nicholson fulfills her role as Paul’s wife well, and Dylan Gelula has a very good part as one of the dreamers. (If you think any of your dates were bad, you won’t after seeing hers with Paul.) But there is no opportunity for the other performers as there is for the lead actor.

The story is involving, and is an examination, through a kind of metaphor (as dreams often are), for fame. Paul experiences the exhilaration of sudden popularity, and horror at the public’s backlash at those who are suddenly popular. Both reactions are keenly felt because Paul seeks neither; they are thrust upon him.

The writing, however, doesn’t quite do the story justice in its execution. Paul is a well-written character: he is not an exciting or handsome man - not leading man material. His classes are rather boring; one guesses that students enrol in them because they are required. His sense of humour is largely unsuccessful, and his ambitions hurt by what he interprets as a lack of opportunity, which abrupt fame cures, in a way. The degree to which the public turns on him due to its altered perception may seem severe, but is no more so than how it acts in real life. But the writer (who is also the director) takes it too far, I think. The script reaches a point at which misfortune is literally beating Paul over the head.

As well, the reason Paul shows up in so many dreams is not explained. This is perfectly acceptable for most of the movie; the audience agrees to suspend its disbelief and simply admits that this sort of thing is happening to one man. (There is, however, no clue as to why he is a mere by-stander in most dreams, and a very active participant in one woman’s.)

But later in the film, the theory of a shared sub-conscious is introduced, and manipulation of it is sought. This changes the story from a near-fantasy to nearly science fiction, and we must then ask, if there is a shared sub-conscious, why is Paul in it, and no one else? Why do people’s dreams of him change their mood? His inactivity or apathy in the dreams, originally a symbol of his blandness as seen by others, then demands an explanation, which is not given.

The direction is for the most part very good. The dreams are not filmed in any way different than the waking moments, except for what occurs in them. There are no blurry edges to the screen, no strange lighting. Of course, dreams are not really as cinematic or straightforward as they are presented here.

As an examination of fame and its consequences, shown through the unreality of motion pictures, and as an example of a first-rate actor giving a first-rate performance amid an inconstant career, Dream Scenario is easily recommended viewing.

Shadow of a Doubt

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; produced by Jack H Skirball

In Newark, New Jersey, Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten) is being shadowed by two detectives. Deftly avoiding them, he decides it would be a good time to visit his sister (Patricia Collinge) and her family in California. There, he is welcomed, especially by his niece, young ‘Charlie’ (Teresa Wright), who thinks the world of him. But as the visit progresses, Charlie is disturbed by Oakley’s contempt for human life, and by suspicions that her uncle may be a hunted murderer.

Shadow of a Doubt was Hitchcock’s favourite of his own films, and one can understand why. It is very atmospheric, heavy with the charm of small-towns and quiet living, and the dreadful intrusion of evil. Unfortunately, the film is not a success in all of its aspects.

In terms of acting, it’s a winner. Cotten and Wright provide, if not chemistry, then an excellent relationship in their work. (They played husband and wife in 1952’s The Steel Trap, reviewed on this blog just about a year ago.) Both give fine, convincing performances of very different characters. You may not be able to look at Cotten the same way again after seeing him in Shadow of a Doubt. Yet in Walk Softly, Stranger (reviewed two weeks ago), while giving his character an edge of menace, he comes across as much more sympathetic a person, with more sympathetic views. It is not a coincidence that he was in Hitchcock, Reed and Welles’s favourites of their own films.

Wright, on the other hand, is at the top of her form. Note on the poster her higher billing than Cotten: Shadow of a Doubt was only her fourth movie; she had been nominated for Oscars in the first three, winning one. Her performance here could have earned her another: her attitude when ordering her uncle to leave her home, upon realising his true personality, conveys not horror or right perfect emotion for the scene. It is typical of her work here.

The other actors also give good value. Collinge is the doting older sister to Oakley, who thinks he is perfect, while Hume Cronyn, in his first film, is an annoying yet amusing neighbour. The minor roles are well-filled.

Viewers might find themselves disillusioned in the story. Co-written by Thornton Wilder, perhaps for the small-town feel, it was meant to show the wickedness that lies under the surface of the average American community. That misses the mark. The community is fine: the wickedness is introduced by an outsider, a ‘New York man’. We see that the townspeople are impressed by Oakley, by his money, his sophistication. Yet he spends much of his time openly deriding them, and purposely saying antagonistic things. And no one questions why someone vaguely labelling himself a ‘businessman’ carries $40,000 in his wallet. (In those days, $100 a week was a decent salary.)

As well, we are meant to infer that Oakley’s compulsion to kill originated in a head injury, suffered as a child. Yet Charlie notices her uncle’s cruel and hateful nature only now? After numerous visits over the years? The police investigation into Oakley’s involvement in crime is committed on the one hand, superficial on the other. He is one of two suspects. Detectives travel from the east coast to the west to investigate him, and manage surreptitiously to take his picture. But when the other suspect is killed fleeing police (for all we know, he may have been trying to out-run an exorbitant parking ticket), the police abruptly decide that Oakley is no longer a suspect. Since this determination has an effect on events that follow, it is significant - also unprofessional and illogical. The romance between young Charlie and a detective (Macdonald Carey) is forced and perfunctory.

The direction is less than what one might expect from Hitchcock. It is certainly good, but there is nothing to differentiate it from any other good directors’ work. There is no innovation, and surprisingly little imagination, though there are still some good scenes: for instance, when Oakley, freed of suspicion by the police, sees young Charlie in a doorway regarding him with wary doubt. But, whether it is caused by direction or editing, there are sequences that feature jarring changes in characters’ moods, even though the sequences are in the same scenes, seconds apart.

While I can’t say that I think of Shadow of a Doubt as one of Hitchcock’s best movies, it is elevated tremendously by the performances, all of which are entertaining, professional and well worth seeing.

Ice Cold in Alex (1958)

Directed by J Lee Thompson; produced by W A Whittaker

Captain Anson (John Mills) of the Royal Army Service Corps has been ordered to evacuate his company of ambulances from Tobruk in the face of a renewed German advance on the north African fortress. Due to a blown bridge, he, his sergeant-major (Harry Andrews) and two nurses (Sylvia Syms, Diane Clare) are cut off from the convoy. To avoid being captured by the Germans, they have to drive their ambulance across 600 miles of desert to reach safety, aided only by a stray South African officer (Anthony Quayle) and menaced by everything else.

As opposed to the large scale British war movies, such as The Battle of Britain (1969) and Dunkirk (1958, also starring Mills), Ice Cold in Alex might be termed an intimate epic. More than two hours long, most of its scenes nonetheless feature just four actors, though others come and go in transient parts. Even so, it is an involving and entertaining film, with tension derived not just from situations, but from characters.

It is in those two elements - characters and situations - that the quality of the writing can be seen, rather than the dialogue. The characters in particular are well drawn. Anson is, as we would have said a few years ago, ‘burned out’. Sergeant Major Pugh remarks that ‘they’ kept Anson in the war too long. That, and the ordeal of his brief capture by the enemy and his subsequent escape - much more of an ordeal than the couple of days as a prisoner - drove him to drink, and makes him reckless, and obsessed with getting back to Alexandria. He is not an easy man to like, though very good qualities are there.

Pugh is not your stereotypical British Army sergeant major: he is tough but almost fatherly; sensitive and understanding; a foil for the bitter Anson. Van der Poel, the South African, is rather dismissive and abrasive, but he too has his reasons, while Sister Murdoch tries to maintain herself in situations she’s never experienced, while trying to mitigate their effects on the others.

As is necessary for the success of a movie with such a small cast, the acting is excellent. Mills manages to combine explosiveness with internal turmoil in creating Anson, which is not easy. His reaction when he realises he may have inadvertently caused a death is perfectly understated, and the viewer can understand how he could simultaneously achieve results yet alienate those around him. Andrews, who seems to have portrayed half the cinematic NCOs in the 1950s and ‘60s, shows a different side to a well-used character here; a character you’d want on your side.

Quayle is perhaps the actor who must show the greatest range of personality through the movie. He had starred with Syms in the previous year’s Woman in a Dressing Gown, which was the actress’s break-out role. Thereafter, Syms seemed to work as hard and often as Mills. She, Mills and Quayle re-united in 1965’s Operation Crossbow, though I don’t think they had any scenes together. A good and talented assortment of character actors fills in the small parts: Liam Redmond, Peter Arne, Frederick Jaeger, Walter Gotell and Allan Cuthbertson (the last-named is also in Operation Crossbow.)

J Lee Thompson directed a number of high-grade movies, such as the aforementioned Woman in a Dressing Gown, and The Guns of Navarone, but in later years ‘sold out’ (in his own words), with a crop of poor Charles Bronson films. In Ice Cold in Alex, though, he is at the peak of his form. He makes the desert the real enemy of the characters, though the Germans are encountered several times.

Incorporating a number of dangers, they are well-paced and never seem thrown in for the sake of the hazard. The scene in the Qattara Depression’s mire is the sort that makes the audience yell at the characters to hurry up because one of their number may perish before they can help him. And the finale, in the Alexandria bar, is one of the most satisfying and best-remembered in British cinema, and not just because it was used in television adverts.

Ice Cold in Alex’s reputation seems only to have grown over the years, and rightly so. With top-quality performances from four excellent actors, sharp direction and fine writing, it is well worth several viewings. (Beware the American edition, Desert Attack, which cut the 130-minute film down to 79 minutes (!), a version which one reviewer called ‘nonsensical’.)