Movies I Didn't Get

Essay by Jason A. Hill

Umberto D. (1952)

Written by Cesare Zavattini

Directed by Vittorio De Sica

Umerbto D, Vittorio De Sica’s tribute to his father, could be viewed as a farewell to Italian Neo Realism.  The year was 1951.  Reconstruction in Italy after WWII had been well on its way. The conditions from which directors and writers had given birth to this style of filmmaking had all but changed.  However, as things “improved” in Italy, there were many other places in the world that were experiencing what Italy had in 1945. Umberto D was not only a clinic on Neorealist films, it was also a film that transitions itself to end with a cinematic claim to the end of Neorealism and this period in Italy. But writers and directors in other countries we’re so inspired by Italy’s neorealist legacy that it can be viewed as the beginning of Neorealism for the rest of the world.
During the war under Mussolini, much like the country as a whole, the film industry was controlled by national fascist interests.  Filmmakers either had to cooperate with the controlling government or make films which pleased the fascist regime which usually violated their own creative sensibilities. During this time many of the filmmakers vowed an “Italian Spring” where they would be free to express the truth of Italy on screen. Soon after Italy was liberated these filmmakers got their chance and Italian Neorealism was born.

The subject matter was simple, present Italy in its most truthful sense. Screen writer Cesare Zavattini, who worked with De Sica on The Bicycle Thief and Umberto D explains that Neorealism was simply an attempt not to use style or creative film technique to obscure the reality of life in Italy at the time. “The task of the artist – the neorealist artist at least – does not consist in bringing the audience to tears and indignation by means of transference, but, on the contrary, it consists in bringing them to reflect (and then if you will, to stir up emotions and indignation) upon what are doing and upon what others are doing; that is, to think about reality precisely as it is.”(1)
Despite these attempts at truth, Italian Neorealist film defiantly bore a style. However its style was in part a symptom of its circumstances as the filmmakers struggled to gather resources, film stock, shooting locations, and actors. They often times used untrained actors as leads and because they knew how to re-dub the audio they resigned to shooting in busy streets.
It was not until Umberto D that people even began to discuss this period in Italian cinema as a movement.  There was never any formal declaration by the filmmakers involved nor were the films themselves very commercially successful.  These conditions we’re no different for Umberto D.
Umberto, played by untrained actor Carlo Battisti, is an aged government pensioner whose wages are inadequate for him to maintain his standard of living in post war Rome.  Umberto’s plight is disregarded by most of the characters as he disregards theirs.  This is more a convention of the Neorealism projecting a real person with real problems and real short comings rather than a more constructed anti-hero character.  Umberto’s companions are Flick, his beloved dog, Maria, the maid who lives across the hallway, and his nemesis Antonia, the landlady of the Via Martini Della Battaglia hotel whose apathy towards Umberto reflects a modern Italy eager to put the old Italy behind and enjoy the new prosperity.
Umberto is behind on his rent and he struggles to gather the funds to pay Antonia before she evicts him.  He also learns that Maria is pregnant and will soon be evicted as soon as Antonia finds out.  There is no incentive for Antonia to have sympathy for either character, even though she was looked after by Umberto during the war when she used to call him “grampa”. Antonia represents the new Italy, ready to forget the past and partake in the new Italy.
There are many scenes in the film that are pivotal to Umberto’s and Maria’s lives but in keeping with Neorealist conventions, there are also many scenes that do nothing to advance the narrative along but do add to an understanding take on the human condition of the characters. This is especially evident in Maria’s famous morning scene.
When Umberto takes ill and moves to a care mission, Maria agrees to look after Flick but looses him because of Antiona.  When Umberto recovers and returns to the hotel, he discovers Maria, who has just been abandoned by her baby’s father.  He ignores her despair for his lost dog.  There are hints and opportunities for Umberto and Maria to band together and tackle their problems by helping each other, but the film keeps to its Neorealist’s roots and both characters eventually part ways, facing their fates alone.

Umberto finds Flick at the local dog pound and in a very emotional scene that shakes the film’s neorealist foundation, Umberto rescues Flick from a certain death.  He then returns to the hotel only to finally realize that he has no hope of living there any longer.  And in another scene that suggests the end of the character as well as neorealism, Umberto contemplates suicide as a resolve to his despair. These neorealist aberrations are justified by Zavattini; “The contents always engender their own expression, their own technique. Imagination, therefore, is allowed, but only on the condition that it exercise itself within reality and not on the periphery.” (1)
Umberto D is truly a neorealist film, but the question I find more interesting is weather in this film we see the end of Italian Neorealism and does it give birth to neorealism for the rest of the world?  Major art movements sometime seem to be zeitgeists of creative ideas all coming together in the same era to make statements about their times.  And often these movements are the result of deliberate and explicit collaborations between artist and ideas.
De Sica may have felt that neorealism died in Italy by the end of the credits in Umberto D, but the torch had already been past to Satyajit Ray with his Apu Trilogy that began in 1950 and started the Parallel Cinema Movement in Bengal and India proper. Neorealist roots form in Ousmane Sembene with Borom Serret (1966) in Bengali Africa.  In America there was John Cassavetes in the 1960s and later Jim Jarmusch in the 1980s.  More recently you have directors like Jia Zhang-Ke in China whom with films like Still Life (2006) take neorealism into the twenty first century.  This works because the true intentions of neorealism can never fade.  And becuase here will always be a time and place for people struggling to exist in their environment.  I think Zavattini says it best; “The true function of the arts has always been that of expressing the needs of the times; it is towards this function that we should redirect them. No other means of expression has the potential which the cinema possess for making things known directly” (1)
If Zavattini is correct, this can be true for any person in any country at any time and thankfully it has been. I hope that this tradition will continue and continue to deliver the day to day inner workings of people’s lives in yet discovered films from Iraq and Afghanistan to new films from Africa and Eastern Europe. These tenets of Neorealism have held its meaning well beyond Umberto D in 1951 and should hold for another 50 plus years and beyond.
(1) Zavattini, Cesare, and Overbey, David, ED. (1978). Springtime in Italy, A Reader on Neorealism. Hamden, CT. Archon Books.

Essay by Jason A. Hill

F For Fake. 1975
Written and Directed by Orson Welles

With the recent new release of Michael Moore’s latest effort, Capitalism, A Love Story, I thought it would be a good time to talk about a seldom understood yet truly great documentary film, F For Fake.

F For Fake, a film documentary about truth and authorship in art by Orson Welles released in 1975, is almost as much a narrative film as it is a documentary. It covers two “fakes” , famed art forger Elmyr De Hory and pretend Howard Hughes Biographer Clifford Irving. The film, narrated by Welles in different scenes from train stations, a studio sound stage, and in the actual editing room, follows several stories all dealing with the same concept, truth in art. First we follow the story or Elmyr De Hory whom we come to learn has forged possibly hundreds of art master pieces over a period of twenty years. De Hory states the reason for his career’s vehicle for success is that the “so called experts” are in fact no experts at all and his body of work is the proof. It’s not clear which of De Hory’s claims are really true but the film’s evidence of De Hory’s guilt alone in enough to validate at least the idea that he would be guilty of nothing if forging a masterpiece was not possible. Later we discuss Clifford Irving who is present in many of the scenes with Elmyr and who gives his own account of De Hory’s adventures in a book he recently wrote. Clifford’s hoax with Howard Hughes actually unfolds in the middle of the making of F For Fake and makes for a pretty intriguing plot twist. Welles explains that until Irving actually confesses,  there was still doubt as to Irving’s guilt and this is difficult to prove either way due to the mysterious nature of Hughes himself.

But these two men are not quite on trial. What seems to be more interesting to Wells in this film isn’t whether or not what these men did we’re right or wrong but whether or not the truth in art is even a real concept to begin with. Welles seems to question just about everything relating to the truth in the film including the film its self which says something about the truthfulness of all documentaries. Not only does Welles question the “tropes of veracity” in documentary film making, he completely reinvents it as a new form of storytelling.

Film movements in the past have used forms from reality to help make narrative films of fiction like the films of the Italian neo realist’s use of ordinary people and real time events to John Cassavetes’s films made spontaneously in the streets of New York. But Welles has introduced something new here as he employs the use of fiction elements to enhance his cinema verite. And it could be argued that no documentary has ever simply been without some alteration or tampering of the facts. But never has it been put to use in such a deliberate effect of style and purpose. Welles also wastes no film tool or under utilizes any technique from photo stills and stock footage to shots in front and behind the camera showing his film making process. This is also fitting because the film is widely recognized as a masterpiece in film editing.

Welles, a film icon who rarely gets involved with a project with a halfhearted effort, spares no less the effort in this film as the subject of truthfulness expands to include Welles himself. In 1938, Welles perpetrated on of the greatest hoaxes in the 20th century by reporting the invasion of the planet Earth by Martians. So many people believed Welles broad cast that it became a media frenzy itself and launched Welles into fame (or infamy). Knowing this makes it no surprise when during the film Welles mentions this as he presents himself as a “charlatan”. There is also a segment of the film where as it begins Welles states “for the next hour everything you are about to see is absolutely true” as Welles tells the story of Clifford Irving’s “hoax” biography of Howard Hughes.  Shortly after this we are told the story of Oja Kodar’s encounter with Pablo Picasso, which in fact is a fabrication and we only understand this after Welles himself confesses to this by stating “for the last 17minutes, I’ve been lying my head off”.

This segment proved to be extremely personal for Welles. Kodar, who not only worked with him in writing F For Fake but was personal inspiration for the final segment of the film. As one of my film professors Joseph McBride explains in his book What Ever Happened to Orson Welles: “What could be called Welles’s “Oja period” lasted until his death in 1985, and it marked profound changes in his filmmaking style. Under Kodar’s influence, Welles’s work underwent a Picasso-like late flowering of sexual themes and imagery. The Immortal Story contains an actual lovemaking scene; although filmed obliquely, its arguably more erotic for its concentration on suggestive details. The connection between Welles and the older Picasso is drawn explicitly in F for Fake, with Welles ingeniously “directing” the artist by interacting still photographs of him seemingly ogling Oja as she strolls past his window in skimpy outfits. As “Picasso” paints nude pictures of Oja, Welles intercuts ravishing shots of her body in sensuous poses and rhapsodizes about the artist’s reaction to her lush figure: “Was he…tenpted? Perhaps inspired…[T]he results of this encounter were, to say the least of it, extremely fruitful. Figs sweetened on the trees-grapes burst into ripeness on the vines-and twenty two-twenty-two!-large portraits of Miss Kodar were born under that virtile brush.”

It has often been explained that truth is an abstract concept that has many meanings. And depending on the person and their point of view, the truth can change from one to another. I believe Welles’s final point for F For Fake is that truth is an abstract idea but honesty is the faithful telling of one’s own feelings. There can be no truth in art only honesty. Honesty is the courage to be bold. And in that sense there has never been a more honest documentary than F For Fake.

Essay by Jason A. Hill

Seven – USA 1995
Director – David Fincher
Writer/ Screenplay – Andrew Kevin Walker

Seven is a crime thriller set in what appears to be urban Chicago. Two detectives on two different paths and at different stages in their careers track a methodical serial killer who leaves his victims with symbolic clues of the “seven deadly sins” to their murder.

Throughout the film you are given a bleak view of the world where it seems to never stop raining. Somerset (Morgan Freeman), a detective close to retirement and Mills, (Brad Pitt) a detective just starting his career pursue John Doe (Kevin Spacey), a psycho path serial killer who apparently bored with the ease and randomness of killing the old fashion way, needs to channel Dante, Milton and Chaucer to find inspiration for his killings.  Very early on its clear that the detectives aren’t going to catch this killer. Otherwise the film would be called “Three” or “Four”. Nope we are going to see all seven deadly sins and the only question is why is John Doe doing this and how is he going to pull it off?

The tone of the film also takes an overly sympathetic view of the killer. Every victim is discovered with more of their death focusing on their “sin” or why rather than how leaving out any need for detective work. Not that super genius “Yoda” killer John Doe would leave any evidence behind anyway. And I can accept that the film is more about the killer than the cops chasing him so why then is his motive so elusive? Is he just a sick psychotic with an irresistible flare for irony, or is he a religious nut, hell bent on re-making the world in the biblical since.

Even up to this point the film can still work only, as with most films that leave me so unfulfilled, it’s ending is as meaningless as it is memorable. As John Doe leads his foolish police pursuers every which way but loose he completes his murder opus and turns him self in. But only does so in order to let the full impact of his deeds be felt by Detective Mills.

As I said before the film works on many levels, the dark landscape of the city is very stylized but believable. Technically the film stands with the best. The acting is subtle and effective. And if not for the ridiculousness of the main villain’s abilities and the story’s pointless conclusion, we have a fairly excellent thriller.

At one point in the film the detectives, desperate for a break in the case, illegally comp John Doe’s library reader list and find his apartment, illegally breaking and entering his premises. When John Doe arrives he out foxes the flatfoots and even has a moment with Mills, holding him at gunpoint but sparing him for a more gruesome outcome.  This kind of bleakness was seen in Fincher’s previous film “Aliens 3” where we end the film with everyone important in that series dead and almost making “Aliens” (One of my favorite Sci Fi thrillers) completely pointless.

So what is the point of this story? The first place we can look is the closing exposition by Somerset who again quotes one of his favorite writers; “The world is a sick place but worth fighting for.” And he agrees with at least the first part of that quote. So the point of Seven is that the world is a sick place?

This seems too simplistic a conclusion for such a detailed and sophisticated thriller.  Not only that but this is just not true. Sure the world is sometimes a sick place. But sometimes it’s a nurturing and allow me to channel Louie Armstrong, also a beautiful world. Although I think it takes a certain kind of wisdom and understanding to see it sometimes.  It is this point of view that separates the protagonist from the antagonist in most stories for me.  Any character may make the observation that death and destruction is a proper response to what they may see as a sick world. But it takes a truly higher mind to put that view aside and find some beauty in their sick world. It’s a shame Fincher only gives us the latter in Seven. Otherwise, we might have seen his killer in a more realistic light. Like most real serial killers we have heard of.

I left Seven feeling that both of the protagonists in this film were victims of their deficiencies, one too cavalier and ignorant, or maybe naive of the sick world and the other to unwilling to fully face the horror of this reality. The killer should have narrated this film. I think Seven had something going with the style and the characters but in the end it sacrificed poignancy for a punch line ending.

Essay by Jason A. Hill

Artificial Intelligence: AI

By Steven Spielberg

USA 2001

Based on the Short Story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” by Brian Aldiss

AI is just one of those films people can’t forget or stop talking about.

I got about 75% of this film. Everything about it was strange, interesting and wonderfully disturbing. Set in the near future but having an almost timeless quality of modern consumerism. It centers around a family who’s only child has digressed into a vegetative state. A robotic boy, the first programmed to love, David (HALEY JOEL OSMENT) is adopted as a test case by a Cybertronics employee (SAM ROBARDS) and his wife (FRANCES O’CONNOR), to replace their son who has been cryogenically frozen until a cure can be found.

Though David is gradually accepted and becomes their child, a series of unexpected circumstances make this life impossible for David as he is abandoned by his “mother” and left to survive in a society that fears and hates their new robotic compatriots. Several groups of robot hating humans chase David and his companions until they all are caught. David does eventually meet is creator but fails to discover the meaning of his quest. He is then further pursued by agents of control.

After David is abandoned by his pursuers in his watery grave and discovered by alien archeologists tens of thousands of years later, he is  re activated and asked to reveal the true nature of human beings by way of what they created and left behind.

The film works on many levels from esoteric by way of the mother to existential by way of David’s search for love and the meaning of his life. I really enjoyed everything about David’s journey, that is until the end.

The last 20 minutes or so was just out of place and fit so jarringly juxtaposed to the first three quarters of the film that it seemed that Spielberg wanted to soften the landing. Understanding that this was the end of a pretty emotionally dark film, the aliens litterlly hold your hand through its final minutes giving an over reaching and outwardly broad epilouge.

Still those three quareters of some of the best sci fi ever filmed which is what makes the end so tragic. Like Michealangelo lopping off the head of his “David”, Speiberg was that close to a masterpeice.

Welcome to Movies I Didn’t Get!

I started this site mainly because of all the great conversations I get into about films I love or hated over the years. Many times I have changed my view on a certain film based on some strong arguments by a passionate film lover. I have also given a lot of insight on film that I love that may seem to be over people’s heads. Lets face it, if you love film, you’ve probably seen quite a few of them and I’m sure more than a few have left you scratching your head.

That’s where we come in. I will try to post a new article every week or more to keep things going but please feel free to send me an article if you want to get an idea about a film out there.

Here is how the process works:

Write a short synopsis of a film you didn’t understand or didn’t like (or both).

Email it to me here: admin@moviesididntget.com.

I will review the article and if it meets the standards of the site, I will publish it on the main page. From there it will get responses in the form of comments to start the discussion.

If you simply want to talk about a movie and want a quicker response, I suggest posting in the forum.

I’m looking forward to having some great conversation on movies. Thanks for stopping by!

- Sbones