"You know, it's an interesting thing when you consider"

Favorite Moments: The Parallax View

This scene from the 1974 political thriller The Parallax View is trickier than it looks. The scene occurs as Warren Beatty, pretending to be a violent loner so as to infiltrate the Parallax Corporation sits down to take a test with them. The corporation takes isolated loners and molds them into assassins. The "test" here is simply a film of still images and words put to music. While it is ostensibly shown to Beatty, in actuality it is shown to us, the audience. That's where it gets tricky. Gordon Willis, the great cinematographer of so many landmark films of the seventies including The Godfather and Manhattan, and Alan Pakula, the director of The Parallax View, worked on the short film together and the challenge was to produce a film that looks like it would work on an isolated loner in reaffirming his beliefs about family, society, race and the American Dream while at the same time being obvious enough to the viewer that the changes in editing and placement of images is evident. And it does, and they are.

Watching this "test" serves its purpose beautifully. That purpose, for Pakula, is to show the viewer exactly the type of person that becomes an assassin without going through the laborious motions of creating another character for the movie to follow in depth. Simply watch the film and you know exactly what type of person the Parallax Corporation has working for it, doing its killing. And it's placement is brilliant too. It occurs near the end of the second act of the film, with about thirty-five minutes to go. After this test film, the audience now knows the type of person Beatty is up against. Fittingly, his character is in increasingly more danger, and more powerless, from this point on, until the end, when running as fast as he can just isn't fast enough.

Favorite Moments: Lost in America

Since Brian and I were just discussing it, in a roundabout dreamlike way...

And remember, it's the early eighties, so take the $100,000 and make it around $250,000.

Favorite Moments: Love and Death

Favorite Moments: The Cat's Meow

We've all seen Citizen Kane, at least I'm assuming we have. This is a movie blog and if you're coming here I figure you've seen Kane. Having not seen it would be like an art enthusiast unaware of Picasso's work or an architectural student who had never studied the Parthenon or any of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs. Likewise I'm assuming you know that Charles Foster Kane is loosely based on William Randolph Hearst and Susan Alexander on Marion Davies. And I am further assuming you know the characterizations of Kane and Alexander did not actually resemble the Hearst and Davies of real life. For one thing, Davies had talent. For another, Hearst wasn't nearly as witty.

If you've seen The Battle Over Citizen Kane, an excellent documentary on Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst that comes with collector's editions of Citizen Kane on DVD, you know Hearst was rather humorless and stiff but not as much about himself as about Marion. In fact, one gets the general feeling that if Welles and Herman Mankiewicz had cast Susan Alexander in a better light, Hearst wouldn't have given a damn about Citizen Kane being released and the movie would have had no controversy surrounding it. Welles would have taken Best Director and the film Best Picture and who knows what the rest of Welles career would have been like.

But this short post isn't about Citizen Kane but about how sixty years later, Welles acolyte Peter Bogdanovich filmed the characters again, let them use their real names and produced a film no where near the level of genius as Citizen Kane but did manage to resurrect Marion Davies from the ashes and at the same time, somehow, make Hearst look even worse. Or did he?

I much prefer Kane to The Cat's Meow , Bogdanovich's "what-if" movie about Hearst, Davies, Charlie Chaplin and the death of Thomas Ince aboard Hearst's yacht, but within the context of engaging characterizations, I much prefer Edward Herrmann's Hearst to Orson Welles' Kane. Herrmann's Hearst is a madman, a violent man and a controlling bastard. Kane could be all those things too, but Welles played him with a sturdy confidence. When he takes on Thatcher as a 21 year old the audience has no doubt who's in charge. Herrmann on the other hand plays Hearst as a jerk, yes, but a pathetic, insecure, pitiful jerk. The kind that makes you angry, and then later, you feel sorry for him.

Which brings me to this week's Favorite Moment from The Cat's Meow. It's a scene that exemplifies all of the Hearst characteristics I described above and Herrmann plays them to the hilt. The insecurity, the controlling behavior, the self-pity and finally, the sad but comfortable relief that it's all over. It's cringe inducing and I would have loved to have seen just one scene like this in Kane. Welles would've chewed it up. Enjoy (if that's the right word).

Favorite Moments: The Exorcist

I should probably save this Favorite Moment for October but I feel like putting it up now so that's what I'm going to do. It's from The Exorcist and it's probably the scene I like best in the whole movie. While I admire many aspects of the film what has always stood out for me is the power of Jason Miller's performance. Throughout the film he holds everything in a tight coil always looking as though he is mere inches away from a complete nervous breakdown. This moment represents the first time in the film where he finally let's his emotions take over. It's necessary or the climax would make little sense as his emotional overload is what draws the film to its conclusion. This scene sets it up and his ability at letting go only momentarily and then immediately drawing it back in is one of the feats that makes this, for me at least, the best performance of 1973, with all due respect to the other great performances that year, lead or supporting. Everyone is impressive in the film but Miller's performance carries a power and weight to it that never fails to move me.

*****ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS FOR THIS POST HERE*****

Favorite Moments: Forbidden Planet plus a Music Video

The only thing missing from this clip is a cartoon timpani at the end or a "boing" sound. Still, I appreciate the filmmakers taking the time to give us a glimpse into Robby's "Me" Time.

But don't go away yet, there's more! I put together a music video of Forbidden Planet using the music of J Ralph. On my old YouTube page I got a lot of the old "copyright infringement" rigmarole so I decided with my new Cinema Styles YouTube page I was going to start contacting the artists directly and ask if they had a problem with it. Mr. Ralph, composer of the score for Lucky Number Slevin, not only had no problem but said the video "looks cool." So here it is, Forbidden Planet: The Video. Turn it up or put on headphones to fully appreciate the mean-ass guitar at the 1:15 mark. And then when the monster appears... well... is there a fifties sci-fi movie with a cooler monster? Not in my book. The video goes through the whole movie from beginning to end, set to the music The Desert Suit Conspiracy by J. Ralph. Enjoy.

Favorite Moments: McCabe and Mrs. Miller

Favorite Moments: The Thing

Favorite Moments: The Hospital

More favorite moments as I search for the meaning of life. Forgive the abundance of them but I plan on putting them up whenever I feel the itch to do so and this weekend as I prepare for a vacation, a gallery opening (more on that Monday or Tuesday) and a hell week at work I give you two favorite moments of mine from the movies. First this one from The Hospital, Network's neglected step-child (or should that be step-father since it came first?). George C. Scott is superb (that's probably needless to say but I said it anyway) as the doctor going through a somewhat late mid-life crisis.

Tomorrow, a very short favorite moment from a movie that I've been seeing all over teh intranets lately and since it's a favorite of mine I figured I'd jump in the fray. If you haven't seen it I'm not sure if the favorite moment will do anything for you. If you have seen it, and therefore know everything that immediately preceded the scene, then you'll understand why I find it so funny - and so perfectly done by the actor in the scene. But that's all I'm saying for now, you'll see it tomorrow.

Favorite Moments: The Devil and Daniel Webster

Favorite Moments: Local Hero (1983)

Favorite Moments

Back when I started this blog in 1977 on my brand new Commodore PET I never dreamed it would evolve into the mega-empire you now see before you, pulling in millions of readers daily and raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in ad revenue. I never dreamt that because it never happened - and never will. But hey, I have a fun time doing it anyway. It's fun to see how it's evolved in the year I've been doing it (anniversary coming up, gift registry will be set up soon).

When I look back at the early posts they seem so different from what I write now. One series I wanted to do when I first started this blog was covering favorite moments in movies. It quickly became whole scenes, with plenty of screengrabs and analysis and I tired of it. All I really wanted to do was show some of my favorite moments in movies. Now that the technology has completely caught up with my whims I'm going to start it up again only this time I'm doing it the way I wanted to in the beginning. I'm telling you so you'll know what the hell all the video posts are that keep popping up. Some will be a minute or so long but most, the large majority, will be a few seconds to half a minute. They're just moments, moments I like or love for whatever reason. No damn analysis, no explanation, just the scenes, or moments, and that's it.

They will come from movies big and small and while a few may be famous scenes, 90 percent won't be. They will just be a little moment that makes me smile, or cringe or react in some way memorable to me from the movie. I hope they will either be favorites of yours as well, or if you haven't seen the movie in question that maybe you'll want to after watching that little snippet.

That's all. I'll put one up soon and from a decade roundly ignored here on Cinema Styles, the eighties. I didn't like a lot of the movies from the eighties but oddly, as I snag clips for this series, I find I have a lot of favorite moments from movies of that decade. Not more than any other decade but enough to surprise me nonetheless.

And now I'm off to negotiate another $250,000 ad space here on the site that several studios are fighting over. Hey I can dream can't I?