Fortini/Cani (1976)

As part of exploring the context of Moses und Aron (1974) I am exploring Huillet and Straub's other films including this one.
Fortini/Cani (1976) marks the beginning  of a new phase for Straub and Huillet as it was their first Italian film. Italy had been the subject and location of some of their previous efforts, most notably Othon (1969) and History Lessons (1972), and even some of the funding for Moses und Aron (1974) had come from RAI, but the works themselves had been predominantly German-funded and usually in the German language.

As a result it becomes the point at which much English language scholarship around Huillet and Straub dries up a little. Roud's book - for over two decades the only English language book on the duo - stops even before the completion of Moses und Aron, the next book in English, Barton Byg's "Landscapes of Resistance" covered only their German period. Whilst I understand Ursula Boser's 2004 "The Art of Seeing, the Art of Listening" is apparently a little more wide-ranging, I've never managed to get hold of it. Ute Holl's "Moses Complex obviously largely focused on Moses und Aron. Recent works such as "Writings" by Sally Shafto, and "Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet" by Ted Fendt have done something to redress the balance but certainly it feels something like dropping off a cliff edge. For me being able to read about Straub/Huillet's work is such a crucial part of watching with it and engaging in it because you tend to need to know so much in advance.

The title, as is often the case, is somewhat unusual. The "Fortini" is the Italian writer Franco Fortini; the "Cani" from the title of his book "I Cani del Sinai" (The Dogs of Sinai), although, as the film concedes early on in proceedings "There are no dogs on Sinai". Having worked on a number of historic texts during the 1970s, the filmmakers were keen to return to the approach of some of their earliest work and adapt text by a living author and Fortini was keen to see his work given similar treatment as that of Heinrich Böll, whose work was the subject of Machorka Muff (1962) and Not Reconciled (1965).

This time, however, the major difference is the appearance of Fortini himself. Fortini appears reading various passages from the work itself. It is left to the audience to decide if this is Fortini appearing as himself, or playing a version himself, or indeed another man of similar age. The lack of clarity on this issue raises a further question of genre: is the film a documentary or something else?

The "something else" in that question summaries the difficulty of pigeon-holing exactly what the film is. Aside from the the scenes of "Fortini" reading two other types of footage dominate. The first consists of Fortini continuing to read excerpts from the book, but as a voiceover, over various scenes of Italian land and city-scapes. In one particularly striking one, the camera holds static down what appears to be a reasonably typical Italian street. Cars drive up and down, people walk along pavements seemingly going about their everyday business. And then I see it, and struggle to believe that I have not noticed it before; Florence's Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore poking out in the background.

In attempting to reflect how I missed such an obvious landmark I can only reflect that this is because of how the film up to this point has trained me to watch it, not only in the scenes of Fortini, but also in the third type of footage - the long, slow, almost silent, 360° pans around various  landscapes. Watching these in a cinema is quite unlike watching such images at home on a DVD player. For one thing the there are no distractions. No escapes when otherwise temptation to look away to be distracted might prove irresistible. For another there is the sound, the quietness of crickets in the background, and an audience all holding their breaths. I'm reminded of Kolker's quote about "viewing a film by Straub and Huillet... is essentially an act of watching oneself watch a film" (208). The process is a little like mindfulness, eventually you yield and the rich images, textures sounds are transformative and indeed transportative; they take you to another place. Another quote about Huillet/Straub which I can't seem to shake off is Daniel Fairfax's line about the "sensual role of the material environment in their work". It's the slowness of the panning camera gradually peeling back a little at a time. Because of this you find yourself focusing on the textures of a stone wall, or the expression on a passerby, and somehow missing a cathedral spire poking out magnificently from behind the buildings.

The beauty of the locale is something of a double edged sword, however. Much of the pans across the countryside are taken in the Apuan alps, the scene of the 1944 Vinca massacre of 162 Italian citizens by Nazi soldiers, though Italian fascists were complicit. At times these are left for silent reflection, but at times they are accompanied by Fortini's commentary. The primary theme of Fortini's book is the Six Day War and Israel's seizing of the Sinai Peninsula which Fortini is appalled by. Fortini, who was no stranger to the issue of anti-Semitic abuse on account of his Jewish father,is particularly critical of the way large swathes of Italian society were supportive of Israel. Fortini argues "that the enthusiasm of the Italian intelligentsia of 1967 for the Israeli course was fuelled by the concealment of the Fascist...complicity in the extermination enterprise and by the burying of the victims on Italian soil" (Rancière 41). As in Moses und Aron and numerous other of their films Huillet and Straub are drawing attention to the ground where blood of earlier generations has been spilt even though it is no longer visible. The quiet beauty of the landscape speaks volumes about our attempts to cover our bloody past when it suits us.

There is one particular shot that highlight. There are several shots of landmarks and signs in the film commemorating those who have been slaughtered in the one. This particular shot begins on one such obelisk, before commencing a slow 360° pan around the otherwise quiet location, only then to end on the same plaque. Rather than using historic documentary footage, Straub/Huillet use this subtler approach.

"There are no tortured bodies matching the writers words, but the opposite - their absence, their invisibility. From the terrace where Fortini is rereading his text...the camera slips far away to explore the places where the massacres occurred. In those mute hills, crushed by the sun and deserted villages, only the words of commemorative plaques remember, and say, without showing it, the blood that once stained these oblivious lands." (Rancière  42)

In addition to the argument from the Fascist past, Fortini also argues that Italian support for the war derived from anti-Arab sentiment. He argues this at length, and on a single viewing it is difficult to be able to competently summarise it (not least as the subtitles left certain sentences untranslated), but essentially resists the accusation that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic by referencing his own suffering on account of it and by drawing a sharp line between Israel the state and the Jewish people as a whole. That his points here seem so contemporary given the once again apparent problems of anti-Semitism coming from the resurgent far left of British politics. Fortini feels a sense of isolation, marginalised for being a Jew by the wider society, whilst simultaneously marginalised by other Jews for not being sufficiently pro-Israeli,

There are also allusions to the Hebrew Bible, not least a passage where Fortini talks about reading it in his youth and contrasting "lo scontro esaltante, liberatore, con la scrittura, i Salmi, Giobbe, Isaia, letti e riletti con terrore e rapimento" (the exciting, liberating battle with the Scriptures, the Psalms, Job, Isaiah, read and reread with terror and rapture) with his perceptions of his own faith. There's a lengthy static shot from the balcony in a synagogue whilst various Jewish rituals are undertaken.

As noted above whilst the footage mainly falls into three categories (Fortini reading, silent nature and Fortini reading over images of nature) other such images do appear. For one thing there is the film's opening image (above) of the book itself, followed shortly afterwards from a close up on its dedication. There are also various cuttings from newspapers from various nations including, of all things, one from the Daily Mail. These shots emphasise Huillet and Straub's rootdsness in texts. The film is an adaptation of "I cani del Sinai", but as with Machorka Muff they are happy to go beyond the one text by incorporating 'contemporary' newspaper headlines and articles which they want to hold up to criticism.

However the film goes beyond the text in other ways. The screening notes from the showing I attended consisted of Fortini's 1978 "Note for Jean-Marie Straub" that accompanied the 2013 English translation of the book (which rumour has it includes a DVD of this film). In it it is clear that Fortini recognises that Huillet and Straub have brought out things from his work which he himself was not aware of until he watched the film. "Through the gaze of the camera looking at me, I was also able better to understand some formal lessons I had received, across many years" (Fortini). He goes on to explain how the instructions from Straub and Huillet worked by "unweaving the fabric of my thoughts, surpassed them and conserved them" (Fortini). The excerpt ends "From then onwards the words and ideas which, in "The Dogs" still pained me have ceased to hurt me (Fortini).
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- Fairfax, Daniel (2009) "Great Directors: Straub, Jean-Marie & Huillet, Danièle", Sense of Cinema, September. Available online
https://sensesofcinema.com/2009/great-directors/jean-marie-straub-and-daniele-huillet/
- Fortini, Franco (2013) "A Note for Jean-Marie Straub" in Fortini, Franco The Dogs of the Sinai, translated by  Alberto Toscano. Seagull Books
- Kolker, Robert Phillip (1983) The Altering Eye: Contemporary International Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Rancière, Jacques (2014) Figures of History. John Wiley & Sons

Joan the Woman (1916)

I'm introducing a screening of Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 film The King of Kings next month, so I thought now would be a good time to finally watch DeMille's take on Joan of Arc - whilst not a biblical narrative, certainly a story that, in popular culture terms at least, is a very close neighbour.

The film stars Geraldine Farrar, an opera star who Jesse Lasky poached for the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company by offering her an exorbitant salary (Higham 49). Farrar is hardly the young teenager that Joan was, but she is otherwise good in the role, not least because her own star power gives an extra element to Joan's meteoric rise.

It's a while before Farrar gets to appear on screen however because the main part of the film is bracketed by some scenes from the trenches of WW1 - then a current conflict. This seems certainly like a response to Griffith's Intolerance, also Fritizi Kramer of Movies Silently (read her review of this film here) that amongst the reasons this was added was because screenwriter Jeanie Macpherson insisted on it in order to give the film "a more upbeat ending". I can imagine though that it would also reflect DeMille's concerns about the Great War and certainly this comes across as very much pro-France film with the French forces needing to repel the invading forces in their country. Of course as I'm looking for connections with The King of Kings then this link to a film that features Jesus cannot be ignored.

It'd be interesting to know (and I will probably read up on this in DeMille's autobiography shortly) to hat extent Griffith's work influenced DeMille. Joan was his first historical epic. From today's perspective that is surprising for his name is now synonymous with the genre. On the other hand however DeMille seems to critique Griffith's film, most notably in the scenes towards the end of the film when a series of men wearing white robes and hoods. It's an interesting way to link the KKK and the Borriquita brotherhood in nearby Spain. Their role as leading persecutors of DeMille's heroine certainly reflects badly on them and seems to be a rebuke to Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915).

Perhaps the film's most significant contribution is the use of colour, most notably the Handschiegl Color Process (aka "Wyckoff-DeMille Process") for certain scenes Most notably Joan burning at the stake. DeMille pioneered colour a few times, and it's curious that whereas he used it for Joan's death, he uses another pioneering colour technique for Jesus' resurrection in The King of Kings. (In the earliest cut of the film he also uses colour for the opening sequence of a vampy Mary Magdalene and her lovers). It's very effective here, partly due to its limited use. There are some good screen grabs of it here.

Aside from the use of the Handschiegl Color Process, there is also the widespread use of tinting and toning throughout the film which DeMille uses to good effect. One memorable image is of the red tint that accompanies Joan's vision and calling. Here, as with many places in the film, DeMille uses double exposure to add an element of the supernatural here with the appearance of a cross. He uses this technique quite extensively through the film and to be honest overuses the double exposures, for a technique that had been in use since the turn of the century it seems a little odd that DeMille is so enamoured by it. Again though this reminds me of DeMille's use of double exposure - or more to the point multiple exposure in the scene where Jesus casts seven demons our of Mary Magdalene.

Lastly I just wanted to touch on the way DeMille and MacPherson use quotes from the Gospel accounts of Jesus' death. Two in particular stand out, notably when Joan herself asks why God has foresaken her, and then later, when she is on her way to the stake (and there is a very Golgotha-y feel to the way a procession leads her to the stake) when one of those who gave false testimony against her, and was even involved in torturing her, asks for her forgiveness because they "knew not what they did".

In many ways this actually recalls DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956) more than The King of Kings (though it is perhaps the "middle term"). Through that film DeMille and screenwriter Aeneas MacKenzie draw out numerous parallels between Moses and Jesus often reversing the very ones the gospel writers put in to do the same. Here again we see this, not only in the use of these two lines to verbally create the parallels but also in variopus bits of imagery and composition.

As a film I must admit it didn't really grab me. Whilst some of the imagery is rather fine, particularly on a bigger screen, a lot of it had too much going on. In particular the Battle of Oreans was long and a little dull. DeMille clearly hadn't quite perfected his eye for the small details against the largest of backdrops and the composition looks cramped. It's one of the longest scenes in the film and it feels like the time and money invested it could have gone elsewhere.

That's all for now on this film - this is a scribbling down of a few thoughts, rather than a proper review as such, but hopefully it will be of interest to some.

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Higham, Charles "Cecil B. DeMille, an Uncensored Biography". (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973).

Der Bräutigam, die Komödiantin und der Zuhälter (The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp, 1968)

As part of exploring the context of Huillet and Straub's Moses und Aron (1974) I am exploring their other films including this one.
Like its title Straub/Huillet's 1968 short The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp, splits readily into three parts, but the three parts of each do not so much correlate to each other as to the three leading characters who emerge as the film progresses.

In many ways the film references the very earliest period in film history. The opening shot - a 40 second focus on a piece of graffiti functions like an intertitle. The second shot, a four minute pan taken from a car as it drives along Landsberger Strasse in Munich's red light district recalls many of the actualité of the 1890s, most notably the Lumière's Leaving Jerusalem by Railway (1896). It also anticipates the longer shots from a car in Huillet and Straub's later work History Lessons (1972), not to mention Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976).

Then there is the third shot, even longer at 11 minutes than the two that went before it. In most other respects however the shot is different. The outside, street location is swapped for inside a small theatre. The moving camera is exchanged for a static one. The real life "set" becomes a deliberately artificial one with a drawn on looking door. Again this recalls early silent film, but here it is more the static tableaux of the early films such as Scrooge, or Marley's Ghost (1901) or the earlier versions of Pathé's Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1902 onwards). As with those film, the camera holds this mid-shot without moving for the entire shot, the main noticeable difference with those tableaux silents is that, as ever, Straub and Huillet have placed the camera off centre.

Furthermore whereas the earliest part of the previous shot started in silence before giving way to Bach's "Ascension Oratorio", here we lose the extra-diegetic music but gain audible dialogue. There's a brief moment of diegetic music when one of the characters slips a typical 1940s instrumental onto the record player and two of the characters begin to dance. It's a moment worth bearing in mind because it's easy to assume that that delivery of the play is without acting that is actually not quite correct. The speech that is delivered is more about rhythm than emotion, but it's not entirely deadpan and the characters movements whilst muted from what might be expected in conventional cinema, is still largely present. The characters stand, sit, smoke, twirl, come into and leave the room.

It's this section footage that was shot first. Straub was approached by Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Munich Action-Theatre group  to direct a theatre production of Ferdinand Bruckner's "Pains of Youth" (1926), and only agreed on condition that he could strip it down to its essentials. The filmed, live, footage (and it is live, even the two moments of blackout between scenes retain that atmosphere thanks to Huillet and Straub's insistence on live sound) is what we find in the film and whilst following the thread of the plot through the terse dialogue is tricky, it nevertheless forms the key to understanding the rest of the film. Fassbinder himself plays the pimp, and the link to the opening footage from the red-light district is apparent. He also portrays the pursuer in the final section of the film where the documentary like footage of the first section and the stage footage give way to a more conventional (but still rather unconventional and stripped down) sequence.

The final sequence contains more shots than the rest of the film put-together, and they are far shorter in duration. There's an opening shot outside a woman's flat where she kisses her lover goodbye. As he gets into the lift, the camera holds on it and we see it descend. The next shot captures Fassbinder waiting for the man in a VW Beetle outside. The car recalls the opening section where one of the cars that the camera overtakes is a similarly shaded Beetle. A car chase - shot Straub and Huillet style - ensues. The man leaves his car to flee on foot. The pimp catches him up, but give up when the man kicks him away. The man is then reunited with his lover and in the lengthiest shot in the sequence (some 5 minute or so) get married. They return home only to find Fassbinder waiting for him, whereupon the woman shoots him and then gazes out of the window (recalling a similar shot in Der Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach) as the (extra-diegetic) music of Bach's "Ascension Oratio" starts up again.

The three sections, then, unite and complete one another with their interaction. Straub/Huillet's films are always political, but the use of real-life documentary footage to frame the artificial theatre section and the dramatic cinema section makes this one of their more political films (not to mention the Mao quote emblazoned on the walls in the theatrical section). This is not simply an entertaining story about a woman escaping prostitution, it is born of a real-life scenario. Indeed if anything, the demonstrable artificiality of the final two sections highlights the improbability of such an escape in the real world. The woman saved from prostitution by a man who loves her, and by her taking her fate into her own hands is, in the majority cases, a fantasy as pristine as the footage from the church.

For such radical left-wing filmmakers religious imagery and references abound. The church footage here recalls that from Machorka Muff (1962), not least because of the diagonal, low angle of the camera (this time however, the couple is shot from the rear, and the church is more austere and less ornate) and of course is a regular feature of Anna Magdalena. Then of course there is Moses und Aron (1974) which speaks for itself, but there is also a reference to the law of Moses following the wedding ceremony here (which is taken from the writings of St. John of the Cross). And then, naturally, there are the words of the wedding ceremony and religious element behind the music of Bach's Ascension Oratorio which appears at the start and end of the film.

In honesty I didn't intend this article to be quite so long, but somehow I just find Huillet and Straub such fascinating filmmakers to write about. In some ways their shorter works are far more suited to this kind of blog-length analysis than their longer ones; the dense, intellectual nature of their films means that there is just too much to explore satisfactorily for the lengthier works. And for anyone who is interested in getting acquainted with this one - which until now has only been available on a French DVD - there's a chance to see it on the big screen on Wednesday (6th March), and it will be released by Grasshopper on Bluray and DVD as an extra for their  release of Der Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach).

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Although I've not cited them directly I owe a debt to the authors of the following words , from whom I've derived many of my ideas about it.
- Byg, Barton (1995) Landscapes of Resistance: The German Films of Daniele Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Pummer, Claudia (2016) "(Not Only) For Children and Cavemen: The Films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet" in Ted Fendt (ed.) Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet. Vienna, Filmmuseum Synema Publications, 2016.
- Roud, Richard (1972) Jean-Marie Straub. New York: The Viking Press.

L'uomo dalla croce (1943)

Back in 2014 I wrote a chapter for the book "The Bible in Motion" on the films of Roberto Rossellini. One of the biggest challenges in writing the chapter was tracking down enough of his films to be able to discuss. Since then the BFI and Criterion have released a number of his works, but there was one title in particular that I was disappointed not to be able to see as it sounded like it might be of some relevance: L'uomo dalla croce (The Man of the Cross, 1943).

The film was only Rossellini's third feature and came during what is often called his fascist period. For most of its existence Italian fascism was somewhat different from what was happening with the Nazis in Germany, such that communists, anti-fascists and fascists could mix without too much fear of reprisal.

Rossellini, himself never hugely political, was good friends with Vittorio Mussolini, son of Il Duce, indeed it was he who got him his big break into filmmaking. In later years, Rossellini was understandably keen to distance himself from his involvement with the fascists and there's precious little evidence to suggest he was took on their beliefs, even if he was closer to the dictator's son than either he, or many of his admirers care to discuss.

His films from this period, however, contain a surprising degree of ambiguity around their connection with fascism. Tag Gallagher, in his fine biography of Rossellini highlights the many ways that the three films he made at that time subvert expectations. Indeed he makes the point that it is hard to imagine an American film from that period including such criticisms of the military. Not everyone agrees, Peter Bondanella argues that some Rossellini scholars are a little too keen to read into these films subversive messages. I assume he's thinking of Gallagher, but have not read enough about the subject to know for certain.

Rossellini's two previous films La nave bianca (The White Boat, 1941) and La pilota ritorna (The Pilot Returns, 1942) had dealt with the navy and the air force respectively, so naturally the final instalment deals with the army. The story revolves around the Italian insurgence into Russian territory, but the film's was delayed for so long that by the time it was released the Italian army was very much on the back foot in chaotic conditions. The "man" of the title is Father Reginaldo Giuliani, an army chaplain, who stays behind in no-mans-land between the two warring armies to look after an injured soldier. The majority of the film takes place in a crowded, ramshackle cottage where the Italians mix with Russian peasants, themselves equally trapped.

As with the other two films in this trilogy, Rossellini includes elements that may well have not made it into and English or American movies from the same era. For example, it's difficult to think of a film by the allies where they show injured men being left behind at anything other than the victim's insistence, yet here it is the central element of the plot. Anyone seeking an unlikely double bill with Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge (2017) need look no further.

The brief behind my previous piece on Rossellini was to cover how he treated the Bible, and it took a slightly broader course than simply re-hashing my writing on Atti degli apostoli (Acts of the Apostles, 1969) and Il Messia (The Messiah, 1975), covering how relevant parts of films, even such as his biopic Blaise Pascal (1972), touched on the Bible. This film certainly touches on issue of faith and the Bible as much as Pascal, if not slightly more.

There are various moments that stand out in this respect. At one point, stuck in a bombed out cottage with a potent mixture of Italians and Russians, Giuliani refuses to treat the later any differently from how he would treat his compatriots. "I am a minister of God who is the Father of all men and even if they are hostile they are all brothers in his eyes" he argues at one point.

More to the point, however, is that Giuliani sees his role as a comforter, not least because there's a suggestion that God's salvation is already present for those who pursue it. Moments after Sergei, one of the leading Russians, dies, Father Giuliani comforts his partner Irina, urging her not to give up hope so they will be reunited, with the words:

"And God will tell you. And God will urge you. But if he was a man with goodness in his soul, then he is never truly gone. Before you give up you must shout, and you must plead with him. The Lord is always listening to you, up there in heaven. The Lord, who died on the cross for you, for your Sergei. Sergei, Sergei...God says to you: 'Bless those who cry for they must be consoled'"

Of course part of this portrayal is also propaganda. Italy hosts the headquarters of the Roman Catholic church, the faith of its army is a central point that contrasts strongly with the atheism that was the policy of the Russian state at the time. Indeed the opening credits of the film dedicate it to "the heroic chaplains fallen among the Godless in barbaric lands".

But perhaps the film's most memorable "biblical" moment - and I don't want to just reduce the film to that, as it's certainly about far more - is the birth of Sergei and Irina's child. It's here that the film's humble setting comes into it's own: the rural context means that animals are in the background, and hay abounds in the misè-en-scene all give this the feel of a certain stable in Bethlehem and the composition of Irina holding her child further reinforce the point. Moments later Giuliani gives the child a Christian baptism, just one of many examples of him performing the function of a priest amongst his people. The child is baptised with the name of Nicola, with its connotations of St Nicholas, who as well as his connection to the birth of Jesus is also the patron saint of Russia.

As much as the film nicely covers the essential bases of priesthood in the most unlikely of contexts - under fire in a remote part of atheist Russia, it never really gets beneath Giulliani's skin in the way later films do. To quote Tag Gallagher, by this early stage in his career "Rossellini is not yet a moviemaker with real people. His priest is an outline, his other characters bare figures in the chorus." (Gallagher, 105). In some ways it is that old problem of portraying goodness being far harder than portraying evil. Giulliani is more or less faultless even as he dies he crawls across the floor to whisper the words of the Lord's Prayer into his assassin's ear. He is far from the tormented ministers of Bergman's faith trilogy, or from a variety of movie priests who have struggled with their consciences.

Even with that said there is more to the portrayal of goodness than that. Three years later Rossellini's Roma, città aperta would revisit the heroic priest character, who similarly lacked the flaws of other movie ministers. Yet there, in the character of Don Pietro Pellegrini, Rossellini fashions a character of real depth as well as real goodness. In many ways Giulliani is his forerunner; the connection between the two is plain to see.

Having said all that, the film is not without its masterful moments. In particular, Rossellini shows his skill at recreating what looks like documentary footage. The battle scenes are particularly effective in this respect. There's something about them that I can't quite put my finger on that makes them seem so much more real than other war-action scenes, yet they are all dramatic reconstructions. Particularly striking in this respect is the shots of the Italian infantry moving in with their fire hoses ablaze. Even if Rossellini was not the finished article by this stage, his mastery of these scenes is already apparent and it was not long before his command of dialogue and social interaction would catch up.

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Gallagher, Tag (1998) The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini: His Life and Films New York: Da Capo Press.

Chronik der Anna Magdalena BachThe Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1967)

Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (1968) is the film that put the "and" in Straub and Huillet. Whilst it was the third of Straub's films to be completed, they started working on it well before they created Machorka-Muff (1963) and Not Reconciled (1965) and thus it was the first film that they worked on together. It was also their first feature length film. Machorka-Muff and Not Reconciled (both of which are included on Grasshopper's Moses und Aron disc release later this month) were 18 minutes and 55 minutes respectively.

It's fitting because Chronik tells the tale of Johann Sebastian Bach from the perspective of his wife Anna Magdalena and whilst the film never suggests Anna was a collaborator, there are scenes both of them working in close proximity and of her playing on her own. The vast majority of Straub and Huillet's work tended to be adaptations of a single work (in addition to Moses und Aron they also adapted Schöenberg's Von Heute auf Morgen (1997), as well as the Corneille play Othon (1969) and works by Brecht [History Lessons, 1972], Kafka [Class Relations, 1984] and the Italian poet Cesare Pavese [From the Clouds to the Resistance, 1979; These Encounters of Theirs, 2006]). Here, however, Chronik uses a variety of smaller sources, as whilst the film bears Anna Magdalena's name and is narrated by an actress playing her (Christiane Lang), none of her writings remain save a brief note at the bottom of a receipt. The note in question is shown part way through the film, as are a number of Bach's documents and other papers relating to him. The shots showing these are relatively short in comparison to the scenes of Bach and the musicians he is working with performing his work.

These scenes are notable for a number of reasons. In nearly all cases the scene consists of a lengthy single shot, and in generally the camera remains relatively static for the whole shot. One notable exception is the opening shot which starts with a close up on Bach (played by specialist musician Gustav Leonhardt) as he plays the opening solo part of "Brandenburg Concerto No. 5", before quickly zooming out to reveal his accompanying musicians at the moment at which they join in.

Another thing that is unusual about Straub's shots, both here and in many of his films, is the camera angles he adopts, most notably his diagonal shots. As Richard Roud explains "throughout the film he plays with binary symmetry, left-right polarity, and the changing direction of his diagonals both in the camera set-up and in the camera movements. In fact, one could comfortably claim that there is never an eye-level, straight-on shot in the film: the camera is always a little above or below the actors, either to the left or right." (Roud, 78)

But perhaps what is most striking about these shots is the way they ignore photographing any kind of audience for the performance. The focus is solely on the musicians (save for one piece which focuses instead on the organ pipes). Occasionally Anna's comments suggest an audience was at least present, but frequently even that knowledge is denied to the viewer. This has a great impact on how the film's audience react to the various pieces. Shorn of a stand-in audience to show us how to react, our reactions are our own. The focus is on the musicians and their own subtle movements.

The other things that these cameras catch is the carefully chosen locations. As Barton Byg explains Straub and Huillet's "choice of location is never arbitrary and is indeed preceded on the screenplays in some instances. The films then implore the physical traces of history that human activity leaves behind and confront these spaces with texts or musical pieces" (Byg, 55).Here we are treated to a series of 18th century church interiors as well as various shots inside the family home (though I do not believe this rooms shown here are the Bach's actual home).

That said, it would be a mistake to think that the film is an exact facsimile of how things really happened. Aside from the wigs, Leonhardt does not resemble Bach physically at all. On top of this, whilst Straub/Huillet's later films were more faithful to one particular source, here Anna's narration is drawn from, and inspired from various documents. Furthermore, the flat, unemotional delivery with which the actors deliver their lines (even when discuss the deaths of their children) is unlikely to have been how the real Anna would have referred to her lost children.

All of which very much puts the emphasis if the film on the music, the "most important element" according to Roud "but not its only subject" (1972: 65). It is also "a love story...a documentary on the actors and musicians of the film...[and] a film with social and political aspects" (Roud, 1982: 65). These and other aspects are all brought together under the film's title character. It might seem surprising to those who have not seen the film that it is named after Bach's wife and not the man himself. Yet as rigorous and "stripped down" as Straub and Huillet's film is, it still remains a subjective account. The story is told as a series of flashbacks as remembered by Anna Magdalena. She is the film's focus, even if her husband dominates the screen. Indeed "the central question posed by the film...is how the music of Bach (as a cultural treasure, religious expression, or simply pleasing music) can at all be connected to the physical life of a historical individual." (Byg, 62)

One scene is particularly notable in this respect. At the end of one of the longest of Anna's monologues, in which she recounts the deaths of three of her children and the family's move to Leipzig, we see Bach playing and conducting a choir and orchestra in the presence of the Prince. But here the other musicians are kept off screen. Even more strikingly, rather than the scene being filmed inside a church, stately house, or historical communal building, the exterior of Leipzig town hall is back-projected behind Leonhardt. The result looks extremely false, as if expressing Anna's disturbed state of mind at the time.

Despite all of the above Chronik has been described as Straub and Huillet's most accessible film. This is, no doubt, reflected in the fact that most people are at least slightly more aware of Bach's music than they are of, say, Schöenberg's atonal operas or Brecht's novels. Whilst it's austerity and complex ideas mean it's never found a wide audience, it does open up on repeated viewings. And unsurprisingly it has a good deal in common with Straub and Huillet's adaptation of Moses und Aron that was released just a few years later.
===============
Byg, Barton (1995) Landscapes of Resistance: The German Films of Daniele Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Roud, Richard (1972) Jean-Marie Straub. New York: The Viking Press.

Martin Luther in Film

Image from the 1913 film Die Wittenberger Nachtigall

Somehow the commemorations for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, specifically the German Lutheran Reformation, had almost passed without me realising it. I got there in the end, but it was only when I saw Kevin McLenithan's piece on Luther films for Think Christian, that I realised that of course this is something that I should have thought of doing. There's another good piece on the subject from Stephen Brown in The Church Times: The hero monk of Hollywood.

I suppose, then, that this is a bit of a copycat job, particularly as I don't have anything like the grasp on the subject matter as I do with the more biblically based hagiopics. However, I do have an advantage over both McLenithan and Brown - I have seen the most recent entry in the, um, canon, the German miniseries Reformation. So here's a whistle stop tour of the cinema of the German Reformation.

Doktor Martinus Luther (1911)

No known copies remain of this, the earliest film about Luther which premiered in Berlin in 1911 and was distributed by Deutsche Bioscop-Gesellschaft (Wipfler, 2011: 37). Its eighteen scenes, running to about 600m (20 minutes) emphasised his marriage and family life (Wipfler, 2011: 81). Interestingly the publicity for the film was at pains to stress that the film was "strictly objective - entirely free of attacks on members of other faiths" which suggests that Luther's critique of Cathiolicism might have been somewhat curtailed.

Martin Luther: His Life and Time (1923)

Like most of the silent films about Luther this one was made in German and directed by Karl Wüstenhagen, who also took the role of Luther. Unlike those other films, this one placed a heavy emphasis on the reformer's childhood. A reel or so of the film can be seen at YouTube - which originally ran to much longer - which is split between scenes of Luther's childhood and the matyrdom of Jan Hus a century or so beforehand (1415). It's one of the few times one of the other reformers ends up on screen. As Brown observes "who has ever seen a biopic about Calvin, Zwingli, or Knox?" (Brown). The original ran to 1961m - just over 6 reels or around 2 hours, so whilst the available 16 minutes covering Luther's youth may (or may not) be all that remains, it was just a reasonably proportionate introduction to a fuller treatment of his life.

Luther: Ein Film der deutschen Reformation (1927)

Hans Kyser wrote and directed this version which, according to this trailer on YouTube is due for a DVD release later this month after a restoration project by the German Federal Archive. Like Wüstenhagen's film, the opening scenes feature Luther's childhood before progressing to the scene where Luther promises to join the monastery if only he survives the thunderstorm in which he finds himself. But beyond his abduction after the Diet of Worms the story does not cover much of Luther's later life despite its 2 hour running time.

Martin Luther (1953)

Perhaps the benchmark for films about Luther is this 1953 film starring Niall MacGinnis (available at The Daily Motion). The opening credits stress its "careful research" and the film attempts to bolster that impression in various ways as the film unfolds. A key element in this is the authoritative, dispassionate narration that occurs throughout the film, providing details such as the precise date that Luther nailed his theses to the door, or context such as the fact that the door was "the customary place to post announcements". MacGinnis does a good job as a bullish, and not necessarily particularly likeable Luther and the early scenes do a good job of showing Luther's doubt and crisis of faith that drove him to find the answers that morphed into the driving force behind his work.

Martin Luther: Heretic (1983)

Norman Stone directed this television film (available at YouTube) to commemorate another reformation-related 500th anniversary, that of Luther's birth. It starred the ever watchable Jonathan Pryce as Luther, two years before his breakthrough with Brazil (1985). At 64 minutes, it's the shortest of the sound-era films, and the challenge of covering the critical areas of the story with the available time leads to some interesting decisions. The scene where Luther nails his theses to the Cathedral door lasts only few seconds, although in contrast to many versions of the story, it does actually include Luther's narrating some of these theses over a montage of them being printed and distributed. Two years later Stone would go on to make another TV film about another famed Christian author, C.S. Lewis, in his version of Shadowlands. He also directed Man Dancin' which attempted the same Passion Play/Christ figure combination as Jesus of Montreal, only set in Glasgow.

Luther (2003)

In all the books I have about historical films, this is the only film that gets a mention, and even then only once in Alex von Tunzelmann's Reel History: The World According to the Movies (History Grade B-, Entertainment grade D). As she points out this film's Luther (Joseph Fiennes) is grumpy not least because "Pope Julius II [is] blinging around town in shiny gold armour" (Von Tunzelmann, 2015: 96-97). Of all the films about Luther's life this is the one with the most impressive cast. In addition to Fiennes there are also turns by Peter Ustinov, Alfred Molina and Bruno Ganz. The production values are high and, for me, it has the most compelling version of the "I can do no other" speech. Fiennes, who starred in last year's Risen, would later summarise his role as "a man who stuck to his beliefs in the face of a massive hierarchy.”

Reformation (2017)

Produced by German television company ZDF and screened recently on BBC4, Reformation is a more gritty and violent take than any of the others. The threat of torture hangs behind every scene, and is to the fore in many. The focus here is broader than just Luther with part 2 of the miniseries focusing more on Thomas Müntzer, Karlstadt (who the programme calls by another of his names, Bodenstein) the Peasants' War and the Radical Reformation. Indeed if anything Müntzer comes out as more of a hero than Luther himself, recasting him as a modern fore-runner of modern day equality, daring to take things where Luther feared to tread. The film also places a far greater emphasis on the roles of both Luther and Müntzer's wives. For those in the UK, it's available on iPlayer until 15th November.

===============

Brown, Stephen (2017) "The hero monk of Hollywood" in Church Times, 30 Jun. Online edition available at:
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/30-june/features/features/the-hero-monk-of-hollywood

McLenithan, Kevin (2017) "Martin Luther at the Movies" at Think Christian. Available online:
https://thinkchristian.reframemedia.com/martin-luther-at-the-movies

Von Tunzelmann, Alex (2015) Reel History: The World According to the Movies, London: Atlantic Books

Wipfler, Esther Pia (2011) Martin Luther in Motion Pictures: History of a Metamorphosis, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

mother! (2017)

Hard quite to know what should be classified as a spoiler for this film. I've tried not to give too much away, but it's hard to discuss it without giving something away somewhere.

A phrase that's been repeated again and again as critics seek to make sense of Darren Aronofsky's mother! (2017) is for the need for more time to process things. It's a deeply unsettling film where the intense imagery is unceasing. Those are words that describe the emotional experience of watching it as opposed to a philosophical assessment based on it's use of biblical, and indeed numerous other, archetypes, because it's a film that perhaps above all else is designed to make its audience feel. Almost every shot is taken with in the confines of the tumbledown house that Jennifer Lawrence's titular 'mother' and her partner are seeking to repair. Of it's two hour running time, 66 minutes of it are on on Lawrence's face (Kermode and Mayo, 2017) and almost all of the remaining shots in the film are taken from her point of view. It's a performance that's gained wide praise from critics. Aronofsky himself has said that despite having "watched it hundreds of times, I'm always seeing little things that she's doing that I'm just like wow! I've never seen that before" (Kermode and Mayo, 2017). There's an intensity to the film, which combined with the whirling camera and the claustrophobic atmosphere make for extremely uncomfortable viewing.

What's interesting about mother! (small 'm', absolutely significant) is the way that on the one hand it presents the kind of film that feels unique and original (it's failure to conform to any one particular genre is doubtless part of the reason why many have dismissed it), whilst simultaneously being packed full of references and tributes to both other films and other stories. The archetypal references abound with resonances of God, Mother Earth, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Mary, "The Odyssey"'s Penelope and humanity itself rubbing shoulders with a more gnostic and eastern style philosophy.

At the same time it evokes such diverse films as The Amityville Horror, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rosemary's Baby, zombie movies and the work of Lars von Trier. Many have cited Buñuel's Exterminating Angel, but I see plenty of Viridana in it as well.

Yet at the same time as the cosmic elements of allegory and parable, it's also a story about two individuals, and our differing attitudes to our private spaces. It may be an Englishman's home that is supposed to be his castle, but this attitude clearly crosses gender and continental divides.

OK real spoilers from here on 
Having watched this film in close proximity to a further viewing of Noah the portrayal of the Javier Bardem's character, - Him, a God/creator type character - is clearly at the forefront of my mind. Here the character is a selfish narcissist. Him is so wrapped up in garnering praise for himself he is unable to see the damage it is inflicting on what we ultimately discover is his greatest creation. Strangers appear at his door out of nowhere. Are they, too his creations, created to stroke his ego. Is Aronofsky suggesting that God is at least partly culpable for the damage that is being inflicted on our planet? Certainly there's criticism of those that turn up and take from Mother's paradise without considering how their actions are destroying it. End spoilers

Ultimately, such readings are only those that occur to me. What is great about Aronofsky bizarre and ambiguous work is that it will speak differently to different people. The downside is that so many are horrified by it they don't like what they see.

The Death of Louis XIV (2017)

Being a fan of Rossellini's The Rise to Power of Louis XIV, a regular viewer of the BBC's Versailles and having previously enjoyed director Albert Serra's El cant dels ocells (Birdsong), I've been keen to see his The Death of Louis XIV for sometime. And then there's that Truffaut box set I just bought, laden with actor Jean-Pierre Léaud's earlier work.

Unsurprisingly Serra's take on Louis lies far closer to Rossellini's version of the story than the BBC's. The slow, long takes and minimal drama that so typified Birdsong and much of Rossellini's later work is on display again here. The opening few scenes show Louis struggling to be taken even to different locations in the palace. Thereafter, he is confined to his bed as he makes his slow transition from this life to the next. France's leading physicians, and the odd quack, try their remedies in an attempt to fight off the gangrene that has set in, but it's all to no avail.

Whilst this is undoubtedly one film that doesn't require spoiler warnings, it's interesting to consider, briefly the other ways in which this chapter in history could have been filmed. Rather than confining itself almost solely to Louis' quarters, with him present in almost every shot, another telling of the story could have focussed on the political jostlings going on in and around court; or the reaction in the surrounding kingdoms. Here however the emphasis is almost entirely on Louis, and particularly his failing body. The Sun King is revealed to be as human as the rest of us after all. Death overtakes him as it overtakes us all. In many ways the film is not so dissimilar to The Death of Mr Lazarescu or The Barbarian Invasions, only with a greater audience. The kingdom and the world beyond may be holding its breath, but all that matters is one man's life is coming to an end. It's a story told too in minute detail from a linger shot of a tray of false eyes, to Louis' slowly blackening toes, to the increasing grimness of his servants faces as they gradually begin to realise nothing can be done.

The film's other notable feature is its lighting and cinematography, which gorgeously recreates the atmosphere of the era's Baroque paintings. Serra, and his cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg, manage to strike a delicate balance between the grimness of portraying death in close up and crating beautiful art. It would be easy for one element to overpower the other, to prettify the reality of death, or to cram the film with grotesque imagery. The end result never lets us forget that Louis was both an ordinary person and an exceptional one.

Cleopatra (1934) and What it Says about DeMille

Whilst Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra (1934) may not quite be a biblical film it's worth of a few words of consideration here not only because it features at least one biblical character (Herod the Great), but also because it's one DeMille's string of ancient world films with at least connotations of the biblical epic and it's really rather revealing.

The biblical links, such as they are pretty much come down to a brief cameo by Herod the Great in the second half of the film. The first half looks at Cleopatra's relationship with Julius Caesar and is brought to a halt by his murder at the senate. There are a couple of shots here that look like they may have influenced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar (1953), miost notably the ones where Brando's Mark Antony address the crowd. (Though it's possible they both depend on an independent source such as a painting).

Antony (long-time DeMille collaborator Henry Wilcoxon) arrives in Egypt and is quickly met by Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) who pulls out all the stops to try and impress him. It's not quite an orgy scene as per Sign of the Cross (1932), but it fulfils more or less the same function. More of that later. Whatever her methods Cleopatra manages to ensnare Mark Antony which begins to become a problem in Rome as Octavian accrues more power and then Herod arrives. It's perhaps hardly surprising. This was a rare romantic leading role for Wilcoxon whereas Colbert was, by then a big star.

After The Sign of the Cross and her Oscar-winning performance in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (Columbia, 1934), Claudette Colbert was considered ideal for the role of CLeopatra, and no-one else was seriously considered. But the glorified ingenue of two years before was now a bona fide superstar, and Colbert's new status would create problems on the set during production. (Birchard 2004: 277)

We know from Josephus that Herod's not only knew Antony, but also had to utilise his political manoeuvring skills to the best of his ability during his benefactor's demise. DeMille condenses this into just a few short scenes. Herod arrives as the guest of Cleopatra (with whom he shared the rights to extracting asphalt from the Dead Sea) and immediately passes on a message from Rome that she ought to consider poisoning her lover. Cleopatra is appalled. It's a surprise, then, when Herod appears in the next scene with Mark Antony and tells him the whole thing. On the surface he is offering reassurance that Cleopatra would never dream of such a thing, but of course he's attempting to sow seeds of doubt in their relationship. It's notable that Cleopatra is marginally less horrified when one of her courtiers suggests shortly afterwards that it would probably be best for the nation if she did as Octavian asked.

Of course none of this is in the Bible - happening thirty years before Jesus' death, but it's not inconsistent of the man who seems so desperate to cling onto power that Matthew portrays him as murdering the infants of an entire village in order to eliminate threats to his throne. Interestingly Herod does not feature in either the Theda Bara/William Fox's silent Cleopatra (1917) which was difficult to come by even in DeMille's day (Birchard 2004: 277) or the 1963 Liz Taylor and Richard Burton version (which proved to be one of the death knells of the epic genre in general. DeMille's film was a big success).

For DeMille fans however there's a great deal of interest here, particularly in that not-quite-an-orgy scene. As Lindsay says, "no-one did an orgy like DeMille" (2015: 75). When Mark Antony arrives Cleopatra welcomes him aboard her boat. There then begins a series of seductions, starting with a half-hearted solo effort. When this fails to improve his mood she coyly confesses that she is dressed "to lure you in" and resorts to a more ego stroking "of course you're too clever to fall for all this routine".

To show her supposed naivety she outlines her "plan" and shows him all that she had lined up including half naked women writhing around on top of an ox. Then a giant net is hauled upon her ship supposedly containing clams, but actually including more semi-clad women bearing clams full of jewels and when Cleopatra, and then Antony, start flinging the jewels around scantily clad servants of both sexes roll around on the floor to get hold of them. Shortly afterwards women dressed as leopards from the waist up appear, roll around on top of one another and start to cartwheel thorough flaming hoops.

All of this is done in a knowing 'this wouldn't possibly work on a soldier such as you' type of way, perhaps best summed up by the conversation between the two of them:

Mark Antony: I hope that you know that I know you want me to do this.
Cleoptra: Dear Antony, I hope you think I know that you know I know
(they giggle together)

What's interesting about this knowing scene is that what Cleopatra is seeking to do to Mark Antony mirror what DeMille is trying to do to his audience, namely titillate them whilst giving lip service to their supposed immovability to such tacky, seductive fare.

The key difference between this film and others that are usually bracketed alongside of it is the moral message that DeMille usually tacks on. In his biblical films the orgy scenes are usually used as to contrast with the behaviour of the godly. It's a fairly transparent device which has been much commented on - use sex to sell the movie and then tag on a moral message to deflect the criticism. But "if one is paying attention, the sex and sadism in The Ten Commandments is almost unbelievable for a film with such strong Sunday school credentials" (Lindsay 2015: 75)

What I can't quite decide is if DeMille's work here is less acceptable, because without that redemptive message then really various scenes here are just mild porn; or more acceptable, because at least they're not fundamentally hypocritical.

You'll have noticed a couple of references above to Richard Lindsay's book "Hollywood Biblical Epics: Camp Spectacle and Queer Style from the Silent Era to the Modern Day" which I have just finished reading and so naturally it informed some of my thoughts about DeMille, specifically this film.

Lindsay argues that scenes such as these were "perhaps reflecting his own predilections" (Lindsay 2015: 38). To his mind both "DeMille and Gibson are 'queer' in the sense that their sexual desires, as revealed on screen, do not conform to traditional notions of sexuality as defined by traditional Christian communities." (2015: xxviii). Whereas most commentators tend to take a cynical view that DeMille was just trying to sell sex and dressing it up Lindsay is convinced "DeMille truly believed in the power of the Ten Commandments and the figure of Moses as a moral force for good..." (2015: 61), but that he was a truly conflicted individual.

"The camp content of his films has often been interpreted as an expression of the conflict between his Victorian piety and his interest in BDSM...practised with a "harem" of women outside his marriage. The misogyny, sadism, and overwrought melodrama of his epics seems to follow naturally from his own passions...so blatant a part of every DeMille film." (Lindsay 2015: 38)

For Lindsay, DeMille is perhaps best summed up in the sequence from towards the end of The Ten Commandments where "defining the conflicted impulses of his entire body of work, he cuts between Moses on the Mountain receiving the Law and the sexed-up orgy" (2015: 75)

I think this film is the most blatant indication of DeMille's desires, not just because of this one scene, but in the way the male gaze is so overwhelming in every scene. As Cleopatra, DeMille has Claudette Colbert (who "was ill during most of the production") dressed in a series of ridiculously over-sexualised and revealing costumes. (Higham 1973: 176-77).The audience is repeatedly encouraged to gaze on Colbert as Julius Caesar and Mark Antony did.

It's also interesting because, shorn of the biblical element a number of DeMille's auteurist touches become more apparent, the line from Logan's Magdalene, through Colbert's Poppea and Lamarr's Delilah to Baxter's Nefertiri is complete. Each of these glamorous women is frequently photographed in loose but scant flowing costumes, surrounded by supposedly men who lose their power in her presence. We get vast palaces. We get jewels. We get leopards as pets, or servants clad in leopard skin.

And of course usually we get another "DeMille signature--scenes of naked women in bathtubs". (Lindsay 2015: 9) Yet strangely, despite the fact that sources as far back as Pliny and Cassius Dio have suggested that Cleopatra used to bathe in asses' milk, this is the one thing that DeMille doesn't show here, perhaps because showing Colbert in a milk bath had already got him into hot water.

Having said all that, I want to end this piece with a nice take on this aspect of DeMille's work from a series of posts on Twitter by Fritzi Kramer (@MoviesSilently) which compares DeMille's supposed shortcomings with his predecessor D.W. Griffith.

Most people assume that his mixture of faith & sleaze was entirely calculating. His background says otherwise. DeMille is an almost perfect split between his flamboyant actress/agent mother & his bookish lay minister father. He was immersed in theater. But his great treat was when his father (who died young) would read to him from the bible in evenings. DeMille's religious beliefs were not exactly in the mainstream but they were from the heart. The conflict between faith & trash was very real for him. He loved both.

So when people like Lillian Gish & DW Griffith deliver these snotty little slams indicating that DeMille was a hypocrite, it's annoying. DeMille's faith was genuine but it was in conflict with his adoration of spectacle & frank love of trash. That's what makes him interesting. He approaches religious subjects from a place of knowledge, he just has an off-kilter take. And leopard skin. Oh did he love ladies in leopard. I relate to DeMille because I have similar internal conflicts & I find his way of dealing with his to be fascinating.

Also, his healthy relationship with his mother is probably responsible for his very woman-centric creative team in the silent era. If you want to see what DeMille could do when he had a mask of anonymity, do check out Chicago. The film is snappy, saucy & spicy. DeMille knew his way around a fast-paced crowd-pleaser. I guess the point of all this is that I wish people would give DeMille the same benefit of the doubt they give other directors. DW Griffith makes rapey films glamorizing the KKK & he gets every excuse under the sun. DeMille likes sexy shoes & the bible. I can tell you which one I would be more comfortable taking an elevator ride with.

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Birchard, Robert S. "Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood". (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004).
Higham, Charles "Cecil B. DeMille, an Uncensored Biography". (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973).
Lindsay, Richard "Hollywood Biblical Epics: Camp Spectacle and Queer Style from the Silent Era to the Modern Day". (Denver, CO: Praeger, 2015).

La Vie de Jesus (1997)

The title of Bruno Dumont's La Vie de Jesus (The Life of Jesus, 1997) may catch the eye of those like me, but its biblical themes are far more subtle than the title would immediately suggest.

La Vie de Jesus is about Freddy, a rebellious teenager from a deprived area of rural France. He hangs out with his mates, has sex with his girlfriend (Marie), moans at his mum and plays the drums for his marching band. He also has a form of epilepsy which limits his employment possibilities and leaves him reliant on his mates to go out.

Whilst the film caused a degree of controversy when it was first released for his close-ups of penetrative sex, it's actually the racism of Freddy and his mates that proves the most uncomfortable. Yet when the group of them racially abuse, what they assume is, an Arab family, the son (Kader) decides to try and woo Marie - an act that eventually leads to him being beaten by Freddy and his mates and left by the side of the road.

There are three Jesus-related images in the film which gran the attention and remind us of its enigmatic title. The first is as the brother of one of Freddy's friends lies dying in the hospital. Another friend spots a painting of the resurrection of Lazarus and tries to draw Freddy's attention to it. "Have you seen the picture" the friend asks "its the story of a guy who came back to life". "Shut up" Freddy replies. There's seemingly no place amongst this group of friends for Jesus the bringer of life.

Yet a little unexpectedly it's a shot of the beaten and bloody Kader that provides the film's next Jesus-esque image and we're reminded that Jesus was not the one that we/they expect(d). He was a despised outsider. That said, shortly afterwards there's a shot of Freddy (above) that also seems to chime with traditional images of Jesus.

A friend of mine, Mike Leary, has written a short piece on this film and its use of the name Jesus in the book "Light Shining in a Dark Place" and the relevant section can currently be read on Google books.

The Young One (1960)

I've been watching quite a bit of Luis Buñuel recently and just finished watching The Young One (1960). Without giving too much away a significant part of the plot hangs on the presence of a priest, which is noteworthy for two reasons.

Firstly because Buñuel is so often seen as anti-clerical, but here, whilst not handling things exactly as we in the 21st century would perhaps hope, the priest is still a somewhat heroic figure, who achieves some good by risking at least his own reputation and perhaps even his life. There are odd and perhaps feeble aspects to him as well, but they serve to make him more human and realistic, rather than despicable. I'm reminded of the way that so many see Buñuel's critique of the priesthood/idealised religion as solely negative but here, this is a primarily positive impact. This rather bolsters my position on Nazarin (1959) which is that Nazarin is a three-dimensional impression of a religious leader - albeit a very flawed one.

The other pint of interest here is that the actor playing the priest is none other than Claudio Brook who also starred in Exterminating Angel (1962) and Simón del desierto [Simon of the Desert] (1965) for Buñuel and then as Jesus in the Mexican Jesus film Jesús, nuestro Señor (1969). Simón del desierto is next in my next destination for my Buñuel journey and I really must get around to seeing (and reviewing) Jesús, nuestro Señor sometime soon.

The Wolf of Wall Street vs Last Temptation of Christ

I finally managed to catch up with Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street last night and as I'm also preparing a talk on his Last Temptation of Christ I was looking out for similarities between Wolf and Scorsese's other work, particularly his Jesus biopic.

As you might expect, whilst the lead characters fall on different sides of the goodie/baddie threshold, one of the key areas of similarity is the plot. So both films are essentially buddy movies featuring a character from an ordinary background who early on teams up with a partner who will hold significant say in their vocation. The partner provides the rational scheming as a foil to the lead's natural charisma and sense of, for want of a better word, showmanship. The pair quickly gather a overly dedicated bunch of disciples - men who are prepared a high price to be followers of the lead - and their vocation develops rapidly, as they defy the status quo to provide a new way of doing things. Both stories are told very much from within the bubble of these communities. In neither case do we see behind the scenes of those establishments which have traditionally been seen as the trusted experts within Judaism/Wall Street. Their success is so great that both groups rapidly end up in over their heads, struggling to cope and drawing the attention of the authorities. The authorities deal with them swiftly, dispassionately but without really breaking stride. Kyle Chandler's FBI agent is no more bothered or threatened by bringing down The Wolf than he would be if he had all of David Bowie's Roman legions at his disposal.

There are other similarities as well. As with many Jesus films Last Temptation features a meeting with John the Baptists. Here it's a single conversation where the Baptists passes on all his wisdom. Here we have the Matthew McConaughey figure who functions in a similar fashion. In the aftermath of both encounters the Jesus/Wolf figure finds himself in a wilderness of sorts having to start from scratch.

Of course any director of note will also use the other tools at his disposal to reinforce his themes. The most obvious of which here is the Wolf's habit of adopting a cruciform pose, most memorably as he enters his office with a broad smile on his face and his arms spread almost as wide. Then there's the way that Scorsese uses nudity as a shortcut for decadence. And that both films rely on a voice-over from their protagonist. Indeed there are also moments when the audio stops being the "realistic" sound we would normally expect, or the soundtrack and becomes either silent or only some of the sounds that would be expected from the scenario - a more expressionistic audio channel if you will.

Scorsese's work also repeats certain visual ideas in many of his films. He's particular keen on freeze frames, and slow motion shots, both of which make appearances here although are used more sparingly in Last Temptation. But we do get the kind of accelerated swooping zooms in which accompanies Jesus' first voice-over.

I suspect the internet will full of other such similarities but these will do for now.

Heston, DeMille and The Greatest Show on Earth

Four years before The Ten Commandments Charlton Heston and Cecil B. DeMille teamed up for a different kind of big film The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). It was the only best picture Oscar of DeMille's career and such a huge hit that without it Ten Commandments might never have been made.

At the time, Heston was a relative unknown, who managed to get the part after DeMille saw him on the lot at the studio. But Heston holds the film together, despite his inexperience. There's much here that echoes his portrayal as Moses. in the first part of The Ten Commandments Moses is shown to be an expert master builder marshalling an army of people to pull off an incredible feat of erecting Egypt's ancient buildings and there's much of that here too. Such is the size of the circus here that its often been show that it's the circus that us the real star if the show.

Then there's Brad/Moses' drive, focussed on the end goal and not easily swayed from his vision of the right outcome by personal sacrifices of those close to him. Several time in The Greatest Show on Earth the comment is made that he instead of blood he has sawdust in his veins,and a similar trait appears after Moses' encounter with the burning bush, where he's so focussed on freeing the Israelites that he leaves his wife behind and pains Ramsees whom he clearly cares for a great deal.

There's also the love triangle in both films Heston is loved by two women, seems largely detached from deep feeling for either of them, but ultimately leaves one of them disappointed (although they both marry someone else). I can't quite put my finger on the exact similarity between Gloria Grahame and Anne Baxter, aside from them being stars of key films noir, but there's a certain girl-next door approachability about them both even though one is a Princess and the other rides elephants.

For DeMille's part there's no 10 minute prologue in The Greatest Show on Earth as there is in The Ten Commandments, but DeMille does do the voice overs, moving the story at several key points and revelling in the kind of pomposity that so defines his films in general.

The performances are pretty good, though Jimmy Stewart steals the show in a role that ultimately makes me wondered if it influenced the performance of another Moses actor, Burt Lancaster, 37 years later in Field of Dreams. Also, as influence on later films goes I cant help wondering if one of the more memorable lines from Donnie Darko owes a debt to one exchange featuring Stewart.

But it is the circus tricks that really sets this apart from its contemporaries, particularly as these days films want to be able to say "no animals were harmed in the making of this film". Circuses have a reputation for animal cruelty - though it's possible that many are cruelty free - but it has to be conceded that many of the scenes of animals doing things were hugely impressive and, for anyone born after 1952, this is as guilt-free a way of seeing such spectacular achievements as I can think of.

So if you've not seen it, I would recommend it. It's not a Bible film as such but informs The Ten Commandments a little and it showcases DeMille and Heston at the top of their games.

Nazarin (1959)

Luis Buñuel is one of a small group of directors whose work started in the silent era and ran way into the 1970s. As a big fan of another member of that exclusive club - Alfred Hitchcock - it’s tempting to get drawn into comparisons between the two, not least because spiritual issues in general and their Jesuit Catholic educations in particular, were major influences on their work.

I suspect that the attitudes to both men to questions of faith varied throughout their long careers. Certainly the harsh critique of religion in Buñuel’s La Voie lactée (The Milky Way), where religion is a monstrous edifice built of false foundations, is in stark contrast to Nazarin where Buñuel finds sympathy for his religiously motivated lead, even if he implies that such a lost cause is an indication of the absence of God.

It’s an unusual premise. Priests in movies tend towards one of two positions depending on the filmmakers’ prior beliefs: good priests whose example and ministry hint at the possibility of a good and gracious God; or bad priests whose sins typify the absence of God and, for the filmmaker at least, the murky motivations of many of those who have gained from abusing their position.

Here however Buñuel presents us with a priest who distils the very best of all those movie priests but uses his ineffectiveness and naiveté to question the existence of God. In part it’s an inversion of the Job story, whereby despite God’s servant living exactly as he ought to, he ends up downtrodden and cursed, repeatedly causing harm not only to himself, but also those around him. There’s no upbeat ending however and ultimately it’s God, rather than his servant, that ends up in the dock.

Yet it’s also a subversion of the example of Christ. Father Nazario is the very epitome of someone following in the footsteps of Jesus. He protects and attempts to reform the prostitute Andara; he frequently gives all his money away; he takes upa job only to leave it when he realises his appointment means others might go without; and he continues to preach the gospel to anyone that will listen. He even resists being called upon to miraculously heal a feverish girl, prays anyway, and then denies responsibility when she is healed.

Yet, that incident aisde, instead of a successful ministry Nazario finds only failure and rejection. Indeed Buñuel even strips him of his chance to be a martyr. He’s imprisoned by the authorities, bound and due to March to court, but then at the last minute separated from the other prisonners and allowed to travel unfettered and accompanied by a guard out of uniform. Whilst Nazario is not exactly free, he is no longer fearing for his life. Indeed this is one of the few Christ-figure films that neither ends with the death of the protagonist, nor even photographs them in a cruciform pose.

He does however manage to incur the wrath of the political and religious authorities. The church is scandalised by his relationship with the two women who accompany him, Beatriz and Andara. Andara is a former prostitute, Beatriz has psychotic episodes - including one where she imagines a picture of Jesus coming to life and mocking her - but both become devoted to Father Nazario and follow him everywhere..

However, much to his annoyance, the source of their devotion is not his teaching, despite his frequent chastisement, indeed ultimately Beatriz returns to her abusive lover Pinto. In the final scene she is shown falling asleep on his shoulder as they ride past a bedraggled Father Nazario en route as he walks the long road to face the authorities.

I say “authorities”, but by this stage the religious authorities have long made up their minds. Even at the start of the film he is considered something of a loose cannon, operating without a parish, By the end they consider him “reckless”, a “rebel spirit” affected by “madness”. Many parts of the film are damning of the church, but none more so that the penultimate scene where one of the bishop’s representatives tells him that “your habits contradict those of priests. Your ways confront the church which you claim to love and obey.”

What’s interesting about the film is where it finishes, further along the road to judgement Nazrio is given a pineapple by a fruit seller. DIfferent writers have interpreted this in different ways. Some see it as symbolic of the crown of thorns, others as suggestive of a handgrenade and still others as a nod to the fruit of the tree of good and evil from the Garden of Eden. At first Nazrio rejects it, but then he changed his mind and acepts the women’s charity, walking on with a troubled, although rather ambiguous look on his face. Has he realised for the first time that he is a human who needs others as much as they need him? Or is this his realisation of the absence of God.

Either way, ending at this point reminds me of how the ministry of Jesus must have looked like at this point. Despised and rejected, imprisoned by corrupt political authorities after the religious authorities have washed their hands of him. Rumours of him healing people in the past pale into insignificance the numbers of those who cheered him have dwindled away to just a prostitute and a mad woman. And even then they can’t stay awake at the crucial moment.

Christianity, of course, centres on the notion that this was not the end of the story. But for a while, at least, things must have seemed as bleak as they do at the end of Nazarin.

Scrooge Films, Poverty and the Bible

I did a talk a few weeks ago on different film portrayals of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and how they relate to the issue of poverty and the Christian message. I chose the reading of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16 as I have a hunch that it was somewhere in Charles Dickens’ mind when he wrote “A Christmas Carol”. Perhaps he wondered what would have happened if Abraham had been overruled? Certainly Dickens’ Yuletide yarn is eerily similar to today’s gospel reading. Both are parables about rich men and about the importance of how we treat those in need. Like Luke’s story Marley realises too late the dreadful error he has made, but in Dickens' novel Marley is allowed to warn his friend, Ebenezer Scrooge the peril he faces if he does not change his ways and seek “to interfere for good, in human matters” or to make “mankind his business”. "A Christmas Carol" is, in many ways, an extended parable.

As someone who has been reviewing films for the last decade you get used to people talking about the movies as 21st century parables. There’s a lot of discussion about what parables actually are. But by taking a moral issue and forging it into drama, parables help us to examine the ins and outs of that issue in ways that can be fresh, challenging and surprising. They give us fresh perspective and help us grapple with questions that may have ceased to grab us. And this is an ongoing process. Some scholars believe that in telling this parable Jesus himself was putting a fresh spin on an even older story. Dickens in turn made those issues more contemporary for his audiences and for more than 110 years different film directors have sought to take Dickens’ work and cast it in a new light for the people of their own day.

And ‘A Christmas Carol’ does seem to be particularly suitable to adapt. Of the 324 screen portrayals of Scrooge’s story on IMDB, at least 70 were based on ‘A Christmas Carol’, almost twice as many as adaptations of Oliver Twist and 3½ times as many as any of the others. Does I counted 7 playing on terrestrial TV over the Christmas period in the UK. The latest of which was made in 2009 starring Jim Carrey. It’s in 3D reflecting one of the ways this story adapts well to the fashions of its day.

Go back a few years and you’ll find Patrick Stewart starring in a version rich in CGI. In 1928 at the advent of sound the first Dickens talkie was "A Christmas Carol" and if you go back to the very first version of this story, from 1901 you’ll see how it uses very primitive special effects which were starting to be discovered. The BFI have made this film freely available on YouTube, and it's worth remembering that the film was made over a century ago in 1901, far closer to the publication of the original novel than to today.

The apparitions that fly past at around the 1m45s mark rely on people knowing the story, but essentially they show the events of the Christmases past that have shaped Scrooge. The first shows his return to his father’s house after years of spending Christmas at his decrepit school. His beloved sister welcomes him back. The second, with impressive economy shows the end of his relationship with Miss Fezziwick, who finds herself squeezed out by Scrooge’s pursuit of financial security.

It’s not something that is talked about often, but I think these two scenes are pivotal in the story of Scrooge’s life. Why else does the ghost, or if you prefer Dickens, choose to show us them? The villain we meet at the start of the story was not ever so. He was a rejected child even spending Christmas day at school, and a poor school at that - Dickens describes the decrepit school and classrooms at some length and noting that there was "not too much to eat". These early events seem to have shaped Scrooge quite significantly.

There’s sometimes a lot of talk about child poverty today in Britain. Government figures suggest that the number of children living in poverty is between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3. And such poverty doesn’t just have an effect on their past deprivation, or their present hunger, it affects their future health and shapes their attitude to life. They all too often believe that poverty is their lot in life, and lacking hope and aspiration settle for life at the bottom of the pile. No wonder the UK has one of the worst records on social mobility in the western world. Despite the occasional heart warming rags to riches story, the reality is that for the vast, vast majority, those who are born poor will, in all likelihood, remain that way.

Perhaps unexpectedly, Scrooge is one of those success stories. A poor apprentice who rises to run a successful business and grow wealthy. But “how profits a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?” Seemingly hurt by his childhood rejection and poverty, Scrooge’s brief foray into the warmth of love of his family and colleagues is slowly smothered by his desperation to avoid the poverty that afflicted his childhood. It’s not apparently greed but a yearning for security that drives a wedge between him and his finance. It’s a pivotal point in the story of his life:

From here Scrooge is done for. Having grown up in isolation he has learned to cope with it and since the death of his sister also seems to have occurred around this time, he seems to have retreated into isolation once more consumed by a desire to avoid poverty. As he explains “there is nothing on which (the world) is so hard as poverty”.

It’s not long before the next apparition - the Ghost of Christmas Present - is taking him to the household of his employee Bob Cratchitt. It’s arguably the most famous scene in a story crammed with iconic moments, but it relevance to Scrooge is easily over-looked. Firstly, here is a child also in poverty, but whose father has taken a different path to that of Scrooge’s father. Instead of sending him away, Tiny Tim is kept in the bosom of his loving family. Secondly, Crachitt’s family live in poverty, but have found the happiness that so seems to have eluded Scrooge. Tim has flourished despite his apparent adversity. Thirdly, I suspect there’s something of a grudging admiration for the fact that Crachitt has never begged - Scrooge is amazed to find out about Crachitt’s sickly child. These, I think, are what underlie Scrooge’s turn around rather than simply Tim’s cute way of saying “God bless us every one”.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that this part of the novel is where the brunt of its scriptural allusions are found. Most significantly Tim’s hopes for his presence in church which I’ll quote here “he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”

Given the course of the rest of this story this line is pretty significant. Prior to the haunting of Scrooge, Tim is on course for an early death, but as Dickens tell us in closing the book, Scrooge’s repentance and intervention means that Tim lives to a good age. And so there’s an interesting implication that whilst Jesus has apparently not healed Tim directly, Scrooge has been able to be a vessel for God’s purposes. By using his money to make a difference to Tim’s life he has stepped into the role of healer.

I don’t know what your views on God’s healing today are, but Dickens’ subtle suggestion is that by being more generous with what we have, we can actually change the life chances of those in poverty. It is as true in our own day as it was in his. On average, the 20% most deprived people in this country will die 7.5 years before earlier than the richest 20%, and in some places it’s even more extreme. In fact whilst we like to think our world has changed since Dickens’ day, it’s rather depressing to see just how relevant the book is to our world. Some films have sought to narrow that gap for us, such as the 1988 film Scrooged starring Bill Murray, or ITV’s modernisation on the story from the year 2000 starring Ross Kemp. Even the perennial Christmas Classic It’s a Wonderful Life is an inversion of the story. Yet so much of the original novel is relevant in its own right. Take for example an early scene where Scrooge is approached by two men seeking to help the poor. His arguments are not a million miles away from those that some offer today. (Here’s the scene as portrayed in the 1984 version starring George C Scott.)

There are no longer any workhouses or debtors prisons, but teachers still regularly encounter kids without beds at home or that come to school hungry - I’ve had reports of that from a teacher I know who works at a nearby school just a couple of miles away. Yet some people today when faced with the plight of those living in poverty still resort to these same tactics - denying the problem, convincing themselves that paying their taxes absolves them of any further responsibility, or claim that they are all idle. It’s disturbing how many newspapers and politicians are content to peddle the myth that the poor are idle, despite the fact that more than half of all children living in poverty in this country are from working households. And whilst the phrase "surplus population" is more in line with Thomas Malthus than any of our current populations there does seem to be a shift away from seeing children are a gift from God towards them being a burden on the tax payer.

The words Scrooge speaks here are repeated tauntingly by the Spirit of Christmas Present later on, as Scrooge’s heart begins to soften they remind him of how awful some of his attitudes have been. In fact it appears that Scrooge has been isolated from the realities of poverty in his own day. Faced with the image of the starving children "Ignorance" and "Want" he is horrified and gasps "have they no refuge or resource"?

"If you deny him, slander those who tell others about him, admit he exists but do nothing about him." The reality is that in our country it is scarily easy to become isolated from those living below the poverty line. Listen to any public debate about poverty and someone will cite poor houses with satellite dishes - as if they have done a properly sampled survey on the issue rather than just noticed them on houses in areas they wouldn’t care to live as they drive hastily by.

Scrooge’s about turn is radical, but the question that should haunt us is would it take such an extreme turn of events to soften our hearts to the very real suffering around us and amongst us? Poverty has a ghost of the past, and of the present, what are we prepared to do to ensure it has no future? Are we prepared to act at a cost to ourselves to alleviate the suffering around us?

I don’t know whether Dives and Lazarus were any more real than Scrooge and Crachitt. But Jesus, Dickens and the filmmakers that have followed in their footsteps have acted from the conviction that it’s in this world that we have to address the problems of poverty in our world. We can’t leave it until after we’re dead.