45 Years

45 YEARS (Haigh, 2015)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Mar 7, 2017

Review by Christopher S. Long

In Andrew Haigh's relationship drama “45 Years” (2015), Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff (Tom Courtenay) Mercer while away their days in a pleasant if uneventful retirement in rural Norfolk; their main project is the preparation for their impending forty-fifth anniversary party with friends and family eager to help the happy couple celebrate their long journey together. It's quickly obvious that Kate is the calm, pragmatic planner in the marriage, but she didn't plan for the arrival of a letter that informs Geoff of a shocking discovery related to his past. His already eccentric behavior becomes increasingly erratic, and Kate's determined effort to unearth the reasons behind his deterioration will bring explanations, but not solace.

Level-headed Kate slowly but surely becomes increasingly rattled, though it's not easy to tell exactly why this particular news hits her so hard. Perhaps she's most disturbed by the unpleasant reminder that even an equilibrium established through forty-five long years of hard work and compromise can be so inherently unstable. Rampling earned a myriad of awards for her slow, simmering performance that never quite boils over, but still leads to a dramatic and definitive breakdown. I have to admit I didn't find her series of icy, increasingly hostile stares to be all that compelling, or even convincing, particularly in a final scene that felt forced to me, as if it was the one moment Haigh determined to work toward before planning anything else in his adaptation of David Constantine's short story, “In Another Country.”

On multiple occasions I wondered, “What in the hell is she so upset about?” The chorus of critical hosannas from around the world (at 97% on the Holy Tomatometer, “45 Years” was one of the most praised films of 2015) suggests I must consider the possibility that I flat out didn't get it, which has been known to happen from time to time. Perhaps it's just because I tend to be a lot less interested in dialogue-heavy, two-hander dramas than most viewers. A whole, whole lot less. Way less. However, I liked Haigh's previous film. “Weekend” (2011), also released by Criterion, so it'll just have to remain a mystery.

It's not a mystery I'm terribly motivated to solve. I'll encourage you instead to check out the film's more positive reviews. You won't find any shortage of them. 

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. As you would expect for such a recent film, the high-def transfer is practically immaculate, with razor-sharp image quality, and warm but subtle colors. No complaints at all on this front.

Audio:

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track doesn't have to deal with much beyond dialogue so don't expect any revelations on the surround front. But it's a crisp, distortion-free mix which more than does the job. Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

Criterion has gone a bit light on the supplements, but what's here is good.

The film is accompanied by a 2015 commentary track (“courtesy of Curzon Artificial Eye”) featuring director Andrew Haigh and producer Tristan Goligher.

“The Making of '45 Years'” (2016, 36 min.) combines interview with cast (Rampling, Courtenay) and crew (Haigh, Goligher, editor Jonathan Alberts, cinematographer Lol Crawley).

Haigh adapted the film from author David Constantine's (very) short story “In Another Country.” In an interview (13 min.), Constantine talks about his story and his reaction to the film version.

A Trailer (2 min.) rounds out the extras.

The slim fold-out insert booklet features an essay by critic Ella Taylor.

Film Value:

I'm confident that you'll like the film more than I did. And even if you don't, check out Haigh's “Weekend” which was also released by the Criterion Collection.

Riot In Cell Block 11

RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 (Siegel, 1954)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date April 22, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

“X marks the wild animal,” according to a sadistic prison guard referencing the men in solitary confinement, but “Riot in Cell Block 11” (1954) portrays an environment that renders sweeping generalizations inadequate.

In this torn-from-the-headlines film, the convicts who riot to protest inhumane conditions are a diverse lot. Dunn (Neville Brand), the de facto leader of the revolt, is in for robbery and murder and is described as psychotic, but while he struggles to control his violent temper he is no raving madman. Indeed, he matures surprisingly quickly into his role as a representative for many men, and the demands he issues are so reasonable (basically: stop abusing us and give us something to do with our time) that the warden (hard-boiled character actor Emile Meyer in one of his meatiest roles) admits that he had already made all the same suggestions to the state.

Dunn's right-hand man Carnie (brawny Leo Gordon), one the other hand, is all sinewy menace ready to explode at any moment, but as the warden notes he should be back in the psych ward from which he was recently transferred. The Colonel (Robert Osterloh) provides a more extreme contrast; dignified and calm, the former soldier only wants to serve out the few remaining days of his sentence in peace, but reluctantly adapts a more active role when he realizes the rioters desperately need a voice of reason.

Director Don Siegel often brought a pseudo-documentary touch to his genre pictures, lending them a substance missing from less accomplished peers. He and screenwriter Richard Collins pay attention to the nuances both in location (the film was shot in Folsom Prison and cast many real convicts as extras) and character, rarely settling for cheap stereotypes. In one of the small scenes that gives this black-and-white movie so much color, two guards take a position on a tower as the riot breaks out, prompting a weary exchange: “Well, here we go again.” “Yeah and all for fifty bucks a week.”

 Meyer's warden is tough but fair-minded. When the press and an irritating state apparatchik (Frank Faylen) cry for blood, the warden rattles off a series of depressing statistics about the lack of rehabilitation programs and the high recidivism rate. He knows there are no easy answers and that cracking the whip on prisoners is not only cruel and unusual, but also puts the public at greater risk when angry men with no skills and no hope are dumped on the streets. When asked what the prisoners are like, he observes that they're all different, just like people on the outside.

“Riot in Cell Block 11” may be a “quickie” genre pic, but Siegel and Collins certainly did their research. Producer Walter Wanger, who originated the project, conducted a different kind of research. In 1951, he became convinced that his wife, actress Joan Bennett, was having an affair with her agent; Wanger's somewhat imperfect response was to shoot and wound the man, netting Wanger (who pled temporary insanity) four months in jail. The experience rattled him and when a series of prison riots dominated the headlines over the next few years, he felt he understood why and wanted to make a picture that situated the prisoners as something more than the bloodthirsty animals the newspapers loved to linger on.

Striving for authenticity, the film begins with newsreel-style footage about recent prison riots as well as testimony from the director of the California Department of Corrections who puts the blame for the wave of uprisings squarely on the shoulders of public officials and the public as well. Wanger and company share the sentiment, taking multiple opportunities to argue that only the public, a public that recognizes prisoners as real human beings with reasonable expectations for equitable treatment, can pressure their representatives to provide a solution. The film occasionally preaches, but the plea is both sincere and sensible.

“Riot in Cell Block 11” shifts between the realism of its setting and no-frills shooting style, and the melodramatic clashes of the lead performers. Meyer excels as the warden, but the real standout is Neville Brand, a real-life tough guy who was a highly decorated (Purple Heart and Silver Star just to name a few) World War II soldier. His Dunn is one of the more complex characters you're likely to find in a prison film. He's neither demonized nor idealized. He's a violent criminal who seems all but certain to repeat offend once he's set free, and he often lashes out to the detriment of his own plans, yet he's bright and capable of restraining himself just enough to act as an effective negotiator. And in the subtlest touch of all, when he's asked (forced, really) to make the kind of sacrifice a more typical movie hero might gallantly offer, he's simply not ready for it. But he adjusts because he has to.

The plot relies on a prison guard making a monumentally stupid mistake to kickstart the main action, and that detracts a bit from this otherwise pragmatic film's claim to realism. But that's just about my only objection to this tightly wound, no-frills thriller, one of Siegel's finest early works.

Video:

From the Criterion booklet: “After extensively researching the ratio history of 'Riot in Cell Block 11,' Criterion found that theaters projected the film in aspect ratios ranging from 1.37:1 to 1.85:1. We are presenting the film here at 1.37:1.”

The 1080p transfer is exceptional preserving a thick grainy look that enhances the authentic look of the film. Image detail is sharp, black-and-white contrast rich. This looks like a movie... shot in a real prison. And it doesn't look like a particularly nice place to spend time.

This is a dual-format release including a single DVD and a single Blu-ray. The DVD has not been reviewed here.

Audio:

The linear PCM Mono track is, like the film, efficient. It is crisp both in presentation of dialogue and some of the hollow, menacing sounds that mark prison life: the iron clangs of doors, footsteps echoing in empty corridors. Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

The film is accompanied by a commentary by film scholar Matthew Bernstein, author of “Walter Wanger: Hollywood Independent.” Obviously, Bernstein spends time discussing producer Wanger's substantial creative role in the project, and also provides historical background and details about the talent that contributed to the film.

Two similar and unusual extras expand the collection. Don Siegel's son Kristoffer Tabori reads a chapter from the autobiography “A Siegel Film” (audio only – 25 min.) and a separate excerpt (13 min.) from the 1974 book “Don Siegel: Director” by Stuart Kaminsky. The former is more revealing with Siegel's detailed recollection of location scouting (they visited Alcatraz and San Quentin before settling on Folsom) and casting (neither Neville Brand nor Leo Gordon, an ex-convict himself, were obvious choices but both proved inspired). We also learn about the young personal assistant Wanger forced on Siegel, a kid named Sam Peckinpah. The second excerpt fills in some info as well. This “audiobook” format is a departure for Criterion, though I guess plenty of people are used to listening to books read by others. I'm not a huge fan unless it's the original author, but Tabori has a strong voice that commands attention.

The final extra is “The Challenge of our Prisons” (59 min.), excerpts from a March 1953 NBC Radio news special by journalists Peg and Walter McGraw.

Three features that are all audio-only make for a somewhat dull collection of extras, and I wound up just skimming through the news special. I guess the choices were limited, but at least one video clip (a visual essay perhaps) would have helped a lot.

The 28-page insert booklet includes an essay by critic Chris Fujwara and an article by Walter Wanger on the problems of American prisons. The article was originally published in the Feb 23, 1954 issue of “Look” magazine. We also get a brief essay by Sam Peckinpah titled “Don Siegel and Me.”

Film Value:

Listen, “A Man Escaped” is the greatest prison movie ever made, and don't let anyone even try to tell you otherwise. But this early film from Don Siegel is a sharp, no-nonsense prison pic that delivers a message while also telling a taut story. Though there are no big names in the cast, some of the performances are exceptional, especially Neville Brand in the lead role. Strongly recommended.

Canoa

CANOA: A SHAMEFUL MEMORY (Cazals, 1976)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Mar 14, 2017

Review by Christopher S. Long

The dormant volcano La Malinche dominates the landscape in an early shot of “Canoa: A Shameful Memory” (1976), a mute witness to the human eruption that occurs below and which shapes the film.

Based on a real 1968 event, “Canoa” reconstructs the murder of several university employees at the hands of a bloodthirsty mob of villagers from the impoverished town of San Miguel Canoa, just outside the city of Puebla in Central Mexico. The young men are merely on a weekend trip to climb the volcano, but the locals, whipped into a frenzy by propaganda spewed by the town's corrupt priest (Enrique Lucero), become convinced the tourists are student communists who have come to defile their religion.

The event was still fresh in the minds of many Mexican viewers and directly linked to even more notorious traumas of a violent year, which left director Felipe Cazals and screenwriter Tomas Perez Turrent a difficult balancing act, seeking to engage a movie audience while not unduly exploiting real tragedy. Their solution is a film which some odd tonal shifts that complicate any immediate reaction or analysis.

The film begins with a very low-key scene in which a field reporter at a tiny, cluttered desk phones in news of the lynching to another reporter in a largely deserted newsroom, the latter being unimpressed as he pecks away at his typewriter to record the names of the victims. The film then shifts to a brilliant sequence in which the noise of a bombastic military parade is contrasted with the near-silence of the victims' funeral where protestors carry signs reading “We Demand Justice.” Cazals' presentation is so assured and efficient, the viewer can already safely guess said justice is unlikely to be forthcoming.

From this point, Cazals and his crew (he also gives ample credit to veteran cinematographer Alex Phillips Jr. as a shaping voice) mix and match a variety of techniques. Faux-newsreel interviews situate one local man as a de facto narrator and guide to the town's troubles, which revolve around poverty, alcohol, and that corrupt priest who has leveraged his divine authority into a privatization scheme to enrich himself and (perhaps) the church on the backs of poor, uneducated laborers. The film also spends a great deal of time with the young victims-to-be as they casually joke around with each other and remain blissfully oblivious to the fate that awaits them even as hysterical shrieks about the “Outlaws!” and “Communists!” blare over the loudspeakers that constitute the town's entire access to media, and which are, of course, controlled by the priest.

This naïve interplay provides Cazals the opportunity to ratchet up the suspense to nearly unbearable levels as the audience has been warned from the start of what will happen. It's fair to ask whether traditional suspense should be built up so relentlessly (including a final delaying cutaway once the angry mob leader's axe hacks through the door) while recounting a story of real victims, but the film doesn't let viewers escape with a cheap thrill, depicting the mob attack in brutal images that leave enough to the imagination to make it even more unnerving.

I find little evidence of the “gritty documentary style” promised on the blurb on the back of the Blu-ray (and mentioned by Guillermo del Toro in one of the disc's extras). The faux-newsreel footage is so stilted and mannered, it feels more like it's mocking the reliability of the format than striving for verisimilitude, and hand-held camerawork does not equal “documentary style” - gritty or otherwise. “Canoa” is more a horror film than anything else, and the real horror is that the eruption of violence may be as natural as the past and future eruptions of La Malinche. Sure, the priest and his minions spew poisonous rhetoric and the disinterested government officials gladly allow the uneducated laborers to be exploited, but the ultimate explanation for why hundreds or even thousands of people could band together one night to murder several men may boil down simply to one fact: that's just what people do.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. This restored transfer was supervised by director Felipe Cazals and looks quite strong, as you would expect. Image quality is sharp throughout with an appropriately grainy look. The colors are quite rich and every now and then I thought perhaps a bit too much so, but that's hardly a complaint.

Audio:

The linear PCM mono audio mix is on the flat and shallow side and I suspect is meant to be so. I think the film's audio design (no music, by the way) is one of its strongest aspects, with very effective use of strategic silence contrasted with louder environments, and this subtle mix renders it all quite well. Optional English subtitles support the Spanish audio.

Extras:

Unfortunately, Criterion hasn't included too much on the extras front.

A brief introduction (3 min.) by director Guillermo del Toro shares his appreciation for the film, but not too much else.

The substantive extra is a lengthy conversation (2016, 54 min.) between Felipe Cazals and director Alfonso Cuaron. Cuaron is both a big fan of the film and one hell of an interviewer – he can conduct as many of these for Criterion as he wants to. It's a treat to see two great Mexican directors of different generations (Cazals is 24 years older than Cuaron) get the time to discuss their craft in detail. The focus is on Cazals, of course, but some of the best interplay involves obvious differences between them – Cazals dismissed the use of music in films out of hand, prompting an exasperated chuckle from Cuaron.

A lengthy theatrical trailer (5 min.) rounds out the collection.

The slim fold-out insert booklet includes an essay by critic Fernanda Solorzano.

Film Value:

Both Del Toro and Cuaron argue for “Canoa” as one of the most important Mexican films ever made. Criterion has provided a solid transfer of this influential films which I suspect even many ardent cinephiles have not previously seen. The extras on the sparse side, but it's great to expand the Criterion Collection to include more Mexican cinema.

Multiple Maniacs

MULTIPLE MANIACS (Waters, 1970)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Mar 21, 2017

Review by Christopher S. Long

(Listen, there are some plot spoilers below. That's the least fucking offensive thing you're going to have to worry about.)

From puke eating to hairy-armpit licking to lobster rape (see below), “Multiple Maniacs” (1970) epaters the unholy shit out of le bourgeois in every sacrilegious (and sacrilicious) manner imaginable – and when the controlling imagination belongs to writer-director (producer-editor-cinematographer) John Waters, you can be sure that no taboo will leave unviolated. Viewers may wind up feeling equally violated; consider it a freebie included with the price of admission.

The film opens with Lady Divine's Cavalcade of Perversions, a makeshift circus pitched by low-rent carnival barker Mr. David (David Lochary) as “the sleaziest show on earth” and guaranteed to feature performers who are “not actors, not paid impostors, but real, actual filth!” The hapless local rubes who can't resist a free show before lunch get treated to a show starring the aforementioned puke eater and armpit lickers along with a real heroin junkie going through withdrawal, and a particularly delicate performance that induces the lucky onlookers to say, “Look at her cunt... I can smell it all the way from over here.” It's like “The Sound of Music” all over again. For the final act, the attendees get robbed and murdered by the freaks – yet another freebie. After that, the film starts to get a little gross, eventually requiring the national guard to clean up the mess.

Waters most certainly pursued shock for the sake of shock (what nobler goal?), but the film never feels like a phony exercise in cheap provocation precisely because the cast is populated with “real, actual filth.” Waters' Dreamland Players (a sobriquet designated by fans many years later) may not have been actual murderers or lobster fuckers (see below), but there was no mistaking them for professional actors playing at being junkies and freaks after months of careful field study – these were genuinely devout perverts who congregated at the church of the Pope of Trash. Most of the beloved players are here already in this pre-Flamingos phase, the great David Lochary in his finest role (his delivery of the line “I love you so fucking much, I could shit” is without peer) with plenty of room left for Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pierce, and Cookie Mueller to shine, by which I mean wallow in the sewer. Plus the legendary Edith Massey makes her big screen debut.

Of course, the glorious, zaftig Lady Divine presides over all of the filth. Introduced as a Rubenesque nude in classic repose, clad only in a Liz Taylor wig, she will slowly but most assuredly transform into a genuine movie monster, the maniac of all maniacs. Divine snarls and threatens her way through every encounter (though as a doting mom she couldn't be any prouder of her slutty, drug-dealing daughter), inspiring either fanatical devotion or abject terror in everyone who crosses her exceedingly wide path, but universally acknowledged for her undeniable beauty and elegance even by her mortal enemies.

In this feature-length cavalcade of perversions, no spectacle is more morally repugnant than the sequence in which a man is stripped, beaten with whips and chains, repeatedly spat upon, then nailed to a crucifix and left to die. This grotesque display, of course, is familiar to Catholics like John Waters and yours truly as a Good Friday at Church, and his graphic staging of the Stations of the Cross (with Edith Massey as the Virgin Mary, natch) is a reminder that even the Pope of Trash can't outgross the Holy Church. They tell this blood-spattered story to kids – every damn year! The fact that Divine imagines said Stations while getting an energetic rosary job from Mink Stole is, well, it's just the kind of thing you have to see for yourself.

Divine's swath of pure rage, cut across the sparsely-populated streets of Waters' beloved hometown of Baltimore, can, as I'm sure you've already figured out, only lead to one logical and inevitable endpoint - being raped by a giant papier-mache lobster. The true genius of this magnificent scene, one of the very greatest moments in all of American cinema, is that Divine actually knows the name of her attacker and cries it out during the throes of passion, “Lobstora!!!” Does this mean they've dated before? It's almost inconceivable that John Waters had to wait until 2017 to receive a career achievement award from the Writer's Guild of America.

Thanks to the real, actual filth both in front of and behind the camera, “Multiple Maniacs” traffics in a brand of authenticity that speaks directly to the receptive viewer and spills over the bounds of the safe, traditional narrative cinema. But beyond the blasphemy (which sounds like a cable show John Waters should host), “Multiple Maniacs” ultimately succeeds because it is so clearly a labor of love, a film made by a group of friends giddy at the prospect of making a movie together, eager to share their world and maybe disrupt a few other worlds along the way. In other words, they sure as shit look like they're having a lot of fun.

Still, you have to wonder about the choice of a title. With the puke eating, lobster fucking (see above), rosary insertions, Edith Massey, off-screen gerontophilia, heroin shooting, and gang rape, it seems obvious that John Waters should have called it... The Aristocrats!

Video:

Seriously, who the fuck ever expected this to get a full digital restoration courtesy of Criterion? Waters actually kept the original reversal of the 16mm film in his attic for over twenty years – somehow it survived intact enough to wind up looking pretty damn good after a restoration. In one scene, a prominent bit of dirt couldn't be cleaned off, but does it really matter? I don't recall being able to see the décor of Divine's home in such detail before, including making out all the movie posters on the wall. The film is presented in John Waters' preferred 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

Audio:

The LPCM mono track is reasonably clear, at least relative to the limitations of the original recording. Waters shot in a format that recorded the audio directly onto the film, which leads to some abrupt audio cuts and also to some audio dead space. It's all just fine. The eclectic music track sounds a bit tinny but, again, seriously, I mean – this is getting a damn Criterion release! Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

When “Multiple Maniacs” was first announced for Criterion release, I hoped we would get some of Waters' earlier films like “Eat Your Makeup” or “Mondo Trasho” as extras. No dice. Perhaps the music clearance rights still render any “official” releases unfeasible.

Fortunately, we get the most important of all possible extras, a newly recorded (2016) commentary track by John Waters. There are times when he clearly can't believe he actually made certain choices, and at least one moment where he says “Thank God my mother never saw this.” It's a wonderful commentary, as you would expect.

We also get a collection of interviews with some of the surviving Dreamland actors, including Mink Stole, Pat Moran, Susan Lowe, Vincent Peranio, and George Figgs. This 32-minute collection, recorded in 2016 in Baltimore, includes fond reminiscences about some of the departed Dreamlanders as well as insider accounts of what it was like to work for John Waters, who is generally depicted a rather exacting perfectionist on set. Lobstora's budget is quoted at $37.50 by designer Peranio.

“The Stations of Filth” (10 min.) is a short video essay by scholar Gary Needham, which combines analysis with some trivia (Waters recently described this film as “Rancid Strawberries” a la Bergman) and argues most persuasively that the film should be understood as surreal rather than primarily as camp, which is spot on.

The slim fold-out insert booklet includes an essay by critic Linda Yablonsky.

Film Value:

I am proud of myself for resisting the obvious line, “I love this movie so fucking much, I could shit.” That would be way too on the nose. Which is why I would never write it.