The Silver Screen – The Cinematic Journal

Thirty-Day Movie Challenge: Part I

Jules R. Simion — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 09:45:53 +0000

Day 1: ‘Blade Runner’ (1982)

Of course, I followed this up with ‘Blade Runner 2049’ (2017), because it made all the sense in the world. Starring Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, and Harrison Ford, the film was based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’. Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples penned the screenplay, and Ridley Scott skilfully handled the direction. Production was problematic and plagued by an ever-increasing budget, but the end result went on to become a cult classic and a monumental landmark in the history of cinema. It garnered praise from Philip K. Dick himself, even though he only got to see the first 20 minutes prior to his death in 1982.

Trivia nugget: Rutger Hauer improvised a significant portion of his death scene speech, commonly known as the ‘tears in rain’ monologue, which Mark Rowlands described as ‘perhaps the most moving death soliloquy in cinematic history’ and represents a defining moment in Mr Hauer’s career.

‘BLADE RUNNER’ (1982), ©WARNER BROS.

Day 2: ‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997)

It won 2 of the 9 Academy Awards for which it was nominated, as Robin Williams took the Oscar home for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck got theirs for Best Original Screenplay at the remarkably young ages of 25 and 27, respectively. Directed by Gus Van Sant, the film was originally set to be helmed by Mel Gibson, who dropped out. His successor, Michael Mann, was also let go after he insisted on not giving Mr Damon the lead role because he wasn’t popular enough as an actor.

Trivia nugget: Robin Williams ad-libbed the lines in the scene where he talks about his late wife’s farting antics. It’s why Damon was laughing so hard and probably why the camera was just a tiny bit shaky, too.

‘GOOD WILL HUNTING’ (1997), ©MIRAMAX

Day 3: ‘Chinatown’ (1974)

Written by Robert Towne and directed by Roman Polanski, this film is still a masterclass in dramatic storytelling, probably because of the spellbinding way in which the forlorn and enigmatic tale unfolds with a tight and splendidly tense pacing. Starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston, ‘Chinatown’ won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Trivia nugget: The film was followed by a sequel, ‘The Two Jakes’ (1990), which Towne wrote and Nicholson directed. There was supposed to be a third part, as well, but elements of the story only made it as far as being incorporated into ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (1988), which was advertised as a film-noir spoof and homage to ‘Chinatown’.

‘CHINATOWN’ (1974), ©PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Day 4: ‘Mystic River’ (2003)

Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film’s screenplay was penned by Brian Helgeland of ‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997) and ‘Man on Fire’ (2004) fame, based on the novel ‘Mystic River’ by Dennis Lehane. It brought Sean Penn and Tim Robbins each an Academy Award for their riveting performances, featuring some stunning acting chops by the revered Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden alongside Kevin Bacon and Lawrence Fishburne.

‘MYSTIC RIVER’ (2003), ©WARNER BROS.

Day 5: ‘The Accidental Tourist’ (1988)

Geena Davis won an Academy Award for her supporting role, and Frank Galati and Lawrence Kasdan earned a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. William Hurt and Kathleen Turner execute their roles beautifully, as well, though I remain particularly fond of Amy Wright, David Ogden Stiers, and Ed Begley Jr. as Macon’s delightfully dull and neurotic siblings.

‘THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST’ (1988), ©WARNER BROS.

Day 6: ‘Barry Lyndon’ (1975)

I’m forever a fan of Ryan O’Neal. There’s something about him that just works for the characters which he has portrayed over the years, and none have been as enthralling as the titular hero of Stanley Kubrick’s insanely ambitious feature-length endeavour. Based on ‘The Luck of Barry Lyndon’ by William Makepeace Thackeray, the film won 4 Academy Awards, with Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design deservedly among them.

Trivia nugget: At one point, Kubrick’s name ended up on an I.R.A. hit list for featuring English soldiers in his Ireland scenes, reason for which the director was forced to move the entire production to England and dropped several scenes in the process.

‘BARRY LYNDON’ (1975), ©PEREGRINE/HAWK FILMS

Day 7: ‘Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles’ (1994)

I will never get enough of Tom Cruise’s mischievous Lestat and Brad Pitt’s emotionally tormented Louis. The screenplay was penned by Anne Rice, who also wrote the source material and gave the world a much more romantic take on the legendary blood-drinking monster, while Neil Jordan stepped in as director. It brought forth the immensely talented Kirsten Dunst as the vampire child Claudia, and it continues to entrance viewers with its literary charm, gory sensuality, and gorgeous costume design.

‘INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE: THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES’ (1994), ©GEFFEN PICTURES

Day 8: ‘Dances with Wolves’ (1990)

Michael Blake published the story in novel form first in 1988 before Kevin Costner picked up the film rights for his stellar directorial debut. Aside from the fact that ‘Dances with Wolves’ won a slew of awards, including the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, the film offered a respectful and sympathetic depiction of the First Nations, helping boost the number of Indigenous actors in Hollywood. This led to the Sioux Nation to adopt Mr Costner as an honorary member.

‘DANCES WITH WOLVES’ (1990), ©TIG PRODUCTIONS

Day 9: ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ (1982)

I’d almost forgotten how absolutely adorable Henry Thomas once was as Elliott. Written by Melissa Mathison and directed by Steven Spielberg, ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ was a box office smash hit and an awards-circuit darling due to its exquisite visual and special effects, and it propelled the genre of science fiction into a more commercial section of cinematography. Ahead of its time and timeless in equal measure.

‘E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL’ (1982), ©UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Day 10: ‘The Flight of the Phoenix’ (1965)

Written by Lukas Heller and based on the eponymous novel by Elleston Trevor, ‘The Flight of the Phoenix’ is a beautiful yet harrowing tale of survival directed by Robert Aldrich and fiercely led by James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, and Peter Finch.

’THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX’ (1965), ©THE ASSOCIATES & ALDRICH COMPANY

Day 11: ‘The Godfather’ (1972)

This is, without a doubt, one of the greatest films ever made. It’s not a matter of opinion anymore. It’s a fact, perfectly illustrated by the countless awards it earned—among them three Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Based on the bestselling novel by Mario Puzo and written by the author in partnership with Francis Ford Coppola, ‘The Godfather’ remains one of cinema’s most important films.

Trivia nugget: The cat wandered in from one of the sets and was never intended to be in the movie. She was so content to sit in Mr Welles’ lap that her purrs interfered with some of his lines on the audio track, leading to additional editing work to deliver dialogue.

THE GODFATHER’ (1972), ©PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Day 12: ‘Casablanca’ (1942)

Sometimes, there comes a film that is a trifecta of greatness, earning the most prestigious awards for its direction, for its screenplay, and for the coveted Best Picture category in one sweeping ceremony. Director Michael Curtiz has 179 film credits to his name, yet none would remain so deeply embedded within the history of cinema as ‘Casablanca’ whilst bearing IMDb’s exceptionally green Metascore of 100.

‘CASABLANCA’ (1942), ©WARNER BROS.

Day 13: ‘His Girl Friday’ (1940)

Like many of the films of that era, this one is problematic from a racial perspective, given some of the derogatory terms used by the characters and knowingly penned by the writers (Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht, and Charles MacArthur) under the direction of Howard Hawks. With that stain on its poster, however, I must admit that ‘His Girl Friday’ is a work of art in terms of dialogue and comedic screenwriting, while Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell make a fantastic pair on the silver screen.

‘HIS GIRL FRIDAY’ (1940), ©COLUMBIA PICTURES

Day 14: ‘Jaws’ (1975)

Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb weren’t given an Oscar for their screenplay, and Steven Spielberg didn’t get one for direction, either. Yet this film remains a classic and an innovative work of cinematic art, a brilliant ‘scary movie’ with an unnatural amount of tension at every turning point. Thank the stars for Roy Scheider’s decision to ad-lib the ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat’ line, while we’re at it.

Trivia nugget: When John Williams originally played the score for Mr Spielberg, the director laughed and said, ‘That’s funny, John, really; but what did you really have in mind for the theme of “Jaws”?’ Williams took home an Academy Award for this score.

‘JAWS’ (1975), ©UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Day 15: ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ (1979)

Praised by Robert McKee for its brilliant dramatic storytelling and Robert Benton’s ability to convey so much detail within each sequence, ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ is truly a titan of the big screen. The breakfast scene after Joana’s departure alone is a treasure trove of personal information and emotion. Dustin Hoffman’s exquisite acting aside, Meryl Streep is such a good thespian that I found myself genuinely loathing her character.

KRAMER VS. KRAMER’ (1979), ©COLUMBIA PICTURES

Day 16: ‘The Last Emperor’ (1987)

I’ll never forgive Bernardo Bertolucci for what he and Marlon Brando did to Maria Schneider for that infamous scene in ‘Last Tango in Paris’ (1972), but I shall give credit where it is due. ‘The Last Emperor’ is a superb and sprawling historical epic based on Pu Yi’s published autobiography, chronicling the life of China’s last monarch.

Trivia nugget: It’s one of the few motion pictures made in and about China with the full cooperation of its government—so much so that when Queen Elizabeth II tried to visit the Forbidden City during a state trip, the film’s production took priority for its immense coronation scene.

‘THE LAST EMPEROR’ (1987), ©RECORDED PICTURE COMPANY (RPC)

Day 17: ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ (1962)

While I loved Jonathan Demme’s Liev Schreiber, Meryl Streep, and Denzel Washington-led remake of the 1962 original directed by John Frankenheimer, I absolutely love the outstanding performances of Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, and Laurence Harvey—the latter, especially, for his portrayal of Raymond Shaw. Another masterpiece of cinema, ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ didn’t receive any Academy Awards, but George Axelrod’s screenplay is a lesson in how tension is best delivered.

‘THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE’ (1962), ©M.C. PRODUCTIONS

Day 18: ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ (1995)

I actually read Mike Figgis’s screenplay before I saw the movie during my second year of film school. John O’Brien’s book, upon which the movie is based, was an even harder read. But I’ll admit that the feature itself was the most difficult part, as there is something absolutely gut-wrenching in Nicholas Cage’s performance. It was genuinely crushing to watch Ben Sanderson virtually drink himself to death.

‘LEAVING LAS VEGAS’ (1995), ©LUMIERE PICTURES

Day 19: ‘Nanook of the North’ (1922)

Directed by Robert J. Flaherty, ‘Nanook of the North’ is more than just a touching silent predecessor to the modern documentary. It’s the very first instance of dramatic storytelling used to narrate and edit real-life footage of one specific Inuit family living in the Arctic Circle.

Trivia nugget: Alas, despite being part of the Criterion Collection, the National Film Registry, and Roger Ebert’s list of Great Movies, many of the documentary’s scenes were staged for the purpose of showing how the Inuit lived before modern times, according to Flaherty.

‘NANOOK OF THE NORTH’ (1922), LES FRÈRES REVILLON/PATHÉ EXCHANGE

Day 20: ‘Ordinary People’ (1980)

Robert Redford’s directorial debut, understandably awarded with an Oscar. Timothy Hutton’s acting debut, deservedly awarded with an Oscar. It went on to take two more golden statuettes home—one for Best Picture, and once for Best Adapted Screenplay, and thank the stars for screenwriters like Alvin Sargent for telling such a moving story that inadvertently and effectively captures the look, the sound, and the temper of a broken American family struggling to adjust after a tragedy.

‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’ (1980), ©PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Day 21: ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ (1928)

Carl Theodor Dreyer didn’t allow any makeup for his actors, which only served to enhance Maria Falconetti’s devastating performance as the woman who was first a martyr before she became a patron saint of France. ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ was virtually the only movie Falconetti made, yet it went on to redefine silent cinema.

Trivia nugget: This film was considered lost for many years, until an almost complete print emerged in 1978 as part of a collection that an Italian priest had once used for screenings in psychiatric facilities.

‘THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC’ (1928), ©SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE DES FILMS

Day 22: ‘Q & A’ (1990)

Based on the book by Edwin Torres, I can’t say it’s the best among Sidney Lumet’s works, but it’s certainly up there. The story is so masterfully crafted that it leads this stellar cast into a memorable performance. Nick Nolte is downright terrifying. Timothy Hutton carries himself with a certain ingenuity that is mercilessly crushed by the harsh reality of corruption within New York’s police force. And Armand Assante earned himself a Golden Globe nod for his Bobby Texador.

‘Q & A’ (1990), ©REGENCY INTERNATIONAL PICTURES

Day 23: ‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (1981)

Yet another revolutionary motion picture from Steven Spielberg by way of George Lucas, Philip Kaufman, and the illustrious Lawrence Kasdan, this first installment of Indy’s blockbuster feature series takes us on a mad chase after the fabled Ark of the Covenant in 1936, which the Nazis nefariously intend to unleash upon the world. Personally, I love Harrison Ford’s rendition of Indiana Jones and dread the day when another actor will be cast for the inevitable reboot.

‘INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK’ (1981), ©PARAMOUNT PICTURES/LUCASFILM

Day 24: ‘Schindler’s List’ (1993)

This isn’t just a Holocaust film. That tragedy serves more as a backdrop for a double portrait—of Oskar Schindler, swindler of the Third Reich, and of Amon Goeth, evil incarnate and heartless psychopath, both men born from the filthy opportunities of war. It racked up a plethora of awards, including the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The final scene at Schindler’s grave completely broke me. I don’t remember crying this hard since the finale of ‘Supernatural’ (2005-2020).

‘SCHINDLER’S LIST’ (1993), ©UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Day 25: ‘Tender Mercies’ (1983)

Written by Horton Foote and directed by Bruce Beresford, ‘Tender Mercies’ won Robert Duvall his only Academy Award in seven nominations. It’s like nothing else in its mixed genre of drama and romance—its quiet softness and simmering despair are everything this film needs to take a place among the greatest stories ever written for the silver screen.

‘TENDER MERCIES’ (1983), ©ANTRON MEDIA PRODUCTION

Day 26: ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975)

Frank Pierson signed the screenplay for this cinematic oeuvre, based on a magazine article by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore, which in turn was inspired by a true event. It got Pierson a well-deserved Oscar. I mentioned ‘Q & A’ earlier as not being Sidney Lumet’s best, and I’d like to stick that specific label right here. ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ is absolutely his best.

Trivia nugget: A scene from this movie appears in the first episode of David Fincher’s ‘Mindhunter’ (2017) during a hostage negotiation training session at Quantico.

‘DOG DAY AFTERNOON’ (1975), ©WARNER BROS.

Day 27: ‘The Usual Suspects’ (1995)

In hindsight, a couple of this film’s headliners are… problematic, to say the least, yet this film cannot be forgotten nor ignored. The performances are out of this world, and that requires not only immense talent but good direction and a fantastic script. I think Bryan Singer was young and hungry when he shot this, and it shows. Every other credit of his fades in comparison. Most of the props go to Christopher McQuarrie, however, as he did win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

‘THE USUAL SUSPECTS’ (1995), ©POLYGRAM FILMED ENTERTAINMENT

Day 28: ‘The Conversation’ (1974)

HBO is currently hiding such hidden gems in its Movies category if you scroll down enough. Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, ‘The Conversation’ is a noteworthy mystery thriller made singular by Gene Hackman’s outstanding performance—a key moment in his career, for that matter.

‘THE CONVERSATION’ (1974), ©THE COPPOLA COMPANY

Day 29: ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)

Few screenwriters/directors master the art of dialogue in a feature film as skilfully as Quentin Tarantino does in ‘Pulp Fiction’. Roger Ebert went as far as comparing his hard-boiled screen prose with the likes of Raymond Chandler and Elmore Leonard. It’s easy to see why, though, as the high quality drives humour without even asking for it, so it’s no wonder Tarantino won an Academy Award for his writing. ‘Pulp Fiction’ is one of those movies that you have to watch in this lifetime—though I’d be remiss if I didn’t specify that every title in this first list is worthy of such attention and appreciation. I’ll also call it a masterpiece lacking a message.

PULP FICTION’ (1994), ©MIRAMAX

Day 30: ‘Jackie Brown’ (1997)

I made this selection on purpose, if only to end the 30-day-movie-challenge with something delightfully palatable while also comparing the aesthetics between Tarantino’s most popular film and his only adaptation. It felt appropriate since Mr Ebert brought Elmore Leonard into the conversation. The source material—the novel titled ‘Rum Punch’—serves as the foundation for my favourite Tarantino movie. I absolutely adore Pam Grier and Robert Forster; their chemistry is magnificent. On the other hand, Robert De Niro seems to have wandered into the picture, somehow, yet manages to make sense. It still befuddles me.

Trivia nugget: Tarantino was initially worried that Elmore Leonard might not like the changes he made to the story. It turns out the author actually liked the script so much, he said it was the best he’d read up to that point, and certainly among the best of the 26 adaptations of his novels and short stories.

‘JACKIE BROWN’ (1997), ©MIRAMAX

I will absolutely do this again. There are so many grand titles that are worth revisiting—or tackling for the first time, if you’re like me, and your watchlist gets occasionally engorged beyond manageability and in desperate need of slimming down. A movie a day keeps the dullness away.

The post Thirty-Day Movie Challenge: Part I appeared first on The Cinematic Journal.

From Stage to Screen: Ten Plays Done Right

Jules R. Simion — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 13:00:46 +0000

‘One Night in Miami’ (2020)

Regina King’s recent directorial debut is a carefully calculated and elegantly executed work of theatre brought into film. Headlined by a ridiculously talented cast, the story revolves around one fictional account of a real night when four powerful figures of the Civil Rights Movement met at the Hampton House in Miami.

Kingsley Ben-Adir is brilliant as Malcolm X. Eli Goree delivers a Cassius Clay as real as the World’s Greatest himself. Aldis Hodge is impressive as Jim Brown, star footballer-turned-movie-star. And Leslie Odom Jr.’s rendition of the inimitable Sam Cooke is simply out of this world—with the voice of an angel, no less! Much like the original, ‘One Night in Miami’ is a profound conversation about race, social justice, and the constant struggles of Black Americans in a society that treated them as lesser citizens for too long. Most importantly, Regina King’s take on Kemp Powers’ 2013 play is an emotionally gutting one, powered not only by the performances but by the writing and Tammy Reiker’s distinguished cinematography.

‘ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI’ (2020), ©ABKCO FILMS/SNOOT ENTERTAINMENT

‘A Few Good Men’ (1992)

Much like Kemp Powers, also known for his screenwriting work on ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ (2017) and ‘Soul’ (2020), Aaron Sorkin has found himself comfortable penning plays, films, and illustrious TV series alike. ‘A Few Good Men’ was the one that made a truly lasting impression upon its adaptation, under the helm of Rob Reiner.

It was nominated for four Academy Awards, offering incredible performances from a young Tom Cruise, a ferociously talented and wide-eyed Demi Moore, and the grand master of quotable movie lines during Trivia Night, Jack Nicholson. The courtroom thriller proved itself equally enthralling regardless of transposition method, showing Reiner at the top of his game.

‘A FEW GOOD MEN’ (1992), ©COLUMBIA PICTURES

‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1951)

There is a reason why Tennessee Williams, one of America’s foremost playwrights alongside Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, was such a hit with Hollywood. His plays have a way of digging deep into the darkest, hottest pits of human nature, of bringing out the best and the worst from his characters. He put most of his tormented life onto the stage, using theatre as a form of expressing his truest self.

The legendary Elia Kazan, director of many of Williams’ plays, for that matter, said of him: ‘Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life’. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is a tempestuous work of dramatic art that brought Academy Awards to Vivien Leigh and Kim Hunter, accompanied by respectful nods to Mr Kazan’s directorial accomplishment and Marlon Brando’s spectacular acting.

‘A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE’ (1951), ©WARNER BROS.

‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ (1958)

The ‘50s and the ‘60s were a lush period for theatre-to-film experiments, demanding that screen actors push themselves further and further until they were awarded accolades and golden statuettes. One of those thespians was Elizabeth Taylor, and ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ would not be her only foray into such bold projects. Today, she is remembered for multiple theatrical-style performances, including Franco Zeffirelli’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ (1967) of William Shakespeare and ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ (1966) of Edward Albee.

But it was her sizzling portrayal of Maggie alongside Paul Newman’s Brick that garnered endless rounds of applause, in part thanks to Richard Brooks’ ability to transform one of Tennessee Williams’s most popular plays into a veritable crown jewel of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

‘CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF’ (1958), ©AVON PRODUCTIONS

‘Throne of Blood’ (1957)

While I did drone on a bit back there about the many adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays and as we keep running into the guy, it would be unethical of me not to include Akira Kurosawa’s outstanding drama, which rips ‘Macbeth’ from Medieval Scotland and sews it into the troubled canvas of feudal Japan. The iconic director added significant tweaks of his own, including a modified finale and Noh drama elements—not an easy feat to accomplish, considering the overall pathos of Kurosawa’s screenplay.

Creative liberties aside, Toshirô Mifune and Isuzu Yamada’s portrayals of the Japanese Macbeth and Lady Macbeth ultimately set the film farther apart. Kurosawa adored Shakespeare’s work and had been eager to adapt it for years, but Orson Welles’s ‘Macbeth’ (1948) came out and forced him to wait before making his own version.

‘THRONE OF BLOOD’ (1957), ©TOHO COMPANY

‘Fences’ (2016)

While it isn’t Denzel Washington’s first directorial incursion, it is certainly his best, right after ‘Antwone Fisher’ (2002) and ‘The Great Debaters’ (2007). ‘Fences’ is based on the 1985 play by August Wilson, which is set in the 1950s and explores the Black American experience and examines the country’s difficult race relations. Mr Wilson earned a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1987 for this magnificent contribution to American theatre. Naturally, the film adaptation aimed to do the same.

It brought Viola Davis an Academy Award and a Bafta Award for her performance, and the film garnered nominations for Best Motion Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay—posthumously for August Wilson. One aspect of its success is likely to stem from Mr Washington’s previous work with the source material on Broadway, which gave him significant confidence to direct.

‘FENCES’ (2016), ©BRON STUDIOS

‘Amadeus’ (1984)

Milos Forman’s classic motion picture has a lengthy theatrical history. The play on which it is based was written by Peter Shaffer and first performed in 1979, inspired from an earlier short work by Alexander Pushkin from 1830, titled ‘Mozart and Salieri’, which was also used by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov as the 1897 libretto for an opera of the same name.

With Shaffer adapting his work for the screen and Forman directing—not to mention F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce’s dazzling performances as Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, respectively, it’s no wonder that the film was a triumph that took home not one, not two, but eight Academy Awards.

‘AMADEUS’ (1984), ©AMLF/THE SAUL ZAENTZ COMPANY

‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ (1992)

When discussing modern and contemporary American theatre, David Mamet is deservedly part of the conversation. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright even did the ol’ stage-to-movie dance by adapting ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’, one of his better works, for James Foley to shoot on film. Examining the lives of four desperate Chicago real estate agents who are ready to go to extreme and even illegal lengths for money, Mamet’s oeuvre first premiered at the National Theatre in London in 1983, followed by an official Broadway opening in 1984 that closed after a whopping 378 performances.

The result is an Oscar-winking timeless drama that brings some marvellous acting chops out of Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, and Jonathan Price… yes, what a line-up, indeed!

‘GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS’ (1992), ©NEW LINE CINEMA

‘Dangerous Liaisons’ (1988)

Going back to 18th-century corsets and fancy wigs for a bit, I confess that the era’s decadence and penchant for malice, revenge, and seduction make for great theatre every single time. Christopher Hampton’s ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ 1985 play is no exception, its plot focused on the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, two rivals who play cruel games and use sex to humiliate and degrade.

Naturally, such a scandalous affair deserved a sparkling treatment upon transcending into the cinematic dimension. Stephen Frears of ‘The Queen’ (2006) and ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ (2002) fame directs a prodigious ensemble of esteemed actors such as Glenn Close and John Malkovich, turning ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ into one of the ‘80s’ best dramas.

‘DANGEROUS LIAISONS’ (1989), ©WARNER BROS.

‘Angels in America’ (2003)

After the titanic success of his political epic play centred on separate but connected individuals in a society struggling with the A.I.D.S. crisis in the ‘80s, Tony Kushner took his two-part Pulitzer and Tony-winning dramatic composition and transformed it into a limited series for television, with Mike Nichols directing. It earned five Golden Globes, of which four went to the cast members—Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Jeffrey Wright, and Mary-Louise Parker, and it brought a difficult topic back in conversations across America.

While complex and mostly metaphorical in its construction, ‘Angels in America’ is a sincere and gut-wrenching take on homosexuality and AIDS, with major and minor characters designed as supernatural beings—angels and ghosts. Most importantly, the HBO series serves as a crown of glory for a play that was described by John M. Clum as ‘a turning point in the history of gay drama, the history of American drama, and of American literary culture.’

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA’ (2003), ©HBO FILMS

As you can imagine, there are plenty of other titles worth discussing within this creative niche, but the conclusion will always be the same: rare are the plays that work on screen, and even rarer are the writers and directors capable of taking a live performance and turning it into an Oscar-worthy work of cinema.

The post From Stage to Screen: Ten Plays Done Right appeared first on The Cinematic Journal.

The Silver Screen’s Greatest Works of Epic Fantasy

Jules R. Simion — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 06:00:55 +0000

The Lord of the Rings

This year marks two decades since the first part of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy came out, and we haven’t been the same since. It was epic fantasy done right. No, better yet, it was epic fantasy done almost perfectly! To this day, I am astonished by the faith that producers had in an otherwise inexperienced Peter Jackson. Many balked at the $300 million budget he was given to play with—but he didn’t just play with it. He built us a world and breathed life into it.

It all began with J.R.R. Tolkien, the celebrated fantasy author. ‘The Hobbit’, his first book, published in 1937, was an out-of-the-blue success. He had written it for his children, yet thanks to Susan Dagmall of George Allen & Unwin, it became a colossal bestseller beloved by younglings everywhere. Shortly afterwards, Mr Tolkien was asked to write a sequel. Excited by how his imaginary world of Middle Earth had been growing since he’d first penned ‘The Hobbit’, he eventually produced a complex mythological composition deemed too long and boring by the publisher. It was set aside and later revived, edited, and published by the author’s son, Christopher Tolkien, as ‘The Silmarillion’.

‘THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING’ (2001), ©NEW LINE CINEMA

Back to his writing desk, Mr Tolkien developed ‘The Lord of the Rings’ as a direct sequel for Bilbo’s adventures. It was a darker and more mature take on an otherwise magical world. It gained an adult audience, becoming a masterpiece of modern English literature. In 1997, New Zealand native and screenwriter/director Peter Jackson won the rights to film this epic fantasy. At first, he tried to work out a deal with Miramax, but their requirements of cramming everything into a single movie would have made a mockery of Mr Tolkien’s oeuvre, so Jackson signed up with New Line Cinema instead, enlisting Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens to help write the screenplay for a proper trilogy.

‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ (2001), ‘The Two Towers’ (2002), and ‘The Return of the King’ (2003) were an incredible feat. Not only did Jackson exceed every possible expectation, he and his team revolutionized the high fantasy niche of cinema. Filmed entirely in New Zealand, the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy garnered a plethora of awards, with ‘The Return of the King’ accomplishing a record of its own—it was the first feature to win all 11 Academy Awards for which it was nominated. Thus, Tolkien’s legacy was brought to life after a rather disastrous animated attempt in 1978, setting the tone for many other filmmakers later down the road.

‘THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY’ (2012), ©NEW LINE CINEMA

Perhaps most would’ve expected to see ‘The Hobbit’ be made into a movie first, but it came later as a prequel trilogy, with Martin Freeman starring as the young Bilbo Baggins. ‘An Unexpected Journey’ (2012), ‘The Desolation of Smaug’ (2013), and ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ (2014) were grand commercial successes, though none were close to the glory of ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Maybe the novelty had worn off by the time Jackson assembled his team and cast to bring more of Tolkien’s world to the big screen. Or maybe the focus stayed too much on special effects than on the actual story.

‘THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING’ (2003), ©NEW LINE CINEMA

Harry Potter

We all know the rags-to-riches story of how JK Rowling wrote and eventually published her beloved ‘Harry Potter’ series of magical fantasy. A struggling author and mum, she pushed and toiled and then pushed some more until after twelve rejections, her manuscript for ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ was finally published by Bloomsbury. The books were a worldwide phenomenon, stirring the imaginations of children and adults alike and causing queues to form outside bookstores in anticipation of upcoming volumes.

What’s not to love about the magic-imbued universe of Harry Potter? It’s got bits and pieces of everything tucked away inside an interdimensional pocket of sorts, a hidden reality to the Muggles’ world where wizards, house elves, unicorns and other extraordinary creatures live in relative harmony, with wizarding laws and order. There’s a ginormous academy of wizardry with a board of honoured professors equipped with the talent and knowledge required to shape the young minds of future wizards.

‘HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE’ (2001), ©WARNER BROS.

The film series launched in 2001 (what a year that was, eh?), ending its exquisite box office reign with the two-part ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ of 2010 and 2011. Its young cast, composed of stellar talents such as Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Tom Felton, to name but a few, grew up along with their fans and captured the affection of many more along the way. Alan Rickman would forever be remembered for his performance as Professor Snape, and production companies would line up to fund the next big hits from the Potterverse.

‘FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM’ (2016), NEW LINE CINEMA

While Mike Newell, Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, and David Yates directed the film series, with scripts adapted by Steve Kloves and Michael Goldenberg, JK Rowling decided to take over as screenwriter for her next endeavour within the same fictional realm, the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ prequels featuring Eddie Redmayne as a young Newt Scamander. Of course, the everlasting charm of the Potterverse—even this version from seventy years before Harry Potter—was undeniable. Alas, Mrs Rowling’s screenwriting manifested as repeatedly insufficient and rushed, thus forcing David Yates, her director of choice, to deliver below the expected threshold.

Yes, the film scores are wonderful, the actual fantastic beasts are wickedly fun, and the flair of early 20^th century American wizards is unmistakably delicious, but the prequels have fallen short of the original ‘Harry Potter’. I’ve said this before. Few novelists make good screenwriters, and few screenwriters make good novelists. Even fewer are those who can tread the line between novel and screenplay with equal proficiency.

‘HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE’ (2009), ©WARNER BROS.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Disney, now a streaming giant with ownership of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and everything Star Wars, understood the potential of epic fantasy since day one. Most of its empire is built on the work of Walt Disney, one of the forefathers of animation. The Disney Classics are an eternal presence on any kid’s watchlist, and their live action attempts weren’t half-bad, either—I’ll sneak a quick mention of ‘Peter Pan’ (2003) here, one of my personal favourites. But the studio’s greatest accomplishment of high fantasy brought to the silver screen is the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ film series.

Inspired by Rob Kidd’s ‘Jack Sparrow’ children’s books and based on the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ attraction at Disney’s theme parks, this franchise gave us Johnny Depp as the swashbuckling maniac we’ve all come to love, alongside a ravishingly bold Keira Knightley and an even more handsome Orlando Bloom, who traded his elf ears for a sharp rapier and a pirate ship. The films were a monumental success, with Gore Verbinski, Rob Marshall, Espen Sandberg, and Joachim Rønning as directors.

‘PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL’ (2003), ©WALT DISNEY PICTURES

‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’ (2003), ‘Dead Man’s Chest’ (2006), and ‘At World’s End’ (2007) were box office gold. ‘On Stranger Tides’ (2011) left Ms Knightley and Mr Bloom’s characters behind, bringing Penélope Cruz centre stage as Angelica. Alas, the momentum began to wither away, and by the time Disney released ‘Salazar’s Revenge’ (2017), there wasn’t much that could keep this ship afloat, even with Knightley and Bloom’s return.

There was only so much to be drawn from the stories though. Despite not having any of the elves, orcs, goblins and other creatures that have become a staple of this genre, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ is remembered as one of the greats of epic fantasy. And let’s not forget Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. Everyone loved Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow.

‘PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES’ (2011), ©WALT DISNEY PICTURES

The Dark Crystal

Eighties’ kids will remember and appreciate Jim Henson’s ample foray into epic fantasy with ‘The Dark Crystal’ (1982), a puppet-animated film which he directed alongside Frank Oz. The story takes place on a fictional planet—as one might expect, where the damaged Dark Crystal favours the onset of an age of chaos. The Gelfling Jen is our main hero, determined to restore balance to the realm of Thra and overthrow the ruling Skeksis. It is one of the few stories written directly for the screen that built itself a titanic fandom within its genre. Such an achievement is worthy of the cinematic history books.

Alas, the film wasn’t a box office darling but rather became a cult legend. It never grew into a trilogy, yet it remained insanely popular over the years, so much so that Netflix decided to gamble and invest in a prequel, ‘The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’ (2019). Armed with 21^st century CGI assistance, beautiful puppetry, and a genuine love of Jim Henson’s work, the series was led by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, receiving high praise from both new and familiar audiences. It may not be a giant, but it stands proudly among its peers.

‘THE DARK CRYSTAL’ (1982), ©JIM HENSON PRODUCTION

The Wizard of Oz

Unlike the above titles, L. Frank Baum’s series of high fantasy novels did not receive as much generosity from Hollywood, instead building its wonderful world gradually, one yellow brick at a time. ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939) made history with Judy Garland as Dorothty—‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ became one of the most memorable musical pieces of the silver screen. Directed by Victor Fleming, the film was a roaring success, admired not only for its fantastic complexity but also for its brilliant execution and production design, then ultimately rewarded with two Academy Awards.

Mr Baum’s ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ epic universe was so adored, in fact, that it spawned other authors to try and further develop stories from its original pages. In 1995, Gregory Maguire published ‘Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West’, a gorgeous retelling of the original of 1900 but from the witches’ perspective. Elphaba and Glinda became overnight sensations, eventually cast in the ‘Wicked’ Broadway musical which brought Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel’s musical talents under the spotlight.

From there, the Land of Oz grew bigger with various film and television projects—some more memorable than others. Worth mentioning are ‘The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz’ (2005), if only to give Jim Henson another kind nod; ‘Tin Man’ (2007), a slightly more sci-fi take on Dorothy’s tale featuring Zooey Deschanel, Alan Cumming, and Richard Dreyfuss; ‘Emerald City’ (2016-2017), a fantasy drama with a dark twist starring Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Ana Ularu; and Sam Raimi’s ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ (2013), which saw James Franco taking over as the Wizard himself.

‘THE WIZARD OF OZ’ (1939), ©METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER (MGM)

There are many fantastical bodies of work besides those listed, of course. George R. R. Martin’s series made it to HBO in 2009, and despite the slightly fumbled final season, it is still one of the key points of reference when discussing the entire genre. Others, though extraordinarily successful in their novel form, never really got off the ground as feature films. CS Lewis, a fellow Inkling of Tolkien’s, for example, made his literary mark with ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’—yet the adaptations weren’t anywhere near Tolkien’s work and were mere shadows compared to ‘Harry Potter’. You may have noticed an absence from my list, and no, I have not forgotten about the ‘Star Wars’ franchise. However, since it is less high fantasy but more science fantasy, it belongs elsewhere.

Truth be told, one can flop by being overly ambitious with an epic fantasy tale, and there will never be enough special effects and animation technology to make up for weak characters and shoddy storytelling. In other cases, like Mr Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, the stories are simply too big for cinema yet perfect for a TV series. That’s something to discuss another day.

The post The Silver Screen’s Greatest Works of Epic Fantasy appeared first on The Cinematic Journal.

The Ones that Got Away: Rejected Film Scores, Part III

Stella Lungu — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 15:01:27 +0000

El Cid (1961)

Miklós Rózsa
Mario Nascimbene

Directed by Anthony Mann and produced by Samuel Bronston, El Cid is a 1961 epic historical drama film that is based on the life of the Castilian knight Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, called ‘El Cid’, who sets upon defending Christian Spain against the Moors.

Samuel Bronston had just finished his epic film King of Kings (1961), and decided to materialise his life-long dream of bringing the story of El Cid to the big screen. MGM had partially financed King of Kings, which meant they had a say in every major decision. Wanting more freedom and control over this new epic, Bronston produced El Cid with his own company, Samuel Bronston Productions, in association with the Italian company Dear Film Produzione. This meant that in order to receive financial assistance from the Italian government, certain compromises had to be made, such as Bronston having to employ a certain number of Italian artists and technicians to work on the project. As such, despite wanting to hire Miklós Rozsa, with whom he had worked on A King of Kings, Bronston went ahead and hired the Italian composer Mario Nascimbene. This collaboration, however, would be short-lived, as Bronston’s requirements would infuriate the composer. Nascimbene writes:

Bronston called me and asked me to score EL CID, which was being shot by Anthony Mann. I read the screenplay first, and they told me to write some dance themes only. The music had to accompany a kind of fighting dance for scenes taking place on the beach, so I wrote some cues for tympani, with a rather brutal, violent rhythm, without any real melody. Director Mann liked what I had written and shot his scenes, using the cues as background. Then, when shooting EL CID was about halfway, I was asked to come to Malaga to discuss the score itself. Samuel Bronston met me there when I arrived, showed me a pile of records of Massenet’s ‘El Cid’ and told me: “This is the music for the film”. Apparently I had to sort of “adapt” Massenet’s music for the film. Samuel Bronston behaved in an offensive way, and I told him that I am used to discussing the score with a director, and with him only. So I returned to Rome, where I tore up the contract already made.

This outcome worked wonderfully for Bronston, who managed to hire his first choice, Miklós Rózsa. It is speculated that the producer never intended for the score to be an adaptation of Jules Massenet’s opera to begin with, but it was merely a sure-fire plot to get Nascimbene to back out of the picture.

Be that as it may, Bronston did go to great lengths to get Rózsa to score his picture, even managing to get him out of a pre-existing contract with MGM to score Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). Mutiny would end up being scored by another MGM in-house composer, Bronislau Kaper. As a concession to their co-producers, another Italian composer’s name (Carlo Savina) appeared on the credits as co-composer on the picture, but only on the Italian prints.

Bronston flew Rózsa and his family to Madrid for the whole summer and offered him a lovely house for him to work from and the same weekly living expenses the producer himself was getting. Besides Spain itself being a huge inspiration for the score of El Cid, the composer set out to research the history of El Cid and the Spanish music in the Medieval Ages. He turned to ninety-two-year-old Dr Ramón Menéndez Pidal, a Spanish philologist, historian and expert in El Cid, who introduced him to the twelfth-century musical poems of ‘La Cantigas de Santa Maria’. Furthermore, Rózsa studied Felipe Pedrell’s collection of Spanish folksongs, which the musicologist had compiled throughout his life. The composer spent a month of intense study, analysing these two very different sources after which he began working on translating what he had learned into the new score.

Despite Rózsa’s seamless collaboration with Bronston, the composer was shocked to realize, during the premiere of El Cid, that the director and his sound editor had chopped and binned some of Rózsa’s cues in favour of the film’s sound design. As a result, Rózsa cancelled his publicity tour, stating that, ‘I could not talk about music which nobody was going to hear.’

The above issues notwithstanding, the film was a commercial success earning more than four times its production cost of $6.25 million and garnered three Academy Award nominations including Best Art Direction, Best Film Score and Best Song. El Cid would be Milós Rózsa’s last epic score.

‘HATARI!’ MOVIE POSTER

Hatari! (1962)

Henry Mancini
Hoagy Carmichael

Hatari! is a 1962 American adventure romantic comedy film directed by Howard Hawks. It portrays a group of professional game catchers in Africa who entrap wild animals and sell them to zoos before a female wildlife photographer disrupts their ways.

Hawks was planning on hiring his long-time collaborator, Dmitri Tiomkin, to write the score for the picture. The director’s only requirement was for Tiomkin to completely leave out the string and woodwind sections and instead use authentic African instruments. Thinking Hawks was joking, the conservative composer showed the director a score that included strings. This misunderstanding would lead to them parting ways and the pair would never work together again.

HOAGY CARMICHAEL’S SKECTH FOR ‘HATARI!’

The director then turned to prolific singer-songwriter Hoagy Carmichael who played Cricket in the director’s 1944 picture, To Have and Have Not, after Hawks had discovered the musician at a party. Hawks wanted to work with someone who had never scored a picture before and had no preconceived notions of what a score is supposed to sound like. And although the director was happy at first with Carmichael’s material, they ended up disagreeing on the direction of the music and Hawks had to turn to another composer yet again.

As it turned out, the third time was the charm as the director’s next choice, Henry Mancini, would go on to score Hatari!. Mancini did end up using violins in his music, however, he masterfully entwined them with tribal rhythms and an array of native instruments that Hawks had brought back with him from Africa. Mancini would use instruments such as the thumb piano, shell gourds and giant pea pods to score the animal scenes. Among the shot material was a scene that Hawks was contemplating on cutting out, but asked Mancini to have a look at it regardless. The scene featured Anna Maria D’Alessandro (Elsa Martinelli) taking three small elephants to a watering hole to bathe them. The composer loved the scene and immediately knew what to do with it. He superimposed an E-flat clarinet over an electric calliope (the only one in the world at that time), and the result would give birth to one of cinema’s most memorable themes, ‘Baby Elephant Walk’. The composer recalled:

[…] As the little elephants went down to the water, there was a shot of them from behind. Their little backsides were definitely in rhythm with something. […] it reminded me of something. I though, Yeah, they’re walking eight to the bar, and that brought something to mind, an old Will Bradley boogie-woogie number called “Down the Road a Piece”, a hit record in the old days, with Ray McKinley on drums and Freddie Slack on piano. Those little elephants were definitely walking boogie-woogie, eight to the bar. I wrote “Baby Elephant Walk” as a result.

Interestingly, the next track after ‘Baby Elephant Walk’ on the soundtrack recording is ‘Just for Tonight’, which was Hoagy Carmichael’s reworking of ‘A Perfect Paris Night’ and the only material retained from his work in the film. Luckily, all of Carmichael’s recorded music, as well as the written score were preserved and are archived at Indiana University.

‘TORN CURTAIN’ MOVIE POSTER

Torn Curtain (1966)

John Addison
Bernard Herrmann

Torn Curtain is a 1966 Cold War political thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. …of an American scientist (Paul Newman) who is secretly a double agent who publicly defects to East Germany to discover Soviet nuclear secrets.

By that time, the celebrated director had enthralled audiences worldwide with masterpieces such as Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). However, following the box office failure of Marnie (1964), Hitchcock started to doubt himself as his cinema was beginning to show its age. Universal Studios saw Hitch’s hesitation as an opportunity to get their claws into the film’s post-production. Lew Wasserman, the head of Universal, instructed Hitchcock to bring in a new sound to the picture and go for a pop-oriented score more in tune with the times.

Having previously successfully collaborated with Bernard Herrmann on eight of his pictures which constituted one of the greatest director-composer partnerships in the history of cinema, Hitchcock turned to the composer once again, this time with precise instructions in tune with the studio’s demands:

I am particularly concerned with the need to break away from the old-fashioned cued-in type music that we have been using for so long. […] The audience is very different from the one to which we used to cater; it is young, vigorous and demanding. It is this fact that has been recognized by almost all of the European filmmakers where they have sought to introduce a beat and a rhythm that is more in tune with the requirements of the aforesaid audience.

Herrmann was not crazy about the film but agreed to score it as by that time Hitchcock was his only regular source of feature film work. The independent-minded composer went ahead with music he thought was appropriate for the film. Granted, Hitchcock had asked Herrmann to sketch the music ‘in advance because we have an urgent problem of meeting a tax date’, so the composer had to come up with the cues blindly. When Hitchcock arrived at the Goldwyn Studios on 24 March 1966 for the first recording session, he was shocked to realize that Herrmann had gone against his wishes and wrote bold, unusual symphonic music using atypical orchestrations and an unorthodox line-up of instruments consisting of twelve flutes – doubling on piccolos, alto flutes and bass flutes – sixteen French horns, nine trombones, two tubas, double timpani, eight cellos and eight basses. He also composed music for the murder scene, even though Hitchcock had expressly requested be left without music.

The orchestra musicians were ecstatic about Herrmann’s score and gave him a standing ovation right after the recording. Hitchcock, however, was furious and dismissed the composer in front of everyone. The two never spoke again, ending a twelve-year-old collaboration.

A few days later, British composer John Addison was hired and flown to Los Angeles. Ironically, Addison’s replacement music wasn’t pop-oriented either and neither did it manage to salvage the picture which flopped.

Bernard Herrman’s score for Torn Curtain remains one of the best known ‘might have beens’ in the history of film music. And although it never ended up in the film, his music was released on CD no less than three times over the years.

‘2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY’ MOVIE POSTER

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Classical compositions by various composers
Frank Cordell, Alex North

2001: A Space Odyssey is Stanley Kubrick’s magnum opus and is based on Arthur C. Clarke’s short story The Sentinel. Kubrick worked together with Clarke on writing the script, which they completed in January 1966, which would eventually prompt Clarke to publish his science fiction novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.

As was his custom, Kubrick used temporary music throughout his film in order to find the film’s pulse and to help carry the narrative. And thus, over the next two years, as the project was taking shape, he acquired multiple records of classical music, listened to countless hours of orchestral pieces and put together a temp track (temporary music used in a picture during production). Among his favourites were Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard Strauss’ tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra (which became the movie’s signature track), a waltz by Frédéric Chopin, Johann Strauss’ The Blue Danube, Aram Khachaturian’s Gayene, and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Kubrick actually approached Orff and tried to persuade him to compose the score, however, Orff politely declined saying that this task was too large for his advanced age (the composer was seventy-one at the time).

Kubrick became convinced that his film didn’t need an original score as his carefully-curated selection of classical oeuvres would do the film justice. The MGM bosses, however, disagreed. They were adamant that a movie of such magnitude required an equally-great composer. And so, at the end of 1967, the director approached two composers – English composer Frank Cordell and well-established Hollywood composer Alex North (with whom Kubrick had worked on Spartacus (1960).

The collaboration with Cordell was stillborn, as at that time, Kubrick wasn’t very clear about what he wanted and instructed the composer to adapt Mahler’s Third Symphony. Cordell’s score got rejected and Kubrick then turned to Alex North.

Alex North recalls:

I was living in the Chelsea Hotel in New York (where Arthur Clarke was living) and got a phone call from Kubrick from London asking me of my availability to come over and do a score for 2001. He told me that I was the film composer he most respected, and he looked forward to working together. I was ecstatic at the idea of working with Kubrick again (Spartacus was an extremely exciting experience for me), as I regard Kubrick as the most gifted of the younger-generation directors, and that goes for the older as well. And to do a film score where there were about twenty-five minutes of dialogue and no sound effects! What a dreamy assignment, after Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, loaded with dialogue.

I flew over to London for two days in early December to discuss music with Kubrick. He was direct and honest with me concerning his desire to retain some of the “temporary” music tracks which he had been using for the past years. I realized that he liked these tracks, but I couldn’t accept the idea of composing part of the score interpolated with other composers. I felt I could compose music that had the ingredients and essence of what Kubrick wanted and give it a consistency and homogeneity and contemporary feel. In any case, I returned to London December 24th [1967] to start work for recording on January 1, after having seen and discussed the first hour of film for scoring. Kubrick arranged a magnificent apartment for me on the Chelsea Embankment, and furnished me with all the things to make me happy: record player, tape machine, good records, etc. I worked day and night to meet the first recording date, but with the stress and strain, I came down with muscle spasms and back trouble. I had to go to the recording in an ambulance, and the man who helped me with the orchestration, Henry Brant, conducted while I was in the control room. Kubrick was present, in and out; he was pressured for time as well. He made very good suggestions, musically. I had written two sequences for the opening, and he was definitely favorable to one, which was my favorite as well. So I assumed all was going well, what with his participation and interest in the recording. But somehow I had the hunch that whatever I wrote to supplant Strauss’ Zarathustra would not satisfy Kubrick, even though I used the same structure but brought it up to date in idiom and dramatic punch. Also, how could I compete with Mendelssohn’s Scherzo from Midsummer Night’s Dream? Well, I thought I did pretty damned well in that respect.

In any case, after having composed and recorded over forty minutes of music in those two weeks, I waited around for the opportunity to look at the balance of the film, spot the music, etc. During that period I was rewriting some of the stuff that I was not completely satisfied with, and Kubrick even suggested over the phone certain changes that I could make in the subsequent recording. After eleven tense days of waiting to see more film in order to record in early February, I received word from Kubrick that no more score was necessary, that he was going to use breathing effects for the remainder of the film. It was all very strange, and I thought perhaps I would still be called upon to compose more music; I even suggested to Kubrick that I could do whatever necessary back in L.A. at the M-G-M studios. Nothing happened. I went to a screening in New York, and there were most of the “temporary” tracks.

In an interesting twist, North found out that his score had been rejected only during the film’s premiere in New York, an experience that, according to author Michael Benson, left him ‘shocked and humiliated’.

Thankfully, Alex North’s original score was brought to life in 1993 via a full recording conducted by Jerry Goldsmith.

The post The Ones that Got Away: Rejected Film Scores, Part III appeared first on The Cinematic Journal.

The Ones that Got Away: Rejected Film Scores, Part II

Stella Lungu — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 15:00:36 +0000

Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942)

Louis Gruenberg
Igor Stravinsky

Commandos Strike at Dawn is a 1942 Second World War propaganda film directed by John Farrow and adapted by Irwin Shaw from a short story entitled The Commandos by C.S. Forester that appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in June 1942. The film tells the story of a Norwegian fisherman who is outraged by the atrocities committed by the Nazis against his peaceful, bucolic village and escapes to Britain to form a resistance force.

Toward the end of 1941, Morris Stoloff, musical director at Columbia Pictures Corporation, met with Russian composer Igor Stravinsky to discuss the possibility of his composing the score for Commandos Strike at Dawn. Stravinsky had been living in the United States since 1939, following the deaths of his wife and daughter from tuberculosis. Just before emigrating, Stravinsky himself had spent five months in hospital, during which time his mother died.

IGOR STRAVINSKY

Alexandre Tansman was appointed as Stravinsky’s assistant and Hollywood advisor on the score due to the latter’s lack of experience with the Hollywood scoring system, and they both sought out Miklós Rózsa’s advice on the technicalities of scoring a film.

In the end, the negotiations didn’t pan out. Similar to Arnold Schoenberg’s attempt to score The Good Earth, Stravinsky began working on the score long before signing a contract. His approach was to create a pastoral atmosphere with his score by basing the music on Norwegian folk songs. This was an unusual perspective, considering that war films at the time had a very specific sound and featured heroic marches and fanfares.

Stravinsky ended up salvaging the material he had written and turned it into a four-movement concert suite entitled Four Norwegian Moods, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on 13 January, 1944. Stravinsky had based his compositions on pieces found in The Norway Music Album, three of which were arrangements by Edvard Grieg. Stravinsky vehemently denied to have drawn inspiration from Edvard Grieg’s music, stating, ‘All the themes in my Norwegian Moods were taken from a collection of Norwegian folk music my wife found in a secondhand bookstore in Los Angeles – and not from Grieg, as some writers on my music have stated!’

‘FOUR NORWEGIAN MOODS’ ALBUM COVER

The replacement composer for the project was another composer of Russian descent, Louis Gruenberg, who not only delivered the score quickly but was exactly what Columbia was looking for. His work earned him an Oscar nomination in the Best Original Score category in 1944.

As for Stravinsky, during the 28 years he lived in the United States, he tried his hand at scoring two more times, but to no avail, on both occasions due to clashes with producer Darryl F. Zanuck. In 1943, he was informally approached to compose the music for Song of Bernadette (1943). He managed to compose music for the ‘Apparition of the Virgin’ scene, however, the project ended up going to Alfred Newman, who won an Oscar. Stravinsky recycled his music which made its way into the second movement of his Symphony in Three Movements. Similarly, in February 1943, upon the personal request of Orson Welles, Stravinsky began composing music for 20th Century Fox’s Jane Eyre (1943). After Bernard Herrmann replaced him, Stravinsky ended up turning the music he had composed for a hunting scene into ‘Eclogue’ to his Ode for orchestra, which premiered in 1943.

Despite never making it as a film composer in Hollywood, Stravinsky remained in Los Angeles until 1969 and his stay in Southern California triggered fresh approaches to his compositional techniques.

‘SINCE YOU WENT AWAY’ FILM POSTER

Since You Went Away (1944)

Max Steiner
Alexandre Tansman

Since You Went Away is a 1944 American drama film directed by John Cromwell for Selznick International Pictures. The movie was adapted and produced by the legendary producer David O. Selznick from the 1943 novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret Buell Wilder. The film tells the story of a housewife who is left home alone to take care of her two daughters and a pair of lodgers while her husband is away to fight in World War II.

Selznick wanted his Oscar bait to demonstrate his patriotic support for the war effort but did not want to make another traditional war movie. As was typical with his productions, he personally wanted to oversee all aspects of the production, including the music. However, finding the right composer for the picture turned out to be quite the challenge.

DAVID O. SELZNICK

Selznick’s initial choice was MGM’s in-house composer Herbert Stothart, with whom he had collaborated a few times before. However, Stothart was already attached to four other films. The producer then reached out to Bernard Herrmann, but Herrmann declined, as the project was of no interest to him.

Selznick then asked for a list of all the available composers in Hollywood and their credits and thus ended up hiring freelance composer Alexandre Tansman to score the picture. A prolific concert composer, Tansman was an émigré from Poland who moved to Paris in his twenties and had only worked on one Hollywood film, Flesh and Fantasy (1943). He was unattached to any of the big studios, a position Selznick found to his liking. Hiring Tansman, an established composer of symphonies, operas, and ballets, would carry ‘a certain little extra distinction’ and would help with publicity. Selznick then hired Charles Previn, a music director at Universal, to oversee Tansman’s work and Louis Forbes as Associate Music Director.

ALEXANDRE TANSMAN WITH HIS FIRST WIFE ANNA ELEONORA BROCINER

Tansman was an unknown to the producer, and Selznick was anxious about entrusting a production of such proportions to a composer relatively new to Hollywood. So he requested that Tansman record only a couple of reels of music – or as he put it, ‘the minimum required from a cost standpoint’ – so that the producer could decide early on, before losing too much time and money, if the music worked.

Tansman was then asked to arrange a few versions of ‘Together’, a 1928 song that was the centrepiece of the film’s music, and was only given the length and the overall mood of the scene – he was not informed as to the application of his music to the scenes. This temporary recording was to be produced using a chamber ensemble, so Tansman had to reorchestrate his score for his reduced resources. Naturally, the music did not sound as good as it would have employing the power of a full orchestra, and needless to say, Selznick was less than impressed.

In other words, Tansman had fallen into a trap by agreeing to compose to script, without final footage. This was Selznick’s typical requirement, as he wanted composition to take place before the picture was edited in order to allow composers more time and avoid time crunches during post-production. Max Steiner and Alfred Newman had refused to work like this, being aware of how much a picture could change between script and locked picture. Tansman, however, did not, so when Selznick viewed the synchronised footage and musical mockup, the composer’s fate was sealed.

‘SINCE YOU WENT AWAY’ SOUNDTRACK ALBUM COVER

With little time left and a very long film in need of music, Selznick’s reached out to Warner Bros. music director Leo Forbestein and asked to borrow Max Steiner. Forbestein agreed but warned Selznick that hiring Steiner on such short notice would not be cheap. Desperate, Selznick agreed to pay Warner Bros. an astounding $3,300 a week for Steiner’s services. Steiner took the assignment with a bit of anxiety, as he was well aware of Selznick’s habit to micro-manage the scoring process. Ironically, Selznick had considered replacing Steiner during the postproduction of Gone with the Wind, when the composer stated he was unable to deliver the score before the set deadline.

Selznick was very grateful to the composer, considering the time constraints and the fact that at the time, Steiner was going through a rough time in his personal life, as his father was dying and had been hospitalized, his marriage to Louise Klos was falling apart and Steiner himself was suffering from a back tumour that required surgery. ‘Thank heavens for Maxie.’, the producer is said to have affirmed.

Steiner’s score features an astonishing number of themes, several popular songs of the era and traditional works, as well an infusion of several of Steiner’s themes from earlier Selznick pictures. A recording of ‘Together’ from Tansman’s score was retained.

Since You Went Away would mark David O. Selznick and Max Steiner’s final collaboration and was both a commercial and critical success, earning nine Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Score. This was the first time Selznick’s company would receive the award for best music.

‘CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA’ FILM POSTER

Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)

Georges Auric
Arthur Bliss

Caesar and Cleopatra is a 1945 British Technicolor film directed by Gabriel Pascal and is based on the play by George Bernard Shaw and was the most expensive film ever produced in Britain at the time. Gabriel Pascal was the only director Shaw trusted to film his plays after successfully delivering Pygmalion (1938) and Major Barbara (1941). Shaw praised Pascal by saying, ‘Pascal is doing for films what Diaghilev did for ballet.’

The story focuses around a middle-aged Julius Caesar, who, at the height of the Roman Civil War, takes possession of the Egyptian capital city of Alexandria, where he meets a young Cleopatra and teaches her how to rule Egypt.

Shaw himself recommended Sir Arthur Bliss to score the picture, and so, on 6 June 1944, the British composer signed the contract. However, the deal was with the author rather than the director. Bliss, who in 1953 would become Master of the Queen’s Music, was a well-established composer of classical concert music and had only a few movies to his name, including the most expensive film of its time, H.G. Well’s Things to Come. Bliss’ score for Things to Come would have been a pillar in British film scoring had it not been ruined by the perpetual re-editing of the picture and the poor quality of contemporary dubbing technology.

‘THE FILM MUSIC OF SIR ARTHUR BLISS’ ALBUM COVER

Shaw, who was a former music critic, was in charge of all the communication regarding the music of Caesar and Cleopatra and provided Bliss with some helpful suggestions, including to write music in his own style and not to compose a clichéd imitation of Egyptian music. ‘In Heaven’s name, no Egyptian music!’, the author pleaded. Shaw also sent Bliss a letter offering him serious advice before the contract was signed:

“Be careful not to let yourself be placed in the position of an employee of Pascal or of the film company, as anything you compose for them in that capacity will belong to them and not to you. If I were a composer writing for a film I should make a skeleton piano score of an orchestral suite consisting of overture, nocturne, barcarole, intermezzo and finale. I should copyright this in my own name in England and America. Then, being in an impregnable position as sole owner of the music, I should license the film people to use the material as an accompaniment to their film for a stated period on stated terms, giving them no rights whatever. . . Remember that an orchestral suite by you will long survive Pascal’s film and become a standard concert piece quite independently of my play, like Grieg’s Peer Gynt. Let no parasite fasten on it.”

‘THE FILM MUSIC OF GEORGES AURIC’ ALBUM COVER

Following Shaw’s advice, Bliss started work on a score, writing 100 pages of music in his signature style, sketching out cues such as ‘Memphis at Night’, ‘Ftatateeta’, ‘Soldiers’ Chorus’ and ‘Barcarolle’. His instrumentation did call for a buccina, an ancient Roman wind instrument, which was the only exotic instrument Bliss used in the entire score.

However, the project came to a halt after Bliss had met Gabriel Pascal. Pascal was known to be tough and uncompromising in all departments of production, especially in music. Bliss later recalled, ‘I have had unforgettable experiences with one director who, where music was concerned, was a certified lunatic, and I had to discontinue collaboration.’ In his autobiography, Bliss explains, ‘One look at him made it self-evident that he would never be a sympathetic collaborator, and I withdrew from the assignment.’

The director wanted a ‘French-sounding’ score, so Bliss was replaced by Georges Auric, who was a member of the celebrated rebellious group of Parisian composers known as Les Six. The prolific composer took a different approach and composed the music using very colourful orchestrations and employing instruments such as strings, piano, celeste, xylophone, bells, harp, saxophone, tuba, and woodwinds. His music ended up being one of the highlights of an otherwise messy production.

A nine-minute suite containing ‘Main Titles’, ‘At the Sphinx’, and ‘The Battle’ was later recorded and published on a compilation album by Chandos Records. Similarly, Bliss’ rejected score was also turned into a suite consisting of eight short movements lasting 17 minutes, which was edited by Giles Easterbrook and Malcolm Binney. It was published several decades later also by Chandos Records.

‘THE NAKED CITY’ FILM POSTER

The Naked City (1948)

Miklós Rózsa, Frank Skinner
George Bassman

The Naked City is a 1948 American film noir directed by Jules Dassin and produced by Mark Hellinger. With a story written by Malvin Wald, the film marks the birth of the modern police procedural. The movie portrays the police investigation that follows the murder of a young girl and places the criminal underbelly of New York City under the microscope.

Hallinger was known for granting his directors a lot of artistic freedom, however, he only had one request for Dessin, that he use Miklós Rózsa to write the film’s score. Hallinger had worked with Rózsa before, the composer having scored two of the producer’s previous movies, The Killers (1946) and Brute Force (1947). Dessin, however, insisted that they hire George Bassman to score the picture. Bassman was a famed MGM arranger and composer who had scored three earlier Dessin films: Young Ideas (1943), A Letter for Evie (1946), and Two Smart People (1946). Both Dessin and Bossman had worked at MGM but were asked to leave; Dessin on account of his political views, and Bossman ‘for a different reason’.

The pressures of the film’s production took their toll on Hellinger, who suffered a heart attack while working in New York. Disregarding his doctor’s pleads for him to rest, Hellinger continued with the production. He even attended the recording sessions of the musical score, conducted by Bassman. Hellinger, however, felt that Bassman’s music was too similar to an Aaron Copland composition. Knowing Bassman’s background as an arranger, he feared that the composer might simply have reworked pre-existing music, a situation that could have serious legal repercussions. Outraged, Bassman insisted that his music was completely original and told Hellinger what he thought of him and his musical tastes. As a result, Hellinger immediately called Miklós Rózsa and asked him to replace Bassman as soon as possible. According to Rózsa, upon hearing Bassman’s score, Hellinger ‘nearly had another heart attack.’ As it happens, Hellinger did in fact die of another heart attack that very night.

The producer’s death did not slow down production and Rózsa immediately began spotting The Naked City, as he was given only two weeks to do the work on his own. The picture’s Music Supervisor and the head of Universal’s music department, Milton Schwarzwald, offered to bring in Universal in-house composer Frank Skinner to help shoulder the burden. Finding that time frame untenable, Rózsa agreed to score the chase sequence at the end and leave the first part of the film to Skinner, which featured less music-dependent dialogue scenes. Rózsa’s score went on to become a classic.

Interestingly, both Jules Dassin and George Bassman would soon be blacklisted for their Communist associations.

The post The Ones that Got Away: Rejected Film Scores, Part II appeared first on The Cinematic Journal.

‘Doctor Sleep’: A Well Executed Second Act

Jules R. Simion — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 11:00:31 +0000

The Ones that Got Away: Rejected Film Scores, Part I

Stella Lungu — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 16:54:41 +0000

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

Max Steiner
W. Franke Harling

The Most Dangerous Game is a thriller adapted from a 1924 short story by Richard Connell, in which a deranged Russian Cossack hunter makes sure ships are wrecked on his island so that he can hunt the survivors for sport.

Producer Merian C. Cooper took charge at RKO Pictures during the Great Depression and was entrusted to go over all the projects that had accumulated with a fine-tooth comb and to greenlight the suitable ones. During that time, Cooper had two jungle adventures on his plate: King Kong (1933) – which required a large budget – and The Most Dangerous Game.

With a great reputation for delivering quality while being mindful of budgets, Cooper decided to test the feasibility of a jungle movie and went ahead with the production of The Most Dangerous Game. One of his ingenious ideas was to build film sets that were reserved for King Kong during the day and could be used for The Most Dangerous Game during the night.

MAX STEINER

Composer Max Steiner, who was Director of Music at RKO at that time, persuaded RKO’s bosses, who initially wanted to use ‘library music’ (old tracks), to go with original scores for these two movies. Steiner agreed to score King Kong at a reduced fee and Cooper said he would pay for the orchestra. Steiner already had a large workload on his shoulders, so W. Franke Harling was assigned to score The Most Dangerous Game.

Harling was well-known for having composed the music for A Light from St. Agnes, a popular jazz-oriented opera. Cooper, however, wasn’t pleased with his approach, complaining that his score was too ‘Broadway-light’ and unsuited for an adventure thriller.

Max Steiner was then begged to write a replacement score in only two weeks. Due to the very tight deadline on The Most Dangerous Game, Steiner had to work on this score almost in parallel with King Kong. And although it is often said that King Kong is the first great original film score of the ‘sound era’, some argue that this honour actually goes to The Most Dangerous Game, as it premiered sooner.

‘THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME’ AND ‘THE SON OF KONG’ SOUNDTRACK COVER

The music Max Steiner wrote for The Most Dangerous Game might sound all-too-familiar to most of us today, for it has been imitated countless times ever since. Steiner incorporated the leitmotif (Count Zaroff’s theme) he used throughout the film into ‘Russian Waltz’, a tune played by Count Zaroff at his piano in the film. This piece of diegetic music (AKA source music) was written by the composer himself. This ground-breaking technique of marrying the underscore with the source music would be used from then on in numerous films as a storytelling method. Furthermore, his music for the final chase scene is a masterclass in action and suspense scoring, employing techniques that are still used in sci-fi, thrillers, and horror movies today.

One of the problems faced by Steiner during this time was the small size of the orchestra that he had to work with. And while the players were some of the best in the business, the reduced number of the performers meant that the orchestra simply wasn’t able to convey the music penned by the composer in all its complexity so concessions had to be made. The recordings that exist today, performed by Moscow Symphony Orchestra and conducted by William Stromberg, are accurate reconstructions made by John W. Morgan for a full symphonic orchestra and are based on Steiner’s original handwritten sketches, thus reflecting the composer’s true musical intentions.

‘DON QUIXOTE’ FILM POSTER

Don Quixote (1933)

Jacques Ibert
Maurice Ravel

In 1932, Austrian film director Georg Wilhelm Pabst embarked on the task of adapting Miguel de Cervantes’ celebrated novel, Don Quixote, a tale about an elderly man who goes mad from reading too many books on chivalry. He filmed three separate versions of the film, in English, French, and German. The legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin would go on to play the title role in all three languages. Chaliapin was already familiar with the character, having portrayed him in Jules Massenet’s opera Don Quichotte in 1910.

The producers had reached out to five composers to write songs for this film, including Maurice Ravel, Marcel Delannoy, Manuel de Falla, Jacques Ibert, and Darius Milhaud. Little did the composers know that this was, in fact, a contest. Each of them was certain that their music would be featured in the film.

The contract signed in June 1932 specified a heroic song, a serenade, and a comic tune, with the deadline set for August and a warning that Chaliapin preferred not to have too many high Cs, Ds or E flats.

The winner was the great composer and master orchestrator, Maurice Ravel, who was asked to compose four pieces. The producers were happy with the choice, for Ravel was one of Europe’s most prominent composers and they were hoping that with his name attached to the project, together with French author’s Paul Morand – who provided the lyrics – the project would attract investors. Furthermore, Ravel had a proven affinity for Spanish music which is what the project required.

Ravel, however, had suffered health problems since 1919 and at this time his health was in decline, specifically after having suffered a head injury in a car accident which prevented him from putting the music that he heard in his head on paper. This, in turn, slowed his progress in delivering the music and Ravel was eventually fired as a composer, having completed only three songs. These would become the three-part song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and would cover other facets of the story than Ibert’s work. Chanson romanesque portrays the noble lunatic as a lover, Chanson épique as a holy warrior, and Chanson à boire depicts the protagonist as a drinker. Although his songs didn’t end up in the film, they have become some of the most performed songs in the Baritone repertoire. The songs were later published and were premiered on 1 December 1934 in Paris with baritone Martial Singher performing and Paul Perey leading the orchestra. These are Ravel’s final compositions before his death in 1937.

Pabst then turned to French composer Jacques Ibert, who, as it happens, was a friend of Ravel’s. Learning about the contest, both composers became outraged, Ravel even considering a lawsuit against the producers, an idea he later dropped.

Ibert provided four songs for Don Quixote, Chanson du depart, Chanson à Dulcinée, Chanson du Duc, and Chanson du mort. He also wrote a song for Sancho Panza, titled Chanson de Sancho. The song texts were written by Pierre de Ronsard and Alexandre Arnoux, with Ibert himself conducting the recording used in the picture. Ibert’s music ended up in all three productions and he went on to arrange the songs for voice and piano, which were later published under the title Chansons de Don Quichotte, for Voice and Piano.

‘THE GOOD EARTH’ FILM POSTER

The Good Earth (1937)

Herbert Stothart
Arnold Schoenberg

The Good Earth is an American drama based on Pearl S. Buck’s eponymous novel which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. It depicts the life of a Chinese family of farmers as they navigate through life’s up and downs.

The composer who was first approached with scoring this picture was none other than the great Arnold Schoenberg, the inventor of the twelve-tone technique, a revolutionary and highly-influential 20th-century compositional method. Schoenberg was living in California at the time in exile, having fled Europe to escape the Nazi regime. He was contacted by Irving Thalberg, the celebrated young producer at the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Thalberg, who was a rather cultured movie mogul, met with Schoenberg at MGM’s studios in November 1935 and expressed his appreciation for the composer’s music. Thalberg explained that the music he imagined for this picture would be similar to Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, op.4, which he had heard on the radio earlier that year.

Unfortunately, Schoenberg got a little too involved in the project, long before signing any contract with the studio. He proceeded to carefully read the short novel that was sent to him by the MGM library and made numerous markings on its pages. Two of Schoenberg’s notebooks contain over thirty sketches of roughly worked out tonal, chromatic and pentatonic motifs and themes for The Good Earth. Among them are ‘a motif of an eventful growing crowd of people’, a motif to ‘the uncle of Ching’, a ‘lotus’ theme, a ‘fishpond’ motif, themes for ‘Wang’s Uncle’, ‘funeral/death’ motifs, motifs of a ‘turbulent folk scene in connection with the revolution’, motifs about the ‘fear of the Wang family because of the soldiers’, as well as a ‘pearl/wealth’ motif. It has to be noted that Schoenberg did all of this even before a second meeting took place.

Unaccustomed with Hollywood’s film-scoring process, Schoenberg requested full control of the soundtrack – including dialogue – and demanded a staggering fee of $50,000 for his services. He is also said to have requested to work directly with the actors and have the director shoot the film to match his music – not the other way around. The main stumbling blocks with contracting concert composers to score a picture were money and time, as they were used to their highly-priced concert music commissions and they liked to take their time to write the music. These were two issues that were not compatible with the film studios’ way of doing things since the production of a film was under a tight deadline – and so it remains to this day – and the studios had their own experienced composers that could do the work at a fraction of the price and in a short period of time.

The collaboration never came to fruition and three weeks after their initial meeting, Schoenberg addressed a letter to Thalberg expressing his disappointment with the former’s silent treatment.

Herbert Stothart and Edward Ward were eventually engaged to provide the music for The Good Earth.

‘THE THIEF OF BAGDAD’ FILM POSTER

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Miklós Rózsa
Oscar Strauss

The Thief of Bagdad is a 1940 film marketed at the time as an ‘An Arabian Fantasy in Technicolor’. The film was produced by the renowned director and producer Alexander Korda of London Films, who had long dreamt of remaking the 1924 silent film of the same name. The story takes inspiration from the classic Arabian tale One Thousand and One Nights, as well as the novel The Tower and the Elephant by Robert E. Howard, and features a classic hero, a villain, a love story, magic, and adventure.

Korda began working on the project early in 1939 and chose German filmmaker Ludwig Berger to direct the picture. Interestingly, the production team at London Films comprised almost entirely of Hungarian émigrés, including Alexander Korda and his brothers, director Zoltán Korda and art director Vincent Korda, screenwriter Lajos Biró, and composer Miklós Rózsa, who had already scored Knight Without Armour (1937) and The Four Feathers (1939) for the firm.

Alexander Korda was planning on hiring Rózsa once more for this film, promising him a significant increase in his salary – which, according to Rózsa, had been quite low up to that point – and that his contract would begin immediately. However, Berger insisted that they should instead bring Austrian composer Oscar Straus on board, as the pair had collaborated before on Ein Waltztraum (1925) and Les Trois Valses (1938). It was agreed then that Strauss would write all the pre-production music and Rózsa would provide ‘all the dramatic and colouristic music’. Rózsa had no choice at that point than to agree to this arrangement.

Strauss was taking a cure in the French town of Vichy at that time so he sent all his music to London by mail. A composer of waltzes and operettas, Strauss’ musical input proved to be unsuitable for the film, or as Rózsa himself put it, ‘It was impossible – typical turn-of-the-century Viennese candy-floss.’

The musical director, Muir Mathieson, was furious with the outcome and didn’t hold back in expressing his frustration during a tense meeting with Alexander Korda and Miklós Rózsa. While publicly siding with Berger on the issue of the music, Korda was unhappy with Strauss’ sketches as well and secretly instructed Rózsa to re-write the music and call him when he’s ready. A week later, Rózsa had the music ready and Korda had the brilliant idea of giving him an office next to Berger’s, where he had a piano installed. He then asked the composer to keep playing his music until Berger came out of his office. Rózsa started to work and play fortissimo in that office, and after three days, Berger finally came into his office and enquired about the music. After listening to a few of the pieces Rózsa had composed, Berger realized that this music was much better suited for the film.

MIKLÓS RÓZSA

A telegram was subsequently sent to Oscar Straus notifying him of his dismissal from the production. Strauss threatened to sue, stating that this incident was ruining his reputation, but soon had a change of heart after Korda paid him his fee in full.

Rózsa went on to compose the score and songs for The Thief of Bagdad, which would become instant classics. Due to the outbreak of WW2, the production was forced to move to California where the film was completed, a move which prompted Rózsa’s prolific Hollywood career.

The critically acclaimed film became a commercial success and earned four Academy Award nominations including Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Special Effects and Best Film Score, winning all but the award for Best Film Score.

The post The Ones that Got Away: Rejected Film Scores, Part I appeared first on The Cinematic Journal.

A Study of Black American Cinema: The Second Half

Jules R. Simion — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 07:00:15 +0000

Forty Years of Black Masterpieces

There are plenty of illustrious titles to work with but, as usual, a selection must be made for the sake of brevity. One film that has withstood the test of time, over and over again, is Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’ (1989). Its success is mainly owed to its sincerity and Mr Lee’s uncanny ability to deliver a wide range of characters without swerving into dangerous stereotype territory. With the United States always described as a melting pot of sorts—albeit idealistically, it’s no surprise that the eminent Black director chose New York as the ‘melting pot’ for his colourful and beautifully diverse characters before he brings it all to a boiling point.

The story is brilliant in its navigation of inner-city life and the struggles brought forth by racism—the latter a defining trait of Black American existence. ‘Do the Right Thing’ examines the very ethics of violence and prejudice before it offers a startling truth: good and bad are abstract moral constructs, at best. Few people are truly evil, yet so many have the potential for kindness. Mr Lee tells us that racism can be overcome, that there is beauty in diversity, and that Black Americans have been looked down upon for far too long. It was as relevant in 1989 as it is today.

‘Inside Man’ (2006) is yet another seminal work by Spike Lee—one of many, I might add. Packed with ridiculous amounts of tension and thrills, the film offers a glimpse into one of the greatest heists ever imagined by a screenwriter’s mind. With a stellar cast and exceptional performances under Mr Lee’s equally proficient direction, ‘Inside Man’ made history for Black Cinema, garnering plenty of awards along the way, including Movie of the Year at the AFI Awards and nods from both the AAFCA (African-American Film Critics Association) and BET Awards.

Antoine Fuqua’s ‘Training Day’ (2001) is such a rich work of cinema that it is rightfully referenced in film school studies today. It got Denzel Washington an Academy Award for his portrayal of a streetwise but crooked cop charged with training Ethan Hawke’s wet-behind-the-ears rookie. While the majority of Mr Washington’s thespian performances brought him forth as a model for righteousness and decency, his Alonzo offers a different take—a man who has tasted the dark side of power, who has forced fragile partnerships and alliances with the underbelly of city crime, and who cannot be ousted without losing everything, including his life.

Mr Fuqua’s directorial talent transforms the screenplay penned by David Ayers into an extraordinarily chilling drama about corruption within the ranks of those who are supposed to serve and protect.

Before he dazzled Hollywood with ‘Black Panther’, Ryan Coogler wrote and directed ‘Fruitvale Station’ (2013), which tells the story of Oscar Grant’s last day before he was shot in the back and killed by a police officer. This Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award winner delivers a punch in the gut with its opening—security footage of the real Oscar Grant, and with its ending—a clip of his daughter, now left without her father. It was a complicated project to undertake, given that there were living relatives that Mr Coogler and his lead, Michael B. Jordan, had to consider.

Oscar Grant is portrayed in a realistic manner. He is a flawed man trying to make better choices and aware of his responsibilities toward his family, which is why he decides to take the BART train on the last night of 2008 and of his life. ‘Fruitvale Station’ does not intend to offer any kind of remedy for the social issues of police brutality aimed particularly at Black Americans. It only recreates the final hours of a man who did not deserve to die the way he did.

Based on Sapphire’s novel ‘Push’ and directed by Lee Daniels, ‘Precious’ (2009) is a tour de force. Rarely do we see comedians sliding into dramatic roles with an ease that delivers staggering performances. Among them, I can think of Jim Carrey and Robin Williams. Yet there is also Mo’Nique, who is simply outstanding as the Harlem mother from hell who sexually abuses her illiterate teenage daughter, exquisitely portrayed by a young Gabourey Sidibe.

Sidibe’s Precious is a girl who has known nothing but trauma and misery, yet she finds kindness and freedom in others who help elevate her until she severs ties with her mother and becomes a better version of herself. Beyond Mo’Nique’s Oscar-worthy performance, however, what I also find memorable about this film is that it got Geoffrey Fletcher an Academy Award for the screenplay, making him the very first Black American to win a Best Screenplay Oscar (Original or Adapted).

‘Barbershop’ (2002) by Tim Story offers a softer take on black culture. It’s a light-hearted comedy drama that features Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Eve, and Michael Ealy—an easy-to-digest movie offering realistic conversations to which viewers have been glad to relate. Before there were talk-shows like ‘Meet the Press’, barbershops used to be great meeting spots for people to go and chat about pretty much everything while getting a haircut. Mr Story’s film follows a family-owned barbershop and those who are sewn into its very fabric, employees and customers alike. It registered impressive box office figures, enough to later release two sequels and a spinoff for Queen Latifah.

Few movies have rattled their audiences like Steve McQueen’s ‘Twelve Years a Slave’ (2014), based on the eponymous book written by Solomon Northup. The film, equal parts powerful and excruciating through its depiction of 19^th century America and the superb performances of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita N’yongo, and Michael Fassbender, tells the story of Solomon Northup. His abduction and bondage into slavery despite having been a legally free black man forms the core of this devastating account and it brings forth a troubling question for its Black American viewers. What would they do if they were forced into Mr Northup’s circumstances? Would they fight back with everything they’ve got, or would they become pliable as a means of self-preservation in a society designed to keep them down, like he did?

‘Moonlight’ by Barry Jenkins took the festival circuit by storm and won Best Motion Picture of the Year at the Oscars. For good reason, too. A character like Chiron had never been portrayed in Black American cinema before, thus proving that the range devised for black men in movies could spread wider and could offer new, enthralling dimensions. With only a couple of exceptions, few black characters had struggled with masculinity up to that point. Adding Naomie Harris and Mahershala Ali’s resplendent renditions (let us not forget that Mr Ali won an Academy Award for this role) only served to turn ‘Moonlight’ into a cinematic phenomenon and proof that black films have a lot more to give, still.

Prior to ‘Selma’ (2014), Ava Duvernay was already enjoying a rapid ascension among the filmmaking ranks of Hollywood. It was this biopic oeuvre that brought forth the massive reaches of her talent and vision. It is imperative to observe the sheer force of will that she exudes as a Black American woman in an otherwise mostly white industry.

‘Selma’ does more than just recount that epic march for voting rights that carried Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, however. It gives us the man behind the legend, a being of titanic dreams and complexities, whose faults and qualities are presented from multiple angles—a feat genially accomplished through David Oyelowo’s interpretation and Ms Duvernay’s directorial guidance.

F. Gary Gray had already done music video work with Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and other rap artists of the era that saw the rise of N.W.A. before he took on the gargantuan challenge of telling their story in ‘Straight Outta Compton’ (2015).

Naturally, the end result had everything that the iconic rap group’s fans could wish for: N.W.A.’s permission to use their original music; fantastic performances from the three leads, one of them being none other than O’Shea Jackson Jr., who played the role of his father, Ice Cube; and the kind of energy that is not easily found nor easily forgotten. It was the U.S.’s number one film for three weeks in a row and held a stupefying box office figure of $200M, but it will be remembered not only as a commercial success, but also as the now-second highest-grossing music biopic—after ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (2019).

Forty Years of Black Directorial Brilliance

Many have garnered praise and attention for their works in Black American cinema, though few have become powerhouse names with multiple titles under their belts.

Naturally, we have Spike Lee at the forefront. We’ve already touched on ‘Inside Man’ and ‘Do the Right Thing’, but those are only two of his most popular movies. Once he made his debut with ‘She’s Gotta Have It’ (1986), his first feature-length film, Mr Lee did not stop creating and telling cinematic stories with roots deeply sunk into African American culture in one form or another.

Through ‘Malcolm X’ (1992), he built a biographical profile of the authoritative and controversial Black Nationalist leader, following Malcom X’s rise from his early days as a small-time gangster to his ministry, his advocacy for the Nation of Islam and discourse for civil rights—though his approach was always more aggressive than Dr King’s. The esteemed director’s more recent foray into racial issues gives us ‘BlacKkKlansman’ (2018), which tells the true story of Ron Stallworth, a black police officer played by John David Washington who managed to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan branch in Colorado.

Known best for his studies of race relations, urban crime and poverty, and colourism issues within the black community, Spike Lee has earned his Academy Awards and Golden Globes nods for some of his works—mostly for ‘Do the Right Thing’. Finally, his Oscar win came in 2019 for Best Adapted Screenplay, which he shared with Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, and Kevin Willmott for ‘BlacKkKlansman’.

John Singleton became a household name of prolific Black American cinema with Oscar-nominated ‘Boyz n the Hood’ (1991), leaving an indelible mark on the industry with other works of true depth such as ‘Poetic Justice’ (1993), starring Janet Jackson, Tupac Shakur, and Regina King, and ‘Shaft’ (2000), which gave us Samuel L. Jackson like nobody had ever seen him before. The film world lost him in 2019, but his legacy remains.

I, for one, remember his critique of American studios, in particular, regarding their refusal ‘to let African Americans direct black-themed films’ during an event at Loyola Marymount University, a speech which later became viral. ‘They ain’t letting the black people tell the stories’, he added, and for good reason. Great films have come out of Hollywood with Black Americans as the heroes and heroines, in projects helmed by white directors. The nuance and authenticity are lost, however, regardless of artistic quality. There is something that only those who live through a specific experience can add to make a story feel undeniably real.

Allen and Albert Hughes, better known as the Hughes Brothers, have become more popular recently across television and streaming audiences thanks to ‘The Defiant Ones’ (2017), a biographical documentary series that studies the business relationship between Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, both heavy influences on contemporary culture. But before this Emmy-nominated project, the Hughes Brothers first garnered acclaim for ‘Menace II Society’ (1993) which despite having been frequently compared to ‘Boyz n the Hood’, it offers nothing downright pleasurable in its viewing experience. Unlike John Singleton’s signature piece, this Hughes Brothers’ showpiece is ugly and violent, painfully realistic and lacking in uplifting specks of hope. It pushes the viewers into wishing more from the world, since the characters clearly couldn’t.

They followed up with a slightly less bleak but just as troubling tale of black men who survived the Vietnam War, though not without emotional and psychological scars. ‘Dead Presidents’ (1995) approaches a rather difficult but necessary subject—the way in which the US government uses and abuses young men (in this case, especially black men) before it abandons them upon their return home. Pushed by PTSD, substance abuse, and the difficulties of providing for their families, these men who once fought for their country in the mosquito-infested jungles of Vietnam become criminals and spiral downwards until they land in prison. Few films have managed to incapsulate life after the war better than ‘Dead Presidents’.

There are plenty more Black American filmmakers who have left their own impressions onto the silver screen. F. Gary Gray made waves beyond ‘Straight Outta Compton’ with ‘Set It Off’ (1996) and ‘Friday’ (1995), the former a black-female-driven action piece featuring Jada Pinkett Smith, Vivica A. Fox, and Queen Latifah, and the latter a chilled comedy starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker—both films illustrating the director’s versatility and ability to tackle a complex range of themes and genres whilst keeping his cast and screenplays black.

Gina Prince’s ‘Love & Basketball’ (2000) also deserves an honourable mention, splendidly split into quarters and unravelling like a basketball game that tells a story of… well, love and basketball at the centre of a complicated relationship between Omar Epps’s Quincy McCall and Sanaa Lathan’s Monica Wright. Allow me to applaud George Tillman Jr.’s ‘Soul Food’ (1997), too, as one of the first Black-American-led movies I remember watching, a tale of love and family and all the complications that come attached, set around the dinner table.

And last, though certainly not least, a tip of the hat should go to Robert Townsend’s ‘The Five Heartbeats’ (1991), which earned a nomination for Outstanding Motion Picture from the Image Awards (NAACP). While its story is fictional, ‘The Five Heartbeats’ tells the familiar tale of Black American artists’ struggle during the ‘60s, at the climax of racial tensions in America. It carries twists of its own, however, with the singers’ personal demons threatening to shatter the troupe’s integrity in front of their growing audiences.

While hoping that the film industry will continue to grow, evolve, and embrace racial diversity and its potential, one can only look forward to what the future might hold for Black American cinema. There are some hard truths waiting to be told along with great stories.

The post A Study of Black American Cinema: The Second Half appeared first on The Cinematic Journal.

A Study of Black American Cinema: The First Half

Jules R. Simion — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 12:00:03 +0000

Of Oscar Micheaux, True Pioneer

J. Ronald Green once wrote of the African American filmmaker that he hit a ‘straight lick with a crooked stick’, which accurately describes Oscar Micheaux’s cinematic ingenuity. He built his name on genres like the melodrama, the crime drama, and romance, producing 44 films to his name.

Among them, I’m compelled to bring up the embedded flashbacks from ‘Within Our Gates’ (1920), which offer complex and layered lives (and afterlives). Its crosscutting and temporal treatment speak against D.W. Griffith’s ‘The Birth of a Nation’ (1915). In a most brilliant move, Mr Micheaux uses Mr Griffith’s own language to disprove his racist claims by showing a reality that ‘The Birth of a Nation’ refused to address, despite its cinematic prowess. The Black American director depicts the white lynch mob as opposed to the romanticized gallant Klan, choosing to show a truth that black people knew, and white people refused to acknowledge.

OSCAR MICHEAUX

Oscar Micheaux wasn’t without controversy, however. More than once, he was harshly criticized by black elites regarding representation, which is a hot button topic even today. One relevant example is ‘Body and Soul’ (1925), which irked the African American press for its treatment of a false preacher, splendidly portrayed by Paul Robeson. Black American stereotyping was already bad enough, they said, thus seeing no need to further engage in such deliberate debasing. But Micheaux counterpunched with a simple argument: realism was the key to the progress of the race.

‘I am too much imbued with the spirit of Booker T. Washington to engraft false virtues upon ourselves, to make ourselves that which we are not. Nothing could be a greater blow to our own progress. The recognition of our true situation will react in itself as a stimulus for self-advancement’, the luminary director once said.

Of Interracial Film Production Companies

Self-representation was rare in the writing and production of Black American films in the early 1900s. Most companies behind such titles were usually interracial ventures. Only a handful were fully black-owned and operated. Nevertheless, it is not easy at all to accurately observe the difference between how White Americans and Black Americans treated racial themes. Both types of productions offer a compelling impression of how cinema and storytelling were perceived by black and white people in the United States, but it would be a mistake to assume that films made by white-owned companies were more compromised than those authored by African American filmmakers.

Most of the interracially-produced ‘race films’ are best accepted as collaborations between writers, directors, producers, performers, camera operators and editors of different backgrounds that worked together to deliver cinematic experiences specifically for Black American audiences. Their goal was to produce stories of black life that went against the salacious and downright vicious mainstream movies. One such noteworthy oeuvre is white filmmaker Richard E. Norman’s ‘The Flying Ace’ (1926), its story exclusively set in the African American world. Focused on a returning war pilot and his rival for the love of the local railroad stationmaster’s daughter and modelled after famed Black American aviator Bessie Coleman, ‘The Flying Ace’ weaves its fictional narrative with the real heroism of African Americans that was already familiar to its desired audience.

Of Early Black American Stars

The Criterion Channel collection boasts an impressive array of black cinema, revealing the exceptional diversity of the roles that Black Americans undertook within the film industry—both in front of and behind the camera. It’s truly a pleasure to mention silver screen legends like Charles Sidney Gilpin, Lorenzo Tucker, Evelyn Preer, Flournoy Miller, and Paul Robeson, among many others.

Charles Gilpin was best known for his stage work, but ‘Ten Nights in a Barroom’ (1926) raised him to nationwide stardom in the African American community. Lorenzo Tucker is remembered to this day as ‘The Black Valentino’, admired for his dark and athletic complexion, and a darling of African American films—especially Oscar Micheaux’s, of which he did 18.

‘The First Lady of the Screen’ was Evelyn Preer’s nickname, and for good reason. She was a stage and film actress, as well as a jazz and blues singer who captivated the American public from the 1910s well into the 1930s. By most historical standards, Ms Preer was the first black actress to earn popularity and celebrity, appearing in pivotal movies and stage productions, including ‘The Chip Woman’s Fortune’ by Willis Richardson, widely regarded as the first dramatic play by an African American playwright to be produced on Broadway.

Flournoy Miller was one of the seminal figures of Black Broadway, earning a Tony nod for his performances, renowned as a vaudevillian entertainer alongside Aubrey Lyles and as Slim Perkins in ‘The Bronze Buckaroo’ (1939). But when it comes to astonishing greatness, one need to look no further than the magnificent Paul Robeson, a bass baritone with exquisite thespian talents who turned Eugene O’Neill’s plays into otherworldly masterpieces. Of course, given the difficult times he was born into, Mr Robeson became not only famous for his cinematic contributions but also notorious for his Cold-War-era advocacy for human rights. The latter, sadly expected, led to the eventual ruin of his illustrious career, though he remains today an everlasting symbol of Black American pride and consciousness.

I have to mention Francine Everett, dubbed ‘the most beautiful woman in Harlem’ and one of the most beautiful black actresses to grace the silver screen with her hypnotic presence. Ms Everett was one of the more frequent credits in race films, preferred by black audiences to Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge because she never transformed her screen persona into something more aloof, designed to please white audiences. In fact, she insisted on keeping her warmth and down-to-earth nature best evoked in Spencer Williams’s ‘Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A.’ (1946).

Let us not forget Herb Jeffries, either, who once sang with Duke Ellington’s orchestra and can be easily admired as a singing cowboy in several black-cast westerns for Richard C. Kahn, a white producer—‘The Bronze Buckaroo’ pops up again for this. And the Moses sisters, first noticed as Cotton Club chorus dancers, should also be applauded. Lucia Lynn Moses can be seen in ‘The Scar of Shame’ (1929), produced by the Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia, and Ethel Moses appears in Oscar Micheaux’s ‘Birthright’ (1938).

Of Early Black American Filmmakers

There were restrictions that made filmmaking more challenging for black artists in the Jim Crow era. Few businessmen were willing to invest in black-made films—even the interracial endeavours had their share of financial hiccups due to racism. One consequence of restricted budgets was that filmmakers would frequently shoot outside the studios and turned to nonprofessional actors alongside the professional leads. The results are mesmerizing today because we’re given shots of real streets, shops, churchgoers, and many other elements of Black American communities.

Going back to Oscar Micheaux’s ‘Body and Soul’, where Paul Robeson’s false preacher delivers a passionate sermon to a congregation filmed on set, the director adds snippets of real churchgoers in the rural landscape, appealing directly to the people it aims to represent. ‘The Blood of Jesus’ (1941) by Spencer Williams may be a fiction film, but its narrative is built around elongated scenes of religious practices performed by the very real Reverend R.L. Robertson and the Heavenly Choir in the company of members of the Texas community in which the story was shot.

Delving deeper into the aspect of realism presented by race films, one will find home movies of Reverend Solomon Sir Jones included in the ‘Pioneers of African American Cinema’ collection. The Reverend was a Baptist preacher of Oklahoma who documented black communities across the United States from 1924 to 1928, painting them as bold clusters of self-determination. Other unique documents of Black Cinema include films by James and Eloyce Gist, which are fictionalized biblical parables used for demonstration during religious sermons. ‘Hell-Bound Train’ of 1930 is one such production.

Zora Neale Hurston’s contributions are an integral part of the Criterion selection, as her anthropological fieldwork non-fiction movies offer splendid images of late ‘20s’ Alabama and Florida, and of the Gullah people from a Sea Island community in South Carolina, dated about two decades later. The latter can be connected to Julie Dash’s ‘Daughters of the Dust’ (1991).

STILL FROM COMMANDMENT KEEPER CHURCH, BEAUFORT SOUTH CAROLINA (1940), BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Of Stories Lost in History

Unfortunately, one too many gems of Black American cinema are lost. Bits and pieces can be found in archives and the aforementioned Pioneers collection, including a few surviving fragments of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company’s last film. Lincoln Motion Picture Company was one of the first race film producers, owned by George and Noble Johnson. You will remember the latter as the earliest of black movie stars and a renowned character actor in Hollywood.

Four minutes of ‘By Right of Birth’ (1921) remain today, but each frame is incredible, the whole piece filled with comedy, romance, action, and intrigue—not an easy feat to accomplish on film in a medium that young. Another endangered work is ‘Regeneration’ (1923) by Richard E. Norman, a high seas thriller whose nitrate decomposition is a heart-breaking reminder of what became of most silent films. Mr Norman is fondly remembered as one of the few white filmmakers who devoted his career to black-oriented movies and hired black casts for his productions. Survival rates are even lower for Black American films, for which fewer copies were made.

Ultimately, none of the films signed by the earliest black filmmakers of the 1910s have made it. Works by George W. Broome, William Foster, Hunter C. Haynes, and Peter P. Jones are forever lost, which makes what we do have all the more precious and important, not only for Black American culture but for our entire civilization, where cinema is concerned.

Of Risky and Complex Racialized Performances

Early Black American cinema, both black- and white-produced, was not without its blunders and controversial scenes. Take ‘Two Knights of Vaudeville’ (1915), for example, a comedy produced by the white-owned Historical Feature Film Company from Chicago that shamelessly flaunts racist tropes. Oddly enough, it’s also a surprisingly interesting depiction of the vaudevillian stage and an imagined all-black performance space. With comedy especially prone to criticism, it was no surprise that the Chicago Defender railed against the producers for their ‘buffoonish portrayals’. The paper went even further and proclaimed that they ‘want clean Race pictures or none at all.’

Ebony Film Co. were also heavily criticized by the Black American press for some of their general-release comedies—good examples being ‘Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled’ (1918) and ‘A Reckless Rover’ (1918), despite having respected African American businessman Luther J. Pollard at the helm. Once again, the Chicago Defender warned their readers: ‘Keep your money in your pocket and save that dime as well as your self-respect.’

Oscar Micheaux does not evade critique, either. One might have trouble to reconcile some of his ‘30s works with his noble portrait as a ‘race man’. After all, in ‘The Darktown Revue’ (1931), one of his first sound projects, the filmmaker incorporates black actors in blackface makeup. To contemporary viewers, this and ‘Ten Minutes to Live’ (1932) may be less palatable. Yet such snippets of Black American cinema give us a broad picture of the many tensions that persisted in the industry at the time. Micheaux’s motivations are not easily discerned, especially since films like ‘The Darktown Revue’ function on now-decrepit and compromised aesthetics.

Early African American film history remains plagued by unknowns. There is still so much for us to rediscover, to study, and to better understand, not only about the movies themselves but about their cast members and production crews, too. Alas, race films’ decline occurred in the late 1940s, mostly because of the increasingly racist policies enforced by the American government, leading to frustrating segregationist measures that almost killed Black Cinema. Fortunately, 1964 brought forth the Civil Rights Act. With it came fundamental changes, but without these earlier filmmakers, none of the modern productions would be what they are today.

Race films continue to inform black filmmaking, with the collective experiences of its audiences at its very core.

The post A Study of Black American Cinema: The First Half appeared first on The Cinematic Journal.

‘The Invisible Man’: A Diabolically Brilliant Take on H.G. Wells

Jules R. Simion — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 07:00:30 +0000