Reviews
Surviving Desire (1992)
A small piece of perfection.
Surviving desire was made for American Television and is only about an hour long. Despite the limited running time, Hal Hartley has produced in this film his best work. Using his trademark non-naturalistic dialogue and intellectualism, Hartley builds odd, but very believable characters. This is a touching film, expertly made and contains Martin Donovan's finest performance as the frustrated Jude. Matt Malloy is also fantastic as Henry. The mixture of high art, the emotional, the bizarre and the mundane make this often ignored opus a must see for anyone interested in cinema. An understated and ever-fresh film full of brilliance. Not the best film ever made, but absolutely one of my favourites.
Schindler's List (1993)
Emotional pornography.
Spielberg's much hyped film is a dangerous piece of work. It is unforgivably manipulative, using cinematic effects to connote horror and emotional involvement which serve only to distract the viewer from any sort of truth (in particular: the girl in the red coat, trite heart-string pulling). Yes, I know the intentions were good and that something like this should exist to continue the memory of the holocaust, but this is not it. This is emotional pornography, it's worthiness is sickening and it's heavy-handed nature merely bruises the audience into submission. This is how the tragedy of the holocaust will be remembered, a single story (with a seemingly happyish ending) with a hero. It's not totally factually accurate, yet it holds itself up as evidence. It is not. It is a fiction BASED on real events. Spielberg, with his influence, has rewritten history forever, a morally dubious thing to do. The photography is good, there are a couple of good performances (especially Ben Kingsley), the special effects are superb. But this is not a brilliant film, aesthetically or morally. It is disgraceful. If Spielberg was not Jewish himself, there would have been an uproar. It is a dangerous document. And as for playing it in schools (along with Amistad and Saving Private Ryan - both of which are as bad if not worse that SL) as has been suggested above, that I find very disturbing.
This film, preaching on high morals has made a few people a LOT of money. I know it was in black and white and over three hours long (which is uncommercial) but if Spielberg wanted to get closer to 'truth' (b+w IS NOT TRUTH, these things happened in colour! Newsreels are not TRUTH, they only act to remind you of the distance between you and what you are watching) why didn't he use all German and Polish speaking actors with subtitles? Because it wouldn't have made as much money, that's why. I'm sick of all this worthy praise of such an incredibly dodgy film. Watch 'SHOAH' instead and maybe you'll all actually learn something.
Johnny Guitar (1954)
Macarthyism and high camp.
Nicholas Ray, best known for 'Rebel Without a Cause', directs this fantastically bizarre western. An aging Crawford, on a tumble from super-stardom (her face was perfect for black and white, but not technicolor) stars as Vienna, a woman in charge who fights with a wonderfully evil Mercedes Macambridge over the sexually charged 'Kid'. Johnny Guitar plays a very small part, but Sterling Hayden's performance is understated genius. Playing with the limits of the western Ray injects anti-Macartyist sentiment towards the end. Although this film has been dismissed as mere Camp frivolity, it is not. Martin Scorsese loves it, as did the French New Wave. Sheer brilliance.