Capsule Reviews: While the City Sleeps, Cracking Up, The Kid, Rock of Ages

While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang, 1956)

Fritz Lang's underseen noir blends the yellowest of journalism with King Lear in a prescient, savage view of media feeding a public frenzy. A news empire is offered to three successors, with the new kingdom to be ruled by the one who can beat the cops to solving the identity of a serial killer infamous only from the organization's own salacious coverage. Lang's framing is more stripped down than some other efforts but no less immaculate: the newsroom of transparent but isolating glass and roaring presses speak to the capacity of journalism to reveal and obscure, and how a giant conglomerate can drown out the truth instead of exposing it. As much as the actual string of murders, the tension operates on simple office politics, in which the promise of a raise and a title change to move up the modern social ladder can bring out the basest, most primitive behavior. The characterization of the sexually confused killer is oh-so-standard, but Lang's ability to make high style out of even the most basic movements and mise-en-scène combines with the otherwise fantastic story for a great anti-journo noir. Grade: A-

Capsule Reviews: The Smiling Lieutenant, Ménilmontant, The Miracle Woman

The Smiling Lieutenant (Ernst Lubitsch, 1931)

A delightfully wicked musical that puts the Lubitsch touch on full display, The Smiling Lieutenant has the sophistication and subtly charged sensual construction one expects of the artist. Maurice Chevalier is a joy as the titular lieutenant Niki, putting his massive grins and thick accent to hysterically suggestive use with some lines that show Lubitsch, as ever, pushing himself to the limit of decency. Claudette Colbert, playing Niki's naughty true love, asks him whether the princess he's unwittingly been forced to marry is blond or brunette. "I don't know," replies Chevalier with a caddish grin, removing all doubt as to what hair he's really talking about. The songs are all jovial, but if you pay attention to the lyrics you realize they could be sung in a pub after a pint or four. It all ends with a demented (yet classy, natch) spin on Cyrano as Franzi teaches Anna how to make our lieutenant switch his affections, and a significant fade-out puts a wider smile on Niki's face than ever before. The way Miriam Hopkins looks when she finally grabs her husband's attentions? Hell, I'd be singing too. Grade: A-

Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926)

The phrase "avant-garde Russian silent cinema" is redundant; I've yet to see a Russian film from the '20s that was anything less than confrontational and experimental, even when it amounted to nothing more than naïve propaganda. Ménilmontant named for the Parisian suburb where it was shot, may technically be a French work, but one need not be told that a Russian emigré directed it to know its true national roots. Opening with an unexplained, terrifyingly edited and grisly axe murder of the parents of two young girls, Ménilmontant soon morphs into an abstracted tale of grief and isolation, following the sisters as they grow up and slowly drift apart when one of them gets a lover. A host of silent-era techniques—including double exposure, superimposition, impressionistic close-ups, mood-setting pillow shots of buildings and nature, and, of course, montage—create a manic state of bewilderment and poetic terror as the women discover what a harsh world it really is out there for a lady. This neglected masterwork feels like a proto-feminist, modernist fairy tale as made by Dziga Vertov. With potential like that, who needs intertitles? Grade: A+

The Miracle Woman (Frank Capra, 1931)

An improvement over Capra and Stanwyck's first collaboration, chiefly because Capra, having figured out how to work with Stanwyck's style, now knows how to get even more out of her. The story itself is simple, but it's noteworthy that Capra would rework its basic theme—a protagonist giving up prestige and wealth for morality and/or love—several times after Hays office cracked down but always with the more acceptable male lead instead of a strong-willed female played with fiery, if fabricated passion by Stanwyck. Oddly prescient in its depiction of ludicrously ostentatious evangelism (shame Jerry Falwell never stuck his fat ass in a lion cage for a stunt), The Miracle Woman boasts three unforgettable setpieces in its first 20 minutes. The second half doesn't match the brilliant staging of Stanwyck's opening sermon, theatrical debut as a charlatan (she emerges on-stage over roused men like the dancing robot in Metropolis) and the averted suicide of the sweet blind man, an otherwise grating presence who often plays like a self-treating Patch Adams. I was also mildly disappointed that its rich potential for social commentary gave way to the usual Capra story of an affirming romance. Nevertheless, Capra's increasing visual sophistication, Stanwyck's dynamic performance and a flirtation with the dark side of Pre-Code immorality make this one of the director's more enjoyable pictures. Grade: B

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler

Fritz Lang's 1922 silent epic, Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, solidified the German director as one of the primary movers and shakers of early cinema. Less Expressionistic than his contemporaries Murnau or Weine, Lang drew more from the cinematic techniques of Griffith and Feuillade than the theater of Ernst Toller or Max Reinhardt. His early silent films varied between these two influences: he would make either artistic, Expressionist features (Destiny) or more commercial fare (Spiders). Dr. Mabuse changed that; it consolidated the two halves of Lang's prowess into a filmic language that could mix high concept artistry with populist entertainment.

Just as importantly, it displayed an undercurrent of political commentary that would define the masterpieces he made under the turbulent Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party. Mabuse (pronounced Mah- boo-zah), one of the great villains of any medium, is a master of disguise. Always donning some outlandish costume and make-up, he nevertheless blends into crowds with his gift for concealment. Having mental powers ranging from hypnotism to outright telepathy likely helps as well. Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who collaborated with Lang on many of his german classics, excels in the role, thoroughly over-the-top but with a hint of real madness that makes him scary. Mabuse's disguises make him a powerful foe, one who can wreak havoc and walk away unnoticed, with a network of completely loyal minions in high and low places; through, them he nearly brings down German society.

By dressing up Mabuse so often, Lang is commenting on the number of issues affecting postwar Germany, be it inner turmoil or the too-severe punishments forced upon the country in the Treaty of Versailles. Lang of course made an (arguably more famous) sequel, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, in which his character spouted rhetoric literally ripped from Goebbels' propaganda pieces, but the Mabuse of this film is more complex even as he is far more straightforward than the specter who pulls the strings in Testament.

Mabuse's first action of the film is to crash the stock market with a meticulously crafted plan. His henchman hijack a train in order to steal a trade agreement, shot in ingenious pre-Eistenstein montage, that highlights how pitch-perfect every cog in Mabuse's machine works. The henchmen steal the briefcase holding the agreement and throw it from the train, only for it to land neatly in the backseat of another henchman's car passing underneath (this also doubles as a tongue-in-cheek jab at the touted efficiency of German rail). When news of the stolen agreement reaches the market, prices plummet as a disguised Mabuse looks on and waits. As soon as prices fall to dangerously low levels, he buys up everything he can, and suddenly the agreement is returned, unmolested, sending stocks shooting straight back up.

For Mabuse to so casually play with the nation's economy, to make everything worthless so he can amass a fortune a few minutes later, clearly reflects the foreign demand for reparations. The harsh demands of the Treaty of Versailles bankrupted a country that already had to deal with the seismic shift from a powerful authoritarian state into a fledgling and directionless democracy, and Mabuse torments these people further.

Naturally, just because the nation plunged into debt didn't mean that a wealthy class ceased to exist. The aristocrats, now stripped of their nobility, choose to lose themselves in decadence to help them forget the trauma. They fill seedy, smoky dens, gambling away huge chunks of money, with access to any vice available to them with just a few code words so as not to attract the attention of the law.

Mabuse preys on these self-absorbed fools; at a variety house, he manages to hypnotize a young man, Hull, then follows him to a casino and bends the wealthy lad to play, and of course lose, numerous games of cards. Hull starts losing such massive sums of marks -- the intertitles say 50,000, but I suspect that this was done for the American release to play into our understanding of our own currency, as 50,000 paipermark in 1922 were valueless; by 1923, the excahnge rate between a mark and a dollar was 1,000,000:1. Even with the 150,000 he also owes, Hull only lost 20 cents -- that even the other rich patrons express concern. Mabuse takes the boy for all the money he has with him and an I.O.U. worth thrice that and makes his exit. When Hull snaps out of his spell, he doesn't even remember who he played against, and he finds that his last hand, which he folded, was a winning one.

The proper cut of Dr. Mabuse stretches to the 4-1/2 hour mark and was split into two parts upon its release. The first part presents its titular villain as a terrifying force, one who can attack anything or anyone at any time. He manipulates identifiable images such as the faces of cards and stock prices and switches room numbers and even sports a car with a revolving license plate (something directly lifted in the Bond film Goldfinger). In doing so, he's stripping the symbols that subtly supply our normalcy of their meaning, just as the identifiable aspects of old Prussia were now worthless in the anarchy of early Weimar Germany.

These of course were the early days of cinema, and the hero sent to stop the mysterious Dr. Mabuse is little more than a precise foil for the evil doctor. Interestingly, Mabuse has the country in such a state of fear that a government official, not an ordinary police detective, is dispatched to handle the problem. Norbert von Wenk, state prosecutor and Chief Inspector, too is a master of disguise and, not knowing what Mabuse looks like, lures the villain by gambling large amounts of money to attract attention. When Mabuse takes the bait, he finds that he cannot bend von Wenk to his will, but only through great effort on the prosecutor's part.

Each of them even manipulates a woman to get their dirty work done. At the cabaret club where Mabuse hypnotizes Hull, the young man never notices what is happening to him because he's enraptured with the exotic dancer Cara. Cara has the rich young men of Berlin eating out of her hand, and Mabuse eventually persuades her to submit to him, possibly not so much to use her to do his bidding as to eliminate the competition. This woman, the object of everyone's desire, obeys her new master out of inhuman devotion, as if the lusts of all those men who fancy her were somehow combined into a singular passion for the doctor. Von Wenk enlists the aid of Countess Told to give him an entry into the seedy backrooms of the rich. Ironically, it is the Countess who eventually refuses to perform her assigned tasks because of their immorality. Cara remains so loyal to her master than, when captured, she commits suicide rather than give anything to von Wenk.

If the Mabuse of the first part is an insoluble, unstoppable demon, the Mabuse of the second half becomes a tragic allegory for the state of Germany. The countess refuses to follow von Wenck's orders any longer, just as Mabuse discovers her and begins to fall in love. He drives her husband to suicide and works his charm on her, and through her he will eventually come undone.

That Mabuse would use his horrific schemes to win a mate is hardly a big step from his previous activities, but his actions are not as personal as they seem. Money means nothing to him; it's bankrupting aristocrats and affected the economy on a grand scale that gives him pleasure. Here at last is something that stirs his blood beyond pure evil, and where most directors would fall down trying to humanize their villains Lang's makes his film all the more disturbing in the doctor's struggle to woo the countess. He previously bent all but von Wenk to his will (and even then he nearly won), but his attempts to break her mentally, to force her to love him, fail. When at last Mabuse finds something he truly desires, he cannot affect it.

Focusing all of his attention on Countess Told leaves Mabuse's criminal empire without its customary precision, and he slowly ties and tightens his own noose. The newfound sloppiness gives von Wenk the foothold he needs to mount a successful takedown. Mabuse must also contend with the apparitions of some of his victims, who only add to his stress.

That is not to say that Mabuse's plans suddenly grind to a halt, however; in one spectacular sequence, he incites political activists to riot by convincing them that their hero is being transported to prison. Of course, the Weimar Republic suffered from both radicals and reactionaries, and both sides committed their share of violence.

At last Mabuse admits that he is slipping, confiding in the countess, “I haven’t been the same since I met you. I’ve been making mistakes.” When von Wenk finally catches him, the doctor's hair is white and unkempt, and the madmen is sent to an institution. Here Lang's film takes on an unintended relevance, albeit one he perhaps noted later as The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is needed to flesh it out: Mabuse, the stand-in for anarchic decadence in postwar Germany, is locked away, presumably crushing his organization without its leader. In 1924, following a failed coup that left many party members dead, the German government sentenced nazi leader Adolf Hitler to prison, hoping to nip the growing nuisance in the bud. However, he emerged from his (actually quite lightweight) sentence with Mein Kampf and turned the Nazi Party into a true political force. Further parallels between Hitler and Mabuse's intersecting stories will be discussed when I get around to reviewing The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

Lang's style throughout this epic is unassailable. For a 4-1/2 film, especially a silent one, it moves at a brisk pace that demands attention. Compare this even to early montage maestros Griffith and Eisenstein (who reportedly honed his montage skills while editing a print of this film for Russian distribution); Griffith's films plod through turgid patches of melodrama for much of their running lengths, and even Battleship Potemkin bogs down when it gets into its purely propagandic moments. The only real drag occurs in the first part which lacks a real structure in its depiction of Mabuse's frightening powers.

One must also marvel at the technique. Lang captures night life in the city as no one else had previously: the headlights of speeding cars, the streetlamps and building lights stretching back as far as the eye can see, all captured in total clarity. His Berlin is realistic but also abstract, moving through the backrooms of society -- the stripteases, the casinos, the opium dens -- none of which offer any clue to their locations in the city. Figures often appear in open door frames, but even when they don't we must remain on-guard to see where Lang will take us next.

The Expressionism of Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler is chiefly confined to the overblown performances and the camera tricks that Lang pulls to demonstrate Mabuse's mental powers at work. But the mixture of these stylized performances and his realistic but inventive photography effectively set down the blueprint for film noir 20 years before The Maltese Falcon "launched" the genre and nearly a decade before his own M cemented the style.

Mabuse himself speaks of Expressionism; while attending a soirée essentially in person (but still drawing on a persona that he presents to the public), someone asks him what he thinks of the movement, and he replies, "Expressionism is a mere pastime -- but why not? Everything today is pastime!" Perhaps Lang uses the line as a fun poke at the art form, that it's no deeper or more meaningful than any other type of art and that he just wants to create. I though see it as evidence of Mabuse's lack of emotional connection: art is merely a trifle for him because it's designed to provoke an emotional response, and he cares only for panic. He does not understand passion, which is why his inability to handle his feelings for Countess Told undo him.

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler is one of the finest silent films I've ever seen, and one of the few that draws me in beyond distanced admiration (other examples being Chaplin and Keaton films as well as Murnau's Nosferatu and Sunrise). Its pacing, acting, story and themes had caught up in the film even as I couldn't stop comparing it to the history of the Weimar Republic as I watched it. In Dr. Mabuse I see the blueprint for Hannibal Lecter, or the Joker; his ability to plan 10 steps ahead for every scheme makes him far more terrifying than a hands-on killer, and his psychological warfare with von Wenk and indeed the whole of Germany is more entertaining than just about any slasher pic I could care to mention. Lang's name primarily comes up in connection with Metropolis and M, masterpieces both, but Dr. Mabuse should be required viewing for cinephiles and a fine film to show to your more philistine friends who would likely never give a silent film a chance.

City Lights

Buster Keaton may be the greatest of the silent clowns, but Charlie Chaplin is the most enduringly popular, and for good reason. No one, before or since, has displayed such a knack for mixing high comedy and pathos. While his messages may sometimes overtake the actual story (see: the eloquent yet out place final speech in The Great Dictator), he nevertheless manages to work his didacticism into the gags, letting us learn while we laugh. Of his films, City Lights marks the high point of his career, the perfect blend of his humor and sentimentality in open defiance of the advent of sound.

Inarguably the finest romantic comedy ever produced, City Lights more or less invented the genre as it placed itself firmly at the top of its heap for all time. The story, as with all of Chaplin's work, is rather simple: a beautiful blind girl mistakes the Tramp for a millionaire. The Tramp falls in love with her and attempts to raise money for her eye operation. Meanwhile, he prevents an actual millionaire from committing suicide, who drunkenly fawns over his savior yet can never seem to remember him in the morning.

These two stories intersect with one another as the Tramp uses the gifts the millionaire bestows upon him to continue fooling the girl into thinking he too is rich. He does so not out of cruelty to the poor blind woman but because of his own fear of his real social status. He finally found someone who might love him, but what if she finds out he's a bum?

Had anyone but Chaplin been in charge of the gags involving the flower girl's blindness, this could have been a much different film. But the director makes these scenes sweet because no matter how many times the blind girl accidentally throws water in his face or continues to face in a direction after the Tramp moves, Chaplin covers it up with moving exchanges between the two.

But the best gags of the movie come from the interactions between the Tramp and the millionaire. Harry Myers, in possibly the best supporting performance in one of Chaplin's films, is almost as funny as the leading man himself. The millionaire leaps from drunken ecstasy to suicidal despair and back again the moment the Tramp stops him. Myers will brawl anyone over the slightest provocation, throw opulent parties and treat the Tramp like his only friend in the world...until the next morning when he can't remember a thing.

Eventually the Tramp manages to get his friend to give him the money to pay for the girl's rent and operation, but must run from the cops when the millionaire sobers up and accuses him of theft. In one of the most subtle yet memorable moments of any Chaplin film I've seen, the Tramp gets the money to the girl, who kisses his hand in gratitude, at which point he without hesitation takes out one last bill he was saving for himself and gives it to her.

The final scene is hands down the greatest film ending ever. The Tramp, out of jail for his "theft," stops in front of a store that the flower girl now owns. She spends her days selling flowers and holding her breath for every rich man who enters in case its her hero. Then the Tramp shows up, and she recognizes him when she touches his hand. "You?" she asks. "You can see now?" responds the Tramp, terrified of what might happen. Then the girl smiles and the film fades to black amidst swelling music.

Words do the scene no justice. This is a silent film after all, made after The Jazz Singer heralded the end of an era. Chaplin subverts this demand with his sparing use of sound effects. When a politician unveils a statue at the start of the film, his pompous speech is replaced with blasts of a kazoo, highlighting the twittering nothingness of politicians. Later, the Tramp accidentally swallows a whistle and toots every time a conductor strikes up the band, a possible allusion to talkies ruining the actual fun of the picture (which they did for years until the technology progressed to allow the camera to move again).

All this combines into the finest comedy of the silent era, and probably ever. I've seen the film twice now, but I've watched the ending over and over. Even now it brings tears to my eyes. Chaplin's Tramp always wanted love, but usually the audience's. Here, he finally finds someone who truly loves him and sees the gentle soul beneath, and it made audiences love him even more. If you want to know just how influential this film remains, just pop in your copy of Wall•E.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Has there ever been an acting performance like Renée Jeanne Falconetti's in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Quite possibly the best and most landmark acting ever captured on film, her role as Joan is the standard by which all performances, silent or sonorized, will be judged. Her face, soft yet ravaged and wild, looks less like a person's and more like a portrait come to life.

Indeed, the weight of the film rests on Falconetti's face. Though Dreyer constructed a large set to use for Joan's trial, you'll never see it in the film. There are no establishing shots (and very few long shots, for that matter). Instead, he uses chiefly close-ups, low angle shots of the intimidating judges and guards and high angle ones that cast Joan as both intimidated and eternally genuflecting for God.

Dreyer used the actual texts of Joan's trial for the film, condensing her 29 cross-examinations and torture into a single inquisition. The judges, Frenchmen loyal to the British cause, angrily demand she explain herself and attempt to shame her. But Falconetti's often blank expressions convey a woman beyond caring. I'm always a bit wary about people who claim to speak with God, especially those who claim God told them to kill people, but if ever I believed anyone it'd be Joan.

Whether or not she really did communicate with the Lord is more or less irrelevant. The point is she transcended faith and entered the realm of pure conviction. And it terrified her judges. These sanctimonious hypocrites, cast in stark blacks and whites, shout from their pulpits that Joan is a heretic, but they simply cannot believe that God would manifest Himself to a mere girl. They claim to speak for God, but they do so for political and personal gain. Yet here kneels a woman who has certainly been used as a rallying cry for the cause of others, but who cares only for the message she's been sent.

Dreyer meanwhile casts Falconetti in softer shades of gray. Her face captures a rage of emotions from fear to righteous anger to a Zen-like forgiveness of her persecutors. Dreyer made great use of recent breakthroughs in photography that could capture the image better, allowing photography that did not require great deals of makeup for clarity. Thus, he forced Falconetti to kneel for hours, without any makeup to assist her, and shot take after take.

He drove her to a nervous breakdown in order to capture her with expressions that conveyed inner turmoil without letting it bleed into outward expressions. I cannot say I condone driving an actor mad for your own gain, but I also cannot deny that he succeeded. Falconetti, who had only starred in a minor film before this and never acted on screen again, is eternally enshrined in the annals of film history for her work here.

But equally as important as Falconetti's performance is Dreyer's incredible camera work. Even though it works mainly in close-ups, Dreyer tracks, zooms, tilts, pans; it's almost like watching a silent Scorsese movie. He keeps the camera ever-moving in order to add to the sense of unsettlement that Falconetti's haunting face conjures. Dreyer mixes the realism of his actors' natural faces with dashes of expressionism here and there with his lighting and movements and creates a wholly unique film that conveys the spiritual in ways I've never seen any other movie do as successfully.

I'm surprised more Christian groups don't show this on a regular basis. I remember my pastor (back when I had to go to church) encouraging families to go see that awful, exploitative Passion of the Christ years ago, but no one's ever brought up this gem. Joan's story has more than a few parallels with Christ's, and Dreyer captures the pure faith of a true believer better than anyone. Only Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, which tackles spirituality from the opposite angle (of a man torn and unsure of his faith) comes remotely close to the haunting poignancy of this silent masterpiece.