1. I'm often asked by younger filmmakers,
why do I need to look at old movies?Copy !req
2. I've made a number of pictures
in the past 20 years.Copy !req
3. And the response I find that
I have to give them is that I'm...Copy !req
4. I still consider myself a student.Copy !req
5. Um, the more pictures
I made in the past 20 years,
the more I realized I really don't know.Copy !req
6. And I'm always looking for
something to...Copy !req
7. something or someone that I could,
that I could learn from.Copy !req
8. I tell the younger, the younger
filmmakers and the young students...Copy !req
9. that I do it like painters used to do,
what painters do...Copy !req
10. study the old masters,
enrich your palette, expand the canvas.Copy !req
11. There's always so much more to learn.Copy !req
12. Now, take this forgotten "B'film,
Silver Lode.Copy !req
13. Now, this was directed by Allan Dwan,Copy !req
14. one of the unheralded film pioneers
who made the first of his 400 films...Copy !req
15. back in 1911.Copy !req
16. At the end of his long career,
he was sort of relegated
to low-budget genre films.Copy !req
17. But low budget or not,
watch the beautiful simplicity...Copy !req
18. of the sweeping tracking shots
that are literally guiding
the desperate John Payne...Copy !req
19. - toward his final sanctuary,
the town church.Copy !req
20. Dwan's finest movies
featured simple people,Copy !req
21. pastoral landscapes
and the rural America of a bygone era.Copy !req
22. But behind the lyrical images
of the Old West,Copy !req
23. Silver Lode suggests the fragility
of our democratic institutions.Copy !req
24. On Independence Day,
the day of his wedding,Copy !req
25. John Payne should be
the happiest man in Silver Lode.Copy !req
26. There he is! Look!
There! There he is!Copy !req
27. Instead, he has to fight
for his life when he's unjustly
accused of a murder...Copy !req
28. and suddenly ostracized
by the community.Copy !req
29. Daringly, the fugitive's
bride-to-be convinces the town
that he's not guilty...Copy !req
30. by forging a telegram
from a U.S. Marshal.Copy !req
31. "McCarty not what he
represents himself to be.Copy !req
32. Wanted for murder
and cattle rustling. "Copy !req
33. So, persecuted for the wrong reasons,
Payne is pardoned for the wrong reasons.Copy !req
34. - Ya fixed it!
- You have to remember that this
was the era of the blacklists.Copy !req
35. Shoot 'em all! How many bullets
ya got left? Two? Three?Copy !req
36. Political messages had to be
smuggled in, cloaked in metaphors.Copy !req
37. Actually, the name of the villain,
played by Dan Duryea,Copy !req
38. was "McCarty."Copy !req
39. And so a church bell
and a fantastic lie saved the day.Copy !req
40. McCarty's dead.Copy !req
41. Dan, there isn't much that I can say.Copy !req
42. But I think I can speak
for all of us... we're sorry.Copy !req
43. You're "sorry"?Copy !req
44. A moment ago you wanted to kill me.Copy !req
45. You forced me to kill,
to defend myself, to save my own life.Copy !req
46. But you wouldn't believe what I said.Copy !req
47. A man's life can hang
in the balance...Copy !req
48. on a piece of paper!Copy !req
49. And you're sorry.Copy !req
50. The '50s...
The '50s for me is a fascinating era...Copy !req
51. when the subtext became as important
as the apparent subject matter...Copy !req
52. or even more important.Copy !req
53. I mean, look at Douglas Sirk's
film All That Heaven Allows,
which he made in 1955,Copy !req
54. or Nicholas Ray's
Bigger Than Life, made in 1956.Copy !req
55. Now, you have to understand
these were not "B" movies.Copy !req
56. These were big-scale pictures
with major studio stars.Copy !req
57. Furthermore, they were Americanas,Copy !req
58. the most wholesome genre of the period.Copy !req
59. Jane Wyman, the widow in Douglas Sirk's
All That Heaven Allows,Copy !req
60. is not rejected by her community,
she is immersed in it.Copy !req
61. Her world becomes unhinged
when she falls in love with Rock Hudson,Copy !req
62. a much younger man
who happens to be her gardener.Copy !req
63. A spiritual descendant of
Thoreau, he represents a solid
and serene individualism...Copy !req
64. that seems sadly out of place
in the New England of the 1950s.Copy !req
65. What a beautiful view of the pond.
Why, you can see for miles.Copy !req
66. Mm-hmm. The sun comes up
right over that hill.Copy !req
67. - Oh!
- Do you like it?Copy !req
68. Why, it's unbelievable.Copy !req
69. Let's take your boots off, huh?Copy !req
70. - Hello, Dan.
- Hello, Cary.Copy !req
71. - Cary, you know Miss Frisbee,
Mr. Allenby. Mr. Kirby.
- Yes.Copy !req
72. - How do you do?
- Oh, what's this I hear about your... Oh.Copy !req
73. Haven't I seen you somewhere before?Copy !req
74. Well, Mrs. Humphrey,
probably in your garden.Copy !req
75. I've been pruning your trees
for the last three years!Copy !req
76. Oh, yes, of course.Copy !req
77. - Uh, Sara, I really must be going.
- Excuse me. I'll be right back.Copy !req
78. - Are you saying
you don't want to marry me?
- Oh, no, I'm not saying that.Copy !req
79. I'm... I'm just asking you to be patient.Copy !req
80. - It's only a question of time.
- Only of time.Copy !req
81. Well, right now
everybody's talking about us.Copy !req
82. We're a local sensation.Copy !req
83. And like Sara said, if... if the people
get used to seeing us together,Copy !req
84. then maybe they'll accept us.Copy !req
85. You mean, uh, we'll be invited
to all the cocktail parties.Copy !req
86. And, of course, Sara will see to it
that I get into the country club.Copy !req
87. I can see that you don't want to listen
to anybody's ideas but your own.Copy !req
88. And I can see that you're trying to make
me choose between you and the children!Copy !req
89. No, Cary, you're the one
that made it a question of choosing.Copy !req
90. So you're the one
that'll have to choose.Copy !req
91. All right.Copy !req
92. It's all over.Copy !req
93. Once she surrenders to the community's
pressure, Jane Wyman is trapped.Copy !req
94. Cary.Copy !req
95. She's left suffocating in
their world of pretense and illusions...Copy !req
96. far from Hudson's Walden Pond.Copy !req
97. Home, family, social roles...Copy !req
98. can't fulfill
the pursuit of happiness anymore.Copy !req
99. Somehow, they've become
the instruments of repression.Copy !req
100. Beneath the surface
of the seemingly ideal setting...Copy !req
101. lay a sharp indictment
of American small-town life.Copy !req
102. Both Douglas Sirk and Nicholas Ray
stayed within the rules.Copy !req
103. Their films had
the required happy ending.Copy !req
104. But they hinted at the dangers inherent
in conforming to society's conventions.Copy !req
105. You see, anything indirect...Copy !req
106. is, uh, stronger,Copy !req
107. in many cases, at least,Copy !req
108. because you leave it or you hand it
over to the imagination...Copy !req
109. of your audience, you know.Copy !req
110. And I've always been trusting...Copy !req
111. my audience to have imagination.Copy !req
112. Otherwise, they should stay out
of the cinema.Copy !req
113. - You know,
you have to leave something open.
- Mm-hmm.Copy !req
114. The moment you start preach
in the film... preaching in the film...Copy !req
115. the moment you want
to teach your audience,Copy !req
116. you're making a bad film.Copy !req
117. If you can't have a life,
settle for its imitation.Copy !req
118. - There's your present now.Copy !req
119. This is what Jane Wyman
receives from her children...Copy !req
120. - Oh, please, Kay...
- as a substitute for her lost love.Copy !req
121. Mother!
Merry Christmas.Copy !req
122. Merry Christmas, Mrs. Scott.Copy !req
123. Television, the movie's
rival medium in the 1950s,Copy !req
124. was cast as the ultimate symbol
of alienation.Copy !req
125. All you have to do is turn that dial,
and you have all the company you want...Copy !req
126. right there on the screen.Copy !req
127. Drama, comedy,
life's parade at your fingertips.Copy !req
128. Like Douglas Sirk,
Nicholas Ray offers...Copy !req
129. both the American family in suburbia
and the psychotic elements:Copy !req
130. The convention and the contradictions;
the sugar and the poison.Copy !req
131. Look at Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life.Copy !req
132. James Mason portrays
a frustrated schoolteacher...Copy !req
133. who undergoes personality changes
when he becomes...Copy !req
134. hooked on cortisone,
then an experimental drug.Copy !req
135. Just use your reason calmly.Copy !req
136. We'll have dinner the moment
you've mastered this problem.Copy !req
137. Here he feels ten feet tall.Copy !req
138. - Ed, dinner's been waiting two hours.
- I'm sorry.Copy !req
139. - Richie ought to eat.
- I'm hungry too.Copy !req
140. Ed, Richie didn't even have lunch.Copy !req
141. The cortisone acts as a catalyst.Copy !req
142. It reveals a mental
and spiritual dissatisfaction...Copy !req
143. and fuels Mason's growing desire
to escape...Copy !req
144. from the dull existence
that stifles his soul.Copy !req
145. Lou, it'll be better for all of us
if you clearly understand one thing.Copy !req
146. I will not tolerate your attempts
to undermine my program for Richard.Copy !req
147. Yes, darling.Copy !req
148. Be good enough not to speak to me
in that hypocritical tone of voice.Copy !req
149. I see through you as clearly as
I see through this glass pitcher!Copy !req
150. If you imagine I'm going to be fooled
by all this sweetness and meekness...Copy !req
151. "Yes, darling, no, darling..."Copy !req
152. you're even a bigger idiot
than I took you for.Copy !req
153. Let's clear this up
once and for all!Copy !req
154. I'm staying in this house
solely for the boy's sake!Copy !req
155. As for you personally,
I'm completely finished with you.Copy !req
156. There's nothing left.
Our marriage is over.Copy !req
157. In my mind I've divorced you.Copy !req
158. You're not my wife any longer, ;
I'm not your husband any longer.Copy !req
159. Mason's family goes through hell
as he starts questioning every tenet...Copy !req
160. of family life in the 1950s.Copy !req
161. "Momism, “Sunday school,
Little League sports...Copy !req
162. and even the egalitarian principles
of American education.Copy !req
163. Lou! Lou!Copy !req
164. You'll be happy to know you've won.Copy !req
165. All of my efforts
have been too late.Copy !req
166. In this house,
our son has become a thief.Copy !req
167. My heroes are no more neurotic
than the audience.Copy !req
168. Unless you can feel that...Copy !req
169. a hero is just as fucked up as you are...Copy !req
170. that you would make the same mistakes
that he would make...Copy !req
171. uh, you can have no satisfaction...Copy !req
172. when he does commit a heroic act.Copy !req
173. Because then you can say,
"Hell, I could have done that too."Copy !req
174. And that's the obligation of
the filmmaker, of the theater worker...Copy !req
175. to give a heightened sense
of experience to the...Copy !req
176. people who pay to come
to see his work.Copy !req
177. "And they came to the place
of which God had told him,Copy !req
178. and Abraham built an altar
there and laid the wood in
order and bound Isaac, his son,Copy !req
179. and laid him on the altar upon the wood.Copy !req
180. And Abraham stretched forth his hand...Copy !req
181. and took the knife to slay his son."Copy !req
182. But, Ed, you didn't read it all.
God stopped Abraham.Copy !req
183. God was wrong.Copy !req
184. Ed! No! Ed! No!
Ed! No!Copy !req
185. Richie! Run out the window!
Richie! Richie!Copy !req
186. No! Richie!Copy !req
187. Samuel Fuller's characters
were no intellectuals.Copy !req
188. His was a visceral cinema,Copy !req
189. excessive, explosive.Copy !req
190. He once defined film
as a battlefield.Copy !req
191. Love, hate, action, death.
In one word, emotion.Copy !req
192. Impact was his main concern.Copy !req
193. Whether he was dealing with
the Old West or Cold War America,Copy !req
194. his images were bursting
with violence and sexual energy.Copy !req
195. In Pickup on South Street,Copy !req
196. Richard Widmark is a pickpocket...Copy !req
197. and Jean Peters a prostitute.Copy !req
198. Here he inadvertently
takes a microfilm...Copy !req
199. which Communist agents are
trying to smuggle out of the country.Copy !req
200. How much is it worth to ya?Copy !req
201. What are you pushin' me for?Copy !req
202. You came here to buy, didn't you?Copy !req
203. America's fate is in the hands
of two outcasts.Copy !req
204. She's just a runner who doesn't
even know what side she's on,Copy !req
205. while he's a cynic,
willing to do business with all sides.Copy !req
206. How much did ya bring?Copy !req
207. I don't wanna talk about it.Copy !req
208. - A former crime reporter,
- How much?Copy !req
209. - Fuller cultivated
the shocks and hyperbole...
- Five hundred.Copy !req
210. That tabloids used in their headlines.Copy !req
211. You tell that Commie I want a big score
for that film, and I want it in cash.Copy !req
212. - Tonight!
- What are you talkin' about?Copy !req
213. You tell me. You people are
supposed to have all the answers.Copy !req
214. - Tell ya what?
- Come on! Drop the act. So you're a Red.Copy !req
215. Who cares?
Your money's as good as anybody else's.Copy !req
216. Now get your stern up those stairs
and tell your old lady what I want.Copy !req
217. I'll do business with a Red,
but I don't have to believe one.Copy !req
218. Playing both ends against the middle,
Widmark defied all "isms,"Copy !req
219. - even patriotism.
- Get outta here!Copy !req
220. Writer-director-producer
Samuel Fuller's work...Copy !req
221. was a potent antidote to America's
complacency during the Cold War.Copy !req
222. He was the most outspoken
of the '50s smugglers.Copy !req
223. No ideology escaped his scathing irony.Copy !req
224. American hypocrisy
was his constant target.Copy !req
225. Fuller's heroes were hard
to distinguish from his villains.Copy !req
226. If you refuse to cooperate,Copy !req
227. you'll be as guilty as the traitors
that gave Stalin the A-bomb.Copy !req
228. Are you wavin' the flag at me?Copy !req
229. I know something
in our side you should get...Copy !req
230. Get this. I didn't grift that film,
and you can't prove I did.Copy !req
231. - Do you know what treason means?
- Who cares?Copy !req
232. - Answer the man!
- Is there a law now
I gotta listen to lectures?Copy !req
233. When he says,
"Don't wave the goddamn flag at me,"Copy !req
234. Hoover objected to that
and verbally objected it...Copy !req
235. in my presence at Romanoff's table
with Zanuck.Copy !req
236. He objects that an American
would say during the heat,Copy !req
237. the hottest point of
the Cold War with Russia,Copy !req
238. "Don't wave the goddamn flag at me."Copy !req
239. And Zanuck said, "He's right," to me.
"He's right. We'll leave out 'goddamn."'Copy !req
240. And Hoover got very angry.Copy !req
241. "You know damn well
that's not what I mean."Copy !req
242. And Zanuck explained very
simply, and he was a friend
of his... I mean, he knew him...Copy !req
243. "This is his character talking,
and that character doesn't give
a goddamn about the flag.Copy !req
244. It means nothing to him.Copy !req
245. Any flag... You must be that character.Copy !req
246. Otherwise, we are making
a propaganda film.Copy !req
247. And we don't make those kind
of propaganda films."Copy !req
248. Fuller had found a niche
in "B'films and genre pictures,Copy !req
249. but when the studio system collapsed,Copy !req
250. - he was relegated to low-budget,
independent productions.Copy !req
251. He had no money,
no stars and only minimal sets.Copy !req
252. But out of these limitations
emerged an outstanding film,Copy !req
253. - Shock Corridor.Copy !req
254. A journalist pretends to be a madman
in order to investigate a crime...Copy !req
255. that took place in a mental hospital.Copy !req
256. But instead of winning
the Pulitzer Prize, he goes mad.Copy !req
257. Aaaah!Copy !req
258. Shock Corridor was full
of front page material.Copy !req
259. The inmates were the product of
Cold War paranoia and Southern racism.Copy !req
260. - Every form of
American insanity was represented.
- Trent!Copy !req
261. This baptizes a new organization,
the Ku Klux.Copy !req
262. - Sounds good.
- No.Copy !req
263. Ku Klux Klan.Copy !req
264. Sounds more mysterious,
more menacing, more alliterative.Copy !req
265. - Ku Klux Klan. Say it.
- Ku Klux Klan.Copy !req
266. - KKK.
- KKK.Copy !req
267. It'll catch on quick. It'll drive
those carpetbaggers back north.Copy !req
268. Scare the hell out of 'em.
Tar and feather them.Copy !req
269. Hang' em. Burn 'em.Copy !req
270. Listen to me, Americans.
America for Americans!Copy !req
271. America for Americans!Copy !req
272. Keep our schools white!Copy !req
273. - Keep 'em white!
- That's right! Keep 'em white!Copy !req
274. - I'm against Catholics!
- Hallelujah, man! Hallelujah!Copy !req
275. - Against Jews! Jews!
- Hallelujah! Hallelujah!Copy !req
276. - Against niggers!
- Hallelujah! Hallelujah!Copy !req
277. - Against niggers!
- Hallelujah!Copy !req
278. - Against niggers!
- Hallelujah!Copy !req
279. There's one!Copy !req
280. Let's get that black boy
before he marries my daughter!Copy !req
281. Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!Copy !req
282. The metaphor was crystal clear.Copy !req
283. In Fuller's vision,
America had become an insane asylum.Copy !req
284. Sadly, Fuller's later career
was typical of the times.Copy !req
285. To finance his unorthodox projects,
he had to move to Europe.Copy !req
286. And for a whole generation of smugglers,
this was the end of the line.Copy !req
287. The pioneers and showmen were gone.Copy !req
288. The moguls were replaced
by agents and executives.Copy !req
289. Actors and directors were starting
their own companies.Copy !req
290. - Start the wind machine.Copy !req
291. Runaway production
was the name of the game.Copy !req
292. - Turn on the paddle wheel.Copy !req
293. - Roll 'em!Copy !req
294. - To make films you had to go to London,
- Action!Copy !req
295. Paris, Madrid and Rome.Copy !req
296. A film like Two Weeks In Another Town
captured the desperation of the times.Copy !req
297. I have an offer... leave.Copy !req
298. There's only one name for you.Copy !req
299. On the streets of my village
they call them...Copy !req
300. - Welcome to Hollywood on the Tiber.
- How dare you!Copy !req
301. - You are behind schedule.
- I need two weeks
to finish shooting this picture.Copy !req
302. You give me two extra weeks, and I'll
give you a Maurice Kruger picture.Copy !req
303. - Don't you want
the best movie you can get?
- No.Copy !req
304. - Don't you have pride in
what pictures you put your name on?
- No.Copy !req
305. Turn that off and get out.
I want to get some sleep.Copy !req
306. Tucino, you international peddler!Copy !req
307. Take a good look at a movie
that was made just because we
couldn't sleep until we made it.Copy !req
308. Ironically, Two Weeks In Another Town...Copy !req
309. - was the sequel to
The Bad And The Beautiful.
- Laugh the way he would have!Copy !req
310. That's not a god talking, Georgia.
That's only a man.Copy !req
311. Both films were directed by Vincente
Minnelli, produced by John Houseman...Copy !req
312. and starred Kirk Douglas.Copy !req
313. But in ten years,
from 1952 to 1962,Copy !req
314. the industry had undergone
tremendous changes,Copy !req
315. and Two Weeks In Another Town...Copy !req
316. was a startling mirror
of Hollywood's decline.Copy !req
317. - Did it with style.Copy !req
318. L-It's all right, Mrs. Curry.Copy !req
319. - Kruger, you're great.Copy !req
320. I was great.Copy !req
321. The golden age was over.Copy !req
322. And for many a veteran director,
this was a painful period
of anguish and self-doubt.Copy !req
323. Who in his right mind
would expect me to settle for you?Copy !req
324. A worn-out, dried-up,
whining, meddling old hag!Copy !req
325. My lawful wedded nightmare.
Frustrated and stupid.Copy !req
326. Sticking your fat nose
into everything day and night!Copy !req
327. Clara?Copy !req
328. Clara?Copy !req
329. - Clara.Copy !req
330. Don't swallow all those sleeping pills.Copy !req
331. The doctor will just have to come up
and pump out your stomach again.Copy !req
332. You know how sick that makes me.Copy !req
333. Oh, Clara. Clara.Copy !req
334. L- I look at this film
I'm shooting. I like it.Copy !req
335. What if I'm wrong...Copy !req
336. and it's another calamity?Copy !req
337. Where do I go from here?Copy !req
338. Took me two years to get this job,
and that was a fluke.Copy !req
339. How can a man go wrong
and not know why?Copy !req
340. What's happened to me?Copy !req
341. Is it ego?Copy !req
342. Self-indulgence?Copy !req
343. Or...Copy !req
344. am I just plain afraid?Copy !req
345. Oh, my poor...Copy !req
346. I've seen the film you're shooting,
and it's beautiful.Copy !req
347. Whereas the smuggler works
undercover and his subversion
is not detected immediately,Copy !req
348. the iconoclast attacks
conventions head-on...Copy !req
349. and his defiance sends shock waves
through the industry.Copy !req
350. In Hollywood, the iconoclasts comprise
the visionaries, the groundbreakers,Copy !req
351. the renegades who openly defied
the system and expanded the art form.Copy !req
352. Often they were defeated. Sometimes they
actually made the system work for them.Copy !req
353. Hollywood has always had
a love/hate relationship with those
who break its rules,Copy !req
354. extolling them one moment
and burning them the next.Copy !req
355. The Hollywood establishment often
confused entertainment with escapism,Copy !req
356. so borrowing from real life was deemed
either boring or sometimes subversive,Copy !req
357. particularly if it meant
plumbing the lower depths.Copy !req
358. But back in the silent era,
a few filmmakers challenged...Copy !req
359. the ideals of glamour and
wholesomeness by injecting...Copy !req
360. a dose of reality into their films,Copy !req
361. generally within
the framework of the melodrama.Copy !req
362. D. W. Griffith, for instance,
is often identified...Copy !req
363. with quaint romanticism
and Victorian sensibility.Copy !req
364. But more than once, he went beyond
the accepted melodrama of his time.Copy !req
365. In Broken Blossoms,
he showed how a sordid reality...Copy !req
366. can destroy the purest dreams.Copy !req
367. This was the most delicate
interracial romance.Copy !req
368. Physical and spiritual suffering
is what unites Lillian Gish,Copy !req
369. the waif battered by her boxing father,Copy !req
370. and Richard Barthelmess,
the young Buddhist
who lost his religious fervor...Copy !req
371. in the slums of London.Copy !req
372. Their bodies, like their souls,
are bent or stunted.Copy !req
373. Both are broken blossoms.Copy !req
374. Only when they find
each other do they come alive.Copy !req
375. So, for a brief moment,Copy !req
376. they're allowed to dream
before our eyes.Copy !req
377. But when the racist father
discovers the situation,Copy !req
378. bigotry is exposed in its rawest form.Copy !req
379. Sweetness and compassion
turn to fury and savagery.Copy !req
380. The young Chinese
who didn't believe in violence...Copy !req
381. picks up a gun to save his beloved.Copy !req
382. He'll come too late.Copy !req
383. Her punishment is death.Copy !req
384. Erich von Stroheim was
the most outrageous of the iconoclasts,
and he fell the hardest.Copy !req
385. The Wedding March is a fairy tale,
but a tragic one,Copy !req
386. with Fay Wray, a poor musician's
daughter, as Cinderella,Copy !req
387. and Stroheim, the scion
of an aristocratic family,
as her Prince Charming.Copy !req
388. The setting was Vienna in the last days
of the Hapsburg dynasty,Copy !req
389. a decadent world that both
fascinated and repelled Stroheim.Copy !req
390. The city of waltzes
and operettas was a pigsty.Copy !req
391. Behind the romantic exterior, Stroheim
revealed an ugly, cruel society...Copy !req
392. ruled by greed.Copy !req
393. The apple blossoms
offered a brief refuge,Copy !req
394. but they were an illusion.Copy !req
395. Innocence was doomed from the start.Copy !req
396. Stroheim's heroines were no madonnas.Copy !req
397. Like their male counterparts,
they were always endowed
with strong sexual desires.Copy !req
398. What Stroheim was after
was a more honest depiction...Copy !req
399. of human relationships.Copy !req
400. Both lovers were victims.Copy !req
401. The young girl
who surrendered her soul...Copy !req
402. and the prince who had
not yet been corrupted
by the hypocrisy of his milieu.Copy !req
403. Stroheim's images
could certainly be brutal,Copy !req
404. and they inevitably got him
into trouble with the censors.Copy !req
405. But at heart, he was a romantic...Copy !req
406. who was haunted by the loss
and the corruption of love.Copy !req
407. Rather than indulge in the splendors
of imperial Vienna,Copy !req
408. he exposed its moral squalor.Copy !req
409. The young prince's father,
a ruined aristocrat,Copy !req
410. strikes a deal with a rich
merchant, who's desperate to
marry off his crippled daughter.Copy !req
411. Stroheim paid a high price
for his transgressions...Copy !req
412. and his perceived intransigence.Copy !req
413. The very qualities that made him
a great artist undid him.Copy !req
414. He was dubbed a megalomaniac
and ended up losing control
over most of his projects.Copy !req
415. They would all be eventually
truncated or disfigured.Copy !req
416. All fragments of a broken vision.Copy !req
417. In the '30s a few topical films...Copy !req
418. allowed the grim reality of
the Depression to seep into the movies,Copy !req
419. particularly at Warner Brothers.Copy !req
420. Young Darryl Zanuck,
then head of production,Copy !req
421. ordered his writers to draw
their subjects from newspaper headlines.Copy !req
422. I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang
was probably the most famous...Copy !req
423. of these hard-hitting exposes.Copy !req
424. It even led to the reformation
of the penal system in the South.Copy !req
425. However, David Selznick at RKO...Copy !req
426. jumped the gun on Zanuck
by releasing his own indictment
of the chain gang system...Copy !req
427. several months earlier.Copy !req
428. The film was called Hell's Highway.Copy !req
429. Well, young fella,
ya won't catch cold in that sweatbox.Copy !req
430. It was one of the three films
directed by Rowland Brown,Copy !req
431. a forgotten figure
whose meteoric career reputedly ended...Copy !req
432. when he punched
one of Hollywood's top executives.Copy !req
433. Carter's dead.
Strangled to death in the sweatbox.Copy !req
434. The contractor says
the boy committed suicide.Copy !req
435. - Carter's dead.
- Carter's dead.Copy !req
436. - Carter's dead.
- Carter's dead.Copy !req
437. Somehow, Rowland Brown's audacity
epitomized the pre-Code era.Copy !req
438. Those are the tumultuous years
before rigid censorship rules,Copy !req
439. known as the Production Code,
came into effect.Copy !req
440. - Where's Carter?
- Yeah! Where is Carter?Copy !req
441. Where's Carter?Copy !req
442. - Quiet there!Copy !req
443. A convicted bank robber,
Richard Dix is one of the
forgotten men of the Depression.Copy !req
444. His rebellious behavior
is justified by the appalling
conditions at the prison camp.Copy !req
445. His desperation reflects
that of the country.Copy !req
446. Well, why don't you start?Copy !req
447. The World War One veteran
was once an all-American hero.Copy !req
448. Social consciousness sparked
Warner Brothers' stark dramas.Copy !req
449. Films like William Wellman's Wild Boys
Of The Road and Heroes For Sale.Copy !req
450. I have to get to my aunt's
in Chicago someway.Copy !req
451. - This is the only way I can do it.
- Well, don't your folks mind?Copy !req
452. My mother's dead.Copy !req
453. And we got a big family.Copy !req
454. With me gone,
it means just one less mouth to feed.Copy !req
455. That's why they were
kind of glad to see me go.Copy !req
456. Wild Boys Of The Road
was about teenagers who had
been forced to leave home...Copy !req
457. to find work because their parents
lost their jobs in the Depression.Copy !req
458. Railroad dicks constantly
harassed and abused them.Copy !req
459. Cheese it!
Railroad dicks!Copy !req
460. The social and political context was
painted in rather broad strokes,Copy !req
461. but the dramas were
contemporary, urgent, gripping.Copy !req
462. Wild Bill Wellman had a natural feeling
for the vagabond life,Copy !req
463. for the homeless youngsters
and their battles with authority.Copy !req
464. His sympathy lay with the outcasts
and with the rebels.Copy !req
465. - Tommy!Copy !req
466. Now, at the opposite end
of the spectrum...Copy !req
467. you find a different breed
of iconoclast,Copy !req
468. Baroque stylists such as
Josef von Sternberg.Copy !req
469. Like Stroheim,
Sternberg demanded total control...Copy !req
470. over all aspects of his productions.Copy !req
471. But his was a voluptuous,
dreamlike, supremely artificial world,Copy !req
472. lovingly composed
on the Paramount soundstages.Copy !req
473. Sternberg's radical stylization
proved as provocative...Copy !req
474. as Stroheim's extreme realism.Copy !req
475. Each film became a ceremonial
with the director orchestrating...Copy !req
476. the most elaborate, erotic rituals
around his star,Copy !req
477. Marlene Dietrich.Copy !req
478. Of the seven films
Sternberg made with Dietrich,Copy !req
479. The Scarlet Empress was
the most baroque and the boldest...Copy !req
480. in its depiction
of erotic manipulation...Copy !req
481. as it traced the transformation
of an innocent Prussian princess...Copy !req
482. into Catherine the Great,
the empress of Russia.Copy !req
483. The woman you adore is
quite close to you, isn't she?Copy !req
484. Catherine, I love you, worship you.Copy !req
485. As the heroine quickly
discovered, political power and
sexual power were inseparable.Copy !req
486. Her battles were waged in the bedroom...Copy !req
487. as she learned the art of choosing
and changing lovers at the right time.Copy !req
488. Catherine showed
such considerable skills...Copy !req
489. that she even challenged
traditional sexual roles.Copy !req
490. Behind the mirror, as you know,
there's a flight of stairs.Copy !req
491. Down below someone
is waiting to come up.Copy !req
492. Will His Excellency be kind enough
to open the door for him carefully...Copy !req
493. so that he can sneak in?Copy !req
494. Nothing escaped Sternberg's
artistic control.Copy !req
495. He wrote the script,
conceived the lighting,Copy !req
496. composed some of the music,Copy !req
497. directed the Los Angeles
Symphonic Orchestra,Copy !req
498. helped design the sets and sculptures,Copy !req
499. Why did you send my mother away?
What wrong had she done?Copy !req
500. And probably selected
every icon himself.Copy !req
501. He even claimed that
Marlene was just another tool.Copy !req
502. He said, "Remember that Marlene
is not Marlene... I'm Marlene.Copy !req
503. She knows that better than anyone. "Copy !req
504. That must be Peter.Copy !req
505. Go and see if it is and tell him
to come here at once.Copy !req
506. Your Imperial Highness,
Her Majesty wishes to see you at once.Copy !req
507. "To the artist, “insisted Sternberg,Copy !req
508. "the subject is incidental,
and only his vision matters. "Copy !req
509. He said, "The camera is
a diabolical instrument...Copy !req
510. that conveys ideas with lightning speed.Copy !req
511. Each picture transliterates
a thousand words. "Copy !req
512. Perhaps the greatest iconoclast
of them all was also the youngest...Copy !req
513. Orson Welles.Copy !req
514. The downright villainy of
Boss Jim W. Gettys' political machine,Copy !req
515. now in complete control...Copy !req
516. He was 25
when he landed in Hollywood.Copy !req
517. I made no campaign promises...Copy !req
518. because, until a few weeks ago,Copy !req
519. - I had no hope of being elected.Copy !req
520. - Now, however,
I have something more than a hope.Copy !req
521. - And Jim Gettys...Copy !req
522. Jim Gettys has
something less than a chance.Copy !req
523. In the wake
of his radio show War of the Worlds,Copy !req
524. the young prodigy was given
unprecedented latitude by RKO,Copy !req
525. including what's known today as...Copy !req
526. - the right to final cut.Copy !req
527. At the time
only screen legend Charlie Chaplin...Copy !req
528. enjoyed such creative control
over his productions.Copy !req
529. For his first film Welles set out
to explore the many facets...Copy !req
530. of media baron
William Randolph Hearst,Copy !req
531. whose abuse of wealth and power
defied America's democratic traditions.Copy !req
532. Some in Hollywood were so incensed...Copy !req
533. that they put pressure on RKO
to destroy the negative.Copy !req
534. Fortunately, they didn't succeed.Copy !req
535. Welles was like a young magician
enchanted by his own magic.Copy !req
536. In fact, the most revolutionary aspect
of Citizen Kane...Copy !req
537. was its self-consciousness.Copy !req
538. The style drew attention to itself.Copy !req
539. Rosebud.Copy !req
540. Now, this contradicted
the classical ideal...Copy !req
541. of the invisible camera
and seamless cuts.Copy !req
542. Welles used every narrative technique
and filmic device...Copy !req
543. deep focus, ; high and low angles, ;
wide-angle lenses.Copy !req
544. "I want to use
the motion picture camera...Copy !req
545. as an instrument of poetry, "
he said.Copy !req
546. And somehow Welles' passion
for the medium...Copy !req
547. became the great excitement
of the piece itself.Copy !req
548. Now, you see,
I had the best contract that
anybody's ever had for Kane.Copy !req
549. Nobody comes on the set; nobody gets
to look at the rushes; nothing.Copy !req
550. You just make the picture and that's it.Copy !req
551. If I hadn't had that contract, they've
would've stopped me at the beginning,Copy !req
552. just by the nature of the script.Copy !req
553. But it was such conditions... I've never
had anything remotely equal...Copy !req
554. to that contract since.Copy !req
555. So it isn't just the success.Copy !req
556. What spoiled me is having had
the joy of that kind of liberty...Copy !req
557. once in my life...Copy !req
558. and never having been able
to enjoy it again.Copy !req
559. George Amberson Minafer
walked homeward slowly...Copy !req
560. through what seemed to be
the strange streets of a strange city.Copy !req
561. For the town was growing and changing.Copy !req
562. It was heaving up
in the middle incredibly.Copy !req
563. It was spreading incredibly.Copy !req
564. And as it heaved and spread,
it befouled itself...Copy !req
565. and darkened its sky.Copy !req
566. Orson Welles inspired
more would-be directors...Copy !req
567. than any other filmmaker
since D. W. Griffith.Copy !req
568. Yet Welles didn't change the status
of the Hollywood director.Copy !req
569. He actually lost
all his privileges a year later...Copy !req
570. on The Magnificent Ambersons,Copy !req
571. which was chopped down
and partially reshot in his absence.Copy !req
572. Do you know that I always
liked Hollywood very much.Copy !req
573. - It just wasn't reciprocated.Copy !req
574. Throughout his career, Welles pushed
the creative envelope in so many ways.Copy !req
575. To trace Kane's political ambitions,
for instance,Copy !req
576. he created fake newsreel footage.Copy !req
577. To give it the appropriate look,Copy !req
578. he had editor Robert Wise drag the film
across a concrete floor.Copy !req
579. Here was an opportunity
for Welles to recall...Copy !req
580. William Randolph Hearst's
fondness for dictators.Copy !req
581. You saw Kane posing with Hitler
for the photographers.Copy !req
582. Now, at the same time,
in his first talking picture,Copy !req
583. Chaplin dared to aim at
the Fascist powers directly.Copy !req
584. At the risk of infuriating
America's isolationist forces,Copy !req
585. Chaplin took on
the dictator singlehandedly.Copy !req
586. Und now, derJuden.Copy !req
587. DerJuden!Copy !req
588. DerJuden.Copy !req
589. Ohhhh, derJuden.Copy !req
590. His Excellency has
just referred to the Jewish people.Copy !req
591. A comedy
drawing on such topical horrors...Copy !req
592. as racial persecutions
and concentration camps,Copy !req
593. The Great Dictator presented Chaplin
with another major challenge: ;Copy !req
594. he gave himself a double role, ;Copy !req
595. that of the monster dictator Hynkel...Copy !req
596. - and the victim, the Jewish barber.Copy !req
597. Of course, even the renegades
like Chaplin and Welles
had to work around the censors.Copy !req
598. Attention!Copy !req
599. The content of American films
was still strictly controlled.Copy !req
600. Adult themes and images were
too often curtailed or suppressed.Copy !req
601. But after World War Two,Copy !req
602. audiences wanted pictures
to be truer to life.Copy !req
603. A few of our filmmakers
started challenging the rules.Copy !req
604. Hey, Stella!Copy !req
605. You quit that howlin' down there
and go to bed!Copy !req
606. - Joyce, I want my girl down here!
- You shut up!Copy !req
607. Elia Kazan led the assault.Copy !req
608. Hey, Stella!Copy !req
609. Hey, Stella!Copy !req
610. His Streetcar Named Desire
caused the first major breach
in Hollywood's Production Code.Copy !req
611. I wouldn't mix in this.Copy !req
612. Kazan fought
tooth and nail, frame by frame,Copy !req
613. to preserve the integrity of
Tennessee Williams' drama when
he adapted it to the screen.Copy !req
614. This meant exposing
the overtly carnal desires...Copy !req
615. of Stanley and his battered,
pregnant wife Stella.Copy !req
616. Now, these close shots of Kim Hunter
were not in the film...Copy !req
617. as it was originally released...Copy !req
618. because the Legion of Decency
objected to their sensuality.Copy !req
619. The studio decided to cut them...Copy !req
620. and replace the jazz score
with more conventional music.Copy !req
621. - Don't ever leave me, baby.Copy !req
622. The camera is more than
a recorder... it's a microscope.Copy !req
623. It penetrates. It goes into people.Copy !req
624. You see their most private
and concealed thoughts.Copy !req
625. I'm able... I have been able
to do that with actors.Copy !req
626. I mean, I've revealed things
that actors didn't know they
were revealing about themselves.Copy !req
627. You know, I seen you
a lot of times before.Copy !req
628. Remember parochial school
out on Paluski Street?Copy !req
629. Seven, eight years ago.
Your hair... Had your hair, uh...Copy !req
630. Braids.
That's right.Copy !req
631. Looked like a hunk of rope.Copy !req
632. You had wires on your teeth
and glasses, everything.Copy !req
633. You was really a mess.Copy !req
634. I was 12 years old
when I saw On The Waterfront.Copy !req
635. It was a breakthrough for me.Copy !req
636. Don't get sore.
I'm just kidding you.Copy !req
637. I just mean to tell you that you...
grew up very nice.Copy !req
638. Kazan was forging a new acting style.Copy !req
639. Edie?Copy !req
640. Edie?Copy !req
641. It had the appearance of realism,Copy !req
642. but actually it revealed
the natural behavior of people...Copy !req
643. and the truth in that behavior that
I'd never seen before on the screen.Copy !req
644. Stay away from me!Copy !req
645. "Brando, "Kazan said, "was the only
actor I could describe as a genius.Copy !req
646. He had that ambivalence that I believe
is essential in depicting humanity..."Copy !req
647. - Come on! Open the door, please!Copy !req
648. - "both strength...
- Stop it!Copy !req
649. And sensibility. "Copy !req
650. I want you to stay away from me.Copy !req
651. I know what you want me to do,
but I ain't gonna do it, so forget it!Copy !req
652. I don't want you to do anything. You let
your conscience tell you what to do.Copy !req
653. Shut up about that conscience.
That's all I been hearin'.Copy !req
654. I never mentioned the word before.
You just stay away from me!Copy !req
655. Edie, you love me.
I want you to...Copy !req
656. I didn't say I didn't love you.
I said stay away from me!Copy !req
657. - I want you to say it to me.
- Stay away from me!Copy !req
658. Elia Kazan paved
the way for the iconoclasts
of the '50s and '60s.Copy !req
659. They were writer-directors
and writer-producers, ;Copy !req
660. men like Robert Aldrich, Richard Brooks,Copy !req
661. Robert Rossen, Billy Wilder,Copy !req
662. and among the younger generation...Copy !req
663. Arthur Penn and Sam Peckinpah.Copy !req
664. They all defied
the guardians of public morality...Copy !req
665. by daring to tackle controversial issues
like racism,Copy !req
666. inner-city violence,
juvenile delinquency,Copy !req
667. homosexuality, war atrocities,Copy !req
668. the death penalty.Copy !req
669. A new reality was hitting the screens.Copy !req
670. I think producer-director Otto Preminger
did more than anyone else...Copy !req
671. to bring about the demise
of the Production Code.Copy !req
672. His crusade against censorship
led him from The Moon Is Blue,Copy !req
673. a comedy about professional virgins,Copy !req
674. to Advise & Consent,Copy !req
675. which exposed
political corruption in Washington...Copy !req
676. and even showed gay bars.Copy !req
677. He was among the first to challenge
the blacklists by hiring Dalton Trumbo,Copy !req
678. one of the "Hollywood Ten,"Copy !req
679. to write Exodus.Copy !req
680. One of Preminger's
most important victories was scored...Copy !req
681. when he made the film
The Man With the Golden Arm,Copy !req
682. probably the first honest depiction
of drug addiction...Copy !req
683. on American screens.Copy !req
684. Here's Frank Sinatra, in one
of his most memorable performances,Copy !req
685. as a heroin addict
going through withdrawal.Copy !req
686. Let me out!Copy !req
687. Ohh!Copy !req
688. Out!Copy !req
689. Come on!
Let me out!Copy !req
690. Ohh!Copy !req
691. Ohh!Copy !req
692. And don't try to come back,
or I'll throw you out again!Copy !req
693. Alexander Mackendrick's
Sweet Smell of Success...Copy !req
694. exposed a different kind of addiction...Copy !req
695. the addiction to power.Copy !req
696. I love this dirty town.Copy !req
697. The arena was Broadway, with Burt
Lancaster portraying J.J. Hunsecker,Copy !req
698. the master manipulator.Copy !req
699. In Clifford Odets
and Ernest Lehman's screenplay,Copy !req
700. the formidable newspaper and
radio columnist was to show business...Copy !req
701. what Senator McCarthy was
to Cold War politics.Copy !req
702. His fear and intimidation tactics...Copy !req
703. made him a national institution,Copy !req
704. but his ruthless world flickered
in a moral twilight.Copy !req
705. Manny, tell me, what exactly are the...Copy !req
706. unseen gifts of this lovely young thing
that you manage?Copy !req
707. Well, she sings a little.Copy !req
708. You know, she sings...Copy !req
709. Manny's faith in me is
simply awe-inspiring, Mr. Hunsecker.Copy !req
710. - Actually, I'm still studying.
- What subject?Copy !req
711. Singing, of course.Copy !req
712. Straight concert and...Copy !req
713. Why, of course. You might,
for instance, be studying politics.Copy !req
714. Uh... me?Copy !req
715. - Well, you see, J. J...
- I mean, I?Copy !req
716. Y-You must be kidding, Mr. Hunsecker.Copy !req
717. Me, with my Jersey City brains?Copy !req
718. I know. That wonder boy of yours
opens at the Latin Quarter next week.Copy !req
719. - J.J., uh...
- Say good-bye, Lester.Copy !req
720. J.J. 's power is based on
a network of informers and sycophants.Copy !req
721. That's the only reason the
poor slobs pay you... to see
their names in my column.Copy !req
722. - Now I make it out
you're doing me a favor?
- I didn't say tha...Copy !req
723. The day I can't get along
without a press agent's handouts,Copy !req
724. I'll close up and move to Alaska.Copy !req
725. Sweep out my igloo.
Here I come.Copy !req
726. Manny, you rode in here on the senator's
shirttails, so shut your mouth.Copy !req
727. Now, come, J.J.
That's a little too harsh.Copy !req
728. Anyone seems fair game
for you tonight.Copy !req
729. This man is not for you, Harvey, and you
shouldn't be seen in public with him.Copy !req
730. Because that's another part
of a press agent's life.Copy !req
731. They dig up scandal about
prominent people and shovel it thin...Copy !req
732. among columnists who give them space.Copy !req
733. There seems to be some allusion here
that escapes me.Copy !req
734. We're friends, Harvey.Copy !req
735. We go as far back as when you were
a fresh kid congressman, don't we?Copy !req
736. Why is it that everything you say
sounds like a threat?Copy !req
737. Maybe it's a mannerism,
because I don't threaten friends.Copy !req
738. But why furnish your enemies
with ammunition?Copy !req
739. You're a family man, Harvey,
and someday, God willing,
you may want to be president.Copy !req
740. And here you are, out in the open,Copy !req
741. where any hep person knows that this one
is toting that one around for you.Copy !req
742. Are we kids, or what?Copy !req
743. Next time you come up
you might join me on my TV show.Copy !req
744. Thanks, J.J.,
for what I consider sound advice.Copy !req
745. Go now, and sin no more.Copy !req
746. Let's not forget
that comedies can be just as
iconoclastic as dramas.Copy !req
747. Billy Wilder's work,
first as a writer in the 1930s,Copy !req
748. then as a writer-director
from the '40s on, is a perfect example.Copy !req
749. Over the years Wilder's wit only grew
more abrasive.Copy !req
750. Instead of sweetening his brews,
he kept adding more acid.Copy !req
751. - Sind Sie ein Amerikanischer Spion?
- Nein!Copy !req
752. You won't find a more iconoclastic film
in the Kennedy years...Copy !req
753. than his film One, Two, Three,Copy !req
754. a savage political farce that
dared ridicule all ideologies
at the height of the Cold War.Copy !req
755. - Hey!
- MacNamara!Copy !req
756. If it isn't my old friends Hart,
Schaffner and Karl Marx.Copy !req
757. - I see you bring blonde lady with you.
- Ring-a-ding-ding!Copy !req
758. James Cagney plays a Coca-Cola executive
who has enrolled his secretary...Copy !req
759. to hoodwink the Soviet commissars
in East Berlin.Copy !req
760. To what do we owe
this unexpected pleasure?Copy !req
761. - You're a trade commission.
I thought we might trade.
- Coca-Cola?Copy !req
762. No. But I hear you boys would like
Fraulein Ingeborg to go to work for you.Copy !req
763. - You wanna trade your secretary?
- Right.Copy !req
764. - For Russian secretary?
- Wrong.Copy !req
765. I do not blame you.
Ours is built like bowlegged samovar.Copy !req
766. We find proposition very interesting.
Now, what can we offer you?Copy !req
767. All I want from you
is a small favor.Copy !req
768. Small favor, big favor.
Anything.Copy !req
769. There's a guy named Otto Ludwig Piffl
being held by the East German police.Copy !req
770. - For what reason?
- Son of a gun stole my cuckoo clock.Copy !req
771. - You want cuckoo clock back?
- Wrong.Copy !req
772. - You want Piffl back.
- Right.Copy !req
773. Impossible, my friend. We cannot
interfere with internal affairs...Copy !req
774. of sovereign republic
of East Germany.Copy !req
775. - No Piffl, no deal. Let's go, Ingeborg.
- Wait! What is the hurry?Copy !req
776. You're not giving us a chance.Copy !req
777. Is old Russian proverb: You cannot
milk cow with hands in pockets.Copy !req
778. Herr Ober!
Vodka! Caviar!Copy !req
779. Herr Kapellmeister,
more rock and roll!Copy !req
780. Wilder's transgressions
of political correctness...Copy !req
781. matched his transgressions
of good taste.Copy !req
782. To Wilder, good taste was
another name for censorship.Copy !req
783. "I'm accused of being vulgar,"
he would say.Copy !req
784. "So much the better, ;
that proves I'm closer to life. "Copy !req
785. The picture was hit
by a change in attitude.Copy !req
786. The wall was built, ;
nobody could get through East Berlin
to West Berlin and vice versa.Copy !req
787. The desire of the audience
to laugh was strong.Copy !req
788. About 25 years later,Copy !req
789. it became a smash hit in Germany.Copy !req
790. Everybody went to see it because...Copy !req
791. the wall was gone and, uh...Copy !req
792. it was not gone yet, but it had eased,
you know, that whole thing.Copy !req
793. And it became...
it became, uh...Copy !req
794. it became a kind
of a historic vignette...Copy !req
795. of the silliness of the Russians...Copy !req
796. and the stupidity of the Americans.Copy !req
797. Come on, everything.
Get it up here.Copy !req
798. By the late 1960s
the Production Code was almost defunct.Copy !req
799. - Bonnie and Clyde put the nail
in the coffin.
- Clyde, where's the car?Copy !req
800. - What did he do? Where's the car?Copy !req
801. Where did he go?Copy !req
802. - Here!Copy !req
803. - The old studio system...Copy !req
804. was so hypocritical.Copy !req
805. They were constantly fearful of
being accused of instilling in youth...Copy !req
806. the glory of the outlaw.Copy !req
807. So they had these rules, for instance,Copy !req
808. that you couldn't even fire a gun in the
same frame with somebody getting hit.Copy !req
809. You had to have, literally,
a film cut in between.Copy !req
810. So I thought, if we're gonna
show this, we should show it.Copy !req
811. We should show what it looks like
when somebody gets shot,Copy !req
812. that shooting somebody
is not a sanitized event.Copy !req
813. It's not immaculate.Copy !req
814. There's an enormous amount of blood.Copy !req
815. There's an enormous amount of...
of horror of change...Copy !req
816. that takes place when that occurs.Copy !req
817. We were in
the middle of the Vietnamese war.Copy !req
818. What you saw on television was
every bit... perhaps even more bloody...Copy !req
819. than what we were showing on film.Copy !req
820. Hey...Copy !req
821. The Production Code didn't
survive the late '60s.Copy !req
822. Bonnie and Clyde
and The Wild Bunch disposed of it.Copy !req
823. Today the violence in films
is certainly more graphic.Copy !req
824. The last frontier may be sexuality,Copy !req
825. and beyond sexuality
the complexity of the human psyche.Copy !req
826. This is the territory that Stanley
Kubrick has been mining in his films.Copy !req
827. Like Kazan, Kubrick was a New York
maverick who grew into an iconoclast.Copy !req
828. He emerged from independent production
and film noir...Copy !req
829. to create his own
unique, visionary worlds.Copy !req
830. His association with Kirk Douglas...Copy !req
831. on Paths of Glory and Spartacus...Copy !req
832. established him as a major player,Copy !req
833. but he couldn't stand being
an employee on studio projects...Copy !req
834. and moved to London to make Lolita.Copy !req
835. He stayed there
and hasn't worked in Hollywood since.Copy !req
836. He's one of the rare iconoclasts...Copy !req
837. who's enjoyed the luxury of operating
completely on his own terms.Copy !req
838. Back here we have the kitchen.Copy !req
839. - That's where we have
our informal meals.
- Perhaps if you'd...Copy !req
840. My pastries win prizes around here.Copy !req
841. If you'd let me have your
phone number, that would give me
a chance to think it over.Copy !req
842. Here's James Mason
as a European intellectual
discovering the trappings...Copy !req
843. of small-town America.Copy !req
844. Oh, you must see the garden
before you go.Copy !req
845. - My flowers win prizes around here.Copy !req
846. They're the talk of the neighborhood.Copy !req
847. Voilà!Copy !req
848. My... Uh... Oh. My daughter.Copy !req
849. Uh, darling, turn that down, please.Copy !req
850. - I could offer you a comfortable home...Copy !req
851. With a sunny garden,
a congenial atmosphere, my cherry pie.Copy !req
852. When Kubrick made Lolita,Copy !req
853. the subject of a
middle-aged man infatuated with
a sexually precocious minor...Copy !req
854. was still completely taboo.Copy !req
855. We haven't discussed, uh, how much.Copy !req
856. Oh, uh, something nominal.
Let's say...Copy !req
857. - This was not
the contraband of a smuggler,
- 200 a month?Copy !req
858. But open defiance.Copy !req
859. Including meals and late snacks,
et cetera.Copy !req
860. - You're a very persuasive
salesman, Mrs. Haze.
- Thank you. Uh...Copy !req
861. What was the decisive factor?
Uh, my garden?Copy !req
862. I think it was your...
cherry pies.Copy !req
863. Ohh!Copy !req
864. Why were you so late coming home
from school yesterday afternoon?Copy !req
865. Yesterday. Yesterday.
What was yesterday?Copy !req
866. Yesterday was Thursday.Copy !req
867. That's right.
That's right.Copy !req
868. Michelle and I, um,
stayed to watch football practice.Copy !req
869. - In the Frigid Queen?
- What do you mean,
"In the Frigid Queen"?Copy !req
870. I was driving around and I thought
I saw you through the window.Copy !req
871. Oh. Yeah. Well, we stopped there
for a malt afterwards.Copy !req
872. What difference does it make?Copy !req
873. You were sitting at a table
with two boys.Copy !req
874. I told you, no dates.Copy !req
875. - It wasn't a date.
- It was a date.Copy !req
876. - It wasn't a date.
- It was a date, Lolita.Copy !req
877. - It was not a date.
- It was a date!Copy !req
878. It wasn't a date.Copy !req
879. Whatever it was that you had
yesterday afternoon, I don't
want you to have it again.Copy !req
880. And while we're on the subject,
how did you come to be so late
on Saturday afternoon?Copy !req
881. Professor Humbert's fall
befits his transgression.Copy !req
882. - Where have you put her?
- Get your hands off her!Copy !req
883. - Where is she?
- Obsessed with Lolita,Copy !req
884. who's now run away from him,Copy !req
885. he undergoes a mental breakdown.Copy !req
886. - Hold it now!
- Don't let go!Copy !req
887. The satirical comedy turns into
a bizarre tragedy.Copy !req
888. Let's get this business straight.Copy !req
889. This girl was officially
discharged earlier tonight
in the care of her uncle.Copy !req
890. If you say so.Copy !req
891. Well, has she or hasn't she an uncle?Copy !req
892. - All right, let's say she has an uncle.
- What do you mean, "let's say"?Copy !req
893. Uh, all right.
She has an uncle.Copy !req
894. Uncle Gus.
Uh, yes, I remember now.Copy !req
895. He was going t-to pick her up
here at the hospital.Copy !req
896. - L-I forgot that.
- Forgot?Copy !req
897. - Yes, I forgot.
- All right, let him up.Copy !req
898. Uh, she didn't, by any chance,Copy !req
899. leave any... message for me?Copy !req
900. No, I suppose not.Copy !req
901. Five years in the army...Copy !req
902. and some considerable experience
of the world...Copy !req
903. had by now dispelled any of those
romantic notions regarding love...Copy !req
904. with which Barry commenced life,Copy !req
905. and he began to have it in mind,Copy !req
906. as so many gentlemen
had done before him,Copy !req
907. to marry a woman
of fortune and condition.Copy !req
908. And, as such things so often happen,Copy !req
909. these thoughts closely coincided...Copy !req
910. with his setting first sight
upon a lady who will henceforth
play a considerable part...Copy !req
911. in the drama of his life...Copy !req
912. the Countess of Lyndon, ;Copy !req
913. Viscountess Bullingdon of England, ;Copy !req
914. Baroness Castle Lyndon
of the kingdom of Ireland.Copy !req
915. A woman of vast wealth and great beauty.Copy !req
916. Kubrick's boldest project...Copy !req
917. was a period piece set
in 18th-century Europe...Copy !req
918. Barry Lyndon.Copy !req
919. He broke new technical ground,Copy !req
920. having special lenses manufactured...Copy !req
921. to capture the glow of the candlelit
mansions of the aristocracy.Copy !req
922. Instead of a picaresque tale,Copy !req
923. Kubrick offered another
grim journey of self-destruction...Copy !req
924. the rise and fall of an opportunist.Copy !req
925. On the surface...Copy !req
926. the approach was
cool and distant, deceptive.Copy !req
927. But I found this to be
one of the most profoundly
emotional films I've ever seen.Copy !req
928. Samuel, I'm going outside
for a breath of air.Copy !req
929. Yes, milady. Of course.Copy !req
930. Kubrick's style
was strangely unsettling.Copy !req
931. His audacity was
to insist on slowness...Copy !req
932. in order to recreate the pace of life...Copy !req
933. and the ritualized behavior
of the time.Copy !req
934. A good example is this seduction scene,Copy !req
935. which he stretches...Copy !req
936. until it settles into a sort of trance.Copy !req
937. What has always struck me is
the ballet of the emotions in the film.Copy !req
938. Watch the tension
between the camera's movements...Copy !req
939. and the character's body language,Copy !req
940. orchestrated by the music in this scene.Copy !req
941. With John Cassavetes' characters,Copy !req
942. the emotion was always up front.Copy !req
943. - That's great.Copy !req
944. It was at once their cross
and their salvation.Copy !req
945. John's approach was warm, embracing,
focused on people.Copy !req
946. - Aah! No. No. No, no, no, no.
- Yes. Yes.Copy !req
947. Relationships were
all he was interested in.Copy !req
948. The laughter and the games, ;
the tears and the guilt, ;Copy !req
949. the whole roller coaster of love.Copy !req
950. A middle-class housewife, in despair
over the failure of her marriage,Copy !req
951. has been picked up by a young man.Copy !req
952. She takes him home for the night.Copy !req
953. The next morning he finds her comatose.Copy !req
954. Operator?Copy !req
955. I want the emergency rescue squad.Copy !req
956. My number?Copy !req
957. My number is...Copy !req
958. - Come on, now. Drink this, damn it!Copy !req
959. Goddamn bitch.
Drink this!Copy !req
960. Come on, now.
Don't go back out.Copy !req
961. Cassavetes embodied
the emergence of a new school...Copy !req
962. of guerilla filmmaking in New York.Copy !req
963. His films were literally made
on the credit plan.Copy !req
964. John was fearless,
a true renegade setting up
one psychodrama after another...Copy !req
965. with the complicity of a whole
close group of actor friends.Copy !req
966. He insisted on having fun
when making films...Copy !req
967. while looking for some kind of truth.Copy !req
968. Maybe even a revelation.Copy !req
969. No. You gotta stay awake.
Please.Copy !req
970. - I don't want you to die.Copy !req
971. No.Copy !req
972. Please, lady.Copy !req
973. You gotta stay awake.Copy !req
974. You gotta stay awake.Copy !req
975. To have
a philosophy is to know how to love...Copy !req
976. - You gotta stay awake.
- and to know where to put it.Copy !req
977. But you can't put it everywhere.Copy !req
978. You've gotta be a priest saying, "Yes,
my son, yes, my daughter, bless you. "Copy !req
979. But people don't live that way.Copy !req
980. They live with anger and hostility
and problems...Copy !req
981. and lack of money, lack of...Copy !req
982. You know, tremendous disappointments
in their life. They're...Copy !req
983. So, what they need is a philosophy.Copy !req
984. I think what everybody needs
is a way to say...Copy !req
985. "Where and how can I love,
can I be in love...Copy !req
986. so that I can live
with some degree of peace?"Copy !req
987. And so that's why I have
a need for the characters...Copy !req
988. to really analyze love,
discuss it, kill it,Copy !req
989. destroy it, hurt each other,
do all that stuff...Copy !req
990. in that war,Copy !req
991. in that word polemic
and picture polemic of what life is.Copy !req
992. The rest of the stuff
really doesn't interest me.Copy !req
993. It may interest other people,
but I have a one-track mind.Copy !req
994. All I'm interested in is love.Copy !req
995. That's it! Hoo-hoo!Copy !req
996. You're gonna cry!
Ohh, geez! Come on!Copy !req
997. Come on. I didn't want to hit you,
but don't go to sleep on me.Copy !req
998. Ohh! Come on, now! Cry!
That's it! That's life, honey!Copy !req
999. Tears of happiness, man.
Just do it!Copy !req
1000. Come on, now. Ohh.Copy !req
1001. All of Cassavetes' films,Copy !req
1002. they were all epics of the human soul.Copy !req
1003. Watching them brings to mind a comment
made by John Ford to a collaborator...Copy !req
1004. who was complaining about the miserable
weather conditions in the desert...Copy !req
1005. when they were trying
to shoot a picture.Copy !req
1006. The guy said, " Look, Mr. Ford,
what can we shoot out here?"Copy !req
1007. And Ford replied,
"What can we shoot?Copy !req
1008. The most interesting and exciting thing
in the whole world... a human face."Copy !req
1009. You want some coffee?Copy !req
1010. - Can I trust you? Huh? Huh?
- Yeah.Copy !req
1011. Okay. I don't trust you anyway.Copy !req
1012. I don't...Copy !req
1013. Uh-huh.
You little sneaky, you.Copy !req
1014. I'm gonna get you some coffee!Copy !req
1015. So, we're gonna have to stop...Copy !req
1016. because I can't go on any further.Copy !req
1017. Number one, we just don't have the time.Copy !req
1018. Number two,
we've reached a different era.Copy !req
1019. It's the era of the late '60s, the years
that I started making movies myself,Copy !req
1020. and, uh, it puts me
in a different perspective.Copy !req
1021. We've reached a whole
new chapter altogether and I really...Copy !req
1022. I could not really do justice
to my friends who are making films...Copy !req
1023. and companions and, uh, my generation
of filmmakers from the inside.Copy !req
1024. I can't...
I can't do it.Copy !req
1025. Um, so the story really has no end,Copy !req
1026. and we haven't even
started discussing...Copy !req
1027. such incredibly major figures as...Copy !req
1028. Ernst Lubitsch, Preston Sturges,Copy !req
1029. Joseph Mankiewicz, John Huston,Copy !req
1030. George Stevens, Sam Peckinpah,Copy !req
1031. William Wyler or,
of course, Alfred Hitchcock.Copy !req
1032. But fortunately they've been
celebrated in so many ways,Copy !req
1033. in so many books and articles and in
some, actually, wonderful shows.Copy !req
1034. Documentaries about film are becoming
a genre unto themselves...Copy !req
1035. thanks to Kevin Brownlow and David
Gill's invaluable 13-hour series...Copy !req
1036. about Hollywood in its silent era...Copy !req
1037. just the silent film alone, 13 hours;Copy !req
1038. Peter Bogdanovich's film
Directed by John Ford, ;Copy !req
1039. Richard Schickel's series
The Men Who Made The Movies, ;Copy !req
1040. and so many British and French portraits
of filmmakers.Copy !req
1041. So many directors have inspired me
over the years,Copy !req
1042. I wouldn't know how to stop mentioning
their names, ; we're indebted to them.Copy !req
1043. As we are to any original filmmaker
who managed to survive...Copy !req
1044. and impose his or her vision
in a very competitive profession.Copy !req
1045. When we talk about personal expression,Copy !req
1046. I'm often reminded
of Kazan's film America, America,Copy !req
1047. the story of his uncle's journey
from Anatolia to America...Copy !req
1048. the story of so many immigrants
who came to this country from
a very, very foreign land.Copy !req
1049. You're blockin' traffic!
Come on! Move it along!Copy !req
1050. I kind of identified
with it and was very moved by it.Copy !req
1051. Actually, I later saw myself making this
same journey, but not from Anatolia.Copy !req
1052. Rather, from my own neighborhood
in New York,Copy !req
1053. which was, in a sense,
a very foreign land.Copy !req
1054. I made that journey
from that land to moviemaking,Copy !req
1055. which was something unimaginable.Copy !req
1056. Actually, when I was a little
younger there was another
journey I wanted to make.Copy !req
1057. It was a religious one...
I wanted to be a priest.Copy !req
1058. However I soon realized
that my real vocation, my real calling,Copy !req
1059. was the movies.Copy !req
1060. I don't really see a conflict
between the Church and movies...
the sacred and the profane.Copy !req
1061. Obviously there are major differences,Copy !req
1062. but I could also see
great similarities...Copy !req
1063. between a church and a movie house.Copy !req
1064. Both are places for people to come
together and share a common experience,Copy !req
1065. and I believe
there's a spirituality in films,Copy !req
1066. even if it's not one
which can supplant faith.Copy !req
1067. I find that over the years
many films address themselves
to the spiritual side of man's nature...Copy !req
1068. from Griffith's film Intolerance
to John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath,Copy !req
1069. to Hitchcock's Vertigo,Copy !req
1070. to Kubrick's 2001 and so many more.Copy !req
1071. It's as if movies answer an ancient
quest for the common unconscious.Copy !req
1072. They fulfill a spiritual need
that people have...Copy !req
1073. to share a common memory.Copy !req