too late for tears : Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (1972)

   
    Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant: ein Krankheitsfall gewidmet dem, der hier Marlene wurde = The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Janus Films; Tango Film Produktion. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1972. Kurt Raab, art director; Michael Ballhaus, cinematographer; Maja Lemcke, contume designs; Thea Eymèsz, editor. ISBN: 9781604659405; ISBN: 1604659408. The Criterion collection, 740. Disc 1: feature film; disc 2: bonus features.
   Performers: Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, Katrin Schaake, Eva Mattes, Gisela Fackeldey, Irm Hermann. Summary: One of the earliest and best-loved films of this period in Fassbinder's career, which balances a realistic depiction of tormented romance with staging that remains true to the director's roots in experimental theater. This unforgettable, unforgiving dissection of the imbalanced relationship between a haughty fashion designer and a beautiful but icy ingenue is based on a sly gender reversal of the writer-director's own desperate obsession with a young actor.
   Special features: Disc 2: Outsiders (documentary features actors Margit Carstensen, Eva Mattes, Katrin Schaake, and Hanna Schygulla discussing the production of the film and their experiences working with director Rainer Werner Fassbinder); Michael Ballhaus interview; Jan Shattuc interview; Role play: women on Fassbinder (1992 German television documentary by Thomas Honickel featuring interviews with actors Margit Carstensen, Irm Hermann, Hanna Schygulla, and Rosel Zech); New English subtitle translation. Insert, essay by critic Peter Matthews.

    I discovered Rainer Werner Fassbinder rather late in life, at sixty something years to be more or less exact, and by a most indirect route. I’d seen a few snippets of his films [1], but as far as I knew nothing all the way through. And I’d heard his name mentioned in film groups, lectures and documentaries. This is quite a confession from a self-anointed film buff who prides himself on his offbeat tastes, which include foreign movies. Only later did I discover that Fassbinder was the most prominent exponent of the New German Cinema that emerged in the 1970s, and arguably the most important German director since the great auteurs of the 1920s and 1930s.

    The roundabout way I came across Fassbinder was, appropriately enough, via a Douglas Sirk movie, the 1954 weepie Magnificent Obsession. Sirk was also German by birth but Americanized by profession and career. My Fassbinder discovery moment, or more specific, the discovery of his importance, insofar as it applies to Sirk, was via the commentary track of Magnificent Obsession, in which it was mentioned that the two main factors in the Sirk renaissance of the 1990s were feminism and Fassbinder. Later I learned that Fassbinder was an admirer of Sirk's films and moreover that his Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was a kind of remake of Sirk's All That Heaven Allows.
    But getting back to Bitter Tears, and even as a Fassbinder novice, for me this has to be the director’s ultimate masterpiece. The amazing camera movements, poetically incisive script, surreal set, and spot on performances he draws from the all-women cast are little short of miraculous for one of 27 years at the time, even taking into consideration that the film’s fluid visuals and high gloss look may be as much the contributions of cameraman Michael Ballhaus and costume designer Maja Lemcke as that of Fassbinder’s auteurist vision.
    As an aside, I invoke the inevitable, and admittedly facile, comparison, specifically the seemingly ever hovering ghost of Orson Welles (actually Welles was alive and kicking – and making movies – in the early Seventies and didn’t pass on until over a decade later). Anyhow I’m tempted to call Fassbinder the German Orson Welles – but I won’t. Still, and much like Welles, Fassbinder never quite repeated the pinnacle he achieved in the extraordinary early effort that was Bitter Tears (though for some devotees the true pinnacle is Ali: Fear Eats the Soul). Another aside: I have to wonder, this time a Kane-esque reference: did Fassbinder have total artistic control, including final cut approval, over Bitter Tears, a control he might not have had in later efforts? Given how much of a control freak Fassbinder reportedly was, it would be surprising if he didn't demand total authority over all his productions. Whether he got it is another matter.
    Yet another Welles connection, of a sort. Both Welles and Fassbinder were reputed to be short tempered, intimidating, and domineering taskmeisters, to the point of threats of physical violence for noncompliance on Fassbinder’s part. But this reputation has to be treated with kid gloves: there are also stories that Welles at least was wonderful to work with. So who can say? Incidentally both frequently appeared as characters in their own films, usually as the villain or otherwise playing an unpleasant sort.
    Speaking of casts, the aforementioned all-female cast of Bitter Tears is a marvel and Fassbinder gets the absolute most out of his hand-picked divas, especially Margit Carstensen in the performance of a lifetime. Throughout the film she seems to be channeling Joan Crawford – and more than a pinch of Norma Desmond – with her intense acting style. As a nice contrast we have Katrin Schaake as Petra’s best pal Sidonie, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Liza Minelli’s Sally Bowles, not least for her Twenties style hairdo. Both films were released in 1972 and the similarity may be coincidental, but considering the films’ strong German elements one has to wonder. It must be admitted, however, that Cabaret’s German-ness is achieved more by proxy (i.e. setting and era) than actual production.
    Then there’s the enigmatic, unspeaking Marlene (Irm Hermann), who functions as a kind of companion/servant/secretary and all-around Sancho Panza to Petra. But she could be many more things, and various interpretations have spewed forth. Since we see her working on Petra’s designs, and we never actually see Petra working, is she a kind of fashion design ghostwriter for her mistress? In any case it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the respective characters in Bitter Tears [2], and maybe not too much of an exaggeration to opine that these will be the roles the actresses are remembered for, quite a claim given their long and distinguished careers.
    I leave to others to sort out Bitter Tears’ socio-economic, psychosexual, existential, and even political undercurrents. And as much as Tears deals with archetypal themes like lust, betrayal, obsession, narcissism and the like, it’s still a work of its time. To wit, and strangely enough perhaps, with its close to the bone, unsentimentalized view of the human condition, Tears strikes me as similar in tone and execution (if infinitely more polished and classy) to the slice-of-life, rough around the edges movies popular in the U.S. during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Of course one could make the same claim for any number of Fassbinder films. In any case, the lack of a music score also contributes to the Bitter Tears' verismo, somewhat voyeuristic vibe. Actually there is music, of a sort. Source music, compliments of The Platters, the Walker Brothers, and Giuseppe Verdi intermittently wafts in the background.
    Whatever the film’s aesthetic or other subtexts, I prefer to appreciate The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant as pure cinema. And what cinema it is, incredibly rich, multi-faceted, beautiful to look at, and eminently rewarding of repeated viewings. In a word, everything works in this movie, and its stately paced 124 minutes never seem to drag.

     1 To date I’ve only seen a minimum of his considerable oeuvre: Lili Marleen, Bitter Tears, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and Faustrecht der Freiheit in their entirety, and snippets of Veronika Voss, Despair, and Berlin Alexanderplatz.
   2 The stunning Hanna Schygulla takes the role of the beautiful ingenue Karin, whom Petra, Pygmalion-like, decides to mold into a top fashion model. Here we see echoes of Hitchcock and his control over his icy blonde actresses, as well as the makeover(s) – first by Tom Helmore and later by James Stewart – of Madeline (Kim Novak) in Vertigo. Then again, Petra’s brutal dismissal of Karin – “no, she’s not talented, she just sells herself well” – might be an unconscious self-indictment. Perhaps it’s Fassbinder’s sly way of reminding us that there’s a thin line between ‘genius’ and salesmanship. An interesting bit of trivia: Margit Carstensen was only three years older than Hanna Schygulla, though the characters they portray seem to have a much greater age difference: Karin is perhaps in her early twenties and Petra fortyish.

the rest is history ...

     The prospect of penning my thoughts on history and how it may – or may not – have a bearing on my literary endeavors creates some discomfort. But since history is my third great passion, after classical music and old movies (especially pre-Code and film noir), why not? Thus what follows is a stream-of-consciousness, ergo somewhat rambling, grab bag of pronouncements on the endlessly fascinating, sometimes frustrating, topic of history, with no particular overarching thesis or point of view (aside from my own), or otherwise ideological ax to grind.
     I’m not so presumptuous as to suggest that I write historical novels – can genre fiction ever qualify as such? But since my mysteries are set in the early Thirties and late Forties I feel the need to have at least a modicum of sensitivity to historical events and trends, just to add some spice, along with the concurrent authenticity bolstered by accuracy in things like slang, clothes, music and so on.
     As for my nonfiction writings, both print and online, I’ve flirted with history, usually in the form of book reviews on subjects either historical or that touch on history in some way, such as biographies. But truth be told, I’m not qualified to offer any profound insights into matters historical or historiographical. True, I technically possess an advanced degree in music history, but this is such a specialized field and for the most part steers clear of the likes of political and diplomatic history, the philosophy of history, and the various historiographic controversies. [1] Besides, degrees, even advanced degrees, especially advanced degrees, aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Completing a graduate degree program is not so much an accomplishment of intellect as it is one of persistence and determination, as well as a willingness to subordinate one’s more creative impulses and aesthetic flights of fancy in order to conform to academic protocol and tradition (translation: do what your committee tells you to do). But as the fellow said, I begin to digress.
     What I’d like to focus on here then isn’t so much how historical background creeps into my novels (which I actually cover elsewhere, both online and in print), but instead to offer my thoughts on the subject of history in and of itself. As mentioned above, studying history, strictly as an amateur mind you, is one of my favorite avocations when I get bored with writing. And I admit to a few parochialisms, among them Ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt, the Cold War, WW2, and the social and political, as opposed to the purely aesthetic, history of cinema. My basic approach and philosophy when studying history might be described as instinctively siding with underdogs, rebels, outsiders, in a word, those who challenge long-held, entrenched views (Shakespeare authorship question, anyone?). Or phrased another way, those who just plain see the world differently. I’m especially receptive to fresh or alternative, even offbeat and eccentric, approaches to orthodox history (provided said approaches can be rationally argued and supported by sound evidence and methods). Likewise I seek out topics, events or individuals that haven’t been so thoroughly covered already. If I must choose a label I’d call myself a contrarian, or better yet, skeptic. I favor these two appellations over the term ‘revisionist,’ which has taken on a bad odour [2], unfairly so in my opinion.
     However (and it’s a big however), I do have my limits. To wit, I’m not a fan of what might be called the conspiracy theory school of historical inquiry, which, alas, runs rampant on far too many blogs and other online sources, and yes, books too, that purport to go into history, and worse, politics. So many of these have a decidedly paranoid vibe to them, with a dearth of actual evidence to back up their breathless pronouncements. But the occasional nugget gets through, intelligently reasoned and presented, in unlikely places, that sheds new light on old stories. So best not to be too rigid in what to include versus what to discard in the historical quest.
     Aside: it’s often been said that historians have a leftist bias, but I’m not so sure. Any historian worth his salt will of course bring his own worldview, but will evaluate all evidence fairly and come to his conclusions accordingly, at least he should. In other words, he won’t cook the books or choose facts selectively. Even if we accept the notion that professional (read: academic) historians have a liberal bent, then we could also charge that most pop history sources have a decidedly right-wing slant, or at the very least a 'feel-good' approach to history [3]. Here I’m thinking of the ubiquitous usual suspects the ilk of the History Channel, Story, A&E, Wikipedia, the Hallmark Channel, the ‘liberal’ PBS, and, on balance, even the august Encyclopædia Britannica. And yes, I include the movies, especially the movies, when listing pop culture sources that have a rightist slant in their treatment of history [4]. To this group I might add the various print popular histories aimed at a mass audience. Somewhat ironically, these are frequently penned by professional academics. These tend to go over well trodden territory, rely on secondary sources, and take a narrative, storytelling approach, in the process generally reinforcing long congealed views that won't rankle the prospective audience (read: customers) too much.
      Here it’s only fair to offer an admission: I watch a goodly amount of television pop history (but don't tell anyone). And in defense of pop history, one of its virtues is that it tells a narrative with a minimum of fat: that is, it keeps the story moving, a virtue we can't always claim for academic history, or real life, for that matter. Also in its favor is that a viewer may be inspired to seek out further, meatier treatments of a historical subject. And to be sure some pop history venues at least make an attempt at academic sheen with various, well-credentialed talking heads flitting in and out in the basic narrative [5]. To all these musings I would add my own two cents that real history is not so much the search for the details of what happened (though, as in law [and politics], it's not always easy to agree on basic facts), but rather the how and the why of what happened, and as a consequence the influence of historical events on what came after.
     Another interesting take is Alex Rosenberg’s (relatively) recent book How History Gets Things Wrong: the Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories, (MIT Press 2018). Rosenberg’s thesis is that the practice of interpreting history through narrative stories often results in bogus readings of the past due to our brain's preference for simple narratives over complex realities. Rosenberg bases his theory on evidence from three scientific disciplines: evolutionary anthropology, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology.
    In Rosenberg’s calculus, it’s when history considers data and analysis from other disciplines that we get a more definitive historical picture. Books like Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome, Walter Scheidel’s The Science of Roman History, and Lizzie Collingham's The Taste of War might be cited as examples of what other, somewhat related, fields can contribute to the historical gestalt. Rosenberg seems to be calling out for a more evidence-based, i.e. purely objective, purely scientific, and less narrative, approach to the study of history.
     As for my own reaction, some purely anecdotal evidence suggests that Rosenberg may actually be onto something. As opined elsewhere in these pages, my impatience with the, if you will, real life approach to storytelling – examples being those ‘you are there’ true crime police stories and live broadcasts of actual trials – is that their desultory, arbitrary unfolding of events is the actual antithesis of the comforting, predictable flow of stories. Ergo it’s stories that we like. Since stories come after the fact, they provide a reassurance and explanation, a making sense of things that don’t make sense when they happen, because they are just experienced.
     Getting back to pop vs. academic history, sometimes historians get it just right and strike a fine balance between the esoteric and the popular. Such a source that deftly combines the academic with the popular, leaning academic, is the Great Courses DVDs and CDs, which at last count numbered some 280-odd lectures on history.
       Aside: perhaps this is a good place to address the phenomenon known as spin, which online sources tend to innocuously define as the attempt to control communication and opinion through selectively emphasizing facts and evidence. Such a definition, while abstractly correct, doesn't go into the deceptive – and destructive – aspects of spin as practiced in our world today by politicos and really anyone involved in the business of public relations. And with no disrespect to historians, it’s not so much of a stretch to opine that all history is spin, since historians, both professional and otherwise, present a certain interpretation of events, however couched in academic, arcane language, that by implication implores the reader to accept said point of view [6]. 
     In one of my online posts elsewhere I wrote on the seeming all-pervasiveness of spin these days. I asked: why so much spin in our current world? Was it always this way? I'm not sure I answered the questions satisfactorily, if at all. I also suggested that spin's evil sibling is advertising, but with regard to my views on advertising, as the man said don't get me started. Ditto for propaganda, probably the most egregious variant of spin. Spin is of course a form of disinformation, sometimes outright misinformation, and upon further reflection I now suggest the reason we see, and hear, so much spin these days is stunningly obvious: in a digital and media saturated 24/7 world there are simply more messages bombarding us, and a good portion, probably a majority of said messages, are spin or something like spin. Case in point: a good percentage of the messages I receive each day, in print, online, on tv, or otherwise, are without fail appeals to send money for such-and-such good cause, purchase life insurance, sign up for a credit card, or buy a product that will make me forever happy. In all cases the motivation is to separate me from my money.
     Regarding today's endless news cycle, they say journalism, be it print or television, is history in the raw. Ergo spin is really manufactured history, sometimes expressed as massaged and manufactured journalism in the raw. To be sure, journalism itself, even with the best of intentions, can be disinformation. Said disinformation may well be unintentional, arising due to relatively benign factors such as mistakes or on-the-spot speculation without all the facts in an attempt to be the first to scoop a story. Still, in our murky world of mass messaging and the mind-numbing volume of images and messages, including those, especially those, manufactured by the ever looming, seemingly all-pervasive AI, it’s becoming increasing difficult to tell exactly where ‘news’ (read: reality) ends and spin/propaganda begins.  
     In the case of, say, a self-penned biography, we must also admit the uncomfortable reality that a memoir is, to a large extent, spin, of the best, or worst, kind, depending upon one's point of view: memoir is by necessity selective and as such usually, though not always, self-flattering. Anyhow I propose now that spin has been around forever, just as malicious and mendacious in the past as today, maybe more so. It's just a matter of volume – both literally and figuratively – in our all-too-modern world.
     But getting back to history, all historians, be they purveyors of spin or no, are to some extent subjective and biased. In a perfect world they would be scrupulously objective and even-handed, but that would be like saying humans should be without likes and dislikes, and – horrors! – opinions [7]. So maybe it all comes out in the wash with the pop and academic sides cancelling each other out. But it still leaves us with the discomforting reality that, as has been pointed out, what we call ‘history’ is ultimately what the historian, whatever his motivations or ideological bent, chooses to point out.
 
    1 An exception here might be Wagner, not necessarily because he’s the most written about composer of all time. Then again, maybe it’s because he’s the most written about composer of all time. But more to the point, his life and work, along with writings about him, ergo his influence, intersect so many things historical. Thus he needs to be noted as an anomaly. This is true to form: Richard Wagner was the exception rather than the rule in many things.
     While talking about Wagner we might mention the contentious War of the Romantics of the mid and later Nineteenth Century, waged largely in print sources, by musicians, critics and enthusiasts. The conflict pitted the progressive forces represented by composers of the New German School – Liszt and Wagner in particular – against the Viennese based, conservative faction who chose Brahms as their champion. A vicious battle it was, conducted publicly. As they usually do, in artistic matters anyway, the progressives eventually won. Whatever the outcome, it remains that the imbroglio was not historiographic but rather philosophic and aesthetic.
   2 In a purely abstract sense, all history can be considered revisionist, and rightly so: the historian’s job is to examine conventional interpretations of history, consider new evidence, or interpret facts and events in a new light, applying more recent methodologies and fresh perspectives.
    In his excellent book The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History is Revisionist History (Yale Univ. Press, 2021), author James Banner makes that very point. He demonstrates why historical knowledge is unlikely ever to be absolute, unchallenged and unchanging, and why history as a branch of knowledge is both a science and an art.
     Then there's the most extreme form of revisionism, actually not revisionism at all, but negation, namely the wholesale erasure of the past. This is usually done by extreme authoritarian states or groups that desire to promulgate a certain nationalist, militarist, corporate or racialist point of view, and thus have to rid themselves of inconvenient examinations of the past. National governments are the most egregious practitioners but it occurs elsewhere, more recently in corporations, news media, school boards, universities, public debate, and print publications. An antidote for the moment it would seem – both blessing and curse, some might say – is the online digital culture that gives expression to more diverse, admittedly sometimes extreme, unpleasantly so, views. Author Jason Stanley gives an excellent overview of erasing the past in his recent book Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.
   3 Here I define ‘right-wing’ to broadly include sources which reinforce orthodox interpretations of history, making them, more or less by definition, cautious and uncontroversial by nature, thus the inclusion of the likes of Britannica and Wikipedia. As for the much-maligned, supposedly left-leaning PBS and NPR, I don't see it myself. Whatever their content, which purports to be middle of the road and neutral, the tone of their broadcasts – civil, polite, intellectualized – is by and large conservative. Yes, programs like Democracy Now, Firing Line, America Reframed, Fresh Air, and Open Mind must be noted as exceptions, but these are islands of nourishment and spice in a sea of bland diet.
     Aside: when I talk about historians in above comments I use the masculine 'he' or 'his' simply for clarification’s sake, not out of sexism or any attempt to suggest that women can't be good historians. Reactionary or no, for me it just makes a sentence or idea flow better to use 'he' rather than the clumsy yet more politically correct 'he/she'.   
    4 When I refer to ‘the movies,’ I’m thinking primarily of films that fall under the rubric Hollywood, i.e. American produced, (mostly) for American audiences. In contrast, any number of other national cinematic traditions might well claim a leftist, or more equivocal, vibe. Be that as it may, the movies, especially those of the American brand, along with its evil sibling television, arguably have been the world’s dominant cultural and aesthetic force for at least a century, and as such have exerted an incalculable influence on the popular perception of what constitutes ‘history.’
    5 As Sarah Maza points out more eloquently and succinctly than present writer: "History is not only the ultimate hybrid field, borrowing its languages and methods from both the social sciences and the humanities; it is also the discipline that most frequently crosses over from the academic world into the public sphere . . . unlike sociology, history has its own television channel, unlike economics, its own book club." (Thinking About History, Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017, p4).
    6 Even the most hard-headed of chroniclers can make a stumble. Witness the very public case of the redoubtable British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper and the infamous 'Hitler Diaries.' A renowned Hitler expert and usually thought of as a conservative sort, Trevor-Roper examined the diaries and famously pronounced them genuine, based on preliminary, and dubious, evidence and opinion. That Trevor-Roper later recanted his initial assessment was largely lost in the media frenzy. Translation: the damage was done. The diaries were eventually revealed to be an obvious forgery, and Trevor-Roper's reputation was, to a large extent, irretrievably tarnished. The conventional wisdom is that the great man was victim of conflict of interest, being as he was a director of the prestigious Times of London, which had bought the rights to the diaries (for a hefty price). My own take is that, for his own private reasons, Trevor-Roper so wanted the diaries to be genuine that he hastily gave his imprimatur, a classic case of a historian getting emotionally too close to an issue. Thus his mistake was due more to psychological and emotional factors than ideological bias.
     Trevor-Roper's case is a cautionary tale on the need to, as much as possible, steer clear of emotional involvement with a subject. Easier said than done, you might say. One could opine that all historical topics are emotional, depending on whom you're talking to, what your audience is, and what nationalistic, ideological, or financial (especially financial) interests might be involved. When the topic is an emotional, or controversial one, there's the tendency to have a disproportionate emphasis on convenient material - to choose facts and 'evidence' selectively - that support a particular spin or thesis. From a purely American perspective, some obvious choices for treat-with-caution might be the genocide of Native Americans, the Civil Rights Movement, women's suffrage, gay and lesbian rights, the Vietnam War, the JFK assassination, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.  
     7 If we accept this thesis – that all history is opinion, ergo spin – can there ever be anything as true history, or objective history? A big question, both philosophical and otherwise, which greater minds than mine have written on at length, and which your humble servant really isn’t qualified to weigh in on, thus I’ll leave it there.

not so benevolent ...

    Chomsky, Noam, Nathan Robinson. The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World. Penguin Random House, 2024. ISBN: 9780593656327.
    Contents: Introduction: Noble goals and Mafia logic -- Disciplining the Global South -- The war on Southeast Asia : Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia -- 9/11 and the wrecking of Afghanistan -- Iraq : the crime of the century -- The myth of American idealism -- The U.S., Israel, and Palestine -- The great China threat -- NATO and Russia after the Cold War -- A world in peril : the threats of nuclear war and climate catastrophe -- The domestic roots of foreign policy : serving the "national interest" -- Our "rules-based" order : the application of international law -- How mythologies are manufactured : propaganda and the public mind -- Conclusion : hegemony or survival?


  "Every ruling power tells itself stories to justify its rule. Nobody is the villain in their own history." 
        - The Myth of American idealism, p. 1


    The table of contents listed above describes The Myth of American Idealism’s basic gestalt exceptionally well, but we could summarize even more succinctly by quoting the book’s subtitle – how U.S.  foreign policy endangers the world – only adding perhaps the controversial rider that American foreign policy also endangers the U.S. itself, this despite official pronouncements to contrary. In a word, American foreign adventurism doesn’t make its ordinary citizens any safer, probably just the opposite.  
    Before we go further, two things. First, American culture, citizens and yes, sometimes even the government, have been a force for many good things in the way of movements and accomplishments, both in the United States and abroad. Second, the present book doesn't even pretend to opine that the U.S. is uniquely evil. It’s not that, say, China and Russia – and a host of lesser powers – are blameless, far from it. But because of the power and influence the United States has wielded in world affairs since the end of World War II, it has the potential to commit huge wrongs, which apologists rationalize as well-intentioned ‘mistakes’ that didn’t work out.
     In any case, in The Myth of American Idealism, Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson survey the history of U.S. military and economic activity around the world, focusing on the post-1945 years. Chomsky and Robinson examine the American pursuit of global domination, and in particular survey the appalling extent of American missteps brought about by its hegemonic, Mafia don approach to foreign policy, which, boiled down to its unvarnished, realpolitik essence, is: what we say goes, in other words the Godfather’s word is law. This practice extends at least as far back as 1945, and probably earlier. Perhaps even more disturbing is how dominant elites in the United States have pushed self-serving myths, buttressed by a compliant media, about this country's commitment to "spreading democracy," while pursuing a reckless foreign policy that served the interest of few and endangered all too many, without even bothering to inform, much, less consult, the broader American public. To be sure, in true Mafia don fashion the American empire can on occasion be generous, but only when it chooses to, and in the manner it chooses to, read: when convenient to do so, and to those friendly to its interests.
     Regarding the common practice of American support of unsavory foreign governments (aka brutal right wing military dictatorships), paraphrasing Myth, and expressed in brutal terms: if killers and torturers are sympathetic to American interests, killers and torturers will do just fine, and inconvenient details like moral principles and international law simply don’t apply. The corollary here is that “nationalist” (read: democratically elected, popular) governments will be bad for American interests, and perhaps even more disconcerting, they set a bad example for other countries to follow. In all cases ‘American interests’ are determined by the U.S. socio-economic-political elite and not the general public.
     Despite the accusatory tone throughout, in many ways Myth of American Idealism is more history than political commentary or editorial opinion: the ideas and events are presented in more or less chronologic order, and more important, are excruciatingly referenced by eighty pages of citations and detailed footnotes, with many of the sources originating from official documents. They reveal the extent of connivance, in some cases outright deception, at the highest levels of American government. Perhaps even worse is the idée fixe of ‘optimistic’ thinking (with no basis in reality) that often served as the template for official policy making.
     I invoke the clichéd truism that this book ought to be required reading for any concerned citizen who wants to have a better understanding of what our government has been up to for at least the past eighty years, and shows few signs of willingness to change [1]. Indeed, if more current events are any indication, the rogue state practice has if anything only intensified in recent years.
    Alas, I fear the principal readership of this book will be those who don’t necessarily need to read it, that is to say, those for whom the basic thesis put forth in Myth is not news – leftists, pacifists, anarchists, internationalists, anti-war and climate change activists, left-leaning historians and journalists [2]. As for those at the other end of the political spectrum, i.e. the ones who really need to read this book, it’s unlikely they are receptive to Chomskyan ideas in the first place. They may never have even heard of Chomsky, much less be familiar with his writings. Still, I’d be curious to know the response of hard core right wingers and MAGA-heads to the contents of Myth.
   All this is not to suggest that The Myth of American Idealism is above criticism, or that Chomsky and Robinson always get it right. Despite the generally good press the book has received, some sources fault Chomsky for being too selective in his examples, that his philosophy is basically warmed over isolationism, that he could well be wrong in his assumption that most American citizens believe the myth of idealism and benevolence, and for his more or less rehashing what he’s been saying for the past six decades. And it must be admitted that these and other criticisms are, at least in part, well taken.
   To be sure, those familiar with Chomsky’s writings will find little new in Myth. In a sense it’s a condensed version of the great man’s writings and public statements that have already appeared. On the other hand it’s about the perfect place to start for a Chomsky novice. More important perhaps, as an insightful contrarian take on U.S. foreign policy since WW2, written in concise, nontechnical language, one could hardly do better than the present book.

    [1] Perhaps it’s instructive to recall the all too prescient words of Senator Frank Church. As much as Church’s work on the committee that bears his name has assured his place in political history,* an even greater, albeit much less well-known, moment occurred on February 21, 1968, in a speech on the Senate floor, in which Church specifically criticized American involvement in Vietnam.** He also cautioned against the trends of U.S. imperialism and militarism generally, and the ascendancy of a national-security state. Ergo the U.S. was acting more like an empire than a republic. The speech is extensively quoted in James Risen’s book,*** and space precludes our inclusion in detail here, but perhaps we might be allowed to reference an especially prescient passage:
   
       “… in the face of all this, I wish I could express some confidence that, by an act of our  own volition, we might soon commence to alter this country’s foreign policy from one of general, to one of selective, involvement. But I have no such confidence. Like other nations before us that drank deeply from the cup of foreign adventure, we are too enamored with the nobility of our mission to disenthrall ourselves. Besides, powerful vested interests now encrust and sanctify the policy. Were we to wait for the hierarchy of either political party to advocate a change of course, I fear we would wait indefinitely.”

     What is most remarkable about the speech, and this passage in particular, is not just its soaring eloquence, but that it could be delivered today, over a half century later, and be just as on the money, perhaps more so given recent events and the, frequently misguided, American response to said events. As for the Vietnam conflict, the war ended in 1975, but it's a sad commentary that it took the United States seven years after Church's speech in 1968 to finally conclude the war. And yet, regarding American foreign policy generally, Church got it right. He cautioned we might wait indefinitely for our leaders to change course, and today, nearly six decades later, it seems we’re still waiting.  

    * United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (1975-76), commonly referred to as the Church Committee.
    ** The full text of the admittedly long winded speech, titled ‘The Torment in the Land,’ can be found in the Senate Congressional Record, Wed. Feb 21, 1968.
    *** James Risen, The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys, and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy, Little, Brown, 2023.    

    [2] The book makes for a painful read, and not only for its coverage of the extent of American complicity in international crimes. Like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States,* which is cut from the same ideological cloth as Myth, few individuals escape the rapier gaze. Political parties, too. Robinson and Chomsky point out that both Democrats and Republicans have consistently supported the imperialist, militarist version of American foreign policy. Myth also upsets the apple cart regarding some of our most cherished figures. To wit: a reading takes the gloss off JFK’s leftist, pacifist image.** Likewise Jimmy Carter’s human rights record: while in office his actions were often at odds with his later, noble pronouncements. Sobering examples that even the most idealistic minded of presidents will have trouble going against entrenched foreign policy interests when push comes to shove.

      * While Chomsky and Zinn share the same leftist ideological framework, Zinn’s A People’s History focuses mostly on domestic social and political movements, less so on foreign policy.   

      ** JFK and Vietnam is covered more thoroughly in Chomsky’s Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War and U.S. Political Culture. The inescapable conclusion is that Kennedy simply continued and intensified the momentum of gradual escalation his predecessors had already begun. Insofar as his Vietnam policy is concerned about the best that can be said for JFK is that his successors were far worse.
 
    Further reading: Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World, Public Affairs, 2020. Jakarta Method covers much the same territory as Myth of American Idealism, from a Cold War context, focusing on American co-ordination and support for anti-communist coups in Indonesia and Brazil in the 1960s. Bevins’s book is a devastating indictment of the dubious methods Washington used to ‘win’ the Cold War. The result was the deaths and otherwise ‘disappearances’ of millions of people and the installation of right-wing dictatorships throughout the Third World, the reverberations of which continue to this day.*** A recent book that might be recommended in connection with Myth is Caroline Elkins's Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, which takes a similar approach in that it addresses the gap between lofty British pronouncements on 'civilizing' the world, while employing harsh methods to secure and maintain its colonial possessions. See also: John Newsinger's The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire.

     *** Along these lines an interesting recent documentary is Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (2024), directed by Johan Grimonprez. The film intersperses jazz numbers while presenting a Cold War-esque story of the 1961 assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, which the film argues was a conspiracy driven by Western imperialist interests, especially Belgium and the U.S., to retain control Congo's mineral wealth.  

"I have a taste for poison" : Quo Vadis (1951)

      Quo Vadis. Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Produced by Sam Zimbalist; screenplay by John Lee Mahin and S.N. Behrman, Sonya Levien; directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1951. Performers: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov, Patricia Laffan, Finlay Currie, Nora Swinburne, Buddy Baer, Marina Berti, Abraham Zofaer. Summary: the story of Emperor Nero’s persecution of the Christians set against the canvas of the decadence and decay of the Roman Empire.

     In a separate post I wrote, favorably, of the of the movie Pompeii. It inspired me to investigate, among other things, volcano stories. But the theme of Ancient Rome led me elsewhere, specifically to those bloated late Forties and early Fifties epic movies, for which, guilty pleasure-esque, I confess a fondness. One of my favorites is Quo Vadis.

     To be sure, there are things about QV I’m not so fond of: the slow patches, Finlay Currie’s heavy-handed monologues, the overture, the romantic subplot with the Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr characters. But these quibbles can be overlooked in view of the pluses: the huge spectacle, costumes and sets; Strelsa Brown’s golden-voiced invocation of the gods; Peter Ustinov’s serious scenery chewing as Nero, as well as his more low keyed interactions with mentor and ‘critic’ Petronius (Leo Genn). Finally the Miklos Rosza score which set the template for historical epics.

     But for my money the best thing about QV is Patricia Laffan’s scrumptious turn as Empress Poppea. Everything about her – wardrobe, pet leopards, sideways glances, nibbling on a red tinted magnifying glass, munching grapes as she watches lions devour the Christians, and not least, her plummy, slithering enunciation – just screams glorious excess and depraved sexuality. But there’s nothing screaming or excessive about her performance, which can be described as a miraculous tightrope walk of understated nuance combined with touches of high camp.

     I’m not familiar with Miss Laffan’s theatre work but it’s no exaggeration to say she was criminally underutilized as a film actress [1]. To be sure there were a few minor roles, including nice cameos in Shoot First and 23 Steps to Baker Street. Alas she’s best remembered today as the man-hungry Nyah in the sci-fi cult classic Devil Girl From Mars. But we're the richer for her supreme cinematic moment, which occurs in a far more worthy vehicle, namely Quo Vadis, where she plays, well, a different kind of man-eater, one with greater appetites and literally much more color.

Slithering malice

     We first view her in QV, significantly, from the back, which gives us a pleasing peek at her topographic charms. Reclining resplendent in green dress and regal purple cape, leopards in tow, Poppea observes the ponderous goings on at Nero’s court. She appears to be both bored and suspiciously alert, but in any case her visage suggests she just can’t wait for all the pomp to be over so she can get back to her scheming. Miss Laffan must have enjoyed this role immensely as she chews over every line she speaks, suggestively projecting the character’s barely concealed sadism and perverse lust. In fact so serpentine is her Poppea that we have to wonder: was the historical Poppea as irredeemably evil and corrupt as the portrayals in pop culture make her out to be? Maybe so. This was Ancient Rome after all.

     In any case has an actress ever brought elegantly sinister depravity to the screen with such relish, and in such a sensually alluring package? [2] Most of all, we admire her pluck. Much as Poppea always seems to be pre-empting Nero in Quo Vadis, it’s only appropriate that Patricia Laffan, the actress who embodies Poppea, does the equally impossible: (almost) upstaging Peter Ustinov, in his signature role at that [3].

[1] Incredibly, aside from QV and the aforementioned 23 Steps, Patricia Laffan made no American films, and even these two films have dubious American bonafides, one shot in Italy with a largely British cast and the other shot in and around London. Maybe the filmmakers thought her screen persona was too Lady Macbeth-like and as a result she’d be hard to cast.

[2] For all her beauty and ability as an actress, Claudette Colbert, the Poppea from Sign of the Cross (1932), nude milk bath and all, simply can’t compare, at least in this writer’s humble opinion.

[3] Aside from Ustinov I've pretty much neglected the rest of the mostly splendid cast. Leo Genn as Petronius and Rosalie Crutchley as Acte especially shine. The one weak link is Robert Taylor, whose bland presence and Midwestern twang seems singularly out of place amongst the other cast members' savoire faire and cultivated Brit accents.  

any dream was better than no dream ... The Day of the Locust (1975)

   The Day of the Locust [DVD]. Hollywood, Calif.: Paramount Pictures, 2004. John Schlesinger, director. Based on the novel by Nathanael West. Director of photography, Conrad Hall; music, John Barry; editor, Jim Clark. Summary: a naive young set designer seeks work in Tinseltown and falls in love with an aspiring actress who lives with her alcoholic father, a former vaudevillian entertainer turned snake oil salesman. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1975. Performers: Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Donald Sutherland, William Atherton, Richard A. Dysart, Geraldine Page, Paul Stewart.


     John Schlesinger’s bitterly sardonic take on Nathanael West’s blistering novel hasn’t lost any of its bite even today, a half century later. Alas, like West’s novel, the film version languishes under the radar, and indeed a reconsideration of both is long overdue [1]. Day of the Locust is in the tradition of such gloves-off portrayals of the dark side of the movie business the likes of Sunset Boulevard and The Bad and the Beautiful, just more so. At 144 minutes Locust is a tad long with many weird detours, dead ends and lost weekends, but director Schlesinger keeps things moving apace so well that we don’t really notice.    

     First, a comment on the look of the movie. Locust is at heart a dark fairy tale – some would say a horror film – that takes place (nearly) nine decades ago. Yes, it’s still the Depression [2]. Thus it deserves a strange look, and gets it, filmed through a mist-like gauzy overlay that actually adds to the film’s mystique. Moreover, the story is rendered through a prism of mid 1970s cinéma vérité aesthetic, Seventies style slice-of-life chic if you will, but in this case a glamorous, if falsely so, slice.

     For me the centerpiece of the film, figuratively and literally – it takes place about half way through – is the visit to Big Sister’s revival. It breezes by much too quickly and ostensibly doesn’t have a lot to do with the Hollywood milieu, then again maybe it does. The revival meeting's schtick is really a massive production number that mirrors the hype and glitz of Hollywood productions. Entertainment and show business by any other name, while the ka-ching of cash registers and the counting of money provide a realpolitik if admittedly heavy-handed obbligato [3]. Moreover, the religious frenzy at the revival parallels the later, gaudy opening night extravaganza, complete with de rigueur searchlights, of DeMille’s The Buccaneer. In the latter the potential for violence releases itself in an orgy of destruction and rampant savagery that still shocks even today in our supposedly seen-and-heard-it-all world. Perhaps the gala opening is a metaphor for American society itself in the Thirties, but it actually comes too close for comfort in our supposedly more enlightened 21st Century: the fans who jostle, shove and gouge for a glimpse of the god- and goddess-like stars are selfish, materialistic sorts, obsessed with the glamor of the illusion, or is it the illusion of glamour? Either way, the various losers, hangers-on, and assorted white trash that do their best to crash the première mirror the locust-like little people that litter the film and which Tod keeps bumping into. In Nathanael West’s vision even those on the inside or the fringes will be pulled down into the Hadean cauldron with the rest of us ordinary mortals. And seemingly benign characters such as Hackett, Claude Estee and Helverston, because of their very casual cruelty and aloofness to the industry's savage indifference to the little guy, are more loathsome than the various abrasive grotesques that flit in and out.
    By the way, Geraldine Page is wonderful as the evangelist with pizazz, the aforementioned Big Sister, one of those offbeat characters she does so well. The role actually anticipates – by nearly a half century – similar characters in the television miniseries Penny Dreadful: City of Angels and Perry Mason (they just love including those Thirties-era spiritual leaders as secondary characters in Hollywood period pieces). As the fellow said, the end times may be upon us, but they can be very entertaining. 

     But in a movie of myriad disturbing images and scenes, for me the most brutal and heartless of the lot is the impromptu cockfight which looks all the world like the real thing. Truly a heartbreaking result as a bloodied animal lies on the floor, probably mortally wounded. Perhaps appropriately, after the cockfight the spectators enjoy a dinner party that transitions to a kind of PG-rated bacchanal, with Faye as the main attraction.

"magic is what I'm selling"

     But getting back to humans, the various losers, grotesques and other outsiders who populate Locust, waiting at the stop sign of life for their one big break, are actually depicted in one of Hackett’s tableau as three chalk faced folks wait on a bench at a bus stop. West himself had a love-hate relationship with the film industry that mirrored his own contradictory nature: he was both a romantic and cynic; a plagiarist who was also a gifted, original writer; a savage critic of the Hollywood dream who never quite gave up on the dream.

     In any case, West knew of what he spoke: he toiled as a writer of B scripts and like Locust’s hero Tod Hackett lived in dive hotels and run-down apartments. He knew all too well the labyrinthine mechanics of the movie business and the frustrations of the extras, bit players, assistant directors, and, lowest of all, writers. Tod Hackett, Locust’s hero and arguably a West self-portrait, is one of the few haves in a world of have-nots. A rather high-minded artiste just beginning his career as a set designer, he struggles to come to terms with going Hollywood, and appropriately his opus maximus, created on the sly, is a painterly tableau titled “The Burning of Los Angeles.”
     Along the way Hackett encounters various seedy and colorful characters, among them an actress neighbor who catches his eye. He also crosses paths with the actress’s father, a washed-up vaudevillian turned snake oil salesman, as well as a certain Homer Simpson, onetime accountant convalescing in California’s balmy climate. Monosyllabic cowboys, amorous Mexicans, and a curmudgeonly midget named Abe Kusich add to the mix. Not many of the characters who populate Locust are likable, not even the ostensible good guy Tod. But that was the idea: West wanted to portray the desperate low-lifes and perpetual wannabes existing under the façade of Hollywood glitz and glamour. Unpalatable the little people may be, we still feel sympathy for them and this is part of West’s genius.

     All these elements are beautifully realized by the film, especially the performances, which are generally over-the-top, and rightly so. This makes them so on the money because the exaggerated deliveries are in their way genuine, masking as they do the desperation and disappointment the characters feel. Meriting a singling out are Karen Black in the performance of a career as the vacuous Faye Greener, Burgess Meredith as Faye’s alcoholic father, Natalie Schafer as brothel madam Audrey (a long way from hoity-toity Mrs. Howell), and the great Billy Barty as the obstreperous dwarf Abe Kusich. More sedate are a bland William Atherton as our nominal hero Tod Hackett and Richard Dysart as a cold fish Hollywood executive with a taste for softcore porn and high class call girls. Good performances, true, by Atherton and Dysart but as haves in a world of have nots their characters can afford to be more guarded and reserved. Contrary to the critical and fan rave reviews for Donald Sutherland, I wasn’t taken with his zombie-like interpretation of the Homer Simpson.

     My only complaint is that the Paramount DVD has zero bonus features, a major oversight considering the film’s literary, historic and aesthetic connections. There seems to be a ‘limited edition’ blu-ray, which I understand has a generous sampling of supplements. And this is only just. Day of the Locust is a forgotten masterpiece that deserves a presentation and packaging worthy of its stature.   

   [1] To be technically correct, academics and cultists have long been familiar with West’s magnum opus, but among the general public West doesn’t have the high profile of the likes of Hammett, Chandler, and Cain.  

   [2] I may have missed it but I don’t recall any overt references to the year in which Locust is taking place. But from all the clues we’re given I place it to be ca. 1938.

   [3] The show biz connection couldn't be made plainer when Harry hallucinates that his on-stage 'cure' is another performance and the ecstatic faithful are his audience. 'I stole the show,' he later reminisces.

a ghost of a chance with you ...

     The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation; produced by Fred Kohlmar; screenplay by Philip Dunne; directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz; director of photography, Charles Lang, Jr.; music, Bernard Herrmann. Burbank, Calif. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, [2013]. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1947. From the novel by R.A. Dick (pseud. Josephine Leslie).
    Performers: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Natalie Wood, Vanessa Brown, Edna Best, Anna Lee, Robert Coote. Special features: commentaries by Greg Kimble, Christopher Husted, Jeanine Bassinger and Kenneth Geist; biography: "Rex Harrison: the man who would be king"; theatrical trailer; still gallery. Summary: at the turn of the century a young widow and her daughter move into a cottage on the English coast. Soon she learns that the cottage is haunted by the ghost of its former owner, a sea captain. When he finds he can't scare her away, they soon fall into a most unlikely love affair.


    Dating as it does from an era rife with ghost movies (most of them silly comedies), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, along with The Uninvited, is my favorite [1]. That being said, I reluctantly admit that in my most recent viewing I was somewhat less taken with Mrs. Muir than I had been in the past. Still, the film is a triumph, an under the radar gem that has crept up in critical and popular esteem over the years. Update: a second viewing, this one with the superb commentary by Greg Kimble and Christopher Husted, has inspired me to warm to the film a little more and further appreciate its many felicities, albeit within its historical and stylistic context. By the way, I’m less enthusiastic about the second commentary track by Jeanine Bassinger and Kenneth Geist.

    But getting back to ghost movies: curious that so few reviewers and commentators note the obvious parallels to The Uninvited [2]. Both are gothicized tales set on the English sea coast, both have the requisite haunted house (and attendant film noirish look), both deal with issues of love beyond death, both are set in the early Twentieth Century [3], and, perhaps most important, both treat their subjects seriously (though Mrs. Muir has its share of lighter moments). Both films also reflect the unseen presence of Orson Welles, and both are obvious first cousins to the Val Lewton supernatural noir thrillers of the 1940s. But despite the similarities in content and even style, somehow the tone is different. Partly this is a result of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s emphasis on words and script, thus Mrs. Muir has a more writerly and dialogue-rich sheen, especially the snappy back and forth between Harrison and Tierney. As mentioned above, Mrs. Muir is almost a comedy, but, happily, not quite. It pulls off its comic elements with pitch perfect timing, never overstaying the welcome. In contrast, Uninvited’s attempts at humor seem heavy footed and out of place.
   

    In any case, the performances in Mrs. Muir are all right on the money. It took me a while to warm to Rex Harrison, but I think he got better as the film progressed and the character softened. However, it’s Gene Tierney’s movie and, for me, the performance of a career. Her Brit accent sounds authentic enough, and the subtleties she brings to the character are a wonder. I think her acting is even better as the elderly Lucy Muir, who gets more sympathetic as she ages while at the same time becomes crankier. And of course George Sanders is terrific in a very George Sanders type of role as the charming cad. That he could put across this kind of character in his sleep shouldn’t lessen our appreciation of his marvelous portrayal. Among the supporting cast especial mention must be made of Vanessa Brown as the adult version of Anna. Echt-English in appearance and accent, she’s just right, and I wish she’d had a bigger role. The short scene between her and Tierney is perhaps the most moving in the entire film. As Herrmann’s score wafts in the background, they talk about the ghost, life and love, and it’s hard to hold back the tears. Finally, amongst the supporting players, if you like, there’s the seemingly inevitable cute yorkie in a movie with this setting and era (there’s also a cute yorkie in Uninvited, by the way).

     Bernard Herrmann’s music for Mrs. Muir (reputedly his personal favorite among his film scores) has been praised to the skies, deservingly so. Alas, my DVD copy frequently minimized the music or in some cases rendered it inaudible, buried as it were beneath the dialogue. This is especially unfortunate since the obscured passages are among the most exquisite in the entire film. Anyhow the music’s low keyed eloquence suggests a longing for the infinite, a love beyond death that’s the raison dêtre for the entire story. Indeed it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say the music really carries the movie, more than any other element. There’s a feeling of melancholy that, if you’ll pardon the pun, haunts the entire film, and the music perfectly expresses and contributes to this sense of longing, regret and unrequitedness. In contrast, Victor Young’s lushly romantic score for Uninvited, perfect in its way, really can’t compare – in style or aesthetic merit.
    To summarize, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a perfectly wonderful movie: it brings together all the elements to form a near flawless work of art. In doing so it represents what was best about moviemaking in the studio era.   

[1]  As readers of this blog must divine, I’m a big fan of the above-mentioned Val Lewton psychological horror films from the 1940s, and though it’s a subtle point, I consider them a different animal from both Mrs. Muir and Uninvited: for all their spooky, ghost like ambience, the Lewton films have no ghosts, in fact only a couple of them have overtly supernatural elements, and even these are depicted ambiguously enough to be arguable.     
[2]  Another explanation for the similarity of the films, at least in their look, is the presence of ace cameraman Charles Lang, who did the cinematography for both. Even so, Mrs. Muir has somewhat lighter, crisper visuals than Uninvited, the gloomier look of which is very much appropriate for the dark psychological undercurrents. A personal note: I admire and greatly enjoy both films, but at the moment lean towards Uninvited, but only by a whisker.
[3] Yes, it’s pushing it to say both date from more or less the same era, since Uninvited is set in 1937 and Mrs. Muir ca. 1900. And yet, much of the culture, architecture, and Victorian/Edwardian attitudes are cut from the same cloth.

"no hay banda": Mulholland Drive (2001)

    Mulholland Drive. David Lynch (director, screenwriter), Alain Sarde (producer), Pierre Edelman (producer), Mary Sweeney (producer, editor), Neal Edelstein (producer), Michael Polaire (producer), Tony Krantz (producer), Angelo Badalamenti (composer). Performers: Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Ann Miller, Dan Hedaya, Mark Pellegrino. DVD Video, English, 2015. [Director-approved two-DVD special edition]. The Criterion Collection, [New York, N.Y.], 2015. #779. Originally produced as a motion picture in 2001.
    Summary: Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.
    Special features: Disc 2: Interviews: David Lynch and Naomi Watts (27 min.); Laura Harring, Johanna Ray, Justin Theroux, and Naomi Watts (36 min.); Angelo Badalamenti (20 min.); Peter Deming and Jack Fisk (22 min.); deleted scene; on-set footage (25 min.); trailer. Includes a booklet featuring an interview with Lynch from filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley's 2005 edition of the book "Lynch on Lynch."
  

Sunset Blvd. meets the Twilight Zone …

     I’m still not sure whether I think Mulholland Drive is the best movie I’ve ever seen, or the worst, as I’ve reacted both ways at different times. No surprise, given the polarized opinions of fans, devotees and (anti)devotees. For the moment I’ll split the difference and opine that Mulholland Dr. is a tad overrated, but still pretty darn good. And even if repeated viewings bring me no closer to understanding the true meaning or correct interpretation, I do confess that I rather enjoy the film more each time I see it.
     Nonlinear story lines in movies have been around a long time [1], and perhaps the most successful, in my opinion, is Last Year at Marienbad. For me Marienbad had a kind of inner logic and consistency – admittedly elusive and difficult to articulate – that nonetheless place it among the truly great. The other movie Mulholland reminds me of, strangely enough, is the offbeat crypto-noir Dementia (aka Daughter of Horror), which also has a dreamscape tableaux, shifting reality/fantasy, off-kilter narrative, femme fatale in peril, nasty villains, and most of all, atmosphere to burn [2].
     But what is MD about? Whatever else it may be, MD for me is at heart a meditation on the dark side of Hollywood, served up full-on phantasmagoric. In a word, MD makes The Big Sleep look like a straightforward crime story and Sunset Blvd. a Hallmark Hall of Fame weepie (coincidentally, both Big Sleep and Sunset Blvd. explore the seamy underbelly of Los Angeles culture and the movie business, but using a different cinematic language).
     Getting back to MD, the first more or less two-thirds of the film seduces us into believing the story is a conventional mystery, albeit with quirky touches, but a mystery that will ultimately give us the payoff (read: solution) at the end. But it’s the last forty-five minutes where things really get weird and play with our expectations big-time. Was it just a dream after all? Parts of it a dream? Or the hallucinations of a mentally ill young woman? And what’s the significance of the cowboy? It’s as though the hall of mirrors scene in The Lady from Shanghai (a film not dissimilar to MD) has transmogrified into the most gloriously excessive cinematic roller coaster, with huge swaths of color and (mostly) beautiful faces set amidst a feverish LA/Hollywood backdrop.
     MD for me is best appreciated as pure style: the acting, camerawork, script, production design, and especially the look of the film are brilliantly done. Make no mistake, MD is beautiful to watch, not the least beauteous being our two leading ladies, who have never looked better, or performed better. And yes, the steamy lesbian scene, the one we wait nearly two hours to get to, is a doozy, guaranteed to get one, shall we say, hot under the collar. The acting throughout is good to excellent, and sometimes just plain eccentric. I’ve already sung the praises of Naomi Watts and Laura Harring. Justin Theroux is fine as a pompous auteur director who’s harassed by shady characters [3], and it’s a joy to see the great Ann Miller in her last film.
     It occurs to me that my comments above (and below) reference lots of movies and their similarities and dissimilarities to Mulholland Dr, and maybe that’s the point, and one way to interpret the film, not only as a pastiche of L.A. but of the movie business and just plain movies, especially old movies (is it any accident that the mystery woman takes the name of ‘Rita,’ after seeing a poster of film noir’s definitive femme fatale, Gilda?). For gosh sakes, Laura Harring even looks like Rita Hayworth [4].   
      Then there’s my own, rather novel take, in which the first two-thirds of the movie (Act 1, if you will) is the reality and the remaining third (Act 2) is the dream sequence (I’ve noticed that few commentators take this approach). There’s a certain logic here: Act 2 is presented more like a dream, or feverish hallucination, depending on your point of view. But this interpretation does have its complications: Act 1 ends abruptly, to say the least, with lots of loose ends left dangling. Case in point: if Act 1 is reality, then who is the dead woman in apartment 17, and why didn’t Betty and Rita do anything about it, like reporting it to the authorities? And there’s the butch tenant who lives in apartment 12. Who is she? Is she the murderer? And what's the significance of Club Silencio? Even with these inconsistencies, seeing Act 1 as the reality is more reassuring and satisfying, certainly emotionally so and also, if debatably, aesthetically. But then again, maybe this movie isn’t about satisfying and reassuring. So there it is.
     My alternate interpretation is that both Acts 1 and 2 are reality, and Act 2 simply updates the story by a year or two. Adam Kesher is at the top of his game and Rita and Betty have fallen out as a couple. Rita is now a rising star in the Hollywood constellation, and just happens to be Kesher's future wife, while Betty's early success in acting has vanished and she now lives a life of semi-poverty and gradual mental disintegration. Betty and Rita have new names - Diane and Camilla respectively - and Ann Miller appears inexplicably as Kesher's mother. Eventually Betty arranges for a contract killer to murder Rita and it's implied that this indeed happens. Perhaps grief stricken, Betty has a complete mental collapse and takes her own life. Then again I wonder, is MD ultimately about mental illness and the collective mental illness the film culture creates?
     Whatever the final verdit on the meaning of Mulholland Drive, I can’t resist seeing the film as ending on a positive note, as the ghost-like images of Rita and Betty are superimposed above the L.A. skyline, implying that our two, presumably deceased, heroines, are finally together, in a kind of Hollywood Heaven.   
     Highly recommended then, with the usual not-for-all-tastes caveat [5].

  1 Even Citizen Kane is nonlinear, if presented in an arguably more audience friendly way.   
   2 Most of these tropes also harken back to the Val Lewton thrillers of the 1940s: bumpy narrative, ambiguous characters, unresolved plot threads, Sapphic undercurrent, mysterious walks at night.* This makes me wonder: is MD really a horror film masquerading as a mystery?
      * Admittedly in the Lewton films the presentation and representation of these tropes is, by necessity (read: censor mandated), less extreme.
   3 Some commentators see a Fellini-like quality in the Theroux character, not altogether inappropriate, since on a superficial level, MD is a very Felliniesque movie. But for me Adam Kesher is more of an Orson Welles, right down to the scene where his project is taken away from him by the Big Money people.
   4 As the story progresses the Rita/Camilla character, both in her actions and looks, takes on a distinctly more sinister, femme fatale edge, almost to the point of predatory and vampiric.
   5 Considering its relatively youthful vintage – not yet a quarter century – Mulholland Dr. is one of the most written about movies of all time. Hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of posts, articles, reviews, think pieces and such have appeared over time. Ergo the film has been dissected, critiqued, sanctified, pilloried, explained and appreciated from myriad points of view: feminist, (anti)feminist, queer, Freudian, Jungian, socio-economic, racialist, misogynist, surrealist and purely cinematic interpretations have surged forth. The most convincing approach, for my money, is the L.A./Hollywood dark side backdrop,** served up full on neo-noir and told through the lives of the two (or is it four?) women played so well by Mses. Harring and Watts.
    ** By extension one might take the dark Hollywood critique as a metaphor for the basic dishonesty of the American Dream. The patriarchal, capitalistic, commodified, heteronormal model that’s American culture sells us an illusory bill of goods (advertising industry, anyone?), not that different from the Hollywood Dream sold by the forces that make the movies. 
     Interesting here the connection to film noir. The noir pedigree – doomed protagonists, duplicitous femmes fatales, decaying cities, corrupt rich, downbeat endings – that David Lynch draws upon in many of his films and especially Mulholland Dr. might well be seen as the original template for the cinematic critique of the American Dream.