What I’m Watching: “The Ninth Gate”

** SPOILERS BELOW**

(Disclaimer: This essay is about a film by the director Roman Polanski, who, as of this writing, is a fugitive from justice in the United States on rape charges involving a minor. I have no opinion regarding Mr. Polanski as a person. This essay merely concerns the film as a work of art.)

Well, it’s October, and I’m officially starting to my annual marathon of horror movies that I watch in my spare time. This week, I re-watched Roman Polanski’s 1999 flick, The Ninth Gate, starring Johnny Depp in his pre-Jack Sparrow era. I first saw the film on DVD about a year after it came out, and I liked it. Now, after my second viewing, my feelings are slightly different: I really like it. In fact, I think it’s one of my favorite horror movies of all time.

One of the Devil’s Engravings in “The Ninth Gate”

This might seem surprising to some film buffs. After all, the movie has gotten a lot of hate in the quarter-century since it came out. As of this writing, it has a 44% “Fresh” rating (i.e. “Rotten”) on Rotten Tomatoes, and it hasn’t fared much better on IMDB. I am always surprised and depressed when something I really like gets such a bad rap. Such a disconnect makes a person question their taste, if not their sanity. Am I crazy, or is everyone else?

I should be used to this. Many, many of my favorite films—starting with Blade Runner in 1982—were commercial and critical flops when they came out, only to achieve cult status later on. Judging by the number of YouTube videos that are now devoted to “explaining” The Ninth Gate, I would guess that it, too, has now become a cult film.

Johnny Depp as Corso

Which is a good thing, because more people should see it.  The story follows a chain-smoking, world-weary book dealer, Dean Corso (Johnny Depp), who is hired by a billionaire collector, Balkan (Frank Langella), to verify the authenticity of a 17th-century book of the occult, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows. The book has nine engravings in it (which look a lot like the images on ancient Tarot cards), which some believe to be encoded with secret information that can conjure up Satan. Apparently, two other versions of the book exist, each held in a separate private collection, and Balkan wants Corso to compare those versions to his.

Corso flies to Europe to begin his investigation, prowling down shadowy, medieval streets in various ancient cities. The movie thus becomes a kind of noir detective movie, with Depp doing an impressive job as the hard-boiled detective, inching his way deeper and deeper into a dark secret. As with any hard-boiled detective yarn, he soon encounters two beautiful women—Liana Telfer (the radiant Lena Olin), a rich femme fatale who once owned a copy of the book, and a mysterious, dangerous-looking blond girl who looks dresses like a European backpacker, without the backpack. This girl, played by the stunning Emmanuelle Seigner (star of Polanski’s earlier film, Frantic), becomes an even bigger enigma than the one Corso is pursuing. Corso dubs her “Green Eyes,” and she seems to be following him, appearing out of nowhere at various times on his quest, often protecting him (she knows kung fu) from various henchmen that intent on stealing his copy of the book—and probably killing him in the process.

Frank Langella as Balkan

As one would expect, Corso’s search turns nasty, with everyone he questions ending up dead in some grisly and perhaps supernatural fashion ala The Omen. He learns that the engravings in each of the books are slightly different from each other, with some being signed LCF for Lucifer. He deduces that these altered versions hold the key to a Satanic ritual, and, indeed, the trail eventually leads him to a coven of rich devil worshipers who seek to use the book to conjure up old Scratch himself.

If it all sounds like horror-movie hokum, it is. In fact, The Ninth Gate reminded me of many great B-movies from the 1960s and 70s like The Witches, Eye of the Devil, The Dunwich Horror, and, yes, The Omen. These are all creepy, supernatural horror movies that are best viewed late at night on TV with the lights off, the viewer munching popcorn and wondering what Satanic will be revealed next. I love how Polanski was able to replicate the B-movie appeal of those old movies in what is, obviously, an A-movie like The Ninth Gate, with movie stars (Depp, Olin, Langella), high production values, gorgeous cinematography, exotic locations, and one of the most ethereal, haunting scores ever written, composed by Wojciech Kilar. At heart, it’s still a schlocky old horror thriller, with ancient tomes, black-robed witches, castles, and bloody murders. Somehow, Polanski celebrates all those familiar tropes even as he ever so lightly mocks them.

Emmanuelle Sagnier as “Green Eyes”

Yet, at the same time, the movie is a damned good psychological thriller. For one thing, the acting is uniformly great. 1999 found Depp at the height of his appeal both physically and artistically. Polanski was reluctant to cast him, apparently, because Corso is supposed to be 40-something, whereas Depp was 34 at the time. But even with his hair sprayed conspicuously gray at the temples (to suggest encroaching middle age, obviously), Depp is completely convincing as the corrupt but strangely honorable Corso. This is a man for whom the adjective “cynical” doesn’t suffice. He’s selfish, hedonistic, and completely jaded—a man who thinks he can no longer be shocked by anything. And so, his accelerating sense of horror at the mysteries he soon uncovers is, somehow, all the more believable. He is soon forced to take account for his actions, even as his quest leads him into dangers that any sensible person would shun. In every scene of violence, horror, or sex (sometimes all three at once), Depp sells it wholeheartedly. It’s one of his best performances.

As for the supporting cast, Langella is at his absolute best as the elegant yet creepily sinister Balkan, whose character represents what some now call “the Epstein class.” That is, a fabulously rich guy who is evil AF. With his velvety voice and understated delivery, Langella steals every scene he’s in—including one where he’s not even on-screen. Late in the film’s second act, Corso discovers that Balkan’s copy of the book has been stolen from his (Corso’s) hotel room, and when he calls Balkan to deliver the bad news, the scene is truly terrifying. I could almost do an entire essay on how Langella—completely unseen, mind you—delivers one of the most chilling monologues in film history. It’s great stuff.

Lena Olin is also great. She made a career of playing sophisticated, seductive women (see Paul Mazurski’s great movie, Enemies: A Love Story) and she really shines in this one.  In the role of Liana, a supposedly grieving widow who turns out to be a devil-worshipper herself, she is by turns demure, wanton, and vicious. And always bewitching (forgive the pun).

Yet, in some ways, the real casting triumph of the film is that of Emmanuelle Seigner. To cast his “Green Eyes,” Polanski didn’t have to look very far—like, across the bed. Yes, Seigner was (and remains) his real-life wife. And while casting a family member in a film is often a recipe for disaster for directors, Seigner is perfect in the role. She has perhaps a hundred words of dialogue, so her performance is, in effect, almost like that of a silent movie. Which is perfect, because she doesn’t need words. With her almost brutal, Gallic features and (yes) her mesmerizing green eyes, Seigner hypnotizes Corso every time she looks at him, not to mention the viewer. And with her bemused smile and unflappable demeanor, she exudes power and confidence, anticipating the great female superheroes like Black Widow and the Scarlet Witch that would begin to populate the Marvel MCU a decade later. When Green Eyes kicks a bad guy’s ass, we believe she could really do it.

Her smile also hints at hidden knowledge. Throughout the film, she clearly knows a lot more about what’s going on than Corso does. Which leads to one of the great topics of discussion about the film, to which dozens of blog posts and YouTube videos have been devoted: Who is she? An avenging angel? The Whore of Babylon? The devil himself (er…herself)?

And that question leads, inevitably, to the even greater one about the movie’s ending, which has been controversial since the film’s release. Why does Corso go back to the castle, and why does it erupt in blazing white light? Is it a fulfillment of the Latin phrase that Corso himself quotes earlier in the film, “nunc scio tenebris lux,” translated as “now I know light from darkness”? Does it suggest that, at last, Corso had released Lucifer (whose name literally means, “bringer of light”)?

For whatever reason, the ending works for me. I like the fact that Polanski doesn’t try to spell it out (whatever “it” is), or, even worse, CGI-bomb the final scenes with some computer-generated images of Satan emerging from hell. It’s just a fade-to-white. Cool.

If you haven’t seen The Ninth Gate (and if I haven’t completely spoiled it by now), you should check it out. It’s one of the most underrated movies of the past fifty years. It’s also a great pick for Halloween.

Friday Night Rock-Out: “Always Something There to Remind Me”

The first time I saw MTV, it was in black-and-white. My dad had gotten a new job in Tallahassee and had rented a small one-bedroom apartment there to live in until the rest of the family could move up. I went to visit him one weekend and slept on the couch in the tiny living room. Staying up late one night, I turned on the little black-and-white TV that he had taken with him and was amazed to see this new channel, not available back in Gainesville yet, called MTV. Even in black-and-white, with the music playing through those tinny little speakers, the experience blew my mind.

I probably stayed up three hours that night just watching it. I quickly learned that every song MTV played had a synthesizer or three prominently featured. One of the best songs I heard that night was no exception—“Always Something There to Remind Me,” by the Naked Eyes. What a great song! It’s got one of the best synthesizer hooks of any new wave single. I still love it. 

(Fun fact: Most people don’t know that the song is actually a cover of a Burt Bacharach number. Burt Bacharach! Most people today only know Bacharach from his cameo in Austin Powers, but oh well. It’s still pretty amazing.) 

Sadly, the singer for the Naked Eyes, Pete Byrne, passed away last month. I thought I would feature his greatest hit as a meager kind of tribute. 

Rock on… 

Shameless Plug: I’m on Hoopla!

Hey, I haven’t plugged my book in…like…days! Many, many days! So, I feel no guilt in doing so now.

Yesterday, I googled Twice the Trouble just to see if anyone had posted anything new about it, and I discovered that it’s available on Hoopla. With pretty good ratings! Who knew?

It made my day.

R.I.P. Garrit Graham

Earlier this month, America lost one of its funniest and most versatile character actors, Garrit Graham. He was one of those actors whom everyone recognized instantly, but no one ever knew his name. Rather, he was “that guy who played X in Z,” where X is one of your favorite characters in one of your favorite (Z) movies—often a cult movie like Phantom of the Paradise.

For me, that favorite role/movie was in one of Robert Zemeckis’s early films, 1980s Used Cars. I should really devote an entire post to that movie, surely one of the best B-comedy flix ever made, with humor on a level of Mel Brooks and the Marx Brothers. And Graham one was the elements that made it so damned funny. As Jeff, the nerdy-yet-hip sidekick to Kurt Russell’s fast-talking main character, he both abets and reigns in the antics. Jeff is a mensch, nearly crippled by his own neurosis, yet smart and kind of sexy, too. Best of all, he becomes a hero at the end of the film. (He also participated in one the riskiest practical stunts I’ve ever seen, in which he is almost run over by a hurtling muscle-car.)

Sadly, Graham never achieved the kind of fame he deserved, not the secondary kind of fame that some great character actors enjoy. With a little luck, he might have filled the same kind of niche in the 1980s as Steve Buscemi would in the 1990s. Instead, Graham worked steadily in small, one-off parts in film and on TV. (He appeared twice in the Star Trek universe, playing different aliens.)

He was also something of a renaissance man, having co-written one song for the Grateful Dead and penned teleplays for TV.

The world is a little less interesting without him in it.

Godspeed, Mr. Graham…

What We Talk About When We Talk About “Theme” (Repost)

As I was working on a recent post about the great sci-fi and fantasy movies of 1982, I re-read the Wikipedia page on one of those films, Conan the Barbarian. It’s a great movie, despite the fact that it’s really just a raunchy, gory, over-the-top B-movie with an A-movie budget. I loved it when it came out, as did millions of others. It was, in fact, a culturally significant film, in its own way, and the Wiki page reflects this. A lot of passionate, obviously smart people have contributed to the page over the years. (Wikipedia is, imho, the single greatest triumph of the internet, but that’s a subject for another post.) 

Of course, the page inevitably includes a rather insightful section called Themes, in which people have enumerated the topics that the film explores—or at least seems concerned with. These include “The Riddle of Steel,” “Death,” “Wagnerian Opera,” “Individualism,” and “Sex.”

I’m sorry, but “Sex” is not a theme of this movie, nor any other. Neither, for that matter, is “Death.” It’s a topic, surely, perhaps even a motif. (Note that I’m using the word “motif” in its strictest, compositional sense, as it is referenced in musicology.) But it’s not a theme.

Yeah, I know. I’m being a bit of an English-major-snob on this one. A word-Nazi. But bear with me, please. If you’re a person who really tries to appreciate literature, either on the page or on film, then the distinction between theme and motif is important. It’s even more important if you’re a fiction writer who struggles to create books that have some meaning and not mere entertainment that is purely disposable. Not that there is anything wrong with fiction that is mere entertainment—entertainment is great—but let’s not kid ourselves that it’s the pinnacle that people should aim for.

The film’s Wiki page comes much closer to the idea of a real theme when it discusses “The Riddle of Steel” (although it completely mischaracterizes and misinterprets the real matter at hand). As anyone who has seen the movie knows, The Riddle of Steel is a connundrum—not so much a riddle as a philosophical question—that Conan believes god will ask him when he dies. The question goes something like this: “Which is stronger? The sword, or the hand that wields it?” Or, put another way, “Technology? Or willpower?” “Brute force, or the power of conviction?”

It’s actually a pretty deep question, especially when one considers that film’s original script writer, Oliver Stone (who later went on to direct a few films, himself) is a veteran of the Vietnam War, which surely represented one of the greatest struggles of all time between technology, on the American side, versus sheer determination and courage on the North Vietnamese side. (Please don’t write to me and tell me that determination and courage were displayed on both sides of that tragic war. I realize this, and I am over-simplifying the conflict for the sake of argument.)

This posing of a philosophical and moral question, which the hero of the film (and, thus, the viewer) struggles to answer is, to my mind, the real definition of a theme. Perhaps the supreme example of this questioning is Raymond Carver’s classic short story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” in which three couples—all in late middle-age, all alchohic, and all jaded—discuss the definition of “love” over drinks. It’s a great story, not just because it captures the individual voice and attitude of each character, but also because all of the characters seem to be genuinely struggling with something—a matter of real import that, each one senses, will reveal something about their own lives. As one might expect, each character has their own story to tell about the subject, beginning with this one from a woman named Terri.

Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her. Then Terry said, “He beat me up one night. He dragged me around the living room by my ankles. He kept saying, “I love you, I love you, you bitch.” He went on dragging me around the living room. My head kept knocking on things.” Terri looked around the table. “What do you do with love like that.”

She was a bone-thin woman with a pretty face, dark eyes, and brown hair that hung down her back. She like necklaces made of turquoise, and long pendant earrings.

“My god, don’t be silly. That’s not love and you know it,” Mel said. “I don’t know what you’d call it, but I sure know you wouldn’t call it love.”

The story continues around the table, with each character telling their own story about the general subject of “love.”

In Carver’s supremely able hands, each of these stories is shocking, yet rings true. Completely, brutally true. Some of them are also funny as hell, in a gallows-humor sort of way. One of the greatest things about the story, though, is the way it never gives us a definitive answer to the question it asks. To the contrary, the story raises even more questions—deeper meta-questions that the characters, themselves, are unaware of but which we, as readers, are. Is there a single definition for love? Is that question even meaningful? Does love even exist, really, in the cosmic sense? Does it matter?

In the same way, Conan the Barbarian presents its hero with several possible answers to its central thematic question. The first is given by Conan’s father (played by the great character actor William Smith) in the opening scene, where he tells the young Conan that the one thing he can ever depend on. “Not men. Not women. Not beasts. This,” he says, gesturing to a sword he has just forged. Of course, he is not talking about that particular sword, or even swords in general. He is, we sense, talking about all the intangible things for which the sword is a symbol—discipline, training, courage. The martial ideal. 

Later in the film, the villainous Thulsa Doom presents Conan with another answer. In that famous (and surprisingly shocking, even now) scene when he beckons one of his followers to literally jump off a cliff, he suggests that control over the human mind—through dogma, religion, and all the other tools of tyrants—is far more powerful than strength of arms, either literal or metaphorical.

So, which of these answers does Conan accept. Neither! In fact, his tale seems to suggest a third answer, one which is never articulated—never explicitly told—to either Conan or the viewer, but is rather born out by the action of the narrative. The answer, simply, is love. It’s Conan’s love for his murdered parents that sustains him through the ordeal of slavery and drives his desire for revenge. He also loves his friend, Subotai, and he comes to love Valeria even though she is, initially, a rival. Later, it’s Valeria’s love of Conan (along with some help from Subotai) that saves his life after they rescue him from the Tree of Woe. And it’s Conan’s grief over the death of Valeria that causes him to go on his final (foolhardy) confrontation with Thulsa Doom, where he uses his father’s broken sword (note the symbolism, there; steel really isn’t that strong, after all) to behead the man.

I think it is important to note that even in a “silly” genre movie like Conan the Barbarian, good writing can add a level of thematic resonance to any work of fiction. That is, it can turn a potentially crappy movie into a good movie, and a good movie into a great movie. It’s this complexity that separates the vast majority of films (and books, for that matter) from the few we remember years later—that tiny minority that we deem “classics” after the fact.

Another thing to consider is how Conan the Barbarian, like Carver’s short story, doesn’t fully answer its own thematic question. At least, not completely. The ending is ambiguous. Yes, Conan kills the bad guy, and (we are told) ends up a king himself, but he “sits on his throne with a troubled brow.” In others, the verdict is still out on what the real answer to The Riddle of Steel is, after all.This kind of ambiguity is, of course, a hallmark of all good fiction. We, as viewers and readers, don’t get a definitive answer—mainly because the kinds of questions that good fiction asks are, ultimately, unanswerable in any objective sense. They are always about choices. Priorities. Does honor matter more, or friendship? Revenge, or love?

Synchronicity for Bookworms: “White Fang”

This installment of my on-going Synchronicity for Bookworms series came about when I was re-reading one of the cherished novels of my childhood, Jack London’s White Fang. Many decades have passed since I last read the book, yet I have vivid memories of riding the school bus while engrossed in the story of the young Alaskan wolf who becomes the protagonist of London’s story. Note that I don’t call him the “hero” of the story; London’s literary school of Naturalism doesn’t really believe in heroes. But few have ever written so movingly about the physical and emotional plight of animals—including the most dangerous animals of all, human beings.

As I was reading the book this time, I was struck by this passage, in which London describes, from the point-of-view of the wolf-pup, what the inside of his cave is like. And how scary one bright “wall” of the cave is…

By the time his mother began leaving the cave on hunting expeditions, the cub had learned well the law that forbade his approaching the entrance. Not only had this law been forcibly and many times impressed on him by his mother’s nose and paw, but in him the instinct of fear was developing. Never, in his brief cave-life, had he encountered anything of which to be afraid. Yet fear was in him. It had come down to him from a remote ancestry through a thousand thousand lives. It was a heritage he had received directly from One Eye and the she-wolf; but to them, in turn, it had been passed down through all the generations of wolves that had gone before. Fear!—that legacy of the Wild which no animal may escape nor exchange for pottage.

For some reason, I focused on the phrase “a thousand thousand lives,” and I immediately wondered whether this were even roughly accurate. After all, a “thousand thousand” lives is a million lives. That seemed like a lot, even from an evolutionary standpoint.

So, I dialed up the Wikipedia page on wolves and found that the question really depends on what kind of “wolf” one is talking about. Gray wolves of the sort found in Alaska split off from the African wolf roughly one million years ago (mya) . If you include the African wolf or its predecessors, that takes you all the way back to 1.6 mya. Therefore, if you fudge a bit and replace the word “lives” in London’s passage with “generations,” you can properly say that little White Fang carries the genetic memory of one million ancestors inside him, at least.

Of course, wolves, like so many great mammalian lineages, first evolved in Africa. Specifically, they are descended from African jackals, having split off from the jackal line over two million years ago. Reading all this, I remembered something I learned in one of my anthropology classes in college—the so-called Out-of-Africa Theory in which modern humans (Homo sapiens) are believed to have evolved in Africa and then migrated out to Europe and Asia. This new, improved, model of humanity soon displaced the human species in those lands such as Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and so on.

I did another web search on the “Out-of-Africa” theory and got a million hits for…Out of Africa, Sydney Pollack’s 1985 film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Instead of staying on-course, I immediately went down this new rabbit-hole, hitting the Wikipedia page for the movie. I went to see it in the theaters at the time, but I have almost no memory of it. It is, in fact, one of the most forgettable films of the 1980s, the sort of big-budget, star-heavy drivel that Hollywood has been churning out for almost a century. I do remember that many people in the audience were crying at the tear-jerker ending, and that I wanted to cry, too, out of sheer boredom. 

Naturally, the film went on to win seven Oscars that year.

In fact, I am being unfair. It’s not a bad movie. The cinematography is lavish.  And the acting is brilliant (even though Robert Redford doesn’t even attempt a British accent for his real-life character, Denys Finch Hatton, probably because Pollack told him not to). Streep, in contrast, shows off her usual, preternatural ability with foreign accents, playing Swedish noblewoman Karen Blixen, on whose fabulous memoir (it’s great; you should read it) the film is based.

But the real standout of the film, for me—in fact, the film’s only actor whose scenes I actually remember—was German actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, who was a minor movie star at the time. I became a fan of Brandauer when I saw the movie Mephisto, in which he plays a conflicted Berlin actor who finally achieves fame when his most famous character (the devil in Faust) goes viral with the ascendent Nazi party. Brandauer also played a Bond villain in Never Say Never Again (another bit of drivel, but better than Out of Africa), in which he steals every scene.

I always liked Brandauer because he exuded the air of a blazing intellect, yet one that was tightly controlled. (Rather like Jack Nicholson, in fact, only German.) He was also just really, really charming and magnetic. 

Unfortunately, Brandauer’s film career tapered off quite a bit after Out of Africa. You can imagine my surprise when I went up to IMDB, looked him up, and found that one of his more successful films of the 1990s was a Disney production of Jack London’s White Fang. 

Yes, I had come full circle on the Great Synchronicity Wheel, returning to where I had begun. Only now, I knew a lot more about wolves, Jack London, Out of Africa, and Klaus Maria Brandauer.

Not a bad hour, actually. 

Ten Great Movies About New York

Author’s Note: I should have had this post ready for the 25th Commemoration of the 9/11 attacks on Friday, but I didn’t. Better late than never, I hope.

Like a lot of Southern boys with a literary bent, I absolutely love New York City. Ever since I went there in the early 1990s to visit a girlfriend (herself a native New Yorker), I have been entranced by the place, a feeling which only deepened after I got a remote job with a Manhattan consulting firm and got to make frequent trips there for business. (That’s the best way to see The City—when someone else is paying for it.)

Ever since then, it’s often occurred to me that NYC is still Hollywood’s most beloved city, too, with L.A. coming in a distant (and often more loathed than loved) second. This is probably due to the fact that NYC is still the cultural and artistic center of the nation, as well as the place where many young actors and directors get their start, still.

Of course, many great films show the dark side of New York. Too many to mention, in fact, but the list includes Rosemary’s Baby, Seven, Taxi Driver, The Warriors, Bad Lieutenant, and on and on. However, I want to focus on films that show it in a favorable light. That is, movies where The City is almost a main character, and a great one at that.

Here is a list of my top ten favorites. Note that I am including all five boroughs in my criteria, although Manhattan is, as usual, the stand-out.

Moonstruck

Moonstruck is the greatest romantic comedy film ever made. And so, it makes perfect sense that it takes place in New York City, which is our most romantic city. That is, it has the most character, the most mystery, and the most beauty. Like a lot of the films on this list, it takes place in one of the boroughs—Brooklyn, in this case, with its great Italian-American culture. Never has that city-within-a-city, with its family-owned shops, brownstones, and restaurants, seemed so magical. Like “moonlight in a martini,” as one character says. (He’s speaking of a woman, but close enough.)

Throughout the film, the towers of Manhattan loom in the distance like a fairy-tale kingdom, to which the heroine, Loretta Castorini (Cher), finally ventures with her new unlikely “prince,” Ronny (Nicholas Cage in one of his definitive roles) when he takes her to the opera.

Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee’s masterpiece from 1989 is not only one of the best movies ever made, it is also one of the very few to depict life in a predominantly black urban community (except crime thrillers full of drug dealers and prostitutes). Set in the legendary Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, it follows the lives of several people who live and work there, including Mookie (Spike Lee), a pizza-delivery man, his sister Jade (Joie Lee), and his boss, Sal (Danny Aiello). The story takes place on a single, hot summer day when tensions—racial, economic, familial, and sexual—all reach a boiling point. It’s a great film with a great soundtrack, to which artists as diverse as Public Enemy and Teddy Riley contributed. With its combination of propulsive music, kinetic cinematography, and excellent, all-in performances by the stars, Do the Right Thing captures the energy and spirit of working-class New York better than any other film. More importantly, it’s one of the first hit movies to focus on the African-American community of New York, which gets a lot more attention than the Italian-American or Irish-American or Any-Other-American community.

Basically, it’s just a great movie.

Manhattan

What list of great New York movies could be complete without at least one entry from The City’s most iconic director, Woody Allen? (Okay, he’s probably tied with Martin Scorsese; see below). Manhattan is Allen’s lyrical cinematic ode to the borough, shot in sumptuous black-and-white and featuring the music of George Gershwin (whose work, apparently, inspired the film). It tells the story of Isaac (Allen), a middle-aged TV comedy writer who is dating a beautiful, brilliant seventeen-year-old, Stacy (Mariel Hemingway). Their relationship might seem ridiculous (even he finds it so), but he’s happy. At least, he thinks he is, until his life is upended by a woman his own age, Mary (Diane Keaton). Mary is Isaac’s equal in intellect, spirit, and sheer neurotic energy, and he finds himself smitten with her. Unfortunately, she is currently the mistress of his best friend, Yale (Michael Murphy), who seems to take her affections for granted.

Like most of Allen’s early classics, Manhattan is an almost Dickensian satire of highly-paid, arty New Yorkers, with their hilarious pretensions and absurdly tortured relationships. Isaac laughs at them almost as much as he laughs at himself. But it’s clear that he (like Allen) loves them, too. Especially Mary. She essentially functions as a stand-in for Manhattan (the city) itself—complex, gorgeous, and endlessly changeable.

Arthur

Steven Gordon’s 1981 rom-com Arthur is not a great film, but it is a very, very good one. Not only did it make Dudley Moore a Hollywood movie star (he had already been famous in the U.K. for decades), it revitalized the careers of Shakespearean actor John Gielgud and music-legend Liza Minelli. More importantly, the film brilliantly evokes the magic of Manhattan, as seen through the eyes of rich, alcoholic, and extremely lovable playboy, Arthur Bach.

Arthur (Moore) is a brilliantly witty, talented, and rich man. He is also a congenial drunk. He spends his days enjoying bubble baths in a huge, gilded tub set in the center of his penthouse apartment, sipping martinis made for him by his long-suffering butler, Hobson (Gielgud). Then, he spends his nights wining-and-dining streetwalkers whom he picks up on 8th Avenue.

In the hands of a lesser actor, Arthur might well have come off as a pathetic—even repulsive—character. But Moore was able to infuse him with so much charm and humor that it’s impossible not to like him. Crucially, Moore also imbues him with his (Moore’s) own wounded and vulnerable qualities. While Arthur has been psychologically crippled by his domineering and sadistic father, Moore was a chronically shy person who grew up with a myriad of physical disabilities (including a clubfoot). And Arthur, like Moore himself, was enchanting in his apparent childishness combined with a rapier wit.

In short, Arthur is a glittering, New York City archetype: the charming drunk who makes good in the end. And the movie’s title song,  “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do),” is also a classic.

After Hours

Martin Scorsese is known for a lot of things, but comedy isn’t one of them. Yet his 1985 film, After Hours is one of the funniest movies about NYC ever made. It follows the nightmarish adventure of a likeable, unassuming nebbish, Paul (Griffin Dunne), who works in a Manhattan office as a “word processor.” One day, he ventures to SoHo in pursuit of a beautiful young woman, Marcy (Roseanna Arquette), whom he has met at a café earlier. Things go pear-shaped when Paul loses all his money en route to Marcy’s apartment. When he finally gets there, he meets her equally beautiful—but also dangerous and possibly insane—roommate, Kiki (Linda Fiorentino), a sculptress who dabbles in S&M. Thus begins a Dantesque—and very funny—descent into the bowels of lower Manhattan, with its odd cast of avant garde artists, deranged cabbies, bar hoppers, burglars, and general freaks. Anyone who’s ever lost their wallet on the wrong side of NYC will instantly relate to this film, which celebrates The City’s weirdness as much as it mocks it.

Dinner Rush

What list of great NYC movies would be complete without at least one film about the restaurant scene? My favorite is a little indie production from 2000, Dinner Rush. Directed by Bob Giraldi, the plot focuses on a single night in the lives of the people who run a posh TriBeCa restaurant. The joint is owned by Louis (Danny Aiello), an avuncular bookie and former mafioso, whose son, Udo, is the brilliant but pretentious head chef. Udo refuses to cook the traditional Italian meals that Louis loves, so the sous-chef, Duncan (Kirk Acevedo), secretly prepares them for him. Duncan is a working-class kid with a bad gambling habit, and Louis obviously thinks of him as a kind of second, “better” son. Duncan and Udo seem to hate each other, but they help each other when the going gets rough.

Intrigues abound among the restaurant staff as well as the diverse array of patrons who show up, including an art gallery owner (and his starving artists), a food critic, two young hoods, a pretty office girl, and a charming, mysterious Wall Street broker whose significance isn’t revealed until the end of the movie. (I won’t spoil it; you’ll have to watch the movie.)

Working Girl

In many ways, Working Girl is the best movie on this list, with its tale of a hive-haired, Staten Island girl, Tess (Melanie Griffith), with the intelligence and audacity to take a shot at success in the cutthroat business world of New York.

Specifically, Tess dreams of becoming an executive in the big Manhattan M&A firm where she works as a secretary. That is, she dreams of becoming her boss, Katharine (Sigourney Weaver in one of her best roles), a tough-as-nails business operative. Katharine, whose blue-blood background is as upscale as Tess’s is trashy, seems nice at first, and even promises to mentor Tess on her way up the corporate ladder. But when Tess discovers that Katharine has secretly stolen one of Tess’s business ideas and fobbed it off as her own, she decides to beat Katherine and the whole, male-dominated business world at their own game.

I love this movie because not only is it one of the best romantic comedies ever made, it also asks many questions about the nature of the American dream: is it real? Is it corrupt? What does a girl have to do (really) to achieve it?

Fame

Alan Parker’s 1980 film Fame is an underrated film about the experiences of “gifted kids” who attend New York’s High School for the Performing Arts. As with any coming-of-age tale, the main characters—who each focus on dance, acting, or music—discover a lot about themselves as people, and also about what it takes to succeed in the arts. That is, how to achieve real fame.

The young actors are all first-rate, including Gene Anthony Ray, who had never acted before. A young Irene Cara is a stand-out. All-in-all, Fame is a great study of that most celebrated aspect of New York City: its music, theater, and dance culture. Basically, it’s about the bush-league for Broadway.

Men in Black

At one point in Barry Sonnenfeld’s classic summer movie, Men in Black, one of the main characters, veteran MIB agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) tells his young trainee that the MIB headquarters are “Just like Casablanca. Only no Nazis.” But this is not quite right. A much more apt description would be Ellis Island, where immigrants from all over the world (galaxy, in this case) come to gain entry to our civilization.

You don’t have to be an English lit major to glean that Men in Black is all about immigration and the diversity that immigration brings. The film opens with the MIB men disrupting an NIS raid of a truck near the Mexican border. (K mocks the way the NIS men treat the “dangerous aliens”—i.e., Mexican immigrants.) Later, the new MIB recruit, J (Will Smith), routinely mistakes weird-looking (but human) people on the streets of New York for extraterrestrials.

The point of the movie is that, well, we’re all people. (Except for those evil bugs, of course.) And diversity is a good thing—a miraculous thing—which is another reason NYC is the coolest city in the universe.

Ghostbusters

One of my favorite scenes in Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters is the one in which the demon-possessed accountant Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) wanders the streets of Central Park West. He encounters a horse-drawn carriage driver and warns the man (and his horse) about the imminent coming of Gozer, the God of Destruction. After Louis staggers off, the driver thinks for a moment and says to himself, “What an asshole.”

To me, this moment reveals the message of the entire movie—that New Yorkers are the toughest, most unflappable people on earth. They can handle anything, so long as they stick together.

While purportedly a horror-comedy, Ghostbusters is mainly one long celebration of that New York attitude, especially as demonstrated by Peter Venkman, the quick-thinking, bullshit-spewing, totally selfish guy who leads the Ghostbuster team. Venkman is one of the great anti-heroes of American cinema. He thinks he’s just looking out for himself—until the shit hits the fan and he has to step up to protect his friends and his city.

Another great example is the old rich guy in the lobby of the building where the heroes catch Slimer. When Venkman, clad in full nuclear-powered GB gear, tries to hold the elevator for the man, the old guy merely puffs on his cigar and deadpans, “I’ll wait.”

Friday Night Rock-Out: “I Will Follow”

No, you are not hallucinating. I am, indeed, lapping myself in terms of Friday Night Rock-Outs. No “real” posts last week. The reason is simple: I’ve been on vacation, visiting family in Pass Christian with my son, Connor. We had a great time, and I did some work on my new novel. But no blogging. Oh, well.

So, I am going to just post another FNRO. This time, I’ve decided to feature one of the best live performances by one of the greatest bands ever. Namely, their performance at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. This was in 1983, when the band was on tour for their landmark album War, which is when the band began to achieve true superstardom. 

In later years (up to and including today), U2 got a lot of hate for becoming a bit pompous and self-important on certain records. But they were—and still are—a great rock band, with a new album climbing the charts.

Their performance at Red Rocks was probably their best. Already a band known for grand gestures and almost militant power, they found themselves playing their hearts out to a full stadium.

Outdoors.

In the freezing rain. 

And they rocked…

Friday Night Rock-Out: “Only the Young”

“Only the Young” is one of those great songs whose history is so complicated that even fans can’t quite keep it straight. Originally written by  Jonathan Cain, Steve Perry and Neal Schon of Journey, it was first released by the great pop-rock band Scandal in 1984, when the band was fronted by Patty Smyth. Journey then released their own recording of the song in 1985, which was featured on the soundtrack of the Matthew Modine movie Vision Quest. Taylor Swift has since done her own cover of the song, which is, naturally, the one most young people know today (if they know the song at all).

I have featured Journey on my Friday Night Rock-Out Series before with “Any Way You Want It.” In that post, I expressed the somewhat novel opinion that “Any Way You Want It” is Journey’s only “good” song. In retrospect, I see that that statement was unfair. “Only the Young” is, also, a very good song indeed. It somehow gets at the heart of the yearning and frustration that young people feel whenever the previous generation is doing its best to keep them down.

Such was the case in 1984, when young Gen-Xers like myself were in high school or college and doing their best to make it in the wake of the Baby Boomers. And it’s even more the case now, when Gen-Z is coming of age in a United States that has, almost literally, been looted by the old people who control it. They face young adulthood in a denuded world, bankrupt and barren of opportunity. I bet the song resonates for them, too.

My favorite version of the song is still the first one, by Scandal. Patty Smyth was one of the most underrated rock singers of her generation, and this song found her at the height of her powers. (Fun fact: Van Halen offered her the lead singer job after David Lee Roth left; she declined due to her pregnancy.) Her voice positively soars on this song, and whenever I hear it, I am transported back to that long-ago time—which, alas, is looking better by the day.

Rock-on…