I was thinking about the “Top Hat Mutiny,” and the conclusion I have reached is that the fault – should we need to assign such – is mine. For me to switch gears from such highly symbolic and deeply philosophical films as The Seventh Seal and Runaway Train to one that has an entirely different set of ideals and goals, without any preliminary discussion or introduction, was unwise. This is not to say that my comments regarding the artistic merit of Top Hat were inaccurate. In a different context, I would have had half the class tap dancing through the halls. But, our minds were set to a very different frequency. The dissonance was too great.
The strange thing about it is that I felt exactly the same way many of you did. Here’s a film that I have watched many times, that has captivated me again and again. I love the corny humor and the dancing. Fred Astaire has such an easy grace and winning personality that it’s really hard not to like him. The last time I showed it in class, the response was very enthusiastic. But this time, blah. How does one explain it? My wife mentioned that she had a similar experience with Runaway Train one semester. It just bombed. As much as I resist the idea of a collective subconscious, or group-think, it’s hard to deny that the class, including me, was just not in the dancing mood.
No matter. I needed something to fill the ether for two days as we headed into the vacation. This film sufficed, and you got a small dose of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Perhaps in future you may wish to watch it on your own. For now, we’ll leave Top Hat, and move on.
One last word about Astaire. He came to film rather late in life, and in Top Hat, he’s already 36, while Ginger Rogers is only 22 or so. The story of his screen test is part of Hollywood lore. Supposedly the studio notes read, “Can’t act, can’t sing, bald, -- can dance a little.”
Our next film is a western, Unforgiven, 1992, directed by Clint Eastwood. For me, it is the absolute last word on the genre. And what a genre it is! Like them or not, the western is the most iconic of all the genres. By that I mean it is the genre in which the standard elements are best known and understood. I suspect that even those of you who have never seen a Western can describe most of the things that are required. The most familiar prop, of course, is the entrance to the saloon, the swinging double door. God forbid there should just be a simple door that opens and closes tightly. One might suspect that a swinging door could prove impractical on freezing cold winter days. But it’s always summer in Westerns.
Unforgiven addresses all these aspects of the genre. It asks the questions you may have wondered about like the following:
1. How accurate are those guns, anyway?
2. Is the classic gun-fight with a “quick draw” historically accurate?
3. Did everyone own horses?
4. Where exactly is the “west” anyway?
Anyway, if you want to prepare yourself for Unforgiven, why not watch a few westerns over the vacation, just so you know what the genre is all about. I won’t suggest specific titles; you can go to a web site and get all the suggestions. Typically, the years before 1965 had the archetypal western, the kind where the good guys wore the white hats and the bad guys wore black, after that, the westerns became darker and you had the emergence of the “anti-hero,” the guy who was pretty bad, but maybe as good as one could be in a bad world. Check out “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” for an anti-western. Unforgiven tries to synthesize the two antithetical versions of the genre, hence it can be seen as the ultimate western, at least until a new thesis is expounded. For a discussion of this idea, look up Hegelian dialectics, or just Hegel. I think his first name was Friederich, but I forget
After Unforgiven, we will embark on a tour of Film Noir. I won’t describe it now. I’ll save that for a later post. But, here are the films we’ll see.
The Asphalt Jungle 1950 John Huston
Dark City 1998 Alex Proyas
Memento 2002 I forget who directed it
A Simple Plan 2000 or so. Ditto on the director.
After that, a Cold War retrospective, featuring my favorite documentary ever, The Atomic Café, and everyone’s favorite apocalyptic comedy, Dr. Strangelove.
At that point, I have come to the end of the road. Which means that there are only about 100,000 possible titles we can watch. Give it some thought.
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It would have been interesting to see the end of Top Hat just to see the resolution of it, but I do feel that something was lost on myself and the class on this film. It could possibly have been the switch from the two very different perspectives and ideals, or maybe it is something else. Who knows?
ReplyDeleteUnforgiven sounds like an interesting next film and I must say that I do not know much about Westerns and have not seen many so it may be helpful to brush up on this genre.
The six movies after that also seem quite interesting, and I hope that they will all receive better responses than Top Hat, but we will see.
I will need to give more thought to the movies we should see after that but I believe a movie that sounded very interesting to me was the documentary that you mentioned -- The Celluloid Closet or possibly if they can be found one of the pre-Hays code films, to see how these movies really were done.
I saw Pale Rider today before reading your blog. It is not always summer because there was snow on the ground and the mountains in the background. Although it was made in the 1980s it is still a Western by my standards and not awkward or a failure as Sandbag would have us think.
ReplyDeleteClint Eastwood was in so many Westerns he ought to change his name to Clint Westwood.
By the way, where do all these drifters, cowboys, and gunfighters ride off to at the end of these movies?
Yee-haw.
I actually kind of liked Top Hat, I just agree that the class was very unprepared for it, especially since it wasn't as built up as some of the previous films we've seen.
ReplyDeleteI don't know too much about Clint Eastwood, I don't think I've seen any of his old films, but I loved his recent work with Gran Torino. I am excited about seeing Unforgiven, I heard really great things about it. (and it got a 96/100 on rottentomatoes.com)
Brilliant thoughts about Clint Westwood, how did no one ever think of that Mr. White, but then again you intelligence is never surpassed by any. I have sometimes wonder where they ride off into the sunset as well, maybe to Xanadu or something. Who knows
ReplyDeleteI agree with Benny, I was enjoying Top Hat, and I am sad we are leaving it. I am looking forward to Unforgiven however, as I have always wanted to see it. Like Benny I also enjoyed Gran Torino, but I think for different reasons. I found it to be the funniest film of 2008, and that Eastwood was a comedic genius with deadpan delivery.
ReplyDeleteAnd Christopher Nolan directed Memento.
ReplyDeleteSince all you clowns, er fellows, have seen Memento, perhaps we should move on to something else. No shortage of great films. The point of both this and Dark City is to show how Film Noir continues to develop and has been used in so many different variations.
ReplyDeleteTop Hat seemed to come from out of the blue, but I don't think anything could really detract from Fred Astaire's dancing. I really enjoyed that aspect of the film.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I still think we should definitely watch Memento, regardless of if people have seen it or not. It is a great film and seeing it in this environment, with our new way of looking at film, would be good. But if people want to skip it, it is quite acceptable.
ReplyDeleteSkipping it would entail me having to do more work. Need I say more?
ReplyDelete