Film Logue

A Little Bit of Plague Makes the People Come Together

Panic in the Streets - (1950) Directed by Elia Kazan

Starring Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes

2 or 3 years back I read The Plague by Albert Camus and I've been meaning to read it again. There is something about Plague that fascinates me, any contagious disease in fact, if it groups a number of people together its everything short of uninteresting to observe human solidarity.

Panic in the Streets is a story that follows a thinning clock, a race against time, as the threat of an epidemic deepens in a New Orleans town when a man with pneumonic plague is murdered and his infected attackers unknown. Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas play the unlikely pair of doctor and policeman in charge of finding the contaminated murderers. The doctor, Lt. Cmdr. Clinton Reed M.D. just as Dr. Bernard Rieux in The Plague or even Dr. Steven Monks in Val Guest's 1963 plague film, 80,000 suspects; all dealt with the tremendous strain of stress, every life that pass, passed through their hands and every action they took was met with immediate response. Under such restraint of time during plague, one must act fast, truthfully, and with little or no regard for ego. I guess this is why plague stories interest me. Only when the threat of death is made a real solid fact, only when it looms about not as a spontaneous thief but as an invited guest who makes you uncomfortable nonetheless, only then do we shed the material layers of life. It brings out of people, that which they are at their essential make up. Heroes can become cowards, beggars can ascend to aristocracy; plague has no class division. During a plague, everyone is in the same position, death may come and carry anyone away. This is true even without plague, Death most certainly can never be called prejudice or predictable but without such an experience like plague, Death can be ignored, a person may distract their attention to other things. And as I would agree a preoccupied obsession with Death isn't healthy nor is the fear of Death that stunts one's experience of life. Plague sheds our costumes and what we are becomes known to us and others.

I'm surprised I haven't heard about Panic in the Streets before. Perhaps because its not based on a Tennessee Williams play and it doesn't star Brando, he isn't in it at all, actually. There are some great performances nonetheless, Richard Widmark is intense and practically blew a few capillaries as Clint Reed and then there's Jack Palance (then billed Walter Jack Palance) as Blackie, the lead assailant who's unknowingly carrier to the pneumonic lung candy that's got the city officials all hot and bothered. Barbara Bel Geddes plays Clinton Reed's wife, Nancy. It took me a moment to realize she played Midge Wood, Jimmy Stewart's friend in Vertigo, I'm very fond of her. I wonder if she was part of Kazan's method class? I'd like to see more of her.

Spiders and What they Spin

I was watching Charlotte's Web with my niece last night. Or so the evening began, because as usually is the case, halfway through the film my two year old niece wanders off and I am left fully immersed, entangled as one rightfully should in Charlotte's Web.

I remember the story from third grade, Ms. Smith read it to us, or we read it with her. After the book we watched the movie. I don't think I've set eyes on either the book or the movie since. In the way that first impressions from childhood carry over into adulthood, sometimes even covertly, I remember a few things about the story. Charlotte, Wilbur, the messages on the web, Charlotte's death, and Wilbur's prize; vaguely are these plot points available to me yet I still found myself surprised by my reintroduction to a childhood story that I'd be lying if I said I cared at all about.

Reviewing Charlotte's Web I realized on some level, especially to an adult viewer, this story is about mortality. I also realized how much I hate Wilbur who has so hard a time dealing with that mortality. Not only does he fear dying but he is also selfish and naive, but then again so are children. The fear of dying, of course is okay, since he's a pig who is raised to be killed; I kind of get that but Wilbur also has a problem with Charlotte's death and the death of even the insects that are caught on Charlotte's web, which Charlotte herself gains nourishment from.

Charlotte is amazing, Debbie Reynolds supplies her voice. The lonely spider who spins a web and is at the same time, friend and philosopher to Wilbur. On the best song in the movie, titled Mother Earth and Father Time, she states,

How very special are we

For just a moment to be

Part of life's eternal rhyme

How very special are we

To have on our family tree

Mother Earth and Father Time

That about sums it up for me. How infinitely random that we fit into such an everlasting indefinition, definitely. To be a part of the universe on such microcosmic terms and yet contribute so absolutely to its macrocosmic orchestration is as clear as any reason why life is worth living. Camus talks of absurdism and the futility of life and why its still an experience worth experiencing even if its end result is nothing. Camus also talks of happiness as a side effect of dueling it out with futility,

What matters to me is a certain quality of happiness. I can only find it in a certain struggle with its opposite--a stubborn and violent struggle...

And about the consciousness of happiness while admitting the absurd:

Just as there is a moment when the artist must stop, when the sculpture must be left as it is, the painting untouched--just as a determination not to know serves the maker more than all the resources of clairvoyance--so there must be a minimum of ignorance in order to perfect a life in happiness. Those who lack such a thing must set about acquiring it; unintelligence must be earned.

Spiders know better than we do. The best creation is life and even though it ends it still happens. While it happens is all that matters.

In Bloom

Between the last two nights, I have watched 5 films that to some degree, starred Claire Bloom. From naive, communist librarian to intriguing vaporous lesbian (marvelously downplayed), loyal nurse and brave wife, a proud citizen and meticulously manipulative widow. Lady Bloom knows range and from how deep a depth to dive and what is more, how much to exhibit, how much to reserve.

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold -

(1965) Directed by Martin Ritt

Starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom,

and Oskar Werner

Due to its title and an overdramatized trailer, I half-expected a comedy. Richard Burton as a british Derek Flint, super spy, who through a sexy sixties soundtrack tangles and disentangles himself across a varied amount of perils. He'd have encounters with beautiful femme fatales whom are used by Burton as much as he is used by them, of which the cat's claw would be Claire Bloom. Burton would address the audience like a King Richard III and keep us most informed of his thorough english cunning.

Shame on me, I should've known better.

What I got in the stead of my ridiculous expectation was a subtle, intelligent story and film about disinformation espionage.

The Haunting - (1963) Directed by Robert Wise

Starring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom,

Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn

The Haunting is the first classic horror film I've seen. Besides being frightening, it was richly textured. The furniture design, wallpaper, architecture, lighting and shadows made for such a thickly dense environment through which, most of the film moves, as a fish through ocean. One is easily lost in the background, the house itself seems an actor.

The sounds in this film are certainly eerie and director, Wise, has a great way of turning the quiet respites after each haunting into the truly scary moments on screen. A shot of a wall, silent, after it had just been banged on, chilled me to worst degrees than the sudden face of one of the characters jumping onto the screen after a build up of tension. A scene where Julie Harris' Eleanor walked away from the other characters while she voiced-over her thoughts of dejection as the background and all in it, are swallowed by darkness, this scene gave me goosebumps.

I'm not into horror films, mostly because they have a tendency to just throw sudden images on screen mixed with loud sound effects, which effectively scares me but does nothing for me during the rest of the film. The Haunting had very little of this. It was also a psychological thriller that became creepier through the increasing tension of atmosphere and tone. The camera worked well in adding to the element of discomfort, lots of angles and the spiral staircase scene was magnificently shot.

80,000 Suspects - (1963) Directed by Val Guest

Starring Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson

Yolande Donlan, and Cyril Cusack

About an outbreak of smallpox in a town and what is done to contain the contamination. Documentary style 60's film. It reminds me of Albert Camus' The Plague for obvious reasons. I enjoyed both. Though the film didn't have a sense of solidarity and the situation didn't seem as grave as Camus' novel, however this is unfair of me as the film isn't an adaptation of The Plague but rather a novel by Trevor Dudley-Smith.

Alexander the Great - (1956) Directed by Robert Rossen

Starring Richard Burton, Fredric March, Claire Bloom

How possible is it for me to watch a film starring Richard Burton and keep myself from trying to impersonate that thunderous voice of his after the film ends? Well today I needed a nap after watching Alexander the Great. Not that the film exhausted me, not at all, I was merely tired from being awakened too early. This film feels like a prequel to Cleopatra, here Burton is the ever ambitious Alexander the Great instead of the ever ambitious and jealous Mark Anthony. I almost wish this film were longer. One would expect two and a half hours should be good enough; but still I felt much was left out to deny an impression upon me, as to why Alexander was so Great.

The Outrage - (1964) Directed by Martin Ritt

Starring Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey,

Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson,

and William Shatner

Screenplay by Akira Kurasawa or some portion of it. Claire Bloom in a southern belle accent and appearance. Also directed by Martin Ritt. Paul Newman as a mexican bandido (he's good in the accent but the spanish words sound like they're spoken by a gringo sometimes). I want to own this film. It gives me an idea that any ill deed perceived is only viewed from it surfacing apex, the submerged portion is what inspired and drove the deed, all its factors and intentions. No one can truly, morally judge only the apex.

Death on the Installment Plan

II.
The summation of random events is life and life is the self-presented perspective of universe. The summation of random events leads to more random events. Every life will lead one way or another to the random event of death. Most have a default setting of thought foundation applied to death; they believe death will come at an old age when life is fully lived. Death is a random event that can arrive as plainly as the next breath. One will never discover the pattern in a pattern-less system. Most fear that which is without judgement and cannot be controlled or influenced. Every moment has been added by everything that came before it. Every moment is sequence followed by random consequences. And every consequence is in itself a newly added sequence. I believe everything you learn and experience will give you nothing after death. I believe the random events of life are solely for the living to make the most of and lead to no goal or lesson. The only thing it leads to is just a random death that becomes the consequence of their living sequence and that very same consequence of death is in itself a random sequence added to the random events of those who are still living.