Blindspot - "The Deer Hunter" and "Coming Home"

Whenever the blind spots of our history of film knowledge come up in conversation, one of the most common questions is "Why haven't you seen movie 'X' yet?". Sometimes it's just matter of "Hey, ya just can't see them all!", but usually there's a specific reason for not having ventured into a classic film (especially for those of us who list movie-watching as a passion). In the case of this month's tandem Vietnam War selections (The Deer Hunter and Coming Home), the reasons are several fold. The first is the subject matter - though I have no issues with war films or specifically ones about Vietnam, like many I had reached a bit of a saturation point in regards to the topic. Not that war films are typically happy-go-lucky affairs or that I want all my viewing experiences to shut out the evil world, but the Vietnam films seemed to have cornered the market on depressing (for many valid reasons of course). As well, both films gave the sense of revolving around a single main event or condition and (from my poor memory of hearing about them when I was younger) didn't really pull me into their plotlines. Not to mention the fact that The Deer Hunter is a full 3 hours long and the vast majority of the first half of the film takes place before any of the characters even head overseas.

But this is why I'm continuing the Blindspot efforts...Things aren't always quite what they seem. For instance, the long preamble in The Deer Hunter not only introduces the film's main characters before they go to Vietnam, but it also gives ample reason why they would volunteer to go. Their lives at home don't appear to offer much more than what they already trudge through daily (hard physical labour, drinking and hunting) and maybe the possibility of gaining a mortgage on a small house in a decrepit part of town with a spouse that you can somewhat stomach. This rather bleak view of the working class environment inhabited by the characters is built through a wedding and its preparation. By the time the nuptials take place it feels a bit like a drunken wake - though they toast the marriage of Steven and Angela, it is also a farewell party for Steven (John Savage), Mike (Robert De Niro) and Nick (Christopher Walken) before they leave for Vietnam. The entire time spent in the town is slow, awkward and entirely depressing in its limitations regarding the potential scope of these characters, but it is also highly effective at painting this way of life and the strong community bonds. After almost half the film has unspooled, the three wind up in Vietnam and the film wastes no time in painting a new picture - a horrendous, gruesome and inhumane one. After Nick and Steven rescue Mike from a particularly nasty battle, the three end up captured in a small camp where the guards entertain themselves by pitting their prisoners against each other in games of Russian Roulette. The film is justifiably known for this sequence as it is terrifying, tense and remarkably hard to watch. Their home back in the steelworks of Pennsylvania looks like a damn paradise at this point. A desperate plan is hatched, escapes are made and the three are separated and wind up in different states of disrepair.

With Coming Home, the rehabilitation of paralyzed vet Luke (Jon Voigt) became more than just the expected simple melodrama of a love triangle with complications. Though old school friend Sally (Jane Fonda) does indeed slowly fall in love with Luke while her husband Bob (Bruce Dern) remains overseas, the film patiently provides fully developed characters that grow, change and adapt over the course of the story. It never becomes a straight up love conquers all story or a flag-waving salute to the injured men from the war. It actually tries to deal with the mess - the physical and mental wreckage of people and their attempts (or lack thereof) to make it through life changing events. Luke begins as an angry, railing-at-the-world patient in the hospital but slowly warms to Sally's attempts to help. She's volunteered at the hospital to keep her occupied while Bob is away and as she slowly assists Luke in regaining a sense of purpose, her own world begins to expand. The conservative values and outward appearance begin to loosen up, her political eyes open and she starts to question things - even the possibility that she could be falling into love with someone else. Luke for his own part rediscovers his passion and campaigns against the war effort while realizing that he could indeed still build a life. Sally and Luke emerge as fully realized people who are flawed but willing to make efforts to repair what's been broken and get on with focusing on their loves and desires.

Both films spend much less time in Vietnam itself than you'd think classics of the genre would do. The Deer Hunter's first trip to Vietnam lasts for only about 35 minutes while Coming Home spends almost no time there at all (apart from a few scenes showing some of Bob's experiences). Neither film suffers for its lack of time spent there since neither film is really simply about Vietnam. The focus of both films is how people try to make it through to the other side and how they don't always succeed. The Deer Hunter shows some harrowing consequences - particularly the mental slides of Steven (after his own paralyzing injury), Angela (unfortunately playing the cliche poor woman so scarred by emotional toil that she retreats into catatonia) and Nick. Walken is particularly effective in that latter role as he transitions from the cocky boyfriend of Linda (a gorgeous young Meryl Streep) to a disconnected zombie roaming the streets of Saigon. After having returned home, Mike suspects Nick is still in Vietnam and returns to find him (despite his love for Linda no longer being unrequited). He too has changed - no longer the man of black and white viewpoints, he can empathize and wants to heal the wounds and make things right. His hunting days may be over...

Coming Home also shows the process and difficulty of healing both the physical and mental scars. Just as Luke is regaining a place in the world, Bob returns even more coiled and frayed than when he left. His view of war, his country and himself has changed, but he doesn't know what to do with all that information. His wife's infidelity adds kindling to the fire and allows Dern one truly excellent "freak out" scene when he yells at his wife with a blazing rage. He's not the only one suffering though - the brother of his buddy's girlfriend Violet (now good friends with Sally) is struggling in a mental hospital to regain his footing. Robert Carradine plays him with a great deal of sensitivity and you can almost feel the pain and stress as he tries to do a simple thing like play his guitar. Nothing remains simple for those exposed to the ugliness of humanity and it can infect others around them as well. Both films have moments of hope and show strength of character and community. But in the end, no one truly walks away unscathed.

Blindspot - "East Of Eden" and "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?"

There are some who believe that Good and Evil are two very distinct objectively defined entities and that things and ideas are black or white, true or false, moral or immoral. Some would say that thought could be extended to define people in these terms and to categorize them in one of two camps: "Pure as the driven snow" and "Face of an angel" OR "Pure evil" and "Rotten to the core" (phrases we all use to describe people with no middle ground). Of course, these are a fool's definition and try to provide easy answers to explaining behaviours that please or enrage us. The "truth" is that it all depends on your perspective and viewpoint. The landscape is made up of thousands of shades of grey and they are all relative. And speaking of relatives...

The sibling rivalry within East Of Eden and the spousal feuding of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf traverse many degrees of that light to dark spectrum between good and evil. Hurting the one you love is always a complicated and confusing thing to do and that's certainly the case in both films. You could be forgiven, however, if you didn't see a lot of shading in that good/evil spectrum during the onslaught that is Virginia Woolf. From the first words spoken, it feels like a two hour blitz of spiteful bile and vituperative arguments. Most of the insult flinging occurs between the middle aged George and Martha, but they aren't shy in sharing it and spreading it around. George (Richard Burton) is a History professor who lives within the campus grounds with his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and after an evening at a school social (with a few drinks) they set about their favourite sport - a little verbal sparring with each other. It seems to begin harmlessly - a barb here, a curt word there - but as it escalates, one can tell this is much more than just tiredness and booze stirred together into a cranky cocktail. It seems to be their lifeforce. The only way they can get through the day at this stage of their lives together is by tearing each other down. Even the moments of true passion which still exist between them can't stem their craving for a verbal attack fix. "I disgust me" says Martha, sounding every bit like a drug addict. And when the young couple Nick and Honey arrive for some nightcaps (Nick is a new professor that Martha flirted with at the social event), the mixture of booze and disgust becomes downright toxic for all.

East Of Eden wallows less in that deep end of the cesspool, but still gets itself pretty dirty...Its tale of two brothers competing for their father's love and attention is a modern take on the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, with older brother Cal (James Dean) typically coming up short in the sweepstakes to gain his father Adam's (Raymond Massey) favour. The turning point is when Cal's younger brother Aron usurps him by announcing his engagement just before Cal presents Adam with the proceeds from his business as a gift. Their father rejoices at Aron's news, but scowls at Cal's offer of money: "I'd be happy if you gave me something like your brother's given me - something honest and human and good". The film returns to this perception of good and evil over and over ("Was she bad?", "Do you think I'm bad?", "He's good!") as people try to figure out which end of the spectrum they lie on. The film makes the case that there aren't really any absolute good or evil people since we are all capable of both. The choice of behaviour is ours. Throughout East Of Eden you can see the reasons for each person's behaviour: good intentions gone wrong, decisions based on immediate emotion, and longer term goals that don't show themselves right away.

Reason is a bit further removed from the world of George and Martha though...There are so many points within the film that they could stop the attacks and nastiness, but just as it threatens to peter out, it escalates to even further heights. Short of booze and pride, one never quite gets a handle on exactly why they behave in this manner (nor why Nick and Honey - after initially getting undeservedly pulled into these warped games - begin to go on the offensive with almost equal gusto). But that simply makes this examination of fragile souls so damn interesting and fascinating. It's not simply that car wreck that everyone strains to see, it's that YouTube compilation of Russian Road Rage videos. It's an exhausting film for the viewer, but the actors (in particular Burton and Taylor) are magnificent in their ability to continually wring more madness and anger and sarcasm from their characters. Mike Nichols (who passed away shortly after I watched the film) somehow juggles the ever increasing desperate attempts at lashing out of all 4 characters within fairly constricted spaces (the rooms of the house, a car, a bar, etc.). Tiring to experience, but oddly exhilarating.

East Of Eden didn't quite hit those peaks. It's not that it fails in any category whatsoever (top notch acting across the board, what felt like perfect framing of characters from scene to scene, glorious photography, etc.), but the melodrama on hand never quite seemed to go beyond the simmering stages. The film has reveals and characters going off deep ends, but as mentioned, you could always see the reasons behind their movements and reactions. Perhaps it's unfair because I'm comparing it to Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, but I wanted more escalation, more anger, more unbridled explosions of emotion, etc. It gave me a few too many moments to reflect on some plot points and relationship arcs that didn't quite flow naturally. In a great melodrama, I wouldn't have cared as much, but here it didn't quite sit as well.

Regardless, it tells its tale effectively and remarks on our perception of our own behaviours. Both films (especially through the eyes of family members) cover a wide slice of human actions and reactions - from kind to cruel and from logical to lunatic.

Blindspot - "Ride The High Country" and "Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid"

The Wild Bunch is not my favourite Sam Peckinpah film. There, I've said it. Even worse, though, is that I don't particularly like it. The stylized violence in the opening and closing battles is everything I expected and more, but it's all the stuff in between (if memory serves that is) that was thoroughly disappointing. The "characters" and their attempts at manly bonding felt forced and hurt the whole experience of the movie for me. Granted, it's been quite a while since I've seen it and I owe it a rewatch, but I found that two other views of the Old West by Peckinpah - Ride The High Country and Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid - provided much stronger and more interesting characters while still splashing the blood around a bit. But they did it in very different ways...

Ride The High Country is, for the most part, a classic Western. Told mainly via interactions between its male characters, its straightforward story reveals its themes of good, evil and redemption fairly early on and builds on them. Steve Judd (Joel McRae) and Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott) are two former partners who reconnect in their later years to help bring back a deposit of gold to the bank. With the Gold Rush winding down, many questionable characters are trying to get a final crack at a stake and the bank doesn't believe their gold will be safe without some protection. What Judd doesn't know is that his old friend Gil and his young impetuous associate (named Heck) plan to keep the gold for themselves - whether Judd wants them to or not. Along the way up to the mining town, they stop for a rest at a ranch run by a strict religious man and his daughter Elsa (an impossibly young Mariette Hartley). She's looking for a way out of the restrictive setting of the ranch she's never been allowed to leave, so she tags along with the men when they leave the next day. She's decided to go to the mining town to marry her fiancee who works there with his brothers. Somewhat predictably, all doesn't go as planned...Elsa's fiancee and his progressively creepier brothers see her presence as being useful for only so many purposes - mostly sex and cooking - and to be shared by all. On the way to the mining town, Heck and Elsa flirt a bit and Heck makes a pass at her. She rebuffs him, but he insists and she needs Judd to pull him off. Judd knocks Heck to the ground and is followed by Gil giving him the same treatment. Though it shows the goodness in these two old timers (both saving the poor "defenseless" woman), it creates an awkward follow-up scene when Elsa actually apologizes to Heck (I guess for not allowing him to fully take advantage of her) and he seems to be sulking. It is quite jarring from a modern day perspective to see Elsa do this, but it almost makes sense given the obvious hierarchy of man over woman in this early part of the 20th century and her desperation to keep moving away from her father's ranch. It also establishes firmly where Heck's morality is based and how he can only crawl up from there.

The morality in Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid is somewhat sketchier. Most of these men have done bad things, but their moral centres revolve around respect and honour to their friends and partners. Pat Garrett and Billy are old friends, but when Garrett goes to meet Billy at the beginning of the movie it is solely to give him a warning: that Garrett will be his executioner. They part on good terms and Billy considers several options for leaving the town and his gang behind. With deputies in tow, Garrett manages to capture Billy after a shootout, but Billy escapes by gunning down two of the deputies (one self-righteous fool and one honourable man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time). From here, the chase resumes until its foregone conclusion. There really isn't much more to the story than that. Given the scarcity of dialogue, some gorgeously shot scenes and an unspoken fondness for the Old West, one can easily understand why the film often gets described as being poetic, evocative and elegiac. However, the film as a whole is far too scattered and littered with half-drawn characters and scenes that it's hard to see it as a complete work. There have been a few versions of it though: the studio edited theatrical release which Peckinpah disowned, a "preview" version which TCM put together that attempted to pull together Peckinpah's vision (the version I saw) and a director's cut which theoretically comes closest to Peckinpah's intent. Along with numerous production issues, Peckinpah was in full alcoholic mode during the shooting of the film, so it ran over-budget, over-schedule and certainly caught the attention of the studio suits. And yet, for all its problems (e.g. way too many cutaway shots to Bob Dylan, an odd soundtrack, scenes left adrift, etc.), there are some absolutely glorious moments.

Many of those moments are created by the leads (James Coburn as Garrett and Kris Kristofferson as Billy) since how they say things (or more often, don't say) becomes extremely important due to the paucity of dialogue. Whether it was Peckinpah's direction or their own decisions, the actors bring these characters fully formed to the screen. Coburn's silent glares speak volumes and Kristofferson has a natural charisma that definitely surprised me. And then you have Slim Pickens...Now it's always great to see Slim in anything, but his short yet unforgettable appearance in the film is one for the ages. Even though we had just briefly met him a few minutes earlier, his death scene is both heartbreaking and beautiful. After being shot in a gun battle as another of Garrett's recruits, he stumbles to the river and sits and waits for his life to fade out like the setting sun. Most of the other famous cameos in the film, though fine, don't have any of that staying power. Perhaps Peckinpah was going for the feeling of a rich tapestry (mixing in a bit of Dylan, Jack Elam, Jason Robards, Barry Sullivan and more), but none of them are given much with which to play and instead they feel somewhat wasted. Ride The High Country, in contrast, does far more with its characters and provides enough meaty dialogue not just for its central roles (Scott and McRea), but also the supporting roles with weight (Heck, Elsa, Elsa's fiancee) and the rest of the cast (the brothers, the drunken judge, the brothel owner). Both Scott and McRea truly stand out and, like Coburn and Kristofferson, add a great deal more to their characters. They manage to create something perfect in the delivery of their lines. It's not that the line readings are particularly realistic, but just that the words seem to tumble effortlessly out of their mouths. Even when they say things like "The Lord's bounty may not be for sale but the Devil's is...if you can pay the price" (and other phrases that essentially state themes of the movie) it just sounds right coming from them.

Judd tell Westrum at one point: "All I want is to enter my house justified". By the end of the film, after Judd's consistent take on what's right and what's wrong, you feel as if he has succeeded in his quest and even tugged along Westrum and Heck while he was at it. Garrett, on the other hand, may very well have been trying to reach that same lofty goal, but by the time the opening scene replays itself at the end, you realize that he may have gone about things the wrong way. After deciding to throw in with the businessmen looking to clean up the West (in particular, to get rid of people like Billy), no amount of rationalizing his decision could make it feel right. Though we don't see his life between the killing and the years-later bookends, one gets the feeling that Garrett has struggled with trying to justify his actions and has paid a price. In High Country, there's an understanding of that grey area between good and bad: "My father says there's only right and wrong - good and evil. Nothing in between. It isn't that simple, is it?" "No it isn't. It should be, but it isn't". That seems to be a statement about how people are always in transition - becoming bad from their natural good state or trying to get back to being good through redemption. In Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, it's more a statement of fact - everybody has some of both, so choose your actions carefully. Some have called Peckinpah's final Western a eulogy for the Old West, but it feels more like one for the films about the Old West. One that leaves you feeling quite melancholy.

If Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid didn't completely win me over with its ramshackle nature, it certainly left an impression - in particular in relation to its main characters. Ride The High Country has a much greater hit ratio (and even shows some early bits of Peckinpah's different view of violence), but also leaves its strongest impression through its two lead characters. And that's where The Wild Bunch left me cold - the characters. But both of these Westerns have left me considering Peckinpah's other films (in particular The Wild Bunch) and has made me eager to revisit them and fill in the ones I haven't seen (The Battle Of Cable Rogue and Major Dundee for example). I think that alone is pretty high praise.

Blindspot - "The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin" and "The Five Deadly Venoms"

You may notice a distinct difference in the quality of the screen caps contained within this post. 36th Chamber Of Shaolin has a proper widescreen aspect ratio and clear image (straight from the Dragon Dynasty DVD) while Five Deadly Venoms has a poorly cropped 4:3 image that was obviously recorded years ago off TV to well-worn VHS (and then transferred to YouTube where I found it). Was I desperate to catch that second film and willing to watch anything I could source? No. It was actually a bit of a design point.

Several months ago when I first mentioned this pairing of Shaw Brothers Kung Fu films for my Blindspot, it was suggested to me that I should swing on down to Chinatown and get my viewing copies there. After all, crappy, English-dubbed copies are how most people get introduced to Kung Fu in the first place. Though I completely saw the merit in the idea, I was against it for two reasons...First and foremost, I really can't handle cropped films and bad dubbing - hell, even Fellini films dubbed afterwards back into their own language (as Fellini intended) drive me a bit crazy since things like intonation never quite match up quite properly when dubbed. I've been a stickler for proper aspect ratios since realizing what they were (somewhere during the mid-point of the VHS years) and mostly seethe if I come across a film on TV or DVD in a bastardized form. Secondly, I already had that copy of 36th Chamber on DVD sitting at home on my stack of unwatched films. But the idea of watching at least one of the films in the format in which I would've seen my first taste of Kung Fu was still somewhat appealing. My knowledge of Kung Fu is not extensive (loads of Jackie Chan, the more serious Come Drink With Me, the much less serious Mad Monkey Kung Fu and all sorts of clips and scenes from Sunday afternoons long ago), but when I think of it, I do indeed think of desaturated videotape stock, people being cut out of the frame and halting English dubbed over to attempt to match with the characters on screen. Oh, and enough wooshing and whacking sounds to make a foley artist break into a sweat.

All of which can make a Kung Fu film somewhat hard to take seriously. But then I started to watch 36th Chamber Of Shaolin...Its opening sequence of Chia-Hui Liu (aka Gordon Liu) framed in different manners executing solo Kung Fu moves was enough to show that there was a great deal of artistic craft going on here. Not that I doubted there would be, but it completely settled me into being able to look upon the film as a complete entity. It also validated my decision to see this film on its full canvas - what a shame it would've been to miss the entirety of each of these opening shots. Not only the backdrops and art direction, but the perfectly sculpted body of Liu and each one of his refined moves. When the story starts, though, his character San Te is somewhat less attuned to the ways of the Shaolin monks than he is in those credits. He is a frustrated young student watching his surroundings get overrun and manhandled by the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty. His protests get him in some trouble and he manages to escape to the Shaolin monastery. He seeks to become enlightened in the ways of the masters of martial arts so that he may return and help get back ownership of his old village to its denizens. After being left to tend to menial jobs for awhile, he figures out that he can now ask to be taught Kung Fu. He discovers that it is a painstaking process and that he must focus on and master individual skills one at a time in 35 separate chambers. The film glides by quite easily as it works through a straightforward three act structure: young student in village; student at monastery working through the different chambers one at a time; monk leaving school to seek justice.

There's less straightforward about Five Deadly Venoms. The plot description is easy enough: a student of all five major disciplines of fighting (Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, Toad) is instructed by his dying teacher to find 5 previous students. Each of the five had mastered one of the five styles and the teacher is worried that some of them may turn evil. The student knows all five styles, but has mastered none and so must team up with one of the five to ensure none of the others commit any crimes. The teacher does not know the names or faces of any of these masters, so the student is left to his own devices to find them. Like 36th Chamber, the film opens with some great montages as we see each of the five masters (in their masks) performing their specialized skills. The choreography and filming is definitely leaning to the sillier side of things (Centipede smashes plates falling from the ceiling, etc.), but it certainly sets up the rest of the film to be a battle between these five with the wildcard of the student thrown into the mix. And it is to a certain extent, but also continually falls apart into over-explanation, needless plot points and the occasional bits of goofy humour that don't work very well (at least not for me). Worst of all, there seems to be a definite lack of actual Kung Fu throughout the film. The final fight is great and helps to redeem things, but short of the little bits sprinkled here and there, it becomes somewhat tiring as we flit between Centipede/Snake and Lizard/Toad as they try to outmaneuver each other (while the student observes). Meanwhile, Scorpion is unknown to everyone.

Admittedly, I have to firmly blame the crappy quality of the video and the annoying dubbing as prime reasons for not enjoying Five Deadly Venoms as much as I likely should have. A pristine copy probably wouldn't have vaulted it above 36th Chamber, but with blurry faces continually being chopped at the edges of the frame and English sentences being chopped into odd meters, I found it hard to stay with the story and get pulled into the film. I expect it is still a few notches below 36th Chamber in terms of its action, story, pacing, cinematography, etc., but I feel I need to see it again in much better circumstances. The concept is terrific - 5 different styles of attack based on reptiles and insects held by 5 hidden masters and only one student left to find them. There are moments of real mystery as you try to figure out who is who at the same time as the student, but it never felt like a cohesive story. Only the final fight really gels as the student finally dives headlong into battle with and against the masters and we witness a variety of well planned choreography. As with 36th Chamber, there's certainly some "fantasy" in some of the moves (leaping on the sides of walls and staying there, hovering in air longer than gravity would allow, etc.), but it all fits into the reality of the worlds in the films so there's no issue. 36th Chamber's Kung Fu moments easily win out - the battles are more crisp, there are more elements in play (various weaponery for example) and even the training sections as San Te moves through the chambers are really entertaining. My favourite is probably the Head Chamber where he solely practices using his head for different Kung Fu moves (initially getting battered by having to bat heavy sandbags around with it) as well as the first time he crosses the water using only the floating pieces of wood. This is where 36th Chamber excels - in treating its slightly ridiculous set pieces with serious tones while finding the right mix of physicality from its actors and the added "effects" (e.g. editing, wires, and huge dollops of additional sound).

The foley editing of arms and weapons whooshing through the air and fists connecting with bodies is certainly overdone and can feel comical at times. It obscures and wears down Five Deadly Venoms (though with what feels like additional music, I can't say for sure how much is present in the original cut of the film), but feels just fine in The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin. I don't profess to be a Wu-Tang Clan fan (a neglected area of my musical background), but the seminal rap group was heavily influenced by 36th Chamber. It's easy to see how San Te building towards creating a new 36th chamber in order to share Kung Fu with the common man could have been inspiring to a group of diverse rap artists. One could also develop an entire philosophy simply from the words of wisdom spoken by the many monks from the different chambers. Five Deadly Venoms had much less depth, spirit and entertainment within its restricted walls, but there was still enough there to possibly draw me back for a revisit with a superior copy of the film. At the very least I could get some better screencaps from it...