Lost in Criterion

When he first started working in America, Alfred Hitchcock was under contract to legendary producer David O. Selznick and by most accounts they hated each other. Perhaps no clearer is that tense relationship more clear in the results of a film project than in their first: Rebecca (1940). We'll be talking about a few other films made under this contract in the next few weeks, but here we start with a film that feels a lot more like the Hollywood dramas Selznick was known for than the Hitchcock we're used to. Plus, and I mean this as kindly as possible, the first hour is boring. So boring. So intensely boring.

Benjamin Christensen's 1922 documentary Häxan is about as much documentary as Nanook of the North, but immensely more entertaining for its absurd claims. A history of witchcraft drawing heavily on a 15th century guide for German Inquisitors, Häxan is ridiculous in so many definitions of the word.

Hey look, a psychological thriller about a sociopath that's actually good. Now we never have to talk about Silence of the Lambs again.

Peter Medak directs Peter O'Toole in an adaptation of a Peter Barnes' play. Jeezy pete.

On the other side of the Czechoslovakian New Wave we started into last week come a film with a wholly different sensibility. Jiri Menzel's Closely Watched Trains (1966) also takes place in a Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, but instead of the emotional drama on the dangers of ignorance that was last week's film we get a coming-of-age sex romp about a kid who'd really just like to lose his virginity please -- Porky's if Porky was a legitimate Nazi.

Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos's The Shop on Main Street (1965) is an incredible film, one of my favorites we've seen so far in this project. Set against the backdrop of the Nazi aryanization of Czechoslovakia during World War II, Main Street is a tale of willful ignorance and the dangers of pretending everything is fine.

Not since Rififi has watching criminals work been so engulfing. Jacques Becker's 1960 Le Trou, the story of five men breaking out of France's Le Sante Prison, is a meticulous and suspenseful look at desperate men learning to trust an outsider, for better or worse. It's beautiful, even if based on the semi-autobiographical novel of possibly one of the worst people in history.

Torban Skjodt Jensen's 1995 documentary on the life and works of Carl Dreyer is an homage in content and style.

Gertrud abandons Dreyer's previous religious themes for a different sort of spiritual question.

There's one joke in Ordet, and Pat and Adam disagree on how good it is.

We're digging into a Carl Th Dreyer boxset this week and starting things off with Day of Wrath from 1943. Dreyer made one feature film per decade after The Passion of Joan of Arc -- well, two in the 40's if you count Two People, which Dreyer didn't so maybe we won't either -- and every one of them is a masterpiece that's going to sit with me for a long time.

Filmmaker Wrion Bowling joins us today for this documentary about two out of touch and out of mind ex-socialites, which leads to a discussion on whether the Maysles Brothers are exploiting the Beales, whether or not the Maysles Brothers think they're exploiting the Beales, and various multiverse versions of the film that obviously exist because quantum theory.

Out to make a "nonfiction feature film" Albert and David Maysles went back to their roots in Boston and their former jobs as door-to-door salesmen. Salesman (1968) follows a group of men trying to sell illuminated Bibles to middle class Catholics with varying degrees of success. It's compelling on multiple levels -- from being a simple character study to an expose on the commercialization of American religion -- and hopefully we hit a few of them.

Billy Liar is a lot like Rushmore, if Rushmore ended with no one learning anything.

Another Bruce Robinson film this week, and another Richard E. Grant starring role. 1989's How to Get Ahead in Advertising is a biting satire of consumerist culture as Grant's advertising exec has a bad case of a sentient boil. Or just a weird psychotic breakdown.

Written and directed by Bruce Robinson, Withnail and I (1987) is a semi-autobiographical tale of alcohol-soaked desperation at the dying end of the 1960's. It's immensely quotable. Do yourself a favor and watch it.

With Sullivan's Travels (1942) Preston Sturges makes a very preachy movie against making preachy movies. This could be a deep irony. Or he could be dumb. We report, you decide.

Luis Bunuel's 1964 Diary of a Chambermaid, his first collaboration with Jean-Claude Carriere (the two would later work together on The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), is actually the second adaptation of Octave Mirbeau's novel. The other was made by Jean Renoir in Hollywood in 1946, and while I've not seen it I'm betting it's quite a different film.

The Hidden Fortress is Kurosawa's first cinescope film, his first major hit, and the film George Lucas stole the most from.

A crime procedural with virtually no police. Hope you're taking notes, cause I've got one more job for us.

The quintessential screwball comedy, La Cava's My Man Godfrey is wonderful.

Mario Monicelli's spoofy 1958 heist film Big Deal on Madonna Street stands up even if you're not familiar with the films it's referencing, and Pat and I won't be for another two weeks as it's mostly taking the piss out of Rififi which Lost in Criterion will talk about two weeks from now. Maybe we should have waited? That seems like the professional thing to do. That's not in our bag.

In our second M. Hulot film, Tati really turns the social satire up to 11.

Jacques Tati's M. Hulot is the comedic character we've been missing all our lives, filling a hole we didn't even know existed to be filled.