The Chris Moeller Archives

The 50 Great American Films 26-30

The next five films of the Chris Moeller Top 50, alphabetically, from M to N...


MODERN TIMES directed by Charlie Chaplin (1936)

The last of Chaplin's Little Tramp pictures is also my favorite. It was his first film in five years, and it was released nine years after the advent of sound. "Modern Times" is an indictment of the new assembly-line technology and culture of the time. In the most famous scene, Chaplin's Little Tramp, a worker on a line assigned the task of fastening bolts, causes chaos every time he pauses in his duties. First, he has to scratch an itch, then shoo away a fly. Eventually, he gets caught in the factory's conveyor belt, which continues to keep time while the Tramp holds on for dear life. The entire film plays as a triumph of "the little guy" against the soullessness of the capitalist system, while also taking shots at the Hollywood system. To that end, it's worth mentioning that the film isn't technically "silent." Dialogue is heard, but only through electronic devices such as radios and phonographs, and the factory conveyor belt emits noises, or even "talks." Late in the film, the director finds an ingenious way to allow us to finally hear his voice.
Chaplin films always ended with the Tramp walking off alone into the sunset, but in this final film, he walks with a companion. The musical strains over the shot are of "Smile," a song penned by Chaplin and later popularized by Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett. The final lyrics read, "Al'tho a tear, may be ever so near. That's the time, you must keep on trying. Smile, what's the use of crying. You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile." A triumph for the sweetness of life over the machination of man.


MULHOLLAND DRIVE directed by David Lynch (2001)

You could spend the week trying to make sense of "Mulholland Drive," but I will save you some time and tell you that it can't be done. If you require that your movies make sense, don't bother. The beauty of Lynch's film is that it almost seems sensible, engages us, than subverts us. It's a noir-ish Nancy Drew mystery in which the clues don't add up. It includes scenes that seem to be included simply because Lynch wanted to include them. Lynch almost always distorts the narrative in his film and television enterprises, mocking our expectations. He has set out to present only one of his film's "straight," and he cleared up any possible confusion by titling it "The Straight Story." Too often, his other films have been cold-blooded or cruel, but "Mulholland Drive" is warm, hypnotic, and entertaining. Enjoy it for the journey. All you need to know about its plot is revealed behind the opening credits. It is bold film-making-- inventive, erotic, and lusciously photographed. It's the best film of the new millenium.


MY DINNER WITH ANDRE directed by Louis Malle (1981)

With the exception of a couple minutes at the beginning of the film and a couple at the end, the action in "My Dinner With Andre" takes place entirely at a Manhattan restaurant with a dinner conversation between two men. What makes the film special is that that's a unique story-telling device, but it's not a gimmick. Screenwriters Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, who also appear as the two men, don't divide the meal into acts (appetizers, entrees, dessert, etc.) They are never approached by other "characters." Table service rarely disrupts the conversation. We simply watch two old friends becoming reacquainted after several years apart. Shawn has been living the simple life in New York, struggling to write plays. Gregory has been traveling the world, attempting to live "in his life," rather than "in his art." Throughout most of the film, Shawn listens, spellbound, to Gregory's extraordinary stories.
Are the screenwriters playing themselves? Critic Roger Ebert suspects no, but that they're playing their own personalities. The men seem to genuinely enjoy each other, and that makes it pleasurable to watch. The film is so simple in design that it appears easily produced, but Malle's shooting style is calculated with great precision (you would never guess that it was shot in a sound studio,) and Shawn and Gregory carefully scripted and rehearsed their lines, creating the magical illusion of spontaneity.


A NIGHT AT THE OPERA directed by Sam Wood (1935)

The Opera House. Can you think of a more stuffy location in which to set loose the madcap Marx Brothers? They're hitting on all cylinders in "A Night at the Opera." Groucho's deadpan quips are coming fast and furious, frequently at the expense of poor, long-suffering Margaret Dumont. (Groucho: "How many men do you suppose are drawing a handsome salary nowadays? Why, you can count them on the fingers of one hand, my good woman?" Dumont: "I'm not your good woman!" Groucho: "Don't say that, Mrs. Claypool. I don't care what your past has been.") Chico continues to plot his scams and butcher the English language, while the silent Harpo frolics about, with a wide, mischievous grin and a bicycle horn. We break from the story for a humorous, impressive piano performance by Chico, and a performance on the harp by 'what's-his-name.' The brothers returned to box office success on "A Night at the Opera" by switching studios to MGM, and returning to the practice of first trying out the big scenes in front of theater audiences. The greatest scene, for my money, is the crowded stateroom on a luxury ocean liner. Groucho is surprised to find his brothers and their new friend as stowaways in his luggage, and his room proceeds to fill up with people, including a manicurist, who asks Groucho, "Do you want your nails long or short?" "You'd better make them short," he responds, "It's getting crowded in here."


NINOTCHKA directed by Ernst Lubitsch (1939)

In 1939, the following films were released- "Gone With the Wind," "Stagecoach," "The Wizard of Oz," "Wuthering Heights," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," and "The Lady Vanishes." The forgotten classic of that year was "Ninotchka." Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett- for Wilder's hero, Lubitsch, "Ninotchka" helped to establish the quintessentially American comedy. Essayist David Kipen has argued that in '39, European immigrants (Wilder and Lubitsch, as well as Hitchcock and Capra) were defining American film for the rest of the world: "These films had a certain optimism, a head-long speed and love of vernacular, American English as impossible to deny as it is to resist. Trying to copy America, they helped create it."
Lubitsch, a native of Berlin, was presenting one of the early spoofs of Stalinist Russia. The film, released a month after Hitler invaded Poland, was banned throughout the Soviet Union and its satellites. Greta Garbo is cast as an emotionally-cool Russian diplomat. In her last role before retiring at the age of 36, she played off her famous "mystique" by portraying little emotion. She is moved to laughter late in the film, and the studio famously promoted this event on the movie's promotional poster. "Garbo Laughs!" it read, a take-off of an earlier campaign for her 'talkie' debut-- "Garbo Talks!" Lubitsch's films are always filled with witty and sophisticated dialogue, and one could make the case that he established the modern structure for romantic comedies in America.

One of my favorite Hollywood anecdotes involves "Ninotchka." Billy Wilder tells this story in Cameron Crowe's 1999 book, Conversations With Wilder:
"We were previewing (the film,) and Lubitsch took the writers along, too, in Long Beach. And they are outside in the lobby there, a stack of cards, with the audience invited to put down their thoughts. So the picture starts playing, and it plays very well. Now Lubitsch takes the cards, a heap of cards, doesn't let anybody else touch them. We get into the big MGM limousine. We turn the light up. Now, so, he takes the preview cards and he starts reading. 'Very good'...'brilliant'...' Twenty cards. But when he comes to the twenty-first card, he starts laughing as hard as I ever saw him laugh, and we say, 'What is it?' He keeps the cards to himself; he does not let anybody even look. Then, finally, he calms down a little and starts reading. And what he read was-- I have the card-- 'Funniest picture I ever saw. So funny that I peed in my girlfriend's hand.'"

posted by CM @ 1:01 PM