0038 | Play It Again, Sam

It’s difficult to imagine a cinematic world existing without the characters Woody Allen has both created and played during the past forty years, many of which are variations on his early stand-up persona. If you haven’t seen it before, it’ll probably come as little or no surprise at all that in Play It Again, Sam, Allen plays a nebbish, a fretful, mumbling, neurotic type who lives in a hyper-cultural city centre apartment filled with books, classic movie posters, jazz records and lots of objets d’quirk. This archetypal Woody Allen character – in this case going by the name of Allan Felix – is usually fleshed out with a few background details: he has an intellectually-superior job or artistic pursuit that he is currently struggling with (here he’s a film critic – arf) and usually has a couple of middle class, verbose friends. Add a sprinkling of Diane Keaton, a few complaints about analysts and doctors, and serve.

Allen has written and/or portrayed this kind of character time and time again, and has been very successful in doing so. Though Play It Again, Sam was first released in 1972 – after beginning life as a Broadway play in 1969 – there are few major differences between Allan Felix and the character Boris Yellnikoff, played by Larry David in Allen’s film Whatever Works, which was released 37 years later in 2009. The bumbling, socially-awkward, complaining urbanite has been a feature of Allen’s work for five decades, and perhaps as a result these characters have subsequently lost much of the intended impact. We greet these characters today with knowing groans and eyes raised to the heavens, and they have been subject to one parody after another. Even Allen’s hardiest defenders presumably feel a small sense of déjà vu at the very least as the output of this prolific writer, actor and director continues to hit and miss.

But – if you weren’t born then – you can imagine how fresh and original the archetypal Woody Allen character felt to cinema audiences back in 1972, when they experienced it for the first time. Some may have already been familiar with his stand-up comedy or 1960s TV appearances; some may have seen earlier Allen comedies like Bananas, What’s Up, Tiger Lily? or Take The Money and Run; but a large number of people got their first taste of Woody’s shtick with Play It Again, Sam. Today, Allan Felix feels like the template for some of his most memorable characters that appeared subsequently, such as Annie Hall’s Alvy Singer or Manhattan’s Isaac Davis. It’s one of cinema’s most enduring character types, albeit one that has been re-written and modified so many times it’s occasionally difficult for casual Allen fans to remember exactly which one fits with which film.

We meet San Franciscan Allan Felix at the start of Play It Again, Sam as he watches the closing scenes of his favourite film, Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman appear as reflections on Felix’s glasses as he gazes at the cinema screen in front of him, mesmerized by Rick Blaine’s coolness and smoothness. Very quickly we learn that Felix has none of those traits himself; he has been through a messy divorce, and his confidence with the opposite sex is at a low ebb.

* My favourite scene in the film sees Felix trying to chat up a young woman in a gallery:
Allan: That’s quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn’t it?
Museum Girl: Yes, it is.
Allan: What does it say to you?
Museum Girl: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.
Allan: What are you doing Saturday night?
Museum Girl: Committing suicide.
Allan: What about Friday night?

Cajoled by his two best friends, Linda Christie (Diane Keaton, on a hot streak following The Godfather) and her husband Dick (Tony Roberts), Allan goes on a string of blind dates, all of which end up as excruciating experiences due to his neurotic behaviour coupled with the general unsuitability of the ladies he pursues. He approaches women in restaurants and galleries but always fumbles his way through stilted conversation, irritated by the indignity of having to make an effort*. Yet there is a flicker of hope amid all the crushing disappointments; in addition to the encouragement received from his friends he also gets pep talks from the ghost of his hero Bogart (Jerry Lacy), who regularly appears wandering through Allan’s San Francisco apartment, dispensing suspect dating advice like “I never schaw a dame yet that didn’t underschtand a good schlap in da mouth or a schlug from a .45″. As Allan spends more and more time with Linda, he begins to fall in love with his best friend’s wife.

Inspired by Woody’s real-life divorce from second wife Louse Lasser, Play It Again, Sam was the first of the successful Allen / Keaton film collaborations, an easy, playful double act that would get better and better as the 70s went on. Both were reprising roles from the original play (as were Roberts and Lacy), and although Allen didn’t direct (Herbert Ross was in the chair on this occasion) it shares much in common with the New York-set films he went on to make. A lot of the action takes place in Allan’s apartment, for example, which is decorated in order to reveal almost as much about the character as Allen’s rat-a-tat dialogue; similar sets appear in both Manhattan and Annie Hall.

There are jokes aplenty and Play It Again, Sam is arguably one of Allen’s funniest films, with wry lines coming thick and fast. Allen gets most of them, naturally, but both Roberts and Keaton have their moments. The trio work well in their scenes together, which is unsurprising given that the play ran for over 450 performances. Similarly Allen’s scenes with Lacy’s Bogart are oddly believable, despite their fantastical nature, and the quality of their repartee was also honed on the New York stage.

The film strikes a perfect balance between dry, witty lines, simple gags and Allen’s brilliant slapstick moments (he is one of the best performers of slapstick comedy since Charlie Chaplin, yet he is still underrated as a physical comedian today). With this film, though, Allen began his move away from earlier, goofy roles to a more measured, cerebral comedy; ‘serious comedy’, if you will. Play It Again, Sam is perhaps the film that acts as the bridge between the two styles.

Still, there are some darker moments punctuating the laughs. There’s an uncomfortable scene where Linda and Allan discuss rape which hasn’t aged well at all, for example, and a scene where Allan is beaten up on a date by a couple of hoods is actually pretty menacing (although in the very next scene, when Allan tells Linda and Dick about the fight he says “Yeah, I’m fine. I snapped my chin down onto some guy’s fist and hit another one in the knee with my nose”).

* Director of photography Owen Roizman was nominated for five Shiny Gongs in his lifetime for The French Connection, Network, Tootsie, The Exorcist and Wyatt Earp, but sadly never won one. His work here is good, if unspectacular, and the exterior locations help the viewer forget about the film’s stage origins.

San Francisco is an unlikely setting, and originally shooting was planned for Long Island and Manhattan, but New York film workers went on strike in 1971 and so production was shifted to the west coast instead. It makes a refreshing change, the hills and cable cars used well without the film turning into a tourist commercial.*

The three-act structure is a little predictable, and Ross and Allen tie things up nicely at the end, mirroring the final scenes of Casablanca, but with a twist. It doesn’t quite feel like a celebration of cinema or of Bogart or even of Casablanca itself, but Allen’s (screen)play uses all three inventively and affectionately, even making the title into a misquote joke (as most people will tell you, the famous line in Casablanca is actually ‘Play it, Sam’). Given the patchy quality of some of Woody Allen’s films, in particular in recent years due to the frequency with which they have been appearing, it’s always enjoyable to go back and view some of the better, earlier movies. This is one of the highlights of Woody Allen’s early career, and despite the fact the neurotic character has become so synonymous with Allen since, it’s well worth re-visiting to see the early stages of its development. The support is good, and for the most part the jokes hit home.

The Basics:

Directed by: Herbert Ross
Written by: Woody Allen
Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Jerry Lacy
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Year: 1972
Rating: 7.2

0037 | Star Trek – Into Darkness

My dad was always a fan. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a Trekkie, but he was a fan nonetheless. If Star Trek repeats or any of the later spin-offs were on TV – usually around 6 or 7pm on BBC2 on a weekday – I’d often find him sitting through an episode before dinner. But me? I’d watch if I had nothing better to do, but I have to be honest: despite lapping up nearly every other sci-fi TV show or film myself, Star Trek always left me a little cold. I’ve never hated it, but equally I’ve never loved it. The Shatner / Nimoy films? Nah, it’s OK thanks, I’d much rather watch The Empire Strikes Back again instead.

Yet I am one of the many thousands that has found much to enjoy about JJ Abrams’ successful re-booting of the franchise as a going cinematic concern. Long-time fans may well recoil in disgust at certain sacrilegious elements, but I’ve enjoyed the fresh life that has been breathed into these old characters. Despite my natural cynicism, 2009′s Star Trek was a hugely-entertaining affair, with sharp dialogue, great visual effects, charismatic performances and an injection of post-MTV sex n’ swagger; normally word of the latter would get me running for the hills, but to give the new series wider appeal Star Trek needed to be brought up-to-date, and it worked. Central to the movie’s appeal was the interplay / bromance between Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s Mr. Spock, and Abrams has relied on this – and the other elements mentioned above – so that the formula works once again with Star Trek – Into Darkness.

* Formulaic, formulaic and thrice formulaic! Can someone actually produce a blockbuster that doesn’t do this, please?

The film begins with a standalone prologue* that had me rather fearful, given that it partly resembled an old Star Trek episode, albeit with better visual effects (the alien savages, though, are truly terrible and I feared the worst). But the spirit of the 2009 film is soon re-captured with admonishments for the brattish-but-brilliant Kirk delivered by his superiors and several early clashes as a result of Spock’s overly-logical thought processes and predilection for sticking to the rules. The opening 20-30 minutes is set largely in future versions of San Francisco and London, and both cities look fantastic, not-so-subtly showing some famous features in the background to tie them into the present. We are introduced to rogue Starfleet agent John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, pronouncing every single syllable intently so that we are left in no doubt that he is a) an AC-tor and b) an AC-tor that is playing a villain).

* It’s nice to see Peter Weller back in a reasonably meaty role, especially given that he has one of the most piercing glares known to man and the role requires him to glare, glare and glare some more. In fact, thanks to Peter Weller’s glares I finally ‘get’ the fuss behind 3D. A Peter Weller glare in 3D is quite something, and could probably reach into your very soul on a good day. Take my word for it.

Harrison engineers the blowing up of a hidden defense archive centre in London that is gathering data on the Klingon empire, and then subsequently attacks Starfleet headquarters before fleeing to the Klingon homeworld of Kronos. Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller*) orders Kirk and Co to track Harrison down, and they set off in search of their new enemy, only to find out things aren’t quite a simple as they appear to be. Naturally.

Into Darkness delivers on its fairly impressive first and second acts, and despite a couple of largely forgettable segments when you see the Enterprise in peril yet again (cue extras stumbling from one side of the frame to another, at an angle, for the umpteenth time) the tension is maintained and at least three of the film’s set pieces are pretty exciting. The main problem, though, is that the idea of a Klingon threat to mankind is initially built up but when the USS Enterprise finally gets to Kronos the Klingons serve merely as incidental cannon fodder. Presumably the species is being held back for a third, and possibly final, film. Ultimately this desire to set the scene for a follow up makes you feel a little short-changed, though it’s certainly free from the kind of misjudgements that plagued Iron Man 2.

After a brief fight Harrison gives himself up, and shortly thereafter – following a couple of plot twists you will probably have read about or will see coming – his threatening, super-strong and super-smart villain loses some of his menace. This bad guy seems more like a minor problem after he teams up – albeit briefly – with Kirk and the Enterprise. Still, for a while, Cumberbatch shines as the calm, grudge-holding nemesis, filled with contempt for his captors while he stays one step ahead of them.

The best moments involve Kirk and Spock. I enjoyed both Pine’s and Quinto’s performances here every bit as much as in the predecessor, and to top it all Pine is even starting to resemble William Shatner (ever-so-slightly, I hasten to add, and thankfully not the T.J. Hooker years). Quinto’s poker-face never drops when Spock is on the receiving end of Pine’s comically-exasperated tirades, and he also has a few amusing (and touching) scenes with Uhura (Zoe Saldana) as he fights to keep his ‘other’ relationship on an even keel. The crew is fleshed out with lighthearted turns involving old favourites like Scotty (Simon Pegg, doing for the Scottish accent exactly what Dick van Dyke did for the English), Chekov (Anton Yelchin, doing the same for the Russian accent, which is even more impressive considering that he’s actually Russian) and the magnificently cynical, grumpy ‘Bones’ McCoy (Karl Urban, once again making the most of his screen time).

One of Abrams’ big successes is that he has given the supporting cast things to do in both films that just about feel necessary within the framework of the story. Alice Eve joins the fold as science officer Dr. Carol Marcus, but her addition seems a little superfluous. There’s enough comic action between the Enterprise’s two big guns alone, but the rest of the crew chip in regularly with amusing lines, withering put-downs and generally manic overacting as they dart around attempting to fix warp drives and drive warps. Echoes of the overly-earnest TV series are there in terms of the look and feel of the Enterprise, and certainly with regard to the costumes, but in tone this new incarnation is far lighter and all the more inclusive and enjoyable for it.

But – rightly – we’re left in no doubt that it’s the Spock and Kirk show, and both are given their big set-piece moments: the former involved in a thrilling fist fight in the sky above San Francisco and the latter in an implausible but nail-biting scene where he is shot across space from one ship to another, negotiating debris and a failing space-suit as he aims for a small opening hatch. These moments are the high points of Into Darkness, though the battles involving the Enterprise itself – an exploration vessel rather than an out-and-out warship – are infuriatingly short as always; this universe always seems to be lacking in space dog-fights. Into Darkness includes those ever-panicky cries to get the shields up as the crew gets its arse kicked from one galaxy to the next, but you never truly feel as though one of this tight-knit bunch might actually die or that the ship might actually be blown into a million tiny pieces. A bolder line in the third film, perhaps with the death of a major character, would be a welcome surprise. Especially if they stay dead.

That said, Abrams has delivered the kind of wit and thrills I’m after in a Friday night blockbuster, and he has re-modelled this sci-fi institution well, acknowledging its past but refusing to be a slave to it (and that certainly bodes well for another project he has on the side). Despite the foreboding and slightly misleading title Into Darkness is light and fun, like its predecessor, and does not pretend or try to be anything other than a loud, exciting space adventure. If that’s what you’re after it shouldn’t disappoint. I left suitably entertained.

The Basics:

Directed by: JJ Abrams
Written by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, Peter Weller, Karl Urban
Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 132 Minutes
Year: 2013
Rating: 7.5

0036 | Ruby Sparks

Many of the people that worked on the 2006 indie hit Little Miss Sunshine have deservedly benefited from and capitalised upon its crossover success. Despite his stellar performance in Glengarry Glen Ross in the 1990s (as well as entertaining cameos in Grosse Pointe Blank, So I Married An Axe Murderer and Gattaca), Alan Arkin had largely drifted back into TV movies by the mid 2000s, but picked up a Shiny Gong^TM for his role in Little Miss Sunshine and has since been nominated again for Argo. Approaching 80, he’s probably the main go-to-man for light-hearted support right now. Michael Arndt, who won the Best Original Screenplay Shiny Gong^TM in 2007 for his excellent work on the film, has since penned Toy Story 3, Oblivion, the second Hunger Games movie and is currently beavering away on the forthcoming Star Wars Episode VII: Revenge of the Cataracts. Under lock and key at Magic Kingdom.

Then, of course, there’s Paul Dano. His portrayal of unhappy, tight-lipped teenager Dwayne in Little Miss Sunshine was good, but he built upon it with his tremendous portrayal of brothers Paul and Eli Sunday in P.T. Anderson’s dark masterpiece There Will Be Blood. (I actually think this is one of the most sadly overlooked acting performances of recent years; Dano was nominated for a couple of minor awards but didn’t get any nods from the big ones (except by BAFTA), and deserved much more praise for his role. Perhaps he was overshadowed by Daniel Day-Lewis’ incredible, monstrous Daniel Plainview. It’s a shame.)

Despite Little Miss Sunshine being nominated for 2007′s Best Picture Shiny Gong^TM, husband and wife director team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris went quiet. Six-year-hiatus-quiet. In an interview with Variety last year to promote their second film Ruby Sparks, Dayton suggested they had experienced several disappointments: “You’ve got to wait for the right thing and the right conditions. We’ve had a few projects that we’ve really loved but for whatever reason, and there were many, they didn’t happen. Everything came together on this.”

Unfortunately Ruby Sparks slipped out fairly quietly in 2012, perhaps in part due to the time the directors spent out of the limelight: there would have been much more fuss had the film appeared in 2007 or 2008, but such are the fickle winds blowing around the indie fame … er … scarecrow.

* A few people have also suggested that it shares certain themes with Stranger Than Fiction. While that’s not completely untrue, a more accurate comparison might be Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo or the 1991 John Candy film Delirious.

In Ruby Sparks Dano teams up with the joint directors once again, playing opposite his real-life girlfriend Zoe Kazan, who also wrote the screenplay. It is a smart mix of romance and fantasy that recalls Weird Science*, although Dayton explained that while they were aware of the 1980s film they didn’t watch it until after production on Ruby Sparks was complete.

Dano plays writer Calvin Weir-Fields. He is successful, but his only full novel to date was written ten years earlier, and in the present he is suffering from writer’s block, as well as an unfortunate hipster-style insistence on using a vintage typewriter instead of a computer. In addition to career pressures he’s also being badgered by his brother Harry (Chris Messina), who wants him to find a new girlfriend. After his therapist Dr. Rosenthal (Elliott Gould) gives him an assignment to write a page about someone who likes his dog Scotty, Calvin begins to dream – and then write about – a girl named Ruby Sparks.

Suddenly, and inexplicably, Calvin’s creation comes to life and he finds that a nonchalant Ruby has left his dreams and has taken up residence in his house. Even more weirdly, he discovers that other people can see, touch and hear Ruby too, and after coming to terms with the ‘miracle’ he enters into a relationship with her. Harry and Calvin discover that Ruby can be changed if Calvin simply writes down what he wants her to do, but after some initial fun Calvin – falling in love with his own creation (and essentially himself) – vows never to write about her again.

Things go well for a few months, but after Calvin introduces her to his hippy mother Gertrude (Annette Bening) and her boyfriend Mort (Antonio Banderas) his relationship with Ruby begins to slowly deteriorate. When he gets jealous due to the amount of time she is spending away from him with others, he begins to write about her again, altering the character to make her more clingy. Subsequently finding this irritating and unworkable, he makes changes to Ruby again and again, each time creating further problems for their relationship until, exasperated, he attempts to return her to her original, ‘normal’ state. As Calvin tries to exert more and more control and things get worse between the two as a result, Ruby Sparks is at its most interesting (and delivers upon its initial premise) with some seriously dark scenes that are as twisted as a Charlie Kaufman script. Calvin’s moral compass is all over the place and he becomes little more than an angry puppeteer, refusing to let his creation leave the house and forcing her call him a genius over and over again.

* See Zooey Deschanel in (500 Days of) Summer or Natalie Portman in Garden State. Phrase coined by critic Nathan Rabin.

It is an interesting premise, for sure. Kazan plays with the idea that a writer’s creations are essentially just narcissistic versions of themselves, however well-rounded and fleshed-out a character may appear to be. (That Kazan wrote this and then acted in the film herself adds a whole new wry layer to the underlying message.) The film could also be read as a criticism of stock Manic Pixie Dream Girl character stereotypes* that have more often than not been invented by male writers specifically for their male protagonists. Zoe Kazan has however actually criticised the term, suggesting that it is reductive, diminutive and misogynistic toward female characters. Still, the film does feel like a withering comment on the way in which female characters have been written for romantic comedies of late, particularly those that are out for the hipster dollar. As Harry wittily points out to Calvin: “Quirky, messy women whose problems only make them endearing are not real”.

Kazan is decent as the spontaneous and idiosyncratic Ruby, who gradually loses her fizz as the movie progresses, and Dano is a good fit for the role of Calvin, a young, awkward writer cut from a different cloth to the rest of his family. Calvin is a self-obsessed cold fish, even when Ruby is with him, and as some of Ruby’s characteristics begin to grate with him it’s interesting to see his darker, more controlling side come to the fore (as Ruby is – by definition – just an extension of Calvin, she shares his worst characteristics: despite all his attempts to eradicate them he cannot ever ‘win’). Calvin’s house is empty, minimalist and lacking in true warmth, but Dano still brings some likeability to the role and it’s impossible not to feel some sympathy towards the character.

Unfortunately, the talented supporting cast is given little to do. Benning, Banderas and Gould have non-taxing and minor roles, and I’ve seen the Harry character a thousand times before – he only seems to be there to highlight Calvin’s lack of testosterone, and to act as a confidant to his younger brother. Steve Coogan also appears as fellow author Langdon Tharp, a predatory and unlikeable bastard who attempts to seduce Ruby at a party; it’s the kind of performance Coogan probably could have turned in while fast asleep.

Given that it’s a romantic comedy, and a smart one at that, a few more laughs courtesy of Coogan (or anyone else for that matter) wouldn’t have gone amiss. Still, Ruby Sparks is – on balance – an enjoyable and deftly constructed film, well-paced and with decent lead performances. The movie’s principle strength is Kazan’s clever story, an amusing exploration of creativity, control and relationships that examines and subsequently deconstructs the male-held notion of the ‘ideal’ female. Hopefully the third film by Dayton and Faris will arrive before 2018, and hopefully we will see more work of this quality from Kazan too.

The Basics:

Directed by: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Written by: Zoe Kazan
Starring: Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Steve Coogan, Chris Messina
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Year: 2012
Rating: 6.8

0035 | London: The Modern Babylon

Since 2006 the prolific Julien Temple has made documentary films about the Glastonbury Festival, the band Dr Feelgood, Joe Strummer, the city of Detroit and Ray and Dave Davies, brothers and ex-members of The Kinks. Taking its title from a quote by Benjamin Disraeli, he has also made this frenetic study of his hometown, London, which careers along at breakneck pace from the end of the Victorian age to the present day, tracing the city’s social, physical and cultural changes along the way.

This psychogeographical film opens with the oldest known footage of the city, from the birth of cinema at the turn of the 20th Century, offering a fascinating glimpse into the pre-car and pre-war years. As is his style, Temple then fills the next two hours with a collage of interviews, music, archive footage, and clips from film and television shows in order to tell the story of England’s capital (or at least certain aspects of it). It is often difficult to take everything in, as the footage changes abruptly and often and the soundtrack rarely stays with one song for more than 20 or 30 seconds. Only when interviewees are speaking does the film settle down, the camera trained reverentially upon the speakers as they impart pearls of wisdom while discussing the many ways in which the city has changed during the last hundred years.

In The Modern Babylon London is revealed to be a city that has constantly renewed itself, with successive waves of migrant workers gradually arriving from around the world and – over time – establishing their own communities within the capital. Some first and second generation immigrants are interviewed, detailing their experiences in the city and the difficulties faced when trying to settle. 

* It’s true. In fact as soon as I’ve finished writing this I’m going to knock a policeman’s helmet off and vigorously deface a stamp with the Queen’s image on it.

It is also a city that has seen a large amount of civil disobedience in its history and the past 100 years are no different; there is footage here of the Brixton riots in the early 1980s, the Sidney Street siege, the Battle of Cable Street, the 1990 poll tax riots, the 2011 summer riots, and much more. In fact you would think from watching the film that Londoners like nothing more than kicking off a long, violent riot or some other disturbance after taking afternoon tea*).

The film also addresses the two world wars and, in particular, the damage caused during The Blitz. It examines the depression era, post-war austerity, the 2005 bombings, the IRA’s campaign and the stock market crashes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, focusing on the reaction of the city’s resilient inhabitants after these events. With all the footage of unrest, greed, tragedy and anger it’s not a particularly flattering portrait of the city at times, but it’s arguably a very ‘real’ and accurate one, as London often feels as though it is a tinderbox, ready to go up in flames at any minute. In part this is due to the way the city is mixed together; while there are rich and poor areas there are no ghettos in the same sense that they exist in some other cities. Often the million pound plus mansions are over the road or round the corner from the tower blocks, and the large divisions in class coupled with this mix can sometimes lead to explosions of violence and crime. Thankfully the tone of the film is just right: the documentary is solemn when it ought to be, but it isn’t just one long patchwork of bomb and riot footage.

It unsurprisingly pokes fun at the Thatcher years, and one excellent sequence dealing with the rise of acid house includes manipulated footage of the recently departed ex-Prime Minister strutting her stuff to some club music of the time – amusing to those who remember her government’s desire to kill the movement through its draconian legislation. The documentary celebrates London as a cultural leader in terms of music, theatre, art and film. It champions Soho as a haven for outsiders, the docklands as the traditional engine room of the city, and the integral River Thames as the most important natural feature. And yet, somewhat refreshingly, it ignores most of the city’s famous landmarks: Piccadilly Circus, for example, only appears to illustrate the arrival of neon signs.

Temple, an ex-punk, is perhaps a little too infatuated with the punk scene of the late 1970s and the music and attitude that came out of it: while The Clash, The Sex Pistols and other punk acts appear with regularity there is sadly only brief footage of The Rolling Stones or The Who, two London bands that contributed heavily to the city’s 20th Century musical legacy; perhaps Temple feels punk is the one music scene that truly represented London and what the city is about, but there’s a sad feeling of predictability when Malcolm McLaren appears in an old interview. It’s also disappointing that the documentary has little or no place for sport: football in particular is tied in with the culture of the city in the 20th Century onwards and has been hugely important in terms of its social history. That the film fails to acknowledge this is a little baffling.

Still, when attempting to tell the story of a city of this size there are so many angles to choose from it’s inevitable that certain elements and tales will be omitted; it’s unlikely Temple set out to make a definitive history of London, but instead selected subjects about the city that he himself found most interesting, and to be fair he covers a hell of a lot with this film. It is a hyperactive documentary, cleverly edited (despite the witty inclusion of footage at the end of a chimpanzee randomly selecting cinema reels in an archive room, Temple has selected some brilliant footage and has put it together inventively; one can only imagine the time he has spent making this film). It’s an enjoyable and fascinating study of a city that has grown so large it cannot possibly ever stand still: a must-see for Londoners, and probably very interesting to the wider world too.

The Basics:

Directed by: Julien Temple
Written by: Julien Temple
Starring: Michael Gambon, Tony Benn, Suggs
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 128 Minutes
Year: 2012
Rating: 6.5

0034 | Iron Man 3

About twenty three minutes into the end credits of Iron Man 3, with another twenty five minutes of name-scrolling still to come, I thought to myself “this is – quite frankly – utterly ridiculous”. Having subjected myself to the long, noisy 3D Marvel belch that had been projected beforehand, I had been asked to stick around by a friend, who wanted to see what the extra post-credits scene that has been a feature of Marvel’s recent Avengers-centric films consisted of (I won’t spoil it for you, but you won’t miss much if you skip off for the last bus home; in fact it would have been more thrilling had we got to see Captain America clipping his toenails while whistling a Vera Lynn classic). As the credits continued to scroll past, it suddenly occurred to me that at least 65% of the population of the entire world had, at some stage, worked on Iron Man 3. My own name appeared around the fifteen minute mark, even though I have absolutely no recollection of being hired as Third Assistant to the Digital Compositer and Visual Effects Supervisor’s Tea Lady. I saw your name too at one point. And yours.

* The term ‘blockbuster’ doesn’t seem enough to me any more. It seems more redolent of a time when a film’s budget was blown on a large papier-mâché shark’s head, and that was it. It’s starting to feel as anachronistic as calling a modern big-budget film a “talkie”.

So do I have a problem with the sheer number of jobs that have been created by these megablockbusters?* Well, no, of course not. Imagine the dire financial straits we’d be in if the bottom fell out of the visual effects industry and 65% of the global population lost their jobs as a result. No, the problem I have is more to do with the sheer scale of these productions in 2013: I firmly believe that they are getting out of hand. They’re too big. There’s too much emphasis on the visuals and not enough on the stories (certainly in terms of The Big Releases). The more you see the less it impresses. And other Grandad-style objections. But if you don’t think anything’s wrong then let me ask you this: Do you even blink anymore when an entire city is being blown to smithereens on screen? The trailers before Iron Man 3 included the return of Superman (again? someone contact passport control and tell them to look out for the guy in the fucking underpants), a fight between giant monsters and robots (yeah whatever), a man from another dimension throwing his magic hammer around and finally Star Trek: Into Darkness, a film I am looking forward to watching but also one that actually terrifies me due to the sheer amount of visual information contained in the trailer alone. Even Keanu Reeves in The Matrix wouldn’t be able to take it all in. All of these trailers were probably showing the most exciting parts of each film, but aside from a brief excerpt of Hans Zimmer’s score for Man of Steel nothing truly excited me. I’m no robot, either: under the right set of cinematic circumstances I do still regularly get excited. Please…no laughing at the back.

You can throw a billion man hours at a project and it will more than likely make everyone a hell of a lot of money if you can hang it on a superhero suit or a reboot of a cherished franchise. But perhaps the quaint idea of a ‘team’ of people working on a movie has now largely disappeared. Is Iron Man 3 really director Shane Black’s film? Or is Shane Black merely one more name on that endless list of people the studio has to thank for their input? What percentage of the people working on Iron Man 3 has Shane Black actually been in contact with? At least six different companies worked on the visual effects alone. I genuinely wonder whether the most financially-successful directors today are little more than excellent delegators.

The thing is, I say all this as a man who loves nothing more than donning a pair of 3D glasses and subjecting his feeble brain to two hours of explosions, fights and other nonsense, all soundtracked by an insanely loud mix of r’n'b and screeching electric guitars. I care about the quality of blockbusters because quality blockbusters are the reason I first fell in love with the cinema 30 years ago.

I actually enjoyed Iron Man 3, and think that it is one of the better superhero films that I can recall, but then there’s also a real paucity of truly outstanding superhero films to compare it with. If you look at this list of recent efforts you realise that a hell of a lot of dross has been made since Burton’s Batman: for every Christopher Nolan film there are four or five dismal sequels, average spin-offs, botched reboots and films about characters that may well have their fanbases among comic fans but will never have the same appeal as a Superman, a Batman or a Spider-Man. How many more times will variations of The Fantastic Four be up on screen before Hollywood realises the wider world just isn’t interested? And is there any need for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot? How many man hours have been wasted or will be wasted on those films?

* I always found the Captain America comics to be incredibly boring, partly due to the fact the character never drops his earnest po-face for one minute and never, ever, ever cracks wise. They certainly got the tone of that one right, too; Captain America: The First Avenger is the most boring of the recent bunch, by far, and I defy anyone to actually recall anything Captain America did in the Avengers: Assemble movie apart from stand around in the background, earnestly perfecting his po-face.

I’m certainly not all that knowledgeable about comic books, but it seems to me that the most successful adaptations are those that get the tone just right. The best Superman films have just the right amount of joy, optimism, hopelessness and ridiculousness that made the comics such a hit in the first place. The recent Batman films (as well as the first couple of Tim Burton movies) have all captured the darkness of the character and his world well, wisely using the pitch black mid-to-late 1980s graphic novels as a springboard. Sam Raimi’s enjoyable Spider-Man trilogy definitely had the same flavour as the Spider-Man comics I remember from my childhood, too. And the thing I like about the Iron Man franchise – and Marvel’s recent films in general – is that it feels like the translation from comics to the big screen has finally been perfected. After many years of tinkering the balance between fantasy, humour and human relationships is just about right.*

So, we’re back with Tony Stark here, the man who kicked off Marvel’s recent golden run. Robert Downey Jr is behind the mask once again, although in actual fact he spends a great deal of the film without it, the story emphasizing his human frailties and foibles when the suit isn’t being worn in time-honoured Marvel style. Despite Stark’s amusingly arrogant exterior he is suffering from anxiety attacks, insomnia and exhaustion, and making some questionable judgment calls as a result. Bizarrely, though, these problems disappear halfway through as the action hots up.

Taking advantage of this and generally bidding for megalomaniac status is Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a scientist once snubbed by Stark who has developed some kind of virus or other that regenerates human cells, gives its imbiber superhuman strength and also lets them generate extreme heat. Killian is a better-than-average smooth villainous mastermind, but is perhaps overshadowed for a portion of the film by his don’t-give-a-fuck second-in-command Eric Savin (James Badge Dale), who chews his gum with particular menace. If that wasn’t enough, Iron Man is also up against long-time comic supervillain and nemesis The Mandarin (Sir Sir Ben Kingsley, hamming it up as much as you would hope), who for the purposes of the film has been turned into a Bin Laden-esque terrorist that threatens the USA by video at least fifteen times a day.

As he battles away with these two enemies a couple of set-pieces work very well. Stark’s Malibu home and lab come under fire early on, and a scene ending with an Air Force One rescue sequence is probably the film’s thrilling high point. By the end of the movie, though, it seems as if the bottom of the ideas barrel is being scraped, and the final battle is disappointingly set at the same docks that have been used in several thousand other films, only this time replete with imagery that has been copped very suspiciously from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Plot-wise it’s same-old, same-old. Iron Man 3 makes no effort to propel the superhero genre into a brave new era, and that’s when the number of people that are working on the film becomes an issue. Why does it run out of ideas, and – forgive the pun – run out of steam? Ordinarily the buck would stop with the director, but is it really fair to do that when such a vast amount of workers are beavering away independently?

Black, who previously directed Downey Jr in the superb 2005 murder mystery Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, handles things adequately enough. The director co-wrote the screenplay, and in that sense hiring him to take over from Jon Favreau was a smart move. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was packed full of witty dialogue, put-downs and wise cracks, and transplanting it to the motormouth of Tony Stark was a no-brainer. Iron Man 3 certainly has as much wit as the series predecessors, particularly at the point when you begin to worry that it’s going down the irritating kid sidekick route a little too easily. There are some very funny lines in the film.

* If I were an Arab I imagine I would be looking forward to the day when this film series, in which a US supersoldier in a red, white and blue iron suit kicks the crap out of various doors in various Middle Eastern locations without ever knocking first, finally ends. Or maybe I just wouldn’t care about it at all. In Iron Man’s world anyone who isn’t American is likely to be found angrily firing an AK-47 off into the sky, as if that’s what all people outside of the US do with their time. Presumably they are angry with Stanlee, the Ancient God of Stereotypes.

Sir Sir Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce both appear to be having fun with their bad guy roles. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jon Favreau return as Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan – Stark’s love interest and former bodyguard, respectively – and they still appear to be enjoying the series as much as Downey Jr is; either that or the paychecks are high enough to mask the fact they are not being stretched as actors whatsoever and are playing second fiddle when their talents would be better suited to other projects. Don Cheadle, in his second outing as Col James Rhodes, is still a little less comfortable with the whole shebang. The actor’s deer-in-headlights eyes occasionally betray him; it’s a look that suggests he is wondering what on earth he has signed up for and whether he will be able to get out of it before he hits 60. Cheadle’s role as a soldier sidekick seems to involve little other than being bested by Stark’s wit and repeatedly kicking in doors to rooms containing confused and surprised Arabs*. Y’know what? Don Cheadle was fucking great in Hotel Rwanda.

Above all, though, Downey Jr reigns supreme. Most superheroes are more interesting than their alter egos – who would seriously want to watch a film solely about Peter Parker, Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne? – but in the Iron Man series the minutes where the suit is cast off (arf) are far from being wasted. Sure it’s a necessary part of proceedings, enabling Stark to fly and giving him the strength to fight the villains on equal terms, but really this is one of the few men from Marvel or DC that doesn’t need the suit to make things interesting. Due in part to the writing and in part to Downey Jr’s charismatic performances, it is little wonder that the Iron Man series has been so profitable. Put simply it is a fantastic creation and in terms of the lead character Iron Man 3 continues the good work that has gone beforehand.

The technology appearing in Iron Man 3 is ridiculous to say the least – certainly as bad as in Iron Man 2. Stark continues to summon up masses of floating computer screens and holographic images with swift movements of his hands, as though he is attempting to conduct a 100-piece orchestra after ingesting industrial strength quantities of cocaine and speed. His iron suits don’t even need him to be wearing them any more. But y’know … look … it’s a superhero film. Suspend your disbelief as required and it’s entertainingly daft. It has good ideas and it has bad ones, and it has something approaching an iconic performance at its centre (and that’s actually quite rare – I don’t think I could say the same for Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne / Batman). Fans will love it and everyone else will probably find enough to make the journey to the cinema and cost of a ticket seem worthwhile. It’ll probably give you a headache if you are over 30 and it’ll make you wonder whether you are still a member of its target audience (the sad fact is I probably am, and so are you). I was entertained by it but, conversely, I think it can only be seen as a failure. When this amount of money is spent, when this number of people work on a project, am I mad for feeling that I should be entertained to levels I had never dare dream of before? Technically it is impressive, and Iron Man 3 ticks most of the boxes, but they’re boxes that have been ticked many, many times before.

Still, it has just banked over $175 million in its first weekend, so we’d better get used to it.

The Basics:

Directed by: Shane Black
Written by: Drew Pearce, Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Guy Pearce, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sir Sir Ben Kingsley
Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 130 Minutes
Year: 2013
Rating: 6.1

0033 | La Vie en Rose

If you’re making a biopic that covers the majority of someone’s life, as opposed to concentrating on a short period of it, surely it would be pertinent to include the most important parts. With La Vie En Rose, Oliver Dahan’s film charting the adolescence and career of singer Édith Piaf, the main problem is that certain periods and life-changing events are completely ignored.

* In fact she became just the second person in history to win the first two of those listed for the same performance, the other being either Jason Statham for his magnificent turn in Crank: High Voltage or Adrien Brody for The Pianist. I can’t remember which right now, but if anyone reading fancies setting up a handy internet movie database so I can check this kind of thing in the future that’d be greatly appreciated. I’ve checked and The Database of Movies on the Internet (or DbMI) is currently free.

Marion Cotillard stars as Piaf, in a performance of such magnitude the actress won nearly all of the awards known to mankind in 2008 (including Best New Car at the Guild of Motoring Writers Awards and Most Liveable City, beating out perennial smug favourites Vancouver and Toronto). In fact you could probably count the number of Cotillard’s victories on 431 hands, but perhaps the most notable were the shiny gongs for Best Actress at the César, Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe awards.* And yes, she is undoubtedly superb as she shouts, cries, screams, laughs, drunkenly bellows and snorts her way from one scene to the next, pausing only to chew all of the fixtures and fittings before moving on with an uncomfortable-looking stoop. Cotillard captures the roughness of Piaf, a woman who seemingly never shook off the grit of those Paris streets, and probably never actually wanted to.

The film begins at the end, showing an ill Piaf as she struggles to get through her stage performances. From there the story leaps around from period to period, but generally keeps things chronological, so we see initially follow Piaf as a child, in poor health and neglected by her mother, a street singer in Paris. Her father, a circus contortionist, takes her away to live in a brothel with some caring prostitutes, but in turn snatches her away after she has formed a strong bond with one of them, named Titine (Emmanuelle Seigner). This sad, unsettled upbringing helps to colour the life that follows, where loved ones and friends repeatedly leave Piaf, die suddenly or are taken away from her by the authorities.

In adolescence she sings on the streets of Montmartre while getting drunk with her snarky friend Mômone (Sylvie Testud), earning small amounts of money that are then passed on to a local pimp. She is spotted at this point by Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu), who persuades her to come and sing at his club, where he coins her stage surname (La Môme Piaf, meaning ‘Little Sparrow’). Piaf’s popularity rises and she soon begins training with Raymond Asso (Marc Barbé), a poet and songwriter who adheres to the age-old myth that teaching an art can only be done effectively if you repeatedly fly off the handle every time your pupil gets something wrong. A series of obvious images appear as a montage to indicate the rise in Piaf’s fame, such as record covers and press photographs, and in no time at all Leplée is dead, Piaf has relocated to New York and she is in love with married boxer Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins).

Something’s missing at this point, though. Ah yeah, that’ll be it: World War II. Y’know, the one in which France was invaded by the Nazis, when Piaf actually performed frequently at social gatherings for high-ranking German officials. Yeah, that World War II. The conflict had a huge impact on everyone’s life in France, Piaf’s included. She was considered to be a traitor to her country, but stated after the war that she had helped the French Resistance movement. One performance at the Tom Tom Club enabled her to pose with French prisoners of war, who were subsequently able to use the photographs in forged passports. Considering the film covers the major points of Piaf’s life, correctly identifying them as experiences the singer drew from when performing, it’s a huge mistake to ignore the war years. It has been pointed out that the words of one of her most famous songs, “Non, je ne regrette rien”, take on deeper meaning when the war years are considered. Unfortunately no-one told the writer-director and his co-writer Isabelle Sobelman.

* I’m in two minds about this. It looks good, and it highlights the links between Piaf’s personal tragedies and her performances, but it’s not exactly subtle. In fact it’s only one step removed from being bashed over the head repeatedly with a sign bearing the legend “Do you get it?”

The war isn’t the only period of Piaf’s life the film ignores. When Piaf was 17 she gave birth to a daughter named Marcelle, who died at the age of two. This pregnancy / birth / motherhood / child death period of three years isn’t even referred to in the film until close to the very end, when Piaf is dying and experiences a series of flashbacks of the major events in her life. To say it’s a glaring omission is a bit of an understatement; as a viewer that didn’t know much about Piaf’s life beforehand, when I did eventually learn of it I couldn’t believe that this had been ignored. To make matters worse, one of the emotional peaks of the film sees Piaf discover that Marcel Cerdan has died in a plane crash. She screams the name ‘Marcel’ in grief as she walks along the corridors of her New York apartment. As she cries the camera switches so that she suddenly appears to be walking onto stage, and she breaks into song*. Surely this scene would have been lent extra weight had we known about the dead daughter, especially since the names ‘Marcel’ and ‘Marcelle’ are so similar.

Piaf’s two marriages after Cerdan’s death are not really explored in any great detail either, all of which might make you wonder just what actually is in the film. Well, aside from Cotillard’s excellent performance, the film’s main strength is its production design. The sets are lavish, the costumes are stylish and there is a strong colour palette throughout (rich blood reds and dark greens are the order of the day). It looks sumptuous, and it is also lit very well. The look of the film manages to heighten the sense of drama surrounding Piaf, although it also helps that the character is at the centre of every scene, dominating proceedings (to the extent that most of the supporting cast, including the loves of her life, actually feel more like extras than actors with substantial roles to play).

If it is relentlessly downbeat, then perhaps rightly so: Piaf’s professional life soared, but her personal life appears to have been littered with tragedies, health problems, alcoholism and possibly addiction to other drugs. This makes for a hard-going 127 minutes, but due to the missing material the director and his co-writer left out, the film still feels rushed by the end. It is disappointing that such major events are ignored, especially given the fact that the rest of her life is examined thoroughly in the film. This isn’t a reverential biopic, and although it has its moments it isn’t overly sensational either. It’s also annoyingly close to being a much better film.

The Basics:

Directed by: Olivier Dahan
Written by: Olivier Dahan, Isabelle Sobelman
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Gérard Depardieu
Certificate: 12
Running Time: 127 Minutes
Year: 2007
Rating: 5.3

0032 | Cross of Iron

Cross of Iron, the only war film that Sam Peckinpah made, is an examination of the relationships between soldiers under heavy pressure. It explodes periodically with choreographed, bloody violence, and it is a war film with a distinctly anti-war message, painting a negative picture of authority within the German army during the Second World War.

Peckinpah’s stock had fallen considerably in Tinseltown by the late 70s. Prior to Cross of Iron two of his films (Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) bombed, and another (The Killer Elite) performed well at the box office but was critically panned. Pat Garrett… came in $1.6 million over budget, and Peckinpah’s alcoholism and drug abuse had spiralled out of control. During filming of The Killer Elite he overdosed on cocaine and had to be fitted with a second pacemaker. Despite being a notoriously difficult character to work with, he still commanded enough respect to be offered two films that would become huge blockbuster successes in the mid-to-late 1970s: King Kong and Superman. He turned both down to concentrate on Cross of Iron.

James Coburn stars as the heroic, well-respected Corporal (later Sergeant) Steiner, a soldier who commands the respect of his men but shows little of it to his own immediate superiors. Steiner’s loyalty to Hitler and the German army has all but disappeared. His new captain is an aristocratic bully named Stransky (Maximilian Schell) who boasts that he specifically asked to be transferred from France to the Russian front line despite the fact that the Wehrmacht are all but beaten in Russia, retreating westward. Stransky makes no bones about the fact that his intention is to win the coveted Iron Cross medal so that he can return to his family as a hero.

Steiner is suspicious of Stransky from the off. At their first meeting Stransky orders Steiner to shoot a young captured Russian prisoner; when Steiner refuses Stransky is about to kill the boy until another soldier intervenes. Steiner later frees the boy, but the Russian soldier is accidentally shot by his own advancing troops. As the Russians attack, Stransky cowers in his bunker while Steiner helps lead a successful counter-attack with Lieutenant Meyer (Igor Galo). Meyer dies and Steiner is injured in the ensuing fight.

After a period of recuperation Steiner decides to return to the front line, where he discovers that Stransky has taken claim for the counter-attack in a bid to win the Iron Cross. His claim is backed up by Lieutenant Triebig, a passive commander blackmailed by Stransky, who has discovered that he is conducting a homosexual affair with another officer. Steiner, however, refuses to corroborate Stransky’s claim. When Colonel Brandt (James Mason) orders the evacuation of all German troops, Stransky decides not to notify Steiner’s platoon, abandoning them as the Russian army closes in. Steiner is left to fight his way out and back to safety.

A joint Anglo-German production, largely filmed in Yugoslavia, it exceeded its budget of $6,000,000 and Peckinpah had to put in $90,000 of his own money to get it finished. The crew completely ran out of funds before the end of the shoot, and both Coburn and Schell were forced to improvise the ending, which had to be completed in twelve hours. According to actor Vadim Glowna, Peckinpah was drinking four whole bottles of whisky or vodka a day while filming, surviving on less than four hours’ sleep per night. Still, the director managed to finish the film and though it was ignored in a summer completely dominated by the release of Star Wars, it performed well abroad, especially in West Germany.

* In terms of the latter, the influence of this and other Peckinpah films on John Woo and Quentin Tarantino is clear. Whole sequences of Inglorious Basterds, for example, could be described as Sam Peckinpah crossed with Looney Tunes. In fact I will describe it as that: it’s like Sam Peckinpah crossed with Looney Tunes. The hand-held cameras used in Cross of Iron also influenced Steven Spielberg, who achieved a similar look with Saving Private Ryan, the film many believe to be the most accurate representation of Second World War close quarter fighting ever made.

The film alternates between long, dialogue-heavy scenes inside bunkers and brutal, balletic and fast cut action sequences*. While the former are adequate enough, the film really comes alive when the two armies are battling. Blood spurts from bodies, shells explode and soldiers fly through the air in slow motion. It is both disorientating and intoxicating, managing to make the war look horrific but daring us to be entertained by the violence at the same time.

The director balances these two sides of the film well. Though he was (and still is) celebrated for his action sequences, there is much more to Peckinpah and much more to Cross of Iron; the Second World War provides the perfect context for his slowly-building crescendos of violence, but the sequences inside the bunkers are easily as important as those that depict the fighting outside. The scenes that deliver the film’s anti-war message are not the ones that contain the explosions and the frenetic action of warfare – it is delivered during the moments in-between. It’s a film that shows an army at breaking point, dispensing with the boy’s-own adventure stylings favoured by several hack directors looking for commercial war film success in the 1970s, leaving you in no doubt about the grim conditions soldiers faced. It addresses how relationships and command structures function (or capitulate) under intense pressure. Coburn and Schell handle their roles impressively, the former cold and impassive in one of his best performances, the latter calculating and quietly threatening. Great support comes from Mason and David Warner as two Colonels who have simply had all they can stomach, mentally exhausted from three long years of fighting in Russia, albeit away from the front line. 

* ‘Hänschen Klein’ also opens the film. Translating as ‘Little Hans’, it is a 19th Century folk song that was taught to German children at kindergarten. Originally it told the story of a boy who travelled the world and came back a man. Note how it fits with the experiences of both Steiner and Stransky. According to Wikipedia, in the German dubbed version of 2001: A Space Odyssey the HAL 9000 computer sings ‘Hänschen Klein’ (instead of ‘Daisy Bell’) while being deactivated.

Peckinpah includes some extraordinary sequences in the film. When Steiner is injured, a series of fast cuts jump back and forth through time, alternately depicting him on the battlefield as a shell explodes nearby and wandering around a hospital while recuperating. While in the hospital, Steiner’s state of shock is superbly realised during an afternoon tea dance. Peckinpah plays with our notions of what is real and what is not by having the character both mistakenly and accurately identify colleagues from the battlefield. He sees himself from afar in his own wheelchair and, at one point, all the characters that appear in shot suddenly disappear from the scene. There is an implication that Steiner is not mentally altogether when he returns to battle, which is supported by some of his actions as the pressure upon him builds. This helps to make some sense out of the film’s strange ending, an abrupt halt soundtracked by Steiner’s manic laughter. Did Steiner actually recover properly? Has he gone insane? It appears that the war has finally broken him, and as Stransky fumbles inexpertly with his weapon, Steiner cares not if he lives or dies at this point. As the German children’s song ‘Hänschen Klein’ plays*, the film ends with a quote from Bertolt Brecht: ‘Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.’

While at the hospital Steiner also witnesses a General greet a wounded soldier, in a famous scene that sums up the movie’s attitude to the war and authority. The soldier holds up one stump where his left arm used to be when the General attempts to shake his hand. Embarrassed, the General looks for the soldier’s other hand, only for another stump to be revealed. The soldier ends up extending his leg – an undamaged limb – for the General to shake, but the embarrassed senior officer departs hastily, more interested in the food that is available than in conversing any further. Orson Welles telephoned Peckinpah after seeing the film to praise its anti-war sentiment.

Some critics have complained that at times it feels as though the explosions in Cross of Iron will never stop, but surely the truest war films are those that actually put the casual viewer in such an uncomfortable position. In this case Peckinpah unflinchingly forces the viewer to imagine what life on the Crimean front line must have been like for German soldiers.

That said, there is an awful lot of cannon fodder in the film. It’s an unfortunate consequence of Peckinpah’s influence that the masses of slow-mo bodies flying through the air actually brings to mind 1980s Saturday night mainstream TV as much as anything else that has come since; it’s occasionally like watching an old episode of The A-Team (although with the notable exception that in Cross of Iron people do actually die). ‘Heresy!’ scream the Peckinpah fans, but it’s not too much of an exaggeration. For its time, though, Cross of Iron is brutally violent, aeons away from those Roger Moore vehicles that appeared during the same period like Escape to Athena and The Wild Geese. It also seems worlds apart from a clever, post-hippie anti-war film like Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H, recalling the disillusionment of Gillo Pontecorvo’s La Battaglia di Algeri. It may look at a different war, but it delivers its clear message confidently, and just as strongly.

The Basics:

Directed by: Sam Peckinpah
Written by: Julius J. Epstein, James Hamilton, Walter Kelley
Starring: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, David Warner
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 127 Minutes
Year: 1977
Rating: 7.4