Film pairings — Sort of (From Book To Film)

 Often we hear of all these non-profits, some of them governmental, some not, doing various kinds of missionary-style work in poor or developing, but almost always vulnerable nations with propped up governments. A lot of funny business goes on in these places, usually in the Middle East or in various African locales.

Last night I happened upon a film, The Gunman, Sean Penn did a fine job of trying to tell the story of the greed and corruption behind or surrounding the best of the do gooders. As a paid assassin, Penn’s character tries to live the rest of his life making up for his previous bad acts. But he is a witness to the truth and THEY come for him. As they had for the others. It can be seen as just another action film.  However only seen as superhero crap — if that is what you are looking for – the film is mediocre.  

If you are looking for more, you’ll find it. It is a microcosm of most governments – certainly ours – where those at the highest levels of power are protected against prosecution of the crimes they committed against the people over whom they have the power.  And as long as the few have the money and the influence, and the many are too frightened or dumb – I should say uninformed, shouldn’t I? – nothing will change.  Even Penn’s character is only activated when he realizes he is in the crosshairs and essentially, has nothing to lose.  If this were an action film, he would win in the end. Instead it flirts with noir, something the novel has in spades.

For me this was extraordinary cinema. A man, with right on his side, against the impossible. I hadn’t realized as I watched it that I had previously read it. The directors, Penn being one of them, took some liberties. The Gunman was based on The Prone Gunman, the short novel by the acclaimed French crime novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette and first published in English by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore in 2002.

Jean-Patrick Manchette

In addition to Penn, the cast of The Gunman include Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone and Jasmine Trinca

Watch it no matter what the online reviewers have to say.  And read the book.  Both are worth the time and could be done in the same evening.  If you are staying in, maybe some Pernod or Absinthe.  Okay, stay in.

I have written previously about Manchette.  If interested in reading more, go here

Film Pairings – For The Love Of A Woman

Here are two black & white crime films set in L.A.  One of them reflects the 1950s, the other the 1940s. Both are shot in black and white. Both are based on works by legendary crime writers.  Plot summaries would make them seem more similar than they are. 

My Gun Is Quick; A friend of mine enjoyed it and thought I would too.  He warned that it was low budget.  “Well not exactly low-budget,” he said, “but another fifty bucks might have helped.” Though a little flat in the cinematography department, the film worked. Based on Mickey Spillane’s novel the celluloid rendering seemed right for the material. It was a story of a good man, private eye Mike Hammer, tempted by a beautiful woman and a bag of jewels to compromise his ethics.  One of the movie promotional posters has the temptress saying, “What will it be Mike honey? Me and a million dollars in hot diamonds or a cheap funeral?” One might fault the dialogue as clichéd until one remembers this is the original — from which clichés are made. Phil Victor directed and a relatively unknown actor Robert Bray played the legendary Hammer. Something else to keep you busy:  Count the number of 1957 Fords you see on screen. You’d think Chevys were outlawed in L.A. in the ‘50s. I think this was a fairly early example of product placement.

Double Indemnity: This is a different kind of story. Then again, it isn’t.  This is regarded as a masterpiece and who am I to argue?  The plot is similar. A no good woman wants some help to knock off her husband. Barbara Stanwyck seduces her insurance broker Fred MacMurray, who doesn’t quite see good and evil as clearly defined as Mike Hammer. Billy Wilder directed and worked with Raymond Chandler on the screenplay. The dialogue crackles.  The two masters, according to reports, didn't get along, but had quite a bit to work with as they brought James M. Cain’s classic noir novella to the screen. Edward G. Robinson played the savvy insurance investigator. Cinematographer John Selz showed how great black and white film could be.

The two films provide an interesting contrast in crime films. My Gun Is Quick (1957) relies completely on the strength of Spillane and Hammer and finds a way to deliver a tough but morally acceptable story. The film is simple and straight forward, almost like panels in an adventure comic book. Double Indemnity (1944) brought significant risk and resources to its project. MacMurray played against type. Robinson took third billing for the first time in his career, though he needn’t have worried. All of them made a movie in which there were no good guys, just variations on nasty. They dodged the code that made final approval by the censorship board difficult. And they turned the typical Hollywood ending upside down.

Both films could be described as hard-boiled. To accompany such tough stuff, I suggest no more than one ice cube, if that, in your glass of bourbon or Scotch. If you’re feeling a little deceitful and want to stay sober, but want your fellow filmgoers to think you’re tough as Mike hammer or Barbara Stanwyck, a little flat ginger ale would do the trick.

Film Pairings — Noir, Here and There

Sometimes it takes a moment to adjust to the old black and white films. But once you do, you might wonder why so few filmmakers use the medium.

Ida Lupino And Robert Ryan

There are are a few B & W masterpieces nearly everyone has seen — The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and Citizen Cane. There are others, many others that are worth a couple of hours of your time. Tonight, should you accept the assignment, you can go for murder in harshly beautiful, wintry rural New York and then travel to Venice for a classic, and mysteriously twisty story in an unrivaled setting.

On Dangerous Ground:  Robert Ryan plays a tough, insensitive New York City cop who is sent to help some country police not experienced in murder investigations. The offer wasn’t entirely sincere because what the NYC precinct really wanted was to get the bad-news cop out of there to take the heat off the squad.  Beautifully photographed by George E. Diskant, equally beautifully scored by Bernard Hermann and directed by the highly regarded Nicholas Ray, the otherwise schmaltzy film is turned into a work of cinematic art. Ward Bond and Ed Begley join Ryan and Ida Lupino who will ultimately show the tough cop what life is about, but at what cost?  The 1951 film is based on Mad with Much Heart, a novel by Gerald Butler.

Eva Bartok And Richard Todd

The Assassin:  I’m convinced one could pick strangers, arm them with a Go Pro, send them to Venice with orders to take two hours of random video and release the unedited results as a film. It’s Venice, for heaven’ sake. Beautiful, romantic, mysterious and timeless.  But here we also have a decent plot a handsome, elegant actor Richard Todd as well as the canals, narrow alleys, stairways, bridges, gondolas and grand architecture — and all sorts of shadows. Everything about this film is elegant, including the chief of police, played by George Coulouris. P.I. Edward Mercer (Todd) arrives in Venice. He’s been hired to find a war hero who may or may not be dead.  And that is the question. If he’s alive, as some evidence suggests, why are so many convinced otherwise? Victor Canning wrote the novel, Venetian Bird, which is also the alternate film title for The Assassin.  Ralph Thomas directed this 1952 movie that also starred Eva Bartok.

For the first film, you’re going to get chilly.  Think Irish coffee or hot chocolate.  For the second, we change seasons and moods. Maybe Limon Ciello.

Film Pairings — One Smart Nasty, One Sleazy Nasty

Dorothy Parker once said, “If you can’t say anything nice, come sit by me.” Both of these movies have nothing nice to say about its characters or humanity in general. No one is nice.  No one. It is a cynical double feature for those in the mood for cynicism.

The Two Faces Of January — Patricia Highsmith’s novels have proven to be a rich source for cinema.  Strangers on a Train, the three Ripley movies and this one, The Two Faces of January.  Hossein Amini directed the three principal actors, Viggo Mortenson, Kirsten Dunst and Oscar Isaac in this 2014 tale of two male con artists, a beautiful woman and a suitcase full of money.  Grittily set in Greece and Turkey, we watch the shift of power as all three attempt to outsmart the authorities and each other.  This is one of those smart, small films you’ll only see on platforms like Netflix.  I don’t have a problem with big budget, action packed, technologically pumped up blockbusters. But I am pleased that low budget, difficult to distribute little jewels like this have a way to get to us.

 

The Bag Man — What a strange film. Some might conclude that this is a morality tale in which an evil genius toys with a fool who sticks by his principles when they are the very characteristics that are used to dupe him. Unfortunately I expected but didn’t get the moral of the story. Perhaps that is it — nothing to get — in a noir perspective.  The French called this movie Cat in The Bag. In some countries it was released as The Motel.  The 2014 film is dark, violent and at times flirting with the horror genre and at others inexplicably surreal. For me the saving grace amidst the gratuitous bloodletting is Brazilian actress Rebecca Da Costa, who, if she had a sleeve, would have something up it. (what?). No matter, she is the beauty, brains and the best reason to watch the movie.  John Cusack, plays a character he’s played well a few times before while Robert De Niro and Crispin Glover do what they do without breaking a sweat.   The dark and sleazy film was directed by David Grovic. 

For the first film, ouzo maybe.  For the second, bring a blanket to the sofa before you settle in. Depending on your attitude, you could be happy with a whiskey on the rocks or a cup of hot chocolate.

Book Notes — Fuminori Nakamura, Metaphysical and Magic

Three of Fuminori Nakamura’s novels have arrived on American bookshelves recently. These translations of the 37-year-old author’s work have been met with dozens of awards, and he has been welcomed with an explosion of new fans. Nakamura is the cover story in Mystery Scene magazine’s most recent issue. There is good reason. He is giving readers a different but dark look at an increasingly popular, already dark sub genre — noir. It is also fair, I think, to say his work will be part of the continuous discussion of what is genre and what is literary fiction, if, in fact, there is a distinction to be made.

The Thief * —Words and sentences are razor slices, forceful.  Quick and short.  Tough as well as elegant as they are, the minimized narrative and terse dialogue deliver surprisingly full-bodied, fully textured inner and outer worlds.  As a reader I was involuntarily swept along. Later, backing off a bit and looking at it as a writer, I wanted to understand the brush strokes of his work.  I wanted to know how he packed so much feeling into this brief, unsentimentally written book.

The story is not complex. My take is that it is a story about a man who chooses to live in a world he carefully carves out for himself and one he has, perhaps until now, controlled. We might find his life sad, tawdry, but it is not without meaning for him.  It has value here and there.  His pickpocket profession brings a measure of fulfillment. He has talent, enjoys challenges, and appreciates in a modest way his professional accomplishments.  He is not propelled by ambition or greed.  One could easily conclude that his profession is his art and his life.

One mistake. He allows others to enter his sphere — and we can argue fate and free will if we choose.  Or we can say that this is Noir.  One mistake. The main character’s fatal flaw is that he became human, or humane if only for a moment. And his world, so carefully kept in balance, rolls over him. One mistake, one slip. That’s all you get.

Evil And The Mask — Perhaps because Mr. Nakamura’s The Thief was so good and so successful, I expected this one to stay close to home. But in this novel, that single narrative voice and the compact world it created has been invaded.  The world is no longer seen through a peephole. We now have colors, emotion, vivid descriptions, multiple dimensional characters with backstories. The entire central story is told against a larger backdrop, in this case as both medical and moral metaphor. Nakamura constantly asks the main character and the reader to contemplate and weigh moral consequences. It is not that The Thief was too simple.  In my view, it is a masterpiece of minimalism. Its ability to communicate with such sparseness of language is close to incomparable.  But this is something else, altogether. Nakamura’s vision remains unblinkingly dark. We still have one narrator who, unlike the pickpocket, shares his pain with reader. He is a boy groomed by a self-consciously evil father to be a cancer on society The individual story mirrors none too subtly the corruption of society, putting along side each other the notion of personal murder for gain alongside the profitable war business in which his family is also engaged. We go to war for oil, to sell weapons, to rebuild what has been destroyed by bombs and mortars and to provide the essential services to support armies — all in a vicious, violent, profitable circle. War (evil=cancer) is good for the economy. Nakamura, in this one, continues to create a dark world with the requisite sex and violence. In Evil and The Mask, Nakamura shows how the dystopian world others write about, can come into being, if it’s not here already.

Last Winter We Parted — This novel continues the author’s willingness to change the form of the narrative. While he has returned to a more frugal use of words, he expanded the number of point of views.  Here we have the story told by the person arrested for a vicious crime and a reporter who is supposed to interview him to get the real story. While Nakamura’ constructs uncomplicated, short sentences at a rapid pace, this not the way of the story itself. There are no straight lines as the plot folds back upon itself and the person we presume is the protagonist might not have been as honest with us (and himself) as we presumed.  So too the villain.

Identity is a theme that is woven through all three books. And Nakamura plays with it.  In The Thief the main character seems absent any identity aside from his craft.  In Evil And The Mask, plastic surgery — a new identity — plays a significant role.  And here in Last Winter We Parted, there is sleight of hand and stand-ins real and manufactured to confuse or amuse us. As in all three of these Nakamura’s novels, there are murders with which to contend, but again there is a larger fabric against which the drama is set.  

As readers we are not merely voyeurs. Nakamura asks questions. If you reveal yourself to another, have you lost part of who you are?  When we care passionately (hate or love) about another does that mean we are less ourselves?  If someone recreates you in another fashion — photographs, dolls perhaps, or just in his or her own perception – have you been diminished or changed?  There is a code noir seems to follow. After all is written, the only message is: “Life is crap and then you die.” Nakamura certainly follows this tradition.  He also creates a fine mystery that unfolds in a context larger than the plot.

* Comments regarding The Thief were posted earlier on this blog. Comments on Evil And The Mask and Last Winter We Parted are new.

Film Pairings — King of New York, Last Man Standing

If you dislike screen violence, move on.  Nothing you want to see here.  Seriously.

In King of New York almost all of it happens at night — what you would expect from a noirish film like this. Night fell on the screenplay and couldn’t get up.  Last Man Standing is late afternoon to sunset, orange-gold overlays a world of endless dust, appropriate for a near-noir film.  In both movies, there’s lots of guns and lots of blood.

Though King has a remarkably talented supporting cast — Lawrence Fishburne, David Caruso, Wesley Snipes and a brief appearance by Steve Buscemi — there is no doubt Christopher Walken is The King of New York.  Walken ‘s character is cold-blooded and charming, crazy as a loon and despite his last, heartfelt and determined humanitarian attempt he fails to redeem his life of serious and gruesome criminality. The machine moves on. Directed by Abel Ferrara, the visually, but brutally striking film prompted some audience members at its premiere to walk out.  Filmed in 1996, it is one of few relatively recent films to meet the exacting standards of what constitutes noir.  There is no hope.

I’ve never seen Bruce Willis give a bad performance.  He is solid here as well, but something is missing.  Arthur Hill has admittedly and respectfully taken the story from Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and it was also inspired, some say, by Dashiell Hammett’s work, The Glass Key and Red Harvest. A corrupt town is cleaned up by one tough and unrelenting gunslinger. Director Hill, mines the gold of his Western-movie roots.  He brings prohibition-era gangsters into a wild west town. Willis’ success in going up against impossible odds has less to do with an extraordinary intelligence but rather his ability to fire two guns at the same time. I believe Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers had this skill as well. But things were not nearly so bloody in their dramas. And we are not sure whether the main character is going against the odds, risking his life in the cause of justice or because he was disrespected. Early on, we’re promised the appearance of a super-gangster. Throughout the first half of the film, we (maybe just me) can’t wait for the meeting of the super good guy and the super bad guy, who we know by process of elimination, has to be played by Christopher Walken.  Walken’s surprisingly restrained performance is adequate here.  Given such a pivotal role, though, he’s not been given much to work with and the let-down is inevitable.  The movie is worthwhile entertainment, but it seems to me, Last Man falls well short of its potential. In the end, the most interesting character is the ineffectual sheriff played by Bruce Dern.

If you are staying in, this is definitely a hard liquor night.  I’d save King of New York for last to savor Walken’s incredible performance.  Nobody does crazy as well.

Book Notes — Chinatown And The News

History Of Chinatown Gangs

SAN FRANCISCO— Longtime city residents woke up Wednesday morning with a sense of deja vu.  The FBI arrested “Shrimp Boy,” a person of intense interest in the as yet unsolved murder of dragonhead, Allen Leung, who was the leader of two Chinatown “social clubs" (tongs). Leung had previously killed an intruder — a likely assassin — but a second attempt on Leung succeeded.

Police speculated — they had to speculate, no one in Chinatown was talking — that it was because Leung refused to yiel to blackmail by competing interests or because he was vehemently opposed to the Chinese communist party’s inroads into the community. Raymond “Shrimp Boy Chow” was implicated by police in the blackmail scenario. That view might have been reinforced when the suspect assumed the victim’s position as dragonhead in the Hop Sing tong.

A Young Raymond "Shrimpboy" Chow

Chow’s history is colorful.  At 16, in Hong Kong, he and 30 subordinates purportedly ran collection for gambling dens. Once in the U.S. he was alleged to have been a gang leader in Oakland, a gang that specialized in home invasions. He survived the infamous Chinatown restaurant slaughter, “The Golden Dragon Massacre” perpetrated by the “Joe Boys” in 1977. Chow was in and out of trouble until he was arrested and convicted of federal gun charges. Upon his release 23 years later, Chow maintained a highly visible presence in Chinatown, but claimed to have rehabilitated himself.  The FBI, it appears, thought otherwise and never lost interest in the man — hence his arrest on a slew of charges this week.

On Wednesday, The FBI, having infiltrated Raymond Chow’s organization, performed a series of raids connected to gun trafficking, heroin, money laundering, influence peddling and prostitution. Caught up in the raid that netted Chow was prominent San Francisco politician Leland Yee. Yee had been a viable mayoral candidate, city supervisor and state senator. Yee was reportedly raising funds for a run at the California’s Secretary of State’s office.

San Francisco's Chinatown   (photo by Tierney)

This is just one of many noirish stories with a Chinatown setting, this one bubbling back to the surface because of current events.  For more, the long and fascinating history of crime in Chinatown was meticulously captured in the 2008 book, Chinatown Squad — Policing the Dragon: From the Gold Rush to the 21st Century by Kevin J. Mullen. However, these recent developments suggest a need for a new chapter.

Note: San Francisco’s official Chinatown is second to New York ‘s in U.S. population and probably first in terms of visitors. The main street for tourists is Grant Avenue.  For residents, it is Stockton.  The official Chinatown occupies an area between Union Square and North Beach.  There are, however, newer, tourist-free “Chinatowns,” here.  Clement Street offers an abundance of great Chinese and other Asian restaurants, markets and shops.  So does Irving Street, on the other side of Golden Gate Park. But only the original, the official Chinatown will make you think of Dashiell Hammett.