This is Martin Scorsese's scholarly, yet highly idiosyncratic, contribution to the British Film Institute's "Century of Cinema" series. Illustrious filmmakers from around the world were commissioned by the series to create documentaries about the history of their country's cinema. Scorsese
concentrates on the esoteric and the obscure, purposely omitting the standard Hollywood classics in order to focus on lesser known films and directors.
In a section called "The Director's Dilemma," Scorsese ruminates on the eternal struggle between art and commerce, with clips from THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952), and explains how some directors circumvented the studio system by adopting the philosophy of "making one for them and one for
yourself." The producer's omnipotent role in the old Hollywood is examined by focusing on David O. Selznick. In "The Director as Storyteller," Scorsese looks at three classic American genres: westerns, gangster films, and musicals. Westerns are covered with the films of John Ford, Anthony Mann,
and others, while gangster films are represented by a variety of titles, including SCARFACE (1932) and FORCE OF EVIL (1948). Musicals are discussed in terms of having dark subtexts, as shown with clips from Busby Berkeley's depression-era production numbers and MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944).
"The Director as Illusionist" deals with film technology and cinematic grammar as it was developed in silent films by such pioneers as D.W. Griffith, King Vidor, Raoul Walsh, Cecil B. De Mille, F.W. Murnau, and Frank Borzage. Other subjects covered include the talkie revolution, mobile camerawork,
three-strip Technicolor, CinemaScope, epic films, special effects, and modern computer technology.
"The Director as Smuggler" is devoted to the makers of mostly B-movies who managed to find cracks in the system and smuggle in radical ideas of a political, social, or personal nature. Directors discussed include Jacques Tourneur, Joseph H. Lewis, Andre De Toth, Ida Lupino, Edgar G. Ulmer, Anthony
Mann, Robert Aldrich, Allan Dwan, Douglas Sirk, Nicholas Ray, and Samuel Fuller.
"The Director as Iconoclast" focuses on Erich Von Stroheim, Orson Welles and other mavericks who clashed with the system and invariably lost. Post-WWII directors who fought the production code by dealing with adult material are also examined, including Elia Kazan, Otto Preminger, and Billy Wilder,
whose battles led to the breakthrough work of such 1960s directors as Arthur Penn, Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes.
This documentary is a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining compilation of pristine film clips and candid interviews, which reminds the viewer just how rich and varied the history of American film really is, once one digs beneath the surface of the accepted list of classics. The assertion that
B-movies were sometimes more stylish and interesting than A-movies, or that cult directors like Fuller, Ray, Sirk, Ulmer, et al. deserve the same recognition and praise as some of the more famous names, is not exactly a new idea, but the film demonstrates brilliantly just why that assertion is
true.
By letting the clips run long, Scorsese allows the audience to get a real feel for each director's style and themes. For instance, one segment shows how John Ford's view of the West changed and matured, with examples from films he made in the '30s, '40s, and '50s.
As one would expect from Scorsese's own movies, his tastes generally run to dark themes, and it's clear that he's drawn to feverish, overwrought melodramas such as DUEL IN THE SUN (1946) and LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1946). Even his choice of musicals dwells on the dark side, such as A STAR IS BORN
(1954) or MY DREAM IS YOURS (1949), a seemingly escapist Doris Day movie, which he acknowledges as a major inspiration for NEW YORK, NEW YORK (1977).
At the beginning of the film, Scorsese quotes Frank Capra as saying that "film is a disease," and at the end he talks about viewing films as an eternal search for a "shared common experience."
Scorsese, whose reputation as the ultimate film buff is starting to overshadow his reputation as a great director, is an admitted movie junkie. A 1996 New York magazine profile depicted him as an agoraphobic loner who has very little human contact and spends all of his time making, watching, and
cataloguing films. One can picture him alone late at night running 16-mm prints of Cinecolor Westerns, trying to recapture that innocent moment of childhood wonder when the curtains parted in a darkened theater and a bright light projected dreams upon a giant screen. (Violence, profanity.) leave a comment
