The standard of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armée was a staff, atop which sat a bronze eagle. In Abel Gance's 1927 silent film, Napoleon, we see the emperor as a youth with his very own pet eagle. The eagle represented courage, its wings spread wide symbolized a protector. These were traits many associated with Napoleon in his early career, before he became something of a tyrant. Beethoven, for example, was a big fan of Napoleon as a general, but despised him later (even crossing out a dedication to Napoleon on a sheet of music that still exists). Nonetheless, the eagle was a symbol of Napoleonic virtues in his younger days, and Gance's five-and-a-half hour epic tackles the early days of an extraordinary life.
Technically, this eagle landed in the U.S. on March 24, but I will be flying from Dallas to see it on April 1, at the last of only four showings at the Paramount Theater in Oakland. Words can not express my excitement; this has been a dream of mine since the late 90's when I read about the last time Napoleon played in America. The year was 1981, six thousand people crammed into New York's Radio City Music Hall, and by all accounts it was “the cinema event of a lifetime”.
Those unfamiliar with the film may wonder, “What's so special about it?” If you happen to be in that camp, you may think I'm crazy to fly to another city just to see a movie. Hey, Dallas is nothing. People have flown in from London, Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, New York City, Chicago, Miami, etc. Apparently one of my favorite filmmakers in the last two decades, Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants, etc.) saw it last Saturday and Sunday! So if I'm crazy, at least I'm in good company.
Why, exactly, are these four screenings so incredibly rare and special? I'll save the details for my upcoming review, but lets just say Napoleon is an enormous feat to put on. In fact, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is paying $720,000 to present these four screenings alone. Plus, I last saw the movie about a decade ago on VHS; it was a shorter version with a different score and played at the wrong framerate.
So why not get the thing on Blu-ray or DVD instead? Well, because that VHS version is still the only version available in America. It's a legal issue. Francis Ford Coppola owns the American rights to Napoleon, and his father, Carmine, composed a score for the film. In the thirty years since then, film historian Kevin Brownlow has discovered more footage, better versions of existing footage, and so forth. He has created two improved restorations since that time, and he wants the world to see them. Unfortunately, Coppola has been a menace at every turn. He wants his cut of the film with his father's score (particularly now that his father has passed on) to be the definitive version.
In my full review I will delve into all the other reasons I'm so thrilled about seeing this epic film on Sunday. To prepare, I have watched two of Abel Gance's earlier films: J'Accuse (1919) and La Roue (1923). I had seen the latter previously, but had never caught the former until now. Both films are visually impressive; seldom have I seen so much camera movement and rapid cutting in a picture from 1919, and La Roue improves upon that. There are two sequences in particular, one involving a train crash and the other a speeding train, in La Roue that make me wonder why Sergei Eisenstein gets all the credit for coming up with the montage. His Odessa Steps sequence in The Battleship Potemkin (1925) is legendary, but Gance was doing similar work at an earlier date.
J'Accuse, with it's extreme melodrama and not an ounce of subtlety, doesn't hold up as well today as La Roue, unfortunately. There is a clear pacifist message, the first in cinema according to Brownlow, hurtling toward the viewer at every turn. It's worth seeing, but Gance was clearly still developing his talents. When it's good, it's very good, and memorable sequences include Gance's actual World War I footage of the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and especially the climax, where the dead soldiers of France rise up to accuse their wives, friends, family, etc. of not valuing their sacrifice. Gance used real soldiers on leave for this scene, and when they returned to the front lines, eighty percent of them perished.
La Roue, the story of an engineer/inventor (Séverin-Mars, also one of the leads in J'Accuse) who rescues an orphaned girl from a train crash, raises her as his own daughter, and tragically falls in love with her somewhere along the way, is a better picture than J'Accuse. It's not entirely free of over-the-top melodrama, to be sure, but compared to J'Accuse it seems there was a sedative added to the wine on set. If memory serves, Napoleon is yet another improvement in that area.
There are some interesting characters and genuinely striking images in La Roue. One image I can't get out of my head is the engineer's little house with a picket fence sitting right by the railroad tracks. When trains pass in exterior shots they seem to be about six feet from the house, and in interior shots they appear always lumbering by through the windows. It's a long film at four-and-a-half hours, but well worth the effort and great preparation for the five-and-a-half hours (with three intermissions including a dinner break) that await me on Sunday.
My last article spoke about The Four Kinds of People, and as a continuation of that idea, I will now discuss The Three Kinds of Movies. First, a little background is in order.
At around fourteen or fifteen years of age I existed among the ranks of the third and worst of the four kinds of people. In other words, I absolutely loved movies, but possessed a very limited perspective of them. As I stated in my article, Tree Hugger: Part One, the movie that helped me evolve was Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). I rented it begrudgingly, and only when convinced I had seen every new release available at my local Blockbuster. Psycho not only impressed me, it changed me. From that day forward I started watching older American movies.
A few months later I was at my friend’s house flipping channels on the tube when, suddenly, we found ourselves staring at two bad ass looking Japanese guys with enormous spears. The movie was subtitled, black-and-white, and shot in glorious widescreen. Before we could change the channel on this “foreign garbage”, we both realized how visually striking it was. This was exceptional filmmaking! My friend, as intrigued as I (all the more shocking since he had a “person two” interest in films), pressed the info button on his remote. It was called The Hidden Fortress, released in 1958, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, an influential Japanese filmmaker I had surprisingly heard of in passing.
My friend and I watched the entire spear battle between Toshiro Mifune and Susumu Fujita, astonished as all hell. That very evening I looked up as much information on Akira Kurosawa as I possibly could, and the next day I rented The Hidden Fortress, Seven Samurai (1954), and Ran (1985). Surprisingly, when viewed in full, none of these films were all that great to me at the time. They were above average, I suppose, but nothing tremendous. I decided Kurosawa wasn’t all I had come to think he might be.
However, I came across a copy of Yojimbo (1961) a few weeks later and pulled the trigger on a rental. I absolutely loved it. To this day I consider it a top notch satire, brimming with action, entertainment, and stunning cinematography. Yojimbo was, for me, second only to Psycho in terms of its immediate impact on my life where motion pictures are concerned. It opened the door to everything Psycho had left out. Foreign films were fair game, even silents seemed legitimate. After Yojimbo I threw out all the fears and prejudices I had unintentionally built up against certain aspects of film history. All films, and I do mean all (with the single exception of porn), were now potential masterpieces. I realized that by restricting myself from viewing these “intimidating” films, I could miss out on seeing some of the greatest films ever made. As a film lover I wasn’t willing to do that, which is why I have issues with “film lovers” who are.
I began watching everything I could get my hands on. Before I knew it, Blockbuster wasn’t cutting it anymore. To get my hands on some of Kurosawa’s lesser known works (The Lower Depths, Red Beard, Sanshiro Sugata, etc.) I found myself driving to rental stores with a better selection or buying the movies outright. In addition to these, and more, I viewed Seven Samurai, Ran, and The Hidden Fortress again a few months into my cinephile revelation period. It was as if a blindfold of ignorance had been removed from my eyes. What had I been watching the first time? Was my mind preoccupied? Perhaps my bias had been more stifling than I realized? What possessed me to believe these films were anything but extraordinary?! That’s when I formed the belief that three kinds of movies exist.
There are terrible films, of course, and they make up the vast majority. There are also movies one may enjoy on the first viewing that fail to hold up on subsequent viewings. In other words, their impact is immediate, and from there they only get worse. After seeing a film like this, one may leave the theater with a smile on their face. They are often very accessible and well made. Still, they lack that singular ability to grow, change, and improve with each viewing. Their value is entirely on the surface. One does not watch these films multiple times and discover new things each time. It’s like a quart of milk; good for a while, then it spoils. The life span of these pictures is quite short indeed.
Then there are those rare, special films that can range anywhere from average to excellent when first viewed. What separates them from the second type of movie is that each viewing reaps new rewards. If the film was excellent the first time, it only grows more incredible. If it was average at first, one’s eyes open to its brilliance a few viewings later. Like a fine wine, this kind of film gets even better with age. This was the case with Seven Samurai, Ran, and The Hidden Fortress. Though I was blown away by Seven Samurai on my second viewing, it wasn’t until the third that I began to really understand just how masterful it is. Having seen Seven Samurai more than a dozen times over the years, I now believe it's Kurosawa's finest film, and one of the best pictures ever made. Yojimbo, though I loved it immediately, has also grown richer over time. These kinds of films are the true treasures of the medium, and seeking them out may feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Another fact that bears mentioning; certain filmmakers may have a style that is more difficult to penetrate. For me, one of the most challenging directors to develop a proper appreciation for is Robert Bresson. He is an acquired taste, to be sure, but the man was obviously a cinematic genius. I don’t care if one has seen many Kurosawa films, Bergman films, Tarkovsky films, Fellini films, or Bunuel films, Bresson’s style can still alienate viewers. He is completely unique and operates as far from the Hollywood formula as possible. Any and everything conventional that can occur in a film does not occur in Bresson.
Directors such as this require a “viewing order” as I call it. One should begin with the filmmaker's most mainstream, though still great, film. Gradually, one can work their way up to the others. For Bresson, I believe the ideal place to start is A Man Escaped (1956), which also happens to be the favorite Bresson film of the respected critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum. The Bresson style is apparent, but the film isn’t difficult to enjoy for an experienced viewer, and it’s undeniably intense. I also believe that, following that film, one can enjoy Pickpocket (1959), Mouchette (1967), and L’Argent (1983). Then and only then should one attempt to tackle Diary of a Country Priest (1951) and Au Hasard Balthazar (1966).
The point here is, don’t give up on a director after seeing just one or two films he has made. The first Bresson film I saw was Au Hasard Balthazar and that was an enormous mistake. Now, having watched his other movies, I better understand Balthazar, and having seen it half a dozen times now, I find it to be a masterpiece.
I continue to search for great films, and will for the rest of my life. I strongly believe those who possess the notion that movies are nothing more than entertainment are misjudging reality. Motion pictures, the great ones anyway, are so much more. Films can instill moral lessons, and provide emotional outlets. I read one man’s take on Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour (1959), which said he despised the film for years until he saw it again after experiencing a tragic, heartbreaking event in his own life. Suddenly, he understood.
Great films can provide insight into other cultures and humanize the people of countries we may never have thought of or cared about prior. I know that Grave of the Fireflies (1988), despite being in Japanese, animated, and having nothing to do with atomic bombs, has the power to leave some modern American viewers regretting events that occurred in Japan on the sixth and ninth of August in 1945. And I know that any family, universally, can see their reflection in the films of Yasujiro Ozu.
Humans identify with humans the world over, which means that ignoring those separated from us by a border or an ocean is the easy way out. Cultures that are difficult for us to penetrate, ways of life that we don’t really understand, we choose to define in simple terms. I've heard statements like, “They’re a mixed up race,” or, “Those people have no regard for human life.” Let’s not forget those who immediately chime in with vocal parodies of the languages of other cultures (all the worse considering the pitiful job they do). The only languages one can not parody in such a way are cinema, literature, and music: the universal languages. Like India’s great director, Satyajit Ray, once said of his Apu Trilogy:
“The most distinctive feature of my films is that they are deeply rooted in Bengal, in Bengali culture, mannerisms, and mores. What makes them universal in appeal is that they are about human beings.”
When it comes to movies there are, by my best estimation, four kinds of people in the world. The first kind considers the motion picture industry to be nothing more than a speck on the map of humanity. These people rarely, if ever, watch movies in any format (theatrically, Blu-ray, DVD, etc.). They feel that they have better, more productive things to do than sit in front of a screen for a couple hours. Ironically, these very same people will generally set aside time to view programs on network television that generally waste the very power and potential this visual medium was created for (HBO's original programming is an often glorious exception). These people probably and unfortunately, in my opinion, represent the majority.
The second kind are those who go to the theater on occasion, know the names of a few actors here and there, and may even be caught discussing a movie with friends. However, while these people may enjoy watching movies now and again, they by no means pretend, or care to pretend, that they are movie buffs. In my eyes, as a nearly fanatical cinephile, this group is alright. Sure, more often than not they may appear to have poor taste, but they don’t pretend to be anything they aren’t. If they’re going to criticize a film, other than the most basic “good movie” or “bad movie” comment, it will probably be related to the fact that there was too much butter on their popcorn or there wasn’t enough ice in their 40 oz. Coca-Cola. In other words, these folks just don’t take movies all that seriously. They can enjoy them, they can discuss them in simple terms, but in the end, movies don’t really mean anything to them, and they can admit it.
The third group is the worst of the bunch, and I used to be one of them so I’m speaking from personal experience. This breed fancies themselves to be huge movie buffs. They buy Blu-rays or DVDs often, they discuss movies regularly, and they might even have an extremely nice media room devoted to the experience. The problem is this: they are phonies. How does one spot a pseudo-cinephile, you ask? It's pretty easy. The pseudo-cinephile will limit themselves, willingly, to the point of having no clue what movies really are, or what they can be. They usually refuse to watch silent films even if they’ve never seen any. They rarely, if ever, watch movies in black-and-white, or even in color if produced before 1970. They don’t believe that animation can tell a mature, adult story, as it’s to be used exclusively for “kid’s stuff”. They also fail to understand that motion pictures are a universal language, made in numerous countries of the world. In other words, they don’t watch foreign films, and usually it's because they fear reading subtitles or they’re downright racist. As if that's not enough, having whittled the “worthy” films down to about five-percent of those in existence, these people also pick and choose between genres! Some say they “don’t like horror,” for others it’s, “I don’t like Westerns.” For others still it’s, “I hate romance movies.”
Furthermore, these people tend to possess little knowledge of film directors (the movie industry’s equivalent of a novel’s author, a painting’s painter, or a song’s composer) unless their name begins with Steven and ends with Spielberg. Nor have they any clue about cinematographers, composers, writers, etc. These are the people that make a movie happen. For group three, however, it’s usually all about the actors. Don’t get me wrong, I respect actors as much as any film buff, but they are only one piece of the puzzle with a single purpose: to serve the director. Tom Cruise said it best when he admitted, “film is a director’s medium.” Mel Gibson has stated that he prefers directing to acting because it gives him more control to tell the story his way. Moving on to vicious extremes now, Alfred Hitchcock said, “actors should be treated like cattle,” and Robert Bresson’s style treats them as “models” or “puppets”.
Despite their necessary talents, actors are chess pieces to be manipulated by the filmmaker. Proof can be seen in the career of the wonderful Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. He made well over one hundred films, but his greatest work as an actor was always found in the same place; the sixteen pictures he made with director Akira Kurosawa. Mifune himself said, “I am proud of nothing that I have done other than with him.” Actually Mifune made some pretty good movies with other directors, but Kurosawa was able to make masterpieces (Ikiru in 1952, Ran in 1985, etc.) without Mifune. So who was more important to whom? Great directors make an actor better. Period.
Alas, it is apparent that the people of group three seem to think "the actors make everything up as they go along,” as Joe Gillis cynically states in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950). At any rate, trying to talk sense to these people is like trying to help someone who can’t stop gambling or drinking. They are obsessive in the belief that there is nothing wrong with them, and that they are well on their way down the yellow brick road of cinematic truth. Nonetheless, they will forever be the joke that real cinephiles laugh about. My advice to them? Take it to the next level or join group two and stop pretending.
Now for the fourth group: the true movie buffs. Their Blu-ray collection likely spans from the earliest days of cinema to the present time. No country that has ever produced a film is left out. Why? Because in almost every country where films exist, there exist films that are great. Of course, bad films are made around the world too, but that's a given.
Movie buffs don’t pick and choose between genres either. A decent example would be the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Not only is the picture foreign, but it’s also a fantasy created in the Chinese idiom. People seem almost weightless as they fly through the air, walk on tree branches, or run along rooftops in the film’s many spectacular action sequences. This could, potentially, turn off those who are not accustomed to the wuxia genre. However, should one look at Crouching Tiger objectively, it is clearly telling a traditional story in an unconventional way. It is a movie about characters, with the recklessness of youth as a part of the tale, and unrequited love as another. The very same story could have been told in an American fantasy, or even, perhaps, an American drama. Simply because it wasn’t, and because it is, in fact, a Chinese film where people can fly, is no reason, on its own, to dislike it. This is what the true cinephile knows. He/she is open to the styles of other cultures, and is aware that, in the end, humans are humans; any story from any country can, for the most part, be related to by the people of another. That is actually one of the beauties of film, and indeed of any art form; the ability to transcend cultural barriers.
The cinephile also gives credit to the director as the “author” of the film that appears up on the screen. Thanks to the French film theorist André Bazin and François Truffaut, the French director and critic, this was given a name back in the 1950's. They called it "auteur theory" which means that, despite the collaborative nature of filmmaking, the director is the creator and his vision is paramount. Auteur theory has had its critics over the years, including Pauline Kael of The New Yorker, but I am a firm believer in it. There are exceptions, of course, particularly when the directing credit is misapplied. This happened often in the silent era, when the films of Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks, and Harold Lloyd often gave directing credit to others, when all evidence makes it clear these three men possessed, and exercised, full creative control.
There is simply no more accurate way to determine whether a film may be worth one’s time than to consider the filmmaker. A current favorite of mine is Alexander Payne, the writer/director of Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), and Sideways (2004). Though his latest film, The Descendants (2011), is arguably his weakest, it was still quite good. I went into it with certain expectations based on his previous work, and those expectations were met, for the most part. It’s all about track records. Granted, even directors can slip up, they’re only human after all, but this method remains preferable. Seeing a film because of an actor often results in a great deal of disappointment. Let's take Tom Hanks, for example. One can end up at such extreme ends of the quality spectrum as Turner & Hooch (1989) and Saving Private Ryan (1998).
It’s the same for writers, if indeed the writer isn’t also the director. One can not measure their interest in a film based on the screenwriter, because even the best screenplay can be butchered by a bad filmmaker. Hell, even actress Monica Bellucci, of all people, said, “For me, the most important thing when I make a choice is a director and then, a script. If you have a script that's not great, and a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who's not good, never, never are you going to have a good movie. So, for me, the most important thing is the director and their vision."
A recent filmmaker with a very unique style is David Fincher. The dark, dank, and perspiring environments of Alien 3 (1992) don’t look very far removed from those of Seven (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), Zodiac (2007), or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011). Also, the way his camera chases victims in the alien’s point-of-view in Alien 3, spinning upside down and gliding along the walls, isn’t far off from his later moves where he sends the camera through walls, ducts, and wiring in Fight Club and Panic Room (2002). My point is, it's a good thing if one enjoys a director’s personal style since it is their imprint, or stamp (not an actor’s, nor a writer’s, or even a cinematographer’s), one will see on any films they’re involved in. If one enjoys Seven, then one will most likely enjoy The Game and Fight Club.
I mentioned that cinematographers don’t always leave an imprint, and I feel the need to elaborate. Granted, cinematographers are the ones actually shooting what is on the screen. They have a vast working knowledge of the way lighting works and how the right lens can mean the difference between success and failure in a scene. I have an immense respect for cinematographers, just as I do for actors and writers, I don’t want anyone to misunderstand. It was even the legendary Gregg Toland who taught Orson Welles most of the ins and outs of the medium. Sven Nykvist, Gordon Willis, Kazuo Miyagawa, Emmanuel Lubezki, Toland, etc. are some phenomenally talented examples. Still, the cinematographer, like the actor, functions as a tool to be used by the filmmaker. The director sees what he wants, as a picture in his head, and aids the cinematographer in selecting angles, how much light to apply in the scene, and very often what lens to use as well (though I suppose this might piss off a veteran cinematographer).
One of the better examples I can think of is the case of Asakazu Nakai and Kazuo Miyagawa, who both worked on Kurosawa pictures at points in their lives. Both are very respected in their field, with Miyagawa often being considered the best ever from Japan. The problem is, Takao Saito, another cinematographer, stated that Kurosawa was extremely easy to work with because he knew exactly what he wanted in every aspect of the shoot. He told the cinematographers precisely what was needed of them, leaving little room to improvise. This is why all of Kurosawa’s pictures look wonderful, regardless of who shot them. In the end, as talented as those cinematographers are, it is Kurosawa’s presence that really creates everything from the quality of the images to the performances of the actors.
Needless to say, it’s the same situation with editors. Even when the director doesn’t do the editing himself, he is either present in the editing room or approving what the editor is doing. For the record, since I seem to be mentioning Kurosawa a lot, he did his own editing most of the time and was considered by many to be the greatest editor in the world. At any rate, the end result, what you actually get on the screen after months of hard work from various collaborators is, without debate, the director’s vision.
Another test to determine the real cinephile from the phony? The real cinephile will get what I'm saying here; the pseudo-cinephile will likely get defensive. The other two kinds of people are off the hook on this one because they probably aren't even reading this. If they are, they likely didn't make it this far because they simply don't care. Not caring at all is fine. It's halfway caring instead of caring all the way that frustrates me.
I pride myself on being as unbiased as possible when it comes to movies. For any cinephile worth their salt, the age of the film is unimportant, neither the country in which it was made, nor the genre. Many will say, “I don't like horror movies,” or, “I don't care for romantic comedies.” I'm not one of those people. I have loved films from all around the world in every genre there is. Still, if forced to admit it, at the end of the day, very rarely will I select a musical for my personal enjoyment.
This musical, however, I would watch anytime and with great pleasure. Love Me Tonight is pure magic, even slightly better than Singin' in the Rain (1952), which had been my favorite musical until I first saw this one. Each time I watch it I am reminded of why I love movies so much in the first place. The songs are catchy, the wit and sexual innuendo in the dialogue remain hilarious today, the characters are great fun, and the love story tops most stuff coming out of Hollywood now.
Set in Paris, the picture introduces us to a tailor named Maurice Courtelin (Maurice Chevalier), who has been outfitting the Viscount de Varèze (Charles Ruggles) on credit. The bill has gotten out of hand around the same time Maurice discovers the Viscount has an awful reputation among Parisian tradesmen for never settling his accounts. Maurice decides to travel to the castle of the Duke d'Artelines (C. Aubrey Smith), the Viscount's uncle, to demand payment. Along the way he has a “meet cute” on a country road with Princess Jeanette (Jeanette MacDonald). He attempts to charm the young widow by singing “Mimi”, but she heads off to the castle unimpressed.
Once Maurice arrives at the castle he is intercepted by the Viscount, who tells him he needs a few days to raise the money. He asks Maurice to stay at the castle, and avoids questions by quickly informing everyone that his guest is a baron. Other colorful characters on hand include a trio of aunts serving as a Greek chorus (and resembling Macbeth's three witches), the Duke's sex starved niece Valentine (Myrna Loy), and Count de Savignac (Charles Butterworth), who fails miserably in courting Jeanette.
We all know where this thing is going; Maurice falls for Jeanette, much to the chagrin of Valentine, but his false identity is uncovered. Can a princess love a common tailor? If the plot sounds like a mere trifle, well...it is. Still, while the destination is predictable, the joy of Love Me Tonight is in getting there, and in the characters, songs, and humor. A tremendous supporting cast doesn't hurt; Myrna Loy is one of the most adorable women in film history, and Charles Ruggles is one of my favorite character actors of the thirties.
The picture was directed by the Armenian-born filmmaker, Rouben Mamoulian, for Paramount in 1932. Movies from the late twenties to early thirties are a tricky subject. On the plus side, there was still no Hays Code censoring the content. Couples slept in the same bed, sex wasn't a taboo subject, there were nude scenes, the villain was not always punished for their crime, etc. That would all change in July of 1934, so these pre-Code sound films are like glorious, uninhibited little time capsules. Unfortunately, the introduction of sound set the visual art of filmmaking back about a decade, and these early adopters suffer the most.
It was a learning process, and most directors were slaves to the limitations of immobile microphones and other aspects of early sound recording. To get an exciting sequence with dynamic camera movement, directors like King Vidor (in 1929's Hallelujah!) and Lewis Milestone (in 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front) continued to film action scenes silently, dubbing sound in later. In most movies of the time, the camera was stationary, creating a simple frame for the actors to talk in. Pretty boring, especially compared to the brilliantly inventive late-period silents. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the incredible Japanese director, Yasujiro Ozu, so I'm not bashing austere minimalism as a stylistic choice. Ozu's camera rarely moved; his images were poetic in their simplicity, but he was never bound to that style by technical deficiencies.
Mamoulian, always rather adventurous and experimental in his stage directing career, was not content to be held prisoner by technology even at a time when most filmmakers were. For his 1929 feature, Applause, he pioneered the use of two microphones which allowed dialogue to overlap realistically. In the earliest sound films, one heard either dialogue or music, but never both together. Mamoulian's innovative use of sound contributed to the eventual creation of multi-track mixing. With City Streets (1931), Mamoulian became the first filmmaker to use voice-over in an American picture. In 1932 he made what is still the best version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and crafted a wildly unique first-person sequence to open the film, putting us right in the shoes of Frederic March's Dr. Jekyll. He directed Becky Sharp in 1935, the first feature-length motion picture to be shot entirely in three-strip Technicolor. Lastly, for what it's worth, he also made the best version of Zorro (yes, even better than the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks original) with 1940's The Mark of Zorro.
For Love Me Tonight, Mamoulian threw in everything but the kitchen sink, and made it work. It is here we witness the first use of a zoom lens and asynchronous sound, yet even more impressive is just how alive and filled with motion this film is. Practically every frame pulsates with energy and creativity. From top to bottom, the cast and crew knock the ball out of the park, and at least three of the wonderful songs by Rodgers and Hart became standards.
Taking a page from his stage production of Porgy, Mamoulian casts a spell over the audience immediately. In the opening sequence, Paris awakens. We see Maurice's little neighborhood as music is created through the everyday actions of sweeping, hammering, drying clothes, etc. Maurice rises in his apartment and begins to sing “The Song of Paree” all the way to work (clearly an inspiration for the "Little Town" sequence in the 1991 Disney film, Beauty and the Beast). It's pure joy, but as fantastic as the opening is, it's topped about five minutes later when Maurice sings “Isn't It Romantic”.
His customer deems the song “catchy” before exiting the shop, and he sings it as he passes a parked cab. The driver starts whistling the tune when he picks up a fare, his passenger catches on and is later overheard singing on a train filled with servicemen. The servicemen march through a field, singing in unison. In this splendid sequence, “Isn't It Romantic” is passed on from person to person across many miles, beginning on that little street in Paris and ending on a palace balcony in the countryside where we are introduced to Princess Jeanette. Now that's cinema.
The dialogue is a real treat too, with pre-Code euphemisms like, “I fell flat on my flute!” At one point Jeanette faints, and the Viscount rushes to Valentine. “Can you go for a doctor,” he asks. She happily replies, “Certainly! Bring him right in!”
Who can resist an exchange like this:
“You know, I had an elder brother who used to faint quite often. He was a nipomaniac.”
“A what?”
“A nipomaniac. He used to go around pinching things.”
“Oh I had a friend like that, he used to pinch business girls in elevators. They had to send him to a cooler climate.”
Or this one, between Jeanette and the Count she wants nothing to do with:
“Count, I'm going to bed.”
“I just came up to join you.”
“Join me?”
“Join you in a little chat before dinner.”
“Not tonight. I've had another fainting spell and my uncle thought bed was the best place for me.”
“I always think that.....if one isn't well.”
Surprisingly, there are those who believe Mamoulian was all flash and little substance, which seems to me an unfair assessment. He was such an enthusiastic technician that his abilities as an artist have been called into question. His critics see him as something of a grand imitator, apparently, with very little style to call his own. It's true the great Ernst Lubitsch had worked with Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald on The Love Parade (1929) and One Hour With You (1932), musicals made before Love Me Tonight, and Mamoulian's picture employed the same cinematographer and art director. Many see “the Lubitsch Touch” at work here, and it has been said that Love Me Tonight is the best Lubitsch film Lubitsch never made. As for me, I think it's the best Mamoulian film Mamoulian ever made.
Film critic Andrew Sarris, as well as the Orson Welles crusader and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (director of 1971's excellent The Last Picture Show), both prefer The Love Parade, One Hour With You, and The Merry Widow (1934) over Mamoulian's film. I respectfully disagree. As fond as I am of Lubitsch, I would take Love Me Tonight over any of his musicals. Lubitsch was the superior and more consistent filmmaker, but if forced to choose, I would even select Love Me Tonight over the immortal, non-musical Lubitsch classics, Trouble in Paradise (1932), Ninotchka (1939), and The Shop Around the Corner (1940).
It's just that good.
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