Displaying items by tag: Martin Scorsese

MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER

UK/US, 2024, 132 minutes, Colour.

Martin Scorsese.

Directed by David Hinton.

This is a filmed masterclass with Martin Scorsese, talking to camera, but speaking earnestly and always interestingly to the cinema audience.

From his childhood, seeing The Red Shoes, he has been enthusiastic for the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. In his early years of making films, he corresponded with Michael Powell. And, Powell, in his retirement, moved to Los Angeles, a strong friendship with Scorsese over many years. Scorsese had studied with Thelma Schoenmaker who married Powell and who has been the editor of Scorsese’s films for over 40 years.

This is the background for Scorsese’s enthusiasm.

Scorsese makes his audience comfortable with scenes from the films, with photos and clips of the two directors, an enjoyable introduction and he moves to a biography of Powell, very British in his way. Then a biography of Pressburger, born in Hungary, working in Germany, then in France and moving to England, learning the language, becoming a master of the language.

There is an overview of Powell’s early career, working in studios in Nice in the 1930s with American director, the imaginative Rex Ingram. Then a number of small features in England. His first major film was set in Scotland, Edge of the World. And, as with all the films that follow, extensive clips from the films and analysis by Scorsese himself, of technique and style, of themes, of issues, artistic, political…

The first collaboration between Powell and Pressburger was in 1939, the year of the outbreak of World War II, a spy film, The Spy in Black. During the 40s, they had an extraordinary career. Pressburger was the writer, coproducing with Powell as director. There were not only friends, but there was of professional love and friendship between them, never an ill word against each other, even when there was a parting of the ways in the late 1950s. There are many interviews with each of the throughout the film and quite a number of interviews, judging by their ages, and appearance, over several decades. And, finally an award, presented by Deborah Kerr, star of two of the most significant films.

World War II provided a strong occasion for their filmmaking and insights, beginning with The 49^th Parallel, Nazi soldiers stranded in Canada, going to the German community, rejected by them. Then there was the film, disliked by Churchill, the Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, an overview of Britain at war in three stories, from the early 20^th century, World War I, World War II, featuring Roger Livesy in the central role and introducing Deborah Carr in three roles, filmed when she was in her early 20s. Something of a sardonic look at changing British military attitudes and behaviour.

This was followed by a black-and-white production, A Canterbury Tale, Chaucer’s framework, again World War II. And, fostering relationship with the United States, the extraordinary fantasy, in black and white for Heaven, in colour for Earth, A Matter of Life and Death.

With the end of the war there was the light touch with the romance, I Know Where I’m Going. But a key film in this post war period, set in India but filmed in England with back drops and sets, Black Narcissus, a story of Anglican nuns from a novel by Rumer Goden. Exotic, intriguing, colourful, highly imaginative. This was followed by The Red Shoes, ballerina, Moira Shearer, persuaded to dance and at the central role, the Hans Anderson fable, the dancer, her controller – featuring Anton Walbrook, in so many of Powell and Pressburger films, and a tour de force by Australia’s Robert Helpmann.

The film traces the couples dealing with the Rank Studios, with Alexander Korda, the very small budget The Small Back Room, commercial failure in his time but interesting in retrospect. Then attempted collaboration with Sam Goldwyn, the reworking of the Scarlet Pimpernel, The Elusive Pimpernel and with David Selznick for his wife, Jennifer Jones, Gone to Earth, which was recut by Selznick and released as Wild Heart.

The 50s were difficult for the couple, the American influence, the budget for a dramatisation in dance of Tales of Hoffman, the musical of Offenbach, highly imaginative – then also cut but restored in later decades. A follow-up was Oh.. Rosalinda, based on the Strauss light operetta, Die Fledermaus, The Bat, N acquired taste for most audiences, THE popular audience put off by the music, the singing, the farcical story, the highly stylised performances. One of the reasons for seeing it is the British cast, especially Michael Redgrave singing, dancing, high kicks and leaping click of heels, a performance unlike any of his others.

Some war films in the mid-1950s, The Battle of the River Plate and Ill Met by Moonlight.

The climax of Powell’s career was the psychological/horror drama of 1960, Peeping Tom, mostly condemned by many reviewers on release, calls for it to be banned. However, again appreciated in retrospect.

Scorsese omits some of the lighter comedies and dramas Powell made from 1959 to the mid-60s, as well as some television episodes. The main feature film that Scorsese does not comment on is another of their World War II drama is, from 1942, One of Our Aircraft is missing. No explanation why comment on this film is missing.

His final work, in the second half of the 1960s, was in Australia, some clips shown from his Age of Consent, 1968. And, for Australian audience, the disappointment of a mere reference without its being named, Powell’s comedy, the archetypal “New Australian” book and comedy, They’re a Weird Mob.

Powell went to Hollywood, married, wrote his autobiography, kept in contact with Scorsese and the studios.

In fact, a master Masterclass.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

US, 2023, 206 minutes, Colour.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Martin Scorsese, Cara Jade Myers, Janae Collins, Jillian Dion, Jason Isbell, Scott Shepherd, Tatanka Means.

Directed by Martin Scorsese.

By 1918, when this film opens, Native Americans were something of a lost minority in their own land, in reservations, or wandering from place to place in the Oklahoma Badlands, as is with the Osage Nation here. In silent film style, the situation is dramatised, poverty and on the move, the sudden gushers of oil on Osage Land, unexpected wealth and affluent lifestyle, befriended by Whites, patronised by Whites, and the targets for intermarriage and inheriting land and oil rights. It is not yet 40 years since Cochise and Custer’s Last Stand at Little Big Horn.

There is also a preface to the film where Osage Elders gather, talk about their traditions, and regrets that the next generation is being taught by white teachers, their learning other ways and forgetting their own.

Into this world comes Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), returning from being a cook on the French battlefields. Not the smartest, he is welcomed by his highly reputed uncle, King (Robert De Niro), and his brother Byron (Scott Shepherd). King seems to be benign personified, promoting the welfare of everyone in the town of Fairfax, whatever their origins. Ernest runs a taxi, and is eager to drive Mollie (a dignified and quietly passionate Lily Gladstone) to her mother’s house. She has several sisters, who are involved with white men. And then the visual information that many Osage die. King encourages Ernest’s interest in Mollie for marriage, children and inheritance reasons and, while Ernest continually smiles and gloats that he loves money, he does fall in love with Mollie.

Martin Scorsese has made films for over 50 years, so many of them about American crime, especially gangsters. And this time, he takes up the cause of the Native Americans, and their being victimised by criminal greed and violence.

And this is a very long film, 3 ½ hours. And, to make a comparison with the film, Oppenheimer, it presents itself in three parts. The first part introduces the characters and issues, immerses the audience in the life of the town, part frontier, part stable, and the interaction between white and Native American. Once this is established, the second part focuses on the characters, the events, the violence, the exploitation, King, continually smiling, yet a Machiavellian influence, Bible quoting, especially on Ernest for whom greed and loyalty to King affect his love for his wife, who is suffering from diabetes, the beginnings of the availability of insulin. The third part, like the third part of Oppenheimer, might seem something of anti-climax to those very much involved in the action. The third part is the legal part, the arrival of FBI agents, investigations, prison, court sequences. But a necessary third part to evaluate the rights and wrongs, mainly wrongs, of what we have seen.

As expected, the performances are excellent – and, in the third part, some welcome cameos from Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser and, in a tantalising finale to the whole film, the audience taken to a 1940s radio studio and participating in the dramatising of this story, led by the show’s producer, Scorsese himself.

The film is an important piece of Americana, a conscience-jolting exploration of the defeat and exploitation of the Native Americans.

1. The title, and the American killers, the season of beauty, the fields and the flower moon vistas?
2. American history, first Nations Americans, the opening, the silent film style, the situation of the Osage Nation, migrations, minority, the discovery of oil, the vista of the gushers, the ownership of the oil, the scenes of exploitative wealth, cars, clothes, jewellery, and the succession of murders, bodies lying in state?
3. The scenes with the Osage nation, assessing the present, the next-generation being taught by Whites, the white ways, the changes, the 1920s and this coming into fulfilment? The various dignitaries, their leadership? Henry, his role in leadership, his drinking, ultimate collapse, his death?
4. The structure of the film, the first part the introduction, the second part, the murders and exploitation, the third part justice and legal issues?
5. The locations, Fairfax, the railway and the trains, the streets, the bars, homes, mansions? The interiors? The prison, the courts? And the finale on the radio station? The musical score?
6. Ernest returning home, the American situation, 1918, serving over there, the reputation of the troops, Ernest as a cook? Not the brightest? Coming home to his uncle, to Byron? Agreeable, naive? Believing in his uncle? Promotion? Driving the taxi, the encounter with Mollie, his uncle’s plan, marriage and murder, inheritance? Interaction between Mollie and Ernest, making her laugh, her inviting him in, the meals, the mother, the sisters?
7. The character of William King Hale, Robert De Niro’s performance, quietly sinister, the smile, the smooth talk, quoting the Bible, relationship with the Osage, bringing the benefits to the town, prosperity, but his overall plan? At home, meeting people, always smiling? Machiavellian? Scheming, plotting, advising? His role in the deaths of the Indian women, the inheritance of the oil wealth?
8. The moral climate of Fairfax, attitudes towards the First Nations, the oil, wealth, Ernest and his love for money, almost equal to his wife? The men in the bar, Byron and his contacts, the murders, colours, planned, the set-ups, Anna, her wild life, Byron, her pregnancy, the visuals of her drunkenness, her murder? The autopsy, cutting up the body, the search for the bullet? Anna and her relationship with his mother, her mother’s favourite?
9. Smith, his relationship with his wife, her illness, the picnic scenes of the sisters together, her death? His reaction, hiring the detective? Relationship with Reta, marrying, her being a comfort to him? His becoming the target?
10. Ernest, the revelation of his motivations, connections, setting up the killings, the loan of the car, the insurance scheme? The killers, their backgrounds, prison? Their characters, callous? Byron and his role, with the women, with King, with Ernest?
11. Mollie, at home, with her mother, her mother favouring Anna? Life-and-death, traditions, the vision of the owl? Her death?
12. Mollie, the diabetes, her health, in love with Ernest, the marriage, the ceremonies and joy, her pregnancy, over the years, the children? The doctors, the insulin? The brothers and their medical expertise, exploitation? Ernest and the injections, a means for Mollie’s death and the inheritance? Mollie and the vision of the old?
13. The murder of Henry, the killer, his change of heart, meant to look like suicide? The hiring of detectives, their being brutalised, the visit to Washington, the representation of the Osage, Mollie and her talking with President Coolidge?
14. The FBI investigator, White, his arrival, interrogations, Ernest putting him off because of Mollie’s health, King and his smooth talk? The further investigations, the variety of agents arriving, uncovering the truth?
15. Ernest, his being arrested, his complicity in the planning of the murders, the bombing of the house and its destruction? The old man who witnessed Anna’s death and his giving testimony? The arrest of King? King, the signed deal with Ernest, his being observed?
16. Ernest and the interrogation, keeping him standing, holding his relationship with Mollie over him, his children? The news of the youngest child to death, the hooping cough, the Coffin?
17. King, arrested, agreeable, in prison, the pressure on Ernest? His threats to Ernest in prison, holding Mollie’s health over him? Ernest being freed, talking with Mollie, the funeral, promising to tell the truth, his admissions – but the question of his injections for Mollie? Her being in court, her walking away from him – and the final information about the divorce?
18. Ernest, his change of heart, his testimony, condemning King? The callous murderer and his offhand testimony in court, telling the truth?
19. The lawyers, the defence, speeches in court, dominating Ernest? The prosecutor and his rhetoric?
20. The very American ending, the radio program, the announcers, the actors and two voices, the white man and the Osage voice, the special effects and sounds? The information about the case, Ernest, imprisonment, release, with Byron, the divorce, Mollie and her new life, her death? King, jail, release, his death?
21. The final visuals of the Osage Nation, the rising drone shot, the pageantry?