Hold Me While I'm Naked

Hold Me While I’m Naked

1966

Director: George Kuchar

Starring: Donna Kerness, George Kuchar

I just plain don’t get, or like, experimental films.  Whenever I see that tag of “avant-garde” on a flick, I tense up.  Oh dear lord, what will this one do to me now?  But 1001 Movies always has a lesson or two to teach me about never discounting an entire genre of films.  There are always exceptions to the rules, and I can’t help but enjoy Hold Me While I’m Naked.  Well, as much as I could enjoy an experimental film.

The scant plot of this scant film (it clocks in at 15 minutes) is of a director (Kuchar) trying to make a movie.  One of his lead actresses pulls out halfway through the shoot (Kerness) so he has to find a replacement.  Meanwhile, off screen, we see said actress having sexy fun times with a significant other while our poor director leads a rather solitary, lonely life.

And that’s it.  I mean, at 15 minutes, it’s barely there.  But I’ve seen films where 15 minutes can feel like a chore, and it doesn’t here.  In fact, I’d even go so far to say I wouldn’t mind this particular film being a bit longer.  Wow, did I really just say that?

Why is this so much more amusing than a typical sixties experimental film?  Simple: George Kuchar.  As both director and star, this film is clearly HIS, and it’s evident from the opening that Kuchar has a huge sense of humor.  His voiceover as he coaches his actress through her scenes makes me smile.  And his dialogue as he’s shooting a love scene later just slays me with its bizarre juxtapositions: “Tomorrow we do the massage table scene and maybe we’ll do the scene where you’re found naked in a fallout shelter and there are those radioactive welts on your thigh.”  Wait… WHAT?  Radioactive welts?  Fallout shelter?  From a love scene?  I honestly can’t help but laugh at that sort of ridiculous swing in imagery.  The circus-esque music in the opening credits sets the stage for such an approach. 

Kuchar also makes me laugh later in the film when we continually cut back and forth between couples having sexy times in a shower and him, Kuchar, taking a shower alone, by himself, and banging his head against the wall.  It’s a bit sad, and there’s definitely a poignancy there about a man sacrificing everything for his “art” even though the art is a bit crap.  It’s rather reminiscent of Ed Wood, really.  And yet, despite the pathetic nature, it’s also funny.  Going back and forth between two people obvious each enjoying their time together to Kuchar banally taking off his socks and stepping in his tiny shower… really, it’s funny.  At least to me.

I first saw Hold Me While I’m Naked at the Dryden when they did an evening of screening art house/experimental shorts from the sixties and seventies, and this was before I could see these shorts on youtube or anyplace else.  This was my only chance to see these films.  There were several Andy Warhol films on the docket that evening, and Blonde Cobra was shown as well.  Hold Me While I’m Naked was shown by Kuchar, as was his later short from the seventies, I, An Actress.  I am sure that this is why I’m rather keen on Hold Me While I’m Naked – because when you spend an evening watching Blonde Cobra and Andy Warhol, and then you watch something by George Kuchar, you leap all over that last stuff.  Kuchar’s sense of play, optimism, and humor, really shines through amongst all the ridiculous posturing of the other shorts.  And I think I, An Actress makes a great companion piece to Hold Me While I’m Naked.  It’s even shorter (9 minutes) but again we have Kuchar playing a director making a movie.  Instead, though, in I, An Actress, the entire short is Kuchar coaching his lead actress through a scene, and it’s hysterical as he grows even more over the top in his delivery of her lines (even the actress can’t keep a straight face).  This wacko crazy approach to film works well for me, at least when you contrast it with the other experimental shorts of the time that drive me absolutely bonkers. 

Hold Me While I’m Naked may not make much sense, but at least it laughs at itself.  At least it will make you laugh.  George Kuchar seemed like a really fun guy, and he clearly loved film.  Honestly, I’m glad this selection is in 1001 Movies.  It’s a diverting, campy little 15 minutes of your life.

Arbitrary Rating: 7/10

The Apartment

The Apartment

1960

Director: Billy Wilder

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray

If there is such a thing as a perfect film, The Apartment strikes awfully close to the mark.  Full of quiet comedy and a streak of pathos so deep that it seems to become sadder the more I think about it, The Apartment is utterly lovely from open to finish.  It certainly helps that when I think about “my type” of film, The Apartment fits the bill almost to the tee.  I have always preferred what I call “small films,” films that have a story that only concerns a handful of people in a limited number of locations dealing with regular, ordinary, everyday problems.  And while the central conceit of The Apartment is played for ludicrous satire, it is so gloriously small in its scope that I love it more and more each time I see it.  This is my kind of movie.

C.C. Baxter (Lemmon) works in insurance in a big, generic corporation in Manhattan.  He often works late, not because he’s driven but because four of his bosses regularly use his apartment in the west sixties as a trysting place for their extramarital affairs.  Baxter trades his apartment for promotions at work, leading him to ultimately come up before big boss Sheldrake (MacMurray) who has heard about Baxter’s place through the grapevine.  Sheldrake wants to use the apartment as well to continue his affair with cute and perky elevator girl Fran Kubelik (MacLaine).  Thing is, though, that Baxter, has fallen hard for Fran, not knowing she is Sheldrake’s lover.  Fran, for her part, is too hung up on the married guy she knows is no good to pay any notice to Baxter’s earnest attentions.  Things come to a head when Fran is dumped in Baxter’s apartment.

  

While there’s certainly more to this film than C.C. Baxter as played by Jack Lemmon, it can be hard for me to see it.  This central character and this brilliant performance completely make the film for me.  This is my personal favorite Jack Lemmon performance because it strikes such a fine balance between comedy and tragedy.  Lemmon makes me laugh as he watches his typewriter at his desk, nodding his head along with its rhythm.  About an hour later, he breaks my heart as he frantically paces his apartment after finding a comatose Fran lying in his bed.  Neither is played too extreme; Lemmon, definitely known for his hammy comedic talents (and I mean that in the best possible way) never lets his hamminess completely take over the lighthearted scenes.  The opposite is true as well; when the tenor turns more somber, he never dreams of ranting and raving and throwing things around to express his angst.  Instead, it’s all done so perfectly quietly in his face where I can read the depth of sadness and worry he is feeling.  Lemmon makes my heart ache in this film.  He is utterly sublime.

But Lemmon would not be as amazing as he is were it not for the creation of the story itself, and that credit goes to Billy Wilder and I.A.L Diamond.  Lemmon’s perfect blend of funny and heart-wrenching pain comes directly from a story that makes it abundantly clear from the get-go that no one is above reproach.  No heroes, no villains, just regular people making bad choices.  Sheldrake is perhaps the clearest-cut villain from the cast of characters, but even he seems less dastardly and more simply an arrogant man used to getting his way.  There are even moments where I feel sympathy for him (albeit not many).  And Baxter?  I suppose he is the de facto hero, but what I adore about this story is that really, he is not.  Is Baxter a good person?  Well, that depends.  At first glance, yes, you see his earnest interest in Fran and you think, wow, what a nice guy.  You see him throw away what other people think of him in order to take the blame himself rather than incriminate others, and his self-sacrifice seems positively noble.  Indeed, that self-sacrifice is another component of Lemmon’s performance as Baxter that utterly breaks my heart.  But then back it up: Baxter trades his apartment, where he lives, for its use for sexual favors, all in order to climb the corporate ladder.  He has sold more than a bit of his soul, making seedy bargains to work his way to that elusive corner office.  From the very beginning, I yearn for Baxter to finally say “No” to his demanding bosses, his bosses who kick him out on the street at 2am because they met a Marilyn Monroe lookalike (lovely little in-joke from Wilder there), but he can’t.  He doesn’t have the necessary spine to get himself out of the web he’s woven for himself and so simply keeps surrendering to the lewd demands of others.  Baxter, a hero?  Hardly.  I think he is a good man, but deeply flawed, and he must learn to overcome it in some small way.

Opposite Baxter is MacLaine’s Fran Kubelik, another brilliantly written character.  Fran is believably stuck in a toxic relationship that she desperately wants to end yet cannot.  I love that Fran knows in her head that she needs to end the affair with Mr. Sheldrake.  Fran knows this, she says it over and over again.  And yet, her heart won’t let her.  She is in love with him despite desperately not wanting to be.  This makes her sad and frustrated and everything comes to a head.  This sort of situation, of knowing that you SHOULDN’T be in a certain relationship, yet not being able to actually cut and run, this is a difficult situation to believably portray, but I believe it completely in The Apartment.  MacLaine is fantastic and helps me believe that Fran knows better yet can’t find the strength to walk away.  So our two main characters, those we feel should be our heroes, both can’t seem to find the strength to end the morally reprehensible situations they find themselves stuck in.

It is the utter ordinariness of the film that I love as well.  The Apartment is rife with ordinary, everyday touches that make me love it even more.  I love Baxter’s drab little apartment that only grows seedier as the film continues.  I love him unceremoniously lighting the oven and preparing a foil-wrapped TV dinner.  I love him drinking the leftover cocktails from the party as his place.  I love the electric blanket he has to plug in.  I love the simple feast of spaghetti and meatballs he prepares, complete with grated Parmesan from a jar.  I love Fran’s taxi driver of a brother-in-law.  I love her broken compact mirror.  There is no attempt to glamorize the sets in The Apartment, and I love that.  I mean, I really love that.  So gloriously, perfectly ordinary, lumps and all.

There is so much more to The Apartment; the fantastic set design, the gorgeous cinematography, the witty banter, script-wise, and the rampant social commentary running through the film.  All this is great and important, but that’s not why I love The Apartment.  I love it because of its characters, because of their brokenness, because of Jack Lemmon, because of the perfect tiny details, and because it breaks my heart and makes me laugh at the exact same time.  And it’s aged extraordinarily well.  I recently put this on while my parents were visiting, and my mother watched it in spite of herself.  Still engrossing, still wonderful, still relevant, still real. 

Arbitrary Rating: 10/10, ratings-wise.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Tini zabutykh predkiv)

1964

Director: Sergei Parajanov

Starring: Ivan Mykolaichuk, Larisa Kadochnikova, Tatyana Bestayeva

In watching Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors a second time in order to review it, I borrowed the DVD from the local library and wanted to watch it on the big TV in our living room.  My husband was in the room as well, so I asked him, “Is it okay if I put on a really weird Soviet movie?”  He looked up from his video game and said, “Yeah, that’s fine.”  Ten minutes later, he turned to me and said, “You really weren’t kidding, this is weird.”

Indeed.

Alright, “weird” is not exactly the most fitting adjective here, but still, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is hardly typical cinema.  The story is about young Ivan (Mykolaichuk as an adult), a boy growing up in a Hutsul village in the Carpathian mountains of Ukraine.  As a boy, he falls in love with Marichka (Kadochnikova as an adult) despite the fact that her father killed his father.  The two grow up together inseparable, but when Marichka dies in an accident, Ivan is grief-stricken.  Ultimately he marries Palagna (Bestayeva) but still thinks of Marichka.  After not producing any children, Palagna turns to sorcery which causes a rift between her and Ivan.

  

I can understand why Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is included in 1001 Movies, but it is not a movie I enjoy.  So, why is it in 1001 Movies, then?  Because first and foremost, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is about the Hutsul tradition.  It’s essentially a fictionalized ethnography, for lack of a better term.  Part of why I am so committed to not just watching but writing about the 1001 Movies book is because I know it will stretch me outside my comfort zone, and this film is exactly that.  The culture and traditions in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors are wholly unlike those I am familiar with; the movie has exposed me to a time and place I would otherwise not have known, and that’s important. 

There are many cultural traditions on hand here, starting with the simple church service that opens the film, but is full of such colors and sets to feel very different.  There are the requisite weddings and funerals, but also the Christmas holidays, simple pub outings, a winter market, and tending to the farm.  What makes me prefer the type of cultural education presented in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors to that in a more traditional ethnography is that this is all presented in terms of a fictionalized and fantasized story.  We see all these events through the window of wistful nostalgia and mysticism.  Parajanov’s manages to weave cultural education together with a fairytale-like atmosphere of images and sounds and feelings.  I prefer that Parajanov leaves many ceremonies completely unexplained; I’m still not sure why those villagers were wearing ridiculous masks in one scene, but I don’t think I really care.  It was as if I was an impartial observer, simply sitting back and watching this village without knowing the language.  What results is a whirlwind of color and dance and costume and sound, and it’s pretty heady.  

  

Additionally, on a personal level, I live in an area with a rather high Ukrainian population.  In my classes over the years I’ve been teaching, I’ve had several Ukrainian students; last year alone, in a class of only thirteen students, I had a Rostislav, a Petro, and a Vladimir, and they would frequently speak Ukrainian to one another.  Heck, sometimes they would go back and forth between Ukrainian and English in the same sentence. (and really, the amusement factor of watching two high school students yelling in Ukrainian at one another because they each think the other botched their chem lab results is pretty damn high… I will always remember Rostislav barking out incomprehensible orders to Petro from across the room.)  Because of this fact, I am a bit more interested in discovering Ukrainian traditions now than before I started teaching, if for no other reason than having a better understanding of where my students are coming from.  I understand that my students are separated by years from the traditions on display in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, but it is still interesting to discover nonetheless.

Speaking of sound, I rather enjoyed the music in this film.  Having played symphonic and large group classical music all my life, Russian and Soviet music always stems from its small town cultural roots.  When you listen to Tchaikovsky’s works where he is not writing to please Western European tastes (as in “Capriccio Italien”, for example), there is – obviously – significant Russian undertones and thematic elements.  Some of my favorite pieces of classical music are from the Eastern European composers, such as Shostakovich (forever associated with Stalin’s regime, unfortunately), Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky… the list goes on and on.  One of my favorite concerts I’ve ever performed with a community band was when we played Tchaikovsky’s “Marche Slave”, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (yes, all of it), Shostakovich’s “Finale” from Symphony No. 5, and assorted smaller works, like Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Dance of the Tumblers” and Prokofiev’s “March” from The Love for Three Oranges.  It was staggering music, full of such cultural richness and tones, and an absolutely drop dead fantastic concert.  The soundtrack in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, all music composed directly for the film, is ripped from that same tradition.  It could fit right in beside Rimsky-Korsakov easily.  If nothing else, the aural and visual components of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors are very striking, and this is why I understand why it makes it into 1001 Movies.

  

But.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is not exactly a fun watch.  It’s not brutal or tortuous, in the way that horrific war films are, and nothing bad really happens, but it’s… trying.  Plot is not the point.  Subtitles that precede the film call it a “poetic drama.”  A visual tone poem, if you will.  At only an hour and a half, it’s not too long, but it’s still a bit of a task to sit through it.  The pace is decent enough, never really too slow or lingering too long on one thing, but I still struggled to pay attention.  In short, there is a great deal to appreciate about Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, but much less to actually like.  I wouldn’t exactly recommend this film to anyone who wasn’t going through 1001 Movies, not because I think it’s a crap film, just because I don’t think anyone would really like it. 

And ultimately, this is my final opinion of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.  I can appreciate it, but I don’t particularly care for it.  If I’m looking to watch a Soviet visual tone poem, I’ll reach for Tarkovsky’s Zerkalo or Stalker in a heartbeat over Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.  The colors and music and cultural richness is fine, maybe even important, but this movie is also the filmic equivalent of being forced to eat my vegetables.

Arbitrary Rating: 5/10.

The Graduate

The Graduate

1967

Director: Mike Nichols

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross

While not as definitive or landmark a film to me as it is to many people, especially those of my parents’ generation, The Graduate remains a potent, awkwardly comic, and ever-unsettling coming of age story.  Given that the first time I saw it, I had not yet really “come of age,” it makes sense that it was mostly lost on me then.  Re-evaluating it, however, in order to write this piece, I found myself smiling, cringing, and appreciating The Graduate in a way I distinctly do not remember doing before.

Benjamin Braddock (Hoffman) has just graduated with awards and honors from college, but he isn’t in a celebratory mood.  Upset and disconnected, he doesn’t know what he wants to do.  Enter Mrs. Robinson (Bancroft), his father’s business partner’s wife, a woman he has known since childhood.  When Mrs. Robinson tells Ben that she would like to sleep with him, the two enter into the least sexy affair you’ve seen in some time, one born of a desire to escape boredom rather than any kind of attraction.  Things get immensely complicated when Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine (Ross) comes home from college on break and Ben finds himself falling in love with her.

Part of the reason I felt so massively underwhelmed by The Graduate when I first saw it was its advertisement as a comedy.  In seeing it a second time, I think I chuckled maybe three times, and smiled about half a dozen times.  If you’re watching The Graduate expecting a laugh riot, well, don’t.  Categorization of this film is tough, as there are certainly comic moments (“Plastics” is good for a smile, as is “You’re the most attractive of my parents’ friends”), but overall, I find it a very emotional story.  Terms like “dramedy” were invented with films like this in mind.  But I remembered that I didn’t find it laugh out loud funny, and approached The Graduate a second time watching it as a drama.  The film makes more sense to me this way. 

Benjamin’s tale is a difficult one; a young man who has achieved much in school but now finds himself lost.  He is Hemingway’s Lost Generation, he is Generation X of the nineties, as he battles this sort of existential angst that threatens to consume his very soul.  Benjamin does many things in The Graduate to try to distract himself from this frighteningly hollow sense of emptiness and despair, but he never really manages to succeed; the famous final shot is proof enough of that.  Mrs. Robinson is a physical distraction, and her daughter Elaine isn’t much more.  Benjamin becomes obsessed with the idea of Elaine rather than Elaine herself, and I have trouble buying that his protestations of love for her are real.  He sees in Elaine a kind, gentle young woman and suddenly a possible pathway out of his despair appears to him.  Had it been a different girl at a different time, he would have been pounding on the window of a different church at the end.  It was not Elaine in particular, it was the notion of her.  But neither the thought of Elaine nor Elaine herself can save him from his life, as the ambiguously downbeat ending seems to say.  Nor is Benjamin terribly likeable.  While, as the definite central character of the film, there is an automatic tendency to want to root for him, Benjamin does many things that make this difficult.  Stalking Elaine, for instance, after knowing her a relatively small period of time and upsetting her greatly; engaging in emotionally self-destructive behavior for another.  I suppose he is the “hero” of The Graduate, but that does not make him good.  

Hoffman, in his first major film role, is tremendously good as Benjamin.  His performance in the first half, before Benjamin has met Elaine, is nothing short of phenomenal.  Hoffman is awkward and uncomfortable in everything he does, from robotically grabbing Mrs. Robinson’s breast to sitting on the bottom of the swimming pool in a diving suit to nervously checking out a room at the Taft Hotel.  Rather than the Hoffman that is more well known today, one who overacts and typically delivers broad performances, this is an incredibly self-contained Hoffman.  We feel how much he is holding on the inside as Benjamin, how much unnamed pain he carries around, how unhappy and depressed he is as he presents a bland smile to the camera.  Hoffman loosens Benjamin up in the second half after Elaine has been introduced, hinting at her as his possible salvation, but the performance isn’t quite as interesting.  It makes sense, yes, just not as compelling. 

Mike Nichols, in only his second feature film (after Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), directs a visually fascinating story.  The influence of the French New Wave is all over The Graduate, most notably in the montage where Benjamin is against a black background and we see him watching TV or sleeping with Mrs. Robinson or avoiding his parents.  There are a few nifty match cuts (jumping on a raft switches to jumping on Mrs. Robinson), some interesting point-of-view scenes (watching from Ben’s view as he is in his scuba suit and all we hear is breathing), and a lack of fear about getting too far away or too close to the actors.  There are times when he physically distances the camera from the actors, there are long takes, and scenes where we cannot hear the conversation being carried out.  The Graduate burst on the scene in 1967 to much acclaim, and with filmmaking techniques this innovative for the time, it’s easy to see why.  It still felt fresh to me, despite the fact that the film is *gulp* coming up on its fiftieth anniversary.  

Having lived through my horrible twenties and some slight adventures in depression, I can, in some way, relate to Benjamin Braddock.  I don’t approve of his actions, but his feeling of discontent feels all too familiar.  Brilliant performances by Hoffman and Bancroft (which I did not mention here, but she fills the screen as the dominatrix-esque Mrs. Robinson), Simon and Garfunkel’s iconic soundtrack, Nichols’ glorious cinematography, and its undeniable place as a touchstone film for an entire generation ensure that The Graduate will continue to be discussed for years to come.

Arbitrary Rating; 8/10