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The French director Jean Renoir, the son of the famous Impressionist
painter Auguste Renoir, made two great films, Grand Illusion (1936) and
The Rules of the Game (1939). Although both films seem stilted by
modern standards of cinema viewing, they have the power to sneak up on
a viewer who regards them with patience and attention. In the former
the presence of the great French actor Jean Gabin is enough to make the
viewing experience a pleasure. Gabin is a hulking figure with an
expressive face, whose physical presence on the screen reminds me of
the contemporary French actor Gerard Depardieu. The classic German
director Eric Von Stroheim plays a major role in the film as well; his
formality and military bearing are an excellent complement to Gabin's
roughness and informality.

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I saw the French thriller Z, directed by Constantin Costa-Gavras, in
1970, when I was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. The
impact of this film was intertwined with my own individual political
development. At that time I was making a 180-degree-turn from political
conservative to political liberal--due in part to my disgust with the
Vietnam War, but due mostly to my rejection of President Nixon’s policy
of bombing of Cambodia in 1970. Becoming more politically aware of the
world around me helped me respond favorably to Costa-Gavras’ incredible
documentary-like film based upon the political assassination of a
liberal candidate for President of Greece in the 1960s. This man was
murdered at the order of fascist Generals who were afraid the candidate
would open the floodgates of democracy in Greece. The pulsating score,
the high-energy editing of a high-speed chase through the downtown and
the later assassination, and the gradual revelation of heroic deeds by
a prosecutor hand-picked by the Generals all combined to move me
emotionally as a viewer. The 1960s ended, for me, as a time of great
moral and political confusion. I knew I was in process as a political
person, and I knew the stakes were much higher than they were when I
was the naive adolescent at the beginning of the decade.

American Beauty. USA. Dir. Sam Mendes. Finally, an American film that
takes my breath away. I was reminded of Mike Nichols' The Graduate
(1965), Robert Redford's Ordinary People (1980) and Ang Lee's The
Ice-Storm (1997) because this film, like them, was a critique of the
anxiety-ridden white upper class in suburbia. This film is a gem. Some
of the ingredients included the voice-over narration by the main
character, the father, played by Kevin Spacey, whose transformation was
both radical and believable; the acting of Annette Bening (in many ways
reminiscent of a sexier, more kinetic version of Mary Tyler Moore (from
Ordinary People)--her pep talk-to-herself scenes were incredible; a
creepy performance by a young actor who plays the new next-door
neighbor (who is obsessed with videotaping images of beauty--as he
defines them); a solid performance by Chris Cooper, who plays a
rough-and-tough ex-Marine and the boy's father.

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The year before (1966) the three of us had seen Mike Nichols’ first
film, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I have no idea why we saw this
film. I don’t think my mother or my sister expected a film that was as
metaphorically subtle and complex as this one. But the film was
important for me because it was the first time I had felt overwhelmed
by the characters and their motives. Why was everyone so brutal to each
other? What did the title mean? Did the characters played by Richard
Burton and Elizabeth Taylor really have a son who had died? This film
taught me that multiple viewings are required of films--in the same way
as multiple readings of a novel or multiple viewings of a play. These
two films by Mike Nichols further reinforced my growing understanding
that film was more aligned with art than it was with entertainment.

Anywhere but Here. USA. Dir. Wayne Wang. I have a weakness for
Wayne Wang. This semester I taught his film Smoke (1995) and the
students loved it. They got it, they responded to the characters, the
themes. It was a pleasure to see their enthusiasm played out in their
responses in class and in their written work. I went to see Anywhere
but Here primarily because it was directed by Wang. Even though Susan
Sarandon was the primary actor in the film, her name alone would not
draw me to the film. She is a fine actor, and her work in last year's
The Stepmom was one of the redeeming features of an average screenplay.

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