Mubi Monday: A Star Is Born (1937)

It's a simple tale, and an effective one, so effective that it's been directly remade on a number of occasions (most recently in the hit starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga). A young woman has dreams of stardom. She sets out to make those dreams a reality and, in doing so, becomes involved with a star who is on the wane. As she ascends, he starts to sink lower.

The young woman here is an aspiring actress played by Janet Gaynor, the fading star an actor played by Fredric March, and both do a fantastic job in the lead roles, with the former managing to retain an air of innocence and optimism as she becomes famous while the latter struggles in his battle with the bottle. Other enjoyable turns come from Adolphe Menjou and Andy Devine, as a producer and assistant director, respectively, May Robson as an encouraging grandparent, and Lionel Standard enjoyably loathsome as a ruthless and effective PR worker.

It's no surprise that A Star Is Born has been remade every couple of decades, with the biggest gap being in between the 1976 version and the 2013 Indian movie, Aashiqui 2, based on the tale. The story is a wonderful archetype, and the template allows for artists to use it as a look at the fickle nature of fame, a fleeting joy that can occur in any field of the arts.

This original version, directed by William A. Wellman, and written by a team that included Alan Campbell, Robert Carson, and Dorothy Parker among the main writers, gets everything just right from the very beginning. The tone is balanced nicely between the successes and failures of the two main characters, the supporting characters are well used throughout, and there are a number of enjoyable in-jokes scattered throughout. Considering this was released in 1937, it still feels astonishingly fresh and relevant (making those remakes even less surprising), and this is an old-fashioned production that I am sure will still find favour with modern viewers.

It's amazing to finally see this tale (I have, until now, sadly never watched any version of the story) and be pleasantly surprised by how well it is all put together. I'm not just on about the acting, direction, music, etc, although those things are all great. This is something that could easily be a sour experience for viewers. It is, essentially, a tale of people who get everything they want, yet can't be truly happy once they get it. The fact that this film works so well, and that every subsequent interpretation is allegedly as good, or almost as good, is almost as much of a fairytale as the journey of Gaynor's character.

8/10

There's a decent disc available here.
Americans can buy a disc here.

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

Once Upon A Time In The West is, for me, the greatest Western of all time. It's better than anything else out there, including the masterful "Dollars" trilogy, also from Sergio Leone (as if you didn't know). It's not without problems, in terms of both pacing and attitudes towards certain characters, but the sheer scope of the film and grandiosity of it all is enough to keep me in love with this film forever.

The simple core of the story is about a Harmonica-playing man (Charles Bronson) who comes to a small town, intent on meeting up with a villain named Frank (Henry Fonda). He gets involved with a recently-widowed woman (Claudia Cardinale) who is of great interest to Frank, and the villainy and treachery of the plot also brings a charismatic criminal ('Cheyenne', played by Jason Robards) into the mix. There's more to it than that, however, and the script takes time to explore the progress of industry changing the types of crimes being committed, viewing the heroes and villains as archetypes on the very brink of extinction, something that can be viewed as good or bad, depending on how romanticised your view is.

Leone often makes me feel hypocritical. There are so many times when I view a movie and complain that a little editing wouldn't have gone amiss. I never think that with Leone movies, and this is the film to really test the patience of viewers who want fists and bullets flying throughout their Westerns. It's slow, to say the least. And I can understand people who find it interminably so. This is a film I urge everyone to see, yet it's not one I could recommend to anyone. Give it your time though, just once, and see how you feel. It's just under three hours in length, and feels longer to many people, but if you end up loving it as I do then you won't be bothered by the runtime at all.

Based on a story by Bernardo Bertolucci, Dario Argento, and Leone, the screenplay (co-written by Leone and Sergio Donati) is typically sparse. Which isn't to say that the dialogue is unimportant. Almost every line is essential, revealing something about the speaker, or allowing for some amusingly playful interactions, especially whenever Robards is onscreen. There's so much here to dig into that my small review won't begin to do it all justice.

The score by Ennio Morricone is as wonderful as any of his other works. Each main character has their own "theme", the harmonica tune becomes especially poignant when the backstory is revealed, and things really step up a notch just in time for the finale that viewers are waiting for.

As a side note, this was my first time seeing Once Upon A Time In The West on the big screen and I HIGHLY recommend the experience. Whether it was seeing a huge steam engine roll into shot or watching a massive side shot of Charles Bronson moving into the screen while the bombastic score signifies the beginning of the end, this was a viewing experience I'll never forget.

Everyone does well in their main roles. This was the film that finally showed me why so many people consider Bronson an iconic star, and he is. Claudia Cardinale is gorgeous and spirited, Robards steals almost every scene he is in, and Fonda is one of the great screen villains, an absolute bastard who viewers want to see get his just desserts from his very first scene. And there are some fun supporting turns from Gabriele Ferzetti, Lionel Stander, Paolo Stoppa, and Jack Elam and Woody Strode.

I can see why people have problems with this film. I can see why some will never like it. But cinema is a medium for the moving image and, by god, did Leone say more with visuals alone than almost any other non-silent director I can think of. If I was more academically-minded then this review would be the first in a series of essays exploring all of the choices made. But I am not. I am just a big fan who still gets goosebumps when I bask in the glow of a film that is THIS good.

10/10

I have, and love, this disc.
Americans can buy it here.