Elliot Lavine, former programming director for the Roxie Film Center, helped set new standards for art house cinemas with his film noir festivals, classic revivals and popular premieres. In conjunction with the anticipated publication of TV Noir: I Wake Up Dreaming, Lavine returns to the Roxie with "two weeks of darkly demented, baffling B budget curios of the American style—most not available on DVD and many not seen in theaters for decades." Under the aegis of "I Wake Up Dreaming: The Haunted World of the B Film Noir", come May 15 through May 28 noir aficionados will be treated to Lavine's unique curatorial dexterity. Not only that, but—perhaps in preparation for the Roxie's 100th birthday (check out Cinema Treasures historical purview)—seats from the recently-demolished Coronet have been installed for greater viewing comfort.
The entire line-up for "I Wake Up Dreaming: The Haunted World of the B Film Noir" can be found at the Roxie's official website where—as indicated—"From 1990 until 2003, San Francisco's Roxie Theater enjoyed a reputation as being the foremost venue in the entire Bay Area for the absolute best in quality, esoteric film noir." What, one might question, distinguishes Lavine's noir festival from Eddie Muller's highly successful and popular Noir City venued at the Castro? "The focus of this series," the Roxie's website asserts, "is the shadowy and gritty world of the B noir. These are not the glitzy and glamorous classics most filmgoers are familiar with. Rather, they are the doomed and forgotten, rough and ready step-children of Hollywood's lower depths; poverty row gems that, in many ways, capture the true, brutal essence of noir far better than many of their upper-crust cousins." That, in itself, isn't much of a distinction from Noir City whose programs in recent years have included several of the titles appearing in the Roxie line-up. Clearly, then, the distinction must be the Roxie itself and Lavine's program ends up being something of a devoted noir valentine to the venue. To paraphrase, the Roxie captures the true, brutal essence of noir in contrast to its upper crust cousin the Castro Theatre. I'm being facetious of course. By way of Noir City at the Castro, the Pacific Film Archive, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, noir, pulp and grindhouse have gained a heightened profile on the San Franciscan cinematic landscape. It's almost as if one film noir festival is too many while two is simply not enough.
At a press screening announcing the series, I caught Felix Feist's 1947 The Devil Thumbs A Ride. Crisply-paced (one reviewer claims "relentlessly") at 62 minutes, this cautionary tale warns against allowing a sociopathic murderer to insinuate himself into your vehicle—no matter how handsome and charming he is—and is reminiscent of Ida Lupino's The Hitch-hiker (1953) and Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945). Lavine considers The Devil Thumbs A Ride to be "one of the most blatantly nasty (and under-appreciated) B noirs of all time, with a singularly fierce central performance from its legendary dark star, Lawrence Tierney." In complete agreement is Barry Gifford who appropriated the film's title for his book on "unforgettable" noirs, claiming that—on the basis of Tierney's "vicious and amoral" performance alone—The Devil Thumbs A Ride "must be ranked in the upper echelon of indelibly American noirs."
Goatdog's Movies does a fine job of synopsizing the film's convoluted plot for those who like to know their stories beforehand and adds: "There's an art in making a good genre film, one that's happy to inhabit its genre without going all postmodern. The film has to satisfy the expectations of fans of the genres, and it should distinguish itself by doing a handful of things especially well or slightly differently. This programmer from RKO has most of the things you'd expect from a low-budget noir, and just enough innovation to please the casual fan."
At All Movie Guide, Hal Erickson admits that The Devil Thumbs A Ride is not a "great" film by any means but concedes that it "nonetheless has an indefinable audience allure that sucks the viewer into its labyrinthine storyline and doesn't let go until the fade-out." Craig Butler likewise observes that the film exerts an "undeniable attraction" and that "it succeeds in spite of itself."
Not every reviewer has been enthusiastic, of course. Dennis Schwartz claims that "Feist fills both the police car and the hitcher's car with noir characters, but it ends up as a ride to nowhere."
Myself, I track with Lavine, Gifford and Butler in recognizing that it's Tierney's engaging performance as the ruthless Steve Morgan that carries this film. "He fascinates from his first moment on the screen," Butler writes, "and the audience finds itself totally drawn in by him." Noir of the Week adds that Tierney's performance "straddles the precarious line between big-talking charmer and desperate psycho-on-the-lam" and that "[a]s the titular Devil, Tierney pretty much knocks it out of the park—consistently displaying both a welcome restraint, and a knack for sudden persona changes." As pointed out by Nate at Real Political Face Talk, Lawrence Tierney is probably best recognized today as the lug of a boss that puts together the "Reservoir Dogs" in Quentin Tarantino's film of the same name (a stroke of deferential casting on Tarantino's part) but Tierney had a longstanding reputation throughout the 1940s and '50s playing tough, mean hoods, even though rumor has it he chafed against the typecasting. Largely unfamiliar with Tierney's work—other than his brief role in Val Lewton's Ghost Ship where he's crushed to death by the anchor chain—Tierney's rugged good looks and sinister charisma have caught my attention and I look forward to exploring some of his other noirs, such as his breakout performance in Dillinger (1945) and Robert Wise's Born to Kill (1947), co-starring Claire Trevor.
Butler insightfully notates that—in most films where audiences become engaged with a sociopathic killer—the "hero" is usually not far behind the villain in engaging audience support; but, this isn't necessarily the case in The Devil Thumbs A Ride. Instead, it's "bad girl" Agnes (Betty Lawford) who comes in second in terms of audience interest. Blowsy, boozey, brassy, and questionably blonde, Lawford (Peter's cousin)—in her last role—embodies the noir stereotype fully. She behaves deplorably, appreciates the meat in the man, earns our disdain, and yet we enjoy her for it. The "good" couple—the "affably inebriated" Fergie (Ted North) and naïve wanna-be actress Carol (Nan Leslie)—"barely register," Butler writes, "and when they do it's only because viewers know that they're supposed to be on their side and feel obligated to give them some support."
Cross-published on Twitch.
"We were groping towards each other like two adding machines."
Perhaps that line from James Goldstone's 1968 involuntary acid trip Jigsaw hit so hilarious because—by that point—I had already had two vodka "vortinis" in the admittedly addictive Vortex Room. Offering double-billed programs alchemically fueled from the 16mm library of Cosmic Hex, the Vortex Room's plush leather seats, atmospheric lighting, ubiquitous Charles Bronson homage (yes, that's him on black velvet), classic vinyl on turntables, and slightly sinful speakeasy vibe has become one of my favorite alternate screening spaces in San Francisco. Offering a Thursday evening film cult series of hardboiled cinema, I can't recommend The Vortex Room highly enough. Every bad San Franciscan deserves this comeuppance. Are you bad enough? Upcoming entries include Pam Grier in Friday Foster (1975), the 1948 and 1989 versions of Road House, Coleman Francis's The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) and the "thrill pills" docudrama of Joseph M. Newman's 1957 Death In Small Doses.
As Sandra Brennan synopsized Jigsaw for All Movie Guide: "In this thriller, Jonathan Fields (Bradford Dillman) awakens in a strange apartment and finds a dead woman floating in the bathtub after he suffered an LSD-flashback the night before. Finding blood upon his hand, he can only wonder how he is involved in the woman's death. He hires private detective Arthur Belding (Harry Guardino) who has him take another dose of LSD in order to see if he can remember what had happened. They learn that Fields' co-worker Lew Haley (Pat Hingle) had slipped acid into his coffee as part of a blackmail conspiracy. Haley was after his girlfriend and after his job in a government think tank. They also learn that his supervisor Dr. Arkroyd (Victor Jory) had been in a relationship with the deceased woman. She too was being blackmailed by Haley, who killed her when she threatened to call the cops. Dr. Arkroyd knew about it all and did nothing. Eventually Fields and Haley fight it out. The blackmailer ends up crashing through a high-rise window and falling to the unforgiving pavement below. Hope Lang, Susan Saint James, James Doohan and Michael J. Pollard also star in this psychedelic murder mystery."
Jigsaw is not so much a "who dunnit?" as it is a "how high were they when they dunnit?" film with original music by Quincy Jones and a notable hip-'60s cast that shows off Bradford Dillman's considerable charisma, Pat Hingle's dexterity in reaching his chin with his tongue, Victor Jory as smarmy as ever, Hope Lange once again hopelessly attracted to a crash-and-burn type while struggling with propriety, let alone sobriety, and Michael J. Pollard mumbling monologues while effortlessly exhibiting all the cachet of one of those troll dolls from grade school.
LSD with your coffee? One lump or two? Can you believe that Jigsaw was originally meant to be aired on NBC, who refused to run it and tossed it to Universal for distribution? What a trip, baby. Blows my mind. Grazing in the grass is a gas, can you dig it?
The Vortex Room is located at 1082 Howard Street at 7th. Donation: $5. Cross-published on Twitch.
I'm late in my praise for David Lowery's first feature length film St. Nick. Emergency surgery and my subsequent convalescence kept me from writing it up in time for its South by Southwest premiere. I now join the fanfare in process, as chronicled by Dave Hudson at The IFC Daily.
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Michael Guillén: First of all, David, thanks for taking the time this morning and congratulations on St. Nick's recent win of the Grand Jury Prize at AFI Dallas.
David Lowery: Thank you very much.
Guillén: Let's talk a bit about your festival experience. St. Nick premiered at South by Southwest, went on to AFI Dallas and the Sarasota Film Festival. Anywhere else?
Lowery: That is it so far. We're going to Maryland in a few weeks and then we'll be at Rooftop Films in New York towards the end of summer. We finished the film just three days before South by Southwest, so—now that it's finished—we're sending it out and hoping that other festivals respond to it as well as the others have.
Guillén: I'm sure you're no stranger to the festival circuit, having worked on several other independent films, but—being that St. Nick is your first feature film on the circuit—can you speak to your festival experience so far?
Lowery: It's been really wonderful. I've been on the circuit with shorts before and with other people's films. I've made a lot of friends and met a lot of people at the festivals and they've become fans of the short films I've done. People have been looking forward to whatever I could come up with as far as feature films go. It's been great to bring this stronger work, this bigger work, and let people see what I can do within this context. It's been satisfying. It's a confirmation that I can actually pull it off. People seem to enjoy the film. It's been gratifying to get the audience reaction we're having.
Guillén: How have your Q&As with your audiences run?
Lowery: At South by Southwest and AFI Dallas the two kids in the film—Tucker and Savannah Sears—attended the screenings and Q&As. The fun thing about that was that the kids monopolized the Q&As, cracking jokes and winning people over. It was almost a safety net to have these two kids at the Q&As afterwards. People would ask them questions like, "What was it like to make this film?" and "Did you know what it was going to be like doing it?" People could see the film from their perspective and for me it was well-deserved that they should answer those questions. But then we took the film to Sarasota and it was the first time I screened it without the kids being there and at the Q&A. It was really different, very adult. We got into the psychology of what was going on in the film in a way I hadn't expected. The people who stayed for the Q&A strongly wanted to talk about it. They wanted to know why I did things. There were people in that audience who didn't like what I had done but they wanted to talk about it. That was thrilling to me because I take greater pleasure in knowing that I made someone think about something rather than just pleasing them. Even folks who did not enjoy or were frustrated by St. Nick, it stuck with them and they wanted to get to the bottom of why I did things the way I did. That was incredibly satisfying; just to be able to talk to them and explain why I felt it was necessary to make certain creative choices. Also, the people who got what I did and were touched by the film, wanted to get deeper into the emotional reasons I had for making the film.
Guillén: You're certainly speaking to the value of the Q&A. Have you learned anything specific from that interaction with your audience?
Lowery: People do bring things up. They make connections I haven't made. They'll have readings of the film that I've never considered; but, which are definitely valid. Another thing I've learned and which I've taken away from it in a more general sense is confidence. I'm nervous when I talk to people. I've never been good at speaking in front of crowds. But I've learned that—if people are not feeling your film, if they're not getting it—you can turn that around if you go up there afterwards and demonstrate that you know what you were doing. I've learned through several bad Q&As that it's important to be there with the film. Especially if it's a film that audiences might perceive as difficult. It's important to be there afterwards if you can with confidence and the courage of your convictions to face the crowd and convince them that you made the right choices. Having been in situations where I've gone into a Q&A nervous, stuttering and not quite sure of what I want to say—I have trouble putting my thoughts into words—I realized that if I could control that and speak reasonably about what I was trying to do, I can actually make people appreciate the film more. I can actually get them to change their minds about it.
Guillén: [Laughs.] That's a God-given talent, David! Will you be bringing St. Nick to the Bay Area? It deserves to be seen on a big screen.
Lowery: I hope so at some point. The first time I saw it on a big screen was at South by Southwest. I know that these days most films are going to be shown on TV at best and on an Ipod at worst; but, I love the big screen experience. I wanted to make a film that works best on the big screen. I explicitly designed it so that it would work really well on the big screen with a great sound system. We spent a lot of time working on the sound and—when I first heard it in the theatre at South by Southwest—I was like, "Good!" The culmination of all that work was coming through the speakers and it was a beautiful thing to hear. I was excited to see how well it worked in context. I hope it continues to be shown that way.
Guillén: With regard to the deep sound work you've put into the film, along with its evocative cinematography, the consistent compliment paid St. Nick that I've detected in the critical response to date is an appreciation of your filmmaker's toolbox and how you continue to give the best with what you've got.
Lowery: I agree. We didn't have a lot of money. What we did have were a certain amount of tools that we knew how to use. We employed those to the best of our abilities. But also, understanding how film works, film grammar, can carry you so far. An understanding of how sound and picture can work together to make a film is something that a lot of filmmakers working on these low budgets aren't using to their full advantage. Just concentrating on how two shots can create something, or how—when a sound doesn't quite fit the picture—the juxtaposition of those two elements is like alchemy. You can create wonderful effects. You can turn a bunch of low budget ones and zeros into pure gold. That's what I love about movies. I love film language. You can create something emotional and ephemeral out of two disparate images. When I started to film St. Nick, I wanted to employ those tools to the fullest extent I could because I knew we wouldn't have a lot of money for fancy crane shots. But I knew that—if the film were put together soundly—no one would notice that we didn't have any money or that we were as low budget as we were and that it would work as a film. Ultimately, I don't think budget even matters. It allows you to do certain things—like work longer and pay people—but, if the film is sound to its core in terms of cinematic language and design, people won't notice the means by which you achieved that.
Guillén: Or, on the other hand, appreciate the means by which you achieved that. The abiding strength of St. Nick is that you've done a masterful job with the tools on hand. That's what I wanted to stress. I don't feel a need to cover the territory explored in your informative interviews with Filmmaker's Alicia Van Couvering and Spoutblog's Noralil Ryan Fores, but I would like to tease out some of my own responses to St. Nick and play with some of the images, if that's okay with you?
Lowery: Certainly.
Guillén: First off, the title St. Nick: I'm curious how you're conceiving St. Nicholas and why you used him to entitle your film?
Lowery: I've talked about this a lot in the Q&As because people always bring it up. I was raised Roman Catholic. We celebrated St. Nicholas day [December 6] and we always got presents on that day, in addition to Christmas. There was a certain sensibility to it that heightened my childhood. It was always a special day. No one else that I knew celebrated it and so it set our family apart in a way; it was something that we got to do on our own that was unique. I don't ever sit down and try to think of a title for a film. When I'm working on a project, eventually it happens for me. Very often it's not literally tied to anything in the film. It's not like it's tied to a line of dialogue. Titles are usually words that I feel work well with the film and that lend an emotional quality to what I'm trying to create with the film. I like titles to comment on a film. When I started thinking of a working title for this film, I wanted something with a little bit of Catholicism [chuckles], even though the film itself is not religious in any way. So I named it quickly and randomly. Later on, I decided to look up what the patron saint Nicholas represented and it turned out that he's the patron saint of children, which perhaps I already knew and subconsciously retrieved. We studied these things when I was young so I'm sure I came across that at some point and my subconscious helped me make the decision. But it was a nice moment to realize that St. Nick was, indeed, the perfect title.
Guillén: St. Nicholas is the patron saint of children but in a specific aspect; i.e., training children how to behave, how to be good and not bad. In other words, introducing them to culpability through a system of rewards and punishments. When we think of St. Nick or Santa Claus and his elves at Christmas, we think of the good side of that dynamic: being rewarded with gifts for being good girls and boys. But the truth is there's a flip side: the lump of coal in your stocking and nothing under the tree for you. The truth is that for a child out in the world good comes with bad; there are gifts given but also gifts taken away or withheld altogether. St. Nick powerfully depicts children in a situation of negotiating the good and bad things that happen to them out in the world. But I want to be clear about that situation. When I was reading Darren Hughes' Long Pauses review of St. Nick, I took note of his "irrational bias against 'child in peril' stories"—he's certainly not alone in that bias, irrational or not—but, I didn't consider St. Nick to be a "children in peril" story. Karina Longworth's description at Spoutblog that St. Nick was a "lyrical kids-on-their-own indie" felt more exact. For me, St. Nick is an evocative survival story where survival is a positive, affirmative action and the survivors are far from victims. I didn't see the children as victims.
Lowery: First of all, let me say that your reading of St. Nicholas is wonderful. That's the kind of thing I love to hear from other people; things that enrich my own understanding of what I'm doing. Second of all, I agree that it's not a children-in-peril story. In the act of trying to survive, they may have put themselves in peril; but, I don't believe they were in peril to begin with. They are trying to survive in a classic storytelling sense, much like Swiss Family Robinson. There's a joy and excitement to that in addition to the hardship that was true to my childhood. I was always trying to go out and make it on my own in the woods—I built forts—but, there was never any anger attached to that as there is with the boy in St. Nick. I loved the pragmatic side of overcoming hardships. There's also something nostalgic for me in the film about the strange game of playing adult; of removing yourself from all the niceties of your suburban life or what have you and going out to try to live this rugged lifestyle that, perhaps, you read about in books? Or—even more primal than that—trying to establish yourself as an individual outside of what's provided for you.
Guillén: Survival forms identity. Survival forms—as you say—individuality. As someone who has had his own share of childhood abuse, when I went through therapy as an adult I had to work out my own shame about surviving. It took years of therapy to understand that shame is the flip side of pride and that survival was nothing to be ashamed about. Survival is the good part of the personality. It's the strong part. It guides you away from being a victim to becoming who you have the right to be. That being said, however, I remain curious—as I'm sure many have been—about the boy's motivations? This is his game at playing adult in which he's involved his sister and, clearly, it stems from some kind of anger or resistance?
Lowery: When I set out to make St. Nick, I never allowed myself to put into literal terms what it was that's eating at the boy; what he's going through. I was basing it off of emotional instinct and my own emotional past. I was trying to work from the gut, as it were. Over the course of showing the film to people and discussing it with them through the Q&As, I've realized that I can say that I don't know but I really can explain why he's going through what he's going through. It's something that is literal in the text of the film, even though it's never directly stated. It really is that he's angry and depressed. Some people have said he's afraid of growing up but I don't think it's as simple as that. He's feeling that he's growing up. He's changing. His position is such that the only way he can express himself is by just leaving. He's trying to say something that he doesn't quite understand yet by running away from home. The reason he brings his sister along? Maybe he thinks he's doing something for her own good? But also he's just afraid to be alone because he's still a child and is used to having someone his own age to depend on. That only complicates the situation because—even though he's just two years older than her—he's at that stage of life where he's very much older than her. When you're 12 years old and then you turn 13, there's suddenly a huge gulf between someone who's two years younger than you. I'm the oldest of nine children and I remember playing with my younger brothers because we were all the same age and all of a sudden one year I had a completely different set of friends. It happened just like that. It was frustrating and upsetting to all of a sudden be set apart like that. Suddenly everything you're dealing with is different than what they're dealing with. It's a combination of all of those things. It's so easy for people to categorize it as something that happened when what's important in itself is the fact that there is nothing that has happened. There's no need to explain or to limit the film by saying, "Something bad happened" or something like that. How he reacts in the film is an abstraction that he's trying to figure out for himself and the only way he can do that is by leaving home.
Guillén: One might argue that his is a heroic impulse, precisely for being transgressive? You made a comment in one of your interviews that you became aware that things were going to be difficult the day you started kindergarten. [Laughs.] All of a sudden, life becomes a clock, a regimen. Until that moment, children have a wonderful organic freedom. Perhaps the boy was resisting the loss of that?
Lowery: I completely agree. That's one of those things that's hard to put into words in literal terms; but, I remember so vividly the realization that all of a sudden my life would be defined by these rigid terms. That was so upsetting. It was the first time I was ever aware of the future laid out in front of me and that these rules of society were all of a sudden stretching the entire way, as far as I could envision. I knew that I was never going to get out of that and that these were the terms by which my life was now going to be defined. Realizing those terms and realizing just how far they were stretching was disconcerting to me at the age of six.
Guillén: It's still disconcerting to me at the age of fifty-five! [Laughs.] Several reviewers have also commented upon how eloquently you have rendered the environment of the Texan plains. Are you familiar with an author named William Goyen who situated many of his narratives in East Texas?
Lowery: I'm not.
Guillén: One of Goyen's main narrative devices was of a purposeful exile from home, a running away from home, followed by a constant longing for home, such that one's life becomes a displacement, a tension between what's lost and what's sought. Or as I'm fond of saying: a longing for one's own life as one is living it. I sense a thematic affinity with St. Nick. In his novel House of Breath, Goyen also used a house as a means of understanding psychological individuation. The house, in essence, becomes a symbol for the Self. I'm intrigued by this element in St. Nick of the kids leaving home to find a house that they can live in; a house they can call home. Is this something else that happened to you as a kid? Did you find an abandoned house you could claim as your own?
Lowery: I never found a house such as they do in the film; but, the idea of fabricating or making a home out of something that wasn't my own home was an idea I was drawn to. I liked old structures or shacks or anything that provided a sense of shelter. I loved forts or club houses in the back yard or off in the woods. Everywhere I've lived, I've always done that. When we first moved to Texas, the house we moved into was on an acre of land. We had this little club house in the back yard that just happened to be there among the trees and I instantly seized that as my space. I formed a club with the neighborhood kids. Then, when we moved again to a smaller house, within a month we had collected all this old wood and we made our own version of a fort that was incredibly dangerous—there were planks of wood with old nails—but, that stuff didn't matter to me. I was trying to establish my own domain, this miniature kingdom, that was mine. In the act of going around the neighborhood and finding old furniture to bring in, I was trying to create a domestic situation that was entirely on my own terms at that age. That's what kills me about it. There was a sense of adventure about it—we built draw bridges and giant crossbows and traps—but, we were also trying to create a mirror image of what we had grown up with. We were conscious. We made it as nice as possible. There was this weird mix of rustic conditions and strange niceties. We kept dusting the china that we brought into the fort.
Guillén: Your childhood sounds as imaginative as mine! All those forts, all those domains as you call them, are the way that children magically conscribe space in a nearly ritual fashion. I loved watching it in your film and it made it all the more poignant when the kids are busted and the guy is asking them, "What are you doing here?" and the boy answers, "We live here." That was a wonderful moment in the film.
Lowery: That scene had more veracity to it than anything else in the film because at that point we were shooting in the house, practically living there, for about two weeks. It was a short but intense shoot. The two weeks felt a lot longer. We let the kids have free rein with the house. They were able to do what they wanted to it. We learned that early on when we were filming the scene where they make the tent with the sheets and blankets. We had actually gone in there with our art department and made a version of that tent ourselves. We thought, "We'll make it the way kids do it." And we made this really stupid sheet board thing. It was horrible. We shot that scene the next day and the tent we built looked so stupid and terrible and awful that we tore it down knowing we would have to reshoot all that stuff. We reshot it a few days later and we let the kids build the tent themselves and filmed the whole thing. That's the time I realized how to make the movie, which was to let the kids do their own thing. It was an important stage in the production early on. But when we came to the scene where the kids are excommunicated from the house, we brought in Barlow Jacobs. The kids saw him on the set but Barlow would not talk to them. He would walk off in the other direction. So the kids knew he was there and they knew that their characters were going to have to leave the house; but, they didn't know how it was going to happen. I didn't quite know how it was going to happen either. In the script it literally says, "Guy comes in and makes them leave." I wanted it to just play out; to see how it happens. Barlow did research with some guys who flip houses in Louisiana, where he was working at the time, and heard stories from them about how they dealt with that kind of thing: people living in these abandoned houses. He had a couple of different ideas of how to handle it; but—when it came down to shooting it—we talked about the different approaches he could take and he went in there and did it on instinct. We shot it in one take. We shot it three times and most of the footage we used in the film was from the first take. The kids were incredibly upset. They didn't anticipate the intensity of that moment. They had developed an attachment to the house and really made it their own so that—when they were being told to leave—they were upset. Being forcibly removed from what had become their home shocked them. At the end of the scene when Barlow's on the porch admonishing them, you can see on Tucker's face exactly how upset he is. It was stunning to me to see that happen. I was thinking, "Whoa, what are we doing here?" Because I wasn't expecting that to happen. It makes that scene authentic. When Tucker goes around to the back of the house and starts throwing rocks, that wasn't acting. He was really back there doing that. He carved swear words into the side of the house with his pocket knife, which I hope the homeowners weren't upset with after the two weeks of shooting.
Guillén: Let's talk about your imagery. Were you initially a still photographer?
Lowery: No. I always focused purely on cinema.
Guillén: You have a penchant for interstitial imagery that reminds me of Japanese cinema where images of nature are used to bridge and connect separate scenes. Throughout St. Nick you've sifted in beautiful, nearly still-life images, that strike me as images you found during shooting. Clearly, these were not in the script and were edited in later?
Lowery: It's true. I spent a lot of time wandering around the locations with the camera getting images that felt appropriate. I did this on off days when the actors weren't there. Or—even when they were there—if I saw something that struck me, I would make sure to get it because capturing those things are important to my form of narrative storytelling.
Guillén: There were two in particular that popped out for me. One was the gradual shifting of light on the floorboards and the other was where the kids were climbing underneath the house and there's a spider in a web. Those images can't have been scripted?
Lowery: No. For that image of the spider, I literally crawled underneath the house with the camera. We were getting ready to shoot that scene and I was trapped under the house with the camera. I wanted to get out of there. I was waiting for the actors, but then I saw the spider and I thought, "Film that." As for the light on the floorboards, after we had wrapped the movie I spent a week hanging out at the house, which was about to be refurbished. They were just about to finish it up and make it suitable for living. Before they started working on it, I wanted to spend time in there to capture everything I loved about it, all the textures, all the compositions within compositions that I could find in the architecture and the dilapidation. I spent several days with the camera in there getting imagery. I could probably make an entire feature film just out of those shots. The ones that spoke to what I was trying to accomplish are the ones that ended up in the film.
Guillén: Why is the usage of these interstitial images so important for you to create the fabric of your film?
Lowery: You can convey so much with environment. Capturing close-ups of the wood, for example, or that spider, the textures and the density of life in a room, anything which is more abstractly narrative. Including those elements is important to me because they define the feel and the pace of the film. In planning a production, you look for things that feel like the characters to you. A film is defined by characters, but—in trying to find images that correspond to who they are—that goes a long way formally to establishing what the film is about. By focusing on these textures, or the wood grain, I was trying to hit home or hammer home the makeup of what the film is, who these characters are and what they're feeling. I operate so much off gut instinct when I'm making a film. If something looks right or feels right, I'll shoot it. When I'm editing it, if it feels right I'll put it in there. Ultimately, I've learned to trust myself. I try not to look at a film through the eyes of a critic. I could argue the purpose of everything in my films. The interstitials effect the tone and help build the characters. Also, as an editor—which is one of my strongest suits—interstitials help define the pace. The shot of the light passing on the floor establishes the pace by which their day is going to proceed and the environment they're going to be inhabiting. It sets the stage for what's to follow regarding pace and environment.
Guillén: I'm sure I won't be the first person to mention that the tone of your interstitial images—along with reminding me of Japanese cinema—likewise remind me of the films of Terrence Malick, as specifically as the children wading through tall grass.
Lowery: Thank you.
Guillén: Malick frequently situates his narratives within the tone of environment. He defines characters within their relationship to their environment. Speaking of resemblances and influences then, I'm aware you've acknowledged the influence of Night of the Hunter on St. Nick. What is the value of cinematic citation for you? How much do you like to use citation in your films?
Lowery: I try not to use it because it's going to be there anyway. The one overt citation to Night of the Hunter that we made was when Tucker finds the girl playing guitar on the porch. After he leaves her, you can hear her singing "Leaning on Jesus" in the background, which is the song Robert Mitchum sings in Night of the Hunter. I couldn't ditch that. There's a certain thrill when you make these references. It's a little bit like showing off that you know film history; but, I think it's all going to be there anyway and a lot of the references that people bring up are unintentional or are from films that I haven't even seen. People have pointed out or have assumed that I've drawn a lot from Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher, which I've honestly not seen even though I love Morvern Callar. Spirit of the Beehive is another one that's frequently brought up at almost every screening and I haven't seen that one yet either. I think there are cinematic traditions and ley lines that filmmakers will follow if their instincts are of a certain kind; but, I don't try to overtly cite anything.
Guillén: This morning I was watching both of your films—St. Nick and A Catalog of Anticipations—which proved interesting because I was spotting similar motifs in both films. The first was the image of dead animals. The skeleton dog that the girl is enamored with in St. Nick and the collection of bones and dead animals referenced in A Catalog of Anticipations; what's going on there?
Lowery: That's just me. I've always collected and been fascinated by dead things. When I was four or five I remember having a funeral for a dead bird. I made a little coffin and had a very Catholic funeral for it. But then I wanted to dig it up afterwards. I never did that but later we had a rabbit that we buried and I dug that up much later and had its skeleton. I'm sure there's something that can be said about a child's fascination with death and that—one way to understand it—is the physiological side of things; the artifacts of death. I don't remember when I first became aware of dying; but, I remember the first time my mother ever tried explaining it to me. It's a realization that comes very early on that children don't quite comprehend. But it's such a mystery that it's fascinating. For me, personally, it played out. I went through a goth stage in high school. I loved Nightmare Before Christmas (and the ghost dog in there) and Tim Burton's other films so much. It's getting to the real heart of the matter. A Catalog of Anticipations is explicitly about a child becoming aware of death for the first time.
Guillén: In St. Nick, the girl's attachment to the skeleton dog "Doughnut" was rendered all the more poignant by contrast to the film's final image of her playing with her live dog. I felt good for her. I felt she should be playing with a live dog rather than a skeleton dog.
Lowery: Very much. All throughout the movie it was a sort of happy accident that Savannah in real life loves animals. Anytime there'd be an animal around, she'd go out and play with it. There's a scene of her barking at the real dogs behind the house and then there's a scene where she's walking down the street, she sees a dog, and she just runs up to it to pet it. That was all spontaneous and I realized that she used to have that at home. Someone else brought up the point that the ending—though there's melancholy to it in that the boy leaves again—but, ultimately, in a way it's a happy ending because both children are where they need to be. He may not be where he needs to be; but, he's working things out and—in that sense—it's a positive. And she's back home. She's with her dog, with her family, and things are good for her at that point.
Guillén: I agree there's a positive cast to the boy's running away again in the end of the film. I identified with him. When I was a kid my grandfather worked for the railroad and we lived near the railroad tracks. I was always playing by the railroad tracks. There's something about the vanishing point of railroad tracks that speak to time, both past and future, but mainly the future: the promise of some imagined future to come. Some place to be. To go towards.
Lowery: Or the past. It ties in so richly to American heritage. Those railroad tracks have been there for hundreds of years. When you look down the tracks, you're literally looking down the past. It's such a rich image embedded in the American landscape.
Guillén: Another image I spotted in both films was that of repose. In A Catalog of Anticipations, the film begins with you slumbering underneath the earth, waking up, and emerging. In St. Nick you film the children sleeping. What's your interest in that state of repose?
Lowery: Maybe I'm just really lazy? [Laughs.] I don't know. That's a good one.
Guillén: The way I read it, when I look at your images—let's say of the light on the floorboards or the spider in the web underneath the house or the wind in the trees or the way smoke comes out of a window slightly shifting on an air current—all of these images are not necessarily symbols, specifically in the sense that Darren Hughes objects against imposed symbolism: "St. Nick avoids being the typical 'child in peril' film … by observing the thing-ness of the objects without reducing them to symbols. Symbols require a doubled perspective—that of the filmed world, where a cigar is just a cigar, and that of the author, who winks knowingly at the audience, thereby inviting us to feel superior. It's a recipe for sentiment and pity, neither of which, thankfully, are of much interest to Lowery." As we discussed earlier, your interstitial images are of nature or the environment by which not only your characters are defined and the tone of your pace is set, but also through which your audience invests into the image. The same thing could be said of watching the children asleep. The audience either cares for them while they're asleep or you're wondering what they're dreaming or you're breathing a sigh of relief that they're getting some rest and seem relatively protected. But their repose pulls a visceral response from the audience, if that makes sense.
Lowery: It does make sense. On a more simple level, I love looking at people in their environment co-existing with everything around them. Showing people in repose is an easy way to do that because they're passively participating in their environment. The less movement there is, the more they become a part of that environment. That's something I love capturing. Even though there are scenes of the characters sleeping in St. Nick, there are also scenes of them just sitting or standing or doing very little. I like to let those moments breathe because the characters become one with their environment. When the boy is making sandwiches or peeling paint off the wall, it was important to hold on those seemingly inconsequential moments because that's when they're really participating in their environment, which is such an important part of what they're doing and who they are.
Guillén: I suspect an important part of cinema literacy is being able to sit in an audience and look at a film and participate in those moments of breath and invest. An audience breathes along with those moments.
Lowery: Yeah. I tried to cut out anything that was extremely overt conflict. There are some moments of that which the film requires; but, I was more interested in watching these kids sit quietly than watching them fight, which they often did and we had plenty of footage of that. [Laughs.] Those quiet moments are when an audience can slow down and realize there is something going on there. They're not waiting for the next thing to happen. There's something happening in the moment. That's something I try to instill in my work. Quiet moments build to something, they move forward, but an audience deserves to luxuriate in them. It's something I value when I watch movies.
Guillén: That's what I would describe as your poetic aesthetic. That's precisely what makes your films so poetic and beautiful. Poet Mark Doty once wrote something about images that I have long admired. Though he was speaking specifically about paintings, his comment holds true to the power of the image in general. Images have power over people. Maybe one image has more power over someone than another. But images have a gravitational field and—if those images work for you—you are drawn into their orbit and you circumambulate around them because they trigger some response in you. That's what you've accomplished with your films, David. You've created images that pull audiences into their orbit. You linger on them just long enough, luxuriate in them—as you say—just long enough that they elicit emotion and memory. To be pulled into the gravitational field of a cinematic image is a wonderful process. It's a talent and a tool you possess.
Lowery: Thank you. That's a beautiful quote. I've never considered it in that way before. It's a wonderful statement and a wonderful way to consider what I'm trying to do.
Guillén: My final question. Are you familiar with Barry Jenkins and Medicine for Melancholy?
Lowery: I love Barry.
Guillén: Mike Jones just wrote an interesting article for Film in Focus on how indispensable the internet was for Barry in helping him to create Medicine for Melancholy. It's the first in a series of articles Jones is drafting for Film in Focus. You're a filmmaker who has a strong online presence through your website Drifting wherein you've chronicled much of your filmmaking. Can you speak to the role of the internet in your filmmaking?
Lowery: They've progressed hand-in-hand. When I first got out of high school, I started up that web site. I've been keeping a blog before blogging even became a word. I've always loved reading the accounts of other filmmakers and their films and I always felt that was something I wanted to do; I wanted to provide that. In those early days it was definitely more beneficial to me than anyone else. It helped express what I was trying to do. But somewhere around 2003 or 2004, all of a sudden I realized that—because I hadn't gone to film school—there was a tremendous amount of film history and cinematic understanding that I completely lacked. Up until that point I had been going on with what I thought was kind of cool. [Laughs.] It was through reading other blogs like Girish Shambu's blog and Matthew Clayfield from Australia—he hasn't been blogging about film in as much detail but back then we got into some incredibly in-depth discussions about film that propelled me forward—and so I intensively participated in the film blogosphere, and found Netflix and got caught up with all these great filmmakers whose work I'd never seen before. I got into the theory of cinema engendered by the blogosphere, which has been critical. I didn't get my film education until I was ready for it and I was ready for it then. The internet happened to catch up right around the same time with all these film blogs coming out and so much on-line writing. I couldn't get enough of it. That was important and defining as far as my own filmmaking goes. I didn't stop making films but I did take a little break to study film history and film theory through online writing and I was writing about it myself and becoming a better writer, understanding what I did and what I wanted to do so much better. When I finally got around to making movies again, I realized I wanted to put these newly-learned ideas into use. I was able to show them to these writers I'd developed friendships with and they helped by critically responding to my work. Analog Lines was the first film I'd made after having gone through that and that film belongs on the internet. In tandem with all of that, it's been great to build an audience through my writing. When the word got out that I was filming St. Nick, in a miniscule sense there was anticipation among certain people for it. They were excited that I was making a film. That made me excited to keep making it. I realized there was an audience out there that was waiting to see it. Maybe the audience was only five people but knowing there were people out there that wanted to see it and wanted to see what I was going to be doing had the effect—on a grander scale—of making me step up to the plate and put my all into it. When I made the film, my one rule was: "We're not going to stop until we have it exactly right." I didn't want to compromise. Filmmaking is all about compromising anyway and you have to do that at some point; but, I wasn't going to film anything that I was not happy with myself. Knowing that people were going to be watching it because of the internet and I have all these friends online and knowing that the film already had a presence whether I wanted it to or not, helped me to keep the bar set as high as I possibly could.
Guillén: Well, St. Nick is just right and, I assure you, will have more than an audience of five. Thank you, David, for being so generous with your comments. It's a delight to talk to you about your lovely poetic film and I really do hope it comes to San Francisco soon.
Cross-published on Twitch.
As part of the
San Francisco Art Institute's Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series, this year's SFAI Film Department Restating Cinema Lecture will be delivered by Manohla Dargis on Saturday, April 25, 2009 at 7:30PM in SFAI's Lecture Hall, 800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco. This anticipated event is free and open to the public. Directions: http://www.sfai.edu/directions.
Formerly a film writer at The Village Voice, a film critic for the Los Angeles Times, and an editor of the film section at LA Weekly, Manohla Dargis is currently one of the chief film critics at The New York Times. She has also written for a number of other publications, including Film Comment and Sight and Sound. Her talk will concern Hollywood's onscreen abandonment of women, contending that over the past two decades, major Hollywood studios have severely cut back on the number of movies they make about adult women. Most Hollywood movies are now overwhelmingly made by men, about men, and for men. The recent phenomenon of the so-called bromance, for example, consists in movies in which the primary onscreen relationships are homosocial (rather than homosexual), that is, either between two straight men (I Love You, Man) or among straight male friends (Superbad and Knocked Up). Effectively, the romance film—a genre historically associated with women—has become in recent years, Dargis will argue, a genre in which women play an increasingly marginal role.
Chon Noriega's curriculum vitae is intimidating. He exemplifies the adage that—if you want to get something done—find a busy person. Upon the occasion of his most recent gig as Robert Osborne's co-host to TCM's "Race and Hollywood: Latino Images in Film", Noriega and I touched base by phone to preview the upcoming line-up.
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Michael Guillén: Congratulations on being chosen to co-host TCM's broadcast of "Race and Hollywood: Latino Images in Film." Let's define terms first so we don't take anything for granted. How are you using the term "Latino" in contrast to, let's say, Latin American or Chicano?
Chon Noriega: First of all, "Latino" is in contrast to Latin American. A lot of times there's more of a willingness to talk about south of the U.S. rather than the presence of people of Latin American descent who are living in the U.S. (who would be "Latino"). It is a pan-ethnic term meant to include Chicano, Cuban American, Puerto Rican, Dominican and all of the other Latin American descent ethnicities and—in itself—is a contrast typically to the term "Hispanic", which has been a census term for thirty-some years now.
Guillén: You're also meaning Latino to be gender inclusive; to mean Latina as well?
Noriega: Yeah. The beauty of "Hispanic" is that it is gender-neutral. [Laughs.] A lot of people use "Latina/o" or her/Latina and him/Latino. That's generally a distinction or a fine point that's lost in the mainstream; but, it's an important one.
Guillén: In terms of the series subtitle "Latino Images in Film", do you distinguish between "image" and "representation" in film?
Noriega: "Latino Images in Film" is a Turner coinage. It's probably a little more easily understood. [Chuckles.] But—in terms of the series or the selection—I was trying to identify films where the narratives were substantively about Latino characters. That's a little bit different. Sometimes the phrase "images of" can suggest something that's very broad and inclusive and can include incidental appearances of bandido characters in westerns or gang members in action films. The film's really not about them; they're minor roles or what one critic calls "convenient villains."
Guillén: When I was speaking to Amalia Mesa-Bains about your selection, we were both surprised that there were many titles of films neither of us had heard of before. Once you were approached by TCM, how did you go about selecting your films? Are they from the TCM library? Or did TCM bring films in for you?
Noriega: When we had the first discussion, we agreed upon the focus being films that were substantively about Latino characters. We also agreed that we would do our best to be broad and inclusive and to make sure it wasn't all just Mexican American, but also Puerto Rican, Cuban American, and any other groups that we could find there had been films about. I went through a list of films that I had from my own research and through a number of books that have been published over the last 20 years, including a three-volume filmography. I went through everything and came up with what I thought was a more or less definitive universe of films that were really about Latino characters. There really weren't more than about 70 films. I presented these to TCM and we began to see what was available. That narrowed and brought it down to about 30. From there, we had to think through on how to build it back up. So it was a mixture of what we wanted to see and what was available. Not every film in the line-up is necessarily from the TCM library, but MGM—which was one of the studios in their collection—did have quite a number of these films and it's exciting to be able to get those broadcast.
Guillén: Remarkably, nearly 19 films in the line-up are premiering on TCM.
Noriega: Yeah, they were surprised too. It's quite a high percentage; it's more than half of the films that we're introducing.
Guillén: How did you go about categorizing your selection? You say you wanted to focus on Latino characters, did you group your movies by character type?
Noriega: I didn't so much group them by character type. I just tried to make sense of what was showing up. In other words, what did we have to choose from? A lot of those categories were established before we narrowed down, but I was looking for patterns that were suggesting themselves. They more or less resonated with what has been written about Latino representation in Hollywood, which a lot of times follows genre more than character. A lot of what we were foregrounding were certain genres or cycles or—in a few cases—thematic issues that emerged at specific points of time, like miscegenation.
Guillén: I don't want to steal away any thunder from what you and Robert will be discussing at length when the films are broadcast, but I do want to talk specifically about some of the premieres we've mentioned, why you selected them and what you were going for by including them? For starters, Ramona, this 1910 18-minute silent short that's just about to reach its hundredth birthday. What was for you the value of including Ramona?
Noriega: You're right. We're coming up to the centennial of the film next year. I've written quite extensively on Ramona because there's quite a lot going on. First of all, it's D.W. Griffith. It's interesting to see how one of the early masters of cinema is grappling with issues related to the Mexican American and Native American populations in California. But it's also a first in a number of ways for Griffith at that time. It's the first film to prominently identify where it was shot and that was an important crossover to tourism. It wasn't incidental. There was an emerging tourism around these sites and the film was riffing off of that as well as the popularity of the novel, which it also acknowledged. It was still kind of unusual at the time to say, "Here's the book" because—for the most part—filmmakers were stealing those stories. [Laughs.] Griffith actually paid $100 for the adaptation rights, which was still a relatively new thing to do. The courts were cracking down on them but they weren't really being done that much. At least not at that level.
Guillén: I find it intriguing that—in this film that's nearly 100 years old—the origins of Hollywood are so intimately tied to representation of Latinos.
Noriega: Yeah, and I think that's been overlooked throughout the history. You can see these critical moments in the history of Hollywood and you'll usually find a few examples—a film, a person or an issue—that really ties in with the Latino population; but, it's been overlooked. We tend to tell another more streamlined story about the development of the industry. Even today, a lot of colleagues will teach Griffith and they have a hard time incorporating discussions of race and gender into their teaching. But it's there. It doesn't dismiss him as a filmmaker, but it's very much a part of the world he was representing.
Guillén: Another fascination of mine in these early films is the concept of passing, ethnic disguise, or inequitable casting of Latinos in subsidiary roles while non-Latinos win the major roles. Any thoughts on that phenomenon?
Noriega: It's something that Robert Osborne and I went back and forth on throughout the series because it's a difficult issue. On the one hand, it's clearly a sign of a certain way of thinking about race and ethnicity and also about opportunity. Inevitably, you'll have white actors who are portraying other races and ethnicities in the films. On the flip side, we often forget that film is all make-believe in its representation. It's a certain level of the craft. But what we don't see happening is—for the most part—Latino actors getting opportunities. You see a little bit of it here and there but often times it's problematic. In order for a Latino actor to succeed, to get wider recognition, they essentially have to pass as being white.
Guillén: Our of sheer curiosity then, let's say that—out of the many performances where white actors play Latino characters—is there one you feel to be most accomplished?
Noriega: That's an interesting question. Lou Diamond Phillips is often incorporated into the Latino character category and he's a multi-ethnic multi-racial actor. He's had several roles where he's played a Latino character. There are some performances that are notable precisely for not being that believable. It's interesting when you see the mainstream press say, "Well, this is not believable. We love the actor but no way is it convincing." Historically, the performance I find most fascinating—not necessarily believable per se, but believable in the context of Lon Chaney—is Paul Muni in Bordertown. And also in Juarez, where he plays the Mexican president Benito Juarez. It's a great performance though I don't know how authentic it is in essence. But that's not the question. It's a fascinating example of somebody who—like Lon Chaney—made a career out of playing and trying effectively to play just about every type he could.
Guillén: Is the term "brownface" ever used?
Noriega: Yeah. I don't know how widely accepted it is; but, I've certainly used it.
Guillén: I imagine that selecting the titles for this program was exceptionally difficult and that you had to omit films or personalities that you would have preferred to otherwise include. As a companion piece to my interview with you, I'll be interviewing Amalia Mesa-Bains on Dolores Del Rio. I didn't see Dolores anywhere in your line-up.
Noriega: Yeah, it's tough because—unless I'm missing something—she's mostly playing Latin American characters. I know she's in a western with Elvis Presley but I think she's playing Native American there. Dolores Del Rio and Carmen Miranda were real challenges. I wanted to be able to find a way in which they were representing Latinos in the United States and not a more general or exotic sense of Latin America. With Carmen Miranda, I was fortunate to find that with Greenwich Village, which is a wonderful film.
Guillén: As a Chicano myself, I took great inspiration and encouragement from the batch of films that came out in the late '80s, early '90s that addressed Chicano representation; however, I have taken note that many of the actors in those films—Edward James Olmos and Jimmy Smits, to name two—have gone on to do more mainstream work. Olmos, of course, became a television personality with Battlestar Galactica and I have just recently been watching Jimmy Smits murder people with his serial killer buddy Dexter. Can you speak to what kind of progress there's been for Latino actors in Hollywood and if there's been a shift in how Latinos are being portrayed in films today?
Noriega: We do have a core group of Olmos and Smits, Selma Hayak and Jennifer Lopez, who have managed to break into an upper tier where they're more widely known celebrities and actors. For a long time, Olmos was more a celebrity than an actor because he had a higher public visibility than he had roles. But it was an important way for him to come back into it, particularly through television. We have these instances; but—if you look at the overall numbers in terms of all the feature films and all the TV series being made and how many roles are available for Latino actors—it's still a fairly small number. There has been a shift to where there's a higher amount of visibility for a smaller number of people; but, that does have an impact. Certain kinds of casting seem more possible. Jimmy Smits could become the first Latino President on West Wing. Of course, they canceled the series; it's easier. [Laughs.] But we can see that's probably a good direction. There were at least two television series and four or five movies where there was a Black President before we had Barack Obama. A few more to go and I think we've laid the ground for political change.
Guillén: Of the films premiering on TCM, I'm most excited about …And Now Miguel, which I've heard about but never seen. I was born in 1953. My name is Miguel and my stepfather was a sheep shearing contractor and my grandfather was a sheepherder.
Noriega: Is it you?!! [Laughs.]
Guillén: Might be! In one of my conversations with my Mom, she remembers film crews arriving on the ranch to film the sheepshearers at work. There are very few movies that depict sheep shearing communities, so I'm always on the look out for familiar scenes. Can you tell me a little bit about …And Now Miguel and why you chose to include it?
Noriega: It's a fascinating storyline. There was actually a feature film made in the sixties but we couldn't track it down and get a hold of it. We were able to get this, which was the precursor. It's a documentary made by the U.S. Information Service, who—in the first year they were created—billed themselves as the U.S. Information Agency so that they wouldn't be confused with the U.S. Immigration Service. Isn't that interesting? They changed their name locally but internationally they're known as the U.S. Information Service. It was formed in 1953 and they started making films that basically sold the Cold War and America's role in it around the world. …And Now Miguel was one of the first films they made. The guy they hired, Joseph Krumgold, had actually worked on other military training films. He did the narration for The Autobiography of a "Jeep", which is considered one of the classics of military training films. In …And Now Miguel, he takes the same approach. In The Autobiography of a "Jeep", the jeep is talking about how it's being made and in ...And Now Miguel the little boy talks about how he becomes a shepherd. As any film shot in New Mexico, it looks stunning and captures a distinct, somewhat isolated culture and—boom!—right near the last third, it brings the Cold War into it. It's a gentle, pastoral film but it subtlely shows how all that connects to the Cold War. It leaves you thinking, "How exactly did they see this as a way of selling America's role in the Cold War to other countries?" I suspect they were trying to present this to largely agricultural or shepherd-based cultures; to show: "We have people like this too and they're also behind the Cold War." I don't know if the Afghans would buy it. [Laughs.]
Guillén: Yet another premiere I'm looking forward to is Joseph Losey's The Lawless.
Noriega: It's a great film. It was the last film Losey made before he went into exile rather than testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. It kind of follows his earlier film The Boy With Green Hair as a parable about mob behavior. In this case it's focused on the Mexican American side of a small California town. There are conflicts that emerge, represented—interestingly—not between the structures of society, between business and law and the working class; but, between teenagers and the way in which class and racial boundaries are marked among teenagers. That leads to an incident where there's mob behavior against a Mexican American boy who's accused of various crimes that he had no part in. What I find interesting about The Lawless is that the salvation or redemption for that town comes from the press; not the broadcast press—because they're shown to be quite venal—but the print press, newspapers. You have the Mexican American newspaper and the Anglo American newspaper and—as fate would have it—a romance develops between the two editors/publishers who happen to be different genders. The publisher of the Mexican American paper is played by an actress in brownface.
Guillén: Returning to Lou Diamond Phillips and your section on musicals, I was surprised for some reason to realize that La Bamba was premiering on TCM. I presumed it had already been shown. Why did you feel that showing La Bamba was more important, let's say, than showing Zoot Suit?
Noriega: Actually, I wanted to show both but La Bamba was the one we were able to show. Zoot Suit is great and I wish we could have shown that but there were a few films like that where we weren't able to show. Maybe at some future point? It certainly deserves much more visibility than it gets.
Guillén: I notice thematically that through several of the categories there's a focus on youth and gang culture; either negative portrayals of gang members or portrayals of youth trying to escape gang culture. Are these films truly reflective of Latino youth?
Noriega: It's reflective of Hollywood following what's in the news but also participating in a certain shift in how they look at youth that occurs from the 1950s onward. It really has to do with a lot of what happened after the Second World War in terms of legally creating the category of the juvenile delinquent. Understanding that category as one that's legally constructed provides an opportunity for the State to come in and say to families: "We will play a better role in raising your child." Under this rubric, right? A whole lot of other change is happening with youth as well, not only in labor but also in terms of constituting them as a market that can be appealed to. Now, we see where that plays out. You watch cartoons that are basically long advertisements for toys for six-year-olds. I think that's the shift that's taking place; but, what happens is Latinos and Blacks get the heavy portion of the attention in a way that's grossly out of step with the demographic. It becomes a way of also trying to talk about the challenges that society is facing in terms of acknowledging the growing non-white population, particularly in urban areas. That becomes a very familiar story for how you try to account for them. You can't keep them out of the picture. How do you put them into the picture? Usually it's in terms of discussing the youth as juvenile delinquents. That allows you then to shift the discussion from one of integration to one of legal enforcement.
Guillén: Fascinating. In terms of genre, you begin your series by showing Latino images in the old westerns and then you wrap up with western revisionism in The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez and Lone Star. What is revisionist about those two films?
Noriega: There's a generation of filmmakers starting with The Ballad who—in some ways—all the Chicano filmmakers who I know are now in their late fifties early sixties at the peak of their careers and they loved westerns. They're probably more knowledgeable about them than I am. They just never saw themselves reflected very well within them. [Chuckles.] So with The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, there's an opportunity to resituate the western and say, "Well, yes, that story's been told and you don't have to get rid of it, but let's add another story alongside of it, which is more from the Mexican American perspective." In The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez you have an interesting case because it's based on an academic study that essentially details how the Mexican American community communicated with itself; how it understood a lot of these issues happening with respect to the Texas Rangers. The film tells both stories concurrently until viewers come to that point where they realize the relationship between these two stories and what the problem that occurs between them is based on. To my mind, Lone Star is an obvious retelling of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which was itself a revisionist western. What John Sayles does is to take that story—which is how do we look back through nostalgia to find what was really happening—and what is our commitment once we find that out? Do we bury it? Or do we let that become the basis for a new story? Sayles adds a racial element to it that's been missing and comes up with what I think is one of the more astounding endings of any of these films that we're showing. It's a good way to end the series.
Cross-published on Twitch.
Elliot Lavine, former programming director for the Roxie Film Center, helped set new standards for art house cinemas with his film noir festivals, classic revivals and popular premieres. In conjunction with the anticipated publication of TV Noir: I Wake Up Dreaming, Lavine returns to the Roxie with "two weeks of darkly demented, baffling B budget curios of the American style—most not available on DVD and many not seen in theaters for decades." Under the aegis of "I Wake Up Dreaming: The Haunted World of the B Film Noir", come May 15 through May 28 noir aficionados will be treated to Lavine's unique curatorial dexterity. Not only that, but—perhaps in preparation for the Roxie's 100th birthday (check out Cinema Treasures historical purview)—seats from the recently-demolished Coronet have been installed for greater viewing comfort.
The entire line-up for "I Wake Up Dreaming: The Haunted World of the B Film Noir" can be found at the Roxie's official website where—as indicated—"From 1990 until 2003, San Francisco's Roxie Theater enjoyed a reputation as being the foremost venue in the entire Bay Area for the absolute best in quality, esoteric film noir." What, one might question, distinguishes Lavine's noir festival from Eddie Muller's highly successful and popular Noir City venued at the Castro? "The focus of this series," the Roxie's website asserts, "is the shadowy and gritty world of the B noir. These are not the glitzy and glamorous classics most filmgoers are familiar with. Rather, they are the doomed and forgotten, rough and ready step-children of Hollywood's lower depths; poverty row gems that, in many ways, capture the true, brutal essence of noir far better than many of their upper-crust cousins." That, in itself, isn't much of a distinction from Noir City whose programs in recent years have included several of the titles appearing in the Roxie line-up. Clearly, then, the distinction must be the Roxie itself and Lavine's program ends up being something of a devoted noir valentine to the venue. To paraphrase, the Roxie captures the true, brutal essence of noir in contrast to its upper crust cousin the Castro Theatre. I'm being facetious of course. By way of Noir City at the Castro, the Pacific Film Archive, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, noir, pulp and grindhouse have gained a heightened profile on the San Franciscan cinematic landscape. It's almost as if one film noir festival is too many while two is simply not enough.
At a press screening announcing the series, I caught Felix Feist's 1947 The Devil Thumbs A Ride. Crisply-paced (one reviewer claims "relentlessly") at 62 minutes, this cautionary tale warns against allowing a sociopathic murderer to insinuate himself into your vehicle—no matter how handsome and charming he is—and is reminiscent of Ida Lupino's The Hitch-hiker (1953) and Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945). Lavine considers The Devil Thumbs A Ride to be "one of the most blatantly nasty (and under-appreciated) B noirs of all time, with a singularly fierce central performance from its legendary dark star, Lawrence Tierney." In complete agreement is Barry Gifford who appropriated the film's title for his book on "unforgettable" noirs, claiming that—on the basis of Tierney's "vicious and amoral" performance alone—The Devil Thumbs A Ride "must be ranked in the upper echelon of indelibly American noirs."
Goatdog's Movies does a fine job of synopsizing the film's convoluted plot for those who like to know their stories beforehand and adds: "There's an art in making a good genre film, one that's happy to inhabit its genre without going all postmodern. The film has to satisfy the expectations of fans of the genres, and it should distinguish itself by doing a handful of things especially well or slightly differently. This programmer from RKO has most of the things you'd expect from a low-budget noir, and just enough innovation to please the casual fan."
At All Movie Guide, Hal Erickson admits that The Devil Thumbs A Ride is not a "great" film by any means but concedes that it "nonetheless has an indefinable audience allure that sucks the viewer into its labyrinthine storyline and doesn't let go until the fade-out." Craig Butler likewise observes that the film exerts an "undeniable attraction" and that "it succeeds in spite of itself."
Myself, I track with Lavine, Gifford and Butler in recognizing that it's Tierney's engaging performance as the ruthless Steve Morgan that carries this film. "He fascinates from his first moment on the screen," Butler writes, "and the audience finds itself totally drawn in by him." Noir of the Week adds that Tierney's performance "straddles the precarious line between big-talking charmer and desperate psycho-on-the-lam" and that "[a]s the titular Devil, Tierney pretty much knocks it out of the park—consistently displaying both a welcome restraint, and a knack for sudden persona changes." As pointed out by Nate at Real Political Face Talk, Lawrence Tierney is probably best recognized today as the lug of a boss that puts together the "Reservoir Dogs" in Quentin Tarantino's film of the same name (a stroke of deferential casting on Tarantino's part) but Tierney had a longstanding reputation throughout the 1940s and '50s playing tough, mean hoods, even though rumor has it he chafed against the typecasting. Largely unfamiliar with Tierney's work—other than his brief role in Val Lewton's Ghost Ship where he's crushed to death by the anchor chain—Tierney's rugged good looks and sinister charisma have caught my attention and I look forward to exploring some of his other noirs, such as his breakout performance in Dillinger (1945) and Robert Wise's Born to Kill (1947), co-starring Claire Trevor.
Butler insightfully notates that—in most films where audiences become engaged with a sociopathic killer—the "hero" is usually not far behind the villain in engaging audience support; but, this isn't necessarily the case in The Devil Thumbs A Ride. Instead, it's "bad girl" Agnes (Betty Lawford) who comes in second in terms of audience interest. Blowsy, boozey, brassy, and questionably blonde, Lawford (Peter's cousin)—in her last role—embodies the noir stereotype fully. She behaves deplorably, appreciates the meat in the man, earns our disdain, and yet we enjoy her for it. The "good" couple—the "affably inebriated" Fergie (Ted North) and naïve wanna-be actress Carol (Nan Leslie)—"barely register," Butler writes, "and when they do it's only because viewers know that they're supposed to be on their side and feel obligated to give them some support."
