Even More of The Greatest part 4

More of my favourite films in no particular order.

















90. Beau Travail (1999) Claire Denis' semi abstract, homo-erotic masterpiece, Beau Travail depicts life in a French Foreign Legion garrison in north Africa. Denis Lavant plays Sgt. Galloup, a career soldier in charge of a number of young men, recruits from various parts of the globe. When a charismatic and handsome soldier called Sentain arrives, Galloup feels envious of his popularity with the other men and begins to resent him for his apparent bravery and strength of character. In the end Galloup's jealousy and obsession with Sentain leads to his court martial and the end of his career in the legion. The ambiguous ending seems to suggest Galloup's suicide. The simple story, loosely inspired by Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, is told with little dialogue, the emphasis is on abstracted images and sounds, edited together rythmically. The effect is hypnotic. Denis' direction also emphasises the homo-erotic context, and seems to suggest another reason for Galloup's fixation.


























89. Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
I remember seeing the trailer of Bad Boy Bubby when I was around 13 (when it came out) and being completely gobsmacked. It didnt look like anything else. It has nearly everything a teenage boy would want in a film: a retrobate anti-hero performing various acts of social suicide/destruction. Doing all the things you wish at the time that you could. You've never been drunk enough yet to surpass them, you've never felt that morning after regret. In a sense, coming of age is what Bad Boy Bubby is about. Rolf de Heer's film, about a man called Bubby (played by Nicholas Hope) who is trapped from birth in a small apartment by his deranged mother until he one day escapes and runs amok, was made in an experimental way, using tiny microphones under Hope's wig in order to record 'Bubby's experience', and also using 31 different directors of photography. In order to tell Bubby's story it would have to look and sound completely new. The childlike Bubby's adventures are episodic. He joins a band, discovers pizza, and is frequently taken in by sympathetic onlookers who try to mold him into various guises of middle class acceptabilty, or just themselves, it doesn't work. He is, offcourse, irrepressible. A dirty mirror to hold up to ourselves, he lets us see what we are. Bad Boy Bubby remains one of the most original and, in the end, absurdly touching films of the 90s.

88. Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947)

Another great example of Yasujiro Ozu's subtly moving and rather beautiful drama films (see Tokyo Story at #56), Record of a Tenement Gentleman is a darkly comic, but no less poignant snap shot of post war Japan. The story concerns the residents of a Tokyo slum that has been damaged during the bombing raids of the 1940's. All the characters are destitutes. Tashiro (played by Ozu regular Chisu Ryu) makes a living in the street telling peoples fortunes. One day he meets a young boy who has apparently been abandoned by his father. Taking him back to his tenement, he tries to persuade his neighbour, Tamekichi, a pots and pans seller, to take the boy temporarily until they can locate his dad. Tamekichi refuses and tells Tashiro to try another neighbour of theirs, a widow named O-tane. Although she is reluctant, O-tane eventually agrees to let the boy stay one night. Told with Ozu's trademark distinctive visual style, using establishing shots to punctuate scenes, this 'beauty of the every day' is what sets Ozu's films apart, and seems somehow very Japanese. The film has a certain pace which keeps us detached from the characters. No melodrama, nothing is confronted quite head on. As with other masters like Bergman or Tarkovsky, in Ozu's best work (of which Tenement Gentlemen is certainly one) one can feel the presence of genius from the outset. These are the films that are the easiest to sit through because, like all great art, they elevate you. It is cinema at its most life enhancing.


























87. Jean de Florette/ Manon des Sources (1986)

Claude Berri's classical two movie adaptation of the novel by Marcel Pagnol, the films were shot in succession and tell the story of two perversely immoral 'salt of the earth' farmers in early 1920's Provence, and their attempts to cheat a naive Parisian out of his inherited land. Ugolin (played by Daniel Auteuil), a dim witted war veteran, returns from World War 1 to his small home town and his elderly uncle Cesar (Yves Montand). Eventually Ugolin reveals to his uncle that, instead of a typical crop, he wishes to grow carnations. At first Cesar is sceptical, but agrees to help his nephew when he realises how much money can be made. They approach a local farmer to see about possibly buying his land, as the scheming Cesar knows of a spring, one that he buried years earlier, that will make this land more fertile. The farmer, who is ignorant of the springs existence, nevertheless refuses and during an altercation with the two prospective buyers he is accidentally killed. After making it appear as if the farmer simply fell from a tree, Ugolin and Cesar scuttle away to bide their time. They learn that the farmers only living heir is a Parisian tax collector named Jean (Gerard Depardieu). Since, as they learn, Jean is a hunchback, it seems unlikely he will want to keep the farm, nevertheless Cesar resorts to breaking the roof tiles in order to attempt to make it as unappealing as possible. Unfortunately for both Cesar and his nephew, Jean has every intention of keeping the land as he intends to breed rabbits. He also wants to bring up his young daughter in the countryside, which he has somewhat idealised. So begins a darkly humourous and ultimately tragic saga. Jean de Florette heralded a fashion for nostalgic period films that would become the norm in French cinema until the release of La Haine in 1995. Berri's adaptation is classicaly and impeccably directed.

86. JFK (1991)

Oliver Stone's epic re-telling of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, JFK is essentially an engrossing mystery thriller, but with a disturbingly real context. Stone's only real claim in the end is that the assassination was a conspiracy orchestrated from somewhere within the American government itself, a prospect which may have seemed far fetched at the time the film was made, but which in a contemporary context is beginning to look more and more believable. The sheer amount of information delivered through this film, some of which is fairly chilling, also give it the feel of a some sort of historical document. In this sense it has something in common with Goodfellas, the film Martin Scorsesse made only a year earlier about life in the mob. Both films seem to stem from some prevailing trend in the early 90s towards the informative. Something which told us how it really was. Stone wrote the screenplay of JFK based on two books: On the Trail of The Assassins by Jim Garrison (who Kevin Costner plays in the film) and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs. Stone also met with L. Fletcher Prouty, a former Chief of Special Operations under Kennedy who became a public critic of United States foreign policy, and particularly of the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Stone said meeting Prouty was one of the most extraordinary afternoons of his life and it was one of the inspirations of the scene in which the character of Garrison meets a former Pentagon Colonel called 'Mr X'. In the film this character explains to Garrison many things which seem to put the theory of a government conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, it is one of the great payoffs in Hollywood history and something of a verbal climax to a film which is infact structured as much like an old fashioned whoddunit as a documentary. JFK is perhaps the perfect amalgamation of the two.


























85. The Ipcress File (1965)

Surely one of the greatest British films ever made. Sidney J. Furie's adaptation of Len Deighton's spy novel The Ipcress File is also one of the most inventively directed films of the 60's. The camera is frequently watching the scene from some unexpected angle, from behind a phone box or even from inside a lamp shade, the characters in the story are 'under surveilance' from the audience. Michael Caine plays Harry Palmer, a low level intelligence agent working for the Ministry of Defence in London. In contrast to a character like James Bond, Palmer is an insubordinate cockney who enjoys classical music and cooking. He has been recruited to the Ministry from a military prison in which he was incarcerated. All the Palmer films (see also Funeral in Berlin and The Billion Dollar Brain) begin with Palmer reporting to, or being seeked out by, his boss Colonel Ross. To contrast Palmer, Ross is an archetypal English gentleman, one of those elite 'old boy's' that once seemed to exist in Britain, and perhaps still do in some form. He attends a club, wears bowler hats and always has an umbrella. Ross' contempt for Palmer's unusual sense of humour and general insubordinate manner is offcourse comical, but these scenes are where Palmer's character burns the brightest. He appears to wear a mask of smirking indifference, and remains incredibly enigmatic. Although Palmer is sometimes forced to act amorally, he seems to ultimately mean well, and exudes a kind of understated heroism.
When a famous scientist called Dr Radcliffe is abducted, Palmer is re-allocated from his usual surveillance duties to the clandestine government department that was responsible for Radcliffe's security escort: an agent who was killed during the abduction. Palmer's journey is a cerebral one, there is a mystery to unravel. No action set-pieces, no exotic destinations (in this film atleast), just cold violence and a lot of paperwork.


























84. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

In this classic John Ford western, John Wayne plays Capt. Nathan Brittles, an ageing officer of a small and remote U.S. cavalry outpost. The story unfolds over the course of his last week of active duty before his retirement. It is in the immediate aftermath of General Custer's defeat and a group of young Native Americans are seemingly running amok and threatening to attack the fort, which also houses a small number of women. The subject matter is similar to Ford's later and more well known western The Searchers, in which Wayne also appears in his usual macho persona, but this film seems altogether less pompous. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is far less epic in scale and the story is relatively simple, more down to earth somehow. Thankfully, its depiction of Native Americans is also slightly less controversial. For a start the Native Americans in this film are played by actual Native Americans, instead of the conspicuously blue eyed and pink skinned character actors of The Searchers (and in fact so many other westerns). While there still remains a rather embarrassing lack of the Native point of view (Custer's defeat and slaughter was arguably justified), nevertheless the film does seem to at least attempt to show the Native population as a complexed society. Throughout the film Brittles remains on good terms with the elders of the tribes, who are represented in one scene by the character of Chief Pony That Walks (memorably played by Chief John Big Tree). Though its a film most definitely of its time in many ways, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is nevertheless a complexed and beautifully shot western from a director who is after all one of the key figures in the genre, and indeed in American movies.


























83. Unforgiven (1992) From classical westerns to the modern kind, of which Unforgiven is possibly the greatest example, this is essentially a film in which the real MYTHOS of the old west is celebrated. The story telling and word of mouth culture of the time is explored here more than anywhere else. The whole film is essentially a series of anecdotal monologues and dialogue scenes which are convincingly authentic. There is comparatively little action, as it should be in any self respecting American western, the majority of the film is a slow build to some terrible climax you know is coming. Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, an ageing ex-outlaw gunman turned farmer who is persuaded to return to his former life for one last job. A group of prostitutes, led by 'Strawberry Alice' (played by Frances Fisher), have raised 1,000 dollars for a bounty on a couple of cowboys who attacked and disfigured their colleague Delilah (Anna Thompson). Promptly, a young wannabe gunfighter, 'The Schofield Kid' (Jaimz Woolvett), arrives at Munny's farmstead to convince him to help track down the two men and share the reward. Munny refuses but is eventually convinced it is the right thing to do after hearing a rather exaggerated account of their crime from Schofield. Munny then convinces his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to help them by recounting an even more exaggerated version of the incident, and the three men set off. Meanwhile, another reformed gunfighter, 'Little Bill' Daggett (Gene Hackman) is now the over zealous sheriff of Big Whiskey, the town where the pivotal event took place. Daggett was originally lenient on the two cowboys, and enforces a 'no gun' policy as a peacekeeping effort, but also to ensure he has absolute power over everyone in the township. He is soon shown to be a narcissistic bully. Eventually Munny and his compadre's track down and kill the two cowboys and claim the reward, but after Logan leaves Munny and Schofield to return home, Daggett captures him and has him tortured to death. This incurs the wrath of Munny and awakens a dark side that has long been dormant. Clint Eastwood's 16th feature film as director is a powerhouse of American storytelling, and proof that in 1992 Hollywood could still do 'dark' when it had to.


























82. The Shining (1980)
Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece is light on gory violence and heavy on atmosphere and suspense. It's a story (adapted from Stephen King) that merely presents the audience with a situation, a man alone with his family in a remote mountain hotel, and then lets this situation fester and evolve into a nightmare. Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) is a frustrated writer who decides to become the winter caretaker of The Overlook Hotel, a mountain resort that is closed to the public once a year dew to extreme weather conditions. He takes his wife and young son with him to live there while he plans to use the peace and quiet to write his book. His son, Danny (Danny Lloyd) seems to have some psychic ability which manifests itself through an imaginary friend called 'Tony'. Before arriving Danny tells his mother, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), that Tony doesn't want to go to the hotel. After they arrive Danny starts to suffer from terrifying hallucinations. Meanwhile, inspiration seems to elude Jack and he slowly goes insane, eventually adopting the persona of a previous caretaker who apparently killed his family and then himself years before. Nowhere has an atmosphere of disquieting menace been so completely achieved as in The Shining, arguably Stanley Kubrick's greatest film, and in my opinion, the greatest horror film of all time.



























81. Once Upon a Time in America (1984) Sergio Leone's sprawling gangster epic, based on the semi-autobiographical book The Hoods by Harry Grey, tells the story of the rise and fall of a group of childhood friends. The film follows them from their childhoods as impoverished Jewish immigrants in early 20s New York, to success in the criminal underworld of the prohibition era, and finally to a mysterious reunion many years later. It encompasses a transitional period of the 20th century, rarely has the past juxtaposed with the present so much as when Robert De Niro's character, 'Noodles', looks back from the 70s to the early 20s. This is how the story begins. The film is completely and utterly about nostalgia. Noodles, played as a kid by Scott Tiler, remembers Deborah (Jennifer Connelly and Elizabeth McGovern), the precocious sister of his friend Fat Moe (Mike Monetti/ Larry Rapp). He watches her practicing ballet through a peephole, this image is our doorway back, as if it is his earliest important memory. The romantic, childish love they feel for each other will provide the emotional core of the movie. Soon Noodles meets Max (Rusty Jacobs/ James Woods) and they become life long friends and business partners, until eventually falling out. Noodles disappears after Max and the rest of his circle are killed in a fire. Then 40 years later Noodles receives a mysterious letter. Leone's original version of the film was about 4 and a half hours long, but he edited it down himself to about 3 and a half, and this became the version that is now most commonly seen. On its American release however, and against Leone's wishes, the studio cut it down to about 2 and a half hours and re-edited it so that the story unfolded completely chronologically. Consequently, this version received poor reviews and Leone was apparently heartbroken. He never made another film, but for most people the European cut of Once Upon a Time in America is a true masterpiece, and a fitting swansong to a director who in his brief career had such a unique impact on cinema.

Even More of The Greatest part 1

As before they're not in any particular order.











60. Ride in the Whirlwind (1965)

Some time during the mid sixties Roger Corman gave director Monte Hellman the money to make two western b-movies, to be shot more or less at the same time. The first was The Shooting, a kind of existential take on the traditional western stereotypes whith Jack Nicholson as a black clad, sociopathic gunfighter and Warren Oates as kind of architypal western hero in the style of Ethan Edwards. Infact, Oates characters paternal relationship with a younger protagonist is like a straight up homage to John Wayne in The Searchers. The Shooting has much of the best things of the traditional hollywood western, while at the same time waving farewell to it. The second film to be made was Ride in the Whirlwind. Made with much of the same cast as The Shooting (minus Oates) and from a script knocked together by Jack Nicholson, it nevertheless marks a drastic departure from its predecessor.
The architypes are replaced with beleivable characters. The incredible dialogue which carries most of the film is a sometimes bareley comprehensible stream of authentic 1870s north american slang and inflections. Watching this film you feel as if you're listening in on the old west, perhaps from an early record. Harry Dean Stanton plays a one eyed bandit called Blind Dick, who's gang robs a stagecoach in the opening scene of the film. They are tracked down and killed by a vigillante mob, who then mistake some nearby cowboys, Wes (Jack Nicholson) and Vern (Cameron Mitchell), for outlaws. Wes and Vern are forced to go on the run and even take a family hostage in order to escape their pursuers, essentially becoming what they where accused of being in the first place. Seemingly then, the film is a comment on subjective justice as a kind of physical embodiment of the 'lawlessenes' of the old west. Jack Nicholson, already one of the great actors, can apparently write too. Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting could also be seen as direct predecessors to a later more famous western, The Missouri Breaks, which also stared Jack Nicholson and Harry Dean Stanton (alongside Marlon Brando) and had a similar sense of authenticity and approach to dialogue.














































59. The Name of the Rose (1986)

Jean-Jacques Annaud adapted this from a book by Umberto Eco, it's basically a murder mystery set in a remote abbey in northern Italy during the middle ages. It's thickly atmospheric, feeling for the most part like a horror film, Annaud seems to have deliberately chosen the ugliest actors to play the various characters, who in turn have been exagerated to the level of gargoyles. Sean Connery and Christian Slater play franciscan monks who have been sent to the abbey as representatives during a theological conference. As certain monks start turning up dead they soon uncover a conspiracy that reveals corruption in the catholic church itself, represented by an inquisitor played by a demonic looking F. Murray Abraham. It's good, late night fun.















































58. The Double Life of Veronique (1991)













































57. Satyricon (1969)

Federico Fellini's adaptation of the Roman text by Petronius, the story of Satyricon basically follows the exploits of two Roman men who start out as rivals in a love triangle with a young boy and then end up in a series of misadventures that take them on a kind of tour through Roman society. The original text is basically an attempt by a Roman writer to update, or satirise, the kind of Greek heroic myths in which young men are sent on these long journeys of discovery. In Satyricon however the two protagonists are distinctly un-heroic, and their journey is a chaotic series of mishaps brought about by their initial capture into slavery. In alot of ways this is a typical Fellini movie, lots of scary women with painted faces and the narrative progresses in this kind of dreamlike way, but it seems to take his cartoonish stylisation to a new level. It's a beautiful dream.
I think it's also notable among his films as being an adaptation of a well known work of literature rather than his own story. Usually I think of Fellini as a very autobiographical director who wrote most of his more well known films with a kind of confesional quality. This is apparent in what are arguably his three most famous films: 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita and Amacord (which translates as I Remember). The only other story that I'm aware of him adapting would be his 1976 film of Casanova's memoirs. Satyricon has something of the same atmosphere as Casanova, as I've said before it's very visually exagerrated, as if the further back he goes historically, the less 'realistic' he's prepared to be. Perversely, this can also add to the veiwers historical curiosity, a curiosity Fellini reveals himself in a film he made not long after Satyricon, Fellini's Roma.















































56. Tokyo Story (1953)

Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story is perhaps one of the greatest human dramas ever made. It's about the generational divide and the certainty of change and eventually death, set against the backdrop of what was apparently a transitional period for Japan in the early fifties. Ozu is well known for his family drama's and his distinctive visual style, the kind of odd low camera angles and tendency for filming actors straight on so that they are almost talking into the camera. The audience experiences the story as if a participant, first hand. Ozu himself is a slightly mysterious character. He seems to have rareley, if ever, given interviews. Ozu comes from the generation of directors who basically taught themselves how to make films from just watching movies, and apparently he spent much of his formative education in the cinema instead of the classroom. He was eventually expelled from the boys school he attended for sending love letters to a fellow student, so its possible he was a homosexual, a huge taboo in the Japan of the twenties. In Early Summer, a film he made a few years before Tokyo Story, the subject of arranged marriages is dealt with with vaguely homoerotic undertones. Like Tokyo Story and another film called Late Spring, Early Summer follows the character of Noriko (played as always by Ozu's muse, Setsuko Hara), a twenty something who is presurised to marry by her family. During the course of the story she is forced to decide whether she even wants to marry anyone. She remains reluctant untill almost the end of the film, and when she does finally choose a man it seems to be mostly because of his friendship and apparent loyalty to her dead brother (the war is never far away). No romantic melodrama here. The scene in which she asks his mother for her consent seems bizarre, as if she's asking his mother to marry her instead of him. The theme of repressed homosexuality is subtle but it's there. Tokyo Story was the last in this 'Noriko Trilogy', and I think the most succesful in achieving a sense of genuine pathos with the character's. In this film Noriko is a war widow who's relationship with her dead husbands parents is much deeper than that of their real children. The drama is understated as ever, but seemingly all the more poignant. The plot of Tokyo Story is episodic, like real life. One of the most distinctive things about Ozu's films is his sense of this kind of simple beauty in the cinematography, particularly in his famous establishing shots, and also his sense of rythm in the editing, it's just really well made, pure filmaking.



























































55. Hardware (1990)

Richard Stanley's horror sci-fi debut, Hardware is a cult oddity, crafted from elements of eighties's classics like The Terminator, Alien, Blade Runner and Mad Max. As an amalgamation of these films, it seems to represent a kind of quintessential eighties sci-fi action movie, with an added influence of the european horror films of Bava and Argento. In the comentary of the Optimum dvd release Stanley even admits to the film being "..a rip off of Terminator and Alien", it seems as if this was Richard Stanley trying to appease movie producers as much as the immagined audience. It was never more than a cult hit, this may be dew to the emphasis on dialogue and character development and lack of action in the first half. Hardware has some of the slow burning elements of a John Carpenter movie like The Thing or Assault on Precinct 13. Like Rio Bravo for the MTV generation. When it reaches its climactic second half the violence is concentrated and brutal, the film kind of explodes. Some of the eye gouging and various other things were cut out on it's initial release, and there are some other sequences that have stayed with me since I saw it when I was 11. The plot is looseley adapted from a story in the comic weekly 2000 A.D., about a homicidal skull faced robot called The Mark 13 that goes on the rampage through a post apocalyptic urban slum of the future. The use of eighties rock songs like P.I.L.'s The Order of Death and Iggy Pop's Cold Metal seem fitting and are well placed. More music by bands like Gwar and Ministry add to the film's gothic industrial aesthetic. Also of interest are the cameos: Fields of the Nephilim singer Carl McCoy plays an enigmatic "zone tripper", Lemmy from Motorhead appears as a taxi driver and Iggy Pop's voice is heard as a radio personality called Angry Bob. Bob's rants at the beginning and end of the film serve a narrative purpose, establishing first of all the context of the story, and finally the outcome in a kind of verbal epilogue, giving the feeling of a medieval play. It's certainly as violent and existential as any work of Shakespeare.










































54. Immoral Tales (1974)

Walerian Borowczyk's Immoral Tales is one of the most famous erotic films of the seventies, but it has a dreamy quality and sense of the surreal that sets it apart from films like The Story of O and Emmanuelle. Immoral Tales is made of four segments, which regress cronologically, starting on a French beach in the present day and ending in fifteenth century Rome. The film is obviously about sex as sin. All the characters missbehave by the standards of their time, and seem to get worse as we go on, as if we are regressing also in a moral sense. Borowczyk's film seems to imply that morality itself is relative. The earlier scenes are atmospheric, closer to todays reality and more subdued. The later stories are presented rather more dramatically. The Countess Bathory segment is perhaps the most interesting and memorable, filled with surreal images. Paloma Picasso's performance as Elizabeth Bathory is detached and somewhat menacing. The Borgia family in the final segment are presented as the ultimate symbol of corruption, their incestuous relationships are a subversion of the family, in the Catholic Church in which the family is an important symbol of the relationship between man and God. It seems as if the more repressed the time and place the characters are from, the more corrupt they infact become, and sex and sensuality are represented as all the more enjoyable for being 'wrong'. The characters are not judged or punished by Borowczyk, they are shown objectively, as if specimens in a zoo.














































53. Death in Venice (1971)

Luchino Visconti's masterpiece is an adaptation of the famous novel by Thomas Mann. The story concerns a 19th century Viennese composer Gustave Aschenbach, apparently based on Gustav Mahler, who travels to Venice after suffering from health problems brought about by a series of personal and artistic failures. Upon arrival he becomes secretly obssessed with a young Polish tourist called Tadzio. Eventually he tries to leave Venice, which appears to be in the grip of a cholera epidemic, only to return straight away after a minor problem concerning his luggage. It seems as if he is glad to return. He begins to openly follow the boy, to the extent that Tadzio's family notice him. Tadzio reminds him of his own past, seeming to embody everyone he has ever loved, including his dead daughter. It's incredibly poignant and sad. Visconti creates a sense of profound isolation around his central character, a solitary figure who hardly speaks to anyone. Aschenbach is a man at the end of his life, alone in a foreign country and trapped by his past. The dialogue is minimal, much of the film is carried by Dirk Bogarde's incredible performance as Aschenbach, and the music of Mahler resounds through the opening and closing scenes of the film, it seems like a wordless opera.

















































52. Tenebrae (1982)

Tenebrae is Dario Argento's last great giallo, it's also probably my favourite film of this much underrated genre. It's an incredibly violent film, almost all the characters are eventually killed, but as always the deaths are beautifully elaborate, his style is indesputable and very Italian. I particularly love the fact that in one scene a young girl is chased into the path of her killer by an over enthusiastic doberman, a cruel twist of fate typical of Argento's films. His characters often die in the most unlucky ways. Daria Nicolodi, the mother of Argento's daughter Asia, was often the brunt of these sadistic ironies: in Terror at the Opera she's not only shot in the head but through the eye. In Phenomena she's mauled by a razor weilding chimpanzee. In the climax of his early giallo, Cat o' Nine Tails, the murderer receives their comupence by falling down a lift shaft (after being shot) and on the way down burns their hands trying to hold on to the lift cable. He seems to like making his characters suffer, beyond what is required. Argento's violence is literally excessive.














































51. 3 Women (1977)
By far Robert Altman's most disturbing and strangest film, 3 Women is a schizophrenic nightmare. Millie (Shelley Duvall) and Pinky (Sissy Spacek) share an appartment and work together at a health spa. They are both archetypes. Modern girl Millie is outgoing, sexually confident and shallow. Pinky is a country girl, shy and childlike. The appartment complex they live in is owned by an older woman, Willie (Janice Rule) a pregnant artist who paints horrific murals, depicting ferral, ape like creatures. The two younger women are also sporadically bothered by Willie's over sexed husband, Edgar. The three central characters are so exagerrated, Duvall and Spacek are clownlike.
Millie, Pinky and Willie all seem to exist apart from their surroundings and are treated with indifference and sometimes hostility. By the end of the film the three women have swapped roles to the extent that it suggests that they are merely facets of the same woman. In this sense it's similar to Bergman's Persona. This idea is more blatantly suggested in the ending which is horrific and mysterious.