My movie week

I finally caught Elio Petri’s great 1970 film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion last night on Criterion Channel. For years I’d been reading about the film but it always eluded me. The film is very much of the times and almost seems dated. But not quite. Made in the early-70s it depicts police corruption amidst the tumult of the New Left. Those of us of a certain age remember the almost continual demonstrations, riots and bombings by groups protesting a variety of causes - the Vietnam War, the military-industrial complex, or simply revolution to overturn the existing order. Investigation, which won best foreign film Oscar, is marked by a stand-out performance by its lead Gian Maria Volonté (photo), the head of a homicide then political police division who is a fiery autocrat and personifies corruption. Terrific also is the brilliant musical score by famous journeyman composer Ennio Morricone, one of the best ever.

A few nights ago, also on Criterion, I caught up with one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s earlier films, Gods of the Plague (1970). Unfortunately, it was lackluster - uninspired acting and drama - about an ex-con planning to recidivate with Fassbinder’s trademark sub-text of homoeroticism.

Last weekend, I caught several films on TCM. The best was Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) (photo) with Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels. I liked it better the second time around and appreciated its real genius. It uses cinema as  a metaphor to dissect the difference between fantasy and reality, both in the "moving" pictures (it’s set in the Depression era) and real life. But it has so much more - great writing, great characterization, a wonderfully imaginative story, and is immensely fun to boot.…Vincent Minnelli’s 1956 Tea and Sympathy stars the sultry Deborah Kerr opposite John Kerr (no relation), based on the play, of a college student (JK) who develops a romantic friendship with fraternity house matron Laura Reynolds (DK). But the real theme is social pressure and the bullying of someone who is “different” (today he’d be called metrosexual) at the hands of a group of conformists - powerful stuff for the 1950s……Jules Dassin’s The Naked City (1948) is a sprawling police procedural investigating the death of a low class model. The best things about it are the numerous scenes of New York’s Lower East Side circa the late Forties and chief homicide investigator Dan Muldoon, played by the always humorously charming Barry Fitzgerald….Sam Fuller’s The Crimson Kimono is a 1959 film noir, interesting perhaps for parsing the cross-cultural relationships of Caucasians and Japanese-Americans, an original theme of the day. But it never gains much traction…..I rented Peter Bogdanovich’s 1972 What’s Up, Doc? starring Barbara Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. A major disappointment as the film basically devolves into silly farce. But Streisand is stunning – charming, witty, fanciful – in utterly effortless acting…..Finally, from the Detroit Film Theatre, I rented Ken Loach’s 2019 Sorry We Missed You, the latest Loach take on the British working class from the Marxist-inspired director. This time his focus is on exploitation in the supposedly work-for-yourself gig economy. Whether you agree with his politics – though the message here is fairly persuasive – Loach is an accomplished filmmaker and extracts great performances.