AFI #17: The Graduate (1967)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on July 24, 2020, and ABC Central Victoria on September 7, 2020.

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.

(PG) ★★★★★

Director: Mike Nichols.

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Elizabeth Wilson, Buck Henry, Brian Avery, Norman Fell.

He didn't see the diver coming.

In the introduction of his potentially bullshit book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind notes that two films in 1967 "sent tremors through the industry" - Bonnie And Clyde and The Graduate.

The former mixed violence and impotence to create two unforgettable and never-before-seen characters (but more on that when we get to #42). The latter was a laugh-out-loud lightning-in-a-bottle satire that became a cultural phenomenon, striking a chord with audiences - especially young people - unlike any film before.

President of Embassy Pictures Joseph E Levine marvelled in 1968 that "wherever we’ve played it, whatever the weather, it’s a sell-out attraction". 

"And people have been coming back two and three times to see it again," continued Levine. "I haven’t seen anything like this in all the years I’ve been in the business. It's absolutely incredible.” 

In the end, it fell short of The Sound Of Music's box office record at the time, but it remains in the top 25 films of all time in North America when adjusted for inflation. It won six British Film Awards, five Golden Globes and a best director Oscar for Mike Nichols. It even produced a Billboard #1 song.

But why was this film about a college graduate caught in a love triangle between his parents' friend and her daughter such a hit? And why is it still revered today?

As The New Yorker wrote in '68, just seven months after its release, The Graduate hit that sweet spot between critics and average punters. "Its sensational profits suggest that Hollywood can have both its cake and its art," wrote Jacob R Brackman. "The Graduate seems to be telling us that the public has been under-rated. Due weight having been given to such factors as economic achievement, popularity at different age and social levels, and critical reception by mass and elite media, it is clearly the biggest success in the history of the movies."

Unlike any film before, The Graduate spoke to young people. "It’s come to be seen as the first 'serious' movie targeted at the baby boomers, who were just coming of age," wrote Vox in a 50th anniversary re-appraisal. Nichols' film, especially in its first third, understood the weight of expectation the teens and 20-somethings of that time felt bearing down on them; the level of judgement that awaited their success or failure, the indecision that wracked their lives as they tried to make sure they took exactly the right first step on their path to a better tomorrow. 

In its second act, the film showed that those choices have profound consequences, that pretty and polite suburban America is not the moral bastion it pretends to be, and that the values of the parents were not the values of their offspring.

"Never before had a high-profile Hollywood film taken such a candid look at sex in the suburbs, or focused on a more unlikely trio," wrote David Sterritt in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. "If any movie hammered the last nail into the coffin of mid-century 'momism', this was it. Neither motherhood, suburbia, nor the suffocating fog of postwar middle-class mores would ever seem quite the same."

And in the final act, all bets were off. The future is a mess, young people don't know what they're doing, and love, lust and sex will fuck you in the end.

"You're right - waxing is better than shaving, I can see that now."

All of this is told in a prescient mix of the awkward and the absurd. Nichols' direction and Robert Surtees' cinematography are great at getting the point across. A welcome home party for Benjamin (Hoffman) featuring only his parents' friends has the camera right up in his face, while there are numerous uses of water to symbolise Benjamin's state of mind - his parents literally hold him under as he is forced to demonstrate his new scuba suit in the family pool, but later after shagging Mrs Robinson (Bancroft), he's literally floating (and says as much). In one magnificent cut, Benjamin pushes himself up onto a lilo, and (through the magic of editing) lands on Mrs Robinson, post-coitus. And as the film builds to its conclusion, Nichols ramps up the tension with bustling scenes, constant movement, and Benjamin seemingly lost in a storm of his own creating.

Hoffman's career-making turn as the nervous worrywart-turned-crazed stalker is a highlight. His character arc is extreme, but Hoffman makes the transition convincing - the same guy who squeaks nervously (and hilariously) while chatting with Mr Robinson (Hamilton) is definitely the same guy who won't leave Elaine alone until she agrees to marry him. He makes all the inadequacies, fears, passions, confusions, pressures, and idiocy of youth real.

Equally good is Bancroft as the alcoholic mom-next-door Mrs Robinson. The archetype she created is now a jokey stereotype - it's Stifler's mum, and it's Stacy's mum. But back here at the source, she's a fascinating and multi-faceted character. She's a woman whose fire went out long ago, snuffed out by a shotgun wedding. She's not even trying to reclaim anything through her tryst with Benjamin - it seems to barely even alleviate her boredom. But the affair is hers, and Benjamin is hers, in the sense that a car or a coat is hers. And when the prospect of Benjamin getting entangled with her daughter Elaine (Ross) arises, she strikes, like a cobra. The fire hasn't quite gone out - but it's reborn as anger. 

"Well, here is to you, Mrs. Robinson,” wrote Roger Ebert when revisiting the film for its 30th anniversary. "You’ve survived your defeat at the hands of that insufferable creep, Benjamin, and emerged as the most sympathetic and intelligent character in The Graduate."

"Fine, Roger Ebert likes you better. Congratulations."

While Benjamin's character and his stalkerish tendencies haven't aged well, it hasn't diminished the power or importance of the film - it's just re-calibrated its message a little. It's still a potent movie, and still hilarious. "Plastics" remains the best one-word punchline in the history of cinema, while "You're the most attractive of all my parents' friends" is an outstanding line for many reasons (that also happens to be funny). 

But if there's one lasting legacy of The Graduate, it's its soundtrack. As Sterritt put it in 1001 Movies..., Nichols' idea to use Simon & Garfunkel hits plus some new tunes from the duo (most notably the tune Mrs Robinson) was a unique trendsetter that "used (Simon & Garfunkel's) popularity as an additional selling point and, equally important, a signal that this film would plug into youth-culture sensibilities more directly and sympathetically than any other of its time". It's strange now to think that no one had really used contemporary music to such powerful effect, but there's a first time for everything, and this is that first time.

The sexual politics have aged, but are still relevant - just in different ways than first intended. But The Graduate was always much more than just "Mrs Robinson, you're trying to seduce me". Artfully directed, beautifully shot, and absurdly hilarious, it boasts two great performances, an excellent script, a zeitgeisty soundtrack, an outstanding ambiguous ending, and a sympathetic eye on the concerns of youth while poking a satirical stick at suburban morals.

AFI #16: Sunset Boulevard (1950)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on July 24, 2020.

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.

Here's a piece I wrote for the ABC about All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard's importance 70 years on.

(PG) ★★★★★

Director: Billy Wilder. 

Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Jack Webb, Cecil B DeMille, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough.

"And these are the many reasons why I should play Superman."

It's a rare film that can claim not only one of the greatest opening scenes of all time, but also one of the best closers. Sunset Boulevard is that film. 

Starting with the narrator dead in a swimming pool and ending with a ghoulish tableau surrounding a crazed woman hallucinating she's on a movie set, Sunset Boulevard is a deserving entry on the AFI list as one of the greatest movies of all time. But it also happens to be one of the best swipes at Hollywood to come out of Hollywood, a wonderfully absurd comedy, and one of the best noir films ever.

It's certainly not typical for a noir to have the victim walking us through the crime (instead of, say, a gumshoe detective), but it's a trick director Billy Wilder pulled years earlier on the also-awesome Double Indemnity. In fact, Otto Penzler, in his 101 Greatest Films Of Mystery & Suspense, argues that Double Indemnity (1944) and Sunset Boulevard (1950) bookend a golden age of noir.

Sunset Boulevard mixes its hard-boiled mystery with a ferocious dig at Hollywood. Penzler argued that Sunset Boulevard not only closed the door on an era of noir, but it also opened the door on a host of anti-Hollywood films willing to bite the hand that fed them, such as In A Lonely Place, The Big Knife, A Star Is Born, The Bad & The Beautiful, and The Barefoot Contessa. Mind you, Sunset Boulevard can't take all the credit - it was edged out at the 1950 Oscars in most categories by a little film called All About Eve, which also took a wild swing at the star-making machine, albeit in theatre as opposed to cinema, but it could easily have been set in Hollywood.

But whether it was beginning or ending trends, Sunset Boulevard ultimately succeeds on the strength of its performances, its script and its direction. The obvious stand-out in these categories is Gloria Swanson as the screw-loose starlet of a bygone era. The character of Norma Desmond cut too close to the bone for a lot of actresses - Mae West, Greta Garbo, Pola Negri, and Mary Pickford all turned down Wilder down before he approached Swanson.

Swanson herself almost turned it down. Director George Cukor talked her into auditioning for the part after she bristled at having to do a screen test. Cukor knew it was a great role. "If they ask you to do 10 screen tests, do 10 screen tests, or I will personally shoot you," he reportedly told Swanson. 

It would be the role that haunted Swanson, but that she is ultimately remembered for, as detailed in this amazing interview from 2003 with her daughter. She was less Norma-like than some of Wilder's other candidates. Unlike Norma, Swanson had made films in the sound era, but retired in 1941 to focus on other pursuits, such as theatre, TV, radio, and clothes designing. But Sunset Boulevard was still close enough to her reality - a silent film Norma screens for Joe Gillis (Holden) is Swanson's own Queen Kelly, which was directed by Erich von Stroheim, who plays Norma's man-servant Max, and it was widely known that Swanson as much a diva as a box-office drawcard, much like Norma.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, where did I leave my car keys?"

It's a brave performance, but also a great one. Swanson is hamming it up, indulging in the kind of large expressions and gestures that were de rigueur in silent film acting. But she brings that style of acting into the real world - not easy to do - and somehow still makes Norma a realistic and occasionally fragile person.

Her relationship with Joe is beautifully written. Through a slow but steady stream of emotional and financial blackmail, she grooms him to be first her writer, then her gopher, and then her lover. Joe believes he's in control, right up to the point where he's obviously not, and Holden gives Joe a great mix of masculinity and vulnerability. It's written so we can see where it's going (the intro does kind of give it away), and we're not surprised by where it ends up, no matter how ludicrous. Having a monkey funeral early in proceedings probably helps - nothing seems ludicrous after that. But ludicrous or not, it's enthralling all the way as Holden crawls deeper and deeper into a trap he can't get himself out of.

Wilder, Charles Brackett, and D. M. Marshman Jr's script really is something special, aided by the wonderful performances. The way they turn Norma from caricature to real person and finally into a monster is magnificent. They lean heavily on the narration early, often unnecessarily, but the dialogue is so good we don't care. "He’d just look at your heels and he’d know the score". "He was a smart producer, with a set of ulcers to prove it". Great stuff. But the best is yet to come. 

GILLIS

                 I know your face.  You're Norma Desmond.  

                 You used to be in pictures.  You used to be big.

NORMA

                 I am big.  It's the pictures that got small.

That's gold right there. 

Wilder made so many great films. Seven are in the National Film Registry, four are on the AFI list, and he was nominated for an astounding 21 Oscars - 13 as screenwriter, eight as director. Sunset Boulevard is his best as a director. It's bolder than anything else he did, thanks to its willingness to point out the way Hollywood built and destroyed careers on a whim, the way it undervalued writers, and the way it created monsters. In many ways, it's the anti-Singin' In The Rain, which got in its gentle digs at Tinsel Town but loved it all the same. Sunset Boulevard offers no such adoration amid its venomous barbs.

"You're right, this isn't a watch."

The film's opening - the result of a back-up choice thanks to bad test screenings for the original opening - is one of the great attention-grabbers of all time, but it's the closer that is the cherry on top of an incredible preceding 105 minutes. Mimicking the artifice of a silent film or an ancient tableau painted on a palace wall, a wide-eyed Norma slides through a sea of cops and reporters, thinking she has finally returned to a film set, when in fact she is about to be arrested and thrown in jail for murder. It's a remarkable moment that caps off a remarkable film. 

Perhaps the biggest compliment regarding Sunset Boulevard came from Hollywood itself. When Oscar night rolled around, the voters only rewarded the film in three of its 11 nominated categories. It was all a little too close to home for them, it seemed. MGM head Louis B Mayer certainly thought Wilder's film was concerningly acerbic. "You have disgraced the industry that made and fed you!" Mayer told Wilder. "You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood!"

Wilder's response? "Go fuck yourself."

And that pretty much sums up Sunset Boulevard's thoughts on Hollywood, and a large part of why the film is still celebrated today.

AFI #15: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on July 10, 2020 and ABC Radio Central Victoria on October 12, 2020.

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.

(G) ★★★★★

Director: Stanley Kubrick.

Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Douglas Rain, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Vivian Kubrick.

Finally heading outside during the pandemic.

When Stanley Kubrick offered 2001: A Space Odyssey to movie production powerhouse MCA, the company's head Lew Wasserman reportedly said, "Kid, you don't spend over a million dollars on science fiction movies". 

This was the '60s, and million-dollar budgets had been around since the silent era in the 1920s, but sci-fi was still seen as a genre comprising cardboard sets, hubcaps on strings and other things that didn't cost a million bucks. By the '40s and '50s, sci-fi films were generally regarded as B-movies of little artistic merit, with the likes of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The War of the Worlds (1953), and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) notable exceptions.

But Kubrick saw potential for the genre to be something more, to say something profound. He wrote to author Arthur C Clarke in 1964, saying he wanted to make the "proverbial good science-fiction movie", and the two combined to do just that. 2001: A Space Odyssey took the genre seriously, not only in the way it presented space travel, but in the way it could be used to ask big questions about life, the universe and everything. In doing so, they changed cinema.

From its opening moments, it's obvious 2001 is aiming for profound (some critics would say it missed and hit "pretentious" instead). We stare into the darkness as Ligeti's Requiem (the creepiest piece of music ever) howls at us, before the sun peeks over the Earth, the opening fanfare of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra blaring, and then a subtitle tells us it's the dawn of man. This is the furthest thing there is from Barbarella, the other big sci-fi hit of 1968. This wants to art. This wants to be cerebral. 

What follows is mindblowing now, but must have been positively brain-melting back in 1968 because there had been nothing like it before. The effects were next level, paving the way for Star Wars, but the content was also out of this world. Mystical monoliths, angry apes, killer computers - The Boston Globe rightly gushed it was "the world's most extraordinary film ... as exciting as the discovery of a new dimension in life". It's visual trickery and otherworldly philosophies led stoners and acid-droppers to lose their minds (the star gate, man!), triggering a reworking of the poster's byline - it was re-branded as "the ultimate trip" to cash in on the unforeseen hipness. 

Some critics who didn't get it recanted on repeat viewings, although some hold out that it's overblown. But the film has become a regular fixture in the once-a-decade Sight & Sound director and critic poll since 1992. Critic Barry Norman, writing about the film in his top 100 list, noted how it could be seen as cold and obscure, but declared that "2001 is so imaginative, breaks such new ground and remains, even now, so infuriatingly thought-provoking that it stands out as a landmark in the evolution of the cinema".

He's not wrong. It's irregular narrative isn't about following a single character, but the entirety of humankind, from its discovery of tools to its first steps beyond the dual infinities of time and space. It's only in the second and third of the four segments that we get something resembling a protagonist, and it's only in the third segment where we see characters face dilemmas and make choices that shape their existence.

"Say it to my face, Dave."

Despite about 88 minutes of its runtime (including the opening 25 and closing 23 minutes) being dialogue-free, 2001 is continually compelling, not least because we're trying to figure out what is going on and where things are going next. It takes 30 minutes before we get any indication of plot via dialogue, and 42 minutes before that plot is advanced. For long stretches, we hear nothing but breathing and the hiss of oxygen. But it's always riveting, beautiful, and intriguing.

The technical achievements of Kubrick and his effects team help keep it all grounded and dazzling. The ape costumes still look pretty good (holy shit one of them gets attacked by a fucking leopard!), the spinning camera/set tricks never get old, and Kubrick's continual fetishisation of the technology is engrossing (as well as part of the point). There's also a beauty and elegance to his compositions, whether it be the landscapes of Africa or a man walking down the corridor of a spaceship. 

And then there's the ending, where your brain begins screaming "what the fuck is going on?". There's an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but my interpretation is basically the same as this fast-talking British chap:

I can understand people being bored or frustrated by 2001, and for not being on board with its greatness. It takes the things we expect in a film - a typical three-act structure, a protagonist, dialogue, a clear and discernible plot, answers to questions - and largely ejects them out into space. It's a deliberately different film - some might say deliberately difficult and obtuse - where very little happens on a small scale. Even the most conventional section, where Dave (an under-rated Dullea) battles the computer HAL (one of cinema's greatest "villains" and a remarkable creation), is told slowly and often in near silence.

But slow and silent shouldn't necessarily be downsides, and certainly aren't when they're as beautiful and profound as this. A "story" that explores the nature of humanity, technology, evolution, the infinite, and our place in the universe deserves to be told in a methodical, graceful, and steady fashion. Kubrick understood this, and chose to tell his and Clarke's story this way for a reason. 

In the process, he revolutionised special effects, helped tear up the cinematic rule book, and reinvented an entire genre. He proved once and for all that sci-fi could and should be taken seriously. But best of all, 2001 took movies through the star gate, to see what was on the other side.

AFI #14: Psycho (1960)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on July 10, 2020.

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.

(M) ★★★★★

Director: Alfred Hitchcock.

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, John McIntire, Simon Oakland, John Anderson, Mort Mills, Pat Hitchcock.

"Well, it's a fixer-upper, but it comes with its own skeleton cellar."

In the two years prior to making Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock made two of the best films of his career to that point - Vertigo and North By Northwest. The former is a deeply psychological film that pushes the boundaries of mainstream film-making while subverting traditional narrative structure. The latter is a film that aims to be entertaining, and to excel at its particular style of entertainment by pushing it to new heights. 

In many ways, Psycho is the culmination and combination of these two disparate films. Its twists and reveals hinge on its psychological aspects, and it turned film-making and storytelling conventions on their heads. But it's also hugely entertaining, and pushes boundaries on its way to doing what it sets out to do, which is be a scary horror film. Psycho is that rarest of beasts - it's both art and entertainment.

"I didn't start off to make an important movie," Hitchcock told fellow iconic director François Truffaut. "I thought I could have fun with this subject and this situation. My main satisfaction is that the film had an effect on the audience... (it) made the audience scream. I feel it's tremendously satisfying for us to be able to use the cinematic art to achieve something of a mass emotion. It wasn't a message that stirred the audience, nor was it a great performance or their enjoyment of the novel. They were aroused by pure film. That's why I take pride in the fact that Psycho, more than any of my other pictures, is a film that belongs to film-makers."

In Psycho, Hitchcock plays his audience "like an organ", he told Truffaut. He makes us like the conflicted Marion Crane (Leigh) - she seems nice enough, she wants to make an honest man of her boyfriend, she has wants and desires just like the rest of us, and she has the kinds of trouble that money could help fix. And we don't dislike her for the crime she commits, partly because the unwitting victim is a skeezy jackass with more money than he knows what to do with.

All the while, the tension grows; a tension that was right there from the frantic and fractured opening credits, and Bernard Herrmann's percussive, stabby score. It builds slowly as Marion Crane (Leigh) commits her crime. It bubbles away with the score, the sighting of her boss, Marion's internal imagined dialogues, and then almost reaches a boiling point as a the persistent traffic cop (Mills) tracks her.

But, much like how Vertigo switches genres and tones as it goes, Psycho's tension suddenly gives way to a creeping dread as she settles in for sandwiches and small talk with the charmingly goofy Norman Bates (a pitch perfect Perkins). Under the watchful eyes of taxidermied birds and paintings of women in peril, you can feel things going off the rails. "A boy's best friend is his mother" is right up there with the most chilling and portentous lines you can find in a movie.  

It all comes to a head in the shower (pardon the pun). The shower scene is quite rightly a big deal, and a huge part of Psycho's legacy lays within its 45 seconds and 52 edits. Still shocking, it's a masterwork of editing, suggestion, and manipulation - all key elements of good horror. "If you take the audience right in ... you involve the audience," Hitchcock said on The Dick Cavett Show in 1972. With these 78 camera set-ups and 52 edits, Hitchcock showed the audience just enough for them to fill in the worst themselves.

I'm not going to delve into the myths, legends and debate around the shower scene, but a lot of it is in this video:

All of this is Hitchcock playing us "like an organ", usually by doing the unexpected. No one offs their film's protagonist 47 minutes in. It's bold, daring, and still hugely effective, 60 years on. From there, (following 10 laborious minutes of crime scene clean-up that lets everything sink in and sees us side with Norman) the film becomes something else again - we've just watched an hour-long prologue to a 45-minute mystery that's now beginning.

The first half of the film, with its great performances and excellent shared scene from Leigh and Perkins, can't be matched by the latter half, but it's still engaging and enticing. We're desperate for answers, and as Hitchcock's camera moves around the mystery, it sometimes feels like we won't get them. Save for the "so here's what happened, folks" explainer at the end, Psycho doesn't do anything by the rules, and if Norman Bates had ridden off into the sunset with his mother by his side, frankly we wouldn't have been surprised.

After all these years, Psycho still packs a punch. Vertigo's ending is still a shock after all these years, but much of the rest of it feels dated, notably the age-gap between its stars and their quaint yet disturbing romance. Oddly, Psycho feels less dated, despite its black-and-white cinematography. Its ability to shock and scare remains strong, even after inspiring the horror genre to bust out so many copycat killers. There's something timeless and enduring about Psycho, and it's largely due to the fact it's still disturbing, 60 years on. If not for what it inspired, it would be more highly regarded than Vertigo.

As Otto Penzler sneers in his 101 Greatest Films of Mystery & Suspense: "Psycho was a tremendously influential film that, for all its brilliance, caused a terrible decline in horror and suspense films as less-talented writers and directors now felt free to show more and more graphic screen violence. Slasher films, unknown until then, have since become a staple of summer cinema, and the entire notion of subtlety appears to have died with Hitchcock."

But Psycho is Hitchcock's best film. The American Film Institute disagrees, as does The Incredible Suit. In fact, many knowledgeable cinema types disagree with my assertion. But for mine, Psycho is the pinnacle of his powers as an artist, an entertainer and a provocateur. He was often great, but never better.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Central Victoria on July 13, 2020.

(M) ★★★★

Director: David Dobkin.

Cast: Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams, Pierce Brosnan, Dan Stevens, Melissanthi Mahut, Demi Lovato, Mikael Persbrandt, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson.

Now streaming on Netflix.

Game Of Thrones: The Musical was always inevitable.

A lot of people don't "get" Eurovision. They don't understand that, yes, it's supposed to be ridiculous, and that the songs have a certain "Eurovisionness" to them. Yes, the costumes and stage designs are over-the-top, and there are way too many fans, flame jets, and key changes. but they miss the fact that it's all part of the fun. It's about music and performance being good within a certain set of Eurovisiony parameters, while also bringing people together and shining a little bit of joy on an often dark world.

But a lot of people can't get on board for that. They see the cheese but can't get past the smell to enjoy the flavours and subtleties.    

But The Story Of Fire Saga gets it. It understands the inherent craziness of the song competition, but treats it reverently. Like a weird step-child, the film embraces Eurovision for what it is, and loves it all the more for its peculiarities. 

Writer-producer Will Ferrell stars as Lars Erickssong, a typically Ferrell-esque man-child who dreams of representing his native Iceland at Eurovision. With his childhood friend and secret admirer Sigrit Ericksdottir (McAdams), he plays pub gigs with their covers band Fire Saga, and together they write songs they hope will take them to the top of the long-running music competition, much to the disdain of Erik's father (Brosnan).

It's the love and respect shown to Eurovision that makes this work (and it's worth noting the real song competition had a pretty solid hand on the tiller here - Eurovision boss Jon Ola Sand is an executive producer). If the film had been a snarky pisstake, fans wouldn't have been on board and the whole thing would have reeked of snobbery.

Instead The Story Of Fire Saga revels in the competition's bizarre mix of absurdity and seriousness, which suits Ferrell down to the ground. He's compelling and hilarious in a role perfectly suited to him - his archetypal character after all is weirdos who take themselves very seriously. And alongside McAdams, who is equally willing to commit to the vibe, they make a pretty solid comedy couple, even if it's hard to buy their romantic connection.

The music works well and is suitably Eurovisiony, from the ludicrous opener Volcano Man and the ridiculous Russian entry Lion of Love to the more straight-ahead Double Trouble and the showstopper Husavik. A mid-movie sing-off reminiscent of (admittedly far superior sequences from) Pitch Perfect is pure fan service, as are the in-jokes, but even if you're not a fan of the song contest, there's a lot to like here. It's funny, strange, and enjoyable - like good comedies should be.

Ferrell, a self-confessed fan of Eurovision, has found something that sits in his comedic sweet spot, and has made his best out-and-out comedy film since Step Brothers. Remarkably, he's also made something that's bound to appeal to devotees of the long-running song contest.

AFI #13: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on June 26, 2020.

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.
 
(PG) ★★★★★

Director: George Lucas.

Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Peter Cushing, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker.

When you hit a really big swarm of bugs.

The logo, the opening blast of the score, the scrawl, the shot of the Star Destroyer - within seconds, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (which I'm going to call Star Wars from here on in) is instantly distinctive and iconic. It's the most recognisable film on this list, even for people who haven't seen it. From the samurai-influenced grab of Darth Vader to the clean lines of the stormtroopers, from the rolling trash can of R2D2 to the cinnamon bun hairdo of Princess Leia, almost every single element of the film is etched into the collective unconscious.

Even the sound design is iconic - can you say that about any other movie? The ventilator rasp of Vader, the scream of a TIE Fighter, the ignition of a lightsaber, the beeps and whistles of R2D2 - the mere mention of these things conjures the sounds in your head. And none of these sounds existed prior to Star Wars (and the miraculous ingenuity of Ben Burrt).

Few films are ingrained in pop culture like Star Wars, partly because few films changed cinema like Star Wars. In 1975, Steven Spielberg's Jaws (I'll get to that one in a few months) set a new box office record as the highest grossing film of all time. Star Wars almost doubled that figure when it came out just two years later.

"Star Wars drove home the lessons of Jaws," wrote Peter Biskind in his potentially bullshit bestseller Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, "that kids and young adults would come back again and again to a movie without stars. But unlike Jaws, it showed that a phenomenally successful movie could be made from original material. It woke up the studios to the potential of merchandising, showed that the sale of books, t-shirts, and action figures could be a significant profit centre."

For better or worse, movie-making was a very different beast after Star Wars. Movies were greenlit on the strength of their likely toys sales - the term "toyetic" was said to be coined in 1977 in reference to Star Wars (or, more precisely, in an unfavourable comparison between Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Star Wars). All of sudden, movies were making money beyond the box office or TV licensing. And while Star Wars was an original IP, its subsequent sequels helped cement the idea that follow-ups didn't have to be about diminishing returns. Studios took note of Star Wars in a big way and saw more dollar signs than they'd ever seen before.

But why Star Wars? Why was it the film that captured the zeitgeist? The answer is deeper than its ability to sell lunchboxes and action figures, but in a sense, it truly is about its ability to sell lunchboxes and action figures. Or, in other words, it appealed to kids. But more than that, Star Wars had enough action and adventure to appeal to teens, and it was put together well enough for grown-ups to, at the very least, not hate it. 

According to Biskind's book, writer/director George Lucas claimed he "(wasn't) that interested in narrative - the dialogue doesn't have much meaning in any of my movies". He would prove this point on the prequels, but such a quote was selling himself short on Star Wars. The words coming out of the actor's mouths mightn't have meant much to Lucas, but his study of Joseph Campbell's work around the hero's journey and "monomyth" proved fruitful - he nailed Campbell's idea's around narrative so well that Star Wars is used as an example in screenwriting classes of how to apply Campbell's ideas.

By tapping into this millenium-old style of storytelling, Lucas gave Star Wars the innocent simplicity of a fairy tale or the similarly structured The Wizard Of Oz. "(Star Wars) is for 10- and 12-year-olds," Lucas said. "I wanted to make a kids' film that would... introduce a kind of basic morality."

But doing this in a sci-fi setting was a bold move. Sci-fi was a predominantly scoffed-at genre in 1977, and if it hadn't been for the massive success of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey less than a decade earlier, it's likely Star Wars would not have been made. Lucas wanted to tap into the "fantasy in the Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon tradition" - influences from his childhood that were out of favour (and that Star Wars would inadvertently revive). The TV shows and film serials that Rogers and Gordon spawned were dismissed for their campy styles and ropey effects, which often included spaceships on visible strings or aliens in dodgy-looking costumes.

As 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die puts it, "most people in the mid-1970s expected 'sci-fi' to mean wobbly Star Trek sets or effects on a par with Ed Wood's hubcap-on-a-string from Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)".

Key to Lucas' success was not only the myth-like story, but taking the sci-fi setting seriously. To do this, he created Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to make his effects. The new company moved slowly and failed at first, but eventually they adapted pre-existing technology to create new ways to make everything look real. The space battles, the robots, the lightsabers - Star Wars doesn't work without them, and they don't work without ILM. It's impossible to overstate how mindblowing that opening shot of the blockade runner and the Star Destroyer flying in from top of screen was to audience in 1977. They'd never seen anything like it before.

Lucas' reliance on effects, both practical and post, helped sell his universe as a real thing, but it was a make-or-break gamble. The ILM team throw everything at the screen to make it work - robotics, mattes, puppetry, miniatures, blue screen, hand-animated lasers, and computer graphics. There's an effect of some kind in almost every shot. Luckily Lucas had a bunch of talented unknown performers (and the venerable Guinness and Cushing) who would do their thing while Lucas worried about the effects. 

Lucas gets too much credit for Star Wars - it's as if he did everything. Yes, it was his idea, and he wrote the screenplay and directed the film, but his story was more than likely saved in the edit (see the awesome video below) and the direction is solid but nothing special. Lucas wouldn't acknowledge it as much as he should have, but the real stars of Star Wars were the veritable magicians he had around, including ILM. 

Those wizards included composer John Williams, sound designer Ben Burrt, concept designers Colin Cantwell and Ralph McQuarrie, production designers John Barry and Roger Christian, and an enthusiastic cast that were able to overcome Lucas' shortcomings as a director. These people did remarkable things to create Lucas' universe and the characters in it. And just look at who won Oscars for Star Wars - Williams, Burrt (who won a special achievement award), the sound team of Don MacDougall, Ray West, Bob Minkler and Derek Ball, costume designer John Mollo, the art direction team of John Barry, Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, and Roger Christian, editors Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew, and the ILM team. Not George Lucas.

This notion that Lucas wasn't the auteur many thought he was is borne out by what he did next. He didn't direct or write The Empire Strikes Back or Return Of The Jedi (he gets a co-write credit on Jedi), instead overseeing them as executive producer. When he returned to the franchise as director and writer for the prequels, he churned out the worst films of the series. Arguably, everything that was "saved in the edit" for Star Wars was "left in the edit" for The Phantom Menace. 

So when you get down to it, Star Wars is an amazing piece of cinema but not because of a single-minded auteur, which most people believe (and Lucas would have many people believe). It's one of those films where every member of the team is doing incredible things to push the limits of film-making possibility, from the sound team to the FX crew to the editors. Even the actors are great - it's impossible to imagine anyone else in those roles, as they imbue even the daftest of exposition with heart and character.

All of this creates a reality that is enveloping and encompassing, and Star Wars wouldn't have worked otherwise. Its script, hinting at Clone Wars and Kessel Runs and planets and creatures we never see, promises an endless universe, and we fully inhabit it for two miraculous hours. Shorn of its prequels, sequels and sidequels, and stripped of its mass-merchandising, it's a classically structured space opera that rolls from one incredible dilemma to the next, setting a new benchmark in adventure storytelling.

And finally, this: