BEST FILMS OF 1961
by Mike Lorefice

Cleo From 5 to 7
Agnes Varda

***1/2

The Deadly Companions
Sam Peckinpah

***

The Hustler
Robert Rossen

***

Last Year at Marienbad
Alain Resnais

****

The Mark
Guy Green

One of the underrated no gimmick British social dramas of the early 1960's. This liberal work fights against the closemindedness of humans when it comes to criminal rehabilitation without stooping to providing easy solutions. Utilizing arguably the touchiest subject, without arguing too earnestly for the pedophile it shows the importance in putting faith in the people in charge of parole and more importantly in trusting your own character judgements. Rod Steiger does great toned down work as an unconventional prison psychiatrist who forces you to identify and confront your own problems without solving them for you. Stuart Whitman gives a strong performance as the ex con that doubts his own recovery. The film thrives on this war veteran's own paranoia; we aren't allowed to be sure if we like and trust him, if we believe he's safe to be around because he doubts himself. He fears disaster at every corner, but even though he perhaps shouldn't fit in what we see most of the time is a perfectly normal, highly successful man that belongs and is well liked. Of course, that's exactly what he wants us to see, as he's forced to lie about his past life so people will allow him to lead the better one he should be capable of. Former cinematographer Guy Green's direction is solid, trusting the issues to create tension where the usual hacks would force phony suspense and use hokey music to lead the audience. The flashback structure is effective when it comes to providing bits and pieces that peak our interest but always keep the audience working to solve the puzzle. However, it goes way over the top in differentiating the old Whitman from the new one. The biggest flaw lies in the basic premise where Sidney Buchman and Stanley Mann changed the character in Charles Israel's novel from a child molester to a man who was able to stop just short. This is a cheat because it makes him a far kinder and more likeable character, greatly adding layers of martyrdom. More importantly it's a dodge because many people feel if you do it once you'll do it again. Thus, if we consider that logic by presenting a character who has stopped himself once, the conclusion should be he will stop himself again. [6/3/06] ***

La Notte
Michelangelo Antonioni

***

One, Two, Three
Billy Wilder

***

One-Eyed Jacks
Marlon Brando

***

Pit and the Pendulum
Roger Corman

***

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Through a Glass Darkly
Ingmar Bergman

***

Two Daughters
Satyajit Ray

***

Underworld U.S.A.
Samuel Fuller

***

Victim
Basil Dearden

***

Viridiana
Luis Bunuel

Called away from the convent by her uncle just before she's to marry Christ, this Cannes winner follows the efforts of the uncle Don Jaime (Fernando Rey) and later his illegitimate son Jorge (Francisco Rabal) to turn Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) away from the Lord and into their willingly submissive docile toy. Though categorized with Nazarin and Simon of the Desert as Bunuel's Catholic studies, it's less in the league with them and more notable for being his first study of female objectification. Bunuel largely presents the film through the perspective of men who fantasize about Viridiana, denying her three dimensions. Don Jaime is still in pain from the death of his wife, who Viridiana greatly resembles. Pinal is not exactly credible as the would be nun; with all the paint in her hair and on her face, even from the start she looks more like the bourgeois bimbos played by Delphine Seyrig in Bunuel's later comedies. Don Jaime decides she's the answer to his emptiness, so he doesn't want her to leave for God or anyone else. Though Rey is typically impressive, the first half of the film where he desperately makes every attempt to possess Viridiana actually isn't that memorable, at least not when compared to the second half where Bunuel finds the perfect mix of his earlier neorealism and his later sendups. After Viridiana co-inherits the mansion along with Jorge there are several unforgettable and hilarious scenes of Bunuelian wit and irony, as out of guilt she attempts to turn the place into a homeless shelter. In a sense, Viridiana is a nun fantasy because she's "perfect" in her charity, but Bunuel shows how absurd Viridiana's perfection is by having her be so obsessively saintly she does damage, plowing ahead regardless of near necrophilia, death, potential leprosy, etc. The fault of every character lies in not understanding themselves, thus whether their intentions are honorable or sinister they not only hurt others but act against their own best interest. Bunuel's lacerating insight and penchant for outlandish humor is in full effect on all the characters yet we get the feeling he admires many of them, who simply run amok the way humans do when they have the opportunity. This all culminates with a classic scene where the homeless get the house to themselves, presented as a debauched reenactment of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. This is one of Bunuel's notorious films that was denounced by the Catholic church and banned in Spain. It's basically a twisted farce and Bunuel never had positive characters, but his brilliance, and what makes him so offensive to some, is he could take a real scene and twist it just enough to make them cut to the bone because he understood human nature, and how to push people's buttons, so well. [1/30/07] ***1/2

A Woman is a Woman
Jean-Luc Godard

***

Yojimbo
Akira Kurosawa

****

Full Movie Review

The Young Savages
John Frankenheimer

***