TV Movie Review: Too Big to Fail

Too Big to Fail *** ½

Directed by: Curtis Hanson.

Written by: Peter Gould based on the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Starring: William Hurt (Henry Paulson), James Woods (Richard Fuld), Paul Giamatti (Ben Bernanke), Billy Crudup (Timothy Geithner), Topher Grace (Jim Wilkinson), Cynthia Nixon (Michele Davis), Ayad Akhtar (Neel Kashkari), Edward Asner (Warren Buffett), Michael O'Keefe (Chris Flowers), Joey Slotnick (Dan Jester), Peter Hermann (Christopher Cox), Bill Pullman (Jamie Dimon), Evan Handler (Lloyd Blankfein), Tony Shalhoub (John Mack), Matthew Modine (John Thain), Ajay Mehta (Vikram Pandit), John Heard (Joe Gregory), Kathy Baker (Wendy Paulson), Erin Dilly (Christal West), Amy Carlson (Erin Callan), Beau Baxter (Skip McGee), Chance Kelly (Bart McDade), Chil Kong (Min Euoo Sung), Dan Hedaya (Congressman Barney Frank), Steve Tom (Senator Chris Dodd), Jonathan Freeman (Senator Richard Shelby), Bud Jones (Harry Reid), Linda Glick (Nancy Pelosi).

I think the biggest question people have about the 2008 financial meltdown that America is still recovering from is not how it happened – that’s been pretty well established – but why? Why did the banks invest so heavily in mortgage backed securities that were essentially worthless? Why did lenders give out these mortgages in the first place? And why didn’t the Treasury Department, the SEC, the Fed or Congress do any sort of regulation on this new type of derivative that almost sunk America’s economy. In the HBO film Too Big to Fail (based on the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin), Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (William Hurt) gives a more honest then you would ever see him give on TV when asked by an aid why there was no regulation. “No one wanted it. We were making too much money”. And that in a nutshell is the real reason things failed. Once people actually started looking into their mortgage backed securities, that they had leveraged their entire bank against, they realized they were worthless crap. But no one looked because they were making too much money.

What becomes clear while watching Too Big to Fail is how nobody really knew just how big of a clusterfuck the whole thing would become. Much of the running time is devoted to the effort to find a private solution for Lehman Brothers, an investment bank that would eventually fail. When the effort starts, they think that Lehman has $15 billion in toxic assets (a better term would be worthless). As it moves along, that number becomes $30 billion and then $70 billion. Then in the midst of the negotiations to save them, it becomes clear that the world’s biggest insurance company, AIG, is in real danger. The idiots that they there had insured all of these mortgage bonds, and when they all crashed, they’d owe billions of dollars they didn’t have to every bank in the world. And if they didn’t pay, than the banks would fail. Whenever they think they have a handle on the problem, something else comes along and knocks them for a loop.

All of this, and much much more, is handled with intelligence by the film. You would think that a film about Wall Street banks, which is essentially made up of men and (a few) women in suits talking in various rooms would be boring. But this one isn’t in the slightest. Part of that is because of the cast assembled for the movie. William Hurt gives a weariness to Hank Paulson, who was once the CEO of Goldman Sachs, who is now watching everything around him crumble. Paul Giamatti has a few nice scenes as Ben Bernanke, who is essentially brought in to scare people to death. James Woods is excellent as Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, who lets his own ego screw up not just one but two deals that could have saved the company. Ed Asner has essentially a cameo as Warren Buffet, but he seems to be the only one who knows what the hell is going on, and as such, remains at a distance. Topher Grace and Cynthia Nixon are good as Paulson’s underlings, Bill Pullman, Evan Handler, Tony Shaloub, Matthew Modine and Ajay Mehta all fine as other Wall Street CEO’s trying to save their own hides. Billy Crudup as Timothy Geithner, trying very hard to be pragmatic. Peter Hermann as the cowardly head of the SEC. And on and on it goes. This is one of the best ensemble casts you will likely ever see in a TV movie. Many only have a few scenes, but they leave an impression.

The film was directed by Curtis Hanson, whose career after L.A. Confidential (1997) and Wonder Boys (2000) has not really turned out like he planned. But here, he uses his skills effectively. He keeps the pace moving. The screenplay by Peter Gould is densely packed with loads of information and dialogued, and yet it never gets bogged down. You understand what is happening, no matter how technical it all gets.

The film ends with Paulson giving the 10 largest banks in America a total of $125 billion of tax payers money. They do this so that the rest of them won’t fail like Lehman Brothers did, and to free up the credit markets. When the banks have no money, they can’t lend it to anyone, and businesses fail and people lose their homes. But despite the fact that they are essentially saving the banks, the CEO’s still have conditions under which they will except the money – namely, no conditions at all. As one person says “These people brought the American economy to the brink of collapse, and we still can’t put any conditions on this money because they might not take it!”. Exactly. They don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone other than themselves and their profits. They took the money, but things didn’t get any better – they got worse. If you want a clear, succinct portrait of what happened and why, Too Big to Fail offers that.

The Documentary Shortlist

Each year, when the Academy releases their 15 film shortlist of films competing for The Documentary Oscar much more focus is dedicated to the films that DID NOT make the cut, then the films that did. The reason for that is quite simple – whoever selects the films for the shortlist often embarrasses the Academy with the films they omit. This year seems to be no different.

Now, I really cannot complain too hard, because most of the films that everyone is outraged were not included are films that I have not had a chance to see yet, or I missed. In addition, out of the 15 films shortlisted, I have only seen 1 – Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (and I really hope it gets the nomination the first two films deserved, but did not receive). Each year it seems after the shortlist is announced, I go on a little documentary spree – watching not only as many on the shortlist as possible, but the titles everyone seems outraged did not make the cut.

Out of the documentaries I have seen, two stand out as being major snubs. The first is Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, which was a fascinating look into a dying industry, and how it effects even an institution as large as the New York Times. A more relevant documentary about the news industry you will not see this year. The other is Errol Morris’ brilliant Tabloid, which is so far my favorite documentary of the year. The Academy has had a spotty record at best with Morris’ work. Yes, they gave him an Oscar for The Fog of War, but most of the time, he never even gets on the shortlist.

The other titles people are outraged about? Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss, which is getting great reviews right now, but apparently not good enough to make this list. Less surprising is that they also left out his other documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which was a sizable box office hit for a doc. Again, the Academy has a bad record at rewarding the work of Herzog. He was nominated for Encounters at the End of the World, but for the most part, his work has been ignored, and never even makes the shortlist.

One of the biggest outcries this category has ever seen was when the Academy failed to honor Steve James’ brilliant Hoop Dreams in 1994. This year, they have ignored James again for his hugely acclaimed doc The Interrupters. This branch just doesn’t seem to like the man.

Senna has supporters as well upset that the film didn’t make the cut. This could have been, apparently, because there is not enough “original” footage in the film – an odd rule that has hurt some great docs over the years (Herzog’s Grizzly Man for instance). Another film missing was the highly acclaimed The Arbor, although whether it qualifies as a doc is a real question.

I suppose we can thankful for at least one thing – more docs than normal had actual theatrical releases this year. It seems often that the docs that get shortlisted do little more than their qualifying run, then run for the cover of TV. This year Battle for Brooklyn, Bill Cunningham: New York, Buck, Hell and Back Again, If a Tree Falls, Jane’s Journey and Project Nim have already had theatrical runs, and I know Pina is going to have one soon, I think so will Paradise Lost 3 and Undefeated will have one in early 2011. That’s 10 out of 15 titles, which is higher than normal, and some of the others may be upcoming as well.

And I really don’t want to piss on the films that did get shortlisted. I’m looking forward to catching up with many of the titles on this list, all of which at least sound interesting (well, except for maybe Jane’s Journey). I will see as many of them as possible in the coming months. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still looking forward more to Into the Abyss and The Interrupters more. Whenever I look back at the nominees for any given year in the documentary category, I am always surprised at the omissions. The same will probably be true of 2011.

The list of shortlisted titles is:

1. Battle for Brooklyn
2. Bill Cunningham New York
3. Buck
4. Hell and Back Again
5. If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
6. Jane’s Journey
7. Long Way Home: The Loving Story
8. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
9. Pina
10. Project Nim
11. Semper Fi: Always Faithful
12. Sing Your Song
13. Undefeated
14. Under Fire: Journalists in Combat
15. We Were Here

Movie Review: The Descendants

The Descendants ****

Directed by: Alexander Payne.

Written by: Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings.

Starring: George Clooney (Matt King), Shailene Woodley (Alexandra), Judy Greer (Julie), Matthew Lillard (Brian), Beau Bridges (Cousin Hugh), Robert Forster (Scott), Rob Huebel (Mark Mitchell), Mary Birdsong (Kai), Amara Miller (Scottie), Nick Krause (Sid).

Alexander Payne is one the best filmmakers in America right now. After churning out his abortion comedy debut Citizen Ruth, his high school masterpiece Election, his old age comedy About Schmidt and the simple perfection that was his wine country comedy Sideways all in an eight year span, it has taken him seven long years to follow it up with his latest film, The Descendants. I can think of no higher praise than to say that even with the lofty expectations that come when major directors take so much time off, The Descendants does not disappoint. It is every inch an Alexander Payne film.

The film stars George Clooney (who wanted the role that Thomas Haden Church got in Sideways, but Payne said no because he didn’t think anyone would believe the biggest star in the world as an out of work actor) as Matt King, a lawyer in Hawaii, who is struggling with the decisions he has to make. The first involves a huge parcel of land entrusted to him and his family since the 1800s on one of the Hawaii islands. The trust ends in 7 years, and things could get ugly if he and all of his cousins do not sell it by then. But Matt is the lone trustee – so he gets to decide who to sell it to. No matter what offer he picks, everyone will be extremely wealthy because of the deal. The second is even harder. His wife has gotten into a boating accident, and is lying in a coma that doctors say she won’t wake up from. He has to pull the plug. The problem now is that he has to be a full time parent to his troubled teenage daughter Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and his 10 year daughter Scottie (Amara Miller), and he’s always been so busy, he doesn’t really know how to relate to them, or what to do with them. Things get even more complicated when he finds out that his wife was having an affair, and was planning on asking him for a divorce. After telling all of his wife’s friends and family, he takes his daughters (and a stoned surfer named Sid) out to try and track down the other man, to give him a chance to say goodbye as well. His motives aren’t really altruistic – he’s pissed as hell, and wants to see the man his wife was set to leave him for.

What never ceases to amaze me about Payne’s films is how even in the midst of tragedy, how he can mine humor out of the situation. And not easy humor either, but realistic humor that grows out of the characters and the situation that they are in. Here, he is aided in great part by George Clooney, who gives one of his best performances in the film. He is a man who has always lived his life according to his plan. Unlike his cousins, he has not squandered his money, but saved it. He has been frugal – perhaps too frugal – but he believes what he believes and sticks with it. He knows his marriage to his wife wasn’t great, but he didn’t think it was that bad either. He knows he should be doing something more for his daughters, but he doesn’t know how to relate to them. The movie is about how he adapts to the new situation, and grows into the person he needs to be for his family. Clooney exudes charm and humor in the role – he does “movie star” performances as good as anyone, but there’s a deeper level here that gradually comes out. He carries the movie.

The supporting cast is wonderful as well. As someone who has suffered through a few episodes of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, I was amazed by how good Shailene Woodley is in this film, considering how awful I think she is on that show. Here, played a rebellious teenager, with alcohol and drug issues, and an affinity for older men, who is angry at her mother for the affair and the coma, and angry at her father for letting it all happen, she is truly great. Also wonderful is Judy Greer, in a role that comes late in the film, as a woman who is trying to hold onto what she has. And in more purely comic performances, Robert Forrester is great as Clooney’s gruff father in law and Nick Krause is quite good as the seemingly stoned out, shallow surfer dude – who may not be as shallow as he first appears.

The Hawaii backdrop works well for The Descendants. Yes, it is beautiful, but Payne doesn’t dwell on the beauty or the tourist areas. This is a film about people who live in Hawaii – there lives are just as messy as people who live anywhere else, no matter that they do live in a tropical paradise. The cinematography is lush and vibrant, and works well for the movie.

The Descendants is a great movie – witty and funny, but also humane and heartbreaking. This is a crowd pleaser, but on a deeper, more satisfying level than most. It’s one of the year’s best.

Movie Review: Tyrannosaur

Tyrannosaur *** ½

Directed by: Paddy Considine.

Written by: Paddy Considine.

Starring: Peter Mullan (Joseph), Olivia Colman (Hannah), Eddie Marsan (James), Paul Popplewell (Bod), Ned Dennehy (Tommy), Samuel Bottomley (Samuel), Sally Carman (Marie).

I don’t know what it is about British actors making their directorial debuts that draws them to dark stories about abuse, but it seems to happen a lot. Gary Oldman made Nil by Mouth, an extremely dark film about martial abuse. Tim Roth made the even darker The War Zone about incest. And Peter Mullan made The Magdalene Sisters, about a systematic series of abuse in a Catholic school. Now, it’s Paddy Considine’s turn with Tyrannosaur. The film opens with Peter Mullan (yes, the same one who made The Magdalene Sisters) coming out of his bookies, extremely upset, and screaming obscenities, who then unties his dog from the pole where he left him, and then proceeds to beat the dog to death. He loved that dog, but he was angry, and the dog was there, so he took the brunt of that anger. And we’re just getting warmed up.

Mullan’s Joseph’s is a mean, lonely drunk. He was married for years to a larger woman (who he called Tyrannosaur because when she walked up the stairs, his tea cup rattled like in movies like Jurassic Park) who has now died. He has no job that we can see, and his best friend in dying of cancer. His first response to every situation is violence. The only person he’s nice to is the son of a neighbor, around 10, who is suffering because he’s mother isn’t very good at raising him, and has a mean, abusive boyfriend with an even meaner dog. One day, Joseph walks into a Christian missionary shop and simply hides among the clothes. The shopkeeper, Hannah (Olivia Colman) comes over and tries to comfort him – telling him that God loves him, and of course, Joseph lashes out at her as well – not getting physically violent, but certainly verbally. But Hannah just takes it, and lets Joseph storm out.

In the next scene, we understand why Hannah wasn’t really shocked by the violence in Joseph. She’s at home, sleeping on her couch, when her husband James (Eddie Marsan) comes home, tries to wake her up, and when that fails, he pees on her. Hannah understands the violence in Joseph, because she sees it every day in James.

What develops is a strange relationship between Joseph and Hannah. Perhaps because she in the only one who seems to notice him, and treats him with kindness, Joseph keeps coming back, and the two keep talking. When he sees bruises on her, he knows the real story, even though she gives the old “I fell in the bath” excuse. Perhaps Joseph is finally seeing the effect he had on his own wife – who he was certainly abusive to – because now he’s seeing it from a distance. He tries to convince Hannah to leave James, but she won’t. No one will believe her – everyone thinks James is a saint.

Tyrannosaur is certainly not an easy movie to sit through. For the first half an hour, although I admired the performances by Mullan and Colman, and Considine’s gritty direction, I was wondering if the movie was simply going to be a non-stop torrent of abuse, violence and futility. But Considine’s film gradually grows deeper than that, as it examines these two characters – the abuser and the abused – and the way their relationship changes each other. Peter Mullan has always been a great actor (his work in films like My Name is Joe, The Red Riding Trilogy, Miss Julie, The Claim and Young Adam can attest to that), but this may just be his best work. He makes Joseph into a man that we initially hate – after all, how can you not hate a man whose first action in a movie is to murder a dog – and then gradually lets his guard down, and lets the audience into what’s really going on underneath the surface. I cannot recall seeing Olivia Colman before (although she was in Hot Fuzz, alongside Considine), but here she gives a real breakthrough performance. We’ve seen performances by actresses playing abused women before, but not one quite like this. She is like a wounded animal, backed into a corner before he cannot take anymore. Her quiet, subtle performance is enough to break your heart. Eddie Marsan, the only other actor who has a major role, is fine as her abusive husband James, but this has pretty much become the Eddie Marsan role at this point – the seemingly pathetic looking, mild mannered sociopath. Yes, he oozes evil, but not all that much else.

I know a lot of people will have no interest in Tyrannosaur – and I understand that. It is a dark film, one that is extremely hard to take at times. But it you stick with it, if you give these characters a chance to get under your skin and move you, than Tyrannosaur, despite how disturbing is (or perhaps because of it), is an honest and devastating film.

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: Fellini Satyricon

Fellini Satyricon (1969) ***

Directed by: Federico Fellini.

Written by: Federico Fellini & Bernardino Zapponi & Brunello Rondi based on the book by Petronius.

Starring: Martin Potter (Encolpio), Hiram Keller (Ascilto), Max Born (Gitone), Salvo Randone (Eumolpo), Mario Romagnoli (Trimalcione), Magali Noël (Fortunata), Capucine (Trifena), Alain Cuny (Lica), Fanfulla (Vernacchio), Danika La Loggia (Scintilla), Giuseppe Sanvitale (Abinna), Genius (Liberto arricchito), Lucia Bosé (La matrona), Joseph Wheeler (Il suicida), Hylette Adolphe (La schiavetta), Tanya Lopert (L'imperatore).

What can I say about Fellini Satyricon? I can’t say that I overly enjoyed the film, because I really didn’t all that much. But I was fascinated by the film. Here is a movie that is completely over the top with his violence and sexuality, which tells a story that keeps splintering off into side trips that have little to do with its main narrative. It is a film based on an epic, incomplete book written by Petronius during the reign of Nero, and is set during that time period, and yet it seems to be about a time and place that may never have existed. Fellini described the film as being a science fiction film looking backwards in time rather than forward, and that is as good as an explanation as any. Perhaps it’s best to look at the film as the sci-fi epic that Guido, the film director “hero” of Fellini’s 8 ½ tried and failed to make. The film seems to come from Fellini’s subconscious, and it contains some of the most beautiful, brutal and memorable images that the master filmmaker put on screen. Does it work as a movie? I’m honestly not sure.

The main thrust of the plot involves Encolpio (Martin Potter), who is very angry at losing his slave/lover Gitone (Max Born). This will happen again and again in the movie, and Encolpio will try to his boy toy back. First, he is stolen by Encolpio’s brother Ascilto (Hiram Keller), who has taken Gitone simply to screw with Encolpio, as he almost immediately sold him to a well known stage actor. Encolpio goes and gets Gitone, and brings him home, only to have him once again run off with Ascilto.

From there, the movie spins wildly off in many directions. We mainly follow Encolpio, but the movie makes many side trips. There is a banquet given by a wealthy man that contains him covering his wife in gizzards when she berates him for staring lustfully at two young boys, and also involves a poet being tortured for daring to suggest that the wealthy man stole his poetry from someone else. From there, Encolpio, now once again with Ascilto and Gitone, are imprisoned on a pirate ship, where eventually Encolpio has to marry an aging, ugly man. There will be more violence – the killing of a hermaphrodite for example, sex, a battle with a fake Minotaur and finally ending in cannibalism and the start of a new journey, that ends in mid sentence.

What one makes of all of this is up to them. To me, the movie was a little too needlessly complex – telling multiple stories within the story, and jumping around from one thread to another with sometimes little rhyme or reason. And yet, the film never ceased to fascinate me. Part of the reason is that this truly is one of the unique looking films I have ever seen. Filmed almost entirely in the legendary Cinecetta studio, the sets and costumes look almost like most Roman epics, but also distinctly different. There’s something off about them. The cinematography is gorgeous, but also somewhat otherworldly. The film doesn’t look like we imagine Ancient Rome to look, but like life on some distant planet. Even when I got lost in the film’s plot, there was rarely a moment when I wasn’t enraptured by the visuals of the film.

The film certainly does feel like a Fellini film – although his most extreme. Fellini started as a neo-realist, and his early films in the 1950s (like I Vittelloni, La Strada and Nights in Cabiria) certainly follow that mold. Starting in the 1960s though, Fellini started to move away from them – deeper into his subconscious and into his own fantasy world. We see moments in La Dolce Vita (my personal favorite of Fellini’s work), and it is certainly present in the two films that immediately precede Satyricon – 8 ½ and Juliet of the Spirits. All of those films are great – better than Satyricon in my mind – but they all seem to build to Satyricon, which is Fellini at his wildest, indulging every fantasy he ever had. Fellini would come back down to earth after this film, but this is one where he got to do anything he ever wanted to do.

In the end, I’m at a loss to try and explain this film, and whether or not it’s any good. I don’t know if watching it again would help to clarify the things that confused me, or that I didn’t like, or if it would simply bore me – so I don’t think I’ll try revisiting it any time soon. Yet, I cannot say the film is a failure. It is precisely the film Fellini set out to make – a film that looks back in time, although it feels like it takes place on another planet, and yet had messages about empty sexuality that resonated with people at the time was made. Fellini apparently viewed this as one of his personal favorites of everything he ever made. It certainly does feel like a film he felt he had to make. Whether you have to watch it or not is up to you.

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: Accident (1967)

Accident (1967) ****

Directed by: Joseph Losey.

Written by: Harold Pinter based on the novel by Nicholas Mosley.

Starring: Dirk Bogarde (Stephen), Stanley Baker (Charley), Jacqueline Sassard (Anna), Michael York (William), Vivien Merchant (Rosalind), Delphine Seyrig (Francesca), Alexander Knox (Provost), Ann Firbank (Laura).

Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter’s second collaboration following The Servant (1963) but before The Go-Between (1971) is probably the least remembered of the three films they made together. I haven’t seen The Go-Between yet, so I cannot comment on that one, but I think the reason why Accident isn’t quite as highly regarded as The Servant is because it’s more complex, more dense, less immediately satisfying than the previous film. This isn’t to say that it isn’t as good as The Servant – in some ways, it’s better, and is certainly more daring, just that Accident is a harder film to try and wrap your head around.

Like The Servant, Accident is essentially about people destroying each other while maintaining a mask of civility. I don’t think any of the characters in Accident – especially the male ones – like each other very much at all. Yet on the outside, they maintain a façade of pleasantness to one another. No one gets into a fight during the course of Accident – I’m not sure anyone even raises their voice - but lives are certainly ruined.

The film stars Dirk Bogarde in another of his great performances, as Stephen, a seemingly happily married Oxford don, specializing in philosophy. He has been tutoring William (Michael York) for a while now, and they have a friendly student-teacher relationship. Stephen’s new pupil is Anna (Jacqueline Sassard), a beautiful Bulgarian “princess”, who William is enamored with – but then again so is Stephen. William wants Stephen to introduce the two of them, and although he doesn’t, William and Anna start dating anyway. Being nice, Stephen invites the two of them to his country house to meet his wife Rosalind (Vivien Merchant) and his two young children. Unexpectedly, Charley (Stanley Baker), another Oxford don – but a more famous and successful one – arrives to visit his “friends” Stephen and Rosalind. He hints at marital discord in his own relationship – and like Stephen and William, also “falls in love” with Anna.

Anna is a typical Harold Pinter creation – a blank slate of a character that everyone else projects their own vision upon. Other than her beauty, there is nothing at all that defines her as a character. We never get to know the real person that lies beyond that beauty. That is mainly because the movie is told from Stephen’s point of view – everything we see comes from him. And he never really bothers to get to know Anna – he simply falls in love with her beauty. Why she is with William, and later why she starts an affair with Charley, is never made clear. The reasons for her actions are often murky – so much so that we cannot even tell if her actions in the title accident are really an accident at all. She defies explanation. I do not mean this as an insult on the movie, because that is what her purpose is. Without her, the male characters who probably simply trade banal, meaningless pleasantries with each other for the whole movie. With her, those banal, pleasantries become loaded with resentment and contempt. I’m not sure when it becomes clear that Stephen and Charley truly hate each other – despite being lifelong “friends” – but it certainly become clear over the course of the movie. I think perhaps it’s in a scene where Stephen comes back to his house in London, which he believes to be empty – to find that it is in fact occupied by Anna and Stephen, having one of their rendezvous, that up until that point, Stephen did not know about. Watch that scene to see the way Stephen bends over backwards to be polite to the two of them, and yet how every phrase is dripping with hatred for Stephen, and regret for not having bed Anna himself. It is a masterful moment for Pinter, Losey and Bogarde.

With Accident, director Joseph Losey pushes himself beyond where he was with The Servant. He and Pinter play with time more in this film – events happen out of chronological order, and the end swoops back around to the beginning of the film, and gives everything in it an entirely different meaning. The strange, off kilter cinematography, that lingers in empty rooms after the characters have left, the editing which sets the tone, and sound design which is haunting, is all interesting and unique. Unlike many directors in the 1960s, whose experiments in style where largely meaningless and an attempt to be cool, Losey’s visual experiments are perfect for Pinter’s sparse screenplay.

The performances help a great deal as well. You will not a see a better performance of repressed sexuality than that given by Dirk Bogarde in this film. It easily matches his brilliant work in The Servant, yet could not be more different. He comes across as rather pathetic by the end, but at least we feel sympathy for him. Stanley Baker as Charley, on the other hand, is even more pathetic in the end, and there is no sympathy for him. He seems to have it all – or at least all that Stephen wants – but he is an empty shell. In his first major role, Michael York is fine as the handsome, young William – who again Stephen envies. Vivien Merchant gives her few scenes as Stephen’s wife, who knows what is going on, but wouldn’t dream of saying anything about it, a nice bite. Poor Jacqueline Sassard is cast more for her physical presence than anything else – but she does what she has been asked to do.

Accident is a complex film. Its mysteries don’t readily reveal themselves, and instead the movie trusts the audience to do the digging into what is on screen. The film is not as famous as The Servant – but it is every bit as good.

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) ***

Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Written by: Philip Dunne based on the novel by R. A. Dick.

Starring: Gene Tierney (Lucy Muir), Rex Harrison (Daniel Clegg), George Sanders (Miles Fairley), Edna Best (Martha Huggins), Vanessa Brown (Anna Muir – adult), Anna Lee (Mrs. Fairley), Natalie Wood (Anna Muir – child), Robert Coote (Mr. Coombs), Whitford Kane (Mr. Sproull).

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a classy romance/ghost story from the studio era. Watching it today, it seems rather quaint and simplistic, but that doesn’t necessarily negate all the joys that there are in watching the film. It didn’t sweep me off my feet in the way that grand romances should do, but it was an enjoyable time filler – with a few really special elements that make it worthwhile.

The film stars Gene Tierny as Lucy Muir – a young widow, raising her daughter (a very young Natalie Wood) while living with her mother and sister in law. She hates these in-laws, who are too smothering for her, and she wants out. Her husband left her little, but perhaps enough to get a small house on the seaside. She finds the perfect one, and it’s absurdly cheap. The realtor warns her away from it, telling her it’s haunted, but Lucy doesn’t believe him, and moves in anyway. It isn’t long before she discovers the realtor wasn’t lying. The former owner of the house, Captain Daniel Clegg (Rex Harrison), is still hanging around, and wants to be alone. This despite the obvious handicap that he supposedly killed himself in the house years before. We get mercifully few of the old ghost movie clichés – windows and doors opening and closing by themselves, gusts of wind, strange noises, etc before Lucy has had enough – and calls Clegg out. Strangely, he appears, and the two talk and come to an agreement. He’ll let them live there, if she’ll leave the house to old sailors when she dies, much like he wanted to do. She agrees.

But things aren’t that simple. Clegg, this brash, profane sea captain and Lucy, this upper middle class, prim and proper housewife seem to be complete opposites – so of course they fall in love. When Lucy runs into money problems, Clegg helps her out by dictating his memoirs to her as a book that she then sells for lots of money. Working on the book brings the two of them closer – but of course, how can two people really be in love when one of them is dead? Things are further complicated when George Sanders shows up, to play the George Sanders role as fop and playboy – and becomes a living suitor for Lucy.

There is much to admire about The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. While I have always thought that Joseph L. Mankiewicz is a better writer than director, he did know how to direct quite well. Here, working with someone else’s screenplay, he and cinematographer Charles Lang give the film a nice, gothic look. This is a romance along the lines of Jane Eyre (although far lighter), and Mankiewicz does an excellent job at capturing that look and feel to the movie. Bernard Hermann’s score is one of his very best – even if at times I think it overwhelms the movie – but it does an excellent job of hitting all the right notes – sad, plaintive, romantic, spooky. He was one of the best composers in movie history, and his work here is a triumph. The performances are rock solid, if not overly spectacular. Gene Tierny does a nice job with Mrs. Muir, but nothing really great. She keeps the audience at a little bit of a distance. Rex Harrison does what Rex Harrison does best – go wildly over the top, with his stereotypical sea captain. It’s a joy to watch him. George Sanders is saddled with his typical role, but no one plays it better than he does – which helps, because the role is completely underwritten.

Yet, the movie never really grabbed me like it should have. It is a fine film – made with intelligence, style and class – and I enjoyed it. But as the movie wore on, it starting to grow a little tiring. Especially unnecessary is the ending 20 minutes, which covers about 40 years of time, and simply goes on well past the point where it makes any sense. I enjoyed The Ghost and Mrs. Muir – but I didn’t love it.