A Woman Under the Influence

Not long ago I saw Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and spoke about how it was one of the most uncomfortable portrayals of a bad marriage I'd ever seen. Well, at least they had the script's dark humor to prevent it from becoming too troubling, and there weren't any children around to give their relationship real consequences. A Woman Under the Influence has neither of those mitigating circumstances, and it was quite possibly even more painful to watch. Previously I've known John Cassavetes as an actor, but he was also an acclaimed director of independent movies, and this is his most celebrated film. He pretty much had to do everything to get it on screens, securing his own financing and even personally seeing to the distribution. No one really wanted anything to do with the story, and I can see why.

Cassavetes' wife Gena Rowlands plays Mabel, and Peter Falk plays her husband Nick. They have three young children. She has some mental problems, and he has little patience for them. Disaster pretty much ensues. Early on as they're still introducing the characters, Mabel seems a bit odd, acting inappropriately in a bar when Nick stands her up for a date night due to work and then seeming a bit off when making a big early lunch for him and his coworkers after a long shift. Then Nick yells at her at the table, and you start to see just how badly off their marriage could really be. And then things just get worse and worse. She becomes irresponsible with the children, off-putting to those around her, and eventually seems to be genuinely disturbed. But while Rowlands' performance is great and the movie would be good just examining the life of someone like her character, the real gut wrenching stuff comes from how other people react to her, especially Nick, who doesn't handle her issues well at all, and the way it impacts their family. It gets pretty brutal, and doesn't really relent even the plot gives itself an opportunity to. In fact, it might just get worse. Well-directed, well-acted, difficult stuff. I can't imagine ever wanting to see this again, but it's as good a drama you'll find at showing real life without pulling any punches.

Rosemary's Baby

So many of these classic "horror" movies really don't resemble what we think of as modern horror in any way. The focus is on things like story and mood rather than surprising the audience to try to make them piss their pants, or pushing the envelope when it comes to gore. I gotta say, I like it the old way. While I still think he's a terrible person, I have to admit Roman Polanski's films are now 2 for 2 when it comes to living up to their reputations. Chinatown was a great, more modern film noir, and Rosemary's Baby is a pretty terrific tale of paranoia. Unlike other Satanic horror of the era that I've seen, where it's pretty obvious from the beginning that something very wrong is happening, this film had me wondering the entire time about multiple aspects of the plot. Not only whether there really was a cult after the baby, but also whether the cult's beliefs were right. The ending answers those questions pretty definitively in a scene I found surprising based on how it seemed to shift the tone away from what had been built over the last couple hours, but I thought it ended up working despite its obviousness.

The movie is pretty much the definition of a slow burn, taking a very long time to develop the characters and their relationships before really getting the plot going. Heck, Rosemary isn't even pregnant until maybe 45 minutes into the story. You spend a lot time just learning about these people and trying to form ideas about who they really are, though it's hard to say anything for certain based on the information given. There's a pretty overtly Satanic scene early on, but it isn't definitely real and after that there's very little solid evidence one way or the other. There's a delicate balance that is maintained, making you wonder if Rosemary's losing it while providing just enough hints to suggest that she might be right after all. Things are slow for a while, but especially in the second half the film turns into a great piece of suspense, with some really nice little touches and perfectly drawn out moments to keep you twisted around in the best way like a classic Hitchcock movie. I again hesitate to call it a horror movie thanks to the modern connotations, but Rosemary's Baby is at least one of the best supernatural (or is it?) thrillers I've ever seen.

The Dirty Dozen

I know Inglourious Basterds got to me because I keep watching old movies that are somehow related. Dozen is a popular sixties movie with a similar premise on the surface, an officer training a group of ragtag soldiers for a special purpose during World War II. In this case, Lee Marvin is given twelve soldiers condemned to hard labor, prison, or execution and what amounts to a suicide mission to kill as many Nazi officials as possible holed up in a chateau on the eve of D-Day. Most of the movie is just Marvin training the soldiers into a cohesive unit while they occasionally rebel against perceived injustices, but eventually they get to the surprisingly violent climax.

Just like the Basterds, most but not all of the Dozen get significant character development. Charles Bronson is a former officer and the old hand of the group, almost a secondary leader. It's funny how he has the hard reputation and when they do the lineup by height, he's the fourth shortest. Donald Sutherland has an early role as Pinkley, who's a bit dimwitted, but ends up being one of the more likable characters. Other ones that stick out are the big guy, the black guy, the rebellious guy, the short guy with the moustache, and the crazy one. Ernest Borgnine is also the general in charge of the operation, and he's pretty much the same dude he still is today. It takes a while, but eventually the Dirty Dozen (so named because of their refusal to bathe or shave with cold water) gel into a cohesive whole, proven when they win a training exercise through unconventional means.

Then they drop into France, and the tone shifts rather dramatically. The carefully orchestrated mission has a couple slip-ups but still stays on course until someone screws it up big time (guess who!), when things turn into a bloodbath. It's a pretty large scaled and impressive action sequence for the time, although there were a couple situations where it was less than obvious that certain characters died and I just had to assume they did later when they didn't show up. Their Plan B to take out as many Nazis as possible is surprisingly brutal for the time, and honestly made me a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. But I guess the whole point of movies like these is to show how hellish war can be. The conclusion isn't exactly satisfying, but it's what you might expect from a cynical movie like this. I was pretty impressed overall.