Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Letter (1940)

The Oscar-nominated performance by Bette Davis is the inspiration for the selection of this William Wyler film as this week’s entry in the Hit Me With Your Best Shot series, which in case you didn’t know, is hosted by the great Nathaniel Rogers over at The Film Experience. I had never seen The Letter, which ended being a pretty solid movie. Bette Davis is great as a woman charged for murder. As is James Stephenson as her doubtful attorney. But the focus of the series is, of course, the visual style of the movie, so let’s talk about that.

Tony Gaudio (who was in charge of the magnificent technicolor of The Adventures of Robin Hood) was the director of photography. Most of the interiors of The Letter look, in my opinion, very much in-style with the time the movie was shot, which is to say they don’t seem all that singular or impressive, but I think the Gaudio’s work on the exteriors (or more accurately sets that must pass off as exteriors) is rather fantastic. I love his shadowy rendering of the narrow streets of Singapore, and the lone plantation house in the middle of the jungle. As for my favorite shot in the movie, I’m afraid it might be one that many people will choose, but there’s no denying the beauty of it.

The shadows of blinds in the protagonist’s face might be something that we now immediately associate with film noir, almost the point of regarding it as a cliche, but every time I see it, I can’t help but find such shots simply beautiful. In this case, it’s also worth noting, that the shot comes at a perfect moment in the narrative. We have seen Davis’s character shoot a man, and we have heard her claim he attacked her first, but something feels off and we are not convinced. In this scene, she comes out of her house to look at the sky and contemplate the idea that she might be sentenced to jail (or maybe even death). This is usually the moment when we sympathize with our heroine, but in this case, the pattern in her face fractures her between light and dark, and instead of providing us with the comfort of knowing who we are supposed to be rooting for, we get more doubt. To cap things of, when her husband walks into the room, she turns around as if she were doing something suspicious. “How am I supposed to feel about this lady?” is one of the more entertaining questions of film noir, and The Letter knows it.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Can’t Stop the Music (1980)

When you start to become a movie fan, just as you hear about the great movies of the past, you hear about the movies that are infamous for just how bad they are. One of such films is Can’t Stop the Music, the 1980 Village People vehicle that Nathaniel Rogers picked for the April Fool’s edition of his wonderful Hit Me With Your Best Shot series. In case you were wondering, the movie is just as ridiculous as you’d expect. The script is horrendous, the performances bad all around, and while your enjoyment of the music will depend on your personal feelings towards disco (and the Village People), there is no denying that there is worth in watching this movie. I mean, who doesn’t prefer an entertaining and interesting failure to a boringly mediocre movie. I would watch this musical ten more times before I watch Darren Aronofsky’s Noah again, for example.

Picking the best shot of Can’t Stop the Music proved to be surprisingly hard. There are just too many ridiculous things going on in this movie. I suppose the most famous part is the raunchy “YMCA” sequence, but you have lots of equally bizarre things to pick from, like the all-white milk shake dance, Steve Gutenberg’s childishly enthusiastic dancing, Valerie Perrine’s eerily constant smiling, and Bruce Jenner playing a square that suddenly decides to wear what is basically a crop top. Just the opening scene (pictured above) is fantastic, as it features Gutenberg rollerskating around New York City.

The thing that ultimately got to me while watching Can’t Stop the Music is that I couldn’t grasp just how self-aware the movie is. The horrible initial reviews, and its reputation as the first winner of the Razzie award for Worst Picture sugges the people involved didn’t know what movie they were making. But then, there’s a scene like this:

That is Steve Gutenberg and Valerie Perrine on their knees, unbuttoning Bruce Jenner’s pants after he spilled hot lasagna all over himself. If that isn’t the filmmakers catering to the audience that, frankly, would love the campy qualities of a movie starring the Village People, then I don’t know what that is. This shot is the Rosetta stone to understanding the pleasures of Can’t Stop the Music. I think it’s ridiculous that someone would give this movie a bad review, or that it would even call it bad, considering how perfect it is in its tone and sensibility. And if the people involved didn’t know they were making a future camp classic, well, then this might very well be one of the most fascinating movies ever.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: L.A. Confidential (1997)

This is an entry for the amazing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” series, hosted by Nathaniel Rogers over at The Film Experience. 

I wanted to marry my choice for the best shot of L.A. Confidential with this particular viewing of the film, and the biggest thing I took out of if (besides gaining even more admiration for Dante Spinotti’s work  as the movie’s cinematographer) was Kevin Spacey’s performance. I’ve never been a big Spacey fan, having grown up in his über-hammy post-American Beauty days, so I always am surprised when I actually like him in something. That is why I must say that I love him in L.A. Confidential. It is without a doubt my favorite performance of his, so I wanted to pick a shot that showed both the awesomeness of Kevin Spacey’s character (fame and glamour-loving cop Jack Vincennes) and the amazing visual work done in the movie. The perfect shot came very early in the film:

A classically colorful Hollywood movie theater in the background. The best representation of the magic of the dream factory. And in the foreground, like a twisted film director, Vincennes gives out orders, setting everything up for what is essentially a fabricated arrest. They are making news just like they make movies.

Not only do I love the concept of the shot, but its beautiful use of widescreen. That composition, with a central vanishing point and the shot vertically divided into thirds. There is a grand, and eye-pleasing element to it. I also love how Vincennes is shot from a low angle, making sure we know how much he revels in being a celebrity, and how he may say he wants to get over with this quickly, but he knows this is the kind of thing that keeps him part of the Hollywood glamour he enjoys so much.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which premiered exactly ten years ago, is one of the movies that I hold closest to my heart. It was one of the movies that made me love the medium. I was twelve years old when I rented this from Blockbuster and discovered what a great movie could be capable of. That first viewing was all about the structure and crazyness of the story, even though I loved it, it wasn’t until later rewatches (and me becoming older and smarter) that I started to grasp the movie’s real genius.

There is so much I could say about Eternal Sunshine, but since this is for “Hit Me with Your Best Shot”, Nathaniel Rogers’ amazing series hosted at The Film Experience, I’ll focus on the cinematography. That was a technical aspect of the movie that I, weirdly, had always taken for granted. Even though I absolutely loved the movie’s visuals, I never stopped to realize “yeah, that is some pretty amazing photography work”.

Something that might seem a little superficial, but that definitely helps the movie be as effective as it is, is DP Ellen Kuras’s perfect realization of what memories look like. For most of the movie, we are basically in Joel’s Id. The closest I have experienced to being inside someone’s Id is when I’m dreaming, and by God, does Kuras manage to capture the look and feel of what it’s like to dream. Never have my dreams looked like the polished Inception. Or the whimsical The Science of Sleep. When I dream, my world looks just as messy and scary as Joel’s memories.

My favorite moment as far as the recreation of dreams go, is one scene in which Joel and Clementine are talking while lying in bed. As Clementine starts complaining about how Joel says she talks too much, the scene slowly turns darker and a cold spotlight is thrown on the couple. This feels to me like that moment when you realize you’re actually dreaming, and everything is recontextualized. Suddenly, Joel is aware this is a memory, just like it happens to me when I dream.