At first glance, the three films I managed to catch at the Brattle Theatre during my two-week hound-sitting stint in late August could not seem more different: a Saturday afternoon showing of Pee-wee's Big Adventure [25th anniversary! I know you are, but what am I?]; a midweek matinee of In the Mood for Love as one-half of a most of the best of the Oughts [I missed Lost in Translation to catch -- ah, but there's a story for another day]; and, on my last day in town, the restored Metropolis. Squeee!
The variety, of course, speaks to the ongoing vitality of the Brattle's rep programming. Then there's the through line, which occurred to me only much later: jaw-droppingly deployed mise-en-scène from Mssrs. Burton, Wong, and Lang, respectively.
Burton, in his feature debut, got more than a little assist from Paul Reubens' fully realized man-child character, sure. But he managed to retain the dark, adult seaminess of the original Groundlings stage show in the midst of a candy-hued fantasia, an uneasy balance that would characterize much of his subsequent work [when it didn't topple outright]. Of course, when it comes to this movie I have no objectivity, only delight. It is one I know by heart. And it warmed my heart when two folks wormed into my balcony row after the lights had gone down -- and proceeded to quietly mouth most of the dialogue to each other with a whispery glee. After the credits rolled, I learned from the very self-possessed 9? 10? 11-year-old girl that it was her uncle's favorite, and she'd watched it plenty, too. It made me impatient for my nephew and nieces to get old enough to warp so wonderfully.
The strange thing about In the Mood for Love is that I was certain I'd seen it. So I went this time mostly because, you know, big screen, expert projection, cheong-sams for miles. But it turns out somehow I hadn't. Or, at least, not properly. The fades to black at the ends of episodes, the chaos of the apartment house, the play-acting betrayals, the indirection of the mise-en-scène were all a revelation to me. At one point the mahjong-mad neighbor observes of Maggie Chung's Mrs. Chan, "She dresses up like that to go out for noodles?" But, of course, she is always clad in exquisite sorrow -- the variegated cheong-sams are only a means for her, and us, to mark the passing of time. That era has passed, yes, but even as the narrative leaves Hong Kong and skips ahead in time and place [Singapore 1963, Cambodia 1966] it corresponds almost exactly to the period David Weiner et al. have been plumbing on Mad Men. Office work. The infidelity of bosses and spouses.
What a shame Nixon didn't get to China until 1972.
The cinetrix ain't even gonna front. I had never seen Metropolis before last month. Clips from that Giorgio Moroder thang don't count, and I say that as a long-time Donna Summer fan. Nor does that porno we used to rent out when I worked at the video store that swiped footage whole cloth, the name of which now escapes me. [Dirty birds, help me out. It was released circa Zazel and may have had an extended -- nyuk, nyuk -- Peter North scene toward the end.] I do cop to staying late at the office this past February to thrill at the folks huddled in the platz outside the Friedrichstadtpalast at which the restored version made its debut with live orchestra accompaniment, watching it projected on a building wall. Freezing! For the cinema! Oh, to live in such a world!
You don't need me to tell you how gorgeous and engrossing this film is. I mean, duh. But now I can pretend I was just waiting for the lost footage to be
uncovered in Buenos Aires, right? And to see it on the storied screen
of the Brattle. More than anything, in watching Metropolis I was able to remember that it is kind of wonderful to come at a thing backwards, if that makes any sense. Ordinarily, I see this phenomenon more in my students, when they realize that Casablanca, say, is the fons et origo of so many bits of familiar dialogue that circulate untethered in the popular culture they inhabit.
And now, a month on, I still savor the deep dread I felt when Rotwang tells the captive Maria, "Come. It is time to give the machine man your face!" And once he turns her into Hel's belle and turns her out to wreak havoc? Man. Evil Maria is the best. Brigitte Helm is so wonderfully feral for all of her being a machine. Love. her.
[Plus, as the last scribbled note of the few I could tear my eyes/attention away from the images long enough to write says, "Evil Maria looks like Vera Farmiga." Or, you know, vice-y verse-y.]
