Stage Door Last Year at Marienbad

classic films

KEITH UHLICH

Stage Door (1937, Gregory La Cava, USA)

What makes a classic comedy? Mostly kismet—the right people in the right place at the right time. Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers head just such a dream cast in this screwball beaut, directed by Gregory La Cava, that also features Adolph Menjou, Constance Collier, Eve Arden, Ann Miller and a fresh-faced talent named Lucille Ball. The setting is a theatrical boarding house in New York, where Hepburn’s snooty up-and-comer actress Terry Randall comes to live. She proceeds to run afoul of most of the residents, Rogers’ flip dancer Jean Maitland chief among them. There’s plenty of Hayes Code-friendly bitchery, always delivered at the perfect rhythm and flow (two other keys to great comedy). But underlying all the cutting surface pleasures are a keen sense of how camaraderie often blossoms out of conflict. This is the movie in which Hepburn spoofs her 1934 theatrical performance in The Lake (“The calla lilies are in bloom again”), which was famously panned by Dorothy Parker (“[Miss Hepburn runs] the gamut of emotions from A to B”). (Streaming on Amazon.)

Last Year at Marienbad (1961, Alain Resnais, France) There may be no more classic mindbender than Alain Resnais’ black-and-white masterpiece, his follow-up to the equally challenging Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959). You could say Last Year at Marienbad takes the form of a mystery, with an unnamed man and woman (Delphine Seyrig and Giorgio Albertazzi) wandering a palatial hotel, the one insisting repeatedly that they met the year before, the other assuring they did not. There may have been an affair, there may not. There is a husband (Sacha Pitoëff)…perhaps. Time and narrative sequence are jumbled. The disorientation is pervasive, which only makes the journey more hypnotic. Resnais collaborated with the nouveau roman writer Alain Robbe-Grillet on the production. Robbe-Grillet’s highly detailed screenplay served as a blueprint for Resnais to follow and to dream beyond. The film has a reputation as a forbidding object, inscrutable to the point of existential terror, though this misses out on the frequent playfulness of the widescreen imagery by Sacha Vierny, which illuminates the deadpan comic facets of the deceptively dour central couple. See if you can spot the Where’s Waldo?-esque cameo by a famed American director’s unmistakable silhouette. (Streaming on MUBI.)

High and Low (1963, Akira Kurosawa, Japan)

The title promises a lot—an equal examination of two extremes. Know that the literal translation of Akira Kurosawa’s classic crime thriller is “Heaven and Hell,” which suggests a metaphysical aspect very much apparent in the crisp black-and-white widescreen photography of Asakuzu Nakai and Takao Saito. It’s there in the performances, too, by Toshiro Mifune as a quietly rapacious businessman (the prime target in a kidnapping plot gone awry); by Tatsuya Nakadai as the level-headed inspector assigned the case; and by Tsutomo Yamazaki as the mastermind, such as it is, of the abduction. We think we know where our sympathies should lie, but as the tense slow-burn of a narrative unfolds, our loyalties shift, our beliefs get muddied. It’s evident, by the end, that everyone has their reasons in a world that prizes rich over poor, a divide that’s built in even to the architecture of the metropolis in which they live. This a genre story (loosely adapted by Kurosawa and his co-screenwriters from the Ed McBain novel King’s Ransom) as a philosophical cri de coeur, and certainly among the best of its kind. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.)

Teorema (1968, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy)

There’s no charm, discreet or otherwise, to the bourgeoisie in this classic caustic satire from Italian provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini. A wealthy family is visited by a mysterious man known only as The Visitor, played by Terence Stamp at the height of his leonine beauty (at one point the camera unashamedly zooms into his crotch, anticipating the orgy of debasement to follow). The Visitor gives so fully of himself to each member of the household, including sexually, that his eventual departure lays bare the tensions brewing under the brood’s conformist surface. Like several Pasolini films, the sacred and the profane are inextricable bedfellows, and the agita that results is incomparably sublime in its sense of feral shock and spiritual awe. No other filmmaker breaks down his characters to quite as subhuman a level, leaving the possibilities of redemption and rebirth to that void to which we are all destined to return. (Streaming on Criterion Channel) n

<12 BLACK VIOLIN

olin’s first since the pandemic forced an 18month time out.

How was it for you during the pandemic? Did you continue to be creative?

Although it sucks to not be on the road, we wanted to stay safe, to make sure our families were safe. And being able to be with our families was a plus. We took advantage of the downtime with virtual performances, Zoom concerts, and recorded a Christmas album, Give Thanks.

You raised eyebrows in both genres when you combined classical music with hip hop.

People were taken off guard, but they didn’t react badly, or at least we didn’t care; we were so focused on what we wanted to do. This is who we are, so it was very natural foxr us to do this thing, and we love doing it.

You’ve said how both classical music and hip hop bring people together. [Back in the 1700s/1800s], if you were a person with money, someone with influence, and you were putting on a party, you’d hit up the Mozarts of the world for something new and nice. That’s no different from today for any musician or producer.

Do you get folks who might not be interested in classical music enthusiastic about it?

It’s especially great playing for Black kids. They see the way we look, they see themselves in us, and it’s been an amazing thing to inspire them. When they hear the blend of classical and hip hop, they think, “Wow, it seems impossible, but these two genres are coming together.” This translates to the kids thinking that they can do anything.

You originally wanted to play the saxophone. Did you ever think you’d be decades into a career playing the viola?

I was placed in the wrong class, in a string class, and everybody ignored the viola. So I chose it, thinking, “I’m not going to be playing the viola for a long time, so it’s OK.” I continued because I fell in love with the instrument. People might associate the viola with elitism, but I wanted to stick with it to prove something to myself. I loved it, and I still do.

There’s this idea about classical music, that it’s boring and daunting, but we make it cool; we make it fun. Classical needs new listeners, new people to engage with it. So, what we do helps classical music, too, helps it to stay alive. n

Black Violin will perform on the Wind Creek Steel Stage at SteelStacks, Bethlehem, Sunday, August 15. Tickets cost $15; Steel Terrace, $139. (610) 332-1300. Visit steelstacks.org or musikfest.org. Black Violin: blackviolin.net. < 6 DANA MILBANK

for Boebert to break through.

In the past couple of weeks alone, she falsely claimed that liberals “legalized knowingly spreading HIV,” asserted that her election “is certainly a sign and a wonder, just like God promised,” attacked a trans woman weightlifter with the message “Welcome to the Woke Olympics” and declared that “Critical Race Theory is now mainstream.” The former proprietor of Shooter’s Grill in Rifle, Colo., also claimed she could carry her gun in the Capitol and refused to allow the U.S. Capitol Police to search her purse after setting off a metal detector. She even compared Biden’s German shepherds to violent illegal immigrants. But she has failed to rise above the din of crazy coming from her colleagues.

Wednesday’s censure gambit fared no better. Fox News’s Chad Pergram asked Boebert— twice—to contrast her Biden censure with the Jackson censure, in 1834. Both times, Boebert’s answer betrayed no indication that she knew who Andrew Jackson was.

While Boebert struggled, Greene used the questions to deliver unrelated rants about socialism, Fauci, antifa, BLM and defund the police. “This is systematic destruction to our country,” she said. “We have many members in the Democrat Party that you could definitely look at . . . and you could call them communist.” Boebert stood silently, hands clasped. She was in the presence of a master. n

Follow Dana Milbank on Twitter, @Milbank.

<6 MICHAEL GERSON

society where equal opportunity is a reality for all.

It is true that “wokeness” can be used as a political weapon. It is true that shame culture can be cruel and misdirected. And, as a conservative, I believe that equal opportunity, rather than mandated economic equality, is the proper goal of a free society. But what if we are (to employ a football analogy) not 30 yards away from the goal of equal opportunity in the United States, but 70 yards? What if equal opportunity is a cruel joke to a significant portion of the country? Shouldn’t that create an outrage and urgency that we rarely see, and even more rarely feel?

Though our nation is beset with systemic racism, we also have the advantage of what a friend calls “systemic anti-racism.” We have documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the 14th Amendment—that call us to our better selves. We are a country that has exploited and oppressed Black Americans. But we are also the country that has risen up in mass movements, made up of Blacks and Whites, to confront those evils. The response to systemic racism is the determined, systematic application of our highest ideals. n

Michael Gerson’s email address is michaelgerson@washpost.com. < 16 FILM ROUNDUP

The Sparks Brothers (Dir. Edgar Wright). Documentary. A tribute to the power of sticking around, market forces and mass-audience taste be damned, Edgar Wright’s documentary revels in the oddball charm of its sibling subjects, avantpop musicians Ron and Russell Mael aka Sparks. Over 25 studio albums, the California-born brothers have crafted a body of workthat follows its own strange path, and in many cases influenced the styles of more popular acts. (Hence the talking-head testimonies here of folks like Beck, Duran Duran, New Order and Flea.) Wright’s film charts a more straightforward route, attending to the Sparks discography chronologically, with fan and collaborator commentary leaning toward the appreciative at worst and the ecstatic at best. There may, however, be method to the linear madness as it allows Ron (the Hitler-mustachioed weirdo) and Russell (the handsome and strapping, uh, also weirdo) to say everything and nothing, maintaining their peerless mystique while appearing to reveal all. [R] HHH1/2

Wrath of Man (Dir. Guy Ritchie). Starring: Jason Statham, Holt McCallany, Josh Hartnett. British upstart Guy Ritchie tames his more overwrought instincts for this very effective thriller in which a mysterious man named H (Jason Statham, that ever-dependable chunk of granite) infiltrates an armored car company for apparently vengeful reasons. The film jumps around between time periods and perspectives, doling out H’s motivations, and those of his security force colleagues, in dribs and drabs. It’s always compelling, though the twisty narrative is more an excuse for Ritchie to revel in the virile pleasures of his stellar supporting cast—Josh Hartnett as a pretty-boy blowhard; Eddie Marsan as a dweebish supervisor; Jeffrey Donovan as a meticulous criminal mastermind (a cinematic cousin to De Niro’s Zen thief in Michael Mann’s Heat); and best of all, Holt McCallany as a loyal company man who is not everything he initially seems. [R] HHH1/2 n Answer to this month’s puzzle

<5 ISLAND

I’ve been familiar with N.C. Wyeth’s 1939 egg tempera, Island Funeral, for a long time. I’ve seen other funeral images as well. The burial on the prairie. Pilgrims in the woods. Island is an excellent metaphor for how we live our lives. Corbet, Manet—they all touched on things I’ve felt, but there’s something about the way Wyeth put the observer up with the gulls that resonates. It’s a view of people gathering to pay respect to the life of Rufus Teel, who lived on the island the whole of his 97 years, rather than one focusing on a person as a body.

I made friends at the Maine Maritime Museum when I had my exhibition there, and I stopped by on subsequent trips north to say hello. One time, the chief curator said he had something to show me, and he took me to a large storage shed where they kept many of the amazing boats in their collection. He turned on the lights, and there was N. C. Wyeth’s 28foot lobster boat, Eight Bells, which the family gave to the museum. Wyeth painted Eight Bells into Island Funeral as one of the boats delivering mourners to Teel Island. I got to put my hands on her hull and feel the ghosts of the boat builders and the painter himself. Creating my version of the event wasn’t in the forefront of my mind then, but a link was subconsciously made.

Since then, pieces of the puzzle have appeared here and there. I’m in that phase of life where time limits are considered in all decisions, and downsizing is the future. I’ve lost friends at home and in Maine. My view is, increasingly, up with the gulls. Of all the ways I considered addressing the “fourth quarter” (as I‘ve thought of it for a while now), Wyeth’s version influenced me the most, with its narrative of community and the metaphor of the island. The subject is very sobering and real. Inescapable and darkly interactive. The longer I took to consider the painting, the greater the chance of not getting it done.

I have in the past addressed subjects that have been well conceived by other painters, such as Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze and The Burning of Center Bridge by Edward Redfield. In each, I purposefully described the event from another physical and imaginative viewpoint; the same story told differently.

The one I did of Washington’s crossing is from the New Jersey side, with an eye toward authenticity rather than symbolism. My burning bridge is from the Stockton side. Redfield saw the waning moments of the fire in person (he lived near it), whereas my depiction of the fully involved structure is conjecture. My Island Funeral is not the perspective of a participant or remote observer. It’s that of the destination.

My work is not a string of individual images but a continuum where one painting leads to the next, illustrating things that matter to me in life, informed by those that came before. They’re statements about there and then, and reflect what was going on at the time, with me, with all of us. But the past is why we’re here. It’s forgotten or ignored at great risk. So I painted Wyeth’s Eight Bells—the uppermost boat—into my image. The past enlightens the future, and in a small way, sustains a memory of Rufus Teel. n