Film Persona

  Norman Jewison's "In the Heat of the Night" Due to the Civil Rights issues taking place all over the U.S. in the 1960s, there were plenty of films coming out that touched upon them. One of those films, 1967's " In the Heat of the Night " has gone on to be recognized as one of the standouts of this type of film. It stars the incomparable Sidney Poitier as a Philadelphia homicide detective who begrudgingly helps a small Mississippi police force solve a murder. There are certain elements of the film that seemed like oversimplifications of complex issues. Other times, it felt like the film added some dimensionality to otherwise black-and-white abstracts. On the whole, the film does a fabulous job of raising concerns regarding racial tensions in the south. More specifically, it turns several notions on their head, including the competent black man helping more inexperienced Southern white men in their line of duty.  First and foremost, the film should be recogn...

Pier Paolo Pasolini's "The Hawks and the Sparrows"  Up until now, the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini have been biting allegories of modern social and political concerns. They're rich and subversive. This is precisely why I feel as though his 1966 film " The Hawks and the Sparrows " is a huge let down from his typical standard of film. The film can be seen as a comedy, although my laughing was kept at a minimum. It centers on the elder Toto and his son, Ninetto, who travers the countryside with a talking crow - who also happens to be a left-wing intellectual. The crow recounts a Marxist allegory involving two friars preaching the Gospel to hawks (representing the powerful) and sparrows (representing the weak). After the story, their journey carries on and faces continued allegories to social injustice. Despite the good-natured satire and irreverence of the piece, it failed to either entertain or intellectually titillate. The thematic nature of the film lacked m...

  Hiroshi Teshigahara's "The Face of Another" Although it was a critical and commercial failure outside of its release, the 1966 film " The Face of Another " still manages to be a critical link the chain of Hiroshi Teshigahara's filmography. Its gothic-noir ambiance is a unique tone for a Japanese production, making it a singularly one-of-a-kind film.  The film centers on Mr. Okuyama - an engineer whose face was disfigured by an explosion in an industrial accident. He only wears bandages on his face to cover his burns. That is until he becomes the test subject for a prosthetic mask resembling a real human face. He uses this opportunity in a new identity to seduce his wife. For me, the entire enjoyment of the film rests on its gothic tone and abstract visuals. Teshigahara and his unique directing style creates some engaging images that titillates the imagination. One can turn the sound off and manage to be enraptured by its qualities. However, for me, the fil...

  Sidney Lumet's "The Hill" There aren't a whole lot of films that make me viscerally angry. Sidney Lumet's 1965 film " The Hill " is one of the rare exceptions. My anger doesn't stem from the quality of the film. Rather, the film is incredibly effective at eliciting this response out of me. It story revolving around a military prison and the obvious injustice and abuse that goes on there is enough to boil anyone's blood. The great Sean Connery plays Joe Roberts, a former squadron sergeant major from the Royal Tank Regiment who is sent to a British Army glasshouse in the Libyan desert after assaulting his commanding officer. The cruel and oppressive treatment of the prisoners eventually leads to a death by negligence, leading Joe to become defiant of his abusive staff sergeants. The dissent grows, leading to more crackdowns and hysteria. Beyond the obvious plot points that are bound to entice the sympathies of its audience, the film somehow manag...

  Seijun Suzuki's "Tokyo Drifter" 1966's " Tokyo Drifter " is somehow both a prime example of the Japanese yakuza film while also being slightly a parody of it. It centers on a fiercely loyal yakuza operative who must travers through the countryside after a rival kingpin's hires a gun-for-hire to assassinate him. The film is highly stylized and often includes elements of absurdism, which aid in its quest to be entertaining.  To me, the film has the feeling of a 'pop art' film. Definitely fitting into the categories of gangster flick and neo-noir, " Tokyo Drifter " somehow manages to really stylize its action. The action is often absurd - making it feel far more soapy and B-rated.  Beyond its elements of style and camp, the film has underlying themes of corporate corruption through violence. Our characters are yakuza, but are working through the lens of corporate enterprise. One of the things the film seems to be saying is that this adhe...

  David Lean's "Doctor Zhivago" By 1965, David Lean had come to be known for his expansive epics, like 1957's " The Bridge on the River Kwai " or 1962's " Lawrence of Arabia ." So, his 1965 film " Doctor Zhivago " was nothing out of the ordinary. Based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Russian poet Boris Pasternak, the film details the fictional accounts of a Doctor Zhivago (also a poet) through the very real historical events involving the Russian Revolution. Despite the film depicting the tsarist rule and the eventual Bolshevik state as both being hostile and terrorizing, the Soviet Union felt the film was anti-Soviet all together. In the film, Doctor Zhivago is constantly caught in the middle between the factions, ultimately trying to keep himself and his family safe (along with his mistress). Once the Bolsheviks take power, they are portrayed as cold and villainous which clearly upset the Soviet state. The titular character of...