Look Back In Anger

Look Back In Anger (1959), starring Richard Burton (Jimmy), Mary Ure (Alison) and Claire Bloom (Helena), is a film based on John Osborne's play of the same name. Jimmy runs a market stall, and despite his college education he sees himself as hopelessly stuck in a working class oppressed by society's upper echelons, which makes him acutely angry. He rages constantly and takes out this fury on his wife, Alison, going as viciously far as to tell her, "If you could have a child, and it would die . . . if only I could watch you face that." Alison, pregnant (though Jimmy doesn't know it), leaves him, and her friend Heather then falls for the guy at about the film's halfway mark.

I chose to watch this one thinking it's noir but discovered it's kitchen sink drama, part of a British art movement in the 50s/60s with tales of disillusioned men who are inordinately indignant due to some constricting elements in their social context. For the uninitiated, think abortions, alcoholism, and homelessness.

Burton pulls off angry excruciatingly well, to the extent he's hard to watch. I tell you, this ain't 1959's feel-good movie of the year. And no matter how many times Helena says to Alison, "everything will be fine," all the gritty realism bespeaks just the opposite. Whereas noir would place the story in a shadowy, off-kilter alternate reality, Look Back In Anger is steeped in real-world grime, including the themes of endless domestic disputes and miscarriage, both also trademarks of the kitchen sink genre.

What I got out of it was an appreciation for Burton's acting. His performance is intense and compelling, and he must've been the sort of actor who convinces himself he's the character he's portraying. But Jimmy's such a surly jerk, and I found myself frustrated with the character's relentless whinging. He does break out in song once or twice, though. And the jazz at the beginning and end is cool. I thought the scenes showing Jimmy and Alison in their bear-squirrel fantasy world were in some way fascinating; surely that's the only place they can survive—outside of their own bleak reality. And their breath in the air to end the film was striking and well captured and a cinematographic treat.

Midnight Express

Midnight Express (1978) was streaming on Netflix this week and since I'd never seen it before and usually get right into prison escape stories I clicked play and sat back for the gritty ride. Directed by Alan Parker—Fame (1980), Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982), Mississippi Burning (1988)—and starring Brad Davis, Irene Miracle, John Hurt and others including a mid-20s Randy Quaid, Midnight Express is based on Billy Hayes’ time behind bars in Turkey for attempting to smuggle hashish out of the country. Parts are brutal, like each time someone’s feet are caned, and Davis’s acting is so intense I wondered at times if it was the actor or the character who was insane or both. The Turks are subhuman “swine” (is there a single Turkish character in the film that’s actually human?) and apparently the film was criticized for this. Oliver Stone, pretty much still a nobody at the time, wrote the script and won an Oscar for it. The film was shot at a fort in Malta, which made the film visually unique among American 70s films and had all the grime and drabness to back up the gloomy story line. And the chase near the beginning set to Italian composer Giorgio Moroder’s synth-hit “Chase” is an experience in and of itself (man, synthesizers were truly revered back then). Also, watching the Midnight Express DVD Special Feature on YouTube is worthwhile for a better understanding of the film and its production.

The Sea and Poison

I sort of read this book by accident. I’ve heard about Shusaku Endo for years but never read his work, and I recently watched Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film, Silence, based on Endo’s 1966 novel of the same name. Then after reading a review in a friend’s blog about Endo’s 1986 novel, Scandal, I headed over to the Kinokuniya near Shinjuku Station’s east exit to see if they carried this title or any of his others. Half a dozen or so Endo novels were on the shelf but not Scandal, so at random I picked The Sea and Poison (1958).

Much of this story takes place at a hospital in Fukuoka at the end of the war. It’s told from the perspectives of ordinary people, all but one of whom become involved in an atrocity. The central character is Suguro, a medical intern whose colleagues are coercing him to participate in the vivisections of two captured American pilots. For a short novel, Endo covers a lot of ground, with a focus on guilt and culpability, ethics and morality. Reading it, I knew and dreaded that I'd eventually come to the vivisections. And although they weren’t so graphic, they were described in enough detail to be disturbing, as was the impassiveness of some characters in the lead-up to those grisly experiments. Endo’s prose in this book are smooth and easy to read, while the subject matter is rough terrain that’s hard to get through in places. I do look forward to reading more of his work but hope not all of it is so dark. I'm also interested in seeing how the story is told in the 1986 film The Sea and Poison, which was directed by Kei Kumai, with Eiji Okuda as Suguro and Ken Watanabe as Toda.