Dodsworth – Directed by William Wyler (1936)


A surprisingly frank examination of the struggles of fidelity. Walter Houston plays the titular Dodsworth, an automotive magnate newly retired from the business. On European holiday after forty plus years of nine-to-five, the Dodsworths find themselves the victims of repressed abandon when Mrs. Dodsworth takes up with European leaches and convinces her husband to return to the States without her. What follows is the simple story of a transatlantic marriage on the rocks, filmed in the period’s stand and speak, back and forth report. Where Dodsworth differs from like films of its time, however, is in the brutal honesty of scripters Sidney Howard and Robert Wyler’s adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’ novel. To watch Dodsworth is to cringe at the sometimes-vicious nature of language. Houston and Ruth Chatterton fight through tête-à-tête standoffs for the better part of the film’s run—shedding grace on the awkward beauty of cinema’s laborious transition from stage to screen acting—while the cinematography of Rudolph Mate’ underscores the verbal sparring solemnly: opening on a deep focus wide of Dodsworth’s expansive top-floor office, the initial image closes in over the man’s shoulder, his attention fully fixed on the lettering on the building adjacent: “Dodsworth.” The simplicity of visual metaphor.

Jindabyne – Directed by Ray Lawrence

I’ve not seen Mr. Lawrence’s previous film, Lantana, but on the heels of such lauded work watching Jindabyne left me empty. This Laura Linney/Gabriel Byrne starring adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story “So Little Water Close to Home” center’s around a group of fisherman who leave a floating body to rest three days while they continue mining the waters for trout. When the men finally emerge from their trip with the news of their discovery, the truth of their selfishness sets their small town afire. A miniscule short—3 to 4 pages depending on edition—stretched to two-plus hours, Mr. Lawrence’s reworking muddles whatever potency the original held by drenching it in white liberal guilt. The Australian setting and Mr. Lawrence’s seeming fascination with the native tribes devolves to middling social metaphors, Ms. Linney’s character reduced to scouring the town and countryside admonishing native and white townspeople alike to drop their differences and “all just get along.”

In Q&A, Ms. Linney stated that a ritual performed at film’s end was the first ever recording of such a ceremony, the first time in fact it had been glimpsed by non-native eyes. Implicit in Jindabyne’s flaws is the nature of such a cultural breach: in a Haneke film, the point is usually to force characters to accept and understand why they are different, why their world’s are separate and impervious to intersection...thus creating an awareness of such seclusion and the impulse to iradicate it. With Jindabyne, Mr. Lawrence FORCES the removal of cultural borders in both the creation and narrative of his work, leaving whatever truth there is to be gathered from the scenario lying in his wake.

The US vs. John Lennon – Directed by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld

This doc on the most revered Beatle opens with a VH1 Rock Docs logo. While it certainly makes for a great outdoor screening under the beautiful night sky of Southwest, Colorado, that opening logo is about all you need to know about this flick.

Day Night, Day Night – Directed by Julia Loktev

Ms. Loktev’s film opens on a woman whispering so softly her speech is subtitled. All sunken eyes and flushed cheeks, first time actor Louisa Williams reveals nothing despite the frame’s unflinching hold on her indifferent face. Much of Day Night, Day Night unfolds this way, Ms. Williams character ferried from one room to the next, ordered via phone into movement after movement, her commands non-descript to the point of monotony. She’s waiting for something, waiting to be directed, directed toward a goal and yet…in Ms. Loktev’s hands, the path to that goal remains elusive to the very end. Such coyness is maddening but the details are so few that to give them is to spoil the ethereal punch the film metes in a deliberate, decisive drawl. Ms. Loktev is considered a video installation artist and documentary filmmaker. The influence of both weighs favorably on this first foray into dramatic fiction filmmaking.