Goodbye Companiero! - Screen legend Peter Falk dies.

The Man Who Stares At Screens is deeply saddened to learn of the death of screen legend Peter Falk, best known for playing iconic television detective Columbo.  Mr Falk's lawyer reported that he had died peacefully at his Beverly Hills home yesterday evening, he was aged 83 and had been suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Falk started his acting career on the stage, but was warned by his agent not to expect much screen work due to his glass eye, which he had worn from the age of three after his right eye was removed due to a retinoblastoma.  Despite this Falk went on to win five Emmy's (four for Columbo), one Golden Globe and received two Academy Award nominations and win over an army of fans both within the industry and amongst the public.

He also starred in one of The Man Who Stares At Screens own favourite films,  Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire in which he plays an angel who chose to become mortal, a role that seemed somehow very fitting for this most humble yet endearing of actors.  Here's a clip of Peter Falk's performance in that movie, one of my favourite scenes and a fine example of the man's acting skills for those who may not be aware of the gentle genius of the man in the dirty mac.  RIP.

Double Take (2009) - or why Alfred Hitchcock is to blame for the cold war.

Okay I know! I'm like buses, no posts for nearly a year then two come along at once, but whilst I've regained my blogging mojo I just had to mention this little gem I discovered a few weeks back whilst browsing the net for interesting and unusual filmic fodder and this one certainly fulfills both those caveats.

Double Take is a 2009 Belgian-Dutch-German financed production directed by Belgian Johan Grimonprez, which according to it's Wikipedia stub is best described as an essay film. It certainly is a hard movie to classify, it being a strange amalgam of fiction, documentary and stock footage that weaves a fantastical tale around a visual history of 60's cold war media coverage, advertisements and footage from Hitchcock's film and TV work, interspersed with snippets from the life of a modern day Hitchcock impersonator which come together to form a hypnotic, witty, competent and surprisingly cohesive essay on the duality of truth, the nature of modern media and it's ability to manipulate fear as a socio-political tool.

The main premise of the film is a story about Hitchcock, who, whilst filming The Birds walks into a room off-set to discover an older looking double of himself who claims to have come from the future (1982 to be precise). The ensuing conversation between the two doppelgangers forms the narrative backbone of an extended montage of entertaining and eclectic footage that builds to form the films core argument whilst also touching on higher concepts such as the nature of reality and truth and the usual conundrums that naturally occur whenever time-travel rears it's abstruse head.

I titled this entry Why Alfred Hitchcock is to blame for the cold war, but that's not really fair as this is not what the film is trying to convey, I have simply taken the liberty of extrapolating Grimonprez' argument to it's logical conclusion. The film refers heavily to the concept of the Macguffin a narrative device that Hitchcock himself was oft fond of using in his filmaking. I believe that Grimonprez is suggesting that the central axiom of the cold war ie, the threat of mutually assured destruction was itself a giant macguffin used to direct social and political policy with the mass media implicit as chief manipulator on both sides of the iron curtain.

Whatever conclusions you draw from this intriguing work what you experience will be like nothing you have seen before, a compelling and charming piece of cinema drifting on that rare cloud where documentary meets art. Highly recommended.

Apocalypse Now Remastered - or how to make a masterpiece look bland.

WooHoo! I'm back, yes after nearly twelve months without a post here I am again. I offer no excuses for my absence, it's the usual story.... Start blog, get excited about blog, realize nobody is reading blog, get depressed about blog, forget blog exists, but the arrival in cinemas of a shiny new digital remaster of Apocalypse Now in it's original cut (don't mention the Redux) inspired a return to the keyboard.

If you are one of the massive 18 unique visitors this blog has received since it's inception and for some bizarre reason you have returned then you will know that Apocalypse Now features in The Man Who Stares At Screens All Time Top Ten list so the prospect of seeing Coppola's Vietnam epic on the big screen again at a small, beer friendly art cinema was too much to resist and I settled down with a cool crisp lager into my own personal two-seater sofa for a very reasonable £8.50 (screw you and your overpriced "VIP" seats Mr Odeon) expecting to have my mind yet again blown by Coppola, Sheen & Brando et al, and of course I did, but on leaving the cinema I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. Where had all the colour gone?

The film itself has lost none of it's power and I could wax lyrical for pages on the profound nature of the relationship between Willard and Kurtz and the questions it raises about society, morality and the implications for a civilization that can produce men such as these, but I shall not. If you have seen Apocalypse Now then you'll know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't then you should stop reading immediately, go buy the DVD (available in The Man Who Stares At Screens Shop by the way) and find out for yourself.

The difference between this and previous versions of Apocalypse Now is that it has supposedly been digitally remastered. Now I don't know about you, but when I hear that term I expect to see a clean lush print, full of colour and life, and if Star Wars is anything to go by a few extra CGI monsters thrown in for good measure, but in this case the studio seem to have gone the opposite direction taking a beautiful lush film and managing to make it look worse. The first thing I noticed was the very obvious digital noise that was apparent throughout the screening. At this juncture I should note that I was sat only ten feet away from a twenty-odd foot screen but still, using a remastering process that adds noise to the original film stock rather than reducing it seems somewhat counter intuitive. My second and more heartfelt gripe regards the colour. One of the reasons I've always loved the cinematography in Apocalypse Now is the intense colours and how they give the film that other-worldy look, particularly in the jungle scene where Willard and Chef encounter the tiger. The glowing luminescent green and blue hues of the trees that gave this scene in the original print a truly alien feel in this version are bleached to mere green and blue tinted grays and this seems to be the case throughout, scenes that were previously bathed in colour just don't seem to have the strength they previously had. At first I thought it was maybe just that I'd had the contrast up too high the umpteen times I'd watched my tired old VHS copy, but having discussed it with other afictionados they all agreed, it seems that whoever was responsible for mastering this copy pulled the saturation knob right down instead of turning it up to eleven the way they did the first time around and in my mind it suffers for it.

However, being amongst my favourite films I couldn't leave this review on such a down note, regardless of the careless handling of this latest print, it remains one of the enduring masterpieces of modern American cinema. It seems strange to me that The Godfather movies are always the center of attention when we discuss the quality of work Coppola has produced and don't get me wrong, Godfather I & II are indeed great works, but when laid alongside the impeccable profundity of Apocalypse Now they appear mere soap-opera in comparison and it is surely this that is Coppola's masterwork.