TJE 7/18 - Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

This review is going to be very spoiler-heavy, because one of the most notable things about "Angels With Dirty Faces" is the direction that the story takes, which simply wouldn't happen in a mainstream modern film. I'm going to discuss it in some depth, so fair warning, and here we go. "Angels With Dirty Faces" is a crime film about gangster Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) who does all the despicable things that gangsters do, but makes good in the very end by sacrificing his reputation and acting like a coward at his execution. He does this for the noble purpose of ensuring that the local gang of street kids who idolize him won't be tempted to follow in his footsteps.

Present-day American culture idolizes the anti-hero and masculine pride far too much for this kind of ending to be acceptable today, and such blatant morality tales went out of fashion a long time ago. The story follows a tried and true formula. Rocky and his best friend Jerry Connolly (Pat O'Brien) are a pair of mischievous kids together. One day they are caught trying to rob a railroad car. Jerry escapes, but Rocky is carted off to a string of reform schools and lock-ups, graduating to longer stints in prison as his criminal career progresses. After serving a three-year sentence for a theft committed with a shady lawyer named Frazier (Humphrey Bogart), Rocky goes home to the old neighborhood, and discovers that Jerry has grown up to be a respected local priest, and Laury (Ann Sheridan), the girl they used to tease, is now a beauty.

Rocky has matters to square with Frazier and his boss Keefer (George Bancroft), which leads to escalating episodes of violence. However, this is not your typical gangster picture. The film's biggest conflict is really over the souls of the gang of local boys, lead by Soapy (Billy Halop), who Father Jerry is trying to keep on the side of angels, steering them away from vice and temptation. Rocky befriends them, after they pick his pocket, and quickly becomes their hero and the only adult who can get them to do anything. It's easy to see why. Rocky Sullivan may be the most likeable gangster there ever was, a man who claims he doesn't have a heart, but is clearly loyal and generous and probably capable of being much more. He holds no grudge against Father Jerry, and genuinely cares about the kids. At the same time, he's not hesitant about giving Frazier and Keefer exactly what's coming to them.

The performance of James Cagney and the unusual ending are the only things I can summon up much praise for. The direction by Michael Curtiz has some nice flourishes, especially in the rousing action sequences, but it's nothing special. The performances by O'Brien and Sheridan barely register. The kids are funny and engaging, but barely differentiated enough to be real characters. They aren't even credited separately, but as the "Dead End Kids," for one of their previous projects together. It's sort of fun to see Bogart playing such a straight villain role in his pre-stardom days, but it only serves to highlight how simple and shallow the film is. If it weren't for Cagney's charismatic portrayal of Rocky Sullivan, I doubt anyone would remember the film today.

Then again, there is that ending, which sticks in the mind not only because of how well executed it is, but because of what it represents. There used to be so much more debate over the portrayal of crime and criminals on film, on their social impact. Here we have a film where the filmmakers clearly felt a sense of responsibility toward their audience. Rocky had to be punished for his crimes under the Hays Code one way or another, but using the punishment as a means of redemption was far more interesting and fulfilling than Rocky simply getting carted off to jail or dying on the final firefight. It also allowed Cagney to subvert the image of the "tough guy" he was always trying to get away from, which is probably why he took the role in the first place.

Can you imagine a modern crime picture where the gun-toting badass hero realizes that he's contributing to the degeneracy of the American youth, and willingly destroys his own image of cool in repentance? Can you imagine the equivalent of the Pat O’Brien character being part of that decision without all the baggage of the religious viewpoint, because being a priest was shorthand for being the dispenser of proper morality in a film? Can you remember the last time intentional disillusionment of young children was a plot point? For better or for worse, "Angels With Dirty Faces" could have only been made in the 1930s, when Hollywood was far more innocent, and the bad guys, even the good-hearted ones, always got it in the end.
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TJE 7/19 - Shame (2011)

"Shame," according to Boxofficemojo, was the only film released in the US in 2011 with an NC-17 rating, and I'm glad that it was. The story concerns a man who is battling sex addiction, though the term is never used in the film. The NC-17 content is absolutely essential. However, I should warn that the graphic sexual activity that we see onscreen is not titillating, prurient, or anything that could be called sexy. Rather, the overwhelming mood of the film is one of isolation, alienation, and loneliness.

Brandon (Michael Fassbender) works in a Manhattan advertising firm. He is successful, handsome, and perpetually unattached. By his own admission, he has never had a relationship that lasted for more than four months, spending his nights with a succession of anonymous strangers and paid sex workers. His need for gratification is constant, but he remains emotionally uninvolved with the people around him. Then one day his younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) arrives unannounced at his apartment. Her situation is unstable, and Brandon lets her stay, but the demands on his privacy severely hamper his sex life, and he's forced to struggle against the impulses he's long indulged. Awkwardly, he begins to look for alternatives to his solitary existence.

Director Steve McQueen is known for his long takes, and there are several employed here to good effect. The unblinking, sustained gaze ratchets up the tension, heightens the mood, and gives the performances more room to unfurl. And they're excellent. "Shame" is a character study, driven by work of its excellent cast. Though the script by McQueen and Abi Morgan contains plenty of dialogue, there is very little proper exposition, and it takes a while to figure out what Sissy's relationship to Brandon is, and for the details of his addiction to emerge. We observe Brandon going through his usual routine at home and at work, riding the subway and jogging through empty streets, almost always alone. McQueen often places him on the edges of the frame, emphasizing his remoteness. Crop the widescreen frame to in some scenes, and he would totally disappear. One of the most vital elements here is the score by composer Harry Escott, supplemented with Bach piano pieces performed by Glenn Gould. The melancholia of the music completely saps away any pleasure that could be had from the sex scenes, rendering them clinical, empty, and cold.

2011 was a great year for Michael Fassbender, and of the four films he appeared in, "Shame" was the one that contained his best performance. It's surely the most fearless and revealing, not just because he spends a good portion of the screen time in the nude, but because of the intimacy and candidness of it. Initially Brandon's lifestyle is attractive, enviable even. Fassbender is charismatic enough that we can easily accept his ability to charm just about any woman into bed for a no-strings tumble. However, there's always an unspoken tension to every encounter, and it soon becomes apparent how little control he has over his sexual urges, and how precarious a situation he's come to. Fassbender embodies all the common paranoias toward sex, the fears of inadequacy, of rejection, of unforeseen consequences, and of course that the extent of his secret, perverse activities will be discovered. We watch him ignore and internalize the problems, until they overwhelm him. And nobody suffers an onscreen breakdown like Fassbender.

The only real relationship Brandon has is with his sister, and we learn very little about Sissy except that she is a musician who has achieved a small measure of success, she's in a troubled relationship, she has a history of self-harm, and she has nowhere else to go. Carey Mulligan's performance does the rest. McQueen devotes one of the longest scenes in the film to Brandon simply watching her sing "New York, New York" in a club, her face filling the screen. Initially it seems like a gimmick, and Mulligan's tremulous vocals are passable at best, but the effect is mesmerizing. She has the ability to suggest so much in the most offhand comments and gestures, and in one of her best scenes we don't see much more of her than back of her head. Her psychological state, like Brandon's, is never discussed, but take one look at Mulligan and you know Sissy is a girl on the edge.

"Shame" is about far more than addiction. It quietly criticizes and deglamourizes the entire alpha male image that Brandon creates for himself. All the hallmarks of his success - being rich and attractive, living in Manhattan, enjoying all the best clubs and restaurants, and snagging the girl that a colleague couldn't – amount to very little in the end. He spends most of the film perfectly miserable, despite enjoying every classic heterosexual male sexual fantasy in the book. Sissy's life as an artist doesn't bring her happiness either, her pretty exterior masking too much pain. Manhattan itself has never looked so beautiful and so desolate.

"Shame" is a tough film, but cathartic and penetrating, and a viewing will linger in the mind for days. The real shame is that more people won't see this film because of the MPAA rating, but that's a rant for another day.
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