A movie that makes you an offer you can't refuse

Here's a fun film experiment: Try watching 60 random seconds from any point in the runtime of The Godfather (1972); then try turning off the screen. You'll quickly discover that, like a powerful opiate, it's easy to get hooked and difficult to quit.

But why hit the abort button at all? Why not jump all the way in the deep end and allow yourself to become fully immersed in this epic that never ages? 

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of The Godfather, conducted last week, click here (refresh the page if you get an error message). And revisit our essay on the film published on its golden anniversary three years ago, available here.

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The (even greater) escape

Is it Shawshank? The Great Escape? Cool Hand Luke? Stalag 17? Or could A Man Escaped (1956), directed by Robert Bresson, be the greatest prison film of them all? This gripping work follows Lieutenant Fontaine, who is captured by the Nazis and held in Montluc prison in Lyon during World War II. While awaiting execution, Fontaine carefully and methodically plans his breakout, and we nervously await deliverance or disaster.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of A Man Escaped, conducted last week, click here (if you get an error message, simply refresh the page).

What’s particularly interesting about A Man Escaped is that it’s both biographical and somewhat autobiographical. The narrative is based loosely on a true story, the memoir of Andre Devigny, a French Resistance figure who himself was held captive by occupying German forces at a prison in Lyon, France, and successfully escaped. According to Criterion Collection essayist Tony Pipolo, Bresson also experienced “cruelty and internment at the hands of the Germans during the war.”

The entire film is shown from Fontaine’s point of view and occurs exclusively in and around the prison – with the exception of the final shots and opening sequence. We observe and learn just as Fontaine does, which helps build tension and makes us better identify with him and his predicament.

This isn’t your typical jailbreak picture. For starters, the film features untrained actors who were not professionals. This was part of Bresson’s style, as the director loathed thespian artifice, overemotive portrayals, and popular names – instead preferring unknowns who would be more believable because they weren’t “acting” in the traditional sense. Bresson guided his performers in a way that stripped away any traditional signs of performance. His goal was to eliminate theatricality completely and focus on creating cinema in its purest form.

Bresson was also an artist who abhorred flash and fluff, refraining from using clever camerawork, showy edits, unnecessary close-ups, sentimental touches, and grand emotional gestures.

Additionally, unlike so many other prison films, this one doesn’t have any speechifying or grand soliloquies. The few supporting characters that exist are given very little screen time. We aren’t shown the perspective of the enemy (in this case, the German guards or commanders). There is also no onscreen brutality shown by any guards toward the prisoners or between fellow inmates. Most significantly, there is no major character arc where the main protagonist undergoes personal growth or a transformation.

But, as in other prison stories, there is a sacrificial character who dies or is thwarted, thereby motivating the main character to learn from those mistakes. Also, there are bonds formed between the captives; there are new arrivals we and Fontaine pay attention to, as well, and we observe contraband smuggled by and passed around among fellow prisoners.

A Man Escaped is further distinguished from works in this subgenre thanks to its minimalist and spiritual approach. Bypassing opportunities for greater suspense, action, or violence, Bresson’s picture emphasizes quiet moments and the sturdiness and patience of his primary character. The prison break isn’t dramatized as a thrilling adventure but as a methodical act of moral resistance and faith. This stark simplicity directs attention to the prisoner’s psychological and spiritual journey, making the film less about the physical act of escape and more about the profound assertion of human dignity and hope under oppression.

“Fontaine maintains his sanity by necessarily evolving to see his newly endangered life as a puzzle to be solved,” wrote Slant magazine critic Chuck Bowen. “A Man Escaped is so absorbing because Bresson’s traditional methods of de-emphasis imbue the film with an almost maddening tension. The prisoner’s panic and desperation are felt, but rarely seen. We can barely read Fontaine’s emotions because he can’t afford to allow them to distract from the task at hand, and so the details of Fontaine’s preparation for escape come to be imbued with a pregnant, repressed urgency.”

More than any other theme, the film espouses the merits of grace under pressure. The key to success in a desperate situation, we learn, is to focus without feelings and exercise patience and discipline: to commit to intense concentration on a crucial task while concurrently removing emotions and fear. Fontaine faces certain death but refuses to dwell unnecessarily on his predicament and let feelings or worries preoccupy his mind or cloud his judgment, choosing instead to focus on whatever it takes – including the smallest details – to execute his escape.

A Man Escaped reminds us that no man is an island. Teamwork and collaboration matter in this tale, as evidenced by the aid Fontaine receives from other prisoners, most importantly his new cellmate, who proves necessary in escaping successfully. This is also a story about sacrifices and solidarity for the greater good. Throughout the movie, other prisoners quietly support Fontaine’s escape, often at great personal risk. One inmate helps pass secret messages from Fontaine. Others watch for guards and prepare to alert Fontaine while he is dismantling his door. One prisoner who unsuccessfully attempts escape tells Fontaine that hooks are needed to scale the prison walls. Many offer silent encouragement that strengthens his resolve. These small, risky sacrifices and acts of solidarity make his escape possible and highlight the quiet courage shared among the prisoners.

Additionally, Bresson’s work emphasizes our innate need for freedom and willingness to pursue it at all costs. These prisoners are desperate men who will all likely be killed by the Germans, motivating them to attempt breakouts. But even if the stakes weren’t this high, we get the sense that many of these captives would try hard to escape. Recall how Fontaine says: “I was determined to escape at the first opportunity… If I could only escape, run away.”

At its core, A Man Escaped suggests the power to inspire hope and faith. Per Criterion Collection essayist Tony Pipolo, “The protagonist of A Man Escaped is a soldier and a man of action, but, like his predecessors, he is also a spiritual force, inspiring hope in his fellow prisoners. This is epitomized when, to determine whether the adjacent cell is occupied, Fontaine taps on the wall, effectively interrupting, at that very moment, his neighbor’s suicide attempt. Later, this prisoner—Blanchet (Maurice Beerblock)—buoyed by Fontaine’s courage and resolve, contributes a blanket to allow Fontaine to complete the final ropes needed for his mission.”

Similar works

• The Grand Illusion (1937)
• Stalag 17 (1953)
• The Great Escape (1963)
• The Hill (1965)
• Cool Hand Luke (1967)
• Army of Shadows (1969)
• Papillon (1973)
• Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Other films by Robert Bresson

• Diary of a Country Priest (1951)
• Pickpocket (1959)
• The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962)
• Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
• A Gentle Woman (1969)
• Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971)
• Lancelot of the Lake (1974)
• The Devil, Probably (1977)
• L'Argent (1983)

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A perfect popcorn movie that's future-proof

Back to the Future may not be Citizen Kane, but it’s debatably the Citizen Kane of time travel films, setting the standard for subsequent cinematic stories in which characters travel back to the past through technological or supernatural means. Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, its greatest strength is that it’s unfailingly entertaining, pure and simple, with a story that’s intriguing, exciting, funny, and satisfying from the first clock tick. The storycraft and world-building are exemplary. This is a carefully composed tale with cleverly nested layers of setups and subsequent payoffs that compel us to pay closer attention.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Back to the Future, conducted earlier this month, click here (if you get an error message, try refreshing the page). To listen to the latest Cineversary podcast episode celebrating the film’s 40th birthday, click here.

As is true of so many all-time classics, Back to the Future boasts exemplary casting, with Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd delivering the finest and most memorable performances of their careers in roles they seem born to play. The movie also benefited from great timing. Its release in 1985 parlayed the popularity or name brand cache of Fox, one of the era’s most popular TV characters; Huey Lewis, whose career was at its zenith; Robert DeLorean and his futuristic-looking car; and Ronald Reagan, the actor/president at the time who is humorously referenced in the film. 1985 was also ideal as a counterpoint to the mid-1950s, that postwar period considered by many who lived in that decade to be a halcyon era of prosperity and simpler living. Setting the throwback year at 1955 was perfect, as it rounded off the time gap to a nice round number (30), Marty’s parents would have been his exact age, and this was the time when rock ‘n’ roll was in its infancy, which became a plot point. (Ironically, the gap between 1985 and now is much longer than the span in the story between 1955 and 1985.)

Back to the Future is widely considered the best movie made by one of Steven Spielberg’s closest collaborators or imitators, and not created by Spielberg himself. Debatably, it’s director Robert Zemeckis’ finest work, and indisputably was the picture that elevated him to the directorial A-list. Zemeckis would go on to helm several classics, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Back to the Future II and III (1989-1990), Forest Gump (1994), Contact (1997), and Cast Away (2000).

A thoroughly charmed Roger Ebert said Zemeckis “shows not only a fine comic touch but also some of the lighthearted humanism of a Frank Capra. The movie, in fact, resembles Capra’s “It's a Wonderful Life” more than other, conventional time-travel movies. It’s about a character who begins with one view of his life and reality, and is allowed, through magical intervention, to discover another.”

Equally enamored of the director’s filmmaking savvy, Vox critic Emily St. James wrote: “He shoots even normally prosaic sequences — like a school dance — as if they were car chases. When it comes time for the bells of Back to the Future’s ticking clocks to start ringing, his editing leaps to a breathless level of intensity…Zemeckis displays an admirable level of expertise in turning the movie into a kind of living pinball machine, steadily ramping up the pace of his action sequences to train you for the all-out assault of the final half-hour.”

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 93% approval rating, with an average critical score of 8.8 out of 10. It also topped the site’s ranking of favorite '80s films and placed 87th among the best action-adventure movies. Over on Metacritic, the film boasts an impressive score of 87 out of 100 based on 15 reviews.

This is a prime example of a critical darling and box office juggernaut, one that raked in $381.1 million worldwide to top the global box office charts in 1985. When adjusted for inflation, its total gross translates to nearly $215 million, placing it at number 71 among the highest-earning films in history.

The film also earned four Academy Award nominations: Best Original Screenplay for Bob Gale and Zemeckis, Best Sound for Bill Varney, B. Tennyson Sebastian II, Robert Thirlwell, and William B. Kaplan, Best Original Song for Huey Lewis and the News' The Power of Love, and Best Sound Effects Editing for Charles L. Campbell and Robert Rutledge – with the latter category bringing home the film’s lone Oscar.

Over the years, Back to the Future has only grown in stature, now regularly cited by critics and audiences alike as one of the finest science fiction films – and one of the greatest movies, period. In 2004, The New York Times included it in its roundup of the 1,000 greatest movies ever made. The following year, the Writers Guild of America ranked its screenplay 56th on their list of the best scripts from the past 75 years. Throughout the 2000s, it featured on numerous notable lists: number 10 in Film4’s 50 Films to See Before You Die, number 23 on Empire’s 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, and number 10 on the American Film Institute’s poll of the top science fiction films. In 2006, Marty McFly secured the 39th spot in Empire’s ranking of the 100 greatest movie characters, with Doc Brown following at number 76. Total Film named it one of the 100 best movies ever in 2010, while BBC radio listeners slotted it as their fourth favorite film. In 2014, The Hollywood Reporter polled over 2,000 industry insiders who named it the 12th greatest film ever. In 2015, the Writers Guild listed its screenplay as the 67th funniest ever written. Popular Mechanics and Rolling Stone declared it the number one and number four greatest time-travel films, respectively. Entertainment Weekly ranked it the 40th essential pre-teen film and the 28th best high-school movie. In the UK, Empire readers placed the film at number 11 on their 2017 list of the 100 greatest movies.

It’s hard to ignore Back to the Future’s pervasive reach as a pop-culture touchstone. Among the works it likely inspired are Peggy Sue Got Married (1986); Flight of the Navigator (1986); Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989); Timecop (1994); Sliding Doors (1998); The Butterfly Effect (2004); Hot Tub Time Machine (2010); and Project Almanac (2015); and TV shows such as Quantum Leap (1989-1993), Rick and Morty (2013-), and Stranger Things (2016-).

Additionally, the trilogy triggered several pop-culture offshoots and trends, among them a theme park simulator ride, numerous video games, a cartoon TV show, a live musical, a renewed interest in skateboarding, and even an official Back to the Future Day (October 21), celebrated annually by millions around the globe and officially recognized by the Obama White House in 2015.

Earlier inspirations included science fiction and fantasy stories like H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1960), Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), and Ray Bradbury’s The Sound of Thunder (1952); Twilight Zone episodes such as Back There (1961) and No Time Like the Past (1963); and films including Somewhere in Time (1980), Time Bandits (1981), The Atomic Café (1982), and The Terminator (1984). Back to the Future also contains easter egg nods to classics like Safety Last (1923), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), Dr. Strangelove (1964), Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

Plenty of critics and scholars credit this picture with solidifying more modern tropes and rules regarding time travel in movies. Many previous time-travel films were built around the idea that the past couldn’t be changed, but this work aimed to explore what might happen if it could – and how those alterations would reshape the future. According to critic Richard Scheib, before this film, “the time machine had existed as little more than another planet for astronauts – an exotic locale (usually a post-holocaust setting) for two-fisted adventurers – and time-travel scenarios had not developed much sophistication beyond there-and-back adventures or of culture clash stories about visitors from one era arriving in another. After Back to the Future and The Terminator, time-travel lost its linearity, time became fluid with the past, the present and future a malleable whole that could be endlessly rearranged and fought for the better.” Scheib adds that the trilogy depicts “a past, present and future being innocently colonized and won over by contemporary junk culture – from the media-saturated landscape to skateboarding and rock’n’roll.”

Despite being a fun flick built for summertime escapism, Back to the Future examines several key themes, first and foremost free will versus fate. Are our lives predetermined by destiny and powers outside of our control, or can we actively change our futures and shape the direction of our lives? These are the questions the picture poses, with answers that clearly point to the latter and the power of self-determination over kismet.

“If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything” is the most remembered quote from the film, spoken by Marty, George, and Doc Brown, and serves as a motivational message about personal agency for each of them and the audience. It reminds us that believing in yourself, staying focused and determined, and not giving up can yield unexpectedly positive results. And it rejects Mr. Strickland’s caustic assessment that “No McFly ever amounted to anything.”

Back to the Future also deftly explores the generation gap: the differences – and similarities – between children and their parents, asking the timeless question, What were my mom and dad like at my age? Ultimately, the film espouses a positive message, that it’s possible for multiple generations within families to harmonize as well as understand and appreciate one another.

We are continually shown timepieces throughout the film – clocks, wristwatches, and digital timing devices, which remind us of the fleeting nature of time, and how the characters are perpetually concerned with temporal matters – from being late for school to beating the clock before being erased from existence. The film intimates that, even if we could live in the time of our choosing, we can never stop time: It’s always ticking away.

Zemeckis suggested that Marty is akin to an extraterrestrial alien in this science-fiction tale, which makes this a classic “fish out of water” narrative. Marty is stranded in an unknown world and shares his knowledge and skills with the surrounding natives, much like the main characters in E.T. (1982), Starman (1984), and Robert Heinlein’s story Stranger in a Strange Land (1961).

As lighthearted and family-friendly as Back to the Future would appear, it delves into perversity territory courtesy of the incestuous subplot involving young Lorraine and her son being sexually attracted to one another. This Oedipus complex sidestory is the major reason why Disney rejected the screenplay. (Interestingly, this film is only two years removed from the Return of the Jedi’s reveal that Luke and Leia are siblings, who, if you remember, romantically kissed in Episodes 4 and 5).

The movie lightly touches on social problems like racism, alcoholism, and bullying, but glosses over an even more serious subject: sexual assault, which occurs when Biff molests Lorraine in the car, much of which happens offscreen. Today, it’s laughable to think that a contemporary Lorraine would not be traumatized enough to immediately contact authorities and leave the dance, but there she is, right back at the gymnasium, ready to fall in love with George.

Some may also consider this film insulting to the influence and legacy of Chuck Berry and other pioneering black musicians by presenting Marty, a wholesome white kid, as the inventor of rock and roll.

Reaganism rules in Back to the Future, a motion picture often viewed as reflecting Reagan-era ideals, such as celebrating the pursuit of the American Dream, romanticizing a safer, simpler past through a nostalgic lens, and embracing a vision of the future where material success (like a new Toyota 4x4 and richer parents) is the reward for personal ambition and hard work. Doc Brown has been interpreted as a symbolic figure representing Reagan himself: a forward-looking advocate of technological progress who confronts threats like Libyan terrorists and helps uplift a struggling family. Others theorize that Back to the Future emphasizes the authority and redemptive power of paternal figures like George McFly and Doc Brown. Reagan’s capitalistic ethos is exemplified, as well, in the rampant embedded marketing found throughout the film, as evidenced by the recurrent mentions and consumption of products by Pepsi, Toyota, and Miller.

However, the entire notion of the 1950s as a golden age and the peak of Americanism flies in the face of many who lived through it, especially minorities and females who were subjugated and disempowered at that time. “It wasn’t so long ago that a black person’s primary concern in many American towns was something considerably worse than never being elected mayor,” posited Slant Magazine critic Eric Henderson. “And yet, what to make of the finale, in which everything shallow and consumer-minded about the 1980s is presented as the ultimate happy ending?”

Zemeckis reflected in 2015 that, while the film’s ending suited the values of its era, he would approach it differently today. Actor Crispin Glover, however, openly criticized the message from the start, arguing that Marty’s true reward should have been loving, supportive parents, not wealth and material possessions.

Keith Phipps, essayist for The Dissolve, defended several of these issues: “A more generous reading would see the prosperity (experienced by the McFly family at the conclusion) as a byproduct of George’s less fearful approach to life, and not the source of the McFlys’ happiness…Goldie Wilson overcomes prejudice to become Hill Valley’s mayor not because Marty encourages him, but because he was always going to become mayor. Marvin Berry clues his cousin Chuck into Marty’s performance of “Johnny B. Goode,” but Marty couldn’t have known the song if he didn’t come from a timeline when Chuck Berry wrote it in the first place.”

Indeed, an alternate reading of the film postulates that trying to “make America great again” by idealizing and returning to a supposedly idyllic past can be a letdown. Don’t forget that, as charming and innocent as Hill Valley seemed in 1955, the town also had its share of tyrants and sex offenders (Biff), bigots and delinquents (Biff’s gang), authoritarians (Strickland), and Cold War paranoiacs (the shotgun-wielding farmer).

Despite its flaws, Back to the Future continues to bestow generous gifts on its audience 40 birthdays later. The best package to unwrap at this party is the stellar script, the plot of which boasts marvelous intricacy, memorable characters, and impressive story threads that are introduced early and which pay dividends down the line – all of which help this narrative stand as one of the greatest ever written for the screen. Efficient and effective examples, both large and small, include:

Setup: In 1985, a woman hands Marty a flyer about the clock tower being struck by lightning at 10:04 p.m. on November 12, 1955, during a small-town fundraiser encounter. Payoff: That exact event and the flyer’s details become the crucial key to sending Marty back to the future.

Setup: Doc explains early on that the DeLorean must reach 88 miles per hour to activate the flux capacitor and time travel. Payoff: Marty must repeatedly hit exactly 88 mph at critical moments to escape danger and return to 1985.

Setup: Early in the film, it’s revealed that George secretly writes science fiction stories. Payoff: Marty uses this to pose as an alien to scare George into asking Lorraine to the dance – and in 1985, George has become a published author.

Setup: Marty carries a photo of himself and his siblings from 1985. Payoff: As Marty inadvertently interferes with his parents’ meeting in 1955, his siblings start fading from the photo, visually raising the stakes about his own existence.

Setup: Marty is shown early on as a talented, frustrated guitarist trying to land an audition. Payoff: He delivers an electrifying performance of Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, securing his parents' first kiss and unintentionally inventing rock 'n' roll.

Setup: In 1955, Marty meets young busboy Goldie Wilson at Lou’s Cafe and suggests he could be mayor someday. Payoff: In 1985, Goldie Wilson is indeed the Mayor of Hill Valley, as hinted by a TV re-election ad at the film’s start.

Setup: The mall is named Twin Pines Mall in 1985. Payoff: After Marty runs over one of Old Man Peabody’s two prized pines in 1955, the mall is renamed Lone Pine Mall in the altered 1985 timeline.

St. James, who called Back to the Future “the most perfect blockbuster ever made,” wrote that the film’s structure “is an elaborately constructed concoction that winds itself as tight as it possibly can in its first half, then unleashes all of that pent-up energy in a second half that never once pauses for breath yet still manages to cram in a full musical sequence…(It) sets up all the pieces on its board, then knocks them over one by one — and with great flair.”

She’s right. Back to the Future is a delayed gratification machine that perfectly lines up innumerable pins and then, much later, bowls one perfect strike after another, scoring a perfect game for one of the all-time great popcorn movies.

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Romancing the revolution

Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, released in 1965 and directed by David Lean, is one of those “they-don’t-make-‘em-like-that-anymore” epic romantic dramas. Set during the tumultuous years of the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War, the film follows Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif), a poet and physician torn between his love for his trusting wife Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin) and the passionate, enigmatic Lara (Julie Christie), who is entangled with both the revolutionary Pasha (Tom Courtenay) and the sinister Komarovsky (Rod Steiger). With sweeping cinematography and a haunting score by Maurice Jarre, Doctor Zhivago captivated audiences worldwide. Though initially controversial for its political backdrop, it became a massive box office success and won five Academy Awards, helping solidify Lean’s reputation as a master of grand-scale storytelling.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Doctor Zhivago, conducted earlier this month, click here (if you get an error, simply refresh the page).

Watching the film now, 60 years removed from its original theatrical run, it's easy to see how significantly movies have changed from that era, a time when old-school craftsmanship and blow-’em-away casting were part of the DNA of top-shelf films. Although this work certainly shows its age, it also has a lot to teach us about narrative style, visual compositions, creative editing choices, and pre-digital artistry.

Zhivago’s lavish production values, thanks to its big budget and the A-list talent involved, position it in a high caliber, lending a sheen and cache that prevent it from crumbling under its own weight. It pays great attention to detail, benefiting from period authenticity as well as high artistry and realism imbued in the sets, props, and costumes. It inarguably remains visually stunning and sumptuous, due to the vibrant color used, the widescreen aspect ratio employed, and epic scope and scale.

The characters and their actions aren’t written overly grandiose or important; they could have been crafted as major instigators in historical events, or, as BluRay.com reviewer Kenneth Brown put it, “iconic revolutionaries” who “lead a movement, inspire a rebellion or fuel the terrible events that come to bear on their lives.” Instead, they are flawed, utterly mortal, and ravaged by the rise of the Soviet machine around them.

This was the first Hollywood movie to depict the Russian Revolution, later covered by films like Nicholas and Alexandra, Reds, and Anastasia. And, according to TCM reviewer Frank Miller, it “marked a new path for the historical epic. Previous films had simply focused on the scope of world-shaping events. With Zhivago, director David Lean and scriptwriter Robert Bolt brought a new romantic sensibility to the epic. That Victorian ideal would inform such later blockbusters as Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Lady Gray (1986), and Titanic (1997).”

Yet, Doctor Zhivago has been accused of trivializing history by placing momentous, bloody events like World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War as backdrop set pieces against which a soap opera-ish love story is played out. Additionally, many viewers struggle trying to understand the motivations, rationales, and actions of key characters, including Zhivago himself, who arguably doesn’t seem that fully developed and whose choices can be difficult to comprehend, making him harder to identify with. The man simply can’t seem to decide which woman he wants to be in love with—Lara or his wife—and his vacillating nature can frustrate audiences.

Perhaps most problematic is that, despite the marketed and remembered as a timeless love story, the romance between Zhivago and Lara is a case of “too little/too late”; the characters don’t even talk to each other until 80 minutes have elapsed. The film could have benefited from earlier setups where the attraction and longing were more firmly established. Arguably, we aren’t shown enough pining, pain of separation, or tears between these two characters. Likewise, the filmmakers missed an opportunity to amplify the love triangle aspect involving Tonya, and how she might have learned of her husband’s affair and its emotional impact on her.

Also, having the brother Yevgraf serve as the voiceover narrator confounds the narrative for many because Zhivago appears to be more of a spectator in his own story. And talk about extreme runtime: approximately 200 minutes, which can be a long sit for many viewers who could easily become fatigued, especially considering that the unresolved character threads and repetitive elements (such as the overuse of “Lara’s Theme”).

Still, lovers of the film point to the evergreen nature of its central theme: the power of love to withstand chaos and upheaval. Doctor Zhivago is a crowd-pleasing tale of star-crossed lovers who maintain and nurture their not-so-hidden affair despite this tumultuous time in history and the massive social turmoil that threatens to keep them apart. The narrative also reminds us of the importance of maintaining humanity, dignity, sensitivity, and creativity in the face of dehumanizing forces that favor politics and collectivism over personal matters. Ruminate on how Zhivago never loses his romantic passion, self-actualization, poetic sensibilities, or value as an individual, even though overwhelming historical forces and extreme hardship stand in his way.

This is, too, a loss of innocence parable. Lara represents Russia itself in her relationships with three different men who symbolize different paths the country can take. She is seduced and raped by the manipulative and licentious Komarovsky, who represents the opportunists and corrupt powerbrokers who previously dominated Russia; she marries and fathers the child of Antipov, who transforms into the brutal Bolshevik commander Strelnikov, a character who signifies Russia’s oppressive future; and she also loves Yuri Zhivago, a compassionate and kind lover who stands for what Russia could have become or secretly desires to be. Lara’s character disappointingly lacks agency, yet this helps her function as an embodiment of the country itself, which, like Lara, is an object of possession by different forces and types.

Similar works

• Gone with the Wind (1939)
• War and Peace (1956)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• Out of Africa (1985)
• Reds (1981)
• The English Patient (1996)
• Anna Karenina (1997)
• Atonement (2007)

Other films by David Lean

• Blithe Spirit (1945)
• Brief Encounter (1945)
• Great Expectations (1946)
• Oliver Twist (1948)
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• A Passage to India (1984)

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Cineversary podcast celebrates 40th anniversary of Back to the Future

Bob Gale and Michael Klastorin

In Cineversary podcast episode #84, host ⁠Erik Martin⁠ powers up the old DeLorean and takes a scenic drive around Hill Valley to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future. Joining him for the ride is the film’s co-screenwriter Bob Gale; and Michael Klastorin, author of Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History. Together, they examine the movie’s lasting impact on pop culture, the clockwork precision of its script, key themes, and much more.

To listen to this episode, click here or click the "play" button on the embedded streaming player below. Or, you can stream, download, or subscribe to Cineversary wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Learn more about the Cineversary podcast at www.cineversary.com and email show comments or suggestions to cineversarypodcast@gmail.com.

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Throwing stones in Glass's house

What’s the greatest film about journalism since All the President’s Men? It could be Good Night and Good Luck, Spotlight, or The Post. Or it could very well be Shattered Glass, a 2003 drama film written and directed by Billy Ray that chronicles the true story of Stephen Glass with The New Republic. Glass, portrayed by Hayden Christensen, is an ambitious young writer whose talent and charm mask his growing pattern of deception. The film also features Peter Sarsgaard as Charles Lane, the magazine’s editor who begins to suspect and investigate Glass’s stories, and Steve Zahn as Adam Penenberg, the reporter whose curiosity ultimately exposes the fabrications. Through these characters, Shattered Glass delves into the ethical dilemmas of journalism and the impact of Glass’s downfall on his colleagues and the media world at large.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Shattered Glass, conducted last week, click here (if you get an error message, simply refresh the page).

The picture is interestingly bookended by what we eventually learn is an imagined classroom sequence in which we believe Glass is sharing words of wisdom with students in a high school journalism class. This device allows Glass’ character to voiceover narrate the story while also demonstrating the compelling clout of his voice and crowd-pleasing presence.

Fascinatingly, the lead character shifts from Glass to an unexpected protagonist: Lane, who suddenly becomes Glass’s editor midway through the narrative and whom we follow more closely as Lane tries to expose the truth. Shattered Glass transitions to somewhat of a detective story in its second half, especially as Lane and the Forbes reporters command more screen time. Ray said: “As fascinating as Stephen Glass is by the end of the movie, people would want to kill themselves – you just can’t follow him all the way.”

The movie is also bifurcated visually in that the filmmakers primarily employ handheld cameras in the office scenes within the first half, but shift to a more stable and traditional camera approach in the second half.

You don’t have to be a journalist or writer to appreciate the dilemmas faced by both Glass and Lane. If you’ve ever worried about cheating on a test or assignment at school or getting caught in a major lie by your parents, or if you’ve ever been in a position of authority over an employee or child you suspect of major wrongdoing, you can relate to the palpable sense of dread that seeps in.

Curiously, the film introduces angles that could make for interesting subplots but quickly abandons or ignores them: Publisher Marty Peretz is presented as an autocratic villain worthy of more screen time, but his character is forgotten about after he fires editor Michael Kelly. Additionally, Glass reveals that his parents are pressuring him to become a successful lawyer and that his brother helped him falsify some of his sources; Exploring these relationships could have made for interesting scenes and side plots. On the other hand, the filmmakers are wise to trim out any fat, feature only the necessary characters, and stick to the heart of this story: Glass’ fall from grace.

Even though it was a box office failure, Shattered Glass benefited from fortuitous timing because it was released at a time when the media was still reeling from the Jayson Blair scandal at The New York Times, a strikingly similar and equally captivating case where a once-celebrated reporter was exposed after someone scrutinized his work closely. Blair’s downfall came from fabricating and plagiarizing parts of his articles.

Christensen surprises viewers with this role, proving he could act at a time when he was mocked for being a wooden thespian hand-picked by George Lucas to star in his poorly reviewed Star Wars prequels.

Shattered Glass is a powerful cautionary tale about the price of cheating to get ahead, of how a house of cards eventually crumbles, and how hubristic deception eventually yields karmic repercussions. Glass prides himself on secretly being a master fabulist who, through emotional exploitation and Machiavellian means, fleeces his bosses, peers, and readers into believing purely fabricated stories that earn him plaudits and notoriety.

It’s also an unnerving meditation on the cult of personality and the power of charisma and charm to manipulate others. Glass uses self-deprecating modesty, winsome humility, and an entertaining gift of gab to make himself popular and trustworthy. He’s the consummate bullshit artist: a pathological liar who carefully covers his tracks, uses disarming lines like “Are you mad at me?”, and knows how to game the system for his own gain.

Another takeaway? Telling the truth is hard work. This film shows how maintaining journalistic truth and integrity is challenging – a task that requires scrupulous vetting, stepping on feelings, and risking profit, prestige, and personnel when necessary. Lane, who replaces Michael Kelly, his popular but pilloried predecessor, is treated by his disgruntled staff with subtle resistance and skepticism. He’s the “bad cop” to Kelly’s “good cop.” But Lane’s detail-driven approach proves correct, as he uncovers Glass’s charade thanks to his unwavering commitment to asking questions and conforming to journalistic ethics. We see how Lane’s pursuit of the truth in this endeavor causes him to become more disliked and even jeopardizes the future of the publication. But the contrast he strikes with Glass is crucial, reminding us that veracity, honesty, and accuracy are essential to maintain public trust in the press, even at the expense of entertaining copy. Per Roger Ebert: “Peter Sarsgaard has the balancing act as a new editor who happens to be right but is under enormous pressure to be wrong.”

Lastly, consider the irony behind the fact that a venerated print publication was taken down a peg by upstart Internet journalism. Today, most people get their news online, and print journalism is in danger of becoming extinct.

Similar works

• Ace in the Hole (1951) — Billy Wilder
• All the President's Men (1976) — Alan J. Pakula
• Network (1976) — Sidney Lumet
• Absence of Malice (1981) — Sydney Pollack
• Quiz Show (1994) — Robert Redford
• The Insider (1999) — Michael Mann
• Veronica Guerin (2003) — Joel Schumacher
• Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) — George Clooney
• Kill the Messenger (2014) — Michael Cuesta
• Spotlight (2015) — Tom McCarthy
• Truth (2015) — James Vanderbilt
• The Post (2017) — Steven Spielberg

Other films by Billy Ray

• Hart's War (2002) — writer
• Flightplan (2005) — writer
• Breach (2007) — writer, director
• State of Play (2009) — writer
• The Hunger Games (2012) — writer
• Captain Phillips (2013) — writer

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Nun too soon

One of the most emotionally potent Holocaust-adjacent films of the 21st century, Ida (2013) captures your attention from first frame to the last, despite its relatively simple plot and minimalist visuals. Set in 1960s Communist Poland, the film – directed by Paweł Pawlikowski, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rebecca Lenkiewicz – follows Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a young orphan raised in a convent, who, on the eve of taking her vows as a nun, is told by her Mother Superior to visit her only living relative, her estranged aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza). During their journey together, Anna learns surprising truths about her ancestry and the fate of her parents, which redefine her. The story revolves around these two contrasting women: the innocent, devout niece and her cynical, hard-drinking aunt, a former state prosecutor haunted by her past.

Click here to listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Ida, conducted last week (if you get an error message, simply refresh the page).

Ida employs an old-school film aesthetic, utilizing a 1.37:1 boxy aspect ratio, a monochromatic canvas, a spare and restrained set design, and unconventional framing choices that recall the works of Robert Bresson, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, and early François Truffaut. Compositions often feature characters' bodies and faces low in the frame, sometimes falling out of frame. Perhaps this method aims to visually depict how the figures in this story are often isolated and relatively insignificant against a vast, unforgiving environment.

“…Most often deployed in static long shots, the film’s images sometimes suggest Vermeer lighting with the color taken away, and the compositions manage to seem at once classical and off-handed, with the subjects often located in the screen’s two bottom quadrants,” posited reviewer Godfrey Cheshire. “As in Bresson, the effect is to draw the viewer’s eye into the beauty of the image while simultaneously maintaining a contemplative distance from the drama.”

The narrative takes unexpected turns, undercutting any expectations we might have from start to finish. New Yorker critic Anthony Lane agrees, writing that this film is “a tale of constant wrongness – of taking wrong turns, making wrong assumptions, and inflicting wrongs terrible and small.” The first images of the titular character suggest, for example, that we’re looking at a Catholic nun who we quickly learn is named Anna. But it’s soon revealed that this girl is a novice getting ready to take her vows; her real name is Ida, she’s actually Jewish, and her parents were killed in the Holocaust. Likewise, our introduction to Wanda makes us think perhaps that she’s a sex worker.

Consider how the film turns into a road movie, but defies tropes and anticipations for a road movie: This isn’t an adventurously episodic story riven with themes of liberation or rebellion, and our protagonist doesn’t undergo a radical transformation by the conclusion. Yes (SPOILERS AHEAD), she takes off her habit for a spell to experiment with alcohol, smoking, dancing, and sex. But by the conclusion she has returned to the monastery, presumably to become the nun we thought she’d be.

The performances by the two female leads are breathtakingly affecting, with Trzebuchowska seemingly born to play her part, and Kulesza stealing nearly every scene she’s in – a wealth of contradictions within a fascinatingly diverse character.

Thankfully, audiences are spared any flashback scenes to Nazi-occupied Poland. The atrocities uncovered and talked about are left to our imagination, as seen through the eyes of Ida and Wanda, making it more personal and affecting without sledgehammering us with graphic violence.

Ida’s central message is navigating a crisis of identity. The young woman soon learns that everything she thought she knew about herself is wrong; her name isn’t Anna but Ida, she’s Jewish, and her parents were killed in World War II. These discoveries, at a pivotal time, come just before she is expected to take her vows as a nun. Likewise, her aunt Wanda suffers an existential dilemma when she takes Ida on a journey to uncover secrets about their familial past and learns terrible truths that lead to guilt and regret, ultimately compelling her to commit suicide.

This picture also examines the power of the past to shape the present and future. After traveling with Wanda and learning about her lineage, Ida silently questions her choices and place in the world. This novitiate period, with her final vow-taking imminent, is thrown into flux after Ida’s experiences with Wanda, her newfound awareness of her family tree, and her unexpected romantic interest in Lis, the arresting young saxophone player.

Pawlikowski challenges the collective audience to reckon with yesteryear and ruminate on the lessons of history. Ida’s sudden discoveries force her to step outside the cloistered world of faith and confront the morally complex, often painful truths of Poland’s—and her own—history. This coming to terms, both personally and nationally, reflects a wider attempt to confront buried traumas. This work is arguably less about what happened to Poland years ago and more about the often overlooked scars left behind, how history quietly imprints itself on the souls of the survivors, and how, by facing these truths, one might find both clarity and dignity to move ahead.

“Wanda is the embodiment of Poland’s past hopes and disappointments, the self-destruction she wreaks on herself the damning evidence that, to paraphrase Terry Eagleton, European history turns on a tortured body,” Sight and Sound critic Catherine Wheatley wrote. “Anna is its legacy, and it’s little wonder that her first response to the horrors she unveils is to preserve what innocence remains to her, sequestering herself away from the world, seeking refuge in her Catholic God…This is ultimately not a film about finding salvation through belief, and at its end we can’t be sure where Anna is going. Crafted with deceptive simplicity, riven with uncertainty, Ida has no answers to the questions it raises about how we protect ourselves and our loved ones from the burdens of the past, nor how we move forward.”

Similar works

• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) – directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
• Diary of a Country Priest (1951) – directed by Robert Bresson
• Mother of the Angels (1961) – directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
• Viridiana (1961) – directed by Luis Buñuel
• Innocent Sorcerers (1960) – directed by Andrzej Wajda
• The 400 Blows (1959) – directed by François Truffaut
• Kings of the Road (1976) – directed by Wim Wenders
• The Ascent (1977) – directed by Larisa Shepitko
• The White Ribbon (2009) – directed by Michael Haneke
• Cold War (2018) – directed by Paweł Pawlikowski
• 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) – directed by Cristian Mungiu
• Son of Saul (2015) – directed by László Nemes

Other films by Pawel Pawlikowski

• Last Resort (2000)
• My Summer of Love (2004)
• The Woman in the Fifth (2011)
• Cold War (2018)

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CineVerse film discussion group celebrates 20th anniversary

The current CineVerse lineup includes 14 members (12 of whom are pictured here)

CineVerse, one of Chicagoland’s longest-running film discussion groups, recently marked its 20th anniversary. Since our launch in June 2005, CineVerse members have consistently met to talk about and analyze a different movie every Wednesday evening. That equates to around 1,360 meetings and 1,330 films covered, with nearly 150 different members joining over our two-decade run.

For full details, read this article published on Patch.com.

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Across a half century, Jaws never jumped the shark

Fifty years onward, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws hasn’t lost any of its bite. It remains a terrifying thriller, a rousing action film, and a riveting drama that explores the captivating dynamics between three fascinating characters (Roy Scheider’s Brody, Richard Dreyfus’ Hooper, and Robert Shaw’s Quint). But perhaps most importantly, re-watching this film today reminds us of how much cinema has changed, in both positive and negative ways.

Click here to listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Jaws, conducted earlier this month. To hear the latest Cineversary celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jaws, click here.

The first of its kind

Before Jaws, summer movies were often lesser fare, including B-picture cheapies and exploitation films, and Christmastime and winter were when bigger-budget prestige pictures were often released. Studios didn’t want to spend big money on large productions to be released in the summer, when Americans typically went on vacation and visited theaters less frequently.

Jaws has since come to be regarded as the granddaddy of the summertime cinematic spectacle (which is fitting considering that it’s set during the heart of that season); it positioned Memorial Day through Independence Day as the prime window for major tentpole movies and film franchise releases.

A massive hit, this movie was the first to top the $100 million mark in box office revenues. In only two months, it became the highest-grossing picture of all time before Star Wars broke that record two years later. Jaws proved that popcorn escapist movies that were also crafted with quality could generate both big box office and critical acclaim. Indeed, it revolutionized the industry by advancing, if not creating, the concept of the modern "event film" – a movie so highly anticipated that audiences flocked to theaters in droves, often returning multiple times to see it and waiting in long lines. This phenomenon became a defining characteristic of modern Hollywood blockbusters.

Movie budgets, distribution tactics, and marketing strategies were forever changed. Pre-Jaws, only epic projects were given gigantic budgets. Jaws’ budget ballooned from around $4 million to over $9 million – a king’s ransom back then. But its total box office take of more than $470 million (equating to nearly $1.2 billion today, making it the seventh highest-grossing motion picture in history adjusted for inflation) established that throwing more dollars at this kind of entertainment was a good investment. The film sparked corporate hunger for immediate, massive profits, with studios eager for future releases to replicate the instant success of Jaws.

It was groundbreaking also in being the first motion picture released to over 400 and eventually more than 900 theaters during its initial run. Additionally, Jaws was a key film that established the benefits of backing a wide national release with heavy media advertising in TV and print. Before Jaws, Hollywood would often let a film gain notice via slow word of mouth. In fact, the marketing campaign for Jaws was revolutionary for its era, being the first to utilize a cross-platform approach that included television, radio, and print media. Prior to Jaws, Hollywood seldom advertised newer upcoming films on TV. Universal coughed up $1.8 million to market the film, including an unheard-of for that time $700,000 on a national TV advertising blitz. This broad and highly visible strategy, which focused on the shark's mystery and the film's suspense, redefined how films were marketed, creating immense anticipation leading up to its release.

But Jaws had a massive impact far beyond the movie theater. It did for swimmers what Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho did for shower-takers, and it continues to make millions of people afraid to go into the water. That says a lot about the lasting power and reach of a mere motion picture.

Filmed on location at Martha’s Vineyard and off its coast, this was the first major film to be shot on the ocean, specifically the Atlantic; common practice up to this point was to simulate the ocean by shooting inside a giant water tank.

Although earlier movies had their share of licensed merch, Jaws was the OG in that department, a cash cow that boasted a wide array of authorized products, such as toys, posters, T-shirts, books, a soundtrack album, beach towels, shark costumes, hobby kits, and other shark-themed items. Jaws paved the way for movie merchandising to become a highly profitable industry.

Additionally, Jaws was the first LaserDisc title in North America, released in 1978, and a huge hit on VHS a few years later, helping to prove that releasing popular titles on home video formats was a surefire license to print money.

A work of exemplary craftsmanship

Ruminate for a moment on how Jaws boasts an embarrassment of riches when it comes to classic scenes. Many cite the moment when Brody, scooping chum off the bow and startled by the giant shark, walks back to his shipmates and says, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Others point to the sequence on the beach when the young Kintner boy is snatched by the shark, with blood spurting out of the water like Old Faithful, and we see that classic dolly zoom shot of Brody. But it’s Quint’s U.S.S. Indianapolis soliloquy that most agree is the standout moment. Another example of a fantastic monologue that empowers our imagination to fill in the blanks we are told but don’t see is Hooper’s orally descriptive autopsy of the dead girl.

The main theme by GOAT composer John Williams is perhaps the most instantly recognized piece of movie music ever, helping the iconic score place sixth on the American Film Institute’s list of top 25 film scores. The two main notes signify the shark as an “unstoppable force of mindless and instinctive attacks… Grinding away at you, just as a shark would do – instinctual, relentless, unstoppable,” said Williams. He and Spielberg use music wisely during the film, often ratcheting up the tension by extending quieter, music-free sequences and then unexpectedly pouring on the main theme to insinuate impending danger.

While the creature effects are amazing for their day, and the subaquatic photography and location shooting on the ocean are phenomenal, the greatest enjoyment of this film comes from the dynamics between these three men trapped on a relatively small boat, and the relationship triangle that’s explored. Shaw’s embodiment as Quint represents one of the great side character performances in the movies, and his debut in the film – scraping his fingernails across the chalkboard and delivering a colorfully gruff, commanding, and slightly unhinged monologue – persists as one of the most memorable character introductions in film history.

Jaws is also chock-full of all-time memorable lines, including the aforementioned "You're gonna need a bigger boat"; "Smile, you son of a bitch!"; "You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes”; “Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all”; "You’re certifiable, Quint”; “You yell 'shark,' we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."; "Here's to swimmin' with bow-legged women."; "Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he sees what I brung him"; “I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no mates, there's just too many captains on this island. $10,000 for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing”; “I'm not talkin' 'bout pleasure boatin' or day sailin'. I'm talkin' 'bout workin' for a livin'. I'm talkin' 'bout sharkin'!”

This movie also boasts among the most perfectly written final lines that close out the picture: “What day is this?” “It's Wednesday... eh, it's Tuesday, I think.” “Think the tide's with us?” “Keep kicking.” “I used to hate the water...” “I can't imagine why.” Truth is, Jaws is thoroughly satisfying from first frame to last; if you sit through the entire end credits, you can actually see Brody and Hooper, far off in the distance, reach the safety of the shore.

Jaws earned three Oscars, one for Best Film Editing, another for its musical score, and a third for Best Sound. It was also nominated for Best Picture but lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Jaws has also earned lasting recognition across countless “greatest films” lists. The American Film Institute ranked it 48th on its 100 Years…100 Movies list in 1998 (later 56th in the 10th Anniversary edition), named its shark the 18th greatest movie villain and the film itself as the second greatest thriller, while Roy Scheider’s iconic line, "You're gonna need a bigger boat," landed at number 35 on their top 100 movie quotes. Empire magazine ranked Jaws the fifth-greatest film in history in 2008, with Quint at number 50 on its list of top movie characters, and has appeared on numerous other best-of lists compiled by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Total Film, Variety, and Leonard Maltin, cementing its status as a cultural and cinematic milestone. It’s also been named the eighth-best-edited film ever per the Motion Picture Editors Guild. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected Jaws for preservation in the National Film Registry, hailing it as a defining horror film and the original "summer blockbuster."

Spielberg’s talents surface

But most important to cinephiles, this is the work that solidified Steven Spielberg as a major filmmaking force: Jaws was his first big hit, propelling him to superstardom as a household name director, one who would go on to craft some of the biggest and best American movies of the next 50 years. Jaws benefits from his masterful direction, along with exemplary editing, a terrific screenplay, unforgettable characters, and stellar dialogue.

The director demonstrates bravura flourishes time and again in Jaws, but especially in cleverly shot and edited scenes along the beach at the start of Act II. Ponder the execution of this episode, where Brody sits nervously on the shore, watching bathers vigilantly. The camera pans left with one set of characters, then in the same shot reverses direction to follow characters walking the other way, a pattern Spielberg repeats. We see a blurry figure pass in front of Brody, totally eclipsing the frame, allowing Spielberg’s next shot to cut in closer to Brody – a technique repeated three times – suggesting increasing tension felt by the police chief. Spielberg shifts from shots of the bathers back to Brody and employs misdirection in the form of the older swimmer wearing a dark bathing cap that Brody – and the viewer – briefly believes is a shark. There’s an extreme close-up of a man addressing Brody on the right side of the frame, and a shouting swimmer behind and to the left of that man. The effect is that we, like Brody, are often distracted from lurking dangers in the water. Soon, we feel a pervading sensation of impending doom, ushered in by the ominous disappearance of the stick-fetching dog, followed by underwater shark POV shots of swimming and floating bodies. Amidst all the visual stimuli diverting our gaze, Mrs. Kitner’s young son is ravaged off in the distance, with no push-in, zoom-in, or cut to close-up of that attack. Then comes the famous Hitchcock Vertigo shot replication depicting Brody’s instant realization of this horror, achieved by having the camera suddenly zoom in on his face while simultaneously dollying the camera backward. The director’s cinematic prowess and command of visual storytelling are perhaps more apparent in this sequence than at any other point in the film.

This entire scene can be described as Hitchcockian “pure cinema,” in which the filmmakers allow relatively wordless visuals to efficiently propel the narrative. Another case in point: Brody thumbing through various shark literature featuring gruesome photos and drawings of predators and their victims.

Spielberg and his team devise clever underwater and bobbing camera shots – many of them POVs from the shark’s perspective that create wholly unsettling to outright terrifying visuals. Perhaps the most effectively frightening submerged sequence involves Hooper in the shark cage, which presents juxtaposing shots of the approaching and attacking shark with close-up images of the terrified diver; the image of the great white surprising him from behind the cage is pure nightmare fuel.

The filmmaker also deserves kudos for paring down the original Peter Benchley novel to its essential elements, casting aside subplots like Brody’s wife having an affair with Hooper while extending sequences like the shark hunt. Additionally, Spielberg purposely avoided casting any major recognizable stars, opting instead for more anonymous thespians whom audiences could better identify with. His superstar was going to be the Great White itself.

The burgeoning talent’s gift for conveying plausible family dynamics and capturing realistic slice-of-life moments between characters – amply evidenced in many Spielberg films to follow – is displayed in the improvised scene where Brody’s son imitates his dad’s every facial gesture and body movement at the dinner table, a wonderful little moment of verisimilitude and humor.

Roger Ebert admired Spielberg for continuing to “devote close attention to characters, instead of hurrying past them to the special effects, as so many 1990s f/x directors did. In Jaws and subsequently, he prefers mood to emotional bludgeoning, and one of the remarkable things about the picture is its relatively muted tone. The familiar musical theme by John Williams is not a shrieker, but low and insinuating. It’s often heard during point-of-view shots, at water level and below, that are another way Spielberg suggests the shark without showing it… The shark has been so thoroughly established, through dialogue and quasi-documentary material, that its actual presence is enhanced in our imaginations by all we’ve seen and heard.”

This Spielberg film is often most remembered for its major set pieces, haunting visuals, and widely quoted sequences. But don’t forget the many minor but equally masterful shots – often incredibly brief – that are a testament to his brilliance as a visual storyteller. For example, the image of Brody staring out of the window of the Orca, superimposed with reflections of the ocean waves; the slightly lingering shot of Quint’s machete glinting in the sun; and the gorgeous put gooseflesh-inducing graphic of the shark’s dorsal fin gliding through rippling water, backlit by the silvery evening sun.

Only 26 years old at the time of filming, Spielberg deserves infinite credit for improvising when necessary, keeping his cool when delays would frequently occur due to things like cameras becoming waterlogged and nearby boats drifting into his shots, and working around the frequent mechanical shark malfunctions-- undesirable circumstances that prolonged the shooting schedule from 55 days to 159 days. Unable to rely on his shark props, he often chose to imply the creature’s presence rather than show it outright. (He wasn’t alone: In the 1970s, several films with giant creature props faced significant breakdowns. The Land That Time Forgot (1975) had puppet dinosaurs that often broke down, while At the Earth’s Core (1976) struggled with cumbersome creature suits. The gigantic mechanical ape built for King Kong (1976) famously failed to work, slowing production. Food of the Gods (1976) featured malfunctioning oversized animal props, and Tentacles (1977) had issues with its killer octopus’s mechanical tentacles. Prophecy (1979) saw a mutant bear prop frequently malfunction, and Island of the Fishmen (1979) dealt with torn fish suits. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) also faced challenges with its ape makeup. These films showcase the technical difficulties of large creature effects before CGI became prevalent.)

In different interviews, Spielberg said: “I was pretty naive about mother nature, and the hubris of a filmmaker who thinks he can conquer the elements was foolhardy, but I was too young to know I was being foolhardy when I demanded that we shoot the film in the Atlantic Ocean and not in a North Hollywood tank.” "The shark not working was a godsend. It made me become more like Alfred Hitchcock than like Ray Harryhausen." "The more fake the shark looked in the water, the more my anxiety told me to heighten the naturalism of the performances." “Today, a digital shark would not break down… There’d be some nice interactive water explosions to marry the digital shark with the actual water. That’s all it would be. There would not have been a full-size shark. Therefore, the film would have been only half as effective. So I was saved by the breakdown in technology.”

Reviewer Richard Scheib seems to agree, writing: “Spielberg builds the menace of the shark up highly effectively. He crafts scares with a superb elegance. He sends the film barrelling at you one way and then playfully pulls back from what you think is about to happen – (like) the beach scene where a shark attacks children in a nearby inlet while everyone’s attention is diverted by children with a fake fin. The build-up is such that the audience is like putty when Spielberg pulls his actual jumps.”

An ocean of copycats

Consider that about 55 minutes elapse before you first see the shark. Spielberg continued the tradition – earlier established in major horror and sci-fi films like Frankenstein (1931), King Kong (1933), The Thing From Another World (1951), and Godzilla (1954) – where the monster isn’t shown until well into the story. This custom was copied in subsequent creature features, including Alien (1979), Tremors (1990), Jurassic Park (1993), and remakes of King Kong (2005) and Godzilla (2014).

Movies that were influenced by or outright attempted to copy the formula for Jaws are too numerous to mention, but the major coattail riders include Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), Grizzly (1976), Orca (1977), Tentacles (1977), The Deep (1977), Piranha (1978), Barracuda (1978), Alien (1979), Alligator (1980), Great White (1981), Monster Shark (1984), Deep Blood (1990), Deep Blue Sea (1999), the Sharknado film series (2013 – 2018), The Shallows (2016), 47 Meters Down (2017), and The Meg (2018). Jaws also spawned three inferior sequels between 1978 and 1987.

Jaws has been famously spoofed or referenced across pop culture and in several pictures, including The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), Saturday the 14th (1981), Spielberg’s 1941 (1979), Blood Beach (1980), Airplane! (1980), Caddyshack (1980), Kevin Smith’s Clerks (1994), Mallrats (1995), and Chasing Amy (1997), Blades (2001), Trees (2001), Open Water (2003), and Piranha 3D (2010).

Spielberg and company were inspired by a number of filmic and literary predecessors, including Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851), Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People (1882, which is also about a concerned townsperson who tries to warn citizens of a discovered danger), and Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952); monster and sci-fi films from the 1950s like The Thing from Another World (1951), It Came From Outer Space (1953), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Godzilla (1954), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), and The Monster That Challenged the World (1957); westerns such as The Searchers (1956) and Rio Bravo (1959); and Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). There are also a few early moments where the director invokes the style of Howard Hawks, with several characters cross-talking over one another.

Yes, this is a horror film

Only two years after The Exorcist, Jaws continued a new tradition of quality prestige horror and rejuvenated a timeless template for how creature features should be made. “Jaws is the rare monster movie that doesn’t idly mark time as we wait for the next big shock,” penned Slant Magazine critic Chuck Bowen. “The shark, effectively built up as an object of myth and obsession for the first half of the film, would be a crushing disappointment if it looked ‘real,’ something most contemporary monster movies, in their reliance on generic CG, seem to sadly fail to comprehend. The shark in Jaws is the shark of our collective worst nightmares, almost otherworldly in its enormity and texture. The shark can mean anything you want it to mean, or nothing, and that uncertainty epitomizes this movie’s lasting appeal.”

Next to Poltergeist, this has got to be the scariest and goriest PG-rated film in history, full stop. Jaws contains two of the finest jump scares in the horror canon: the severed head Hooper suddenly encounters in his underwater investigation, and the unexpected surfacing of the giant shark that precedes Brody’s “bigger boat” quote.

Jaws currently ranks tops in Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the 200 best horror films of all time and places second in the American Film Institute’s list of the best thrillers ever. It topped Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments, was named the sixth-scariest film ever by the Chicago Film Critics Association, and was voted the greatest film in the “Nature Bites Back” subgenre by listeners of the popular Evolution of Horror podcast.

Themes just below the surface

The primary message underpinning this aquatic thriller is victory of the common man. Jaws is essentially a triangular conflict between three representative types in society. The opposing points on the triangle are Quint, who characterizes real-world experience, superstition, and the past; Hooper, who embodies intellect, science, and the future; and Brody, who exemplifies inexperience, open-mindedness, and the present. Brody is the bridge between the past and future, the grizzled veteran and the upstart intellectual, old school versus new school. In this dynamic, Brody is destined to prevail against their shared adversary (the shark) because he can learn from the mistakes of the past, avoid hypermasculine tendencies and vengeful motivations, and deviate from Quint’s rigid dogma; also, he doesn’t rely on booksmarts, overconfidence, scientific skill, or privilege as Hooper does. Brody is a surrogate for the audience, epitomizing the common man who must use pluck, resourcefulness, courage, and determination to vanquish his foe, despite ironically having a phobia of the water. Film scholar Andrew Britton suggests that Brody’s success at the end of the film highlights how the actions of a single righteous individual can still serve as a meaningful force for social change. Spielberg also noted that Jaws was similar to his 1971 TV movie Duel in how both stories concerned “leviathans targeting everymen.”

Political corruption and capitalistic avarice is a more obvious thesis. It’s fitting that this narrative occurs over Independence Day, just a year removed from our country’s bicentennial. Slant Magazine’s Chuck Bowen insists that Spielberg and company “created a black parody of greed, studliness, and self-entitlement – in other words, a parody of America…(Jaws creates) a disconcerting portrait of America trying to stake its claim in a willful naïveté in the wake of all of the sobering events that define the country in the late 1960s to early 1970s: Watergate, Kent State, Vietnam, etc.” Interestingly, the only other villain in the story besides the great white is Mayor Vaughn, who insists on business as usual despite death and danger in his jurisdiction. This negative political depiction and whitewashing of the truth would have resonated with audiences in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Another thematic throughline? Defending your territory against an invading force. In Jaws, the shark isn’t the only intruder; there’s also the horde of tourists who descend upon Amity Island for their annual summertime recreational ritual. The Ringer’s Adam Nayman argues that “Jaws reroutes the trajectories and themes of classics like Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – cautionary tales in which outsiders venturing into the Old Weird America get what’s coming to them via human monsters who’d be better left undisturbed. In Spielberg’s film, the great white is the outsider, constituting a threat that’s at once thoroughly existential and a matter of nickel-and-dime economics. What the shark and Amity’s ruling class have in common is the need for a steady food supply: The visitors who swarm into town on ferries, slathered in sunscreen with fanny packs full of disposable income, are just chum in the water.”

No stink on this old fish

Jaws is the gift to film fans that keeps on giving. Among the numerous nicely wrapped packages it presents to viewers is how it serves as two movies in one, with the first half focused on the terror inflicted on a small community, and the second half a gripping adventure-thriller featuring three men pitted against a monster from hell. Another present is how it so effectively presents the point of view of the underwater predator closing in on its prey near the surface. Birthday and Christmas is rolled into one in the form of the best scene in the movie, which is not an action or horror moment but a simple sequence featuring a really good actor using his own jaws – Robert Shaw delivering his harrowing shipwreck story just before he dies. There’s the serendipitous fact that we don’t even see the shark up close until more than halfway through the film, and sparingly after that, primarily because the mechanical shark Spielberg was relying on kept breaking down – yet that proves fortuitous because not seeing the shark builds intrigue and suspense.

But topping all these fabulous gifts is Spielberg himself, who comes of age while making Jaws and irrefutably validates his gift for cinematic storytelling as well as his dexterity when creative pivoting was required on this trying shoot. Spielberg fostered an environment for several happy accidents to happen. Consider, for example, that the original screenplay called for the shark to kill Hooper in the underwater cage; however, the footage of real sharks that a separate team shot in South Australia didn’t show man-eaters actually ripping apart a dummy, which would have been required. Using this spectacular underwater footage from down under saved Hooper’s character. Also, after Universal refused to foot the bill for a reshoot of the underwater sequence where Hooper encounters the severed head, Spielberg spent $3,000 out of his own pocket to ensure that reshoot, bestowing one of the great jump scares on the world.

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Cineversary podcast celebrates 50th anniversary of Jaws

Ben Mankiewicz and James Kendrick

In Cineversary podcast episode #83, host ⁠Erik Martin⁠ takes a deep dive to search for the perfect summertime thriller and finds it in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, which celebrates a 50th anniversary this month. Accompanying him on this voyage is TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, and Baylor University film professor James Kendrick, author of Darkness in the Bliss-Out: A Reconsideration of the Films of Steven Spielberg. Together, they explore how Jaws marked a sea change in cinema, dissect the elements that make it a masterwork, hunt for key themes, and much more.

To listen to this episode, click here or click the "play" button on the embedded streaming player below. Or, you can stream, download, or subscribe to Cineversary wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Learn more about the Cineversary podcast at www.cineversary.com and email show comments or suggestions to cineversarypodcast@gmail.com

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A man of the cloth must choose hope or despair

If you enjoy films with ambiguous endings, deep philosophical themes, and perplexing characters, First Reformed, directed and written by Paul Schrader (the guy who wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), is your kind of picture. It’s a meditative, minimalist exploration of hope, despair, and personal redemption, centering on Reverend Ernst Toller, played by Ethan Hawke – a troubled minister at a small, historic church in upstate New York. Toller is grieving the loss of his son and wrestling with his fading faith when a young woman named Mary (Amanda Seyfried) seeks his help for her husband, Michael (Philip Ettinger). Michael is an environmental activist overwhelmed by despair over climate change and corporate greed, and his worldview begins to deeply affect Toller, setting him on a path of growing radicalization and inner turmoil.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of First Reformed, conducted last week, click here (if you get an error message, simply refresh the page).

The narrative begins with an absorbing premise: the meeting between Toller and Michael, in which fascinating ethical dilemmas are discussed. The dialogue exchanged here is expertly written and enthralling; however, our expectations that this will be a film focused on Michael’s conundrum of whether or not the pregnancy will be terminated are quickly upended after (SPOILERS AHEAD) Michael kills himself relatively early in the film.

Schrader makes some curious directorial choices, including the scene where Mary lies atop him and he enters a transcendental state of consciousness that shifts from tranquil visions of majestic nature to hellish imagery of environmental destruction. Consider, as well, the abrupt ending of the film, which suddenly cuts to black in the middle of a passionate kiss. Schrader also adopts a geometric aesthetic that harkens to the films of Ozu; recall how faces are often isolated in the center of the frame, for example.

Interestingly, Schrader chooses to shoot in old school Academy aspect ratio (1.33:1), explaining this framing as driving “the vertical lines, to get more of the human body in the frame.” It’s further evidence that he’s embracing a more classical approach to cinema reminiscent of past masters like Bresson, Dreyer, Bergman, and Ozu. Schrader invokes many of these master filmmakers in his 1972 book Transcendental Style in Film.

Slant magazine critic Greg Cwik found Schrader's direction intriguing, writing: “Invidious, at times startlingly beautiful, and at others startlingly ugly, it encapsulates Schrader’s cinematic philosophies, the testament of a man who worships film. It’s a churlish and controlled film, suffused with dolor yet agleam with the prospect of hope, each assiduous and apoplectic composition as neat and orderly as the garments Toller adjusts during his morning routine.”

What’s this film trying to tell us? First Reformed examines the conflict between spiritual belief and real-world existential calamity, a crisis of conscience in which a priest increasingly questions what he believes and supports, choosing to become a radicalized man of action instead of a man of words. Toller is torn between his responsibility to his church – which has become a corporatized entity funded by a right-wing, planet-polluting plutocrat – and his scruples, which eventually win out. Likewise, Michael’s moral quandary is explored, forcing the viewer to confront the question of whether it is irresponsible to bring a new child into a presumably doomed world.

The movie repeatedly challenges us, as it does Toller, to confront ecological morality – the grave reality of global warming, environmental pollution, and our responsibility as a species for destroying the planet.

Depending on how you interpret the ending, a major takeaway is that love can triumph over fear, anger, and self-destruction. Toller is driven to take up Michael’s cause after he commits suicide, embracing violence and terrorism as well as disregarding his worsening health. But Mary’s increasing presence in his life – especially just before he is preparing to become a suicide bomber – apparently changes his trajectory. Watching them kiss and embrace passionately in the final shot suggests that love and compassion will prevail and provide hope to both Toller and Mary. On the other hand, it’s equally likely that Toller has ingested the drain cleaner poison and only imagines Mary embracing him before he dies or experiences it as a heavenly afterlife vision.

First Reform is, of course, also about the corrosive power of grief, guilt, and deep personal loss. Toller’s life was shattered after his child was killed in the Iraq war – which the father encouraged the son to fight in – and his wife divorced him. Since that time, Toller has become more ascetic, isolated, and hyper-focused on his mission for the church and, later, his mission to honor Michael’s environmental activism, destroying his health with alcohol. His behaviors are likely fueled by a conscious or unconscious inclination toward self-sabotage. Ironically, he’s polluting his body just as human beings are polluting the Earth.

Similar works

• The works of Robert Bresson, including Diary of a Country Priest (1951) – in which an isolated clergyman grapples with faith and despair; and The Devil, Probably (1977, Robert Bresson) – about disaffected youth facing spiritual and societal nihilism
• Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock) – also featuring a 360° camera circle around two kissing lovers
• Winter Light (1963, Ingmar Bergman) – existential crisis of a pastor in a bleak moral landscape
• Le Samouraï (1967, Jean-Pierre Melville) – solitary, ascetic character moving toward inevitable doom
• Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese) – lonely, disturbed protagonist on a moral descent
• Works by Yasujiro Ozu (various) – meditative, restrained studies of human isolation and spiritual quiet
• Works by Carl Theodor Dreyer (various) – austere, deeply spiritual cinema grappling with faith and mortality
• Silence (2016, Martin Scorsese) – faith tested under suffering and doubt
• Calvary (2014, John Michael McDonagh) – priest faces spiritual crisis and threats in a hostile community
• A Ghost Story (2017, David Lowery) – meditative, minimalist reflection on existence and legacy

Other works by Paul Schrader

• Taxi Driver (1976) – writer
• Hardcore (1979) – director and writer
• Raging Bull (1980) – co-writer
• American Gigolo (1980) – director, writer
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) – director, co-writer
• Light Sleeper (1992) – director, writer
• Affliction (1997) – director, writer
• Auto Focus (2002) – director

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