We've become a race of Peeping Toms. Rear Window proves it.

Let’s come right out and say it: Rear Window is probably not only Alfred Hitchcock’s most widely beloved work, but it could also be his greatest cinematic achievement. That may sound like heresy among critics, scholars, and filmmakers who participate in the Sight and Sound poll every decade and frequently anoint Vertigo as the master’s crown jewel. But truth be told, Rear Window checks a lot more boxes for a lot more people.

Originally released on August 4, 1954, Rear Window tells the story of L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies, a professional photographer confined to a wheelchair in his apartment after breaking his leg. Bored and immobilized, Jeff (James Stewart) begins to spy on his neighbors through his back window, becoming increasingly convinced that one of them, Lars Thorwald (Raymond burr), has murdered his wife. As he delves deeper into his suspicions, enlisting the help of his girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) and his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter), the tension mounts, leading to a suspenseful climax that puts Jeff's life at risk.

Click here to listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Rear Window, conducted earlier this month; to hear the latest Cineversary podcast episode that celebrates Rear Window’s 70th anniversary, click here.

Rear Window is often ranked among the greatest films ever made. The American Film Institute included Rear Window as number 42 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, number 14 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills, number 48 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition), and number three in AFI's 10 Top 10 (Mysteries). In 1998, Time Out magazine conducted a poll, and the film was voted the 21st greatest of all time. In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made, Rear Window was ranked 53rd among critics and 48th among directors. In 2017, Empire magazine's readers' poll placed Rear Window at No. 72 on its list of The 100 Greatest Movies. The 2022 edition of the magazine's Greatest Films of All Time list ranked the film 38th in the critics poll. Additionally, in 2022, Time Out magazine ranked the film at No. 26 on their list of "The 100 Best Thriller Films of All Time."

When evaluating the specific elements that elevate Rear Window from a great movie to an all-time masterpiece, consider that it satisfies on multiple levels: serving as thrilling popcorn movie escapism, a mystery thriller in which you, like Jeff, try to piece together clues to solve a crime and catch a killer, and a meta film study of the way we the audience watch movies and engage in an active voyeurism as Jeff does. The film also benefits enormously from efficient storytelling. Much of its power lies in its ability to show with telling; to use images and what they call “pure cinema” to convey its narrative visually, without having to resort to unnecessary or lengthy exposition via dialogue or narration.

Hitchcock's best works often employ pure cinema techniques, including the use of masterfully framed visuals, careful juxtapositions via editing, and creative sound design to provide information to the viewer that would otherwise be given via excessively talky dialogue or voiceover narration. Despite its confined setting, subjective point of view, and lack of dialogue, Rear Window fully exploits the power of pure cinema and its ability to provide an immersive and intelligent experience and evoke a strong emotional response better than virtually any other art form.

Exhibit A: The opening shots, which, without any dialogue or actors, immediately establish the situation, characters, and atmosphere in short order. We begin with a title sequence over a window whose blinds rise to reveal a courtyard and the apartments within. The camera pans across the courtyard, showing various residents and their activities, then shifts to Jeff's apartment, where details like a thermometer, his leg in a cast, and scattered photographic equipment hint at his profession and injury. The sequence concludes by returning to Jeff's view from the window, emphasizing his perspective and foreshadowing his voyeuristic role.

Exhibit B: Scenes where Jeff is spying on his neighbors and observing what he believes to be suspicious behavior. Instead of using dialogue to explain Jeff's suspicions, Hitchcock relies on a series of visual cues. The camera frequently shifts to Jeff’s point of view through his binoculars or camera lens, allowing the audience to see exactly what he sees. This visual perspective builds tension and conveys his growing suspicion without verbal explanation. Through close-ups and wide shots, we observe the neighbors' actions and interactions, such as the mysterious man packing a trunk or the woman in the apartment across the courtyard who seems distressed. These visuals create a narrative of intrigue and suspicion based on Jeff’s observations. Jeff’s reactions to these observations, including his increasingly concerned expressions and the frantic use of his photographic equipment, convey his emotional state and the seriousness of his suspicions without needing explicit dialogue. This visual storytelling effectively immerses us in Jeff’s experience and the unfolding mystery, demonstrating Hitchcock’s skill in using imagery to advance the plot and build suspense.

Consider, too, what the film accomplishes with masterful tension techniques but without using any visible corpses, gore, or graphic violence. Hitchcock earns our attention and conjures feelings of unease, dread, and even horror by suggesting and organically building suspense.

Nearly the entire film is shown from Jeff’s point of view. Consequently, we identify with Jeff, who is immobile, and—except for only a few shots—we only see and hear what he sees and hears, making us complicit in his voyeurism. Even though what Jeff is doing is morally wrong and against the law, which makes him a less-than-admirable character, he still earns our undivided attention and serves as a reliable, identifiable audience surrogate.

By presenting Jeff as an injured and immobile captive spectator whose snooping and suspicions of Thorwald prove correct, which makes him a hero of sorts, Hitchcock not only skirts the censors of this era who would have required Jeff to be punished for these voyeuristic sins but also makes this character a likable protagonist we can root for today. (Consider how Jeff is punished, in a way, by ending up with two broken legs by the conclusion.)

With perhaps one exception—the scene where he falls asleep as Thorwald and an unidentified female leave his apartment—we learn things as Jeff learns them, making us dependent on his voyeurism to ascertain new information. Additionally, almost every scene of the film is shown from inside Jeff’s apartment, adding to the claustrophobia and dependence we have on his POV.

Our protagonist isn’t the typical Hitchcock “wrong man accused” or person tangled up in dangerous affairs like Cary Grant in “North by Northwest.” Salon critic Charles Taylor wrote: “He’s not personally involved in the crime. He isn’t horrified or frightened, or motivated by a sense of justice or outrage over a woman’s death; he’s turned on, which is made a bit too obvious by his use of a huge, phallic zoom lens to do his peeping.”

Rear Window also capably demonstrates Hitchcock’s great talent for audience manipulation. Case in point: You could argue that he makes us sympathize ever so slightly with the murdering husband by showing him at first being berated by her and, later, confronting Jeff by asking “What do you want from me?” as if he’s protesting the spying on him that Jeff and the audience have been doing.

The movie also exhibits Hitchcock's adept use of Kuleshov's theories on how editing shapes perception. Kuleshov, a Russian film theorist, illustrated that an actor's neutral expression could convey various emotions depending on the juxtaposed images. By alternating between shots of what Stewart sees (or thinks he sees) and his reactions, Hitchcock involves the audience in Stewart's voyeurism and emotional experience, transforming them into active participants in the story.

As in three of his earlier films—Dial M for Murder, Rope, and Lifeboat—the director confines the narrative primarily to a single set or location, in this case Jeff’s apartment. But unlike those latter two films, he isn’t afraid to break this rule here by bringing the camera outside the apartment and presenting closer shots of surrounding characters, such as when the dog owner chastises her neighbors after her pet is found dead or the close-up flashes of the neighbors we observe looking up at Jeff and Thorwald tussling.

While Hitch was already famous for memorable, protracted, and stylized kissing scenes between male and female leads in his films—as evidenced in Notorious and Dial M for Murder—here he gives us a dreamy, sensual slow-motion osculation between Kelly and Stewart. The execution is brilliant, as we first see Jeff in evening slumber next to his window; a shadow engulfs his face, and the camera cuts to an encroaching Lisa, radiantly adorned as she looks and smiles directly at the viewer, coming ever closer. Her approaching presence and overwhelming shadow seem to awaken Jeff, and she leans in for a sultry, slow-mo smooch in which those full, puckered lips punctuate the nighttime silence.

This could be Hitchcock’s most perfectly realized and airtight masterpiece. It doesn’t suffer from plot holes or crime implausibilities as Vertigo does; the female love interest has more gravitas and is more memorable than Eva Marie Saint’s character in North by Northwest; there’s no unnecessary scene like the psychobabble explanation tacked on to the end of Psycho; and the incredible set is more impressive than the set for Rope.

In fact, this was the largest and most elaborate and ambitious set Hitchcock—or Paramount Studios—had ever created. It included a full-scale courtyard and the rear facades of the surrounding apartments, replicating an authentic urban environment. The set measured approximately 98 feet wide, 185 feet long, and 40 feet high, with buildings reaching seven stories tall. This impressive scale enabled Hitchcock to achieve the film's distinctive visual style and maintain a high level of realism.

Another way Rear Window was innovative was in its extensive use of diegetic sound, with all audio originating within the film's environment; this immerses the audience in the protagonist's experience, enhancing the story's realism and immediacy. Reflect on how little music there is in the film. Mostly, we hear those sounds and songs that the characters generate and experience, not a traditional score. The ingenious sound design forces us to listen closely to faint, far-off noises and words coming from across the courtyard. Yes, music was written exclusively for the film, but veteran Hollywood composer Franz Waxman wove much of his score into the sound design to be played as background music heard by the characters.

An ideal cast further elevates Rear Window to the Hitchcock upper echelon. James Stewart, granted, is slightly too old for this part, but he interestingly plays a bit against type here; he established a likable guy screen persona in the 1930s and 1940s that begins to reveal a darker side by the late 1940s, and Hitchcock capitalizes on the actor’s range. Kelly is transcendently luminous in this role and, despite being about 20 years younger than Stewart, demonstrates palpable sex appeal and chemistry with her co-lead.

But perhaps the unsung hero among these thespians is Thelma Ritter as Jeff’s candid caretaker, who serves as a pseudo voice of conscience with lines like “We've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change,” and “The New York State sentence for a Peeping Tom is six months in the workhouse…And they got no windows in the workhouse.”

Among the films that could owe a debt to Rear Window are Peeping Tom (1960), Wait Until Dark (1967), The Bride Wore Black (1968), Night Watch (1973), The Conversation (1974), Someone’s Watching Me! (1978), Foul Play (1978), Blow Out (1981), Body Double (1984), The Bedroom Window (1987), Sliver (1993), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Abominable (2006), Disturbia (2007), Stalked by My Neighbor (2015), The Woman in the Window (2021), The Voyeurs (2021), Watcher (2022), and Kimi (2022). There was also the mediocre 1998 TV movie remake starring Christopher Reeve.

Writing that it reveled “in the simultaneity of the 8 million stories in the Naked City,” The Village Voice’s J. Hoberman credited Rear Window with being “the slyly alienated precursor of multiple narratives like Short Cuts or Magnolia.” The scene in No Country For Old Men where Llewelyn sits in the dark and awaits Chigurh—steadily approaching outside Llewelyn’s door—takes a cue or two from the scene in Rear Window where Jeff, sitting helplessly in the shadows, nervously anticipates Thorwald coming to his door.

Predecessors that may have influenced Rear Window include Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), The Window (1949), and Witness to Murder (1954).

Fun fact: Taylor Swift has referenced "Rear Window" multiple times, wearing a dress inspired by Edith Head's design for Grace Kelly in the "Me!" music video and citing the film's voyeuristic themes as an influence on her album Folklore.

The major message of Rear Window is fear of love and commitment. The murder mystery element of the story serves as the MacGuffin to propel the narrative, but ultimately it’s not the important takeaway here; this movie is all about Jeff and Lisa learning to coexist, compromise, and not take each other for granted. Jeff is an adventurous, widely traveled photographer who values his independence and possesses a cautious, cynical nature. He doubts that he and Lisa would be compatible long-term and, therefore, doesn’t reciprocate much affection with her.

Per Roger Ebert: “He is in love with the occupation of photography, and becomes completely absorbed in reconstructing the images he has seen through his lens. He wants what he can spy at a distance, not what he can hold in his arms.”

Lisa, by contrast, appears deeply in love with Jeff and is determined to make their relationship work. Lisa steps out of her comfort zone and actively participates in Jeff's investigation, proving her dedication and capability. She evolves from a seemingly superficial character into a brave and resourceful partner, taking on risky tasks that Jeff cannot perform. This shift demonstrates her adaptability and depth, moving beyond her initial portrayal as a glamorous socialite.

“When Lisa goes into the murderer's apartment, the proof she finds of his crime is his wife's wedding ring, which she places on her finger and points to for the benefit of the watching Jeff,” wrote Jeremy Arnold, Rob Nixon, and Jeff Stafford in a collective article for TCM. “On one level, she's letting him know she found the vital clue; on another, she's challenging him (now that she's "proved" herself) to stop coming up with excuses and marry her.”

By showing courage, intelligence, and a willingness to engage with Jeff's world, Lisa bridges the gap between their differing lifestyles. As a result, Jeff starts to appreciate her qualities and reconsiders his reservations about their relationship, realizing the value of her companionship and support.

Every couple or individual in each different apartment window presents a different take on relationships and love or lack thereof, each commenting in a way about Jeff’s relationship with Lisa. Jeff doesn’t want to commit to Lisa; yet he sees things in many of his neighbors that mirror his feelings for or fears about her. Ponder, for example how Thorwald is irritated by a disabled, nagging spouse, and Jeff suspects Thorwald of murdering his wife—possibly a bit of subconscious wish fulfillment in Jeff's yearning to be free of Lisa.

John Belton, author of the book Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, wrote: “A common reading of the film views Jeff as a spectator figure and what he sees out his window as a screen upon which his own desires are projected…Thorwald functions as Jeff’s Id and the murder as the projection of Jeff’s unconscious desires to rid himself of Lisa...Jeff undergoes an Aristotlean catharsis that purges his fears about marriage…he has symbolically exorcised the demon within himself.”

Meanwhile, the newlyweds are copulating like rabbits; if Jeff’s broken leg is a symbol of impotence, perhaps he wishes he could be as virile and active as the newlywed husband and fears being able to perform with Lisa; to compensate for his impotence, Jeff uses an ostentatiously huge telephoto lens, a phallic symbol. And the itches he needs to scratch are like sudden sexual urges that—ahem—need release, if you know what I mean.

Ms. Torso stands as a voluptuous object of desire who enjoys wearing less clothing, contrasting with Lisa, a glamorous fashionista who adores clothing. Yet she and the other neighbors are mostly strangers to one another, disconnected and isolated from each other despite living nearby. Charles Taylor of Salon.com posited: “It isn’t peeping that’s on trial here as much as the propensity of human beings to detach themselves from one another. The backyard world of "Rear Window" isn't a neighborhood -- merely a collection of people living in close proximity.”

Rear Window also ruminates heavily on voyeurism, scopophilia, and the practice of watching people as well as watching movies, television, or an entertainment screen. Window frames, hallways, and door frames symbolize the cinematic frame, as if each of these were a private movie choice for Jeff and the audience. Thorwald breaks this escapist viewing fantasy by figuratively stepping out of the screen, crossing that framing threshold, and literally trespassing into Jeff’s private world. Francois Truffaut surmised that “The courtyard is the world, the reporter/photographer is the filmmaker, the binoculars stand for the camera and its lenses."

Alternate Ending blogger Tim Brayton likened the window watching to “the prurient voyeurism of watching television: of sitting in your living room, bored out of your goddamned mind, blandly glancing from one square-shaped window on human beings framed in medium shots to the next, hoping that one of them will contain at least some amount of sex or violence…how that habit of treating humanity as nothing but spectacle, fodder to keep yourself distracted from your own life, can end up turning into something very grisly and unpleasant.”

Ultimately, this is a film “about a man who does on the screen what we do in the audience—look through a lens at the private lives of strangers,” wrote Roger Ebert.

Consider that Jeff and Lisa are so captivated by their own private cinema—watching Thorwald’s apartment—that they almost allow a nearby tenant to kill herself; later, Jeff can do little but watch as he sees Lisa threatened by Thorwald.

Big takeaway #3? The dark side of human nature may be closer than you think. Rear Window insinuates that even our next-door neighbors or the individuals in our community we would least suspect have a darkness within them: one of these nearby residents is a Peeping Tom; another is a cold-blooded killer. This latent darkness is exemplified by the shadows we continue to see fall across Jeff’s face. We observe how his visage becomes shaded when, for example, he wheels in and out of the light during his spying, when Lisa leans in upon his waking figure for a kiss, or when Thorwald enters Jeff’s apartment. Even Lisa casts a suggestively ominous shadow upon the ceiling.

“(Rear Window is) about the subterranean darkness beneath the surface of our lives, the world that few see…Beneath its surface, the film is a tense examination of the way we really are. It's not a flattering portrait,” according to reviewer D.K. Holm. “There is, in fact, one undeniable reflection of Jeffries among all his neighbors: Thorwald. Besides Jeffries, he's the only other person in the film who looks intensely out his back window at his neighbors.” This implies that Jeff and Thorwald are opposite sides of the same problematic coin.

Human behavior is unpredictable, the film further teaches us. Recall how Miss Lonelyhearts prepares to commit suicide, Miss Torso ultimately chooses a nerdy, smaller man, Thorwald kills his wife and a dog, and Jeff’s supposedly delicate socialite girlfriend defies expectations by breaking into Thorwald’s apartment.

What is Rear Window’s greatest gift to viewers? As beneficiaries of Rear Windows’s substantial cinematic largesse, there are many valuable gifts we can point to. First, this has got to be the finest film ever created about the allure and dangers of voyeurism and the slippery slope that starts with relatively harmless distanced observing but can quickly devolve into active spying and surveillance of privacy rights-violated human beings. Just because Jeff’s suspicions about his shady neighbor prove correct doesn’t mean his methods for outing the evil are ethically acceptable. Hitchcock cleverly implicates every viewer watching Jeff watching others by making us as intrigued as Jeff is and forgiving of his actions, including using binoculars, a telephoto lens, the telephone, anonymous notes, and vulnerable trespassing surrogates like Lisa and Stella. Recall, too, how, even though he correctly recruits his detective crony to investigate, Jeff encourages violating constitutional rights and forgoing a search warrant. There have been countless classics that have creatively explored voyeuristic themes and plots—including Blow Out, Blue Velvet, Peeping Tom, The Conversation, Blow-Up, The Truman Show, The Lives of Others, and One-Hour Photo—but Rear Window tops them. That’s because Hitchcock knows how to best manipulate his audience and make them complicit in this spying as well as tolerant of a sympathetic yet deviant protagonist.

Rear Window’s second greatest gift? Not so secretly, it’s about sex, sex, and more sex: healthy, normal, and society-approved fornication as practiced by the newlyweds, exhibitionistic titillation evoked by Miss Torso upon any heterosexual male who lays eyes upon her, disturbing assault perpetrated upon Miss Lonelyhearts by her lascivious younger date—a cautionary reminder that violence often accompanies sex—and urbane seductiveness in the irresistible form of Lisa, who can fuel desire even with a tiny gesture or a perfectly delivered double entendre like “a preview of coming attractions.” Perhaps the most sensual shot in the film is not the lean-in kiss she awakens Jeff with but later—when the camera hovers across the courtyard, flitting from the half-naked composer to a presumably nude Miss Torso brushing her hair, past the drawn shade of the newlyweds’ bedroom and quickly over to Jeff and Lisa, embraced in a hot and heavy makeout session. Of all the suggestive portals in this scene or any others in the film, the lusty camera stops channel surfing for sex and finally and quickly lands upon the epicenter of eroticism in this entire community: Jeff’s own window. Turns out the most interesting people of all to spy on are the voyeurs themselves, one of whom wants to focus on healthy sex in the here and now and the preoccupied other who gets his kicks from watching strangers and living dangerously.

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Cineversary podcast marks 70th birthday of Hitchcock's Rear Window with Josh Larsen & Patrick McGilligan

Patrick McGilligan and Josh Larsen

In Cineversary podcast episode #73, host Erik Martin marks the 70th anniversary of perhaps Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest work: Rear Window. Joining him for this installment is Patrick McGilligan, author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light and an adjunct professor of film at Marquette University; and Josh Larsen, co-host of the Filmspotting podcast and author of Fear Not! A Christian Appreciation of Horror. Together, they take a telephoto lens to this movie and explore the craftmanship and thematic brilliance of Rear Window and its lasting influence.

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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From Worst Person to best modern romcom

Want a 21st-century romcom done right? Look overseas, to Norway in particular, and the talents of director Joachim Trier, who helmed The Worst Person in the World in 2021. Starring Renate Reinsve as Julie, alongside Anders Danielsen Lie as Aksel and Herbert Nordrum as Eivind, it chronicles the life of a young woman in her late twenties navigating the complexities of love, career, and identity in contemporary Oslo. Over four years, Julie explores different paths in her search for meaning and fulfillment while dealing with significant personal and romantic challenges.

Reinsve's performance garnered particular praise, earning her the Best Actress award at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Trier's direction, along with the screenplay co-written with Eskil Vogt, was celebrated for its depth, wit, and emotional resonance. The film's honest depiction of the uncertainties and contradictions of modern life, especially regarding relationships and personal growth, struck a chord with many viewers, and the movie’s visual style and inventive narrative structure were recognized for their artistic merit.

Click here to listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of this film, conducted last week.

The Worst Person in the World is a refreshing take on an overdone subgenre because it refuses to slip into cliches or predictable patterns we’d expect of millennial characters or manic pixie dream girls (the kind which you’d find in pictures like 500 Days of Summer, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Garden State, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). It boasts a smart screenplay filled with realistic relationship dialogue and a narrative that diverges in ways we don’t expect. “If some films look to revivify a formula rather than reinvent the wheel, The Worst Person in the World may be the prime example of how to restore fun, significance, and even a little bit of sex to the well-worn terrain of the romantic comedy,” per Pat Brown and Derek Smith of Slant.

The narrative is bookended by a prologue and epilogue and divided into 12 curiously titled chapters, making the story play cinematically as a kind of book adaptation. The film also sporadically utilizes a third-person voiceover narrator who wryly and sardonically comments on the action or Julie’s internal world.

Worst Person features two wonderful fantasy sequences: One in which Julie experiences the hallucinogenic effects of mushrooms, and another where she imagines a perfect day spent with Eivind while everyone else is in suspended animation. The filmmakers also employ a montage sidebar in which we learn about Julie’s female ancestors. These sequences demonstrate how to infuse visual and emotional creativity into a contemporary romcom.

The title is interesting. We hear Eivind briefly refer to himself as “the worst person in the world,” but we know that he nor Julie fit that description (recall that they don’t technically cheat on their former partners). Still, it’s a moniker that suggests self-doubt, blame, and—because we don’t believe Julie to be the world’s worst human being—irony.

The film’s obvious strength is, of course, Reinsve in the main role, who is breathtakingly believable, vibrant, and magnetic, exuding a joie de vivre that’s undeniable and effortlessly expressing a range of emotions throughout the film. But the biggest scene stealer is perhaps Lie as Aksel, especially in the park scene after his cancer diagnosis, when he reveals much to Julie in a heart-crushing soliloquy.

Worst Person tells us not to be afraid to change lanes in life. Julie often changes her mind on careers, relationships, and life goals like whether or not she wants a family. While she can read as impulsive, flighty, or non-committal, this character embodies the concerns millennials and young adults today have with making the right choice in a world full of multiple options and avoiding the status quo or playing it too safe. Earlier, Julie says she feels “like a spectator in my own life,” which motivates her to think outside the box.

Choosing to live your best life and write your own story despite the consequences is another significant message. The Worst Person in the World preaches staying true to yourself and shaping your life’s narrative, especially while you’re still young, as opposed to letting society or tradition dictate your fate. It’s also about being willing to take risks that could lead to regret, disappointment, or ennui or that could result in greater happiness and fulfillment. Film critic Carlos Aguilar wrote: “For our transient time here—an inharmonious symphony of beginnings and conclusions, small triumphs and big disillusions, all without a grand design—perhaps the plans that fell through, Julie’s and ours, don’t matter as much. The value is in the bravery to see the crumbles of a former dream or a past relationship and still try again in earnest from scratch; to be aware that the same mistakes may come along and that growing pains may never vanish, to embrace that we are on nobody’s timeline but our own.”

Vox reviewer Alissa Wilkinson posited a similar takeaway. “Living well is hard, and sometimes you make mistakes, and the reasons might have less to do with you than with the infinite plethora of options the world presents to you,” she wrote. “If we’re lucky, life bestows choices upon us from our youth, but we’re rarely equipped with tools to tell which choice is best, or whether there’s even a best choice to make. It’s an existential dilemma unique to our time: presented with infinite prospects, yet paralyzed by the possibilities they represent. Choosing one thing or person or future means rejecting something else — an action, philosophers note, that can provoke a lot of angst. It’s enough to make you feel like the worst person in the world.”

Lastly, the film reminds us that life is short, fleeting, and unpredictable. The sudden terminal illness of Julie’s former lover Aksel reminds her of this truism, as does the happenchance return of Eivind into her life.

Similar works

• The films of Woody Allen
• Frances Ha
• Jules and Jim
• Amelie
• The Before trilogy
• While We’re Young
• Marriage Story
• Obvious Child
• Reprise
• In the Mood For Love

Other films by Joachim Trier

• Reprise (2006)
• Oslo, August 31st (2011)
• Louder Than Bombs (2015)
• Thelma (2017)
• The Other Munch (2018)

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From highness to lowness

Set over three days during the Christmas holidays in 1991, Spencer portrays Princess Diana's decision to end her marriage to Prince Charles. The film, directed by Pablo Larraín, written by Steven Knight, and released in U.S. theaters in late 2021, focuses on her existential crisis as Diana (played by Kristen Stewart) grapples with the constraints and expectations placed upon her by the royal family. The cast also includes Jack Farthing as Charles, Prince of Wales, Sally Hawkins as Maggie, Timothy Spall as Major Alistair Gregory, and Sean Harris as Darren.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Spencer, conducted in mid-July, click here.

Spencer offers a more intimate and speculative look at Diana's life, focusing on a brief yet impactful period using a blend of factual and fictionalized elements. This is, right up front, called “a fable from a true tragedy,” and should be interpreted as such. Spencer is not intended as a bullseye-accurate biopic; it’s more of a reimagining of the not-so-secret consternation that Princess Di reportedly experienced before separating from Charles—much like director Andrew Dominik presented an alternate take on Marilyn Monroe and her inner turmoil in the 2022 film Blonde.

In sometimes unsubtle ways, Spencer veers into metaphoric flights of fantasy, as evidenced by several dream and imagination sequences that are not to be taken literally. Examples include Diana breaking her pearls during dinner and chewing on one of them, which doesn’t actually happen; a shot in which we see a self-inflicted cut that quickly disappears; and the princess embracing in a desperate hug who we think is Maggie only to learn that it’s a different servant.

Often, the filmmakers use obvious on-the-nose visuals to make thematic statements. Cases in point: Diana’s obsession with the old scarecrow, itself a symbol of loneliness and abandonment; quickly alternating shots of her walking in Ann Boleyn’s clothing and her own attire; her dropping of the billiard ball in front of Charles; and her donning of an OPP hat (short for “other people’s property”).

The score by Radiohead’s Johhny Greenwood, with its unnerving jazzy movements and screechy strings, creates an effective aural landscape of brooding uncertainty and rising tension.

The movie ends somewhat surprisingly on an upbeat note, as we see Diana temporarily abscond with her children and enjoy a getaway moment punctuated by a cheesy but appropriate pop song and greasy fried chicken. Instead of continuing to hammer us with ominous foreshadowing of her inevitable death or doubling down on depressing moments, Spencer concludes with a reminder that the late princess deserves to be remembered as a more rounded human being who was decidedly different from the royalty she married into.

It’s hard to overlook the “woman held prisoner in a gilded cage” trope, which constitutes most of the thematic weight of the film. Diana lives a life graced with unparalleled wealth and privilege, but suffers an existential crisis of captivity, claustrophobia, and lack of agency—feeling unloved, lonely, and stifled. But Spencer is also a treatise on rebellion against authority, tradition, and expectation. The princess is constantly seeking escape from the rigid restrictions and conventions of the royal family, and she repeatedly breaks the rules surrounding schedules, boundaries, regal etiquette, and decorum.

The picture also suggests that, although Diana would appear to be powerless, her nonconformity and small acts of agency represent a concerning threat to the nobility’s established order. New Republic critic Jo Livingstone wrote: “By letting Diana misbehave in such picturesque fashion, Larraín makes the idea of “princessiness” a source of alarming power…Always dissatisfied, like the princess who was so sensitive to a pea under her mattresses. A beautiful outsider, like Cinderella. A subversive princess who threatens the crown through her blood claim on her sons, like Mary, Queen of Scots. A girl who finds her own strength from within, and bucks convention’s chains, like Elsa from Frozen. In a director’s statement distributed among the press notes, Larraín writes that Spencer is “an upside-down fairytale.”

Another key takeaway? The burdening weight of history and ritual. Diana loathes the suffocating atmosphere of the royal estate, its timeworn customs, and the dark past of its bygone inhabitants, especially Ann Boleyn—a haunting figure of foreshadowing who was also abandoned by her husband and, as will happen to Diana in a few years, was violently killed. Diana says to her boys: “Here, there is no future, and past and present are the same thing.”

Spencer also reinforces the importance of finding joy in life’s simple pleasures. The princess is happiest when simply spending time playing or bonding with her two young sons or indulging in recreations that would be frowned upon by her upper-crust in-laws, including confiding in a beloved servant, feeling nostalgic about her childhood, driving for pleasure without a security detail, singing along loudly to pop music, or enjoying fast food.

Similar works

• Diana
• The Queen
• Blonde
• Elizabeth
• The Favourite
• Repulsion
• Melancholia

Other films by Pablo Larrain

• No
• The Club
• Neruda
• Jackie
• Ema

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How to balance "Valance"

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a timeless American Western directed by John Ford and released in 1962, centers on Ransom "Ranse" Stoddard (James Stewart), a lawyer who gains fame for killing the notorious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). But as Stoddard recounts the story to reporters while in Shinbone for the funeral of his old friend Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), much more is revealed. 

Featuring standout performances from Stewart, Wayne, Marvin, Vera Miles, Edmond O'Brien, and Andy Devine, the film is highly regarded for Ford's exceptional direction, which seamlessly blends character development, storytelling, and visual style. Its thematic depth, extended use of a flashback narrative, and cultural impact, particularly the iconic line "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend," have made it a significant work in the Western genre.

Click here to listen to a recording of our CineVerse discussion of this film, conducted last week.

Valance deviates from other venerated Westerns, especially those made by Ford, in several ways. First, it was shot in black and white, something of an anomaly for a 1962 Western. For years, many movies in this genre by this had been filmed in glorious color, often in widescreen, showcasing the painted desert and epic scale of the Old West. Yet, grayscale is appropriate to enhance the murkiness and shades of grey inherent in this story and its characters; it’s also fitting considering that most of the film is told in flashback as if summoning up a bygone time, which black and white lends itself well to.

The movie is rather plain-looking, stagey, talky, and slowly paced, and is not an action/adventure oater. It casts two major Hollywood household names, but both Wayne and Stewart are debatably too old for the younger parts they’re supposed to be playing. This is also not a picture where the land and nature are characters unto themselves, and there’s no majestic Monument Valley of Ford’s past films. It’s more of an introspective character study.

Moreover, this work is less optimistic in tone than many of Ford’s previous Westerns; instead, Valance reads as elegiac, nostalgic, bittersweet, and mournful. Ironically, the cowboys are the bad guys: they’ve hired Valance and his cronies to threaten the townsfolk and pressure their political vote. The film’s tone could be echoing the feeling of the times, an era when the Cold War and Vietnam War were ratcheting up, which helps explain the dark, cynical vibe and cruel violence of the villain. Per DVD Verdict editor Michael Stailey: “For all of Stoddard's optimism that civilized law would prevail against the violent threat of Liberty Valance, he ultimately fails. The murder of Valance is, in fact, the only way to stop him, save Shinbone, and propel Stoddard to Washington D.C. The optimism once found in Ford's films is gone now, as is his sense of grandeur, and it has been replaced with the cold realism of a man who has seen enough to know better.”

Consider how this is a film that both glorifies the past and heroes of the West, yet also criticizes its injustices, cruelties, harsh realities, and racism (recall how Pompey is depicted as a puppet-like character who lives to serve, a peripheral personage who can’t even be served at the bar or permitted to vote).

Many regard this as Ford’s last completely realized work and his final masterpiece, benefitting from many of the director's signature techniques and stylistic tendencies, as remarked upon by Roger Ebert in his review of Valance. “(Ford’s) films were complete and self-contained in a way that approaches perfection. Without ever seeming to hurry, he doesn't include a single gratuitous shot… There is a purity to the John Ford style. His composition is classical. He arranges his characters within the frame to reflect power dynamics--or sometimes to suggest a balance is changing. His magnificent Western landscapes are always there, but as environment, not travelogue. He films mostly on sets, but we're not particularly aware.”

Upon closer inspection, it’s clear that Rance, Liberty, Tom, and Hallie are each representational of a greater message. Stoddard symbolizes the New West, one where the rule of law and the tenets of democracy will bring peace, justice, and civility to a growing society. He’s an idealist who isn’t afraid to not be macho. Valance, of course, is evil and fascism personified. 

Doniphon, meanwhile, signifies the Old West, where guns and violence were used to settle a problem and take care of the men in black hats. He’s a realist, and he knows that it takes more than courage and idealism to defeat the villain. Tom stands as the rugged individualist hero who, as in the Searchers, must sacrifice himself and remain outside a civilized society for that society to progress forward. TCM’s Rob Nixon wrote about Tom’s character: “As theorist Robert B. Ray has detailed, it can be taken as a perfect critical study of one of the most enduring of Hollywood tropes: the outlaw hero (Tom in Liberty Valance, Clementine's Doc Holliday, Rick in Casablanca, 1942) reluctantly drawn into cooperating with the "official" hero (Stoddard, Wyatt Earp, Victor Laszlo) to defeat a common enemy (Valance and the cattle interests, the Clantons, Nazis), usually for the mutual love of a good woman (Hallie, Clementine, Ilsa). Except the outcome in Valance is dark and painful. As some have noted about this story: The hero doesn't win; the winner isn't heroic. Destiny here is more a matter of accident and misunderstanding, and history depends entirely on who's telling it and why.”

And then there’s Hallie, who serves as a surrogate for the audience—the one whom the Old West and the New West are trying to woo. We, like she, are challenged with a choice: to place allegiance behind the values of the Old West or the New West.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is, as you’d expect of a Ford film, chock full of thematic goodies. It’s certainly a story about the conflict between popular myth and warts-and-all reality, and action and violence versus tact and diplomacy or, put another way, vigilante justice versus legal justice. The first image of the film—an approaching train, which stands for progress—clues us into this schism and the idea that the New West is the fertile soil for growing civilized society. Yet the movie reminds us that, while change and advancement are necessary for the betterment of humanity, it’s essential to appreciate how this progress was achieved: by the blood, sweat, toil, and sacrifice of forgotten heroes and the common man.

Lastly, ponder how this picture also depicts a psychoanalytic battle between the id, the ego, and the superego, as personified by Liberty, Tom, and Rance, respectively. The id represents the impulsive aspect of your personality, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. The superego embodies the judgmental and morally upright part of your personality. The ego, as the conscious part of your personality, balances the demands of the id and the superego, making decisions accordingly.

Similar works

• The Searchers
• High Noon
• Destry Rides Again
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Other works by John Ford

• Stagecoach
• Young Mr. Lincoln
• Drums Along the Mohawk
• The Grapes of Wrath
• How Green Was My Valley
• My Darling Clementine
• Fort Apache
• She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
• Rio Grande
• The Quiet Man
• Mister Roberts
• The Searchers

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Cineversary podcast celebrates 60th birthday of A Hard Day's Night with Ken Womack

In Cineversary podcast episode #72, host Erik Martin is joined by guest Ken Womack—author of several books on the Fab Four including The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles and Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans—as they celebrate the 60th birthday of A Hard Day’s Night, directed by Richard Lester. Together, they rediscover the euphoria of of Beatlemania, examine this film’s widespread influence, and explain why the movie still matters.

Ken Womack

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, Spotify, Audible, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, PodBean, RadioPublic, and Overcast.

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

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Fab Four flashback: Celebrating 60 years of a Hard Day's Night

Anyone alive back in early 1964 remembers the pop culture phenomenon that was quickly dubbed “Beatlemania.” Events happened quickly in that year to catapult the Fab Four into the stratosphere as a worldwide sensation, particularly in America. The lads made their television debut in February on the Ed Sullivan Show, owned the top 5 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in April, and released their first film in July.

Yes, it’s now been 60 years since A Hard Day’s Night first hit theaters, and it’s time to celebrate what could be the very best rock and roll film/jukebox musical ever made.

Click here to listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of A Hard Day’s Night, conducted last week. (A Hard Day's Night will also be the subject of the July episode of the Cineversary podcast, posting next week.)  

Released in the UK on July 6, 1964, and in the United States on August 11, 1964, produced by United Artists, directed by Richard Lester, and written by Alun Owen, the film received widespread critical acclaim for its witty screenplay, dynamic direction, and—of course—the unforgettable Beatles performances that help this picture rank highest among the group’s cinematic oeuvre. Other contenders for greatest Beatles movie (films that feature the actual band or their likenesses) include Help!, Get Back, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, Eight Days a Week, and the Beatles Anthology TV series. But most fans and critics would likely vote for A Hard Day’s Night as the foursome’s finest moment on film.

Some also deem A Hard Day’s Night among the very best musical comedies, pop musicals, or musicals, period. The late Roger Ebert cited it as one of the top five musicals, ranking alongside Singin’ In the Rain.

Above all, this film benefits from absolutely perfect timing. It thrillingly captures a zeitgeist moment in 1964—the ascendance of The Beatles as a dominant musical and sociocultural force, just as they were conquering the world with pop hits and charismatic command. It wasn’t shot or released too early or belatedly; the film is a serendipitous beneficiary of a narrow window of time when Beatlemania exploded, and A Hard Day’s Night also helped fuel that explosion.

What makes it particularly special is that, although this is a scripted production, the footage looks impromptu and feels off the cuff as a documentary would. The mock press conference mimics the real press gathering in New York City in February 1964 that occurred just before principal photography, when the Fab Four charmed the media with their witty responses, and the scenes where they are chased by fans are authentic, as are the crowd shots of impassioned attendees attended their performances in the film. The filmmaker’s choice to shoot in monochrome gives it a newsreel/documentary quality, as well.

What also helps give A Hard Day’s Night staying power is its evergreen thematic resonance. Essentially, this film is about nonconformists against the establishment: The four are scoffed at, ridiculed, dismissed, and condescended to by older generations, and the Beatles parlay this disconnect into a cheeky, irreverent rebelliousness that isn’t too threatening to the social order.

Per the Village Voice’s J. Hoberman: “A Hard Day's Night presents a realm in which the Beatles (who are more or less the exclusive representatives of their generational cohort) appear to be the only sane inhabitants. On one hand, the foursome are skeptical children in a ridiculous adult world; on the other, as parents don't exist and the band's admirers are mainly preadolescent kids, the Beatles appear as that world's only possible role models and authorities.”

Significantly, A Hard Day’s Night isn’t just a one-trick pony where the sheer magnetism of The Beatles overshadows every other element. It continues to make us laugh 60 years onward thanks to humorously crafted bits, hilarious one-liners like Lennon’s “Give us a kiss” and “I now declare this bridge open”, and eternally funny visual comedy, such as the running gag of the grandfather popping up from a trap door floor at the worst moment, the older porter in his underwear hiding in the closet, and thief trying to steal the car as the Beatles are chased by the bobbies (once he breaks into the vehicle, a cop ironically orders the thief to drive after Ringo, George, Paul, and John).

Audiences also continue to enjoy how the movie humorously explores mistaken identity, disguises, and missing persons: From Paul’s grandfather posing as a waiter to John donning a fake beard and mustache to George wandering into a producer’s office where he’s mistaken for a focus group subject, playacting and identity misunderstandings abound in this playful romp. Recall how Ringo goes missing, as does Paul’s grandfather, and even the manager loses his band in a repeated pattern of lost-and-found subplots.

Far from merely a trivial pleasure or disposable cinematic confection, A Hard Day’s Night stands as an innovative work worthy of praise for its pervasive influence. This movie essentially invented what we consider “music videos” and the style of content that gave rise to MTV years later. The musical sequences, where songs were performed, shot, and edited in creatively and visually engaging ways, served as precursors to modern music videos, particularly the Can’t Buy Me Love segment.

Also, A Hard Day’s Night could be the first “mockumentary,” a subgenre that blends scripted scenes and fictional elements with a documentary-like style, which imbues the film with a distinctive sense of verisimilitude and immediacy for its time. Yes, a proper screenplay was written and followed, but The Beatles were permitted to improvise. The narrative is more of a loosely connected series of episodes and unimportant subplots that form a cohesive story.

Thanks to its rapid-fire editing, unconventional camera angles, frenetic handheld camera shots, cinema verite style realism, swish pans, crash zooms, fast and slow motion action sequences, and other elements, A Hard Day’s Night reveals a kinship with the bold experimentalism and liveliness of French New Wave cinema.

The film was also one of the earliest to capture and mirror the emerging youth culture of the 1960s. It portrayed the Beatles not just as musicians but as cultural icons, seamlessly weaving their music into the storyline. In addition, A Hard Day’s Night rendered a rare behind-the-scenes look at the lives of pop stars, blending humor with insights into the pressures and absurdities of fame. This was relatively novel and provided audiences with a sense of intimacy with the band.

Slate reviewer David Edelstein wrote: “A Hard Day's Night remains a pop-culture phenomenon: a movie with perfect feelers. Lester and his team pick up and distill everything in the air on the eve of the counterculture: now capturing events with documentary realism, now stylizing them with gleeful surrealism, always managing, by impishly flouting the rules of "proper" storytelling, to keep alive a sense of barriers being blasted…The film will always be in the present tense: a reference point not merely for the birth of the Beatles as a mass phenomenon, but for the emergence of a wildly attractive youth culture that has transformed the world.”

The movie is credited, as well, with inspiring the creation of The Monkee’s TV program, which debuted two years later, and—thanks in particular to its dynamic editing approach, pacing, and visual storytelling—spy thriller films over the next few years like Goldfinger, The Ipcress File, Modesty Blaise, and the TV series Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Films more directly inspired by A Hard Day’s Night include Ferry Cross the Mersey (1964, showcasing Gerry and the Pacemakers), Catch Us If You Can (1965, featuring The Dave Clark Five), Hold On! (1966, with Herman’s Hermits), Head (1968, starring The Monkees), I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978, another mockumentary that directly riffs on The Beatles), That Thing You Do (1996), and Spice World (1997, starring The Spice Girls).

Examining influences in reverse, it seems clear that A Hard Day’s Night and the personalities of The Beatles in this film riffs heavily on the Marx Brothers, with John zinging clever, acerbic put-downs and irreverent retorts in snappy fashion like Groucho and the Beatles invoking the anarchic and anti-establishment characteristics of the brothers Marx. Lester’s infusion of surreal, zany shots harkens to the films of Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, too, such as when the Beatles are in the train car harassing the stuffy passenger but are then shown impossibly banging on the outside window of the moving train a few seconds later, or when John is seen bathing but magically disappears from the tub in the next shot. Recall that Lennon, like Groucho, often pushes the envelope with risque humor and double entendres that would have raised a few eyebrows at the time among perceptive viewers: Cases in point—John sniffing the Coke bottle, or, when Ringo is perusing a magazine titled “Queen,” John remarking “Oh, he’s reading the Queen—that’s an in-joke, you know.”

Unlike many previous film musicals, this picture did not employ a formalistic, fictional narrative. Again, A Hard Day’s Night plays more like a documentary or newsreel in which we’re witnessing “you are there” shots that feel unplanned and spontaneous. This doc style is evidenced by the ample handheld and moving camera work, use of real locations, naturalistic lighting, and footage of the band performing.

Previously, many pop musicals—such as those featuring pop stars like Elvis, Frankie Avalon, Cliff Richard, and Pat Boone—followed the tradition of the classical Hollywood musical and its reliance on lip-synched, carefully choreographed performance, wherein many characters “break out into song” as part of the plot or dialogue.

Bob Neaverson, author of the book The Beatles Movies, wrote: “Lester's partial employment of a humorous surrealism (and its resulting disposal of the conventionally ‘realist’ aesthetic) meant that it was no longer necessary, or, for that matter, uniformly desirable, to interpret the central musical numbers via conventionally representational sequences of performers miming to a backing track and pretending to play instruments. A Hard Day’s Night is arguably the first film of its kind to stage central musical numbers which are not tied to performance.”

Also, unlike other pop musicals where Elvis or superstars are depicted as having a female love interest, the Beatles are represented as attainable and available to female viewers, which was important to their image and popularity.

Importantly, John, Paul, George, and Ringo play themselves, not some imaginary characters who have to win a contest, get the girl, or defeat the bad guys. There is no contrived plot or artificial rags-to-riches success story here; this film is a spirit-of-the-time cinematic document that captures the height of Beatlemania and showcases the four real musicians, each possessing distinct personalities. John and George are the clever, sardonic, more intellectual of the four; Paul commands a youthful charisma and energetic playfulness; and Ringo portrays himself as a thoughtful, quiet, and somewhat aloof figure, more melancholic and down-to-earth.

While the Beatles are the engine that propels this powerful locomotive, the engineer flooring the throttle is clearly Lester. The filmmaker distinguished himself by creating a surreal comedy short called The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, in 1959, which showcases a collection of humorous and disjointed skits and is celebrated for its whimsical and absurd humor—the perfect blueprint for A Hard Day's Night.

Lester, who boasted a comedy background and collaborated with Peter Sellers previously on The Goon Show, was adept at blending humor with music. This was vital for capturing the Beatles' playful and charismatic personalities.

The director’s innovative and unconventional filming techniques perfectly matched the Beatles' image. His use of handheld cameras, rapid cuts, and dynamic editing gave the film a fresh and modern look that resonated with the 1960s youth culture. Lester’s choice to occasionally employ extreme close-up shots of Paul, Ringo, John, and George lends an intimacy to the visuals. His documentary-like style added realism and spontaneity to the film. The filmmaker apparently paid attention to the comic rhythm and silly visual style of silent greats like Buster Keaton, as evidenced by the use of undercranked, slow-motion, and birds-eye shots during the Can’t Buy Me Love sequence. And his decision to leave in mistakes—such as the famous trip-up involving George and Ringo in the opening chase shot, George accidentally knocking over the amp at the start of a performance, or the lens flare shown during the And I Love Her performance—provides a sheen of realism and spontaneity.

Lester said: “I didn’t care that we got everything right. What I wanted to do was catch the moment.”

The director fostered an environment where the band members were encouraged to ad-lib and deviate from the script, especially during dialogue scenes. This spontaneous approach enhanced the film's sense of authenticity.

Additionally, Lester's collaborative spirit enabled the Beatles to contribute creatively to the film, ensuring their unique voices and humor were authentically represented on screen. Plus, he refused to give in to United Artist’s demands to redub dialogue by George, Ringo, John, and Paul out of concern their accents would be incoherent to Americans.

Of the director, Criterion Collection essayist Howard Hampton wrote: “When Lester said that A Hard Day’s Night essentially wrote itself…he meant it was a matter of simply reproducing their private idiom, a coded language that sounded like a law unto itself…He didn’t impose either an aesthetic or his ego on them, instead teasing out a situational approach based on their own proclivities and circumstances, using whatever was needed, whatever would do the trick: An ample helping of mock cinema verité, touches of François Truffaut and Jacques Tati, a pinch of Buster Keaton, a dash of the Marx Brothers, multicamera setups, (and) jump cuts.”

Other films by Lester that evidence his flair for cinematic silliness and dramedy include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), How I Won the War (1967), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers (1974), Robin and Marian (1976), and Superman II (1981).

Lastly, it’s important to appreciate how A Hard Day’s Night deviates from traditional narratives and our expectations for one. The film relies more on a series of episodic vignettes that combine to form a humorous and entertaining whole of a picture. The plot simply follows a day in the life of The Beatles, and the main story thread is that John, Paul, George, and Ringo have to travel to a TV studio to perform live on camera, but Ringo impulsively decides to wander about just prior to airtime on a personal adventure during which he tests his maturity; the other three then have to find their lost drummer before their live show begins.

While A Hard Day’s Night may disappoint as a cohesive, interesting story, it’s likely more satisfying as an impressionistic pastiche documenting this group’s immense charisma, talent, and popularity at this period in history. Showcasing them as more of their real selves and true personalities is more important to the filmmakers than peddling a ridiculous fictitious yarn.

Ultimately, the film doesn’t need a narrative to succeed: Paul, Ringo, John, and George are fascinating enough on their own merits to carry the film, as any fan of Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary—in which very little, yet also so much, happens—can testify.

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Drifting thespians in Ozu's winding river

Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu was so enamored of one of his earlier films—A Story of Floating Weeds (1934)—that he decided to remake it in 1959 as, simply Floating Weeds, his first color movie. The narrative unfolds in a quaint seaside town where a traveling theater troupe, led by the aging actor Komajuro Arashi (played by Ganjiro Nakamura), comes to perform. Komajuro clandestinely reunites with his former lover, Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura), and their illegitimate son, Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), who is unaware of Komajuro's true identity as his father. The plot thickens as Komajuro's current mistress, Sumiko (Machiko Kyo), grows jealous and devises a plan to sabotage his bond with Oyoshi and Kiyoshi.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Floating Weeds, conducted last week, click here.

Ozu's direction is acclaimed for its simplicity, elegance, and precise composition as well as his poignant thematic exploration of family, jealousy, and the inexorable passage of time. It deeply delves into human emotions and relationships, particularly the intricate dynamics of familial bonds and the sacrifices made for art and personal connections, with sensitive and nuanced character portrayals adding significant depth.

Ozu considered the movie a test of sorts, challenging him to modernize a timeworn tale by contemporizing it and adapting it for a different studio (Dahei) than he was used to collaborating with. Many Ozu fans and scholars deem this his most visually beautiful film thanks to this chromatic canvas.

Noteworthy is that the color is more vibrant earlier in the film but becomes desaturated as the story progresses. Slant Magazine’s Jake Cole posited: “Miyagawa Kazuo’s cinematography gradually loses its chromatic intensity as backdrops become drabber and the bright objects that once dotted frames disappear from view. It’s the equivalent of watching someone bleed out, the redness in their face slowly draining into an ashen white. In the process, Ozu’s funniest late-period film becomes one of his most haunting.”

The title is much more than an abstract reference to the natural world. "Floating weeds" is a colloquialism that refers to Japanese performers who travel from place to place. The term metaphorically suggests aimlessness, an absence of life's purpose, and the journey through life. Its origin derives from duckweed, a floating plant that drifts with stronger currents and never anchors itself in the soil.

The filmmakers and the actor Nakamura Ganjirō intend Komajaro to be a likable personality the audience will, for the most part, root for. But it’s hard to empathize with or embrace Komajaro when we see how physically and verbally abusive he is toward the female characters; his slapping, pushing, grabbing, slut-shaming, and ghosting are difficult to stomach in 2024, even if these were more acceptable behaviors in a patriarchal-dominant Japan of 1959.

Hallmarks of director Yasujiro Ozu’s style are evident in Floating Weeds, including:

• A preference for static camera shots, avoiding typical movements like tracking, panning, or dollying and emphasizing characters' movements and positions within the frame.
• Shooting from low camera angles, often around three feet from the ground, framing subjects seated or kneeling on Japanese tatami mats.
• Transitioning between scenes with long shots of outdoor environments like rooftops, empty streets, shorelines, and cityscapes, eschewing traditional transitions like dissolves and wipes.
• Allowing shots to linger in empty spaces, defying traditional Hollywood editing rules of seamless cuts.
• Emphasizing everyday life nuances over elaborate storytelling techniques and focusing on human emotions rather than effects or editing.
• Placing the camera between two characters during dialogue scenes, which creates intimacy by having characters look directly at the camera when speaking to each other.
• Ensuring no single character dominates a scene, often showing two or three characters in a row.
• Lingering on characters during their speeches without cutting to reactions from other characters.
• Allowing situations and conversations to unfold naturally without subplots or distractions, focusing on emotions and relationships rather than extensive cityscape shots or detailed events.
• A narrative depicting contemporary Japan, not a period piece or samurai film preferred by peers like Kurosawa or Mizoguchi.
• Elliptical storytelling. “Ozu typically uses narrative ellipsis, giving the spectator just enough information to allow him to make sense of the actions, but no more. Perhaps one of the reasons for the fascination of the Ozu film is that the spectator is so often called upon to bridge the ellipsis, to create a connection that the director deliberately left out, to contribute and hence to understand,” remarked Donald Ritchie in his Criterion Collection essay.
• Presenting narratives that are understated, straightforward, unassuming, contemplative, serene, and often tinged with a wistful or melancholic tone. Works like Floating Weeds harbor profound meaning and unexpectedly deep emotional layers, despite their apparent simplicity.

Text and subtext mingle commonly in Ozu films, and Floating Weeds is no exception. This is a story about generational and hierarchical conflict between parents and children as well as adults and their elders. Komajaro commands respect from his theater troupe, mistress, secret son Kiyoshi, and his lover Kayo, but he often disrespects many of them by exerting his patriarchal superiority, as established and recognized by the class system of Japan.

Floating Weeds also examines the small and large consequences of secrets and lies. There are two major deceptions afoot in Floating Weeds: Komajaro and Oyoshi hide from Kiyoshi that his uncle is actually his father; and Kayo agrees to Sumiko’s request to pretend to like Kiyoshi, although she develops true affection for him despite the charade.

The film is further concerned with performance and playacting. This is the tale of a band of itinerant thespians, but it’s also a narrative concerned with pretense, role-playing, and metaphorical mask-wearing.

Consider, too, how the film probes the rewards and risks of personal reinvention, as evidenced by how most of the major characters choose new paths in life by the story’s conclusion: Komajaro shifts from nomadic actor to domesticated father back to nomadic actor again; Sumiko transitions from obedient, reliable partner to jealous meddler and then back to subservient mistress by the conclusion; Kiyoshi begins as a dutiful son/student/worker but is willing to abandon future aspirations for love, ending the film on a somewhat ambiguous tone; and Kayo, it’s established, is a promiscuous young actress with a poor reputation but proves humble and genuine in her love of Kiyoshi, and we assume she will do right by the young man, per Komajaro’s request, after the story ends. Here, the theme of generational change is underscored, as the older pair transitions in a circuitous pattern while the younger couple faces a more uncertain future but one in which they may avoid the mistakes their elders made.

Similar works

• The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
• Still Walking (2008)
• Our Little Sister (2015)
• After the Storm (2016)

Other major films by Ozu

• Late Spring
• Early Summer
• An Autumn Afternoon
• Late Autumn
• Tokyo Twilight

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A cult film for the ultra-curious (and ultra-patient)

Forty-plus-year-old films don’t come much weirder or strangely stimulating than The Ninth Configuration, a 1980 American psychological drama written, produced, and directed by William Peter Blatty. Adapted from Blatty's 1978 novel Twinkle, Twinkle, 'Killer' Kane, the film is distinguished by its exploration of faith, insanity, and redemption. It is frequently classified as a psychological thriller and horror film, although it could also be regarded as a campy comedy by its detractors.

The narrative unfolds in a remote castle in the Pacific Northwest, repurposed as a mental asylum for U.S. military officers who have experienced psychological breakdowns. The protagonist, Colonel Vincent Kane (played by Stacy Keach), is a Marine psychiatrist assigned to oversee the patients' treatment. Through his interactions with the patients, especially Captain Billy Cutshaw (played by Scott Wilson), a former astronaut who abandoned a space mission due to an existential crisis, Kane grapples with his troubled past and wrestles with profound questions of faith and human suffering.

Click here to listen to a recording of our CineVerse discussion of The Ninth Configuration, conducted last week.

Blatty, renowned for writing The Exorcist, created The Ninth Configuration to delve into his own philosophical and religious inquiries. Although it bombed upon its release, the film has since garnered a cult following and is valued by many for its distinctive approach to its profound themes.

The Ninth Configuration’s central question posed to the viewer is an obvious one: Is there a God and an afterlife? If so, what proof do we have? The key scenes of the film are when Cutshaw and Kane debate the existence of a higher power. Cutshaw, when asked why he wouldn’t fly to the moon, says: “Because I’m afraid…See the stars…So cold. So far. And so very lonely. Oh, so lonely. All that space. Just, empty space. And so far from home. I’ve circled around and around this house. Orbit after orbit. And sometimes I’d wonder what it would be like never to stop. And circle alone up there forever. And what if I got there, got to the moon…and couldn’t get back? Sure, everyone dies. But I’m afraid to die alone so far from home. And if there’s no God, then that’s really, really alone.”

Kane argues that a higher power is far more plausible than humanity arising by random chance, and claims that acts of pure self-sacrifice demonstrate human goodness, which he believes can only be explained by a divine purpose. Cutshaw challenges him to cite a specific instance of pure self-sacrifice from his own life, but Kane cannot. Kane agrees to try sending Cutshaw a sign of the afterlife if he dies first. Kane apparently fulfills this promise in the form of a religious medallion that Cutshaw—now cured—suddenly discovers after the death of Kane, to whom Cutshaw earlier gave the medallion.

Blatty’s film also thematically explores illusion versus reality, making a selfless sacrifice for the greater good, and how war is hell, with some battle wounds unable to be cured. Looking closer, it’s easy to deduce how The Ninth Configuration is subtextually commenting on the horrors and fallout of the Vietnam War and the PTSD suffered by its soldiers. Critic Richard Scheib wrote: “The Ninth Configuration is a film about finding delivery from the mass insanity the Vietnam War induced on every level of American society and William Peter Blatty’s belief that the solution to the sense of social loss can be found in faith.”

Full disclosure: The Ninth Configuration left many of us at CineVerse baffled with gaping plot holes and inexplicable directorial choices. Among the questions our group pondered were (spoilers ahead):

1. Besides Cutshaw, were the other patients at the asylum legitimate psychotic patients, or were they faking it as part of the charade to make Kane believe he was the head of the asylum?
2. This film has been described by some critics as humorous, comical, and “uproariously funny,” especially the first half. Did any of the scenes involving the psychotic patients and their peculiarities actually make you laugh?
3. If Fell is actually in charge, although secretly, why does he let the “inmates run the asylum” and act violently by damaging the castle and throwing things around?
4. Why is Cutshaw, an ex-astronaut, mixed in with military patients?
5. Why would the military and Kane’s brother Fell allow this charade to go on? Wouldn’t it be dangerous and result in legal liabilities if Kane’s actions led to the harm or death of any of the other patients? How is this charade supposed to benefit Kane?
6. If Fell is actually in charge, although secretly, why does he let the “inmates run the asylum” and act violently by damaging the castle and throwing things around?
7. What’s the significance of Kane taking Cutshaw to a Catholic mass, where Cutshaw rudely interrupts the service and Kane briefly hallucinates?
8. Isn’t it kind of abrupt that Cutshaw suddenly escapes from the asylum? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to suggest earlier and consistently throughout the film that he wanted to escape? It seems as though the only reason for the odd scene at the biker bar is to provide a means for Kane to sacrifice himself for Cutshaw’s benefit, but why write and direct a non-sequitur scene like this one to accomplish that goal?
9. The suggestion at the end is that Cutshaw learns that Kane has sacrificed his own life to offer a concrete example of human goodness that Cutshaw asked for. How would Kane sacrificing his own life, or for that matter, Kane killing most of the biker gang, help Cutshaw—isn’t it a stretch to believe that Kane would commit suicide or let himself die just to cure Cutshaw? And what if the sacrifice didn’t accomplish its mission?
10. Did Kane commit suicide? If not, why is he holding a bloody knife? If it is suicide, and he’s killed himself to instill spiritual faith in Cutshaw, wouldn’t suicide be frowned upon in the Christian theology Kane seems to be espousing?
11. Are we to believe that the reappearance of the St. Christopher’s medal on Cutshaw’s person at the conclusion is a religious miracle? Doesn’t that seem a bit too on the nose and over the top as proof of God or an afterlife?
12. What’s with the freeze-frame ending?
13. For that matter, what’s with the early scene where we observe the bikers who’ve kidnapped a tied-up old man? Foreshadowing?
14. The film’s title echoes what one of the characters says: “In order for life to have appeared spontaneously on earth, there first had to be hundreds of millions of protein molecules of the ninth configuration.” Isn’t this a pretty obscure reference to base your title on? Couldn’t they have titled it something else?
15. This film can quickly oscillate tonally between funny/silly to super serious to horrific to feel-good morality play. Were you okay with these dramatic shifts in tone, or is this a film where the vibe is hard to navigate?

Similar works

• Catch 22
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• M*A*S*H
• Spellbound
• Shock Corridor
• Shutter Island
• Jacob’s Ladder
• Unforgiven
• Poe’s story The System of Professor Tarr and Dr. Fether

Other films written and/or directed by William Peter Blatty

• A Shot in the Dark (screenplay)
• The Exorcist (screenplay)
• The Exorcist III (screenplay and direction)

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