SCFZ

The Moon in the Gutter (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1983) vs. Drums Along the Mohawk (John Ford, 1939)

Vote for either x1983 or x1939 (italicization unnecessary).

The deadline for voting is 12 a.m. EST on Thursday, April 25.

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Why I chose Drums Along the Mohawk:

The least seen of John Ford's 1939 films (Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln) but in some ways the most interesting. Like the other two, and most of Ford's oeuvre, it's engaged in reflection about America's founding myths. To be sure, Stagecoach is better (though I'd place this above YML, which I can't stand), but this film is more deeply engaged in a discourse about settler colonialism, i.e. with presenting a beautified image of British settler colonialism in 'the New World'. ALL THAT SAID, the 'discourse', as I'm calling it with my upscaled terminology, is offensive and racist, in favour of American settler colonial governance and so on, so I'd class the films appeal more in the 'Interesting Ideological Document to Deconstruct' pile than the 'Progressive, Beautiful Art About These Issues' pile. I guess I like movies that talk about these things, and it can at times be hard for me to evaluate beyond that, because I get so excited by the Thoughts it wells up in me and the very fact that it's raising Big Questions about nation-formation and US empire. All of this is an apologia for choosing something deeply politically imperfect, but of course, on the other side, it's John Ford in Technicolor, hence it's hard to argue with on a purely aesthetic level.

My ecstatic notes from after my first viewing: Opens with a wedding: a bouquet of Technicolor and Colbert heaving, a painting of excitement. "It's the most beautiful country I've ever seen." This is John Ford's birth of a nation. It's about America's founding, so - fittingly - it is aesthetically gorgeous, emotionally rich, and ideologically a mess of violent, racist gestures. One could say it's a document of the racism of its time, as in Colbert's absurd reaction to Blue Back? Maybe. But mostly it's just racist, 'different era' excuses be damned. Fonda with straight face - and the movie with straight face - says that they've always been fair to the "Indians"!!!!! Whhhhhhhat? Still, those long shots, long takes, the wisdom of its emotions, Colbert heaving, Edna May Oliver trailing off into brilliance, etc. etc. etc.

x1939

Really wanted to give The Moon in the Gutter the benefit of the doubt, but its baroque, hyper-staged, hyper-stylized imagery was tedious, silly and un-engaging. Kind of a prototypical film maudit in the worst sense possible. Another one for the 'not for me' stack. I've not seen anything else from monsieur Beineix and doubt I ever will.

Ford is Ford.

x1939

The Moon in the Gutter is another one where, like kanafani, I just can't get into the style. I'm not inherently against style-over-substance type films in general or even the cinema du look in particular, but this one just didn't work for me. I will at least try Betty Blue someday, though.

I've got mixed feelings about Drums Along the Mohawk, mostly having to do with the issues that Evelyn alludes to. I was especially put off by the scene where the Indians loot Mrs. McKlennar's house, which comes across as oddly cartoonish in comparison to the rest of the film. But again, Ford is Ford, and I appreciate Evelyn picking the consensus "greatest year in Hollywood history" and going for the non-obvious picks.

x1939

Haven't seen either for a long time, Moon in the Gutter I've only seen once back when it was released while I've seen Drums a few times. I don't really care much for either of them, at least in memory, but Drums Along the Mohawk is the more annoying of the two in part because it's Ford and he should know better. Lending his skills to such an endeavor is not a bonus, it reads all the worse for being part of his body of work as it taints it all for being treated in like fashion to his other movies. Moon in the Gutter at least tried to develop a different perspective or way of looking, even as it was often pretty dopey and not an aesthetic of much meaningful depth. Still better an vaguely interesting dead end experiment than an ugly main thoroughfare.

x1983

Hated both, can't vote.

I saw Drums Along The Mohawk when I was young and I hated it so much that I refused to engage with Ford for... decades. Until I joined scfz, basically. I'm so, so glad that Evelyn isn't asking us to engage in some revisionist thought-experiment here. Pretty sure I won't choose to submit myself to the movie again, but I might read that pdf.

an vaguely interesting dead end experiment

Greg is sweetly generous. I felt so much distaste for the tinselly, meretricious falseness of the images Beineix built his thing with that I couldn't tell if I objected on aesthetic grounds or ethical ones. (Cannibalizing a line or two from my LB review, because I can't be bothered to continue thinking about it.)

x1939
Drums Along the Mohawk
Hey Evelyn, nice blurb. In 1939 Ford was feeling his American oats, but like that other Ford in 1939, at least he wasn't discounting trucks to the Nazi military. John Ford was a marvel really. Sure he injected hero worship for breakfast, but when I think of his career, he also turned his efforts in rebukes against racism (Sergeant Rutledge, 1960) and some other socio-political issues. What seems so problematic to me, in Drums Along the Mohawk and so many other narrative films, was that he and screenwriters like Frank Nugent or Dudley Nichols set themselves up as the Grand Arbiters of U.S. history, helping turn the nation (movies were hugely propagandist at the time of DATM) away from the Socialist origins of the Pre-WWII era in this country, and pointed it toward more Spartan militarism in which individualism is necessarily trumped by collective adherence to a Republic's laws or Military orders, or even the The Marquess of Queensberry Rules--hence the tall rugged hero, making extraordinary sacrifices and winning huge humanist battles, but often only when his protagonists were head above the crowd, be it as Cavalry leader, legendary President, Legendary Sheriff or perhaps a favorite patriotic Mick teaching officers at West Point what character really means. Character was the coin of the Fordian realm, it triumphed in spades after many personal and social battles. It's the stuff of the secular pulpit. John Ford not only "makes westerns," he makes preachy publicist rants so that no-one cannot mistake his truth (the only truth) for a less certain, but more democratic view of the populace and the theater viewers' abilities to think for themselves (i.e. Fritz Lang). It's too-often ideologically sedentary without reaching for sociological wisdom, although it can be delivered by sacrosanct voices. He does, to his many professional credits, have titles which break that mold--I'm thinking of the Arkansas Matriarch (Henrietta Crosman) in Pilgrimage 1933--that taxing, difficult script was perfected by Ford into a different type of hero, one who must gain humility and lose her selfishness to gain character--and then, not really that of a heroine, but triumphs finally only as a decent human being. Drums Along the Mohawk is the stuff of kids adventures and a closed circle of reality. It's good as a story told. When isn't Ford good telling a story. Who's better? But it's not great Ford to me, rather formulaic drama, danger, courage, and victory--albeit with some collateral damage so as to prove it's veracity.

The Moon in the Gutter
No doubt it's a bad film, but historically notable for its dominance of style, which I suppose I could call technically and psychologically experimental--a pastiche of bombastic palette, deep shadows, zombie acting by the stars, symbols with no reference, allegory with no theme, art direction with no association to narrative, mood as a director's primary effect with no actual need. Any similarities with David Goodis' Philadelphia noir were tossed out by the main credits. And so, we have a director in Jean-Jacques Beineix, whose debut film Diva was a critical and box office hit, displaying his many talents among them a good eye for imagery and a good ear for scores. This is his sophomore slump, kinda. But rather than repeat himself in hopes of bigger, but similar success, he has tried to expound his talents further to 11 on his 1983 cinematic amp. Did it work? Depends what he was hoping for. I don't believe it worked for most viewers or critics, causing boos and premature exits at Cannes, but that alone doesn't mean much.

The time period of early 80's was a time of extravagance in directors' power. Coppola bought his own studio (Zoetrope) and made the stage-bound stylized One from the Heart in 1982; not the hit he hoped for, but a sampler of heady mood and design lensed by cinematographer par excellence Vittorio Storaro and starring the same Nastassia Kinski as was used in MITG. Some other titles of the time flexing their aesthetic muscles were Paul Schrader's Cat People in '82 (again Kinski), followed closely by the florid Mishima: A life in Four Chapters in 1985 by the same director. On the continent, Fassbinder had created his dock-side sexy Quarelle also in 1982, which shares more than a few decisions in look as did Beineix a year later with MITG. We might toss in the Infant Terrible Almadovar's Dark Habits (1983), in outsized bursts of outrè visuals, sexual transmogrification and non-linear everything, while to top the list might be Seijun Suzuki's Kagero-Za (1981), that curious and uncompromising masterwork. So, what am I saying? Merely that The Moon in the Gutter is not the original operatic noir we think it is. Oddly, it was rather tame to some and perhaps could be labelled mildly visionary by others, but with the caveat of all the other erstwhile visionaries filling screens at the time that it was a period of neo-auteur-ish gambling.

Did Beineix's lack of coherence, dullness in story and tempo help him? Probably not. Is style enough? Probably it met some people's tastes, but was really nothing we weren't seeing in other theaters in the early 80's. Was the screenplay exemplary in any sense--sadly no. I'm afraid it eschewed the help which the source material may have gained it by Beineix's incessant reiterations in greens and reds on the rape/murder, the dock-side threesome, and the dream/reality two-step.

The score seemed incongruent to the narrative scenes at times, and spun into flourishes of Rachmaninoff piano bombast when least expected. As I began: "no doubt The Moon in the Gutter is a bad film," but its many flaws and obedience to the sub-conscious are often the price paid by those courageous enough to attempt to enlarge cinema, even in some rather small degree. Merely putting his noir narrative on it's ear is refreshing, and although many of the principle actors didn't fare so well, Victoria Abril was vibrant and raunchy, while Dominique Pinon as bad-brother Frank was consistently reprehensible, seemingly channeling Renfield in all but eating flies, and even then probably used for that single purpose far too often. For myself, I recommend trying to watch it for an hour. After that, there's nothing left which hasn't been introduced already, and since nothing is ever reconciled in architectural denouement, you won't miss much if you put on The Killer Inside Me by Michael Winterbottom (2010) to see another Noir filled with genre expansion, but which bombed mightily--perhaps for using violence in the actual pulp style rather than the middle American/Huffington Post/drek-saturated/George Clooney enamored feature formula. It's also a failure, but its passionate intentions, like Beineix's, should be acknowledged as more than benign and medial. However, I won't watch either one twice.

x1983

Moon in the Gutter. Looks like it went over everyone's heads. I wonder why everyone's so willing to accept the words of a few critics who slap a dumb label on it ("Cinéma du look") and treat it as "style over substance". Nothing could be further from the truth.

Trying Moon in the Gutter few times but can't finish it after all... liked opening credit but after that...

and it feels like Mohawk doesn't need my vote in here(mid-tier Ford for me).

Moon in the Gutter. Looks like it went over everyone's heads. I wonder why everyone's so willing to accept the words of a few critics who slap a dumb label on it ("Cinéma du look") and treat it as "style over substance". Nothing could be further from the truth.

I don't think anyone is just taking critics words for it since they're watching it themselves, but if you've got a different take, feel free to share. Can't convince anyone by keeping it a secret.

I know that, but I have a compelling reason to keep it secret for the next two or three months. In the meantime you're all welcome to look deeper... I guarantee there's a lot to be found.

I only spoke up because it bothers me to think of Beineix reading this thread - however slim the likelihood - and not getting a shred of affirmation for such a masterful achievement. The movie is constructed around a provocative insight that everyone has ignored... critical reviews were contemptuous, and the studio destroyed footage that would have gone into a director's cut, to Beineix' lifelong regret. He surely would have had a better career if viewers and critics hadn't been so impatient with Moon in the Gutter. I'm convinced it's a masterpiece, and Beineix deserves to be recognized for it while he's alive.

Well it's its own thing, which is at least a step in the right direction and its tone is interesting. It's gonna face problems now for showing a attitude towards women that reads as out of date, at least on the surface, accepting for the moment there is something more there to offset that by how it plays out. The specifics of the plot have faded for me, but the look and feel of it are still fairly memorable. My gut memory is saying that the read of it will still involve it being based around depardieu's character as a sort of stand in for the director/overall perspective of the movie as self questioning in some way, along with some reading of it being "about" movies/fiction possibly as well, but if so I'm not sure that method still will find a lot of takers any more given some of the associated problems it's had over time with all sorts of art. Something that I was thinking of regarding Kubrick in a way, for example. But that is just a guess and it'd take another viewing to even know how much I'd credit that idea.

At least I can say that any perception of sexism will vanish once you see what's going on.

Hmm, maybe, but you have to account for not only what you say the movie "means", what is says, but how it says it and who is being addressed.

Take this scene for example:

http://youtu.be/074U_Tn2Fsw

The way it's filmed is tied to the Depardieu character's desire, but it also feeds the male gaze component of the audience. The repeated cuts to shots up the skirt are overemphasized for the amount of information gained in the doing so with the cuts back to Depardieu looking randy. Even assigning it to his character's imagination/desire doesn't obviate the fact it also entices from a hetro male standard view, making the scene feel as if it is addressed to those who share that perspective. If memory serves, that is the informing visual attitude the movie takes and would cut back against any reading of male sexual desire in critique. The quasi-incestuous angle too potentially becomes something other than strict critique, more perhaps a have your cake and eat it too version, which is the historical standard for many movies.

x1983

nothing deep, but for whatever reason i'm having something of the opposite issue of everyone here. i started watching some beineix when we did one of the year polls, and this might be the best of what i've seen (none of which i really like that much– roselynne, betty blue, diva). but the stylization is a plus here for me, and i feel like it's easier to connect to than, say querelle. the ford, on the other hand, is maybe the worst of his films that i've seen. hated it when i watched it years back and no desire to revisit. jingoistic, racist, and really not very enlightening to me on issues related to national foundations and what not.

greg x wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:30 pm Hmm, maybe, but you have to account for not only what you say the movie "means", what is says, but how it says it and who is being addressed.

That's very much accounted for, I promise you. I can't say much more now, as tempted as I am. I just hope people will take the movie as a challenge instead of dismissing it because it doesn't "do it" for them. It wasn't made to entertain, and for that matter if it were made to titillate it would have gone a lot further in that direction.

ok i'm sorely tempted to give this movie a shot. but being so close to deadline i'll probs watch the russian film instead

Voting closed! Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) wins!

Dang it. I thought I had another day, and planned on watching the ones I needed to see today. Oh well. I'll watch them in due time, even though I can no longer vote.

Wow, Moon in the Gutter!! I love that film!
Wonderful, one of the best and most complex "surreal" films of the 80s.
Films like this is why I love cinema.

Haven't seen the Ford, so can't vote. :icon_e_wink: