Miracle of Morgan's Creek

Much like his earlier films The Lady Eve and Sullivan’s Travels, Preston Sturges’ Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) is an entertaining melodrama and exercise in rapid-fire comedy, though it is a film that, if the viewer is lacking in metatextual knowledge, initially seems devoid of any ties to reality. That is, this is a film so reliant on absurdity that it is only after understanding what Sturges attacks (specifically, the Hays Code’s restrictions upon cinema) vis-à-vis the film’s themes that the true wonder and appreciation for the film becomes known.

None too bright Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) is a small town girl who just wants to have fun with the American soldiers before they are sent overseas. Consequently, she flippantly rejects the attraction that dorky Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken) seeks to bestow upon her, abdicating any desire to him. Such a renouncing takes place until she wakes up married and impregnated the morning after a night out on the town, when she (literally) hits her head on a lamp but (symbolically) was drunk from a spiked drink. After that she and her prodigious younger sister Emmy (Diana Lynn) try to fashion a workable excuse, including marrying Norval (which Trudy can’t do because she’s too kindhearted to hurt Norval). And after all that we still haven’t arrived at the “miracle” behind the title.

Sturges continually offers the juxtaposition of obvious vs. latent intent, corrupting the characters with implied controversial ideas yet maintaining the air of innocence, and the way in which he manipulates our central emotions about the easygoing Trudy is perhaps the clearest example. Norval truly loves her but her first reaction to him is to maneuver his affection to her own advantage. Though my opinion of Trudy isn’t as appreciative as others, I respect how Sturges finagles and appropriates our conception of Trudy.

Unlike earlier Sturges films mentioned above, however, the most entertaining characters are not the main characters but rather the supporting cast. Because everyone is pretty much playing a caricature, it’s dependent on those actors who most embody their characters to give the film its comedic potential. For their part, the politicians fielding the small town’s phone call offer a nice amount of the hilarity, constantly usurping the hypocritical authority of the community (re: the Hays Code), and the Kockenlocker father (William Demarest) adds an edge that is simultaneously eyeroll-worthy and genius in its mockery of the stereotypical father, especially when he’s trying to convince the rather simpleminded Norval to knock him out in self-defense.

Yet the very fact that such knowledge (once obvious to its contemporary audiences but now steeped in a tradition of film history) is necessary to appreciate the hyper-caricatures and mockery of the Hays Code precludes more than just a bit of my enjoyment. This is not to say that preliminary legwork isn’t needed prior to watching a film, but rather this is to say that without such knowledge this film loses all basis in reality and instead becomes a lightweight comedy and not the hyper-critical attack on misguided censorship that Sturges truly wants it to be.

Miracle of Morgan's Creek: 7/10

Ugetsu

Prior to starting this blog I had always written off Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953), though there was seldom a good reason and thoughts devolved into such axioms as “Japanese ghost stories? What is Ugetsu, another Ringu? Lolzzz,” “It doesn’t have Mifune, so why bother?,” or “In Her Shoes is assuredly a better choice for a blind rental.” Thus, when Ugetsu finally showed up in friends' top ten lists, I resolved to correct this neglect on my part. And lo, it was good, extremely good. What I always feared would be a stagnant fable, wizened and overtly preachy, instead became a wonder of character and atmosphere, allowing Mizoguchi’s immaculate mise en scene to express inner psychology while simultaneously allowing characters to follow their particular stories with self-critiques rather than moralistic decrees.

Moreover, this is one film that offers a brutal assessment of male-female relationships, and it’s one where Mizoguchi seems to side most with the feminine even as he suggests a way in which masculinity can be devoted to the feminine. That is, while Mizoguchi tells a universal story of man’s deterministic pride and delusional arrogance, detailing men who carelessly leave behind their wives and families to pursue their own gilded desires, by film’s end he expresses an innate humanism, allowing the men to shoulder their blame and acknowledge the hurt they have inflicted upon their wives. This extreme dedication to reciprocity is what enables the film to transcend the machinations of gender and become something simultaneously more universal and primitive, since modern society exists here as the pollutant of the soul and desire, what with its emphasis on bureaucracy and politics.

In using the generic conventions of the ghost story, a genre staple that, while universal, is most native to the Japanese people, Mizoguchi subverts the typical caricature of female malevolence, instead offering Lady Wasaka a mournful and existentialist sensitivity that demonstrates his humility toward women. Indeed, it is this humility that is most woven throughout Ugetsu, effacing these men and their materialistic sense of pride, so that their desires become grounded around devotion and responsibility, even if they can only prove this realization to their wives after the fact. Yet, again moving beyond traditional ghost stories, this after-death devotion is how our main characters bond together the most. Ultimately, this is a film about the violation of the world and ourselves, and works masterfully as an appeal to reappraising our desires for a higher sense of virtue.

Ugetsu: 10/10

The Road Home

Zhang Yimou’s The Road Home (1999) is a fascinating work of memory and reflection, yet it is a film that sustains itself largely through its simplicity. Initially leaving behind most of the subterfuge and political critique of his earlier works, here Zhang crafts a story of love between the young beauty in the mountains and the schoolteacher from the city assigned to educate the village. Within this traditional flashback narrative, though, there still lies an undercurrent of critique, as the old ways are valorized and the freedom to come back home to marry is celebrated amidst the enforcement of Communistic ideals and the threat of jail. This ability to work at both levels of character/story and political critique is what elevates this film beyond the prototypical flashback exercise that I had initially feared it would be.

It first helps to identify some of the main ideas, such as one’s story becoming legend and how small artifacts (especially the bowl, in which Zhao Di (Zhang Ziyi) places all of her trust to woo Luo Changyu (Zhend Hao) with her cooking) become imbued with such power that any damage to them becomes irrevocable. Rather than language, artifacts such as the hair clip Luo bestows upon Zhao become the mechanism through which longing is expressed, as we come to understand that Zhao and Luo’s relationship is not predicated around open communication but instead is one of furtive glances and unnecessary treks across buildings, their devotion to one another manifesting itself in the way in which each symbolically commits to the other.

This is why most of the powerful scenes are so simply orchestrated. Called back by the authorities over an unexplained transgression, Luo leaves the mountainside with an authority figure and a horse escort and we immediately cut to Zhao trying to reach him with a bowl of one of his favorite dishes before he is gone, watching as she dashes across an expanse of land in her devotion to him. It’s a breathtaking moment, even as we recognize the impossibility of her logic, and Zhang masterfully executes the scene. Similarly, when Luo returns to her after a prolonged absence (because the villagers have gotten word back to him about Zhao’s unending devotion to him), he is again collected by the authorities, and here the ordeal of having to serve a two-year sentence for his flight from the city back to the mountainside seems so contemptible that it can’t be anything less than a subversive commentary on the blind enforcement of Communistic ideals against the similarly blind love of men and women.

Beyond the delicacy of the young love story, there is also a noticeable touch of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in it, with Zhang, similarly to Kiarostami, framing the mise en scene from a distance so that the landscape shots start to have their own subjectivity, moving from mood to character with ease. Lastly, this was the first feature film that Zhang Ziyi worked on, and, beyond possibly Wong Kar Wai’s 2046, it remains her strongest work to date, as she centers her performance through her expressions and demeanor rather than dialogue, as here and in 2046 she demonstrates what a command she has over her body. While not quite effervescent, The Road Home is certainly a strong piece of Zhang’s cinema.

The Road Home: 8/10