Movie – Page 3 – Camera Coverage

Directed by Samuel Fuller

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“Told him I didn’t want any kid tagging along.”

Samuel Fuller is one of the most high-regarded filmmakers of the 20^th century, being cited as an influence by many big names in American cinema such as Martin Scorsese or Richard Linklater. Today I am selecting one of his earlier works, and one that is not necessarily one of his most praised films, The Steel Helmet. Notorious for dwelling and transferring the pulp magazine aesthetic onto the big screen, being his most famous films Shock Corridor (1963) or The Naked Kiss (1964), Fuller always knew how to utilize the melodramatic and almost exploitative and sensational themes associated with the pulps to the fullest. In this early film, The Steel Helmet, he moves away from these archetypes and utilizes a reality well-known to him to deliver his poignant and spiky ideas of the war and of the politics of his time.

The film revolves around the Korean War, which was actually ongoing at the time of its release. However, despite propaganda for this war and the release of other films regarding this particular war, Fuller’s picture is arguably the less romanticized of the bunch. There is still a clear tragic pathos to the central plot of the film, but while other pictures focus on the glory and courage of the American soldiers, The Steel Helmet focuses on the soldier’s mindset, on the soldiers that are afraid, nervous and trying to survive in a war instead of soldiers gallantly marching towards their deaths.

The camera follows Gene Evans’ Sgt. Zack on the aftermath of a fatal confrontation of his platoon with North Korean troops, where he was the lucky one who survived, even though he was shot in his helmet. He finds a South Korean kid nearby which at first he dismisses, but eventually lets the kid follow him on his way out of the war. Again, it is not the first time we see children or teenagers in a war situation in American cinema, but what Fuller makes “Short Round” (the name given by the sergeant to the kid) go through is an unacceptably violent scenario, stepping on the joints of the viewer and creating an atmosphere of uneasiness that I can only imagine being almost unprecedented at the time of the film’s release, especially by the devastating emotional ending of this central plot.

“Get yourself a pair of clodhoppers! No, no. Over there. Take Peewee Johnson’s.”

But arguably, the film shines most in its ideological ambiguities and in being genuinely humanizing. Even though this is a letter of hatred towards war, it depicts the communist side of the war in a really interesting way. It is Sgt. Zack’s war-prisoner that pushes some of the minorities in the squad at the Buddhist temple to reason with some of the social problems in America. He questions the African American soldier about him riding the back of the bus while he payed for the whole ticket, and faces the Japanese American soldier with the realities of the Japanese prisoners of war made by Americans in the World War II. Although the answers demonstrate an apparent loyalty to their flag, the insistence on the reaction of the soldiers by Fuller demonstrates that they recognize that there is something wrong with the American society .Unfortunately they must remain antagonistic and patriotic against the temptations of their communist enemy (even though they may be right on this one). There is, however, a complete disregard for the politics behind the war, and a distrust of Fuller’s on communist affairs, especially considering this situation of the prisoner that almost reminds us of the temptation of Eve, but also by the overall depiction of communist belief as betrayor of tradition and spirituality mirrored in the hiding and fighting in the Buddhist temple.

“You pay for a ticket, but you even have to sit in the back of a public bus. Isn’t that so?”

There is also a subtlety in the interaction of the soldiers. Despite the angry, traumatized and cold Sgt. Zack being a result of warfare (despite that by the end of the picture he dives deeper in war trauma), the film emphasises the actual interaction of innocent and scared young men going through the actual process of trauma. There is an intimacy in The Steel Helmet that is absent in most American war films released at the time, and not in a romanticized way. The despair of war leads these young men to place hope and effort on small comforting gestures, most notably the bald soldier’s and the Japanese American soldier’s interaction regarding hair loss and their cooperation in such a personal matter, that is still important despite the dangers of a war background.

The film is an answer to pictures like A Walk in the Sun (1945), as it demonstrates that war is not romantic. It is a field where innocents meet their deaths, or even worse. Visually it is stunning, with great special effects and action set-pieces for such a small budget (around 103,000 US dollars) and full of small visual queues that are full of allegories and character building potential (small things like the North Korean soldier hiding behind the Buddha statue or Sgt. Zack playing with Buddhist artefacts in the temple). It is the combination of the outrageous situations with these subtleties that make Fuller’s work so enticing. The Steel Helmet is a relentless attack on war, but also an attack on racism and on the dismissal of spirituality. Complete with a shockingly tragic plot and definitely stepping the line with its themes by 1951’s standards, The Steel Helmet is my first pick for our Classics section of the blog, and despite it being often dismissed when competing with others from Samuel Fuller’s filmography, I have no problem in saying it is possibly my favourite from him.

Directed by Julian Schnabel

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“Maybe God made me a painter for people who aren’t born yet”

On At Eternity’s Gate Julian Schnabel, director of the critically acclaimed Le scaphandre et le papillon (2007) turns again to the art world for inspiration. 23 years after Basquiat (1996), inspired by the troubled life of street artist Jean Michel Basquiat, it’s now time for an exploration of the later days of Vincent van Gogh. Despite the many decades that separate the life and death of the two artists, both were misinterpreted visionaries whose works came to be known as revolutionary after their deaths.

Biopics and homages of van Gogh are too many to describe in this review. From Vincent Minelli´s Lust for Life (1956), to the Akira Kurosawa´s marvellous tribute in Dreams (1990) where the painting Wheatfield with Crows (1890) is referenced in one of the shots. In 2017 came out Loving Vincent, an animation film using 65,000 frames of oil painting on canvas, inspired by the painting technique of van Gogh.

This film focuses approximately on the last 2 and half years of the Dutch artist. It begins with van Gogh (William Dafoe) meeting the also acclaimed French painter Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac) and their stay in the French small town of Arles. All the known episodes about the artists life, from the breaking apart with Gauguin, the cutting of his own ear as well his stay in a mental asylum and controversial death are represented in this film.

One of the great things about At Eternity’s Gate is the great performance of William Dafoe in this picture. Although having almost twice the age of van Gogh at the time of his death, Dafoe establishes a believable portrayal of the anguish and pure joy the painter experienced during this period of his life. The director focused with great care at the expressions in the faces of the actors, with the constant use of close-ups. Like Dreyer in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), the close-up on someone’s face does an astonishing job of making the spectator feel the pain as well the joy the character must be feeling at the time. The scenes where van Gogh paints, the switch between the focus on the quick brushstrokes and the emotions manifested by his face truly transports the viewer to the pure bliss of painting. These few scenes are when the film really outshines itself, together with a warm but at the same time gloomy solo piano soundtrack.

Schnabel experiments a lot with the camera work. Besides the above-mentioned close ups, which work quite well and give texture to the film experience, the overemphasis on a half-blurred lens in some scenes starts to get a little bit tiring after a while. The sound experimentation works better. In the church scene, where Gauguin announces his departure to Paris, leaving van Gogh completely shattered inside is a great example of this. The lines spoken by Gauguin repeat in van Gogh’s head at the same time he is hearing more information from the French painter. It helps to represent better the pure exasperation that van Gogh was surely feeling at the time.

The echoes of Gauguin’s voice inside van Gogh’s head

Van Gogh is represented as a fragile man where the only person who appears to comprehend him is his own brother. A powerful bond which is well represented in this film, especially in a scene where the two lie down in an hospital bed, after one of van Gogh’s breakdowns. He feels that the world doesn’t comprehend him, and laments when he says, “I have a menacing spirit around me.” The connection between mental illness and acts of pure genius is sometimes hailed as logic and unavoidable. As if madness is the only way of achieving greatness and that every genius has a little bit of a madman inside him. This image of a deranged gift is unjust, and a lot of times given to artists like van Gogh. In one of his many marvellous letters to his brother Theo he refers that a “grain of madness that is the best of art”. He knows his limitations and how deeply they affect him. The film tries to explain, with all its flaws, that the mental problems were an issue that incapacitated him to do even more, and not the source of all his brilliance.

The painting where the title was drawn from represents a figure of an old man with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, in a clear sense of despair. In a way, Schnabel tries to make van Gogh a martyr of his own geniality. The last scenes of the film almost try to glue the image of saint-like to the painter. The forgiveness of his alleged killers (his suicide it’s still an unsolved mystery to this day) give him a Christ in the cross kind of aura.

Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity’s Gate) (1890) by Vincent Van Gogh; oil in canvas; Kröller-Müller Museum,Otterlo

At Eternity’s Gate tries to transport the viewer closer to the experience of the Dutch painter using every tool possible. It’s not a perfect film but tries to give a fair representation of van Gogh away from the mad genius stereotype. It shows all his brilliance as a painter and his difficulties as a man. The experience of painting on cinema at its best.

7 out of 10

Tag: Movie

The Steel Helmet (1951)