HOWARDS END (1992). The best of the countless Merchant Ivory productions
– and arguably the most appreciated by those who don’t even like Merchant
Ivory movies – this rich adaptation of E.M. Forster’s Edwardian-era novel remains
one of cinema’s defining statements on the rigid class structures that too often
create irreparable riffs between a nation’s citizenry. The story centers on
sisters Margaret and Helen Schlegel (Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter)
and their relationships with those who inhabit the classes directly above and
below them. On the upper end of the scale, there’s the Wilcox family, whose
patriarch (Anthony Hopkins) ends up marrying Margaret after his ailing wife
(Vanessa Redgrave) passes away; on the bottom rung, there’s Leonard Bast (Samuel
West), a struggling (and married) clerk whose cause is championed by Helen.
The fiercely independent sisters offer a fascinating contrast in pre-modern
feminism – Margaret’s bend-but-don’t-break diplomacy is a far cry from Helen’s
firebrand radicalism – and scripter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala takes care to preserve
the staggering ironies that permeate the tale. Thompson earned a well-deserved
Best Actress Oscar for her eye-opening performance (Jhabvala and set designers
Luciana Arrighi and Ian Whittaker also emerged victorious), but no less memorable
are the turns by Hopkins (who somehow finds a shred of humanity in a despicable
character) and Bonham Carter. Extras in the two-disc DVD set include new interviews
with director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and others who made the
film, a 1984 documentary about the history of Merchant Ivory Productions, and
a piece on the film’s costume and set designs.
Movie: ***1/2
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (2004). The seeds of social change are planted
early on within Ernesto “Che” Guevara in this uncomplicated biopic that examines
an early incident in the life of the iconic revolutionary. Adapted by Jose Rivera
from the memoirs of both Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado, this new drama
from director Walter Salles (Central Station) centers on the two men
as they leave their comfortable lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in order to
see the rest of South America on the back of Alberto’s beat-up motorcycle. Yet
what begins as an Animal House road adventure for the earnest Ernesto (Bad
Education‘s Gael Garcia Bernal) and the easygoing Alberto (Rodrigo de la
Serna) – complete with drunken revelries and flirtatious bantering with the
Latino ladies – turns decidedly more somber as they work their way up the continent
and become involved first with the indigenous people of Chile and then with
a leper colony in Peru. Rivera’s Oscar-nominated script makes no mention of
Castro or Cuba or even those posthumous T-shirts emblazoned with Che’s mug –
aside from an end-credit blurb, the movie focuses exclusively on this specific
journey. As such, it plays more like a humanist fable about one individual’s
consciousness-raising than it does as a portrait of the controversial warrior-martyr
– while this may smack some as a play-it-safe ploy, it also frees the picture
from the shackles of expectation and allows it to blossom as a heartfelt paean
to a formidable continent and its proud people. DVD extras include deleted scenes,
a making-of feature, and a brief interview with the real Alberto Granado.
Movie: ***
RAGING BULL (1980). Is Raging Bull really the best movie of the
1980s? According to Roger Ebert, the late Gene Siskel, USA Today‘s Mike
Clark, and an American Film magazine poll of 54 influential US critics,
the answer is yes. But whether it’s ranked number one or number two or even
number 200, it’s clear that Martin Scorsese’s pugilist pic is a towering achievement,
a mesmerizing film that, like the current Million Dollar Baby, refuses
to be pigeonholed as merely a “boxing movie.” Decidedly unsentimental in every
respect, Raging Bull offers a searing character study of Jake La Motta,
the middleweight boxing champion who was as much of a brute outside the ring
as he was inside it. Robert De Niro, in a superb performance that earned him
the Best Actor Oscar, plays La Motta throughout his adult life, famously going
from a fighting physique to portray the boxer in his heyday to gaining 60 pounds
to play him after his glory days were long over. It’s a startling transformation,
but the true power of De Niro’s performance rests in his ability to worm his
way into this lug’s twisted psyche and air out his personal demons for all to
see. Scorsese’s meticulous direction (you’d never know he had no interest in
boxing when first tackling this project), the brilliant screenplay by Paul Schrader
and Mardik Martin (adapted from La Motta’s autobiography), Thelma Schoonmaker’s
Oscar-winning editing and Michael Chapman’s black-and-white cinematography all
deserve kudos; ditto for the superlative turns by novice actors Joe Pesci (as
Jake’s supportive brother) and Cathy Moriarty (as his long-suffering wife).
Extras on the two-disc DVD include three audio commentaries featuring Scorsese,
the real Jake La Motta and others, a quartet of making-of features detailing
all aspects of the production, and a shot-by-shot comparison between an actual
La Motta bout (captured in newsreel footage) and the recreation by Scorsese
and De Niro.
Movie: ****
This article appears in Feb 16-22, 2005.
