“What do you fear, Mr. Baxter?”

Don’t Look Now is only Nicolas Roeg’s third film (completing a bizarre yet exceptional trio with the studied anarchy of Performance and the sparse yet enthralling Walkabout) and, in some ways, it shows. The former cinematographer maintains total control over how he presents and withholds information - dropping clues and maintaining visual motifs; the film sometimes feels like an exercise in Roeg’s craft. Take the opening sequence: Roeg sets everything up meticulously--from the understated yet menacing threat of a static shot of rain hitting a pond, to the relaxed, comfortable intimacy of John and Laura’s relationship. Their daughter’s death in the pond is foreshadowed by the image shown above, a growing bloody stain on a slide John is examining detailing a Venetian church with a lurking figure dressed in red in one corner. It’s simple stuff, fully rooted in events to follow, but Roeg is smart not to pull his punches. John’s primal roar of despair as he drags his daughter from the water is instantly burned into the memory—but everything that previously passed remains in the back of your mind, later to be slyly evoked as we move into the alleys of Venice, one of the most perfectly unsettling locations in film history.

Don’t Look Now, despite all its disquieting power as a horror film, is primarily a study of a marriage burdened by grief: the film would fail utterly without its central couple (played by the assured Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie at the height of their skills). John buries himself in his work, trying to forget the deceased Christine, whilst Laura is adrift in sorrow. When a blind seer claims she can see her daughter with them, laughing happily, Laura grabs onto this shred of hope; John dismisses it (perhaps in denial of his own possible psychic gifts, glimpsed with his clairvoyance in the opening scene). The two are very convincing as a married couple: fully at ease with each other, but sundered by such an irreconcilable loss. Their chemistry is fittingly displayed in the famous love scene: Roeg cuts between the tenderness of the act itself and their dressing to go to dinner afterwards (Steven Soderbergh later paid homage by inverting the idea to the same effect in Out of Sight), and we see their effortless connection even when they are apart. This is the one truly happy moment Roeg grants both the couple and the audience, underlining the deeply human story of the film and truly earning the pathos of its opening and closing moments.

Despite all this, it is impossible to ignore the powerful, disturbing undercurrent that bubbles throughout the Venice scenes as well. There are precious few moments of action, and they are mostly red herrings or explainable mishaps. John follows a mysterious, hooded figure in red through the labyrinth of the city as his steadfast rationality is slowly bored down, both by his vision of Laura on a funeral boat and her growing conviction that their daughter is trying to contact them. There is another side-plot concerning a serial killer on the loose—but Roeg seems barely concerned with it, only using it in almost a throwaway manner to tie up the plot in the finale. All of this combines for a palpable mood—the grand, gothic, unfamiliar set of the city, the lurking danger in the hooded red figure and the endless canals that constantly remind the Baxters of their daughter’s fate. Aside from the catharsis of the love scene, Graeme Clifford’s skillful, clinical editing provides no relief from the tension, not until the brutal, shocking and remarkably upsetting finale (which I will try to keep unspoiled) which, whilst confusing, horrifying and difficult to watch, is also perversely just, giving a sense of deserved peace to such an emotionally ravaged relationship.

Roeg’s skill in preserving mood, tension and unmitigated horror in Don’t Look Now and balancing it with tender emotion and such a believable portrayal of a marriage is unparalleled among almost any director I have had the pleasure to see. His trained visual eye is impossible to refute; but it is his skill for storytelling, staggering and withholding information whilst constantly hinting at the terrible events to follow, that I truly admire here. Roeg never lets us fully abandon rationality and, as the credits roll, the preceding mood of prophetic doom complements the deep strike into the hearts of his audience.

Directed by Nicolas Roeg; written by Allan Scott and Chris Bryant; based on the short story by Daphne Du Maurier; cinematography by Anthony Richmond; editing by Graeme Clifford; original score by Pino Donnagio; production design by Giovanni Soccol; costume design by Andrea Galer and Marit Lieberson; produced by Peter Katz; released by Paramount Pictures. Rated R. Runtime 110 mins.

WITH: Donald Sutherland (John Baxter), Julie Christie (Laura Baxter), Hilary Mason (Heather), Clelia Matania (Wendy), Massimo Serato (Bishop Barbarrigo), Renato Scarpa (Inspector Longhi), Sharon Williams (Christine Baxter).

“Well I ain't about to kiss off forty thousand dollars! I'll get it back, and if any of it's missing I'll replace it with her fine, soft flesh!”

Mention even the concept of Van Sant’s Psycho to people and the reaction is near universal revulsion—many of those who have seen it consider it to be an inexplicable oddity, a cinematic waste of time, a bizarre waste of Gus Van Sant’s considerable talent. After Van Sant’s success with Good Will Hunting, a more mainstream effort than his previous work, he was allowed to progress with a project that had been declined him before, a remake of Hitchcock’s iconic Psycho. However, what Van Sant produced was unlike any remake ever attempted previously: the film was near-replicated, shot-for-shot, with Bernard Hermann’s score and Joseph Stefano’s screenplay, yet starring a different cast, set in the present day, and filmed in full-blown color. Although the abysmal reception to the film is perhaps understandable, to me the impact was instant and unique: through his approach Van Sant creates a kind of hybrid universe, a story that lives in the past but exists in the present, where even the most subtle changes speak volumes.

Van Sant announces his intentions in the opening credits: replicated exactly, with Bernard Hermann’s score, yet in brilliant green and with his name proudly displayed under “directed by”, sliced into three pieces exactly as Hitchcock’s was. He has the same knowing humor of his predecessor: Van Sant reprises Hitch’s original cameo, the sign on the Bates Motel says “newly renovated”, and Norman Bates points out the shower to Marion in an overt wink to the audience. Van Sant takes Hitchcock’s lead on other points too; he achieves tracking shots that were impossible in 1960. It’s surprising how many common interests the two directors seem to share. Following the shower scene, much is made of Norman’s obsessive cleaning after the act; the psychological implications about Norman’s repression are obvious, but the audience is also being allowed to draw a breath after the shocking abruptness of the murder. There’s a kind of ironic humor to all this—undoubtedly everyone who saw the 1998 version knew how and when Marion would die (indeed, I remember the ad campaign with the arch tagline “relax, unpack, take a shower”)—and yet Van Sant still memorializes her death, allows the audience to come to terms with the loss of a character they all knew was doomed from the start. There is a sparse, haunting quality to this scene that is quite removed from the pace and tension of the film—something I had totally forgotten about the original film. By playing to his own strengths in this way (I was reminded of his later ‘death trilogy’ of Gerry, Elephant and Last Days), Van Sant helps you rediscover the myriad of subtleties in the original that are so easy to overlook.

As there is little that has not already been said about the 1960 version, it is best to concentrate on the deviations from the original when reviewing a film like this. Christopher Doyle employs a take-no-prisoners approach in his tremendous use of color: particularly green, the “color of evil” according to Van Sant, which is especially associated with Marion. We first meet her clad in a luminous orange bra, a sort of postmodern scarlet woman. After she steals the money and goes on the run, she is again clad in orange, but her dress is covered in green splotches. Much of the production design and cinematography uses such simple, obvious motifs: the pastel colors, the vintage feel of the sets and costumes, the garishly red blood sprayed around the bathroom. These differences are how Van Sant sets out the ‘hybrid universe’ previously mentioned—although the opening titles assure us we’re in the present, the script mostly retains its original chintzy dialogue and the supporting cast (dotted with cameos of well-known character actors seemingly eager to take even the most meager role) are over-the-top to the point of pastiche. On first glance, the film doesn’t particularly succeed at straddling the two decades, but Van Sant highlights some interesting disparities, especially in the character of Marion Crane. Janet Leigh’s original portrayal sees her as a strong-willed woman taking the initiative in controlling her destiny by stealing the money. But in the neurotic 90s, Marion doesn’t have to resort to petty theft to be independent: her decision to take the money seems much more whimsical and ditzy, especially since it will only serve to unite her with the sketchy (if good-natured) Sam Loomis (played by Viggo Mortensen with a seedy kind of charm, a much more convincing lothario than the staid original). Heche brilliantly reflects this in her performance, mixing her God-given wiles with a deer-in-the-headlights stare used most effectively in the extended voice-over scenes that focus on her face as she imagines her downfall. Van Sant makes these scenes, a prelude to her final hours at the Bates Motel, much more explicitly nightmarish than Hitchcock did.

Easily the vastest difference in the newer film is Vince Vaughn’s Norman Bates. Anthony Perkins' original performance is precisely calculated and unapproachably good, and Vaughn does well to distance himself from it. Here, Norman is much calmer and more self-assured—his tight shirt, erect poise and pointed jaw give him an almost sexually threatening vibe. He shouts at his ‘mother’ with much more authority and giggles with gleeful mania. Even though this Norman seems more instantly approachable, he’s also more obviously disturbed. Yet there’s an odd charm to him, even though Vaughn often errs too far on the fey side. Marion half-flirts with him as they eat, and seems persuaded by his speech about “private traps”—sure, he’s kooky, but that’s nothing a little therapy couldn’t set right. Wherever Hitch hinted at sexual charge in the original, Van Sant brings it out and makes it explicit: never more noticeably than the masturbation scene—blind or deaf people could watch it and know what was going on. Most critics of the film revile how Van Sant has made the subtle obvious, but would Hitchcock himself have left sex to the imagination were he working in the present? Gus Van Sant clearly doesn’t think so.

It takes a balls-out attitude and a good sense of self-awareness to make a film like this, and that’s why the calculation of the film can easily leave one cold. There’s nothing to be gained and no fun to be had if you approach Psycho thinking that it was a pointless endeavor from the start. Sure, Van Sant gave himself enough rope to hang himself by attempting such an incredible task. But one has to give him at least a modicum of respect for setting the bar so inhumanly high, especially at the apex of his popular/studio appeal. Psycho is one of the most bizarre, different and instantly memorable films I’ve ever seen. Van Sant takes something that is not just a film, but one of the staples of popular culture, and both copies and inverts it – making its most lurid elements even more extreme and meditating on some of its softest, most delicate touches. It’s neither ‘success’ nor ‘failure’, simply a true oddity: a unique piece of work that belongs to a separate class of its own.

Directed by Gus Van Sant; written by Joseph Stefano, based on the novel by Robert Bloch; cinematography by Christopher Doyle; editing by Amy E. Duddleston; original score by Bernard Herrmann; production design by Tom Foden; costume design by Beatrix Anna Pasztor; produced by Brian Grazer and Gus Van Sant; released by Universal Pictures. Rated R. Runtime 105 mins.

WITH: Vince Vaughn (Norman Bates), Anne Heche (Marion Crane), Julianne Moore (Lila Crane), Viggo Mortensen (Samuel Loomis), William H. Macy (Milton Arbogast), Robert Forster (Dr. Fred Simon), Philip Baker Hall (Sheriff Al Chambers), James Remar (Patrolman), James LeGros (Charlie the Car Dealer).

“Screw the goddamn passengers! What the hell did they expect from their lousy 35 cents - to live forever?”

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a film very much rooted in its era. Just take a look at the cast list of the New Yorkers taken hostage on a subway train--it includes 'the hooker', 'the pimp', 'the alcoholic', 'the WASP', 'the Spanish woman', 'the hippie' and 'the homosexual'. Although the film certainly isn’t politically correct (most glaringly at the beginning, which contains a needless running joke about a group of Japanese businessmen) the rough-edged, seen-it-all-before attitude of its characters means it truly captures a New York spirit that few other films have. Scorsese’s best efforts at this mini-genre, Taxi Driver and Bringing Out The Dead, both concentrate on the lowest underside of the city, but The Taking of Pelham One Two Three takes a broader sweep in its focus, from the mayor’s office all the way down to the aforementioned pimps and alcoholics. From the inept politicians to the apathetic bureaucracy to the resolute passengers, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is primarily a hostage thriller but also a compelling cross-section of a unique city.

The story concerns a gang of four armed men (addressed only by the colors of their hats: Quentin Tarantino later lifted this idea for Reservoir Dogs) who hijack a subway train with the intent of getting a million dollars from the city within an hour—if they don’t, they threaten to start killing their hostages. The gang of four fit archetypal modes: Robert Shaw’s Mr. Blue is English to a fault: cool as a cucumber and fully resolved, but with a strong sense of honor. Hector Elizondo’s Mr. Grey is the crazy one, Martin Balsam’s Mr. Green the nervous one, and Earl Hindman’s Mr. Brown is just there to have dialogue bounced off of him. They have to deal with transit policeman Zachary Garber (an enormously grouchy Walter Matthau) as well as a cowardly mayor, his slick deputy and a bunch of take-no-shit transit officers. Since the hostage drama lasts only 60 minutes, the film is played basically in real-time (with 20 minutes at either end for setup and denouement) and Sargent, a wildly inconsistent director, perfectly maintains an even flow and high tension. Without resorting to any wild histrionics (a scene where Matthau loses it with a fellow transit officer is quite effectively low-key) or graphic violence, Pelham never devolves into high-camp or becomes too ridiculous. In fact, Sargent’s treatment of the violence is one of Pelham’s best features. Each act of violence, always a shooting, is a pivotal plot point, and Sargent is always at pains to show, however subtly, the effect on each of his main characters. This keeps Pelham suitably ‘gritty’ but also keeps the violence from becoming too senseless, or ‘cool’.

One could argue that Pelham isn’t a film that really benefits from over-analysis. As a viewing experience, its major quality is just that it’s a terrifically taut thriller. The screenplay, based on John Godey’s novel, has some self-consciously silly ‘gangster’ dialogue, especially when crazy Mr. Grey is involved (“I’ve always done my own killing”, he spits at Mr. Blue) and a couple of fairly obvious twists. But it also has a lot of sharply funny dialogue, especially Matthau’s exchanges with a young Jerry Stiller as a fellow transit cop, and the tirades of the blustering subway manager played by Dick O’Neill. The finale is a little rushed—but it has moments of great power, especially the face-to-face meeting of Matthau and Shaw. But although Pelham is just a crime thriller, its overall attitude towards human nature is really quite fascinating and insightful.

In the New York of Pelham, almost all of the characters have only one real concern—their own personal bottom line. This is true both of the gangsters and almost all the supposed ‘good guys’. Mr. Green, repulsed by the idea of killing the hostages, worries more about his own prophecy that he’s “going to die tonight”. The mayor, feigning illness to try and escape the tough decisions, is finally won over to the idea of paying the ransom when his wife tells him what he’ll be getting out of it: “eighteen sure votes”. Even a toll booth officer, being interrogated as a possible suspect hijacker, demands the cops pay their 50 cent toll after they question him. Matthau’s character is really the only one with any empathy at all for the hostages—and even he is blackly cynical. Mr. Blue, the mastermind of the hijacking, still clearly is upset whenever violence is resorted to: the barest minimum of emotion creeps across his face occasionally, for he is no common crook but instead a villain out of a James Bond movie, a cool sophisticate who appreciates honor amongst thieves and a job well done (virtues that Quentin Tarantino also emulates in his films: quite a lot of Pelham’s tone and material can be found in Tarantino’s oeuvre). As Blue, Shaw gives his kind of tour-de-force performance: not anything of particularly great range, but perfectly judged and memorable long afterwards. Matthau is also playing to type but never becomes too hammy (as he often can) and emerges as the closest Pelham comes to a moral anchor.

The film has a really quite pessimistic view on the compassion of humans when it comes to events like these: ask them about an incident like a hijacking or a murder and they’ll profess sympathy, or outrage, or regret; but when it comes down to it, people will do whatever they can to survive and succeed. Sure, Mr. Green might grimace and say “aw, jeez” when a subway attendant is shot, but that doesn’t prevent him from gleefully bouncing around in his big pile of money later on. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a funny, well-made, thrilling movie, but it’s the refreshing lack of political correctness or social mores that really makes it stick in your mind.

Directed by Joseph Sargent; written by Peter Stone, based on the novel by John Godey; cinematography by Enrique Bravo and Owen Roizman; editing by Gerald B. Greenberg and Robert Q. Lovett; original score by David Shire; production design by Alixe Gordin; costume design by Anna Hill Johnstone; produced by Edgar J. Scherick and Gabriel Katzka; released by United Artists. Rated R. Runtime 104 mins.

WITH: Walter Matthau (Lt. Zachary Garber), Robert Shaw (Mr. Blue), Martin Balsam (Mr. Green), Hector Elizondo (Mr. Grey), Earl Hindman (Mr. Brown), Dick O'Neill (Frank Correll), Jerry Stiller (Lt. Rico Patone).

“It’s like hygiene. Either you smell good or you don’t. Either you’re krump or you’re not.”

On first look, Rize is certainly a film to approach with caution: a documentary about a new hip-hop dance movement directed by a fashion photographer/music video director definitely sets off the ‘vapid’ alarm bell. But even though David LaChapelle’s Rize, a film about the ‘krump’ movement of dance birthed in L.A. and its roots in the city, suffers from some flashiness over substance, it remains fully convincing and engrossing not only because of the visually astounding dancing itself, but also the quite stark and powerful intensity of the people behind the dancing.

We are introduced to a world apparently quite pervasive in inner-city Los Angeles (but completely unbeknownst to this writer, and I would guess much of the film’s audience, which adds to the wonder) first through meeting its founder, the ‘ghetto celebrity’ Tommy the Clown. A reformed drug dealer who began appearing as a ‘hip-hop clown’ at kid’s birthday parties in the early 90s, Tommy was intrigued by the identity he created, one wholly separate from the problems of violence, gangs and drugs that pervade his neighborhood and many just like it. His ‘Clown Academy’, which took in troubled kids and channeled their energies into performing (most notably dancing) evolved into a whole social structure—we see footage of kids with elaborately painted faces, in full clown costumes, walking around South Central with nobody around blinking an eye.

From ‘clowning’ came ‘krumping’, which places less emphasis on entertainment and more on a kind of powerful therapeutic group session of dancing. At the start of the film we are told that none of the footage has been sped up, and it’s easy to see why. We are shown people dancing so quickly, so bizarrely, we might assume that they are possessed, or on drugs, or in the grip of some seizure, or all three. This is the true appeal of LaChapelle’s film: his raw, primal footage of large groups of people dancing with no abandon, often paired with voiceovers by the dancers talking about their home life, or former tragedies that have befallen them. Sure, it’s not hard for a director to see the intense emotion that is clearly being released through krumping, but the effect is nonetheless cinematically breathtaking.

LaChapelle falls into a trap of focusing too much on a particular event centered around krumping: the ‘Battlezone’, a dance-off between Tommy’s clowns and the krumpers, is certainly interesting, but not enough to be built up as a denouement. I could have done with more of the early street footage both of the krumpers and the clowns, as well as delving more deeply into their backstories. But LaChapelle gets things right too: he does not shy away from showing us the very flawed nature of Tommy the Clown, a man who has done much for his community in keeping kids away from violence and drugs, but also clearly suffers from a quite inflated ego because of it. Another finale-esque moment involving him is one of the film’s finest non-dancing moments. Also, the parallels between traditional African cultures and the krumpers LaChapelle draws is obvious once you see it onscreen, but a keen perception nonetheless.

Rize is best to catch now before krump hits the mainstream: at the end, we see three of the main krumpers shot in a traditional, music video style by LaChapelle: gorgeous lighting, sweating, toned bodies and all in slow-motion. It certainly still has an impact, but the unedited, spontaneous footage of the rest of the film is really what will sear this film and these people into your memories for quite a while.

Directed by David LaChapelle; cinematography by Morgan Susser and Michael Totten; editing by Fernando Villena; original score by Amy Marie Beauchamp and Jose Cancela; produced by David LaChapelle, Mark Hawker and Ellen Jacobson; released by Lions Gate Films. Rated PG-13. Runtime 86 mins.