Playing for Time

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I’m analyzing a television movie for a change. Playing for Time (1980) is a horrifying, yet inspiring award-winning telecast based on a true story set in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. The production won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama (Special) and Best Teleplay by the great Arthur Miller. It also received the prestigious Peabody Award.

The opening credits are shown against a sketch of a swastika overlaid with the abbreviated outline of a woman. We also hear a woman singing. The outline then is superimposed onto the singer played by Vanessa Redgrave (she received the Best Actress Emmy for this role). She portrays Fania Fenelon, a Jewish cabaret performer in Paris. The image suggests the main character of the story is trying to eclipse the despicable nature of the Nazis.

While she sings the film depicts German soldiers and a swastika decorated train invading Paris, disrupting the soothing calm of Fania’s singing. She is then in one of the suffocating cattle cars with so many others, including children, headed for the concentration camp. The editing shows how quickly evil can destroy a free society.

The film intersperses actual footage throughout to stress the reality of the tale. The car has only a bucket for the passengers to relieve themselves. A man dies in the car due to the horrid conditions. When they arrive at the camps the dehumanization shifts into full force. They must strip. The Germans cut off their hair, and they are reduced to being identified by tattooed numbers, like cattle.

The German soldiers crowd the prisoners into cramped barracks and show them smoke from the ovens where the bodies of dead fellow travelers were burned. The prisoners must perform hard labor and endure physical abuse. Fania tells a story to her young friend, Marianne (Melanie Mayron), about a princess to distract her from the presence of the dead woman next to them. The film here introduces the theme of how art can help one face the horrible acts of reality.

That drama enhances that theme when the inmates are asked if anyone can sing Madame Butterfly. Fania now finds a way to make a pact with the devil to survive. The guards bring her to the camp’s orchestra which is comprised of women. Amid this place of horror there is a seed of civilized culture because the Nazi monsters like to think their heinous acts do not infringe on their right to appreciate the arts.

The conductor is the stern Alma Rose (Jane Alexander, winner of a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for her portrayal). Fania must audition for Alma, which is difficult given the physical deprivation she has endured. But her enthusiasm for one of the opera’s beautiful arias overcomes her torment. Lagerfuhrein Maria Mandel (Shirley Knight), who oversees the women at the camp, interrupts her moving rendition showing how the Germans have control over the beauty of the music here. Fania uses her leverage with Mandel to get Marianne to sing with the orchestra, which shows how art can sometimes save those who seem lost. (Marianne acts like a child often, wanting or taking things to satisfy her own needs. She wants to place Fania in the role of a mother who tends to all her wants, which Fania tries to resist).

Mandel wants the orchestra members to look the part, so she gets them clothing that has been confiscated. To the Nazis, the musicians are like puppets that are to perform for the captors’ pleasure. The orchestra’s poor rehearsing is due to it originally being a marching band, Alma yells at the performers, telling them that “music is the holiest activity of mankind.” That description is to stress that there can be heavenly hopes in such a hellish place. The members discover that Fania can orchestrate the music to ensure that all play their parts to create a successful rendition. Alma is happy to learn this fact, but warns Fania that she can’t just have the goal of creating good music. She says they must please the Nazis, and that their jailers’ whims can change rapidly. So, artistry must allow for pragmatism for Alma. Fania has a difficult time realizing how much the Nazis hate her for being a Jew. Alma tells her there is only room for life and death in the camp, and other feelings must be put aside.

The incarcerated orchestra improves greatly and has a concert before Nazi soldiers, who may admire the music but will not condescend to give applause. They simply walk out when the show is done. It is not to be praised but to avoid disapproval, and its consequences, that is the goal.

Fania is willing to share her possessions, but the other inmates can’t seem to get rid of their prejudices despite being objects of discrimination. One, a Catholic, is anti-Semitic and the Polish women are segregated from the rest. What brings them together is music (art is again the savior) as Fania and Marianne sing “Stormy Weather” which conjures up shared feelings about lost romantic loves. However, music can be perverted to accompany vicious behavior as the band is used to produce marching music to exhort the women to do exhausting and degrading labor. At night Fania hears the screams of those either tortured or sent to the gas chambers.

Fania declares she will not descend into becoming an animal. Marianne becomes cynical quickly and prostitutes herself for some food. Fania catches her and tells her she shouldn’t degrade herself. But after the girl leaves food on her desk, Fania’s basic needs win out over her morality, and she eats the food. Fania starts out as controlled and calm. As time goes on, it becomes very difficult for her to witness the atrocities. It starts to make her numb in contrast to the feelings of one of the girls who loves another there. Fania says it is a blessing to have any emotion in such a place.

When Fania gets to sing the Madame Butterfly aria she is very impressive. One of her admirers is, of all people, Dr. Joseph Mengele (Max Wright), who performed grotesque experiments on inmates. In one scene we have such beauty and such horror. Fania makes sure they understand that someone who is Jewish can sing so well when she says her father’s name was Goldstein and that she should be called Fania Goldstein.

For her performance, Fania receives supplies. As the women rummage through the new possessions, one of the musicians says that she must live so she can go to Israel and produce Jewish children to fight for Jewish empowerment. Another wants communism to rise out of the ashes of Germany. While the others see only that the problem is the Nazis, Fania says that the real problem to solve is what would make people who would otherwise be admired become sadistic creatures. Her question is pertinent to the scene where Alma screams at one of the musicians and hits her when she can’t produce the right result. Can circumstances turn anyone into someone brutal? After the incident, Alma tells Fania she was in love with a man in Vienna, but he became a Nazi soldier, and she was arrested for being Jewish. She cries at the heartbreak she endured. Fania admits that Alma’s strength has saved them, but she can’t accept the harshness from her. Alma urges Fania to back her up so they can all survive. She says that Fania must shut out what is going on outside and concentrate on perfecting the music. Alma says it is not that she can’t see what’s going on in the camp, it’s that she refuses to. She is saying that the music and the artistry to make it come alive must be their escape, mentally and hopefully, physically.

Fania and Marianne are half-Jewish which means they should not be gassed. They are told to remove half of the Jewish Star of David sewn on their clothing. Marianne gladly does it, but others in the orchestra ridicule Fania and Marianne for what they see as a capitulation to antisemitism. Fania yells that she doesn’t care about cultures and backgrounds, only that the Nazis have reviled her as an individual. She wavers between feelings about group persecution and the desecration of the individual. She sews the part of the star back on showing how she does not want to turn her back on what makes her who she is. She keeps trying to hold onto her humanity and clashes with Alma when the conductor holds back rewards of food as an incentive to perform well. But Fania also voices the fear that it may be “too late for the whole human race.”

A handyman, Schmuel (Will Lee), tells Fania how they are gassing 12,000 prisoners a day. But, he does not become distressed. He rationalizes the holocaust by saying the victims are all angels who will report to God. The movie suggests that each person either despairs or finds a way to survive the hell he or she is in. That same man gives a message to Fania that the Allies have landed, which means the start of D-Day. The women also learn that the translator who was so useful to the Nazis and would not be intimidated, had escaped with a man. They play the Wedding March showing the joy that music holds. There is some hopeful news arriving amid the bleakness. But that joy is short-lived because the soldiers catch the translator and her male friend and bring them back to the camp to be hanged.

An example of the complexity of the human spirit appears in the scene where the Lagerfuhrein delights in a small blond child, doting on him and letting him play in the orchestra room. Some of the musicians see a human side to her, but another points out how she took the child from the mother, and that wrongful act should not be wiped away. The stark contrast in human behavior is emphasized outside as the Lagerfuhrein plays ball with the child amid corpses on the ground.

Commandant Kramer (Clarence Felder) demonstrates the complete control he has over the women. He takes one girl away to watch his children, removes the piano for the officers, yet still expects the orchestra to meet his expectations. A male Jew is to show one of the female musicians how to play a piece on the cello. As he touches her in silence, placing his hands on hers, there is a poignant moment how much physical affection no longer exists for these captives. The diabolical Mengele intertwines his music appreciation with deviant scientific whims as he wants the orchestra to play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for the mentally ill so he can observe the effects on the patients. He will then have the patients gassed. The story continues the contrast between what is creative and what is destructive as real footage of the Nazi forces continuing their concentration camp activities offsets the classical music, and the jarring sounds of screams and gunshots in the background punctuate the elevated music of the great composers.

One of the Polish musicians tells Fania people like to talk to her because she has no causes and only acts like an individual human being with strong feelings. Fania, however, says she can’t help others because she is “dying by inches,” and is starting to develop a failure to thrive, not being interested in eating. She tells the Polish woman that they are not more valuable to save than others. Fania sees the world as beyond salvation now since its sins have been so nullifying.

Alma is overjoyed that she is getting out of the camp to play for the fighting soldiers. She rationalizes that she will not be playing for the murderers who run the camp but for “honorable” men. Fania is angry because Alma doesn’t seem to realize that she will be entertaining those who are fighting for the Nazi way of life. Frau Schmidt (Viveca Lindfors), one of the camp officers, congratulates Alma, and invites her to dinner. Alma wants to believe that Schmidt, who she says has wanted off the camp, has the decency to have kind words for her. It’s as if Fania is now the one who is the more cynical of the two. Fania is right. Schmidt wouldn’t let a Jew get out before her. Mengele (an admirer of Alma’s musical abilities) and other officers gather the orchestra members together and the women find Alma in a coffin. The rumor is that Schmidt poisoned her.

The orchestra descends into anarchy without the strength of Alma, who said she wanted Fania to be the new conductor. However, a frantic and irrational Olga (Christine Baranski) wants to be the leader, and the discordant sounds that the musicians produce under her conducting mirrors the lack of harmony among the women. Marianne has prostituted herself with the camp executioner and the other women scorn her. However, Fania says they have all changed and should not be judgmental because they have learned that each person has the potential to act immorally. Fania takes on the survivalist role of Alma and promises Mengele that the orchestra will strive to perform to Alma’s expectations.

However, there is also a bit of humanity even within the hearts of some of the villains. The Lagerfuhrein has lost the child she took from her mother and now cries as she asks for another rendition of the Madame Butterfly aria to soothe her distress. As has happened often, the sounds of war interrupt the beauty of the music, and the officer reverts to savagery as she shoots a disruptive inmate.

As the Allies attack, the soldiers evacuate the camp in a vain attempt to maintain their lost dominance. The Allied soldiers liberate them from a crowded barn. But, Marianne has lost her soul and injures Fania as she joins her captors with whom she had previously joined sexually. She now can’t remain with the other Jews since she has so compromised herself.

A journalist asks the shaking Fania to say something. Appropriately the story ends with her singing, music being the only way she can exist in a world of horror.

Blow-Up

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Director Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 movie primarily deals with the nature of reality and the the artist’s perception and interpretation of the world. Antonioni summed up what the film is about when he said the photographer in the story wants “to see things closer up.” In a way, he is trying to intensely, almost microscopically, understand what most people would not perceive as they go through life. As he enlarges his photographs, there is a moment where he grasps reality, but by blowing up the picture so much, “the object decomposes and disappears,” and “then the moment passes.” The photographer can stand for any artist, including a painter, or a filmmaker, like Antonioni, who tries to view and and pass on what he insightfully observes. But, humans, even talented artists, are limited in their capacity to truly unravel the mysteries of existence, and sometimes by delving too deeply into a narrow aspect of the world, there is a loss of general perspective.

The first shot in the movie is of a patch of green landscape, a park, a locale which is important to the the story. The titles are displayed, but inside the titles are images. This unique presentation suggests that there are secrets, a mysterious world beneath surface perceptions. Art attempts to expose that hidden reality.

The film is contemporaneously set in London during the 1960’s. At that time, there was a great deal of questioning of the established ways of thinking since the world had produced the unpopular Vietnam War and racism. England was a center for a new wave of music, fashion and art. The film opens with a jeep careening around the concrete, stagnant buildings of the city. The vehicle is filled, almost to the point of overflowing, with young people, some wearing mime makeup. The almost surrealistic image implies that youths and artists are here to disrupt and challenge the inert, resistant ways of the traditional view of the world.

We then have a cut to what looks like working class men coming out of the “National Assistance Board” office. These sad looking males are on welfare. Thomas (David Hemmings) appears to be an impoverished derelict, but as the group of men move away from the building, Thomas sneaks away from them, and then drives away in a Rolls Royce. He has an expensive camera that he puts in his glove compartment. Thomas turns out to be a respected photographer who was passing as a street person in order to take pictures of the seedier side of London. Thomas seeks to reveal the underside of things, but he does it in an exploitative way. He has no sympathy for his subjects, but only sees them as food to feed his artistic appetite.

We return to the youths who now loudly run on the streets. We get another surrealistic shot as they rush past some nuns and an out-of-place Buckingham Palace Guard, marching on the sidewalk. This scene is symbolic of the culture clash between religious and government establishments and the rebellious youth. But, it also is a sort of pictorial collage of the elements composing the modern world. Thomas, while smiling, gives some money to the youths as they accost his car. It is an interesting shot. Is Thomas sympathetic to their anarchistic approach, and encouraging their street theater action? But, at the same time, is Antonioni being satiric of Thomas, who has money, and is just showing token interest by dispensing some of his monetary gains derived from using his subjects?

Thomas reaches his studio and tells an assistant that he wants some film developed “right away.” He is very demanding and condescending toward his staff. There is a foreign model in a skimpy outfit who complains about waiting for him, and he tells her, “Good,” as if his inconsiderate action will deflate her self-importance, and help with their session. She says she has to leave soon for Paris, but he is dismissive of her problem. They do the shoot, as he bosses her around. He urges her to do different poses, and stands on top of her looking down. This visual implies sexual domination, with the lens appearing phallic. He says, “Yeah, make it come!” and then says “Yes, yes!” which sound like orgasmic exclamations. After he’s “finished” he sits, looking spent, and she rests on the floor, as if they just had intercourse. The result is the feeling that artistic fulfillment can be as physically satisfying as sexual release. But, the artist’s pursuit of that consummation here is metaphorically compared to sexual abuse.

Thomas then looks at his photos of the men on welfare. He is happy with them, and then tells an assistant to burn the crappy clothes he was wearing to blend in with the men. He then bullies other female models, telling one to “get rid” of her chewing gum, but “not on my floor.” He manhandles one model by grabbing her leg forward after saying “terrible!” To Thomas, the women are like puppets which he manipulates. He tells another that she should thank her lucky stars she is working for him. He is abusive while at the same time he, ironically, yells at them to “Smile!” He tells the models to close their eyes, as if they are not alive, when he leaves. It’s as if they don’t exist outside of his artistic realm. The implication here is that artists insensitively use people for their own purposes.

Thomas does seem to be respectful toward a fellow artist, his painter neighbor, Bill (John Castle). Bill says that when he completes his work he doesn’t appreciate it at first, but later a part of it emerges and “it sorts itself out and it adds up. It’s like finding a clue in a detective story.” His statement foreshadows what occurs later, but it also shows how trying to understand art is like trying to unravel a puzzle, which mimics the artist’s attempt to solve the truth behind what he or she has depicted. Bill says he hasn’t figured out one of his paintings, like it is a subconscious expression that he hasn’t consciously understood yet. Thomas wants to buy that work, or have Bill give it to him, but he tells Thomas no. Thomas’ zeal for discovery makes him want to solve the riddle himself, but he would be usurping Bill’s position, and he has to make his own breakthroughs.

Thomas returns to his studio where there are two girls who jump as soon as he enters, like windup dolls, wanting a chance to be models. He is dismissive of them, continuing his lack of concern for the feelings of others. He drives around, observing, looking for new subjects to explore through the lens of his camera, which is like an enhanced mechanical version of his inquisitive artistic eye. He stops at an antique store bursting with items. The proprietor acts like he doesn’t really want customers, as if he wishes to hold onto his artwork, saying there are no bargains here. Thomas says he’s looking for pictures, but the man says he has “no pictures.” Then, in a reversal of what he just said, asks Thomas what kind of pictures are he looking for. Thomas says landscapes, but the man says there are “no landscapes.” However, there is one on the wall. The man says they are all sold. Maybe all artistic types are protective of their pieces. But, the scene also shows how Thomas, the artist, goes beyond what is told to seek out the reality of the situation. Later, when he returns to the shop, he sees an airplane propeller, and feels compelled to buy it. The antique store is a sort of metaphor for the collage art in fashion at the time. But, modern art, in the form of cubism, tried to say that there was an enhanced reality beyond what the eye saw, and it attempted to present all facets and angles of objects at one time. In this chaotic presentation that overwhelms the senses, we, the observers of this artistic form, zero in on a familiar object to gain a foothold on the unfamiliar reality presented before us. In a way, Thomas’ wanting the propeller is his attempt to anchor himself in the refracted perception of his present existence.

Thomas walks around and comes across a park. He sees a man and a woman going up a hill. Thomas runs up some steps playfully, his photographer’s inquisitiveness making him act like an exuberant child having fun. The man and the woman are in in front of a fence and a building, and the scene looks like a tableau as the two are motionless for a while. Antonioni poses his subjects in a story about a photographer, who also wants to crate art through contrivance with the use of altering lenses, staging, and lighting. Thomas is like a voyeur with the couple, as are filmmakers and their audiences. The couple kiss. The woman, Jane (Vanessa Redgrave), sees Thomas as he goes away and she chases him, saying he can’t just photograph people without consent (what a contrast to today’s world where all are under surveillance). He says he’s just doing his job, which for him selfishly justifies any invasion of privacy. She says it’s a public place where one should be able to be left in peace. He says, “it’s not my fault there is no peace.” His response reflects the tumultuous world of the time where there was no refuge. She tries to grab his camera, but then runs away.

Thomas meets his agent, Ron (Peter Bowles) in a restaurant and shows the shots of the men on welfare. They are black and white shots revealing depressing impoverishment. Thomas is compiling shots for a book and wants to finish it with the green park and the couple so it will end peacefully in contrast to the “violence” of the earlier pictures. Ron says that the ordering seems more real, but it isn’t because, again, it’s manipulated. The artist’s job is to highlight aspects of the world, not reproduce visual replicas. As the two discuss whether having lots of money is the key to freedom, which is antithetical to the prevailing hippie philosophy of the time, Thomas, ever observant, sees a man checking out his Rolls. There are protesters walking in the street with signs advocating nuclear disarmament but there is a policeman walking next to them, again showing different social elements in the same film frame, and stressing the prevailing culture clash. The protestors put one of their signs in Thomas’ Rolls, which gets blown away and left in the street, emphasizing that Thomas cares more about how his photography captures, in a way owns, the outside world, without his becoming involved in its struggles.

Jane, from the park, shows up at Thomas’ flat/studio asking for the film he shot of her and the man she was with. He says he “needs” the pictures, like his demands as a photographer come first. She says her life is already a disaster, and the pictures will make it worse. His response is an uncaring “So what?” He insightfully adds that one needs a little disaster to sort things out, which hearkens back to what his painter neighbor said about how eventually one can make sense out of nonsense. He then says that he thinks she can do modeling, which implies reducing her into another object for his lens. The phone rings and Thomas acts it’s for Jane. But then he says it’s his wife and he tells his wife that the woman he’s with doesn’t want to talk with her, which again shows his insensitivity. He then goes on with a series of contradictions, saying it was not his wife, but he has kids with her. He then says that’s not true, he doesn’t have children. He says that she is easy to live with, then says no, and actually doesn’t live with her. This short speech seems to reinforce the the movie’s theme about how difficult it is to get to the reality beneath appearances. While they listen to jazz, Jane moves to the music. Thomas then directs her, manipulates her, and he becomes a surrogate for Antonioni, wanting her to move the way he wants her to. She tries to defy his manipulation by attempting to leave with the camera when he is not in the room, but he is waiting for her in the hallway, saying he is “not a fool.” Many artists, because they create, think of themselves as gods, having power over the subjects in their work. She assumes he wants sex before he will release the film, so she takes off her top. But, he is emotionally detached and tells her to get dressed. He says he’ll give the film to her, but provides her with a different roll, again controlling the situation for his purposes.

Thomas develops the film. He blows up the shots, and his magnified scrutiny changes what the average person might see, just as the filmmaker’s use of varying camera angles, focus, lighting, etc., change the nature of reality. Thomas sees that Jane is looking off to the side while hugging the man. Was Jane there to set up the man to be killed? He calls Jane, but she gave him a fake number. (Which shows how one must be careful because a deceiver can also be deceived, and which confirms how difficult it is to unearth what is buried beneath the surface). He discovers that there is a man in the trees in one picture holding a gun (possibly the same man who was checking out his Rolls?). He calls Ron, his agent, and says he came upon somebody trying to kill someone, and he probably stopped it from happening by butting in. He appears to be trying to justify his intrusive ways by arguing that art can rescue the living. However, all he is really excited about is discovering some truth in what he caught on film.

The two girls, who previously appeared hoping for a chance at modeling, show up at Thomas’ flat. They go through the models’ outfits. One tries to put on a dress, and Thomas tussles with her. Then the other girl becomes jealous of Thomas’ attention, and then they have a raucous fight, knocking over his photo backdrop. The scene is the opposite of the kind of control Thomas likes to exert, but even in this chaotic scene, he has orchestrated the mayhem. He looks at the photos blown up on the wall again, and now, obsessed with his craft, seems to be oblivious of the women. He then dismisses the girls so he can scrutinize the pictures, unsure of what he sees, but it appears that he did not prevent the crime because there is a form that looks like a body on the ground.

Thomas drives at night back to where he photographed Jane and the man. He finds a dead man near the trees. He appears to be the guy Jane was with. He hears a twig snapping. Or is it the sound of a gun cocking, or maybe the shutter of a camera? Is Thomas being photographed, and is he now being used as the subject of someone else's subject of investigation? He runs back to his studio, which has been tossed, with the negatives and prints gone except for one large, unrevealing photograph of the park scene. When the context is taken away, the image seems meaningless. Could his place have been broken into by the guy who was checking out his Rolls? Maybe the man is the murderer and is conspiring with Jane, looking for the film. Thomas visits the artist neighbor’s house again, but the man is making love with his girlfriend. Thomas looks at the painting Bill said didn’t make sense to him yet, which reflects how Thomas is trying to figure out what his photography might reveal. Bill’s lover then shows up at Thomas’ place. He says that someone was shot, but he didn't see it, only his camera revealed it. She looks at the remaining blown up photo, which is distorted, and she comments that it looks like one of the Bill’s paintings. Thomas agrees. She asks Thomas why did the man get shot? Thomas says he didn’t ask, and then she leaves. Life is enigmatic and it’s not the point of art to explain it, but only to present its possibilities.

Thomas searches for Ron, his agent. He goes to a club where a rock band plays, which turns out to be the real group, The Yardbirds, with then members Jimmy Page (later of Led Zeppelin), and Jeff Beck. The scene looks unreal, with audience members resembling mannequins, like Thomas’models, except for a couple dancing out of step. It’s as if the world has turned into one of Thomas’ creations, or more accurately Antonioni’s, and any attempt at mirroring what passes for mundane reality has disappeared. The band has their song interrupted by static in the speaker. Beck, angry with how his music is being subverted by outside problems, destroys his guitar, and throws it into the audience. (Peter Townsend of the rock group The Who, also exerting life and death over his art, but also performing an iconoclastic act of rebellion, used to destroy his guitars). The audience now becomes animated, and the scene turns into a riot as people try to get the remains of the instrument. Thomas, the photographic artist, a kindred spirit, appropriately, acquires the detached guitar neck and runs out with it. Perhaps in the moment it is like the propeller, an object used as a point of reference amid chaos. He tosses it away in front of a store window filled with mannequins, which again points to the artist turning people into a means to display his work (sort of like the way Daniel Day Lewis’ character uses women in Phantom Thread).

Thomas then arrives at a party where he finds Ron who is totally stoned, in his own way escaping reality. The first model we saw in the film is there, too. Thomas comments that she said she was supposed be in Paris. She says she is, which emphasizes that the movie is a work of art, and is not reflective of literal meaning. Thomas, struggling to find some ultimate truth behind the appearance of reality, says he wants to show Ron the corpse, possibly in an attempt to have someone verify his version of what he saw, and get a shot of it. He is not concerned about contacting the police, but only wants to use the death for his photography. After Ron questions him by asking, “What did you see in that park?” Thomas seems to give up trying to get help in understanding the overwhelming mystery of the external world, and says “nothing.” He seeks escape by going to sleep on a bed.

The next day, Thomas goes back to the park with his camera. However, the body is gone, as if he missed the moment of clarity. The film ends as it began with the return of the rowdy young people again overflowing the jeep, symbolizing a cyclical timeline which does not move toward a linear solution. They pass Thomas and invade a tennis court, where two of their group engage in mime tennis. They pretend to play with imaginary ball and rackets. They act like the “ball” was hit over the fence, and ask Thomas to retrieve it, He plays along, and the camera then focuses on Thomas’ face as he stares at where the “game” is taking place. However, we hear the rackets hitting the ball, so, for Thomas, and us, the game becomes real. Thomas is either delusional, or he is able, through imagination, to grasp the possibilities of other realities by using his artistic potential. Then the racket and ball sounds stop. Thomas picks up his camera, like a painter gathering up his brush, and disappears as the film ends. He, like the movie in which he appears, is an illusion, too, and we are left to contemplate the depth of what we have witnessed, wanting, like the artist, to grasp ultimate meaning, but are unable to do so.

The next film is Hell or High Water.

Julia

1977 was a very competitive year for Oscars. Nominees for best picture included The Turning Point, The Goodbye Girl, Star Wars, Annie Hall (the eventual winner), and this film directed by Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here to Eternity, A Man for All Seasons).

The movie is based on one of the stories told in Lillian Hellman’s Pentimento. The opening of the film explains the title of the author’s memoir. We see the elderly Hellman (literally – it is the writer in the boat here and at the end of the story), and we hear Jane Fonda, who plays the author, talking about how a painter may alter what he was going to depict, and painted over a previous work. But, sometimes the earlier images are seen through the later work. Here are Hellman’s words:

Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman’s dress; a child makes way for a dog; a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter “repented,” changed his mind.

Hellman uses this artistic term as a metaphor for memory. Old thoughts and images mentally buried under other experiences are excavated and brought to the surface by the writer. She says, “I wanted to see for me what was there for me once, and what is there for me now.” Zinnemann then shows a cinematic representation of this artistic effect by presenting a train pulling out of a station against the water on which Hellman’s boat floats. The train will later be part of Hellman’s journey to Berlin. In fact, the entire movie depicts flashbacks to emphasize the resurgence of memories. Hellman admits that memory can be faulty, but she absolutely trusts what she remembers about her friend, Julia.

The two were friends since adolescence. Lilly would visit Julia at her rich grandparents’ mansion around the holidays. Julia’s elderly relatives are unapproachably stiff and formal in their strict adherence to etiquette. Julia’s mother is never around, associating with affluent types in Europe. When Lilly asks her about one of Julia’s visits to Scotland, her friend says she doesn’t “remember.” There were just many “fancy” people.  It is noteworthy that in a story about memory we are shown was is forgettable – the kind of people F. Scott Fitzgerald labeled as the careless rich in The Great Gatsby.

One of the flashbacks shows a young Julia incensed by the apathy of her relatives toward the sick in Cairo, and the unhealthy living conditions of the poverty-stricken workers in her mother’s home in Scotland. This early concern for the physical well-being of the oppressed is probably why Julia studies to be a doctor. She became an example for Lilly to follow. When they were young, Julia crosses a rushing river by walking over a twisty tree trunk. Lilly is afraid, and Julia tells her to go below and find a safe passage. Lilly tries the difficult way, stumbles, and is rescued by Julia. She tells Lilly that she will be able to make it on her own the next time. 

The “next time” appears when Lilly is an adult. The main narrative of the movie is set at the time of the rise of Nazi Germany. When she visits Paris on her way to a play festival in Moscow, a Nazi resistance associate of Julia confronts Lilly at her hotel. The man, Mr. Johann (Maximilian Schell), tells her that her friend wants Lilly to secretly transport Julia’s money to Berlin on her way to Russia. The cash will be used to secure the release of Jews and political prisoners through bribes. It can be dangerous for Lilly, since she is Jewish. Julia had once told Lilly to “work hard, take chances, be very bold.” But just as she told her that she didn’t have to take the dangerous way across the water, Julia told Johann to warn Lilly that sometimes “she is afraid of being afraid.” So, he tells Lilly if she feels that she “cannot do it, don’t do it.” Her confusion over knowing the depth of her courage is noted by her lover, writer Dashiell Hammett (played by Jason Robards in a supporting Oscar winning performance) in an earlier scene when he tells her that she is really the neighborhood bulldog but thinks she is a cocker spaniel. She hesitantly agrees to transport the money. While running toward the train, she stumbles, just like she did when she tried to cross the river. So, that earlier crossing is echoed here where she must find the courage to make this more meaningful crossing into dangerous territory.

Lilly succeeds in her task, but she is definitely not a convincing covert operative. She has the help of two resistance passengers, but must be reminded of when to wear the hat that contains the money and what to do with the box of chocolates she is given. When she has a brief rendezvous with Julia at a restaurant in Berlin to drop off the money, it is a heartbreaking scene. It amplifies the feelings between the two. Julia lost her leg in an attack by the Nazi youth at the college in Vienna. She tells her friend that she now has a baby, who she has significantly named Lilly. She plans on going to New York for a new leg and wants Lilly to take care of her baby, who is currently in Alsace with a baker’s family. But this is not a happy tale. Julia is murdered. Lilly tries desperately to find out about the baby, but her attempts to find her through Julia’s resistance contacts end in failure. Hammett tells her that her comrades only used Julia for her money and didn’t care about the baby, who was probably dead.

Lilly has an on-again, off-again relationship with the older and famous Hammett (The Maltese Falcon). The story begins with her living with him on Cape Cod as she is working on her first play, The Children’s Hour. The movie is effective in showing the ups and downs of the writer’s life, mostly in very quick images. Lilly rips pages out of the typewriter, throws the machine out of the window, talks to herself while walking along the beach, and is told by Hammett to throw away an early draft. She eventually becomes famous, but is reminded by Hammett that notoriety is just “a paint job. It has nothing to do with writing.”

Despite Hammett’s help, the men in this film are not as reliable as are the women. Hammett tells Lilly to go to Paris without him to work on her play, and later does not travel with her to Europe and Moscow. He is not there for the opening night of her play on Broadway. It is suggested that he has affairs with other women. The father of Julia’s baby is not important to her and didn’t want anything to do with the child. Although the relationship between the two women is shown as platonic, in Lily’s narration she says that Julia had “the most beautiful face I have ever seen.” She hugs her and tells her that she loves her.

This film is primarily a story about the empowering, loving relationship between two women, and overcoming one’s fear to find the courage to unselfishly commit to helping people in need.

Next week’s movie is I want to Live!