sign in sign up
<<
Home , Alain Delon, Joseph Losey, The Criterion Collection

Review Reviewed Work(s): Mr. Klein by Review by: Royal S. Brown Source: Cinéaste, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1998), pp. 82-83 Published by: Cineaste Publishers, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41689119 Accessed: 15-04-2020 08:48 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms

Cineaste Publishers, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Cinéaste

This content downloaded from 95.183.180.42 on Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:48:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Girls a more revealing documentary. Just as York Times writer Howell Raines, author time, he made some of his best films, the "Bull" Connors of the South couldn't Taylor Branch, journalist Walter Cronkite) including The Criminal (1960), The Servant have existed without the George Wallaces, are depicted as fair-minded intellectuals (1963), Accident (1966), and The Go- so Dynamite Bob couldn't have functioned capable of accurately assessing American Between (1972), the last three featuring without support from significant portions race of relations. Lee and Pollard also captured screenplays by British playwright Harold the white community. Many Americans some incredibly ironic moments and images Pinter, with whom Losey tried for years to played a role as passive instrumentalists, on film. In one of the final interviews, Chris make a film based on 's A la persons who never spoke out against white McNair shows his favorite photo of Denise recherche du temps perdu. Shot in 1976, Mr. supremacy or the violence of the Klan. Some to the director. A bright-eyed, young black Klein is the first of three French-language viewers might expect a film girl, to posing proudly with her blonde-haired, films made by Losey in his final decade (he implicate the larger white community in theblue-eyed doll, looks straight into her died in 1984). climate of racial hostility. Lee's focus infather's 4 - and by extension Lee's - camera. Mr. Klein stars , who also Little Girls on institutional versus individual This photo's messages are many. The image coproduced and who played the assassin in racism, is a departure from earlier films of Denise McNair clutching her white doll Losey's 1972 The Assassination of Trotsky, as (School Dazey , Jungle symbolizes black America's unrequited rela- a wealthy, French Catholic art dealer named Fever , Malcolm X) which placed greater tionship to mainstream society. It signifies Robert Klein living in Paris during the emphasis on individual conduct rather than the efforts of black Americans, who, despite Second World War. At the beginning of the institutional responsibility. With this, his their cultural assimilation (and acceptance film, he discovers that he has been mistaken first documentary, Lee adopts a diplomatic of mainstream norms), have faced a variety for - and/or has been set up by - a second tone, handling the material with less parti- of rebuffs - segregation, racial violence, and "Mr. Klein" who in all probability is Jewish san fervor and fewer authorial flourishes. institutional racism. and who in fact may be a part of the To its credit, 4 Little Girls emphasizes the The American Dream was ironically one Resistance. Klein immediately takes the truism that America's racial turf war is at the that cost many African Americans their matter to the police, only to find that, rather intersection of race and class tensions. One lives. If America is the land of freedom and than isolating himself from the Jews, he is of Spike Lee's subjects provides a salient opportunity, the journey to freedom from increasingly suspected of being Jewish. example: "When blacks created a new, afflu- slavery, the acquisition of civil rights and the Unable to produce an important family ent neighborhood in the Fifties on the site of quest for socioeconomic inclusion in Ameri- document, and unable to track down the a former Birmingham garbage dump, the ca has, for black Americans, proven a haz- "other" Mr. Klein, who throughout the neighborhood soon became known as ardous road. - Mia L. Mask entire film remains an unseen, Kafkaesque "Dynamite Hill" due to frequent bombings enigma, Robert Klein first loses all of his by jealous whites." In this respect, 4 Little rights as a businessman and then, ulti- Girls recalls themes raised by John Single- mately, in spite of the efforts of his solidly ton's Rosewood (1997), a drama based on aMr. Klein bourgeois, solidly French Catholic lawyer true story about the Klan's 1923 destruction Directed by Joseph Losey; starring Alain (Michel Lonsdale) to get him out of the of a black middle-class enclave in Florida. Delon, , Juliet Berto, Michel country under an assumed name, is shipped With 4 Little Girls, the director again Lonsdale and ; VHS, color, 124 off to a concentration camp in a boxcar. evinces market savvy for timeliness. Lee has mins. Distributed by First Run Features, 153 Interestingly, Mr. Klein brings together repeatedly culled characters and scenarios Waverly Place, NYC 10014 in a single film the two most important from daily headlines (e.g., Do the Right facets of the Losey vision that manifests Thing , Get on the Bus). 4 Little Girls emerges It is interesting that several people, all of itself in his best films. On the one hand, at the end of the antifeminist, antigay, anti- them knowledgeable in film, to whom there I is the political activist who visited the Affirmative Action Nineties - aka the back- mentioned that I was reviewing a film byU.S.S.R. in the mid-Thirties, worked with lash era. Bombings and civil-rights injustices Joseph Losey, all thought that Losey was , helped create The Living are again making news headlines. Fire British. One friend was totally stunned Newspaperto (sponsored by the WPA), ran a bombings of predominantly black churches learn that the director was born in Wiscon- political cabaret, and launched his film have risen in rural areas and legal wars are sin (in 1909). But, of course, Losey was one career in 1948 with The Boy With Green still being waged over small-town espionage. of the more notable victims of the House Hair y a pacifist allegory with a strong Recently, for example, the Mississippi Sov- Un-American Activities Committee. Black- antixenophobic message reflecting the ereignty Commission - created in 1956, listed by Hollywood in 1952 for failing toAmerican witch hunts that were already defunct since 1977 - which employed agents appear before the committee (the director underway. Losey and Pinter's offbeat and informants to unearth gossip about was in Italy shooting a film and unable todepiction of class struggle in The Servant civil-rights activists and state voter registra- make it back in time), Losey sought exile inremains one of the most savage on film. On tion drives, was finally exposed in 1996 after England, where, after a certain period ofthe other hand, there is the Joseph Losey a twenty-one-year campaign to suppress the who found himself totally at ease with the organization's files was derailed by the linguistic and narrative enigmas of Harold ACLU. In March 1998, one month after 4 Pinter, and who in 1968 made The Cere- Little Girls premiered on cable TV, the Sov- mony , a film so embedded in unexplained ereignty Commission's records were made ritual and in ambiguities, both psychological public at the Archives & History Depart- and narrative, that it borders on the ment. This past July, three white men were experimental, even while starring Elizabeth charged with murder for dragging a black Taylor and Mia Farrow. man to his death on a Jasper, Texas road. In Mr. Klein , Losey, just for starters, And, in August 1998, the murder of Vernon keeps the other Mr. Klein so hidden that the Dahmer - a black merchant killed in 1966 audience can never be sure that this when the Klan firebombed his home in Hat- mysterious figure - or his girlfriend, who tiesburg - made headlines when district parallels Robert Klein's live-in mistress (the attorneys reopened his widow's case. late Juliet Berto) - even exists. In Mr. Kleins 4 Little Girls is a tightly constructed, well- Kafkaesque labyrinth, every hoped-for exit balanced documentary. Several sympathetic opens onto an even gloomier new entrance. white liberals (e.g., attorney Bill Baxley, New Alain Delon stars in Joseph Losey's Mr. Klein. Nor do Losey or screenwriter Franco Solinas

82 CINEASTE

This content downloaded from 95.183.180.42 on Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:48:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ever clarify just what it is that drives Robert created out of bloodlines and nasolabial rationales and interpretations are, however, Klein to obsessively, à la Dostoevsky, pursue spaces. First Run Features offers a reas- it must be said that for the most part the a disastrous route when it is clear that, by onably clean print of the film, marred hereromanticization of the past and the unre- such acts as visiting the other Klein's and there by some swishing noises on strainedthe silliness and low humor on display rundown apartment, he is digging himself soundtrack and some slightly out-of-sync in - both undeniably appealing - into a bottomless pit. Is Robert Klein bent dialog. In my distant memory of a 1977 overwhelm this psychopolitical critique of on self destruction? Is he guilt-ridden and theatrical screening of Mr. Klein , the film's the Italian character. It is clear that Fellini single-handedly atoning for the hideous sins visuals had a sharper, steelier feel to them, (and Bondanella) did not intend a particu- of the French establishment against the whereas one occasionally has the impression larly harsh dissection of this apparent char- Jews? There are no easy answers. Even the that First Run's video came from a 16mm acter on the order of Daniel Goldhagen's film's audience is left having no idea of print. It would also have been nice if First indictment of Germans in Hitler's Willing which way to root. Do we hope that the cold Run had used the proper . But Executioners. (Bondanella writes in his essay and fairly antipathetic Robert Klein finds his First Run's reissue is infinitely preferable to that Amarcord "never degenerates into dog- way out of the mess so that he can rejoin an earlier video version, and its English matic treatise.") But Amarcord shows much France's anti-Semitic upper crust? But can subtitles are quite readable. No matter what, more ambivalence about the ostensibly we take pleasure in seeing yet one more Losey's Mr. Klein remains essential viewing awful perpetual adolescence of its characters figure, even Robert Klein, handed over to for anyone interested in politics, narrative than Fellini or Bondanella own up to, most the Gestapo by the Vichy regime's ruthless structure, or the unique vision of one of the poignantly in its basically sympathetic, if not police? cinema's great auteurs. - Royal S. Brown celebratory, representation of the fun and There are more touches of genius in Mr. stupid high jinks of Rimini's youngsters. Klein than a review of this length can For the last several years, the most fre- possibly do justice. In the opening sequence, quently available film prints and vidéocas- for instance, we see a doctor examining a Amarcord settes of Amarcord have been variously marred by poor image quality, including the stout, nude woman. Only after the action Directed by Federico Fellini; a digital video continues through a series of quasianthro- disk (DVD) from The Criterion Collection, common picture cropping in the video ver- pological scrutinizings do we gradually Home Vision Cinema, and ; 1974, sion, and English-language . This beautiful digital video disk from The Criteri- realize that the woman is being tested for color, 127 mins. Distributed by Image Aryan characteristics. Following Robert Entertainment, 9333 Oso Ave., Chatsworth, on Collection represents a new digital trans- fer from the 35mm interpositive and 35mm Klein's first visit to the police, an ominous, CA 91811, phone (818) 407-9100. never-explained long shot lasting under magnetic audio masters (making it even eas- twenty seconds and containing no dialog It has now been twenty- five years since ier to appreciate Nino Rota's affecting shows a silhouetted man entering a room the release of the film most regard as Federi- score), and presents the film in its original and convening a meeting. Throughout the co Fellini's last masterpiece. Amarcord is aspecta ratio of 1.85:1. In addition, a fea- film, in fact, Losey inserts shots of police funny and sentimental but ambivalent evo- turette on the disk demonstrates how num- officers gathering for raids, shots all the cation of provincial Italy in the 1930s, with erous spots and scratches on the film were more disturbing by remaining only mar- appeal, meaning, and importance which digitally processed and removed. Finally, ginally related to the film's principal largely exist on two interrelated levels: one, and perhaps most crucially, given the narrative. For a brutally anti-Semitic cabaret an over-the-top mixture of the nostalgic importance of language in Fellini's evoca- scene, Losey avoided realistic staging that (Amarcord means 'I remember' in a dialect tion of time and place, there are three lan- could arouse anti-Semitic passions in the from the director's native province), the guage options featured on the same disk, movie audience. In the process of styli- fantastic (the appearance of a peacock after including - along with the inferior dubbed- zation, the scene becomes even creepier a snowstorm blankets the village being into-Englisha version - Italian with or with- through its utter incongruousness. At the notable example), and the scatalogical (there out subtitles. same time, the location cinematography, by is easily enough bodily-function humor to There are unfortunately a few (relatively Losey regular , creates an put the makers of South Park to shame); the minor) problems with this DVD release. almost palpable sense of the gloom hanging other, an attempt at explaining how Italy's The theatrical mentioned on the box over wartime Paris, with muted colors that national character (flaw) of arrested devel- does not actually appear on the disk, while almost melt into the black and white in opment, at least in the 1930s, was conducive the English subtitling, although generally which Losey had wanted to photograph the to the flourishing of Mussolini and fascism. well done, features a few translation and film. As Peter Bondanella notes in his mostly spelling errors, and one instance where the One must, furthermore, thoroughly cogent short essay accompanying this DVD subtitles remain stuck on the screen long admire the performance of Alain Delon as release, it was Fellini himself who highlight- after the corresponding words have been he creates a character making every attempt ed this latter level of importance, in an spoken. Those mistakes aside, however, this to maintain composure on an impossibly essay-interview entitled "The Fascism With- DVD release is an Amarcord for which we pretty face while moving inexorably into the in Us." Fellini wrote that "fascism and ado- can be thankful. - Marco Calavita depths, whether of despair, self destruction, lescence continue to be... permanent histori- or self sacrifice - or all of the above - we will cal seasons of our lives... remaining children never know. Suzanne Flon also offers a par- for eternity, leaving responsibilities for oth- ticularly harrowing portrayal of the friend- ers, living with the comforting sensation Image of an less, frightened concierge of the building that there is someone who thinks for where the other Mr. Klein has lived. you... and in the meanwhile, you have Assassinationthis Ultimately, Mr. Klein's political impact is limited, timewasting freedom which permits Directed by H.D. Motyl; VHS, color, 45 mins. all the more devastating because of the you only to cultivate absurd dreams..." Felli-Distributed by MPI , 16101 South distance the film keeps from its subject ni is able to expose the townspeople, Bon-108th Ave., Orlando Park, IL 60467, phone (characteristically, Losey shuns close-ups on danella writes, "as people dominated by (708)false 460-0555. any of his actors) and because of its ideals and idiotic dreams of heroic feats and enigmas - Bertolt Brecht and romantic love," ideals and dreams which The Zapruder film has been back in the merged into a singularly disturbing vision made them ripe for fascist mythmaking news and lately. When the original camera print via which, first and foremost, we experience worship. was declared an official "assassination the absurdity of a political philosophy As compelling and persuasive as these record" by the Assassination Records Re- CINEASTE 83

This content downloaded from 95.183.180.42 on Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:48:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms