Meditations on Pocahontas (the Disney Princess, not the real one)

Pocahontas, directed by Mike Gabriel & Eric Goldberg; 1995

It has been 15 years since Disney released its very first animated film surrounded around a central character who wasn't of ambiguous European descent, and technically and musically, it holds up quite well. The animation, bursting with lush pastel blues, pinks, purples and greens looks very different from the previous year's vibrant reds and oranges that dominated much of The Lion King and before that, Aladdin. Nowhere is the film more visually stunning than during the equally beautiful song, "Colors of the Wind," written by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, where the images of wolves and moons and bears morph into one another seamlessly, leaves flow on a distinct path, and you can jump from a cliff thousands of feet high head-first without fear of death. And the songs--from "Steady as a Beating Drum" to "Just Around the Riverbend," all make the case for why Pocahontas would have been a much more logical choice for the Broadway stage than the so-so Tarzan.

What doesn't hold up, or rather what probably never made much sense to begin with even 15 years ago, is how even-handedly Disney treats the conflict between the pompous English settlers looking to "kill [them]selves an Injun, or maybe two or three" and the Indians themselves. Clearly, if you're looking for historical accuracy, you should never look to Hollywood, much less a Disney movie. Heck, for years and even now in some cases, you were hard-pressed to find the real truth behind history's greatest moments in your own school textbooks (let us not forget where most of our American schoolbooks have been published: Texas). It's expected that Disney's going to make Pocahontas look like the modern-day equivalent of a Playboy Playmate (big boobs, long luscious locks, a waist the size of the Olsen twins' legs--put together) and John Smith like an Aryan dream (blonde hair, blue eyes, chiseled features). It's also no surprise that the conflict devolves more into a Romeo and Juliet scenario--Daddy doesn't approve of the love of my life; my men think I'm crazy for wanting to be with her--rather than a deep, thought-provoking study on race relations in America's beginnings. Let's face it: how utterly depressing would it be to view this film as a child and watch the Indians die of yellow fever and small pox brought upon by their uninvited European guests? Because that's eventually what really happened.

But I digress...as an entertainment vehicle, it works splendidly. The biggest problem with it is that while the film may start off with rightfully casting the Virginia Company in a bad light as they call the Indians savages and speak flippantly about knocking them off one by one, it soon turns into a share-the-blame game. Look at the song and sequence of "Savages," where both sides prepare for a showdown after Kokoum, the man Pocahontas is supposed to marry, is killed by meek white man Thomas, and John Smith is being prepared for execution. Both sides trade gross generalizations and stereotypes about one another through song, with one Indian wondering "if they even bleed!" But in doing so, the writers ignore the real historical issue: the Indians had every right to protect their land and resort to violence because the English brought violence (and disease) to them. Should Indians have been victimized in this portrayal? Not necessarily. But attempting to lessen the offenses of the Virginia Company, they show the Indians as equally menacing and hateful, and in the end, the white men leave peacefully and even having made friends with their tan counterparts.

Pocahontas is definitely a film worth revisiting, especially if you haven't seen it since you were a kid. But it should be advised that, as with any movie loosely based on historical events, children should read up on the true story of the Indian princess and have the ability to distinguish between family entertainment and fact.

Torn Curtain

Torn Curtain; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; 1966

Well, it's finally happened. About three quarters into Hitch's 1966 Cold War espionage thriller, I wondered, what's the point? And that's the first time I've felt that way about a film from the Master of Suspense (although I've only made it about half-way through his filmography and still haven't gotten to his last couple pictures or most of his early British ones), and I was just left cold.

Even the films that I haven't been crazy about, like The 39 Steps and To Catch a Thief, have at least warranted from me the opinion that because of how deeply and meticulously he worked, they would be worthy of revisiting and analysis. But, every great and/or controversial director has that one Achille's heel, that one (perhaps two) picture that is just so dreadfully devoid of any reason for being made, that it does not warrant any intricate probing into its inner workings because the director clearly wasn't delving all that much to begin with. For Spike Lee, it's Summer of Sam (did we REALLY have to see the "devil" speaking through the dog with those horrendous special effects?); for Gus van Sant, it was the completely unnecessary pestilent assault on our senses with the shot for shot remake of Hitch's own Psycho.

I think it's safe to say that Torn Curtain is Hitchcock's Summer of Sam. With a convoluted plot and odd casting that does the story no justice, I just can't get excited about it. I have always loved Julie Andrews, and like most people, she will forever be Maria/Mary Poppins to me. She is the epitome of class, talent, and charm. But when it comes to va-va-voom...well, I'm sure she'd be the first to admit that she was never meant to be cast as a smoldering leading lady. And normally, Newman (playing some sort of nuclear physicist who gets himself tangled up in affairs behind the Iron Curtain) has enough sex appeal for both himself and his leading lady. And yet, all the fire that oozes from those steely blue eyes could not be enough to ignite even the slightest spark of chemistry between him and Andrews. Grace Kelly and Cary Grant, they ain't.

But forget the complete wall that's divided between the two stars; the romance and sex are usually secondary in a Hitchcock film anyway, the icing on the cake, shall we say. The suspense is virtually nonexistent. Michael (Newman) poses as a traitor to the U.S. by flying to East Berlin and claiming that he will work with the scientists there to help counteract the threat of nuclear weapons. In reality, he is looking to work with esteemed Professor Lindt to deceive him into revealing how much information the Germans have on the nuclear bomb. Of course, this being a spy movie, the Germans are suspicious of him from the beginning and several misadventures and one death occurs before Michael gets what he's after. No sooner does Lindt mistakenly reveal his secrets than Michael and Sarah (Andrews) have to high tail it out of there and get across the border and out of harm's way, which makes up for the last 40 minutes or so of the film. The problem is, once Michael gets that information, the story devolves into a typical "will they or won't they make it" chase (there was never any question in my mind that they wouldn't make it), with no element of thrill or excitement; it falls far below Hitchcock's technical and storytelling prowess.

I will say that the single murder scene, in which a German security officer who is in charge of following Michael around, is killed inside a farmhouse with the help of the farmer's wife, is the one interesting moment in a dull, otherwise lifeless film. If there is one thing that the director could do right, it was murder. I've read in a few sources that his relationship with long-time musical collaborator Bernard Hermann was virtually over by the time this picture was made. As he had rightfully insisted for the shower scene in Psycho, Hermann insisted on underscoring the 10 minute struggle and subsequent death. This time, the director didn't relent, and I think he was correct on this one. With the musical silence that accompanies the scene, and only the distinct sound of choking, physical struggle, and beating, it provided the one moment that made the film fleetingly interesting. The quick editing as the violence ensues are meticulously planned. The aerial shot of Michael's face as the officer dies slowly beneath him from the fumes in the gas stove is a clever last shot of the impassioned battle between the three characters.

If only Hitchcock had spent as much time developing the rest of the film as he did with that sequence; perhaps Torn Curtain would not be so banal.

The Trouble With Harry

The Trouble With Harry; directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1955

There was a time when most Americans found death to be one of three things: tragic, terrifying, or both. Until the last 20+ years, the ending of a life could hardly be considered fodder for comedic situations, at least for US audiences. Hitchcock, as a filmmaker, was always ahead of the times, using the cinematic technique to horrify audiences in new and distinct ways that Universal's movie monsters couldn't. Hitchcock had a fascination with death that he knew audiences shared (hence his indulgence in voyeurism that allowed the viewer to be somewhat of a willing participant in the fateful ends of characters onscreen), although he could also find the humor in situations involving passings on--a trait that is apparently very British.

So it's understandable that when Hitch decided to make his second (and last) comedy, The Trouble With Harry, American audiences were just not that into it. One of the stars of the film, John Forsythe, said years later that it failed at the box office here in the U.S. because they just didn't see why a story centered around how troublesome a dead body can be to the people of a small town could be humorous. The film did fine in the UK and the rest of Europe. But, after leaving people on the edge of their seats with flicks like Strangers on a Train and Rope, it just didn't sit well with audiences expecting the same gut-wrenching morbidity.

Well, I am not a direct product of the 1950s, and now that we have recent American comedies like Little Miss Sunshine that can cull the most ridiculous moments out of even the most macabre situations, I can say that I find nothing offensive about The Trouble With Harry, which marks the film debut of Shirley Maclaine. A dead man named Harry turns up dead in the woods of a beautiful, quaint New England town, but he serves merely as Hitchcock's "Macguffin." In the end, how he died and who killed him does not matter. The fact is--and literally, the trouble is--that he's dead, and now everyone who encounters his dead body is inextricably linked to one another.

What is wildly fun about this incredibly dark humor, is how innocent and lighthearted the entire cast of characters are. The bumbling British Captain Wiles (Edmund Gwenn), his lady friend Miss Gravely (Mildred Natwick), Harry's wife Jennifer (Maclaine), and Sam (Forsythe) all stumble upon the dead man one by one, and none of them are appalled, shocked, distraught, or any of the other feelings any normal human being would expect to feel upon encountering such a sight. Nope, they are all completely unphased, but for the fact that now they have to decide what to do with the body without involving the police. The body is buried and dug up again countless times, Sam draws a portrait of Harry's face (I couldn't help but think how paparazzi-like this was), and love is sprung through both pairs as they bond together to solve this "complication."

If this movie was made today, it would probably look something like an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The humor would be 100 times darker, and the characters as crude and unlikable as humanly possible. The difference is, whereas the characters in Always Sunny are unfailingly narcissistic and revel in schadenfreude, the characters in Hitchcock's romp are genuinely good people, just a bit cooky and charmingly self-involved. Harry's body is a mere inconvenience to them, one that makes it difficult for Jennifer and Harry to get married now that she's discovered she's a widow and they've fallen in love. How can we explain the death without it looking like we deliberately murdered him? they wonder. For the Captain, who thinks he accidentally shot him while hunting rabbits, Harry presents a bothersome nuisance, what with "all that digging and work" that is required of him throughout the story.

The absurdist nature of all of their interactions set upon the lush, beautiful Rockwellian-landscape of this quiet town are clever; while it deviates starkly from the work which made him the Master of Suspense, it still feels like a Hitchcock film, and a film that only he could have made. Obviously, the most avid Hitchcock fan would want to check this out, but I would also suggest it to anyone who enjoys twisted, and seemingly inappropriate humor--which really, is what today's comedy tends to be anyway.