Author: Alistair Nunn

1900 (1976)

Bertolucci’s bloated, self-indulgent and simplistic film is a complete mess

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

Cast: Robert De Niro (Alfredo Berlinghieri), Gerard Depardieu (Olmo Dalco), Dominique Sanda (Ada Fiastri Paulhan), Donald Sutherland (Attila Mellanchini), Laura Betti (Regina), Burt Lancaster (Alfredo Berlinghieri the Elder), Stefania Sandrelli (Anita Foschi), Werner Bruhns (Ottavio Berlinghieri), Stefania Casini (Neve), Sterling Hayden (Leo Dalco), Francesca Bertini (Sister Desolato), Anna Henkel (Anita the Younger), Ellen Schwiers (Amelia), Alida Valli (Signora Pappi)

After The Conformist and Last Tango in Paradise, Bertolucci could do anything he wanted. Unfortunately, he did. Perhaps the saddest thing about 1900 is that you could watch The Conformist twice with a decent break in-between during the time it would take you to watch it– and get a much richer handle on everything 1900 tries to do. Bertolucci went through a struggle to get his 315-minute cut released: perhaps the best thing that could have happened would have been if he had lost. Not only would the film be shorter, but it would be remembered as a lost masterpiece ruined by producers, rather than the interminable, self-indulgent mess we ended up with.

1900 – or Twentieth Century to literally translate its title Novecento – follows the lives of two very different men. Born minutes apart in 1901, Alfredo (Robert De Niro) is the grandson of the lord of the manor (Burt Lancaster), while Olmo (Gerard Depardieu) is the grandson of Leo (Sterling Hayden), scion of a sprawling dynasty of peasants. They grow up as friends, Olmo becomes a socialist and Alfredo an indolent landlord and absent-minded collaborator with the fascists, embodied by his psychopathic land agent Attila (Donald Sutherland). Their small community becomes a symbol of the wider battle between left and right in Italy.

In many ways 1900 is an epic only because it is extremely long and beautifully shot in the Bologna countryside by Vittorio Storaro. In almost every sense it fails. It offers nominal scale in its timeline, but its attempt to become a sweeping metaphor for Italy in the twentieth century falls flat and it focuses on a small community of simple characters, many of whom are ciphers rather than people. All of Bertolocci’s communist sympathies come rushing to the fore in a film striking for its political simplicity. It never convinces in its attempt to capture in microcosm the forces that divided Italy between the two world wars, nor invests any of its characters with an epic sense of universality.

Instead Bertolucci presents a world of obvious questions and easy answers. Every worker is an honest, noble salt-of-the-earth type, working together in perfect harmony to fight for rights. Every single upper-class character is an arrogant, selfish layabout, caring only about their back-pockets and the easy life. Bertolucci suggests fascism only arose in Italy as a means for the rich to control the poor, and never allows for one moment the possibility that any working-class person was ever tempted to take their side. It never rings true. (Bertolucci skips a huge chunk of the fascist 30s and 40s, possibly because this fantasy would be impossible to sustain if he actually focused on the history of that era.)

Bertolucci uses his two protagonists to make painfully on-the-nose comparisons between working class and rich with De Niro’s weak-willed Alfredo always found wanting compared to Depardieu’s Olmo. Even as children, Olmo is braver, stronger and smarter. Olmo has the guts to lie under the moving trains (Alfredo runs), Olmo stands up for what he believes in (Alfredo looks away), Olmo puts others first Alfredo whines about his own needs. Hell, Olmo even has a bigger cock than Alfredo (something they discover comparing penises as children and re-enforced when as young men they share an epileptic prostitute and she ‘tests’ them both).

The upper classes hold all the power but can do nothing without the working class. During the 1910s, a strike by the workers on the Berlinghieri leaves the clueless rich unable to even milk their moaning cows (they buy milk instead). Sterling Hayden’s peasant patriarch is a manly inspiration to all, while Lancaster’s increasingly shambling noble is literally and metaphorically impotent (Lancaster’s role is like a crude commentary on his subtle work in The Leopard). At one point he even pads around barefoot in horseshit to hammer home his corruption. (Incidentally this is the only film where you’ll ever see a horse’s anus being massaged on camera to produce fresh shit to be thrown at a fascist.)

For the rich, fascism is the answer. Continuing to shoot fish in a barrel, Bertolucci scores more easy hits by presenting our prominent fascist as an out-and-out psychopath. Played with a scary relish by Sutherland – in the film’s most compelling performance – no act of degradation is too far for Attila. Along with his demonic partner-in-crime Regina (a terrifyingly loathsome Laura Betti), he routinely carries out acts of violence, horrific murder and child-abuse, even literally headbutting a cat to death while ranting about the evils of socialism.

The poor meanwhile are all good socialists. Olmo, decently played by Depardieu, and his wife Anita (an affecting Stefania Sandrelli) rally the workers to stand against charging cavalry and protect their rights. Bertolucci even has Depardieu flat-out break the fourth wall for a closing speech, spouting simplistic platitudes direct to camera about the inherent wickedness of the landowner. Depardieu at least seems more comfortable than De Niro among this Euro-pudding (every actor comes from a different country and the soundtrack is a mismatch of accents and dubbing, not least Depardieu himself). Rarely has De Niro looked more uncomfortable than as the empty Alfredo, a role he fails to find any interest in, like the rest of the actors never making him feel like more than a device.

Bertolucci, stretching the run-time out, also embraces numerous tiresome excesses. Rarely does more than 20 minutes go by without a sex scene or a sight of someone’s breasts or sexual organs. From children comparing penises, to Depardieu performing oral sex on Sandrelli (just outside a socialist meeting), to De Niro and Depardieu getting hand-jobs from a prostitute, to Sanda dancing naked and high on cocaine or the revolting exploits of Attila and Regina, nothing is left to the imagination. As each goes on and on Bertolucci ends up feeling more like a naughty boy than an artist, so praised for his sexual licence in Last Tango that he feels more is always more. The excess doesn’t stop with sex either: at one point a worker silently cuts his ear off in front of a landowner to make a point about his stoic nobility.

1900 eventually feels like you’ve stumbled into a student debating club, where a privileged student drones on at great length about the evils of the rich, while quaffing another glass of champagne. It has moments of cinematic skill – some of its time jump transitions, in particular a train passing through a tunnel in one time and emerging at another, are masterful – but it’s all crushed under its self-indulgence. From its length to its sexual and violence excess, to its crude and simplistic politics delivered like a tedious lecture, everything is crushed by its never-ending self-importance.

Faust (1926)

Murnau’s gorgeous masterpiece is a technical wonder and a painterly visual treat

Director: FW Murnau

Cast: Gösta Ekman (Faust), Emil Jannings (Mephisto), Camilla Horn (Gretchen), Frida Richard (Gretchen’s mother), William Dieterle (Valentin), Yvette Guilbert (Marthe Schwerdtlein), Eric Barclay (Duke of Parma), Hanna Ralph (Duchess of Parma), Werner Fuetterer (Archangel)

It’s a story that has fascinated for generations: is any deal worth your soul? Murnau’s breath-taking Faust myth throws in an extra wager: can evil corrupt a man so absolutely that not a single trace of good can be left? That’s the opening deal Mephisto (Emil Jannings) makes with his Archangel (Werner Fuetterer) counterpart. Their battleground? Faust (Gösta Ekman), an elderly alchemist, who has lived a life of faith and good works.

Faust was (until Metropolis) the most expensive German film ever made. Like Metropolis it was designed to help Weimar challenge Hollywood as the centre of the filmic universe. Murnau had direct control and several versions were made for distribution to key markets around the world. Faust was filmed over a huge period, partly for the all the multiple re-takes needed for those different versions, but also due to Murnau’s quest for perfection. Throw in cutting-edge special effects and luscious sets and you had Murnau’s own Faustian pact for success.

The film – as carefully restored today – that emerged is a work of expressionist genius jammed, particularly in its opening and closing acts, with a series of striking images balanced between fantasy and horror. Murnau used models, double exposure and transitional editing tricks to gorgeous, revelatory effect and crafted stunning images of supernatural horrors. Faust’s opening shot shows the horsemen of the Apocalypse riding through the clouds before a confrontation between a giant, satyr-like Jannings with huge wings and a similarly winged Archangel with flaming sword (the actors were strapped into stunning giant wings and Janning’s porcine like make-up is particularly demonic).

From there Murnau plays the first of his games of scale by showing Mephisto towering, mountainous, over Faust’s town, unleashing a black cloud of plague. Mephisto’s powers are demonstrated with a host of cinematic tricks: circular light then fire engulfs Faust when he summons him, Mephisto’s eyes are pinpricks of burning light (created by damaging the negative), he appears at every turn Faust makes and later shifts size, appearance and even duplicates himself while performing magic (always with gusts of terrible smoke).

The cinematic tricks continue as Faust is taken on a sort of magic carpet ride across Europe, Murnau’s camera dizzyingly flying over a series of highly realistic models of towns, forests, mountains and storming seas. The launch of this flying carpet is achieved by a miraculous double exposure shot that shows Mephisto and Faust flying out of a small window (standing upright on a cape) in one uninterrupted shot. The dizzying array of effects and visual imagination help us immediately understand why Faust is so tempted to harness the powers of this seemingly scruffy beggar (though Mephisto soon translates himself into a sharply dressed courtier).

It also ties in with extraordinary beauty of Murnau’s expert use of light and shadow. Faust is introduced as an old man, lecturing on astronomy to a room full of rapt students, lit by the glow of his astrolabe. Faust’s rooms are a light tunnel of instruments and books. His town turns from a thriving market, to a towering collection of shadowy buildings, holding a mass of swarming, panicked humanity, running in fear of the plague. Pools of light frame action: twice in the film, Murnau captures dying figures in perfectly composed outlines of light against a sea of black, the first (a priest) lying dead at his altar while smoke drifts up past the light he rests in.

Faust could almost be seen as a film about light. Murnau’s camera is continually artfully framed around painterly compositions with streaks of shadow and light. But it is also a thematic issue. Mephisto uses fog and smoke to power his magic, as if trying to obscure the light that represents the good. In Murnau’s world, light is frequently offers the possibility of hope – even the film’s closing fire offers a chance of redemption. Smoke becomes an obstruction, allowing evil to flourish.

Faust frames its hero initially as man using evil in desperation for the greater good against the plague. Faust is played Gösta Ekman, a Swedish actor in his thirties flawlessly made-up (the make-up is extraordinarily convincing) as the wizened alchemist before Mephisto restores his youth. Ekman is equally convincing in both roles, his angry rejection by the townspeople driving his descent into gred. Opposite him Jannings is a viciously cruel ball of scheming greed, under a surface of joviality.

Needless to say – after all this is a morality tale – it is the allure of sex that eventually brings Faust down. He surrenders his virtue for a night of passion with the beautiful Duchess of Parma. (The cruel Mephisto, having given Faust the sort of entrance to the court of Parma that inspired Disney’s Aladdin’s entry into Agahbar, maliciously murders the Duke after stealing his wife). Murnau’s Faust is all about the awful temptations of worldly pleasures over the hard graft of good works.

Faust also understands that temptation can come in reclaiming the moments we have lost. Faust longs for the sort of excitements he never had as a young man – too many books not enough bonks – but also for the simplicity of youth, where the possibilities of the future and happiness of home were everything. Faust’s middle section – and its weakest, an oddly farce-tinged dark-romantic-comedy – revolves around Faust’s courtship of Gretchen (Camilla Horn – in a part originally intended for Lillian Gish). Murnau raises the possibility that Gretchen’s feelings for Faust are controlled by Mephisto – via a magic necklace – but this idea is largely forgotten, possibly because Murnau’s film needed something uncorrupted by the Devil.

That incorruptible is what powers the final act of Faust as consequences – many caused by Mephisto, who cheats and abuses Faust’s trust and subtly works to destroy the lovers while bringing them together – come home to roost for its characters. Murnau’s film is very strong on the brutality of medieval justice – burnings and public executions are only moments away – but also on the spiritual strength from true love. Love is of course the answer, in Faust’s sentimental resolution, but there are worse answers to the question of what makes us human.

Faust returns to its heights in the torch-lit terror of its final section and the raw emotionalism of Ekman’s desperate, guilt-ridden performance, forcing his way through an enraged crowd hoping-against-hope that he can save the day. Faust is at its finest when centring Murnau’s extraordinary technique, a series of technical and visual marvels that makes you fall in love with cinema. At times it works best as a collection of extraordinary visuals and concepts – and I could do without some of that long middle act between Faust and Gretchen – and some of the acting is sometimes a little too broad. But it’s an extraordinary and unique piece of cinema – and a startling visual expression of the power and temptation of evil.

Cross of Iron (1977)

Grim war film, full of blood and horror, but lacking the depth it needs to really make an impact

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Cast: James Coburn (Sergeant Rolf Steiner), Maximilian Schell (Captain Stransky), James Mason (Colonel Brandt), David Warner (Captain Kiesel), Klaus Löwitsch (Krüger), Vadim Glowna (Kern), Roger Fritz (Lt Triebig), Dieter Schidor (Anselm), Burkhard Driest (Maag), Fred Stillkrauth (Reisenauer), Michael Nowka (Dietz), Arthur Brauss (Zoll), Senta Berger (Eva)

If War is Hell, it makes sense that Sam Peckinpah eventually bought it to the screen. Cross of Iron is, perhaps surprisingly, his only war film. But, in a sense, Peckinpah’s grim explorations of the brutal realities of violence made all his films war films. And what better setting for his grim eye than the gore and guts of World War Two’s Eastern Front. If war has any rules they fell silent in this hellish clash where no quarter was given and no decency could be found.

Sgt Steiner (James Coburn) knows this. A grizzled soldier, who despises war, Nazism and officers, he fights through the horrors of the front to protect his men. As the Wehrmacht flees, crushed by the late 1943 advance of the Russian army, the only hope is the vain chance of staying alive. But Steiner’s new commander, Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell) has other ideas: a Prussian elitest, he’s here for an Iron Cross and the fact he’s inept, cowardly and inexperienced isn’t going to stop him. The clash between Steiner and Stransky will leave a trail of futile bodies in its wake.

Cross of Iron may well just be the grimmest war film this side of Come and See. Shot on location in Yugoslavia, Peckinpah films the Eastern Front as a muddy, chaotic mess where no one seems to have the faintest clue why they are there or where they are going. Soldiers huddle in shallow trenches, officers sit in dusty, crumbling bunkers, the sound of machine guns and the explosion of artillery forms a constant backdrop. Battles are smoky, horrific events with bullets flying, ripping through bodies that explode in squippy mess. Bodies are strewn across the battlefield. Even in the progress to the front lines, tanks absent-mindedly roll over bodies left ground into the muddy dirt.

Peckinpah brings his unique eye for violence to bear. Violence frequently takes place in slow motion, bodies twisting and turning in a crazed dance that seems to go on forever as bullets rip through them. The camera never flinches from the blood of war and the films throws us right into the middle of brutal firefights, tracking through smoky, muddied fields full of bodies. The soundtrack is punctuated by distant artillery gun fire. There is no heroism and the sole focus is staying alive. The soldiers have no interest in politics, no passion at all for the war – only one of them, the smartest dressed, is a Nazi. It’s simply something they vainly hope to survive to see the end of. Even the grizzled veteran Steiner hates the killing, hates the violence, hates the waste.

It makes us loath even more Maximilian Schell’s puffed-up braggart Stransky, a man born wearing an officer’s uniform but hopelessly ill-suited for it. Under fire at his first attack, Stransky is hopeless, reduced to bluntly stating the obvious (“My phone is ringing!”) and confusedly rambling about attacking, withdrawing and counter-attacking all in the same breath. Schell was born to play Prussian primma donnas like this, and he gives Stransky a real cunning and survival instinct. Despising Nazism – he sees himself as above the crudeness of the party – he’s a born manipulator, skilfully deducing the sexuality of his aide to blackmail him, but also a rigid stickler for the rules unable to comprehend a world where he isn’t on top.

He’s the antithesis of Steiner, who has everything Stransky wants: respect, glory, guts. Coburn is, to be honest, about ten years too old for the role (his age particularly shows during his brief respite in a base hospital, where he has a convenient sexual fling with Santa Berger’s nurse), but he’s perfect for the hard-as-nails humanitarian, who hides under the surface deep trauma at the horror he’s seen. Steiner is the natural leader Stransky wants to be and has the Iron Cross Stransky wants. Worst of all, Steiner doesn’t give a shit about the medal, when it’s the be-all-and-end-all for Stransky.

Stransky is so out of step, even the veteran front-line officers think he’s despicable. Colonel Brandt (a world-weary James Mason) scoffs “you can have one of mine” when he hears of Stransky’s dreams while his cynical aide Kiesler (a scruffy, shrewdly arch David Warner) takes every opportunity to show his disgust. Stransky is ignored by the soldiers and is rarely filmed away from his bunker, where he reclines on his bunk like an emperor and avoids any trace of conflict.

So, he knows nothing of the horrors of Steiner’s war. We however do. Cross of Iron opens with a successful raid on a Russian encampment. One of the victims, a young soldier his body torn apart by a mortar, is met with barely a reaction by the soldiers (“We’ve seen worse” says Steiner). Another captured Russian boy is later released by Steiner – and promptly machine-gunned in front of him by advancing Russian soldiers. Caught behind the lines, Steiner’s men are picked off one-by-one despite his desperate efforts to keep them alive.

Cross of Iron went millions over budget – largely due to Peckinpah’s chronic alcoholism (he binge drank every day while shooting and spent days at a time unable to work) – and as a result the ending is abrupt and overly symbolic. (Peckinpah and Coburn had about an hour to cobble it together and shoot it before the filming wrapped up). Peckinpah throws in some clumsy fantasy sequences (especially during Steiner’s fever dreams in hospital) and overly heavy-handed reaction shots from Coburn, overlaid with quick cuts to various horrors or shots of lost friends, which over-stresses the horror of war. Much as Cross of Iron skilfully shows the grimness of conflict, it doesn’t balance this with real thematic weight and depth like, say, The Wild Bunch does.

It’s part of Cross of Iron’s flaws. Under the surface, I’m not sure that Cross of Iron has much more to say, other than war is hell. And with Peckinpah’s work here, there is a sort of satanic, indulgent glee in all that mayhem and slaughter, the bodies riddled by bullets. Peckinpah is a sadistic preacher, the sort of sermoniser who is so keen to tick off the evils of the world, that he doesn’t want to miss a thing. The film feels a little too much at times as a grungy, exploitation flick yearning for art.

But it still has a visceral impact that makes it stand out as grizzled war-film, helped by a granite performance by Coburn, with just enough vulnerability beneath the growls. A tough watch and a flawed film, that lacks the real insight and psychological depth it needs, but with some compelling – and shocking – moments.

Oppenheimer (2023)

Nolan’s masterful musing on the morality of science is both challenging and compelling

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Cillian Murphy (J Robert Oppenheimer), Emily Blunt (Kitty Oppenheimer), Matt Damon (General Leslie Groves), Robert Downey Jnr (Lewis Strauss), Florence Pugh (Jean Tatlock), Josh Hartnett (Ernest Lawrence), Casey Affleck (Colonel Boris Pash), Rami Malek (David Hill), Kenneth Branagh (Niels Bohr), Benny Safdie (Edward Teller), Dane DeHaan (General Kenneth Nichols), Jason Clarke (Roger Robb), David Krumholtz (Isidor Issac Rabi), Tom Conti (Albert Einstein), Alden Ehrenreich (Strauss’ aide), Gary Oldman (President Truman), Jefferson Hall (Haakon Chevalier)

“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. These words from The Baghavad Gita are synonymous with J Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project as he witnessed the destructive force of his creation, the atomic bomb. Fittingly, Nolan’s fascinating and ambitious film opens with a reference to Oppenheimer as Prometheus: the man punished for all time for stealing fire from the Gods. Oppenheimer uses everything from thriller to courtroom drama, to explore the moral responsibilities of science: if we can do a thing, does it follow that we must?

J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is a Renaissance man and leading theoretical physicist who dabbled more than a little in left-wing politics. The woman he loves, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), is a die-hard communist, the woman he marries Kitty (Emily Blunt) is a former party member, his closest friends are all members. Associations like these will later haunt him after he is approached by General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to use his organisational skills, political savvy and charisma to run the WW2 nuclear programme where maverick scientists work hand-in-hand with the army. Despite his position, Oppenheimer remains untrusted by many. In the aftermath of the war, these suspicions will be used by his opponents, among them Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jnr) ex-head of the Atomic Energy Committee, to bring about his downfall as Oppenheimer preaches disarmament.

Much like Dunkirk, Oppenheimer is told in two timelines, intersecting with scenes replayed from different perspectives in subtly different ways. In “Fission” we see Oppenheimer, effectively on trial in 1954 for his security clearance, recount his life story, chronological flashbacks taking us through the development of the bomb. In “Fusion”, shot in gorgeous black and white, we follow the 1959 senate hearings to confirm Strauss in a cabinet post, and see his reminiscences of Oppenheimer’s post-war struggles to control the monster he has unleashed.

Oppenheimer is a brilliantly made, cinematically adventurous film: you would, of course, expect nothing less from a distinctive talent like Nolan. Brilliantly intercutting multiple timelines, it’s a film that is as much an experience as a story. This is a behemoth, filled with moments of flair and breath-taking use of sound and vision to affect mood. In particular, the film’s oppressive sound design bears down on the viewer like the pressure of the bomb itself. This means moments when we are released from its grip carry real impact. As Oppenheimer – already plagued with doubt – triumphantly announces the successful use of the bomb, the war-like celebratory pounding of scientists’ feet disappears from the soundtrack leaving Oppenheimer’s words echoing impotently around the room.

The pounding score and epic, sweeping camerawork (even more striking, since so much of the film takes place in small rooms filled with conversation) help Nolan to build up Oppenheimer’s mythic status and simultaneously strip him bare. Literally so at one point as, when questioned on his sex life in his hearing, Oppenheimer is seen naked in the room (as exposed as he must be feeling) answering questions with a naked Jean Tatlock astride him, staring into his wife’s eyes.

Oppenheimer labours, with the best intentions, to create a weapon before the Nazis. In its middle act, Nolan’s film focuses on the propulsive excitement of creation. The thrill of obstacles being overcome and solutions being found. The joy of a diverse team coming together for a single goal. We find ourselves longing for problems to be overcome, swept up in the desire for the endgame, as anxious as the scientists when it looks like rain will prevent the vital first Trinity test of the bomb.

Oppenheimer feels the same. Powerfully, intelligently and magnetically played by Cillian Murphy, this is a man who is a host of flaws crammed with impossible genius. A charismatic room leader, who is awkward in personal interactions. A charmer who rudely fails to remember his brother’s girlfriend’s name at a party. An inspiring leader who alienates people with ease. Murphy captures every inch of Oppenheimer’s staggering intellect and delight in intellectual problems, just as he also embodies the man’s arrogance and crushing self-belief.

So, it’s as crushing to him as it is terrifying to us, when the bomb explodes and the realisation hits us. Nolan’s sensory experience of a film fades down to silence as Nolan lets the camera float across the all-consuming fire of the silent explosion (the noise only comes when the shockwave hits) and suddenly the chilling implication of this terrible weapon becomes clear. This is a device that will kill millions. Oppenheimer knows it: he slowly shrivels into haunted guilt, Murphy seeming to shrink into himself as he finally understands what he has done.

Images of nuclear destruction both obvious (ashen bodies and nuclear flashes) and subtle (the out-of-focus vibration of background around Oppenheimer, as if sensing an approach shockwave) will haunt him and us for the rest of the movie. While many scientists – foremost among them Benny Safdie’s bull-headed Edward Teller and Josh Hartnett’s WASPish but decent Ernest Lawrence – feel little guilt. But Oppenheimer, and we, can no longer avoid questions of moral responsibility raised by those such as Niels Bohr (a quietly effective Kenneth Branagh).

Are there some discoveries better not made? Because once the genie is out of the bottle, it cannot be stuffed back in again. In this new world every world power must always have more. More bombs, bigger bombs, better bombs. And it explains why, like Prometheus, Oppenheimer must be punished. The tool of his punishment being his communist sympathies, embodied in his yearning attraction to Jean Tatlock (an under-used Florence Pugh). Nolan’s film is very strong on the terrifying paranoia of the secret state, where every word or association can be collected into a terrible portfolio of witnesses you cannot question, evidence you cannot see, testimony you cannot hear.

“Why don’t you fight” cries his wife Kitty, played with a dynamic, intelligent forcefulness by Emily Blunt. I could have done with a third act built more around Blunt’s starkly honest betrayal of a woman ill-suited to being a wife and mother, trapped in a world where that is all women can achieve (and which also trimmed a few witnesses from Oppenheimer’s trial). Why doesn’t Oppenheimer fight? Nolan has his theories, carefully seeded and confidently revealed.

Oppenheimer’s post-war clashes cover much of “Fusion”, anchored by a superbly under-playing Robert Downey Jnr (his finest work since Chaplin) as the outwardly avuncular, but inwardly insecure and bitter Strauss, who sees Oppenheimer as the embodiment of all the elitists who turned their noses up at him (no matter that Oppenheimer himself is an outsider, in a world of science run by WASPish types like Lawrence). Nolan’s film explores how morality is forgotten in an environment so rife with paranoia that the slightest expression of doubt is seen as treason.

Nolan’s film needs its vast runtime to keep as many balls in the air as it tries to. It’s probably a few too many balls. I would have loved more on Oppenheimer’s outsider status, as a Jew in American science (its not mentioned that the J stands for Julius, despite his claims it stands for nothing). Similarly, I would have welcomed more time to explore Oppenheimer’s complicated emotional life, in particular the fascinatingly complex relationship of some love, a fair amount of mutual respect and a large measure of mutual convenience with his wife Kitty.

But the film’s chilling musing on the horrors science can accidentally unleash while focused on progress is superbly explored and leaves a lasting impact. It’s a feeling that continues to be sharply relevant while we struggle with the implications of AI. Was there a need for the bomb? Perhaps there was. Were we ready for the bomb? No. And it is the failure of anyone, including Oppenheimer, to even consider this until it was too late that is the coldest warning in Nolan’s epic film.

Metropolis (1927)

Lang’s sometimes flawed science fiction epic is one of the most influential films ever made

Director: Fritz Lang

Cast: Brigitte Helm (Maria/The Machine), Alfred Abel (Joh Frederson), Gustav Frölich (Freder), Rudolf Klein-Rogge (Rotwang), Fritz Rasp (The Thin Man), Theodor Loos (Josaphat), Heinrich George (Grot), Erwin Biswanger (11811/Geogry)

It’s 1927 and for too long Hollywood had held sway over the movies. But there were plans in Germany to change that. The booming Weimar film community, arguably the artistic hub of World Cinema, felt they had a shot at claiming the sort of global success Hollywood had made its own. No expense would be spared to bring Fritz Lang’s science-fiction spectacular, Metropolis to the screen. It was met with such a muted reaction, that the original epic cut was sliced to ribbons, parts of the film lost for all time, and for decades it lived only in a mutilated form. But it was visionary and extraordinary enough to inspire virtually every single science fiction film that followed it.

Metropolis is a sprawling future city state, run by Joh Frederson (Alfred Abel). In it the rich live a gilded life in mighty skyscrapers, with private gardens, luxurious apartments and raucous parties. Beneath them – literally so – are the workers, living a Morlock-like life of drudgery in the factories and power stations that keep the lights burning. But all that could change: below ground Maria (Brigitte Helm) preaches hope for change, above ground Frederson’s son Freder (Gustav Frölich) falls in love with Maria and rejects his father’s way for the life of a prole. Frederson has a scheme of his own: to use a robot (Helm again) built by old friend (and one time rival for the affection of his late wife) the one-handed scientist Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) to replace Maria and sow discord among a potential worker’s rebellion. But does Rotwang and his creation have a game of their own?

Lang had a brief to create a film that would be a box-office hit in America. No stone was left unturned in creating his epic. Metropolis took a staggering 17 months to film, running almost three times over its initial budget. It’s extended shooting schedule was a godsend for many of its extras, struggling to make ends meet while the Weimar Republic thrashed through the after-effects of hyperinflation. It’s a magnificent monument to Lang’s superb visual styling, marrying shadow filled expressionism with sweeping epic magnificence.

Metropolis’ strengths all lie in its stunning, inventive and breath-taking design work. That has been so inspiring, it has permeated vast swathes of our culture. Filmic visions of imposing, neon-lit, skyscraper packed modern Babels (Frederer’s headquarters is an art-deco reimagining of Brueghel’s Tower of Babel) all find their roots here: from Burton’s Batman to Scott’s Blade Runner. Any robot in the movies can chase its lineage back to Rotwang’s man-machine, as any mad scientist ancestor is Rotwang (from Dr Strangelove to Back to the Future’s Doc Brown). It’s the film that invented steam-punk, with its piston-filled machines, staffed by boiler-suited workers (it’s inspiration for a zillion music videos is not surprising). Everywhere you look in Metropolis it might feel like you are seeing something familiar, when in fact you are witnessing its original generation.

Metropolis is a cat’s cradle of differing moods and designs, woven masterfully into a whole. Frederson controls the city from a penthouse suite, while his immediate staff and family live in swish, very 1920s apartments. This contrasts sharply with the industrial-punk of the factories, cathedrals of technological movement, full of gears, levers and men performing tasks with a robotic, convey-belt repetition under a series of clocks. There are real cathedrals, legacies of an old world, where God has been left behind by the new Gods of work and efficiency. Under the ground, the workers live in personality free tenement blocks and chiselled out caves, which echo churches. Rotwang works in a laboratory part Frankenstein’s layer, part bizarre lecture theatre, all seemingly housed in a ramshackle house that wouldn’t look out of place in a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.

A fairy tale is perhaps what Metropolis is, underneath all the astonishing technical sheen and directorial mastery. We follow a hero who exiles himself to live among the poor, eventually becoming their champion, with a damsel-in-distress he must rescue from a crazed wizard. The wizard even produces a magic imposter, who threatens to bring disaster. Metropolis’ plot often proceeds with the illogical progression of a fairy tale, with characters frequently making veering changes in allegiance or unveiling dastardly schemes that appear from nowhere or make little sense.

It’s similar in Metropolis biggest weakness: it’s simplistic plot, wrapped up in a casually naïve politically theory that attempts to find a balance between left and right, but essentially boils down to “why can’t we all just get along”. It’s loud proclamation that “The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart” is so vague that it allowed the film to be embraced by the left as a proto-socialist film supporting worker’s rights and the right as a film that revealed the workers as a mob and the fate of the world best left in the hands of elites who know what they are doing.

It’s part of the simplistic view the film largely takes of character and story, which frequently feels like an after-thought behind the film’s sumptuous production values and Lang’s expressive camera work. It’s also not helped by some of the acting which, particularly in the case of Gustav Frölich’s hand-claspingly camp performance, mines the depths of silent-movie ostentatiousness. Saying that Brigitte Helm is chillingly, wickedly artificial and physically disjointed as the fake Maria (a far cry from her more simpering ‘good’ self) and Abel underplays effectively as Frederson. Klein-Rogge’s insane glare and conflicting lusts also make a strong impression.

But none so strong as Lang’s mastery of visual symbolism. Freder’s terrified vision of the ‘heart machine’ that sits at the centre of the city’s power, transformed into a terrible Moloch with workers literally fed into its gaping, firey maw. Those same workers from the film’s opening with Lang’s brilliant visual conceit of shuffling, shoulder-drooping figures lurching into a gigantic elevator that lowers them into the ground. Rotwang’s birth of the fake Maria is a masterclass in light and cross-cutting, as is the simmering eroticism of the fake Maria’s dance at an orgiastic night-club, the screen filling with the slathering faces of the man she has enchanted.

It mixes with the Gothic power Lang brings the film in its closing sequence, seemingly inspired by mystery plays with their deep-rooted sins bubbling to the surface to condemn those alive today. There are echoes back to this in Freder’s dreams of Metropolis as a modern Babylon (hammered home, once, by the lost scene of a monk preaching in the cathedral) and in Maria’s Joan of Arc like status among the working classes – a mantle taken to its logical conclusion by her metallic replacement who leads a doomed insurrection. Again, all these concepts and influences are effortlessly held together into one magnificent whole by Lang’s fluidic, beautifully paced direction.

Metropolis lives today as a monument to creative science fiction film-making – it is the most ambitious and most influential science-fiction film ever, except perhaps 2001 and (in a very different way) Star Wars. It may be politically simple and its story may veer in unplanned directions and strange cul-de-sacs, but as a piece of visionary cinema it is nearly unparalleled. Even its existence today as a reconstructed, corrupted version of itself (after hours of footage were considered lost for decades) doesn’t not dim or diminish its mastery.

Rocky III (1982)

Rocky needs to build his way back to the top – again – in this boxing buddy movie

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone (Rocky Balboa), Talia Shire (Adrian Balboa), Burt Young (Paulie Pennino), Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed), Burgess Meredith (Mickey Goldmill), Tony Burton (Duke Evers), Mr T (Clubber Lang), Hulk Hogan (Thunderlips)

Life is good for Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone)! Ten successful title defences and he is literally on-top of the world. Time to hang up his gloves right? Wrong of course. He’s challenged by hungry new up-and-comer Clubber Lang (Mr T), a brutal, never-beaten machine. Dismissive to all around him, Lang says Rocky has never taken on a proper challenger: turns out he’s right as Mickey (Burgess Meredith) only put Rocky up against challengers he knew he could beat. Lang takes Rocky apart in the fight – not before indirectly causing a fatal heart-attack for Mickey – and Rocky is a broken man. Who else can bring him back from the brink than his old frenemy, the Count of Monte Fisto himself, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers)?

Rocky III confirms that there are in only so many plots available for a Rocky film. This one shakes the formula up by having Rocky start at the top, then fall to the bottom, then rise back up again. But it’s the same story, now taking place in a slightly different style to the first two. Any sense of kitchen-sink drama is gone from Rocky III. You can see it in the body of Stallone, now a chisselled, Michelangelo sculpture. This is a cartoon with a happy ending, and the fact it’s entertaining doesn’t hide that the whole franchise was leaving reality behind.

Saying that, Rocky III makes a bigger push for tragedy than either of the other two. Stallone leans heavily into incoherent blubbing as Rocky cradles the body of his surrogate father, Mickey dying with one last growling word of wisdom. It’s, of course, the moral of all film mentors that they must eventually kick the bucket so their proteges can take their place. It shakes Rocky up like nothing before. That and the beating he takes from Lang, in a brutal one-sided beat-down.

One of the film’s claim to cult fame is of course the casting of Mr T as Clubber Lang. Growling and scowling like a cartoon heavy, with some punchy one-liners (“I don’t hate Balboa. I pity the fool!”), it’s a part that works due to Mr T’s charisma. Stallone shoots Clubber Lang like some sort of fighting lion, frequently employing slo-mo to focus in on Lang’s scowling face and flying fists, the soundtrack echoing with his roar. Mr T is the series best villain, a man so loathsomely cocky (literally no one likes him, not the crowds, the commentators, his fellow boxers…) that he propositions Adrian, shoves Apollo before the first fight and gives Mickey a heart attack.

You needed someone like that to bring together Apollo and Rocky as a super-team. Rocky III is the series first buddy-movie. It’s hard not to see something faintly homoerotic in Weathers and Stallone, bodies greased and rippling in muscles, eyeing each other up, running along beaches or the faintly sexual air to Weather’s delivery of lines about wanting a “special favour” from Rocky “after the fight”. No wonder there isn’t much time for Adrian in the film – what chance could she have when these two have such a mutual appreciation society going on? – with Talia Shire’s best scene as a sounding board for Rocky’s confession of fear about stepping back into the ring against Lang.

Saying that, the inevitable training sequence – this is the film with the quest for “the Eye of the Tiger” – is great value. It’s fun to watch Rocky pick-up Apollo’s signature Muhammad Ali style quick feet and Weathers is very good as the former champ taking vicarious revenge who forms a genuine friendship with his old rival (I love it when Apollo shadowboxes in excitement when Rocky begins to turn the final fight in his favour). Of course, montage takes Rocky from down-hearted dope (suffering from slo-mo visions which play like a half-arsed panic attack) to freeze-frame triumph. (I’ll also say Rocky III rather neatly mocks Paulie’s kneejerk racism about training with ‘these people’).

To get to these expected beats, Stallone first needed to pad out the run time – and slight plot. Surely that’s the only reason for the bizarre Act One ‘exhibition’ match which sees a complacent Rocky fight an exhibition match against wrestler “Thunderlips” (a terrible cameo from Hulk Hogan), the sort of sequence you keep thinking must be a dream but is in fact real. We also get an initial training montage structured like a modern morality play, Rocky’s lazy prep for fighting Lang sees him living like a Hollywood hotshot, while Lang trains with a monastic dedication. No surprise who is going down in the ring (even if the first fight wasn’t only thirty minutes into the film).

The rematch though doesn’t disappoint, taking its lead from Ali’s rope-a-dope from the Rumble in the Jungle. And the real coda, which is all about friendship, is sweeter than this comic book, Roy of the Rovers film has any right to be. Rocky III replays some of the elements of the first two films, this time as a comic strip, but by focusing on a bromance (and throwing in a properly hissable pantomime villain) despite the fact you know it lacks any inspiration, you’ll still punch the sky when Rocky turns that final fight and leave the film whistling Eye of the Tiger.

Aparajito (1956)

Generational clashes lie at the heart of Ray’s heartbreaking second entry in his Apu trilogy

Director: Satyajit Ray

Cast: Kanu Banerjee (Harihar), Karuna Banerjee (Sarbajaya), Smaran Ghosal (Adolescent Apu), Pinaki Sengupta (Young Apu), Ramani Sengupta (Uncle Bhabataran), Charuprakash Ghosh (Nanda-babu), Subodh Ganguli (Headmaster), Moni Srimani (School inspector), Ajay Mitra (Shibnath), Kalicharan Roy (Akhil)

Satyajit Ray initially saw Pather Panchali as a one-off, a story from the works of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, not the start of a multi-film fable on the life of its young protagonist. But, such was the impact of Ray’s debut, it almost demanded a continuation of the story. Ray then adapted parts of two Bandyopadhyay novels, re-shaping them into a tale of Apu’s late childhood and adolescence, that difficult crossing point between childhood and adulthood. In doing so, he created a film full of life but also profoundly moving and quietly devastating. Rich, confident and powerful, Aparajito may just be even more affecting than its forbear.

Beginning a few years after the conclusion of Pather Panchali Apu (played as child by Pinaki Sengupta and later as an adolescent by Smaran Ghosal) lives in the holy city of Varanasi with his dreaming father Harihar (Kanu Banerjee) and tireless mother Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee). Apu is still the same inquisitive, observant, fascinated child he ever was and when his father’s death leads to mother and son returning to the country, he excels at the local school. Winning a scholarship to college at Calcutta, Apu he finds Sarbajaya’s love for him smothering, just as she is heart-broken by his growing distance and reluctance to write or return to visit her.

This universal story of children struggling to outgrow their parents and their parents longing to help them grow but desire to keep them close, a situation causing pain on both sides, that gives Aparajito it’s huge emotional force. We can totally understand why Apu, swept up in the excitement of Calcutta and forging of his own life (one that has the promise of being so much more dynamic than his parents), begins to feel the ties of duty to his mother (almost alone in the world without him) constraining. At the same time, having witnessed the never-ending sacrifice, patience and quiet devotion of Sarbajaya to her son, we want to slap him for his selfishness and lack of thought.

Ray’s film is superb at making us understand the impossible burdens Sarbajaya has taken on herself to raise her son. Ray constantly frames Sarbajaya in the act of waiting: in Varanasi we never see her outside of the courtyard of their shared tenement block, constantly preoccupied with household tasks. Ray frames Sarbajaya frequently in doorways, visually presenting her as someone constantly waiting on the outskirts, shadows cast across her – someone vital for ensuring order, but easy to forget on the outskirts of rooms. It also serves to make her look constantly trapped and overburdened with duty, shadows constantly cast across her.

These burdens magnify for Sarbajaya after the death of Harihar. Apu’s decent father is still a dreamer who lacks the dedication and drive to make something of himself. Do memories of his father’s desire to become a writer ending in a fever in a tenement block, subconsciously drive Apu later? Harihar collapses near the holy river, ill from the damp of the city that he trudges through barefoot night and day, hitting the ground in a shadow lit passageway – much like his wife, as if the city has crushed him with its burdens.

The city seems very different to the young Apu. Ray’s camerawork is gentle, full of leisurely sideways pans, which serve to make the city appear to us as it does to Apu: a never-ending stream of visual wonders. Pans across the riverbanks of the Ganges, full of beautiful temples and river vistas look as magical to us as they do to the young boy. Similarly, the Dickensian hustle and bustle of the city itself, full of streets and alleyways that Apu and his friends rundown with glee feel like treasure-troves of adventure, rather than the never-ending streets trudge they look like when we see them from Harihar’s perspective.

Ray’s camera frequently brings us back to the searching, questioning, fascinated eyes of young Apu, always expanding his horizons. Education and the wonders that books bring him, far beyond the horizons of his mother who can only think about how to bring about tomorrow, offer a similar excitement. Young Apu excels at school and delights in trying to share the wonders he has learned – about science, astronomy and geography – with his mother. Ray shows a mastery of simple montage as years fly by in minutes as we see each of Apu’s passions before a masterful transition with a slow zoom in and out on a lit candle carries across years from Apu as a child to an adolescent.

An adolescent who feels the pull of a world away from what he increasingly sees as the smothering pull of his mother. It is, of course, impossible to watch this without feeling how unfair – but also how natural – this is. Your heart breaks as Apu heads off to Calcutta with only a single cursory glance back to his devoted mother. The mother who still packs his bag, gives him her savings – and asks him to come home as often as he can. You can understand why a young man finds this constraining, even as you want to tell him how sharp his regrets will be as Sarbajaya’s health begins to fail (naturally, the boy falls asleep as his mother timidly confesses her fear of old age and sickness to him).

Apu loves his mother, there is no doubt about that. One vacation, arriving at the train station to return to Calcutta, he decides to turn back (claiming he missed the train) to spend one more day with his mother. He still relies on her wisdom and unreserved love and he thinks often of her in the city. But he’s a teenager and wants his freedom. Sarbajaya even understands this, just as her heart breaks for the loss of and loneliness his departure brings. Is there a sadder shot in the movies as Ray focuses on Sarbajaya slowly sinking down as Apu walks away to his future?

The impact is only increased by the gloriously moving, hollow-eyed performance of Karuna Banerjee, exhausted but untiring in her work to protect family and home. It’s a performance of quiet, bubbling grief and loss tightly packed under optimism and support for her son – a grief that only the audience sees. Smaran Ghosal is also very fine as the adolescent Apu, a boy we can never dislike for very naturally wanting to forge his own path, in a performance that feels extraordinarily real.

The humanity shines out again in Ray’s follow-up to his debut. Moving confidently from location to location, in a novelistic structure translated perfectly to the screen, Aparajito is rich, beautifully told and carries real, unbearable emotional punch for anyone who has ever been a parent or child. Another masterwork in a mighty trilogy.

The General (1927)

Keaton’s masterpiece, less of a comedy and more an inspiration for hundreds of action films

Director: Buster Keatson & Clyde Bruckman

Cast: Buster Keaton (Johnnie Gray), Marian Mack (Annabel Lee), Glen Cavander (Captain Anderson), Jim Farley (General Thatcher), Frederick Vroom (Southern General), Charles Smith (Mr Lee), Frank Barnes (Annabel’s brother), Joe Keaton (Union General)

The General frequently features in the lists of greatest comedies of all-time. It’s a bit of a misnomer: while The General has its fair share of jokes, it’s really a sort of action film. A Mad Max: Fury Road with gags, the greatest chase you’ll ever see and one of the most dynamic stunt spectaculars ever made. It’s Keaton’s apogee, one of the most influential and greatest films ever made. If you’ve ever seen a stunt-filled epic, you’ve seen something that takes inspiration from the tireless physical tricks Keaton pulled here and the stunning, cinematic grace he films it with. The General is a classic that is instantly, and constantly, rewarding.

Keaton plays Johnnie Gray, a respected engine driver of the South with two loves in his life: Annabel (Marian Mack) and his steam engine The General. He’s about to propose to Annabel when the Civil War breaks out. She wants him to enlist: he tries his best but is rejected, unbeknownst to him, because the army considers him more valuable as a train driver. Mistakenly seen as a coward by Annabel, she vows never to speak to him again. A year later The General is hi-jacked by Union soldiers as part of a surprise offensive. Johnnie gives chase in a second engine, The Texas, unaware Annabel is aboard the kidnapped General. The wild chase takes Johnnie North then South again to bring Annabel home and report to the Confederate army the approaching attack.

The General was the most expensive film Keaton’s company had ever made. No expense was spared in bringing two period-accurate engines to the screen, with everything shot in location (in Oregon, admittedly, due to the Tennessee not being keen on staging a Civil War Keaton comedy) and all executed in perfect period detail. The film contained the most expensive single shot ever mounted – costing a whopping $42,000, it would show a real bridge collapse and hurl a real engine into a real river (Keaton filmed in long shot, with real horses moving around near the bridge, to stress this was a real stunt not a model). Despite all this, the film was a box-office disappointment.

Why? Well frankly, I’m not sure the world was ready for something that promised itself as being a comedy set during what was still a raw scar in the American psyche. The marketing material also promised more laughs than you can shake a stick at – a misrepresentation of a film that is more a stunt-filled poem than a slapstick riot. For those expecting The Navigator, The General was a disappointment. For us today, it is one of the great American films, a piece of cinematic mastery.

The General is for a large chunk of its run-time (almost 40 of its just under 80 minutes) a glorious chase, in which every sequence show-pieces invention at high-speed. The majority of the stunt filled tricks were executed by Keaton himself, surely at some considerable risk to life and limb. As you watch him bound over railway carriages, dive through port holes, sprint alongside steaming trains or sit atop the hurling railway sleepers to remove obstructions, you can only marvel at his physical dexterity and commitment.

Keaton’s character is also subtly, and impressively, different from his other roles. These were often defined by their haplessness – would-be detectives and empty-headed heirs. But within his professional sphere, Johnnie is a master. He knows the capabilities of engines and dynamics of the railroad better than anyone. He is relentless and endlessly inventive in overcoming myriad problems just as he can use his knowledge to place near-insurmountable barriers in the way of his pursuers.

The opening of the film stresses the respect people hold him in – he’s hero-worshipped by children, greeted warmly by all and has no doubts about asking Annabel to marry him. Sure Johnnie can get pre-occupied and miss the bigger picture – a few times, he is almost left behind by the steaming train while resolving problems on the line – and away from the train, especially when he joins the soldiers in the film’s finale, he suffers from the same clumsy, cluelessness as Keaton did fighting to defend his ship in The Navigator. But he’s also brave, indefatigable, ingenious and relentless. He’s more of a model for every action hero maverick since than you could imagine.

And those stunts! Keaton was a master film-maker, framing the action to accentuate its speed, scale and reality. The camera runs alongside the train, demonstrating its speed by showing objects move by. The action is frequently framed in medium and long shot to demonstrate its scale and the grandness. This goes for Keaton bounding across carriages and for simple gags, such as the famous shot of a forlorn, jilted Johnnie sitting on a drive rod of the moving train, lifted up and down as it shunts forward. The complexities of this chase are always made clear and camera angles are key to the various attempt each train makes to stop the other. This is placed above the standard comedic reaction close-ups audiences expected – but make for a richer, more rewarding film.

In fact, watching the film, you can grow to admire Johnnie so much you start to wonder what he sees in Annabel. Perhaps Keaton, to an extent, wondered the same. Annabel is kidnapped, tied up, caught in a bear trap, tossed around in a sack and doused in engine water. Is this woman being partially punished by the film? After all, it’s her demand that Johnnie turn his life upside down to fight in (what we know) will be a brutal war – and her kneejerk condemnation of him – that sets events in motion. Does she need this humbling to learn her lesson? It perhaps helps her and Johnnie become an ever more effective partnership on their flight back South, setting traps and keeping the engine going (with the odd comic misunderstanding, one of which sees Johnnie running down then back up a hill to reboard the train) that leads to their eventual reconciliation.

Interestingly, what’s less comfortable with The General today is its avoidance of the core issues of the civil war. Slavery never rears its head, and the film takes a largely sympathetic view of the romantic Southern gentlemen vs the nefarious Northerner, with their under-hand schemes. Peter Kramer, in an excellent BFI book, lays out a compelling argument that The General exposes, especially through its final battle sequence which sees real people die and a hapless Johnnie charging into heroics like a lost child, the dangerously blind embrace of violence in the South and a subtle criticism of a horrific war that led to so many needless deaths. While there might be beats of that under the surface here (especially if you are familiar with the shocking death toll of the war), it’s not enough to overcome the generally sympathetic view of the Confederacy and its leaders.

But politics is not at the heart of Keaton’s film. The appeal for him, just as for Johnnie, was that engine and, by extension, the glory of the chase. Only someone who loved trains as much as Keaton could have made such a guilty pleasure of plunging one thirty feet to its doom on camera. And in Johnnie Flynn he created a genuinely little-guy hero, a character who shared his dynamism and pluck and, above all, his love for all things mechanical.

The General isn’t a comedy really – there are few real belly laughs in it, and the film is played straight by all and sundry, devoid of reaction shots. Its laughs come in shock at its audacity, its epic scale and from how much it causes you to invest in the trials and tribulations of its lead character. It’s an action film that you embrace with fervent love, because it’s pure, unadulterated, cinematic beauty. It’s a masterpiece.

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023)

Action and impossible stunts continue to deliver entertainment in Cruise’s running and jumping franchise

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Hayley Atwell (Grace), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Rebecca Ferguson (Ilsa Faust), Vanessa Kirby (Alanna Mitsopolis), Esai Morales (Gabriel), Pom Klementieff (Paris), Henry Czerny (Eugene Kittridge), Shea Whigham (Jasper Briggs), Cary Elwes (Director Denlinger), Greg Tarzen Davies (Degas), Frederick Schmidt (Zola Mitsopolis), Charles Parnell (NRO Director), Mark Gatiss (NSA Director), Indira Varma (NRO Director)

When they promote Mission: Impossible films, the stunts are front-and-centre. So much so that the film’s life-risking (what else?) stunt of the Cruiser driving a motorbike off a cliff and parachuting to safety was not only in every trailer but they even released a social medial film showing how it was done. Mission: Impossible films are thrill rides – and knowing what you are going to get doesn’t reduce the excitement of getting it. There’s plenty of excitement in Dead Reckoning Part 1 but that desire to entertain doesn’t always work when the film tries to tackle more emotional content.

Dead Reckoning starts, Hunt for Red October-like, with the sinking of a radar-invisible Russian sub (there is even a neat twist on that film’s switch from Russian to English). The disaster is caused by its AI supercomputer, known as The Entity. While intelligence agencies compete to control it, the Entity uses its ability to predict every outcome to plot world domination. The only threat it predicts? Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) of course. Ethan will stop at nothing to destroy this threat, in a country-hopping adventure with his regular team (Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson) that rotates around mysterious thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) and a ruthless old enemy of Ethan’s, Gabriel (Esai Morales).

Dead Reckoning is, of course, huge fun. Shot over years, due to Covid (responsible for its budget ballooning to an eye watering $300 million) it never lets events go on too long without throwing in a twist and turn filled set-piece which plays off its lead characters’ skill under pressure. Despite the vast numbers of set-pieces, you rarely shift in your seat, because each is paced to perfection with just the right balance between tension and wit. That long shooting process also means its villainous AI plotline (clearly the makers binged on AI drama Person of Interest beforehand) seems zeitgeist rather than something from science fiction.

The film is a masterclass in shooting action. The recent Indiana Jones film threw in a seemingly never-ending three-way car chase. Dead Reckoning probably dedicates more time to its jaunt through the streets of Rome, but it’s always clever enough to keep shifting gears. We go from shoot-out, to Cruise and Atwell handcuffed together and awkwardly sharing the driving, to switching of cars (a ludicrous yellow mini which even Ethan can’t work out, impotently turning the windscreen wipers on and off), pratfall spins down the Spanish steps, all with a free-wheeling sense of improvisational fun that only comes from months of careful storyboarding and determination to never settle for “things move fast until they stop”.

Dead Reckoning is a reminder that no-one since Buster Keaton puts themselves through as much as Cruise does (it seems fitting the finale builds towards the biggest train crash since The General). It’s Cruise’s USP: he does it for real. Even at 60 he pushes himself in the way few actors have ever done. Run full-pelt through the streets of Venice? Climb along the roof of a speeding train? Fight two actors half his age in a cramped corridor? You can sort of understand why the film doesn’t shirk on dialogue paying tribute to Cruise/Ethan’s superhuman determination and endurance (and the film is a further reminder Ethan’s only flaw is caring too damn much).

Let’s not forget also Cruise pretty much produces and co-directs these missions. Dead Reckoning is a triumph of the producer’s art – McQuarrie and Cruise are practised experts at pulling together locations, resources and expertise. They are equally ace at assembling tense sequences that don’t involve death-defying stunts. A first act cat-and-mouse chase around a huge Dubai airport sees Cruise tracking Atwell, while dodging a US government team sent to capture him, while Pegg hunts for a suspicious bag, while Cruise is also tracked by Morales. None of this involves stunt work (although Cruise and Atwell both learned how to perform sleight-of-hand tricks in camera) just timing and an ability to constantly present events in a dynamic way. This is consummate box-office ride assembly, marshalled to perfection with all the skill of expert showmen.

The set pieces are so gripping, it sometimes draws your attention a little bit too much to how perfunctory all the joins can be. A host of British actors (Gatiss, Varma and rent-a-villain Cary Elwes) gather in a room to throw plot statements at each other. The conversations between the team are often dominated by the narrative need to establish who will go where and why. The script has a tendency to demonstrate how people feel by having them bluntly state it (“My friends matter more to me than anyone!”). When trying to be human, rather than a thrill ride, it can stumble.

It’s perhaps why the moments that aim for tragedy feel like they land slightly awkwardly, as if you aren’t quite sure how sad you should be feeling. Dead Reckoning throws in an emotional mid-act that strains for a depth a film primarily designed to entertain popcorn munchers, isn’t quite able to deliver on. Put simply, the film can’t afford to have Ethan get caught up in grief when ten minutes later we need an exasperated Cruise to jump off a mountain. This ride don’t stop for anyone.

The film also suffers from the characters spending the entire runtime chasing a mysterious key which they have no idea the purpose of, but the audience has had explained to us in that opening Russian prologue. This is a series that thrives best on carefully concealing things from us, on the characters having a card or two up their sleeves. It somehow doesn’t quite work that we are more aware of the bigger picture than the characters. It makes Dead Reckoning feel like an extended opening act.

But this ride is fun enough for now. Atwell is charming, funny and has superb chemistry with Cruise; Morales is a chillingly arrogant villain, Klementieff enigmatically vicious as a near-wordless henchman. Whigam and Davies are good fun as contrasting agents vainly chasing the uncatchable Ethan. And above them all is Cruise: jumping, running, diving, punching and generally putting life-and-limb on the line, all to entertain us. Maybe he is a bit mad, but it’s impossible not to applaud him.

Asteroid City (2023)

Anderson’s quirk filled film is a triumph of his own style but lacks the depth of his best work

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Jason Schwartzman (Augie Steenbeck/Jones Hall), Scarlett Johansson (Midge Campbell/Mercedes Ford), Tom Hanks (Stanley Zak), Jeffrey Wright (General Gibson), Tilda Swinton (Dr. Hickenlooper), Bryan Cranston (Host), Edward Norton (Conrad Earp), Adrien Brody (Schubert Green), Liev Schreiber (J.J. Kellogg), Hope Davis (Sandy Borden), Stephen Park (Roger Cho), Rupert Friend (Montana), Maya Hawke (June Douglas), Steve Carell (Motel manager), Matt Dillon (Mechanic), Hong Chau (Polly), Willem Dafoe (Saltzburg Keitel), Jake Ryan (Woodrow), Grace Edwards (Dinah), Aristou Meehan (Clifford), Sophia Lillis (Shelly), Ethan Josh Lee (Ricky)

Every time I go and see a Wes Anderson film, I hope I might fall in love again. Eventually, I’ll find something in Anderson’s overly distinctive, quirky style that I love as much as The Grand Budapest Hotel. Maybe the romantic in me is dying, because I think its never going to happen. Certainly it doesn’t with Asteroid City a film I sat watching thinking “I know some people will love this more than life itself, but for me sitting here it feels like waiting for the rapture”.

Asteroid City is another of Anderson’s films that’s an intricate puzzle box where the pieces shift like the brightly coloured squares on a Rubrik’s cube. It’s filtered through several layers of remove: we watch a 50s TV announcer (Bryan Cranston) introduce a stage performance of a playwright’s (Edward Norton) long-running play that is itself an entrée to a wide-screen, technicolour production of a host of eccentrics, including a recently widowed photographer (Jason Schwartzman), his grouchy father-in-law (Tom Hanks), a glamourous Hollywood star (Scarlett Johansson) and several others accompanying their kids to a remote town in the desert for a young stargazing and science competition co-sponsored by an army general (Jeffrey Wright), when the whole town is thrown into quarantine after a stop-motion alien drops in, looks around and flies off.

Somewhere in Asteroid City there is an interesting, slightly sad, meditation on grief, loss and ennui struggling to get out. The alien arrival makes everyone question the nature of the universe and their place in it. It’s easy to see the influence of Covid on a town flung into quarantine, and the resulting state of uncertainty throwing everyone off kilter. We are following a man who has recently lost his wife, being played in this film-within-a-play-within-a-TV-show by an actor who was (we discover) recently lost his own partner. At one point this actor asks the director if he is ‘doing it right’, if he is getting the emotion or the author’s intention: “just tell the story” the director (Adrien Brody) responds. I think that’s part of a message about just live and let the big questions take care of themselves, of trusting that we can do our loved ones proud. That’s an interesting, rewarding point.

But it’s lost in Anderson’s pitiless device, his never-ending quirk and the deliberately distancing, artificial nature of his world and the monotonous, arch delivery his script, camera work and editing imposes on a series of actors. What this film desperately misses is a leading player with the strength and independence of a Ralph Fiennes or a Gene Hackman: someone who can bring depth and a sense of reality to the stylised Anderson world, while still delivering something perfectly in keeping with his tone. To put it bluntly, Schwartzman is, to put it bluntly, not a sufficiently engaging or interesting actor to communicate his character’s inner turmoil under the surface which the film’s inner meaning requires. He too naturally, and trustingly, settles into the Anderson rhythm.

In this crucial role, he’s a misfire. With our leading player too much of an artificial character, someone we never believe is anything other than a construct of the film’s author, inhabited by a collaborator who doesn’t bring the independence or new vision the director needs, the more the deeper emotional layers of the film are drowned. Instead, the film becomes a crushing onslaught of style and trickery, devoid of any sense of reality at any point.

It eventually makes the film feel overly smug, too pleased with-itself, too taken with its intricate, tricksy construction. It is of course a triumph of art design and the photography is gorgeous, from the black-and-white of the TV studio and theatre, to the 60s tinged, artificial world of Asteroid City, crammed with its obviously fake skylines and vistas and technicolour inspired feel. That at least its impossible not to admire. But it’s also a mighty artificial trap that enfolds the entire film – and eventually the audience – in a world of weightless, arch, eyebrow-cocked commentary that promises a lot but winds up saying almost nothing of any interest.

There are performances to admire. Scarlett Johansson is very droll and finds some depths as an star actress struggling with a concealed depression. Tom Hanks looks most like the actor who feels like he can break out of the Anderson mould and discover some genuine emotion. Jeffrey Wright demonstrates few actors can do Anderson dialogue better than him, Bryan Cranston very droll and perfectly observed as Ed Murrow style TV man and Adrien Brody is loose, fun and inventive as the play’s director. But yet its everything inside this framework that feels somehow empty.

What I want from Anderson is someone to come in and shake him up, to point out that he is not betraying his aesthetics or style by injecting a small dose of reality and humanity into it. When he has done that in the past – moments in Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and, above all, The Grand Budapest Hotel – he has delivered movies that are inventive, fun and playful but also carry real, lasting emotional impact. When he delivers in-jokes like Asteroid City, it feels like a party you have been invited to where everyone speaks in some made-up language they’ve not told you about in advance. And after not very long, all you want to do is to get up and leave.