The African Queen

Just saw the restored version of The African Queen on the big screen.  Apart from the top-class acting and wonderful direction, the colour of the film (it was shot on Three-strip Technicolor) is something to behold.  The cinematographer, Jack Cardiff, worked on everything from The Red Shoes to Death on the Nile.  The African Queen must be one of his best - not for the landscapes but for working around Bogart and Hepburn in the confined space of a 30 foot boat.

There is a lot of sexual imagery in the film - Bogart's entrance is announced by a shot of the mast of his boat against the sky accompanied by the toot of his horn.  Having negotiated the first set of rapids, Hepburn famously says: "I never dreamed that mere physical experience could be so stimulating!"  But the real sex in the film is the love affair the camera has with these two iconic, yet odd-looking, individuals.  Hepburn transforms from old maid into something powerfully feminine; a precursor of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley, perhaps.  Bogart is like we had not seen him up to this - vulnerable, not too clever and managing to be heroic in an everyday way e.g. stumbling into a war where he's not quite sure which way the various countries are aligned.  He is often shot from below so that we see the prominence of his teeth; he is certainly no Clark Gable.

They were both wonderful actors.  Certain tiny moments stand out.  When, early on, Bogart returns to find her, with the village burned and her brother dead, she plays it as embarrassment - not logical but entirely believable - the shame we feel for losing things.  Later, when Bogart is trying to save her he manages to pull the whole performance together in a few seconds acting behind her back while they are both facing the camera (I won't spoil the plot with more detail).

I'm not sure if the Blu-Ray edition released last year incorporates this version - sadly, I think not.  However I believe it does contain a commentary from Jack Cardiff which should be worth a small investment when it hits the bargain shelves.  So there, I knew I could write this without mentioning John Huston - Doh!

What is it about that film?!

To me, the cinema is sound and vision.  So generally, I like a car chase in a movie.  Or a train robbery.  Something, at least, to get my heart pounding.  So, I don't like date movies, talking heads movies (with the exception of Stop Making Sense) or films that are TV movies but just don't know it.  So (and I'll stop with  the 'Sos' any minute now), I should not have liked 'The Social Network' - but I loved it.  Go figure.

It had the potential to be the most boring film ever.  They could have focused on the development of Facebook or, god forbid, they could have bought into the inanities that I and millions of others post up there night after night.  But they didn't; instead they sidesteppped the main story and  concentrated instead on the dynamics that crackled between the beautiful, young, creative and damaged people responsible for kickstarting this piece of social history.

But the director, David Fincher, is well aware of the need to fuse the sound and the vision and he does so - elegantly.  The camera moves unobtrusively yet gracefully as we follow Zuckerberg on way home to vent his rage on the girl who jilts him (and invent Facebook while getting drunk).  Throughout the movie the music (from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) enriches the atmosphere without ovepowering it.  Somehow, these are the elements of the film which appeal to me - moreso than the, admittedly very clever, script.  

Which is what led me to write about the film.  It's like I'm trying to say something about it but it won't quite formulate itself.  It seems like those involved in this film, especially the director, were really enjoying it.  For instance, he was able to present the Harvard frat house system in all its pomposity and ridiculousness while at the same time showing the very real and ominous impact it has on the lives of Americans far and wide, and yet he managed to do it without making the characters totally dislikeable, even to aging socialists like me.  (Or maybe, I'm mellowing.)  And this carries through to every single object, animate or inanimate, that comes into the frame - you get the feeling that the director is enjoying it, getting off on it and, most importantly, sharing this jouissance with the viewer. This viewer, at any rate.

Jouissance is a word used by Lacan to describe something almost indescribable.  It is a pleasure but pleasure that can be traumatic if experienced beyond a certain limit  (perhaps like all pleasure).  It's just as well this movie occurs within a frame - otherwise it might spill over and overwhelm us.  As it is, we can experience it realtively safely and pleasurably and leave the cinema feeling not eactly proud to be human but glad to be.  What more can we ask of the work of art?