Eyes Without a Face (1960)

aka: Les Yeux Sans Visage (France)

Directed by Georges Franju
Written by Jean Redon, Thomas Narcejac, Claude Sautet and Pierre Boileau

Unrated

I only saw "Eyes Without a Face" for the first time about a year ago. I was immediately struck by the artful cinematography and Hitchcockian plot. Since then I have seen it at least five times, and each viewing further affirms my appreciation for this film. In a fairly short time, "Eyes Without a Face" has become one of my favorite films ever.

The film opens with carnivalesque organ music and footage of trees rushing past outside a speeding automobile as the credits roll. Tree imagery will become very important within the film, and will represent nature in all of it's sublime, untamable glory. Automobiles, conversely, will represent crude technology as a metaphor for man's attempt to exercise control over nature. In several shots throughout the film, we see trees reflected off of Dr. Genessier's very shiny car. I saw the image of trees reflected on the hood of a car as a metaphor for the way that Genessier tries to artificially reproduce nature in his depraved medical experiments. Pay attention to the trees throughout the film, especially at the end.

When the "maniac forest driving" credits sequence ends, we see that the driver of the car is Louise (played by Alida Valli), a middle-aged woman in a wide pearl choker who looks paranoid and panicky as she drives. A peek in the backseat reveals why: a faceless corpse wrapped in a jacket. Louise  pulls over near a body of water and dumps the corpse. As far as movie "hooks" go, this one is pretty rich. Who is Louise? Who was the dead girl? How did she die and why is it being covered up?

In the next scene, we see Doctor Genessier, an esteemed transplant surgeon, speaking before a group of medical professionals. He claims that he has developed a fool-proof method for performing organ grafts and transplants that will eliminate the need for blood-type compatibility between the organ donor and recipient. His speech immediately reveals all you need to know about his character: he's cold, clinical, headstrong, determined, and is not afraid to play God in the realm of medical science. Several of the audience members discuss the rumors circulating regarding Christiane, Genessier's missing daughter, who disappeared after being horribly disfigured in a car crash while Genessier was driving.

The police find a girl with wounds that match Christiane's when she disappeared: face completely removed except for the eyes. One cop remarks that the wounds look too surgical for a car crash. Because Genessier's daughter is known to have been wounded and missing, he is called in to identify the body. Another man whose daughter recently went missing is called in to look at the body too, but Genessier goes first and assures the other father that the body belongs to Christiane, preventing him from looking to see for himself.

Upon returning to his large, foreboding house in the country, we discover that Louise is Dr. Genessier's housekeeper, and that his daughter Christiane is alive, living in hiding and wearing a creepy prosthetic mask to cover her disfigured face. I strongly believe that "Eyes Without a Face" was one of the sources of inspiration for "Arbre Los Ojos" (aka "Open Your Eyes"), the Spanish film that was remade as "Vanilla Sky". In these films, the main character is a rich and influential man who is horribly scarred in a car accident by a jilted lover and becomes a creepy masked recluse. While I am a fan of both films, neither the Spanish lead nor Tom Cruise wear the creepy mask as well as Edith Scob's Christiane.

Scob's Christiane is in a state of near-catatonic misery for the whole film. She's had her face torn off in an accident caused by her father driving like a maniac, and is then forced to hide herself away while her father holds a fake funeral for her. She is separated from her fiance, who thinks she's dead, and her only hope for a semi-normal life is her father's demented experimentation with skin grafting. Unfortunately for Christiane, her father's desire to recreate her face comes not from love or even guilt for causing her deformity, but out of a selfish desire to crack the mysteries of medical science. He keeps his daughter like a prisoner when he's not using her as a lab rat to test his latest ideas.

But Christiane is not the only person to suffer under her father's knife. Dr. Genessier has taken to kidnapping beautiful young women in order to steal their faces for Christiane's skin grafts. The body that Louise dumped at the beginning of the film turns out to have been an unwilling donor of a failed skin graft. Dr. Genessier promises Christiane that he's close to perfecting his technique, that soon she'll have a face again and be able to start a new life. Ironically, Christiane has been through so much pain that she would actually welcome death as an end to her suffering, but her father refuses to give up on her.

Genessier uses Louise to lure women to the doctor's house. She befriends them and tricks them into accompanying her to the mansion, where they are promptly drugged and their faces removed. Christiane has mixed feelings about her father victimizing girls in this way. She's hopeful that the experiments will pay off, resulting in a new beginning for herself, but is also painfully aware that for every girl Genessier kills, he takes only small steps towards a successful transplant. One of the faceless victims escapes only to commit suicide. At this point, Christiane starts sympathizing with the victims of her father's work, and decides that her life (or what's left of it) isn't worth the lives of others.

Because she can't resume her love life in any conventional way, Christiane has been making phone calls to her fiance Jacques and then hanging up without saying anything. Once, Christiane says his name into the phone, but is quickly cut off by Louise, who forbids her from contacting him again. This scene is actually enacted by the fictional theater troupe in "Ring 0: Birthday", the dramatic prequel to the Japanese Ring series. Sadako (who fans of the series will know is doomed to become a vengeful ghost) plays Christiane's part, and throughout the film, her acting troupe reenacts several scenes, most notably the "forbidden phone call" scene. "Ring 0" is a damned cool horror flick all by itself, but gets extra brownie points for referencing "Eyes Without a Face".

The phantom phone calls push Jacques to go to the police. A few sharp policemen have noticed a marked increase in the number of faceless women's bodies being found, as well as the fact that they all are proportionally similar to Genessier's daughter. When Jacques tells the police he suspects that his fiancee is still alive, they plan a sting operation to test Dr. Genessier. They find an attractive shoplifter named Paulette (played by silver-screen beauty Beatrice Altariba) to check into Genessier's clinic under the pretext of having migraine headaches.

Paulette is treated and discharged from the clinic without incident, but the police discover that after leaving the clinic, she never made it home. The police rush to Genessier's house. The bone-chilling finale is one of my favorite movie endings ever, and beautifully ties up the dark tale of the mad doctor and his faceless daughter.

I give "Eyes Without a Face" a 10/10, and that's only because it's the highest rating possible on my scale. Films like this tempt me to add a 10+ rating to denote truly spectacular films. I don't mean to gush, but this is one of the most beautifully-crafted, haunting horror films I have ever seen. It is nearly perfect in every way. The acting is top-notch, the story is worthy of Hitchcock, and the cinematography is just plain gorgeous. If you are even a passing fan of Hitchcockian suspense, you owe it to yourself to watch this film.













I also highly recommend:

Nixon (1995)

Directed by Oliver Stone
Written by Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson
and Oliver Stone

Rated R for language

"Nixon" is perhaps one of Oliver Stone's most overlooked films. "Nixon" was Stone's first Presidential biopic since 1991's "JFK" (read my "JFK" review here), and though it featured the paranoia and conspiracy theory elements that made "JFK" so legendary, it failed to achieve the same degree of acclaim. Clocking in at 212 minutes, the director's cut of "Nixon" is actually longer than "JFK", which was already a two-sitting film for most audiences. While not as amazing a cinematic experience as "JFK", "Nixon" is a star-studded epic of political intrigue that is well worth the time investment for fan's of Stone's work.

"Nixon" stars Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon. My first reaction to this casting choice was that Hopkins looks nothing like Nixon. Fortunately, despite the physical differences, Hopkins gives a good show of imitating Nixon's voice and mannerisms, and shows much of the raw acting talent that won him so much acclaim in 1991's "Silence of the Lambs". Hopkins was nominated for the "Best Actor" Oscar in 1995 for this performance.

But Nixon is a different kind of monster than Hannibal Lecter was. Hopkins' Nixon is the ultimate two-faced politician. He is so megalomaniacally concerned about his public image that he often refers to himself in the third person, simply as "Nixon". He lies so freely that he seems to have a hard time keeping track of the truth. When secret White House recordings surface, he is forced to reconcile the Presidential persona that he presents to the world with the ugly, petty bigot whose voice he hears on the tapes. Several of the secret tapes feature Nixon using ethnic slurs or expressing racial intolerance. Nixon's response to his own bigotry: "Nixon can't say that. It makes me sound anti-Semetic."

Joan Allen does a fantastic job as Pat Nixon (Dick refers to her simply as "Buddy" throughout most of the film). She is the supportive wife who indulges her husband's delusions of grandeur even when the delusions become realities. As his only friend, Pat tries to remind Richard that he doesn't have to achieve the "stardom" of JFK's presidency to be a good president. She is in a way the most tragic character of the film, deeply devoted to a man who can never be content with what he has. Joan Allen was nominated for "Best Supporting Actress" for her portrayal of Pat Nixon. As I researched this film, I came across a hilarious quote which aptly describes Allen's commitment to the role:  

"To tell you the truth, if Oliver Stone had wanted Pat Nixon to wear a G-String and swing from a chandelier, I would have played it that way." 

- Joan Allen

Several other notable actors fill contributing roles, including Bob Hoskins as a very gay J. Edgar Hoover, Ed Harris as E. Howard Hunt, and James Woods (in his first Stone film since "Salvador" (1986)) as H. R. Haldeman. These characters don't have much screen-time, but add significantly to the overall star power of the film. 

The editing style of "Nixon" seems to be a cross between the hyper-edited quick-cut style of "JFK" and the hallucinatory dream-vision style of "Natural Born Killers". At times, images or film clips are jarringly superimposed over one another in a hyper-stylized manner. It is clear that this film marks a transition for Stone from one style to another, and as can be expected, is a little less stylistically coherent for it. 

Fans of "JFK" will appreciate some crossover in terms of plot. "Nixon" captures the Kennedy Assassination from Nixon's point of view. Though Nixon himself doesn't have anything to do with the assassination, the film hints that he has inadvertently come into contact with some of the bigwigs in the assassination conspiracy. A group of anti-Kennedy bigwigs supported Nixon's bid for presidency, and then his path to the White House was mysteriously cleared by the assassination or attempted assassination of many of Nixon's political enemies (including Bobby Kennedy). Aware that he is an unwilling pawn in a larger political intrigue, Nixon keeps his suspicions to himself for fear that he will be assassinated himself. It is even implied that the missing eighteen and a half minutes that were intentionally (and illegally) erased from the secret White House tapes included references to the assassination, which Nixon cryptically refers to only as "The Bay of Pigs Incident".

Overall, I'd give "Nixon" an 8/10. It's a great film with some awesome acting, but its length is prohibitive to casual viewing. While the character of one of our most notorious presidents provided an excellent arena for Anthony Hopkins to work his magic in, Richard Nixon is ultimately not as interesting as Stone's previous films subjects. Ironically, "Nixon" (a film about a President living in the shadow of his predecessor, John Kennedy) is forever doomed to live in the shadow of the much-better film, "JFK".













I also recommend:

JFK (1991)

Directed by Oliver Stone
Written by Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar

Rated R for language and violence

Oliver Stone has outdone himself with this riveting epic of paranoia. With two Academy Award wins (for Cinematography and Editing) and another six nominations (including Best Picture, Director and Music) in 1992, this was Stone's most successful film to-date.

Kevin Costner stars as Jim Garrison, a Louisiana D.A. who can't shake his suspicions about John F. Kennedy's assassination. Not believing the widely-accepted "Lone Gunman" theory, Garrison forms a team to reopen JFK's murder investigation. Like any good conspiracy movie, "JFK" takes us down the rabbit's hole to the other side of the looking glass. As Garrison digs deeper into the mystery, his discoveries become more bizarre and disturbing.

Many of the witnesses Garrison tries to locate from the original investigation have died mysteriously since. Garrison also finds several interesting links between key players that were never followed up on or even commented on in the official "Warren Commission" report. The deeper he digs, the more he becomes convinced of a far-reaching conspiracy in which the FBI, the CIA, anti-Cuban terrorist groups, the mob, and Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor may all be implicated.

While Stone has garnered some criticism for taking liberties with the facts, some of his simpler arguments ring true. For instance, why was the initial investigation handled so poorly? The men charged with the security of the President were taking careless risks that day that allowed the shooting to occur. The parade route was changed at the last minute to take the President's caravan around a slow turn near the grassy knoll and the book depository. The initial investigation claimed that a maximum of three bullets had all been fired at the President from the Dallas Book Depository. Garrison effectively "proves" (using the famous "Magic Bullet" argument) that there were at least four shots, fired from at least two locations. While much of Garrison's (and by extension Stone's) theory is pure speculation, he at least creates reasonable doubt about the official story.

The film features superb acting by everyone involved (with occasionally unbelievable southern accents), and includes a laundry list of top-notch stars in supporting roles. The cast includes: Kevin Costner, Donald Sutherland, Joe Pesci, Tommy Lee Jones, Sissy Spacek, Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Particularly excellent performances are given by Sissy Spacek (as Jim Garrison's wife) and Tommy Lee Jones, who was nominated for "Best Supporting Actor" for his portrayal of flamboyantly gay conspirator Clay Shaw.

This film is also significant as the cinematic precursor to the popular "X-Files" TV show. Garrison's insistence on finding the truth, even at great personal risk, is the basis for the character Fox Mulder. "The Truth is Out There" and "Trust No One" could easily be tag-lines for "JFK". If you are a fan the "X-files" and/or popular reinterpretations of JFK's assassination, I urge you to check out "X-Files" episode "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man". "X-Files" also features a trio of investigative reporters who run a newsletter called "The Lone Gunman", which became it's own short-lived "X-files" spin-off. One of the investigators is even named after JFK (John Fitzgerald Byers).

I also recommend an episode from the BBC comedy series "Red Dwarf"' that poses an interesting take on JFK's assassination: "Tikka to Ride". This is by far the most outrageous take on the assassination: JFK is his own assassin via time travel! He kills himself to prevent his whoring ways from invalidating his work towards peace. This episode features my favorite (fake) quote ever attributed to Kennedy: "I, ah, have had plenty of time to reflect on my days in the White House. In all important respects I believe I did a good job. It was right to plan the pull-out of Vietnam, ah, to fight for civil rights and ah, to fight Congress to ah, put a man on the moon. It was uh, wrong, however, to, ah, act like an irresponsible jackass with all those women, and allow my enemies to wreak havoc on our nation."

The soundscape of JFK is very well done. "JFK" marks Oliver Stone's second collaboration with world-renowned composer John Williams (the first was "Born on the Fourth of July"). While William's score for "Born on the Fourth..." was less than stellar, he returns to prime form with this tense, paranoiac score. 

While he may not have convinced me in all the particulars of his conspiracy theory, Oliver Stone does effectively demonstrate that at the time of his death, Kennedy had many very influential enemies who had a lot to gain if he died. He had the whole military-industrial complex pissed at him because he was planning to pull out of Vietnam (which would make them unable to profit off the war). He had fired several key members of government who were enemies of his policies. Dallas in particular was a city in which anti-Kennedy politics had reached a fevered pitch. Lyndon Johnson was arguably the largest benefactor of JFK's assassination, inheriting the Presidency at a crucial moment in history. He used his Presidency to undo much of the liberal work JFK did, including scrapping JFK's plan to pull out of Vietnam.
There is supposedly government inside information about the assassination that will not be published for public perusal until 2029. Whatever the government's hiding, we will know then. We are given the means to rein in our government's power only 60-70 years after they've abused it. Seems like a long time to wait.

I gave JFK 10/10. It is very long, but I was on the edge of my seat for most of it. The editing was phenomenal, painting an impressionistic collage through quick cuts and lots of inserts. The recreation of real-life locations and events is meticulous if not 100% accurate. You come out of this film with the impression that you've cracked into the government's secrets and finally know what happened to JFK. Just remember to tell yourself "It's only a movie...".













I also recommend:

Wall Street (1987)

Directed by Oliver Stone
Written by Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone

Rated R

Note: I was pleased to see online that Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas are currently making a sequel to "Wall Street", the 1987 insider trading thriller. Check out more on "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" here.

"Wall Street" is one of Oliver Stone's legendary 80's masterpieces. It follows Charlie Sheen as young Bud Fox, a Wall Street hopeful who is having a hard time breaking into the business. Bud believes he's made his big break when Gordon Gekko, a Wall Street big-shot, agrees to show him the ropes. In order to prove his usefulness to Gekko, Fox gives him an insider tip about his father's airline. Fox's father is played to perfection by Charlie Sheen's real-life father Martin Sheen. This casting choice was inspired, and makes Fox's on-screen connection with his father that much more authentic.

Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko is the real screen-stealer here. Douglas won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role, and it has helped make him the Hollywood player he is today. Gekko's calm businessman confidence and disregard for ethics make him one of Hollywood's favorite villains from the 80's. Douglas plays Gekko as a man with the world at his feet, and he uses it as a doormat.

The main conflict arises when, after being made rich and successful by Gekko, Fox discovers that Gekko is using his insider knowledge to buy out Fox's father's airline in order to break it up and sell it. In an emotionally charged scene in Central Park, Bud elicits a confession from Gekko on tape, sending the tycoon away to jail.

Oliver Stone is a master of the craft of film. He can take virtually any subject and make a movie about it that's engaging and grand. Most of us only know about insider trading because of Martha Stewart's infamous trip to white-collar prison. It's not the kind of thing you would think would make a compelling plot element in a film, but Stone takes lemons and makes lemonades. Rather than focusing on the minutae of Wall Street business, he explores the people involved in the business. It's through Bud Fox's relationships with his dad, his co-workers and his love interest that we find a real man with amiable desires and goals who has stumbled into a world of white-collar cutthroats.

Charlie Sheen is supported by John C. McGinley as Bud's Wall Street coworker Marvin. McGinley has appeared in many Stone films, including "Talk Radio", "Born on the Fourth of July", "Platoon" (with Charlie Sheen), "Nixon" and "Any Given Sunday". More recently, he's been a regular character on the hit TV show "Scrubs". McGinley is a great supporting actor in general, and uses his supporting roles to subtly enrich whatever project he's working on.

I give Wall Street a 9/10. It is incredibly well-made and actually makes insider trading seem interesting! It moves a little slowly at certain parts (the love story with Darryl Hannah was almost completely omitable) but the all-around stellar acting and directing make this one of Stone's best films. If you like this film, keep watch for "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps", which should be in theaters later this year.













I also recommend:

Patriotism (1966)

aka Yukoku (Japan)
Written and Directed by Yukio Mishima

Unrated

"Patriotism", Yukio Mishima's short film from 1960's Japan is the dismal account of the honorable suicide of a Japanese army lieutenant and his wife in the aftermath of a failed military coup. The lieutenant, played by Mishima himself, is a perfect patriot, relinquishing his life and the life of his pretty young wife to avoid killing his co-conspirators in the failed coup. The young couple share a last night of sexual intimacy before carrying out their suicide pact.

Aside from being a remarkable political film, quite outlandish in concept and execution for a film made in Japan at this time, "Patriotism" is also a sort of an artistic rehearsal for writer/actor/director Yukio Mishima's actual seppuku in November, 1970. Much like the lieutenant in "Patriotism", Mishima was part of a resistance movement protesting political changes in power. He gave a speech on the balcony of the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan's Self-Defense Forces, and when it failed to inspire a return of power to the emperor, Mishima commited ritual seppuku. In addition to "Patriotism", Mishima had several other films, poems and works of fiction dedicated to the subject of honorable suicide at the time of his actual seppuku.

Mishima's suicide was indirectly responsible for the film retaining such sharp visual clarity in spite of its age. After his death, his widow ordered all copies of the film destroyed. She felt no need to relive her husband's suicide again and again, and kept only one copy of the film sealed in an air-tight tea container. For several decades, the film lingered mostly as a myth, kept alive by copies of copies passed around Arthouse Film circles. Upon Mishima's widow's death in 2005, the mint-condition print of the film was unearthed. Criterion wasted no time wrapping up this gem and packaging it for mass consumption. The Criterion package includes the new, gorgeous transfer of the film, interviews with surviving crew members, and a thin book that contains Mishima's original short story.

I am a big fan of Criterion's bonus features. Whenever appropriate, they include the literary basis for the film in the film's packaging. For "Patriotism" Criterion included the entire text of the original short story. I cannot understate this enough: "Patriotism" the short story is WAY harder to read than the movie is to watch. Watching Yukio Mishima realistically play-act suicide is not as bad as having the experience described in the first person. While the movie is very visceral, it is softened and given meaning by soft classical music and tender cinematography. The short story is brutal and unflinching. I had to take breaks from reading it to let my stomach settle, and I'm the kind of guy who watches films like "Cannibal Holocaust" regularly. It's easily as intense as anything Chuck Palahniuk has written, and predates his nihilist stylings by 30-40 years. If you get this movie, you owe it to yourself to read the short story. It's a unique experience. You can read the text of the short story for free here.

Parts of "Patriotism" will likely not make complete sense to those unversed in Japanese culture. For instance, when the Lieutenant and his wife prepare to commit suicide, they write letters to see that their worldly belongings are distributed as desired to their families and friends. The Lieutenant's wife applies make-up to form her "death mask". Mishima's depiction of suicide is not that of a rash act committed out of despair. It is a ritualistic, calculated decision that requires careful forthought and planning. If you're interested in expanding your cultural horizons, read the short story. The characters actions in the film are explained more fully there.

I gave "Patriotism" a 10/10. It is short but sweet, beautifully shot and edited, and completely different than any film I've seen before or since. Bonus points because Mishima, a fastidious auteur, did almost everything himself. He wrote the short story, adapted it for screen, acted in and directed it, and even wrote out the credits and intertitles in calligraphy in several languages himself. I'm sure if he hadn't taken his own life, he could have gained real international fame as a filmmaker. All in all, "Patriotism" is one of the best Criterion treatments of a classic arthouse film yet. The film, the transfer, the special features and the packaging are all top-notch and make "Patriotism" a worthy addition to any DVD library.














I also recommend: