There is a moment in the movie Watch on the Rhine where the lead
character, Paul Lukas, explains to his baffled American in-laws in the safety
of their American home why he became an underground fighter against fascism in
Europe in the years leading up to World War II. He states, “I can no longer just
look on. My time has come to do
more. And I say with the great Luther, I
must make my stand. I can do nothing
else. God help me, Amen.”
Following his example and from the
safety of my own American home I would like to contribute my own manifesto as a
guide to living in these turbulent times. This post is going to be an
editorial—really something of a rant—and not a review of a classic film, though
classic film is at the heart of this piece.
Like Mr. Lukas’ character who found he must
address the evils of fascism rather than ignore them, so I come to a point in
this blog where I must address the current campaign of Republican presidential
nominee Donald Trump.
This is actually the first of a 12-part
series about the world of the classic film fan that will continue throughout
the year, one post at the beginning of each month. I’ll be discussing blogs and bloggers, books
by bloggers, and the interesting evolution of the classic film buff from the
1950s “revival houses” to the 1970s nostalgia boom, to the present day where I
think we stand at a crossroads. We may
well have reached our peak. There will
be fewer of us in future. More on that later.
Long post ahead. I promise, future entries in this series will
be shorter and without the irritable tone you will find herein.
Today, we address the juxtaposition of
classic films on the turbulent world in which we live today. Are they merely an escape from a louder,
cruder world? Or, do they provide us
with mental and emotional sustenance to cope with our modern, angry society? Probably both, but that depends on the
classic film fan.
Back, regrettably, to Donald Trump.
I confess that for many weeks I have
tried assiduously to avoid looking at or listening to Trump whenever he appears
on TV either in an interview or as one of the noxious sound bites that are an
excuse for reportage in these days of immature and shallow, sensationalist media.
When I see Trump, I cannot help but
think of Burt Lancaster’s line in his character as a corrupt judge during the
Nazi era in Germany in Judgment at
Nuremburg (1961) when he
acknowledges and mourns that he had turned his life to “excrement.”
For millions of Americans, my conjecture
that Donald Trump is a dumb-ass pig and a rapacious con man is not going to
come as news. Indeed, we live in a land and in an era where everything that is
uttered is carried instantly across social media, a record forever of our
mistakes even more than our triumphs.
Nothing remains hidden anymore, and the worst gets more press than the
best. Trump knows this. He’s quite canny about surfing the grime,
knowing that it gets him the spotlight, what he most craves.
But I do not believe for a moment that
he will be elected president.
My concern is that others in the future,
perhaps in the next presidential race or the one after that, will observe the
template he is laying down and be so impressed by the success he is making at
receiving easy publicity that they will try to follow his lead and duplicate
his campaign – but by then they will have perfected the art in an America so
worn down by nonsense that they might actually win by default.
Precedent is a very important concept in
our free society. Judges make rulings largely based on precedent. What has been
done before is a bedrock, a foundation to what will come after. I would like to
suggest that this is a good time for those of us who are familiar with classic
films to take our love of them out of our living rooms, out of our film
festivals, out of our treasured collections and go public.
“I am an antifascist,” Lukas announces
to his stunned American in-laws. His
wife, Bette Davis, tries to educate her mother, Lucille Watson: “The world has changed,
Mama, and some of the people are dangerous.
It’s time you knew that.”
We know full well today the world, even
our own neighborhoods, are dangerous.
What we need to realize is that we are empowered to change that. We fight evil predominantly with knowledge—that’s
the first line of defense—and fans of classic films know that evil is nothing
new and can be faced with courage, and humor, and remarkable resiliency.
I wish we could spread our knowledge and
share our appreciation and understanding of classic films not as a clique, not
as the term (which I find condescending) of “old movie weirdoes.” I wish we would stop regarding classic film as a hobby
that marks us as nerds and start regarding it as an educational tool and social
primer to bring substance back to our society.
That sounds idealistic and naïve, but
I’m serious.
We are living in an era where we have
massive amounts of information at our fingertips, but we have no intelligence
or in-depth analysis of it. We have a generation of young people who are so
bombarded by media by sound bites, by flashing images that they see on
television or the cinemas, that are constantly bleeding from cheap ear buds
into their ears wherever they go, wherever they are and it is all shallow and
temporary. It is all noise and
nothingness.
When a candidate such as the vile Donald
Trump plays to the worst impulses of the stupidest and meanest segment of our
society, chest thumping and becoming the frontrunner of a respected political
party whose great heritage has been completely plowed under, we must face the
fact that our society is suffering from everything that could possibly kill it.
Some newcomers to classic film, perhaps
even some long-time lovers of classic film, will watch an old movie from,
philosophically, a safe distance. We see the movie soundstage Nazis and we
think (as we scarf our snacks) how awful they were, how wonderful it is that Humphrey
Bogart saved the day. Or we watch films about the Depression and instead of
thinking in depth and feeling in depth about the horrors of poverty and 25
percent unemployment, we only chuckle at the prices on the window: 5 cents for
a hamburger, we guffaw.
Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe (1941) pegged the filthy American-style fascists
seeking political control represented by Edward Arnold: “Your type’s as old as history. If you can’t lay your dirty fingers on a
decent idea and twist it and squeeze it and stuff it into your own pocket, you
slap it down. Like dogs, if you can’t
eat something, you bury it!”
The films were so innocent and
unrealistic then, some condescendingly think.
Yet they knew so much more than we do and they expressed it so simply.
Serious classic film lovers know that
old movies are fun, from the raucous comedies to melodramas to war movies to
the 1950s sci-fi movies—they’re all a lot of fun. But we also know that they
are an education. They show us a window
into a world that is gone, and we take lessons from it. And sometimes we take
comfort from it. There are those of us who, out of work and looking for a job
will find comfort watching some of those old Depression movies, how they coped:
Jean Arthur smashing her piggy bank and the fur coat that landed on her head; Jane
Darwell and Henry Fonda on Route 66 in the Grapes
of Wrath; even the lessons learned from William Powell, a wealthy man’s son
who pretends to be a butler because he is been taken for a “forgotten man” by
the ditzy Carole Lombard.
I have spoken with people in their
thirties – who should be old enough to know better – who found The Grapes of Wrath to be a lousy movie
because it is so “unrealistic”. A
moronic assessment, to be sure, but at least they’d seen it. Most younger people will never see a classic
film because they will never stumble onto one by flicking channels. Unless they have TCM, or a “retro” station on
their cable service, they may never see a classic film. According to statistics, that is becoming
less and less likely.
…
younger-skewing crowd known as "cord-nevers" — represents about 9% of
American adults. They have never subscribed to TV channels offered by a cable,
satellite or telecommunications provider. The Pew study found that young
adults, those ages 18 to 29, are the least likely to pay for cable or satellite
TV.
Much of modern day film entertains
through sensory stimulation – heart-pounding special effects and fast
action. We feel what it is like for the superhero
to fly. We are taken on an amusement
park ride.
But the commonplace folks of everyday
life are not represented. They are less
interesting to filmmakers, perhaps.
Would we see The Best Years of Our
Lives (1946), Margie (1946), or
the Maisie series made today? Too tame.
Too slow. The characters are too
ordinary.
The main thing that classic films give
us, because of the way the scripts were written and because the way they were
filmed, is a feeling of empathy and ability to feel for others. Despite our distance
from the Golden Age of film, we can still understand and feel for the
characters. So many decades later, we watch
these characters and identify with them.
We don’t need to go through it ourselves—indeed, we cannot.
Unfortunately, I fear that today’s
audiences, especially among younger people, are lacking in empathy and also in
imagination. Films today, because of technological advances, do not need to
rely on our imaginations. They are meant
not to make us empathize with characters, but to put us in a situation where
through computer-generated graphics we are the ones having the virtual
experience. Quiet, thought-provoking
films have taken a back seat to blockbusters that dispense thrills.
It is as if filmmakers today think that
people could not possibly understand the characters’ fears and motivations
unless we are the ones taken on the
thrill ride, we are the ones being
scared and horrified, we are the ones
being titillated, we are the ones who
are forced to experience what the characters suffer. It becomes always,
nauseatingly, about us and not about
others. The perspective of our film
experiences today, as with social media, has become disgustingly narcissistic.
I would love for classic films to be
taught at the high school level. I believe that such a course should be taught
by instructors who understand and appreciate classic films, who are able to interpret
them to young people—for they will
need to be interpreted. We cannot simply plug a kid down in front of an old
movie and say, “Watch this,” and expect them to get lessons from it or even
enjoy it. Just because we like the
character actors and noir and the musicals and the old pie in the face doesn’t
mean they will be at all charmed. Just
exposing this art form to a generation that has less and less a chance of ever
seeing it will be a positive step.
Nor is this about turning out a new crop
of classic film lovers. Students learn
algebra and science as disciplines to master, tools for survival in a
technological world, and possibly enriching their lives. Familiarity with previous eras of pop culture should
be just another aspect of a well-rounded education. Social studies, history, geography—using
classic films as a classroom teaching tool is about helping them to connect
with the past through an examination of pop culture through its most effective
form.
Most younger people will need help, explanations
for what is happening, just like reading footnotes at the bottom of the page of
a play by Shakespeare. For kids who
smirk at the sight of a wall phone in their grandma’s kitchen, or who have
never seen a typewriter, then the meaning of 1930s slang, or the significance
of the terror of an approaching telegram delivery boy is going to go right over
their heads.
They may even need to learn empathy—or
tolerance at least, for characters whose motivations and emotions are expressed
differently, for people who look and dress and speak differently from them, and
for a world that no longer exists. There
were different rules of behavior once.
In a world where there are few now, that alone will be baffling. Some things they see in that old movie world
will be offensive. I doubt more offensive
than Donald Trump, so they should be able to bear up.
At the very least, they will need to
learn patience with a slower pace of entertainment.
So much talking went on—usually in full
grammatical sentences.
I recall that in 1980, Alistair Cooke,
host of Masterpiece Theatre, in his
introduction of a five-part series on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice starring David Rintoul and Elizabeth Garvie,
ruminated that most younger readers found Jane Austen remote and unappealing,
largely, he felt, because the world of her quiet families coping with Regency
period mores was long dead.
It was a good series, very well
done. However, the 1995 version with
Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle set fire to the small screen and helped to
generate an enormous resurgence of all things Jane Austen. Suddenly, out of the proverbial hedgerows,
came millions of new fans, the re-release of her novels, more movie and
television adaptations, fan fiction and costume balls. Jane Austen has become an industry.
Because her remote world was brought to
life again. Viewers empathized,
understood, “got it.”
It should be a lot easier for us to
touch the world of the 1930s because of the films that decade produced—an
advantage the Regency period did not have.
Even if that world is viewed in black and white.
I like to think such a renewed
appreciation for classic films among the general public and a younger demographic
is possible. But whether or not that
occurs, at the very least, newcomers to classic films will learn that history
is an endless repetitive cycle of challenges.
We need not fear them. We are up
to the test.
Going back to Donald Trump. Among his many odious suggestions, is to ban
Muslims from entering the country, to confine the ones here already in prisons.
He throws these stink bombs like a
bratty junior high student trying to get attention.
When I was young—I think I was in high
school, I read an English translation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. I read it because I had read a great deal of World War
II history by that time, indeed, my parents were a product of that generation
so I grew up being more exposed to it probably a lot more than kids do now, and
I wanted to see for myself what this so-called evil mastermind had written. I
sat down with the book with some trepidation, preparing myself emotionally for
what I thought would be an unpleasant and perhaps even horrific experience,
kind of like the way you steel yourself to watch a scary scene in a horror
movie. You want to see it, but you don’t want to see, so you kind of have to
nerve yourself.
What I read shocked me, but not because
it was scary—but because it was so mind numbingly stupid. This was the enormous lesson I learned, that opened my
eyes. Hitler was a jerk and a moron. Like a loudmouth at a bar. He was no mastermind.
The book was very poorly written. It rambled and it was full of self-congratulatory
chest thumping, like the sound bite of a modern day politician who regurgitates
empty slogans that are not answers. I
thought to myself, if Hitler was this stupid that he could not even convince
someone my age (high school or so), then how could he possibly get so many
followers to do such terrible things?
But the films made by his propaganda
machine, including Triumph of the Will (1935),
show us the theatricality of his mass seduction. One can see how a Pied Piper can lead the
simple minded, the evil masterminds, the greedy parasites, and the angry common
man together in a “Mephisto Waltz.” It
has happened so many times through history.
There are so many stupid, gullible people out there. Oh, yeah.
We know who they are, they show up in our Facebook and Twitter
feeds. Unfortunately, they don’t know who and what they are.
They are usually not well read (which I
think is even more important than formal higher education), they have no moral
compass and the best way, as the Nazis proved, to achieve power is to tell
people that they are victims and that they need to take revenge. Hate is a high
to them. Most of them don’t even realize
they’re being used by the ones at the top—whether it’s German citizens in the
1930s, or the zealous owners of automatic weapons in 2016 United States being
whipped up by the NRA—that traitorous sect of fascists, with congressmen in
their pockets, a danger to our liberty and freedom.
Paul Lukas in Watch on the Rhine has another sentiment that he expresses when he
tells about escaping the Nazis after an act of sabotage. He says, “I do not tell you this story to
prove that we are remarkable, but to prove that they are not.”
Hitler was not a superman; he was a dumb-ass
jerk who appealed to a lot of dumb-ass jerks because he was like them. To be
sure, he had many evil masterminds on his staff; Goebbels for instance, and people
who knew how to write better than he did, how to enforce, and how to manipulate
the public through propaganda. The same
tactics are used today, through websites and social media. His gang’s only refuge when they were faced
with their inevitable loss was suicide.
Like the suicide bombers and gunmen of
today. They are just as ineffectual in the long term. They will never win, but they will try to do
as much damage as they possibly can for their own warped sense of temporary glory
and revenge.
That is the common denominator between
fanatics of all stripes, foreign and domestic: they are stupid, they are
frustrated by their impotence, and warped by their resentment.
Trump, conversely, has no beliefs to
incur fanaticism of any kind; he is a user of others. He hopes to springboard himself off the oafs
he pretends to defend but for whom he has undisguised contempt, all those morons
who have nurtured and churned up such evil in their hearts that they want to
justify that evil by backing a man who they think will legitimize it. If
someone like Trump gets to be president, then all the sick feelings they are
feeling, all the evil things they’re saying and doing will, to them, be
justified.
Frank Capra produced his Why We Fight series during World War II
to educate men entering military service to give them a background, the
foundation of why they were fighting. He talked about ideals being “lighthouses
in a foggy world,” from men like Washington and Garibaldi, and there were
quotations from the Bible and from Confucius and from the Koran about how men should live in peace.
We are told repeatedly in school and in
the media that if we do not learn from the past, then we are doomed to repeat
it. That has become a hollow
platitude. We can’t learn from the past
if we don’t actively study it. Youngsters
cannot be expected to learn from a past they cannot remember.
Classic films show us as the best
educational tool possible that we’ve been
here before. Populist campaigns of Trump’s type are nothing new. Hard times
are nothing new. War is nothing new. Bigotry is nothing new. Fanaticism and fascism are nothing new. And for those who are disinclined to read
history, a classic film is a wonderful way and a simple way to teach people
first about history, second about empathy—something we are sorely missing today,
and third, perhaps the most important ingredient, idealism.
Undoubtedly as a backwash of the
political upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s the changes in our society, the
assassinations, the corruption, we have become an extremely cynical nation. We
did not start out that way. We could not have separated from the British in a
terrible war if we were not idealistic. We could not have founded this nation
on the beliefs expressed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights if we were
not an idealistic nation. We could not
have fought a horrific Civil War if we were not an idealistic nation, and we
could not have gotten through the horrors of the Depression or World War II if we
were not idealistic. Idealism is what made us great. Idealism is what made this
country the most amazing democratic experiment the world has ever known, and
the hope and the salvation of millions.
We have lost our idealism. It’s
fashionable to be cynical and sarcastic. Our sarcasm is everywhere, it’s
choking us. Snark has replaced wit. Check
any sitcom you want on TV, it’s usually three or four people sitting on a couch
making digs at each other for 22 minutes. Check the music videos, check the rap
and rock music, check the foulmouthed comics—everything is a stab, there is no
idealism left in us. And that is what is killing us. That is what makes someone like Trump come
out of the woodwork like a cockroach and get more media attention than a fool
like him deserves. In our new warped
sense of values, he represents ratings.
Idealism is no longer palatable to the American public. It is mistrusted. It is cornball.
My suggestion to teach classic film in
the high schools is will be considered a lightweight solution to a big problem.
Maybe even a joke, but I’m not
kidding. Provided we have knowledgeable
teachers able to interpret the history of the eras the films were made to them,
I think this is a good start to teaching younger people the most important
lesson they may ever learn: your world is not the world.
I’ve been very impressed reading the
blogs of many classic film bloggers and they seem to display a passion and a
knowledge of the social background of these films and a desire to learn more.
So many bloggers do such great research on the backgrounds of their films because
they know that the era is just as important as the flickering image. Many of them are young. I would hate for their intelligence and
empathy and imagination to be dismissed as a hobby, labeled as a clique of
supposed nerds, self-branding as “old movie weirdoes.”
Classic films give us depth, a sense of
context. They give us an anchor to our heritage. We learn from our parents and
we learn from our grandparents and we don’t have to stop learning from them
after they’re dead. Their generations still speak to us and we can learn from
them, all their faults, all their problems, everything they did wrong and
everything they did right. We need to
see where they messed up, and where they nailed it. We’re lucky to have the entire twentieth
century covered, at our fingertips. If
there’s one thing that classic movies teach us is that as a society, we’ve been
here before.
How can we lose our way when we’ve been
here before?
Lionel Barrymore remarks in You Can’t Take it With You (1938): “Lincoln
said, 'With malice toward none, with charity to all.' Nowadays they say, 'Think
the way I do or I'll bomb the daylights outta you.”
We’ve
been here before. We can handle this. In times of trouble,
that’s a great comfort.
Let’s use that wealth of knowledge, that
wealth of understanding and empathy that classic films give us to enrich our
lives. Here are the voices of our
parents and our grandparents and our great-grandparents. Listen. We don’t need to lose our grip on our senses,
on our nerves, or on our democracy, not if we remember who we are, and where
we’ve been. Where we are going will
depend a good deal on that.
As Gary Cooper says in Meet John Doe, urging his radio
listeners that to become idealistic is the best way to ward off fascism—“Let’s
not wait until the game is called on account of darkness.”
I am not an old movie weirdo. I like classic movies in much the same way I enjoy
classical music. There are only a couple
public radio stations in my area that play classical music. It is represented on public television only
occasionally. Just because modern
American society doesn’t make it easy for me to have access to this music, doesn’t mean
that Bach is irrelevant.
And nor does liking it make me a
“weirdo.” Some schools, either on the junior high or
high school level, either in the form of band class or a visiting chamber music
quartet will attempt to introduce students to classical music, even if only for
a single class in a single semester.
Some schools do much more. Is
that weird?
No.
It’s considered culture. Then it
should not be weird to show them The
Crowd (1928), or Fury (1936), or The Oxbow Incident (1943).
Trump?
This too shall pass. We know that
phrase. But pass unto what if we allow
his type of candidate to become the norm?
******************
Next month in part 2 of this series:
come back for a review of film blogger Cliff Aliperti’s new book on Helen
Twelvetrees: Helen Twelvetrees, Perfect
Ingenue: Rediscovering a 1930s Movie Star and Her 32 Films and how today’s classic
film bloggers, with all the resources available to them, are equal to the best film
historians and critics.
Next week—back to the movies.
*****************************************
"Lynch’s book is organized and well-written – and has plenty of amusing observations – but when it comes to describing Blyth’s movies, Lynch’s writing sparkles." - Ruth Kerr, Silver Screenings
"Jacqueline T. Lynch creates a poignant and thoroughly-researched mosaic of memories of a fine, upstanding human being who also happens to be a legendary entertainer." - Deborah Thomas, Java's Journey
"One of the great strengths of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is that Lynch not only gives an excellent overview of Blyth's career -- she offers detailed analyses of each of Blyth's roles -- but she puts them in the context of the larger issues of the day."- Amanda Garrett, Old Hollywood Films
"Jacqueline's book will hopefully cause many more people to take a look at this multitalented woman whose career encompassed just about every possible aspect of 20th Century entertainment." - Laura Grieve, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings
"Jacqueline T. Lynch’s Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is an extremely well researched undertaking that is a must for all Blyth fans." - Annette Bochenek, Hometowns to Hollywood
Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.
by Jacqueline T. Lynch
The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.
