Category: Movies

Charles Lindbergh: The Spirit of St. Louis

Spirit of St. Louis On August 26, 1974, Charles Lindbergh died of cancer in Hawaii at the age of 72. Lindbergh was the first person to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, and he is also the subject of one of my favorite bio-pics, The Spirit of St. Louis.

Looking at the year he died, it is difficult for me to believe that Lindbergh’s life overlapped with my childhood, as he seems from another age.  And 1974 is not that long ago. Similarly, his talented wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh lived until 2001.

The Spirit of St. Louis, directed by Billy Wilder, is the movie I saw in my childhood that established Jimmy Stewart as one of my favorite actors. It is a compelling movie about a unique type of heroism, and Jimmy Stewart must carry the movie. If he is not interesting, the movie fails, because a key segment of the movie is Stewart alone in the plane. But the film works and captures the drama, fear, and loneliness of that first solo transatlantic flight.

Lindbergh’s solo 33-1/2-hour trip, where he had not slept for 55 hours, was a kind of isolation that is rare in this modern world with crowded airplanes, cell phones, and Internet access to the world. Like Michael Collins’s trip around the dark side of the moon after separating from Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, Lindbergh’s uncertain groundbreaking trip required a special resolve to face one’s fears alone.

And the movie The Spirit of St. Louis does an excellent job of showing that isolation, as well as the logistics and preparation involved.

After the Historic Flight

Although Lindbergh’s life continued past his flight and even past where he saw Apollo 11 land on the moon, the film rightfully ends with Lindbergh’s heroic triumphant flight in 1927. Unfortunately, the rest of Lindbergh’s life would not always be so happy.

In 1932, Lindbergh lost his son in an infamous kidnapping and murder.  And as World War II approached, his statements about the war made him a fallen hero. He argued against U.S. involvement in the war, making controversial statements supportive of the Nazis. But after the war broke out, he served in the Pacific as a military observer and flew combat missions.

Each one of those stages are worthy of more discussion — or additional movies, because Lindbergh was a complex man. There is Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age–and Other Unexpected Adventures, a book by Lindbergh’s daughter Reeve Lindbergh, where she recounts her discovery after her parents’ deaths that her father had three secret families in Europe. Using fiction to consider Lindbergh’s complexities, author Philip Roth wrote a novel, The Plot Against America, that imagines an alternate history with an anti-Semitic Lindbergh being elected president over Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

It is difficult not to ask questions about the choices that Lindbergh made in his life, where he resided on the edge between being a hero and a villain, between joy and tragedy, between order and chaos. We may revisit some of these topics in the future, but for today, on this anniversary of Lindbergh’s death, if you are interested in the heroic flight, the James Stewart movie is a great place to start.

I have been to the spot on Long Island from where Lindbergh began his historic flight.  But unfortunately, it is a shopping mall.

Fortunately, Lindbergh’s body received a better burial. After he died, he was buried on the coast of Hawaii next to the ocean. The inscription on his tombstone includes a phrase from Psalm 139: “If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea.” Although the Psalm continues, the inscription on Lindbergh’s tombstone ends there, leaving the reader mid-sentence, wondering if you do that, then what? Just like Lindbergh’s life, the inscription leaves one with many questions.

Have you seen The Spirit of St. Louis? What did you think of it? Leave a comment.

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    Paradise Lost: West Memphis 3 Released

    Paradise Lost On Chimesfreedom, we have often noted the power of movies, and one example of that occurred today when Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley walked out of an Arkansas court today as free men. Known as “the West Memphis 3,” the three were convicted in 1994 of killing three young boys. One of the three victims was mutilated, making some suspect a Satanic ritual killing, which cast suspicion on Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley, partly because Echols practiced Wicca. When they were convicted in 1993, Echols was eighteen and the other two were under eighteen. The conviction was based in large part on an inconsistent confession that police obtained from the borderline mentally retarded Misskelley after twelve hours of interrogation.

    In 1996, directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky released the award-winning documentary Paradise Lost – The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills about the case. I remember seeing the film years ago and being intrigued by the disturbing case. The documentary raised serious questions about the guilt of the three youths convicted of the crime.

    In 2000, a sequel Paradise Lost 2: Revelations raised further questions about the evidence and focused on continuing efforts to prove Echols and the other two were innocent. Watching the movies, one begins to suspect another person featured in the films may have been involved in the murders. The movies helped gain support for the West Memphis 3 from a number of celebrities, including Eddie Vedder and Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks), who were at the court hearing in Arkansas this morning. A third movie on the case is scheduled for a January release.

    Today, following the discovery that DNA evidence did not connect the three to the crime, prosecutors allowed the three to plead guilty and maintain their innocence. Through the plea deal, the three were released for their time already served in prison.

    Are they innocent? It is difficult to tell with a plea deal like this, and there is some evidence against them while there are also serious questions about much of the evidence. Either way, though, they have each spent seventeen years in prison, with Echols having spent part of that time on death row when he initially was sentenced to death. In light of today’s news, it is quite fortunate that he was not executed. Hopefully, some justice was done in the case. But paradise cannot be regained, as their time in prison cannot be returned, and the lives of the murdered boys cannot be brought back.

    The release of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley is due largely to the work of their attorneys and supporters, but it is fair to wonder whether or not they would have gained this attention and received the quality of legal representation they did without the notoriety that came from the films. Movies can make us happy, they can make us cry, they can comfort us, they can make us angry, they can inform us, and maybe they can correct injustices.

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    Did you Know Taxi Driver Was Inspired by Astral Weeks?

    Astral Weeks Van Morrison Taxi Driver Director Martin Scorsese once claimed that the first fifteen minutes of the movie Taxi Driver (1976) were inspired by Van Morrison’s album Astral Weeks (1968). How is this violent movie connected to one of the most beautiful albums of all time?

    Sources About the Connection

    One of the main sources for the link is the essay, “Save the Last Waltz for Me,” where Greil Marcus wrote about the documentary The Last Waltz (1978) and hanging out with Martin Scorsese. The essay was originally published in New West (May 22, 1978) and reprinted in Marcus’s book, Bob Dylan: Writings 1968-2010 (p. 79).

    Several Internet sources claim that the “first half” of Taxi Driver is based on Astral Weeks.  These sources may be perpetuating misinformation from Wikipedia based on a later Marcus interview.  Instead, Marcus’s 1978 essay actually asserts that much less of the movie is based on the album.

    According to Marcus’s story, Scorsese put on the album when Marcus was visiting. “Madame George” came on.

    Down on Cyprus Avenue,
    With a childlike vision leaping into view,
    Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe,
    Ford & Fitzroy, Madame George
    Marching with the soldier boy behind;
    He’s much older with hat on drinking wine,
    And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
    The cool night air like Shalimar;
    And outside they’re making all the stops;
    The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops,
    Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops.

    Scorsese said, “That’s the song.” He explained, “I based the first fifteen minutes of Taxi Driver on Astral Weeks, and that’s a movie about a man who hates music.”

    The First Fifteen Minutes of Taxi Driver

    During the first fifteen minutes of Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) drives around the dirty 1970s New York streets.  He applies for and gets the job as a taxi driver. Writing a letter, he describes how he cannot sleep at night and that after his shifts he has to clean off the back seat of his taxi.

    Additionally, we see Bickle going to a pornographic movie.  There, he unsuccessfully tries to strike up a conversation with the woman who works at the concession stand.

    Interpretations of “Madame George”

    Critic Lester Bangs wrote an outstanding essay about Astral Weeks that gives some insight, even though he does not address the Taxi Driver rumor. But he did write about the “desolation, hurt, and anguish” in “Madame George.”

    Bangs called the song, “Possibly one of the most compassionate pieces of music ever made, it asks us, no, arranges that we see the plight of what I’ll be brutal and call a lovelorn drag queen with such intense empathy that when the singer hurts him, we do too.” He added, “The beauty, sensitivity, holiness of the song is that there’s nothing at all sensationalistic, exploitative, or tawdry about it.”

    A number of writers have offered various interpretations of the song “Madame George.” And Van Morrison has reportedly disputed some of the interpretations.  But a piece in Rolling Stone correctly asserts that “Madame George” is “a cryptic character study that may or may not be about an aging transvestite but that is certainly as heartbreaking a reverie as you will find in pop music.”

    The Connection Between Movie and Song?

    So what is the connection between the movie and the ambiguous song? Part of the connection seems to be that both are about lonely men wandering the dirty streets.

    There is heartbreak in both the movie and the song, so the connection seems more of tone than a literal connection. In his essay, Bangs also declined to “reduce” the other songs on the album by trying to explain them.

    You should read Bangs’s essay, but I will follow his lead and not try to explain the unexplainable any further. But the next time you watch Taxi Driver, think of the poetry found in the misery.  And reflect on the beauty of both the film and Astral Weeks.

    Check out our other posts on connections between music and the movie Taxi Driver: Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” and Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky.”

    Another Scorsese-Morrison Connection and Bonus Information About Taxi Driver: Martin Scorsese later used Van Morrison’s music for the beginning of another movie, Bringing Out the Dead (1999).  That film features some similarities to Taxi Driver.  Bringing Out the Dead opens with the main character driving a vehicle, although in this movie it is an ambulance instead of a taxi, and he is played by Nicolas Cage. During the scene, the music playing is Van Morrison’s “T.B. Sheets.” Regarding Taxi Driver, Obsessed With Film recently posted “50 Reasons Why Taxi Driver Might Just Be The Greatest Film of All Time.”

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    The Tragic Heroism of Curt Flood and Phil Ochs

    Curt Flood

    Scenes of my young years were warm in my mind,
    Visions of shadows that shine.
    Til one day I returned and found they were the
    Victims of the vines of changes.
    — Phil Ochs, “Changes”

    Most movies about heroes usually end in triumph with the hero accomplishing great things, making the feats seem easy in retrospect once you see the result. But if it were easy to be a hero, there would be nothing unique about those who sacrifice in an attempt to change the world. Two recent documentaries remind us that there is a real risk and cost to attempting to accomplish something great. One film, The Curious Case of Curt Flood (2011), is a new HBO documentary about the baseball player who attempted to break baseball’s reserve clause. The other movie, released on DVD this July 2011, is Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune (2010), telling the story of the activist and folk-singer. Both stories remind us that standing up for one’s beliefs has costs.

    The Curious Case of Curt Flood follows HBO’s tradition of creating outstanding sports documentaries, although much of Curt Flood’s story is not about athletic prowess. Curt Flood had been a star center fielder with the St. Louis Cardinal when the team opted to trade him to the Philadelphia Phillies after the 1969 season. At the time, players were limited by a reserve clause in their contracts that gave them no say about where they played. Flood wanted to change that, and he decided to sue Major League Baseball in a case that eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    The Curious Case follows Flood’s suit and Flood’s life as you see how much he gave up by foregoing his baseball career to pursue what he saw as a basic human right of not being controlled by one’s employer. At the time, other players were afraid to support him openly, and many in the public viewed Flood’s actions as showing a greedy ballplayer. But with candid interviews from people like Flood’s former teammate Bob Gibson, the film shows not only how Flood was a hero but how much he sacrificed as his life spiraled downward into alcoholism and other troubles after he made the decision to stand up for what he believed.

    Phil Ochs There But for the Fortune Phil Ochs sang and stood for a number of issues during the 1960s and 1970s. He never achieved the success of his contemporary Bob Dylan, but he will always be a hero to members of the anti-war and civil rights movements. Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune has interviews with Ochs’s family members, anti-war activists, other singers (but no Dylan), and recordings from Ochs himself. There are a number of videos of Ochs talking and singing that I had never seen before, and it was a revelation for me to see him throughout all stages of his career.

    The Ochs film is excellent, although there is a sadness that hangs over the tale even from the beginning. In retrospect, perhaps it is because we know how long it took for the Vietnam war to end or because of a sense of how Ochs’s life would end. Like Flood, Ochs was a victim of both his own flaws and of flaws in American society.

    While a lot of people will know the stories of these two men, I suspect that many more are merely familiar with a one- or two-sentence biography of each and will learn a lot from these films. Both are excellent documentaries about two flawed men who reached for the stars and are heroes even if they fell short of their goals. The Curious Case of Curt Flood and Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune are two stories everyone should know. And they are two reminders of why so few people aspire to be heroes in the real world.

    If you’d like more information, HitFlix has a good review of the Curt Flood film, and The Huffington Post has a good review of the Ochs film. Curt Flood photo via HBO.

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    I Brought a Comb: “Stand By Me” is 25

    Stand By Me gun This week is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of the movie Stand By Me. Like me, you should plan to watch it again. It is a movie that many of us connect to over and over again. For example, about a year ago, I discovered that a childhood friend had passed away. I had lost touch with the friend when we were both kids and he moved away, but I still felt close to him. The best explanation I could give to anyone at the time was a line from Stand By Me, where the writer character played by Richard Dreyfus looks back and writes, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

    Below is a clip from the film, but you should check out Will Wheaton’s new blog entry, “I was twelve going on thirteen when I made the movie that changed my life.” Wheaton, who played Gordie in the movie, discusses reuniting with the surviving cast members Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell. And he talks about coming to terms with the death of River Phoenix. It is a moving must-read for any fan of the movie.

    There are some other good articles about the anniversary around the web. Popdose has a thoughtful piece about the movie’s anniversary, including some discussion of the Stephen King book that was the source for the film. SlashFilm lists twenty-five lessons from the film. And NPR has an audio story that includes an interview with Wheaton that he discussed in his blog post. Few movies hold up as well as Stand By Me, which is a genuine classic about being young and growing up. As Wheaton notes in his blog post, “[M]ovies like Stand By Me come along once in a generation.” That is true, if we are lucky.

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