The 15 greatest Alter egos in the History of Cinema

John Ford and John Wayne
One of the most successful association in movie History. The two John made their trademarks as Western filmmakers and a few War films. This is one of the reasons why they are on this prestigious list. And a film list is not a real film list if there are no mention of John Ford or John Wayne. Come on!

Films together: Stagecoach (1939) The Long Voyage Home (1940) They Were Expendable (1945) Fort Apache (1948) 3 Godfathers (1948) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) Rio Grande (1950) The Quiet Man (1952) The Searchers (1956) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune
Kurosawa and Mifune might have been the best ambassadors of their country in the world especially with the spread of the Samurai genre. Interesting fact: Kurosawa wanted to make Samurai films like John Ford did Westerns. If you ask me he made himself clear that he is the John Ford of Japan.

Films together: Drunken Angel (1948) Stray Dog (1949) Rashomon (1950) The Idiot (1951) The Seven Samurai (1954) Throne of Blood (1957) The Lower Depths (1957) The Hidden Fortress (1958) The Bad Sleep Well (1960) Yojimbo (1961) Sanjuro (1962) High and Low (1963) Red Beard (1965)

Michel Hazanavicius and Jean Dujardin
The most hip duo since the buzz around The Artist that began at the Cannes Film Festival last May and that culminated with the crowning of The Artist, Hazanavicius, and Dujardin at the Oscars. It is interesting to discover that it is far from being the first collaboration of the two Frenchmen.

Films together: OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions (2006) OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus (2009) The Artist (2011)

Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni
This might not the most popular choice here but with only 8 1/2 Mastroianni impersonated the great Fellini and give one of the greatest performances ever shot on film.

Films together: La Dolce vita (1960) 8 1/2 (1963) City of Women (1980)

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp
The most obvious choice for contemporary film buffs. Those two have made it clear that they like to work together with their upcoming The Dark Shadows.

Films together: Edward Scissorhands (1990) Ed Wood (1994) Sleepy Hollow (1999) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) Corpse Bride (2005) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender
I've just discovered Hunger lately and it is a revelation to me. Fassbender gives great performances one after another but his pairings with McQueen are tremendous.

Films together: Hunger (2008) Shame (2011)

Alfred Hitchcock and James Stewart
Of the many leading man Hitchcock had in his films, Stewart is most common man and easy to relate to actor that worked with him. I could have gone with Cary Grant but Stewart stars in my favorite Hitchcocks.

Films togeter: Rope (1948) Rear Window (1954) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Vertigo (1958)

F.W. Murnau and Emil Jannings
German Cinema of the pre-Second World War would never have been the same without those two greats.

Films together: The Last Laugh (1924) Faust (1926) Tartuffe (1926)

Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro
Do I really need to explain myself here? There is no one single film they made together that I wouldn't watch right away. They embrace the definition of alter egos and I hope that some day they find some time to make another film together something like a last goodbye or even a documentary/interview with fragments of their films together, thoughts etc.

Films together: Mean Streets (1973) Taxi Driver (1976) New York, New York (1977) Raging Bull (1980) The King of Comedy (1983) Goodfellas (1990) Cape Fear (1991) Casino (1995)

John Huston and Humphrey Bogart
Bogie had such a presence in films that Huston exploited like no other director, except Howard Hawks and Nicholas Ray maybe, with his raw personality and created a kind of character just for Bogis with the creation of the Film Noir in The Maltese Falcon.

Films together: The Maltese Falcon (1941) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Key Largo (1948) The African Queen (1951) Beat the Devil (1954)

David Fincher and Brad Pitt
Fincher is slowly becoming one of the most respected filmmakers today, their first two collaborations are already considered as classics for contemporary film enthusiasts.

Films together: Se7en (1995) Fight Club (1999) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski
The most destructive duo of this list, just watch Herzog's documentary My Best Fiend about Kinski to fully understand their insane relationaship. It is almost unbelivable that they made more than one film together.

Films together: Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) Stroszek (1977)  Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) Fitzcarraldo (1982) Cobra Verde (1987) My Best Fiend (1992)

Ingmar Bergman and Erland Josephson
With the recent lost of Josephson the World of Cinema lost one of the most talented actors. He worked on twelve films with Ingmar Bergman and always gave tremendous performances. Everytime I see Josephson on the screen I immediately connect him with Bergman. Especially with Scenes of A Marriage that contains many Bergman moments almost autobiographical.

Films together: It Rains on Our Love (1946) Brink of Life (1958) Hour of the Wolf (1968) The Passion of Anna (1969) Cries and Whispers (1972) Scenes of A Marriage (1973) Face to Face (1976) Autumn Sonata (1978) Fanny and Alexander (1982) After the Rehearsal (1984) In the Presence of A Clown (1997) Saraband (2003)

Jean Renoir and Jean Gabin
One of the greatest master of Cinema, Jean Renoir, collaborated with Jean Gabin on four films but they represented the Frenchmen for the World. La Grande Illusion and La Bête Humaine brought both to international recognition.

Films together: The Lower Depths (1936) La Grande Illusion (1937) La Bête Humaine (1938) French Cancan (1954)

Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale
Probably the most popular alter ego in the world of Cinema right now with The Dark Knight Rises coming in theatres this summer. All their films together have immense success at the Box Office as with the critics. Let,s hope they did as they usually do with the new Batman; a superb job.

Films together: Batman Begins (2005) The Prestige (2006) The Dark Knight (2008)

The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995)

Holding the spot of number 25 on IMDb's Top 250 voted by regular voters, this movie couldn't be more of an impostor than it actually is. Stealing from every cheap film noir that preceded it and using one of the most lazy plot twist of the mystery plot: the whodunnit. Lazy because almost anybody can make a whodunit. It is a film form that besides involving a main mystery doesn't really involve a character examination and more often than not uses stereotypes and worn out techniques of dissuasion and cover up. It is, for a younger audience a very entertaining film filled with many suspenseful elements and a detective oriented plot. When observed with a cinematic eye and appreciation this Bryan Singer picture looks pale and very 1990's television. Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie should have get some Agatha Christie novels beforehand and learn a little more about the whodunnit and its mastery.

I know I'm being rude about this and there are probably hundreds of its fans who'll disagree with my opinions but I would recommend another Noir inspired film like Rian Johnson's Brick ten times before I would recommend The Usual Suspects. One can compare this kind of film like a sweet bubble gum. It tastes good at first sight but after a little while it is tasteless more than anything else and you throw it away without really ever thinking about it.

The Wind

The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928)

Only by being on Mediafilm's masterpiece list, this Silent film masterpiece was one of the film I deeply desired to watch since many years. Moreover, it is from one of the most notable Silent Film directors Victor Sjöström or as credited in the film Seastrom. Sjöström actually changed the spelling of his name for its phonetically sound and be more "Americanized". Since he is Swedish, it would be  more literal English to be called Seastrom instead of Sjöström even if it's the same pronunciation. He wasn't the only European director who came from Europe to work in America with the big stars and the big studios. Famous names like Josef von Sternberg, Erich von Stroheim, F.W. Murnau, were some of the biggest names to have ever worked into Silent films. Many of their movies are considered as masterpieces. It is the same case for Sjöström and his sumptuous The Wind.

Opening with a famous train sequence where Letty (Lillian Gish) from Virginia is going to live with her cousin in West Texas, a place where the wind blows all the time. While on the train, she meets an engaging gentleman name Roddy (Montagu Love) who tries to convince her that moving there is actually an error and that she should continue with him. The train opening strangely reminds the first scenes of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man where a man from the East and the city goes to the West. Arriving at destination, Letty meets up with her cousin but his wife Cora (Dorothy Cumming) doesn't like Letty and clearly is jealous of her. Our protagonist have no choice but to marry Lige (Lars Hanson), a man that disgusts her and that she didn't love. However, a test will convince Letty to see her husband in a different way and she will rethink her life choices.

It is really not often that a pure talent of storytelling is right before your eyes. In the case of Sjöström it is more than pure talent: this is a case of artistry. The brilliant composition of the film and the directing of the structured plot make The Wind one of the major Silent films. Sjöström uses a simple and very sober mise en scène for his film and the special effect of superposition of images gives to Letty's visions a superbly unsettling effect that Lillian Gish performs with one of the greatest performances by any actor from her time.

Thorough her career and her long life, she died at 99 years, Lillian Gish received lots of praised first by her first director D.W. Griffith then by her peers, even François Truffaut in his tribute to her and her sister Dorothy with is dedicate in La nuit américaine. Just to name a few of her greatest performances: The Birth of A Nation, Broken Blossoms, and The Night of the Hunter, were all masterpieces and she managed to be as good with Silent films as with talkies. Nonetheless, in The Wind she was at the top of her game, the intensity of Sjöström's film needed all the fragility, ethereal beauty of the dame, her quick adaptation to the many changes in the attitude and state of mind of Letty and her fall into insanity until her complete recovery in almost one take and a continuous shot.

She was a prisoner of the desert and her containment was even worse she was obliged to marry a boorish man that only disgusts her. Until a great sand storm washed away the ghosts of her past and open her eyes to the man she never let herself appreciate. Then she found everything she was looking for in the hell she thought she was. Like a wild stallion she delivers herself from the holds that made her miserable.

Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)

There is a popular admiration towards Fitzcarraldo in the world of film buffs, the film itself and the making of the film is almost unbelievable. Let's get to it already, the major aspect of the story and the real challenge for Herzog and his crew was to shoot in the Amazonian jungle for the second time, first time was in 1971 for Aguirre the Wrath of God, and to take a steamboat and to pull it over a mountain with indigenous and only human strength and will. Add to that the maniacal persona of Klaus Kinski one of the most gifted actor of all-time that only his own insanity was his worst self destructive enemy. Wait, there's more, let's say that Werner Herzog made some of the most epic films of their time and their director-actor relationship was one of the most intense and challenging. They almost killed each other and each had a bad temper and their clashes were insane. In a documentary Herzog directed later about Kinski he admitted that the natives offered to murder Kinski because of his hot-temper.

The shooting of a Herzog-Kinski picture was something physically and psychologycally engaging for the entire crew that worked with them. Of the five films they did together, Fitzcarraldo might be one of the most insane in its making. With the whole steamboat pulled over a mountain and after, the audacious descent into river rapids where the boat could have been crushed on rocks at any moment during the shooting. The filmmakers had no idea how it could have ended and the shooting of the film often shadows the film itself. As both are tight together it is almost impossible to actually review Fitzcarraldo without mentionning all the elements that happened during its production.

All this excessiveness is translated into the film itself and its main character portrayed by Klaus Kinski "Fitzcarraldo". It is also the achievement of the dream of a passionate about his art and the transmission of this passion that can transcends mountains and impossible obstacles. This is a strong story on how crazy you have to be to attain your goals as impossible as they might be. As the character and the film this is a real success. But it is never without struggles and problems. Like Jonathan Rosenbaum said about Herzog's work, he mixes artistry and insanity so much that sometimes it is almost impossible to discern which is which.

Even if it is far from being Herzog's masterpiece, Fitzcarraldo is one of his most challenging and depth films. This 1982 picture from the infamous German director most have been seen to be believed.

Hatari!

Note: this review is a translation of my original review of the movie I've seen in 2009. Since it was one of my first long reviews I've decided to translate it for everyone's benefit. I will do series of re-edits for the films that actually were reviewed in French in the first moments of this blog.

Hatari! (Howard Hawks, 1962)

With an uneasy career thorough the many Hollywoodian studios, Howard Hawks was regarded has one of the difficult directors of its time. Regaining his shine of the old days with the French New Wave"rs" as the perfect epitome of the auteur theory, the French critics of Les Cahiers du Cinéma sacred Hawks as one of the greatest American cineaste. In the latest years one of the most hip directors working today, Quentin Tarantino, places Hawks right besides Leone as his favorite directors of all-time. The Hawksian influence on Tarantino is in the dialogues and the mastery of genre films.

The story of Hatari! is quite simple, we follow a group of men who must hunt wild animals during three months in Africa for a Swiss zoo. This already adventurous setting gets more challenging when Dallas (Elsa Martinelli), the beautiful photograph from Italy, joins their group. The strong nature of each member of the group will bring the challenges and interactions within the hunters. In the opening, every male member of the team is presented in a very classical way. They represent Man mastering Nature and the Woman that is symbolized by the female rhinoceros they must capture. One of the most difficult and fighting animal of the entire order. This scene has some succulent lines like: "I think it's a female; she doesn't know where to go and seems to turn on herself." This is a Hawks trademark to mock strong women while always populating all his films with them.
On the other hand, the paternal presence of John Wayne is well felt in the team of men. He looks upon every member of the group and he plays the moderator to keep the chemistry of the little civilization they have on the camp. It might be one of Wayne's most interesting roles, plenty of funny lines and he seems to be in his element even if witnesses of the shooting said that he was so afraid of shooting the scenes in the chair at the front of the jeep.
As of all the Howard Hawks pictures there are women characters displaying strong personalities wanting to valuate themselves amongst the men. Dallas who represents Wayne's character's love interest and Betty the daughter of the ex-boss who got killed by a rhinoceros. Betty is wanted by three men and finally when she decides who's the lucky winner the resting two other men solidarity meet up and reinforce their friendship. This particular relationship is very Hawks' typical and it is almost bold subtext that both men are sharing a somewhat homosexual relationship after their rejection by Betty. It was typical of Hawks to portray great friendships by the trade of objects and friendly mockery. These observations are particular for Hawks' entire oeuvre.

François Truffaut, once analyzed Hatari! as a demonstration of Hawks' directing: a little group supervised by a father figure, the director, who must capture the right animals, images, to populate a film, a zoo, and he must used every member of the group and his strenght to succeed in their way to goodwill together.

The scenes of action involving the many animals are riveting and breath taking all shot on location in the vein of many Hollywoodian films shot in Africa at this time Hatari! is the most interesting of all. The many scenes with elephants and the light hearted comedy makes this film one of this critique's favorite adventure films of all time. A coup de coeur!

Rating:

Top films of F.W. Murnau by LMdC

Of the greats of Cinema, few filmmakers have influenced their peers as much as D.W. Griffith, Sergeï M. Eisenstein, and John Ford. Well, F.W. Murnau might be one of the most face changing figures of the seventh Art, he directly influenced Alfred Hitchcock while working in Germany. Later, in his way too short career, Murnau worked in Hollywood and mastered every film he ever crafted. Here's my own personal top of his films:

1. Nosferatu (1922)
2. Sunrise (1927)
3. The Last Laugh (1924)
4. Faust (1926)
5. Tartuffe (1926)

I still need to see: Phantom (1922) City Girl (1929) Tabu (1931)