RAMBLES Part II

[MissGoddess]

> {quote:title=JackFavell wrote:}{quote}Burt has nice hands.

>

> sigh

>

 

you can say that again!

 

> I like this movie for Scofield's performance, since I think this is one of his few baddies. He's usually very sympathetic to me, if a little cerebral, as you cleverly pointed out, so I enjoyed hating him in The Train.

>

 

I thought his character was going to be more sympathetic in the beginning, but I was fooled even as that museum curator was, who thought his fine art appreciation meant he had a spark of human feeling. It's interesting how he does talk in an extreme way how many in that art world really think, they do believe they are special and above the very people they claim all that art was being preserved for. but they're never the ones who actually paint the paintings! I kept thinking, if I'd been one of those artists and knew what had happened over my paintings, when I had the chance I would find those paintings and destroy every single one of them. It would just apall me that even one life could be lost over anything I made. And I consider myself an artist and an art lover.

 

Yes, this movie was very thought provoking.

 

> There does seem to be a statement being made in this movie about those who DO and those who can only order others to do. Scofield always seems to be one step behind everyone, even those he looks down on. I think he actually has an inferiority complex, and that's why he feels he has to beat them, especially Lancaster. Well, who wouldn't have an inferiority complex next to Burt? Anyway, Scofield is always relying on his underlings to take care of those ambushes and sometimes, one gets a glint of how much the underlings despise and maybe even pity him.

>

 

He seemed to have gone mad. I don't know how much was an obsession with the art or with being able to tell his superiors he'd succeeded in such a daring mission. His words with the officer from whom he needed the go ahead were that he'd learned from him that "going through channels" was not for men like him. He was kind of a rogue leader yet he expected total and blind obedience from not just his own men, but even that battalion of wounded that were being moved out. I like when their officer came running up and basically sent him to heck if he thought they were going to leave any of his wounded on the road for a bunch of paintings.

[JackFavell]

Sorry! I had to get Alice to bed.

 

> {quote:title=MissGoddess wrote:}{quote}

> > {quote:title=JackFavell wrote:}{quote}Burt has nice hands.

> >

> > sigh

> > you can say that again!

 

 

Burt has nice hands.

 

It bears repeating. :x

 

> I thought his character was going to be more sympathetic in the beginning, but I was fooled even as that museum curator was, who thought his fine art appreciation meant he had a spark of human feeling. It's interesting how he does talk in an extreme way how many in that art world really think, they do believe they are special and above the very people they claim all that art was being preserved for. but they're never the ones who actually paint the paintings! I kept thinking, if I'd been one of those artists and knew what had happened over my paintings, when I had the chance I would find those paintings and destroy every single one of them. It would just apall me that even one life could be lost over anything I made. And I consider myself an artist and an art lover.

 

They do set him up at the beginning as if he were going to be one of those noble types who transcend political sides because he cares deeply about art. It's kind of funny. I guess that's what they call a "trope" of the movies and literature - that the artistic guy is always the one who cares most about life, he's a hero, a sensitive. I find it hilarious that Frankenheimer turns it all around, the manual laborer is the more sensitive about humanity than the art lover. He also makes the big dumb train conductor the one who decides to save all the art! It's not even the main character and he's certainly not the brightest one of the bunch, this conductor who takes it into his head to save "France's art heritage".

 

Nothing in this movie follows the standard plot contrivances. In fact, Burt is reluctant to do anything at all to save the artwork for quite a long time. Are collectors perfect Nazis, who think they are better than everyone because they've got a little knowledge? Maybe they do deserve to live outside of the rules, because they can appreciate? I think we see that sometimes in classic movie buffs..... I've probably said something along these lines myself at some point or another.

 

One thing that does fit the usual type - Colonel Von Waldheim is an equal opportunity megalomaniac - he doesn't care what side you belong to, he'll kill the French or eventually his own men in order to get that train into Germany. And I don't think it was for the Reich either.... somewhere along the way it became HIS train, HIS artwork, HIS ego... I thought by the end he was going to try and take the train for himself alone.

 

 

> He seemed to have gone mad. I don't know how much was an obsession with the art or with being able to tell his superiors he'd succeeded in such a daring mission. His words with the officer from whom he needed the go ahead were that he'd learned from him that "going through channels" was not for men like him. He was kind of a rogue leader yet he expected total and blind obedience from not just his own men, but even that battalion of wounded that were being moved out. I like when their officer came running up and basically sent him to heck if he thought they were going to leave any of his wounded on the road for a bunch of paintings.

 

I liked that part too! It goes to show that nothing stands in the way of a madman, except maybe finally his own incompetence. The common sense of those who are sane affects the madman very little. He'll continue to dream bigger and bigger, forcing others to do his bidding. But the madman affects the sane man around him eventually. I am drawing a parallel between Von Waldheim and the war itself. Nothing stands in the way of war when it gets going, because it is madness, and it has it's own laws and reason - there is no sense to it. But it does peter out at some point when the people are good and sick of it, they see it clearly for the idiocy it is and they revile it.

 

Would the third reich have gotten much further than it did without the German people balking, even the military balking, the crazier the orders became? When you are in the employ of a madman, what does it take to suddenly make you see that he is mad? When does the masquerade (of sanity) fall apart?

 

Isn't it interesting that the movie itself did not lend itself to stereotypes - Some of the Germans did seem like good people and some of the French were not terribly nice, even Burt.... he was kind of like Rick in Casablanca.... "I stick my neck out for nobody".

In some ways this battle, which he did not choose, which he was too sane for, actually made him a "hero", do things he would not have done. But was he a "better" man at the end of the film? Did he do it for country, or to avenge his friends who thought they should die for their country's heritage? Were they right to make the sacrifice? Part of me says yes, but part of me says nothing is worth it.

 

I am tired, so I hope at least a bit of this makes sense. Sheesh. I know I'm going to read this tomorrow and wonder what I thought was so profound... or maybe I'll just wonder what the heck I meant.

 

 

Edited by: JackFavell on Feb 20, 2012 9:49 PM

[movieman1957]

*. It would just apall me that even one life could be lost over anything I made. And I consider myself an artist and an art lover.*

 

But the art itself can't be blamed nor I imagine the artist given the intent of the work. If everything was done based on how someone reacted to it then nothing would ever be done or created. I appreciate the sensitivity to the consequence of it but to deprive the world of the one thing that can unite people, would it not be the greater loss?

 

I find the idea that during both wars anyone would not program Beethoven or Mozart or Schubert or whoever because they were German and wrote their music 100 or so years prior to the wars as baffling as the way the great works of art were handled by the Germans. To what end would the public be deprived of the glory of Beethoven's 3rd Symphony or Bach's Cantatas? Music and art are among the things that moves the human heart. It would be just as tragic to lose something you created because others are evil.

[SansFin]

> {quote:title=MissGoddess wrote:}{quote}

> It would just apall me that even one life could be lost over anything I made.

 

People have been killed or maimed in mad rushes to buy discounted goods on Black Thursdays. I doubt the toymakers and electronics importers lose any sleep over it.

[MissGoddess]

> I guess that's what they call a "trope" of the movies and literature - that the artistic guy is always the one who cares most about life, he's a hero, a sensitive. I find it hilarious that Frankenheimer turns it all around, the manual laborer is the more sensitive about humanity than the art lover. He also makes the big dumb train conductor the one who decides to save all the art! It's not even the main character and he's certainly not the brightest one of the bunch, this conductor who takes it into his head to save "France's art heritage".

>

 

That's fascinating...I never heard of a "trope" before, I learned something today!

 

> Nothing in this movie follows the standard plot contrivances. In fact, Burt is reluctant to do anything at all to save the artwork for quite a long time. Are collectors perfect Nazis, who think they are better than everyone because they've got a little knowledge? Maybe they do deserve to live outside of the rules, because they can appreciate? I think we see that sometimes in classic movie buffs..... I've probably said something along these lines myself at some point or another.

>

 

Knowledge vs. love. Knowledge inflates the ego, while love instills confidence in all. It never fails to be true and it seldom fails that people strive harder for the knowledge than to love one another or that they often hide their true motives behind things like "beauty and art is only for the privileged few". It's always about who can they exclude, set themselves above.

 

> One thing that does fit the usual type - Colonel Von Waldheim is an equal opportunity megalomaniac - he doesn't care what side you belong to, he'll kill the French or eventually his own men in order to get that train into Germany. And I don't think it was for the Reich either.... somewhere along the way it became HIS train, HIS artwork, HIS ego... I thought by the end he was going to try and take the train for himself alone.

>

 

Brilliant! I believe the Colonel would have set himself above Hitler had he come across his path. He was a rogue Nazi, not a follower. There was no room for individuality in the Reich and he was bound to end badly.

 

> In some ways this battle, which he did not choose, which he was too sane for, actually made him a "hero", do things he would not have done. But was he a "better" man at the end of the film? Did he do it for country, or to avenge his friends who thought they should die for their country's heritage? Were they right to make the sacrifice? Part of me says yes, but part of me says nothing is worth it.

>

 

In theory the Colonel and the train conductor, Papa Boule, I think he was called, were following the same idea, and each was as blind as the other, in a way. They got fixed on an idea. The Colonel's was about superiority and Papa's was "the legacy of France". Both end up dead and humanity doesn't seem to have learned anything from the paintings or the sacrifices, except how to build bigger, better weapons.

[MissGoddess]

> {quote:title=movieman1957 wrote:}{quote}*. It would just apall me that even one life could be lost over anything I made. And I consider myself an artist and an art lover.*

>

> But the art itself can't be blamed nor I imagine the artist given the intent of the work. If everything was done based on how someone reacted to it then nothing would ever be done or created. I appreciate the sensitivity to the consequence of it but to deprive the world of the one thing that can unite people, would it not be the greater loss?

>

 

It's an issue of belief. I wasn't placing blame anywhere, just questioning ideologies that place more value on what a man produces than on the man himself, whether an artist or even a train conductor.

 

Some of those very artists whose paintings were at stake could have been in concentration camps or otherwise victims of the war if they were in the wrong time and place. Which would the majority strive to save...the artists or their paintings? One wonders. My meaning was that I would destroy my paintings because I would want to make it clear that I value life---which means my ability to create---more than what I created, which is just paint on canvas. You can re-create paint on canvas. No human being can resurrect a dead man. To me, no single human life could ever be of less value than all the art ever created.

 

> I find the idea that during both wars anyone would not program Beethoven or Mozart or Schubert or whoever because they were German and wrote their music 100 or so years prior to the wars as baffling as the way the great works of art were handled by the Germans. To what end would the public be deprived of the glory of Beethoven's 3rd Symphony or Bach's Cantatas? Music and art are among the things that moves the human heart. It would be just as tragic to lose something you created because others are evil.

 

I agree with all of that. Art has been the saving of me in many ways, though not in the ultimate sense. For me this all begs the question would you save Beethoven or his symphonies? I just can't help but reduce the argument down to its bare bones. Maybe some who gave their lives up in war had greater talents than Beethoven or Renoir put together though they never realized them. Again, the loss of a mind and spirit capable of creating or even just appreciating art is the greater loss to me. The ideas that foment war ultimately are based on valuing something material (or power) over the deliberate taking of human life.

 

Who knew this movie would make me think so hard, yikes, I don't think I like The Train so much anymore.

[MissGoddess]

> People have been killed or maimed in mad rushes to buy discounted goods on Black Thursdays. I doubt the toymakers and electronics importers lose any sleep over it.

 

Sansfin,

Sadly that is very true. Humans often view human life as one of the most expendable "commodities" of all.

[CineMaven]

> I agree with all of that. Art has been the saving of me in many ways, though not in the ultimate sense. For me this all begs the question would you save Beethoven or his symphonies? I just can't help but reduce the argument down to its bare bones. Maybe some who gave their lives up in war had greater talents than Beethoven or Renoir put together though they never realized them. Again, the loss of a mind and spirit capable of creating or even just appreciating art is the greater loss to me. The ideas that foment war ultimately are based on valuing something material (or power) over the deliberate taking of human life.

What? *THIS* is what this movie's about?? :0 All that running and jumping in that Frankenheimer interstitial? Ugh! Where have I been?! All this time I thought it was some cold war, spy, espionage thriller. Interesting food for thought you, MM'57 and JackaaAaay are bandying about. I'd have to think about that, b'cuz these works of art live on while the artist's time on earth is pretty finite.

 

...And yes girls, Burt does have beautiful hands.

[MissGoddess]

ha! I'm not sure if the movie is saying all that, I just went off in one of my tangents.

 

I confess I was more focused on watching Burt move around than anything else.

[CineMaven]

Ha! Yeah....

 

A confession I'm sure many share.

 

 

Aw geeez! His hands are covered up.

[JackFavell]

Ha! One of the benefits of watching the movie is seeing Burt all athletic and stuff. :x

 

Nice picture. What were we talking about?

 

Oh yeah.

 

One of the things I like about this movie, and Frankenheimer's work in general, is the lack of talk. When there is talk, it's pretty important, but much of the film is just people doing stuff.......basic action with no yakkety yak. A man riding a bike, or that nice ticket taker checking the schedule, or men working hard to paint the top of the boxcars. I really admire a director who can be silent for long stretches of time.

 

Of course, I also like All About Eve, or any number of movies that have nothing but talk. But it still is impressive to me when a director just shines a spotlight on a man, preferably BURT, doing a job, or moving through the woods, or ripping a piece of track apart.

[MissGoddess]

I never thought about that...I'll have to pay more attention to Frankenheimer. He was smart enough to know that just keeping the camera on Burt moving around was good cinema.

 

I think this is only my third movie I've seen by him...the other two being *The Manchurian Candidate* and *Seven Days in May*. I'm probably overlooking some others.

[JackFavell]

He can be rather scary and cold, but I don't think he was a cold man at all. He always seems to come down on the side of warmth, even though his films/statements themselves are somewhat fractured and shot as if his actors were under a microscope in a clinic.

 

I like *Seconds*, but don't do what I did and watch it at 2 in the morning because of insomnia. It's far too scary! You'd never get back to sleep! Rock Hudson gives a great performance in it, though it's hard to adjust to him since for half the film he's played by someone else.

 

*Birdman of Alcatraz* is also Frankenheimer.

[CineMaven]

*Of course, I also like All About Eve, or any number of movies that have nothing but talk.*

 

Whew!!! Mi hermana.

 

*But it still is impressive to me when a director just shines a spotlight on a man, preferably BURT, doing a job, or moving through the woods, or ripping a piece of track apart.*

 

Ripping a piece of track apart? With his bare teeth?

 

What's the difference between Burt and Kirk for you? Both physical, athletic. (Give me a little more than just "I...HATE...KIRK"). Or did you explain this to me before? Am I not remembering? Am I not listening? Am I not reading? Am I too old for this message board?

 

Hey...do not answer that last question.

 

(*BTW*...enjoyed your critique of *"The Roaring Twenties"* one of my favorite movies...and loved your description of Helen Vinson ("deliciously malevolent"). May I steal borrow that?

 

Wasn't she in "Torrid Zone"?

[JackFavell]

> {quote:title=CineMaven wrote:}{quote}*Of course, I also like All About Eve, or any number of movies that have nothing but talk.*

>

> Whew!!! Mi hermana.

 

 

 

 

> Ripping a piece of track apart? With his bare teeth?

 

Ha! no but Kirk might be able to do that!

 

At one point Burt has to sabotage the train without destroying it, since all the great art treasures of France are on board and en route to Germany. If they make it into German territory, the art will be lost to France. Burt is on foot, so he races ahead of the slow moving train and demolishes track by unfastening a series of bolts in a long row, then knocking out the underpinnings of the track itself in a swath big enough to derail the engine. It then takes the German soldiers on board the train an hour or so to re-set the track.

 

> What's the difference between Burt and Kirk for you? Both physical, athletic. (Give me a little more than just "I...HATE...KIRK"). Or did you explain this to me before? Am I not remembering? Am I not listening? Am I not reading? Am I too old for this message board?

 

> Hey...do not answer that last question.

 

Dang! You denied me answering in my preferred way! (I HATE KIRK.)

 

I DON'T KNOW. There. Is that OK?

 

I really am not sure what the difference is. Maybe it's that I see an internal being in Burt, but not in Kirk. I think that may be it. I will have to think about it more.

 

> (*BTW*...enjoyed your critique of *"The Roaring Twenties"* one of my favorite movies...and loved your description of Helen Vinson ("deliciously malevolent"). May I steal borrow that?

>

>

> Wasn't she in "Torrid Zone"?

 

Feel free to --steal-- borrow that description... I am pretty sure I am not the first to describe her that way! I do think she was in Torrid Zone, facing off over Jimmy... she had no chance of course against Annie and Jimmy's mustache.

 

Gosh . I love The Roaring Twenties and you do too! Yay! More common ground!

 

Edited by: JackFavell on Feb 21, 2012 9:53 PM

[CineMaven]

Feel free to --steal-- borrow that description... I am pretty sure I am not the first to describe her that way! I do think she was in Torrid Zone, facing off over Jimmy... she had no chance of course against Annie and Jimmy's mustache.

 

Annie...Yay! :-)

Mustache...No! :-(

 

It drove me to distraction.

 

Gosh. I love The Roaring Twenties and you do too! Yay! More common ground!

 

Mos 'def.

[movieman1957]

*To me, no single human life could ever be of less value than all the art ever created.*

 

I completely agree. There is no greater work than a person.

 

I admire your heart on this topic.

 

 

[bagladymimi]

I would actually like to know more about the behind the scenes action on Seven Days In May. I happen to like this kind of background information - the making of the movie.

 

I am sorry that I don't remember who it was who mentioned something about Frankenheimer having had his fill of Lancaster by the end of that movie. Do you know anymore about that? I also had heard that Frederick March could be difficult on a movie set. So I think the whole story would be interesting.

 

Thanks,

Mimi

[movieman1957]

I only know what little is said in the featurette. Frankenheimer also says in the clip the best thing he ever directed was the confrontation of Lancaster and March in "Seven Days."

 

 

[bagladymimi]

That is a great scene. In fact, the movie, in general is a great thriller. I am not a big fan of Frankenheimer's, but I do love this movie.

[wouldbestar]

 

{font:Times New Roman} {font}{font:}{color:black}I just stumbled onto this discussion and Maven puts up one of my favorite villainesses in living color-The Wicked Queen from *Snow White.* She gave me nightmares when I saw this at six years old. She was much more frightening here with those red lips, cold blue eyes and widow's peak head covering than when she became the Wrinkled Old Lady. I can just see the Joan Collins of 30 years ago playing her for real.{font}

 

 

{font:Times New Roman} {font}{font:}{color:black}I have to see *Enchantment* and compare Jayne Meadows there with *Lady in the Lake* where she is also up to no good. It seems to be another case of someone who a decent, likable person off screen but who can be so convincingly diabolical on it. Thanks for adding to my education.{font}

 

 

{font:Times New Roman} {font}{font:}{color:black}I hope this is legible. I watched the whole race, bonfire and all, and am feeling the effects. I'm just thankful nobody died. What a way to start the season. NASCAR fans, pray this is not an omen for the rest of it.{font}

 

 

{font:Times New Roman} {font}

 

 

{font:Times New Roman} {font}

 

 

{font:Times New Roman} {font}

 

 

[JackFavell]

Along with all these lovely pre-codes today, *History is Made at Night* is on tonight at 10:15 PM ET. It's one of my favorite Borzage movies, and stars Charles Boyer at his most charming, Jean Arthur, Colin Clive and wonderful Leo Carrillo.

 

This one is pretty rare, I don't think it's out on dvd.

[CineMaven]

:x

 

My itch has been scratched. But how!

[JackFavell]

You liked it? Oh I hope so!

[CineMaven]

Oh yes Jackaaay. Very much so.

 

Getting my thoughts together to write it down.