Flick of the Day: The Name Of The Rose

It is often strange how the careers of actors and directors tend to move in cycles. When you’re up, you’re up and studios seem willing to make almost anything your name is attached to no matter how awful (See the early career of Colin Farrell).  The flip side of course is that when you are out of favour, you can’t get a film made for love nor money. While accepting his Oscar earlier this year, Ben Affleck noted how his career had been affected by negative publicity and indeed how he felt like he would never work again.  Of course the cycles come and go and I’d like to think that if somebody is talented they will continue to find work. One such example would be the star of today’s flick, Sean Connery. Now of course Connery is enjoying a well-earned retirement with a hard fought reputation as a screen icon. However, it was not always thus.  In 1986 when Jean-Jacques Annaud was casting his adaptation of Umberto Eco’s surprise bestseller, Connery’s name was one of the last on the list. The studio would have preferred to have cast almost anyone other than him and when he was cast Columbia pulled their financing. This is perhaps not surprising given where his career was at the time.  He was on quite a streak of failures stretching back to 1979’s misbegotten Cuba and including an ill-advised and unofficial return to James Bond in 1983’s Never Say Never Again.  Included in this period is something called Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which I will admit to knowing almost nothing about beyond its thoroughly awful rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Connery was eventually cast in the role of William of Baskervile, a Franciscan monk and intellectual who strives for knowledge while Europe is in the dark ages. Together with his young disciple Adso, ably played by a very young Christian Slater, William travels to a Benedictine Abbey in the mountains of northern Italy. Upon his arrival, it becomes apparent that all is not well with the monks. One of their number has fallen to his death from a tower above the library which the abbey is famed for. The Abbot, played with characteristic understatement by Michael Lonsdale, asks William to investigate the death. Together with Adso he sets about the desk with a zeal for finding the truth. Along the way he attempts to impart something of his knowledge to the naïve Adso. However as further deaths begin to occur, William realises that he is in a race against time to catch a killer intent on covering his tracks before the arrival of the evil inquisitor Bernardo Gui with whom William has a complicated history. He quickly becomes drawn into a plot involving a lust for knowledge, sexual power and the very nature of religion.

Half the battle in any production such as this is having a good story around which to build your film. In this case Umberto Eco’s superb novel is rich in detail and atmosphere and offers a bounty for any film adaptation. Annaud’s tone is consistently dark throughout which feels to me to be in line with the novel and helps to create an atmosphere of dread as it sweeps through the Abbey. The monks are men of learning and language who live in splendid isolation from the squalor of the peasants who live outside their walls yet they are if anything equally immoral if not more so than the flock they seem to despise. Ultimately nothing is black or white and all of the monks are cast in shades of grey.  The film also deviates from the book in avoiding great detail of the ecclesiastical split between the different orders of monks and how it had affected the Church at the time, something that while interesting would not make for thrilling viewing.

Of course it helps to have a great cast and in this regard the film’s cup overfloweth.  For all the travails around his casting, Connery is nothing less than superb in the role of William bringing wit and charm to the character. Plaudits must also go to the then hilariously young Christian Slater who really makes you wonder how all that talent was pissed away over the years.  Ron Perlman is almost unrecognisable as the brutish grotesque Salvatore and he is joined in the cast by the likes of F. Murray Abraham and the gorgeous Valentina Vargas.

A commercial failure in the US, the film became a runaway success in Europe including being the highest grossing film of the year in France. For Sean Connery it marked the start of a welcome return to form. He would close out the decade with hits like The Untouchables, The Presidio with a young and irritating Meg Ryan and of course Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade and The Hunt for Red October. Such is the nature of career cycles .  

Flick of The Day: The Untouchables

The rise and fall of Al Capone and the man who took him down, Elliott Ness, is a classic American tale. Its been told many times, both on screen and in television, but perhaps it has never been told as well and with such panache as this 1987 effort from Brian De Palma. Today's film is The Untouchables.

The Untouchables (Special Collector's Edition)

It is amazing how often great things come together almost by accident. A script developed by the famed Chicago playwright David Mamet that is unusually efficient in its use of dialogue, became attached to Brian De Palma, in need of a hit having not directed a successful film since 1983's Scarface. Robert De Niro took on the role of Al Capone only after Bob Hoskins had dropped out at the last minute. Add this to the talents of Sean Connery in a career best performance and Kevin Costner with a score by the legendary Ennio Morricone and the rest is history.

Set during the time of Prohibition, the film opens with the arrival or Elliott Ness, played with schoolboy charm and naivety by Kevin Costner, in Chicago at the behest of the Dept of Treasury to bring an end to the illegal liquor business and the violence that sustains it. He soon finds that everything flows through Alfonse Capone, a menacing performance from De Niro and that with corruption rife he has no hope of achieving his goal alone. A chance encounter with an ageing beat cop, Jim Malone, leads to the formation of a new unit, an incorruptible group with the sole goal of sending Capone to jail. Connery was justly lauded for his performance as Malone, winning Best Supporting Actor in that year's Oscars. His character is the emotional centre of the film and he acts as mentor to the initially naive Elliott Ness, guiding him through the often brutal encounters with the gangs that control the liquor market. As almost everyone now knows, Capone was finally taken down by a failure to pay his income tax. 

The actors are aided in their endeavours by a fine script from Mamet, containing some great lines of back and forth dialogue and a number of tour de force set-piece scenes for which the film is still fondly remembered today. The dialogue is typically Mamet.

Malone: Why do you want to be a police officer? 

Williamson: To protect the... people and the... p... 

Malone: I'm not looking for the textbook answer. Why do you want to join the force. 

Williamson: The force? 

Malone: Yeah, why do you want to join the force. 

Williamson: Because... I... 

Malone: Yeah? 

Williamson: ...think I could help. 

Malone: You think you could help. 

Williamson: ...with the force. 

Malone: Thank you very much, you've been most helpful. 

[Williamson leaves] 

Malone: [to Ness] There goes the next chief of police

Perhaps the most famous scene is the shoot-out on the steps of Union Station. In a tribute to Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin in which a baby in a crib fall's down the Odessa Steps during a massacre, as Ness is on the lookout for Capone's bookkeeper who is due to depart on the last train of the day. Of course the bookkeeper and his protectors arrive just as Ness is helping a woman lift her carriage up the steps. An elegantly filmed shoot-out ensues which is both balletic and bloody.

In summary, this is a true classic with a great cast, an excellent script and a great score from Morricone. Ultimately, it's just a great yarn that holds your attention from beginning to end. It is interesting that this film really was a career high for so many of those involved. De Palma hasn't made a great film since, with a number of turkey's along the way (Mission to Mars??). De Niro's career has trailed off as he increasingly takes on roles surely only for their financial reward, while both Sean Connery and Kevin Costner have had their ups and downs in the intervening years.

Flick of The Day: The Hunt For Red October

The first and by far the best of the film adaptations of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series of thrillers, today's film is a classic tale of adventure set during the cold war. The film opens with a great introduction which sets the tone and pulls the viewer in 

"In November of 1984, just before Gorbachev came to power, a Typhoon-class Soviet sub surfaced just south of the Grand Banks. 

It then sank in deep water, apparently suffering a radiation problem. Unconfirmed reports indicated some of the crew were rescued.

But according to repeated statements by both Soviet and American governments, nothing of what you are about to see...

EVER HAPPENED"

The Hunt for Red October (Special Collector's Edition)

Sean Connery steals every scene as Captain Marko Ramius, a Soviet submarine captain put in charge of a new class of nuclear submarine, The Red October, that cannot be detected by sonar. He puts to sea with orders to engage in exercises but instead steams toward the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The Russian government tells the Americans that he has gone insane and intends to attack the US but Jack Ryan believes his intention is to defect and so begins a race against time to find The Red October.

Legend has it that Sean Connery initially turned down the role after being faxed a copy of the script as he didn't believe it made any sense. It later transpired that the first page was missing from the script. A very young Alec Baldwin is very believable as CIA agent Dr. Jack Ryan, bringing just the right mix of academia and macho action man to a role later played by Harrison Ford in the inferior Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. There is very fine supporting work from Scott Glenn as a US submariner and Sam Neill as Ramius's right hand man on board the Red October.

The film is slow moving by modern standards, particularly for a thriller however this suits the story. It is contemplative and there just isn't that much eye candy to show on board a submarine. The strength of the characterisation and the rather enjoyable ending pull it through. A big hit in its day, this film has stood the test of time and is well worth a watch.