Advertisement<\/p>\n
The name of David Thomson\u2019s new book is \u201cMoments That Made the Movies\u201d (Thames and Hudson, 302 pages, $39.95).<\/p>\n
His basic premise in this beautifully illustrated book is sound \u2013 that it is moments from movies that we retain rather than the whole things. Or, as he puts it at the outset, \u201cCan you recall the intricate plot of \u2018Laura,\u2019 or do you simply see Dana Andrews falling asleep beneath the portrait on the wall?\u201d<\/p>\n
That is the most rhetorical of questions in a book that otherwise begs for argument.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s one \u201cgreat movie moment\u201d that I\u2019d have included that Thomson didn\u2019t. It\u2019s from Don Siegel\u2019s 1956 B-movie horror classic \u201cInvasion of the Body Snatchers\u201d: The town doctor in Santa Mira, Calif., and his elegantly beautiful girlfriend are frantically on the run from the townsfolk, all of whom have been transformed into cold, communal, emotionless pod people \u2013 i.e., blooming, unfeeling plant versions of themselves that take over their human bodies completely when they\u2019ve slept near one of the pods.<\/p>\n
The doc is played by Kevin McCarthy, and his girlfriend by Dana Wynter, as elegant a presence as any B-movie ever had. They\u2019ve been awake all night \u2013 at least \u2013 as fugitives from their transformed and now-malevolent neighbors. They\u2019ve found momentary refuge in a wet, dank cave whose last-resort status is made doubly obvious by the splendid black and white noir cinematography.<\/p>\n
To ascertain just how safe they really are, the doc tells his girlfriend he\u2019s going to check the cave\u2019s mouth again. Whatever she does, he says, she can\u2019t fall asleep, no matter how exhausted they both are. That\u2019s when the nonhuman pod versions of your body take over.<\/p>\n
He checks and comes back to her, satisfied with their momentary safety. At long last, they\u2019ve found a place that\u2019s safe from the people who were once their friends and neighbors. He looks into that beautiful face and, now that they\u2019re alone, kisses it as he hasn\u2019t been able to do in hours. He needs the moral reinforcement that only love \u2013 in gorgeous close-up \u2013 can provide.<\/p>\n
As their lips part and they come up for air, we see her disengaging face from his point of view \u2013 cold, unfeeling, smugly accusatory (\u201cWhy don\u2019t you join us?\u201d), just like everyone else in town.<\/p>\n
She, too, had fallen asleep for just a few seconds and become one of them. He might as well have been kissing a rubber tree plant.<\/p>\n
One of the greatest close-ups in American movies, I think. It\u2019s that rare, perhaps singular, moment that is genuinely chilling to watch, rather than metaphorically so.<\/p>\n
The moment Thomson chose from \u201cThe Godfather\u201d is the scene in which Michael \u2013 then the family college boy and war hero \u2013 shoots corrupt cop McCluskey in the throat and snakelike rival Sollozzo in the center of his forehead.<\/p>\n
The one I would have chosen: Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) in his faltering old age in the backyard with his grandson. He chases him through the tomato plants. You see the difference between the way an old man moves and a quick, squealing, delighted little boy.<\/p>\n
The Don takes an orange peel and puts it in his mouth to become a makeshift play monster for the little boy\u2019s benefit. It works. The actual kid playing the role is too young to act. He\u2019s genuinely startled (And he was, too; Brando sprung it on him without warning.).<\/p>\n
Then, after more chasing, the Don collapses amid the tomato plants. His heart gives out. He\u2019s dead. The boy, for a second or two, squeals, thinking it\u2019s still part of the game of playing dead \u2013 grandpa\u2019s newest cool trick on him.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the greatest moment in \u201cThe Godfather\u201d to me because, amid all the violence and conniving and power-grabbing, it conveys the film\u2019s most important triumph which is its portrayal of \u201cfamiglia\u201d \u2013 that thing that comes before everything else. To the Don, a grandfather who can\u2019t entertain a grandson among the tomato plants isn\u2019t a man. It may turn out to be a life trauma for the kid but, for him, it was a perfect way for a sick old man to die.<\/p>\n
Anthony Gounaris played the little boy. He was 3 when the film was shot.<\/p>\n
Those are just two of my many hearty disagreements with David Thomson in his newest book. But then that is the probably the very great critic\u2019s chief purpose in American film\u2019s ongoing life: to give us eloquent and brilliantly observed judgments that either persuade us or sharpen our own arguments in dispute.<\/p>\n
The great Thomson books \u2013 the ones I would submit no movie-loving American home should ever be without \u2013 are the latest (fifth) edition of his great \u201cBiograpical Dictionary of Film\u201d and his mammoth compendium of thumbnail (actually, they\u2019re full hand-size) recommendations, \u201cHave You Seen?\u201d<\/p>\n
The judgments and choices here are among his most arguable ever: the Coen Brothers\u2019 \u201cBurn After Reading?\u201d included alone among all their films? Jane Campion\u2019s \u201cIn the Cut\u201d? (Over, say, \u201cSilkwood\u201d or \u201cMoonstruck?\u201d Or the original \u201cRoller Ball?\u201d Or \u201cOut of Africa?\u201d Or Bob Rafelson\u2019s \u201cThe King of Marvin Gardens\u201d over \u201cFive Easy Pieces?\u201d)<\/p>\n
Ladies and gentleman, start your engines. Let the arguments commence.<\/p>\n
By all means, though, read Thomson first. Your own contradictory thoughts will be that much sharper and more incisive if you do.