"The Invisible Man" (1933) and the Depiction of Violence in Early Cinema

I had a chance to watch "The Invisible Man" from 1933 recently and I came away from it with mixed feelings. This is typical of how I have felt with all the Universal monster movies I've seen, which to this point includes The Mummy, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and Dracula. Maybe I'm bringing my own expectations to these "classic" films but there always seems to be something lacking for me.

I thought Claude Raines did an excellent job playing the titular character, even though you never see his face throughout the film. His voice acting and physical presence gave his character the necessary gravitas to make you fearful of what he might do next. Speaking of fear, that was one element that was heavily played up and though I had read the novel by H. G. Wells a few years ago, I forgot how violent and insane the Invisible Man becomes.

The most notable incident for me was the derailing of a train carrying hundreds of people, who all die in a crash caused by the Invisible Man. The other murders he commits are all of a singular variety and never more than two people at a time. However, this utter disregard for that many lives of innocent men, women and children, firmly planted me on the side of the law and at that point I wanted to see the Invisible Man get his.

While this is in keeping with the story and the tale they were trying to tell (men should not attempt to meddle with science for their own gain and power) it still felt off to me. If such an incident occurred in film today it would have been given much more weight by the filmmakers. I will concede the fact that the production did not have the budget nor the resources for the kind of practical special effects necessary to make this scene any more grand than it already was and I don't fault them for their depiction of the scene. I think it has more to do with the brief amount of time given to the incident itself.

The scene with the train derailment happens and then there is a brief aftermath scene with a bunch of police seated around a table saying something to the effect of "we must catch him now!". After that the incident is never mentioned again and none of the other characters bring it up either. This lack of focus on a truly horrible event took away from the film in my opinion and it would have been more effective if the Invisible Man had addressed it himself and gave some reasoning (derived from madness but reasoning nonetheless) behind why he did it and how he felt afterwards. The complete absence of these things left me wanting.

I still enjoyed the film overall, except for that horrible, screeching woman that runs the inn/bar where the Invisible Man takes up shop. Her unrelenting shrieking was so horrible that every time she was on screen I had my thumb over the Mute button. Aside from her, I found the rest of the film and Raines's performance entertaining. The ending was a bit anti-climactic but the final scene ended on a touching note so there was good and bad in this film and that's what I'm learning to expect from the Universal monster films. I'm curious to see how I feel about The Wolf Man as that will complete my viewing of the main batch of films. I have a feeling that one might end up being my favorite of the lot. Only time and my Netflix queue will tell.

"In the Mood for Love" and Using All Aspects of Cinema to Tell a Story

Recently I was able to see the Wong Kar Wai  film "In the Mood for Love" from the year 2000. Set in 1962 Hong Kong, it tells the story of two married neighbors whose spouses are never around and begin to have feelings for each other. I found the film to be engrossing for many reasons and upon reflection I realized that this was due in part to the director's use of all the tools at his disposal.

The first thing that stands out for me is the editing. The random jumps in time are very jarring at first but after awhile a pattern emerges. There will be a few jumps, then a few concurrent scenes and then a montage of time held together by specific pieces of music. The viewer is then able to settle in so to speak and get enraptured in these two characters.

Which brings me to my second immediate observation and that is the phenomenal acting by both leads, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. Tony has to play the straight man to her tortured housewife and thus she has the attention grabbing moments, which she plays to great effect. Watching them play off each other is truly a wonderful piece of filmmaking and there are so many nuances in each performance that I don’t know if you could ever watch the film without discovering something new. That is something to truly be applauded and my hat is off to all of those involved in making this happen.

Then there's the beautiful score and use of existing music throughout the film. As I mentioned in the paragraph on editing, these pieces of music not only serve as contextual placeholders to help ground the audience in the frantic jumping of time and place. They also provide powerful undertones of emotion and depth to what is happening on screen as all good scores aim to do. Simply listen to the main theme in the video below and you will have an idea of that which I am speaking about.

Next, the ending. It’s so rare in film for the director/writer to be able to craft a story with a truly ambiguous ending but that is exactly what Wong Kar Wai has accomplished here. Part of this is he does not present the mystery until the last second before the final scene. I don’t know if this is brilliant or maddening but in the context of this story, with how information is presented and more importantly withheld, I am of the opinion that it works to great effect. It certainly will lead to much discussion afterwards, with multiple viewpoints able to express their version of the ending and be able to back it up. This is one of the great effects of a great film. Everyone is able to intake the same information and digest it in different ways to produce wholly different viewpoints and ideas on what they have seen/heard/felt.

Lastly, the production design of the film (I’m including the wardrobe in this as well) was spot on perfect. The environment of the film was so much a reflection of the characters and themes of the story that if you watched the film with no sound, I have a feeling you would be able to get the gist of what’s going on and the main conflicts/struggles, from the cinematography and the sets. The framing, camerawork and again the editing all combine to tell this story.

Wong Kar Wai has masterfully used every aspect of cinema to tell this story, with each contributing in its own way. The editing influences the cinematography, which informs the production design, which reflects the acting, which evokes the score, which combined with everything else informs the director and his choices. While this is not my favorite foreign film of all time (that honor would go to Ikiru), I can say that this is the first film I have seen in a while to consciously use all aspects of filmmaking to tell its story. Bravo!