The Passenger - 1975 film review

The first film by Michaelangelo Antonioni that I ever saw was Blow-Up (a film that gets a passing mention in the Lake District Mystery I'm writing right now.) I was seventeen or so at the time and it was quite a memorable evening. Mainly because the film was screened by the film society jointly run by my school and the local girls' school. In those days, societies which overcame the segregation of our single-sex schools were very popular....

Anyway, I enjoyed my trip to watch Blow-Up, but I never got round to seeing The Passenger, which is perhaps Antonioni's most famous film. I've only just repaired this omission. The Passenger is sometimes described as a thriller, but that's a label so unhelpful as to be almost meaningless. And indeed, the glacial pace is distinctly unthrilling. But the basic idea is one that might well have come from Patricia Highsmith.

A journalist called Locke (Jack Nicholson) comes across Robertson, a businessman, while working on a documentary in Chad. The businessman dies suddenly (from a pre-existing condition) and Nicholson discovers the body. On an impulse, it seems, perhaps inspired by his resemblance to the deceased, Locke decides to switch identities with the dead man. He falsifies his passport and successfully becomes Robertson.

Among other things, he abandons his wife (Jenny Runacre), and finds himself embroiled in Robertson's murky business activities. He encounters a beautiful young woman (Maria Schneider) and they become lovers. But you can bet that if his purpose in becoming Robertson was to escape his old life and to find something better, he will be disappointed, to say the least. And so it proves. The film is beautifully shot, but the bleakness of its philosophy is depressing. I'm glad that I finally got round to seeing it, though. It's an interesting piece of movie-making, even if there's less to it than meets the eye or than its reputation suggests.

The Shining - film review

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining was released in 1980, but I've managed to miss seeing it all these years - though I was keen to repair the omission. Kubrick was a gifted film-maker, and this movie, based on a novel by Stephen King which I haven't read, has enjoyed a great improvement in its reputation after receiving rather mixed reviews on its first release. It's now widely regarded as one of the great horror movies.

Essentially, its storyline'offers a variant on the "haunted house" theme. Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) is hired to spend the winter looking after the remote Overlook Hotel. He's warned at the outset that the hotel has an unfortunate history - a previous caretaker, called Grady, went crazy and dismembered his family. But Jack isn't daunted. He's a writer,wanting to work in peace on his next project, and is accompanied by his wife (Shelley Duvall) and young son Danny.

At first all goes fairly well. Jack gets down to work - and what writer wouldn't fancy the idea of a long break in congenial surroundings to get some serious writing done? Unfortunately, the wise writer, in my opinion, takes interruptions in his stride, and Jack really does not handle interruptions at all well. What's more, Danny starts seeing disturbing visions. Soon, things turn rather nasty...

I was amused to see Philip Stone playing the part of Grady; I remember seeing him, when I was a small boy, in a crime series called The Rat Catchers, starring the once-popular Gerald Flood, that my parents used to watch, though I can't remember much about it. He was a quintessentially English actor, so it was rather odd to see him in this film. Jack Nicholson, needless to say, was entirely convincing as the increasingly deranged Torrance.

The film is stronger on visual effects (the spookiness of the vast hotel is cleverly done, and there's a terrific climactic sequence in a snow-covered maze) than on narrative consistency. I gather King has mixed feelings about the adaptation, but on the whole, it's a gripping film, even if there's plenty of scope to debate whether the demons plaguing Jack Torrance come from within him or from outside. I'm glad I caught up with it at long last.

The German Connection

It's a long time since I studied German, but I really enjoyed the country's literature, and A and S Levels introduced me to writers like Friedrich Durrenmatt, a playwright who also wrote several excellent, shortish crime novels, and whose book The Pledge was turned into an excellent film starring Jack Nicholson. Durrenmatt was Swiss, so there was no chance to pay homage to him on my recent visit to Berlin, but in wandering around the area outside the city, I had the chance to visit Wannsee, a pleasant place by the water's edge, where Kleist's grave, and the story of his short and tragic life were to be found.

A short rail journey from Wannsee is Potsdam, about which all I knew was that it hosted the Potsdam Conference (in the mock-Tudor mansion pictured just above the shot of the impressive Sans Souci Park). In fact, Potsdam is a terrific town, full of dramatic architecture and an ideal spot for sight-seeing boat trips It's another of those places that have been utterly transformed by reunification.

I'd heard of Spandau only as the site of the prison where Rudolf Hess was incarcerated for so many years. I had no idea that it's actually a gorgeous old town on the outskirts of Berlin,, with a charm that has survived war and much else. The imposing Renaissance fortress, the Citadel, looks as though it might have housed Hess, but in fact it didn't. Again, it is being cared for and developed as a tourist centre with the efficiency that is, just as the stereotypes suggest, so often to be found in Germany. You get the feeling that if a modern Freeman Wills Crofts were writing in Germany, he might be able justifiably to write an alibi murder mystery that depended on the very frequent trains running precisely to time. Another thing I never knew was that Spandau was the base of a thriving film industry. The posters on display in the museum in the Citadel suggested that Edgar Wallace was a particular favourite...

The story that I'm writing with a Berlin setting is, admittedly, rather dark. But overall, I was left with the strong feeling that Berlin, dramatically changed as it is since my last visit, is a fun city, more appealing than many capitals. I found the trip quite inspirational. All I need to do now is turn the ideas that I gained on my trip into a story that does the city justice...

Chinatown: review

I've watched Roman Polanski's classic movie Chinatown for a third time. Because it’s one of the great crime films, I feel I gain something new each time I see it. It’s not my favourite film by any means, but I certainly admire its technical accomplishment, the superb acting, and Jerry Goldsmith’s haunting theme tune.

Jack Nicholson is terrific as Jake Gittes, a private eye who is hired by a woman who claims that her husband, Hollis Mulwray, is having an affair. Gittes finds Mulwray with a young woman, and discredits him, but then Mulwray’s real wife (played by Faye Dunaway) turns up, and the plot begins to thicken.

The story, set in 1937, involves dirty dealings over water rights in Los Angeles, and was based on a complex and long-running real-life controversy. Polanski himself appears briefly as a vicious gangster, and John Huston is brilliantly effective as Dunaway’s rich and corrupt father.

The script was written by Robert Towne, and it won an Academy Award. The mystery element is more than competently done, but what really marks out Towne’s work is the attention to character and setting, not least the enigmatic backdrop of Chinatown itself in the chilling final scene. Apparently, Towne planned a trilogy featuring Gittes, but it was a long time before the sequel to Chinatown, The Two Jakes, appeared, and many people (not me) thought it was a let-down, with the result that the third film in the sequence has never been made.