Reviews

This film is based on one of the great English novels of its time. It has NOTHING to do with that book. What on earth happened here?

This is everything that cinema had and lost. Mystery, poetry and romance all in a wonderful JB Priestly story, directed by the most individual talent of his age.

It also features Gloria Stuart, later to reappear in Titanic.

In the early 1980's it was regarded as a great novelty when the man behind the Hovis commercial directed a hit film. At the time the two worlds were still regarded as miles apart; once one took the soup from Kleenex or Curly Wurly, one was cursed to walk their earth for eternity, with no hope of escape. Ridley Scott broke that mould, with the help of Hugh Hudson, Alan Parker and his brother Tony. More recently, they have been joined by video directors like David Fincher. All share a common visual vocabulary; whilst many have made effective films, there is a cold polish to their work, a discipline of image over content which has often been counterproductive.

American History X, whilst in many ways an admirable film, is a case in point. Tony Kaye is a highly respected director of both commercials and videos - the British Rail advertisement with the snoozing sepia people is his - and it shows. Fish eye lenses, tasteful monochrome, slow motion, faces in deep shadow, all are used and often used effectively. However one is constantly waiting for a silky voice to try and sell us perfume. Since Kaye is his own director of photography, all responsibility for this lies with him.

The film tells the story of two brothers involved with Neo-Nazi skinheads in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles. Derek (Edward Norton), has just been released from prison after serving time for killing a black man. Danny (Edward Furlong), idolises his elder brother and has followed in his footsteps, his room bedecked with Nazi regalia. This is a very sensitive theme and it is extremely well played by the two Edwards. Norton's Oscar nomination is well deserved, but Furlong is no less impressive, he manages to convey the avalanche of confusion that engulfs a teenager. His racism is part of a pack mentality, one sees clearly that freed from the malign forces around him, he could escape and the humanity in him could blossom.

The film dares to make both brothers attractive personalities, it dares to allow us to root for them. Elsewhere, the filmmakers are not so brave. On the side of righteousness there is Sweeney, a black school principal with "two PhD's", who goes out of his way to assist both Derek and Danny. This really is far too schematic, that the Nazis see the error of their ways because of a saint is much too easy. If there were a Sweeney in every high school, then the problem could be solved over night. Similarly if all right wing leaders were as transparently evil as Stacy Keach's Cameron, then the Dannys of the world would be fairly safe from their grasp. Keach plays him as a cackling maniac, complete with scary scar; he belongs in an underwater base, cradling a white cat. As the electoral success of people like former KKK member David Dukes has shown, white supremacists are capable of appearing just as suburban and normal as Tony Blair. It is there that the real danger lies for America, not with demagogic caricatures.

The process of Derek's political development is also rather cheesy. His dad warned him about affirmative action so he became suspicious of Sweeney's liberalism, his dad gets murdered by a drug dealer so he becomes a Nazi, he goes to prison and meets a nice black bloke, sees the error of his ways and changes his mind. This is the sort of clunky emotional exposition that used to define the character arcs of guest stars in Little House on the Prairie. Similarly, the many intriguing moral and political issues are not demonstrated dramatically, but are explicitly discussed in a series of set pieces over dinner. This is a shame since most of the time writer David McKenna delivers a very controlled and well structured piece of work. He avoids a neat narrative line and moves comfortably backwards and forwards through time.

There is also a very sure sense of place, the Venice Beach locations lend the film an enigmatic feel. This is an environment which straddles race and class. Unlike the urban jungles of the industrial cities of the East, Venice has great natural beauty, the Pacific opens and closes the film. Yet man makes his own ugliness, the meanness of the human spirit is everywhere. There are very few American films which have so convincingly created such a dark nether world, otherwise ignored by mainstream media.

And yet, Hollywood sensibilities do permeate the picture. In the end all it takes for Derek to convince Danny of the error of his ways is for him to tell him about the nice black bloke in prison; a sequence that is both schematic and dramatically moribund. This sums up so much of what is frustrating about the film, it is skilfully made but has little flavour of original talent, it is brave but not brave enough to matter.

Well goodness me, this film is now an art movie. If you haven't got the patience for Pi - 'a study of...cabalistic mysticism' apparently - then rush along to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a study of cannibalistic mysticism, without the mysticism. If you can't face hours of watching French Children getting lost in the snow, prepare to watch American college kids being cut up with chainsaws and made into sausages. All right ! This is what films are actually for.

Well OK, but is it any good ? Unreservedly, yes. T.C.M. (as I'm sure we call it) lives in the same infamy as The Exorcist , both films are so bad for us that we shouldn't be permitted even to say their names out loud. Like The Exorcist however, most people will not have seen this picture because we're just not allowed. This correspondent remembers the film coming out in his native Limerick and all the hysterical hoo-ha in the papers. People were being carried out in fits, grown men were fainting, ladies were swooning. The implication was clear - see this film and you will become an evil, disturbed person and you'll probably go mad as well. Living in Limerick, the events portrayed in the film sounded rather common place to us, (a joke, don't write in) but be that as it may, I was too young and failed to see it. Seeing it now, one is blown away by the visual and aural invention. Large swathes of it look like an Art Film, the sound design is also smashing - a nervy collection of clicks and rustling cymbals. After a hilariously portentous narration, the title sequence consists of a series of arresting ruby images of the sun, followed by a shot of a dead aardvark, all very Wild Bunch. We then join the Scooby Doo like gang of youths in their Mystery Mobile on the way to oblivion. The acting is, of course, ropey, the quality of the stock ghastly and the dialogue often inaudible but this all adds to the creepy harshness of the atmosphere. One is, of course terribly familiar now with this scenario, but it is a relief to see an original version of the old machine, free of self-reference and irony.

One's first sight of the chainsaw wielding Leatherface is a wonderfully icy moment, but also one rich with association. It's like seeing Rhett Butler or George Bailey for the first time, icons in their proper place and time - eternally young. Of course Leatherface is not exactly like George Bailey, the Baileys didn't chop up Clarence the angel, eat him and make furniture out of his bones...but I'm getting off the point. What follows is still pretty damn scary, although not as grisly as we have been led to believe - it is the degradation of humanity that is really frightening. The comically absurd behaviour of the cannibal family could be straight out of the Theatre of Cruelty. In particular, the scene where they encourage their decrepit Grandfather to bash one of the victims over the head whilst they hold her over a bucket, would have done Antonin Artaud proud.

Of course all this was done on a minuscule budget and it is every bit as impressive in logistic terms as the contemporaneous work of Cassavetes, more so, because it was competing directly with other films in its genre made for ten times the amount. Of course like Romero before him, Hooper never really fitted in to Hollywood afterwards. He made one huge hit - Poltergeist - and then didn't really know what to do with himself. Since then, there's been the average Life Force and numerous misjudged failures. T.C.M. showed him in his natural milieu as a gorilla film maker. Forget The Tree of Wooden Clogs, rush out and see the tree with body parts tied to it, before 'they' take it away from us again.

Words that fill me with dread: 'A Joel Schumacher Film' obviously, 'A Romatic Comedy from London', equally horrid. Yet finally someone has got it right - not Joel Schumacher of course.

Peter Kane's salty comedy is something quite new, an unsentimental, contemporary La Ronde set in Camden Lock. His bone dry script is adorned by a magic cast, not least the indomitable Kathy Burke, who is surely now England's greatest treasure. There is a real courage here, no corners are cut and no easy, neat solutions are adopted. If we are a little disgusted by the smugness of the artsy characters it is more than compensated for by their terrible sadness. Very human, very witty and beamed in from a different galaxy from the one that Hugh Grant inhabits.

There is an inherent worthiness about serious biopics of artists of any sort; as if any criticism of them will identify you as a fool. There is also a proverbial problem that these pictures have in dealing with 'genius'. In general genius manifests itself as a sort of disorder. Here that disorder is both psychological and physical. DuPre was blessed with her ability and thus cursed with mental illness and M.S. The movie makers are spared the difficulty of dealing with the roots of her art, they simply point to the perceived price paid and that must serve as insight.

That said, this picture works well most of the time. I agree with those who have pointed out that the time scheme is unclear. I was amazed when, we were told it was 1987. I was convinced we were still in the era of bell bottoms and fondue, when Michael Fish (well known British Weatherman) turned up to plant us in the 1987 hurricane. Most credit goes to Rachel Griffiths, who deserves an Oscar - and just might get one.

There are many unbeatable things about this splendid film, but more than anything else there is the dialogue - dialogue as sharp as the suits and as bleak as the slate grey cinematography. Lancaster and Curtis have never been better and the American fim industry never produced a more enjoyably bitter film.