SONG FOR MARION

SONG FOR MARION
Written and Directed by Paul Andrew Williams
Starring Terence Stamp, Gemma Arterton and Vanessa Redgrave

Arthur: You know how I feel about enjoying things.

From the very moment SONG FOR MARION begins, you know exactly where it is going to end and every single stop it’s going to make along the way. Writer/Director, Paul Andrew Williams, constructs his script about one older man’s acceptance of his wife’s passing, with every cliche you can possibly imagine. Fortunately for him though, he has two brilliant, veteran actors, Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave, doing their absolute best to transform his familiar scenario into something real. They may not be enough to make the film itself memorable but they do save it from being entirely forgettable.

Stamp plays Arthur, a crank of a man, who begrudgingly brings his cancer-ridden wife, Marion (Redgrave) to and from her glee club practices. He is the type of man who shuts himself off from the entire world, except for her. Only she knows who he is behind his stern exterior. Redgrave is exceptional. She clings to the little life she has left with every ounce of strength in her and at times, she sounds as if she will not make it to the end of her sentence. When she passes, Arthur must move on and Stamp carries Redgrave’s torch as gallantly as he can. He just isn’t given as much of substance to do with it.

Arthur never liked Marion’s glee club but in order for him to find the joy in his life without Marion, and in order to keep her memory alive as long as possible, he must find his singing voice. He also has a troubled relationship with his only son and helps the choir teacher (Gemma Arterton) with her love life when he isn’t busy grieving or practicing his lyrics. By the time Arthur actually gets to the part where he must sing a SONG FOR MARION, everything is in a very calculated place for a full emotional release. Seeing that moment coming a mile away though certainly takes away from its impact but Stamp himself, still moved me to tears.

Alternate Best Actor 1965: Results

5. Michael Caine in The Ipcress File- Caine uses his unique screen presence and on screen marvelously here to make Harry Palmer a down to earth, and very likable hero.

4. Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago-This really is not the usual performance for an epic, but Sharif makes the most of his character and successfully carries the film.

3. Lee Van Cleef in For A Few Dollars More-  It is a performance of quiet simplicity, and in this simplicity is where the incredible strength of this performance lies.

2. Sean Connery in The Hill- This is an excellent showcase of Connery's talent as he not only utilizes his more commonly found command of the screen, but as well effectively shows us that he is fully capable of creating an emotionally resonate character portrait.

1. Terence Stamp in The Collector-This is a great performance by Stamp as both a humane portrait of a lonely man, but at the same time a convincing portrayal of a man who seems to prefer the dead over the living. This is again an incredible year, and again Stamp wins for now but Connery, Steiger, and Burton are not far behind.

Overall Rank:

1. Terence Stamp in The Collector
2. Richard Burton in The Spy Who Came in From The Cold
3. Rod Steiger in The Pawnbroker
4. Sean Connery in The Hill
5. Lee Van Cleef in For A Few Dollars More
6. Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago
7. Oskar Werner in Ship of Fools
8. Michael Caine in The Ipcress File
9. Frank Sinatra in Von Ryan's Express
10. Laurence Olivier in Othello
11. James Stewart in The Flight of the Phoenix
12. Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou
13. Clint Eastwood in For A Few Dollars More
14. Sean Connery in Thunderball
15. Frank Finlay in Othello
16. Jason Robards in A Thousand Clowns

Next Year: 2011

Alternate Best Actor 1965: Terence Stamp in The Collector

Terence Stamp did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Freddie Clegg in The Collector.

The Collector is a brilliant film about a man who kidnaps a woman and brings her to his secluded and spacious home.

Terence Stamp did not receive an Oscar nomination despite the fact the film did receive a best director nomination as well as a nomination for Samantha Eggar as Miranda Grey the woman whom Stamp's character kidnaps. Stamp though found himself not nominated despite winning Cannes for Best actor. Stamp may have felled victim to the fact that he portrayed a villain although to be fair they were never completely opposed to all kinds of villains, but perhaps this was one of the kinds they did not feel like they could support. Also even though Stamp had been nominated before for Billy Budd he has been nominated in the supporting category for a lead performance, and the academy may have been reluctant to nominate the young Stamp for a leading performance.

Stamp portrays Freddie Clegg a young man who has won a great deal of money suddenly and chooses to use it to buy a secluded estate. He is a lonely man without friends who decided to use his estate that includes a underground living space to kidnap a woman. He decides to kidnap Miranda despite hesitations, but his intents are not the usual for a kidnapper. He has no desires for random, nor does he desire sexual favors, nor does he want to hurt her in anyway, all he wants her for really is company. Freddie is a very different sort of captor to be sure, as the holding her captive is the only thing Freddie does that is wrong. Stamp therefore does not portray Freddie as many may have portrayed him.

Firstly Stamp really never tries to be actively villainous in the role, and early on he tries to be likable. Stamp of course shows absolutely no real charm here, as Freddie has not idea how to be a charming man, but in his first scene with Eggar Stamp actually makes Freddie in a way sympathetic. It is a particularly difficult act of making such a man at all sympathetic but Stamp manages to meet the challenge. Freddie first tells Miranda of his purpose for bringing her to his place, and that he in fact loves her, and has loved her for quite some time. Stamp is amazing here because he shows that this obsession of Freddie's is entirely genuine, and that his claims of no ill will are entirely truthful.

Stamp actually is almost heart breaking in his portrayal of Freddie because he never tries to make him seem at all evil. He makes him a sad lonely person who is not a psychopath but rather he shows that his shyness has created this sort of mental disturbance in him that has brought him to kidnap this woman. Stamp is interesting because even in the presence of her he shows that Freddie's shyness is still overwhelming. His body language is always withdrawn, and he always conveys the difficultly that it takes just for Freddie to look at her in the eye and say something. When he says that he loves her, Stamp creates a struggle within Freddie just to get those words out.

Of course the most important aspect of the film is the relationship between the two and how their dynamic changes through time. While Eggar's Miranda at first shows excitement over Freddie's agreement to let her go after a limited amount of time in captivity, Stamp though portrays Freddie as very much reluctant to really try to connect with Miranda as his shyness really is overwhelming. Stamp shows that he desperately wants Miranda to be the one to connect with him, as he really is unable to connect with him. Stamp in fact makes Freddie so distant that at times he almost seems like a butler to her, even though he happens to be the hone holding her captive.

Now although Stamp does not portray Freddie ever in an obvious fashion, and because of that he is truly chilling when Freddie's refusal to let her leave does come out. There are moments early on in between when he is trying to be the most pleasant man he can be when he does show the mental disturbance of the man that is quite horrifying. Stamp does it so casually that it is especially disconcerting because it will come out right along with just a pleasantry. Stamp in these moments though is precise showing that Freddie has it all extremely well planned out, and as well shows a more frightening side to Freddie because Stamp makes Freddie's self assurance something to be feared.

Although certain in his abilities regarding keeping her in his home, what is equally off putting about him though is the uncertainty he portrays regarding his relationship with Eggar. Stamp is simply amazing in showing the jumble of emotions that Freddie feels in a completely coherent way, as he desperately attempts to connect with but he can't do so with more than words. Even when he asks her to marry her, Stamp portrays it as a desperate plea to find some sort of remedy for his loneliness. Stamp though is incredible because the statement of Freddie he actually ends with is that Freddie does not know what he wants.

In many scenes Miranda tries to persuade Freddie that he could get along with her even outside of this world that he has created for them, but he insists that he would never be able to. It is a sharp desperate self doubt that he holds as a constant, Stamp shows that Freddie himself is pained because he knows that he can never be normal. Freddie contradicts himself, but Stamp makes it work as Freddie never can interact with humans the way he really would like, and one scene in particular Stamp powerfully shows this strange dichotomy.

In one moment after rendering Miranda unconscious Freddie clutches Miranda in a joy of love, which Stamp portrays as Freddie at his happiest finally having what he wants. Soon afterward though Miranda in a desperate act to satiate Freddie offers herself to him. Stamp is chilling as he shows Freddie cruel rejection of her, as her living embrace can never meet the joy he felt in her unconscious one. Stamp is simply stunning in the role because of how perfectly he realizes the insanity behind Freddie's desires. He never has Freddie find what he is looking for leaving him in the state of an uncertain emotional need, but never an understanding. Miranda in the end is apparently not what he wanted after all, and Stamp leaves a exceedingly memorable impression with the simple revelation that Freddie learns nothing at all from his relationship with her. This is a great performance by Stamp as both a humane portrait of a lonely man, but at the same time a convincing portrayal of a man who seems to prefer the dead over the living.

Alternate Best Actor 1965

And the Nominees Were Not:

Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago

Lee Van Cleef in For A Few Dollars More

Terence Stamp in The Collector

Sean Connery in The Hill

Michael Caine in The Ipcress File

Get Smart

“Get Smart” is a movie constantly at odds with itself. It wants to be both a big action movie and a comedy, but neither part is particularly satisfying.

The main problem is the portrayal of Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86 (Steve Carell). An analyst at CONTROL, a CIA rival, he’s promoted to field agent and sent out on a mission, partnered with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway).

In some scenes he’s a total incompetent, with Smart played for laughs, while in the next he’s out Bonding Bond.

I can understand the makers of the film wanting to make the character their own, different from Don Adams’ masterful portrayal from the vintage TV show. However the film’s tone constantly fluctuates from scene to scene, which makes for frustrating viewing.

The comedy portions are wildly uneven. There’s a hilarious sequence set in an airplane lavatory where Smart tries to escape his bound hands by shooting the ropes with a dart gun, impaling himself in the process. Funny stuff and very inventive.

But for every scene like that, there’s a dud of a scene that sits like a lead weight. Missed opportunities abound such as Smart trying to avoid laser beam sensors. For all his talent, Carell is not enough of a physical comedian to pull it off. How much funnier it would have been to have him contort his body in all sorts of spectacularly silly ways to prevent his body from touching the sensors.

The same holds true during a dance scene with an obese woman. There’s a lot of footage devoted to it, so it’s obviously meant to be a highlight, but the scene just sits there. There was barely a giggle during the fairly well attended audience I saw it with.

Back to that airplane scene. Smart accidentally ejects himself into free fall minus a parachute, and it’s up to Agent 99 to skydive after him to rescue him. A giant goon of an assassin follows them and the three engage in a freefall fight through the atmosphere. Gee, I liked it a lot better when I saw it in “Moonraker” (1979). Even the camera angles are the same. Homage or creative laziness? I opt for the latter.

The film’s climax hinges at a concert attended by the President (James Caan), where a nuclear device planted at concert hall is set to explode at the end of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Let’s see, an international incident ready to occur in a concert hall to the final chords of a large-scale choral work? Wasn’t that the climax of both versions of Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much?”

So in addition to riffing off famous lines from the “Get Smart” TV show, we get ripoffs of older, better movies. (Though to be fair, “Moonraker” is easily the worst 007 movie to date.)

Speaking of music, the film’s score is another snorer from “composer” Trevor Rabin, a man with the dramatic sensibilities of a snow pea. His chase music is so routine and uninspired you wonder why he even bothered.

For years, the tradition in thrillers with a musical setting was to have the film’s composer play an on-screen role as the conductor. So film music fans had an extra bonus seeing Bernard Herrmann, Lalo Schifrin or John Barry on-screen.

Instead for “Get Smart” we have actor Jerry Sherman playing the conductor, and he’s an odd choice. An old man with chicken-like body, he’s funny looking, thereby giving the impression classical music is boring and old. Of course we get the obligatory scene of the President falling asleep at the concert. Never mind that he’s hearing one of the most monumental musical masterworks of all time, we have to condescend to the audience and show someone falling asleep. (I can guarantee there wouldn’t be such a scene if it took place at a jazz or rock concert.)

The cast is good. No improvements there. Terence Stamp plays the villain Siegfried and he’s great. What a marvelous voice he has. God, how I miss actors with distinctive voices in movies. More Terence Stamp next time please.

I’ve always liked Dwayne Johnson (former pro wrestler The Rock) who exudes screen charisma that most actors can only dream of possessing. He’s also terrific and he participates in what for me is the film’s funniest bit, involving a stapler.

The cone of silence bit is well updated from the TV show and that scene provides some genuine laughs as well. But it’s a sad sign in contemporary film comedy that a two hour movie can only generate three or four big laughs. For a comedy spy melodrama, I think I’ll stick with the glorious “Top Secret!” (1984). Now there’s an example of how to stage a riotously funny dance sequence.

Rating for “Get Smart”: Two and a half stars.