Nightfall (1956)

Director: Jacques Tourneur

Cast: Aldo Ray, Brian Keith, Anne Bancroft, Jocelyn Brando

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Just another entry at Noir Nights. With me having cut the chord to Turner Classic Movies—this is the only opportunity I have to regularly be surprised by a movie, just because it is on*.

Did I Like It: Well, I can think an issue I have with that title. Noir lives in the night, so a noir film calling itself Nightfall is kind of like a science fiction film calling itself Space Ship. That alone might pose a problem, but very little of this film takes place at night! The climax not only takes place amidst the daytime, but out among the icy campgrounds of Wyoming, shining light that makes the proceedings anything but noir-ish.

But it is that bright white snowiness that actually recommends the film, if I can find my way clear of wanting the Columbia PR department to change the title**. With it’s frozen lake climax amidst a snow plow gone mad, one can easily see where the Coen Brothers got their inspiration for the grislier parts of <Fargo (1996)>. It’s sort of a revelation to realize the wood chipper in that later film is actually the far more subtle version of the chopping up of pesky criminals, when compared with the snow plow finding the inspiration to change direction half a dozen times before the essentially good guy (Ray) triumphs over the perfect bastard (Rudy Bond). Even so, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the ending, for all of its contrivance.

Without that ending, the film would have been just another pleasantly diverting, indistinguishable from the rest of the genre, noir picture. Now, at least, we’ll always have that snow plow.

*Yeah. I’m surprised, too, by how many of my reviews naturally drift to a eulogy for TCM. Maybe I need to bring that up in therapy…

**You can change the title of a novel adaptation if it no longer fits. You do know that, right, 1950s Columbia PR department?

The Elephant Man (1980)

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, Freddie Jones

Have I Seen it Before: I think so? It would have to have been long enough ago that I spent most of my time watching it not remembering large swaths of what I was seeing.

Did I Like It: It may be a controversial opinion, but I tend to think that Lynch is at his best when he’s a little pinned in by the constraints of commercial filmmaking*. Eraserhead (1977) is—is admittedly intentionally—sort of hard to watch and love. The Straight Story (1999) is probably his best movie**.

So it is here that things are the best of all possible worlds, where Lynch is forced to make a movie a wide audience might see, but is allowed to indulge his instincts a little bit, as a treat. When I’m talking about Lynch’s instincts, I’m not even referring to the makeup job that transformed John Hurt*** into John Merrick. That’s the part that tries to relate to the audience on their own terms. The entire film is an empathy sandwich, real human emotions nestled in between two thin amounts of absurdism****. Where Eraserhead’s symphony of absurdism is directed toward discomfort, The Elephant Man is aimed towards our compassion.

And it works.

The weirdness comes in only at the beginning and the end, where we are treated to an abstract view of Merrick’s conception (I think; we are dealing with Lynch here) and his death. But even that last part is life-affirming.

*You and I both are immediately thinking of a notable exception in Dune (1984), but what is a hot take without an obvious, glaring exception?

**At this point, I should probably just launch a “hot takes about the career of David Lynch” blog, no?

***Completely off topic, but could you imagine what it would have been like if Hopkins had played the War Doctor? The things my mind will drift towards…

****Maybe it’s more of an emotional panini?