Authorship as Art Cinema in Ingmar Bergman's Persona

There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartes was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed—master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the Cathedral of Chartes. 

—Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman

In this commentary on his own film, The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman would have us believe that film stands on its own as a work of art, as if somehow any pretension of "art cinema" can be washed away by the simple analogy between a concrete and abstract work of art—that any ideas of authorship are irrelevant because, somehow, the artist is not solely responsible for his work.

In a way, Bergman is right, as the auteur theory has allowed some filmmakers the right to produce painfully self-absorbed work with little social purview, and others to never move outside a rut of established convention. Instead, most art cinema exists in between these extremities; the director is obviously important to the films he produces, but in order for the work to have social value, it must not be limited to individual reflection. Perhaps in art cinema, more than any other genre, the films strike a balance between social value of new modes of filmmaking and the significance of an auteur's canon.

That isn't to say there are no establishments within art cinema. The model is more abstract than—and in many ways runs counter to—the modes of classical production, but there remain certain tendencies in art cinema which indicate, while these films may not be necessarily formulaic, they also do not exist on such an abstract, independent plane.

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Spinout (1966, Norman Taurog)

Spinout is so chaotic that it almost works.  Though not conventionally screwball, the film takes pieces from the existing Elvis formula and throws them at a wall.  It's a loud (but not obnoxious), frantic (but not quite kinetic) mashup of a Presley picture which isn't quite a compliment, but I'll take it.

To put things into perspective a bit, 1966 saw a few important things in the history of rock and roll.  Those things included Pet Sounds and Revolver.  While some might attribute the success and popularity of those two pieces to innovative song craft and the propulsion of the "album" as a unified piece of art, some marketers in the Presley camp thought perhaps it was due to a bunch of goofy guys being in a band instead of just one singer.  I mean, I like "God Only Knows" as much as the next guy too, but it's hard to beat the "you stepped on my french fries!" hamburger camaraderie of five guys goofing around with the tape rolling in the Beach Boys' "Bull Session with 'Big Daddy'", right?  Right?

So, like Girl Happy, Elvis's Mike McCoy is a frontman to a band of forgettable minors as opposed to a one-man show.  But that's not all, Viva Las Vegas was a success too, so Elvis can also race cars in this one.  And, heck, the more girls the better, so we'll have three girls vying for Elvis's hand in marriage instead of the usual two.

Only, I'm not convinced that this riffing of the typical Elvis formula isn't somewhat tongue-in-cheek.  And a few of the characters on the sideline really sell it, not the least of which is played by the spunky Deborah Walley (no stranger to bikini, Hawaiian or racecar pictures herself).  Walley's character, Les, is the jealous girl-next-door drummer in Mike's band.  Obvious to everyone but Mike, Les nearly outbursts when Mike's attention is drawn to wealthy sophisticate Cynthia (Shelley Fabares) or when he starts becoming the subject of bookworm Diana St. Clair's (Diane McBain) next piece, The Perfect American Male.

The introductions of Cynthia and Diana are ludicrous as to do the screwball genre proud: one has her father offer the band $5000 to play her birthday party, the other hunts Mike down in the woods to study him for her book.  Mike has no problem kissing and telling, but unlike any Elvis we've seen before, he plays remarkably hard to get.  Elvis refuses to be tied down so, in opposition Blue Hawaii and Viva Las Vegas, Spinout doesn't end in a wedding.  It ends in three.

Elvis walks away from the altar, marrying off all his suitors to better fits (more perfect American males?).  As such, there is are nearly too many characters in this movie but they are adequately acted and the lack of one-man-show structure is a benefit to the narrative.  While it's obviously no Palm Beach Story, it's a pleasant and unoffensive tryst along the same lines.  It's an Elvis movie that bucks trend, and is owed some credit for it.  Believe it or not, Elvis doesn't even get in a brawl in this one.

Like any movie where Elvis drives a convertible, there is a large amount of green-screen.  However, Taurog's treatment of it for dialogue rather than travelogue makes it forgivable and relatively unnoticeable.  Furthermore, the choreography of some one-off light gags (like the band setting up camp) is a testament to Taurog's circumspection if not outright sophistication.  It is also proof that, in the hands of a veteran filmmaker (as opposed to television director), an Elvis movie can have a tight budget and studio lighting without looking cheap.  The songs aren't particularly memorable, but they also don't stand out like a sore thumb when they come out of nowhere.  Here, they never take away from the narrative and, for a change, we're anxious to get back to it.

Spinout doesn't go out of its way to make Elvis a deity or even a particularly likable character (one particularly uncouth song has Elvis singing that he loves his women like a "Smorgasbord").  The film is shaken up with so much commotion, Elvis is allowed to portray the main character without having to constantly be the central focus.  While not every attempt at humor pays off, the scattershot hits enough to make it worthwhile.  Spinout is perhaps the least Elvisy movie he made up to this point, and it is stronger because of it. -- **/four stars


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Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966, Michael D. Moore)

Though failing to be Elvis's worst picture based solely on the fact that it is too inane to be offensive on a deeper, crueler front, Paradise, Hawaiian Style does have the distinct qualification of being the film in which Elvis looks the worst, the production looks the worst and the songs are the worst.

It wouldn't be the only time that Elvis's weight would be an issue.  A year later, he had ballooned up before the production of Clambake, history citing depression as the reason.  Depression, so it is said, from plateauing out in the musical-comedy doldrums and seeing his career waste away.  In an awkward shirtless scene, Elvis drapes a towel over himself before exiting the frame to put his shirt back on.  We instead dwell on the bikinis because half the eye-candy equation clearly isn't living up to its end of the bargain.  But depression or not, I can't blame the guy after watching this movie.

Paradise, Hawaiian Style is an attempted return to the elements that made Blue Hawaii a success, general and specific: plenty of tropical locations, flowers and bikinis, Elvis's character leading girls around the island as a tour guide and getting into unsolicited hi-jinks and sings local color songs with cheeky children.  Only Elvis clearly isn't having it.

This is the first film directed by veteran second-unit director Michael D. Moore.  He worked as assistant director on six earlier Elvis films and must have been familiar with the quickie formula.  He shows no eye for making the inane interesting (though, to be fair, you only have so many options shooting inside a two-seated helicopter).  The film is even more of a travelogue than Blue Hawaii, but for a movie shot largely on location in Hawaii, the narrative decision to have Elvis in the air so much of the time limits what can be done with the cinematography.  We are often handed aerial photography and green-screen situations (funicular, helicopters) with for no narrative purpose other than to show a lush, moving landscape while Elvis just has to stand there.

Elvis plays helicopter pilot Rick Richards (even the writers coming up with character names got bored with this one) who comes home to Hawaii after a two-year absence and is surprised by the number of children his buddy Danny (James Shigeta) has had since he left.  The two start a charter helicopter business on the island despite Rick's irresponsible tendencies with women and otherwise.  And though Rick nearly destroys Danny's home and livelihood, there's not real sense of culpability.  Elvis as womanizer gets tougher to buy as these movies progress, not only because he is out of shape, but because the women don't age.  He's clearly dialing it in.

As did the songwriters, as we are forced to hear a particularly abrasive duet between Elvis and 10-year-old Donna Butterworth about adults acting silly on dates ("Datin'").  The relationship between Rick and Jan (Butterworth) is a little disconcerting as the two share the most numbers together, including on opening number in which Elvis is singing about (Jan's) "Queenie Wahine's Papaya". 

The film's idea of laughs is cramming dogs in Presley's lap while he pilots the chopper.  The film's idea of resolution is having a woman fall for him, though fully aware of his playing every other female in the movie.  We know all is forgiven because he performs his closing number alongside dozens of natives, clapping off-beat on top of a giant drum.  No one stood much of a chance with this one, and even the sidekick children are annoying.  It's another piece in which chance works everything out and waxes over any stakes.  Paradise, Hawaiian Style is the nadir of Presley's inane musical-comedies.  It provides nothing of interest and isn't even offensive enough to be unforgettable.  It just sits there, stagnant and fermenting. -- ½* / four stars


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Frankie and Johnny (1966, Frederick De Cordova)

Frankie and Johnny is a strange transition film for Presley that isn't quite adult, but isn't quite teenage.  It also isn't quite good and isn't quite bad, though that is of no correlation to the above statement.  Elvis plays Johnny and Donna Douglas plays Frankie, two lovers and musical performers aboard a Mississippi steamship.
 
The film is based on the 1904 folk song about a woman, Frankie, who caught her husband in bed with another woman (versions by 1912 name this woman as Nellie Bly) and shoots her Johnny dead.  Perhaps not your typical Elvis fare, the song is the strange cornerstone for a narrative which had to be changed drastically for the film's demographic.  The song (narrative intact) is the centerpiece of musical theater in the film, but the narrative choices are interesting.

For one, the characters are actually named Frankie and Johnny, and there is no indication that the song existed in the film's popular culture before it was performed on their steamship.  Stranger yet, when the character Nellie Bly (Nancy Kovack) enters the picture, she is inserted into the musical number lyrically (Elvis's Johnny naming names).  The song becomes a story-within-a-story and presented such that the characters have no knowledge of it.  Further, the film is something of a Victorian period piece (c.1880?) which has its characters existing before the folk song, anachronistic as jazz is prevalent shortly after the Civil War, and Elvis looking none too comfortable dressed in three-piece suits (and same, modern haircut).  The whole picture is a little uncomfortable with itself: the costumes in the musical numbers appear "more" Victorian than the characters everyday dress, all nitpicking a little unfounded for a film as lighthearted as this.  But perhaps its lighthearted nature is its vice.

Johnny is a performer, but it seems secondary to his primary occupation of gambling.  He is a highly superstitious individual who is also deeply in debt.  He visits a fortune teller who informs him that a red-headed woman will enter his life and bring him luck.  Enter Nellie Bly, the never-steady girlfriend of Johnny's unfaithful boss, Clint Braden.  When Johnny finally scores a win at the roulette table, he attributes it to red-headed Nellie.  Frankie grows jealous, the girls concoct a case of mistaken identity, Johnny gets shot, but like Demi Moore's The Scarlet Letter, everybody wins.

Again, any abject behavior of Elvis's character is dismissed by comparison of other minor male characters.  Sure, Johnny kisses (who he thinks is) Nellie, but it is Braden who is the real philanderer.  Yeah, gambling is a vice, but if he weren't so superstitious, he'd be dead!  The moral of the story appears to be loyalty, though its means to that end don't look too optimistic.

Frankie and Johnny is a narrative that could have operated on several layers of depth.  Instead, its lighthearted nature strips the film of any consequence.  No one changes: gambling, drunkenness, infidelity, attempting to kill somebody all go unpunished and the moral of the story is Frankie telling Johnny, "I want you any way you are."  Nellie follows this lead and marries Braden as well.  We're not even sure why this story is being told other than to kill 87 minutes on a lark.  Frankie and Johnny is inconsequential at best and, true to its conflicting nature, leaves you with something of a sour taste in its sweet ending. -- *½ / four stars


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