Author Archive: Peter Jakobsen
The Deer Hunter
(Dir. Michael Cimino) (1978) How war tears a small, close-knit community to shreds. Beer-drinking buddies from a steel town in Pennsylvanian hinterland, totally committed to going off to fight in Vietnam, all black-and-white in a world of grey, find themselves traumatised, humiliated, chewed-up and spat out, coming home completely changed and with a darker world-view. Cimino’s best (one might say, only decent) film is a remarkable, potent effort, one tending to galvanise heated reactions in the viewer. There have been objections to its length. Certainly, the initial wedding ceremony and celebrations are long but whilst The Varnished Culture generally much…
Continue Reading →Ace in the Hole
"There's three of us buried here."
Politics love disaster: ‘”Ace in the Hole” aka “The Big Carnival” directed by Billy Wilder, with a great star turn by Kirk Douglas, could just be the best cynical disaster film ever made. [UPDATE: With a general federal election now called in Australia for 2 July 2016, the Beaconsfield Mine collapse has appeared as part of the opposition’s political campaign. Ten years ago (Autumn 2006) Brant Webb and Todd Russell left the pit, triumphantly clocking-off, after spending a fortnight trapped underground. There had been an earthquake and the tunnels didn’t hold. 14 other miners escaped early on; of the three…
Continue Reading →1984
"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness."
(by George Orwell) [films by Michael Anderson (1956) and Michael Radford (1984)] “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Thus does George Orwell dare start his last book with the dreaded weather line (cf. Bulwer Lytton), yet it works brilliantly. All of this Miltonian tract works brilliantly. It does because George was a certified seer, a genius. As Anthony Burgess wrote of 1984: “a mere novel, an artefact meant primarily for diversion, has been scaring the pants off us all. It is possible to say that the ghastly future Orwell foretold has not come about simply because…
Continue Reading →Stars in the Drug Show
Who can tell the honest score When no-one knows or can be sure That the ball in the net / an incomplete pass Or the bungled catch / upon the grass Weren’t planned? Should you work the mobile phone, With your team well in the zone Where Olympic pride / the bikes they ride Head for the lowlands, on a peptide Of flasks, all banned? We’re all ‘stars in the drug show’ now, We made it happen – we showed them how By greasing on our couches, betting And buying all they sold us, letting Them jab their engorged hand.
Continue Reading →All the President’s Men
(Dir. Alan J Pakula) (1976) Paranoia sometimes reflects the truth. The White House was obviously paranoid about everyone; the FBI was paranoid about the White House, and Carl Bernstein was paranoid about the New York Times. Lots of shoe leather gets worn out in this film and lots of dead ends and bum steers and waiting in dark parking stations finally pay off for Woodward & Bernstein of the Washington Post, in the scoop of the century. Redford, Hoffman, Robards, et al are superb and whilst the facts get a bit lost in the shuffle,…
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