Alfred Hitchcock is the gentleman prefers blonde. The unforgettable Jim Novak in Vertigo, the always charming Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, while Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest in is a more mysterious type of blonde. When she meets Cary Grant, she says she is an industrial designer. Neither Cary Grant nor I believe her saying, yet we find no way not to follow her story. She is a too irresistible liar.
For me, North by Northwest does not have the finest story among other Hitchcock’s film. The story seems go too fast and straightforward at the later part. It’s the same feeling while I watched The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. However, the scene at the highway bus stop is surely a highlight in cinema history. Waiting for a car and coming a jet; yearning for an answer and coming a death.
At that desperate crossroad, Cary Grant needs to know who really is George Kaplan and at that moment everyone thinks Cary Grant is Kaplan himself. He gets the information and waits at the barren crossroad. He waits so long and only few cars passing by. Finally, a car coming from a field and drops off a person. They look at each other across the highway. It’s Cary Grant to move the first step and asking whether “Your Name isn’t Kaplan?” “Can’t say it is, cause it ain’t.” What an irony and a desperate crossroad.
"He takes Kung Fu as his responsibility and his mission."
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (少林三十六房)
Director: Liu Chia-liang (劉家良)
Main Cast: Liu Chia-hui (劉家輝)
Year: 1978
I watched Hong Kong Film Awards this year on TV. Liu Chia-liang, the legendary Kung Fu Star and also the fourth generation of Wong Fei Hung’s (黃飛鴻) Kung Fu, had a very emotional and unpolished speech while receiving the Life Achievement Award. He says what he got after his father’s sudden death is Kung Fu. From very young, he takes Kung Fu as his responsibility and his mission. I admire for his speech so I want to know more about him, that’s why I watch The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.
My impression towards Liu Chia-liang is a very old-fashioned man. But The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is a very progressive film. “Chamber” means different teaching school, and the first chamber is a canteen. There is a floating wood on the water. To reach the canteen, you need to go through by a step on the floating wood. This chamber has the most detailed description among other chambers being shown such as arm, leg, fist, sight, knife and staff etc. Floating wood on the water is a transitional area reaching the world of Kung Fu. As a film audience, we are also a student at that moment to learn the thinking in Kung Fu’s world.
Liu Chia-liang even challenges the traditional teacher-and-student relationship. Originally, ShaolinTemple only has 35 chambers. What Liu Chia-liang means for 36th chamber is to teach Kung Fu outside ShaolinTemple. It is what his responsibility and mission through his whole life. And he really did that through his movies. An old-fashioned man did a very progressive thing.
Different film masters have their ways to tribute to their inspiration. We see how Wong Kar Wai wears his sunglass for Godard, Woody takes joke on Fellini, Geogre Lucas “samurai-nise” Star War for Akira Kurosawa. Liu Chia-liang also has his own way to tribute. While Liu Chia-hui becomes the fastest student in history passing through all the 35 chambers. He needs to win one of his masters for final graduation, but he repeatedly failed. He practiced again in a bamboo forest. His blade accidentally cut into the stem of bamboo. The bamboo does not fall immediately but has a folding in where it is cut. Liu Chia-hui cuts again and there is another folding. He is inspired and invents a new weapon for his next challenges, and he wins. The new weapon is three-section cudgel, in Chinese 三節棍, the weapon most usually found on the hands of Bruce Lee. It is the most humble and sincere tribute scene I’ve watched in cinema.
"All people die or survive in a way that no one can understand. It’s really a curse."
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Director: Steven Spielberg
Main Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman
Year: 1981
Indiana Jones is an archeologist fighting better than Jackie Chan, as he not only uses fists, but whip and gun. And I found Harrison Ford’s performance is combining egoism and surrealism. No matter how risky the situation is, Harrison Ford doesn’t even try to act to be scared. His performance always reminds me that Indiana Jones is a fictionalized character and let’s check it out what Harrison Ford is going to be. Oh yeah! He fooled the guards again, or he found an unbelievable way out in a room with plenty of snakes that enough to fill a whole lake.
However, I admit the ending is interesting. All people die or survive in a way that no one can understand. It’s really a curse. And Indiana Jones did not see what happens. Finally something scares him. And I’m relieved.
"Love at first glance is not enough, he loves every glance about him."
Death in Venice
Director: Luchino Visconti
Main Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Romolo Valli, Bjorn Andresen
Year: 1971
There is a huge crowd sitting and waiting for a dinner. Someone plays music so the atmosphere is moody and relaxed. A lonely traveler is attracted by a young teenager. While the dinner is ready, music finishes, everyone moves except the lonely traveler. He just sits there and cherishes the unique distance with that teenager. This scene can happen at extravagant bars in modern stylish cities like Tokyo or Hong Kong, but Luchino Visconti convinces me more suitable place is the hotel in Venice, with dressing in nice suit, Mahler’s music and a view as in a Renaissance painting.
The film starts while Dirk Bogarde takes a gondola to Lido. He is totally not interested the beauty of Venice at all. He doesn’t even have a look to the surroundings, though he got a view of a beach at his hotel room. Since he met the teenager, namely Tadzio, he suffers more as Tadzio is so inaccessible and strange. He decides to leave. However, his trunk gets to the wrong train, he feels so relieved that he has an excuse to stay, and he finally enjoys the view of Venice, has a rather relax moment on the beach and still can’t get his eyes off that teenager. Love at first glance is not enough, he loves every glance about him.
Venice is carnivalesque, Thomas Mann and Visconti masked this city by death. Death in Venice is a film deadly obsessed. Obsessed to beauty, and obsessed to what is getting lost. “In all the world, there is no impurity so impure as old age.” That’s why we get obsessed with the beauty of the mask in Venice.
