10m10d - Derek Edition

10m10d, or 10 movies 10 decades, is a fun challenge I gave myself to try to watch at least 10 new films over the span of a single month, each from a separate decade. It felt like a fun way to challenge myself to see new and different films.

I wanted to start off 2023 by having a theme to the month and I ran a small online poll in the community for film lovers I hang out at, appropriately named Laserdisc Party. The four options were films looking at New York City over the decade; all black and white films; films based off of the favorite films of Laserdisc Party’s admin, Derek; or a themeless “dealer’s choice” of films kind of pulled out of a hat of my watchlist.

Derek Edition won and I was happy for it as I appreciate his taste in movies (why I picked him as a theme to begin with). As a warning, this is gonna be pretty long because it is essentially ten mini film reviews rolled into one long blob of text.

First up was the 2007 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, directed by Andrew Dominik. Like anyone else with an iota of knowledge on Americana was familiar with Jesse James but wasn’t familiar with Robert Ford aside from what the title informed me – he was the man that killed Jesse James and that he was a coward. It’s a fascinating title because it locks their relationship into the mind of the viewer from minute one, which is apropos as it’s the defining relationship of the film. Ford wants to be a great criminal and has idolized James since childhood. The film is interspersed with narrations from, supposedly, the book this is based off of and it gives the story a feeling of fate: it’s all already happened, written in the pages of history. It makes the viewer ask if it was fat
ed to be, as if Robert Ford was a bullet with Jesse James’ name on it, fueled by his desire to eclipse him in greatness.

Next up was the 1967 Point Blank directed by John Boorman. Like the 1999 film, Payback, this is based off the novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake, but unlike the latter film which treads very closely to the source material, Point Blank takes an interesting approach to the story telling. Starring Lee Marvin, it has a hard boiled noir character for a hard boiled noir story but the film itself is painted with the brush of the art house of the day where certain moments have metaphorical exaggeration or a thematic emphasis. It has a dance within it of style and substance that I really enjoyed.

I guess now is as good a time as any to bring up both my thought on the style v substance debate in film as well as Derek’s. Now for those of you that are too busy enjoying a film to argue over such squabbles, that’s fine (and I may envy you) but similar debates can be seen in almost every artform. Hell, I’ve seen a similar one in board game design. Substance can be summed up as the meaty bits of the film – the plot itself – while style is the tone, visuals, and less visceral. Derek has gone as to far to say “style is substance,” a hot take to those in the know, but a take I took to heart and allowed me to really enjoy directors like Mario Bava and flicks like Michael Mann’s much maligned 1983 The Keep - but that’s story for another time. The big thing to keep in mind is that in the style v substance debate sometimes Derek just smiles when asked to find the difference, looks at the camera, and says “they’re the same picture.” And I love that.

Which takes us to Panos Cosmatos’ 2010 breakout film, Beyond the Black Rainbow. Someone who is a substance-first viewer (like I used to be) would watch this film and might get infuriated (as I did with my initial viewing of his 2018 film, Mandy). On the other hand, someone who is style-first would watch Beyond the Black Rainbow laughing to themselves “Yes… ha ha ha… YES!” over and over again. It is an absolutely bonkers ride that runs a gamut visually t
hat I don’t think I’m over it yet.

Now I need to get to the film I had worries over – Captain Ahab: the Dave Stieb Story, a recent documentary series by Jon Bois released last year. It was difficult to find a film in the 2020s that Derek held in esteem that I hadn’t seen yet. The only two real options was this or The History of the Seattle Mariners, another documentary series by Jon Bois. I’m not one for sports, sports documentaries, or sports documentaries with a runtime of almost four hours, yet here I was with limited options. I flipped a coin and landed with Dave Stieb over the Mariners. 

The documentary advertises itself as the “almost unbelievable story of the man who put the Toronto Blue Jays on the map,” and boy howdy does it deliver. Stieb is a phenomenal pitcher that gives it his all in a fight to be the best. The title, Captain Ahab, refers to his hunt for greatness – be it through recognition in the Hall of Fame or the history books with a no-hitter. He pushed himself in unbelievable ways and what makes this film remarkable is the power to tell the story that Jon Bois, along with Alex Rubenstein, do through only visuals that are akin to a Powerpoint Presentation. Oddly enough, if anything is the absolute definition of substance over style, it’s this very film. But I found myself falling in love with it much like Derek had, though while I had no history with the sport I don’t think Derek can say the same. 

I caught bits and pieces of that documentary series over the next few days and jumped into William Friedkin’s 1977 film, Sorcerer, a remake of the 1953, The Wages of Fear. An incredibly atmospheric, tense, and nihilistic ride through the Amazon. I can’t e
ven do justice to the dark tone this film emanates. 

I followed this up with Brian De Palma’s 1981 Blow Out to just keep riding the “tense film” train. Both of these films deliver hard on a good story that has a great style to them. The tone of both just happen to be “oh god where are the brakes?” I would never really recommend someone watch these two back to back without getting sign off from their cardiologist first.

And that brings us to American Movie, another documentary, this one by Chris Smith from 1999. When once given the prompt for what film do you resonate with on a spiritual level, this was the film Derek pulled out of his pocket so it was actually the first film I built the original list around. American Movie follows the life of independent filmmaker, Mark Borchardt, over two years trying to create a film. In a monomaniacal fashion, Mark needs to finish this film – everything else be damned. We watch as it strains (and sometimes severs) relationships with friends and family as he drives forward at his swing for greatness. Personally, I’ve been in Mark’s shoes one too many times and this was an uncomfortable watch for me – in the best of ways.

That takes us to The Night of the Hunter from 1955. It is a classic film, nowadays celebrated as one of the greatest films of all time. When it was released, though, it bombed. Charles Laughton, who was an established actor and writer and wanted to try his hand at directing, was so disheartened by how poorly it was panned that he never directed again. There is indisputably some greatness in this film and I honestly think one of the biggest tragedies in cinematic history is that it’s Laughton’s one and only film. Laughton pulled heavily from German Expressionism in The Night of the Hunter and showing that everything is somehow connected, the next film on Derek’s docket was Fritz Lang’s immortal 1927 epic, Metropolis.

I had dipped my toe in other silent films, even silent classics with Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoleon the month before. Still, Metropolis is a classic for a reason. It’s got silly politics but I won't gain anything for throwing stones at a German for having silly politics in the 1920s, so I’ll skip that altogether to talk about the art deco future of it all. It felt like every film that featured giant commuter driven cities of the future all copied heavily off of Fritz Lang’s homework. Just as Lang modeled the larger buildings after megastructures of antiquity (such as the Tower of Babel), Ridley Scott would make the massive buildings of Blade Runner after pyramids and ziggurats. I’m certain I don’t need to point out the influences George Lucas would pull from here, but the one that surprised me was the finale fight over the church which actually made me think of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman of all things. If you made a Jon Bois level chart to show what films by year had overt influences from Metropolis, it would be an interesting towering landscape much like the city itself. (This actually sounds like a fun project to do at some point.)

Finally, as if to underscore an unintentional theme of the dangers of pursuing greatness, the last film was The Red Shoes from 1948, directed by Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell. In beautiful Technicolor madness, The Red Shoes follows Vicky Page just trying to be the best dancer ever. That’s all. With a fictional opera about Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the Red Shoes, where the tragic woman who wears them dances until she dies, the shoes never tired of dancing, so does Vicky learn that her drive to be the best is insatiable.

So where does that leave us? Is there a clean message to walk away from with these handful of films? What can one scry from the cinematic tea leaves about Derek’s taste on film? Like all things, you can look at the data and look for a clean story but nothing is ever truly clean-cut, something I definitely learned from Jon Bois. That doesn’t mean there isn’t still a story to tell.

For one, there is definitely a love of visually stunning films. There are outliers, sure. Neither documentary (American Movie or Captain Ahab) are going to scratch the style over substance itch. Of the other eight, however, the visual tone is used deftly with the film, be it a bright, terrifying red with The Red Shoes or Beyond the Black Rainbow or a subtle but gorgeous silver with The Night of the Hunter or Metropolis. Even the grittier films, Sorcerer and Blow Out, are done so with heavy intent. And Point Blank is a marriage of grit and glammer like two contrasting colored perfumes mix like water and oil as they drain down a sink together.

On the substance side, there is definitely an underlying theme on the dangers of pushing for greatness. While Robert Ford was on an unwavering path to greatness that made him one of the most despised men in America; Vicky Page had to choose between her love of dancing and the man she loved, only for her shoes to pick for her; on a lesser level, these themes can also be seen with Metropolis (political greatness), The Night of the Hunter (financial greatness), and Beyond the Black Rainbow (spiritual greatness) but those mostly feel like stretches. It’s on Captain Ahab and American Movie that this theme was cemented for me, though. On one hand you have Mark trying to make a film out of his living room, ignoring the bills for just one more month. On the other hand you have Dave carrying the 1980s Blue Jays on his right shoulder.

Both have their own paths to greatness laid before them. They can see the path even if no one else can. Both suffer hardships because of that commitment to those paths. Both can be seen as cautionary tales. But I don’t see them that way. And I bet Derek doesn’t either.