The other weekend we went to see a new movie called Half Nelson and tonight we rented the 1930 movie Der blaue Engel (Blue Angel). Half Nelson (directed by Ryan Fleck) used the tried and true film formula of an enthusiastic teacher/basketball coach (played by Ryan Gosling) struggling to make a difference in an inner city school. Along the way the teacher forms a close friendship with a troubled girl (played by Shareeka Epps). There’s one little twist… the teacher is secretly addicted to crack. The acting was great and the characters were incredibly dynamic. I found myself getting more emotionally involved than I’ve been with movie characters in long time. I would pull for the teacher, then he would do something horrible, and I would feel like he deserved to the bad things that were happening to him, then he would redeem himself, and the cycle would continue. Occasionally I missed riding one of the emotional tides and could see how some scenes might come off a little sappy, but I definitely think Half Nelson was the best portrait of drug addiction I’ve even seen in a movie. It made the glamorized roller coaster rides of Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream seem like campy comic books.
Fly from New York to Germany and rewind 76 years for this week’s movie: Blue Angel (directed by Josef von Sternberg). Christine and I have been on a film noir kick since we rented Chinatown a while back. We’ve watched some Bogart and Bladerunner, and I decided to dig for some really old stuff. Armed with Scott Wallace’s old copy of Understanding Movies and the Wikipedia Film Noir page. I found Blue Angel mentioned under “Noir Prehistory” as a high point of Weimar film. It was grim, super-old, black-and-white, German, and had Marlene Dietrich prancing around in skimpy outfits and a top hat. We had to check it out. Reel Video in Berkeley (of course) had multiple copies including a remastered double DVD with the original German dialogue and English subtitles (yes, we are total geeks). It turned out to be the story of straight-laced, older, prep school professor (played by Emil Jannings) who discovers that his students are obsessed with a Burlesque singer named Lola Lola (played by Marlene Dietrich). He attempts to catch the students watching Lola Lola at a night club called Blue Angel, but winds up falling in love with her and quickly begins spiraling from his distinguished post into a seedy life of brawling and booze. Just when you think he’s hit the bottom, he goes deeper, and deeper. The movie was captivating and highly theatrical, a stark contrast to the hyper-realism of Half Nelson. Both movies dealt with the concepts of respected teachers coming apart at the seams, but they each drove home completely different moral messages. I loved both of the movies and would recommend them to any hardcore movie fans. Of course Blue Angel gets a couple of bonus points because it has creepy clowns and it inspired Mel Brooks to create the character Lili Von Shtupp for Blazing Saddles.
