Mary Astor, the lady in the plumed hat: an appreciation.

I recently watched the 1939 comedy "Midnight" which was co-written by Billy Wilder, who must have been a pretty young man at the time. It was the first time I'd seen Mary Astor outside of "The Maltese Falcon", which was made/released in 1941. Astor's character in 'Midnight' is equally amazingly dressed in the fashion of the era. What you particularly notice is the hat. Someone tries to rib her about her hat at the card table and she lets them know it's THEIR taste problem, not hers. Based on just these two films I'd say Astor was

a very good actress but what I really like about her is she so encapsulates a particular style of woman of the Modernist era. The clothes and hats are important to her character, they are almost like a suit of armour. They are attractive, in one way, but formidable. They seem to say ' I have gravitas, I'm possibly available, but I'm not to be trifled with'. Her appearance, looking almost like an exotic black-plumed bird, presages the first appearances of Faye Dunaway in "Chinatown" (hat and veil) and even Sean Young (the same tailoring and padded shoulders) in "Blade Runner". Her whole demeanour suggests high society haughtiness and yet something underneath that is vulnerable or thrill-seeking: or as Bogart told her in "The Maltese Falcon", "You're not exactly the person you pretend to be, are you?" Perhaps John Huston saw 'Midnight' before casting her in "The Maltese Falcon". A few Noir critics I've read seemed to have been disparaging about her looks and even her age at the time of "The Maltese Falcon" but I think they miss the point of her attraction. Lana Turner is your prototype blonde bombshell, but Astor has something else-- intrigue and mystery. Anyway, she's a bit of an underrated figure in discussions of Noir actresses. (Pictures: Mary Astor in "Midnight" with Frances Lederer)

"Tokyo Story", directed by Yasujiro Ozu, Japan, 1953. I had the pleasure of watching Ozu's "Tokyo Story" again recently with friends. What really makes this film for me is the honest simplicity of the performances, which can seem almost flat to audiences used to the highly mobile or expressive acting of Hollywood. In this regard I was really most impressed by Chieko Higashiyama, who played the mother in the film. In an American version (God forbid) she'd be played by an actress like Shirley Maclaine or the late Anne Bancroft, and she'd be fascinating, but what you'd be watching is a dynamic Hollywood star at work, not an ordinary mother. Similarly, Setsuko Hara as her widowed daughter-in-law is a study in quiet desperation and altruism, and when you watch her eyes you understand why she spends the film smiling until it hurts. This film is remarkable if only for the way that it's unrepeatable, and though I met some after the screening (at the Fabrica art gallery in Brighton) who admitted boredom, I hope others found that after their initial boredom, they discovered in the film a human truth in the very ordinariness of the characters;

a truth that most other films are not poised or committed enough to portray (Pictured: Cheiko Higashiyama and Setsuko Hara as mother and daughter-in-law respectively in "Tokyo Story")

Introducing the Exulting Octopus

The title of this blog is taken from a haiku (or 'hokku') by the 17th century Japanese poet Basho. It reads: Settled in trap-pots/Octopuses may be exulting/In their ecstasy of a single night/Under the moon of summer (Bahso, "The Narrow Road to the Far North and Other Travel Sketches", Penguin Classics 1966, p.89) Not only is it beautiful but it appeals to my sense of fatality and how in a way we are all trying to exult in the ecstasy of a single night under the moon of summer, before our time's up.

I take cinema and literature seriously and I've never been able to give up the idea that it holds the secrets of how to live in the world, face adversity and treat others. I've written a lot about film on Facebook, including a couple of groups I set up on Film Noir and Indie films of the 1990s (not that I think this was a peak decade, you understand) and friends whom I respect suggested I start a blog about it. So this will be about film, about personal and instinctive interpretation of films (for academic style analysis, look elsewhere), with some reference also to literature. The Octopus is also perhaps symbolic of my wide and tenebrous interests in these art forms. I'm not sure who is going to be interested in this but I'm doing it on the basis that it might help me to develop some of those half-formed ideas running around in my noggin. I'll keep the Japanese theme here by speaking about the Ozu film "Tokyo Story" (1953).