Al's Omniflick: Gone But Not Forgotten--Paolo Sorrentino's One Man Up (2001)

Friday, March 14, 2014

Gone But Not Forgotten--Paolo Sorrentino's One Man Up (2001)

The Great Beauty, winner of the Best Foreign Film in the 2014 Oscar race, wasn't director Paolo Sorrentino's first fascinating effort but only one of several in his career. Il Divo(2008) was critically acclaimed and was another collaboration with the excellent Toni Servillo; star of the Oscar winner. Years before, both director and actor teamed for Sorrentino's One Man Up ("L'uomo in più"), Sorrentino's affecting and engaging story of fame and its unforgiving, fickle nature.

Two men, both named Antonio Pisapia, lead parallel lives; one a successful and famous singer, the other a star soccer player in a premier league. The former leads a decadent lifestyle; inhaling cocaine habitually, clubbing frequently, and bedding women at every opportunity while the soccer player devotes his time and energy exclusively to his sport, often at the risk to his marriage and social life.

The soccer player demonstrates his burgeoning coaching prowess during a break in a game in which the team is playing poorly. Later he suffers a career-ending injury to his knee, forcing him to give up his one and only passion. He petitions the club for a coaching opportunity, which they promptly rebuff while his attempts to coach elsewhere are unsuccessful.

The other Antonio beds a young fan, unaware the woman is under-age. The fallout is catastrophic, for he becomes an untouchable in the gig-booking circuit. A sparsely-attended gig in a Neapolitan street leads to soul-searching and a re-assessment of his life and career.

Sorrentino draws terrific performances from his actors as their respective characters spiral downward, professionally and personally. Loss of fame and influence leads both men to divergent paths. Antonio the singer eventually tries his hand as a restauranteur; acknowledging his demise as a singer while Antonio the former soccer star is less resilient; obsessively clinging to a career he can't shape into coaching. Ths singer and soccer player eventually become aware of one another. The singer becomes sympathetic to the soccer player's misfortune while watching him on a TV talk show; empathy which leads to violent retribution--an act that ultimately earns him a jail sentence. The soccer player, at the end of his tether, sees no solution but suicide. Where one finds acceptance and resignation in his diminished existence the other cannot overcome single-minded devotion to his passion.

At the screening I attended recently, the audience was silently rapt. Sorrentino's films have that hypnotic quality; we are drawn into his world and leave it in some sort of blissful stupor. One Man Up was Sorrentino's fascinating debut; a gem that is sure to shine in a future retrospective.

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On DVD

Fury (1936)

Director: Fritz Lang

Though we might normally think of the films M and Metropolis when director Fritz Lang becomes the topic of conversation, less known is the legendary director's work in Hollywood. Having fled the ever-growing menace of Nazi Germany for America in the early 1930s', Lang eventually found himself under contract for MGM.

Though his work in Hollywood is very uneven, one standout is Fury, from 1936. Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney, the film's condemnation of mob justice seems spectacularly daring now, considering lynching was still a reality in Depression-era America. We don't see one black person in the film entire but we know precisely for whom Lang film is sympathetic.

Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is arrested in a small town while en route to meet his fiance, Katherine (Sylvia Sydney). Suspected of being part of a kidnapping of a little girl, Wilson is arrested on the flimsiest evidence. While he sits in cell; angry and indignant, Katherine is puzzled as to why her fiance hasn't arrived at their prearranged meeting place.

But Wilson's fortunes take a darker and more dangerous turn when a mob--already on edge--is roused to anger. Egging one another on, the mob moves on the jailhouse where Wilson is being held. As the angry gathering becomes a mass, drawing citizens of the town into their swelling numbers, a lynch-mob begins to form. The sheriff, determined to see due process take its course, refuses their forceful demands. Becoming angrier and angrier and bolder and bolder, the crowd storms the jail, overwhelming the sheriff and his deputies. Unable to unlock the cell doors to reach Wilson, the mob sets the jailhouse ablaze as an alternate method of lynching.

Katherine, having arrived on the scene, faints when she sees flames engulf the cell where her fiance is held.

In spite of the mob acting as a faceless entity, its principle members are brought to trial though the town and the defendants maintain a conspiracy of silence, hoping to escape convictions and censure.

A sure acquittal seems imminent until damning evidence assures their guilt. When the majority of the members receive death sentences, Wilson turns up at his brothers, having survived the fire. Knowing the public is unaware of his survival, he vows to stay in hiding to ensure the mob conspirators are executed.

The scene where Katherine, nearly insane from grief, comes face to face with Joe is a powerful moment in the film. As she slowly recovers from her state, she realizes Joe's vindictive determination to see the mob hang is in itself a great injustice.

The story climaxes during a stirring courtroom scene that brings the fascinating story to a close.

I would have never expected Hollywood to make a statement as powerful as Fury made in 1936. Given the fact that lynchings in America at the time went unpunished, the movie railed bravely, in spite of the main character being white rather than black, against what was then the status quo. The Oxbow Incident would make a similar and commensurately powerful statement seven years later.

The film's willingness to peer into the darker side of American life could be partly attributed to Lang, who co-wrote the story and who was no stranger to exploring the darker side of humanity. Having seen evil flower in his home country, it makes sense Lang would choose to tell this story.

Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney give wonderful, emotionally layered performances. Katherine's near descent into madness is depicted touchingly by Sydney. To see Tracy's mild-mannered Wilson become angry and vengeful is heartbreaking.

Even watching Lang's film on a small screen does little to diminish its power. Weeks after the viewing, I still can't shake its indelible images or its angry indictment of one of America's great crimes. One couldn't devise a better title than one it was given eighty years ago. Fury indeed.