A Movie Nearly Every Night: It's a triple feature!

8 1/2 (1963)
Dir. Federico Fellini
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo

Ice Station Zebra (1968)
Dir. John Sturges
Starring: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan, Jim Brown

Don (1978)
Dir. Chandra Barot
Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman, Pran

Ques es mas macho?

The weekend started Friday with a media night featureof 8 1/2 and the man movie theme just seemed to carry over naturally thanks to Turner Classic Movies and Netflix. As I've already admitted on the post about The Dirty Dozen, I like boy movies, mostly for the boys, but also because there's a comfortable security in films about men bonding as brothers to take down Nazis, invading Arab troops, gangsters, etc... This doesn't mean that I let go entirely of my feminist mindset. Movies like The Departed still leave me angry and frustrated with their treatment of female characters in film ---- take out the psychiatrist in The Departed and you'd still have a coherent movie, but take out the cell phones ... well ...

Guido's medicinal spa sighting of Claudia Cardinale

With that in mind, I'm a fan of Fellini because he tells you up front where women rate in his films. Some say he treats women like objects, but what's nice about this movie (and others) is that it states plainly how important that object is to guys like Guido/Fellini. Women have influenced everything Guido has done and it's sweet how open this movie is about that -- yes, even as it skirts a little too close to misogynist territory when the older women are banished to the upstairs. But this idea, starting a revolt at first and until it's eventually accepted by Guido's dream harem, also carries over to the male characters. Look at the poor set designer who has a hell of a time making the spaceship and cries about how he's too old to do it anymore. Everyone is facing age and death and loneliness and in the end they join hands and circle around their inevitable end together. That's really sweet.

(not so) secret agent,"Mr. Jones" in his man fur
(thanks to Retro Daddy on opensalon.com for the photo)

Alistair MacLean on the other hand dispenses with women altogether and leaves out the messy feminist anger. It's boy movie all the way with marines in a sub and cold war espionage on the ice. And Patrick McGoohan is always a treat with his scowling growl -- does he ever play a happy man? The men wear the fur coats (and thank God or you wouldn't be able to tell them apart when they're covered: McGoohan wears brown, Rock Hudson wears blue, etc...) and have somewhat charged emotional moments (like girls). But, God! when the sub is going down under the ice ... dude ... I almost had to leave the room. I can't imagine being in a submarine at all let alone one trapped under ice and sinking. I'd cry and wet my pants.

Not your little sister's Don

Don is a whole other boy picture entirely. The cousin/roommate remarked how it starts off like a Beastie Boys video (wild, wacky graphics of car chases in crazy orange and yellow negative fabulousness) and then slows a bit and then picks up and then gets silly, but it's entertaining throughout and the female lead, Roma, knows judo and kicks just as much a** as the boys do. Say what you want about male dominance in the east, but I've seen more equality in a Bollywood picture than I have in an equal number of western-made films. Women aren't tied into that "journalist out for a story" or "single mom hooker" character-stamp that we have here, and the men sing just as many goofy songs as the women do. And, unlike the women who look good all the time, Amitabh has to try and pull off being a tough gangster while wearing a bow tie. Try that Tom Cruise. Anyway, this is far superior to the 2006 Shah Rukh Khan remake, which has its moments (and Shah Rukh) and updates the songs and makes some interesting plot changes, but I'll take 1970's Hindustani funk soundtrack over modern electronica any day of the week.