Maybe because the first time I saw The Front I was learning about the Hollywood Blacklist that made this movie intriguing to me. It was nice to have a face put to the history that Victor Navasky was writing about in "Naming Names", and somehow, to a novice film scholar, the presence of Woody Allen made the film credible. (I recently saw Stardust Memories for the first time, so, you know, that credibility factor is chucked out the window.) But I remember being moved by two scenes back in 1998 or 1999, the year I first saw The Front, and those were Zero Mostel's suicide scene and the final shot when Allen's character socks it to the Un-American Committee with some curt cuss words. But this time around, that last scene in particular didn't pack the same punch. It sounded plain improbable that his character would say such a thing to them, a) because in the 1950s when those hearings were taking place he'd have been arrested for it, or more likely, b) would have cooperated with the Committee to save his career. The moment felt dated, and almost a little embarrassing to see Allen (practically playing himself, as always) loose his cool. In retrospect, the thing that saves this movie, at least in historical terms, is that it was written, directed, and cast almost entirely by formerly Blacklisted artists. Think of it as a catharsis for those Hollywood artists to finally have their voice back, more than twenty years after they'd been silenced.
Friday, April 13, 2007
The Front - 1976 - VHS
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Maybe because the first time I saw The Front I was learning about the Hollywood Blacklist that made this movie intriguing to me. It was nice to have a face put to the history that Victor Navasky was writing about in "Naming Names", and somehow, to a novice film scholar, the presence of Woody Allen made the film credible. (I recently saw Stardust Memories for the first time, so, you know, that credibility factor is chucked out the window.) But I remember being moved by two scenes back in 1998 or 1999, the year I first saw The Front, and those were Zero Mostel's suicide scene and the final shot when Allen's character socks it to the Un-American Committee with some curt cuss words. But this time around, that last scene in particular didn't pack the same punch. It sounded plain improbable that his character would say such a thing to them, a) because in the 1950s when those hearings were taking place he'd have been arrested for it, or more likely, b) would have cooperated with the Committee to save his career. The moment felt dated, and almost a little embarrassing to see Allen (practically playing himself, as always) loose his cool. In retrospect, the thing that saves this movie, at least in historical terms, is that it was written, directed, and cast almost entirely by formerly Blacklisted artists. Think of it as a catharsis for those Hollywood artists to finally have their voice back, more than twenty years after they'd been silenced.
Maybe because the first time I saw The Front I was learning about the Hollywood Blacklist that made this movie intriguing to me. It was nice to have a face put to the history that Victor Navasky was writing about in "Naming Names", and somehow, to a novice film scholar, the presence of Woody Allen made the film credible. (I recently saw Stardust Memories for the first time, so, you know, that credibility factor is chucked out the window.) But I remember being moved by two scenes back in 1998 or 1999, the year I first saw The Front, and those were Zero Mostel's suicide scene and the final shot when Allen's character socks it to the Un-American Committee with some curt cuss words. But this time around, that last scene in particular didn't pack the same punch. It sounded plain improbable that his character would say such a thing to them, a) because in the 1950s when those hearings were taking place he'd have been arrested for it, or more likely, b) would have cooperated with the Committee to save his career. The moment felt dated, and almost a little embarrassing to see Allen (practically playing himself, as always) loose his cool. In retrospect, the thing that saves this movie, at least in historical terms, is that it was written, directed, and cast almost entirely by formerly Blacklisted artists. Think of it as a catharsis for those Hollywood artists to finally have their voice back, more than twenty years after they'd been silenced.
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