Boxcar Bertha - 1972 - Film

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Boxcar Bertha (1972) is one of Scorsese's films that I have heard about since I began studying movies nearly ten years ago; it's one that I've always meant to see, but always put off, but lucky for me, it was screening on 35mm at The Gene Siskel Film Center as part of an "Essential Scorsese" retrospective this past weekend. Well worth the wait to see it on 35mm, if you ask me. The Film Center is a bright, clean venue that looks much like the Angelika theater in Manhattan replete with an espresso bar and gourmet snacks. But who needs snacks when Scorsese's rolling?

I anticipated undeveloped direction from Scorsese, but there was swiftness to the characters' actions, their dialogue, and the general pacing of the story that impressed me with an agility that most directors don't have until they are in more mature years. The picture is tinted with the fast camera movements Scorsese still uses, and continues to master. The story balances gruesome detail with humor from characters you trust are real. There are images in long shot highlighted with simple costumes, bare-bone set designs, and soft natural lighting that illuminates his characters' love-making, fighting, death, and laughing with nuance, with a tender care and sincerity. Like everything Scorsese does, this film was made in earnest where he is struggling to articulate the simple feelings his characters have when they're embroiled in conflict. He delicately shows us a character's history in relation to setting and environment.

The main character, Bertha (Barbara Hershey), is introduced with the simultaneous action of her father's death and the love-at-first-sight meeting with her sweetheart, Bill (David Carradine), and moves immediately into her future alone as she meanders the country. Because Bertha has no family or money, and barely the shoes on her feet there is no pride lost as she encounters people who treat her as an inferior. The mounds of diamonds and jewelry she steals from them and drapes around herself, make her look like a kid playing dress-up. The film is sharp with characters' expressions and actions, a pleasant surprise indeed after years of waiting to see it.