Every month, Establishing Shot brings you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series reflects the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema and demonstrates the eclectic tastes of the bloggers. Each contributor has picked one film that they saw this month that they couldn’t wait to share with others. Keep reading to find out what discoveries these cinephiles have made, as well as some of the old friends they’ve revisited.
Jesse Pasternack, contributor | Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
One of my favorite things about Los Angeles is the New Beverly Cinema. It is currently owned by Quentin Tarantino and shows everything in beautiful 35mm or, on occasion, 16mm. The programming is top-notch as well as eclectic, and they’re well known for their genre screenings (personally I’ll never forget when they showed the obscure Hong Kong horror comedy Return of the Demon [1987], which isn’t available on home video in this country). But the New Bev, as its regulars affectionately call it, just as frequently shows classics of international cinema as well as older American films in black and white. It’s thanks to their exceptional taste in film that I recently saw for the first time Gold Diggers of 1933, which is both a brilliant musical and a subtly touching portrait of making art in difficult times.
Gold Diggers of 1933 is about a group of four young actresses — Polly (Ruby Keeler), Trixie (Aline MacMahon), Carol (Joan Blondell), and Fay (Ginger Rogers) — trying to find success and love despite the Great Depression. They all get cast in a show produced by Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks), which has music written by Brad Roberts (Dick Powell), a talented songwriter who is in love with Polly. Roberts also finances the show and refuses to act in it despite his excellence as a performer. This being a musical, his secret eventually comes out, romantic complications ensue, and everything gets resolved by the end before a big musical number.
It is that musical number as well as several others for which this movie is chiefly remembered. Busby Berkeley directed the musical sequences, making good use of his signature overhead shots — which still have their full visual power despite decades of parodies — and eye for clever choreography. There is such great beauty in numbers like “Waltz of the Shadows” (which has fantastic costume design too) and “We’re in the Money” (sung delightfully by Rogers) that I never wanted them to end.
But while this film has a lot of exuberant musical numbers, as well as frothy plotting straight out of a Shakespearean romantic comedy, it is also grounded in the realities of the Great Depression, which was still happening when this movie was shot. It begins with a stage show getting shut down because of it, and there are frequent references to how bad things are economically. Hopkins longs to produce a show that will reflect this new reality, and the scene where he reacts ecstatically to Roberts first playing him the music he wrote inspired by people who have lost their livelihoods because of the Great Depression (which will become the song “Remember My Forgotten Man”) is thrilling. The final musical number sees that song brought to life with fascinating sets influenced by German Expressionism and choreography which finds Berkeley using his eye for creating geometric beauty to more serious ends. But though the story of the “Forgotten Man,” brought to life as a type of cinematic silent ballet, is tragic, the number around it is not. It would have been easy to end the film with a comedic number — the last one was almost the much lighter “Pettin’ in the Park” — but there is something thrilling about the fact that it ends with this one. Hopkins, Roberts, and the four main young women had all been affected negatively by the Great Depression. To see them all come together and succeed at making art about it is moving. You have a feeling that the audience in the movie that is watching it will never forget it, and you probably won’t either. Gold Diggers of 1933 retains its full power to delight and inspire.
The perfectly choreographed musical numbers, sharp humor, and unexpectedly powerful portrait of people using art to deal with a time of national darkness are as wonderful today as they were when this movie first came out 91 years ago. Whether you see it on the big screen like I did or on your computer, you’ll have a great experience. Though if you’re ever in Los Angeles, and they’re showing it again, you should try to watch this movie at the New Bev. It’s a wonderful theater that is a true landmark of cinema.
Noni Ford, contributor | Shiva Baby (2020)
An ex-girlfriend, a sea of family and friends who are gossiping amongst each other between every micro-conversation and right after you turn away from them, a mother pushing as hard as possible to put up appearances, and a current sugar-baby client all in one house. We follow Danielle as she finds herself in this dizzying situation, trying to preserve the lies she’s telling every party, all while a shiva is taking place. Very few movies made me feel as anxious as this one. As we see our main character get put in the hot seat, trying to deftly navigate her image as the girl who is definitely graduating soon, I can see the absolute panic in her eyes by the end of nearly every scene. One of the repeated jokes throughout the film is what her exact major is, and as each person takes a crack at it and repeatedly somehow gets it wrong, we empathize with her frustration as she tries to deliver a polished image of someone who has her life together. As with any film where there’s lots of personal subterfuge going on, though, her mask beginz to crack and we’re left to watch as she scrambles in this increasingly humid house to keep her cool.
This was a film I’d heard a lot about but hadn’t seen until this year. Rachel Sennott, the main star of the film, has been in multiple projects since this film premiered. Most notably appearing in The Idol, Bodies Bodies Bodies (screened at IU Cinema in 2022 as part of our Friday Night Frights series), and Bottoms, she’s mostly leaned into comedy, but this film proves she has dramatic chops too. Even as we see Danielle fumble as she goes from one uncomfortable social situation to another, Sennott communicates her inner turmoil at being stuck in her life. Yes, she’s a sugar baby as a side hustle, and yes, she is lingering at school for longer than many of her peers, but more than that it seems like she doesn’t really know what’s next. Nearly everyone she interacts with asks her how the degree is coming along, and while she’s quick to deliver appropriate responses she never really tells anyone truly what she’s passionate about. Danielle has gotten herself into this conundrum, but it’s not entirely her fault. She must contend with not only what her parents want for her but what her community expects of her all while having the comparison bias stuck in her head of others, like her ex, who are on acceptable pathways in life. As she’s trying to produce a perfect image for all these disparate individuals at the shiva, she’s also trying to find herself at the bottom of all of this.
I’d recommend Shiva Baby for anyone about to go into a scary life transition point who needs a movie about the apprehension and growing pains that come with it.
Chris Forrester, contributor | Mahjong (1996)
As part of a new retrospective of the late master’s work, I finally caught Edward Yang’s penultimate film, Mahjong (1996), via the retrospective’s encore screenings at the Gene Siskel Film Center. That’s worth noting because it felt extra special to see such a special film by such a special filmmaker and know that there exists such appetite for his films that a third round of screenings could be added after an initial two sold out. My screening, late on a wet and frigid Saturday night, did not sell out, but was nonetheless alive with a feeling of collective wonderment at this previously difficult-to-see gem from one of international cinema’s great voices in a kind of soulful, yearning drama.
Better known of Yang’s films are A Brighter Summer Day (1991) and Yi Yi (2000), a pair of masterworks of the towering variety where it feels maybe possible to name other films as good but certainly not to find any better, and though lesser known, Mahjong is no small achievement. Here, the director slips into a more comedic register laced with his usual sense of wistful melancholy by way of the story of a boy and his friends who become entangled in a web of antics — some farcical, some dramatic, some criminal — when a pair of hoods try to track him down over his father’s debts. What ensues is, of course, riotously funny but also achingly poignant in its observations of an entire network of people looking for meaning in the problems they’ve inherited and created, made all the more moving by a perfect sense of tonal balance. It’s also one of the filmmaker’s best-looking films, alive with the masterful sense for color and composition that, to me, defines his later work (and peaks with his next film, Yi Yi).
Note: while a trailer for the movie couldn’t be found, you can see clips of Mahjong in this trailer for Film at Lincoln Center’s Yang retrospective.
Michaela Owens, Editor | What Happens Later (2023)
Meg Ryan is a national treasure. She is also someone whose career has been wildly overshadowed by her matchless work in romantic comedies, Ryan herself pointing out in interviews that they only make up a small part of her filmography. I’ll confess I’m one of those people who often has blinders on to Ryan’s other films, but it’s hard not to when you know just how sublime she is as a rom-com lead. When I heard that she was going to co-write and direct herself opposite David Duchovny, one of our most underrated romantic leading men (Return to Me forever!), in a rom-com of her own, I was ecstatic. Who else would better understand the magic of the genre?
A two-hander set at a snowed-in airport, ex-lovers Willa (Ryan) and Bill (Duchovny) find themselves stuck together as they wait for the bad weather to clear before they can reach their destinations. As they banter and bicker, painful memories, surprising truths, and the spark they first felt all those years ago come to the forefront, all while a magical realism settles over the airport to consistently bring the couple back to each other over the course of the night. Filled with fantastic dialogue, Ryan and Duchovny’s superb performances, and quite a few lovely shots that will make any rom-com devotee swoon (I’m a sucker for the image of snow falling, particularly in the movies, and Meg Ryan apparently knew it), What Happens Later is a complete delight that I can’t believe no one is talking about.
Maybe I have stars in my eyes because of the actors here, but this film felt like a throwback in the best possible way: slightly cheesy, beautifully earnest, thoughtfully written, and sweetly romantic. Long may the queen of rom-coms reign!