I Wake Up Streaming | August 2023
Movies
In this edition of “I Wake Up Streaming,” novelist William Boyle rounds up his top streaming picks for the month of August. The column’s name is a play on the 1941 film I Wake Up Screaming, starring Betty Grable, Victor Mature, and Carole Landis. While the film’s title hits a pleasing note of terror and despair, changing that one letter speaks to the joy of discovering new films and rediscovering old favorites, as well as the panic that comes with being overwhelmed by options.
A Question of Silence (Tubi)
I just finished a revelatory first-time viewing of Marleen Gorris’s debut feature, A Question of Silence, from 1982. I read about it in passing and was glad to find that it’s available on Tubi. As soon as it was over, I ordered the just-released Blu-ray from Cult Epics. I saw Gorris’s fourth feature, Antonia’s Line, back when it was released in 1995—I remember liking it, but now I need to go through her whole filmography. A Question of Silence tells the story of three women, three strangers—Christine (Edda Barends), Andrea (Henriëtte Tol), and Annie (Nelly Frijda)—who band together to murder a male shopkeeper. The main character, however, is Janine (Cox Habbema), the criminal psychiatrist assigned to evaluate them in the wake of the crime. It’s a complex and haunting movie, one that’s structurally ambitious and uses silence effectively. Janine talks to these women about their lives—one is a secretary, one a waitress, one a housewife—and comes to understand how they arrived at this breaking point. It’s a deeply feminist film, but its main themes and points are allowed to boil under the surface. It’s also a stylized film—the heady synth score butts up against the subject matter in interesting ways. It’s full of provocative sequences and conversations. Gorris’s second feature, Broken Mirrors from 1984, will be released on Blu-ray by Cult Epics in mid-August—I can’t wait to pick it up.
Last Exit to Brooklyn (Prime Video)
I’ve been wanting to rewatch this for a while, but it’s been difficult to find. I was shocked to see it pop up on Prime Video. I saw it first when I was very young, way too young, probably about twelve or thirteen, and it fucked me up in some major ways. It also made me want to read Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel, which I did by the time I was in high school—it became (and remains) one of my favorite books. My other main takeaway when I was a kid was that Jennifer Jason Leigh was incredible—I’d seen her in a few things before, but this was the movie that set me down the path of becoming a Leigh fanatic (see my May column for more on that). Her performance here as Tralala, a sex worker who can’t escape the evils of the neighborhood, is brave, fearless, all those words that get tossed around but are rarely so true. But she’s only one figure in a sprawling cast of on-the-ropes characters whose lives are interconnected—all of it set against the backdrop of a heated union strike. I’d forgotten how good the rest of the cast is too—Burt Young, Stephen Lang, Alexis Arquette, Jerry Orbach, Camille Saviola, Jason Andrews, Peter Dobson, young Sam Rockwell, Ricki Lake, Mark Boone Junior, Frank Vincent in a small role, even Stephen Baldwin. It’s a tragic story, and it’s damn hard to watch in parts, especially the brutal and heartbreaking sequence involving Leigh at the end. It’s beautifully directed by Uli Edel and beautifully shot by Stefan Czapsky—the portrait of decaying waterfront Brooklyn in the early 1950s is evocative and claustrophobic. As an adaptation of a brilliant, seemingly unadaptable book, it’s underrated. If you’ve never seen it, catch it while you can but be prepared for a tough viewing experience.
Traveling Light (Prime Video)
Bernard Rose is a fascinating filmmaker. He made an incredible (and varied) run of films in the late 1980s and all through the 1990s, including some favorites of mine: Paperhouse, Candyman, Immortal Beloved, and ivansxtc. I haven’t kept up with everything he’s done since then, but I’m always interested in his choices. I’ve wanted to see Traveling Light since it was released last year, and it was yet another movie that popped up on Prime Video recently without fanfare. It won’t make any of those “new to streaming” columns that rage like wildfire at the beginning of each month. It’s a small film inspired by Luis Buñuel, shot without a script in May 2020 and set in Los Angeles on May 30th of that month—the tension surrounding the virus and lockdown, the news of George Floyd’s murder on the radio, LA at a boiling point, protests breaking out everywhere. The great Tony Todd plays Caddy, an Uber and delivery driver searching for his missing son, who he believes is living in one of the city’s many encampments. He drives several people to a house on Mulholland Drive, where a deranged cult leader played by the always-electric Danny Huston is holding a bizarre ceremony. Among the attendees is Stephen Dorff’s Todd, a recently sober celebrity tennis star and coach who has been urged to drink a mind-altering “elixir.” It’s a dark and strange movie, one that certainly won’t be for everyone, but I found myself drawn in and moved, surprised, shaken. It’s got a lot to say about the divide between the haves and the have-nots, this gathering of wealthy searchers contrasted sharply with the plight of the unhomed in this time of immense crisis. I highly recommend checking out Walter Chaw’s interview with Rose about the movie (and many other things).
Quick Millions (Criterion Channel)
A great little pre-Code gangster picture that’s part of the Criterion Channel’s Roland Brown’s 1930s Underworld collection. I primarily know Brown’s work as the screenwriter of Angels with Dirty Faces, Kansas City Confidential, and What Price Hollywood. Quick Millions is one of the few films he wrote and directed (Hell’s Highway is also featured as part of the collection, as is The Devil Is a Sissy, which he wrote and partially directed before being replaced by W.S. Van Dyke). Brown had a notorious reputation—underworld ties, communist ties, an ex-prizefighter who once punched a producer, a rabid boozehound, a series of consequential walkouts from directing gigs—which all led to his being essentially blackballed. Quick Millions stars Spencer Tracy as Bugs, a truck driver turned racketeer and gangster. It’s snappy, quick (sixty-nine minutes), and tough. There are three extraordinary sequences: a holdup at a big dinner, all smoke and shadows, where one gangster responds to a man hiding a ring in his mouth by saying “Spit diamonds”; a hit filmed from under a table; and the whole gas station scene near the end, especially the camera movements. I can imagine that it might have had an influence on some elements of Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables and the Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing.
William Boyle is the author of the novels Gravesend, The Lonely Witness, A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, City of Margins, and Shoot the Moonlight Out. His novella Everything Is Broken was published in Southwest Review Volume 104, numbers 1–4. His website is williammichaelboyle.com.
Illustration: Jess Rotter
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