Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures – Joe Jordan
When you think of directors from Hollywood’s golden age, the first ones that come to mind are the likes of John Ford, Billy Wilder or Alfred Hitchcock. Each of them memorable for a distinctive visual style and helped to develop the medium of film that we know today. Amongst those bigger names we have lesser-known directors who may not leave their unique stamp on a film they still delivered entertaining films, some more memorable and even very successful. Robert Wise is one of those, directing Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) or West Side Story (1961) he has left his mark on cinema forever.
“Bob didn’t try to put a style or a stamp on the movies that he directed. He just made each movie the way it simply needed to be made.” – George Chakris interviewed by Joe Jordan
Becoming a real favourite of author Joe Jordan’s Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures has written an in-depth career study of the directors work looking at all his directing credits in detail. He doesn’t claim to be a critic in his writing on the films he has extensively explored. What Jordan does in explore them all in detail, pulling away at certain strands of the film to explore how they make the film work. Exploring the ideas behind each film to understand what makes each film work. Using dialogue to further illustrate his points whilst also sparking forgotten memories of lost scenes. He’s not afraid to be critical of a film, picking up any flaws being even handed, he knows that as much power a director may have on the set, the studio heads have the ultimate say in the old studio system. Jordan is careful to not champion one film above another, remaining impartial as possible.
Jordan has been lucky enough to interview a member of the respective cast or crew to gain a personal insight to the man who was Robert Wise. One thing is clear he was a gentlemen and consummate professional throughout his long career that at RKO editing Citizen Kane before leading to his first film Curse of the Cat People (1944). However I found some of the interviews do require some restraint to remain on point to focus on Wise as some wander off point at times.
Each film comes with high quality stills from each film in front and behind the camera to help illustrate the film. They have the power to refresh my memory and even want to revisit the certain films. They are all well researched in terms of production history; revealing some nuggets of film production history to how Wise researched during pre-production. Where Jordan can he links other films from Wise’s filmography together, he can see links that help to build up a bigger picture of the directors career. He often analyses characters journey’s in some of the films, possibly to ones he has a closer connection too.
No one film is treated exactly the same, he interrogates ideas thoroughly. It’s also great to see the inclusion of points such as now controversial racial casting choices to the inclusion of bad casting experiences that in the light of #MeToo must be highlighted if the industry is to improve. Wise was noted to have stopped one such encounter in the 1970’s from getting more uncomfortable than it already was – a true gentlemen.
Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures is an in depth overview of his favourite director that comes from a place of love for a man who may not be as admired as his contemporaries, yet when you look at his body of work, you can see some classics that have influenced multiple genres from the musical to science fiction. Jordan has really done his homework to craft a love letter to underappreciated director.
Double Awkward (2013)
An experimental short video that explored over-lapping footage onto filmed footage. Using a scene from Double Indemnity (1944) Dir, Wilder and a cardboard set that allowed the characters to move around another environment.
Tim Neath - Visual Artist 