A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989). Not so long ago, I wrote about another late-80's Apartheid drama noting its problematic (and all too common) reliance on white protagonists to tell a story about oppressed blacks. Here's a film from one year later that demonstrates this approach doesn't automatically render the finished product a well-intentioned misfire. This is partially due to the screenplay by Palcy and Colin Welland (and presumably Andre Brink's source novel) which allows for the secondary characters to be well-drawn, multifaceted individuals instead of noble cutouts. It also allows for added complications in the lead character, played by Donald Sutherland with his usual delicate emotionalism, whose personal sacrifice and heroism is fueled mightily by a hearty dose of white guilt. Palcy's work with the camera is less successful. Certain sequences play with the square rigidity of 1970's television dramas, right down to the pushy, blaring music score. This is especially damaging when the action turns to dreadful brutality in the street, which should stand as the most harrowing portion of the film but instead feels like it's only building to a dramatic sting before a commercial break. The back and forth of these observations is somewhat immaterial since the argument about the film's merits begins and decisively ends with Marlon Brando's performance, a riveting exercise in grand understatement. Brando received his eight and final Oscar nomination for his work here and it was something of a comeback after years wandering in the wilderness (and a mere blip of regained respectability in advance of wilder wanderings to come). He is persnickety and perturbed as a barrister who takes up a doomed case, and the performance, pieced together with quiet inventiveness, is a delight to watch.

Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959). Lead actor Jimmy Stewart's own father condemned this courtroom drama as "a dirty picture" and it's interesting to consider what an Eisenhower era audience made of the film's unassuming frankness. Now better known for the renowned Saul Bass poster that promoted it, Preminger's film is a prime example of smart, lean filmmaking filled with just enough backstory to flesh out the characters and surprising notes of ambiguity throughout. The film never spells out the truth behind the crime of the title. Conflicting versions are laid out in the courtroom and Preminger never feels compelled to clarify matters for the audience any more than it is for the fictitious jury. The mechanics and manipulations of the legal battle are what Preminger builds his drama around and the film plays out as one of the more convincing depictions of jurisprudence in the pantheon of Hollywood cinema. This is Vertigo-era Jimmy Stewart and he's quite wonderful as the lawyer who reluctantly steps forward for the defense. The performance is shorn of his familiar mannerisms and is grounded in an appealing relaxed, amused intelligence.

Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966). Hey, there's a Saul Bass poster for this one, too, although it seems as if the studio chose not to use it (And since I know soul_shear is enthralled by all these Saul Bass hyperlinks, here's a similarly discarded Bass design for one of his favorites.) Seconds is a twisty sci-fi/horror flick about the flexibility of identity and the lurking truth that personal reinvention won't necessarily heal wounds of the soul. Frankenheimer directs with a cunning intrusiveness, pushing deeply into scenes and extracting every last bit of creepiness out of every moment. Rock Hudson may have been a dandy realization of coveted vigorous masculinity (yeah, yeah, I know) circa 1966 but that doesn't mean he's much of an actor. The troubled undercurrents of his role simple seem beyond his capabilities. Since I know David Cronenberg isn't averse to remakes, may I respectfully submit that he take a crack at this one.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2006). It's the directorial debut of Jones, but the filmmaker whose fingerprints are all over it, as clearly as if he had mushed his hands against the lens before every shooting day, is screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. Like his overwrought collaborations with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Burials plys around with non-linear storytelling to no discernible dramatic effect and is so enamored with its own bleakness that it rapidly turns into a humorless chore. Jones shoots his beloved Texas landscapes with an admirable eye for stark beauty, but the film moves as slowly as the scorching sun slices across the vast summer sky. Among the actors, it is a pair of transplanted musicians who fare best. Dwight Yoakam is a welcome relief from the low-hum tedium as a perpetually aggravated sheriff and Levon Helm (who stared down Jones memorably as Loretta Lynn's coal miner pappy a quarter-century earlier) brings a tender, wounded grace to a small role as a blind man whose isolation and mounting depression hasn't dimmed his casual hospitality.

Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981). Beatty's paralyzing perfectionism has caused him to direct only two other films since winning the Oscar for his work behind the camera on this biopic of early twentieth century rabble-rouser John Reed. It's actually easy to see why. Reds is so precisely accomplished, so elegantly constructed, so downright monumental in its artful realization that it's hard to imagine being able to properly follow it up. His actual follow up could be viewed as throwing in a big, primary-colored towel. It's a study in perfect balance: epic without being overblown, fiercely political without becoming didactic, measured and thorough without ever dragging (despite a runtime comfortably over three hours). Even the collection of talking heads, the array of actual witnesses to the conflicts and people depicted on screen who report directly to the camera about their recollections, are deployed properly into the film. It could have been a crutch, a bland device or an awkward insertion of redundant reportage. Beatty manages to make it integral and vital, always enhancing the material sometimes simply by offering a heartfelt counter to Beatty's celebration of dissent. This was the last film to snag Oscar nominations in each of the major categories--Picture, Director, Screenplay and all four acting categories--and none of the honorees inspire quibbling. Diane Keaton is especially notable with a bracing, fearlessly devoted under-the-skin performance as Reed's wife, Louise Bryant. Much as I adore the la-di-das of Grammy Hall's favorite granddaughter, this is her finest screen work.