The Classic Movie Broadcaster of Record Has Spoken

Roger Ebert’s Great Movie series provided my introduction to classic film, but Turner Classic Movies is where I developed and refined my classic film taste. It’s where I was truly able to delve into the deeper backgrounds of the oeuvres of Bacall and Bogey and Harlow, and Mitchum and Woodward too. It’s where I saw “Once Upon a Time in the West,” “From Here to Eternity,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Stromboli,” and “The Misfits.” It’s where I watched basically every Elvis movie I’ve seen, including “Viva Las Vegas,” which I distinctly recall because when I saw “The Lady Loves Me” scene I vividly remember thinking: “That. That’s everything I want from a movie.” Seeing “The Heiress” on TCM was almost as good as my best movie theater experiences; even though I had recorded Olivia de Havilland’s acting master class to my DVR, I couldn’t make myself pause it to walk 15 feet to go to the bathroom! Yes, that bastion of venerable cinema has introduced me to so much that I consider foundational, that when something else foundational for me appears on its schedule, I don’t feel validated, just elated, like the cinematic clergy have raided my personal canon. That happened in 2016 when (in)explicably “Ice Pirates” (1984) was broadcast on The House that Robert Osborne built, demonstrating that a classic could also be a cult classic even if that cult was just me and my childhood friends watching it while devouring Planters Cheez Balls. That, though, was nothing compared to this weekend, when scrolling through the cable menu I realized TCM was premiering a movie for which I still have my ticket stub, “Ronin,” my dearly beloved “Ronin.” Alas, because Xfinity axed TCM from our cable plan in 2019, I was forced to imagine Ben Mankiewicz’s intro instead.

Mankiewicz Voice: “1998 thriller ‘Ronin’ was the penultimate film of director John Frankenheimer, who died four years later at the age of 72 from a stroke due to complications from spinal surgery. ‘Ronin’ borrows its name from a Japanese term for masterless samurai seeking alternative employment with no lords to serve. In this case, these drifting warriors are ex-Cold War spies and military operatives, brought to life by an international cast including the likes of Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno, and summoned to Paris by a mysterious Irish woman, played by Natascha McElhone, to retrieve a case. Having previously helmed the 1966 Formula One drama ‘Grand Prix’ as well as 1975’s sequel to ‘The French Connection,’ Frankenheimer stages several hair-raising car chase scenes, notably without the use of CGI or greenscreen, even if by his own admission, ‘Ronin’ was predominantly a movie about people. Though the final screenwriting credits proved controversial, with David Mamet hired for a rewrite but opting for a pseudonym alongside original writer J.D. Zeik, the humanity of the characters is demonstrated less by plot than acting, countless small moments of behavior and mannerisms speaking volumes, such as the riveting opening sequence in which DeNiro’s Sam stakes out the bistro where the ronin first meet. The contents of the case, meanwhile, mark one of cinema’s most memorable MacGuffins, a term coined by Angus McPhail and made famous by Alfred Hitchcock, a device that is the reason but irrelevant in and of itself. That irrelevance in conjunction with two alternate endings that were filmed by Frankenheimer but not used, only work in retrospect to underline a movie that is all about dramatically rendering the process, uninterested in the result. Though rest assured the movie’s effect is substantial. Here then, from 1998, ‘Ronin.’”

Forgotten Great Moments in Movie History

No movie blog has written about John Frankenheimer’s 1998 thriller “Ronin”, currently registering a perfect score, as it has going on 22 years, per the Cinema Romantico Boysenberry Barometer, as much as this blog. And yet, for all the words we’ve spilled, the character of Seamus O’Rourke has mostly – if not entirely – been absent from the discussion. He’s The Man Behind the Curtain, trying to get the case, the case that everyone wants, even if they don't seem to know what the case contains because it’s the MacGuffin, but using the ringleader of the Ronin – Dierdre (Natascha McElhone) – to get to the case. He’s played by Jonathan Pryce, a recent first-time Oscar nominee for Best Actor.

Ronin, as the title cards explain, were masterless Samurai warriors, wandering the land looking for work, and “Ronin” honors that idea by making the backgrounds of these men and women vague, where details like Dierdre’s “charming Irish lilt”, to quote another character, are meant to fill in blanks, partially. Because Seamus, as his name implies, has an Irish lilt too, we can also assume his background. But his background takes a further twist later in the movie, at a precarious moment in which the all-important case is missing, when coy dialogue suggests he’s been cut out of the IRA loop, quite possibly because of his own dubious machinations. It paints Seamus with the brush of desperation, which Pryce plays to the sweaty hilt when he brings Dierdre back to his hideout where they have a row.

Before having that row, though, he has to rough up Gregor (Stellan Skarsgård), the double-crossing Ronin, and roughing up someone will wear the rougher upper out. So Seamus needs a roughing up digestif; he needs a shot of whiskey.

So he picks up the bottle and the shot glass.

But given the crude conditions, something, who knows what, is still in the shot glass, probably from the night before, so he dumps whatever-it-is on the floor.

And to get rid of the undoubtedly foul remnants of whatever-it-was, he takes his coat and wipes out the shot glass.

Then he pours his shot.

What was it Janis Joplin sang? Ah yes. Wiping out your shot glass with your trench coat’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

Shout-Out to the Extra: Ronin Version

Shout-Out to the Extra is a sporadic series in which Cinema Romantico shouts out the extras, the background actors, the bit part players, the almost out of your sight line performers who expertly round out our movies with epic blink & you’ll miss it care.

The third and final car chase featured in John Frankenheimer’s “Ronin” is a ferocious affair in which the pursued and the pursuant zoom through the streets of Paris before eventually speeding against traffic. Frankenheimer toggles between close-ups of the characters’ reactions, point-of-view shots looking through the car windows at incoming traffic, and exterior shots of the cars’ evasive tactics and deft maneuvers. But Frankenheimer does not strictly limit this scene to the two cars in question. No, after the pursed and the pursuant have moved on, Frankenheimer frequently lingers over the damage left in their wake, cars crashing into each other, fireballs kicking up, even a car-carrying trailer getting slammed into and having one of its automobile hauls fly off the truck’s headrack and crash to the ground. There is, in other words, a world outside of “Ronin”, one not really explored, because it shouldn’t be, but glimpsed, felt.

It is also glimpsed in the beginning when most of the movie’s band of professional mercenaries first meet up in a Parisian bistro. Larry is already there, drinking and smoking, and Dierdre, the ringleader, arrives and then masquerades as a bartender, pouring an adult beverage for Vincent, who arrives not long after her. Sam arrives last, evoking his m.o. And so they all stand there, acting like they aren’t who they are, refraining from getting right down to the gritty-gritty because Frankenheimer has purposely placed a few patrons in the bistro that the Ronin are waiting on to clear out. A patron like this one…

If I had hundred and twenty-five thousand preeminent takeaways from my first trip to Paris last year, perhaps the pre-preeminent takeaway, aside from cheese, was café culture. Reader, I cherished café culture. Sitting at a café, sipping at my libation of choice, watching the world go by, letting time, worthless time, slip away, made my heart full. Nowhere, not even the movie theater, have I ever found a place that so impeccably matches my everyday air as every Parisian café I visited. The first time I sat at one, even though I did not necessarily know exactly where I was within the city’s geography, I felt right at home. Then again, I was on vacation. It is easy to bask when you are on holiday. I assume if I lived in Paris that I would not always bask in a café; sometimes, no doubt, I would lament. And that is why I love this extra so much. She could have just sat there, doing nothing more than clocking the hourly rate for a French extra. But she didn’t. She acted. She made a conscious choice to play this nameless patron a certain way. She lamented.

What’s more, in this particular frame, both she and Jean Reno’s Vincent seem to be lamenting, each of their gazes fixed downward in that way you do when some sort of existential question has left you  searching your soul for a doubtlessly non-existent answer. If extras are so often meant merely as, shall we say, bodily filler, existing simply to occupy space, forgotten even as they stand (sit) in plain sight, in this shot, the extra and the character rest, for one beautiful instant, on the same plain. In “Ronin”, may the movie gods bless it, everyone, line of dialogue or not, has something to lament.

Pour one out for the extra.

Some Drivel On...Ronin

John Frankenheimer’s “Ronin” was released into theaters 20 years ago this week, an anniversary nobody but Cinema Romantico is likely to celebrate. But then, likely nobody but me has forced his Beautiful, Perspicacious Wife to take pictures of himself on the staircase of the Rue Drevet in Paris, trying (failing) to re-create a shot from the film’s opening scene (see below). “Ronin” holds a special place in my heart. At the dawn of my cinephilia I still considered cinema predominantly in terms of narrative. I enjoyed films beyond their story aspects, absolutely, but I did not have the toolbox, to borrow a term employed by “Ronin’s” main character, to contextualize such enjoyment. And even if “Ronin” contains a narrative, it is deliberately enigmatic, an excuse not just to string together exemplary exercises in action but to provide a canvas demonstrating control of mood and tone, an aesthetic celebration held by a grim party-planner, where omnipresent yellow Gitanes become emblems of ennui, the imperceptible but impeccable costume design are all earth tones, and even a trip to the South of France is recounted in muted color.

The story, in which a group of professional mercenaries attempt to acquire a mysterious case, is just as unembellished, underlined by the crew’s ringleader Dierdre (Natascha McElhone) explaining the mission upon convening her Ronin in a drab Parisian warehouse. “There are some people who have something we require,” McElhone says in the manner of someone telling you she’s about to turn in for the night, “and we want you to get it from them.” It’s the best line reading in show, and illustrative of the oft-dry dialogue, including myriad pithy wisecracks proffered by Robert DeNiro, whose performance alternates between scowl and smirk.

Sure, there are myriad double and triple crosses to keep the whole thing spinning, but these are more about putting pressure on the worldview of the movie’s main character Sam (DeNiro), no doubt short for samurai, which the opening titles refer to, explaining that Samurais whose masters were killed wandered the land as swords-for-hire – “Such men were called: Ronin.” He might well be a sword for hire, but he’s got principals, or, perhaps more accurately, a code. He’s got a code of preparedness, outlined in the film’s sterling opening sequence, breathlessly relying on mere camera movement, editing, music, and DeNiro’s under-acting to evince a man scoping out the place where he’s supposed to meet the rest of his crew, accounting for every possibility that might go wrong before he enters.

Ah, but enter he does and all throughout there is a push and pull between his covering all the angles and a dash for cash. Consider the tunnel weapons-buying sequence where Sam refuses to go in the foreboding passage. What movie hero wouldn’t run in guns blazing? “I’m getting paid to go,” Vincent (Jean Reno). “It’s that simple.” Not to Sam, however, who hangs back, defying, in a sense, his contract. A later scene finds Jean-Pierre (Michael Lonsdale), a friend of Vincent’s called upon at a dire moment, telling the old story of the 47 Ronin as a (perhaps too blatant) means to try and put Sam’s motivation under the microscope. “There is something outside yourself that has to be served,” explains Jean-Pierre. “And when that need is gone, when belief has died, what are you?” Throughout Sam suggests he might well be something more, though this idea is often limited to the smallest behavioral flourishes, and when he finally gives words to his motivation, the line remains coy, and is recited off camera, maintaining the movie’s understated ethos.

In re-considering “Ronin” for its 20th, I kept thinking about its parallels to Melville’s “Le Samourai.” And in thinking about those parallels, I read as much about “Le Samourai” as I did about “Ronin.” And in reading about “Le Samourai”, I found myself pouring over Senses of Cinema’s citation heavy piece on Melville’s film. And one of the citations was taken from Simon Field’s book about Japanese filmmaker Suzuki Seijun and his influential Yakuza films. “The traditional yakuza hero,” went the citation, “was a critic of a kind, a critic of modern society, a rebel who preferred the ancient warrior code as adopted by gangsters to the cynicism of modern Progress. But he had to pay for his rebellion by dying.” That Sam does not die correlates less to him being the main character than ultimately being a character apart from the traditional yakuza hero, re-wiring his code not as rebellion but as serving something outside himself. If this idea failed to register with me in 1998, it resonates whole-heartedly in 2018. That might be a nod to topicality, but it also evokes how while film itself is finite, films remain alive through our eyes. For 20 years I have been inspired by the glorious cinephilic (sic) kick “Ronin” provides; watching it anew, I just found “Ronin” inspiring.

Dissecting a Scene: Ronin

I have 7.5 million favorite movie scenes. But included in the Top 100 is the opening scene from “Ronin.” That 1998 thriller was something like John Frankenheimer’s last stand, before The Movie Of Which We Will Not Speak, a movie that earned the descriptor “gritty”, jettisoning any pretense of characters aside from archetypes that the right actors were employed to bring to life to simply focus on behavior and craft. Those last two were abundant in the opening scene, which I have adored since I first saw it, even more than the movie’s famous against-traffic car chase, or Robert DeNiro ambushing Sean Bean with a cup of coffee, or DeNiro in his immaculate matter-of-fact DeNiro-ese explaining how he once removed a man’s appendix with a grapefruit spoon.

Back in our younger days, when we had much more idle time, my friend Daryl and I would occasionally, usually upon imbibing one too many adult beverages, Watch Selected Scenes From Boogie Nights™, though we would also occasionally watch the opening scene from “Ronin.” Once upon receiving a disc from Netflix that I was excited to watch only to realize the disc was broken, I, gravely disappointed, assuaged my disappointment by watching the opening scene from “Ronin.” I love it; God help me, I do love the opening scene from “Ronin” so. This scene runs approximately seven minutes, and while we refrained from literally going shot-by-shot, we nevertheless almost go shot-for-shot, which is to say this post, particularly if you are not someone who turns to the opening scene of “Ronin” when you are feeling blue, is absurdly long. So be it. This blog does not apologize. This is as much for us as it is for you. We do not understand how clicks work. On with the dissection. (You can watch the whole scene here.)

The scene (the movie) begins with a shot of the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur at night, which I respect because Frankenheimer forgoes the traditional Eiffel Tower establishing shot, and when he pans down, as he often pans down throughout, to the title...

...he places it against an impressively non-descript backdrop. That is two points for Frankenheimer already and we haven’t even had a cut!

Indeed, the camera keeps panning, down to this staircase in the midst of the Rue Drevet where you can just barely make out our main character Sam (Robert DeNiro) descending.

Finally Frankenheimer cuts closer to Sam in mid-descent.

Then Sam suddenly stops about halfway down, moving to his right into the shadows.

The reverse shot sees Sam watching this van pull to a stop below, which is the character’s default behavior throughout the scene – that is, observing, taking stock, which is underlined either with these sorts of shots from his point-of-view, or watching him as he watches.

Frankenheimer then cuts to Dierdre (Natascha McElhone), our not-so-friendly Irish operative, exiting that van... 

...and walking into the bar at the foot of the stairs.

Frankenheimer then cuts back to Sam to remind us that he has just seen what we have just seen.

The action then switches to inside the watering hole, as the bartender gives Dierdre a look of recognition.

And as Dierdre moves behind the bar, the camera zooms out just a skosh, allowing this dude, this dark-haired dude over on the right to enter the frame.

And then we see the dark-haired dude, Larry (Skipp Sudduth), of whom this blog has written before, straight on, cluing us into the fact that he is someone of importance. Also, product placement!

Then a cut back to Deirdre looking toward Larry, he gauging her, she gauging him.

Back outside as Sam is clear to proceed with people having cleared out...

...and he continues down the staircase.

Then a cut back to the street, where the camera picks up Vincent (Jean Reno) in the midst of a fairly brisk walk.

Vincent enters the bar through the same door as Deirdre, and as he does, Reno has Vincent give this stranger leaving at the same a time a half-glance, indicative of someone who is always sizing up everyone else.

And the camera follows Vincent up to the bar, where Deirdre steps forward as McElhone raises her eyebrows, non-verbally asking What Do You Want?, burying herself in the part of a bartender.

And as Deirdre pours his beer, Vincent steps back just a bit, allowing us to get a good look at Larry, having moved to a booth along the wall, in the background, eyeing Vincent, who is, in turn, eyeing Deirdre. 

Then Frankenheimer cuts to just Vincent, who eyes Larry...

...who keeps eyeying Vincent right back. Also, notice the no smoking sign in conjunction with Larry’s cigarette. 

Back outside the bar, meanwhile, Sam is keeping his eye on all of them...

...evinced by this point-of-view shot, looking through the window of the bar, where he sees...

...Dierdre handing Vincent his adult beverage.

Back out on the street, where Sam continues to wait for...something.

And as he waits, DeNiro has Sam read the bar’s menu tacked to the outside wall, which is a detail both in tune with the character and kind of laugh out loud because I love the thought of this guy standing here in the dead of night at some dingy bar reading the menu like he's actually going to grab a bite to eat at this place.

But then, you will notice the light in the upper right hand corner of the frame is now out, which is what Sam was waiting for, for the bar to close.

And now he walks away from the bar, toward the staircase...

...and behind the staircase, glancing back over his shoulder, ever observant...

...and into the alley behind the bar. And then he stops, to survey the alley, like he surveys everything else, and Frankenheimer cuts to a medium shot before doing quick zoom into Sam’s face, as DeNiro just stands there, smartly letting the camera do all the work.

Frankenheimer conveys Sam’s point-of-view by panning quick across the alley.

Satisfied with what he sees, which is nothing much, Sam moves into the alley, peering through the bar’s backdoor.

Then he moves toward these crates and removes a gun which he proceeds to place behind one of the crates, the camera beginning on his right and then gradually sliding over his left shoulder.

He leaves the gun there...

...and exits the alley the opposite way. There is perhaps some sort of cineaste argument to make here about how the camera is watching DeNiro like he is watching everyone else, particularly because the camera is looking over Sam’s shoulder when he hides the gun, but I’m not sure I’d buy it. And I’m not sure I’d buy it because I’m pretty sure there is an alternate cut where you see Sam depart the alley, the camera sit there watching the emptiness for a moment, and then Sam coming up behind the camera and tapping it on the shoulder.

Frankenheimer cuts back to the bar, where you will now notice this woman sitting there, a woman who probably deserves her own Shout-Out to the Extra post.

Because here you see her lost in thought, like any melancholy barfly.

And here too. But. Back to the action! Because Vincent’s head jerks up at the sound of the door opening, suggesting he is not just there to drink and think.

Sam enters, and the whites of his eyes exude cautious determination.

And as he enters, he is told by the bartender that the bar is closed, which Sam parries by merely requesting a "small drink." And Deirdre looks at the bartender to indicate that this request should he honored, signaling who is in charge.

Then Sam asks for the bathroom, which the bartender points to, and you will notice the camera here, moving ever so slightly to the left, keeping everyone in the frame...

...as Sam rounds the bar and then passes right in front of the camera on his way to the toilet.

When he gets to the back, he walks toward the door on the right, opening it...

...finding that opens into the alley where he just was. And he looks back toward the bar, playing the part of a confused tourist.

The bartender points him the other way. 

And so Sam goes.

Back in the bar, Frankenheimer employs the mirror to show our faithful extra being greeted by her fellow barfly who ushers her up from her stool and out of the bar, departing the frame, which is when you realize the bar has, as the scene has progressed, gradually emptied apart from all the integral players which Frankenheimer underlines by moving the camera left to settle on Larry who is clearly not going anywhere.

That everyone left is supposed to be left is illustrated by the camera re-finding Deirdre...

...who removes her own gun, signaling her intentions...

...and tucking it away.

At the sound of the door, she looks up.

It is Sam, returning from the bathroom. And because we know he hid a gun out back, it is logical to conclude, if you want, that he now has a gun in opposition to Dierdre’s gun, though at this point who really knows whose intentions which is the whole point, Frankenheimer creating tension not with big gusts but small dollops, building them one-by-one.

He comes back around to the bar, asking for just one small drink.

But Dierdre is having none of it. “Why are you rushing off?” she queries.

Sam acts like he doesn’t understand, which DeNiro accentuates with that “Huh, What?” facial expression.

To cut to the heart of the matter, like the scene does, Frankenheimer goes to close-up. And I love McElhone’s expression here, conveying no-nonsense enervation at this guy’s play-acting. She says: “The man from Bristol called ya.”

Now DeNiro lets Sam waver between tourist imposter and guy who gets it. And to maximize tension, as to whether he gets it, Frankenheimer cuts to two quick close-ups of Vincent and Larry waiting on bated breath.

And then, Sam finally concedes, emblemized by the more gruff turn his face takes. He asks: “What man?”

“The man in the wheelchair.” To this day, I don’t really have any idea what this line means. And I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to know, and which argues against the camera being completely omniscient, because there are little details to which we remain un-privy, like this one, known to them, not to us.

As if on cue – which is to say, right on cue – a horn honks outside, drawing Sam’s attention.

Dierdre gives him one last look...

...and then exits from behind the bar, passing before the camera on her way to the back door...

...which she finds unlocked...

...and open.

Wordlessly, she returns to the bar.

Where Vincent and Larry wordlessly gather their things...

...and exit out the back. Indeed, it is worth noting that at this point Vincent has asked for a bière and said merci and that’s it while Larry has not said so much as one word.

Dierdre looks back toward the unmoving Sam, and McElhone doesn’t dress up the look with any kind of expression, knowing the mere act of looking back conveys what is necessary, which is, “Make up your mind, slick, you coming or not?”

And so, he does.

Frankenheimer cuts to Vincent and Larry climbing into the van that dropped off Dierdre earlier.

And as Sam exits, Dierdre asks him what he was doing in the back of the bar earlier.

“Lady,” he says, bending down...

...“I never walk into a place I don’t know how to walk out of,” he finishes as he retrieves his gun.

Here McElhone sort of spins her version of McKayla’s Maroney’s Not Impressed face, which is sort of her default face throughout. She is so wonderful in this movie, a true screen performance, never overplaying, staying small in order to loom large, that I have never been able to figure out why she never became a Star except that I know she didn’t become a star because Hollywood is stupid and had no clue how to properly utilize her skills or was not interested in properly utilizing them. “Then why would you get into that van?” she asks.

“You know the reason.”

It’s a great capping line, if somewhat contradictory, which is what the late Roger Ebert noted in his review, writing that his character then spends the rest of the movie walking into rooms he doesn’t know how to walk out of. Ebert’s line is funny, and it’s mostly true, though in this moment, even he himself is undercutting what he just said and acknowledging it. It’s paradoxical, frankly, befitting the film’s central totem, a case that everyone wants even though no one seems to have any idea what’s in it. More than even that, however, this scene emblemizes the movie's overall emphasis on behavior.

When I first saw this movie, way back when, with my friend Caleb, he lamented afterwards that DeNiro’s character was never wrong about anything. But that isn’t quite right. He analyzes everything properly after the fact, yes, but he can’t always predict everyone else’s behavior, and behavior is what “Ronin” what boils down to, scene after scene, second after second. It might not make any sense for Sam to get into that van, and because it doesn’t, based on what you've seen, you, like Dierdre wouldn’t think him likely to, but he does anyway. And in “Ronin” each person does what he/she does, all else is irrelevant.