7/7/15: The Sweet Science

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Best Craftsman in France, Chris Hegedus, cooking competition, D.A. Pennebaker, dedication vs obsession, director-cinematographer-editor, documentaries, Don't Look Back, France, Frederique Lazard, husband-wife relationship, intense competition, Jacquy Pfeiffer, Kings of Pastry, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, mentors, MOF, multiple directors, pastry chefs, Philippe Rigollot, Philippe Urraca, President Nicolas Sarkozy, Regis Lazard, Sebastien Canonne, self-sacrifice, set in France, The War Room

Like many skill sets, it’s quite possible for just about anyone to bake something: with enough time, patience and resources, the clumsiest oaf among us can create baked goods that are, at the very least, edible…even if just barely. Cooking, after all, is as much about science and process as anything else: if you can understand what happens in the kitchen, there’s a good chance that you can replicate it. In theory, at least.

As with anything, however, it takes something a little extra to truly excel. While just about anyone can prepare a dish (under the right circumstances), being an artist is something else entirely. Becoming the equivalent of Picasso in the kitchen requires no small amount of dedication, self-sacrifice, forward-momentum and tunnel-vision: while there are any number of talented chefs spread across the globe, there are very few who could be considered “the very best,” the shining standard to which all other chefs aspire. The “kings of pastry,” if you will.

Veteran documentarians D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus take a look at these “creme de la cremes” of the baking world with their vibrant, thoroughly engaging Kings of Pastry (2009). The film takes a look at the ultra-prestigious Meilleur Ouvrier de France (literally “best craftsman in France”), a difficult, stressful and intense three-day baking competition that takes place every four years and draws chefs from around the world. Rather than competing against each other, the chefs attempt to prove their worth and earn the coveted “collar,” a badge of honor which becomes a lifelong calling card. Few will make it through the demanding trials and even fewer will earn the top honor: after all, there are plenty of extremely talented chefs in the world but only a few who can be considered “the best of the best.”

For the purposes of the documentary, Pennebaker and Hegedus follow around several different contestants as they prepare for, participate in and deal with the fall-out from the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (known among the participants as the MOF). We spend the most time with Jacquy Pfeiffer, an intense, driven chef who founded the only “pastry-only” baking school in America, but it’s definitely not a one-man show. We’re also introduced to Philippe Rigollot, a devoted family man, and Regis Lazard, a chef making his second attempt at the MOF after dropping one of his creations during his first go-around. Since the MOF trials are four years apart, the contestants spend the time in between honing their craft and preparing: it truly is the Olympics of baking and the chefs must give their whole lives over to the pursuit if they hope to have any chance of success.

As follow around the various chefs, we also get peeks into their private lives and the forces that guide them on their journey. Pfeiffer is the neurotic perfectionist, an artist capable of the most exquisite, delicate pastry sculptures imaginable, yet wracked by such doubt that his girlfriend, Rachel, has to call him every night and pretend that the MOF competition has been cancelled just so he can fall asleep. Rigollot is the nice-guy family man whose kids are his personal tasting judges and whose mother instilled a love of baking in him from an early age. Lazard is the underdog coming back for one last shot at glory: his long-suffering wife, Frederique, wants this to be Lazard’s last MOF attempt so that he can focus on his own business and family. With all of the forces around them, the contestants must attempt to clear their heads and focus on the task at hand.

And what a task: spread out over three days, the chefs must create 40 different recipes, ranging from ridiculously elegant wedding cakes to chocolate sculptures, sugar sculptures and lollipops. They must create razor-thin candy ribbons, work with chocolate that begins to harden seconds after its poured and fight the ravages of humidity (the enemy of sugar, as we’re told), all while under the constant scrutiny of the MOF judges and the ever-present ticking clock. Disaster lurks around every corner (setting the delicate creations down is a nerve-wracking pursuit that seems roughly equitable to juggling dynamite) and the chefs’ fragile nerves are always in danger of cracking, just like their glossy, edible art. The task is almost impossible but the reward is tremendous: the winners will receive not only personal accolades from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, himself, but life-time bragging rights as genuine “Kings of Pastry.”

Despite its bare-bones look and style (the camerawork reminds of ’90s-era PBS documentaries and the score is as repetitive and chipper as video game music), Pennebaker and Hegedus’ film is a thoroughly absorbing and fascinating peek into one of the most demanding cooking competitions out there. There’s a genuine sense of tension and drama to the film that, at times, translates to some fairly white-knuckle moments: the climatic scene involving Rigollot’s sugar sculpture is powerful and heartbreaking, two terms which are rarely equated with cooking competitions. The subjects are all likable and engaging, to boot, which really helps draw the audience in. While we end up spending more time with Jacquy, his daughter, Alex, and Rachel than we do with the others, we get enough time with Rigollot and Lazard to prevent them from seeing under-developed or like afterthoughts.

There are also plenty of nice reflections and commentary from Philippe Urraca, the head of the MOF organization. Urraca is the one who points out the (sometimes minute) separation between the “great” and the “very best,” stating how it can often just be a matter of timing: it actually took him three attempts to become an MOF and now he’s the president of the whole thing…try and try again, indeed! Urraca and the other judges seem to have genuine affection and interest in the contestants, a fact driven home by everyone’s distress over Rigollot’s last-minute catastrophe. Since the chefs aren’t really competing against each other, per se, there’s much more sense of camaraderie and fellowship than in more cut-throat competitions.

Ultimately, Kings of Pastry is a fascinating look into what it takes to become the very best chef in France, a country that is certainly no slouch when it comes to the art of cooking. Toeing the line between dedication and obsession (one contestant was on his fourth MOF, meaning that he’d been working on this for sixteen consecutive years!), Pennebaker and Hegedus show that you need to be all-in in order to become the very best. Come for the unbelievable displays of pastry (in every sense of the term, this film is hardcore, triple-X “food porn”) but stay for the genuinely involving human drama and the ultimate triumph of true believers putting it all on the line for their dreams.

4/27/15: An Army of One

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1960s cinema, action films, auteur theory, Bill Mullikin, Bob Newhart, Bobby Darin, cinema, dark films, Dirty Harry, Don Siegel, dramas, Escape From Alcatraz, Fess Parker, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, frontline, G.I.s, Harold Lipstein, Harry Guardino, Hell Is For Heroes, insubordination, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, James Coburn, Joseph Hoover, Leonard Rosenman, Mike Kellin, Movies, Nick Adams, nihilistic films, power struggles, Richard Carr, Robert Pirosh, set in 1940s, set in France, Steve McQueen, The Killers, war movies, World War II

Filmmaking is a lot like cooking, if you think about it: give five different chefs the exact same ingredients and you’re likely to come up with five very different dishes. Ditto for filmmaking: give five different filmmakers the exact same tropes, conventions, themes and scenarios and you’re going to end up with five very different films. Case in point: action auteur Don Siegel’s Hell Is For Heroes (1962). On the outside, the film looks much like many other World War II-set action films: big cast of well-known actors…intense front-line action sequences…dramatic interplay between the soldiers. Digging deeper, however, it’s easy to see that this particular war film bears more than a passing resemblance to similarly dark, paranoid films in Siegel’s canon such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Killers (1964). The result? A tense, nihilistic and constantly odd study in hubris, obsession and heroism, courtesy of the guy who would, one day, gift us with Dirty Harry (1971).

We jump right into the action on the front-line of the Allied offensive, in France, circa 1944. A small American squadron, led by Sgts. Larkin (Harry Guardino) and Pike (Fess Parker aka TV’s Daniel Boone), has been charged with holding the line against the German offensive. As the squad, which includes motor-mouthed Pvt. Corby (actor/singer Bobby Darin), laconic Cpl. Henshaw (James Coburn), Pvt. Kolinsky (Mike Kellin) and Pvt. Cumberly (Bill Mullikin), celebrate their upcoming return home, they receive a new member: Pvt. Reese (Steve McQueen). Reese is a sullen, surly, standoffish badass who seems to have a past with Sgt. Pike and a problem with the bottle.

While Reese lugs several steamer trunks’ worth of emotional baggage with him, his appearance also foretells a bit of bad luck for the squad: not only aren’t they going to get to go home but military brass has decreed that the squad be split, stretching the already thin crew to a breaking point. While Pike takes most of the men further down the way, Larkin and his tiny six-man crew are charged with holding the line all on their lonesome.

The problem, of course, is that a far larger German force is camped out just over the rise, patiently waiting to bomb the ever-loving shit out of the stragglers. As the extremely unpleasant but eminently capable Reese butts heads with Larkin over their next course of action, the rest of the team are caught in the crosshairs. When Reese comes up with a brazen, impossibly dangerous plan to take out the nearby German pillbox, however, he sets in motion a series of events that will test the squads loyalty, their resilience and their very wills to survive.

Despite its familiar trappings, Hell Is For Heroes is a decidedly odd duck. For one thing, the evocative black-and-white cinematography (courtesy of Harold Lipstein) frequently calls to mind film noir and German Expressionist filmmaking: full of hard, deep shadows and an overwhelmingly sinister atmosphere, there’s something intensely unsettling about the film, even during its lighter moments. There’s also the film’s rigid, almost stage-bound sense of blocking: combined with the sharp dialogue (legendary screenwriter Robert Pirosh wrote the film, along with Richard Carr), the movie often feels like a stage play, although this ends up working to its benefit, heightening the eerie sense of unreality.

Siegel, as expected, is a deft hand with the action sequences (the film’s final 20 minutes are one long, sustained battle that’s a masterpiece of chaos and carnage) but the connecting tissue is where the film really stands out: the midpoint sequence, which consists of the G.I.s setting up an elaborate “early warning system,” is almost ludicrously detailed and leisurely paced, yet still manages to be impossibly tense and pulse-pounding. The human-level drama is even better: McQueen’s thoroughly unlikable Reese swings wildly at any and everyone around him and the audience soaks up the benefit.

In fact, I’m hard-pressed to recall another performance of McQueen’s that is quite this unpleasant and cold: even the flinty-eyed Frank Bullitt had a basic degree of humanity that seems to be lacking in Reese. Obsessed with proving himself right, completely dismissive of authority, misogynistic and arguably misanthropic, Pvt. Reese is, perhaps, one of the single most unqualified heroes in the history of the biz. Look closer, however, and McQueen’s world-weary eyes almost (almost) tell a different story. His latter-half heroism isn’t so much a last-minute Hail Mary as it is the natural culmination of his inherent stubbornness: Reese is more than willing to die to prove himself right.

While McQueen is a reliable marquee draw, the rest of the Hell Is For Heroes cast is a veritable embarrassment of riches. Guardino and Parker are both excellent as the guys (grudgingly) in charge, with Parker possessing the absolutely perfect blend of authority and down-home humility. Nick Adams turns in a slightly goofy, if likable, performance as the tag-along Polish soldier, Homer, while Coburn is great as the reserved Henshaw: you know a film has a fantastic cast when an actor of Coburn’s stature is, effectively, relegated to second-tier status but he brings an easy warmth to the proceedings that are completely expected and always appreciated.

The two big surprises, however, end up coming on the lighter side of things: Bobby Darin’s conniving, perpetually scheming Pvt. Corby is a classic character and Darin plays him with complete gusto. At times approximating Lou Costello, Darin provides much of the film’s comic relief and never wears out his welcome, high praise for the type of character that normally gets under your skin, fast. The other surprise is Bob Newhart’s delightful performance as the bumbling, over-his-head Pvt. Driscoll. From his entrance (crashing into a tree with his jeep) all the way to the show-stopper where he commandeers a German phone line and proceeds to feed the enemy fake intel, Newhart is sheer perfection, his timing pitch-perfect and his hang-dog, malleable face so essential to the film’s (occasionally) deeply-set sense of humanity. Driscoll often reminded me of the similarly bumbling Radio O’Reilly, making me wonder if this might have served as inspiration for Gary Burghoff’s iconic character: the mind practically boggles!

Ultimately, Hell Is For Heroes is a continually surprising film, a feat which certainly stands as one of its greatest assets. From the opening all the way through to the purposefully ambiguous finale, which skips the expected emotional payoff and gives us something decidedly more open-ended, Siegel’s film defies conventions and arrives at an altogether more interesting destination. Less interested with easy definitions of “heroism” than he is with the reality of the situation (depending on the angle you view it from, Reese’s actions could easily fall under the umbrella of “insubordination,” “insanity” or even “manslaughter”), Siegel turns in another complex, nuanced and disturbing examination of the evil that men do, even when they do it in service of “the greater good.” In other words, just another day at the office for one of the all-time greats.