4:30 PM: Barabbas, a 1961 epic based on a novel by Pär Lagerkvist, stars Anthony Quinn as a footnote historical character, the "rebel and robber" who the rabble selected, out of the same pool that included Jesus, to be spared execution and set free. The movie, directed by Richard Fleischer, starts right out of the gate with the scene of Barabbas being pulled out of holding cell and turned loose, and the minor-character's-eye view on important historical (Biblical) events has me thinking of Monty Python's Life of Brian even before Quinn backed into the crucifix being prepared for Jesus and the Foley guy, having a little fun, provided the sound effect to go with Quinn hitting his head with what sounded like someone smacking a hollow coconut. This was an international production, shot in Rome and produced by Dino De Laurentiis for Columbia Pictures, with a cast that includes Silvana Mangano (as Barabbas's old flame, who has fallen under Jesus's sway while her boyfriend had been in the jug, and who talks about her new crush as if she prayed to a picture of him that she tore out of Tiger Beat), Arthur Kennedy as Pilate, Katy Jurado, Harry Andrews, Vittorio Gassman, Ernest Borgnine, and Jack Palance as, shockingly, a bad guy. It features some weird, faintly arty effects--such as the synthesizer-like sounds that accompany the sight of a whip lashing Jesus's back--that might have just been in the air of Rome during the time of Fellini's greatest popular successes, and it's very badly dubbed, with a lot of awkward chatter when there are more than three people on the screen: "Hey, look, it's Barabbas!" "Look, everybody, Barabbas is out!" "What's it like to be free, Barabbas?" If Quinn seems to be about as right in the lead role as anybody could be, that may be because, after so many international-cast jobs, he had developed the weird ability to sound dubbed while speaking in what was clearly his own voice, if only because nobody else could deliver a bad line like "You're afraid to look at me because I'm alive!" in quite the same way, as if he regretted that he couldn't have it tattooed on his forehead. When this lowlife staggers into the local watering hole and all the other lowlifes start jabbering in other people's voice, Barabbas has the special feel of a spaghetti Western religious epic.

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By any measure, Ernesto "Che" Guevara is having as good a year in the movies as any failed revolutionary who's been dead for more than forty years has a right to expect. The word from Cannes about Steven Soderbergh's two-part film starring Benecio del Toro has been mostly upbeat, and the documentary Chevolution, about his lingering market force as a brand image, has been doing well on the festival circuit. He's also had the honor of having his romantic youth depicted onscreen in The Motorcycle Diaries. (There's also a 2005 biopic called Che, starring Eduardo Noriego of The Devil's Backbone in the title role, that's just been shuttled out on DVD to take advantage of whatever publicity the Soderbergh film generates.) But the first attempt by Hollywood to immortalize Che on film came out in 1969, when his corpse was barely cold and his face still adorned many a campus wall and Godard picture. That was Che!--note the exclamation point in the title, a sure sign of a film that intends to enthrall the viewer's or inflame his passions, as in That's Entertainment!, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Not with My Wife, You Don't! Seen today, which is very hard to do, the movie is best experienced as a dizzying record of just how confused Hollywood was in the year of our Lord Easy Rider, as it tried to give the kids what they wanted to see even as studio heads were putting in electrified moats around their pleasure domes to keep the kids from the Spahn Ranch the hell out. The film, which stars Omar Sharif, then the movies' reigning old-style matinee-idol heartthrob, was directed by Richard Fleischer, in between his chores on two other historical dramas, The Boston Strangler and, yes, Tora! Tora! Tora!.

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It's often difficult to know exactly what it takes to qualify someone for the title of 'major American filmmaker', other than the obvious qualifications of being an American.  Some people, like Terrence Malick or Stanley Kubrick, get the nod for quality despite a major lack of quantity; others will never reach that status despite prodigious output because they're pure hacks.  But there are a few whose status is forever in dispute due to wild inconsistency; although there aren't many filmmakers whose reputation is mixed because they have such vast catalogues that it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff, it does happen on occasion.  And if anyone qualifies for such a debate, it's Richard Fleischer.

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