Outcast of the Islands

Outcast of the Islands consistently managed to defy my expectations on what kind of film it was going to be, mostly because I never thought a 1952 British production would be so faithful to Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)and his darker impulses. I haven’t read the book on which the film is based, but I’ve read enough of him to know his general obsessions.

Love of the sea and exotic locales would, of course, be there, but I suspected more in the form of a rousing adventure. I also expected marginalized natives just as part of the inherent prejudices of the film industry of the time. Instead, this was Conrad style “racism” where it’s unclear whether the prejudice originates from the filmmakers/author or is a reflection of the white character’s perceptions of their exotic surroundings, as Conrad generally has little sympathy for them either.

Carol Reed (of 3rd Man fame)deserves credit for sticking with Conrad’s bleakness. The only likeable character (Ralph Richardson) is off screen for the majority of the running time. Trevor Howard, the ostensible lead, is never portrayed as anything less than loathsome and it’s some kind of accomplishment that Robert Morley’s character comes off even worse. Speaking of Morley, I certainly didn’t expect to see him tortured by swinging him over a fire, tied up in a hammock (shades of the Scarlet Empress).

Then there’s the forbidden romance, shown about as frankly as one could expect in 1952. The native girl is silent, but described as fierce and brave and by the end, by Howard himself, as evil. She gives angry glaring looks, but we don’t know why. Until the last shot, she is a dehumanized caricature, but then comes that wonderful ending shot that makes Outcasts a better film than it would have been otherwise.

Themes of Altman's "Nashville" - The Songs

There are many who cite Robert Altman’s Nashville as the pinnacle of New Hollywood’s rise in the ‘70’s. It’s ironic that the very same summer would see the release of Jaws, which would eventually derail the movement by creating the template we still live with today.

There are so many angles from which to approach Nashville that it can be a bit overwhelming. There’s the innovation of having 24 characters and no leads, thereby rendering the entire community as the protagonist. There’s Altman’s improvisational style and use of overlapping dialogue. We can discuss the parallels brought up between celebrity and politics or Altman’s symbolic use of color (the ever-present red, white & blue and the ominous yellow.) There’s the relation of the film to the
'70’s and, of course, what it says about America.

Many of the songs are written by the actors who sing them and most are thematically connect to the film itself. SPOILERS AHEAD!

Two Hundred Years – That Nashville is about the state of the nation is made clear right off the bat with this patriotic to the point of parody hymn sung by Haven Hamilton. Just a few years after Watergate and with the troops leaving Viet Nam, such sentiment is set up for mockery, reinforced by Haven’s comic arrogance. Haven, however, is nothing but sincere as he sings of America’s history and Altman does not dismiss such old-fashioned ideas as this character will be redeemed.

Bluebird – Tommy Brown is not a character we get to know well in Nashville. He’s the only African-American star in this very white country music culture. Perhaps Bluebird is meant to fill in some biography as it’s about the unlikely climb from poor and humble beginnings.

For The Sake Of The Children – More Haven Hamilton schmaltz, but the lyrics are a fierce defense of family at all costs.

Keep A-Going – While the kids are singing “It Don’t Worry Me” all over town, Haven’s generational anthem is this. Optimistic, conservative, naïve and seductive, it shows an understanding of the status quo that Altman seeks to change.

Memphis/Rolling Stone – These songs are written by Karen Black who play’s Connie White, Barbara Jean’s chief competitor. Not sure they’re meant to advance any particular themes.

I’m Easy – Folk singer Tom’s chief trait is his womanizing and this is the song he sing’s to the one woman he loves, although his other conquests are sure it’s about them. It represents Tom vis-à-vis his feelings towards Lily Tomlin’s character, but could also be from the point of view of Mary or any of the other women he’s seduced.

Tapedeck in His Tractor – While the rest of the cast are actors playing country singers, Ronee Blakley is an actual country singer. This casting was savvy on Altman’s part as Barbara Jean is THE Nashville superstar so Blakley’s songs being the best in the film is appropriate. Tapedeck is a high energy romp about falling in love with a modern cowboy.

Dues – Barbara Jean is about to have a breakdown and she has been shown to be fragile and vulnerable throughout. This beautiful heartbreaking song drives home that vulnerability more than any dialogue could.

One, I Love You – An excuse for a Haven / Barbara Jean duet. Can’t find any further significance.

My Idaho Home – Whereas Haven’s tributes to county and family come off as corny, this final number from Barbara Jean is anything but. It’s a poignant recollection of true old fashioned Americana. Family means something in this song. This song about roots also connects to the presidential candidate’s slogan, “New Roots for a Nation.” The flag is prominently featured on screen, connecting personal family with the national family. This is the dream that could have been. Can this dream survive an assassin’s bullet?

It Don’t Worry Me – Who will replace Barbara Jean? As it turns out, it’s Barbara Harris’ Winifred an unknown with dreams of stardom who, by pure chance, is pushed center stage. Was Altman looking into our American Idol future? She sings “It Don’t Worry Me,” the big hit of the day. It’s basically a call to apathy. By the mid-seventies, counter-culture ideals had given way to the Me Generation. The shit may be hitting the fan, but it won’t matter if you’re taking enough drugs.

Brewster McCloud

In 1970, MASH provided Robert Altman with his one and only mega-hit. His choice as a follow up, and he had the freedom to choose anything, turned out to be the strangest and most idiosyncratic film of a career that would always be unconventional.

Which leads to the question, what kind of film is Brewster McCloud? Is it a modernization of the Icarus myth as commentary on the soon to be former idealism of the sixties? Is it a juvenile comedy with a lot of bird shit jokes? It may be kind of both, but I believe it’s also a blueprint, a rough draft of the kind of filmmaker Robert Altman wanted to be.

If Robert Altman would spend much of the seventies deconstructing different film genres, Brewster McCloud would be his “comedy”, but as an Altman comedy, it wouldn’t play by the rules. Its bone dry humor would not come into fashion until Wes Anderson became its spokesman. With a loose structure, it was broad enough to directly parody the Steve McQueen’s then recent hit, Bullet, and provide such Altmanesque touches as using a connective device (here, the lecturer) and introduce such quirky characters as Shelly Duval in her movie debut.

A tight film it is not, but it announces that fact immediately in the opening credits, which Altman often utilizes to instruct an audience how a particular film should be watched. In “A Cinema of Loneliness,” Robert Phillip Kolker describes it in detail:

“The MGM logo appears, but instead of the expected lion’s roar, there is a voice saying, “I forgot the opening line.” The film cannot quite get itself started. No smooth entry into the story is promised. A rather strange man appears, a lecturer who talks to us about birds, men, the dream of flight and environmental enclosures. As he is about to speak of the last, there is a shot of the Houston Astrodome and in it Margaret Hamilton, the wicked witch of The Wizard of Oz attempting to lead a marching band of black musicians in the national anthem. The credits begin. Hamilton stops the band and attempts to get them to sing on key. The credits begin AGAIN, and the band breaks into gospel, completely out of control. This film, which will concern itself with the conflict of freedom and constraint announces this conflict from the beginning, not only in its images, but in the difficulty it has getting its images started. Brewster McCloud parodies itself, its existence as a controlled formal structure from the very start.”

By extension, Kolker seems to suggest that Altman might not just be deconstructing comedy, but film itself. Before we ponder this too deeply, bird shit jokes soon follow. However the low comedy does give way to a consistent Altman theme, the individual’s place in the community. While MASH posited that a sub-culture of hedonists could make wartime bearable, Brewster (played coldly by Bud Cort of Harold and Maude fame) chooses to isolate himself from any sense of community, denying even his guardian angel and single mindedly following his dream of individual flight at all costs. This certainly hints of tragic undertones beneath the silliness.

Stroszek vs. Children in the Wind

This review is part of a series focusing on the MUBI DIRECTORS CUP. This informal online bracket competition pits films of various directors against each other, with the winner moving on to the next round with a different film. The only criteria for voting is that both films must be viewed.

Stroszek (1977)is an amazing film that keeps getting richer with repeated viewings. For a leisurely paced film of normal length, a hell of a lot is happening on a character, visual and thematic level.

Most striking is simply the fact of Bruno S. in the title role. He’s either pretty much playing himself or has given one of the all time great film performances. A little reading about Bruno reveals that, like his character, he’s been abused and is mentally challenged to some degree (although functional). What we are seeing in the film is apparently Bruno’s own unique, larger-than-life personality, including that wonderfully odd speech pattern. This is most purely seen as we watch Bruno singing and playing the accordion with such gusto in the alleyway. This, along with director, Werner Herzog’s own background as a documentary filmmaker, plus the use of non-actors in most roles, blurs the fiction/reality line and lends a sense of authenticity to every scene.

Werner Herzog has an uncanny ability to make any landscape he films look like an alien environment from another planet. That he can achieve this effect shooting the Amazon in Aguirre: The Wrath of God or Antarctica in Encounters at the End of the World is one thing, but making this location magic work for Wisconsin is impressive on a whole other level. Being from Chicago, my perception of Wisconsin has always been that it’s a bit boring, but generally normal. Of course, Herzog is from Germany, as are his characters, so regarding the American Midwest as a foreboding and exotic land gives a similar sense of cultural displacement that ended up prominently featured in Lost in Translation.

The main theme is an indictment of societies that do not care for its weakest members. Bruno’s band of outsiders, being himself (a retarded man), his prostitute sometime girlfriend and a strange old gent, are brought together more by surrounding hostility than real affection toward each other. As the trio try to make their way in America, we get a distinctly foreign impression of the American Dream. I’ve heard stories that my grandparent’s generation thought the streets here were paved with gold. That seems not too far off from Bruno and his friend’s expectations. What seems to really demoralize the group is not that life remains hard, but that the American Dream represented a promise that couldn’t even be hoped for in Germany. For Herzog, the outsider remains an outsider no matter where he or she goes.

This idea is repeatedly represented, both through dialogue and visually, by the motif of a never-ending circle. It comes to fruition in that unforgettable, funny, sad, whacked out and perfect ending. It’s so perfect that I don’t even want to describe it in case there’s someone reading who hasn’t already seen the film.

Hiroshi Shimizu’s entry also takes an outsider looking in point of view. This time, looked at through the eyes of children as they try to perceive the problems of the adult world. Nowhere near as ambitious as Stroszek, Children in the Wind (1937) is still successful in its depiction of two young Japanese brothers who must cope with their father’s firing, arrest and their subsequent relocation. The younger brother, Sampei, reacts by acting out (not that he wasn’t a handful to begin with), putting himself in dangerous situations and generally driving the relatives caring for him crazy.

The plot is very basic and, if it were made in Hollywood, would probably showcase the adorableness of the kids and milk the melodrama for all it was worth. Happily, Shimizu does not pander and his child performers are not cutesy, but naturalistic. Early scenes of neighborhood children running wild gave the impression that they were one plane crash away from going completely Lord of the Flies on each other. It’s been commented that the kids can be pretty annoying, which is true, but also true of many of their real life counterparts. The parents, however, remain strangely passive, preferring to teach by example, I suppose.

In addition to offering a perceptive view of family dynamics, Children in the Wind also has a strong visual sense. The framing, in particular, stands out. Look at the house scene where we see through a translucent drapery at the adults in the center of the frame, while the children are sleeping/listening from their beds in the bottom corner of the screen. Until they start to move, we could miss that they’ve been on screen the whole time. There are also plenty of humorous bits of business that keep the film lively, like the scene where Sampei attempts to reach his father’s hat hanging on the office wall.

I’m glad to have seen Children of the Wind, a film that normally would have escaped my notice, but my vote goes to Stroszek, a great work of true originality that I plan to keep revisiting.

Manhattan vs. Szindbad

This review is part of a series focusing on the MUBI DIRECTORS CUP. This informal online bracket competition pits films of various directors against each other, with the winner moving on to the next round with a different film. The only criteria for voting is that both films must be viewed.

Chapter One – Manhattan vs. Szindbad. I adored Woody Allen. I idolized him all out of proportion. Then he spent the last twelve or so years making crap films and I got over him. Revisiting Manhattan (1979) showed me that, unlike the characters in this film, I was not suffering from delusions, but was watching one of the great directors in his prime.

It’s one of the unforgettable openings in film. Stunning black and white images of New York City, while the soundtrack plays Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, combined with Allen’s narration commenting on what he perceives as his ideal self in his ideal locale. We will soon find out that Allen’s character Isaac, as well as the rest of his flawed entourage, idealizes relationships as well. Here’s what’s brilliant about the opening. By showing NYC in such a magical light, we are being primed to buy into these ideals. Because Isaac is played by Woody Allen, the lovable loser, we may not register that he’s no longer the underdog, but a successful, somewhat selfish man very capable of hurting others.

Isaac spends much of the film trying to justify, continue or end his affair with a 17 year-old high school student. Normally, this would alienate us from him, but it doesn’t, because he’s self aware enough to feel guilt (unlike a certain Hungarian lothario I’ll get to shortly) and Mariel Hemmingway’s understated portrayal of Tracy, who she invests with such maturity and smarts, that the relationship seems somewhat less inappropriate. We kind of have to keep reminding ourselves that an affair between a man of 42 and a girl of 17 is wrong. (Yes, this brings us some issues in Woody Allen’s personal life, but I don’t give damn about that. I’m only interested in his films.)

The Diane Keaton and Michael Murphy characters are not much better off. Despite their charm and likeability, they are serial adulterers, smart enough to know better AND to care, but not so smart as to commit to any kind of mature relationship. All this is after the fact analysis that doesn’t take into account how much Manhattan lures us into identifying with these flawed characters. I also haven’t mentioned how damn laugh out loud funny this film is. It contains possibly the sharpest writing of any Allen script, combining humor with a wistful sense of romance and the best looking cinematography Allen’s ever been associated with.

Szindbad AKA Sinbad is also a beautiful film to look at. This 1971 Hungarian period piece from director, Zoltán Huszárik, is told as a deathbed recollection of the title character trying to assign meaning to his life. There’s some artsy stylizing at hand with quick cuts to related, but separate moments from the narrative as well as to seemingly abstract close ups.

Sinbad’s recollections are that of an upper class turn-of-the-19th century womanizer who life was spent seducing and abandoning an endless array of beautiful women. Unlike, the characters in Manhattan, these relationships are embarked on with no sense of self awareness and no real joy either. Zoltán Latinovits plays Sinbad as an utter drip. With the exception of an elderly ex-lover he confides in, the women in his life are all interchangeable (although the death of one seems to have left a mark.) As viewers, we’re given little to distinguish his many conquests from each other.

The films many (tame) love scenes are filmed without an ounce of eroticism. In fact, Sinbad seems to regard these seductions as somewhat of a chore. There is, however, one very sensual scene, but it involves food rather than women. Sinbad sits down at a fancy restaurant to confront the ex-husband of one of his lovers. The meal is lingered upon in the kind of long and detailed close ups that exist nowhere else in the film. This sequence begins a more compelling final act than what came before.

All in all, my reaction to Sinbad was mixed. I admire its ornate look and how it captured its time period through sets and landscapes. If I was left cold by the lead performance, I’m sure this was by design. The risk of having distant characters is that you can end up keeping your audience at a distance. From a distance, it was interesting, creative and had something to say. That’s about as much affection as I can muster up for it.

My Alternate Oscars

A quick disclaimer – I’m borrowing this idea from Danny Peary’s book, Alternate Oscars. Like Peary, I think the Academy gets it wrong more often than not. Unlike him, I’m allowing foreign films to be among my choices. In any case, Alternate Oscars is a great book and also includes best actor and actress picks.



THE ACADEMY’S CHOICE…………………….MY CHOICE

2009 - "The Hurt Locker" .......................... Inglorious Basterds
2008 – “Slumdog Millionaire”…………………… Synecdoche, New York
2007 – “No Country for Old Men” ………………Black Snake Moan
2006 – “The Departed”………………………….. United 93
2005 – “Crash”…………………………………… Sin City
2004 – “Million Dollar Baby”…............... Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2003 – “Return of the King”…………………….. Kill Bill: Volume 1
2002 – “Chicago”………………………………… Adaptation
2001 – “A Beautiful Mind”………………………. Memento
2000 – “Gladiator”…………............. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
1999 – “American Beauty”……………………… Fight Club
1998 – “Shakespeare in Love”………………….The Truman Show
1997 – “Titanic”………………………………….. Wag the Dog
1996 – “The English Patient”…………………… Breaking the Waves
1995 – “Braveheart”…………………………….. Se7en
1994 – “Forrest Gump”…………………………. Pulp Fiction
1993 – “Shindler’s List” ………………………….Shindler’s List
1992 – “Unforgiven” …………………………….. The Player
1991 – “The Silence of the Lambs”……………. The Silence of the Lambs
1990 – “Dances with Wolves”………………….. Goodfellas
1989 – “Driving Miss Daisy”……………………. Do the Right Thing
1988 – “Rain Man”………………………………. A Fish Called Wanda
1987 – “The Last Emperor”…………………….. Wings of Desire
1986 – “Platoon”…………………………………. Hannah and Her Sisters
1985 – “Out of Africa”…………………………….Ran
1984 – “Amadeus”………………………………..This is Spinal Tap
1983 – “Terms of Endearment”………………….The Right Stuff
1982 – “Gandhi”………………………………….. E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial
1981 – “Chariots of Fire”…………………………Raiders of the Lost Ark
1980 – “Ordinary People”……………………….. The Empire Strikes Back
1979 – “Kramer vs. Kramer”……………………. Apocalypse Now!
1978 – “The Deer Hunter”…………… National Lampoon's Animal House
1977 – “Annie Hall”……………………………….Star Wars
1976 – “Rocky”…………………………………… Taxi Driver
1975 – “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”……Nashville
1974 – “The Godfather Part II”…………………..Young Frankenstein
1973 – “The Sting”………………………………..The Exorcist
1972 – “The Godfather” ………………………… The Godfather
1971 – “The French Connection”………………. Fiddler on the Roof
1970 – “Patton”……………………………………M*A*S*H
1969 – “Midnight Cowboy”……………………… The Wild Bunch
1968 – “Oliver!”……………………………………2001: A Space Odyssey
1967 – “In the Heat of the Night”………………..Samurai Rebellion
1966 – “A Man for All Seasons”…………The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
1965 – “The Sound of Music”…………………… Red Beard
1964 – “My Fair Lady”…………………………… Dr. Strangelove…
1963 – “Tom Jones”………………………………The Birds
1962 – “Lawrence of Arabia”…………………… Lawrence of Arabia
1961 – “West Side Story”……………………….. West Side Story
1960 – “The Apartment”………………………… Psycho
1959 – “Ben-Hur”………………………………… Rio Bravo
1958 – “Gigi”……………………………………… Vertigo
1957 – “The Bridge on the River Kwai”………..Throne of Blood
1956 – “Around the World in 80 Days”………… The Searchers
1955 – “Marty”……………………………………. Rififi
1954 – “On the Waterfront”………………………Seven Samurai
1953 – “From Here to Eternity”………………….Tokyo Story
1952 – “The Greatest Show on Earth”………… Ikiru
1951 – “An American in Paris”…………………. A Streetcar Named Desire
1950 – “All about Eve”……………………………Sunset Boulevard
1949 – “All the Kings Men”………………………The Third Man
1948 – “Hamlet”………………………………….. Red River
1947 – “Gentleman’s Agreement”……………… Black Narcissus
1946 – “The Best Years of Our Lives”………….Notorious
1945 – “The Lost Weekend”……………………..Children of Paradise
1944 – “Going My Way”…………………The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
1943 – “Casablanca”……………………………. Shadow of a Doubt
1942 – “Mrs. Miniver”……………………………. Casablanca
1941 – “How Green Was My Valley”……………Citizen Kane
1940 – “Rebecca”…………………………………The Grapes of Wrath
1939 – “Gone with the Wind”…………………… The Wizard of Oz
1938 – “You Can’t Take It with You”……………The Lady Vanishes
1937 – “The Life of Emile Zola”………………… The Grand Illusion
1936 – “The Great Ziegfeld”……………………. Modern Times
1935 – “Mutiny on the Bounty”…………………. Bride of Frankenstein
1934 – “It Happened One Night”……………….. The Scarlet Empress
1932/1933 – “Cavalcade”……………………….. King Kong
1931/1932 – “Grand Hotel”…………………….. Freaks
1930/1931 – “Cimarron”………………………… City Lights
1929/1930 – “All Quiet on the Western Front”…Pandora’s Box
1928/1929 – “The Broadway Melody”…………. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
1927/1928 – “Wings”……………………………. Metropolis

THE NYLON CURTAIN - Billy Joel

The Nylon Curtain
Billy Joel
1982

It only takes one great idea to make a great album. Billy Joel’s The Nylon Curtain has two. As hinted at by its cover of identical silhouetted houses, it’s a quasi-concept album exploring the theme of the dark side of suburbia (which, to save space, I’ll be referring to as DSOS.) Musically, it harkens back to the late 60’s and specifically recalls the style of The Beatles.

To place the album in context, Billy Joel had just released Glass Houses in 1980, which was his attempt to echo the then contemporary New-Wave movement. In 1983, he would release An Innocent Man, delving into the late 50’s early 60 roots rock and doo-wop he grew up with. The results were uncannily authentic and the best retro-album I’ve ever heard.

It was in the middle of this highly creative period of exploring different musical eras that The Nylon Curtain came about. Billy Joel, of course, had already developed his own sound, coming to fruition in his excellent The Stranger. This is key because, only incorporating The Beatle’s style into his own, could lead to an innovative work. Most efforts to simply sound like The Beatles result in fun, but inconsequential bands like The Smithereens.

As far as The Nylon Curtain as a concept album goes, it can only be loosely viewed as such. It does not tell a narrative story or reference particular characters, but does keep coming back to its lower income suburban setting and a family struggling to make sense of the American dream in an environment where pain and regret lay just underneath the idyllic surface.

If this theme sounds familiar, it’s not because you’ve heard it on other albums, but because of its recurring presence in later movies. David Lynch’s Blue Velvet may have been the first of the DSOS films, but it was most successfully realized in Sam Mendes’ 1999 Best Picture winner, American Beauty, a film that owes more than a small debt to The Nylon Curtain. It’s not that the plot points are the same, but Kevin Spacey’s protagonist could easily be the narrator of “Pressure” or “A Room of Our Own.”

Let go through this track by track. The first single, “Allentown” is a perfectly constructed song and one of the best of Joel’s career. The Beatle echo is slight, but its highly melodic pop feel would make the Fab Four proud. It provides an actual locale for the album and there’s no reason to think that all of the DSOS songs don’t also take place in Allentown. While most of the album will deal with suburban decay on a personal level, “Allentown” is about the decay of the town itself. Unemployment and the decline of industry leads to an overt questioning of the American dream and why this generation isn’t reaping the benefits their parents had.

“Laura” is Billy Joel trying to channel John Lennon at his most White Album bitter. The narrator’s relationship to Laura is so dysfunctional as to be rendered comic. If later songs are about a failing marriage, “Laura” shows it all going wrong in the courtship. It’s a relationship, not based on love, but the need to be loved. There’s a constant, sometimes violent imagery of being trapped – “these careless fingers, they get caught it her vice, till they’re bleeding on my coffee table.” By the end of the song, our narrator is completely emasculated, asking, after making his girlfriend sound like a she-devil, “How can you hang up on someone that needs you that bad.”

Joel abandons the Beatle sound for a few tracks starting with the synth driven “Pressure.” The second single from The Nylon Curtain is about tension and sounds tense. The narrator’s breakdown here results not just from home life, but a work environment where “you’re just like everybody else.” Innocent domestic pop culture references like Sesame Street, Time Magazine and Peter Pan are rendered sinister in the context of the song.

Shifting gears to “Goodnight Saigon,” we come across one the most unique songs in the Joel catalog. More Andrew Lloyd Weber than British Invasion, this tribute to Vietnam veterans has the pomp and power of a great musical theater curtain closer. It’s also the song the most critics of Billy Joel hone in on as, in their view, Joel is singing from a point of view he knows nothing about, never having served in Nam. Well, that’s why it’s called writing and not all songs need be autobiographical. The fact that “Goodnight Saigon” is sincere and without irony may be a problem for some, but I feel it only adds to its charm.

Featuring some of his most assured vocals, “She’s Right on Time” is The Nylon’s Curtain’s hidden gem. Both musically and lyrically, it’s a mirror image of “Laura.” Here, Joel celebrates his love’s return while, this time, leveling venom at himself – “A man with too much tension, far too many sins to mention.” The fact that the narrator has torn out his telephones is a wonderful contrast to the earlier songs repeated telephone imagery.

“A Room of Our Own” may sound like a holdover from Glass Houses, but its DSOS lines are among the most vivid on the album. At this point, the narrator and his now wife are in full conflict. To a solid rock beat, everyday differences between man and wife are exaggerated and made irreconcilable. Again the Lennonesque bitter humor reveals itself: “You’ve got diamonds and I’ve got spades. You’ve got pills and I’ve got razor blades. You’ve got yoga honey, I’ve got beer. You got overpriced and I got weird.”

The Beatle sound rejoins the Lennon-influenced lyrics in “Surprises.” What constitutes the surprise may be left to our imagination, but it brings the narrator to the conclusion that the dream is over. Perhaps he’s admitting to an affair or just falling out of love. Whether the relationship is too end or continue in unhappy silence is also not clear, but while the open conflict of “Laura” and “A Room of Our Own” revels in its dark humor, “Surprises” is more somber with a note of regretful acceptance.

This acceptance may be why “Scandinavian Skies” seems to abandon the DSOS motif altogether. Its clever world geography wordplay is offset with the most severe cribbing of the Beatle sound on the entire album. The musical source is clearly “I am the Walrus” and it’s a ballsy move to come so close to the originals influence. Joel gets away with it, first, because it’s a damn good song and, second, because he’s been teasing the Beatle sound throughout and here comes clean.

“Where’s the Orchestra?” is a bit anti-climatic after all this. This quiet sad song about broken dreams, is actually much sadder in the context of the whole album. The little hint of the “Allentown” melody at the very end is an appropriately Beatlesque touch of bringing an album full circle.

Billy Joel may have better individual songs than those on The Nylon Curtain, but he has never before or since put together such an ambitious and meaningful work.