|
Accident
 1967 UK Dir Joseph Losey Cast Dirk Bogarde, Jacqueline Sassard, Michael York, Delphine Seyrig IMDb
|
I’m generally a fan of abstraction in dialogue and visuals whether it’s particularly meaningful or not. I’m not sure all of Losey’s editorial choices here are wholly meaningful, but as a matter of style I enjoy his juxtapositions of image and sound across time and space. Perhaps it does effectively compel the viewer to consider two related events and form different conclusions than one might have if they had been presented in a more straightforward manner, but there’s little uniformity when he does choose to employ it, and little evident payoff from it other than eliciting an impressed “Neat!”
Specifically you could cut this down to Bogarde’s ten-minute tryst with Seyrig and have a fascinating experimental short: in real-time, visually, they exchange no dialogue; they meet, have dinner, and return to her place without saying a word to one another. The image is overlaid with the telephone call that instigated their rendezvous, and with a discordant minimalist theme newly introduced to the film’s score. Shot from interesting angles and through rainy windows, it’s really a cool sequence, but does it mean much in the context of a larger narrative film? Perhaps nothing so deep.
Anyway, this is really a nice spin on the oft-told tale of an aging and insecure professor lusting after his beautiful pupil, here introducing a colleague who succeeds in taking her to bed and another student she can take out as her boyfriend. She’s gorgeous though vapid, easy to see that she’d inspire a wave of obsessive behavior and drive a series of events toward the titular accident which begins and ends the story. Pinter dialogue here, minimal, hilarious, loaded with meaning and danger. I do love the sort of thing a lot, and I’ll be looking for more Losey soon.
|
Gaslight
1944 US Dir George Cukor Cast Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Angela Lansbury, Joseph Cotten IMDb
|
Maybe this isn’t the most natural place to turn first when one is looking to nurse a budding crush on Charles Boyer: he plays his cruel husband-with-an-agenda with alarming intensity. Well, all right… that’s not exactly unsexy.  And intensity that man can play, from ardent lovers to smooth sociopaths. Ingrid Bergman is his tortured wife, gradually unraveling as the seeds of insanity from both heredity and witnessing her aunt’s murder as a young girl are perhaps coming to fruition, now newly wed and returning to the spooky home in which the murder took place. It’s a moody and genuinely exciting thriller, although the culprit and outcome are certain from the start. It is watching the mindgames unfold that keeps the thing chugging along in a dark and devilish way. Bergman’s choices are interesting, I would really cite this as a masterstroke of sylized cinematic work far from something realistic (as far as hysteria goes, this is on the other end of the spectrum from Gena Rowlands’ work in Woman Under the Influence) — not surprising for the era, but there’s something strange in it… one moment it works in mysterious and surprising ways, the next it’s almost laughable in its broadness. Still I feel it is a shrewd and above all interesting performance. This is also Angela Lansbury’s film debut, and she is hilarious as their saucy maid. Top-notch stuff all around.
|
I Am Legend
 2007 US Dir Francis Lawrence Cast Will Smith, Alice Braga, Emma Thompson, Charlie Tahan IMDb
|
This is surprisingly good, although I must take genre fans’ word on it that it steals a bit from recent zombie successes like 28 Days Later. Reasonably sophisticated, well-paced, and only occasionally marred by cornball touches (including the silly ending, tacked-on ‘message,’ and revised explanation for the title — I haven’t read the source material, but from what I gather about it on the IMDb boards parts of it seem a bit more interesting than this interpretation of it).
Will Smith is really the story here, and I don’t know how many times we have to rediscover what a talent he is before he ceases to be an underrated actor (perhaps when he moves on from films like this). He brings just the right measure of caution and nerve to a man slowly being driven insane by the weight of being alone in the world, hiding from vampire/zombies every day, and trying to restore the human race. His performance is actually quite affecting, rising above tired dialogue and routine situations.
I went to see this with my brother, in his second viewing and on his glowing recommendation. Well, needless to say there is not much intersection between my taste in film and his, but I was very interested when he said one moment in the movie made him sob. I cry very easily at movies. If he sobbed, I expected a four-hanky affair for me. Well, the moment came and went; my brother was sniffling again next to me and studying my reaction; I think he was stupefied when I didn’t shed a tear. The moment (if you’ve seen it, I’m sure you know what I mean) was sad, but it was so… unearned, you know what I mean? And I know there’s a sophistication process involved in looking beyond modern Hollywood that my brother hasn’t gone through, but I just wonder how so many people can see those cues and give the asked-for emotional response without anything real or earned underlying it. Are audiences too willing, or in this case does one just not want to see bad things happen to Will Smith; is it just a guy and his dog thing? I mean, the movie genuinely scared me because there were unexpected loud noises and things jumping out at me. All right. But I can’t return an honest emotional response given such an empty investment.
|
Noroît & Duelle
1976 France Dir Jacques Rivette Cast Geraldine Chaplin, Bernadette Lafont, Kika Markham IMDb
|
 |
 1976 France Dir Jacques Rivette Cast Bulle Ogier, Juliet Berto, Nicole Garcia, Jean Babilée IMDb |
Initial impressions, as these films are special enough to want to capture them, and at the same time special enough to return to after further rumination and rewatches to consider more capably. As many have found, these are difficult to follow fantasies with an inexplicable charm.
They were intended as two parts of a quartet of films, joined by the plot arcs of dueling goddesses and mortals searching for a magical jewel, through the lens of four genres: a swashbuckler (Noroît), a film noir (Duelle), a musical and a romance. A strange premise unfolding at great length at the apex of Rivette’s meandering, fanciful style — it is a great shame he was unable to complete the other two parts, having suffered a nervous breakdown when the third had just begun filming. If I can’t quite put my finger on why I love these two, I can say I could have taken much more of the same.
Both films display a kind of shameless gynocentrism — from Cukor’s The Women to Ozon’s 8 Women, a thing I will never complain about — as, goddess or mortal, the ladies call all the shots and the men serve as mere window dressing. In Noroît, men are turned into sex toys and literal tools of revenge, but this is essentially a girls-only pirate gang with women serving every conceivable role for one another, in shifting power dynamics and soap opera relationships that make this one a bit difficult to understand on first viewing. But if you don’t mind not quite following which two are retreating to an interestingly lit bedroom scene and which two are dueling in a visually pastiche masquerade you’re free to simply enjoy the display.
In Duelle, Juliet Berto and Bulle Ogier are the warring Goddesses of the Moon and Sun respectively, and quite probably no two actors more fully understand the ironic quirkiness, played straight kind of acting best suited to a Rivette film than these two gals. Chic and mischievous, they manipulate and seduce those who cross their path to the elusive jewel with deliciously underplayed flair. Again, poor Pierrot is our throwaway male, most easily turned to their will and most heartlessly cast aside.
Do these films have as much to say about film narrative as Celine and Julie, or are they impenetrable whimsy pieces like I judged Paris Belongs to Us? Time may tell, as they leave me in such a strange and wonderful giddy-cool haze that I intend to delve back into these crazy fantasy worlds again very soon.
|
A short digression on Charles Boyer…
|
A short digression on Charles Boyer, in lieu of reviewing Cluny Brown — what can I say? if you’ve seen one masterful comedy from Lubitsch you know what’s in store for you here: and yet you know you will be surprised by its freshness and sauciness; you know you will laugh uproariously, and follow its deliciously original characters anywhere. All Lubitsch girls agree, Cluny is a delight, and far from a minor work!
But Charles, Charles Boyer; it’s almost embarrassing to say it, but he was a revelation to me in this movie. You don’t need me to tell you that Boyer was one of the Golden Age’s great lovers, equal to or perhaps surpassing a Cary Grant, with the whole sexy, gallant Frenchman thing going for him. (This is funny, having done some reading up: in reality he was bald, short, called a “stick in the mud” by his closest friends and nursed just one love affair for over forty years; but give the man a toupee and some lifts and yowza, what a stud!) Yet somehow, some five years since I first acquired a love for 30s & 40s cinema, I’m only just now becoming properly acquainted with Charles Boyer. Oh, I had seen him in a few things, though shockingly few: first Love Affair with Irene Dunne, many years ago; then Casino Royale and Stavisky, and I can’t for the life of me remember him in either; Madame de…, and you may not fault me if I was too distracted by Vittorio De Sica’s charms to give props to Charles’; then When Tomorrow Comes and a few rewatches of Love Affair during the recent Dunne preoccupation (Together Again really should be in my mailbox any day now) and that’s, believe it or not, that. Well, the only quintessential Boyer-as-Love-God roles I have seen were the Dunne romances, and that might not be quite enough to support this theory but I’ll postulate it anyhow. I think a great male actor has in mind the same thing great male dancers are supposed to: their role is to create a situation in which their partner shines. That requires some mastery and some restraint, but I think if your leading lady has any kind of strong personality at all one’s eye is drawn to her first, leaving a sort of man of mystery a step behind to discover on a second look.
Well, scanning his filmography, I see I could very well have gone on this way for ages, incidentally watching Charles Boyer films without ever really noticing him on account of his attention-grabbing love interests: Hepburn, Bacall, Garbo, Davis, Stanwyck, and yes, Dunne three times. Such a cinematic presence himself, and yet I can easily imagine overlooking him for five years more. Thankfully, Cluny Brown and Jennifer Jones interceded early in our acquaintance to correct this. This is to say nothing against Jones, who makes Cluny her own, and at that an unknowingly sexy, brashly tomboyish, adorably innocent oddball. But (surprisingly again, perhaps) this was my first Jones film; I had no pre-existing affection to necessarily distract my eye from Boyer. And, Cluny Brown is a particularly fine film to highlight his talents. I would not have guessed Boyer, for all his costume dramas and beleaguered lovers, is a more than capable comedian. (Does Lubitsch bring it out in these men? Cooper, too, excels under his guidance.) In fact, Boyer gets most of the laughs, handling his role with a gentleness and playfulness that is unbelievably endearing. Yes, I am endeared. I am, in fact, ensorceled. His inhumanly arched eyebrows, his little winks and half-smiles, and that ability to at once maintain full control of his material while shining the spotlight on his costar: yes, that is talent; yes, this is love. And no, Cluny Brown, it’s not just the cocktails giving you that persian cat feeling… I think we both know too well it has a bit to do with Mr Charles Boyer. Rawr.
Um, uh huh. Yeah. Soooo… I might just be on to the next one with this guy, who certainly made some interesting films in his career. Whilst being adorable. Win-win.
Anyway, I’ve skipped over a couple reviews:
Shopworn 1932, NICK GRINDE Hey, I’ll really never get enough of Stany in her tough & scrappy roles, but as for the film I’ve seen the same old story one too many times. Lives up to its title? Yeah.
 Cluny Brown 1946, ERNST LUBITSCH
— Rose Hobart 1936, JOSEPH CORNELL Fascinating surrealist/collage short film, don’t know how to rate it exactly, but it’s pretty damn cool.
 Gespenster 2005, CHRISTIAN PETZOLD
|
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
1976 Belgium / France Dir Chantal Akerman Cast Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decort IMDb
|
Staggering. As anticipated, one of those films that’s difficult to recover from. The kind that won’t let your heart stop racing, won’t let your mind turn to any other subject, won’t let you go on about a normal day — particularly so in this case because to go on about a normal day, to do the dishes or the laundry, would be now too psychotically tied up in Jeanne Dielman’s own rigorously performed daily tasks; I might begin to wonder if I too am losing my stable shell of self while fetching the mail, might act out in a frightfully perverse show of agency while preparing my lunch.
This is the masterpiece many say it is, of filmic technique and feminist critique, and any who suspect they might be bored by watching a half-silent film about a woman mostly doing housework should just skip it, and not taint my new love. The film demands a lot and from a captive viewer; you must decide within ten minutes whether this is a woman you could care about, invest yourself in, even if you are given little of the usual expositional reasons to. When Jeanne flits from one chore to the next, switches off a light or closes a door, stares into space or silently at her son, it will not do to merely watch her; then, yes, for three hours you may be bored. You must inhabit her space, see with her eyes, think what thoughts must lurk behind that perfectly impassive gaze… It is, actually, riveting.
Jeanne is not living, not at any level beyond basic routine, and she falters when the smallest detail of her perpetually lived day is found amiss; these rituals are clearly an expression of love for her son, and his newly voiced horror at the realization that his mother has ever been ‘violently penetrated’ is an expression of love for her, but they cannot connect; never once, I don’t think, do two characters make eye contact in this film; once in a while they look at one another, but they never do connect. In the final minutes the viewer is let in on what happens when Jeanne leads her afternoon company into her bedroom, and what that act has perhaps always done to her usual emotional stasis, but this time — perhaps at random, perhaps in a culmination of years like this — she acts.
Akerman’s uncompromisingly rigid structure and social commentary lay the necessary foundation. Seyrig, in a heartrending performance felt in every extremity of her body, makes it work.
|
Atonement
2007 UK Dir Joe Wright Cast Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, Vanessa Redgrave IMDb
|
A feast for the eyes, ears, and emotions; meticulously controlled and stylized to the point of being overbearing, but it courts those lines rather than crosses them. Wright has come a long way since Pride & Prejudice, bringing plenty of style to it: Ian McEwan’s novel supplies the substance, and this does credit to his weaving and retreating metanarrative. Dario Marianelli’s exceptionally moving score adds a whole new level to it, incorporating typewriters and other on-screen images into the melody, sometimes finding a perfectly background piano theme coming from a character’s hands. This is an exercise in self-flagellation more than a romance, and if you’ve heard talk of the ending don’t build it up in your mind as a huge revelation or twist. It is a masterpiece of simplicity, of peeling off the final layer, of one character’s arrival at clarity, and at bottom a statement about narrative fiction.
At any rate, a rapturous experience for me, deserving of its awards and awfully underrated here; my #2 for the year so far.
|
|
|
[I Theia ap' to Chicago]
1957 - Greece
Director
Alekos Sakellarios
Starring
Orestis Makris, Georgia Vasileiadou
IMDb
|
|
Simple, adorable light comedy (from Greece, but in Old Hollywood style) about an ex-general with four young daughters he has to marry off, but is too overprotective and conservative to let them so much as speak to boys. He recruits his sister, who has spent the last 30 years in the liberal enlightenment that is Chicago, to get the job done. Hilarity ensues. Aside from the father and the aunt the characters are not well-drawn and even they are types, but it proceeds with a sort of sitcom inevitability through blossoming romances with palpable charm.
Ever Since Eve 1937, LLOYD BACON
Downloaded this a couple months ago when I first became smitten with Robert Montgomery, as it’s his highest-rated film on IMDb, and 343 votes for that 8.1 average is enough to expect a fair consensus. Oh no, it’s rather poor and recommended to no one. Cute plot about a woman (Marion Davies) who has to disguise herself as an ugly girl to gain secretarial employment and her skirt-chasing boss who falls in love with her real self is lazy and devoid of laughs. But all right, my Robert couldn’t be cuter so it’s not a total bust. Only for fans of the leads.
Based on the problem of prevalent sexual harassment in the workplace during this era, this comedy makes various points about what is considered attractive and how it may interfere with work.
-Sanderson Beck
Haha, meh, “various points” are pretty superficial but I guess if I ever get that PhD in women’s studies and teach Women in the Workplace I’ll show this film. 
Le Signe du lion 1959, ERIC ROHMER
Rohmer’s first film, very good, with a dialogue-light tragic-realism not found much elsewhere in his work, already the interest in ironic moral tales, gorgeous Paris photography despite the descent into homelessness, haunting score, great lead perf, hilarious JLG cameo.
 Petticoat Fever 1936, GEORGE FITZMAURICE
Better than Eve but still weak, works all right ’cause I like Robert & Myrna.
Devil & the Deep 1932, MARION GERING
Le Pont du Nord 1981, JACQUES RIVETTE
Ladies of Leisure 1930, FRANK CAPRA
Dan in Real Life 2007, PETER HEDGES — Effortlessly & genuinely charming, nothing new, but perhaps the best a generic romantic comedy can do.
|
|
That Most Important Thing: Love
|
|
“Actors have to act.”
|
|
[L'important c'est d'aimer]
1975 - France
Director
Andrzej Zulawski
Starring
Romy Schneider, Fabio Testi, Jacques Dutronc, Klaus Kinski
IMDb
|
|
I doubt if I can address this film in my usual style. The best films — as the best emotional experiences, which of course encompasses the best films — are felt viscerally: this dead weight in the bottom of my stomach, this being wracked with chills, this inability to quite just get on with my day. It is actually a simple film, so what is there to write about. Longing, bereavement, miscommunication, terror, lust, and being utterly thrashed to death by love. These characters, deeply inhabited by these actors (and I agree with Tuco, the performances are astonishing; I agree with Romy herself, this is probably her best work), are not content to merely say “I love,” yet find the active verb “to love” counter to mere survival. Georges Delerue has done this to me, too; his score is as haunting as that of Contempt. And while I have a vague fear I’ve already seen the two Zulawskis I’m most apt to love (this and My Nights), I can’t wait to tear into the rest of his filmography.
|
About TLC
Films: All reviewed | Favorites
Actors: Profiles | Favorites
Directors: Profiles | Favorites
Screencap galleries
All films by year
2008 Viewing log
Waterloo Bridge 1931, James Whale
Red-Headed Woman 1932, Jack Conway
Millie 1931, John Francis Dillon
The Woman Accused 1933, Paul Sloane
So Big! 1932, William A Wellman
The Awful Truth 1937, Leo McCarey
Conquest 1937, Clarence Brown
It’s Love I’m After 1937, Archie Mayo
The Mad Miss Manton 1938, Leigh Jason
Algiers 1938, John Cromwell
A short digression on Charles Boyer…
Yes, I am endeared. I am, in fact, ensorceled. His inhumanly arched eyebrows, his little winks and half-smiles, and that ability to at once maintain full control of his material while shining the spotlight on his costar: yes, that is talent; yes, this is love. And no, Cluny Brown, it’s not just the cocktails giving you that persian cat feeling… I think we both know too well it has a bit to do with Mr Charles Boyer. Rawr.
Pre-Code Hollywood
» Waterloo Bridge 1931 James Whale
» Red-Headed Woman 1932 Jack Conway
» Millie 1931 John Francis Dillon
» The Woman Accused 1933 Paul Sloane
» So Big! 1932 William A Wellman
Previous & ongoing
30s Cinema
Maestresses
The Lubitsch Race
In-transit romances
Nothing better suited to Hollywood romance than three weeks out of time, away from life, falling in love with a stranger, spending days idly and nights actively.
Currently reading
On the shelf
| |
Allure
Awards Daily
Bright Lights Film Journal
Cinemaniacal
Cinema Talk
Classic Cinema Online
Collective Contemplations on Cinema
Critical Culture
Criticker
Fataculture
Film Comment
Film Int
Greenbriar Picture Shows
House of Mirth & Movies
If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger...
Jump Cut
Mango Grove
Not Coming to a Theater Near You
The Pagan Agenda
Pop Matters
Rants & Musings
Reverse Shot
Self-Styled Siren
Senses of Cinema
Shining a Light on the Forgotten Classics
Sight & Sound
Sin in Soft Focus
TCM schedule
They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
Through a Blog Darkly
       
Friend me
|
