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Sun Nov 27th
Singin' in the Rain (USA, 1952) Cosford Cinema
A public screening of this classic is reason to rejoice. It's hard to believe Singin' in the Rain was a rushed production created around a collection of old songs to profit from the huge success of An American in Paris and its star Gene Kelly. Kelly and Stanley Donen directed, based on a script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green about Hollywood during the difficult transition from silents to sound films. Singin' in the Rain's wild variety of musical styles amounts to a delightful history of the genre, from burlesque and vaudeville to the more lyrical and romantic variations. The tone shifts from tender to laugh-out-loud funny. The story holds it all in place and the performances are uniformly brilliant. Cast includes Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Cyd Charisse, and a teenage Debbie Reynolds.
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Originally posted by Chris Knipp
What sort of import DVD, if you don't mind?
It's a NTSC Region#3 release by Panorama, a Hong Kong company. Release date: 7/16/2005.
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NTSC Region 3....etc.
Did you buy or rent it?
Singin' in the Rain -- makes me think of A Clockwork Orange. But yes, I have seen the original movie. Gene Kelly wasn't sexy -- or elegant like Fred Astaire -- but he was a great dancer and a charismatic personality for that style of musical.
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*A rental from Nicheflix (the Ozu film).
Monday Nov 28th
Cowards Bend the Knee (or The Blue Hands) (Canada, 2004) dvd
A silent horror film inspired by the tragedies of Euripedes and films starring Bela Lugosi, shot in Super-8 and divided into 10 chapters of equal duration (6 min. 6 secs.). Also an autobiography with a protagonist named Guy Maddin, like the Winnipeg-based director. But he was born in 1956 and the film is set circa 1930. Maddin calls it the most accurate type of autobiographical film because it incorporates what he calls his "pre-history" and his family "mythology". The plot involves mutilation, revenge murder, a hoax transplant, and a Freudian love triangle involving a ghost. The action takes place in a graveyard, a hockey arena with a wax museum in its rafters, and a beauty salon that serves as after-hours bordello and abortion clinic. Maddin is true to his intention to make the film "as hysterical and elliptical as possible". Sometimes films take you on a trip to a strange place that only exists in the wild imagination of a fearless artist.
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Tuesday November 29th
Kira (Russia, 2003) dvd
"My dream is to disappear with only my films remaining. No cross, nothing. Only her films remain! Some people like them, but most don't". (Kira Muratova)
Doc about Romania-born, Moscow-educated filmmaker Kira Muratova. A tough assignment for director Vladimir Nepevny because she doesn't want to be "opened up like a can and examined" and claims to have poor memory of past events. It's left for directors like Andrej Wajda and Alexander Sokurov to praise her uncompromising vision and key collaborators to provide some insight into Muratova's cantankerous but generous personality. Kira was extremely valuable to me primarily because I've only seen Passions and Chekhovian Motifs and Kira includes numerous clips from all her other features.
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Tuesday Nov 29th (cont.)
Chekhovian Motifs (Russia, 2002) dvd
An updated merging of Chekhov's unfinished play "Tatyana Repina" and his short story "Difficult Natures", directed by Kira Muratova. The latter concerns the eldest son of a farming family leaving the nest to attend college and the generational clash between him and his cheapskate father. This story is split into two episodes that open and close Chekhovian Motifs. In between, an hour-long wedding in an Orthodox church where a motley group of guests kvetch, opine and cackle incessantly as Muratova's pans take it all in. Most interestingly, the chubby groom is under the impression that the ghost of his lover Tatyana, an actress who poisoned herself, is interfering with the ceremony.
Chekhovian Motifs evidences Muratova's penchant for dialogue lines repeated as mantras, affection for grotesque characters, and unusual attention to animals. I understand why Jonathan Rosenbaum would say "if you enter this without any warning you might wind up fleeing in terror", but I was happy under the fascinating spell of a filmmaker with a mind (and eye) of her own.
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I wish you would give more information about where you got the film if its a DVD each time--Nettlix, NIcheflix, purchase, if so where purchased, etc. It's also helpful to give the director's name with the title at the beginning of your note or review. Thanks.
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Wed Nov 30th
The Cry of the Owl (France/Italy, 1986) dvd
Claude Chabrol is the celebrated director influenced by Hitchcock and Lang who emerged from the Nouvelle Vague and has made at least 10 movies you must see (my list: La Beau Serge, La Femme Infidele, Le Boucher, The Cousins, Les Bonnes Femmes, This Man Must Die, Violette, Story of Women, Madame Bovary, La Ceremonie).
Claude Chabrol has also been called a hack and a sell-out because his poor discernment and addiction to shooting schedules has resulted in at least 10 movies you must avoid.
The Cry of the Wolf falls somewhere in between.
The Cry of the Owl was hand-picked by Patricia Highsmith for Chabrol. By all accounts, the film is quite faithful to the novel, except it is now set in Vichy, France. Highsmith seems to have understood that the novel's themes are a good match for Chabrol's preoccupation with unveiling the dark side of bourgeoise characters residing in seemingly placid small towns. As with most mystery thrillers, plot descriptions are likely to spoil the experience. It suffices to reveal that Robert, a recently divorced peeping tom who admits to mental instability is "found out" by the subject of his obsession. Instantly smitten, Juliette breaks up with her fiance, who won't take it lightly. The plot provides plenty of surprising twists and the characters gradually reveal traits not initially apparent.
Upon release, a number of critics questioned the plausibility of certain events. I was able to sustain disbelief until the climax, which is downright absurd, as staged by Chabrol. So absurd in fact that it raises the possibility Chabrol is playing a joke on Robert, a surreal move Bunuel would applaud. A minor complain would be the archaic, overly precious lines uttered at times by the morbid Juliette. I found The Cry of the Owl worth watching, but except for Highsmith's fans, I hesitate to offer a general recommendation.
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I just watched (Netflix DVD) Chabrol's La rupture/The Breach, from 1970. It is treated by film professors as a classic. I liked your dividing his work up into works you must see and works to avoid, and this one also may lie in between. What would you say about it?
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*Currently I'm taking full advantage of the Netflix membership and the good selection at my local library. Almost all the Region 1 discs I'm watching are rentals. Most of the imports are from Nicheflix but I'm about to cancel my membership as I've seen most of the titles that interest me. The Cry of the Owl is from my own library. It's one of about 100 discs I plan to sell (when I make the time to do it, that is.)
*Even though it's been a while since I watched La Rupture, I think I can answer your question. I think it's a bit better than The Cry of the Owl. I would not call it a classic. Those who appreciate Chabrol at his most surreal and experimental might think so though, whereas others may dismiss it as too implausible or believable.
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Thursday Dec. 1st
Jarhead (USA, 2005) AMC CocoWalk
Pick Up on South Street (USA, 1953) dvd
An excellent film noir written and directed by Samuel Fuller (The Big Red One, 40 Guns). Richard Widmark stars as Skip McCoy, a pickpocket who snatches a wallet from Candy (Jean Peters) while riding the NYC subway. Candy was transporting a piece of microfilm in that wallet. She doesn't know that the recipient is a communist agent and that she's being tailed by FBI agents. A pro stoolie named Moe (Thelma Ritter) sells information to the cops that results in McCoy's arrest but they fail to find the microfilm.
Fuller's background as a journalist and his experience with underworld types proved invaluable in crafting the knowing, economical script. His skills in choreographing exciting and believable action sequences is amply evident here. Yet, what makes Pick Up on South Street so memorable to me are the principal characters and how they increasingly become more complex as the involving plot proceeds. The art direction and set design are deserving of particular praise for evoking New York City locales within the confines of the 20th Century Fox studio. Highly recommended.
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Thank you for putting your comment, however brief and disappointed, on the Jarhead thread.
I hadn't thought of Pickup on South Street as a noir. Interesting thought. I just thought of it as a Samuel Fuller movie. That's a genre all to itself, which grows complexly out of his being what might be described as a "primitive," as an article on his death did, or as an expressionist, a political filmmaker whose politics are murky, an artist of "stylistic tics," a "melodramist" (Adrian Martin) certainly an extremist, certaily uneven, crude yet a master of technique. Fuller defies description, and his best work is certainly not to be missed, and Pickup is by general consent one of those.
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I've seen only 7 Sam Fuller movies, the three mentioned above and the following: The Naked Kiss, Shock Corridor, The Steel Helmet and White Dog. I cannot call him "uneven" based on my experience with these seven, as I like them a lot. He's one of the directors I'm paying attention this year. It's deserved I believe. Next Fuller I'll watch is either House of Bamboo or the made-in-Portugal Street of No Return.
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Friday December 2nd
Charlotte and Veronique (or All the Boys are Named Patrick) (France, 1958) dvd
Godard debuted as director with this short written by Eric Rohmer. The titular roommates are picked up separately by Patrick (Jean Claude Brialy). Both agree to go out on dates with him. Charming, endearing film with nice b&w photography of Parisian streets. Included as an extra in the Criterion dvd of A Woman is a Woman.
Rana's Wedding (Palestine/Netherlands, 2003) Cosford Cinema
Unless Rana is married by 4 p.m., she has to move to Egypt with her widowed father. The young Palestinian intends to marry her boyfriend Khalil even though she has yet to discuss it with him. Rana's urgent predicament is not credible_she must've known for weeks of her father's plans. Yet, rather than regard this as a fatal flaw, I consider it dramatic shorthand; a way to create a fiction to document a Palestinian's travel around Jerusalem and her crossing the armed checkpoint separating Jerusalem from the occupied territories.
What emerges is a rich snapshot of Palestine and an expose of the plight of Palestinians under Israeli rule, anchored by a fascinatingly complex protagonist (Clara Khoury is wonderful as Rana). Dutch-based Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad's film never feels didactic or driven by a political agenda. Political outrage is held in check until the final credits, which include Mahmoud Darwish's angry poem "State of Siege".
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Saturday Dec 3rd
A Woman is a Woman (France, 1961) dvd
Godard described it both as "a comedy a la Lubitsch" and "the idea of a musical". It's his first studio picture, a color CinemaScope one. The characters wonder it it's "comedy or drama". A demure stripper (Anna Karina) wants to get pregnant. Her lover (Jean Claude Brialy) refuses, so she recruits their friend (Belmondo). This premise is not treated with any gravity. It's used to generate amusing vignettes and visual gags to a score by Michel Legrand. Snippets of a score that is, with Godard hinting at the possibility of turning certain scenes into musical numbers, without ever doing so.
A Woman is a Woman is tirelessly self-conscious, with constant winking at the viewer, and packed with references to other films by Godard and Truffaut. Godard discourages full engagement by constantly stressing the fakery and artifice inherent to commercial genres. He's like a magician sharing the secret behind the trick. I found it mildly diverting yet inconsequential and slight. The film has ardent admirers as well as violent detractors (Manny Farber, for instance, called it "perhaps the most soporific, conceited, sluggish movie of all time"). A Woman is a Woman is more about Karina, and Godard's parental anxieties, than anything else. I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone except for devoted fans of the actress (and Godard completists, of course).
Other films by Godard reviewed on this thread:
Weekend
Tout Va Bien
Notre Musique
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her
La Chinoise
Letter to Jane
