The Longest Post On Filmwurld

[oscar jubis]

Two additions to my canon of great films:

THE 3 PENNY OPERA (1931/Germany)

and

THE BIG SICK (2017/USA)

Best film of 2019 by far is SUNSET (Hungary)

[Chris Knipp]

I saw the stage version of Threepenny Opera a long time ago. I hope you saw my review of The Big Sick. That New Yorker article provides good background.

[oscar jubis]

I'd love to attend a stage version of "3 penny".
The version I watched in college was much shorter than the more complete, good-looking version available today. Cast and crew are top notch;
the camera movement in this film stands out from contemporaneous productions and the mise-en-scene up to German Expressionism's highest standards. Your review is great and the NYer article informative.
I'm reading Benedetto's Zama and learning a lot about adaptation from Lucrecia Martel.
I'm teaching a course titled "Screenwriting for Cinema & TV" in the Fall. Excited.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks, Oscar. From what I read, reading Zama is quite a project (though it has been much read). You read Spanish. If I did, I might tackle it. I have a big poster of the film enshrined in my garage, where I have several others including Bamako and the Dardennes' The Son. In the big Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, it was impressive. I see the restored original Threepenny Opera is at the moment on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUgkrlL8GkE

[cinemabon]

Mack the knife...

[Chris Knipp]

Ah ha! You're there.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks, Oscar. From what I read, reading Zama is quite a project (though it has been much read). You read Spanish. If I did, I might tackle it. I have a big poster of the film enshrined in my garage, where I have several others including Bamako and the Dardennes' The Son. In the big Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, it was impressive. I see the restored original Threepenny Opera is at the moment on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUgkrlL8GkE

Zama is an easy read; and fairly short. In English (because the Spanish language version is hard to find/expensive).
I prefer Ghibli films dubbed in English, by the way. Guess I'm not always a "purist".
I'm about to add the version of Henry James' "Washington Square" titled
THE HEIRESS (1949/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer),
from a director I appreciate now more than ever: WILLIAM WYLER. Olivia de Havilland plays the protagonist, Catherine Sloper, and won an Oscar. I like the movie better than the novel because of the ambiguity created by having simpatico Montgomery Clift play the suitor and the script also helping to make the character less hateful than the novel's. So now, it leaves you wondering at the end whether her final decision is the right one.

[cinemabon]

Evidently Olivia de Havilland hated working with Ralph Richardson, but wouldn't elaborate on why. She always does one of those "knowing" smiles and stares at the interviewer. I wonder how many takes Wyler put him through (Multi-take Willie). Perhaps the strain of doing the same scene repeatedly put him on edge as it did with Lawrence Olivier. When Wyler threatened to fire him (Olivier - on Wuthering Heights), he settled down (though I doubt Sam Goldwyn would've allowed that). It's difficult for many stage actors to "tone down" their skill for cinema. Few successful stage actors have made that transition satisfactorily. Olivier's style suited him well for some films - his over the top mellow drama - Hamlet, Rebecca. Richardson performed more in cinema in his later years, probably because he had to memorize less. I can't get over how Angela Lansbury does it - in her nineties and still acting on the stage. That's stamina.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks very much for this interesting post. There are some TV interviews of the actors accessible on the Criterion BR that I own. I'm interested to dig further into the relationships between the thespians and Wyler. The German-Jewish director was seriously under-rated by the 2 most important critics*** in my life: Andrew Sarris and Jonathan Rosenbaum (Who just recently admitted that there may be SEVERAL masterpieces in his filmography, having finally, in 2010, said THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is a masterpiece). Sarris eventually elevated William Wyler to the PANTHEON of cinema geniuses, having once relegated the auteur to the category LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE

***(not film academics, that honor falls on the great philosopher Stanley Cavell and my mentor William Rothman, the predominant Cavell and Hitchcock scholar in the USA)