Mauriac’s Superb “Therese Desqueyroux” — A Book Review

by Dean | Sep 12, 2016 | General

France with its Catholicism exists, of course, in Madame Bovary, but it is somewhat more pronounced in Francois Mauriac‘s short novel, Therese Desqueyroux (1927).  After all, Mauriac was a Christian—or on the verge of becoming one when he wrote Therese—and his titular heroine commits a grave sin by trying to poison to death her husband Bernard.  Peculiarly Bernard, with Therese’s father, works out an exoneration for Therese, but he also forces her to live in near-confinement in his house—a kind of penance.  This goes on for a limited time, however.

I have not read in full Mauriac’s other three fictions about Therese, but apparently the errant woman finds God in the one called “The End of the Night,” which I cannot get through.  It is Therese Desqueyroux that I find riveting as well as superb, albeit therein there is no salvation.  Yielded by the story is the message that a marriage not founded on love can lead to the worst perversion, and such themes as the spiritual worth of a friendship (that of Therese and Anne de la Trave) but also its transience.

Madame Huppert: “MB” In 1991

by Dean | Sep 11, 2016 | General

Cover of Madame Bovary

Isabelle Huppert is extraordinary as Emma Bovary in Claude Chabrol‘s Madame Bovary, a long 1991 effort.  The formal achievement of Flaubert’s classic novel means that MB cannot really be filmed, but, besides the acting, what shines here is the directorial talent.  Chabrol is after authenticity—in character, in locations, in boredom, in anguish—and gets it.  He emphasizes only that which should be emphasized, and with a style never arty but always flavorous and even brave.  Check out the dancing at the ball, the doctor’s “bleeding” of a patient, the scenes of an Emma buried under debt.  No, we do not see Flaubert, but Chabrol and Huppert; and it’s fascinating.

Huppert has truly gone from strength to strength.  In the 1970s film The Lacemaker, she was quietly appealing; in Madame Bovary she is commandingly nuanced and gripping.

(In French with English subtitles)

A Shootist In 1950: “The Gunfighter”

by Dean | Sep 8, 2016 | General

Cover of The Gunfighter [DVD]

Gregory Peck plays a no-longer-mean shooting ace pursued by the brothers of a man he killed in self-defense.  Henry King directed the film tidily and knowingly, and had a good editor in Barbara McLean.  Peck never stumbles as a troubled man, though Millard Mitchell is too stiff as a tough marshal.  Karl Malden proves his reliability in an early role.

This is King’s baby, but even more it is the baby of one William Bowers, who co-invented the story and co-authored the script.

“Ben-Hur” Is Back, But . . .

by Dean | Sep 6, 2016 | General

There are two reasons you might want to see the new Ben-Hur movie (2016):  1) the vivid, naturalistic visuals (as in the set design) and 2) the performance of Jack Huston as Judah Ben-Hur.  Aside from this . . . no sale.

It is literally incredible that Judah Ben-Hur would refuse to name the Zealot who tries to assassinate Pontius Pilate when not only he but also his mother and sister are under threat of being killed.  In the hell-for-leather chariot race, Ben-Hur holds on to the horses’ reins while being dragged on the ground, but manages to defy physics and pull himself back to, and climb up on, the chariot.  These are just two of the many absurdities in the film.

Here’s another:  Jesus Christ is more of a Love teacher than a Redeemer, except that through the death on the cross an awesome miracle occurs with its implications. . . Admittedly I found the ending of Ben-Hur quite edifying (but to me the ending of God’s Not Dead 2 was edifying as well).  I readily assert that Roma Downey and Mark Burnett should be executive-producing better Christian movies than this.  Many, I fear, would deem the film not only dissatisfying but unwatchable too.

Directed by Timar Bekmambetov.

Teachout On Tynan

by Dean | Aug 31, 2016 | General

In a recent Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout reviewed a play titled A Day by the Sea by N.H. Hunter, a British dramatist who died in 1971.  Greatly admiring the play, Teachout asked why it was mounted in New York in 1955 but never after that until now, in 2016.  What he believes to be the answer is that critic Kenneth Tynan unfairly crushed the opus in his ’50s review of it, thus creating a hands-off attitude among theatre directors.  According to Teachout, Tynan “had little use for plays without a political message” and non-political, I take it, is what A Day by the Sea is.

That a professional critic did such a thing doesn’t surprise me.  And I can be confident that Tynan lapped up plays with a political message when the message was one he agreed with (i.e., a leftist message).