by Dean | Jun 23, 2019 | General
There are no moral—or therapeutic—messages in the 25-minute silent flick, Coney Island (1917). Just hilarity.
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, starring here, also directed and did so with a proper sense of scope and an appreciation of space. “Fatty,” on the beach, slips away from the wife who treats him like a child and begins to enjoy the delights of Coney Island. The main delight he enjoys is the company of the pretty girl (Alice Mann) courted by Buster Keaton and later by goofy-looking Jimmy Bryant. Keaton has two rivals now, and unyielding anger flows nearly to the flick’s finish. One likable sight gag follows another. There is a perfect economy to the whole thing, and the performers, positively including the women, are superb.
by Dean | Jun 20, 2019 | General
In the George Sidney film musical, The Harvey Girls (1946), Judy Garland still has her looks, her good singing voice, her good speaking voice, her serviceable acting; but does not dominate the whole of the movie. There is stark ensemble work, with numerous bits of singing during the spectacular “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” number (the catchiest piece) and in the segment where the female trio, Garland included, sing the pretty song, “It’s a Great Big World.”
Cyd Charisse is in this trio but doesn’t make a splash. A dancer not a singer, her crooning is dubbed and—well, she dances very little in the entire movie. But Ray Bolger, as a quasi-blacksmith in this Old West musical, tap dances extensively and deliciously. The Harvey Girls could use more charm and grace in a couple of its routines; this includes “Swing Your Partner Round and Round.” The pic is no masterpiece, but it’s not exactly minor either. My hat is off to songwriters Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer. Also, not only Garland but Virginia O’Brien (Alma), too, offers some solid solo vocals.
by Dean | Jun 18, 2019 | General
Asghar Farhadi has made another film outside Iran, this time in Spain—Everybody Knows (Todos lo saben, 2018)—and it concerns a kidnapped girl. Its themes include the pervasiveness of that which is secret in families, when obligation leads to rupture, and belief in God.
I esteem Farhadi for giving us another tragic drama, but this is not as good as A Separation or The Salesman. Though skillfully directed and persuasively acted by Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and many others, the film has a weak script with unlikely plot devices. Farhadi is a better writer than this, and probably it is time for him to use this particular talent in the traveling of a different but still serious path.
(In Spanish with English subtitles)
by Dean | Jun 16, 2019 | General
The title of Kenneth Lonergan’s film, Margaret (2012), is taken from the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem “Spring and Fall.” Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) has an innocent involvement in the accidental death of a stranger killed by a careless bus driver. Her subsequent pain and guilt and anger effect in Lisa the kind of mourning for herself that arises in the Margaret of Hopkins’s poem (“It is Margaret you mourn for”), or so it seems to Lonergan, who both wrote and directed the film. A mere teenager, Lisa sees her life as though it were an “opera”, as one of her acquaintances puts it, and is actually turning people around her into “supporting players”–for her. Thus she becomes all but indifferent to her mother (J. Smith-Cameron). Thus she brazenly asks a boy at school with whom she has no relationship to take away her virginity, which he does. All this, I suppose, is integral to her self-mourning.
There are many things wrong with Margaret, mostly because of production problems which undermined the film when it was made a few years ago (but not released until 2012). Watching it, a spectator will say, “Boy, a lot of this must have been left on the cutting room floor!” Even so, the film is worth checking out: it is rich and intermittently fascinating. Intelligent too; patently it ain’t just the sex and nudity in the picture that Lonergan is interested in. Plus there is a moving epiphany at the end.
The best thing about the movie as it now exists is the acting. Paquin and Smith-Cameron give penetrating and energetic performances. Although I recoil at the character she plays–but then I recoil at Lisa too–Jeannie Berlin acts Lisa’s acquaintance Emily with gutsy prowess.
It’s quite a concept: the Margaret in Hopkins’s short poem becomes the Lisa in Lonergan’s long film.
Margaret (2011 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
by Dean | Jun 10, 2019 | General
Adapted from a novel by Vitaliano Brancati which I did not much care for, the 1960 Italian film, Il Bell Antonio, is a work for which I care a lot.
It deals with an undeniably handsome man, Antonio (Marcello Mastroianni), reputed to be a stud but who is in reality, in the pre-Viagra days of the Sixties, impotent strictly with the women he loves. The Woman he loves is virginal Barbara Puglisi (Claudia Cardinale), picked by his parents because they need money and the Puglisis are rich. However, Barbara’s father needs an heir and Barbara, after she and Antonio marry, remains untouched. This agonizes Antonio’s parents—while the Puglisis gradually see an avenue for getting even richer, and it excludes Antonio.
Here, to be impotent in sex is to be impotent in status. The body cannot be too chaste or a family’s fortunes are affected. In truth, they are not affected without certain moral outrages springing up. The accusation made by a dying Puglisi elder against Antonio’s father, Don Alfio (Pierre Brasseur), is more serious and bothersome than Antonio’s impotence. A lack of wealth is allied with a lack of integrity. That Antonio profoundly loves Barbara matters not in the least. . . This deeply sad film was intelligently directed by Mauro Bolognini. Vernon Young correctly noted that his “shot selection is sensitive to mood,” and, indeed, the film is a jewel of such sensitivity. It is, moreover, a fine contribution to the body of classic foreign pictures of the late Fifties-early Sixties.
(In Italian with English subtitles)
by Dean | Jun 8, 2019 | General
It is harmful to the Netflix-produced romantic comedy, Always Be My Maybe (2019), that the female lead, Ali Wong, has no charm. Randall Park, the male lead, does, and so do a few of the other actors, notably the winsome Vivian Bang (as Jenny). But Wong is too worldly for charm—a real blow to a fundamentally good-natured movie. Often funny and even clever, it is nevertheless one of the most inconsequential comedies I’ve seen. It is utterly wispy, not even edgy. It would probably help if character here was more developed, more incisive, than it is.
by Dean | Jun 4, 2019 | General
The chief character in Eric Rohmer‘s French film, A Tale of Winter (1992, available on YouTube), Felicie (Charlotte Very) is a not-very-bright young woman who is “protected” by the supernatural, by God. She is protected in the sense of being granted a miracle of sorts.
But Felicie is no saint, and she says “Religion and I don’t get along.” She risks getting pregnant during a joyful romance with her beloved Charles, and pregnant she becomes. After foolishly losing track of Charles, she gets involved with two men at the same time, as though she is greedy. One of these men, Loic (Herve Furic), is a wishy-washy Catholic intellectual—unmarried when he probably shouldn’t be. Deeply fond of him, Felicie nevertheless does not love him (she loves Charles). And Felicie, without converting, seems to receive God’s favor. In a way—because in the film’s beginning footage she frolics unclothed with Charles—she is the naked pagan who turns into the blessed “Christian.”
With much, much talk, A Tale of Winter is another Rohmer film that demands a lot from a viewer, but it’s worth it. It is quiet and heartening, and in Luc Pages’s cinematography there is subdued, wintry prettiness. Charlotte Very is pretty too. Close to being one of Rohmer’s best films, Winter is, I think, simply too static but also rather lovable in spite of itself.
(In French with English subtitles)
by Dean | Jun 2, 2019 | Movies
Cover of Pride & Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice has been filmed again, this time by Joe Wright and with an ampersand in the title. Now it’s Pride & Prejudice (2005) and it stars Keira Knightley (of course) as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew MacFadyen as Darcy. I learn from critic David Edelstein that “Wright has said in interviews that he approached the novel as a piece of gritty English social realism” (Slate.com), which is fine as long as Jane Austen’s themes do not get lost in the process. They don’t. Scriptwriter Deborah Moggach is steadfast in her focus on the pride and prejudice of the two chief characters, and decisively does the film reveal the slow empowerment of the middle class in late 18th-century England. For once I agree with Edelstein: the movie is very good. That social realism is reflected in the fine costumes and the even finer production design. Dario Marianelli’s music is gorgeous, and the directing more imaginative than arty.
Some praiseworthy scenes: (more…)
by Dean | May 31, 2019 | General
Directed by Jafar Panahi and written by the acclaimed filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian picture, The White Balloon (2005), is talky but brilliant. At the center here is the childish desire for a chubby, not a skinny, goldfish for an Iranian New Year’s celebration. A childish desire, this, because in fact it belongs to a child—seven-year-old Razieh (Aida Mohammed-Khani)—who lives with her parents and her brother Ali (Mohsen Khalifi) in Tehran.
Rezieh’s hard-working mother un-eagerly gives Razieh money with which to buy the goldfish, but the girl loses the money down a grate. Much of the film concerns the efforts of Razieh and her brother, aware of financial hardship, to retrieve the 500-toman note.
Though adorable, Razieh, like Ali, is being shaped by the prejudices of her society. She will probably never respect, as Ali does not, a man like the one she encounters and talks with: a non-Tehranian army conscript with an accent. And she will probably never smile on an Afghan person like the boy who sells balloons on the Tehran streets for a living, who, indeed, offers the kind of white balloon found enticing by Ali. But Ali never comments on the balloon since it is an Afghan boy who is selling it. It is clear that the film is saying that Iranian society is one of prejudice and loneliness—even that it is damaging: e.g., Ali may have been hit in the face by his father.
Years after seeing The White Balloon at the theatre, surprisingly I saw it for free on YouTube. Perfectly directed (with many a tight shot) and cleverly photographed, it is about children or childhood only on its surface. It is beautifully subtle.
(In Farsi with English subtitles)
by Dean | May 29, 2019 | General
The 1933 British movie, The Private Life of Henry VIII, by Alexander Korda, ushers us into the awful sphere wherein Anne Boleyn (Merle Oberon) is executed, but, avoiding all genuine unpleasantness, the picture doesn’t make this very troubling. The film is pure tragicomedy, yielding, nonetheless, a rueful message about marriage: it is madness. Little is said about Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne B., but what follows are dismaying details about the other unions with imperfect women, married to an imperfect man. Charles Laughton (as Henry) is better here than he is in Rembrandt. He is humbler, savvier, as well as commanding and rivetingly passionate. Screenwriters Lajos Biro and Arthur Wimperis did quite well with drama and wit.
