by Dean | Jan 30, 2019 | General
I don’t know how much the French priest John Vianney in the old film, The Wizard of Heaven (1949), resembles the real John Vianney, who died in 1859, but I like and respect this atypical Marcel Blistene (director)-Rene Jolivet (screenwriter) achievement. Vianney, acted by Georges Rollin, is a devout, sanguine, legalistic clergyman trying to convert the people of Ars. I suppose those who do convert—and they’re definitely there—give up dancing, which the priest plainly hates.
Wizard is like a more supernatural Diary of a Country Priest (the film). Satan contemptuously speaks to Vianney, and a crippled boy is healed by God. Philosophical idealism leaves materialism in the dust. The movie’s theme is reformation in the interest of upholding the cause of the Divine. Sometimes, in fact, this is self-reformation.
(In French with English subtitles. The French title is Le Sorcier du Ciel.)
by Dean | Jan 24, 2019 | General
Like Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window (1944) is an Edward G. Robinson-Joan Bennett collaboration directed by Fritz Lang.
At first I thought the film might be about what ensues from the fear of injustice, but, no, it’s just about itself. It is film noir with a nearly jokey ending, but it’s riveting. . . I called Scarlet Street “nice-looking,” and so is this: it’s good to see non-glossy black and white. Bennett looked like Hedy Lamarr, so she is gorgeous. Lang’s cast is one to relish.
by Dean | Jan 22, 2019 | General
The protagonists in the 1961 Italian film, La Notte (“The Night”), are a married couple—emphatically married. Disillusionment, the weary efforts to understand and console, the fearful concern over having caused pain, the unwillingness to part—these and other realities so frequently subsisting in matrimony are beautifully depicted by director Michelangelo Antonioni. Beyond this, the film raises the following questions: Do Western cultures really care about marriage? Do they care about anything? Why does it seem as though nothing of substance takes place in our busy but non-communal cities? (I’m thinking of the sequence in which the wife, played by Jeanne Moreau, strolls through Milan.)
The second half of this near-classic is somewhat too talky, but the movie as a whole is one of the most technically clever, resonantly made pictures I’ve seen.
(In Italian with English subtitles)
English: Michelangelo Antonioni at the premiere of “Jenseits der Wolken” “jenseits der wolken” at cinema odeon, Cologne. Deutsch: Michelangelo Antonioni bei der deutschlandpremiere des films “jenseits der wolken” am 29. oktober 1995 im kölner odeon-kino. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
by Dean | Jan 20, 2019 | General
Ernst Lubitsch, directing the film adaptation of yet another play, gave us in 1937 Angel, more drama than comedy and wonderfully cast. Marlene Dietrich enacts Maria Barker, who feels neglected by her good husband, Frederick (Herbert Marshall), and takes a vacation to Paris to consort with her duchess friend Anna. There, however, she falls—in love?—with Anthony Halton (Melvyn Douglas), but pulls away from further temptation. But Halton does not pull away from her.
It’s a semi-comedy of manners about marital offense but is free of passionate anger and fierce jealousy. Lubitsch imbues it with the usual champagne, but he also knows there is much at stake. It is an actor’s piece: oh, it’s based on a play, all right, yet it is a movie.
by Dean | Jan 17, 2019 | General
A person with cerebral palsy who refuses or fails to become a Christian does not seem like much of an enemy of God. Yet, really, based on what Scripture teaches I believe he or she must be considered such, and now the question is: Is he or she destined to go to Hell?
God, we know, commands us to love our enemies, so we would never have the right to torture them. The orthodox church must hold that this is something God can disregard for Himself, and if this means torturing forever a person with cerebral palsy, so be it. Needless to say, this is absurd. Jesus announced, “and I, if I may be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself” (John 12, Young’s Literal). Yes, for the Kingdom, for salvation (Psalm 22:27). I submit that God loves His human enemies enough to save every one of them. A c.p. victim would never be left out.
At what point does the Deity stop saying He loves His enemies and that He doesn’t care to find the one lost sheep but will simply stay with the hundred that are safe? And what does it mean for God to be “the all in all” once His cosmic plan has been fulfilled (I Cor. 15:28)? All in what all?
by Dean | Jan 15, 2019 | General
Interesting: a former member of the French Resistance became a jewel thief and now has reformed (albeit he is still in trouble). The role is not a good fit for suave Cary Grant, but we’re glad he’s in the film—i.e. To Catch a Thief (1955). We’re comfortable with him.
Interesting, too, is that women here can be plainly foolish. Feminists over the years have virtually communicated that women, except for Christian ones, are never foolish—a lie, of course. Even so, there should be no argument that however foolish Grace Kelly‘s cocky Francie can be, she is also excellent with her initiative-taking, her apologies, and her glamour.
Hitchcock‘s thriller deals with the suspicions befalling the Grant character when an unreformed burglar uses Grant’s modus operandi for current stealing. It’s a scenic joyride often filmed in the French Riviera, but some poor choices were made. Fades to black are constant, and a sequence with kissing and actual fireworks is awkward and hokey. A lot of contrivance exists in the not-great script, even if numerous lagniappes crop up. Maybe Thief is worth catching, but I wish it had been better. There is something canny, though, about a scene wherein a man sucks it up and tolerates a woman’s strikingly fast driving because he secretly wants to elude a car that is chasing him.
