Barry Lyndon (1975 Stanley Kubrick)

And so to the now rated BARRY LYNDON which was not at all boring, as I and the dogs found last time when Q. was in Tenegrief (actually the dogs were asleep, but this could have been down to boredom).

The cast is interesting, from the greatly undervalued Leonard Rossiter (a scared officer, below) to the familiar reliability of Hardy Krüger, with Murray Melvin slyly watchable as Rev. Runt. Philip Stone - The Shining's eternal barman - features briefly, and Barry's young stepson Dominic Savage wrote and directed TV's Freefall earlier this year.

Michael Hordern's ironic voiceover and the formal and deliberate structure of the film beautifully balance the 18th Century setting and wry turn of events.

(Kubrick) "I first came across the Handel theme [Sarabande] played on a guitar, and strangely enough it made me think of Ennio Morricone."

(It can't have been this rendition - it's too recent - but this is a beautiful version.) Leonard Rosenman at one point dramatically orchestrates it on timpani alone, and effectively uses other music like the Irish melodies early on.

Now the cinematography, at no. 16 in the ASC's Best Shot Films 1950 - 1997, as much I think for Kubrick's technical skills as to those of the photographer alone. (What is Psycho doing at no. 15, by the way? Apart from this, John L. Russell has no notable credits, just a welter of B movies. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that Hitch chose all the lenses and compositions. In fact my only complaint about Psycho is that it isn't shot by Hitch's regular Robert Burks.) This is I think one of the best shot films of all time. John Alcott took over from Unsworth after six months on 2001 (no. 3 in the list), then photographed A Clockwork Orange. For this film he

"studied the lighting effects achieved in the paintings of the Dutch masters but they seemed a bit flat [also not quite the right period?] so we decided to light more from the side... an awful lot of diffusion was being used in cinema at the time".

 (Kubrick again) "I have always tried to light my films to emulate natural light."

Thus daylight was used as much as possible, or diffused light (Alcott lighting through windows with mini Brutes through plastic material):

"If you shoot towards the window you get a very beautiful and realistic flare effect."

For the much discussed candlelit scenes, Kubrick found a 50mm Zeiss f. 0.7 lens, 100% faster than any other existing lens, developed by NASA. It was adapted by Cinema Products Corp, on an old Mitchell BNC with a projector lens adapter to give a 35.5mm length. President Ed Di Giuliu recalls:

"He wanted to preserve the natural patina and feeling of these old castles at night as they actually were. The addition of any fill light would have added an artificiality to the scene."

The equipment produced a very short depth of focus, no problem for NASA when shooting at infinity focus, but rather more problematic shooting candlelit actors. These scenes are still extraordinarily beautiful and haven't been surpassed. The slow 10-1 zooms out (on an Arriflex 35BL, whatever that is) are also most distinctive.

(Alcott) "That old bit that says you cut because the sun's gone in doesn't go any more." (Noticeable in scene where Barry buys son a horse.)

 More 4's print is correctly at the peculiar ratio of 1.59:1.

Smultrönstallet / Wild Strawberries (1957 Ingmar Bergman)

As engaging as the last time I saw it, and definitely one of the director's most accessible films, shot with hard light (particularly in that over-exposed opening dream) by Gunnar Fischer (singled out in 'Making Pictures: A Decade of European Cinematography').

Is there a twinkle in the housekeeper's eye when she asks "if there's anything you need..."

Silent legend Victor Sjöström, an influence on Bergman, is excellent as the aging doctor who feels he is already dead (and accordingly, so does his son).

I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth (2005 Vincenta Ferraz)

And a documentary about Soy Cuba ('a Siberian mammoth found in the Caribbean sand') reveals the dominance of Urusevsky, who sounds like the driving force from many stories ("move this waterfall ... we'll wait three days until there are clouds in the sky") though as the film ultimately bombed* and disappeared, he and Kalatozov never recovered (Urusevsky shot only two more films and died at 66). Scorsese and Coppola rescued it in the nineties.

*The Cubans thought the tempo of the film was not Cuban; there was too much American decadence for the Soviets.

There's also a nice understatement about "we had to shoot some of the scenes more than once..." Indeed.

P.S. Infra red film used to get those incredible skies!

Bande a Part (1964 Jean-Luc Godard)

Godard's Jules et Jim is as light and funny as a souffle. For example, Odile's kiss "with tongue" (a diffident Anna Karina), and the mucking about of Arthur Clause Brasseur, diving through the back window of his car - later on we hear the roof doesn't work any longer) and Franz (Sami Frey, in gangster hat and raincoat). All three still going strong.

It's also innovative, the editing going on to the opening titles is amazing. There are experiments with sound, such as the minute's silence, and trademark moments where the music (Michel Legrand - why "For the last time"?) doesn't fit the scene properly.

And those throwaway touches of intrigue at the end (the aunt isb't dead; the money's in the kennel) and 'Franz and Odete's next adventure will be in Technicolor and CinemaScope'... delightful.

Doctor in Clover (1967 Ralph Thomas)

Leslie Phillips ('Ding dong!'), James Robertson Justice, Shirley Anne Field, Joan Sims, Arthur Haynes (funny as difficult patient), Elizabeth Ercy, usual people who turn up in films of this era.

Clever title you see, contains 'Love' or 'Lover', very clever?!? Poor even by Pinewood standards: they could have been doing something more interesting than fire extinguisher gags in 1967. Eric Steward's photography if anything is getting worse.

Soy Cuba saved my life! *

* Not actually true. Claims made on blog may be false as well as true.

Near the beginning of Mikhail Kalatozov's eye-popping SOY CUBA (1964), the camera watches models parade, glides Spider-man like down a wall, circulates a pool party and then, still in the same take, goes underwater swimming for Christ's sake!

Sergei Urusevsky's constantly moving (roving is possibly a better word) camera, steadier than a Steadicam, yet performing unbelieveable traverses of height and obstacle, is fascinating: in one almost throwaway shot he walks us through a top storey cigar factory (where the revolutionary flag is unfurled) and then blithely continues out of the window, and floats way out over a funeral procession from the air, making Luciano Tovoli's famous trick shot in The Passenger look positively insipid in comparison (indeed, in an online review of the same pair's The Letter Never Sent (1959) there's reference to another such brain-defying stunt; The Cranes Are Flying (1957), their initial collaboration, is also highly rated).

These long takes of constant movement, the very wide angles, black skies, sound effects and Carlos Fariñas' unfamiliar score give this an almost hallucinatory quality, but the combination of powerful cinematic technique and revolutionary propaganda make this distinctly Soviet.

See also review I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth

Doctor in Distress (1963 Ralph Thomas)

Dirk Bogarde, James Robertson Justice, Samantha Eggar, Mylene Demongeot.
Briefly: Dennis Price, Leo McKern, Fenella Fielding, Frank Finlay, Reginald Beckwith, Richard Briers, Ronnie Corbett (one line).

YES, just goes to prove that '63 not a vintage year. Once we get over the shock of two leads calling each other Lancelot and Simon, there's nothing but unfunny and perplexing situations. Rank at its poorest.

Hot Enough for June (1964 Ralph Thomas)

Dirk Bogarde, Robert Morley, Leo McKern, the rather good-looking Sylva Koscina.

Terrible BBC2 print looks like video, 14x9. Pinewood-set Czechoslovakia.

Sylva's credits include the sexy L'Assoluto Naturale 1969, looks good but not on DVD (though is avilable through iOffer), with Laurence Harvey and music by Morricone.
Then Hornet's Nest (70) Rock Hudson Italy war film, A Lovely Way to Die (68) Kirk Douglas, Eli Wallach, Casanova & Co (77) Tony Curtis, Lisa and the Devil (74) Mario Bava, Boccaccio (72), Deadlier than the Male (67).

The Shooting Party (1985 Alan Bridges)

James Mason, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Gordon Jackson, Cheryl Campbell (from Pennies from Heaven to Funland), Judi Bowker.

Ph. Fred Tammes

Since You Went Away (1944 John Cromwell)

Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Joseph Cotten, Robert Walker, Hattie McDaniel.

Despite length and subject matter doesn't hit the mark like Best Years.. Perhaps Selznick shouldn't have written it too. Gloriously dark photography from Lee Garmes and Stanley Cortez. Music Max Steiner.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975 Peter Weir)

Rachel Roberts, Helen Morse, Anne-Louise Lambert

Wonderful sun-drenched Eastmancolor photography by Russell Boyd: the interiors are great too.

Maurice (1987 James Ivory)

James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, Billie Whitelaw, Barry Foster, Judy Parfitt, Phoebe Nicholls, Ben Kingsley.

Sadly not as great as the other Merchant Ivory E.M. Forsters, perhaps beacuse Ruth Prawer Jhabvala didn't write it.

Ph Pierre Lhomme.

The Black Swan (1942 Henry King)

This immediately set me on a tangent about the Spanish Main, which was the wealthy Spanish territories of Central America and included Mexico, Florida and northern South America (bearing in mind Mexico used to include California, until the Yanks nicked it in 1848), attracting pirates such as Henry Morgan, who really did become Governor of Jamaica (a colourful story worth reading up). He's Laird Cregar in Leon Shamroy's most colourful adventure, and George Sanders is most improbably in red wig and whiskers. Maureen O'Hara looks like she could have been a bit of a bitch. There's room for a proper pirate film, surely? (Polanski's looks worth checking.)

Fire Down Below (1957 Robert Parrish)

Jack Lemmon, Robert Mitchum (partnership doesn't work), Rita Hayworth, Edric Connor (was Trinidadian), Bernard Lee, Bonar Colleano

Ph. by Desmond Dickinson (shot mainly UK films since 1927 incl. Hamlet, Importance of Being Earnest) in CinemaScope, though BBC shows cropped print.

I was musing that the 'fire down below' was further south than the heart, as suggested by theme song, but then there's a real fire down below. Not wholly successful story but quite diverting, interesting cast.

The Round-Up / Szegénylegények / The Hopeless Ones (1966 Miklós Jancsó)

Photographed by Tamás Somló in Agascope.

A man tries to flee in a vast, open plain from where women bearing food have appeared. The soldiers don't race after him, but then horses appear from either side of the camera and round him up.

I always thought it was Janscó, so that's a salutary lesson. Also, after all these years, the scene with the naked woman isn't at all yummy, so that's another.

Solaris (1972 Andrei Tarkovsky)

His least favourite. I certainly was an avid film watcher at the age of 14. It's certainly a very interesting film. Is the planet representative of the brain, the sea the mind? It's certainly about memory. Those early shots of the scene around the lake are shot with his customary love of nature. the ending has a nice twist. And there's that great line about 'happy people don't ponder the big questions of life'.

Yadim Yuso shot his early films; Donatos Banionis and Jüri Jàrvet good as Kris kelvin and Dr. Snaut.

Little Caesar (1931 Mervyn LeRoy)

Edward G's self-confident villain fathers Warners' gangster cycle. Moves along pretty briskly for its age.

Bad Timing (1980 Nic Roeg)

I am now so used to Bad Timing's dazzling structure and jumpy cross-cutting (fantastic editing by Tony Lawson) that the sad truths about this couple's destructive relationship seemed clearer: she is trying to conform to win his acceptance, but is free-spirited; he wants to possess her totally, and is jealous (the final act of ravishment embodies this full possession). More generally it shows us fundamental male and female desires and natures through a kaleidoscope and is perhaps Roeg's most personal film.

In a curiously unenlightening interview with him and producer Jeremy Thomas, Roeg doesn't even allude to the beginning of his long relationship with wife Theresa Russell in this film. She is absolutely sensational in this performance of a lifetime, for which she was honoured with a total of zero awards.

Adding to the mosaic / kaleidoscope / puzzle are the numerous references to art and objets d'art, literature and a poignant assembly of diverse musical influences. Shot by Anthony Richmond in Panavision.

Screen shot courtesy http://www.dvdbeaver.com/

Afterword 16/7/15. Just saw that amazing University scene again in NR documentary. Tony Lawson (quoted in 'The Independent' 14 July 1988):

Nic was very worried about me cutting that, because of what it meant to him...'Cut it several ways'.. I arranged it arbitrarily into angles and sections. Vocals became thoughts and some very strange cuts appeared. We worked on retaining the haphazardness and atmospherics they inspired and, I think, made it into a pivotal scene.

After much research I tracked down the piano that backs it is Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert.

Theresa Russell shot by Anthony Richmond.

The Wild Bunch (1969 Sam Peckinpah): Kino für Kinder nicht - The Sunday Cinema

Having recently been reintroduced to Truffaut's children (see Les Quatres Cents Coups) we now meet Peckinpah's. From the beginning of THE WILD BUNCH (1969) they witness, then burn, ants killing a scorpion. They are caught in the crossfire, then play shooting games over the massacred bodies. One is a soldier in the Mexican army. Another jumps on the body of Angel, being dragged by the General's car, and rides him. And finally, one of the little bastards shoots Ernest Borgnine in the back. (Holden is also shot in the back, by a woman.) If this film is (evidently) about male camaraderie, loyalty, and the passing of the old West, it seems also to reflect on the lost innocence of the children.

Stills courtesey http://www.dvdbeaver.com/

William Holden has never been so tough and I'm reminded how much I like Ernest Borgnine, though Warren Oates' final pre-death cry leaps out at you (Peckinpah soon promoted him to lead). Emilio Fernandez (who's just taken me on a major tangent  in search of his Cannes-winning Maria Candelaria), a powerful revolutionary Mexican filmmaker and actor, must also have got on with Peck, as he appears in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Bring Me the Head (as I watch this every 14 years I'm due a rewatch; in fact I'm a year late).

Written by Sam and Waldo Green. The old-timer Edmond O'Brien was in Liberty Vallance, coincidentally watched the same day. Lucien Ballard shot in Panavision and Jerry Fielding wrote the (Oscar-nominated) music. Editing of bloody action (by Lou Lombardo) still distinctive.

Like Guns in the Afternoon it's also about growing old in the Wild West. The old-timers are talking about retiring, but you get the feeling they'd rather go down in a hail of bullets, particularly when it comes from holding on to their old values like loyalty, that seem to be becoming lost.

Baisers Volés (1968 Truffaut)

scr. Truffaut & Claude de Givray & Bernard Revon

Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade (romantically involved with Truffaut, was in the other Antoine Donel films, Hitchcock's Topaz), Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale (Phantom of Liberty, Moonraker)

Mus. Antoine Duhamel (Weekend)
ph. Denys Clerval

Actually more enjoyable than the first one.

Catches the casual cruelty of young men, though it's no wonder AD has a tricky relationship with women. Some of that great rapid editing.

That travel poster from L'Argent de Poche can briefly be glimpsed!