Young Victoria (2009 Jean-Marc Vallée)

An accidental double-bill of Jim Broadbent films. In Young Victoria he has a short but powerful part as King William. Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend are perfect as the young couple, great support from Mark Strong, Miranda Richardson, Paul Bettany and Harriet Walter as Queen Adelaide. Had forgotten Julian Fellowes wrote it and Scorsese co-produced.

The Director is a Canadian whose previous film C.R.A.Z.Y.  (2005) was very well received.

Hagen Bogdanski's lighting is very natural (The Lives of Others ), and apart from the totally inappropriate pop ballad that accompanies the end credits, my only critique is to say it's a bit like eating a fabulous meal but still feeling hungry afterwards.

The Boys are Back (2009 Scott Hicks)

We watch an interesting double bill about men dealing with the loss of their wives!

Clive Owen does so by building relationships with his two sons, in somewhat unconventional ways, amongst South Australian scenery, directed by Shine's Scott Hicks. The boys younger and older are Nicholas McAnulty and George Mackay, with Emma Booth and Laura Fraser.

Written by Allan Cubitt from Simon Carr's novel.

The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971 Robert Fuest)

Taking a rather different approach to dealing with the loss of his wife (in our double bill), an almost silent Vincent Price takes grisly revenge on the doctors who he considered murdered her (Caroline Munro in stills only), with much humour ("I'm a headshrink!")

Is this the most elegant horror film ever? Former artist and art director Fuest and his a.d. Bernard Reeves cram every frame with beautiful art deco detail, even down to the cups, all handsomely lit by Norman Warwick.

AIP.

Avanti (1972 Billy Wilder)

Juliet Mills on the terrace of the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria, Sorrento, doubling for Ischia

 

Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill (an absolute sensation as the Italian hotel manager), Edward Andrews (J.J. Blodgett).

Brilliantly written by Wilder and IAL Diamond - "The black socks... was it because you were in mourning?" From a play by Samuel A Taylor.

Carlo Rustichelli is only credited as music arranger leading me to infer that the properly catchy melodies are all Italian traditionals.

Notice the brilliant, silent movie opening. Plenty of jokes at the expense of America (and Italy and GB too, come to that). 'Will and Kate Carlucci'. Pippo Franco is Qued's wonderful mortuary guy. So well constructed. Use of 'avanti', three coffins, 'weight problem' etc.

Can't argue with Cameron Crowe: "The prize of Wilder's later-period work." This beautifully constructed, wonderfully written jewel of a film is unfairly undervalued and all but unknown.

The hotel set is very clearly modelled on the Excelsior's actual decor

A view of the front of the hotel - still very much as it is today

Only a few scenes were actually filmed on Ischia - for example, the morgue, harbour and burial scenes, Actually I don't know that! Does anyone?

Shot by Luigi Kuveiller (Profondo Rosso, Warhol's Dracula and Frankenstein. Wilder liked his work on Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna 1969, directed by Elio Petri, Repulsion-like, with music by Morricone.)

More Avanti

Chinatown (1974 Roman Polanski)

Just the one Oscar, for writer Robert Towne (though Polanski worked so extensively on the script that he reportedly could have claimed co-author credit), but the film was up against Godfather II, Lenny, Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More, Day for Night and The Conversation in all other categories.

Trademark skilful use of sound.

Also hadn't realised quite how good Faye Dunaway is.

Still there are mysteries - whose glasses are they?

Sam O'Steen is the editor and Jerry Goldsmith's memorable score was apparently written in 10 days.

Wide lenses put you right in the action, as does camera in back of car (John A Alonzo).

With Jack Nicholson, John Huston, Perry Lopez (cop).

Fellini Roma (1972 Federico Fellini & co-scr)

 Co-written with Bernardino Zapponi.

Peter Gonzales Falcon, Anna Magnani.

Music Nino Rota, ph. Giuseppe Rotunno.

Astonishing film with a lot of funny dialogue and a very disrespectful cabaret audience. Many amazing moments: religious fashion show, dissolving frescoes, final city tour on motorbikes. Shadows of dogs, couple reflected in tunnel...

It is brilliantly shot.

Could only be a Fellini.

Though we didn't love the English HOH subtitles e.g. 'dog barks'. Film though is supposed to be 128 mins and the DVD is 114.

Rebecca (1940 Alfred Hitchcock)

A double bill of Hitchcocks. There's quite a bit to be said about REBECCA. For example, it contradicts the theory that Citizen Kane invented cinema. Like Kane, this begins with the camera gliding through Manderley's gates followed by some clever trick photography / model work.

The acting is great and quite rightly Olivier, Fontaine and Judith Anderson (who virtually steals the show) were nominated, along with Hitch, Franz Waxman (who appears to be using an organ at points and is thus being quite experimental: a great score), writers Robert E Sherwood and Joan Harrison ("I am Mrs. de Winter now!") and editor Hal Kern. George Barnes throws lovely shadows everywhere and there's a great curtain-drawing shot in Rebecca's bedroom. Does the second Mrs De W. have a first name?

Gladys Cooper and Nigel Bruce aren't in it enough, Leo G. Carroll just enough, George Sanders is beastly and Florence Bates ghastly. Reginald Denny as the estate manager is perhaps the weak link. C. Aubrey appears too.

Also, Bates to Fontaine:

"Have you been doing something you shouldn't?"

Oddly, it's not particularly Hitchcocky, as opposed to Q's choice:

Rear Window (1954 Alfred Hitchcock)

Seems to have begun as a cinematic exercise. Robert Burks' photography is easy to underestimate but notice just one shot where camera tracks from dog to Stewart's massage without a tremor (William Schurr was the operator. He worked on a few Hitchcocks and was also camera operator on The Apartment). The rigidity of the shots is such that when there is an odd overhead or low shot (such as where L.B. and Stella watch helpless as Lisa is caught) they really stand out.

Despite its striking visual nature, John Michael Hayes' script should not be undervalued (e.g. Thelma Ritter predicting  the Wall Street crash).

The diegetic soundtrack comprises beautifully put together effects (did Hitch love car horns from Blackmail on?) plus Franz Waxman's 'Lisa' melody plus some deliberately clashing moments of tension to background music.

It's from his fade to black period.

Contains Hitch's grisliest murder, but there's no corpse nor drop of blood in sight (nor even a murder!)

 

Love that slow motion kiss, and the varying states of relationships through the windows.

Queen of Spades (1948 Thorold Dickinson)

Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans, Yvonne Mitchell, Ronald Howard

Ph. Otto Heller
Music Georges Auric

Clock stops as she dies.

Casablanca (1942 Michael Curtiz)

Warning: Old pros at work!

Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie (1972 Luis Buñuel)

Written by Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, Oscar-nominated (won BAFTA), winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar and BAFTA. Interestingly didn't pick up French Oscars or Cannes prizes.

Fabulous cast: Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Paul Frankeur, Julien Berthau (Monsignor).

Photographed by Edmond Richard.

Most enjoyed performances. Very funny. Dreams in dreams (soldier). Inspired The Meaning of Life? (Probably.)

Taxi Driver (1976 Martin Scorsese)

Scorsese was so lucky to get Herrmann's last great score. According to Time Out  his "remarkable score was completed hours before his death in December 1975".

The naturalistic sound effects are great - you often feel you are in the café etc.

Powell's red! Vertigo's green and red! French!

Probably Scorsese's best film - he needs to go back to this.

19 September 2010

Again. It seemed very French this time.  A work of genius. He should have won the Oscar for this (not even nominated, naturally.)

Everyone's in it (Harvey Keitel, Albert Brooks, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, Jodie Foster...)   

19 June 2010

(While the Q sang to herself in the bar.)

It made me think of killers like Derek Bird (Cumbria shootist) - he even tries to shoot himself in the end.

It also made be think of influence on Tarantino, especially where Scorsese is in the back of the taxi.

The last shots of Shepherd in the rear view mirror in a sea of light are absolutely beautiful (Michael Chapman):

 Scorsese's list of influences is remarkable: Godard, Fassbinder's Merchant of Four Seasons (for the blocking: arrangement of actors in the frame), Francesco Rosi's Salvatore Giuliano (1962), Louis Malle's  Le Feu Follet (The Fire Within) (1963; to look like this but in colour), The Wrong Man (camera moves, guilt and paranoia) and Jack Hazan's A Bigger Splash (1973) with David Hockney for its square on framing. And film noir, which he expressly states runs from Double Indemnity to Kiss Me Deadly.

What's surprising is how little Jodie Foster is in it.

In Tarantino's Top 10. I wanted to watch it again the next night.

Scorsese driven by de Niro, shot by Steve Schapiro.

Top Boy (2011 Yann Demange, writer Ronan Bennett)

Demange had made Criminal Justice (2009), Dead Set, Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Bennett had written Hidden, Public Enemies (Johnny Depp, gangster), 10 Days to War, Face (1997).

With Malcolm Kumelete (the young RaNell), Sharon Duncan Brewster (mum), Kierston Wareing (Luther, The Shadow Line, 5 Daughters, Fish Tank), Ashely Walters (top dog) and Kane Robinson, Giacomo Mancini (RaNell's friend).

Photographed by Tat Radcliffe (My Family and Other Animals, Casanova, The Shadow Line) in a particularly green pallette. Very good music by Brian Eno.

More than an echo of Mean Streets (not, as some would have it, a British The Wire).

Tree of Life (2011 Terence Malick & scr)

Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler.

Photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki. Music by Alexandre Desplat.

Hypnotic event, giant. How does Malick get the performances out of the boys? Utterly extraordinary and unlike anything else, though made me think of Tarkovsky a lot. Sean Penn's in this film. Also amazingly edited, plus roving Steadicam gives it intense momentum.

P.S. 3/11/23. Wonder how much I'd still like it after Song To Song...

Quando Sei Nato Non Puoi Più Nasconderti / Once You're Born You Can No Longer Hide (2005 Marco Tullio Giordana & co-scr)

Written with Sandro Petraglia & Stefano Rulli, book Maria Pace Ottieri.

Ph Roberto Forza, Panavision.

Alessio Boni, Matteo Gadola (Sandro), Michela Cescon, Ester Hazan (the girl), Vlad Alexandru Toma ('brother'), Rodolfo Corsato, Adriana Asti (the youth judge).

Monocular story (to use Paul Schrader's expression) of Sandro's journey, cleverly assembled and strong on audience manipulation, particularly in scarily shot night scenes. Has quite a twist, and the slightly inconclusive ending seems right in that context.

Won three Italian Globes.

Wallander

Finished the second series of Wallander, another collection of snakey, one word titled stories. Both trainees Pontus and Isabelle get shot, and the latter gets into serious trouble with her ex in the penultimate episode. In the last, the writers adhere to the golden rule of 'never kill the dog' and Jüssi escapes with a hurt leg, and the series ends with Jüssi licking the little Lithuanian girl's face while Wallander accompanies her to Stockholm. "When will you be back?" Svartman asks. "I'm not sure."

Come and See / Иди и смотри / Idi i Smotri (1985 Elem Klimov)

Written by he and Ales Adamovich, based on a 1978 book 'I Am From the Firey Village'.

I managed to take a breath after about an hour of Elem Klimov's final film, Come and See, when a hiatus occurs after a barrage of unrelenting sound and devastating images. This is a war film totally unlike anyone else's. No doubt Roger Deakins (who recommended it) admired Alekei Rodinov's amazing tracking shots in difficult light.

Hallucinogenic and searingly powerful, after which Q said I looked 'depressed'.

Blackmail (1929 Alfred Hitchcock, and adaptation)

Play  Charles Bennett, also wrote key b&w Hitches.

Anny Ondra, Donald Calthrop, John Longden, Cyril Ritchard, Sara Allgood (mum), Charles Paton (dad) and Joan Barry (Anny's voice).

Ph. Jack Cox. Uncredited and possibly fictitious contribution from Michael Powell!

Longden is very leaden in some (though not all) places. Rest of cast good esp. Calthrop. Camera fluid, cutting evidence of Eisenstein, looks crude at times, clever at others (her memory of dead arm cuts to tramp's, scream is landlady's at discovering corpse).

Tricks us by beginning as silent with effective expressionistic Flying Squad scene, then effortlessly switches to sound. Despite occasional staginess, has plenty of Hitchcocky stuff going on.

Hitch seems obsessed by the sound of car klaxons going off all the time, which is quite endearing, and offsets the unenjoyable music.

Shanghai (2010 Mikael Håfström)

Scr Hossein Amini.

John Cusack, Gong Li, Chow Yun Fat, Ken Watanabe, Franka Potente (!), Hugh Bonneville

Ph. Benoit Delhomme, Panavision
Ed. Peter Boyle, Kevin Tent
Good prod. des. Jim Clay (looks expensive)

Brutal depiction of events (in noiry voiceover) in 1941 Shanghai, surrounded by Chinese - Japanese war, which Mark Cousins told us killed 13 million people. Actually, I would have enjoyed the beheading (Q wondered if head ever stayed on, and I conjectured in some Asian film that had probably happened).

Somehow lacks the pull of a good dramatic narrative and - as so often - needs vital shots of humour.

Film seems strangely to have disappeared from sight (we have Dutch version which seems to miss Chinese subtitles).

Bon Voyage (1962 James Neilson)

Fred MacMurray, Jane Wyman, some other people.

Overlong film isn't too funny or annoying, focus on family stresses without too much back projection. Paris police on seeing finger emerge from manhole probably thought "the surrealists are at it again". Actually, both friend and wife-stealer are both annoying.

Disney.