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!

Fitzcarraldo (1982 Werner Herzog & scr)

Opera and Amazon?? In common with other H films throws out intriging ideas and bewitching imagery such as 'the bit of creation God left unfinished' and the elder Indians for whom the everyday is an illusion and reality lies in dreams.

The steamer, halfway up the hill, and knowing we're really watching Indians do this.

Always the humour (the whole task seems pointless, as he sells her boat and invests in an opera; after the successful traverse, the Indians let the steamer go into the rapids; the pig.)

Great to see Claudia Cardinale. Miguel Angel Fuentes (as the engineer Cholo) and Huerequeque Enrique Bohorquez ('you are the cleverest drunkard who ever staggered across this earth') also memorable, as is Popol Vuh's music and Thomas Mauch's photography (also Aguirre, Stroszek and - oddly enough - ID).

Kinski kept making me think of Alistair Sim and Tom Barley.

Fitzcarraldo (1982 Werner Herzog)

Opera and Amazon?? In common with other H. films throws intriguing ideas and bewitching imagery, such as 'the bit of creation God left unfinished'. The elder Indians for whom the evryday is an illusion and reality lies in dreams. The steamer, halfway up the hill, and knowing we're really watching Indians do this. Always the humour (the whole task seems pointless, as he sells his boat and invests in a mobile opera; after the successful traverse, the Indians let the steamer go, into the rapids; the pig.)

Great to see Claudia Cardinale. Miguel Enrique Bohorquez ('you are the cleverest drunk who ever staggered across this earth') also memorable, as is Popul Vuh's music and Thomas Mauch's photography. Kinski kept making me think of Aistair Sim and Tom Barley! 

If ... (1969 Lindsay Anderson)

"Run in the corridors!"

A real pleasure to see this again. It made me probably as angry as I was on 8th April 1979 to see the behaviour of the prefects, who are to all intents running the school. (In the final massacre, the Establishment fights back.)

Despite watching a 4x3 TV print (the aspect ratio is supposed to be 1.66:1) it shows Miroslav Ondricek's brick-coloured hue; he's assisted by an 'A' team of Chris Menges and Michael Seresin!

Brideshead director Charles Sturridge is one of the odious oiks.

Malcolm McDowell, Arthur Lowe.

Written by David Sherwin.

La Dolce Vita (1960 Federico Fellini & co-scr)

Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimee, Yvonne Furneaux.

La notte, le donne, il mare.

And, 'Paparazzo'. Fittingly, the day Jade Goody died.

As succinct Jottings go, this has to be one of the best.

Cinematographer Otello Martelli; music Nino Rota.

Long (2 hours 54).

Le Samourai (1967 Jean-Pierre Melville)

"Whereas the colours in L'aine des Ferchaux are very warm, I wanted very cold colours for le Samourai. With this in mind I carried out a series of conclusive experiments, which I carried even further in Army of Shadows, and further still in Le Cercle Rouge (1970). My dream is to make a colour film in black and white, in which there is only one tiny detail to remind us that we really are watching a film in colour [did Spielburg ever read this??]. I think we took a small step forward in a form of expression - cinema in colour - that has become dangerous." ["Melville on Melville", Rui Nogueira 1971.]

Not the monster that is L'Armée des Ombres, but satisfyingly Bressonian and beautifully lit on Melville's own sets that burned down during filming. Thematically closer to Bob le Flambeur (loyalty, police adversary, fatalism). But very much influenced / inspired by the Alan Ladd film noir This Gun For Hire (1942 Frank Tuttle).

Presumably the influence on Ghost Dog, the Way of the Samurai; John Woo is a big fan also. And the George Clooney The American. 

"I sometimes read (I am thinking of the reviews after le Samourai and L'Armée des Ombres came out) 'Melville is being Bressonian'. I'm sorry, but it is Bresson who has always been Melvillian." (Nogueira.)

So I stand corrected!

Beautifully photographed by Henri Decae: his first films were for Melville and he shot early Chabrol, Truffaut and Malle, and so is a hugely important figure in French cinema.

Alain Delon, François Perier, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier (pianist)