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ElMaruecan82
Life is weird, I keep on writing over and over again about all the movies I watch, following the motto "I review what I rate and I rate what I see"... still, my intent is not to show off my cinematic knowledge (no more or no less impressive than any average movie lover), but to share some thoughts with people who share the same passion.
Isn't that, by the way, the true measure of a passion?
Now, why do I write movie reviews? since I'm not paid for it, since it's not even my central activity, why wasting energy for lengthy texts that a few dozen readers in the best case would read? Well, because I don't believe it's a waste of energy at all ... and actually, I also write about movies because I wish I could work in the movie business. Having graduated in screenwriting and directing, I hope my time will come. If not, this is the closest I can get to my dreams.
According to Woody Allen's ex-girlfriend in Play It Again, Sam (1972), he likes films because he's "one of life's great watchers". To which he retorts: "I'm a doer, I want to participate". Well, as much as I want to participate, to do something, it's not that being one of life's great watchers and share some vets about life through the experience movies and about movies through the experience of life.
I hope some reviews will be insightful for you, convincing enough to discover a film or just enjoyable, and I hope it will simply get you the opportunity to compare your tastes, your appreciations and your dislikes with a fellow movie lover. Please, forgive some language mistakes and take into consideration, I'm not from an English speaking country, I do my best to use the most proper language... but hey, we're only humans.
Have a good read!
ElMo
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Now, how about exploring one of the most defining aspect of his cinematic legacy: quotability. Indeed, Al Pacino is probably one of the most quotable actors of his generation with so many sayings, shoutings, warnings, shoutings again and last but not least, speeches that forever enriched Pop-Culture.
So, even if you're not a fan of the actor, if you could pick just one, which is your favorite from these 35 Al Pacino's memorable quotes? (one that doesn't come from a speech or a monologue except if it's a conclusion that can be considered a classic quote in its own right?)
Keep your choice close, your vote closer and discuss the poll here
PS: 75% of the list still belongs to his two most legendary roles : 12 quotes from Michael Corleone and 9 from Tony Montana
To overcome Blue Monday and daily morosity in general, which of these cinematic happy-go-lucky optimists and half-full glasses philosophers would most help you to look at the bright side of life?
(the question and answer can be delivered by the same character in one single quote)
The exchange shouldn't exceed four sentences, otherwise we're not talking about quotes but about dialogue, so sorry for the Pulp Fiction (1994) fans but the iconic "What" sequence between Jules and Brett is ineligible for this poll.
Want to discuss it? -It's here my friend."
Try to find your answer in the list in less than 20 seconds and then, discuss it here
* FF in the texts ** IMDb exists since 1990
So, from these 12 justice-related films (as in 12 Jurors), ranked in order of IMDb ratings, which one do you plead guilty of liking the most?
Indeed, "MITM" broke many grounds, being one of the first family sitcoms to really set itself apart from the usual clichés and feature a totally unredeemable, dysfunctional family, and get rid (for the first time) of (what used be obligatory) a laugh-track, but I guess most people remember it for being the series that really revived Bryan Cranston's career. Well, if only for that, the series deserves a little tribute.
So, as the title says, were you a fan of "Malcolm in the Middle"?
So, which of these 10 trick to improve your indie film, would you pick? Remember, you have no pretension to make THE film, your masterpiece, or your personal story ... you just want it to be "memorable" enough to launch your career.
Reviews
Too Late Blues (1961)
Pessimism as the opposite reflection of Cassavetes' future artistic choices.
Cassavetes knew how to compose with the wide ranges of human emotions like so many notes on a jazzman's partition, showing them at their rawest with a fascinating mix of razor-sharp precision and cool jazzy detachment but the virtuosity that made "Shadows" such a revolutionary classic, pulverizing cinematic grounds, seemed to lack in in "Too Late Blues", a sincere story but without that face-slapping intensity that became the director's trademark.
I guess it took some time for Cassavetes to find his way, he was a natural observer of human relationships but his talent didn't pop out of nowhere, I guess it is only by hitting the same vein over and over again that such gems like "Husbands" or "A Woman under the Influence" could implode to our "faces" (pun intended), but in the 60's, Cassavetes, hit a chord with "Shadows" but was still looking for the right note. His second feature "Too Late Blues" is no masterpiece but it does have that detached energy that drove "Shadows".
The film follows a guy nicknamed Ghost, he's the leader of a jazz band where we can spot the face of Seymour Cassel, and maybe Cassel would have been a more interesting choice, but he was no rock icon by the time. Ghost is too baby-faced to really strike as a charismatic protagonist, on which the heaviness of emotions can rest on, he looks like the 'dream lover' he sung actually. He's a good actor, but there's something that doesn't just fit. Cassavetes wanted Montgomery Clift and Gena Rowlands as lead actors, that would have been a satisfying vision.
This is not a comment on Darin and Stella Stevens' appeals, actually, they're meant to be that way since he's a wannabe top singer who's got a notion of success coming to him and she's a struggling and rather mediocre girl with thin vocal capabilities, quite a pair! He obviously develops a liking on her and she's responsive, but he's so wrapped up in a misleading ego and she's so pitiful about herself, passing it as lucidity that their relationship is corrupted from the start.
There's something poignant in the pair formed by these two misfits but the film quickly loses its breath by going round in circles, despite a promising cast, Val Avery made an interesting music manager and I wish Rupert Cross had more screen-time, there's something so irresistible about this actor, there are also a few colorful characters like a Greek bartender (Nick Dennis) and a thug played by Vince Edwards, although I could see Tim Carey playing that part. Yet we're asked to care about the least interesting people in the film.
The character of the Agent, played by the sly and jealous Everett Chambers was a fascinating antagonist: this is a man who promotes a guy he totally despises, which says a lot about his cynicism, much more, he wants his failure because he stole his girlfriend, which he loved just out of territoriality, he didn't think she had any talent, but she was supposed to lean on him. This creates an atmosphere, as the New York Time review pointed out: "sordidly fascinating", a sort of no way out where we know birds will lose their feathers, and this is why the film is never as absorbing as in its first and last act, where it manages to reaches some peaks of greatness.
And Ghost's personality gets more complex as he reveals himself to be a coward, unwilling to fight, and until we found out this is a man with certitudes over his talents, but that's where it ends.Had the film not lost its way in the middle act and dragged on too long for some gratuitous bar scenes, it could have been onto something really special, on the same vein than Martin Scorsese's debut "I Call First" or "Mean Streets", Bobby Darin is no Harvey Keitel but he came very close to it. Reading the trivia about the film, I found out the shooting was rushed because of productions issues, Cassavetes didn't go through the same problems than for his next movie "A Child is Waiting", but his struggles with Paramount might have convinced him that he wasn't fit to work for a studio.
After 1963, it would take him half a decade to come up with his first masterpiece: "Faces". Because he knew he needed the right actors, and he'd make as many films and money so HIS movies would be made. Cassavetes pioneered independent cinema because he wanted independence and it's very appropriate that the character of "Too Late Blues" seek the same independence, wrapped up in a complex position about himself, his character's arc closes when he realizes that he still needed a band to survive and he clearly gets his comeuppance, maybe it was Cassavetes' way to show that you can't go on your own in this business and what counts more is relationships.
No wonder the director would only make movies with his friends Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and his muse will be no other than his wife: Gena Rowlands. You have germs of a growing talent and "Too Late Blues"'s pessimistic mood is only the opposite reflection of Cassavetes' artistic choices.
The Iron Lady (2011)
The Rusty Days of the Iron Lady
In the 80's, French singer Renaud signed a famous tribute to women for their natural lack of involvement in men's ugliest passions: hooliganism, gun, violence and cars, refrains ended the same way: "No chick is a hooligan, nor imbecile nor murderer, no, not even in Britain except, of course, Mrs. Thatcher" or "No woman is wretched enough, to polish a revolver, and feel herself invincible except, of course " well you got the point. You can find the song on Youtube with English subtitles.
So, it's not just that the aura of Mrs. Thatcher exceeded the British Channel and turned her into the punching ball for left-wing artists from all over the world, it is the rhetorical harshness. Basically, Miss Maggie (which is the title of the song) was an exception among all the distinguished members of the female persuasion, Renaud could go as far as considering any woman a goddess but in the case of MT, he'd make an exception. That this woman managed to elicit the same disdain than a man says everything about her polarizing power. Like her or not, she didn't steal her nickname.
She wasn't an iron first in a velvet glove, Miss Maggie was an iron lady who expressed her conservative beliefs to the fullest, convinced that the salvation and greatness lied in a sane conception of work and profit, no matter how small they were, opportunities were to be encouraged. She rejected laziness, complaining and reliance on state as non-British values, and as a witness of the war and the daughter of a modest grocery shop owner who believed in the virtue of property and entrepreneurship, even in the midst of the Blitz, she never compromised, for better or for worse.
So from 1979 to 1990, perhaps the most difficult moment of British history, marked by the Winter of discontent and severe economical recession, she became the most divisive and longest-serving Prime Minister of British history, also the most significant after Churchill. Her initiatives caused many strikes from public service unions and workers from state-owned companies, the biggest one being the miners', she was also confronted to IRA bombings and had lead Britain during the infamous Falklands War in 1982, she was also known for her allergic defiance toward European Union and the Brexit seems to have proved her point posthumously.
Now I grew up knowing her name, later her feats from history and a few documentaries but I really expected the movie to provide the kind of anteroom's insights you expect from political biopics, I wanted it to tell me something I didn't know. Well, I didn't know how serious was Mrs. Thatcher's condition during her senile days, while she was still coping with the loss of her husband and number-one fan, but as much I didn't know it, I didn't care either, yet, believe it or not, this represents almost two thirds of the film, the rest shows more her rise to power than the power per se, and all the events I just related are all showcased in telegraphic style with no scenes whatsoever that could have completed our historical knowledge.
Meryl Streep won the Oscar for the role and she was terrific, but all the acting, accents make-up and mannerisms in the world can't save the film from its incomprehensible obsession with Thatcher's dementia, the approach taken by Phyllida Lloyd, director of "Mamma Mia!" and writer Aby Morgan. Is it because her portrayal was so unflattering that this pathetic condition was supposed to elicit our sympathy? Well, then how about showing the extent of her determination, the controversial nature of her power and not without being too reliant on a lazy editing made of speeches, applause, footage of strikes, they were so repetitive it became comical.
Or was it to show that "behind every great woman, there's a man" and his death was too much to take, but then show their relationship before his death, during her political reign. All through the film, we see Jim Broadbent as a lovable buffoon popping out of nowhere like a hallucination but it was so awkward it didn't even work. There's one scene where she decides to become Prime Minister and he complains that she doesn't spend more time with her family. I don't care if it's true, this scene and the one where she drives away from her kids, was implausible beyond words.
Unfortunately, for a woman who insisted that action mattered more than anything, who regretted that people care for feelings more than ideas, there's nothing that shows the genesis of Thatcherism, as ideas or action, nothing against her chemist worker period. It's just the housewife/woman aspect and the Meryl show, where she's more notable as playing a senile lady than the iron one. Her arc doesn't close when she resigns and sees how Britain has improved by being one of the major powers of the world but when she finally gets rid of her husband's clothes. That's it.
Streep isn't to blame; it's a waste of talent but film lack a direction and a vision, in a three-hour film, the Alzheimer bit could have worked but not in such a short run-time. And the most infuriating part of it is that there has been a lot of talking about the status of Miss Thatcher as a feminist icon and God knows how Meryl loves playing empowering women, but there's not one hint of empowerment in this film, it's all about the debilitated years of Thatcher, nothing else. For once that I expected a real film about women of power, much more from a female director and writer, we have a case of shocking incompetence.
The film came at a right moment where she could be judged in all perspective, far from the hysteria that she caused later. But I'm sure even Renaud himself would think "Miss Maggie" deserved better, especially at her lifetime.
Peter Pan (1953)
Conventionally good, but never beyond one's expectations
Well, even a lesser Disney movie like "Peter Pan" will still be a first-rate animated movie as far as, you know, animation goes. If the 1953 movie didn't break any particular ground, it was still good enough to provide one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable characters: Tinkerbell. Remember it was, Tink who provided the finale of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" by magically turning the screen to black after Porky Pig stuttered out his "That's all, folks!" catchphrase.
Tink belongs to the Pantheon of iconic Disney characters and it is appropriate that in one scene she's used as a saltshaker to supply fairy dust to Wendy and her bewildered brothers, she gives the film a certain flavor and even a little sassy touch in what would have been rather predictable and conventional entertainment, despite the cocky personality of Peter Pan and his interesting rivalry with Captain Hook. It is a fascinating bit of irony that the sidekick of the embodiment of childhood spirit is jealous and worried about the length of her hips.
The film has indeed enough innuendo to content the amateurs of psychological and sexual readings in Disney characters but if you want to judge the book by the cover, the film has all it takes to make a passable Disney film, it has that blissful energy and quick readiness for adventures that characterize children and a little touch of fairy dust that became the trademark of Disney films. And Peter Pan isn't a one-dimensional hero, he's a larger-than-life boy who's a both an immature kid and an alpha-male with a harem of mermaids and basically, every female character having the hots for him, he also happens to be a bad-ass fighter.
But it takes too long for the film to take off, the opening in the house drags for more than twenty minutes and the annoying father occupies so much screen time that any viewer would need more than a little vacation day on 'Never Land' to forget about him. At the end, there's just something that leaves you hanging on, you know you're supposed to have a little glee in the eye somewhere in the film, but all the masterful animation, the wonderfully staged fights and crocodiles sequences,, the animation of Pan who spends most of the time not just flying but floating and the interactions between Hook and Smee fail to connect with the story.
And there are too many Lost boys so that you don't really care for them, Michael and John are only sidekicks but they don't do much in the film. It's all in Pan, Tinkerbell and Hook with Wendy as a passive and rather dull observer. It doesn't capture the essence of JM Barrie's novel but it does fill all the requirements of a Disney movie, and nothing else. When you finished it, you're just spent a nice moment but then there's nothing that really stands out, what are you going to talk about when watching the film? What did the kids learn from their adventure, that they need a mother and Wendy can't play the surrogate mother anymore because she's got to think of her own future as a mother? The ending was bittersweet with the emphasis on bitter.
Maybe I'm biased because I didn't get to see the film when I was a kid, I saw many movies of the same Disney period but only excerpts from "Peter Pan". However, I grew up watching the episodes of the anime based on JM Barrie's novels and they were more faithful to his spirit, the kids were all fully developed characters and the relationship between Pan and Wendy were really captivating, on a love-and-hate way, but it's like the animators tried to condense the whole story in one-night event like a dream so the whole thing seemed a bit rushed. There's not the warmth of "Lady and the Tramp", the fast-paced rhythm of "Alice in Wonderland" or the swing catchy vibes of the "Jungle Book" time, and there's no romance, no friendship whatsoever.
I guess there's something to blame on the context, by the time "Peter Pan" was released, "Cinderella" had - three years before- consolidated the financial strength of Disney studios allowing Uncle Walt to keep on expanding his business, the studio would face a few highs and lows but never with the same stakes as those in 1950. So we're in the middle of the 50's, at the peak of Disney's career, when the animation was lead by the "Nine Old Men", they were there from 1937 to 1977, if you do the math, the 50's was right in the middle, and it was still before the Xerox device, used for "101 Dalmatians", would simplify animation but with a greater focus on the story, the music, the characters, elements that seems to lack in 'Pan'.
"Peter Pan" is a true product of its era, a classic Walt Disney movie that has been made with confidence and dreams, and how appropriate that it tackles a story of a young boy who doesn't want to grow up. It is like the essence of Disney to make dreams possible, and in the case of "Peter Pan", there was a lot to say about this, but it never quite clicks. Maybe because it was met at a time where the master was too focused on his Disneyland project, on his work on TV and that animated features became a sort of a milk cow.
I remarked a strange pattern, it's only where the future of the studios are at stakes that Disney make terrific movies, they never as good as when they're pivotal and necessary, I can see why "Peter Pan", while a good film in its own right, isn't as good or memorable as the other features.
And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)
I like it, it's silly...
It's like going to a restaurant, the starter is "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and then comes the piece of resistance "Life of Brian" and if you look at the right side of life, I mean, kitchen, you'll see the dessert coming with "The Meaning of Life", a bit lighter but you've had a good meal already. What's that got to do with "And Now Something Completely Different"? Well, you have the film that played the role of the appetizer.
As far as Monty Python's history goes, there will be a before and an after 'Flying Circus' in Britain, and a before and after 'And Now For Something Completely Different" in the rest of the world, where foreign audiences will discover that they're onto now something completely different on the field of humor.
"And Now For Something Completely Different",
This is the recurring joke that marks a brief pause between the sketches, an interlude that is as hilarious as Gilliam's trademark animation. But talk about misleading audiences: yes, they're right in the sense that they do introduce something completely different, but if you expect another display of purely British absurd humor meant to produce a reaction of hilarity, the word 'different' IS misleading. That's just to say, this film, which was the first to introduce the Monty Python to the American audience by playing some of their most famous sketches without an audience, is simply the greatest monument to their comedic genius, you'll laugh, you'll chuckle, you'll faint and you'll hurl.
Well, that's it. What can I say now? Nice weather isn't it? Mmm, I don't know, I don't think there's any need to get further, who is going to read this anyway? One who saw the film knows how great it is, and one who didn't will check by himself if he didn't, and since the opening sketch is "How Not to be Seen", well, I don't think one can consider the film as unfunny after that. So, I don't know I'm wasting my time writing this while I have probably more constructive things to do.
Well, not precisely at this time, I'm unemployed and it's ten o'clock PM, so this would be the most appropriate time to write a little review. Or maybe I should go in my bed with my wife our marriage is a real wreck Wait maybe I should get back to the point.
(clearing throat)
So, what's the film about? It's about a TV political program praising the virtues of not being seen, ever, providing some advice many stars of our time should follow, it is also about an accountant who dreams to become a lion tamer, a dirty book that translates Hungarian with naughty words, it's about gang of old ladies or baby snatchers, it's about a lumberjack (who's okay), a writer who wrote the deadliest joke in the world, so deadly even a chuckle can kill you, it's about a contest of upper class twats, a dirty fork's comment that escalated quickly, and many many many other glorious attempts to be funny that actually works, some better than others, but the lesser ones work better than the better of today's inner lesser programs, get my point?
I can't be serious while reviewing the film but I hope it conveys the point that this film is exactly what was war according to Clemenceau, something too serious to be given to generals, humor is too serious to be given to comedians, Monty Python aren't comedians, they operate beyond the requirements of comedy, they know the structures by the book, when to put a punch line but most of the time, they get nowhere, there is something so instinctive in their humor that you just wait until the genius clicks, when it doesn't, it means that the premise of the sketch might have been overestimated but when it does, it's laugh-out-loud that justify the more timid chuckles, what a small price to say to have a good old belly-laugh.
I enjoyed the film, I remembered I used to watch it with my high-school friend, yes, I'm a nerd (and I'm okay), it contains some of the funniest jokes ever and that it didn't meet with the initial public shows how sophisticated it was for their time and yet they could make you laugh with a few fast-motion and grimaces. You can't just label Monty Python, they're beyond any form of humor with humor as the focal point, the punctuation mark, the package, the structure and the deconstructive elements, many writers write gags with the basic elements: set-up-gag- punch-line, even the set-up in its own right is funny.
And now for something completely different
is a fantastic showcase of Pythonesque humor, one that will never cease to be, kick the bucket or be told about like a certain Blue-Norwegian parrot. Got my point, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more
Blowup (1966)
Life as an impression of meanings rather than meanings of impressions
I'm going to quote Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons": "I'm no art critic, but I know what I hate. And... I don't hate this."
No, I can't say that I hated, even disliked, Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up", Golden Palm winner of 1966, the film kept my interest from beginning to end and the deliberately dissatisfying ending had an interesting quality about itself. I know it left more interrogation marks at the end than at the start but this is an art film, what did anyone expect? A resolution? What kind of answers to the photography mystery could have been satisfying? The film had more to say about the form of things to let us free to put any content we want, I don't mean it's an art film as an alibi, but as a choice of style that didn't make it less enjoyable, certainly bizarre and disconcerting but I guess it's a freelance movie that tried not to be too dependent on narrative structure, no rules was the rule.
I feel like I'm overusing this word 'art', and I don't know what it means either in that context, I think it's less an art film by the way it tried to be different but because what it seems to imply is that nothing is precisely what it seems it and the more you try to enlarge a vision of the truth or to dig deeper into it, the less clear it actually becomes, in fact, it is quite impossible to get it. It is just like impressionism, take a Claude Monet painting and get your eyes closer, if you try to look at a person's eyes, trying to figure out something about a personality, you will only see little colored dots. The same goes with "Blow-up", let's just look at the big picture.
This is a film about a photographer who loves his job and that's a certainty. He's played by David Hummings, a then-unknown actor (although mostly known today for this role) and here's someone who's so serious about his job that he exudes genuine fear even among professionals, while young starlets accept to be treated like poultry, the older ones never react to his sarcasms of derogatory comments either. His misogyny might date the film even more than the groovy music or the clothes but it's a necessary evil. The opening scene with real-life mannequin Verushka, one of the most famous scenes of history, plays exactly like sex scene with slow escalation and a climax that finally leads to the guy just leaving the stage without any word. Talk about a preliminary!
Many things happen before the crucial park scene which retrospectively doesn't add much to the plot except to get us in a mood of intellectual turmoil where the youth was intellectually disillusioned and morally misshaped. These kids had their parents dealing with war, the Blitz but they don't have much to endure in their youth, they can only embrace the relative comfort of their lives or seek for escape and enjoyment in a way or another. Whether demonstrations, rock concerts or pot-smoking, the film features many generation-defining moments that were emblematic of the baby-boom generation, what does that bring to the film? Nothing, except,maybe the essential, to bring a certain mood, a texture, an atmosphere that looks typical on a first glance but then is slowly deconstructed.
It is also interesting that the hero is a photographer, this means he can explore all the different layers of societies and capture their seemingly essence in one shot, someone who's an observer, but of an active nature, which makes him a sort of embodiment of youth, a need to be active but without much things to do, an impression of activity rather than a real one. When he finds himself in the park, he's put in total neutral area, natural on the surface, it's all in green, but it's still a place occupied by people. He finds two lovers, are they fighting? Flirting? He takes a few shots, he's approached by the woman (Vanessa Redgrave) who wants the pictures back, that naturally arouses his curiosity, forbidding is forbidden, as they said in France, in 1968.
The film keeps on some suspense, he meets the woman, they have a little flirting session, they smoke pot, she seduces him, he gives her the reel, she gives him a phone number, both are wrong, but never mind, he's got the pictures and then in one of the most fascinating movie moments, he enlarges them one by one, suspecting something wrong, what he thought was the object of his eyes, become the subjects of something more interesting involving a gun, a corpse. Blowing up again the images, he finds the pictures and he is just overwhelmed, he tries to find out what is going on, and just when you think this is going to be something à la Columbo, the film totally derails from its premise while happening to say more interesting things.
I won't develop it further (no pun intended) because I feel like providing alibis for something that didn't make sense because it's not your typical 'art' film that circles around nothing, this one has the seemingly premise of a plot and has the guts to throw it away as if it had maybe some more important statements to say. The result is quite astonishing, it is like a slice of life of the groovy 60's, a document about the superficiality of the time, a quest for bizarre meaningfulness and a film that revolutionized the treatment of nudity, sexuality and maybe violence. In a way, it's for pioneering movies like that cinema could have a few groundbreaking movies in the year after.
So
what else to say? "Blow-up" didn't have much meaning except that some things in life don't have a proper meaning as well, and maybe, that's meaningful enough.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Medieval location, Renaissance animation and Modern situations
This is one of the best Disney animated movies for many reasons, one and not the least, is that it is a visually dazzling experience even by Disney standards. Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris" has been adapted several times and featured many iconic performances of the misshaped bell ringer Quasimodo: Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton and Anthony Quinn to name the most memorable, but there comes a point where animation reveals itself to be a more difficult challenge than live-action, just think of all the implication such a title as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" carries.
You've got to recreate in the most convincing way the magnificent cathedral, which happens to be the most famous Parisian location perhaps after Eiffel Tower, and the Arc of Triumph. It is one thing to draw all the details, I'm a drawer and I know I can do it, but the animators work in three dimensions, it's not just the Cathedral from the ground, but from the top, from every single aisle, its majestic view on Paris and the Seine, the Gargoyles, the bells, like a virtual tour guide at the dawn of the Internet era. The Cathedral, as an emblematic representative of the Gothic period is known for the richness of its interiors, the magnificence of the stained glasses, and the vertiginous roofs and status, it isn't just any location, it is a character by itself that Quasimodo know by heart and the animators needed to render that impression, for some, it's a monument, for Quasi, it's home.
They spent hours and hours of visits and notes and it started since 1993, and it sure paid off because you could tell they spent enough time so they could feel at home, too. So, we're never introduced to the Cathedral in a static way, whether it's a sword fight between Phoebus and Esmeralda, a vertiginous inspirational sliding over the roofs, or an acrobatic climax in a fire-stricken tower, the animators prove once again that there are infinitely more possibilities with animation, you can't have Quasimodo playing Tarzan with the ropes in a live-action film without a good deal of editing and preparation, in the film, it's all in lightness and fluidity. Disney has always been about imitating reality but to better transcend it. That's the trick!
And the difficulty didn't only lie on the central elements but also the peripheral ones like the crowd. In a movie, you hire extras, in Disney, they used to set films in nature, or small villages, or places of a few characters or extremely different, but no overcrowded streets. In "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", when the action isn't set in the Cathedral, it's in the streets of Paris, which, as we can guess, were quite full in these medieval days. The animators had to draw many people, making them move, cheer, throw tomatoes, fight or laugh during crucial sequences, and they obtained the effect thanks to the CGI department, when CGI was a mean, not an end, and as it was used to recreate the thrilling stampede in "The Lion King", they recreated a wonderful and convincing Paris that had nothing to envy from her representation on movies.
But I don't want to make it feel all tapestry and wizardry, the film doesn't just take a challenge on the field of visuals but on the messages delivered in the story, starting with acceptance, through the touching and haunting character of Quasimodo. While the animators eliminate a few other elements such as his deafness and one-eye, he's not a pretty sight, but there's something that oozes gentleness and naivety. Locked in the Cathedral by his "Protector" Judge Claude Frollo, he wishes to discover the real world out there. This might look as a set-up to a story that will teach him the value of self-esteem but the film is more ambitious and goes beyond that predictable premise. While Quasimodo is confronted to a hateful crowd, he also falls in love with the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda.
And there's just something about Esmeralda, the tanned blue-eyed beauty that catches the men, Captain Phoebius instantly falls in love with her fieriness, and to make things even more complex, even the straight-laced and conservative Frollo gives her a kiss in her hair while holding her tight. Now that was a bold move in a Disney film. Indeed, villains, while not being one-dimensional, are generally defined through one particular trait: greed, power, jealousy. Frollo is an interesting antagonist in the sense that Esmeralda inspires him the very devilish thoughts he tries to fight; he's his worst enemy before being the enemy. In the extraordinary "Hellfire" sequence, he sings his incapability to repress his impulses, and the only way is to kill Esmeralda. This is Disney's best villain song, on a character so dark that I suspect adults will feel more responsive while children can learn the lesson about racism and intolerance, from his hatred toward gypsies.
Yes, Esmeralda isn't just an object of desire, she embodies the pain of Quasimodo as a representative of people who are victims of racism and violence in ways seldom seen in Disney's universe, and in one of the film's most moving moments, she implores God for one thing: to save her people. Yes, God is present, as he was in "Fantasia", to those who believed that religion and sex couldn't share a sentence with Disney, here's a film that shows that in the midst of the great Renaissance period, there's nothing Disney couldn't achieve, it would have been rather bizarre not to have Jesus of the Virgin Mary in movie set primarily set in a Cathedral.
I was in the right target during Disney Renaissance but I stopped watching the new Disney after "Pocahontas", I wish I could see this one at the time of its release, but I'm not sure I would have loved it more as a teen, than as an adult now.
Woodstock (1970)
The Late 60's Are Still Alive
Approaching the age of 35, I wonder what exactly defines my generation, what am I going to excitedly tell my children when they will ask me how it felt to grow up in the 80's or 90's, when years started with 19-. Sure, I can describe the shapes of videocassettes, I can also hum a few tunes of my childhood or hit songs from the teenage years, but again, what does define my generation?
They had musical and spiritual communion in "Woodstock" and what do we have: bum-bum contests in Cancun? Give me a break (and not a spring one)!
Watching "Woodstock" made me realize the extent of what I missed by being born too many decades later, I missed a youth, one that really captured values youth stood for: peace, unity and community, fun, innocence and love. This sounds corny but imagine Woodstock happening today: everyone would see it live on TV or Youtube, stars would come with armies of bodyguards, there wouldn't be one but dozens of helicopters buzzing around the area, imagine the security guards, the anti-terrorist controls, imagine all the i phones being raised to the air. Woodstock wouldn't be Woodstock, in fact, we wouldn't even have a Woodstock.
The Woodstock Nation people, as they called themselves, didn't even know it would be filmed; they came, listened and lived the music, experienced to the bone whatever this new counterculture meant. We remember colorful details such as skin-dipping, naked girls dancing in the mud after the rain or naturally, pot-smoking, but from the standpoint of these young baby-boomers, it was the experience of a lifetime, one their parents could never understand, a moment of communion that would have at least existed for three days, for peace and music, like the subtitle says. They didn't know they were filmed but they knew they were part of a historical moment, no doubt.
And Michael Hadleigh had a hunch that this wasn't going to be any rock concert, with sixteen cameras, an editor and a young assistant named Martin Scorsese (and how appropriate that it had to be Marty's, of all the filmmaking debuts), they went to that deserted farm of upstate New York and started shooting. The film opens with green lands, far from the crowded visions rooted in pop-culture, local townspeople commenting the incredible sights, it feels like an invasion, too many youngsters, but the tone is surprisingly easy-going, it seems that for once, peace would be more than a slogan. And it happened, people came for the music and apart from the rain, nothing ever interrupted the festival, the concert was free, in every possible way.
Freedom, indeed, that was even the first song to open the concert, by Richie Havens. Look at him, he struggles with his guitar, he wears shoe-sandals, he interrupts his song, this is not a 'star', this is a singer with all the noble and spiritual craftsmanship the word carries.
I said Woodstock wouldn't be possible today but even if we dared to spend three days without our precious electronic devices, we don't have artists like Havens. I'm not even sure we had them ten years ago, listening to the voice of all these J-named singers: Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix' electrifying rendition of the national anthem sent shivers down my spine, same with The Who, Santana, and even the names I didn't know about before watching "Woodstock". Every single one of them proved me that there was just something incomparable about music between the late 60's and early 70's.
And the epic documentary finds the perfect balances between musical sequences and shots from the crowds when participants or cops give their two cents. One toilet-cleaner does it with a smile, he has a son in the festival and another in Vietnam, two visions of American, everyone has a saying about the event, sometimes, just a smile, a wink, say no more, there's the firm awareness that it is a significant moment of American history, one that became past when Hendrix and Joplin died in 1970, followed by Jim Morrison. Nixon resigned in 1974, and in Reagan's 80's, Woodstock would become a parenthesis not to be forgotten though.
I felt young again watching the documentary and listening to these songs, it was edited in such a way, with all the split screens, that I felt I was there, there was something really intimate as you could mix the experience with your own memories, a teen in the film is probably older than my father but for me, he was a kid. I wonder how many of them are still alive, I only hope they've watched the film again and realized that they were privileged people, they might not have had the adulthood they wished for but boy, they had the youth.
Some generations can't afford this luxury, I don't think anything would defines the 80's generation, maybe it's a one-in-a-century phenomenon, but I wish I could feel part of something. Maybe this feeling of belonging to a community was integral to the success of Woodstock, but we also have communities right now, except that they are self-centered and antagonistic, there was an IMDb community but remember, they removed the boards, so I don't think there would ever be a haven of peace like Woodstock in August 1969, it was too good to be true. But it was nice while it lasted.
Now, I don't think the world was a more beautiful place by then, at the time of the events, Hollywood was stricken by the savage assassinations induced by Charles Manson and people died in Vietnam, and we don't live in a world devoid of beauty either, but "Woodstock" immortalized an era in one film and defined a generation.
It all comes down to one thing, if anyone wants to know what was so great about the late 60's, watching "Woodstock" is enough.
Fantasia (1940)
The secret of Walt Disney: we saw him as the ultimate Sorcerer, he saw himself as the eternal Apprentice...
After "Snow White", who could ever underestimate animation? The new art form was definitely there to stay, embarking with bold confidence in the VIP wagon of Hollywood and promising to throne over the box-office for the decades to come and to think that it all started with a mouse!
And Walt Disney movies all pay tribute to this aspect of his success, that the simplest things can lead to the most extraordinary achievements, all it takes is to believe in or to wish upon a star. "Fantasia" is also an allegory of Disney's miraculous triumphs, an extraordinary achievement that also started with a mouse, THE mouse actually.
After years of declining popularity, it was time for Mickey to make a glorious come-back through a 'Silly Symphonies' cartoon, one of Oscar-caliber, appropriate for his legacy. It was "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", adapted from Goethe's story of the same name. Today, the vision of Mickey enchanting the broom, making it fetch the water with Paul Lukas' playful tune and the dream sequence over the cliff, where he controls stars; comets, waves and the whole universe, are some of the most defining moments of Disney's canon, and iconic moments of American film-making history. And unconscious or not, there was something self-referential in that short.
Indeed, Disney was like Mickey during the dream, he could make anything possible with that magic hat called a 'vision', and like Mickey realizing the mayhem caused by the hundreds of brooms flooding the whole place, he saw the budget leak the short would cause and things might have gone out of control if he didn't decide to enlarge the scope and ambitions of the project. Instead of a short masterpiece, how about one big masterpiece made of little ones? So he made "Fantasia", an animated anthology, made of eight unforgettable segments set up to classical music pieces,each one having as much to say about music as it has about life.
From the enchanting Dance of the Plum Fairy with Tchaikovsky's 'Nutcracker' and the adorable 'China dance' with the mushrooms, to the horrifying Mussgorsky's 'Night on a Bald Mountain' and penetrating Schubert's 'Ave Maria', from the poetic to the droll, the antique to the modern, Disney took the world to a journey of such an unprecedented narrative it couldn't match the usual seventy minute-format. The two-hour run-time, long even by today's standards, says something about his urge to reach the mature age of animation. "Snow White" and "Pinocchio" were landmarks but the general perception of animation as destined to children was a barrier to cross. "Fantasia" did it, showing with frames whatever classical music communicated with notes.
It is perhaps the greatest tribute to the power of music ever made in animation, an odyssey, in the universal and timeless meaning of the word, that can be easily compared to Stanley Kubrick's "2001". And watching the silhouette of the conductor Leopold Stokowski while the "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" by Johann Sebastian Bach is just feels like the 'Zarathustra' opening, an ominous moment of religious intensity, and with a point: music doesn't set the tone, doesn't get us in the mood, it IS the mood, the tone, the focal point. The purpose of the opening sequence, as explained by the Master of Ceremonies Deems Taylor who lets us see the Philadelphia orchestra play the instruments was to acknowledge music's self-sufficient value and not take it for granted. And the film starts with abstract moving forms in gold and blue moving in harmony with the music.
We "visualize" the sound if that was ever possible. But who said anything was impossible with Disney. In the intermission; Taylor even introduces music as a character! And rightfully so because music also happens to be the storyteller or a narrator helping us to appreciate our cultural heritage. With Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", we follow the reign and then the extinction of dinosaurs, what a long way since Gertie in 1914! T-Rex penetrated children's imagination, three generations before Spielberg. Beethoven "Pastoral Symphony" is a recollection of little Greek vignettes with fauns, angels and oddly sensual centaurettes. And Ponchielli's catchy "Dance of the Hour"s with the hippos, alligators and ostriches is the perfect little interlude before the nightmarish climax and its quiet and peaceful ending, whose religious undertones might make up for the use of evolutionist elements.
Without being controversial "Fantasia" did push a few limits of censorship, venturing into themes hardly explored by movies such as details of female anatomy or depictions of Satan. Maybe Disney was too ahead of his time and some critics judged the film a bit too pretentious, too uneven, which can be argued since some parts are definitely standout masterpieces while the "Dance of the Hours" is of 'Silly Symphonies' material, but the point is that Disney, like I said before, was the sorcerer's apprentice whose delusions of grandeur were reflected by Mickey's dream, he wanted to push the edge of the envelope and experiment the newest framing and stereophonic sounds. Maybe what the film says is that any director must be a sorcerer's apprentice.
And there is something in the criticism faced by "Fantasia", that reminds of "2001" with people praising Mickey's part like they acknowledge Hal 9000 was the best thing about the film, as if they were afraid to admit they were bored a little. But how many movies owed their ticket to posterity because of some 'boring' parts? Geniuses doesn't just have visions of art, they challenges the viewers' own visions.
During the poignant handshake between the two silhouettes of Stokowski and Mickey, like a torch-passing moment between the past and the future, don't get it wrong, there's a third man out here, it's Disney, he's the voice and the Maestro, the one who conducted our eyes, our ears and our hearts to the infinite limits of imagination, and beyond. His secret: We all saw him as the Sorcerer, but he saw himself as the eternal apprentice.
Hôtel du Nord (1938)
Of Old Demons and New Atmospheres...
Over the banks of Canal St Martin in Paris, there is "Hotel du Nord", a creation of novelist Eugene Dabit, dialogist Henri Jeanson and director Marcel Carne, a purgatory for the past sins, a lost station where people can relieve themselves from the burden of the pasts, as the weight of luggage thrown on the bed. There's something oddly definite in a hotel room, everyone stays, but some just don't want to be reminded they'll have to go, sooner or later.
The film opens with people celebrating a communion and the atmosphere (beware, this is a word you'll often find in this review) is cheerful with people joking about cops and religion. There is the local lock keeper who takes some pride from regularly giving his blood while he should be more suspicious about the kind of services his very wife provides, she seems to be too much of a good public for the local womanizer but Bertrand Blier in his earlier years of good-natured cuckolds' roles, fails to see it. There is an adopted Spanish kid goes to his mother's arm because the thunder reminds me of the Civil War's bombing, What this dinner with its gallery of colorful characters shows is that, in the interwar period, people took life as it came, at times enjoyed it but some didn't find reasons to find enjoyment, and the past had a lot to do with it.
The film centers on two couples, starting with Raymonde (Arletty) and Monsieur Edmond (Louis Jouvet) who're not "at the party", which literally in French, means that they're far from this universe and don't care about it. In all fairness, Raymonde seems to care about people, she is enthusiastic and welcomes the little girl who brought her a piece of cake, her companion, the grouchy Edmond asks why he doesn't have one. We suspect he couldn't care less and only needed a reason to complain, he's a man who won't let one smile slip from his face, maybe because life plays like a succession of thunders reminding of previous bombings. He eats, he drinks, smokes, practices his hobby which is photography, but inside, he's dead. Raymonde lives and smiles for two, she join the guests and lets her man alone. We'll find out later that they had a past that partly explains their opposite natures.
The other couple is Renee and Pierre (Annabella and Jean-Pierre Aumont), they're young and good-looking and they're ready to commit suicide, they just lost it, they don't trust the world anymore and 'Hotel du Nord' was the edge of their lives, like "Romeo and Juliet", they're dying together. Their dialogues are sentimental and almost too theatrical, contrasting with the lively slang of Arletty and Jouvet and the film takes a weird dark melodramatic turn until we hear a 'bang'. When Edmond gets in the room, he finds Renée lying in the bed and her lover who didn't have the guts to pull the trigger for him; Edmond lets him go and calls the Police. Renee survives but in her act of death, she gave Edmond a reason to live. There's no shortage of ironies in 'Hotel du Nord' and this one is the most poignant.
Edmond find someone unhappier than him and realizes very soon that he can't stand Raymonde. This leads to the iconic moment of the film, one that might be lost in translation, but that can't be ignored due to its resonance in the history of French cinema. Edmond planned to travel with Raymonde then he gave up; realizing that the problem isn't in the destination but the company. He's suffocating with Raymonde, he needs to change his atmosphere, which she is. Now, can you even describe an appeal that all lies in the thick Parisian accent of Arletty who finally has her rebellious moment, tired of her companion's tantrum and shouting "Atmosphere? Atmosphere! do I look like an atmosphere?" This is a line that has the same resonance as the 'Waterfront' contender speech or 'You talking' to me?' It came to the point that people would see the film because of this line they generally heard of before even seeing the film.
Does the line capture the spirit of 'Hotel du Nord'? Yes and no. No, because it wasn't meant to, the word doesn't carry any particular meaning, it just transcended itself in the mouth of Arletty, proving that cinema works in mysterious ways, any quote can become legendary just because it has the right accent, intonation and actor to deliver it. And yes, because this is a key word when you think about it, it's all about the atmosphere where we can find life more livable. The film opens with many couples, some stay the same, some break up and get back together, some live, some try to travel but then realize they have more to lose in leaving and some are tied to other people and can't do any move without them.
Arletty and Jouvet are the two driving forces, the yin and the yang, the woman whose heart is like a window opening to welcome the glow of the morning and the man who lives in perpetual nighttime and realizes that there might not be an atmosphere for him. And through "Hotel du Nord", Marcel Carné proved his importance on the field of French cinema, after "Quai des Brumes" which featured Gabin as a deserter, he went for a less controversial subject, and made film about little people who wonder in the same place and try to find a meaning in their lives, without making their quest too existential, some are stuck to the past, some pray for a brighter future, and some live in the present. The following year, present, past and future will all make one: war.
So like a seeming calm before the" premonitory storm, 'Hotel du Nord' is like a fascinating conjunction of three visions of life, or let's say three atmospheres.
Revolutionary Road (2008)
The Bored Office Worker and the Desperate Housewife...
If you don't know it from experience, you know from movies that marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be. I used to fill the ranks of optimists who saw it as a whitewater rafting with a few rapids to ride when it's closer to drifting across an ocean of routine, punctuated by loud hurtful arguments and a few tender 'sorry' or 'I love you' to conceal the wounds. Films are never as haunting as when they reflect the turbulence of your own life. And watching Sam Mendes' "Revolutionary Road" was like a slap from my mirror.
Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet are Frank and April Wheeler, young, loving and good-looking. They share everything: car, bed, house, lawns and kids to play in, but in their lucid moments, they realize their solitude. In a spectacularly directed scene, a wave of men with gray flannel suits are literally spreading over New York streets, The Knox building exudes some Billy Wilder's Apartment" vibes while the crowd shots gives the film a surrealistic touch, channeling the famous Magritte painting with the men with bowler hats. Frank is like a lemming caught in a crowd and about to accomplish his daily suicide over the cliff, he sits down in his cubicle and can only gets his kicks by acting like a 'big shot' in front of an easily impressionable secretary.
April can breathe fresh air every day, but with the fathers at work and kids at school, suburbs look like ghost towns, a feeling of total emptiness is inevitable and ends up invading April. Frank is a face in a crowd who doesn't have time, April has time and space but she's tied to Frank. Both are married but terribly alone. Now, loneliness can be a door for as many rooms as opportunities, but in marriage, the door is locked and you're trapped in one room: marital, existential dead-end.April dreamed to be an actress but in the 50's, Hollywood was like TV, many called and few chosen. The film opens with a flop that draw the curtain on her dreams and after many attempts to consulate her, Frank finally lets this out and invites her to abandon this 'theatre' nonsense.
The couple buys a nice suburban house in "Revolutionary Road", their real estate agent, played by Kathy Bates who, have found the perfect house for the perfect postcard-couple. But we know what that facade of happiness can hide the ugliest realities. Sam Mendes made the great "American Beauty", a social commentary about the suburban American life, made of ersatz of contentment and where families could only lead carbon-copy lives dictated by consumerism and pretending to have a 'normal' life because they're too afraid to question the norm. But we're no fools, we see these men and women talking about kids, eating, sleeping or having sex but they're only making an effort to hide their disillusions.
In "Revolutionary Road", the roles are reversed, it is April, who suggests Frank to abandon everything and go to Paris, she'll find a job in the Embassy and he'll have time to figure out what he wants to do. Frank is tempted to a certain degree: he knows he has no talent, the only certitude is that he hates his job, that meaningless job he can't even explain in proper words, that sucked the life out of his father, making him swear to himself he'd never fall in the same death trap. But as a coach told me once, we're sometimes better than we think at things we hate, and Karma plays quite a trick on him by giving him a raise and a promotion. Frank is like a Lester Burnham in terms of awareness but not in the action and this is where "Revolutionary Road" stands out among the other marriage movies, this is one about inaction rather than action.
Indeed, it is about a wife who wants to go to Paris without a plan, and a man who can't because he's scared, they know what they hate and they share the same hatred, but there's a crucial difference: April won't go to Paris to be happy, she'll be happy if she goes to Paris, Frank anticipates and thinks the remedy is worse than the disease, he can't see that his wife gave him a tacit ultimatum, she reached the existential dead-end before him. It is very appropriate that the only person in the movie to tell the truth and to make sense is an insane man played by Michael Shannon. He can see the gateway to escape from the inconvenient truth, and sweeps off Frank's justification with a cruel verdict: "you deserve each other".
They know he's right but can't admit, and that's the terrible truth of marriage: it forces you to keep silent. The ending left me puzzled what's with that old man listening while his wife was babbling, but then I realized it wasn't random; the point was that many marriages looked exactly the same, forcing people to pretend to live happy. In the 50's, the American family model was the norm but looking at the way people smoked and drank and had affairs with their secretaries or neighbors, you realize that not much have changed, today, it's porn and Internet. The cures changed not the symptoms.
"Revolutionary Road" is more relevant than ever, it speaks devastating truths about bored office workers and desperate housewives, and as someone who actually followed his wife to a 'Paris' scenario, let me tell you that it didn't work either, I'm still figuring out what I'm made for and life is still routinely. So I can say that April and Frank were doomed from the start, and the tragedy is that they certainly loved each other.
I had just seen "Romeo and Juliet" recently (and the remake with Leo) and the more marriage movies I watch, the more I wonder if it the play had such a tragic ending after all.