Movies We've Just Watched discussion
I remember one of the first "love" films I saw was Love Story and I remember crying my eyes out.
What was you first memory?
nice theme.
hmmmm, my first "love" film would have been whatever movie the young haley mills was in (circa 1964).
oddly enough, i sort of developed a crush on linda blair after seeing the exorcist (circa 1972, i was probably 13 at the time). when i think back on that, i have to ask: what the $(%*& was i thinking?!?!?!?
there are countless films on this topic. they veer easily into comedy, and tragedy. i have a special nostalgia for zefferelli's romeo and juliet....watched it with my high school girlfriend and it was a special movie for us. sounder also fits into that kind of nostalgia, associated with my first girlfriend in junior high school. remember when holding someone's hand was the most amazing thing in the world? (i suppose it still is, depending...)
i'll have to think about this more carefully and get back to you.
I loathed "Love Story" and "The English Patient" and "Il Postino" I couldnt help rolling my eyes in disgust and frustration.
The one movie about love I found interesting, was "Somewhere in Time". I fell in love with Jane Seymore.
And of course, there's the most appalling "love" story of all, VERTIGO, a sort of Don't Let This Happen To You of Movie Romance.
Probably the most appealing depiction of two people falling in love that I can think of is from a 1970s version of JANE EYRE, believe it or not, starring the sublime Susannah York and the sublime George C. Scott. They're a joy to watch together, somehow you just know they're going to have things to talk about at dinner for the rest of their lives.
Great call,
I had forgotten about that version of Jane Eyre.
Not the happiest of endings, but yes you are right.
They respect and love each other, and even without his eyesite, it will be fine.
a love story set in 1930's French colonial Vietnam.
Catherine Deneuve is a rich colonial widow who has adopted a Vietnamese princess as her daughter. Catherine starts an affair with a young French officer who eventually falls in love with the princess.
A tragic love affair consumes everyone it touches. Very beautiful and moving film.
Once Around
Brokeback Mountain
50 First Dates
While You Were Sleeping
Moonstruck
When Harry Met Sally
An Officer and a Gentleman
Anna, have you ever seen this version? It's the German original that CITY OF ANGELS was based upon.
Ed, I forgot about BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, great but sad film.
Another recommendation from Ang Lee: LUST, CAUTION.
wong kar-wai! - yeah, i just watched in the mood for love again recently. there's a great film about friendship. not sure i would call it a love story, although love factors into it.
it happened one night is also a great one. thanks for mentioning it, tom.
what about solyaris? i think of that as a film about love...it's about a lot of things, of course, but love is pretty high on the menu.
nice that oi mentioned eat drink man woman...it's been a while since i saw that. but that's a fine film about love.
And even if you didn't care for The English Patient, it captures the fall out of obsessive love-- plus I think one of the most romantic scenes is Juliet Binoche being treated to the art of the cathedral ceilings in the dark complements of her soldier lover.
others: Gone with The Wind, Pride and Prejudice (bbc colin firth), Chaplin's City Lights...
groundhog day
say anything
the graduate
de-lovely (unrequited love in the extreme)
I'm odd...I tend to like love stories that end badly or end with separation.
Out of Africa -- (totally different from Isak Dinesen's book Out of Africa, but an amazing film. John Barry's amazing score just puts it over the top. I am always in tears for the "Flying Over Africa" scene.
Tuck Everlasting -- Not necessarily completely a "love" story, and somewhat different from Natalie Babbitt's book Tuck Everlasting, but a beautiful film with a haunting score. Love is examined in a lot of ways in the film though -- through the relationship between Mae and Tuck, through the relationship between Winnie and Jesse, and through Miles' story.
I adore the film version of Fried Green Tomatoes (based on Fannie Flagg's book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: A Novel). It is a love story, but a love story of deep and abiding friendship.
I also love Jane Campion's The Piano (a very "literary" movie).
I definitely agree with Roman Holiday, Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn/Humphrey Bogart), and Breakfast at Tiffany's (having memorized this movie, I noticed an odd thing a few years ago -- when she gets out of the cab at the end, her hair seems to be already wet!). I also like Love in the Afternoon and Charade.
Of course When Harry Met Sally (the best "date movie" ever).
I have an entire sub-genre of films that could be categorized as "literary historial epics with men in leather pants, with amazing film scores" my favorites with a "love story" being: Dances With Wolves (Michael Blake's book Dances With Wolves is worth reading if you liked the film, though do also consider Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Last of the Mohicans (with Daniel Day Lewis), and Legends of the Fall.
De-Lovely, the story of Cole Porter and the woman who loves him and marries him even though he's gay, is a wonderful movie, with an astonishing performance by Kevin Kline and all that wonderful Cole Porter music. I cried my eyes out in the theatre after it was over.
I just saw Slum Dog Millionaire-- a perfect example of love that will not give up.
Tom wrote: "I'm curious about the designation of THE PIANO as a "literary" movie. Can you elaborate a bit?"
This is a dangerous question to as me indeed!!!
All the elements of "literature" exist within the film. For its tone, for its symbolism...the film "feels" like literture. There is so much imagery -- axes, angel wings -- which "point to" other things. I've long wondered if the key removed from the piano by Ada -- the 'A' above 'Middle C' -- was random or specifically chosen as 'A' for 'Ada.' Also, how the various characters relate to the piano (and play the piano)...and how the various characters understand (or do not understand) the importance of the piano -- there is a lot to think about there.
There is also poetry within the film. At the end is featured Thomas Hood's poem Silence (at: http://www.litscape.com/author/Thomas... )
"Silence" by Thomas Hood
There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave -- under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hushed -- no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.
Something to consider while watching the film with respect to Ada's muteness (yet she not thinking of herself as mute). What is silence?
The score is, of course, of vital importance -- how the theme is used, what instruments are present is important. I've written two papers on this film for "film as literature" assignments because there is a lot to work with. What I recently discovered (long after writing the two papers) is that the title of Michael Nyman's main theme (Track 4 on the soundtrack) "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" is actually gleaned from the title of Emily Dickinson poem# 588 (at: http://www.bartleby.com/113/1009.html )
"The Heart asks Pleasure - first -" by Emily Dickinson (Poem #588, written 1863)
The Heart asks Pleasure - first -
And then - excuse from Pain -
And the - those little Anodynes
That deaden suffering -
And then - to go to sleep -
And then - if it should be
The will of it's Inquisitor
The privilege to die -
You could write a whole other paper on the poems used or referenced within the film.
What has always drawn me to the story are the layers of thought and empathy required to delve through its details. It isn't quite a morality tale -- perhaps a morality tale shoved through a wood-chipper??? There is no "hero" and no "villian" in this story. Alisdair Stewart is merely a man who is a product of his time...not a villian. Ada McGrath exists in some reality outside of conventional morality. George Baines -- who has a wife in America, a detail in the screenplay but not mentioned in the film -- also lives outside of conventional morality. Ada and Flora travel "To the Edge of the Earth" (the title of Track 1), and the film is a collision course between these three characters on "A Wild and Distant Shore" (the Title of Track 3). What the film asks us to do is to answer the question as to which is better -- to submit to a man, your lawful husband, who would rape you (as Stewart attempts on several occasions, once while Ada is asleep!), or infidelity to a man whom you have come to love who understands (and values) your passions? The metaphor I love is from the film Phenomenon -- where John Travolta's character kept buying Kyra Sedgwick's handcrafted wooden chairs. George Baines "bought her chairs" when he brought Ada's piano off the beach. Baines understood what Stewart could not.
But Ada is not innocent in this either, and she very powerfully uses sex -- and denial of it to Stewart -- as a weapon. True, it is her only weapon, but still...how sex is used within the film (and all the varying iterations of it) is another thing to consider. The one that gets me is when he makes Anna Paquin's character wash the trees -- "You have shamed these trunks" (yet this man would rape his wife...?).
There is much (and much more) that could be said, but that's a start.
What make it literary? It's Holly Hunter's hair.
Jane Campion did turn me on to one of my all time favorite writers, however. If you love Jane Campion's films be prepared for the books of Janet Frame.
have mixed emotions on campion's take on henry james. have a low nicole threshold, however. have never seen In the Cut, have never read the book and probably never will...unless convinced otherwise.
Love Theme:
To Have and Have Not
Harold and Maude
Notorious
Jules and Jim
You Can Count On Me
Flesh and the Devil
American Splendor
A Woman Under the Influence
Wedlock House: An Intercourse
In A Lonely Place
Dogfight
Annie Hall
Breathless
My Man Godfrey
A Portrait of Jennie
The Thin Man
It Happened One Night
Casablanca
Mulholland Drive
Paint Your Wagon
La Belle et la bete
To Be or Not To Be
The ghost and Mrs. Muir
La Notte
Sid and Nancy
And I'm a helpless sucker for THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, one of the few actual love stories I'll willingly watch.
great list, girl! - thanks for mentioning several of my faves.
sorry for the bad typing in my posts. list validation is a great way to start the day. american splendor is so layered! shows how much love love love is at the core of pessimism, eh.
tom, it's sweet to see your keaton avatar say you're a "helpless sucker."
i can't think of a better movie than the ghost and mrs. muir to get across the longing not just in the process but in the goal of relationships. the opposite of "'til death do we part." the job of movies to tell sophisticated psychological ideas through a couple of hours of narrative is almost a lost art.
they are present for each other in spirit. What an apparition! The Captain is her muse and understands her happiness comes first. even if it's the unattainable reality of george sanders.
the mesmerizing gene tierney & music by bernard herrmann will swoop you right out of that cottage and into the waves.
and yes, if love (or some form of ecstasy) didn't exist, there would be nothing to long for. pessimism, like all suffering, is based on the idea that things should be different than they are.
did you hear dan plonsey's collaboration with harvey pekar, "Leave Me Alone"?
i missed the broadcast but apparently it was mentioned recently on npr.
(i got rained out from your nino rota thing ...hope it went well!)
and come to think of it i would bet meg, alex and tom would be interested in this production!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...
http://www.leavemealoneopera.com/
i did hear that plonsey and pekar are planning a west coast realization of the opera next summer.
no worries about missing the gig last night. it's always a lot of fun to play all that nino rota music with clubfoot! and how often is it that i get to see your talented boyfriend three times in one week!
and how often do i get to see you twice in one week? thanks again for the birthday present, i'm about 100 pages in and really getting into it.
Out of Africa -- (totally different from [a:Isak Dinesen|8147|Isak Dinesen|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/12......"
Honey, that's not odd at all. Just means you're wise beyond your yrs, 28 huh? All great passionate loves end in tears, badly and w separation. Makes the pleasure of being head over heels in love bittersweet right from the start. Least all my loves have ended in separation and i AM OLDER than u. So it must be so.
Would you like a date?
ha! ... Dawn of the Dead fer me ;o) ...
what? there's love in it!!!
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
An Affair to Remember
Sommersby
An Officer and a Gentleman
...and there are all those musicals...
Movies We've Just Watched
Books mentioned in this topic
Gone with the Wind (other topics)Gone with the Wind (other topics)
Dances with Wolves (other topics)
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (other topics)
Tuck Everlasting (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Dee Brown (other topics)Roald Dahl (other topics)
Fannie Flagg (other topics)
Natalie Babbitt (other topics)
Karen Blixen (other topics)