One scene I have yet to see commented on in this vein is that in Foreign Correspondent in which Edmund Gwenn's cheerful but sinister character takes Joel McCrea to the top of London's Byzantine-style Westminster Cathedral, from which he intends to dispose of him. As they are about to ascend the tower, we hear through the open door of the church a choral rendition of the haunting Dies Irae from the older version of the Requiem Mass, a tune that has found its way into numerous musical compositions over the centuries. The allusion to impending death is obvious here, as is Hitch's debt to his Catholic upbringing and education, though it would almost certainly be lost on non-Catholic audiences.
Showing posts with label cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cinema. Show all posts
27 March 2009
The films of Hitchcock
Readers of this blog are aware of my longstanding interest in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, some of which I have reviewed here and others on the Internet Movie Database website. Writing for Breakpoint's Worldview magazine, Gina R. Dalfonzo has her own take on Hitch's cinematic oeuvre: Crime and Punishment: Christianity in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock.
One scene I have yet to see commented on in this vein is that in Foreign Correspondent in which Edmund Gwenn's cheerful but sinister character takes Joel McCrea to the top of London's Byzantine-style Westminster Cathedral, from which he intends to dispose of him. As they are about to ascend the tower, we hear through the open door of the church a choral rendition of the haunting Dies Irae from the older version of the Requiem Mass, a tune that has found its way into numerous musical compositions over the centuries. The allusion to impending death is obvious here, as is Hitch's debt to his Catholic upbringing and education, though it would almost certainly be lost on non-Catholic audiences.
One scene I have yet to see commented on in this vein is that in Foreign Correspondent in which Edmund Gwenn's cheerful but sinister character takes Joel McCrea to the top of London's Byzantine-style Westminster Cathedral, from which he intends to dispose of him. As they are about to ascend the tower, we hear through the open door of the church a choral rendition of the haunting Dies Irae from the older version of the Requiem Mass, a tune that has found its way into numerous musical compositions over the centuries. The allusion to impending death is obvious here, as is Hitch's debt to his Catholic upbringing and education, though it would almost certainly be lost on non-Catholic audiences.
22 May 2008
One continuous take: Hitchcock and Sokurov
Quite coincidentally my wife gave me for my birthday two DVDs, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian Ark, unaware that both represent similar cinematic experiments more than half a century apart.
It was the Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein who pioneered the use of montage, a technique juxtaposing different camera shots of a single event and of related events to create an overall impression of the action. The use of this technique requires editing of sometimes very brief scenes into a thematic whole, something that has become so standard in film-making that we can hardly imagine it could be otherwise. (Apparently it also facilitated the work of Soviet-era censors!) Here is an example from Eisenstein's Aleksandr Nevsky:
Yet what if a director were to shoot a film in one continuous take from beginning to end, without editing? Up until recently this was not possible, as conventional film reels contained only eight minutes of film. In 1948 Hitchcock attempted the next best thing in shooting Rope and thus sought to replicate something of the flavour of the theatre on the silver screen — or perhaps I should take back the "silver" part, because it was Hitch's first colour film.
A number of reviewers have labelled this technique a mere gimmick. Yet there are at least two things to be said in its favour. First, this is how we experience life in real time. Second, this is how actors act on the stage. There is more than an incidental relationship between the stage and the screen, with stage plays being constantly adapted for the screen and, rather less often, vice versa. Rope is certainly a good example of the former.
Nevertheless, it's a difficult thing to pull off, even when the technical issues have been surmounted, as in Sokurov's more recent offering. The actors have to be thoroughly rehearsed before they can begin to shoot. The script must be completed (many directors begin filming without a complete script). The actors must come in precisely on cue and cannot make a mistake. The director has to resist the temptation to call "Cut!" in the midst of a less than fully perfect scene. Compared to Sokurov, Hitch had it easy. After the eight minutes were up, the camera man would focus on the dark back of a suit coat and then pull back again, a rather too obvious attempt to cover up a change of reels. Yet even within these eight minutes, Hitch sometimes had to cut to another part of the room, due, one assumes, to an actor's mistake that had to be covered up. So, no, Rope is not a seamless whole.
Fast forward to the beginning of the 21st century. The technical obstacles have been conquered, and it is now possible to shoot a film in one continuous take. The old-fashioned reels are gone. A steadicam can be taken virtually anywhere, and the footage can go in digital format directly to a single disk. No need for editing. But now the whole enterprise becomes precarious indeed, especially if you have your "studio" for only one day. In Sokurov's case, his studio was the famed State Hermitage Museum, once the tsars' Winter Palace, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Museum officials gave him a single day to accomplish this unlikely feat. Had anything gone wrong, the effort would have had to be abandoned, with much time and expense wasted. Yet after three (or four, depending on whose account you read) attempts, Sokurov and his thousands of actors met with success, producing what in my opinion is a minor masterpiece.
Now to the films themselves, beginning with Rope, the story of two young men who murder a former classmate just for the thrill of it. The plot is borrowed from the Leopold and Loeb murder case of 1924. Here Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Philip Morgan (Farley Granger) strangle David Kentley (Dick Hogan) in the opening scene. This is not a whodunit. The audience knows what has happened. The only real uncertainty is how long it will take their former teacher Rupert Cadell (Jimmy Stewart) to figure it out for himself and bring the killers to justice. After murdering their friend, the young men hide the body in a chest in the living room. They then proceed to host a party for the victim's family and fiancée, with a buffet dinner spread on top of the chest. This is supposed to be the perfect murder, committed by ostensibly superior human beings against a supposed inferior.
Made only three years after the end of the nazi régime in Germany, the film has a Nietzschean element running through it. Cadell has taught this worldview to his students and, egged on by Shaw, even makes a tongue-in-cheek speech extolling the benefits of murder to the guests at the party. Yet when Cadell discovers the truth and becomes aware of his own intellectual contribution to the crime, he rather suddenly becomes a liberal believer in equality and human rights, a transformation that not only comes a little too late but lacks plausibility — as if Heinrich Himmler could become John Rawls overnight.
Granger's character comes across as whiny. It is his scarcely concealed anxieties that arouse Stewart's suspicions and give away the truth. Granger would be an attractive and convincing actor in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train three years later, but here he comes across as weak and snivelling — hardly the Nietzschean Übermensch required to pull off the perfect murder. I've not seen or read the play, so this flaw could perhaps be traceable to the original script by Patrick Hamilton.
Now on to Russian Ark. There is no plot as such in this film, which instead takes us on a tour of Russian history from Peter the Great through the horrific siege of Leningrad up to the present. In the opening scene the director wakes up from an apparent accident to find himself in St. Petersburg's Winter Palace surrounded by figures from the early 18th century, including Peter the Great himself, who founded the city. No one can see the director, except for the similarly misplaced Marquis de Custine, who alone is able to interact with the people they meet on this most unusual journey through Russian history.
In addition to meeting Catherine the Great, Nicholas I, Nicholas II and his family, and even Aleksandr Pushkin, we are treated to the magnificent art in the Hermitage's many rooms — most of which is European in origin. Here we see something of a subtext in Sokurov's work: Russia's ongoing, if sometimes fraught, relationship with Europe — or should I say the rest of Europe. The Winter Palace is like an ark bearing the best of European civilization through the turbulent waters of Russia's history. The final scene of the film (unless the film itself is understood to be one long scene) is of the last masquerade ball held in the Winter Palace in 1913, complete with orchestra and dancers, and even Pushkin — or perhaps someone dressed like him. Lovers of Russian history and culture will find this film a treat for the eyes and ears. Nevertheless, it will take some prior knowledge to make sense of Russian Ark. It is worth reading some of that country's history to be able fully to enjoy the experience. This is a film to savour over multiple viewings.
12 May 2008
Daens
Stijn Coninx's Daens is a must-see for anyone with an interest in the development of Catholic social thought and its reception in an industrializing western Europe at the end of the 19th century. The setting is Belgium in 1893. Fr. Adolph Daens (Jan Decleir) is a priest assigned to a parish in Aalst, the bulk of whose members work in dangerous factories for poverty-level wages. Here accidents and deaths are a frequent occurrence, while the owners and managers choose to ignore the plight of their own employees. Caught in a darwinian struggle for survival, the owners decide to implement the "Scottish system," whereby the men are replaced by women and children commanding a lower wage.
Fr. Daens is scandalized by what he sees and undertakes to improve the lot of his poorer parishioners, successfully working for the universal franchise and then standing for election to the Belgian Parliament in 1894. He meets with success, but at the expense of his good standing in the Church, which defrocks him five years later. He is summoned to Rome to meet with Pope Leo XIII, whose encyclical Rerum Novarum was the inspiration behind Daens' efforts. The Pope declines to meet him personally, while a Vatican official hands him a blunt letter with the Pope's signature informing him that his call to the priesthood must come before everything else.
Among his political opponents is Charles Woeste, leader of the mainstream Catholic Party, whose support base is threatened by Daens' upstart Christian People's Party. The Socialists are another threatening presence, urging the oppressed workers to discard their christian faith altogether and join with them in a common struggle. Although Daens opposes socialism, Woeste and the ecclesiastical hierarchy persist in viewing him as a red priest. Tellingly, Nette Scholliers (Antje de Boeck), who organizes a general strike in support of Daens' efforts, falls in love with Socialist organizer Jan De Meeter (Michael Pas), a development that has its political parallel in Daens' (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to forge an alliance with that party.
Three features of this film are worth noting. First, like Belgium itself, the film is bilingual, with conversations amongst the lower class occurring in the Vlaamsche taal while the upper crust speak French. This is an accurate portrayal of Belgian society at that time. Whichever language one grew up speaking at home, French was the language of the élites, despite the fact that native Flemish-speakers outnumbered native francophones. This linguistic duality plays a pivotal role when a parliamentary committee investigating abuses in the factories of Aalst is unable to comprehend the complaints of the workers.
Second, one of the characters in the film is the Belgian King Leopold II (Gérald Marti). Although English-speaking viewers of the film are likely unaware of his significance in the history of that country, Belgian viewers would be all too familiar with the infamous monarch, due to his association with the atrocities committed in the spectacularly-misnamed Congo Free State between 1885 and 1908.
It should finally be noted that the film is based on Louis Paul Boon's novel, Pieter Daens (the name of Adolph's printer brother), which means that the film is two degrees removed from the historical events it recounts. Was Daens perhaps less saintly or Woest and the church hierarchy less vicious than they are portrayed here? Are the characters caricatures of their real-life counterparts? Undoubtedly. This points to one of the flaws in an otherwise excellent film, namely, insufficient development of the main characters. I would have liked to know more of Daens' faith, including his love for Christ and his church, and his growing excitement over reading Rerum Novarum. All the same, a film can hardly do everything in 138 minutes. Daens is worth seeing for what it does do, and it does it very well indeed.
05 February 2008
Scorsese does Hitchcock
Anyone who knows Alfred Hitchcock's classic suspense films will love this wonderfully creative film short, The Key to Reserva, directed by Martin Scorsese. The major reference is, of course, to North by Northwest, including the haunting score composed by the great Bernard Herrmann, but see if you can detect allusions to some of Hitch's other films.
David Cornelius has written an illuminating review of this film. Might the Academy Awards have a category for it?
Anyone who knows Alfred Hitchcock's classic suspense films will love this wonderfully creative film short, The Key to Reserva, directed by Martin Scorsese. The major reference is, of course, to North by Northwest, including the haunting score composed by the great Bernard Herrmann, but see if you can detect allusions to some of Hitch's other films.
David Cornelius has written an illuminating review of this film. Might the Academy Awards have a category for it?
20 December 2007
30 September 2007
The theremin
The theremin is the only musical instrument that is played without touching it. Remarkably, it is not a new instrument but was invented nearly 90 years ago, appearing in the eerie film scores of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still, where it was employed to great effect by Miklós Rózsa and Bernard Herrmann respectively. Here is Leon Theremin's cousin Lydia Kavina playing Debussy's Claire de Lune on his invention:
The theremin is the only musical instrument that is played without touching it. Remarkably, it is not a new instrument but was invented nearly 90 years ago, appearing in the eerie film scores of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still, where it was employed to great effect by Miklós Rózsa and Bernard Herrmann respectively. Here is Leon Theremin's cousin Lydia Kavina playing Debussy's Claire de Lune on his invention:
21 September 2007
Rebel without a Cause
Nancy and I recently watched the classic 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause for the first time. With its young co-stars, James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, it was one of the first adolescent angst movies that would capture the imaginations of viewers in that world of fifty years ago. Although the genre has by now become something of a cliché, its contemporary impact can nevertheless be appreciated in retrospect as we recall the huge changes occurring in North American popular culture in the years following the Second World War. Rock and roll was just gathering steam, and a distinctive youth culture, reinforced by postwar prosperity and overindulgent parents and incubated in the ubiquitous public secondary schools, was exploding into a frequently unpleasant reality — both for parents and for the adolescents themselves.
Rebel captures this moment well. The three principal actors deliver impressive performances, and one can hardly equal the evident interpersonal chemistry among them. The main flaw is that the script's psychologizing is too obvious and heavy-handed. Dean is rebelling against an overly passive father unable to stand up to his mother's domineering ways. Wood is starving for affection from a father who withdrew his when she hit puberty. Mineo is hungry for parental love, living alone in the care of an ineffectual nanny while his divorced father and mother live elsewhere. Mineo fixates on Dean as a father substitute and, at one point, says to him, "I wish you were my father" — just in case we didn't already get the message.
The film is held together by a nihilistic thread and a preoccupation with death — from the morbid planetarium show to the tragic deaths of two teens. The planetarium lecturer, Dr. Minton, represents adult authority and authoritatively imparts this nihilistic worldview to his young audience:
While apparently believing in the ultimate meaningless of existence, the adults in the film nevertheless manage to live respectable lives. Yet in the larger scheme of things there is no compelling reason for them to do so, and the youth have picked up on this. They are simply living out their parents' worldview, even if their parents are unable to comprehend this. Constantly flirting with death, they live as if there is no tomorrow. Tellingly, in the film's timeline there is indeed no tomorrow. The action occurs over a period of just 24 hours.
All three of the film's stars died tragically. Dean was killed in an automobile accident in September 1955, a month before the film opened. Mineo was murdered in 1976. Wood drowned in a boating accident in 1981. The film's title is perhaps misleading: the cause of the adolescents' rebellion is, paradoxically, the ultimate lack of cause for acting differently - for conforming to their parents' expectations when the parents themselves can offer no justification for doing so.
Nancy and I recently watched the classic 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause for the first time. With its young co-stars, James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, it was one of the first adolescent angst movies that would capture the imaginations of viewers in that world of fifty years ago. Although the genre has by now become something of a cliché, its contemporary impact can nevertheless be appreciated in retrospect as we recall the huge changes occurring in North American popular culture in the years following the Second World War. Rock and roll was just gathering steam, and a distinctive youth culture, reinforced by postwar prosperity and overindulgent parents and incubated in the ubiquitous public secondary schools, was exploding into a frequently unpleasant reality — both for parents and for the adolescents themselves.
Rebel captures this moment well. The three principal actors deliver impressive performances, and one can hardly equal the evident interpersonal chemistry among them. The main flaw is that the script's psychologizing is too obvious and heavy-handed. Dean is rebelling against an overly passive father unable to stand up to his mother's domineering ways. Wood is starving for affection from a father who withdrew his when she hit puberty. Mineo is hungry for parental love, living alone in the care of an ineffectual nanny while his divorced father and mother live elsewhere. Mineo fixates on Dean as a father substitute and, at one point, says to him, "I wish you were my father" — just in case we didn't already get the message.
The film is held together by a nihilistic thread and a preoccupation with death — from the morbid planetarium show to the tragic deaths of two teens. The planetarium lecturer, Dr. Minton, represents adult authority and authoritatively imparts this nihilistic worldview to his young audience:
And while the flash of our beginning has not yet traveled the light-years into the distance, has not yet been seen by planets deep within the other galaxies, you will disappear into the blackness of the space from which we came - destroyed, as we began, in a burst of gas and fire. The heavens are still and cold once more. In all the immensity of our universe and the galaxies beyond, the earth will not be missed. Through the infinite reaches of space, the problems of man seem trivial and naive indeed, and man existing alone seems himself an episode of little consequence. *
While apparently believing in the ultimate meaningless of existence, the adults in the film nevertheless manage to live respectable lives. Yet in the larger scheme of things there is no compelling reason for them to do so, and the youth have picked up on this. They are simply living out their parents' worldview, even if their parents are unable to comprehend this. Constantly flirting with death, they live as if there is no tomorrow. Tellingly, in the film's timeline there is indeed no tomorrow. The action occurs over a period of just 24 hours.
All three of the film's stars died tragically. Dean was killed in an automobile accident in September 1955, a month before the film opened. Mineo was murdered in 1976. Wood drowned in a boating accident in 1981. The film's title is perhaps misleading: the cause of the adolescents' rebellion is, paradoxically, the ultimate lack of cause for acting differently - for conforming to their parents' expectations when the parents themselves can offer no justification for doing so.
16 July 2007
Miss Potter
Our daughter Theresa was raised on two fat collections of the fanciful stories of Beatrix Potter, whose Peter Rabbit catapulted her to fame in 1902. Although the new Harry Potter film is getting huge publicity, I would enthusiastically recommend a similarly-surnamed film, Miss Potter, released late last year and now out on DVD. It's a charming cinematic treatment of Beatrix Potter's life, with all its joys and heartaches, that can be enjoyed by the entire family. The fact that Theresa rarely puts down pencil and paper may explain why I am drawn to the portrayal of a little girl constantly painting and developing her gifts for the benefit of the world. Here is the trailer:
Among the high points of the film is the cinematography, especially of the Lake District in the north of England. Renée Zellweger plays the title role beautifully, though she is made to look a little too frumpy. Ewan McGregor (no relation to Farmer McGregor!) winsomely plays Potter's publisher and early love interest, Norman Warne. Miss Potter is definitely worth seeing.
Our daughter Theresa was raised on two fat collections of the fanciful stories of Beatrix Potter, whose Peter Rabbit catapulted her to fame in 1902. Although the new Harry Potter film is getting huge publicity, I would enthusiastically recommend a similarly-surnamed film, Miss Potter, released late last year and now out on DVD. It's a charming cinematic treatment of Beatrix Potter's life, with all its joys and heartaches, that can be enjoyed by the entire family. The fact that Theresa rarely puts down pencil and paper may explain why I am drawn to the portrayal of a little girl constantly painting and developing her gifts for the benefit of the world. Here is the trailer:
Among the high points of the film is the cinematography, especially of the Lake District in the north of England. Renée Zellweger plays the title role beautifully, though she is made to look a little too frumpy. Ewan McGregor (no relation to Farmer McGregor!) winsomely plays Potter's publisher and early love interest, Norman Warne. Miss Potter is definitely worth seeing.
20 April 2007
The birth of a classic
Film buffs, especially Alfred Hithcock aficionados, will find this of interest. A few weeks ago I pulled from my personal files a yellowed page of the Chicago Daily Tribune, dated June 30, 1958. Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper writes:
Here, by the way, is my own brief review of the film.
Film buffs, especially Alfred Hithcock aficionados, will find this of interest. A few weeks ago I pulled from my personal files a yellowed page of the Chicago Daily Tribune, dated June 30, 1958. Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper writes:
Here, by the way, is my own brief review of the film.
22 February 2007
28 August 2006
A Prairie Home Companion
One evening back in 1978, at the end of my undergraduate education in Minnesota, I went with a good friend and his family to a theatre in St. Paul where, for nearly four years, a storyteller and a group of musicians had performed a live radio show with something of a down home feel. Broadcast over Minnesota Public Radio, it had become a regional fixture, drawing listening audiences from around the state. On the stage that evening was a man in his mid-thirties, one Garrison Keillor, who delighted those present with his stories of the fictional Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men good-looking and all the children above-average."
A few years later, A Prairie Home Companion began to be syndicated across the United States, and Keillor became a household name. I cannot claim to have been a regular listener to the programme, but if I had nothing better to do on a saturday evening, I would tune it in for some light, homespun entertainment with gentle humour and a human touch. This was during my graduate student days in South Bend, Indiana.
Although it is still on the air, I've not listened to it in nearly two decades. However, at the weekend my wife and I decided to see Robert Altman's new cinematic version of A Prairie Home Companion at the Westdale Theatre near McMaster University. Because it's been so long since I last heard PHC on the radio, I cannot say how well the movie captures the current atmosphere of its namesake. That said, we could not unequivocally say that we liked what we saw. The film seemed to be something of a bizarre combination of the original PHC and an Ingmar Bergman film, with Nikos Kazantzakis providing the unsatisfying ending. Death was an overriding theme — something that seemed out of character with the PHC I remember from the 1970s and '80s. Oddly enough, Lake Wobegon was not even mentioned. There was no storytelling, only music with various morbid themes, including murder and suicide. There were some pleasant surprises, such as the discovery that Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep can sing. All in all, however, it is a shame to see Keillor, whom I recall to speak with such affection for the ordinary Lutheran and Catholic folk of his fictional hometown, peddling even a tongue-in-cheek nihilistic vision. Perhaps those Norwegian bachelor farmers can set him straight.
One evening back in 1978, at the end of my undergraduate education in Minnesota, I went with a good friend and his family to a theatre in St. Paul where, for nearly four years, a storyteller and a group of musicians had performed a live radio show with something of a down home feel. Broadcast over Minnesota Public Radio, it had become a regional fixture, drawing listening audiences from around the state. On the stage that evening was a man in his mid-thirties, one Garrison Keillor, who delighted those present with his stories of the fictional Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men good-looking and all the children above-average."
A few years later, A Prairie Home Companion began to be syndicated across the United States, and Keillor became a household name. I cannot claim to have been a regular listener to the programme, but if I had nothing better to do on a saturday evening, I would tune it in for some light, homespun entertainment with gentle humour and a human touch. This was during my graduate student days in South Bend, Indiana.
Although it is still on the air, I've not listened to it in nearly two decades. However, at the weekend my wife and I decided to see Robert Altman's new cinematic version of A Prairie Home Companion at the Westdale Theatre near McMaster University. Because it's been so long since I last heard PHC on the radio, I cannot say how well the movie captures the current atmosphere of its namesake. That said, we could not unequivocally say that we liked what we saw. The film seemed to be something of a bizarre combination of the original PHC and an Ingmar Bergman film, with Nikos Kazantzakis providing the unsatisfying ending. Death was an overriding theme — something that seemed out of character with the PHC I remember from the 1970s and '80s. Oddly enough, Lake Wobegon was not even mentioned. There was no storytelling, only music with various morbid themes, including murder and suicide. There were some pleasant surprises, such as the discovery that Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep can sing. All in all, however, it is a shame to see Keillor, whom I recall to speak with such affection for the ordinary Lutheran and Catholic folk of his fictional hometown, peddling even a tongue-in-cheek nihilistic vision. Perhaps those Norwegian bachelor farmers can set him straight.
24 February 2006
A Hitchcock film 7 decades later
Mark Steyn reflects on a favourite early Hitchcock film, The 39 Steps, on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of its female lead, Madeleine Carroll. I myself reviewed the film on the IMDB website five years ago. I have long been a fan of Hitchcock's films, although I find the ones he directed after 1959 to be markedly inferior to those made prior to that year. Among my personal favourites are The Lady Vanishes (1938), Rebecca (1940), Rear Window (1954) and North by Northwest (1959). The book on which Hitch based his 39 Steps was authored by Scottish novelist John Buchan, who became governor general to Canada the very year the film was made. Buchan was rechristened Lord Tweedsmuir when he took the post and died here before his term had expired.
Mark Steyn reflects on a favourite early Hitchcock film, The 39 Steps, on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of its female lead, Madeleine Carroll. I myself reviewed the film on the IMDB website five years ago. I have long been a fan of Hitchcock's films, although I find the ones he directed after 1959 to be markedly inferior to those made prior to that year. Among my personal favourites are The Lady Vanishes (1938), Rebecca (1940), Rear Window (1954) and North by Northwest (1959). The book on which Hitch based his 39 Steps was authored by Scottish novelist John Buchan, who became governor general to Canada the very year the film was made. Buchan was rechristened Lord Tweedsmuir when he took the post and died here before his term had expired.
01 September 2005
Cinematic teachers
Perhaps no one will be surprised to know that I'm a sucker for films about teachers and students. Among the films in this genre I have seen over the decades are Goodbye, Mr. Chips (the 1969 musical version), Dead Poets Society (1989), Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), and the magnificent television series, To Serve Them All My Days (1980), based on R. F. Delderfield's novel of the same name. Most such films recount the lives of inspirational teachers and the positive effects they had on their students. Those of us in the teaching profession would like to think that we too fall into this category and that we'll be similarly remembered by our students when we are gone.
Last week I watched The Emperor's Club (2002), which for the first half hour looked to be little more than another film in this genre. (NOTE: There are possible spoilers here.) It looked set to follow something of the plotline of Good Will Hunting (1997), in which an older mentor helps a young and brilliant incorrigible get his act and his life together. One would ordinarily expect that Kevin Kline, a revered teacher of ancient history at an élite boys' preparatory school, would have this impact on Emile Hirsh's character. One might expect Hirsch to go on to make his contribution to society, having Kline to thank for this.
But no, it doesn't quite work out that way. Kline makes a serious error in judgement and ultimately fails in his effort. Hirsch's character remains a narcissistic, deceptive person who, by film's end (and now played by Joel Gretch), is about to launch a political career. Kline is still revered by his colleagues and students, but he has to live with the fact that he misjudged the potential of one of these students to live a virtuous life. The larger society is about to pay for his mistake.
It's not a particularly pleasant way to end a film. But it provides a touch of realism to the paedagogical enterprise, which is as affected by sin as any other human activity. It certainly underscores the fearful responsibility of a teacher. But it also points to the limitations of the teacher himself, whose efforts might not always bear fruit in quite the way to which he aspires.
By the way, why is it that cinematic teachers always lecture in English or history or music? Why not politics? Perhaps someone will one day make a film about Woodrow Wilson's academic career at Princeton.
Perhaps no one will be surprised to know that I'm a sucker for films about teachers and students. Among the films in this genre I have seen over the decades are Goodbye, Mr. Chips (the 1969 musical version), Dead Poets Society (1989), Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), and the magnificent television series, To Serve Them All My Days (1980), based on R. F. Delderfield's novel of the same name. Most such films recount the lives of inspirational teachers and the positive effects they had on their students. Those of us in the teaching profession would like to think that we too fall into this category and that we'll be similarly remembered by our students when we are gone.
Last week I watched The Emperor's Club (2002), which for the first half hour looked to be little more than another film in this genre. (NOTE: There are possible spoilers here.) It looked set to follow something of the plotline of Good Will Hunting (1997), in which an older mentor helps a young and brilliant incorrigible get his act and his life together. One would ordinarily expect that Kevin Kline, a revered teacher of ancient history at an élite boys' preparatory school, would have this impact on Emile Hirsh's character. One might expect Hirsch to go on to make his contribution to society, having Kline to thank for this.
But no, it doesn't quite work out that way. Kline makes a serious error in judgement and ultimately fails in his effort. Hirsch's character remains a narcissistic, deceptive person who, by film's end (and now played by Joel Gretch), is about to launch a political career. Kline is still revered by his colleagues and students, but he has to live with the fact that he misjudged the potential of one of these students to live a virtuous life. The larger society is about to pay for his mistake.
It's not a particularly pleasant way to end a film. But it provides a touch of realism to the paedagogical enterprise, which is as affected by sin as any other human activity. It certainly underscores the fearful responsibility of a teacher. But it also points to the limitations of the teacher himself, whose efforts might not always bear fruit in quite the way to which he aspires.
By the way, why is it that cinematic teachers always lecture in English or history or music? Why not politics? Perhaps someone will one day make a film about Woodrow Wilson's academic career at Princeton.
14 November 2004
Kuyper at the movies
Our Theresa has recently taken a liking to the Disney film, Mary Poppins, which was released when I was nine years old. This was the first of two cinematic vehicles for the luminous Julie Andrews, whose phenomenal singing voice also graced The Sound of Music a year later. Today, as Theresa was watching Mary Poppins once again, it occurred to me that both films share something else besides a female lead. Each is about a father who is deeply confused about the basics of what Abraham Kuyper called, rather inelegantly, sphere sovereignty. In the first George Banks runs his home as if it were a financial institution. In the second Captain von Trapp rules his family as if it were the crew of a ship. I suppose the films touched such a chord with so many of us because we knew intuitively that a family is a family and children are children. Any effort to treat children as bank employees or naval ensigns is an obvious abuse of legitimate parental authority. In both films Julie Andrews manages to set straight these confused men. I wonder whether she's ever read any Kuyper?
Our Theresa has recently taken a liking to the Disney film, Mary Poppins, which was released when I was nine years old. This was the first of two cinematic vehicles for the luminous Julie Andrews, whose phenomenal singing voice also graced The Sound of Music a year later. Today, as Theresa was watching Mary Poppins once again, it occurred to me that both films share something else besides a female lead. Each is about a father who is deeply confused about the basics of what Abraham Kuyper called, rather inelegantly, sphere sovereignty. In the first George Banks runs his home as if it were a financial institution. In the second Captain von Trapp rules his family as if it were the crew of a ship. I suppose the films touched such a chord with so many of us because we knew intuitively that a family is a family and children are children. Any effort to treat children as bank employees or naval ensigns is an obvious abuse of legitimate parental authority. In both films Julie Andrews manages to set straight these confused men. I wonder whether she's ever read any Kuyper?
05 October 2004
Film music
Sometimes a top notch composer can carry an otherwise mediocre film with a good, solid score. For those interested in the subject, here's a fascinating article by Stephen Whitty, "A film score primer," in The Star-Ledger. My favourite score composer, Bernard Herrmann, died nearly three decades ago. But three great composers of film scores, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein and David Raksin, died within the past three months. (Raksin was probably best known for his haunting theme to the 1944 "noir" classic, Laura, which Whitty doesn't mention.)
My sense of the matter is that, among contemporary film score composers, John Williams is overrated and the remarkable Julian Nott is underutilized.
Sometimes a top notch composer can carry an otherwise mediocre film with a good, solid score. For those interested in the subject, here's a fascinating article by Stephen Whitty, "A film score primer," in The Star-Ledger. My favourite score composer, Bernard Herrmann, died nearly three decades ago. But three great composers of film scores, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein and David Raksin, died within the past three months. (Raksin was probably best known for his haunting theme to the 1944 "noir" classic, Laura, which Whitty doesn't mention.)
My sense of the matter is that, among contemporary film score composers, John Williams is overrated and the remarkable Julian Nott is underutilized.
04 September 2004
Bernard Herrmann
Many years ago I was driving home from work when I heard on the radio an excerpt from the score of the 1947 film, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Very soon I found myself in tears, as the music provoked in me a strong emotional response that I hadn't expected. Now granted, my blood sugar was probably a bit low so late in the afternoon. Yet I was curious to find out who would have composed such haunting music. I soon learned that the score was written by Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975), one of the seminal composers for the cinema who would have a huge impact on the development of his art for just over a generation and beyond. Composing scores for a series of films, from Citizen Kane (1941) to Taxi Driver (1975), he would perhaps become best known for his decade-long collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in the middle of his career, as well as for his music for the science fiction classics, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959).
filmstar.de
Bernard Herrmann
Herrmann got his start in radio, on the coattails of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air. Both collaborated on the infamous radio play of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds which aired on Halloween Eve, 1938, and whose realism caused panic among many listeners. When the brilliant Welles went to Hollywood to make Citizen Kane, perennially judged by critics the best film ever, Herrmann accompanied him and wrote a memorable score which not only broke new ground but set a high standard for his peers and successors. Up to that point composers were simply composing orchestral music to accompany the activities of the people on the screen. By contrast, Herrmann wrote music that captured the very emotions ascribed to the performers and elicited them in the viewer as well. The best example of this by far is the murder scene in Hitchcock's Psycho, in which the now-famous screeching violins communicate the stark terror of this unanticipated development in the plot.
Indeed Herrmann's best work was done for Hitchcock, beginning with The Trouble with Harry (1955) and ending with the mediocre Torn Curtain (1966), where the two artistic geniuses parted ways acrimoniously. In between there were, among others, Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960), whose scores are so prominent as to justify their being listed as co-stars, along with the principal actors. My own view is that Psycho would today be judged far less of a film without Herrmann's agitated musical phrases building the tension throughout. The collaboration ended when Hitchcock fired Herrmann on the set of Torn Curtain over an artistic disagreement. This was a serious mistake on Hitch's part. Herrmann's score was already mostly completed, but Hitch hired John Addison to write a new one. Addison's music is too melodic and appears to have been written independently of the screen action. It fails to build suspense or to compensate for the weak plot and the wooden acting of Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.
I've never seen Taxi Driver, but I have seen Herrmann's last-but-one film, Brian De Palma's Obsession, a near remake of Vertigo. It is not a particularly good film. The actors are not convincing in their parts, and the plot is riddled with flaws. Yet the music manages to carry the film, almost single-handedly. Herrmann died only hours after recording the last of his Taxi Driver score at the end of 1975.
Herrmann has been much imitated. But in my view the only composer who has even approached Herrmann in his ability to evoke a variety of strong emotions in his listeners is British composer Julian Nott, best known for his scores for Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit episodes.
Many years ago I was driving home from work when I heard on the radio an excerpt from the score of the 1947 film, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Very soon I found myself in tears, as the music provoked in me a strong emotional response that I hadn't expected. Now granted, my blood sugar was probably a bit low so late in the afternoon. Yet I was curious to find out who would have composed such haunting music. I soon learned that the score was written by Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975), one of the seminal composers for the cinema who would have a huge impact on the development of his art for just over a generation and beyond. Composing scores for a series of films, from Citizen Kane (1941) to Taxi Driver (1975), he would perhaps become best known for his decade-long collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in the middle of his career, as well as for his music for the science fiction classics, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959).
filmstar.de
Bernard Herrmann
Herrmann got his start in radio, on the coattails of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air. Both collaborated on the infamous radio play of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds which aired on Halloween Eve, 1938, and whose realism caused panic among many listeners. When the brilliant Welles went to Hollywood to make Citizen Kane, perennially judged by critics the best film ever, Herrmann accompanied him and wrote a memorable score which not only broke new ground but set a high standard for his peers and successors. Up to that point composers were simply composing orchestral music to accompany the activities of the people on the screen. By contrast, Herrmann wrote music that captured the very emotions ascribed to the performers and elicited them in the viewer as well. The best example of this by far is the murder scene in Hitchcock's Psycho, in which the now-famous screeching violins communicate the stark terror of this unanticipated development in the plot.
Indeed Herrmann's best work was done for Hitchcock, beginning with The Trouble with Harry (1955) and ending with the mediocre Torn Curtain (1966), where the two artistic geniuses parted ways acrimoniously. In between there were, among others, Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960), whose scores are so prominent as to justify their being listed as co-stars, along with the principal actors. My own view is that Psycho would today be judged far less of a film without Herrmann's agitated musical phrases building the tension throughout. The collaboration ended when Hitchcock fired Herrmann on the set of Torn Curtain over an artistic disagreement. This was a serious mistake on Hitch's part. Herrmann's score was already mostly completed, but Hitch hired John Addison to write a new one. Addison's music is too melodic and appears to have been written independently of the screen action. It fails to build suspense or to compensate for the weak plot and the wooden acting of Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.
I've never seen Taxi Driver, but I have seen Herrmann's last-but-one film, Brian De Palma's Obsession, a near remake of Vertigo. It is not a particularly good film. The actors are not convincing in their parts, and the plot is riddled with flaws. Yet the music manages to carry the film, almost single-handedly. Herrmann died only hours after recording the last of his Taxi Driver score at the end of 1975.
Herrmann has been much imitated. But in my view the only composer who has even approached Herrmann in his ability to evoke a variety of strong emotions in his listeners is British composer Julian Nott, best known for his scores for Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit episodes.
30 July 2004
Ararat and the Armenian genocide
Last evening I finished watching Atom Egoyan's film, Ararat (2002), whose subject matter is, among other things, the Armenian genocide of 1915. First, the Armenian genocide.
The Armenians historically lived in the southern Caucasus region in the borderland between what are now Russia and Turkey. They claim to be the first christian nation, having converted to the faith in 301. They have stubbornly held to this faith, although, as nonchalcedonian believers, their Armenian Apostolic Church separated itself from the mainstream of the church in 506. The Armenian language is an Indo-European language with its own distinctive alphabet. Because of the location of historic Armenia, it has been subject to virtually every invading force sweeping through the region, most recently the Persians, Turks and Russians. At the end of the 19th century most Armenians lived within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, while a substantial minority lived across the border in Russia. The latter became the nucleus of Soviet Armenia and the post-Soviet Armenian republic.
In 1915 all this changed. To be sure, Armenians had been subject to persecution at the hands of the Turks before, most notably in 1895-6. But in the second year of the Great War, the reformist Ottoman government, run by the Committee for Union and Progress -- better known to history as the "Young Turks" -- undertook a more systematic extermination of the Armenians. As the last major Christian millet in the Empire, the Armenians were suspected of favouring the cause of Russia in the Great War. As a result they were deported en masse from their historic homeland and forced to march into the Syrian Desert, where more than a million perished in what has come to be called the Armenian Genocide.
Did all this really happen? Turkey continues to deny it. But hundreds of thousands of overseas Armenians have horrific tales to tell of their grandparents' and great-grandparents' suffering during this episode. So Armenians have a mission to tell the world, similar to that of the Jews and the Holocaust.
Enter Atom Egoyan, the Canadian film director, born in Cairo, Egypt, of ethnic Armenian parents. Two years ago he made Ararat, a film which obviously comes straight from the heart. Much as Stephen Spielberg made Schindler's List to tell the tale of the sufferings of Jews in the Holocaust, so has Egoyan attempted to bring the plight of Armenians before the world. My own judgement is that he has not succeeded.
Like The French Lieutenant's Woman, this is a film about the making of a film. But it's also about the Armenian-American artist, Arshile Gorky, whose painting of himself and his deceased mother (right) apparently took ten years to complete. Yet it's also about an encounter between a young man returning from Turkish Armenia and a customs official at Pearson Airport in Toronto, played by Christopher Plummer. And it's also about the tensions between an academic art historian (played by the hauntingly beautiful Arsinée Khanjian, Egoyan's wife) and her step-daughter, who just happens to be sexually involved with Khanjian's son by her first marriage and blames Khanjian for her own father's death. Got all that?
Where does the Genocide fit in? Well, the film within the film is about the Genocide, with the screen play based on the account of Clarence Ussher, an American physician who was witness to the tragedy. The making of the film is the thread holding the plot together, although the continuity is often sacrificed to the continual flashbacks, a currently fashionable cinematic convention which can leave the audience in confusion if not done right.
The end of the film leaves the viewer with a mixed message. The makers of the film-within-the-film are possessed of a mission to tell the world the truth about the Genocide. So apparently is Egoyan. However, the surprising conclusion of the encounter between the young man, Rafi, and Plummer's customs agent leads one to think that the subjectivity of all truth claims makes truth virtually unknowable. Is this really what Egoyan wanted to communicate? If so, it would seem to subvert the entire reason for making Ararat. Might this indicate the work of more than one hand in the screenplay?
Finally, the characters in the film are one-dimensional. Motives for their actions are not really explored. Only Christopher Plummer's character appears to have any genuine depth. Khanjian's character is aloof and severe, and does not elicit the sympathy of the audience, despite her undoubted beauty. In short, the film is about too many things. The definitive film about the Armenian Genocide has yet to be made.
Incidentally, my wife thinks I'm watching too many films these days about historic tragedies and people losing their homes and homelands. She's right. Two weeks ago we were watching An American Rhapsody, which I was profoundly affected by. I think it all has something to do with the 30th anniversary of the Cyprus tragedy, which saw my relatives lose their homes and at least part of their homeland.
19 July 2004
From Hungary to Los Angeles: a moving film
This past weekend we watched a film which I would enthusiastically recommend. It's called An American Rhapsody, directed by Éva Gárdos and released in 2001. Neither Nancy nor I recall this being in the theatres, but since it was released less than a month before 9/11, the publicity surrounding the former may have been overwhelmed by media coverage of the latter. The story revolves around a middle-class Hungarian family, Peter and Margit Sandor, forced to leave their native country in 1950, at the height of the Stalinist terror. They succeed in escaping, but only by leaving their infant daughter Suzanne behind -- ostensibly only temporarily. The mother, Margit, beautifully played by Nastassja Kinski, is persuaded to follow this plan only on condition that Suzanne will be smuggled out separately and brought to them days later in Vienna. However, when Margit's mother, with whom Suzanne was left, discovers that her grand-daughter will be drugged and put into a bag to keep her from crying and being heard at the border, she panics at the last moment and takes her back at the risk of her own life. Indeed she herself is arrested, spending five years in prison, and little Suzanne is brought up by a foster family in the countryside.
Eventually, in 1955, the Sandors, now settled into a comfortable suburban life in southern California, succeed in getting Suzanne out of Hungary, but at the heart-breaking cost of severing her from the only family she has ever known. The remainder of the film is a poignant look at the resulting tensions this creates at the centre of the family's life, as they grapple with Suzanne's sense that she is in the wrong place and does not really belong.
What I found so affecting about the film is that all of the main characters are sympathetic. All of them do what they think is the right thing -- particularly what they believe to be in Suzanne's best interest -- yet all are powerless in the face of forces working against them, and this inevitably brings turmoil to a young life. The plot is resolved at the end, but a sense of melancholy remains. A bicycle never ridden. The aching love of a childless peasant couple. The inanities of 1960s youth culture. A home lost and then found.
Two details in the film struck me as not true to the period. First, the Sandors are shown sneaking across the border from Hungary into Austria and making their way to Vienna. However, in 1950 Austria, like Germany, was under Allied occupation, with Soviet troops in the eastern part. Like Berlin, Vienna itself was under four-power control. (Remember The Third Man.) Crossing into Austria would not have taken the Sandors out from behind the Iron Curtain -- not until 1955, when the Soviets withdrew from their sector.
Second, was steam still in use in the Hungarian railways in 1965? A decade later when I was in Czechoslovakia, virtually all the railways there were by then electrified. (I did, however, see a steam-powered train on a branch line in the countryside.)
These are small flaws in an otherwise great film. I should finally point out that the plot behind this film is based on Éva Gárdos' own life story. Suzanne is Gárdos. At the end she dedicates it to her own parents, which adds to the film's poignancy.
This past weekend we watched a film which I would enthusiastically recommend. It's called An American Rhapsody, directed by Éva Gárdos and released in 2001. Neither Nancy nor I recall this being in the theatres, but since it was released less than a month before 9/11, the publicity surrounding the former may have been overwhelmed by media coverage of the latter. The story revolves around a middle-class Hungarian family, Peter and Margit Sandor, forced to leave their native country in 1950, at the height of the Stalinist terror. They succeed in escaping, but only by leaving their infant daughter Suzanne behind -- ostensibly only temporarily. The mother, Margit, beautifully played by Nastassja Kinski, is persuaded to follow this plan only on condition that Suzanne will be smuggled out separately and brought to them days later in Vienna. However, when Margit's mother, with whom Suzanne was left, discovers that her grand-daughter will be drugged and put into a bag to keep her from crying and being heard at the border, she panics at the last moment and takes her back at the risk of her own life. Indeed she herself is arrested, spending five years in prison, and little Suzanne is brought up by a foster family in the countryside.
Eventually, in 1955, the Sandors, now settled into a comfortable suburban life in southern California, succeed in getting Suzanne out of Hungary, but at the heart-breaking cost of severing her from the only family she has ever known. The remainder of the film is a poignant look at the resulting tensions this creates at the centre of the family's life, as they grapple with Suzanne's sense that she is in the wrong place and does not really belong.
What I found so affecting about the film is that all of the main characters are sympathetic. All of them do what they think is the right thing -- particularly what they believe to be in Suzanne's best interest -- yet all are powerless in the face of forces working against them, and this inevitably brings turmoil to a young life. The plot is resolved at the end, but a sense of melancholy remains. A bicycle never ridden. The aching love of a childless peasant couple. The inanities of 1960s youth culture. A home lost and then found.
Two details in the film struck me as not true to the period. First, the Sandors are shown sneaking across the border from Hungary into Austria and making their way to Vienna. However, in 1950 Austria, like Germany, was under Allied occupation, with Soviet troops in the eastern part. Like Berlin, Vienna itself was under four-power control. (Remember The Third Man.) Crossing into Austria would not have taken the Sandors out from behind the Iron Curtain -- not until 1955, when the Soviets withdrew from their sector.
Second, was steam still in use in the Hungarian railways in 1965? A decade later when I was in Czechoslovakia, virtually all the railways there were by then electrified. (I did, however, see a steam-powered train on a branch line in the countryside.)
These are small flaws in an otherwise great film. I should finally point out that the plot behind this film is based on Éva Gárdos' own life story. Suzanne is Gárdos. At the end she dedicates it to her own parents, which adds to the film's poignancy.
24 June 2004
Diabolique
Nancy and I rarely watch movies in the theatre. Even when we rent them on video or DVD, we end up watching them in snatches over the course of two or three evenings. This is what we did with Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic Diabolique (1955). Based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, it is a suspense thriller worthy of Hitchcock.
The plot revolves around three principal characters, played by Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot and Paul Meurisse. Clouzot and Meurisse are wife and husband. She teaches and owns a boys' boarding school. He is the principal, who treats everyone badly, from his young charges and school staff to his own wife. Signoret is also a teacher and Meurisse's mistress. As the film opens Clouzot and Signoret have teamed up to murder the abusive Meurisse. We watch the murder take place -- by drowning in a bathtub -- but then strange things begin to occur. The body disappears and one of the boys claims to have seen the deceased alive. I will not, of course, give away the surprise ending.
Although Diabolique was made in the mid-1950s, it has the feel of one of the early "talkies" of the 1930s. The copy we saw had something of a grainy quality to it, but this may simply be due to age. I understand there is a restored version of the film, but this seems not to be what we viewed. The original was, of course, shot in French, but we saw the English-language dubbed version.
I mentioned Hitchcock. It seems that Hitchcock was, in fact, interested in purchasing the film rights to Boileau and Narcejac's novel, but was narrowly beaten to the punch by Clouzot. Hitchcock would eventually buy the rights to the pair's later novel, d'Entre les Morts, which would become the haunting Vertigo. As I was watching the film, I tried to imagine how Hitch would have shot the film. What sorts of camera angles would he have brought to it? How would he have directed the actors? Would the incomparable Bernard Herrmann have composed a score? Might he have accompanied the murder scene with a musical motif as memorable as the screeching violins in Psycho? (There is no score in Clouzot's film.)
By the way, I wouldn't bother with Jeremiah S. Chechik's ludicrous 1996 remake, starring Sharon Stone, Isabel Adjani and Chazz Palminteri. The plot is basically the same, but it simply does not work here.
I'll end with film critic Roger Ebert's telling of a humorous anecdote:
Nancy and I rarely watch movies in the theatre. Even when we rent them on video or DVD, we end up watching them in snatches over the course of two or three evenings. This is what we did with Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic Diabolique (1955). Based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, it is a suspense thriller worthy of Hitchcock.
The plot revolves around three principal characters, played by Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot and Paul Meurisse. Clouzot and Meurisse are wife and husband. She teaches and owns a boys' boarding school. He is the principal, who treats everyone badly, from his young charges and school staff to his own wife. Signoret is also a teacher and Meurisse's mistress. As the film opens Clouzot and Signoret have teamed up to murder the abusive Meurisse. We watch the murder take place -- by drowning in a bathtub -- but then strange things begin to occur. The body disappears and one of the boys claims to have seen the deceased alive. I will not, of course, give away the surprise ending.
Although Diabolique was made in the mid-1950s, it has the feel of one of the early "talkies" of the 1930s. The copy we saw had something of a grainy quality to it, but this may simply be due to age. I understand there is a restored version of the film, but this seems not to be what we viewed. The original was, of course, shot in French, but we saw the English-language dubbed version.
I mentioned Hitchcock. It seems that Hitchcock was, in fact, interested in purchasing the film rights to Boileau and Narcejac's novel, but was narrowly beaten to the punch by Clouzot. Hitchcock would eventually buy the rights to the pair's later novel, d'Entre les Morts, which would become the haunting Vertigo. As I was watching the film, I tried to imagine how Hitch would have shot the film. What sorts of camera angles would he have brought to it? How would he have directed the actors? Would the incomparable Bernard Herrmann have composed a score? Might he have accompanied the murder scene with a musical motif as memorable as the screeching violins in Psycho? (There is no score in Clouzot's film.)
By the way, I wouldn't bother with Jeremiah S. Chechik's ludicrous 1996 remake, starring Sharon Stone, Isabel Adjani and Chazz Palminteri. The plot is basically the same, but it simply does not work here.
I'll end with film critic Roger Ebert's telling of a humorous anecdote:
A man wrote to Alfred Hitchcock: "Sir, After seeing Diabolique, my daughter was afraid to take a bath. Now she has seen your Psycho and is afraid to take a shower. What should I do with her?" Hitchcock replied: "Send her to the dry cleaners."
18 October 2003
The Paradine Case and other Hitchcock films
Last evening my wife and I saw Alfred Hitchcock's 1947 film, The Paradine Case, starring Gregory Peck, Alida Valli and Ann Todd. I myself have long been a fan of the master director, whose films span the silent era up to the mid-1970s. His best work came in the decade between 1951 and 1959. The first of his films I saw was Rebecca (1940), a cinematic rendition of Daphne DuMaurier's gothic romance novel produced by the David O. Selznick studio. I was mesmerized by Rebecca at first viewing in the mid-1980s, and I had to see more.
Among the very best of Hitch's works are Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959), and Rebecca itself. Among the best of his earlier British films are The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). Among his lesser films are numbered Spellbound (1945) and Torn Curtain (1966). The second version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) is quite good entertainment, while Psycho (1960), possibly Hitch's most infamous film, is not, in my view, to be counted among his better efforts. (Clicking on the above links will bring up my reviews of these films.)
As for The Paradine Case, although it too is not one of the better Hitchcock films, the cast is excellent and some quite good performances are delivered by the actors. The most haunting performance is by Alida Valli, as the mysterious Maddalena Anna Paradine. Valli is best known for her performance as the equally mysterious Anna Schmidt in Carol Reed's 1949 classic, The Third Man. Gregory Peck acts reasonably well, but his attempts to imitate a British accent fall flat and are distracting.
The plot revolves around Peck's character, a trial lawyer in London, undertaking to defend Mrs. Paradine from the charge that she murdered her late husband, a wealthy and respected colonel who had lost his vision in a tragic accident before the marriage. Predictably perhaps, Peck falls for his client, thus endangering his marriage to the long-suffering (and rather too understanding) Todd. In many respects this is more of a psychological drama than an actual mystery, as the outcome of the case, while by no means inevitable, is not unexpected by the viewer.
This was Hitch's last film directed for Selznick, and it bears some similarity to Rebecca. Franz Waxman composed the score for both films, and his lush music lends a similar atmosphere to each. Moreover, there is even a scene where Peck visits the palatial Paradine home up in Northumberland which is a little too reminiscent of the scenes in Rebecca's bedroom in Manderley. (We actually wondered whether the same set had been used for both.)
Ultimately the film is too slow moving. It could have been better edited. And, while it succeeded in keeping my attention, especially in the latter half, the actual solution to the murder was not all that surprising when it finally came.
Last evening my wife and I saw Alfred Hitchcock's 1947 film, The Paradine Case, starring Gregory Peck, Alida Valli and Ann Todd. I myself have long been a fan of the master director, whose films span the silent era up to the mid-1970s. His best work came in the decade between 1951 and 1959. The first of his films I saw was Rebecca (1940), a cinematic rendition of Daphne DuMaurier's gothic romance novel produced by the David O. Selznick studio. I was mesmerized by Rebecca at first viewing in the mid-1980s, and I had to see more.
Among the very best of Hitch's works are Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959), and Rebecca itself. Among the best of his earlier British films are The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). Among his lesser films are numbered Spellbound (1945) and Torn Curtain (1966). The second version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) is quite good entertainment, while Psycho (1960), possibly Hitch's most infamous film, is not, in my view, to be counted among his better efforts. (Clicking on the above links will bring up my reviews of these films.)
As for The Paradine Case, although it too is not one of the better Hitchcock films, the cast is excellent and some quite good performances are delivered by the actors. The most haunting performance is by Alida Valli, as the mysterious Maddalena Anna Paradine. Valli is best known for her performance as the equally mysterious Anna Schmidt in Carol Reed's 1949 classic, The Third Man. Gregory Peck acts reasonably well, but his attempts to imitate a British accent fall flat and are distracting.
The plot revolves around Peck's character, a trial lawyer in London, undertaking to defend Mrs. Paradine from the charge that she murdered her late husband, a wealthy and respected colonel who had lost his vision in a tragic accident before the marriage. Predictably perhaps, Peck falls for his client, thus endangering his marriage to the long-suffering (and rather too understanding) Todd. In many respects this is more of a psychological drama than an actual mystery, as the outcome of the case, while by no means inevitable, is not unexpected by the viewer.
This was Hitch's last film directed for Selznick, and it bears some similarity to Rebecca. Franz Waxman composed the score for both films, and his lush music lends a similar atmosphere to each. Moreover, there is even a scene where Peck visits the palatial Paradine home up in Northumberland which is a little too reminiscent of the scenes in Rebecca's bedroom in Manderley. (We actually wondered whether the same set had been used for both.)
Ultimately the film is too slow moving. It could have been better edited. And, while it succeeded in keeping my attention, especially in the latter half, the actual solution to the murder was not all that surprising when it finally came.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
