I go along with the broad critical consensus – that between 1960-1967 Jean-Luc Godard created an incredible body of work: innovative, daring, exciting, controversial, sexy, funny, beautiful, challenging and unique. I want to write these words in red, white and blue capitals. Maybe split them across a page or two: and of course accompany the texts with the sound of a gunshot. That would be Godardian. He created such a distinctive visual style – it becomes difficult to use words…
It is a shame that Frank Capra’s stock seems to be in decline. The term Capra-corn is dismissive – it points to schmaltz and sentimentality. He certainly could be guilty of this, particularly in some of his later work. But at his best Capra is as good as anyone has been. There is It’s a Wonderful Life: a celebration of community as film noir; never has so much despair lay beneath the surface of a happy ending. Here is the…
There is much to ire in Swing Time. It is perhaps the best of the nine RKO Astaire-Rogers musicals. It is certainly a better picture than Top Hat. It is funnier, pacier and the song and dance routines are more dazzling and elegant. And the plot is less annoying – and more importantly so is Fred Astaire.
You see I have always found the characters Astaire plays a little too smarmy. There is always an air of deception and mistrust…
Fabulous is absolutely correct: this is a simply astonishing work of visual imagination. The Fabulous World of Jules Verne is a film that looks like no other I have ever seen. It is as if the lithographs from Jules Verne’s original novels have come alive. This is an outstanding creative and technical accomplishment.
The plot has a feel of Bond. Of course, the villainy side of 007 has always had a touch of Jules Verne about proceedings – with all…
The Burmese Harp is an interesting, if somewhat flawed and narrow anti-war film. It has a couple of wonderfully moving scenes, and a naïve sentiment that is hard to resist. But is also maudlin and simplistic in how it constructs its point-of-view, and has a number of elements that irritate and ultimately reduce the power of its message.
It is the end of the Pacific War. A group of tired, war-weary Japanese soldiers make their way through the jungle. Survival,…
The White Balloon is a fantastic small tale. What is at stake may be minimal, but the experience is heightened by a wonderful recreation of childhood perception and emotion. Razieh (Aida Mohammadkhani) wants a fat goldfish she has seen in a shop. Suddenly this becomes the most important thing in the world. These things happen when you are young: the smallest things can have deep significance. All other fish now seem skinny and useless in comparison. New Year celebrations cannot…
The Mystery of the Wax Museum is an interesting curio. Directed by Michael Curtiz, it seems influenced by well everything. There is the horror of Universal – the shadows, pathetic fallacy and great laboratories. There is German Expressionism in the underground wax cellar – all stylised lines and angles. There is The Front Page style investigation; the rat-a-tat of fast paced newspaper talk; and there is the edgy Warner social background – the influence of drug addicts and alcohol. It…
Memory is a slippery beast. Just because a moment is captured in time, ed, or recorded on film does not mean its essential truth has been grasped. Memory can not be put in a box and preserved untouched and untainted. It cannot be pinned to a board like a postcard from another country. That image, that memory can be revisited, re-interpreted. It will fade and change. Like it or not, it will be re-imagined, played with and at certain times…
This was surprisingly pleasant. It is a charming and effervescent treat. I had not expected too much from this – it falls way down the list of gems in both George Cukor’s and Marilyn Monroe’s filmography. But it turned out to be a light and entertaining musical.
Jean-Marc Clement (Yves Montand) is a billionaire. He comes from a long line of family millionaires. It is fair to say he is comfortable with wealth: filthy comfortable. It is 1960, and he…
It is intriguing to watch the lesser works of the film masters. I tend to watch them from a different perspective: O' Captain, My Captain. The experience is altered by the proximity of greatness: the wonder that radiates from the other works of genius. Everything is contrasted against the burning suns of past or future successes. In the early works I search for moments of genius or touches of style that will later become fully formed. Or in less revered…
Divorce Italian Style is a devilishly dark comedy. Unlike Marcello Mastroianni’s devious Baron, it hasn’t aged a bit. If anything, its take on the slippery subjectivity of morality makes this more daring and funny than ever.
There is murder most foul - we have always laughed at that. And rules and hypocritical social conventions have long been a source for satire. Men have always lusted after youth too – whether that is Casanova, Sid James or James Bond. But Ferdinando’s…
This a classic piece of French cinema. It is exciting, thoughtful and stylish. It is skilfully paced; it does not waste a second of its running time. And the central set-piece heist is a master class in visual story telling. Le Cercle Rouge is one of those rare entities: it is a great example of a genre film; it is easy to get lost in the crime, violence and pursuit. The story compels. But it also has dark existential undertones…