One of the seminal British kitchen sink dramas of the 60’s, A Taste of Honey, resounds today on the strength of Rita Tushingham’s delightful screen debut and author Shelagh Delany’s taboo-confronting script which looks at interracial romance, homosexuality and teen pregnancy with delicate earthy realism.
Showing posts with label 1960's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1960's. Show all posts
Friday, 7 October 2016
Wednesday, 31 August 2016
Woman in the Dunes
'Woman in the Dunes', the third film from Japanese provocateur Hiroshi Teshigahara, is an indefinable film for genre and full of glorious Japanese strangeness, a captivating two-hander about a man imprisoned in a sand dune with a woman with no means of escape. Both a thriller, and meditative art film - "Knife in the Water" meets "L'Avventura"- the film also has the distinction of receiving a Best Director Oscar nomination – then a rare feat for a foreign language film.
Wednesday, 1 June 2016
The Naked Island
Two lowly Japanese farmers repetitively climbing an intense incline slope from the seaside shore to the top of a mountain to water their measly crops is the signature image of Kaneto Shindô’s social realist experimental film. Shindô observes his characters' backbreaking work with the same kind of salt of the earth honour as in the Soviet propaganda films if the 1920’s. Shindô’s cinematic eye triumphs over his self-imposed dialogue-free obstruction to achieve a woefully tragic slice of Japanese peasant life.
Wednesday, 2 April 2014
Agony and the Ecstasy
With Easter coming around, this also means the season of a historical epics – both in theatres and home video. Agony and the Ecstasy was one of the bigger films of its day, a 70mm showcase, telling the story of the Michelangelo and his tempestuous relationship with Pope Julius I who commissioned the surly artist to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. As usual with this kind of the film, the superb production value carries the weight over a dull story and hammy characterizations of historical figures.
Thursday, 6 March 2014
300 Spartans
With today’s eyes this version of the Battle of Thermopylae serves only ‘Sword and Sandal’ genre enthusiasts (although this one was Greek-made with Hollywood involvement) and curiosity seekers interested in the origins of Frank Miller’s cult graphic novel 300 and by association the monumentally successful Zach Snyder film. Otherwise it’s a dull historical actioner from start to finish.
Thursday, 7 November 2013
Persona
Bergman's strange psychological headscratcher fits in well with the 60's European trend of loopy existential pictures of Roman Polanski, Antonioni and later David Lynch and even late career of Stanley Kubrick (who famously wrote a fan letter to Bergman in 1960 calling him the greatest filmmaker of the day).
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
Eyes Without a Face
Before the era of the slasher film, horror films didn’t get any sicker or more twisted than this early 60’s French gem which tracks the devilish attempts of a plastic surgeon to kidnap, drug and steal the faces of innocent women to graft onto his facially-deformed daughter.
Thursday, 5 September 2013
Charulata
Friday, 16 August 2013
The Big City
Friday, 14 June 2013
Band of Outsiders
Even after six films following his celebrated Nouvelle-Vague debut 'Band of Outsiders' finds Godard at his hippest, frolickiest, cool, witty and irreverent – a postmodernness which bleeds formally into the seminal early work of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Cleopatra
'Cleopatra', notable for being the most expensive movie ever made, the subject of heavily-consumed gossip fodder, and it’s place as one of biggest Hollywood ‘flops’ of its time, carries a lot of baggage. But unlike the glorious rediscovery and new appreciation of Michael Cimino's equally-loaded 'Heaven’s Gate', 'Cleopatra' never surmounts its expectations as a bloated and creatively bland sword and sandal picture.
Friday, 15 March 2013
Chronicle of a Summer
Chronicle of a Summer, a unique collaboration of sociologists and filmmakers interviewing a number of Parisian working class men and women discussing themes personal and political, is a treasure of documentary cinema. Made in 1960 in Paris, not only do we get to see the rich flavour of the romantic city in the 60’s, Morin and Rouch’s documentary shows us the thrill of classical cinema verite at its most relevant and revealing.
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Ivan's Childhood
Andrei Tarkovsky's debut is a whilring dervish of cinema, and perhaps the final word on the impact of war on children on film. As an introduction to Tarkovsky, the sometimes inpenetrable cine-poet, the film is also his most accessible. Virtuoso camera flourishs and astonishing B&W lighting and composition brings to mind the midcareer films of Fellini, Welles and Kalatozov, and newer generation masters Miklos Jancsó's and Bela Tarr.Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Purple Noon
Rene Clement's adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is still a daring and delicious examination with a raging psychopath. Clement's dreamy 60's French cinematic flavour is neither inferior nor superior to Anthony Minghella's later remake. Two different but worthy artistic adaptations of a terrific story.
Monday, 3 December 2012
Lawrence of Arabia
Its excellence in spectacle cinema notwithstanding, as long as the Middle East is in conflict, Lawrence of Arabia will be a relevant and timeless film. As Arab states battle against their Israel neighbours today, David Lean's lauded and legendary epic follows the plight of the Arabs in the days of WWI through the eyes of T.E. Lawrence, the eccentric British officer who sought to unite the separate Arab tribes of the region against Turkish oppressors, sometimes in the name of the British King, sometimes in the name of his egotistical ambitions.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) dir. David Lean
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle, Alec Guinness
By Alan Bacchus
While there isn't a single female in the film — it's three hours and 42 minutes of masculinity — the romantic feeling is strong. A romance of the windswept Middle Eastern deserts, the spiritual connection to the rigors of the untamed environment and the exotic culture of the Arabic peoples. Cinematographer Freddie Young's unrivalled 70mm photography translates marvelously to high definition Blu-ray. Each shot is so rich, detailed and classically precise that, at times, it looks as if we're viewing a Jacques-Louis David Neoclassical painting.
As cinematically epic as the visuals are, the marvel of the film is Lean's ability to create intimacy within his broad canvas. Peter O'Toole's iconic performance as Lawrence is still as marvellous, delightful and mysterious as ever. It's hard to imagine anyone else's striking blonde hair or piercing blue eyes on the screen. Lean elegantly weaves in the political narrative with Lawrence's ascendance as a military officer. Like his Arab compatriot, Lawrence is inextricably linked by the independent, vagabond lifestyle. Lawrence never fits in anywhere; he's uncomfortable in the starched British officer's uniform and is never fully accepted wearing the Arab attire given to him by the people he's trying to save. O'Toole's off-kilter performance is lyrical, poetic and, at times, grating and abrasive.
Some of the most memorable visual moments in the film are the smallest: the introduction of Omar Sharif, emerging from a mirage, is always discussed. However, a smaller but equally significant moment is Lawrence's decision to take Aqaba, the port city protected by massive Turkish guns. The decisive moment is visualized by two Arab minions who accidentally hit him in the back with a rock. For days they had been sitting in agonizing contemplation of how to turn the tide of war. The seemingly insignificant and accidental action becomes the plan to cross the un-crossable desert and attack Aqaba from behind. The pay-off is one of the greatest sequences and shots in cinema history. The Aqaba attack sequence is brilliantly choreographed with thousands of extras and horses in real time and space, mixing intense on-the-ground close-ups with awe-inspiring wide shots from the hillside. It's capped off with a superlative long take of the camera panning over the army of horses running through the Aqaba village, ending on those heavy artillery guns looking out towards the sea.
Still, as much as the film is beloved, some issues remain. Despite the casting of Omar Sharif, we still have to endure Brits and Americans, such as Sir Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn and Jose Ferrer, playing Arabs and Turks with fake noses and dark face. And it's impossible not to feel the lack of narrative momentum after the intermission — there's no doubt the film's best moments are in the first half.
The Sony Blu-ray comes in two options: a massive box set and a cheaper but still impressive two-disc set. The smaller edition contains two new featurettes for the HD release: a comprehensive discussion with Peter O'Toole reflecting on the film and his creative collaborators, and an interactive featurette that incorporates tidbits of production and historical information into the film. Archived featurettes range from documentaries dating back to the '60s and '70s, material from its restoration in the early '90s and material created for its DVD release in the '00s.
This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
The Organizer
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, Bernard Blier, Raffaella Carrà
By Alan Bacchus
Nineteen Sixty-Three was a great year for Italian cinema, among others the year brought us Fellini’s 8 ½ and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard. Arguably on par with these two pictures, though much lesser known, is Mario Monicelli’s The Organizer, a superlative, visually stunning, period labour film featuring a bearded Marcello Mastroianni as a beleaguered professor who wanders into a small industrial town to incite a labour strike.
We can feel the weight of the film instantly. It’s the late 1800s in Turin, Italy, the heart of the European Industrial Revolution, and a power struggle has developed between a hopelessly exploited labour force at odds against a privileged bourgeoisie. Eighteen-hour work days, little pay, poor working conditions and inadequate benefits were the result of early unbridled capitalism. Out of this powder keg of conflict came labour unions, strikes and, ultimately, socialism in Europe.
This is the just context for Mario Monicelli, who covers the labour strike of one small Turin community at this time, the fear and trepidation of workers just beginning to organize. Marcello Mastroianni plays a bearded vagabond professor arriving in town, illegally hitching a ride on a train. Once in town he finds a room with a local worker, and while overhearing talks of a labour strike, he can’t help but intervene and offer advice. What the professor quickly realizes is that the town, while passionate about solidarity, is missing leadership. The professor turns out to be a brilliant orator and rallies the workers in a lengthy strike that tests the internal fortitude of the entire village.
It’s not all reverie, as Monicelli takes his characters to task for their decisions. The fight against the factory owners is bloody without the heroic ‘workers of the world unite’ propaganda one might expect from a ‘labour film.’ At the time the movie was billed as a period neo-realist film. Indeed, the use of local non-actors, real locations and distinctly working class themes are prominent, but it’s the dose of cold hard realism at the end that resonates best.
However, the reason the film justly sits alongside The Leopard and Fellini’s 8 ½ is the superlative visuals engineered by dynamo DOP Giuseppe Rotunno and the authentic production design of Mario Garbuglia (who also designed The Leopard). Rotunno’s magnificent black and white photography is rich with detail, particularly the scenes in the textile mill, which are a wonder. The wide-angle compositions showing the machines and men working in unison are awe-inspiring, capturing with utmost authenticity the look, sound and feel of the Industrial Revolution. Few films have captured more faithfully the flavour of this period (David Lynch’s The Elephant Man being one exception).
The Organizer comes at a time when, arguably, B&W cinematography was at its peak – the '60s - the last decade before colour almost fully took over. Thus, we get to see pristine, immaculately lit, stark imagery in beautiful widescreen, creating a truly epic feel, incomparable in quality to any colour films at the time. Though I have no quantitative evidence to base this on, I don’t think it would be too presumptuous to say it would take another 20 years before colour film stock caught up to the quality of B&W film in the '60s. From technical to creative to historical, The Organizer is a triumph on all levels of filmmaking.
The Organizer is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Monday, 14 May 2012
Camelot
Starring: Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero
By Alan Bacchus
The story of King Arthur, told through the music and lyrics of Lerner and Lowe (My Fair Lady), was a cultural touchtone of the '60s, both the Broadway version, which John F. Kennedy famously identified with, and its big screen adaptation, a lavish, "spare no expense" production shepherded by the last studio mogul then still in business, Jack L. Warner. Sadly, its place in pop culture history notwithstanding, the film has withered with age; it's a dated spectacle without the memorable songs or performances of its '60s contemporaries, such as West Side Story, The Sound of Music and Oliver!
The story plays out as we expect, told mostly in flashbacks before the moment of Arthur's confrontation with old friend Lancelot. We see Arthur's romantic courtship with Guinevere, their unification as king and queen, the formation of the round table, the introduction of the master French knight Lancelot du Lac, Arthur's conflict with Morgana and his illegitimate son, Mordred, and the overarching, strenuous love triangle between Lancelot, Guinevere and Arthur.
The themes that stuck with Kennedy are strong ― the internal struggle of being a man and a king, and the responsibilities as leader first and husband second. Unfortunately, these nuances get lost in a shabbily designed and executed film dated by the prevailing and ugly aesthetic trends of the psychedelic era, from Richard Harris's atrocious haircut and furry costumes to the choppy editing style, which at the time may have seemed progressive, but today just looks sloppy. Vanessa Redgrave is typical '60s eye candy as Guinevere, dressed in swinging '60s high hair and faux fur. And Franco Nero, the original Django, is campy and somewhat laughable as Lancelot.
Joshua Logan's direction is sporadic, often astounding with big scenes of epic scope but underwhelming when it comes to intimate dialogue. Sadly, despite the Blu-ray, the HD treatment is lacklustre, producing no pop or spark of clarity to wow us. As with the content, the picture looks dull and flat. Energetic commentary from critic Stephen Farber is enjoyable, providing unbiased critical opinion, both good and bad, along the way. While clearly a fan of the film, he's not shy in making us aware of its follies. The Warner packaging, as expected, looks great and includes the glossy liner notes and the accompanying CD soundtrack. As well as the the Farber commentary, there's a wealth of production featurettes that will likely satisfy die hard fans of the film. But for mild curiosity seekers, this isn't the best representation of the grand musical spectacles of the '60s.
Thursday, 12 April 2012
The Magnificent Seven
Starring: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Horst Buchholz, Brad Dexter, Charles Bronson
**½
By Alan Bacchus
I won’t even compare The Magnificent Seven to the Seven Samurai, the legendary Akira Kurosawa epic that inspired this remake. The fact is, despite the difference in quality, Kurosawa’s film was ripe for adaptation. The Western frontier setting closely resembles feudal Japan, and the bushido code of honour serves as the unwritten form of law that governs the motivations of the heroes of the western genre. Though immensely popular and successful, John Sturges’ film is so remarkably straightforward and uncomplicated, and thus merely watchable, compared to other more revered American westerns of its era.
The poor Mexicans in this film are victimized with maximum sympathy, and the American heroes are characterized as honourable knights riding in to save the day. In the opening scene a Mexican village is raided by malicious bandits led by a particularly nasty looking Eli Wallach. It’s an annual ritual for these poor people, and now for three of the humble residents it’s time to fight back. But gosh darn-it if they don’t know what to do. And so, they take advice from their respected elder, who tells them they need guns!
After travelling to the local town, they discover there are men to hire who do this kind of work, two of whom are Chris (Brynner) and Vin (McQueen). These characters are introduced boldly confronting some racist gunslingers protesting the burial of an Indian in their graveyard. After their courageous confrontation, the three Mexicans quickly sign up Chris and Vin, who then go about finding four other worthy hands to complete their team. The others include the knife throwing expert, Britt (James Coburn), the gentlemanly northerner, Lee (Robert Vaughn), Chris’s old buddy, Harry (Brad Dexter), and Irish-Mexican strongman Bernardo O’Reilly (Charles Bronson). The seventh member, as in Kurosawa’s film, is the wannabe slinger, Chico (Horst Buchholz), who tags along and proves himself worthy and courageous despite the doubts of the others. While staying in the Mexican village the heroes ingratiate themselves with the local women, who of course see the men as heroic saviours and subservient to their desires.
Several steely-eyed, tense confrontations provide some decent action scenes, but everything is played so on-the-nose with absolutely no subtext or shades of grey in between. This is typical of most of John Sturges’ late career work as an action director who became an expert at big action films with large casts (e.g., The Great Escape).
The Magnificent Seven delivers on what it aspires to be, an uncomplicated showcase for its ensemble of actors for the brain-dead populace. It’s a popcorn movie – a low-risk exercise in studio filmmaking. But sometimes we all need some meat and potatoes to fill us up, and The Magnificent Seven just barely satisfies this appetite. Elmer Bernstein’s rousing score and the strong actors filling those seven Magnificent roles makes it all watchable. But that’s all this film is – watchable.
The Magnificent Seven is available on Blu-ray from MGM Home Entertainment.
Friday, 23 March 2012
Letter Never Sent
Starring: Tatyana Samojlova, Yevgeni Urbansky, Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Vasili Livanov
****
By Alan Bacchus
Part of my own personal cinematic bucket list has been achieved with the release and viewing of this film. It comes from Mikhail Kalatozov, a master director virtually unknown by most of the cinematic world. It’s the second film in a remarkable trio of films, sandwiched between The Cranes Are Flying (1957) and I Am Cuba (1964), three pictures marked by a impassioned patriotic zeal, romanticized melodrama in the grandest form and virtostic camerawork unrivalled by few if anyone in cinema.
For decades, even being a Palme D’Or winner for The Cranes Are Flying, Kalatozov was off the cinematic radar, that is, until the rediscover of I Am Cuba by Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola and its restoration by Milestone Films in the 90’s. The discovery of that film was akin to finding a Federico Fellini, or Stanley Kubrick toiling away behind the iron curtain unknown to the West. Years later the Criterion Collection restored and released The Cranes Are Flying in 2001. Looking on Kalatozov’s filmography I knew of the Letter Never Sent, released in between these two pictures, which made its unavailability immensely frustrating. A few years ago a print of Letter played at the Tribeca Film Festival, but it still remained unavailable to the public at large - until now.
The film gloriously lives up to my own personal hype, resulting in an awesome cinematic experience as moving and astounding as say, Lawrence of Arabia. It’s a simple story of survival, four Russian geologists dropped off in remote Siberia digging for diamonds in hopes of discovering a repository of new wealth for the State at large. Kalatozov’s wideangled and mobile camera captures first the joys of discovery of the propective diamond mine and the horrors of nature's cruelty when the group gets lost in a rampaging forest fire.
All the while a love triangle brews within the group between Tanya (Samojlova) and her lover Andrei and the forlorn attraction of poor Sergei who desperately pines after Tanya. The juxtaposition of this interpersonal conflict against the background of the most harrowing of climates on earth is staggering. But at all times Kalatozov’s weighs the scales evenly between the human experience and the spectacle of the adventure.
The key set piece in the film is the awesome forest fire sequence. For about 20mins the foursome is forced to escape the KMs-long rampage of flames, a sequence marked by impossibly realistic set design and intense visual compositions and mise-en-scene.
Gradually the environment wittles the crew down to three, then two and then one. The final act is unbelievably harrowing and dramatic. The final two crew members huddling together to survive, with no food, no water, and blistering cold winds. There’s a death scene shot in this sequence that is so utterly emotional and sad. At this moment, it becomes just one person against nature in a sequence which has the remaining survivor drifting down a river on a log, virtually frozen, waiting for a miracle. The miracle that does arrive which pushes the film into the stratosphere.
Fans of Cranes and Cuba will find Letter Kalatozov’s least stylish in terms of camerawork. Some of the flashier moves, such as the spiral staircase shot in Cranes or the astonishing long takes in Cuba are mostly absent, but replaced by equally startling compositions against the stark Siberian backgrounds and elaborate choreography of his characters through the thick forest wilderness.
Part of Kalatozov’s modus operandi, which is perhaps why he was persona non grata for so many years, is the strong feelings of patriotism and support of the Soviet socialist agenda. There’s no doubt I Am Cuba is was made under strict propaganda rules. In the Letter Never Sent, the motivation of the four characters to succeed is firmly established for the good of the Soviet people as opposed to personal wealth. And never is there any conflict amongst the group for this. Regardless of one’s politics, their selfless devotion to their cause is so passionate we desperately want our heroes to live and survive.
A shame it took this long for most of the world to find the Letter Never Sent. There’s no doubt in my mind it should be considered one of the greatest adventure films ever made, and despite it’s mere 96min running time, an epic as grand conceptually and thematically as there’s ever been in cinema.
Letter Never Sent is available on Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection
Friday, 2 March 2012
La Jetee
Starring: Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich, Jacques Ledoux
****
By Alan Bacchus
The deep pop-culture penetration of this short experimental film from the ‘60s is a remarkable achievement. At a mere 28 minutes in length and featuring only still photos, it creates remarkably strong and poignant high concept science fiction with a strong humanist/existential drama. The piece was surely a vital influence on Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, as well as James Cameron’s time bending love story in The Terminator and, by association, any time travel film after that. Even Christopher Nolan’s Inception is born from the perplexing notions of manipulating dreams and time paradoxes. Hell, even Groundhog Day owes something to La Jetee.
It’s the aftermath of WWIII in Paris, where most of the survivors have retreated to the underground to avoid the nuclear fallout. A team of scientists experiment with time travel in the hopes of finding resources for the present. The unnamed hero of the story (Hanich), who narrates his childhood memory of waiting outside an airport gate with his mother and seeing a desperate man shot to death, is chosen as the subject because of his deranged mental state, which has the ability to withstand the pressures of the experiment.
Several attempts at going back into the past results in the man meeting an alluring woman from the past. Each journey brings him closer to her, eventually forming a genuine relationship. After completing his mission his doctors turn on him and track him down in the past to assassinate him, but not before he comes face-to-face with a remarkable existential revelation.
As powerful as the moving image has proven to be since the birth of cinema, Chris Marker has not forgotten that the still image can be even more powerful. Each of the 800 or so still images presented in this piece has as much emotional weight and beguiling mystery as anything a motion camera could capture. Marker could have used a motion camera, as the picture cut together has some of the same rules and language as traditional cinema – wide shots, close-ups, traditional coverage, etc. – which makes his choice of stills so inspired. It acts like a scrapbook of the events.
But La Jetee is experimental through and through, and although it resembles the general arc of its feature remake, 12 Monkeys, the film is consciously aloof and mysterious. It’s constructed more like a series of dream experiments than time travel – I don’t know if the term time travel is ever used. But in the end Marker is clear to make his point about the hero's journey, a spiritual love story across space and time, which connects with astonishingly profound satisfaction.
La Jetee, packaged with Chris Marker’s 1983 essay doc, Sans Soleil, is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
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