Monthly Archives: April 2019

10 Reasons to Remember Bibi Andersson (1935-2019)

15 Monday Apr 2019

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Bibi Andersson (11 November 1935 – 14 April 2019)

An actress who will always be remembered for her work with director Ingmar Bergman (she made ten movies and three television features with him), Bibi Andersson was an inspiration to Bergman and many of the directors she worked with on other projects, from Mai Zetterling to John Huston to Robert Altman. She had always wanted to be an actress, and began pursuing her dream at an early age; while at school and aged only thirteen, she met Bergman who cast her in a soap commercial. Far from being a collaboration (those were to come much later), Andersson nevertheless impressed Bergman enough to be given roles in several of his Fifties movies, and in particular, two features from 1957 that came to be regarded as bona fide classics of both Swedish and international cinema. She was often the young, pretty, effervescent ingenue, and her bright personality shone through.

In the Sixties she began to take on more complex, and demanding roles, exploring facets of female behaviour that marked her out as a talented actress who wasn’t solely dependent on her mentor to give fine portrayals and acclaimed performances. Her career became more and more impressive for its ever-broadening range, and for some unexpected choices, such as her first English language movie, Duel at Diablo (1966). In that same year she gave perhaps the best performance of her entire career, as the overly talkative, insecure nurse who looks after Liv Ullmann’s mute patient in Persona. In some ways, though, this was the peak of her career, and though she continued to work steadily through the late Sixties and into the Seventies, by the end of that decade she was working primarily in theatre and television. The Eighties saw her continue to split her time between the movies, theatre and television, until in 1990, she began directing plays as well, and resumed her working relationship with Bergman on a number of stage productions. During this time Andersson also became involved as a supervisor on the Road to Sarajevo humanitarian project. She made her last big screen appearance in 2009, the same year that she suffered a devastating stroke that left her unable to speak. An actress who kept getting better and better, Andersson leaves behind a tremendous, award-winning body of work spanning five decades, and a legacy that should continue to inspire young, committed actresses even today.

1 – The Seventh Seal (1957)

2 – Wild Strawberries (1957)

3 – So Close to Life (1958)

4 – The Mistress (1962)

5 – Persona (1966)

6 – The Passion of Anna (1969)

7 – The Touch (1971)

8 – I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977)

9 – An Enemy of the People (1978)

10 – A Hill on the Dark Side of the Moon (1983)

Fantasia (1940)

14 Sunday Apr 2019

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D: James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe Jr, Norman Ferguson, David Hand, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen / 125m

With: Deems Taylor (narrator), Leopold Stokowski

Viewing Fantasia nearly eighty years after its release, it’s astonishing to think just how much of a gamble this was for Disney. Borne out of a desire to boost the popularity of Mickey Mouse, Disney began work in 1936 on a deluxe cartoon short featuring Mickey called The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but as the budget increased beyond its original expectations, Walt Disney realised that on its own, the short wouldn’t be profitable. In 1938, the decision was made to create a feature length movie that would include not only The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but seven other animated sequences based on well known pieces of classical music. With conductor Leopold Stokowski already on board as the movie’s musical director, Disney forged ahead with the kind of project that had never been done before – and until its belated sequel, Fantasia 2000 (1999), wouldn’t be attempted again. And this was only Disney’s third full-length animated feature. There’s no modern corollary for this; only the House of Mouse has made anything remotely like Fantasia, and perhaps it’s because there’s a very obvious reason: it’s that good.

It’s a perfect combination of music and visuals, each segment given its own unique style and presentation, and the animation is so beautifully in tune with the music that it’s easy to be drawn into the narratives and to be carried along by the emotions invoked by the music. Whether it’s a sense of wonder at the depiction of Earth’s beginnings as portrayed via Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, or the fun to be had from the animal ballets of Amilcare Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours, or even the menacing apparition of the devil Chernabog in Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, the combination of sound and vision is hugely impressive. It’s a movie where the range of the animators’ imagination is such that the viewer is taken to places they could never have expected, and shown sights that remain indelible once seen. Conceptually bold, and daring, the movie is a panoply of colour and sound that is transformative and vibrant, the music soaring and dipping in time with the imagery, at once urgent and demanding of our attention, at other times, subtle and intriguing, and on yet other occasions, sensitive and emotive, all of it providing a wellspring of extraordinary moments.

That it continues to hold up as well as it does – it is, after all, a masterpiece – should be no surprise. Disney was so confident in its ability to enthrall and amaze that he planned to re-release the movie every so often with a new segment replacing one of the originals each time. But poor box office returns (the movie didn’t turn a profit until its 1969 re-release), and the US entering World War II put paid to Disney’s plan. But even though a sequel was eventually made, Fantasia should be appreciated for being one of a kind, a movie no one else could have made except Disney, and one that continues to astound today, even with all the advances made in CG animation. It’s also quite obviously not a children’s movie – though they might enjoy Mickey’s antics and the dancing hippos – and this is another reason why it’s such an ambitious movie: it knows there’s an audience out there for it, and it trusts that people will find it and appreciate it. Again, whether it’s the abstract visual concepts employed for the opening Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, or the centaurian revels depicted in the mythical Greco-Roman world created for Ludwig van Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, Fantasia remains a fascinating, delightful, wonderful, and hugely effective exercise in exploring the boundaries of then-contemporary animation – and revealing the beauty of what’s been discovered beyond those boundaries.

Rating: 9/10 – the use of music is sublime, and so is the animation that accompanies it, and it’s this perfect melding of the two art forms that make Fantasia such an amazing and entertaining movie experience; breathtaking in its scope and ambition, it’s a movie that has never been bettered, and which stands even now as a testament to the visionary talents of its creator.

Dances With Wolves (1990) – The Special Edition

13 Saturday Apr 2019

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D: Kevin Costner / 234m

Cast: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant, Floyd ‘Red Crow’ Westerman, Tantoo Cardinal, Robert Pastorelli, Charles Rocket, Maury Chaykin

After being wounded during a Civil War battle and receiving a citation for bravery, First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar (Costner) is offered his choice of posting in the Union Army. He chooses to be sent to the western frontier, and shortly after arrives at Fort Hays. There, he’s assigned to a remote outpost, Fort Sedgewick, but when he reaches it he finds it deserted. Electing to stay there anyway, Dunbar settles in despite the threat of marauding Indians in the area, and begins rebuiding and restocking the fort. Time passes and no other troops come to support him, but Dunbar is happy with the solitude, although his Sioux neighbours begin to take an interest in him. Deciding it would be a good idea to make contact with them, Dunbar sets off towards their camp. Along the way he encounters Stands With a Fist (McConnell), a white woman adopted when she was a child by the tribe’s medicine man, Kicking Bird (Greene). As he gets to learn more about them, Dunbar comes to understand and appreciate their way of life – so much so that when the Army finally arrives at Fort Sedgewick he sides with the Sioux against them…

Made at a time when the Western was in a moribund state, and clocking in at just over three hours on its original release, Dances With Wolves was the kind of production that had “risky” stamped all over it. It was Costner’s first time as a director and star, much of the dialogue was in Lakota Sioux which meant subtitles, and the pace – the opening sequence aside – was nothing if not languid. That it struck a chord with both critics and audiences alike was something of a miracle, and one that prompted the producers to release a Special Edition cut in cinemas in 1991. There will always be those who believe extended cuts are unnecessary, and often they’ll be right, but here the decision to add fifty-two minutes to an already hefty run-time isn’t as gratuitous or ill-advised as it is elsewhere. What the special edition does is to allow the audience to spend more time with the Lakota Sioux, and to discover more about their way of life, and why it proves so attractive to Dunbar. The movie, so attuned to the racial politics of the time, explores the Lakota Sioux community in much greater detail in this version, and the extra footage provides greater depth to many of the individual Lakota characters. Such immersion makes Dunbar’s decision to live with them all the more credible, and it creates a greater bond between the audience and the characters as well.

With its raison d’être thus established, the special edition needs no further defence for its existence, and so the movie can be enjoyed for its breathtaking South Dakota scenery, its elegiac feel, knowing sense of humour, gripping action sequences, and perhaps best of all, a beautifully textured and emotionally resonant score by John Barry. In assembling all this, and making it both visually arresting (thanks to DoP Dean Semler) and dramatically insightful, Costner has made a movie – and a Western at that – that manages to transcend its simple storyline and become a moving exploration of one man’s search for a meaningful place in the world. Dunbar’s journey is an heroic voyage of self-discovery, and Costner’s assured direction (working from a script by Michael Blake based on his novel), ensures that we go with him on his journey, our own curiosity piqued by where it might lead him. His relationship with Stands With a Fist, at once comical and earnest, awkward and tender, is enchanting and yet tinged with a sadness due to the nature of her placement with the tribe, and McDonnell’s feisty, layered performance is a joy to watch. The movie has come under fire for being yet another example of the white man as saviour trope, but this is to completely misread the narrative: what makes this distinctly different, and for its time quite innovative, is that it’s not Dunbar who saves the Lakota Sioux, but the Lakota Sioux who save Dunbar.

Rating: 9/10 – a triumph in every sense of the word, Dances With Wolves is a perfect example of a movie that takes its time in telling its story, and by doing so, proves more powerful and impressive than expected; entertaining and insightful, it’s also a movie that bears repeated viewings, as even in its extended form, there’s much that can be missed in a single viewing, and that’s without the pleasure of being reacquainted with such a great story and a great cast of characters.

Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

12 Friday Apr 2019

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D: Héctor Babenco / 121m

Cast: William Hurt, Raúl Juliá, Sonia Braga, José Lewgoy, Milton Gonçalves, Míriam Pires, Nuno Leal Maia, Fernando Torres, Patricio Bisso

During the time of the Brazilian military government, two men with very different backgrounds find themselves sharing a prison cell. Valentin Arregui (Juliá) is a leftist revolutionary who has been imprisoned and tortured because of his political activities. Luis Molina (Hurt) is a transgender woman who has been jailed for having sex with an underage boy. Luis passes the time by recounting scenes from a wartime romantic thriller, her favourite movie, and this helps to soothe Valentin’s despair at being imprisoned. An unlikely friendship begins to develop between them, and Luis, whose political beliefs are quite shallow, becomes more politically engaged. As time passes, Luis’s cinematic stories are phrased in such a way that Valentin’s lover, Marta (Braga), becomes a featured character as the mysterious Spider Woman, while at the same time, Luis’s feelings toward Valentin become more and more romantic, a development that Valentin doesn’t discourage. When Luis is unexpectedly granted parole, he agrees to pass on a message to Valentin’s revolutionary comrades. Having arranged a meeting with them, Luis finds that needing the love of a good man carries with it more risks than he could ever have expected…

Laced with a deceptive poignancy that only reveals itself fully towards the end, Kiss of the Spider Woman is a bittersweet tale of love and fantasy in the unlikeliest of surroundings. Adapted from the novel by Manuel Puig, it’s a movie that at first glance looks unprepossessing and likely to prove just as emotionally and politically shallow as Luis appears to be. But it’s actually a movie that grows in stature as it develops, stripping away its lead characters’ mannered pretensions and revealing them as flawed, struggling individuals searching – both in their own ways – for a way to maintain a meaningful connection with someone, anyone, in a place designed to take away a person’s humanity. As their friendship develops, and they find a meaningful connection with other, the beauty of this relationship is revealed in its small moments of intimacy and concern. Luis may appear at first to be a stereotypical drag queen with hysterical tendencies, but as the movie unfolds and we get to know him better, he’s revealed to be playing a role, one that’s expected of him, but which also  allows him to survive. Hurt is magnificent in the role, playing against his perceived type at the time, and slowly reveaing the various layers, many of them deeply hidden, that make up Luis’s character and motivate him.

But though Hurt gives the more bravura performance, Juliá matches him for intelligence and intensity, portraying Valentin as a revolutionary whose didacticism speaks of a man whose confidence in his own political credibility isn’t as convincing as he would have Luis – and the viewer – believe. As he becomes seduced by Luis’s fondness for romantic clichés (because they provide an escape he has no hope of finding otherwise), Valentin reveals a personal set of hopes and fears that govern his behaviour even more than his revolutionary fervour. In overturning Luis’ and Valentin’s stereotypical failings, Leonard Schrader’s exemplary script, along with Héctor Babenco’s flawless direction, creates an atmosphere governed by recognisable emotional longings and the need of each character to survive their incarceration by any means necessary. That they find love as a result makes the movie all the more poignant, and all the more affecting. That tragedy inevitably follows shouldn’t come as a surprise, but even then there are personal triumphs for both characters, and the movie ends on a grace note that feels entirely, and beautifully, in keeping with the sacrifices both men have made along the way.

Rating: 9/10 – over thirty years since its release and Kiss of the Spider Woman is still a one of a kind movie, bold in its depiction of romantic attraction, and astonishing for the breathtaking way in which it weaves threads of vibrant fantasy throughout the otherwise melancholy nature of much of its narrative; bolstered by Rodolfo Sánchez’s impeccable cinematography and Mauro Alice’s meticulous editing, it’s a movie that offers surprises throughout, and which remains as impactful now as it was back in 1985.

The Three Musketeers (1973)

11 Thursday Apr 2019

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D: Richard Lester / 105m

Cast: Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Frank Finlay, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Geraldine Chaplin, Charlton Heston, Faye Dunaway, Christopher Lee, Simon Ward, Raquel Welch, Spike Milligan, Roy Kinnear

Fresh from the countryside, D’Artagnan (York) hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a King’s musketeer. His initial efforts are less than promising: he’s knocked out and robbed by the Comte de Rochefort (Lee), an agent of Cardinal Richelieu (Heston), he manages to insult three of the very musketeers he wants to join, and he ends up duelling against all three of them in turn until the Cardinal’s men arrive to arrest them. The other musketeers – Athos (Reed), Aramis (Chamberlain), and Porthos (Finlay) – take the fight to the Cardinal’s men, and with D’Artagnan’s aid, defeat them. This leads to D’Artagnan being taken under their wing just as the Cardinal hatches a plot to embarrass the King (Cassel) and Queen (Chaplin). With the Queen having given her former lover, the Duke of Buckingham (Ward), a necklace as a keepsake – and one that the King gave her – D’Artagnan and his new companions elect to travel to England to retrieve the necklace before it’s to be worn at a ball. But matters are complicated when Milady de Winter (Dunaway), another of the Cardinal’s agents, steals two of the necklace’s diamonds…

Originally intended by Lester as a vehicle for the Beatles, The Three Musketeers was also originally meant to be a three-hour epic (including intermission), but when it became clear that it wouldn’t make its release date in that format, the decision was made to split the project into two movies (The Four Musketeers followed in 1974). The sequel/second half is a more sombre affair, some of it necessarily so, but this first movie is a blast, a riotous panoply of silly humour, even sillier sight gags, and some of the best swordfights ever committed to the big screen. Energetic, vibrant, and poking fun at everything it can with an insistence and a panache that even the hardest of hearts would be hard-pressed to deny, the movie is the quintessential romp, an action adventure movie with a surfeit of heart and a knowing sense of its own absurdity. Everyone involved is so obviously having fun, you want to join them and buckle your swash in the same exciting fashion as they do, leaping and spinning and pivoting, and killing the Cardinal’s men with flair and passion. If you take nothing else away from Lester’s movie, you have to applaud the swordfights – choreographed by master swordsman William Hobbs – and the breathtaking energy that infuses them all. Whatever else happens – and George Macdonald Fraser’s screenplay adheres closely to Dumas’ novel – it’s the action that elevates the material and ensures its entertainment value.

Lester and his talented cast may be looking to make sure everyone stays happy and smiling throughout, but he also makes the peril facing the Queen (and unsuspecting King) sufficiently serious to ensure that the movie’s comedy credentials aren’t the only thing on display. Richelieu’s dastardly plot, and the machinations of Milady de Winter (a spirited Dunaway), drive the narrative forward with a telling urgency, and though this slows down the action, the committed performances keep the audience from noticing the movie’s need to focus on the plot for a while. The relationship between the three musketeers and D’Artagnan is also given room to evolve, and even though Fraser comes close at times to making it seem perfunctory, York et al invest their characters with a great deal of heart and sincerity. As well as comedy and drama, there’s romance too in the form of D’Artagnan’s attraction for Constance (Welch), the Queen’s dressmaker who somehow makes a virtue out of being clumsy (full marks too for Miriam Brickman, the uncredited casting director who paired Welch with Spike Milligan; he’s her screen husband). With all the elements working extremely well together, and propped up by an exciting story told in exciting fashion, Lester’s one-time Beatles project reveals itself as a fun time to be had by all.

Rating: 9/10 – easily the best version of Dumas’ classic tale, The Three Musketeers is endearingly odd in places (or maybe oddly endearing), deliberately silly in others, and an absolute pleasure to watch – whatever is going on; a rip-roaring piece of unbridled entertainment, it’s funny and fresh, pays more attention to period detail than you might expect, and has absolutely no more ambition than to provide its audience with as good a time as possible, something in which it succeeds with consummate ease.

Groundhog Day (1993)

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

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D: Harold Ramis / 101m

Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky, Brian Doyle-Murray, Marita Geraghty, Angela Paton

Although I have an All-Time Top 10 Movies list – one that has been carved in stone for a very long time now – and I’ve never been able to put together a Top 100, or even a Top 50, there are two movies that would sit comfortably at No 11 and No 12 on those lists – if they ever existed. No 11 will be reviewed later this month. This is No 12. It’s a wonderfully written movie, one that screenwriter Danny Rubin spent around three years working on before the movie was made. For me, the only comedy movie more quotable than Groundhog Day is Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). In that spirit, this “review” will be in the form of ten quotes that sum up the movie’s sweet-natured yet anarchic spirit. Something of a cheat, I hear you say? Perhaps, but when writing is this good, why not celebrate it? After all, “anything different is good.”

Psychiatrist: That’s an unusual problem, Mr. Connors. Uh, most of my work is with couples, families. I have an alcoholic now.

Phil: Ned, I would love to stay here and talk with you… but I’m not going to.

Rita: I like to see a man of advancing years throwing caution to the wind. It’s inspiring in a way.

Phil: You know, people like blood sausage, too. People are morons.

Phil: (Holding Phil the Groundhog behind the wheel) Don’t drive angry. Don’t drive angry!

Phil: This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.

Ned: Ned… Ryerson. “Needlenose Ned”? “Ned the Head”? C’mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn’t graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?

Phil: (Driving down the railroad tracks toward an approaching train) I’m betting he’s going to swerve first.

Rita: You’re not a god. You can take my word for it; this is twelve years of Catholic school talking.

Phil: Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster?
Mrs. Lancaster: I don’t think so, but I could check with the kitchen.

Rating: 9/10 – still the best time loop movie ever made, and one of the finest comedies period, Groundhog Day features terrific performances (Murray is superb as the jaundiced weatherman on a very steep learning curve), Ramis’s spirited direction, and again, Rubin’s wonderful screenplay; when a contemporary critic boldly states that “‘Groundhog’ will never be designated a national film treasure by the Library of Congress” – and that’s exactly what happens – then you know that it’s a movie that isn’t just another fluffy, high concept romantic comedy.

Manon des Sources (1986)

07 Sunday Apr 2019

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aka Manon of the Spring

D: Claude Berri / 113m

Cast: Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart, Hippolyte Girardot, Margarita Lozano, Yvonne Gamy, Ticky Holgado

Now a young woman, Manon (Béart), the daughter of Jean Cadoret aka Jean de Florette, lives with a couple of elderly squatters, and tends to a herd of goats. Ugolin Soubeyran (Auteuil) has a successful business growing carnations on a nearby farm. Along with his uncle, César (Montand), Ugolin has purchased the land Manon’s father owned, and they have restored the spring they blocked so long ago, and which contributed to his death. Ugolin becomes attracted to Manon, but she rebuffs him; however, his attraction becomes an obsession. At the same time, she becomes interested in Bernard (Girardot), a schoolteacher who has recently arrived in the village. When Manon overhears two of the villagers talking about the spring, she realises that everyone knew and no one did anything to stop the Soubeyrans. When providence reveals to her the source of the village’s water supply, she blocks it up in the same way that her father’s spring was stopped. Soon the villagers are panicked and ready to listen when Manon publicly accuses the Soubeyrans of their crimes, but this leads to greater and still greater tragedy…

Shot back-to-back with its predecessor Jean de Florette (1986), Manon des Sources both extends and completes that movie’s narrative arc while telling its own story at the same time. It retains many of the first movie’s attributes and stylistic flourishes – Provence still looks absolutely gorgeous thanks to Bruno Nuytten’s exquisite cinematography – and co-writer (along with Gérard Brach) and director Claude Berri continues to ensure that the characters and not the plot remain the central focus of the movie. Manon is something of a wild child, able to live off the land and not entirely comfortable around others. She says very little throughout the movie, but when she does, her words count for something and are layered with meaning. She’s fiercely independent, and beautiful too – it’s no wonder Ugolin becomes infatuated with her. Urged by his uncle to marry (and thereby keep the family name alive), Ugolin’s feelings for Manon take the story to a very dark place indeed, but it’s a measure of Auteuil’s haunting and finely detailed performance that it’s easy to feel sympathy for Ugolin, even though he’s jointly responsible for the death of Manon’s father. As he sinks further and further into despair at being rejected, Auteuil shows Ugolin’s feelings of grief and sadness and above all, loneliness, as they overwhelm him, and prove too much to bear.

Our feelings about Ugolin also extend to César, as Pagnol’s tale widens in scope to include a revelation that puts everything into cold, heart-rending perspective. César’s pride and arrogance and greed do indeed go before a fall, but it’s one that is so spectacular that, as with Ugolin, the impact of his villainous behaviour is erased by the enormity of the retribution that engulfs him. Watching Montand as he shows César slowly coming to terms with the full import of what he’s done, and where his machinations have got him, is a masterclass in screen acting. Over both movies, César has almost been a secondary character, pulling strings and sitting back while his plans come to fruition, but here Berri reveals him to be the driving force of the narrative across all four hours, a man whose pathological need to maintain his family’s influence has ensured his downfall. The irony can’t be missed, but Montand handles it with subtlety and aplomb, just as Berri has handled the material throughout. By remaining faithful to Marcel Pagnol’s two-volume novel The Water of the Hills, Berri and his cast have ensured every nuance and moment of significance has been replicated with care and sincerity. The result is a movie that is every bit as good as its predecessor, but which does so on its own terms – and rightly so.

Rating: 9/10 – a fitting conclusion to the story begun in Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources takes its villains and makes them tragic figures doomed by the short-sightedness of their egos, while also introducing a heroine whose resourcefulness mirrors their own machinations (and there’s irony there too); as the second part of a duology, there’s a lot of pressure on it to succeed, but Berri et al have done a tremendous job in making this just as impressive (if not more so) than its precursor, and one of the finest examples of French heritage cinema that’s ever been made.

Jean de Florette (1986)

06 Saturday Apr 2019

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D: Claude Berri / 120m

Cast: Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, Elisabeth Depardieu, Margarita Lozano, Ernestine Mazurowna

Returning home after military service in World War I, Ugolin Soubeyran (Auteuil) uses the land he has to grow carnations. When his first crop fetches a good price at market, his uncle César (Montand) decides Ugolin’s project needs to be expanded, and they make an attempt at buying the neighbouring land. However, their attempt is unsuccessful, and when the owner dies, the land passes to his nephew, Jean Cadoret (Depardieu). Jean arrives with his wife, Aimée (Depardieu) and young daughter Manon (Mazurowna), and with a plan to make the land profitable by breeding rabbits and feeding them on cucurbit. But César and Ugolin have stopped up a spring that would provide plenty of water to Jean’s land, and he is forced to rely on another one that is some distance away, as well as rainfall to fill a cistern. But the rain doesn’t come, and further problems cause Jean’s endeavour to begin to fail. He’s prompted to sell by the Soubeyrans but remains stubborn in his determination to succeed. Deciding to dig a well, Jean, whose health has been deteriorating from all the physical labour, suffers a devastating injury when his use of dynamite has an unexpected outcome…

The first thing to mention about Jean de Florette (and the movie’s trump card if you like) is Bruno Nuytten’s stunning cinematography. This is a beautifully shot movie, with the Provence locations standing out as a vibrant, immersive background to a tale of greed and treachery, and one family’s efforts to ruin another family out of concern for their failing influence in the local community (Ugolin is the last of the Soubeyrans and not exactly husband material). César and Ugolin are villains in both the grand and parochial sense, using their reputation to hoodwink both Jean and their own friends into believing their actions are borne out of honest philanthropy, when the opposite is true. It’s their machinations that drive the narrative towards a deliberately unhappy ending (though it helps to know there’s a sequel to help put things right), and though their scheming is calculated, and their motives quite callous, nevertheless they’re still characters with a tremendous depth to them, from César’s arrogance borne out of pride in the family name, to Ugolin desperately seeking affirmation from his uncle at every turn. Both are driven by desires they’re unable to articulate, and both are trapped by the expectations associated with the family name.

Montand and Auteuil are magnificent as the treacherous Soubeyrans, and they’re matched by Depardieu as the tax collector and “unfortunately, by God’s will… a hunchback” Jean de Florette (Florette is his mother’s name, and what the locals call him). Always positive, his determination to succeed seeing him through setbacks that would crush the will of other men, Jean is a tragic figure writ large against the Provence countryside. It’s heartbreaking to see him try and fail over and over again, but Depardieu avoids any pity for Jean’s refusal to give in, and makes his efforts courageous in the face of certain defeat. You know it’s going to end badly for Jean but thanks to Berri’s assured direction, and a faithful adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s novel (by Berri and Gérard Brach), the viewer can’t help but hope that one of Jean’s schemes to succeed will come to fruition and save the day. With the villagers looking on (with some amusement), and the Soubeyrans waiting to capitalise on his inevitable misfortune, Jean’s predicament anchors the second half of the movie and allows a number of seemingly minor plot points to be revealed that will have a lasting impact on the events depicted in Manon des Sources (1986). You could argue that Jean de Florette is just a two hour teaser for its sequel, but it has its own self-contained story, and it has an emotional quality that the sequel doesn’t replicate – because it too has its own self-contained story. Either way, this is a true classic of French cinema, and one of the most beautiful movies ever made.

Rating: 9/10 – with its rich, lustrous cinematography (the Vaucluse department of Provence has never looked so vivid), Jean de Florette is a triumph of storytelling, acting, direction, production design – everything in fact, that goes to make it one of the most sublime movie experiences ever released; heartfelt and sincere, stirring and emotive, it’s a feast for the senses in all respects, and as authentic a representation of post-World War I Provence as you’re ever likely to find.

Amadeus (1984)

05 Friday Apr 2019

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D: Miloš Forman / 160m

Cast: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Roy Dotrice, Simon Callow, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones, Charles Kay

At the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II (Jones), the lead composer is Antonio Salieri (Abraham). He is well regarded by his peers, and has the favour of the Emperor, but when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Hulce) arrives to perform at the request of his employer, Salieri is forced to acknowledge Mozart’s superior ability. Mozart’s gift for music prompts the Emperor to commission an opera from him, and this in turn prompts the onset of a violent jealousy in Salieri that leads him to try and undermine Mozart’s position within the court. With his own compositions falling out of favour with the Emperor, Salieri finds himself even more determined to ruin Mozart’s reputation. He hires a young woman to work as Mozart’s maid and spy on him. When she alerts Salieri to a new work that Mozart is working on, he finds that it’s an opera based on The Marriage of Figaro, which the Emperor has forbidden. Salieri reveals this to the Emperor, but Mozart manages to avoid censure, an outcome that pushes Salieri into using the recent death of Mozart’s father (Dotrice) as a means of finally regaining his original position at the Emperor’s court…

A movie about obsession, jealousy, and the uncomfortable realisation of one’s own mediocrity in the face of undeniable genius, Amadeus is a breathtaking spectacle, a transformative piece that takes an unsubstantiated rumour from the lives of Mozart and Salieri, and spins a web of intrigue and deception around Mozart’s untimely death. Adapted by Peter Shaffer from his original stage play, and brought to mesmerising life by Miloš Forman, it’s a movie that brims with unbridled passions, from Mozart’s immersive approach to his music, to the stylistic excesses of the Emperor’s court. Mozart himself is presented as an enfant terrible in adult form, giggling uncontrollably as much from nervousness as exhilaration, and challenging the conservative musical conventions that have provided Salieri and his ilk with their success. As if his grandiose behaviour wasn’t enough, he’s also – actually – incredibly gifted, something that Salieri cannot fathom: how can God have done this, how could He have given such a gift to Mozart and left Salieri with the same passion but without the means to express it as effectively. Salieri’s battle with God over this becomes its own obsession, and informs his actions throughout.

Shaffer builds the one-sided rivalry between Salieri and Mozart and uses it to explore the nature of thwarted ambition. Salieri’s need to be seen to be superior to Mozart consumes him, and while Mozart’s own lifestyle consumes him at the same time, Shaffer highlights the desperation that drives Salieri on to a darker place than even he could have predicted. Abraham is quite simply superb as the tortured composer, a man aware of his limitations but compelled by those same limitations to contemplate murder for personal gain. Hulce is just as good as the potty-mouthed genius who transcribed whole pieces of music without the need for any corrections; as his physical health deteriorates, Hulce shows us a Mozart whose commitment to his music over-rides his own sense of self-preservation. Both performances are powerful, emotive, and finely judged, and form the backbone of a movie that never falters in its appreciation of the one thing both characters agree on: the sublime nature of Mozart’s music. Inevitably, the soundtrack is filled with astutely chosen examples of Mozart’s work (even his playing of Salieri’s march is really an excerpt from Mozart’s own work The Marriage of Figaro), and it’s all played out against a backdrop of naturally lit interiors and ravishing production design, all of it enhanced by Miroslav Ondrícek’s detailed cinematography.

Rating: 9/10 – from Salieri’s first anguished cry of “Mozart!” to his absolving mediocrities everywhere, Amadeus is an ambitiously mounted movie that succeeds in breathing potent life into a minor footnote in classical music history; devastating in places, but with a streak of scandalous humour to offset the darker nature of the movie’s second half, this is hugely impressive on so many levels, and possibly Forman’s finest work.

Double Indemnity (1944)

04 Thursday Apr 2019

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D: Billy Wilder / 107m

Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Tom Powers, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova, John Philliber

When insurance salesman Walter Neff (MacMurray) meets Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck), there’s an immediate attraction on his part, and one that doesn’t go away even when she hints at murdering her husband for a sizeable insurance payout. At first, Neff wants no part of any plan she might have, but when she comes to see him at his apartment, his attraction towards her proves too much to overcome. Knowing the tricks of the trade, Neff comes up with the idea of having Phyllis’s husband appear to fall from a moving train and be killed; this will invoke a “double indemnity” clause in the insurance policy which will mean twice the payout. Together, Neff and Phyllis carry out the murder, but the nature of her husband’s death causes Neff’s boss, Barton Keyes (Robinson), to question its provenance. Matters become complicated further when Phyllis’s step-daughter, Lola (Heather), tells Neff that she suspects Phyllis of murdering her mother in order to marry her father. And when it’s revealed that Dietrichson had his own suspicions, and changed his will so that Phyllis couldn’t inherit any of his money, Neff begins to realise that he cannot trust her at all…

Like all the best films noir, Double Indemnity tells a twisted story of lust and greed and casual immorality, and it does so without apology or due consideration for the feelings of its audience. With its weak-willed “hero” and sleazy femme fatale working at opposite ends of the moral spectrum while at the same time being in tandem with each other, the movie playfully and deliberately explores the darker side of human aspirations, and paints a vivid portrait of what happens when someone reaches too far for something they shouldn’t have. Told in flashback in a similar style to the one used later by Wilder in Sunset Blvd. (1950), its story unfolds perhaps a little too slowly as it sets up the relationship between Neff and Phyllis. But as we get to know them, and what motivates them, it’s no surprise that their affair is as quick to unravel as the murderous plot they’ve committed to. When duplicity is this exciting, everything else seems so dull and trivial, and by making Phyllis glamorous in an obviously phoney way, it speaks volumes for Neff’s own state of mind and moral malleability. It’s psychodrama at its darkest and most nuanced.

Both MacMurray and Stanwyck are playing against the type they were known for, but it’s Wilder’s belief in them that holds firm, and as a result, both actors give career best performances. As the balance of power shifts between them, and both characters act more and more out of self-preservation, Wilder tightens the screws on both of them, but MacMurray and Stanwyck are more than equal to the task, circling each other and just waiting for the slightest mistake to be made and taken advantage of. Complemented by Robinson’s turn as the investigator whose moral compass is as clearly defined as Phyllis’s is fatally corroded, the movie is a cat and mouse game with Los Angeles as a glamorous, enticing backdrop (much like Phyllis herself), and John F. Seitz’s luminous black and white cinematography, with its sharp angles and “venetian blind” lighting. Paving the way for dozens of pale imitations in the years that followed, the movie stands as a prime example of remaining true to the spirit of a story while adapting it for the big screen. James M. Cain’s novella is given a brusque workover by Raymond Chandler, but survives the encounter to provide audiences with a tough, chilly, emotionally austere thriller that is also both tawdry and exciting.

Rating: 9/10 – a movie that features a number of “firsts”, from its point of view being provided by a criminal, to the characters’ emotions being expressed through the lighting in a scene, Double Indemnity is a bona fide classic that still holds up today; increasingly tense because of its main characters’ inevitable downfall and how it plays out, and with a cruel sense of irony to spur it on, this is a terrific movie from a director, and a cast and crew, that were at the height of their powers.

Short Cuts (1993)

03 Wednesday Apr 2019

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D: Robert Altman / 188m

Cast: Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Jack Lemmon, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Lili Taylor, Robert Downey Jr, Madeleine Stowe, Tim Robbins, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, Frances McDormand, Peter Gallagher, Annie Ross, Lori Singer, Lyle Lovett, Buck Henry, Huey Lewis, Michael Beach, Charles Rocket

When the pre-teen son of television commentator Howard Finnigan (Davison) and his wife Anne (MacDowell) is knocked down by a car driven by waitress Doreen Pigott (Tomlin), he refuses to let her drive him home afterwards. Later, he falls unconscious and is taken to hospital. It’s the day before his eighth birthday. Doreen is harassed at the diner where she works by Stuart (Ward), an out-of-work salesman, and his buddies Gordon (Henry) and Vern (Lewis) before they head off on a fishing trip. Gene Shepard (Robbins), a cop whose wife, Sherri (Stowe), doesn’t know he’s having an affair, abandons the family dog because of its excessive barking. Ralph Wyman (Modine), a doctor, and his wife, Marian (Moore), are a couple in crisis who stay together out of convenience instead of love, while the Finnigans’ next door neighbours have a pool cleaner, Jerry Kaiser (Penn), whose wife, Lois (Leigh), works as a phone sex operator…

These are just some of the stories that intertwine and intermingle with each other in Robert Altman’s majestic adaptation of nine short stories and one poem written by Raymond Carver. Possibly the finest ensemble piece ever made, Short Cuts examines the lives of twenty-two separate characters, and does so with a precision and an understanding of the underlying desperation that each of them is feeling; it’s like watching a group therapy session where everyone is jockeying for the most attention. Altman achieves the impossible here: he makes every one of those twenty-two characters appear credible and relatable, and he does so by stripping away the masks they hide behind in order to reveal the fallible, scrabbling egos that fuel their shallow pretensions and selfish conceits. It’s holding up a mirror to society time, an indelible foray into the casual brutality of everyday lives, with verbal, physical, and emotional attacks being meted out, seemingly at every opportunity, in order for these characters to feel superior to the people closest to them: the people they purport to love. At times it’s terrifying to see the depths of despair that some characters are experiencing, while others go about their lives blithely and with an equally terrifying lack of self-awareness. How do these people survive from day to day?

The answer is: any way they can, and Altman, along with co-screenwriter Frank Barhydt, artfully highlights the ways that they achieve this, whether it’s through forbearance, a reliance on alcohol, or by simply ignoring what’s happening around them. All this – and at over three hours – could seem like spending time with a group of people you’d happily cross the street to avoid, but the movie has such a bone dry, and darkly scabrous sense of humour that you can’t help but find amusement in even the most horrendous moments (and sometimes to laugh is just about the best and only option the viewer has). With Los Angeles providing the perfect backdrop for all this psychic turmoil, and pitch perfect performances from all concerned, the movie is evenly structured among the characters for maximum effect, and Geraldine Peroni’s editing ensures the action occurs with fluidity and a pace to match. Aside from The Player (1992), Altman has never been this good, his direction proving incisive and perceptive in equal measure, and his mastery of the various storylines is an object lesson in how to make each disparate element of a movie as important as all the rest. It’s an impressive achievement, one that rewards the audience at every turn, and better still, with each repeat viewing.

Rating: 9/10 – a bold, multi-layered odyssey through the hellish environs of middle-class America, Short Cuts is abrasive, awash with attitude, fiendishly funny, and starkly revealing of the deceptions that ordinary people employ to give their lives meaning; a one-of-a-kind movie that goes to some very dark places indeed, it still has a degree of hope running throughout the various storylines – even if it is chafed and frayed to snapping point.

Big Wednesday (1978)

02 Tuesday Apr 2019

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D: John Milius / 120m

Cast: Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, Gary Busey, Patti D’Arbanville, Lee Purcell, Sam Melville, Darrell Fetty, Gerry Lopez

Malibu, 1962. Three friends – Matt Johnson (Vincent), Jack Barlow (Katt), and Leroy Smith (Busey) – are the best surfers at the beach, and live carefree lives with little responsibility other than to their surfing. On the verge of adulthood, they party a lot, get drunk, and focus on having as much fun as possible, but inevitably things become more serious for them. Matt’s girlfriend, Peggy (Purcell), announces she’s pregnant, and the shop where they were able to get free boards is forced to close.  In 1965, the draft comes calling, and though Matt and Leroy manage to avoid going to Vietnam, Jack does, along with another friend, Waxer (Fetty). Three years later, much has changed for all three friends, and the way of life they were used to has all but vanished, with new surfing heroes challenging for the positions they all held, and their personal lives affected by their inability to adapt to changing times. It’s not until 1971, and the appearance of the greatest swell of all, the fabled Big Wednesday, that the three friends get together for one last ride amongst the waves…

A labour of love for its director (whose own experiences formed the basis of the script, co-written with fellow surfer Dennis Aaberg), Big Wednesday is a coming-of-age tale that slowly, and almost remorselessly, develops into a melancholy examination of the passing of an era. It’s no coincidence that Milius begins his movie in the early Sixties, a time of enormous promise in the US with Kennedy’s presidency in full swing and advances being made in relation to civil rights, and the movie reflects the mood of the country in the actions and the behaviour of its central trio; they’re young, they’re brimming with confidence, and (as far as they’re concerned) they’re invincible. The folly of youth is depicted with a bracing honesty, Milius acknowledging through his characters his own innocent naïveté, and as the friendship between Matt, Jack and Leroy fractures and sends them on their separate paths, the movie offers a wistful commentary on the perils of expecting things to always remain the same. The spectre of the Vietnam War hovers over the friends’ journey into adulthood, altering them in different ways (as it did the country), and swiftly neutering the confidence and vitality they had just a few short years before. Milius details all this with a compassion that reflects the confusion that many were feeling during the late Sixties and early Seventies.

It’s this sense of an era changing direction, and not necessarily for the better, that drives the narrative and through the battered camaraderie of its central trio, allows the viewer to understand just how and why surfing was so important an avenue of escape for so many young men and women. But the surfing is just the backdrop to the much more important of the friendships forged in the swells and on the beaches, a sub-culture that has its own aristocracy (Matt, Jack and Leroy), but which is doomed to be superseded by a new, younger generation (as represented by real life surfer Gerry Lopez). With an elegiac feel to its final section that allows for an emotional intensity as the three friends reunite to say goodbye to their younger selves. It’s probably Milius’ most personal movie to date, and his passion and commitment is evident in every scene. With instinctive and intuitive performances from Vincent, Katt and Busey (all three never better than they are here), and breathtaking surfing imagery courtesy of Bruce Surtees, the movie has a telling sense of the era it’s depicting, and Milius laces it with enough nostalgia to make viewers – even the casual ones – wish they’d been a part of it at the time.

Rating: 8/10 – with its themes of loyalty and youthful hopes dashed by hard lessons learned and the inevitable burdens of responsibility, Big Wednesday is a movie with more going on under the waves than most, and which, thanks to Milius’ distilling of his own past into the material, resonates with affection for, and understanding of, its unsuspecting characters; ambitious in its scope (though not as mythic as Milius was probably aiming for), and deftly handled by its usually bullish director, this is a cult classic that deserves its hard-won status (it was a flop on its original release), and which represents a high point in the world of fictional surfing movies.

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

01 Monday Apr 2019

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D: George Armitage / 107m

Cast: John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Joan Cusack, Hank Azaria, K. Todd Freeman, Jeremy Piven, Mitchell Ryan, Michael Cudlitz, Benny Urquidez

Martin Q. Blank (Cusack) is a hitman with a problem: he’s feeling miserable, and he’s unhappy with his work. He’s at odds with his boss, Grocer (Aykroyd), over plans to unionise the hitman “business”, and is made more unhappy when a contract goes wrong. Persuaded by the combined efforts of his therapist, Dr Oatman (Arkin), and his secretary Marcella (Cusack), Martin agrees to attend his high school’s tenth anniversary reunion – and while he’s there he can carry out another contract. Back in his home town of Grosse Pointe, Blank catches up with his old friend, Paul (Piven), and his old girlfriend, Debi Newberry (Driver). Though he walked out on her on the night of the prom, and hasn’t been back since, Martin and Debi soon reconnect, and attend the reunion together. But Martin is being stalked by another hitman, Felix LaPoubelle (Urquidez), and when Martin is forced to kill him in one of the school corridors, the aftermath is witnessed by Debi, who runs off. And matters are made even worse when Martin discovers that the target he’s there to kill is none other than Debi’s father, Bart (Ryan)…

If you had to sum up the appeal of Grosse Pointe Blank, then its dialogue would be a great place to start. This short monologue by Martin to his shrink Dr Oatman about the reunion is a perfect example of just how finely tuned much of this movie is, and also how it doesn’t take itself very seriously (a good idea in a comedy about a hitman developing a conscience): “They all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they’ve all made themselves a part of something and they can talk about what they do. What am I gonna say? “I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How’ve you been?” It’s carefully crafted moments like this one – fluid, satirical, and very funny – that ensure the movie has a lightness of touch and doesn’t look and sound like it’s trying too hard. Instead it maintains an even, modest tone throughout, and focuses more on the characters than the action. In Martin Blank, the screenwriters (including Cusack himself) have created a sympathetic hitman whose “moral flexibility” belies a natural charm and wit that make the character more rounded and less stereotypical than usual, so much so that when he does have to kill someone – the corridor fight with LaPoubelle is a highlight – the intensity he displays is borne out of necessity rather than a fundamental flaw in his personality. The only real flaw is that he’s believed himself incapable of living a normal life for all these years.

Cusack is terrific in the role, deftly handling the various elements thrown into the mix – drama, comedy, romance, action – and displaying a versatility across genres that had been hinted at before this, but never fully exploited. The cast as a whole are on good form, from Cusack’s sister Joan as Blank’s faithful yet caustic secretary, to Piven’s lovelorn best friend, and Arkin as the therapist who remains unconvinced when Blank reassures him he’s not a target. Even Driver and Aykroyd, acquired tastes unless in the right surroundings, are likeable, and Armitage makes sure that everyone gets enough exposure to warrant them all making an impact. He also directs with a visual flair that’s unexpected, and in conjunction with DoP Jamie Anderson, keeps the movie from settling into a standard action comedy format. It’s a movie that’s full of surprises, touching in places but never too far from another quip or pithy observation, and though it ultimately treads an overly familiar romantic path, there are enough detours along the way to make it feel fresher than most. The action is well handled and expertly choreographed (a little ragged, but in a good way), and there’s a terrific soundtrack from Joe Strummer. All in all, it’s a movie that wants its audience to have a good time, and which achieves that ambition with skill and aplomb, and without having to employ the time honoured process known as shakabuku.

Rating: 8/10 – with various shades of light and dark that allow for differing perspectives on what it means to be a hitman, and a wicked sense of humour that Cusack et al exploit at every given opportunity, Grosse Pointe Blank is an absolute delight from start to finish; still as entertaining now as it was back on first release, it’s a movie that may have dated in terms of the costumes and the hairstyles, but beneath all the horseplay there are universal themes in play to help anchor the frothy, carefree nature of the main storyline, and ensure that the movie resonates with audiences in more ways than one.