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billyweeds

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:24 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

marantzo wrote:

yambu wrote:

I watched Breathless. Jean Seberg had me hypnotised. I need to rent Lilith now. I don't know anything about her other films, but would appreciate recs from mo or anyone.

Breathless was the best of Seberg's efforts. And I'm convinced that Godard and Belmondo were the reason. I don't even remember the other films that I saw her in, but I do remember my reaction, "She's a lousy actress." She did have a sad life and I don't think she was very swift. She was married to Romain Gary.

Bonjour Tristesse was not a very good movie, but it does feature Seberg at her most iconic outside of Breathless. It's worth seeing. And Seberg was actually very, very good in an unknown movie called In the French Style. This was IMO her best perf by far, but I'm not even sure the film is available anywhere. It's based on Irwin Shaw stories, and Seberg is so good she seems like a different person than the artless, amateurish actress of her other films.

marantzo

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 11:12 am

Guest

Interesting information, Billy.

I never saw Saint Joan but I seem to remember it being slammed by all the critics.

A sad life indeed. Her heart was in the right place, but she seemed naive to me and I think she was taken advantage of by people who didn't have her interests at heart. The FBI thing was disgusting, but that was in the Hoover era and most everything they did was disgusting. America's SS.

marantzo

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 11:19 am

Guest

Quote:

And Seberg was actually very, very good in an unknown movie called In the French Style.

I've always been of the opinion that a good director can get a fine performance from even a mediocre actor or actress. I looked up the movie and it was directed by Robert Parrish, who it seems was an Oscar winning editor and directed a number of films. None of which I have seen.

Last edited by marantzo on Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:12 am; edited 1 time in total

Joe Vitus

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 11:21 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

I would hardly call her perfomance in Breathless either artless or amateurish.

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daffy

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:20 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 1939 Location: Wall Street

It's just not Christmas without mentioning It's a Wonderful Life:

Quote:

...Lots of people love this movie of course. But I’m convinced it’s for the wrong reasons. Because to me “It’s a Wonderful Life” is anything but a cheery holiday tale. Sitting in that dark public high school classroom, I shuddered as the projector whirred and George Bailey’s life unspooled.

Was this what adulthood promised?

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife. It is also a nightmare account of an endless home renovation...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/movies/19wond.html?ref=movies&pagewanted=all

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lady wakasa

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:23 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon

And it's a family movie.

I was just traumatized enough by someone on imbd saying that the Coen Bros's first career success was The Ladykillers. I don't need to read that article, too (although it could be funny).

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marantzo

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:45 pm

Guest

The first time I saw It's A Wonderful Life, it was in the theatre about two years after it's release. I had no idea what it was about. It was part of a double feature, the ones my friends and myself used to go to every Friday night without even knowing what was playing. I had the same feeling that the person who wrote the review that daffy posted. It didn't disturb me though. What I do remember clearly was, as the movie got dark I thought, "This is a grownup's picture." Which for me was a definite plus.

mo_flixx

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 4:36 pm

Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533

Seberg succeeds in part in "Breathless" because she epitomizes a kind of young American in Paris with a so-so command of French and with a wonderful haircut that was very hip for its time.

I can't think of any other American actress who would have been quite so right.

I don't think her subsequent roles ever suited her quite so well. "Lilith??"

yambu

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 5:27 pm

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

marantzo wrote:

.......The FBI thing was disgusting, but that was in the Hoover era and most everything they did was disgusting. America's SS.

I hate comparisons like this. They're meaningless.

marantzo

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 6:17 pm

Guest

Well it was an exaggerated comparison, but Hoover would have gladly been a Himmler if the US would have gone the way of Germany in the thirties. I have no doubt about that. He was a sleazy little man and he made what should have been an organization that protected America from evil doers into an organization of evil doers. How about SS Lite ?

bocce

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 7:11 pm

Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 2428

gary, i generally don't disagree with you but in this case i have to...

i've known a lot of former FBI guys personally (including deke deloach who was second in command after hoover) and i've never seen any intentional tendency toward fascism in any of them...

were they ultra conservative, did they test the boundaries? absolutely...

but the guys i've met REALLY had a strong commitment to US security and the law...

i'm dead serious about this and i'm not the cleanest guy in the world...

mo_flixx

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 8:22 pm

Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533

We were discussing the FBI in the context of Jean Seberg's problems with them because of her ass'n. w/ the Black Panthers...and the role it may have played in her suicide/mysterious death.

I don't think anyone responded to my post today about former FBI man Mark Felt's ("Deep Throat") demise in The Lobby. But Felt was certainly one of their clean cut types - just link to that '50's photo I mentioned in HuffPo. It could have been a shot from a film noir.

On the other hand, it was my impression that the FBI put together Nixon's Enemies List in the '70's and infiltrated groups that were protesting the war in Vietnam.

I'm NOT labeling them Nazis...but I don't think they were choirboys either.

marantzo

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 8:58 pm

Guest

bocce wrote:

Bocce, I certainly don't have an argument with what you wrote. I was addressing the management of the FBI. I never thought that the agents were a cause of any of the many misdeeds of the agency except the ones who had a similar mindset as the director and his lover. I know of many instances, from what I have read and heard over the years, of outright hatred of agents for how Hoover was running things. Of course they had no power whatsoever to change anything.

Some friends of mine who are New Yorkers had the FBI visit them back in the late sixties in relation to some kind of big diamond robbery. They had no connection to it of course, I think they were on a plane that the culprits were smuggling the diamonds in on or something. Anyway they had a big bag of grass in their dresser drawer and when the agents were searching the place they found it and took it out, held it up and asked "So what is this?" My friend said, "You know what it is." And the agent replied, "I'm just kidding you. We don't give a shit about this, we are looking for diamonds." Needless to say, it was the sweetest thing my friend and his wife ever heard.

Last edited by marantzo on Sat Dec 20, 2008 8:49 am; edited 1 time in total

yambu

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:00 am

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

My father was an FBI agent, '41-'66, all the time in NY. Our Bronx apt. had two framed photos on the wall - Hoover and Joe McCarthy. He spent much of the '50's surveilling members of the Communist Party of America. He had a bit part in The FBI Story, starring James Stewart. In that movie, Hoover was shown only obliquely - kind of like Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

My father was way out there on the right, but he loved everybody.

Nancy

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:51 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4607 Location: Norman, OK

One of my uncles was an FBI agent during WWII. The only thing I know that he did was go to Hawaii to bring back a suspected fifth columnist who had been apprehended there.

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