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| Syd |
 Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 8:37 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12894
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Joe Vitus wrote: Always wanted to see that Julius Caesar. But have trouble imagining Brando as a believable Marc Antony.
Check it out. There's a moment in the Speech where Antony turns away from the crowd saying "my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar," and the camera shows Antony listening closely to the remarks of the crowd gauging when to resume. Some of Brando's best acting in the movie is when he's not saying a word.
For some reason, I always thought Richard Burton played Brutus. I don't think Brando could have done Brutus, but Burton could probably have done Antony or Brutus. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 10:12 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Joe Vitus wrote: Always wanted to see that Julius Caesar. But have trouble imagining Brando as a believable Marc Antony. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 10:44 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Speaking of projecting, in '64 I showed up on Broadway for Student Rush - Burton's Hamlet, Sir John Gielgud directing.
I got top tier center, with my back to the wall. Soon it was, "O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt", and I was breathless, because Hamlet was speaking directly to me. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 10:58 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Thanks, both of you. Will be checking the movie out. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:55 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Agree totally about Burton's Hamlet on stage. Probably the most thrilling Shakespearean performance I've ever seen. HOWEVER, the idea that Burton could have played Brutus or Antony on screen is not credible to me. Burton didn't have one-tenth the power or charisma on screen that he did on stage. There are certain actors for whom movies are the perfect medium. A prime example for me is Paul Newman, who was a great movie star but who faded into the woodwork on stage. The opposite is true of Ethel Merman and Burton, both of whom were almost superhuman powerhouses on stage but who were either too big (Merman) or too constricted (Burton) on film. Just IMO, but it's a long-standing O. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:11 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| Did you see Newman onstage in Cat? |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:26 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| Watched Every Little Step, the documentary on kinda sorta the genesis of A Chorus Line and more specifically on the gargantuan auditions for the recent Broadway revival. That split in focus is the main problem because the former topic is the interesting one but receives too little focus, and the latter gets a lot of screen time even though the final cast doesn't strike me as all that impressive. Maybe it's due to having seen the original Cassie, Donna McKechnie, when she returned to the role in the mid-80s, but Charlotte d’Amboise seems rather plastic and uninteresting. Of course, everyone is at a disadvantage since the original show is as vérité as theater can get, the lines and even the lyrics coming almost verbatim from the original taped interviews with Broadway gypsies (almost all ending up acting/singing their own life stories, with rare exceptions like Pam Blair and Sammy Williams). The best part of the DVD isn't the documentary but the supplements which include huge chunks of the taped interviews that served as the basis for the original script--especially moving, of course, is Nicholas Dante's excerpts which formed the basis for the character Paul (who has maybe the best monologue every written for a Broadway musical--if it can be said to have been written, rather than transcribed, at all). |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:59 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Want to put in a rec for Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project.
Touki Bouki comes across as a Senegalese The Harder They Come. A 1972 rebellion and casual crime film.
Redes (aka Nets) is a Mexican socialist propaganda film from 1936.
With all the basic ingredients of neo-realism -- regular folks as actors, real location shooting, social consciousness, etc.
The Housemaid is a pretty delirious 1960 South Korean melodrama, which takes things so far that they felt the need to tack on a phony framing story pretending it all didn't happen. Reminded me of Bigger Than Life from a few years before.
Dry Summer is a Turkish melodrama, kind of blending the realism and peasant solidarity of Redes with the melodrama and love triangle of The Housemaid. A little basic in its staging and plotting, but a terrific central performance by the villain.
I haven't gotten to the others yet: the Indian film A River Called Titas and Trances, which sounds like some hippy musical thing. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:26 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: Did you see Newman onstage in Cat?
Wasn't aware he'd ever done it on stage. I saw him in Sweet Bird of Youth and Baby Want a Kiss. He was blah in both. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:42 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| You're right, of course. For some reason I was thinking it was the stage version of Cat that brought him to Hollywood. But of course it was Ben Gazzara on stage. And I knew that. My mind is elsewhere today. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:02 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Revisited Double Indemnity and loved it again, though time reveals some campy elements in certain scenes which made it ripe for the Carol Burnett treatment it memorably got. Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck are beyond brilliant and Edward G. Robinson is in full-on character-man mode, Most of all, Billy Wilder proves once again what an astonishing chameleon he was. The range of genres Wilder mastered is breathtaking. From Some Like It Hot to Sunset Boulevard to The Apartment to The Lost Weekend and on and on, he was an amazement. And he coaxed two great performances out of MacMurray (in DI and TA)--neither of which was nominated for the Oscars they arguably should have won. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 10:39 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| He certainly appealed to a certain post-war/Silent Generation mentality. I'm more reserved in my praise. Double Indemnity is pretty good and sometimes great, but it's marred by a terrible clanging score and by moments that maybe don't work because they are described rather than shown (Stanwyck trying on the veil and laughing, for instance). Sunset Blvd is nearly perfect though we get some of that described-not-demonstrated business there, too (the wind blowing through the organ pipes). The Apartment just doesn't mean anything to me. I can't say there's anything wrong with it, it just doesn't connect with me on any level. Some Like it Hot is unfunny unless you find men in women's clothing an innate knee-slapper. Never saw The Lost Weekend. I hear they cut the gay context out. Charles Jackson, who wrote the novel it's based on, followed it up with another more explicitly gay novel, The Fall of Valor, which is not at all bad for a novel of its time. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 12:17 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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I'm pretty much right in alignment with Joe on Wilder.
I'd add that Ace in the Hole is great and my favorite Wilder.
A vicious little film.
And Lost Weekend is very solid. |
Last edited by gromit on Tue Jul 29, 2014 12:52 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 12:37 pm |
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| I'm aligned more with Billy about Wilder. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:52 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Olivier Assayas' autobiographical "Something in the Air" is a wonderfully evocative recapturing of some French kids deeply committed to the 1968 youth rebellion who are trying to keep it going in 1971 when they are almost a spent force. Excellent screenplay and editing and exceptionally good cinematography, especially the night scenes. Won six international awards. |
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