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| Shane |
 Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 3:08 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1168
Location: Chicago
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| I wonder 'bout all the bells and whistles myself, then sometimes I just wander..... |
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| Shane |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 3:09 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1168
Location: Chicago
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| Didn't I just say that on the last page? Deja vu all over again. |
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I'd like to continue the argument we were having before. What was it about? |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 4:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Rod,
Quote: Actually, I have seen interviews with Douglas Sirk from the '70s and he said he was being actively subversive. He said, sometimes, you have to rely on the audience's ability to glean from material what you're not allowed to say up front.
Of course he said that. By the 70's he had long since been lauded as one of the great directors, and this is entirely based on the "subversive" reading the auteur critics gave his movies. Directors are con artists. I don't take on faith a word out of a director's mouth. |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 4:36 am |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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I do find it a bit suspicious because so many of the other great cinema artists who worked in Hollywood and practised personal-within-mainstream work were usually firmly reticent about their work in that way right to the end.
I've never watched a Sirk film. Loud '50s melodramas, no matter how deliberately camp, are still loud '50s melodramas. |
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| Shane |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:13 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1168
Location: Chicago
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| That was the 50s' and early 60's too for that matter. |
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I'd like to continue the argument we were having before. What was it about? |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:46 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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| Sorry, Joe, I just don't buy that. One look at Written on the Wind will tell you that Sirk tongue was firmly planted in his cheek. Dorothy Malone fondling the model oil well does not say straight soap opera to me. |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:58 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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| I wish I'd seen Viva Maria! with Shane and Matt. I love Louis Malle and have only seen a few of his films. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 10:07 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Douglas Sirk is an enigma. Written on the Wind is sort of an anomaly within his own career; it's legitimately hip in a way none of his other films are. It's partially the outrageous performance by Dorothy Malone that does it. She's really, really terrible in the part, and yet her Oscar for Supporting Actress doesn't seem wholly undeserved. The performance is so over the top and clueless that it's iconically awful. Robert Stack's turn is almost as ridiculous. (He was Oscar-nominated but did not win.) Then there's the magnificently oversaturated color photography and the campy dialogue.
But other than Written on the Wind, I think Joe has the right idea. Sirk was not subversive, not hip, not on to the silliness of the stories until someone told him he was an auteur. Then he went for it. Did he go for it! |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 10:09 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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| I don't agree. Most directors are auteurs whether they set out to be or not. It is only film theory that finally caught up with what they were doing. NOW is the time when directors are consciously (or self-consciously) "auteur". |
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| Shane |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 11:28 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1168
Location: Chicago
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| I just caught a cute and crazy little Ray Wise film called Dead End. You may remember Mr. wise as Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks or even more recently as Don Hollenbeck in Goodnight, and Good Luck. Well he worked into his trademark frenzy damn well in this one in fact everyone handled their bit with total believabilty. This grab the seat chiller has six characters throughout until the shocker ending. But I never stopped dwelling on the impending doom long enough to feel short changed. It's been a while since some of the standard twists and turns could give me a start, this one has them. I would say for a see it once thriller go for it! I won't give anything away except I'll never sing jingle bells the same way again. |
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| Shane |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 11:31 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1168
Location: Chicago
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And now a little about the writer/director,
Jean-Baptiste Andrea
Grew up in Cannes (France), where he shot his first short films and was involved in theatre. Though he received no formal training in cinema (he actually graduated in economics and political science), he kept dedicating himself to his passion, writing and directing, financing his projects by translating books. After working as a writer, he wrote his first feature Dead End (2003/I) in English and made his directorial debut in LA.
from IMdb |
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I'd like to continue the argument we were having before. What was it about? |
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| Trish |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 11:51 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2438
Location: Massachusetts
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| Was this film on cable or did you rent it? |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 12:35 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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Gary wrote: "It turned out that it was All That Heaven Allows. This was a mind stunningly stupid movie. Everything from the plot to the dialogue to the message to the musical background to the dilema of the hero and heroine; It was such a silly, artificial, poorly acted, technicolor piece of juvenile fluff that it's unbelievable that anyone over the age of 3 could take it seriously."
Now listen............I grew up in the 50's and for me they were scary times. My mother was the typical stay at home housewife who had dinner on the table at six, who baked cookies, smoked, played bridge, and had an unhappy marriage. When The Bridges of Madison County came out, I thought that would have been the perfect daydream for her...........But she lived in the 50's, nobody got divorced, women had a place.......like it or not.
When I see movies from the 50's, I see women's roles being toyed with. What would never happen in reality, happened on screen or on tv. Thus plots involving women with younger men (Mildred Pierce in Autumn). Women with mentally ill men (same). Women with their handymen (All that Heaven Allows)...........
Watching I Love Lucy reruns......I see the woman doing her darndest to subvert this role she's been assigned. And it's funny now. Wasn't it tragic then? |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 12:54 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| Watched Morris Engel's Little Fugitive. Early independent film from 1953. A simple story about two kids, that provides a look at Coney Island in 1953, a slice of life of a more innocent time. The harmonica soundtrack and the cliche dialogue could have been improved. But there isn't much dialogue, and it does give an almost documentary presentation of life back then. Some nice editing and a very authentic feel to the picture. More or less a slight film, but quite charming. Apparently it made quite an impression on the young Truffaut. |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 1:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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