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| Syd |
 Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 6:18 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The Phantom Carriage (1921) is a founding classic of Germ--well Swedish expressionism directed and starred in by Victor Sjöström. There's a legend that the last soul who dies on New Year's Eve must drive Death's chariot for the coming year, collecting the souls of the dead sinners. Last year David Holm's friend Georges got the "honor" and this year it's David himself. First of all, though we meet Sister Edit of the Salvation Army, who is dying of tuberculosis contracted, we eventually find out, from David's coat the previous New Year's Eve. Edit has been trying to redeem David for the last year, but David is an unrepentant drunkard who has become cynical after his wife deserted him while he was in prison. Edit naively tries to reunite the couple without realizing that David has been crossing the country seeking revenge on his wife.
Stark, sometimes beautiful (as when a previous soul collector collects a soul from the bottom of the ocean), sometimes brutal, and haunting. The main special effects are double exposures, and it's the best use of the technique you'll ever see. Sjöström's physical presence can be frightening, and David's wife looks worn and dying inside. Tore Svennberg is very effective as Georges.
The film is very influential, particularly on Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and, like Lang's Destiny, is considerably better film. Based on a novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf. (It helped that her novels were popular in Sweden and the judges were Swedish. She also had a moralistic streak in her novels which is one of the criteria put on the prize.) This is a film that's aged very well. (8 of 10) |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 7:59 pm |
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| I also learned that Death is probably Swedish since he keeps Swedish time. Or maybe he has a different driver for each time zone. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 8:31 pm |
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| Is Sweden on a different time zone than Germany? If I remember correctly, when I went to Germany from France the times zone was the same but I was only in the western part of Germany. I would think that Sweden was also on GMT. Maybe not? |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 8:38 pm |
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| I just checked and Sweden and Germany are both on the same time zone. Both one hour later than GMT. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 9:30 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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marantzo wrote: I just checked and Sweden and Germany are both on the same time zone. Both one hour later than GMT.
So the same soul collector can get German Expressionists as well as Swedish.
Someday I really should see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Golem. I've just got into German Expressionism through the early works of Murnau and Lang. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 8:19 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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marantzo wrote: I just checked and Sweden and Germany are both on the same time zone. Both one hour later than GMT.
My daughter is in Bilbao this summer and I was surprised to find she is also GMT plus one - on the map, it looks like she would be straight south of Greenwich, which illustrates how many flat map projections can be deceptive. Or maybe that Spaniards just tend to be late. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 8:24 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| What's she doing in Bilbao? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 9:03 am |
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| She met a nice fellow from the Basque country (Euskara, they call it) at the Univ. here. Got invited to go back with him for a couple months, hang out at his family home, take trips around the area, brush up her Spanish (which is a challenge, I gather, if you are a French minor and all the French cognates keep crowding into your brain...). Hope she comes back! |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 11:17 am |
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Quote: ...brush up her Spanish (which is a challenge, I gather, if you are a French minor and all the French cognates keep crowding into your brain...).
...or all the French cognacs.... |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 11:41 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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bartist wrote: marantzo wrote: I just checked and Sweden and Germany are both on the same time zone. Both one hour later than GMT.
My daughter is in Bilbao this summer and I was surprised to find she is also GMT plus one - on the map, it looks like she would be straight south of Greenwich, which illustrates how many flat map projections can be deceptive. Or maybe that Spaniards just tend to be late.
All of western Europe except the British Isles and Portugal, and most of central Europe, is in the same time zone. Finland, the eastern Balkans and the former Soviet states are in other time zones. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 9:01 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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I'm watching Late Spring and Ozu's filming a bicycle ride and he's actually moving the camera! Setsuko Hara, the actress I liked so much in Tokyo Story, looks great on a bike.
I was also startled to see a large Coca-Cola sign, which nowadays would be called product placement. This is 1949, during the occupation.
Huluplus has a batch of Ozus ao I guess I'll be seeing her a lot. |
Last edited by Syd on Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:46 pm; edited 1 time in total
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:05 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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| Dragon Seed was too complicated for late night viewing. So I only watched 5 minutes and then switched to Eating Raoul. I'd heard of this film for decades and meant to see it at some point, but just never had a chance. Fairly amusing. Mary and Paul make for an odd team. They say they kind of modeled the film on Kind Hearts and Coronets. The actual eating Raoul moment is kind of unnecessarily tacked on -- but who cares. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 8:47 am |
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| The sequel, Bland Ambition, was about ten days from shooting when the prod. co. pulled out. Too bad. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 11:01 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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David Copperfield has a mixture of performances that range from superb (W. C. Fields is the best, but I like Jean Cadell, Edna May Oliver, Hugh Williams, Jessie Ralph) to annoying (Elizabeth Allan, Lennox Pawle). I didn't recognize Roland Young, who's properly horrifying as Uriah Heep. Elsa Lanchester has a bit part and doesn't have much to do.
And somehow after all these years David's found a wife even less competent than his mother. (I'm not at the end yet, but I assume Dora's going to have a fatal spaghetti accident.)
Edit: Finished. David's going to have to marry a grownup. I like this movie less that Oliver Twist and far less than Great Expectations, which is an actual classic. Freddie Bartholomew was sometimes cloying as the young David, but very good when he's scared of Murdstone. When Basil Rathbone is playing your new stepfather, you're in trouble. The older David didn't make that much of an impression on me. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 1:57 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Deep Water is a documentary on Donald Crowhurst and his failed attempt to circumnavigate the world solo and non-stop as part of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. There was a trophy for first finisher and a cash prize for fastest circumnavigation, both of which were won by the sole finisher, Robin Knox-Johnston. Crowhurst, who had little yachting experience had an innovative boat built, but because he had to start by October 31, had to start out before his boat was ready, had problems by the time he reached the equator, and realized it would be suicide to go on. However, he had mortgaged everything on the race, and if he gave up early, he and his family would have been destitute. The result was fraud and tragedy.
The movie also spends time with Robin Knox-Johnston and Bernard Moitessier, but there is little on Nigel Tetley, whose boat sank a couple thousand miles short of the goal, partly because he was trying to beat Crowhurst for the fastest time.
Interesting movie. Knox-Johnston donated his 5000 pounds for fastest time to the Crowhurst family. I'd like to see movies about him and Moitessier. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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