La Verité (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆

La Verité (1960) – H. G. Clouzot

Strongly reminiscent of the decadent Parisian milieu of Claude Chabrol’s Les Cousins (1959) which also sees a young person from the country come to the big smoke to get involved in the decadent life on the Left Banke.  However, this time we follow Brigitte Bardot and it is sometimes difficult to know whether the film is meant to be provocative cheesecake or something deeper.  Bardot’s story is framed by a courtroom drama, since she is accused of murdering her ex-lover, a young classical conductor, recently engaged to her sister.  There is no doubt that she is the killer, only whether she deserves the death penalty or something lighter (the French system of jurisprudence seems rather different than the US version, with the judge posing questions and more than one lawyer pitted against her and her team).  Most of the movie is composed of flashbacks detailing Bardot’s version of events, describing how she toyed with the young conductor who eventually became tired of her endless cheating.  Bardot certainly commands attention and runs the gamut of emotions, both in the flashbacks and in the courtroom – but she isn’t likeable.  The “truth” being pointed out is that society is wrong to judge young people seeking a different life for themselves, those who don’t want to conform to past or current norms.  The lawyers present both sides, for and against the new freedom; Bardot is caught in the middle.  The director, H. G. Clouzot, known for Les Diaboliques, The Wages of Fear, and Le Corbeau, doesn’t really distinguish himself, although the film does capture its time and place.

  

Jackie (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆

Jackie (2016) – P. Larraín

Less a portrait of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and more a flashbulb memory of trauma and grief, the film documents the hours and days following JFK’s assassination through the eyes of his widow.  Natalie Portman dominates the film as Jackie, seen in the motorcade, immediately afterward on Air Force One, in a subsequent interview with a journalist, talking with a priest (John Hurt), and negotiating the details of the funeral with Bobby (Peter Sarsgaard); Portman is by turns zombified, intense, cold, contradictory, and dignified.  A good performance.  But is she Jackie? (And is the script “true”?). It is hard for me to say given that the events in question took place four years before I was born. The entire JFK era seems a shadowy past that affected our parents deeply but could never really be grasped in the same way by my generation.  Replicating things here may be a triumph of period art direction/set decoration and mimicry, but the emotional weight of the specific event still seems elusive.  Instead, cued by the sombre and woozy music (verging on the psychodrama soundtrack), the generalized experience of trauma, death, and carrying on comes through more clearly.  And I guess, in some respects, that’s why everything seems a blur.

  

The White Sheik (1952)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The White Sheik (1952) – F. Fellini

Fellini’s first film is a comic fantasy that already shows signs of his penchant for unusual faces and detours from reality.  A newlywed couple travels from the provinces to Rome for their honeymoon, but unbeknownst to the husband (Leopoldo Trieste), his young wife (Brunella Bovo) has been writing to the photoplay magazine star, The White Sheik (played by Alberto Sordi), and immediately escapes to seek a meeting with her fangirl crush.  Of course, he turns out to be much less than imagined, although she is swept off her feet at first onto a photography set 26 km from Rome from whence it proves difficult to return.  At the same time, the husband has to make excuses to his uncle and aunt and extended family who had planned to take them to visit the Pope among other destinations. Trieste’s eyes bulge and he sweats profusely as he struggles to keep this secret under wraps.  Giulietta Masina has a cameo as Cabiria, a sympathetic prostitute (a character she would later play to acclaim in Nights of Cabiria, 1957).  The whole thing is short and sweet, funny and impossible without Nino Rota’s distinctive score (a definite preview of his later work with Fellini).  A great start to a masterful career. 

Gangs of New York (2002)

☆ ☆ ☆

Gangs of New York (2002) – M. Scorsese

Over-ripe.  I don’t want to be too tough on Martin Scorsese but he seems to have thrown everything he had at this film with the hope that it would dazzle.  There are numerous tracking shots through very expensive sets (1860s New York City recreated at Cinecitta in Rome), there are brand name actors (Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day Lewis, Cameron Diaz), there are well-known character actors (Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Brendan Gleeson, Liam Neeson, even David Hemmings), there is music by Howard Shore (and U2 over the end credits), there is cinematography by Michael Ballhaus (who worked with Fassbinder), and there is the editing by Thelma Schoonmaker (as usual) and there is the astounding production design by Dante Ferretti.  And yet, and yet, it is over-ripe and probably over-long.  Sure, there is a lot of money being splashed about and it shows:  the film looks gorgeous and the various stylistic flairs are commendable.  However, there may just be too much of everything.  The story that sees DiCaprio leaving the juvenile prison to revenge the death of his father (Neeson) at the hands of Bill the Butcher (Day Lewis), the crime lord of Five Points, feels flat. Perhaps it is Leonardo’s delivery (in voice-over narration) or his too-earnest acting that deadens things?  Cameron Diaz feels somehow miscast as a pickpocket love interest – has she been in a period film before?  Of course, Day Lewis commands the screen and all of the supporting cast are great.  So, it may just be the palpable effort being put into everything, the preponderance of slow-motion, rock’em-sock’em, battles to a grungy beat that feel rather cringe-worthy (and/or immediately dated), adding to the over-the-toppishness of it all, with Scorsese (and the Weinsteins) yearning to be appreciated for their impressiveness.  In the end, it’s a curio.    

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Return of the Living Dead (1985) – D. O’Bannon

I saw this sometime closer to its release date and Ayako reports that she saw it during its release in Japan.  We own the DVD but hadn’t put it on for a long time.  I never realized that it was directed by Dan O’Bannon (writer of Alien and Dark Star).  It is a superior zombie film, definitely of its time (1980s) with a number of punk rock characters and fashion and music to suit (not always punk but definitely 80s).  I think we can agree that this is a comedy rather than a horror film, although the action and effects are as aggressive and gory as anything you would see contemporaneously.  Unlike in George Romero’s classic films (Night of.., Dawn of…, and so on), these zombies move quickly and have a degree of intelligence (“Call More Paramedics!”).  The plot:  Two inept guys working at a medical supply warehouse accidentally spill some tin drums of military origin stored in the basement.  They release a gas which brings the dead back to life (and also infects them).  Unfortunately, the warehouse is located next to a huge cemetery.  Some punk kids are hanging out there.  The whole group escape to a nearby mortuary with the head of the medical supply company (Clu Gallagher) and attempt to defend themselves.  No real social commentary here (of the kind offered by Romero) but just some fast-paced gruesome fun with a light dose of cynicism (at the end). 

A Bay of Blood (1971)

☆ ☆ ½

A Bay of Blood (1971) – M. Bava

I keep hoping that I will find another good Mario Bava film.  There is a big cult around him but they seem to be primarily focused on Bava’s ability to stage a gruesome (and bloody) murder, rather than my interest in the creepy/spooky mises-en-scene he was able to create in such classics as I Vampiri (1957), Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), and even Planet of the Vampires (1965).  I suppose his success with Blood and Black Lace (1964), which saw fashion models in an elite agency picked off one by one, encouraged him in this direction.  A Bay of Blood is supposedly the progenitor of the slasher film, inspiring Friday the 13^th (1980) and apparently being ripped off directly in Friday the 13^th Part 2 (1981).  I wasn’t a big fan of that genre (although I did see Friday the 13^th Part III (1982) in the theatre in 3D), so why did I watch this?  I guess I am still hoping to find a clearer missing link between Bava the mentor and his protégé Dario Argento (who took the giallo form to higher heights with The Bird with Crystal Plumage and then creeped/grossed me out with Deep Red, Suspiria, and Inferno but has recently made nothing but crap).  Anyway, A Bay of Blood does capture some spooky feeling out there by the lake (I mean, bay) where a few lonely houses stand and Bava’s prowling camera peers at and stalks the cast.  An initial murder planned to spur an inheritance leads to a virtual killing spree (not all by the same murderer, it seems) and a lot of opportunities for Bava to go grand guignol (including with some young people who stumble into the action and get naked and dead).  But, in the end, I guess I’m telling you that late Bava doesn’t seem to be worth it -- unless you are a part of the gore cult (and I’m not).      

Hud (1963)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Hud (1963) – M. Ritt

The opening bars of Elmer Bernstein’s melancholy guitar theme and James Wong Howe’s exquisite black-and-white cinematography immediately put me in the mood for something special.  However, Martin Ritt’s version of Larry McMurtry’s novel wasn’t as compelling as I first hoped.  Sure, Paul Newman (already a star) offers up some brash method acting as the rancher’s wild son, Hud, unable or unwilling to care about anyone except himself, spending most of his time loaded and getting into trouble with other men’s wives. And Melvyn Douglas (a Hollywood stalwart since the 1930s) is solid as the widower rancher who can’t open his heart to his wayward son but has plenty of time for his grandson (Brandon De Wilde), who has naturally fallen under the sway of Hud.  Patricia Neal won an Oscar as the worldly family maid who attracts (possibly) unwanted attention from Hud, who can’t manage his impulses in an adult way.  In the background, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease threatens the ranch and the family’s way of life. So, this is character-driven drama rich with conflict -- but the arc of the story (straight down) and the fact that Hud is so damned unlikeable (not even pitiful once you know his backstory) makes it hard to enjoy.  The return of Bernstein’s guitars at the very end, when we know Hud is lost forever, didn’t quite reclaim the film for me.  I could imagine a better one with a less constricted protagonist but I ain’t from Texas.