Movie Update 25

Seems sometimes like all I do is watch movies. But that's not true.

Amarcord


One of two films by Federico Fellini I saw this weekend, and the first I've seen in color. It's more autobiographical than his other work that I've seen, and thus more prone to not actually having a plot. It shows the crisscrossing lives of many people living in a small Italian village over the course of about a year during Mussolini's time as dictator. It pokes a lot of fun at the politics at the time, when it's not just depicting small town living. It's a fairly amusing film, but it didn't really grab me. I'm not against simple slice of life stories, but for whatever reason I wasn't really drawn into this one. Nicely done, but not much impact.

Au Hasard Balthazar


A good way to depict suffering and cruelty is to inflict it on something that's completely innocent, and that's what Robert Bresson does in Balthazar. It shows the parallel lives of a young farm girl and her family's pet donkey, as they grow older and face the harsh realities of growing up and being subject to the whims of someone stronger than you. I focused mostly on the donkey, just because it's such a pitiable creature and it's hard to watch what people do to it just because they can. If you want a prime example of a foreign art house movie that shows what's wrong with humanity without hitting you over the head with it... well, here you are.

Rio Bravo


Rio Bravo was made as a response to High Noon, which some such as Bravo's star John Wayne saw as un-American. It has a similar premise of the sheriff of a small, dusty town facing the looming threat of a criminal preparing to come and cause trouble, but rather than asking the town he protects for help, he faces the threat head-on. Of course, he has a couple buddies who are even better with a gun than him, and in general the town just treats him better. I liked Rio Bravo about as much as High Noon. Its approach is different, but it's a more entertaining, if less intense Western. The cast is solid, and Howard Hawks' direction is spot on. I liked High Noon because it was different from most films of its type at the time, but there's value to something just being well made too.

Stagecoach


John Ford's first sound Western, and the breakthrough movie for John Wayne. Solid character actors like John Carradine and an Oscar-winning Thomas Mitchell appear as well in nice roles. A stagecoach tries to make it through Apache territory to a town where Wayne's Ringo Kid intends to face down the man who murdered his loved ones, but there's a marshal riding shotgun who wants none of it. Parts of the movie are a bit slow, including the ending, which took a bit too long to resolve all of its little plot threads. There's some really good stuff here though, with Ford's direction seeming to be ahead of its time. A long chase through the desert that makes the film's climax in particular is just a brilliantly done sequence, and is easily one of the best action scenes from the era. One of the most important movies in the genre.

La Strada


The other Fellini movie I saw, and my favorite work by him. It stars his wife Giulietta Masina again (or first, as this was made the year before Nights of Cabiria) as a slow but well meaning girl who gets sold by her mother to a traveling strongman after her sister who filled the same role dies. She shows obvious talent as a clown, but when the two join a circus and a conflict erupts between him and a fool, bad things start happening. It has a predictably morose ending, but the journey there is at times heartwarming and devastating. Comparisons have been made between Masina and Charlie Chaplin, and I definitely see it. She definitely has that physical comic sensibility, and her character is the naive sort that reminds you heavily of the Tramp. Really good performance, even if there's no scene as great as the end of Cabiria.

To Be or Not To Be


A comedy made during World War II, depicting a troupe of Polish theater actors that use their stage talents to try to sneak their way out of their city, which has been occupied by the Nazis. It's a delicate balance between making fun of Hitler and Germany without ignoring the truth of the situation, even if at the time the full extent of what they were doing wasn't known. Still, I think it works as a comedy and as something that could lift spirits in the face of a devastating war. Carole Lombard unfortunately died in a plane crash a couple months before this was released, but it would be a fitting final performance for just about anyone.

Movie Update 11B

I couldn't fit all the labels I wanted into one post yesterday, so here's even more movies. The label issue was so severe I couldn't even neatly divide the films into themes! Labels!

The Earrings of Madame de...


A fancy French movie about fancy French people. There's nothing really wrong with this movie, I just didn't find a whole lot to love about it. The cast is solid, including Vittorio De Sica as an Italian man that the leading lady falls in love with, who I know better as the director of The Bicycle Thief. This movie doesn't really have the power of that one, but tells the story of a married woman who becomes attached to a pair of earrings she sold after her lover buys them back for her. My favorite part was just the way the film played with the idea of never actually giving you her name. Otherwise, it's a nice little romantic drama, mostly worth the time it takes to watch.

High Noon


High Noon is sort of the 24 of the 1950s. I liked it a lot more than I really expected. It has a similar problem to the last Gary Cooper movie I saw, where he was too old for his love interest, in this case Grace Kelly before Alfred Hitchcock got to her. In this case it didn't really hurt the film though, because his character is more likable and the story isn't about their relationship. It's about a lawman ready to retire, but dragged back into conflict before he can, as the whole town seems to turn against him during his darkest hour. The film is mostly in real time, as everyone anticipates the arrival by train of a criminal he had originally put away, apparently back for vengeance. He tries to rustle up a posse, but doesn't get the support he anticipated, and there's a fantastic sense of concern and dread as he runs out of options while the clock slowly ticks towards his likely demise. It's a pretty realistic movie, with an ending that has heroism without being too dramatic or fantastic. One of my favorite Westerns.

The Rules of the Game


I'm not sure anyone from the 30s had a better idea of how to shoot a movie than Jean Renoir. This is another fancy French movie about fancy French movie, although it's one I found more to latch onto in. It's an ensemble piece about the fickle lives of aristocrats, as they bounce from lover to lover without realizing the pain they cause. Renoir himself is among the cast, and they do a solid job of quickly selling their relationships and setting up the entanglements that eventually lead to the surprising and effective ending. Pretty darn good movie.

Samurai Rebellion


This one just seemed a bit too slow to me. I love Masaki Kobayashi's work (unfortunately I'm already almost out of films he made that are actually available), but Rebellion wasn't quite up to the power of Harakiri or the breathless scope of The Human Condition. It actually probably has roughly the same pace as Harakiri, and might even be quicker. But that film was coated in a pervasive, almost oppressive tension that seemed likely to snap into chaos at any second, and while Rebellion has a sad story, there just isn't that feeling. Toshiro Mifune was probably getting a bit old at that point to carry a whole movie on charisma alone (though he still handles the swordplay well), and Tatsuya Nakadi does a lot with his few scenes, but the character he plays is intentionally pretty neutral. It's a solid, no-nonsense samurai film, one that could have benefited from being pushed a little in either a darker or more fun direction.