4films

a hitchcock film without suspense?

i just kept watching the film going…”that’s just ridiculous”. i mean the way that hannay gets out of trouble each time is so unbelievable that the film removes any sense of suspense because you know there’s no way that he’s ever going to be in any real danger. some really odd canted angles, some just awkward performance moments [i'm thinking specifically when the first spy dies and when the girl hannay gets handcuffed to is falling asleep. i mean no one rolls their head down and up then down and up when they're falling asleep!] keep this film from reaching “major”-hitchcock status. i did like the lead performance of richard hannay by robert donat. he had some truly hilarious moments and had pretty good chemistry with madeleine carroll.

let’s put aside the fact that i don’t buy any of the character motivations, the fact that hannay is able to escape from any situation and that the people chasing him fail to search the first places i would be checking if i was the chaser makes the film loose a lot of credibility. though how much blame should be placed on hitchcock or the screenwriter is up for grabs.

you can see hitchcock’s marks on the film. his patented wrong man thriller, the maguffin, it’s all there. it just doesn’t amount to the same amount of greatness of his later films. i don’t want to seem like i’m just hating on the film because i did enjoy it enough to recommend, it just seems easier to point out faults then compliment. the fact is, i’m a huge hitchcock fan, so there was enough here to interest me and hold my attention and make it an enjoyable experience

it’s lucky that this blog seems to coincide with a number of filmspotting message board marathons. we lined up on one or two films during hitchcock month and now again with the beginners french new wave. it helps me in the fact that i can mull over other listeners reviews and quantify my own response, and i think it’s easier to respond to someone else than come up with something off the top of my head (i’m a lazy writer like that).

i think you gotta view this film as a commentary on authority. i mean, the entire film we’re told (by authority) that antoine is a troubled child. that he is the one screwing up over and over again, but we are sympathetic towards his plight. we see situation after situation were the adults abuse their authority. where we a forced to almost laugh at how ridiculously they are acting. and we get very little commentary by truffaut on the subject. the one scene where we get a little bit of a nod is when antoine gets kicked out of his class for plagiarism, and his best friend rené follows suite. as rené is getting kicked out he actually talks back to the teacher, saying something to the extent of “this is illegal”.

antoine’s parents clearly have no idea how to handle the responsibility of parenthood. they complain because he gets on their nerves, they send him off to the police instead of trying to take responsibitly, and his mother clearly is not the shining example of how to lead a life. none of the adults in the film are. renés mothers a drunk, antoine’s mother is an adulterer, their school teacher abuses his power.

in response to a certain response to the film i have to completely disagree. i think the composition in this film is great (and if the dvd from the library would play on my laptop i would post some screencaps to defend my point). from a cinematography standpoint i don’t think you can criticize the film because of all the fantastic tracking shots and camera movement.

really enjoyed the film, and the french new wave continues not to disappoint us here at 4films.

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a few notes of importance

for may there will be no immediate schedule. i still have to catch up with 39 steps and 2001 and a few films before a final exam this friday. look for my match up in the 1990s bracket thingy of beautiful girls and kicking and screaming.  also be looking for possible reviews of iron man and indy 4……. just because.

i’m busy writing a final paper for my film history class and getting ready for finals (one week left!), so that’s why we haven’t seen write-ups on 400 blows and 39 steps. i just haven’t had time to watch anything that isn’t direct cinema. i will be getting to them, hopefully, so don’t fret. although i’m not sure anyone is even fretting.

in the meantime, watch this short film by david lynch from the film lumiére and company (we watched it in that film history class today)

after seeing alex’s site make-over, i was inspired to shake it up a little bit around these parts. it seems a little thin, but i like it’s simplicity. thin and tan. like me. sans the tan part.

firstly, i was shocked at how great and intricate the camera work was in this film. i haven’t seen a whole lot of new wave, but from what i remember about godard, camera work was not of great interest to him. i’m gonna go ahead and use a modern day basketball analogy to illustrate my point. godard was more like the golden state warriors and agnes varda (at least in cleo) is like the san antiono spurs. godard was more of a run and gun style of film making, while varda’s seems meticulously planned out. i mean that scene when cleo is buying the hat? amazing! i can’t exactly recall if it was one long take, but the mise en scene and composition are fantastic. it seems much more thought out than godard, and it is something that i can really admire.

(excuse this next paragraph as i try to comment on the film’s dealings with feminism. i am in no way an expert on the subject, nor do i really know what i’m talking about so take it with a grain of salt)

i also like the way varda deals with feminism in the film. contrasting cleo with women who seem, on the exterior at least, much more ambitious and self-reliant. the first time we see this is when cleo takes the cab ride with the female cabby. the cab driver tells the story about dealing with customers who don’t want to pay the fare, and how she isn’t afraid of who to pick up. contrasting that with cleo who is afraid of getting cancer, and to a greater extent loosing her beautiful appearance. also cleo with her friend who poses for the sculpting class. she has this sort of independence, self confidence, and freedom that cleo does not.

but now for what i had problems with. if you’ll recall and earlier post i had about the seventh seal, i said i thought bergman was the biggest pessimist the world has ever known; which i still think is somewhat true. i had a problem with this film because it seems to say that the world doesn’t care about people.  we get the scene when cleo goes into the cafe and plays one of her songs, then proceeds to strolls around the aisles waiting for someone to recognize her.  when she realizes that no one does or no one even cares, i feel like the film is generalizing this for the whole world.  that people don’t care about other people’s suffering.

but overall i think the film does stay away from trying to make any overt statements.  and just from a technical aspect, i think this film is a joy to watch (plus i feel like i’ve left out a great deal of things to discuss).

the exposition is great. i mean if you’re going to praise this film, that’s really the only thing you could praise because that’s pretty much all there is. exposition. or words or talking or discourse or discussion or chat or conversation or the exchange of ideas or dialogue or whatever (clearly i am a master of it as well). 11 men think the defendant is guilty, 1 does not. he then spends an hour and a half to try and convince all of them that they’re wrong.

the film runs then risk of becoming preachy because of that. one man trying to blind our preconceived notions about who this kid is or why we believe he is guilty, but we as an audience don’t really know who the defendant is (which i think is to the films advantage). we don’t have the same knowledge about the trial as the jurors do, so it’s not henry fonda trying to change our minds. we can be silent observers.

i love the way the film reveals information. the way we slowly go through each of the different jurors and see how their minds are being changed, and learn about their previous prejudices. the pacing is perfect as it feels like we spend an entire afternoon with these jurors when in fact it’s just over 90 minutes

all of the performances are great, and even though it’s 2008 i actually felt like i was living in the 50’s. the film does a great job of creating setting and tone without ever leaving the room.

lumet has definitely moved up my own personal ranks of best directors.

week of april 1:

twelve angry men by sidney lumet

i’ve had numerous people tell me i need to see it, and this was one that wasn’t even really on my radar.

week of april 7:

cléo from 5 to 7 by agnés varda

a little classic new wave

week of april 14:

the 400 blows by francois truffaut

continuing the new wave for another week

week of april 21:

the 39 steps by alfred hitchcock

one of those few hitchcock films i’ve left to see

week of april 28:

2001: a space odyssey

i’m not really looking forward to it. it seems like too much to undertake

this was my first exposure to the much revered federico fellini, and though it is widely considered his best work, i am not sure that it was the best place to start. initially, however, i was taken in by a few aspects of the film. firstly, i was awed by how smoothly the camera moved at times allowing me to believe it was actually stationary and everything around it was in motion. i loved the opening dream sequence as well, and i doubt i will ever forget the image of Guido’s foot tied to a string that leads down to the beach as if he was a kite.

that said, i was never fully engaged in the thoughts and fantasies of the filmmaker. i have had much difficulty trying to identify why i couldn’t commit myself to his emotional and intellectual journey, and i still don’t think i have an answer. i have no reason to fault the film for my response. rather, i am disappointed that i just didn’t ‘get it’ the first time around. i plan on revisiting it soon to remedy this travesty, and i sincerely hope that my reaction will be more favorable.

thanks everyone for sticking with the blog while i fill in for john. it has been great fun, and the only challenge was writing these posts with just lowercase letters, per his request.

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editor’s note:

thanks to alex, or basil as most of you have probably come to know him, for spearheading 4films for a month. i had a lot of schoolwork to do this past month so i haven’t had much time to watch movies (except those i’ve had to watch for school).

so thanks again, and if anyone is interested in taking over for a month i’d be more the happy to step aside and hand over control. just email or something.

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2nd editor’s note:

if all uppercase is shouting in type, then all lowercase must be a quite whisper. and i think it’s a nice change of pace than what is normally on the interwebs. all lowercase give creates a welcoming environment.

just recently, upon finishing sidney lumet’s great book making movies, did i begin to delve into the director’s oeuvre. i started with 12 angry men and followed it up shortly thereafter with network. i absolutely loved both of those films, particularly the former, so i was very anxious to watch dog day afternoon.

the film begins with a brief montage of images of new york city, which proves, by the film’s end, to be almost our only glimpse at the broader setting of the picture. it’s a perfect set-up, and, just moments later, we are sucked right into the robbery. this, along with the other two lumet films i have seen, is enough proof of his refusal to waste time at the beginning of his films. no motivations are yet understood, but it was so refreshing to not be dragged through scene after scene of exposition before finally getting to the heist.

al pacino is very good.

for the first hour, i was completely consumed by the film. however, when we finally learn why sonny is robbing the bank (even though i was familiar with the true story before beginning the film), the whole film lost a ton of momentum for me. the issue that arises is: can i blame the film when it is simply sticking to the true story on which it is based? well, i’m afraid i have to. the main problem is that lumet and screenwriter frank pierson relegate the sexual motivations of sonny to a diversion. only one quarter of the film directly deals with the love triangle of sonny, leon, and angie, and that just wasn’t enough for me to buy such a complex relationship.

still, i’m a sucker for heist films, so i really did enjoy the majority of the picture. lumet just doesn’t quite pull off all the intricacies of the story.

peter bogdanovich, in an introduction to this film, called it one of the greatest non-auteur films ever made. let’s be frank here pete, this is quite simply one of the greatest films of any kind ever made. i was so awed by every aspect of it - the plotting, the beautiful cinematography, the brilliant score, and just about every single performance.

i don’t know much about carol reed, but what he achieves in this film is enough to make me seek out his other works. to start with, every single image is packed with meaning and information. each frame, particularly prior to harry lime’s first appearance, is just a little bit off, either in terms of lighting or balance. this serves as a constant reminder that there is something not quite right about the information that has been provided to us thus far.

this is not to mention the score, which is both alarmingly unique and tonally perfect. i’m not sure i’ll get the music out of my head for the next several days, and i expect that it’ll be the first thing that comes to mind when i think of the film hereafter. just as there is not a single missed frame, i don’t think anton karas’ score misses a single beat.

lastly, the performances are incredibly cohesive, particularly those of joseph cotten (who i loved in hitchcock’s shadow of a doubt) with old friend orson welles (with whom he appeared in citizen kane). then of course, there’s anna schmidt (credited as valli), whose wonderful performance was mimicked to great effect by cate blanchett in soderbergh’s the good german.

this is a film i can’t wait to watch again, likely with one of the many commentaries available. it is also one that is considered to contain among the greatest entrances and endings of all time, two honors with which i would not disagree.