Gsc films e-m the Eagle
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СодержаниеThe Little Princess The Little Princess Lives of a Bengal Lancer Lola Rennt The Long Goodbye Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity |
- Gold Circle Films представляют фильм компании Integrated Films. О фильме история США, 1307.29kb.
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The Little Princess 1917 4.0 Mary Pickford; scenario by Francis Marion. Totally adorable, sentimental classic tale about girl from India (British) sent off to boarding school in London and then orphaned. Good production although we tire of the 20 minute version of ‘Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves’ set in the middle to illustrate Sarah’s story telling prowess. Already fairly sophisticated editing including close-ups to take advantage of MP’s adorable face (e.g., when father and daughter take leave of one another), animation to show imagination (the dolls are playing) of MP, etc. Much ado about friendship between rich girl and poor servant (Zazu Pitts), who is also pretty adorable. Pickford outstanding in her relationship to camera. She is gay, sprightly, and the joyous center of attention; compassionate, understanding, generous; strong-willed, persevering and brave when things turn against her; excellent imagination and story-telling abilities; sensitive to the feelings of others. Some implicit critique of society – headmistress treats her with respect so long as she thinks family is rich, but turns into evil stepmother image as soon as she learns that the family is broke. Obvious relation to Cinderella with Sarah slaving and mistreated in the house until she is finally rescued by the kindly man next door (who provides secret Christmas dinner!) and his Indian servant. Movie is moralistic with advice about kindness, character, fairness between classes, etc. Great star vehicle written by Frances Marion for her friend Mary Pickford.
The Little Princess 1939 Walter Lang 3.0 Shirley Temple, Arthur Treacher, Mary Nash, Ian Hunter. Pretty good rendition of Mary Pickford’s movie, manipulated to suit Shirley Temple (her last successful childhood movie). Shot in early Technicolor! Several changes brought in: syrupy romance between supportive female teacher and her sweet, faithful, devoted boyfriend; Mrs. Minchin has vaudeville experienced brother, who supports Sarah and dances when appropriate; role of the servant girl friend is much reduced. Father is reported dead fighting against the Boers in South Africa (it’s 1899; the film is pro-British patriotic, reflecting the contemporary international crisis), but 20c Fox provides happy ending by having him turn up wounded in a London military hospital; he is amnesiac, but snaps back when he finally sees his beloved Sarah. Nash very good as Mrs. Minchin, who is cruel beyond necessity and credibility, but audience loves despising her and rooting for adorable Shirley/Sarah. Lots of suspense at end – Sarah escaping from police and Minchin as she runs through London streets; will father recognize her and respond? Well portrayed Queen Victoria appears endearingly at end and plays small role in helping Sarah to find her father. Effective sentimental touches all the way through. Temple is very gifted as performer – song, energetic dance, big smile, always boisterously upbeat. Film is more an entertaining show than the more searching comedy dramas of Mary Pickford. 1940s audiences who were familiar with Temple movies transferred many of their characteristics to Pickford films without having seen the latter. Pretty good show!
Lives of a Bengal Lancer 1935 Henry Hathaway (Paramount) 3.5 Gary Cooper not terribly underacting as rather arrogant and outspoken Canadian (so he doesn’t have to speak British) lieutenant in the Bengal Lancers guarding 300 million Indians from the depredations of the Afghanis, Franchot Tone as wise-guy new lieutenant who has adversarial relationship with Cooper until of course the going gets tough, Richard Cromwell as the son of the commanding Colonel, Sir Guy Standing charming and yet uptight and “ramrod” stiff as the commander of the Bengal Lancers regiment, C. Aubrey Smith as the more humane and understanding Major second in command, Douglas Dumbrille pretty heavily made up as the often sneering and over-confident adversary, Muhammad Khan. Stiff upper lip adventure film, handsomely produced with impeccable costumes, realistic location shots, blending of high quality studio shots with the location shots, vast interiors when visiting Oriental potentates, atmospheric scenes in tents when the men lounge around smoking and kidding around, etc. Ends as adventure movie since the three boys have to maneuver and sneak in disguise into the camp of the adversary to defeat a mortal threat to the regiment and to India; ending battle is well choreographed. Quite pro-British, as the British soldiers are presented as defenders of India and of the British Empire against its enemies. Col. Stone may be excessively stiff and spit and polish, but his is the devotion to duty that has made the British Empire what it is. Film follows the four major characters, their issues and relationships. Cooper is the mentor of the two younger men; he is killed in the final engagement. Tone is wise-acre new lieutenant, whose relationship with Cooper is at first prickly, but they warm to one another, and of course hang together in the final confrontation. Young Stone looks like a pre-adolescent, his face is so smooth; he has difficult oedipal issues with his father – he can’t understand why his father can’t be human and show some affection – and he momentarily betrays the regiment when tortured (burning bamboo shoots under the fingernails!), but Tone keeps the secret, and in the final scene, all three men are decorated (Cooper posthumously), and Dad is obviously proud of Junior. One rather sexy lady (Russian spy married to Muhammad Khan), but no sex to censor. An extremely classy, high quality production; you have to be able to take Cooper’s dead-pan enunciation.
The Lives of Others 2006 Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Germany) 4.0 Ulrich Mühe convincing as East German Stasi captain that has a human heart after all; Sebastian Koch as (apparently) loyal writer watched by Mühe; Martina Gedeck as Koch's girlfriend, who is much less loyal to him than she leads us to believe. Beautiful, moving, dramatic film depicting the operations of the infamous Stasi in East Germany, and the progress of a mid-level Stasi officer toward humanity under the impact of observing love (well.) and experiencing art. Wonderful narrative: Muhe begins his surveillance of the writer, but it turns out that it was ordered by a minister to eliminate the writer so that he could have his girlfriend; in the course of the surveillance Muhe observes people loving, living, fighting, etc. and the lives of artists and writers (including the performance of a modernist piano piece composed for the film); he then falsifies reports to keep from incriminating his subjects; eventually his cover is blown by a complicated series of events and he saves the writer from incrimination by moving the typewriter from under the floorboard, and he is demoted to a menial job in the basement of Stasi headquarters; after the Berlin Wall comes down, Koch writes a story about his "guardian angel"; and film ends with Muhe opening the book in a bookstore and reading the dedication of the book to himself. The film depicts the various possible responses to the Stasi tyranny: the tactical acceptance of the writer while he maintains a certain independence in his heart; the actress who literally sells herself to the devil for success (has reluctant sex with the dog-like minister, and eventually turns her lover into the police); and the dramatic heart of the film, Stasi Captain Wiesler, who sacrifices his career out of his conversion to beauty and his conviction that people should be allowed to live their lives in peace and dignity. All performances are excellent, the most moving being Muhe, whose impassive face subtly reveals his inner journey. The Stasi, while repressive, seems to follow procedures, and compared to the KGB, e.g., intimidates people by letting them know they are watched and ruining their careers rather than sending them off to death camps. Cinematography is interesting -- filmed in muted colors (without true reds and blues) giving the DDR a more attractive sheen than the dirty, peeling, tattered reality. Remarkable first film by the director.
Lola Montes 1955 Max Ophuls (Germany) 3.5 Martine Carol as sort of kewpie doll version of Lola, impassible as men and adventures pass through her life; Anton Walbrook as the old, nearly deaf, and quite lovable old king of Bavaria (Ludwig?) who becomes attached to Lola and thus sets off the Revolution of 1848 in Bavaria; a young Oskar Werner as a student lover of Lola - he saves her from the fury of the mob in 1848; Peter Ustinov as circus announcer, cracks his whip, talks under his breath, and refers obliquely to his own amorous intentions toward her. Lush, romantic, dreamy vision of the life of the infamous Lola Montes. Set in an American circus whose only feature is the scandalous and fascinating Lola Montes, now escaped from Europe trying to make a living in the USA; Ustinov presents her life in tableaux vivants in the circus that often fade to flashbacks of her experiences with various lovers (Franz Liszt, a drunken English gentleman, mad King Ludwig, and the student Oskar Werner) and the development of her entertainment career. The Bavarian king is very endearing with his regal bearing, his unassuming ways, his hard of hearing (invoked in comic moments), and his devotion to Lola, even in adversity. The camera and the editing are elegant, flowing – cutting from the circus activity to the flashbacks, the camera gliding gracefully, especially when the teenage Lola is being shunted off to the side by her mother who is having an affair with an Indian officer, the camera craning from the floor up and then back down as it follows the progress of characters on various levels of the theater or of the palace of the King of Bavaria; the latter scene has Lola ripping off her bodice to make a point to the king, and then the servants running through the palace corridors to find needle and thread to sew it up again. Color is very rich and saturated (Eastmancolor to the max), and Ophuls fills the soundtrack with nostalgic, wistful waltz music again suggesting the passing of a much regretted epoch. Film is in a sense a commentary on the sad emptiness of romance; Lola seeks it outside the institutions of marriage, and her whole life is a path downhill toward obscurity, unfulfillment, and unhappiness in the circus under Ustinov’s whip, where men may visit with her in the lion’s cage for only a dollar. Perhaps the film is even more focused on the cult of celebrity: as Ustinov tells Lola in a flashback, “Le talent ne m’intéresse pas,” he is interested in sex, beauty and scandal; people come to see Lola because she is so scandalous (like the time she climbed through the spectators’ seats to give back to the wife the rings that a man had given her – he had told Lola he wasn’t married), not because of her indifferent performance of the flamenco dance. Lola never settles for long, “For me, life is movement;” at the end when she escapes from Munich, she says “c’est tout fini.” Romantic wistfulness a bit over the top, and film comes across as a bit light weight; but it has a great sense of style.
Lola Rennt 1998 Tom Tykwer (Germany) 3.0 Frank Potente cute, punky, and in good running shape with orange hair – starting from her parents house she has 20 minutes to find 100,000 DM to bail her devoted boyfriend out of trouble with the German mafia in Berlin; young Moritz Bleibtreu is waiting for Franka (Lola) in a phone booth outside a grocery store, which he threatens to rob unless she shows up with the money on time! Puzzling, dynamic, fast-moving film that does not appear to have a thematic point, but which presents alternative scenarios of fast-moving events. In each of three scenarios (20 minutes each – the film lasts only 80 minutes), Lola literally and indefatigably runs through several situations – (animated) encountering a man and his snarly dog on the way down the stairs, a meeting with her father, running in front of a car driven by one of her father’s friends, bumping into a lady pushing a baby carriage, an encounter (perhaps) with the street person that lifted the money from Bleibtreu in the first place, crashing through a large pane of glass being carried by four workmen across the street, and then finally to the place in the city where the boyfriend is supposed to be waiting for her. The first time she arrives too late, he robs the store, and she is shot down by the police; the second time she arrives in time to stop him from going in, but he is immediately run down by an ambulance; the third time the both get a lot of money (he by chasing down the street person, she by winning two huge bets in a casino), the boyfriend pays off the hood, and the two walk off hand in hand to live happily ever after. Entertaining to run by or into a character and have a rapidly edited sequence show in a few seconds what the future holds in store for him, and to have that different for every scenario (e.g., does the lady with the baby carriage end up in an old folks home or does she win the lottery with her husband?). The film is full of surprises, playing with contingency – how little changes in events (e.g., arriving a few seconds later or earlier) can lead to radically different outcomes. About the only emotional hook is concern for the well-being of the cute, young couple – we are really sad when it appears that Franka or her boyfriend have been killed and we are delighted when they have little lovers’ discussions about contingency in bed.
Lolita 1961 Stanley Kubrick (wr. Vladimir Nabokov) 2.5 James Mason as a suave but obsessed European Humbert Humbert; Sue Lyon as little vixen a couple of years too old to be a true nymphet; Shelly Winters in fine form and often over-the-top as the sex- and affection-starved mother of Lolita; Peter Sellars in incomprehensible role as Mason’s nemesis, Clare Quilty, who is also in lust with Lolita. Very famous Kubrick adaptation of the Nabokov novel that has its good moments but fails overall because of its tonal inconsistency. It seems that Kubrick knew that the Hayes Office censors would butcher the film; so he secured from the author of the novel a screenplay that is not faithful to the original. To begin with, Lyon is too old to play the marginally pre-adolescent nymphet that Humbert lusts after in the novel; and the novel thereby loses some of its titillating, scandalous character – now it is about an (impossible) love affair between a teenager and an older man. In addition, while the film does focus on the disastrous development of the relationship, the sexual aspect of it is kept underground (the most titillating scene is the one in which Lolita gets out of bed and after playing with Mason’s beard, suggests that they “play a game” she learned at summer camp), thus depriving the storyline of much of its power. Much of the film’s focus is satirical, some of which is amusing: the shrill, motor mouthed, sex-starved housewife; American social mores – the community dance, the police convention in a New England hotel, the moralistic prejudices of the neighbors, and the attempts of the school to put Lolita on the right track; the clean-looking lines of 50s architectural and commercial design. Sellars performance is often hilarious, particularly when the Quilty character disguises himself as a Germanic accented school psychoanalyst to manipulate Mason into allowing his “daughter” to participate in the school play (so that Sellars could seduce her). On the other hand, the character is too buffoonish and outlandish to make any dramatic – or even comedic – sense; every time he pops into view the story’s development comes to a standstill, and the viewer is aware that he is just watching a comic shtick. The screenplay also places Humbert’s murder scene at the beginning of the film apparently to let the audience know that in keeping with the strictures of the Hayes Code, such immoral behavior that follows will not go unpunished. The first half of the overly long film (2.5 hours) is amusing and intriguing, but the second half, which focuses on Humbert’s road to perdition, is tedious and repetitive despite Mason’s constant look of pain and terror. When we encounter Lolita pregnant living in a modest home and we read that Mason dies of a heart attack after he kills Quilty, we are just glad the film is over. Some wonderful camera work, especially the scene in which Lolita runs up the stairs in her multiple petticoats to kiss Mason goodbye. The story needs more consistent focus – and more sex – to be successful.
The Long Goodbye 1973 Robert Altman 3.0 Elliot Gould as mellow mumbling, sometimes befuddled, sometimes proactive Philip Marlowe working in LA about 30 years after his time; Nina Van Pallandt as very neat Malibu earth mother; Sterling Hayden in bigger than life, perhaps John Huston-influenced, performance of Pallandt’s husband on the verge of insanity; Henry Gibson as a wimpish psychiatrist-crook; Mark Rydell as an over-the-top gangster played mostly for laughs; Arnold Schwarzenegger uncredited showing his huge pectorals toward the end. Sometimes hard to fathom update of the Raymond Chandler detective genre. Gould is alone; he has no girlfriend but cares only about his cat, whom he can never find; he is very laid back and perplexed by his surroundings, but he has a strong sense of honor and loyalty – he won’t give up in trying to find out what happened to his friend Terry, who apparently committed suicide in Mexico; but when he finds out that Terry is still alive in Mexico (nice con pulled off by Terry with the cooperation of the Mexican town authorities) and that he murdered his wife, Marlowe shoots him square in the chest and he falls backward into the water – end of film! The narrative meanders a lot in classic Altman style – we linger in an elite psychiatric hospital with the fatuous Henry Gibson, we find out a lot about Pallandt’s and Hayden’s relationship, we enjoy the goofball antics of Rydell’s goons (at one point he tells everyone to take off their clothes, but one of the strong men won’t because he has “too many scars”, and Rydell excuses him); and a possible defect of the script is that we don’t learn enough about the film’s key relationships – between Terry and his wife and the Pallandt-Hayden couple – to tease us as the story advances and to enable the flash of enlightenment at the end to be effective. It turns out that Terry and Nina have been plotting all along to get rid of his wife and Hayden so they can live happily ever after in Mexico. The LA scene in the early 70s is rendered with a lot of color and detail: Gould lives in a bizarre apartment complex on top of a hill near the Hollywood Bowl; his neighbors are a gaggle of five pretty lesbians (?) who eat hashish brownies and do yoga half naked on their balcony; the scenes in Malibu are bright, sunny, and relaxed. Filming and editing sometimes seem awkward and haphazard: Altman uses a lot of open long shots with minimal editing and too many zooms when he “should” have been using a tracking camera or editing; one has the impression that the film could have been cut about 10 minutes. Fun movie to watch; it is not one of Altman’s masterpieces.
Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity 2002 Mina Shum (Canada) 3.0 Sandra Ho charming and credible as single mother in Vancouver struggling to make ends meet; Valerie Tian totally adorable as her 12-year-old daughter, who is resorting to Chinese spells and magic to get her mother to fall in love with a man she works with; Ric Young as nerdy butcher, who can think only of his duties to his father and not “losing face”; Chang Tseng as older man Shuck who loses his job as a security job in a local business. Sometimes charming film about the trials and travails of two generations of immigrant Chinese families living in Vancouver’s Chinatown. It follows three story lines: the efforts of Tian to influence her mother – largely through spells and potions – to fall in love with and marry a man who is obviously smitten with her; Young as butcher who is imprisoned by the code of Chinese paternal respect and who is constantly pretending that he has a good and respectful relationship with his father who lives in Hong Kong; Shuck is happily married, but he can’t make himself admit to his nice-looking, loyal wife (Christian Ma) that he has lost his job. The film script explores father-son relationships in Chinese-Canadian families (some of the scenes between Ric Young and his son, who is secretly studying to become a Buddhist monk, try one’s patience); the difficulty of making a good life in the New World (primarily Oh’s financial travails and Shuck’s unemployment); rampant gossiping among Chinese women; the differences between the immigrant generation and their children born in Canada (primarily Young and his son). The film is also in part an engaging romantic comedy: the viewer is very pleased when Oh resists a nerd’s marriage proposal and then drops her guard against her young, nice-looking restaurant co-worker – the last scene has mother, daughter and presumably future husband sharing a barbecue. A nice sense of humor in several places – e.g., when Tian’s magic spell goes awry and two men fall in love with one another. The style is partly realistic and partly semi-magical realism. Many members of the community – including the determined Tian – resort to handbooks on Chinese magical spells; she finally turns to a woman, who for $20 will give you a vial of liquid that is a powerful love potion. The film’s attitude toward Chinese superstition is ambiguous, since some plot elements are resolved naturalistically and some as a result of magic, whose operation is accompanied by pixie dust music on the soundtrack. First part of film has one wondering whether it is incompetently serious or a comedy, but there are several charming scenes toward the end.
Lorna 1964 Russ Meyer 2.5 Lorna Maitland as not very pretty, large-breasted newlywed in California Delta town, who is not sexually satisfied by her husband; Hal Hopper as the ugly, lustful Luther, who will taunt Lorna’s husband if Luther can’t have her himself; a cast of unknowns including actors who played the husband, Jim, and the convict rapist. Famous soft porn Meyer film masquerading as a moralistic drama. Story focuses on Lorna’s sexual frustration; she is “liberated” by being raped by an escaped convict, and then obediently snuggles with her lover in her husband’s bed until Jim, the husband, comes home. Not at all pornographic – no explicit sexual activity, and we see Lorna’s famous body in only one skinny-dipping scene just before the rape. All the sexual longing and jealousy is overshadowed by moralistic forces throughout the film: it begins with the Man of God confronting us on a country road and quoting liberally from the Old Testament to denounce immorality; the film ends with a fight between the convict and Jim, which causes the death of the Convict and Lorna; and then the Man of God returns again to tell the viewer that sexual immorality will always end in destruction and suffering. Some of the black and white cinematography of Locke, California and natural surroundings is picturesque, and Meyer as usual uses a lot of distracting, aggressive cutting. Actors often show their lack of experience in film; Lorna herself is barely adequate. Interesting primarily for looking inside the mind of Meyer and the early 60s American males that he is appealing to: what matters in a woman is large, exposed breasts; all women are on the prowl for sexual satisfaction, and if a man gives it to them even through rape, they are awakened; Meyer will go to extremes to cover the true subject of his films (adolescent sexual yearnings) with moralistic judgments that seem ridiculous forty five years later. Excellent shots of Sacramento Delta towns, Walnut Grove and Locke in the early 1960s.