skimpole

Three movies this week: Tortilla Flat was clearly the worst, offensive in its sentimental and shallow treatment of the California poor. It shows no real insight into its Mexican characters, and it's kind of insulting. Eden is about a French DJ playing electronic movie who spends years making little progress, going from woman to woman, having a cocaine problem, and slowly running out of money. The previous movie I saw by the director, Goodbye, First Love did not leave much of an impression on me, and this didn't either. It's like a very responsible and very dull version of Boogie Nights. By contrast, Street Angel was actually a rather touching and moving film. It's certainly one of the better movies to win a Best Actress oscar.

Actor Henry Fonda, 12 Angry Men Victor Sjostrom, Wild Strawberries Burt Lancaster, The Sweet Smell of Success Toshiro Mifune, Throne of Blood Max von Sydow, The Seventh Seal Runner-ups: Tony Curtis (The Sweet Smell of Success), Charles Chaplin (A King in New York), Marcello Mastroianni (White Nights), Cary Grant (An Affair to Remember), Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution), Richard Burton (Bitter Victory), Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai), Curt Jurgens (Bitter Victory), Andy Griffith (A Face in the Crowd), Kirk Douglas (Paths of Glory), Fred Astaire (Silk Stockings), William Holden (The Bridge on the River Kwai), Fred Astaire (Funny Face), Elvis Presley (Jailhouse Rock), Actress Giulietta Masina, Nights of Cabiria Deborah Kerr, An Affair to Remember Maria Schell, White Nights Cyd Charisse, Silk Stockings Audrey Hepburn, Funny Face Runner-ups: Patricia Neal (A Face in the Crowd), Barbara Stanwyck (Forty Guns), Nargis (Mother India), Mala Sinha (Pyassa) , Supporting Actor Gunnar Bjornstrand, The Seventh Seal Lee J. Cobb, 12 Angry Men Adolphe Menjou, Paths of Glory Bengt Ekerot, The Seventh Seal Robert Stack, The Tarnished Angels Runner-ups: E.G. Marshall, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, Martin Balsam (12 Angry Men), George Macready, Timothy Carey (Paths of Glory), Nils Poppe, Ake Fridell (The Seventh Seal), Red Buttons (Sayonara) Supporting Actress Isuzu Yamada, Throne of Blood Bibi Andersson, The Seventh Seal Ingrid Thulin, Wild Strawberries Elsa Lanchester, Witness for the Prosecution Isuzu Yamada, Tokyo Twilight Runner-ups: Bibi Andersson (Wild Strawberries), Inga Gill (The Seventh Seal), Marlene Dietrich (Witness for the Prosecution) Janis Paige (Silk Stockings) Not seen: Peyton Place, Wild is the Wind, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, Raintree Country, A Farewell to Arms, The Bachelor Party ------There are many actors who won't win a nomination. Tony Curtis is in the dubious position of being one who is twice overshadowed by his own co-star. ------On the other hand, after five runner-ups Burt Lancaster finally gets a nomination. We'll see more of him in the future.

I want to say more about my choice for best actor this year, David Niven in Around the World in Eighty Days. It's certainly not an obvious choice, since Niven wasn't even nominated that year, while the movie itself is one of the most unpopular of best picture winners. Generally, it's seen as an overblown crowd pleaser. However, this is one of my favorite Best Pictures. This may partly be due to the fact that this was my favorite book when I was ten years old, but it has a great script filled with dry wit, it has many interesting and exciting incidents, and one of the best Saul Bass title sequences. And it also has David Niven. Niven himself in turn is not one of the most admired actors to actually win Best Actor. And understandably so, since Separate Tables is by no means a particularly good movie. Niven is in retrospect seen as a charming, somewhat lightweight actor, not really in the first class. Charm, and a sense of humour, are underrated qualities among Oscar voters, who often prefer the portentous and pompous to the genuinely witty. It's interesting to compare Niven with John Wayne, who I thought would be doing slightly better this year. Niven's screen career had him representing a certain kind of Englishness, while Wayne, of course, presented a certain idea of America. Niven's Englishness was usually higher class, often explicitly aristocratic (A Matter of Life and Death being an important exception.) And Phileas Fogg is a French caricature of a time obsessed Englishman. This makes my preference for Niven in contrast to The Searchers, now one of the most admired films of all time, appears more eccentric, if not genuinely weird. I would argue that while Wayne's performance is certainly rich and complex, it can't ultimately be considered one of the great acting performances, and ultimately The Searchers can't be considered one of the greatest of all movies. Much of its complexity ultimately seems like a trick. More intelligent viewers can see Ethan Edwards darkness foretold from the beginning of the film, while Wayne's less intelligent fans can see a more conventional hero who is forced to go a little too far because of the shock of the murder of his family. Nor do I think the climax works, because I never believed that Edwards would murder his niece. Other actors could have pulled it off: Stewart, Cooper, Widmark (well duh obviously). Nor, ultimately is the obsession in miscegenation quite correct. Julius Streicher and Robert Ley worked themselves into a frenzy at the thought that Ginger Rogers or Diane Keaton had been touched by a Jew. But they're not the reason the Holocaust happened. Rage at black and Indian men is one thing, but it doesn't explain the cruelty to black and Indian women. So with that in mind, let's go back to Niven. His character is supremely calm and competent, dealing with a number of remarkable, often alarming situations, with perfect sang-froid. Nor does he ever feel the need to remind people of his this. There is nothing ostentatious in his manner, as there often isn't with true virtue. When the balloon gently passes by a mountain so his valet can get some snow to cool the champagne, he is perfectly charming. One can believe that he would master ballooning in a few minutes, despite having never been near one in his life. He need not be perfect, but he is far stronger than a superficial look would suggest.

Week of February 25, 2018-March 3, 2018 SOTM: Juliette Binoche The Essentials: A Woman under the Influence (1974) Silent Sunday Nights: Bed and Sofa (1927) TCM Imports: By the Bluest of Seas (1936), Jules and Jim (1962) Special Monthly Spotlight: The Cinema of the Nineties TCM Undergound: Zvenigora (1928), Zorns Lemma (1970) Premieres The Devil in the Flesh (1947) L'Enfant Secret (1982) Full Metal Jacket (1987) Little Women (1994) Portrait of a Lady (1996) The Apple (1998) Quai des Orfevres (1947) Quadrophenia (1979) L'Amour Fou (1969) The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) Mauvais Sang (1986) Certified Copy (2010) Exempt Premieres The Killers (1964) (Quote Exempt) The Mattei Affair (1972) (Quote Exempt) Illustrious Corpses (1976) (Quote Exempt) The Valley of the Bees (1968) (Nationality Exempt) Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) (Nationality Exempt) Distant Journey (1949) (Nationality Exempt) Bed and Sofa (1927) (Silent) By the Bluest of Seas (TCM Import) Zvenigora (Underground) Zorns Lemma (Underground) Breakdown 1910s: 1 1920s: 7 1930s: 13 1940s: 11 1950s: 15 1960s: 16 1970s: 10 1980s: 6 1990s: 7 2010s: 1 Sunday includes all three of the Casablanca challenges with five movies about corruption, four movies about Victor Laszlo's Czechoslovakia, and five movies about love triangles. Of special notice is The Valley of the Bees, the follow up to Frantisek Vlacil's Marketa Lazarova, as well as Distant Journey, one of the first movies about the Holocaust. Monday starts off an alphabet themed six days. Monday also celebrates Betty Hutton's birthday. The Es in particular emphasize three aspects of the erotic: sensuality (The Earrings of Madame De), compelling power (L'Enfant Secret) and skinny-dipping (Ecstasy). Among Tuesday's movies H stands for three movies about damaged homes. One is cursed with a kidnapping, the other two are in far worse shape. L stands for liebestod, love to the point of the death, with four sinister, and three lethal, love stories. Wednesday celebrates Vincente Minnelli's birthday with seven of his MGM Musicals. Wednesday evening looks at the cinema of the nineties with five movies directed by women. Thursday starts with three movies that emphasize O. The R movie celebrates the birthday of Jacques Rivette, who was born on March 1, at least in my time zone. Friday we see star of the month Juliette Binoche, whose birthday is the 9th.

Sunday, February 25, 2016 Casablanca Challenge#1 Quote: 'Make it ten. I'm only a poor corrupt official." Corruption and Movies 06:00 AM The Great McGinty (1940) Paramount BW-82 min Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff D: Preston Sturges P/S 07:30 AM I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) Warner Bros BW-93 min Paul Muni, Brenda Farrell, D: Mervyn LeRoy P/S 09:15 AM The Killers (1964) Universal C-93 min Ronald Reagan, Angie Dickinson, Lee Marvin D: Don Siegel Quote EXEMPT 11:00 AM The Mattei Affair (1972) Paramount C-116 min Gian Maria Volonte, Luigi Squarzina D: Francesco Rosi Quote EXEMPT 01:00 PM Illustrious Corpses (1976) Les Productions Artistes Assoices C-127 min Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro D: Francesco Rosi Quote EXEMPT Casablanca Challenge #2 Czech it out: Victor Laszlo's Czechoslovakia 03:15 PM The Valley of the Bees (1968) Filmove Studio Barradnov BW-97 min Petr Cepek, Jan Kacer, Vera Galitikova D: Frantisek Vlacil Nationality EXEMPT 05:00 PM Daisies (1966) Filmove Studio Barrandov C-76 min Ivana Karbanova, Jitka Cerhova D; Vera Chytilova P/S 06:30 PM Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) C-85 min Petr Meissel, Gabriela Wilhelmova D: Jan Svankmajer Nationality EXEMPT 08:00 PM Distant Journey (1949) Ceskoslovensky Statni Film BW-108 min Blanka Waleska, Otomar Krejca D: Alfred Radok Nationality EXEMPT Casablanca Challenge #3 Love Triangles 10:00 PM Design for Living (1933) Paramount BW-91 min Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper, Frederic March D: Ernst Lubitsch P/S 11:45 PM Three Comrades (1938) MGM BW-100 min Margaret Sullavan, Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, D: Frank Borzage P/S 01:30 AM (Silent) Bed and Sofa (1927) Sovinko Studio BW-75 min Lyudmila Semyonova, Nikola Batalov, Vladimir Fogel D: Abram Room EXEMPT 03:00 AM (Foreign) By the Bluest of Seas (1936) Azerfilm BW-72 min Yelena Kuzmina, Nikolai Kryuchkov, Lev Sverdlin D: Boris Barnet EXEMPT 04:15 AM (Foreign) Jules et Jim (1962) SEDIF BW-104 min Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre D; Francois Truffaut P/S AN ALPHABET OF GREAT MOVIES Monday, February 26, 2018 A is for Amazing, Amusing and Audacious 06:00 AM Absolute Beginners (1986) Orion C-108 min Eddie O'Connell, Patsy Kensit, David Bowie D: Julian Temple P/S 08:00 AM Airplane! (1980) Paramount C-88 min Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen D: Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker P/S B is for Birthday Girl Betty Hutton 09:30 AM The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) Paramount BW-99 min Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken D: Preston Sturges P/S 11:15 AM Annie Get Your Gun (1950) MGM C-107 min Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, Louis Calhern D: George Sidney P/S C is for Chilling 01:15 PM The Conformist (1970) Mars Film C-111 min Jean-Louis Tritrignant, Dominque Sanda D: Bernardo Bertolucci P/S 03:15 PM The Confession (1970) Valoria War C-139 min Yvest Montand, Simone Signoret, Gabriele Ferzetti D: Costa-Gavras P/S 05:45 PM The Collector (1965) Columbia C-121 min Terrence Stamp, Samantha Eggar D: William Wyler P/S D is for Desire 08:00 PM Devil in the Flesh (1947) Transcontinental Films BW-125 min Micheline Presle, Gerard Philipe D: Claude Autant-Lara Premiere#1 E is for the Erotic 10:15 PM The Earrings of Madame de... (1953) Gaumont BW-105 min Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer, Vittorio De Sica D: Max Ophuls P/S 12:15 AM L'Enfant Secret (1982) Gerick Films BW-92 min Anna Wiazemsky , Henri de Maublanc D: Philippe Garrel Premiere #2 02:00 AM Ecstasy (1933) Elektafilm BW-87 min Aribert Mog, Hedy Lamarr D: Gustav Machaty P/S F is for Force 03:30 AM Full Metal Jacket (1987) Warner Bros C-116 min Matthew Modine, R. Lee Emery, Adam Baldwin D: Stanley Kubrick Premiere#3 Tuesday, February 27, 2018 G is for Gumption 05:30 AM The Gold Rush (1925) United Artists BW-82 min Charles Chaplin, Georgia Hale D: Charles Chaplin P/S, 07:00 AM The General (1926) Buster Keaton Production BW-75 min Buster Keaton, Marion Mack D: Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman P/S 08:15 AM The Great Gatsby (1926) Famous-Players Lasky Production BW-80 min Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson D: Herbert Brenon P/S H is for Home where the Heart isn't 09:45 AM The Heiress (1949) Paramount BW-115 min Olivia De Havailland, Ralph Richardson, Montgomery Cliff D: William Wyler P/S 11:45 AM High and Low (1963) Toho BW-143 min Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadi D: Akira Kurosawa P/S 02:15 PM The Housemaid (1960) Kuk Dong Seki Trading Co. BW-108 min Kim Jin-Kyu, Ju Jeung-ryu, Lee Eun-shim D: Kim Ki-young P/S I is for Innocence 04:15 PM In a Lonely Place (1950) Columbia BW-95 min Gloria Grahame, Humphrey Bogart D: Nicholas Ray P/S 06:00 PM I Want to Live! (1958) Figaro BW-120 min Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland D: Robert Wise P/S J and K are for JFK. 08:00 PM PT 109 (1963) Warner Bros C-140 min Cliff Robertson, Ty Hardin, James Gregory D: Leslie H. Martinson P/S L is for Liebestod 10:30 PM Last Year in Marienbad (1961) Cocinor BW-94 min Delphin Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoeff D: Alain Resnais P/S 12:15 AM Laura (1944) Fox BW-87 min, Clifon Webb, Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney D: Otto Preminger P/S 02:00 AM Lolita (1962) MGM BW-152 min James Mason, Peter Sellers, Shelly Winters D: Stanley Kubrick P/S 04:45 AM The Letter (1929) Paramount BW-65 min Jeanne Eagels, Herbert Marshall D: Jean de Limur P/S Wednesday, February 28, 2018 M is for Minnelli's MGM Musicals! 06:00 AM Ziegfeld Follies (1945) MGM C-110 min Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, William Powell, Lena Horne, D: Vincente Minnelli, Charles Walters, George Sidney and four others P/S 08:00 AM Yolanda and the Thief (1945) MGM C-108 min Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer, Frank Morgan D: Vincente Minnelli P/S 10:00 AM Meet me in Saint Louis (1944) MGM C-113 min Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien D: Vincente Minnelli P/S 12:00 PM Brigadoon (1954) MGM C-108 min Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Van Johnson D: Vincente Minnelli P/S 02:00 PM Gigi (1958) MGM C-115 min Leslie Caron, Louis Jordan, Maurice Chevalier D: Vincente Minnelli P/S 04:00 PM An American in Paris (1951) MGM C-113 min Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant D: Vincente Minnelli P/S 06:00 PM The Band Wagon (1953) MGM C-113 min Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant D: Vincente Minnelli P/S N is for Nineties Wednesday Night Spotlight: the Cinema of the Nineties. Tonight: Female Directors 08:00 PM Little Women (1994) Columbia C-118 min Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Trini Alvarado D: Gillian Armstrong Premiere#4 10:15 PM A League of Their Own (1992) Columbia C-128 min Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell, D: Penny Marshall P/S 12:30 PM Portrait of a Lady (1996) Polygram C-142 min Nicole Kidman, John Malkovich, Barbara Hershey D: Jane Campion Premiere#5 03:00 AM Beau Travail (1999) Pyramide Distribution C-90 min Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Gregorie Colin D: Claire Denis P/S 04:30 AM The Apple (1998) Makmalbaf Productions C-86 min Massoumeh Naderi, Zahra Naderi D: Samira Makmalbaf Premiere #6 Thursday, March 1, 2018 O is for Oh! 06:00 AM Oklahoma! (1955) RKO C-145 min Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Gloria Grahame D: Fred Zinnemann P/S 08:30 AM O Lucky Man! (1973) Warner Bros C-184 min Malcolm McDowell, Ralph Richardson, Helen Mirren, Rachel Roberts D: Lindsey Anderson P/S 11:45 AM The Tragedy of Othello: the Moor of Venice (1952) Mercury Productions BW-93 min Orson Welles, Micheal MacLiammoir D: Orson Welles P/S P is for People, perfectly pretty, potentially passionate 01:30 PM The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) Artcraft Productions Inc, BW-78 min Mary Pickford, Madlaine Traverse, Charles Wellesley D: Maurice Tourneur P/S 03:00 PM Party Girl (1958) MGM C-99 min Cyd Charisse, Robert Taylor, Lee J. Cobb D: Nicholas Ray P/S 04:45 PM Petulia (1968) Warner Bros C-105 min Julie Christie, George C. Scott, Richard Chamberlain D: Richard Lester P/S 06:30 PM Platinum Blonde (1931) Columbia BW 89 min Jean Harlow, Robert Williams D: Frank Capra Columbia P/S 08:00 PM Princesse Tam Tam (1935) Production Arys BW-77 min Josephine Baker, Albert Prejean D: Edmond T. Greville P/S Q is for Quirky 09:30 PM Quai des Orfevres (1947) Majestic Films BW-106 min Louis Jouvet, Simone Renant, Bernard Blier D: Henri-George Clouzot Premiere #7 11:30 PM Quadrophenia (1979) The Who Films C-117 min Phil Daniels, Sting D: Franc Roddam Premiere#8 R is for Jacques Rivette 01:45 AM L'Amour fou (1969) Cocinor BW-252 min Bulle Ogier, Jean-Pierre Kalfon D: Jacques Rivette Premiere#9 Friday, March 2, 2018 S is for Sassy 06:00 AM She Done Him Wrong (1933) Paramount BW-66 min Mae West, Cary Grant D: Lowell Sherman P/S 07:15 AM Stage Door (1937) RKO BW-91 min Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou D: Gregory La Cava P/S 09:00 AM Sunset Boulevard (1950) Paramount BW-110 min Gloria Swanson, William Holden D: Billy Wilder P/S 11:00 AM Sweet Smell of Success (1957) United Artists BW-96 min Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis D: Alexander Mackendrick P/S 12:45 PM Sylvia Scarlett (1935) RKO ARBW-90 min Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant D: George Cukor P/S T is for Terror and Terrorism 02:15 PM The Tall Target (1951) MGM BW-78 min Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou D; Anthony Mann P/S 03:45 PM A Tale of Two Cities (1935) MGM BW-128 minRonald Coleman, Elizabeth Allen. D: Jack Conway. P/S 06:00 PM Taxi Driver (1976) MGM C-112 min Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Jodie Foster. D: Martin Scorsese P/S U is for Unbearable, Unbelievable, Undecipherable and Understanding Star of the Month Juliette Binoche 08:00 PM The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) Orion C-171 min Juliette Binoche, Daniel Day-Lewis, Lena Olin D: Philip Kaufman Premiere#10 11:00 PM Mauvais Sang (1986) AAA Classics C-116 min Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant, Michel Piccoli D: Leos Carax Premiere #11 01:00 AM Certified Copy (2010) MK2 C-106 min Juliette Binoche, William Shimell D: Abbas Kiarostami Premiere #12 03:00 AM The English Patient (1996) Miramax C-162 min Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott-Thomas D: Anthony Minghella P/S Saturday March 3, 2016 V is for Vendetta 05:45 AM Act of Violence (1948) MGM BW-82 min Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh D: Fred Zinnemann P/S 07:15 AM Victim (1961) Allied film Distributors BW-96 min Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms D: Basil Dearden P/S 09:00 AM The Virgin Spring (1959) Svensk Filmindustri BW-89 min Max von Sydow, Gunnel Lindblom, Birgitta Pettersson D: Ingmar Bergman P/S W is for Women 10:30 PM Wife vs. Secretary (1936) MGM BW-88 min Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Clark Garble D: Clarence Brown P/S 12:00 PM Woman in the Dunes (1964) Toho BW-146 min Kyoko Kishida, Eiji Okada D: Hirosha Teshigahara P/S 02:30 PM The Women (1939) MGM BW-133 min Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford D: George Cukor P/S 04:45 PM A Woman is a Woman (1961) Rome Paris Films C-85 min Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy D: Jean-Luc Godard P/S 06:15 PM A Woman of Paris (1923) United Artists BW-93 min Edna Purviance, Carl Miller, Adolphe Menjou D: Charles Chaplin P/S 08:00 PM (Essentials) A Woman Under the Influence (1974) Cine-Source C-155 min Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk D: John Cassavettes P/S X is for a Sengalese word meaning temporary sexual impotence 10:45 PM Xala (1973) Films Domirew C-123 min Thierno Leye, Seune Samb D:Ousmane Sembene P/S Y is for Why the Hell not? 01:00 AM The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) Madeleine Films C-125 min Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, Danielle Darrieux, Gene Kelly D: Jacques Demy P/S Z is for Zany 03:15 AM (Underground) Zvenigora (1928) VFUKU BW-91 min Semyon Svashenko, Nikolai Nademsky D: Alexander Dovshenko EXEMPT 05:00 AM (Underground) Zorns Lemma (1970) Criterion C-60 min Joyce Wieland D: Hollis Frampton EXEMPT

Make that six down, one to go.

Five down, two to go.

I just can't quit the TCM challenge. Four days down, three to go.

Twenty Years After was a milestone of sorts. After more than 10 years I can now say that I have seen all 1000 movies on theyshootpictures.com top 1000 movies of all time. It has an interesting premise, it's a documentary about a Brazilian labor leader which was interrupted by the military coup of 1964. The documentary began again once democracy returned to Brazil in the eighties. Unfortunately, none of the versions on youtube have subtitles and I don't know Portuguese. The Country Girl is a classic example of Oscarbait, and by 'classic" I mean it shares all the tropes without in anyway being a particularly good movie. Grace Kelly takes a deliberately dowdy role who reveals her real beauty later on in the movie. Which of course she does, because she's Grace Kelly. And there's the melodramatic alcoholism plot. Thunderbolt is the movie in between von Sternberg's imaginative silent films and his provocative romances with Marlene Dietrich. And I'm afraid my first reaction was that it was stiff and awkward. It's certainly not surprising that Fay Wray and George Bancroft wouldn't be his actors of choice in the future. Finally there's The Diary of a Teenage Girl. It starts with the 15 year old protagonist telling about her first sexual experience, with her mother's boyfriend. Well, this isn't go to end well, I thought. To be fair, we are dealing with someone too young to have sex as opposed to a rape victim brainwashed into enjoying her trauma. But spending 95 minutes waiting for her to realize what is evident to the audience at the beginning isn't a particularly profound experience. Update: It occurs to me that I also saw The Blood of Jesus last week as well. Clearly it didn't make much of an impression on me, though I suppose I should see it a second time to make sure.

Actor David Niven, Around the World in Eighty Days John Wayne, The Searchers Henry Fonda, The Wrong Man Gene Kelly, Invitation to the Dance Roger Duchense, Bob le flambeur Runner-ups: Laurence Oliver (Richard III), Sterling Hayden (The Killing), Ryo Ikebe (Early Spring), James Stewart (The Man who Knew too Much), Smaran Ghosal (Aparajito), James Mason (Bigger than Life), Gary Cooper (Friendly Persuasion), Renato Mikini (The Burmese Harp), Tyrone Power (The Eddy Duchin Story), Actress Karuna Banerjee, Aparajito Ingrid Bergman, Elena and Her Men Marilyn Monroe, Bus Stop Barbara Stanwyck, There's Always Tomorrow Audrey Hepburn, War and Peace Runner-ups: Chikage Awashima (Early Spring), Deborah Kerr (The King and I), Vera Miles (The Wrong Man) , Supporting Actor Robert Stack, Written on the Wind Cantinflas, Around the World in Eighty Days Yul Brynner, The Ten Commandments Ward Bond, The Searchers Kanu Banerjee, Aparajito Runner-ups: Herbert Lom (War and Peace), John Gielgud, (Richard III), Robert Newton (Around the World in Eighty Days) Edward G. Robinson (The Ten Commandments), Elisha Cook, Jr., (The Killing), Timothy Carey (The Killing), John Carradine (Around the World in Eighty Days), Daniel Cauchy (Bob la Flambeur), Supporting Actress Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind Joan Bennett, There's Always Tomorrow Keiko Kishi, Early Spring Vera Miles, The Searchers Marie Windsor, The Killing Runner-ups: Shirley MacLaine (Around the World in Eighty Days), Anne Baxter (The Ten Commandments), Not seen: Anastasia, The Rainmaker, The Bold and the Brave, ---For the first time I agree with the Academy for best supporting actress. Since the award is about a decade younger than the big two, the real outlier is best Actress, with which I first agreed with in 1951, while I agreed with Actor in 1942 and Supporting Actor in 1947.

1952 Singin’ in the Rain Umberto D Ikiru The Life of Oharu Limelight Casque D’Or Forbidden Games Othello The Crimson Pirate Europa’51 1953 The Wages of Fear The Band Wagon The Earrings of Madame De.. Mr. Hulot’s Holiday Gentleman Prefer Blondes Ugetsu Tokyo Story The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T Kiss me Kate Bienvenido Mr. Marshall 1954 The Seven Samurai Voyage to Italy* Dial M for Murder A Star is Born Sansho the Bailiff Rear Window Johnny Guitar French Cancan Senso The Crucified Lovers 1955 Ordet Pather Panchali The Night of the Hunter Smiles of a Summer Night Lola Montes Rififi The Man from Laramie Mr. Arkadin Floating Clouds Mister Roberts 1956 A Man Escaped Around the World in 80 Days The Wrong Man Invitation to the Dance Aparijito Bob la Flambeur The Killing The Searchers Elena and Her Men Early Spring

There's so much that is false with Judgement at Nuremberg. Like when Schell goes on arguing that Germans should not be held collectively responsible, when actually only a few highly compromised judges are on trial. On when Widmark goes on about the Holocaust, something the defendants are only tangentially involved. Or when one of Tracy's fellow judges decides to support cold war realpolitik and support leniency despite overwhelming evidence. On all three occasions, "Cut the BS" comes immediately to mind.

Four movies this week: Six Degrees of Separation is interesting, though I suppose it's ultimately not very profound. Sutherland, Channing and Smith are all good enough in their own way. It's interesting that in only a few years the basic scam would be impossible, since people could check the internet about Sidney Poitier. (I was using it by 1996 and the movie came out in 1992). The Shooting may have been more interesting had I paid more attention to it. I was somewhat tense Wednesday evening. Experimenter: the Stanley Milgram Story has interesting touches. Peter Sarsgaard literally talks to camera as Milgram. When emphasizing the importance of understanding Nazi atrocity he is followed by a literal elephant in the room. We get to watch a recreation of a TV movie based on his experiements, where William Shatner plays him and Ossie Davis plays Shatner's black best friend. Girlfriends was praised by Stanley Kubrick. It's not bad, though it's also not particularly good.

Actor James Dean, East of Eden James Stewart, The Man from Laramie Subir Banerjee, Pather Panchali Gunnar Bjornstrand, Smiles of a Summer Night Henrik Malberg, Ordet Runner-ups: Jean Servais (Rififi), Henry Fonda (Mister Roberts), Gene Kelly (It's Always Fair Weather), Spencer Tracy (Bad Day at Black Rock), Masayuki Mori (Floating Clouds), Ernesto Alonso (The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz) Cary Grant (To Catch a Thief), Alec Guinness (The Ladykillers) Actress Uma Das Gupta, Pather Panchali Eva Dahlbeck, Smiles of a Summer Night Katharine Hepburn, Summertime Hideko Takamine, Floating Clouds Simone Signoret, Les Diaboliques Runner-ups: Jane Wyman (All that Heaven Allows), Cyd Charisse (It's Always Fair Weather), Vera Clouzot (Les Diaboliques), Katie Johnson (The Ladykillers) , Supporting Actor Robert Mitchum, The Night of the Hunter Preben Lerdoff Rye, Ordet Arthur Kennedy, The Man from Laramie Kanu Banerjee, Pather Panchali Jarl Kulle, Smiles of a Summer Night Runner-ups: Peter Ustinov, (Lola Montes), Orson Welles (Mr. Arkadin), Emil Haas Christensen, Cay Kristiansen (Ordet), James Cagney (Mister Roberts), Donald Crisp (The Man from Laramie), Robert Ryan (Bad Day at Black Rock), William Powell (Mister Roberts), Richard Conte (The Big Combo), Charles Vanel (Les Diaboliques), Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom (The Ladykillers), Dan Dailey (It's Always Fair Weather) Supporting Actress Birgitte Federspiel, Ordet Karuna Banerjee, Pather Panchali Lillian Gish, The Night of the Hunter Chunibala Devi, Pather Panchali Harriet Andersson, Smiles of a Summer Night Runner-ups: Maxine Cooper (Kiss me Deadly), Jo Van Fleet (East of Eden), Dolores Gray (It's Always Fair Weather), Natalie Wood (Rebel without a Cause) Not seen: Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, Love me or Leave me, I'll cry Tomorrow, Interrupted Melody, Trial, Pete Kelly's Blues -----Bad luck for Jane Wyman, since this is the closest she gets to a nomination. And it was very close. -----The first appearance in the nominations for Ingmar Bergman. No winners, but that will change. -----This is also the first appearance for Satyajit Ray. We'll see more of his films in future nominations. And among future winners. -----James Dean in East of Eden is clearly the greatest gap between quality of performance and quality of movie. ------Many, perhaps most, would argue that Mitchum is a lead, not supporting. But arguably the children are the real focus of the movie. And either Mitchum gets a supporting award or he gets nothing.

Feature films started with Wilson, though I've heard that his famous comment on Birth of a Nation (history written like lightning) may be apocryphal. I wonder if Harding, Coolidge and Hoover had any opinions on movies. Many Hollywood executives were Republican and California was a safely Republican state before 1932. There's a recent biography of Coolidge which one might think would have something about him. I do know that at one point Mrs. Miniver was Bush 41's favorite movie.

In 1982 there was a rather minor and coarse comedy called Jekyll and Hyde...Together Again. There is one line I vaguely remember. At one point the Jekyll character is caught in bed with the girl's father. The protagonist gets out of this situation by promising to do an important medical procedure the father is interested in. Or something like that. Anyway, the father responds, well I can't actually print the response because of the message board's censor functions, and because I don't remember the exact words. But it amounts to "have lots of sex with my blessings." The point of this questionable anecdote is that if Spencer Tracy had said this to Sidney Poitier when he first meets him in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner the world would be a much better place.

They Won't Forget would have been improves immeasurably if the character based on Leo Frank had been given the opportunity to make clear he was clearly innocent.

I personally chose George Sanders as best Actor for All About Eve in the Your Favorites Best Performances thread. I can imagine admirers choosing The African Queen for best picture, Gregory Peck for best Actor in Roman Holiday and even admirers of Giant nominated Elizabeth Taylor for best actress. But otherwise, most of these exclusions are fairly obvious.

Paul Thomas for the Criterion Collection on Journey to Italy: Roberto Rossellini, for his part, was more explicit. He insisted that “neorealist reality is incomplete, official, and entirely reasonable; but the poetry, the mystery, everything that completes and enlarges tangible reality, is completely missing.” This is a lack he consciously, self-consciously, attempted to make good in the celebrated series of films he made with Ingrid Bergman, a series that culminated in the extraordinary Journey to Italy (1954), which has come down to us as a test case in how to really watch a film, where “the poetry, the mystery, everything that completes and enlarges tangible reality” is emphasized, foregrounded as never before. Rossellini’s leitmotif all along had been the flash of dramatic interruption. His way of breaking out of the contemplative stance, the director’s posture as unmoved mover, that neorealism implies had been to shatter “reality” into fragments, shards that would pierce the spectator’s awareness and make complacency impossible—impossible for spectator, actor, and director alike. He pulled no punches. The momentary, the break in con­struc­tion, the abrupt interruption of process and expectation—these stay with us. The shooting (double entendre intended) of Pina (Anna Magnani) from the back of the truck in Rome Open City (1945), the drowning of the partisans in the Po sequence of Paisan (1946)—to see these charged episodes is to remember them. They don’t let go. They become inscribed in our memory—inscribed because Rossellini had an almost uncanny way of lodging them there. And this is where Ingrid Bergman comes in, for Rossellini’s films with her are organized around such episodes and sequences. Flashes of dramatic interruption are now refracted with remarkable consistency and power through the reactions on-screen of a single actress. Rossellini alone among directors of Bergman educed and drew upon her preternatural capacity to show what it felt like to be shaken up and pried loose from her expectations, to be so visibly affected by something she never imagined she could experience. A hint of what is to come is at hand in the first collaboration, Stromboli (1950). What Rossellini saw in and about Bergman as an actor, when applied not to the overwrought volcanic climax of the film but to the earlier, emblematic tuna-fishing sequence, sets its seal upon Stromboli in a way that could scarcely be more memorable. Rossellini deliberately avoided conventional cutaway reaction shots to those gelatinous, monstrous tuna, thrashing about in their death throes inside the huge trap the fishermen have spent eight laborious days in the sun setting for them. We know how seeing this registers with Bergman, and with Rossellini too, because we know—how, given the sheer power of the sequence, could we not know?—how seeing it registers with us. Rossellini, like Renoir before him, at moments like this oversteps limits that for most directors are built-in and taken for granted. Rossellini is, of course, showing us what the fishermen of Stromboli do as well as Bergman’s reaction to it. Which is to say that Rossellini, who eschewed Marxism, was nevertheless concerned, in his own way, to proceed from the point of production. Stromboli ignores l’espèce ouvrière, the workers’ milieu, as such, yet gets there despite itself—can there be any doubt that Rossellini’s grumpy, oppressed, and resentful fishermen have a great deal to be resentful about? As in Journey to Italy, and as in Europe ’51 too, Rossellini is concerned to avoid the obvious, the one-off, cheap-shot explanation... In Journey to Italy, the battle lines are domestic. Rossellini’s producers insisted on George Sanders as a “name” counterweight to Bergman. Sanders throughout disparaged Rossellini’s improvisatory methods on the set; his grumpiness finds expression in Alex Joyce, the character he plays in the film. Rossellini harnesses the real alienation of his players to the story of a couple—he disillusioned, sour, and cynical (as Sanders was in real life), she in a state of not-always-quiet desperation about their marriage. The Joyces’ is a journey in Italy as well as to it, the original journey to Italy having been made by the late Uncle Homer, who settled there, stayed during a war that is otherwise scarcely mentioned, and is still fondly missed by his Neapolitan friends, friends who are unlikely to miss the Joyces, his heirs, in anything like the same way. For that matter, the Joyces themselves, as we encounter them, wouldn’t miss each other much if their marriage were to do what it threatens to do and fall apart. Journey to Italy, in Leo Braudy’s words, “contains some of the most abrasive scenes between a man and a woman that have ever been filmed . . . It is an abrasion of boredoms spawned by the inconsequential space-filling dialogue that will be echoed in Antonioni’s L’avventura.” But for all this—we can freely grant that Antonioni’s various couples would have been impossible without Rossellini’s—Journey to Italy’s ending is quite unlike L’avventura’s. Rossellini’s camera cranes away from Katherine and Alex and fixes not on the couple themselves but beyond them—there is, with Rossellini, always a beyond, a Jenseits—on the religious procession in which their carapace of a car is engulfed. Journey to Italy, similarly, opens “as if it had begun a lot earlier,” as José Guarner has pointed out. “We are not present at the opening of a story, merely coming in on something that was already going on”—what Rossellini described as “a couple’s relationship under the influence of a third person: the exterior world.” This exterior world, or what we see of it—that is, the extraordinary world of Naples and Pompeii—is not just a setting but a character in the film, much as Wessex is in Thomas Hardy’s novels, and much as the isle of Stromboli and the city of Rome feature—geographically, topologically—in Stromboli and Europe ’51. The word that suggests itself here is psychotopography, a term used by Laurie Johnson to characterize Werner Herzog’s films, where aspects of a protagonist’s, or the director’s, innermost concerns are made visible in external nature or landscape. In addition, Rossellini uses social settings, or milieus, in much the same way. The provocation in which he specializes throws self-provocation (as well as the provocation of Bergman) into the mix. These incitements are apparent in all three of the Bergman films, but it is in Journey to Italy that geography, that psychotopography, really comes to a head as never before. This time it encompasses not just an island or a city but an eon: we watch Bergman as she is cast back—elementally—into the depths of time. At the end of the film, just when the exterior world seems bent upon sealing Katherine and Alex’s separation, it wheels around and effects a reconciliation. In a dialectical twist, they finally become present to each other under its impress; consciousness and self-consciousness finally imply each other; timelessness and timeliness at last interpenetrate. All along, their studied imperviousness to what surrounds them—Alex, in particular, complains about Italy as though it were intruding upon him, rather than he traversing it with Katherine—has complemented their imperviousness to each other. This combined uneasily with a fixation—Katherine’s nerve-racking waiting up for Alex in the villa is an instance—they don’t know how to interpret or explore. But Katherine ultimately does wish to explore Naples and its environs. Each of the visits she makes to various sites—to the National Archaeological Museum, to Cumae, to the cave of the Sibyl, to the igneous lava fields near Vesuvius, and to the Fontanelle catacombs—emphasizes what Jacques Rivette called “all those shots of eyes looking.” At the museum, the camera focuses on the statues before moving to an angle from which we can see Katherine looking at them. Rossellini’s camera declines any interpretive advantage, registering instead the outward particularity of what it observes, and does so with the same kind of “astonishing reticence” (the phrase is Gilberto Perez’s) that Katherine (sometimes despite herself) brings to bear. Life is taken as if by surprise. The camera tracks, pans, and cranes, always beginning with what is being looked at and always ending—without a cut—on Katherine’s facial expression. Rossellini, eschewing the traditional shot–reaction shot formula, creates meaning in, by, and through the way Katherine reacts to what she sees. In so doing, he is giving the spectator work to do. We look, just as Rossellini’s camera looks, at Katherine and with Katherine, at one and the same time. “Naples as filtered through the consciousness of the heroine” is, in André Bazin’s words, “a mental landscape at once as objective as a . . . photograph and as subjective as pure personal consciousness.” Once again, Rossellini is transgressing boundaries others had long taken for granted—which is why Jacques Rivette insisted in the 1950s, and why Laura Mulvey was later to reiterate, that “if there is a modern cinema, this is it . . . With the appearance of Viaggio in Italia, all films have suddenly aged ten years.”

I thought schedules started on Sunday morning.

Four movies this week: Before the Rain was a critical success when it came out, but I did not very impressive. A slightly scrambled plot, some gratuitous nudity, some gratuitous violence at a key moment does not a profound film make. Certainly there is nothing particularly profound or searching about the destruction of Yugoslavia. Fellow former Yugoslav director Emir Kusturica is certainly the more imaginative director, while Ulysses' Gaze is a more thoughtful film. The Tale of Tales is based on an Italian collection of fairy tales. To be precise three of the fifty one are taken in. The films shows a certain visual imagination, and Toby Jones is perhaps the best in the cast as a king who rears a flea to the size of a cow. (When the flea dies, he offers his daughter to any man who can guess what animal the skin is from. Unfortunately an ogre guesses correctly). It should be noted that the endings of all three tales have been changed to make them slightly darker. But I'm not sure that makes them better stories, nor do I think the three stories chosen cohere very well. Better are the other two movies. Ballad of a Soldier is a good example of Soviet humanism, about a soldier who luckily gets a furlough and the many complications he encounters. Zanna Prokhorenko as the young woman he meets for half the movie is worthy of special praise. L'Enfant Secret is the third of Philippe Garrel's movies that I've seen. I enjoyed, if that is the right term, Regular Lovers, while Jealously left me uninterested. This movie, by contrast, is distinctly better, involving a relationship between a film maker, with a drug addiction and a woman with an illegitimate child. Austere, in black and white. subtle, precise, pessimistic, this is certainly not your ordinary love story. And better for it

Actor Takashi Shimura, Seven Samurai George Sanders, Journey to Italy Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront James Mason, A Star is Born Jean Gabin, French Cancan, Touchez pas au Grisbi Runner-ups: Humphrey Bogart (The Barefoot Contessa), Ray Milland (Dial M for Murder), James Stewart (Rear Window), Sterling Hayden (Johnny Guitar), Humphrey Bogart (Sabrina), Dan O'Herlihy (Robinson Crusoe), Farley Granger (Senso), Charles Laughton (Hobson's Choice), Robert Mitchum (River of no Return) Actress Ingrid Bergman, Journey to Italy Judy Garland, A Star is Born Joan Crawford, Johnny Guitar Grace Kelly, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window Giuletta Massina, La Strada Runner-ups: Ava Gardner, (The Barefoot Contessa), Alida Valli (Senso), Ingrid Bergman (Fear), Jane Wyman (Magnificent Obsession), Audrey Hepburn (Sabrina), Rosara Revueltas (Salt of the Earth), Kyoko Kagawa (The Crucified Lovers), Marilyn Monroe (River of no Return) , Supporting Actor Toshiro Mifune, Seven Samurai Edmond O'Brien, The Barefoot Contessa Rod Steiger, On the Waterfront Seiji Miyaguchi, Seven Samurai Humphrey Bogart, The Caine Mutiny Runner-ups: Lee J. Cobb (On the Waterfront), Isao Kimura (Seven Samurai), Richard Basehart (La Strada), Anthony Dawson (Dial M for Murder), John Mills (Hobson's Choice), Jack Carson (A Star is Born) Supporting Actress Kinuyo Tanaka, Sansho the Bailiff Mercedes McCambridge, Johnny Guitar Thelma Ritter, Rear Window Francoise Arnoul, French Cancan Keiko Tsushima, Seven Samurai Runner-ups: Kyoko Kagawa, (Sansho the Bailiff), Agnes Moorhead (Magnificent Obsession) Not seen: The Country Girl, Three Coins in the Fountain, The High and the Mighty, and Broken Lance *Bad luck for Ray Milland and Ava Gardner, since this is the closest they ever get to nominations. *Bad luck also for Kyoko Kagawa, who I didn't realize until earlier today was in two of my favorite movies of the year. *Last year France won three of the four acting awards. This year Japan does.

What about Melvyn Douglas, Fredric March and John Gilbert? They're not in the same league as the other actors, but still..

That doesn't strike me as fair. They were competing against Maurice Chevalier, William Powell, Fred Astaire, James Cagney, Charles Chaplin, Spencer Tracy, Charles Boyer and Laurence Olivier in the thirties alone.

I watched seven movies over the past two week: one a week ago, six this week. Ant-Man is a perfectly enjoyable Marvel comics movie. It's witty, exciting in places, though the father estranged from his daughter does show the limits of this sort of movie. It does benefit from one of the better Michael Douglas performances in recent years. Ruby Sparks is an idea that is as unpromising as it sounds. What if you, a male you, could create the love of your life and if that didn't quite work out, you could edit her to solve any problems. Since, fairly obviously, that is not how love works, it's fairly obvious that this conceit is not going to work out well. It's also sentimental that it comes up with the solution that it does. The Lobster is genuinely strange and occasionally amusing about a society which forces people to pair up. If they don't within 45 days they're turned into animals. Amusing in places, and unsettling in others, but I can understand why Richard Brody was annoyed with a satire that doesn't really reflect any aspect of contemporary society. S.O.B is another flawed, unbalanced comedy by Blake Edwards. Oddly solipsistic in its way, since the movie posits that if Edwards' wife bared her breasts, it would create the highest grossing movie in history, Also oddly dated, since nudity would decline in Hollywood over the next few decades once the shock wore off. (To be fair Titanic did have brief nudity.) At times the humor is pathetically crude. In other places it's sloppy (why aren't the director's children at his own memorial service). And while Hollywood is crass, it's hard to be that upset that people didn't appreciate Darling Lil. In the movie's defense, Robert Preston, Julie Andrews and William Holden go through the movie with some dignity. To Each His Own is best at the beginning, and it shows Leisen's talents at his best. Pity the rest of the film is soap opera twaddle: De Havilland becomes a wealthy woman able to bully her son's adoptive mother, just like most orphaned unwed mothers in the twenties did. Mother and son are reunited in the end, even though the son had two adaptive siblings and a mother who he's known all his life. Aside from how horrifying De Havilland's blackmail is, it's odd that the adaptive mother gives up without a fight. Charley Varrick is surprisingly competent, and it says something that Joe Dean Baker's character, while clearly very ruthless and intelligent, isn't a superhuman like Anton Chigurh. Arguably the movie is what No Country for Old Men would be like if it weren't so portentous. But clearly the movie of the week was Jonas Mekas' Walden, also known as Diaries, Notes and Sketches. This startling avant-garde collection of his home movies, is also striking beautiful and representative of New York City in the sixties.