Film is Truth 24 Times a Second

Charlton Heston (1924-2008)

One of old Hollywood’s most overlooked lions and a hero of film noir fans left us this week when Richard Widmark passed away at age 93.

Though he claimed to find the filmmaking process “irritating” towards the end of his life, Widmark appeared in more than 70 films between 1947 and 1991. In that time, he worked alongside directors like Elia Kazan, Jules Dassin and Samuel Fuller, crafting memorable and nuanced characters in mostly supporting roles for decades. His debut as demented murderer Tommy Udo in the film noir masterpiece Kiss of Death earned him his only Oscar nod, though his performance in Judgement at Nuremberg is thought by many to be his finest.

For this fan’s money, though, Widmark’s work doesn’t get any better than his turn as Harry Fabian in Jules Dassin’s classic noir Night and the City, released just before the director was blacklisted in 1952. Featuring an absolutely stellar performance by Widmark as as small time con man running a scam that’s out of his depth, it’s arguably Dassin’s finest work, and one that no cinema buff should miss out on.

Disappointing story — Ledger was one of those actors that had, for me, developed from an afterthought into someone to look forward to.
NYT link.

I hardly have the energy to say anything about this… what a week.

His L’ Avventura remains one of film’s great existential mysteries, and completely redefined what constitutes a story in a film, and how that story is (or isn’t) told - is it plot? character? architectural space? The Passenger is one of the finest films ever made about the intangible elusiveness of identity and the empty foolishness of media and politics. And Red Desert, his first color film, with its literally painted grass and trees, and sulphurous air, made color - and its psychological and aesthetic meaning - as much the subject as any other aspect of the film.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/movies/31cnd-antonio.html?hp

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/antonioni.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_Antonioni

• Beyond the Clouds (1995) VHS
• Blow-up (1966) VHS/DVD
• Eros (2004) DVD
• Identification of a Woman (1982) VHS
• Il Grido (1957) VHS
• L’Avventura (1960) VHS/DVD
• L’Eclisse (1962) DVD
• La Notte (1960) VHS/DVD
• Mystery of Oberwald (1980) VHS
• The Passenger (1975) DVD

Ingmar Bergman, one of the greatest living film directors in the world, passed away early this morning.

Bergman is probably best known for The Seventh Seal, the source of the oft-referenced (and parodied) “playing chess with death” scene. Other notable works include Persona, Fanny and Alexander, Cries and Whispers, Scenes From a Marriage, and The Virgin Spring.

Here’s a list of what we have in the store:

Autumn Sonata (1978) VHS/DVD
Cries and Whispers (1972) VHS/DVD
Crisis (1946) DVD
The Devil’s Eye (1960) VHS
Dreams (1955) VHS
Fanny & Alexander (1982) VHS/DVD
From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) VHS
Hour of the Wolf (1968) VHS/DVD
A Lesson in Love (1954) VHS
The Magic Flute (1975) VHS/DVD
The Magician (1958) VHS
The Passion of Anna (1969) DVD
Persona (1966) VHS/DVD
Port of Call (1948) DVD
Saraband (2003) DVD
Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) VHS
Scenes From a Marriage (1973) VHS/DVD
The Serpent’s Egg (1977) DVD
The Seventh Seal (1957) VHS/DVD
Shame (1968) VHS/DVD
The Silence (1963) DVD
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) VHS/DVD
Thirst (1949) DVD
Through a Glass Darkly (1961) VHS/DVD
To Joy (1950) DVD
Torment (1944) DVD
The Virgin Spring (1960) VHS/DVD
Wild Strawberries (1959) VHS/DVD
Winter Light (1963) DVD

Antonius Block: Who are you?
Death: I am Death.
Antonius Block: Have you come for me?
Death: I have long walked by your side.
Antonius Block: So I have noticed.
Death: Are you ready?
Antonius Block: My body is ready, but I am not.

It’s a very bizarre story, but artist Jeremy Blake has apparently killed himself after his partner of many years and fellow artist Theresa Duncan killed herself a week earlier. If you watched Punch-Drunk Love, you’ll have seen Blake’s work: he created the lovely, hallucinatory, animated interludes throughout the film. He also created several album covers for various pop stars, including Beck’s Sea Change.

I haven’t seen every one of his nine films, but I have watched all of the titles we carry here at the store:

• Black Girl/Borom Sarret
• Mandabi
• Xala

I suppose I’d describe them as similar to Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist films, but that could be a wrong-headed interpretation on my part. Anyway, check them out.

Yesterday morning in Los Angeles Bob Clark was killed by a drunk driver (who, naturally, was hardly scratched). Clark made two excellent films about the same holiday:

Christmas Story (1983) is an outrageously funny, nostalgic but not necessarily sentimental observation of the inane chaos and feverish anticipation that gathers as the big day approaches. The film contains no false homilies or tired platitudes, and remains beloved for its portrait of family disfunction but not dissolution. It’s also one of the great movies about kids, as Roger Ebert (sorry, Andrew) mentions in this excellent review. The last scene of this film, a makeshift X-mas dinner in a Chinese restaurant, is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Clark’s horror film Black Christmas was made ten years earlier (1974) and anticipates Halloween, Scream, etc. but is much better — it manages to be as suspenseful and disturbing as the former, as knowing as the latter, and even has quite a few laughs thanks to the trenchant script. It’s beautifully photographed and features great performances by Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder (pre-Superman, pre-breakdown) Keir Dullea (2001, Bunny Lake Is Missing) and genre stalwart (ha ha) John Saxon.

Clark also directed Porky’s in 1982, a full 20 years before the success of American Pie ushered in a new era of crude sex-comedies, proving once again that the horny teenager is a perennial subject and audience member.