Monthly Archives: December 2020

Amarcord
Directed by Federico Fellini
Written by Federico Fellini and Tonino Guerra
1973/Italy
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Oliva: Uncle Teo’s up a tree!

I usually say 8 1/2 (1963) is my favorite Fellini film.  After rewatching this one, I’m not so sure.

The title means “I Remember” in the dialect of Rimini where Fellini grew up.  Fellini says the film is not autobiographical though some of the incidents come from his childhood.  If Rimini was anything like this is was full of some real “characters”!

Anyway, the film covers one year in teenager Titta’s (Bruno Zanin) life, beginning and ending with puffballs signaling Spring.  Titta lives in the countryside with his crazy parents, senile grandfather, and vain uncle.  The parents yell at each other non-stop.  In fact, this movie is full of loud, volatile Italians shouting at each other.

Mussolini is in power and this is mostly quite OK with the residents of Rimini, with the exception of Titta’s father.  

Titta and his chums are all at the height of teenage horniness and much bawdy comedy is milked from this fact.  The plot is highly episodic and each of the episodes are pretty wonderful.  The fantasy Mussolini parade and wedding; the nympho La Volpina; the busty tobacconist, town beauty Gradisca (Magali Noël) and her friends; Uncle Teo up in the tree; the town going out to gaze at the cruise ship; snow! – all of these are small gems.

This is the warmest and funniest of the Fellini films I’ve seen by far with nary a sign of introspection or dissatisfaction.  Even death is treated in a matter of fact way.  The movie just makes me feel good.  It’s fun to look at the world again through the eyes of a teenager. Fellini continues to prove himself a master at wrestling a great film from thousands of moving parts.  Highly recommended.

Amarcord was Oscar-nominated for Best Director and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

Papillon
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner
Written by Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr. from a book by Henri Charriere
1973/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Dega: Blame is for God and small children.

Steve McQueen is at his very best in this story of desperate men on a desperate quest to escape Devil’s Island.

The story is a semi-fictional account of Henri ‘Papillon’ Charriere’s (McQueen) time in the French Penal Colony of Guyana between 1931 and 1945.  Charriere earned the nickname from the butterfly prominently tattooed on his chest.  Charriere had been falsely convicted of murdering a pimp and sentenced to life at hard labor. Prior to this, he had earned a reputation as a safe-cracker.  On the sea journey to the island Charriere forms what turns out to be an enduring friendship with Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman), a timid myopic counterfeiter.  The two could not be more different but with Louis’s money and Papillon’s guts they make a good team.

Life is extremely hard in French Guyana.  The place is hot, disease-ridden, and filthy; the men are hardly fed; the labor is very hard; and the guards are cruel.  The prisoners are treated like scum that cannot be punished severely enough.  A first escape attempt is punishable by two years in solitary confinement, the second by five years.  99.9% of all escapees are caught and punished.

The story tracks a couple of different escape attempts and Papillon’s years in solitary confinement.  Food is so scarce that he resorts to capturing insects to survive.  In the meantime, Dega has bribed his way into a desk job.  He attempts to assist by smuggling in fresh coconut.  When this is discovered, Papillon is put on half-rations and nearly dies.

After his final stint in solitary, Papillon and Dega ask to be sent to the most isolated offshore island.  There they cobble together houses and start farming.  But Papillon is one stubborn man.  With a fine cast of supporting players including Victor Jory, Anthony Zerbe, and George Colouris.

I’ve seen this a time or two over the years and must have zoned out each time since I remember almost none of it.  That’s funny because I love a good prison escape movie.  This time, however, it hooked me within half an hour and I was engrossed in the story throughout the film’s 2 1/2 hour running time.

I’ve always thought of McQueen as playing his own cool persona but he had to really stretch here and I thought he was pretty wonderful.  Rumor has it McQueen’s Oscar snub resulted from rubbing the wrong studio executives the wrong way.  Hoffman and the rest cast shine as well.  Recommended.

Jerry Goldsmith was nominated for the Oscar for Best Music, Original Score.

Day for Night (La nuit americaine)
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Written by Francois Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard, and Suzanne Schiffman
1973/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Alexandre: [about Julie’s movie star mother) She hated the way we shoot movies – in bits and pieces! I remember escorting her to the premiere of her first big Hollywood movie. A fantastic evening! When the film ended, she sat there, then turned to me and said: “I did all that? All I remember is the waiting.”

Consummate movie fan Francois Truffaut makes the ultimate movie for film buffs.

Director Ferrand (Truffaut) is making a what sounds like a pretty trite melodrama called “Meet Pamela” on location in the French Riviera.  A young Frenchman (played by Alphonse – Jean-Pierre Leaud) and English beauty Pamela (played by Julie – Jacqueline Bisset) fall in love and marry in England.  Several months later the husband takes Pamela home to meet the folks.  Pamela falls in love with Alphonse’s 50-something father (played by Alexandre – Jean-Pierre Aumont) and runs off with him.  Both Alphonse and his mother (played by Severine – Valentina Cortese) are outraged and Alphonse vows revenge. We follow the making of this movie from the first day of production to the last.

The movie begins with several takes of an extra-laden crowd scene.  We observe the intricate choreography necessary to create every day reality.  We gradually learn to know the principals.  Alphonse is in love/lust with script-girl intern Lilian, though she is pretty clearly not as smitten with him.  Severine has developed a drinking problem and finds it hard to remember her lines or follow her blocking.  Julie is recovering from a recent nervous breakdown after which she married her doctor.  Alexandre makes mysterious visits to the local airport everyday.

In contrast to the cast, which seems to have plenty of free time to play musical beds and indulge in tantrums, the crew works at a frantic pace to stay within budget and on schedule despite repeated off-stage gitches that threaten to scuttle the whole production. And the whole way we get an insider view on how movie magic is made.

The fun the cast and crew looked to be having making this “insider” send-up of the movie business made the movie a whole lot of fun for me as well.  All the actors are great in these parts.  There’s quite a lot of Antoine Donel in Leaud’s character.  It’s always entertaining to see him get in one scrape after another due to his immaturity.  I last saw this on original release and it has only risen in my estimation.  Warmly recomended.

Day for Night won the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film.  Valentina Cortese received a very well-deserved nomination for Best Supporting Actress.  The film was also nominated for Best Director and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

American trailer – fortunately I watched the subtitled version

The Sting
Directed by George Roy Hill
Written by David S. Ward
1973/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Johnny Hooker: He’s not as tough as he thinks.
Henry Gondorff: Neither are we.

There’s a reason this is a widely beloved classic.  You’ll get no disagreement from me.

The year is 1936. The film opens in New York where Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and colleagues work a scam that parts a sharp dresser from his wallet.  Unfortunately, the victim was a numbers runner for big-time crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), who will settle for nothing but murder for revenge.  Johnny’s friend Luther (Robert Earl Jones) is killed and Johnny heads off to Chicago to look up master con artist Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) who he believes can help him plot the ultimate sting on Lonnegan.

Luther was a popular man and Johnny and Henry easily recruit dozens of pros to help them carry out their scheme.  Henry raises the necessary capital by cheating Lonnegan, who is also cheating, at poker.  Surely everyone reading this knows what happens next.  If not, get busy and see this movie!  With a wonderful cast of supporting actors including Charles Durning as a corrupt cop, Ray Walston as one of the con men, and Eileen Brennan as Newman’s girlfriend.

Whenever I watch this I come out with grins as big as Newman’s and Redford’s at the end.  It’s another of those rare occasions in film history when the talents of all concerned were operating at their height and combined to make magic.  And it reintroduced America to the music of Scott Joplin!  Obviously a must see.

The Sting won Oscars for Best Picture; Best Director; Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Costume Design; Best Film Editing;Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation.  It was nominated for Best Actor (Redford); Best Cinematography and Best Sound.

Fantastic Planet (La planete sauvage)
Directed by Rene Laloux
Written by Rene Laloux and Roland Topor from a novel by Stefan Wul
1973/France/Czechoslovakia
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Narrator: After a while, I lost my intimacy with Tiwa. As she grew up, she gave up her playthings.  Deprived of lessons, I decided to run away.

On the planet of Ygam, giant blue beings called Draags coexist with tiny humanoids called Oms.  Oms can be domesticated and kept as pets.  Wild Oms reproduce prodigiously, hide in trees and caves, and are treated by the Draags as vermin.  Adult Draags spend a good deal of their time in meditation.

As the film begins, a giant blue hand is playing roughly with a Om mother, who is frantically trying to flee with her newborn baby.  The mother “stops moving” and Tiwa, a young Draag, begs her father to let her adopt the baby.  She names him Terr.  All Oms will run away given the slightest opportunity but Terr is controlled remotely by his owner with a collar around his neck.

Draags learn through a device that imparts knowledge permanently into their memory cells.  Terr can get the message too and learns along with Tiwa.  He then runs away with the knowledge device and meets a female who is able to remove his collar.  The two of them join a colony of Oms and Terr shares the knowledge.  There are many clashes on the way to peaceful coexistence of the races.  I loved the ending.

Well, fantastic is right!  Everything about this movie is spendid from the surreal artwork, to the clever story, to the beautiful music.  Take 72 minutes and lose yourself in a different world.

American Trailer (I watched a sub-titled version)