Flickers in Time

Serie noire
Directed by Alain Corneau
Written by Georges Perec and Alain Corneau from a novel by Jim Thompson
1979/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

“I told her the world was full of nice people. I’d have hated to try to prove it to her, but I said it, anyway.”
― Jim Thompson, A Hell of a Woman

This thought-provoking thriller made a big impact on me.

This is an adaptation of a Jim Thompson story called “A Hell of a Woman”. Thompson’s universe is a deep black one and this film certainly keeps the tone as every single character in it is corrupt.

I will not try to do a detailed summary of the complicated plot but basically it is about a weirdo salesman who tries to rescue a young girl from the clutches of her aunt who has forced her into prostitution. Our protagonist ultimately finds one murder must be followed by many others. WIth Patrick Dewaere as the salesman, Marie Trintignant as the teenage prostiute and Bernard Blier as the salesman’s boss.

This is a very good looking film and Dewaere is a phenomenon. He does many bizarre things with utter conviction. It’s a big performance that pushes at the margins of going over the top. I had to sleep on it before I decided whether I liked this enough to recommend and I do.

The Life of Brian
Directed by Terry Jones
Written by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin
1979/UK
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

This film seems funnier every time I watch it.

Brian (Graham Chapman) was born in a stable in Bethlehem next to the one occupied by the Baby Jesus and his parents. His mother Mandy (Terry Jones) is a shrill old harridan. The three wise men (Chapman, John Cleese and Michael Palin) stop by the wrong stable first.

So begins a series of mistaken identities that get Brian in a heap of trouble. Along the way we get aquainted wth the inept People’s Front of Judea. Irreverent religious, political, and dirty jokes abound along with some general absurdity.

It takes me a while to get in the right head space for Monty Python but once I do I always laugh. Recommended.

Hair
Directed by Milos Forman
Written by Michael Weller based on the book for the Broadway musical by Gerome Ragni and James Rado
1979/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Chorus: [singing] Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair, shining gleaming steaming flaxen waxen. Give me it down to there, hair, shoulder length or longer, here, baby, there, mamma, everywhere, daddy daddy hair! Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it, my hair!

I am perhaps too well acquainted with Hair the “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” having seen it in the theater several times. One of my big thrills was getting to watch from backstage when my friend appeared in the play on Broadway. I know the songs by heart. So when the movie came out 10 years later, I didn’t like it much. A big part of this is that the story is changed. But now 25 years later I think that this film is excellent for what it is.

Berger (Treat Williams) is the leader of a group of free-loving free-thinking hippies in New York City. One day, the tribe meets Claude Hooper Bukowski (John Savage) in the park. Claude is a draftee who has arrived to see the sights in New York for a couple of days before leaving for Viet Nam. This sparks a superb rendition of “Aquarius”.

Claude falls for woman he sees horseback riding in the park with her ritzy friends. Berger decides to crash her family’s formal dinner party and sing “Ain’t Got No” while sliding down the table.

Berger’s second mission is to prevent Claude from going to Viet Nam. He does this is a very unexpected way.

I can’t deny that Forman staged this beautifully and the songs are timeless. One that particularly moved me was “Easy to Be Hard” as sung by Cheryl Barnes.

Emma
Directed by Douglas McGrath
Written by Douglas McGrath from a novel by Jane Austen
1996/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon rental

Mr. Knightley: Vanity working on a weak mind produces every kind of mischief.

Shockingly, I had not yet seen this adaptation of Jane Austen’s wonderful novel.

Emma Woodhouse (Gwyneth Paltrow) is rich, beautiful and 21. She keeps house for her kindly but hypochondriac father. A daily visitor to the Woodhouse estate is neighbor Mr. Knightly (Jeremy Northham). As the story begins, Emma is congratulating herself on making a match between her former governess and a wealthy businessman.

Emma is now bored and meets Harriet Smith (Toni Collette), the naive natural daughter of who knows whom. Emma’s next project is to make a match for Harriet. She quickly persuades Harriet to reject the marriage proposal of a prosperous farmer and begins to lay a plot to match Harriet with the local vicar Mr. Elton. This fails disastrously.

I don’t want to spoil the nifty plot for anyone so will stop here except to say that it takes a while for Emma to get over herself. The fun is seeing how she gets there. With Ewan McGregor as Frank Churchill.

I love the book and I really enjoyed this film. Paltrow does well and Toni Collette is hilarious. The only nit I would pick is that Northam seems too young to play Mr. Knightley but he is so appealing I didn’t mind much.

Rachel Portman won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, the first woman to do so. The film was nominated for Best Costume Design.

The Tall Men
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Written by Sydney Boehm and Frank S. Nugent from a novel by Heck Allen
1955/US
Twentieth Century Fox
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Title card: Montana Territory – 1866. They came from the South, headed for the goldfields… Ben and Clint Allison, lonely and desperate men. Riding away from a heartbreak memory of Gettysburg. Looking for a new life. A story of tall men – and long shadows.

This Western didn’t grab me but the male leads are very good in it.

Ben (Clark Gable) and Clint Allison (Cameron Mitchell) have recently been discharged from the Confederate Army at the end of the American Civil War. They are en route to prospect for gold in Montana but need some capital. They try to rob wealthy businessman Nathan Stark (Robert Ryan). Instead he convinces them to become partners on his cattle drive from Texas to Montana.

Then Ben rescues starving Nella Turner (Jane Russell) from a watery grave. They banter and spar the way people who will get together by the end of the movie normally do. Then Stark begins to court her as only the monied can do.

The rest of the film is filled with Indian Attacks, bandits, and a showdown between Ben and Stark.

Jane Russell who sings the rather corny title song several times is the weak link in the cast of this movie. The men are strong and you have to root for Clark Gable of course. But I really couldn’t get too invested in what happened to the characters.

The Wanderers
Directed by Philip Kaufman
Written by Rose and Philip Kaufman from a novel by Richard Price
1979/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Chubby Galasso: It’s a shame to see kids beatin’ each other’s brains out, especially when there’s no financial advantage.

My favorite thing about this throwback to the early sixties was its fantastic soundtrack of rock and pop hits from the period

The year is 1963. The city is New York. At the local high school boys join gangs that represent their ethnicity, etc. The Wanderers are an Italian Gang. It is a more innocent age. There is always a brawl going on but fists are the only weapons. Their main rivals are the Baldies. We focus on a group of guys who just graduated high school. Some of them are beginning to think about breaking away. Others comfortably assimilate into the lives of their parents. With Karen Allen as a love interest and free thinker and Linda Manz as a pint-sized female hanger-on to the Baldies.

I had never seen nor heard of this movie. I like Philip Kaufman’s films a lot and this was a solid springboard to better things. The non-professional cast of teenagers were appealing though none would go on to stardom except Karen Allen.

Love on the Run
Directed by François Truffaut
Written by François Truffaut, Marie-France Pisier, Jean Aurel, and Suzanne Schiffman
1979/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Liliane: You can’t make everyone else pay for your rotten childhood.

Truffaut brings his Antoine Doinel series to a most satisfying conclusion.

Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is now in his thirties and has just published his first autobiographical novel. He and wife Christine (Claude Jade) are divorcing. He is currently seeing Sabine (Dorothee) a record store clerk but is naturally commitment phobic. During the course of the film he will run into most of the women he has loved before.

This is the most meta film I can think of. Truffaut not only brings in many of the characters of his series, including in a moving scene Antoine’s stepfather, but illustrates past happenings with clips from the earlier films. And everything flows and does not come off gimmicky. Truffaut was extremely lucky in the choice of his young alter ego and Leaud maintained his high quality throughout the series (and later). And the ladies are all gorgeous. This is a comedy about the messiness of love and I highly recommend it.