The Frame » film-1961

One, Two, Three

Jandy — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:53:29 +0000

Starts off fast and the pace only accelerates to keep up with James Cagney’s fast-talking Coca-Cola marketer in Berlin, charged with keeping his boss’s daughter safe when she visits–a task that quickly becomes more than he bargained for when she secretly marries a communist from East Berlin and plans to move to Moscow with him. This film is not as well-known as many of Billy Wilder’s other classics, like Double Indemnity or Some Like It Hot or The Apartment, and maybe it isn’t quite as groundbreaking as they are, but it really deserves to be seen and enjoyed. Once I got into it, I was hooked and it never let me go.
Well Above Average

Le petit soldat

Jandy — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:35:24 +0000

I’m sorry, Jean-Luc, I didn’t quite get it this time. This Godard film was made in 1961, but not released in France for a couple of years because of its unflinching torture scenes and intimation that the French army was quite as unprincipled as the Algerian one during the Algerian War. I don’t know anything about the Algerian War (I tried to gather some info from Wikipedia about halfway through, but it wasn’t quite enough), and while I liked a lot of the moments in the film (especially those involving Anna Karina, because I have a girlcrush on her), the whole thing just kept losing me. I think the main character is a rather ambivalent French spy who gets captured by the Algerians and tortured, and then gets taken in by the French and tortured again, because they think he’s turned or something (and Karina is a spy too, but I forget for which side). Yeah, I just got really confused. And this is after a good three times trying to watch it this month. I’ll try it again later sometime, I promise, Jean-Luc.
Average

A Woman is a Woman

Jandy — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:24:19 +0000

Angela (Anna Karina) wants to have a baby. Her boyfriend Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy) isn’t terribly excited by the idea and jokingly foists her off onto their friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) – who is himself deeply in love with Angela. Though there’s real conflict in the relationships, the overarching tone is farcical, and I dare you to watch the film without a smile on your face. And, being a Jean-Luc Godard film, it’s got more of interest than just the story–his experimentation here is largely confined to the soundtrack, which goes from unexpectedly loud and foregrounded to bracingly absent, almost making the film a musical. Because of Godard’s technical playfulness, the film is of interest from a film studies point of view, but it’s also just plain fun. Don’t make it your only Godard film, but it’d be a great place to start. See some clips and commentary in my post here.
Superior

Through a Glass Darkly

Jandy — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:17:05 +0000

Karin is having some issues. She’s just out of a mental hospital and seems to be doing better on vacation with her husband, father and brother. Her husband is still concerned about her, though, a concern which turns out to be warranted when she starts having terrifying visions, famously one of God as a spider. We don’t see any of these visions, however, and experience them solely through actress Harriet Andersson’s flawless performance. Ingmar Bergman is a difficult filmmaker, exploring philosophic questions through his impassive camera–it’s difficult to know precisely what he’s going for, and yet, I was mesmerized by the film and intrigued to watch Winter Light and The Silence, usually grouped with Through a Glass Darkly as an unofficial trilogy. Like I said, Bergman is not a terribly accessible filmmaker, but he’s worth it. Don’t let my inability to explain why he’s worth it stop you from thinking it’s true.
Well Above Average

Divorce, Italian Style

Jandy — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:32:09 +0000

Now, I really think I missed something here. Divorce, Italian Style is usually right up there on critics lists and is considered one of the best Italian comedies ever. Perhaps Italians don’t make very many good comedies? No, but seriously. The premise is great – an Italian man stuck in an unhappy marriage hits on the idea that since he can’t divorce his wife, divorce laws in Italy being pretty strict, he will kill her instead. However, in order to take advantage of a leniency in Italian murder law concerning crimes of passion, he concocts a complicated plan that involves bringing in a former sweetheart of his wife’s, getting them into a compromising situation, and then killing her in a fit of passion. Add in the other man’s wife, who has similar designs, and you should have a zany good time. But…you don’t. The film is slow-moving, strangely lifeless, and focuses far more on the main character’s desire for his niece than seemed healthy or helpful. Yet, there must be something I missed, because really smart film people really like this film. For my part, I’m giving it an above average because there are moments that are perfect (thanks mostly to actor Marcello Mastroianni).
Above Average