Our French favourites: Deneuve, Dorleac, Adjani & Huppert, Aimee, Audran, Hardy, Laforet .... plenty on them at labels!
Showing posts with label Isabelle Adjani. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isabelle Adjani. Show all posts
Saturday, 13 May 2017
Friday, 22 November 2013
Nosferatu, 1979
Jonathan Harker is sent away to Count Dracula's castle to sell him a
house in Varna, where Jonathan lives. But Count Dracula is a vampire, an
undead ghoul living off of men's blood. Inspired by a photograph of
Lucy Harker, Jonathan's wife, Dracula moves to Varna, bringing with him
death and plague... An unusually contemplative version of Dracula, in
which the vampire bears the curse of not being able to get old and die.
Like Coppola's version in 1992 the visuals keep one mesmerised - starting with those close-ups of mummified bodies, then Harker's journey through that desolate countryside and mountains to that grim castle to meet the cadaverous Count. We have "The children of the night make their music" as the wolves howl, and that comment of the undead Count: "Time is an abyss... profound as a thousand nights... Centuries come and
go... To be unable to grow old is terrible... Death is not the worst...
Can you imagine enduring centuries, experiencing each day the same
futilities..."
Ganz is effective as Harker, but Adjani, usually so magnetic, plays Lucy as though she is in a coma but presumably that pallid Victorian heroine what Herzog wanted. Kinski certainly conveys the loneliness and sadness of the vampire who longs to be human. Its certainly effective as that ghost ship arrives in at the port, bringing rats and plague, as the Count has killed off the crew, and the city succumbs to plague mania ..... will Jonathan get to save Lucy in time? The ending is not what one expects, as Lucy keeps Nosferatu with her till dawn - but then a new vamprie arises to take his place. Maybe Herzog's most effective film since AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD? For another OTT Kinski performance see 1981's snake-on-the-loose thriller VENOM (Horror label), he is also good as the slum landlord in 1965's THE PLEASURE GIRLS (London label).
I read Bram Stoker's novel when I was 17 and it was profoundly scary, most of the vampire movies have been fun - I particuarly like ther 1960 Hammer BRIDES OF DRACULA (Horror label) and the effectively chiller DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS with Christopher Lee and Barbara Shelley is maybe the best of the other Hammer Draculas, apart from Polanski's deliciously comic DANCEOF THE VAMPIRES or THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS - also at Horror label.
Friday, 4 January 2013
Dame Maggie's other Quartet, a memento mori ...
Following the conviction of her art dealer husband, Stephan Zelli, for theft, Marya Zelli, originally from the West Indies, moves in with her acquaintances, expatriate Brits H.J. and Lois Heidler. Marya knows that H.J. in particular has more in mind than just providing her lodging out of the goodness of his heart. Marya agrees in part because she, being a foreigner, cannot get work and would thus become destitute otherwise. She learns she is the latest in a long line of lodgers. She also learns that H.J. and Lois' marriage is not all that it appears on the surface. The Heidler's hold on Marya becomes stronger when they convince her that Stephan not only has no money but has no future in France after his release.
Bates and Smith are at their peak here as the odd British couple with designs on the perfectly French Adjani - like THE EUROPEANS, HEAT AND DUST and those other Merchant Ivory productions like MAURICE and A ROOM WITH A VIEW the drama plays out nicely against immaculate backdrops and the lead actors shine. Its the only time Bates and Maggie Smith played together (they are both in Altman's GOSFORD PARK though, but then most British thespians were...). This one nicely evokes the Jazz Age with its art deco and nightclubs, costumes and music. Like the equally interesting British production RETURN OF THE SOLDIER from the same era (1982) where we have another fantastic cast (Bates, Julie Christie, Glenda Jackson, Ann-Margret) in a period setting, review soon - we were certainly spoiled by great costume dramas with quality casts then and more or less took them for granted. This QUARTET is worth discovering now - the Merchant/Ivory team made these movies on very tight budgets but they look terrific on screen and their inspired casting always works a treat. Since then costume dramas are big business on television, but Merchant-Ivory made theirs as films and on slim budgets.
MEMENTO MORI - nice to finally see this 1992 BBC production which like THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE is also from a Muriel Spark novel. Directed by veteran Jack Clayton, his last credit, (ROOM AT THE TOP, THE INNOCENTS, THE PUMPKIN EATER) it also has a sterling cast led by, once again, Maggie Smith with Michael Hordern, Stephanie Cole, Renee Asherson, Thora Hird, Cyril Cusack, Maurice Denham, Anna Cropper, Robert Flemyng and Muriel Pavlow from those Rank Organisation Dirk Bogarde movies. It is pure Spark, set in the 1940s, as it concerns a group of old people who are getting mysterious phone calls saying "remember that you have to die" .... Other friends are receiving the phone calls as well, a group of old
people who like to organize social reunions, gathering together at
funerals.
I like Spark's books like "The Girls of Slender Means", "The Takeover", "The Abbess of Crewe" (which was filmed as the delirious NASTY HABITS, which I really must re-watch and review if only for that amazing cast (Glenda Jackson, Edith Evans in her last appearance, Sandy Dennis, Geraldine Page, Melina Mercouri). MEMENTO MORI is almost as funny as Iris Murdoch's THE BELL (another great British novelist, making up a triumvirate with Spark and Ireland's Edna O'Brien). MEMENTO MORI is a pleasure,
the Georges Delerue score is perfect, the acting is superb, and the story is at
once quirky and poigant--anyone with elderly parents will be especially
affected. (See AMOUR review below ..).
 |
| Maggie as Hedda |
(Theatre label) but I saw Dame Maggie play Hedda twice in 1970 for director Ingmar Bergman, with those flame red sets and black-costumed cast (including Robert Stephens and Jeremy Brett and BENIDORM (tv sitcom) regular Sheila Reid). It was so mesmerising I had to go twice, as I did to the company's THE BEAU'S STRATAGEM, and also to David Storey's HOME with Richardon & Gielgud - 1970 was a great theatre year, when I was 24!. (Jill Bennett was also a terrific Hedda then - I also saw Maggie in plays like PRIVATE LIVES, LETTUCE & LOVAGE, NIGHT & DAY, THE LADY IN THE VAN). I had tickets for her Lady Bracknell in 1993 but was taken ill that evening and spent a week in hospital being treated for a bleeding ulcer! Saturday, 18 June 2011
Movies I Love: THE HISTORY OF ADELE H
Francois Truffaut's 1975 L'HISTOIRE DE ADELE H is one of those movies that enthralled me so much that I came out of the cinema as it was snowing in a state of total rapture. The story is mesmerising as is Isabelle Adjani, who made her film reputation with this, after being an acclaimed stage actress. She is just so haunting and compelling and incredibly beautiful, and has been so accomoplished ever since. THE BRONTE SISTERS was more Victorian costume drama but she had less to do and it was a much lesser film, but she also scored in items like THE DRIVER, CAMILLE CLAUDEL, LE REINE MARGOT, BON VOYAGE and others. (We won't mention ISHTAR!) Here though at 19, she is the daughter of France's great writer Victor Hugo and we find her in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1863 on the trail of a French officer Lt Pinson (Bruce Robinson) whom she is madly in love with. He however does not return her obsessive love and we watch fascinated as she turns into a stalker following him and recording everyting in her diary. Joseph Blatchley is the other young man who has feelings for her, but Adele is only aware of Pinson, even giving him money for other women.
Finally, madness overwhelms her as she follows Pinson to his next post in Barbados, where she is found penniless and is returned by Madame Baa to her father in Jersey. One chilling scene has Adele in a world of her own passing Pinson in the street and not even recognising him as she is so far gone in her own world. It is a vivid stunning performance - and it is just as powerful now. I just like the look and period feel to the film, one of Truffaut's literary films, which is probably the best ever on the nature of obsessive love. [Adjani, one of France's great actresses, has had quite a tempestous life too, including relationships with Beatty, and a son by Daniel Day-Lewis].
2 more French rarities
LES SOEURS BRONTE – A 1979 French film I had been looking forward to seeing one day, as it never played in the UK, and one can see why now. Despite being about the Bronte sisters, and their brother, we see nothing really about how or what they wrote or why they were the geniuses they were. Instead we get 3 attractive French stars pouting on the moors and at the gloomy parsonage. Isabelle Adjani is Emily who wrote “Wuthering Heights” and strides over the moors in mens’ clothes. Isabelle Huppert is Anne, the quiet mousy one, author of “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, while Marie-France Pisier (who died this year) is serenely beautiful as Charlotte, who created “Jane Eyre” and “Villette”. It is great to see Adjani again but she has nothing much to play with here – unlike her great role in Truffaut’s HISTORY OF ADELE H. 
There is rather too much of brother Branwell (Pascal Greggory) which frankly has one reaching for the fast-forward – there is the chilling moment though when he erases his image from the family portrait; his friend played by Jean Sorel is hardly in it, and Patrick Magee is also underused as their father. Emily and Anne die and Charlotte becomes a success, we end with her at the opera, a nice scene with the carriages and torches, as Mr Thackeray invites her and her husband to share his box, which is where we leave her. The girls through are really too attractive – as directed by Andre Techine I dare say it was popular at the time with the French.
LANDRU – An early Chabrol film (1963) hardly seen now, its in none of the boxsets (also known as BLUEBEARD – though not as much fun as the Burton one), this is a very interesting oddity, a not entirely successful telling of the Landru murders which fascinated France during WWI (he killed at least 11 women for their money). But it is neither a black comedy nor a straightforward drama. Again, an interesting cast of French ladies are the main interest, but we see too little of Danielle Darrieux, Michele Morgan, Hildegarde Knef, Juliette Mayniel (from EYES WITHOUT A FACE).
Thankfully we do not see them being despatched, as each lady ends with a freeze frame, then cut to the smoking chimney of Landru’s country house, with the neighbours complaining of the smell, as he works at his stove … how he gets away with all this is a mystery [even buying return tickets for himself, and singles for them, from the girl at the railway station), while also dropping in on his wife and children now and then, and also keeping his silly mistress, Stephane Audran. Charles Denner though with shaved head and full beard is rather like a sinister little gnome – how did all these silly women fall into his clutches? - one expects them to scream or burst out laughing. He has no redeeming features whatsoever, so it gets rather dull eventually. Scripted by Francoise Sagan, with some rather lurid colour sets. The murders are intercut with footage of the carnage at the trenches, perhaps a point is being made about the collective madness of the time? Then it is the trial, he is executed, the end. Its a dubbed Joe E Levine release by Embassy.
There is rather too much of brother Branwell (Pascal Greggory) which frankly has one reaching for the fast-forward – there is the chilling moment though when he erases his image from the family portrait; his friend played by Jean Sorel is hardly in it, and Patrick Magee is also underused as their father. Emily and Anne die and Charlotte becomes a success, we end with her at the opera, a nice scene with the carriages and torches, as Mr Thackeray invites her and her husband to share his box, which is where we leave her. The girls through are really too attractive – as directed by Andre Techine I dare say it was popular at the time with the French.
LANDRU – An early Chabrol film (1963) hardly seen now, its in none of the boxsets (also known as BLUEBEARD – though not as much fun as the Burton one), this is a very interesting oddity, a not entirely successful telling of the Landru murders which fascinated France during WWI (he killed at least 11 women for their money). But it is neither a black comedy nor a straightforward drama. Again, an interesting cast of French ladies are the main interest, but we see too little of Danielle Darrieux, Michele Morgan, Hildegarde Knef, Juliette Mayniel (from EYES WITHOUT A FACE).
Thankfully we do not see them being despatched, as each lady ends with a freeze frame, then cut to the smoking chimney of Landru’s country house, with the neighbours complaining of the smell, as he works at his stove … how he gets away with all this is a mystery [even buying return tickets for himself, and singles for them, from the girl at the railway station), while also dropping in on his wife and children now and then, and also keeping his silly mistress, Stephane Audran. Charles Denner though with shaved head and full beard is rather like a sinister little gnome – how did all these silly women fall into his clutches? - one expects them to scream or burst out laughing. He has no redeeming features whatsoever, so it gets rather dull eventually. Scripted by Francoise Sagan, with some rather lurid colour sets. The murders are intercut with footage of the carnage at the trenches, perhaps a point is being made about the collective madness of the time? Then it is the trial, he is executed, the end. Its a dubbed Joe E Levine release by Embassy.
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