Delon & Laforet, again

And to round off this session on 1960s French glamour, here once again are some terrific stills of Alain Delon and Marie Laforet in Rene Clement's PLEIN SOLEIL from Patricia Highsmith's THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY .... feel the heat of the mediterranean ...

To Indo-china and Japan via the sea wall ....

I liked the French epic INDOCHINE a couple of years back, nice to see it again now, plus also that 1950s favourite of mine, Rene Clement's THE SEA WALL, also set in colonial Indo-China (exteriors filmed in Thailand in 1957); and also Mikio Naruse's 1954 LOST CHRYSANTHEMUMS was also screened here again, I was captured all over again ...... here are my reviews of these ....

INDOCHINE. This was a free dvd in one of our newspapers a few years ago, but I never bothered watching it till now. I like it a lot, it plays like a French GONE WITH THE WIND or a David Lean film with those crowd scenes and sampans sailing on marvellous landscapes .... as directed in 1992 by Regis Wargnier.

Indochina during the 1930s: One of the largest rubber-tree plantations is owned by French colonist Eliane who lives with her father and her native adopted daughter Camille (Linh Dan Pham). Elaine gets to know young French officer Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez); after a short affair she refuses to see him again, as Camille falls deeply in love with him. Elaine gets him transferred to a far island where Camille goes in search of him, despite an arranged marriage. Her saga is rivetting and engrossing, as the fates of the three leads play out, rather like a parable of France's place in Indochina and Vietnam. It looks marvellous - Deneuve is perfect in those 30s clothes, and striding around her plantation in jodhpurs. Colonial life is nicely depicted showing also the brutality meted out to the peasants (like that family Camille travels with to that island).

It is a vast, panoramic love story set in the twilight years of French Indo-China. Comparisons with David Lean are inevitable, considering director Régis Wargnier's use of the setting as a backdrop to the love-triangle between the three main characters. Catherine Deneuve gives a strong, emotionally restrained performance as Eliane, the plantation owner whose colonial paradise is slowly falling apart. Linh Dan Pham is affecting as Camille, Eliane's adopted daughter whose journey from aristocratic ancestry to Marxist induction personifies the changing face of South-East Asia in the period around World War Two. It won the Oscar for best Foreign Film of 1992, and Deneuve was nominated as Leading Actress.
As I said to pal Martin to encourage him to see it, it is a saga featuring glamorous ladie wearing fabulous 1930s frocks in exotic locations making grand gestures and suffering, suffering, suffering while an epic tale unfolds about France and Indo-China; there's gorgeous men in white uniforms a well and some marvellously composed images. 

Another Fifties favourite I have featured here quite a bit, but not lately, is Rene Clement's 1957 THE SEA WALL or THIS ANGRY AGE, which I liked as a kid back in 1958.

Above is a nice clip of Tony Perkins and Silvana Mangano doing their jive number.

There is a lot more on THE SEA WALL (or THIS ANGRY AGE) at the labels below. I loved it as a kid, and it still works for me now, Silvana Mangano is as fascinating as ever, and Jo Van Fleet of course is extraordinary as always, and Alida Valli picks up Tony at the cinema! It was an early international co-production, French/Italian and shot in Thailand, from the Marguerite Duras novel. Tony of course went from Silvana to Sophia Loren in his next, DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS, while Clement stunned and fascinated me with his next - PLEIN SOLEIL .... but thats a whole different story. 

Update: I now have my third copy - the first was Italian only / then a friend sourced a black and white copy in English / last year I got a copy in colour and in English with French Sub-titles, copied from French television - and introduced by Alain Delon ! - he must have been commenting on a Rene Clement season ... perfect viewing then.

LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS from 1954 is rather slow-moving and not much actually happens but Naruse creates this mood where we identify with each of his characters and the Japanese life of the time - all those sliding doors! - is nicely depicted. I have not seen any other films by Naruse or much Japanese cinema apart from the Kurosawa and Ozu classics. I love TOKYO STORY of course and Ozu's fellow classics like LATE SPRING and EARLY SUMMER (featuring the great Setsuko Hara as Noriko) and his earlier THERE WAS A FATHER and THE ONLY SON and his final, AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON. Naruse was equally prolific with 91 titles, the best known seem to be FLOATING CLOUDS and WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS - so, more Naruse to explore, then there is Mizoguchi ...

Mikio Naruse's examination of the lives of three idling, constantly complaining, single ex-geishas in post-war Japan is a marvellous character piece. What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Okin has saved her money, and has become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days cold-heartedly collecting debts. Even her best friends, Tomi  and Tamae, who were her fellow Geisha, are now indebted to her. For all of them, the glamor of their young lives has passed; Tomi and Tamae have children, but their children have disappointed them. Okin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves to be a disappointment. 

 As in Ozu's TOKYO STORY, sadness and nostalgia permeate LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS particularly when Tomi and Tamae are getting drunk and reflecting on their children busy with their own lives, 
while Okin comforts herself with her home and deaf-mute maid. Everyone it seems wants to borrow money from her ... Haruko Sugimura (also in TOKYO STORY as the thankless daughter) is marvellous as Okin. All the characters accept the stoic acceptance of life and their circumstances. Okin has her money and the others have their memories and companionship to keep them going. The men meanwhile, particularly, Okin's two previous lovers are desperate for money ... 

The Monroe Walk ! 
One fascinating moment has the two ex-geishas walking along when a modern Japanese girl strolls by swaying her hips.Tamae asks "Is that the Monroe walk?" as Tomi imitates it. It made me realise that here in 1954 Monroe was already a worldwide sensation since 1953 and her tour to Korea. 

Alain Delon: "a bit of alright" says Edith ...

We have not done a piece on Alain for a while, but there are lots on him here, as per the label .....

I mentioned before that Engish film magazine "Films and Filming" I used to get, and work for, and have now got all the 1950s issues (it began in Oct 1954 and folded in 1980, as per a forthcoming piece on all that), each issue featured a column on a "Person of Promise" and I have covered some already (Lee Remick, Stephen Boyd, Belinda Lee, James Garner, Carol Lynley, Shirley Eaton, Shirley McLaine etc). Their May 1959 issue (one of the rare ones I got just now) features that interesting young French actor Alain Delon, then making a name for himself. Its rather delicious:

Alain Delon is 23. Edith Piaf, the nightclub entertainer, described him recently with these words: "Une belle petite eule", which roughly translated means "He's a bit of alright". From the colloquial to the rather more sublime comes this quote on young M. Delon from the actor Bernard Blier: "He has balance, a calm and wholesome insolence, respect for professional tradition, scorn for upstart authority and a taste for a violent, short, intense life".  (Well, they were wrong on that count, Delon is 80 this November) .

All of which goes to show that French Cinema has a virile youngster who appeals to women and men alike, to the professional artist and the audience who have come to watch him.

Alain is at pains to assure those who want to pigeon-hole him into a convenient type that he is not, and has no intention of becoming, the "French James Dean". Whether he likes it or not Alain has the same appeal that endeared the late Dean to the bosoms of his fans.

Born in a suburb of Paris, Alain showed little interest in a career in show business during his teens. At 17 he enlisted in the forces and was sent to Indo-China to fight in the sweltering jungle in the war against the rebels. After two years of this murderous campaign he was released. 

It was at this time that Yves Allegret was looking for a young actor to play in QUAND LA FEMME S'EN MELE (When a Woman Interferes). Yves passed the news along to his director brother Marc who starred the actor in his second film SOIS BELLE ET TAIS TOI (Blonde for Danger) opposite Henri Vidal and Mylene Demongeot. At this time he was offered work in the USA but declined. His first starring role came with CHRISTINE opposite Romy Schneider. He also appeared in FAIBLES FEMMES (WOMEN ARE WEAK) in 1959, with Demongeot and two new young actresses Jacqueline Sassard and Francoise Pascal. In FAIBLES FEMMES Delon plays a Don Juan who seduces three girls in turn and they plot their revenge ... 

His hobbies are horse-racing and .... sports cars. Is M. Delon treading the same path as James Dean? It would seem so. 

FAIBLES FEMMES was one of the first French films I saw, when young in Ireland, and I loved that European glamour and decadence, served up in spades of course in Rene Clement's PLEIN SOLEIL (PURPLE NOON) later that year, from Patricia Highsmith but with a twist, as -per my comments on that. Delon soon became the go-to actor after those prestige films with Visconti (ROCCO, THE LEOPARD) and Antonioni (L'ECLISSE). That great European career followed (Melville's LE SAMURAI, BORSALINO with Belmondo etc) and Delon's playboy life made the headlines too, as well as his various romances, including with Romy. Its always a pleasure seeing him with Claudia, Romy, Monica, Marie Laforet and the others, or playing gangsters with Gabin or Montand (MELODIE EN SOUS SOL, SICILIAN CLAN, CERCLE ROUGE etc.. I must get around to his one with Simone Signoret soon...

It all began when fellow actor Jean-Claude Brialy took him to the Cannes Film Festival in 1957, where among others he met were Hollywood agent Henry Willson, and British photograher John Barrington, who took some interesting shots of the young actor (in bed, left).  He was soon on the cover (first of many) in "Films and Filming's" 1961 French issue, in PLEIN SOLEIL. and of course did some Hollywod films. He seems to have aged quite well and working until recently, as per the commentary on the recent PLEIN SOLEIL Blu-ray.  Above: Delon by Barrington in 1957, right, with Belmondo in recent years.

The Ripleys again: Matt or Alain?

We had to have another look at THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY on television once again, the other day, despite rushing to it when released in 1999 and seen it several times since. It is Anthony Minghella's glossy adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's classic novel and is an engaging, if hollow, thriller in bright Italian sunshine. Minghella though, as per his published screenplay, greatly expands on the novel fleshing out characters, played by Cate Blanchett and Jack Davenport, who are barely mentioned by Highsmith. Cate is rich girl Meredith, while Jack is Ripley's new love - whom he has to get rid of in order to continue his duplicitous new life. 

We note also how Dickie is made more of a heel - getting that local girl pregnant and his indifference when she drowns herself - so presumably we the audience do not feel too bad when he is bumped off - but of course Jude Law is so charismatic here the film drifts once he is not there to tease and taunt Matt Damon's nerdy needy Tom. So its an overlong, drawn out affair as our glamorous people act out Highsmith's chilling tale. Philip Seymour Hoffman scores too in that key small role

What sinks it for me is the trowelled-on Fifties period detail - all those fussy '50s fashions they wear, with hats and gloves. Whereas in Rene Clement's PLEIN SOLEIL, the 1959 original, they were smart casual clothes that would still be fashionable now, they look strikingly modern in fact - and 24 year old Alain Delon, stunnng Marie Laforet and Maurice Ronet as Dickie are all perfectly right. Its a shorter tale, and even with that changed ending, it works better. Delon in that ice blue suit strolling around the market, and Marie Laforet as Marge strumming that guitar surrounded by her Fra Angelico prints, and the tensions of the three of them on the boat, and of course Dickie suddenly realising he is in danger after pushing Tom too far ... all set on the real mediterranean of 1959 as captured by Henri Decae's glowing colours. 

I have written a lot about PLEIN SOLEIL here, see the labels below, It is of course the tale of how New York wannabe Tom Ripley's life changes after he is sent to Italy to haul back errant playboy Dickie Greenleaf. In the 1999 version Matt Damon makes Ripley suitably sinister and needy and Jude Law is at his charismatic best as the wastrel rich boy whom Ripley wants for himself or failing that to be him, taking over his life ...just as Delon and Ronet played it in 1959.
I first saw that version when 14 in 1960, when it opened my eyes to European glamour and beauty. Its a seminal movie for me. as much as 2001, BLOW-UP, or LA NOTTE BRAVA, SANDRA, MODESTY BLAISE, WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT? etc. but THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY is fascinating too.

A '50s favourite: Back to the Sea Wall ...

Another Fifties favourite I have featured here quite a bit, but not lately, is Rene Clement's 1957 THE SEA WALL or THIS ANGRY AGE

This is a nice clip of Tony Perkins and Silvana Mangano doing their jive number:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAekQyj7df8

(Somehow YouTube won't let me load the clip, the whole movie is on there too, but in black and white.

There is a lot more on THE SEA WALL (or THIS ANGRY AGE) at the labels below. I loved it as a kid, and it still works for me now, Jo Van Fleet of course is extraordinary as always, and Alida Valli picks up Tony at the cinema! It was an early international co-production, French/Italian and shot in Thailand, from the Marguerite Duras novel. Tony of course went from Silvana to Sophia Loren in his next, DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS, while Clement stunned and fascinated me with his next - PLEIN SOLEIL .... but thats a whole different story. 

All those directors !

Following on from the lists of actors and actresses we like, here is the Directors list .... its bigger than I imagined ! 

Michelangelo Antonioni  (right)

Alfred Hitchcock 

Howard Hawks 

Ingmar Bergman
David Lean
Michael Powell
Martin Scorsese

John Huston 

William Wyler 

Billy Wilder 

Joe Mankiewicz 

George Cukor 

Vincente Minnelli 
Josef Von Sternberg 

Orson Welles 

THE REST OF THE PANTHEON: 

Frank Borzage, Preston Sturges, John Ford, Frank Capra, Michael Curtiz, George Stevens, Fred Zinnemann, Alan J Pakula, Sidney Lumet, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Charles Walters.

OF THEIR TIME ('50s/'60s): 

Elia Kazan, Stanley Kramer, Douglas Sirk, Frank Tashlin, Otto Preminger, Nicholas Ray, Anthony Mann, Robert Rossen, Martin Ritt, Stanley Donen, John Frankenheimer, Richard Brooks, Jean Negulesco, John Sturges, Blake Edwards, Richard Quine, George Roy Hill, Robert Wise, Robert Mulligan, Richard Fleisher. 

CURRENT DIRECTORS: 

Mike Leigh, Francois Ozon, Pedro Almodovar, Nicholas Winding Refn, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Todd Haynes, Bill Condon, Ang Lee, Paul Schrader.

BRITISH: 

John Schlesinger, Joseph Losey*, Richard Lester*, John Boorman, Nicholas Roeg, Ridley Scott, Carol Reed, Clive Donner, Desmond Davis, Tony Richardson, Basil Dearden, J. Lee Thompson, Philip Leacock, Alexander McKendrick, Lewis Gilbert, Ronald Neame [* honorary Brits]  Right: Losey directs MODESTY BLAISE.

EUROPEAN (after Antonioni): 

Federico Fellini, Vittorio de Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Jacques Demy, Agnes Varda, Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville, Mauro Bolognini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Max Ophuls, Luis Bunuel, Wim Wenders, Francois Truffaut, Rene Clement, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Lelouch, Roger Vadim, Claude Sautet, Julian Duviver, Robert Hossein, Henri Verneuil.
Left and right: Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy.

WORLD CINEMA:

Ozu, Mizoguchi, Ray, Kurosawa, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Wong Kar-wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Hitch & Cary

New Plein Soleil on Blu-Ray

That new PLEIN SOLEIL Blu-ray arrived today, and its terrific. This is the English StudioCanal one, I already got the US Criterion (right). This English has has extras on interesting restoration comparisons, and an extensive recent interview with its star Alain Delon - who is very fulsome on Rene Clement and his influence on him, plus he mentions Romy's appearance in it; plus an over an hour long documentary on its making, so now I feel I know everything there is to about PLEIN SOLEIL. Pity no Marie Laforet interview though. Highly recommended then, and the film is still dazzling, as is that 1959 Mediterranean ... and without that padding that Minghella included in his 1999 version. 
For me though Clement kind of peaked with PLEIN SOLEIL, his following films were just not in the same league, though LES FELINS with Delon again in 1963 is a ritzy thriller. 1947's LES MAUDITS and GERVAISE were interesting discoveries a while back (thanks John), and I really like KNAVE OF HEARTS (Gerard Philipe label) and 1958's THE SEA WALL, as mentioned here several times ...

The Sea Wall, once again ....

Next summer repeat - a look back at our 1958 favourite, THE SEA WALL or THIS ANGRY AGE.

From "Lost Films of the Fifties" by Douglas Brode (an ideal companion to his essential "Films of the Fifties") a selection of stills from one of my favourite films, mentioned on here quite a bit (Mangano, Perkins, Clement, Sea Wall labels) THE SEA WALL or THIS ANGRY AGE from 1958 - which I liked at the time, and finally saw again - in an Italian copy - last year [thanks to my IMDB pal Timshelboy]. I also wrote about the recent French remake of this Marguerite Duras story, LE BARRAGE CONTRE LE PACIFIQUE starring Isabelle Huppert [French label]. The '58 version though by Rene Clement for Dino De Laurentiis, starring his wife Silvana Mangano, is one of the first international co-productions made in Thailand, and remains a fascinating lost movie, scripted from the Duras novel by Irwin Shaw, with a Nino Rota score.

Here we have Silvana and a pre-PSYCHO Tony Perkins as the siblings, the great Jo Van Fleet [as good as in EAST OF EDEN or WILD RIVER] as their mother trying to protect their rice plantation from the sea, and Mangano with Richard Conte, and Nehemiah Persoff. I love the scenes with Perkins and Mangano dancing, and playing their rock'n'roll records on that beat-up record player. Alida Valli also appears as the woman who picks up Perkins in the cinema! Maybe one day a proper print will be available .... ditto, De Laurentiis's THE TEMPEST, another international co-production, by Lattuada with Mangano in '58 from the Pushkin novel set in the Russian steppes. I loved it when I was 12!

Update: I now have my third copy - the first was Italian only / then a friend sourced a black and white copy in English / last year I got a copy in colour and in English with French Sub-titles, copied from French television - and introduced by Alain Delon ! - he must have been commenting on a Rene Clement season ... perfect viewing then.