R.I.P. continued

Bob Hoskins (1942-2014). Much affection and sincere tributes for Bob Hoskins who has died aged 71. He had been retired for a few years due to illness. We liked Bob in so many films, from that great TV series of Dennis Potter's PENNIES FROM HEAVEN in 1978, to WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? via THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, FELICIA'S JOURNEY, LAST ORDERS and those early bit parts in ROYAL FLASH, ROCK FOLLIES and MONA LISA. Bob was a natural actor and so convincing as either gangster or cockney or just an ordinary guy.

I am planning to re-watch the 1987 THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE again this week, its a very downbeat one, with Maggie Smith in Dublin, and I will have to re-connect the video player to play this vhs cassette. More on that soon. Bob directed a few films too, starred with Cher in MERMAIDS, in Spielberg's HOOK, and many more in a long career. I also have his last film SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN still to see. He is fun too with Dame Judi in Frears' MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS. I want to se-see 2000's LAST ORDERS too with that great line up including Hemmings, Courtenay, Mirren, and Winstone.   

Tatiana Samoilova (1934-2014). Soviet film star and winner of a Cannes award Tatiana Samoilova (or is it Tatyana Samoylova?) has passed away at the age of 80. She had the lead role in Mikhail Kalatozov's acclaimed film, THE CRANES ARE FLYING where she is very affecting (particularly in that final scene at the railway station), which won the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival This and Kalatozov's THE LETTER THAT WAS NOT SENT from 1959 were stunning discoveries for me last year, per my reviews (Russian label). She also played ANNA KARENINA in 1993. Samoilova was named National Artist of Russia, one of the state's highest honors

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (1918-2014) - at the grand age of 95. I never saw his prime tv shows like 77 SUNSET STRIP or HAWAIIAN EYE, but we read about them in the fan magazines, but he was in some popular movies too - THE CROWDED SKY in 1960 and my perennial favourite THE CHAPMAN REPORT in 1962, as well as items like TOO MUCH TOO SOON and BY LOVE POSSESSED. Efrem of course piloted the smaller plane with him and Troy Donahue that hit the airliner piloted by Dana Andrews in THE CROWDED SKY whereas in AIRPORT 1975 Dana piloted the small plane that collided with Efrem's jumbo jet.

Year's end

And we look back at the last of 2013, a year when eras passed: not only Nelson Mandela but Mrs Thatcher, the resignation of Pope Benedict and that interesting new pope Francis .... that titan among TV people David Frost; people dear to us that we grew up watching like Peter O'Toole and Julie Harris; Joan Fontaine, Eleanor Parker and Esther Williams from the Golden Age, among many others.

Certainly a towering year for cinema, we are looking forward to the Award Season as its should be the best for some time, as Blanchett, Dench, Bullock, Thompson, Winslet, Hanks, Redford, Ejiofor,  Cauron, McQueen and others slog it out. Seeing the new Woody Allen on the cinema screen and back on form was good too...

Discoveries of the year for me were finally getting Blu-ray for the reissues of THE SERVANT and BILLY LIAR; seeing THE SERVANT on a movie screen again at that screening I attended back in March when James Fox, Sarah Miles and Wendy Craig were present to talk about it 50 years later - how often does that happen? As I had seen Dirk Bogarde and Joseph Losey in discussion back in 1970, I just had to be at this one too. Then there's the Blu-ray of Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE, we will be discussing that in the new year. We also dug the Blu-ray of Clement's PLEIN SOLEIL, and loved it all over again. 

It was great too to go back to the British cinema of the late '40s and early '50s with titles I had not seen before like THE BLUE LAMP and HUNTED, with early Bogarde making an impression, as per recent reviews, and more Italian cinema of the early 60s with those Bolognini titles like LA NOTTE BRAVA, SENILITA, CORRUPTION, as well as France's LES GODELURAUX, that 1962 Chabrol rarity, and his even rarer 1965 MARIE CHANTAL VERSUS DR KHA with the adorable due of Marie Laforet and Stephane Audran (French label).

1959 was the year that kept on giving with those Russian classics like BALLAD OF A SOLDIER and THE LETTER THAT WAS NOT SENT, it was a year of discovering Russian cinema as we also loved 1957's THE CRANES ARE FLYING. Other new 1959 classics to add to the growing list were Camus's BLACK ORPHEUS and Chabrol's LES COUSINS and A DOUBLE TOUR, plus Brigitte Bardot's zany COME DANCE WITH ME, which must make 1959 my favourite movie year ever (along with 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966 ...).  See 1959 label for more on these. Then there were those Chabrol, Deneuve, Bardot  and Romy Schneider treats (French label) plus finding out about those missing Lee Remick BBC films. Now for 2014 and THE GREAT BEAUTY ...

1,000th post ...

Here it is, the 1,000th post. When I began this blog 3 years ago I never imagined I would clock up a thousand posts ... I said I would take a break then, and in fact I am flying out tomorrow morning for a trip to Ireland - weather permitting, we are having a hurricane here at the moment, but its blowing out now, trains and transport should resume during the morning .... / Right: Scorsese's Italian cinema masterclass.

The blog - pages and pages of it - I am pleased with it and its given me the chance to write about the movies and people I like, as well as books and music - and all those magazines like "Films & Filming". I now want to get back to that manuscript I was tinkering with and complete that. 

Its not farewell though _ I shall be looking in and adding comments and photos and reviews as and when. 
I have enjoyed looking back at all the stuff I was doing in the early 70s, meeting and seeing lots of those stars still active then, my 60s in Swinging London, and that great era for me: 1954 - 1964 co-inciding with my early moviegoing years in Ireland (above: the first film I saw, aged 8, JOHNNY GUITAR - which I still love now too). during that great period for international cinema, and then my London years starting in 1964 in time for that new era .... then those groovy '70s and on to the '80s and '90s to now. 

 
The movies - whether a silent classic (take a bow THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD, and I have Murnau's SUNRISE lined up to watch on Blu-ray) or a Buster Keaton, a '30s screwball, a '40s noir, a '50s epic/western/musical/drama/peplum or a '60s New Wave Italian or French arthouse treat or a Hitchcock classic or a prime slice of Trash, a '70s New American Cinema classic or Eurotrash, or a current blockbuster! - are all grist to our mill here, being a movie omnivore. We love the camp side of showbiz too, as well as the great actors and directors - check out those Showpeople ! 
Then there is the pleasure in discovering long unseen movies which become new favourites: LA NOTTE BRAVA, THE LONG NIGHT OF '43, BALLAD OF A SOLDIER, THE LETTER NOT SENT, BLACK ORPHEUS etc.

"I'm discovered on a rather simple divan ..."

Kay does great feather boa in RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (click images to enlarge)

The labels (and  archive) for the main categories will bring up all I have done on those topics:

People We Like, Glamour, Showpeople, Trash, French, Italian, Russian, British, London, Gay Interest, TV, Theatre etc. as well as all those decades: 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and those great years like 1954, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1962, '67, '69, '72 etc  ...
as well as all those Names.  "Names, sweetie, names" ....  You will find them all here - at the labels:

Dirk, Sophia, Monica, Marilyn, Lee, Susan, Katharine, Bette, Cary, Alain, Claudia, Romy, Belmondo, Deneuve, Dorleac, Anouk, Jean, Deborah, Brando, Ingrid, Judy, James, Julie, Greta, Marlene, Gina, Janet, Newman, Belinda, Lana, Antonioni, Wilder, Hitchcock, Losey, Huston, Demy, Cukor, Minnelli, Mankiewicz, De Sica, Von Sternberg, Joni Mitchell, David Hockney and more ....

So, after my holiday, I shall post here those Appreciations I did on Bogarde and Loren some years ago, from IMDb.

I used to have up to 9 or 10 posts per page here, but now it seems down to 3 or 4 ....

That Russian trio ...

When I was in my teens in the late '50s/early '60s there were some highly praised Russian films that got awards at Film Festivals and were very highly rated, written about in the magazines, classic art-house movies of the time, at the height of the Cold War showing that the Russians were just like us, with their loves and dreams. I never got to see them then, but finally have now, so let's look at BALLAD OF A SOLDIER, THE CRANES ARE FLYING and THE LETTER THAT WAS NOT SENT.

BALLAD OF A SOLDIER. In the middle of the Second World War, Alyosha (Vladimir Ivashov) is commended for destroying two German tanks. Rather than a medal, he requests a four-day pass to visit his mother, and repair her roof. The film is about his journey across a battle-scarred Russia, the people he meets, and the girl he connects with .... 

Time though runs out and he only gets to see his mother for a few minutes before he has to return ...

Produced in 1959, Grigory Chukhrai's timeless tale is still relevant today, with so many soldiers not returning home from whatever conflicts that are going on. We are told at the start that our hero is already dead, buried far away where strangers lay flowers at his grave .... we feel for the mother (Antonnia Maximova) waiting for the son who does not return, having lost her husband too. 

The film has that lovely lyrical look, Chukhrai is a terrific film-maker with great visual style. Ivashov is a delight as the young soldier (the scene where he outwits the enemy tanks is both funny and thrilling), and Zhanna Prokhorenko is a lovely heroine, their brief time together is a tender romance. 
Add in the venal guardian of the train compartment, the crippled handsome soldier (Nikolai Kriuchkov) unsure of whether to return to his wife, the other wife Alyoshi has to visit who has found someone else, and the suffering of the various folk we meet along the way ... BALLAD OF A SOLDIER is not a Cold War propaganda vehicle but a sympathetic look at flawed, suffering human individuals, trying to survive the catastropnhic upheaval in which they find themselves. Few films show the futility of war more. I like it a lot.

THE CRANES ARE FLYING, 1957. Mikhail Kalatozov's lyrical portrait of lives torn apart by war is the only Soviet film to have won the Palme d'Or. the Cannes Film Festival's highest honour. The fates of young lovers Boris and Veronika are drastically changed by the outbreak of the Second World War when Boris is called up to fight on the front line. A desolate Veronika, superbly played by Tatiana Samoilova, must learn to carry on without him - coping with the apartment block she lives in being bombed, working as a nurse, resisting other men's blandishments, and that climax at the crowded railway station where she finally realises Boris is not coming home, as she hands out flowers, its very affecting. The beautifully photographed and subtly powerful film higlights the war's devastating effect on the Russian people. 

There is much to admire, the vital performances, the black and white camerawork, the urgent crowd scenes, and yes, the shots of those cranes flying far away ...

THE LETTER THAT WAS NOT SENT, 1959. Also by Mikhail Kalatozov, and again starring Tatiana Samoilova.
Four geologists are searching for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia. After a long and tiresome journey they manage to find the diamonds and put the mine on a map which must be delivered back to Moscow. But on the day of their departure a terrible forest fire wreaks havoc, and the geologists get trapped in the woods. Its as if, as they say, "nature has turned against them" as they combat fire, rain, snow and that freezing Siberian winter ...

 
It is fascinating now to see that in that great year 1959, that New Wave that burst upon the French, Italian, British and American cinema also hit Russia - with this and BALLAD OF A SOLDIER, this is another dynamic, lyrical film, focusing on human suffering and endurance. Like that other great Russian discovery of mine last year, THE MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA (Russian label), this is another film of astounding powerful and unique visuals, cinematography by Sergei Urusevsky. It is initially a love triangle between Samoilova and two of the men. Soon the four are trapped in an enormous forest fire. It then becomes a desperate tale of survival - who, if any, will survive? First, one get killed, and another injured one, being carried by the other two, does the noble thing, leaving the final two to trek on .... by the time a helicopter arrives is it too late on that freezing ice floe ? This still plays terrifically now, and would be an interesting revival on the big screen.

There was also Bernhard Wicki's THE BRIDGE also 1959, but that was a German production .... I might get to see it sometime.

The man with the movie camera goes to Rome

I had never heard of MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA, a 1929 Russian silent movie by Dziga Vertov - but there it was at number 8 in the recent "Sight & Sound" list of the greatest films ever made (the list they do every 10 years, see Magazines label). Then luckily it was screened on television here over the weekend by the enterprising Sky Arts channel.

"Sight & Sound" say: Is Dziga Vertov’s cine-city symphony a film whose time has finally come? Ranked only no. 27 in our last critics’ poll, it now displaces Eisenstein’s erstwhile perennial Battleship Potemkin as the Constructivist Soviet silent of choice. Like Eisenstein’s warhorse, it’s an agit-experiment that sees montage as the means to a revolutionary consciousness; but rather than proceeding through fable and illusion, it’s explicitly engaged both with recording the modern urban everyday (which makes it the top documentary in our poll) and with its representation back to its participant-subjects (thus the top meta-movie.

Phew. It certainly shows how inventive silent cinema was, it is an astounding portrait of a city (it could be any city really, until one sees the picture of Lenin) over the course of a day, the trams, the people at work and at play - was life that different 83 years ago?, not really it seems - the astonishing editing and that pounding score ... which, as per end titles, was composed in 1996 by Michael Nyman! - I thought it perfectly of its period and so Russian. I had never heard of this film before the Sight & Sound poll - so thanks for that. It is absolutely fascinating to watch now - the rapid editing, the mix of music and image, factory production lines, all getting quicker and quicker until the fantastic climax. This is one to return to. It must have been stunning at the time (well, it still is now - viewers would have seen nothing like it, as that editing was so much quicker than usual).

Another man with a movie camera: Woody goes to Rome. We all loved MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, but it looks like a drubbing all round for his next one: TO ROME WITH LOVE - as per most of the reviews. While one has to applaud the director in his late 70s still making a film a year,  but it may be to diminishing results. One reviewer says: "TO ROME WITH LOVE isn't one of Woody Allen's worst films, it is four of them" (it being in 4 segments). It seems here that his vision of the Eternal City is about as authentic as ham and pineapple pizza. I loved his last London one YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER (mainly for the cast: Gemma Jones, Pauline Collins etc) and of course his last foray to Paris (his first being WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT all those years ago..) but I will wait for the dvd on this one. If though he is doing a valentine to Rome why not find a role for some of those Italian greats like Loren or Cardinale? - and why import a Spanish actress (even if she is Penelope Cruz) to play Italian? - and yes Roberto Benigni - one of those comedians in the Jerry Lewis/Danny Kaye mould (ie you either love or hate him). The best thing about the Barcelona film was the music, so presumably we will like the soundtrack here too. 
I keep meaning to re-visit the Woody of MANHATTAN, INTERIORS, STARDUST MEMORIES or those middle-period dramas like ANOTHER WOMAN or SEPTEMBER. BROADWAY DANNY ROSE is in the schedules again next week - that's a start!