Showing posts with label Terry Gilliam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terry Gilliam. Show all posts

Saturday, 10 November 2018

Some #UCFF Tweets and a link about The man who killed Don Quixote (2018)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2018 (25 October to 1 November)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

25 October
Some #UCFF Tweets and a link about The man who killed Don Quixote (2018)






More, by way of a comment, on Rosie Applin’s review for TAKE ONE (@TakeOneCinema)…





Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Friday, 17 February 2017

Pass the salt, dear ! [Hissed : No - not that way, Sybil...]

Table manners - or barely disguised hostilities and aggressions ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
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17 February

What do we really learn at the table together : table manners - or barely disguised hostilities and aggressions ?

The schoolboy wisdom, when chastised, may have been that we owe table manners just to the court of Versailles, and so we can dispense with being 'hung up up' about them. (It is a moot point, though, who gets hung up (or which more) - those offended, or the transgressor ?).

However, their arbitrary employment can show barely disguised hostilities and aggressions between us what we might call society (or - even more bogusly - polite company'





To be continued - but it is also linked to the posting ???





Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Sheffield - God's own City ~ Michael Palin at The Crucible

This is a review of Monty Python : The Meaning of Live (2014)

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
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17 June

This is a review of a special screening of Monty Python : The Meaning of Live (2014) at Sheffield Documentary Festival, at The Crucible Theatre (@crucibletheatre), on Wednesday 10 June at 6.30 p.m., followed by a Q&A (hosted by Josie Long (@JosieLong)) with Holly Gilliam, James Rogan and Michael Palin


Josie Long and Michael Palin







Holly Gilliam’s (Terry Gilliam’s daughter’s) impulse to get a camera into the script-reading for Monty Python (Almost) Live was absolutely right, and, as we heard, that was the impetus for this film – itself documenting a show that was largely and pragmatically put on to meet the legal costs of the members of Monty Python being sued over some rights issue* (it sounded as though they might have been badly advised about defending the court action, maybe by Cleese’s classic barrister Archie Leach, from A Fish Called Wanda (1988) ?).




The approach gave us all that we wanted, including :

* A sense, as the title turned out to imply, of Python on stage, ranging from the celebrated Amnesty International gigs to Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl (1982) (a title that, we learnt, was meant to stir feelings of the incongruous)

* The related interactions and tensions in and between those tallied both by One Down, Five to Go, and in Graham Chapman’s lifetime (to which Python’s memory the film was dedicated)

* The thrills and spills of the ten-night run at that venue that was allegedly so worthless, as The Millennium Dome, that HM Government disposed of it for a pound

* Thoughts about what comedy is and how it works, from Eric Idle seeing it as algebra (not an art), and needing to change one of the terms to get a laugh, to John Cleese’s having had to fight back, over decades, what sounded like rage that people laughed before he had done anything that he thought merited it**

* Michael Palin, dressed as a smart Sheffield woman of his mother’s generation for the ad hoc purpose of a filler (to comply with the limitations of ‘the watershed’ in public-service broadcasting, which it then proceeded to ridicule) : Eric Idle’s script, as interpreted by Palin and creatively imagined by improvisation, clarifying that when she said that she did not have one, she meant a television (not a cunt), or vice versa

* Confirmation that it had been, as it always seemed, Eric Idle’s creation (though directed by Terry Gilliam)


* Laughter again, deep and liberating, at the excerpts from Monty Python (Almost) Live and its staging :

** The candour before, after and during the O2 show (including feigned and real irritation at being filmed)

** The archive material from the show, from live performance and elsewhere : good choice, well placed

** The best of what was recorded during the 10-night show and its rehearsal, including seeing it change, and hearing – in the film, and in the Q&A – about corpsing / timing and their place in creating something fresh

** On this latter point, the very real pleasure of seeing Palin and Cleese in operation together


Holly Gilliam, James Rogan, Josie Long, and Michael Palin


As to the Q&A, one enthusiast closed the proceedings by declaring The Fish-Slapping Dance, which Palin said had been submitted for a comedy version of Eurovision (never repeated ?), the best thing that the Pythons had done : a few seconds, and the fifteen-foot fall into the dock below, had been worth it ! (Yes, it always brings a laugh, but hardly the best thing that they did ?) This enthusiast asked about Palin’s not only knowing his own part, but everyone else’s : yes, he had learnt it early on to feel comfortable with it, and then able to elaborate variations on it.




To that impulse to get a camera to document what happened, much is owed, in this skilful snapshot of the surviving Pythons by Roger Graef (who, sadly, did not attend, because he felt unwell) and James Rogan :






Seen at Sheffield : Doc/Fest films with full reviews


End-notes

* Having established the point, by comment from a Python or three, the film wisely moved on : we did not feel that we needed to know more.

** Cleese also thought that sketches such as The Dead Parrot had not always been appreciated in the t.v. series, but had acquired a popularity through (recordings of) the live versions / iterations :






Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Sunday, 17 August 2014

Almost Monty Python (Almost) Live

This is a review of Monty Python (Almost) Live

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

17 August

This is a review of Monty Python (Almost) Live

As Spamalot may have been (the writer does not know), another Eric-Idle-engineered piece, centred on big musical numbers (which, in the case of Monty Python (Almost) Live, were very impressive - with a talented cast of singer / dancers), this show was, for all that it offered, uneven.

No doubt some of the unevenness could have been levelled out by the editing of the Live show to be (Almost) Live, which seemed a marked advantage (as it does for, say, NT Live broadcasts, though others see these things differently).

From the start, we had the dubious benefit of a kangaroo (with an obviously human face) on stage, which eventually found its place later on (please see below). In the meantime, its locomotive human bobbed around, in an irritatingly jolly fashion, which seemed to sound the inappropriate note that the show was going to be cuddly, which, in places, it flatly contradicted, e.g. with the penis, vagina, arse* group of songs (can one seriously write that in a review ? yes, as this is Python…)
It was the same Idle with Michelangelo's Last Supper, where John Cleese was too strong, as when he is allowed to be (such as with that whack with the mammoth fish on the edge of the quay, The Fish-Slapping Dance, and one of Cleese or Idle robbed Idle of the strength of the lines about the 28 disciples, and the 3 Christs – along with Idle’s outclassed cheery quattordicicento painter guise, they plummeted, unable to compete with Cleese, as The Pope, blithely saying fucking.

In this early part of the show, some of the humour – in what seemed to be new material – just did not work, and, by definition, was not the best of Python (e.g. the tame misunderstanding of Oz Arena for the O2 Arena, dutifully delivered by Michael Palin), as one might expect the show to aim to be. ‘Every sperm is sacred’ (from The Meaning of Life (1983)) was a huge production number, with a great dance routine, although not quite to rival the energy and scope of the film, and it also had new lyrics (in places). Another big set-piece, ‘I like Chinese’, was similarly impressive, but – if it was Python – taxed this writer’s familiarity. It started seeming marginally racially offensive, only to turn out not to be*.
Wherever the philosophers’ song came from (with the Bruces as philosophy professors**), Palin seemed, as observed, the only one who had obviously learnt his lines (such as they were) : Eddie Izzard was probably brought on stage at this part, but he just seemed star struck, and contributed nothing other than his awe. Linked with footage of the German and Greek Philosophers’ Football-Match, and sensationally going back to the match as Socrates scores in the final seconds, it worked well as a combination, because of the sheer shared incongruity : when parts of original Python shows were given oxygen to thrive by a suitable setting, both were enhanced.

A re-enactment of the Crunchy Frog Sketch at the premises of the Whizzo Chocolate company had the visually and aurally coarse element of Terry Gilliam, as Superintendent Parrot, farting and retching, as his senior officer (Cleese as Inspector Praline) recalled what he had eaten from the assortment. By the time that sweetmeats such as the crunchy frog were reached, Terry Jones was reading impassively from the card, and, cracking up with Cleese, swallowed and lost losing the impact of Ah - now, that's our speciality (Spring Surprise) - covered with darkest creamy chocolate. When you pop it in your mouth steel bolts spring out and plunge straight through both cheeks.

Up until the interval, the show had been pretty good, and the choice of archive Python had been well made : The Fish-Slapping Dance is always a killer (however many times one has seen it), because of Cleese’s all-too-adept bludgeoning, and included amongst Gilliam’s wizardry were the teasingly postponed / interposed full frontal nudity, the pram that swallows people, and the Rodin ocarina.

However, one strange note sounded was by a caption flashed up that said ‘Munich 1972’ – the year of the Olympic massacre, most notably ?


* * * * *


Palin in Blackmail was smarmy, but the sketch did not have the bite and impetus of that in the t.v. series, and just felt a bit weak. Another piece of shrapnel on stage was what looked like Mike Meyers : no doubt that he was pleased to be there, but he had nothing to do, and added nothing.

Great moments of the second half (as far as they can be recalled) were :

* The Exploding Blue Danube, which (although it probably was not as clever as it looked) was very entertaining

* The Spanish Inquisition, kept together, again, by Palin – with his not inestimable, dogmatically precise zealot prelate (to give the Pythons their full complement, lines on introduction, such as One on't cross beams gone owt askew on't treddle, had been given to members of the cast)

* Moving into Idle opening a fridge, and doing his pink-suited number, ‘The Universe song’ (alias ‘The Galaxy song’)

* One Professor (Brian Cox) being rammed by another (in Stephen Hawking) and accused of being pedantic (for correcting the detail of the preceding song)

* The Dead Parrot Sketch linked up with The Cheese Shop Sketch and finishing with Do you fancy coming back to my place ? (from a little t.v. moment when Cleese, as a Police Inspector, meets another Python in the street) : Palin and Cleese on top form, trying to make each other corpse with ad libs, but Palin getting the upper hand by recalling where they are and telling Cleese 'Your next line is...' - very funny, and in the spirit of Pythons' four re-enactments for Amnesty International (The Secret Policeman's Ball) between 1976 and 1981, although, perhaps notably, Idle was never involved in them***

* Inevitably, ending with a lively, shimmering version of ‘Always look on the bright side of life’


A good way of spending a couple of hours, and an encouragement to dig out that huge boxed set of the t.v. series – and Just the Words, the nicely curated scripts in two volumes (which has provided information of the episodes above)…


Hesitations:

* Just how much it was Idle’s patent show and with his songs, when it could have celebrated Python more widely, than promoting purchase of the films on the flier, by incorporating clips from them (or were their copyright limitations ?)

* Would everyone have known who Carol Cleveland was ? She may have substituted for the original Connie Booth to Palin’s lumberjack, but she was never introduced. Although she did an admirable few other turns, she had always been the token glamour in the t.v. series (when the pepperpots, etc. could not be suitable sirens), so it was a shame that the team did not put the record straight by officially acknowledging who she was.


Reference material :

Blackmail - Episode Eighteen (recorded 10/9/1970, transmitted 27/10/70)

The Bruces - Episode Twenty-Two (recorded 25/9/1970, transmitted 24/11/1970)

The Cheese Shop Sketch - Episode Thirty-Three (recorded 7/1/1972, transmitted 30/11/72)

The Crunchy Frog Sketch - Episode Six (recorded 5/11/1969, transmitted 23/11/1969)

The Dead Parrot Sketch - Episode Nine (recorded 7/12/1969, transmitted 14/12/1969)

Exploding Blue Danube - Episode Twenty-Six (recorded 16/10/70, transmitted 22/12/1970)

The Fish-Slapping Dance - Episode Twenty-Eight (recorded 28/1/1972, transmitted 26/10/72)

I’m a Lumberjack - (Episode Nine (recorded 7/12/1969, transmitted 14/12/1969)

The Philosophers’ Football-Match - From Monty Pythons Fliegender Zirkus (made for German t.v.)

The Spanish Inquisition - Episode Fifteen (recorded 2/7/1970, transmitted 22/9/1070)



End-notes

* Is that taken from The Meaning of Life (1983) and – as only Idle could – ‘updated’ ? (It was an irritation that the text of this, and of the philosophers’ song, were not kept in front of the camera for long enough – perhaps a last-minute bid to protect the innocent ?) If it was, as other pieces / songs were not straight renditions (unlike those that were – insofar as those performing them could manage it – meant to be straight renditions), but had been modernized (one was not always sure why) :

After all, I’m a Lumberjack is just as offensive to the trans audience as it has ever been, but no changes had been introduced to the sacred text (except the tease, in the preceding Lion-Tamer sketch, that Mr Anchovy really wants to be a Systems Analyst). Palin was jeered as ‘disgusting’ by one in the choir (uncelestial), whereas another song (‘I like Chinese’) was cute in pretending to be, but not actually being, racist. In fact, the interjection that followed the sketch on t.v., from Cleese voicing over a letter from Brigadier Sir Charles Arthur Strong (Mrs), had said Many of my best friends are lumberjacks and only a few of them are transvestites


** Which was the only connection with The Bruces, an insignificant piece, made no more or less significant.
*** It is understood that only Jones and Cleese took some role (of whatever kind) in all four shows, with Palin registering three, Chapman two, and Gilliam one. Apart from a brief cameo in the 1989 show by Palin and Cleese, there has been no engagement with any later Amnesty shows.





Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 21 November 2013

What Hitchock says about Dial M for Murder...

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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21 November

Some who scour these pages (I find that Brillo® is best) will already know that I favour a Faber & Faber series of collections, film by film, of interviews with directors.

In this case, it is Hitchcock on Hitchcock, into which I have delved for some revelations of what he put on record about Dial M for Murder (1954) :


First, in ‘Elegance Above Sex' (a very short piece of prose, which was originally published in Hollywood Reporter*), Hitchcock observes, regarding this film and Grace Kelly's part in it :

It is important to distinguish between the big, bosomy blonde and the ladylike blonde with the touch of elegance, whose sex must be discovered. Remember Grace Kelly in High Noon ? She was rather mousy. But in Dial M for Murder she blossomed out for me splendidly, because the touch of elegance had always been there.
(p. 96)



The only other mention of the film in this volume is in a very long-suffering** interview entitled ‘On Style’ : An interview with Cinema***, from which two extracts now follow

H : When you take a stage play, I said ? What do you call opening it up ? The taxi stops at the front door of the apartment house. The characters get out, cross the sidewalk, go into the lobby, get into an elevator, go upstairs, walk along the corridor, open the door, and they go into a room. And there they are, on the stage again. So, you might just as well dispense with all that, and be honest and say it’s a photographed stage play and all we can do is to take the audience out of the orchestra and put them on the stage with players.

I : You didn’t do this completely though. In Dial M ?

H : Yes, and I’ll tell you why. Because I’ve seen so many stage plays go wrong through opening up, loosening it, when the very essence is the fact that the writer conceived it within a small compass.

I : But you would still treat it cinematically ?

H : Within its area. If I can. As much as I can.
(p. 293)
 

What is of interest here is that the interviewer makes no mention of what is discussed in the review on this blog, i.e. how 3D makes the experience different, on the screen, from that on the stage, with looming bottles in the foreground, and, most of all, that fatal hand, reaching out to the audience, as if for mercy.


Moving on :

H : Well, let me say this as a maker of films. Maybe it’s a conceit on my part. I think content belongs to the original story of the writer, whoever wrote the book, that you are adapting. That’s his department.

I : That’s an interesting statement. You don’t feel then that the director, as such, is responsible for content, as you would select any different …

H : Well look, I make a film – Dial M for Murder – and what have I really had to do with that ? Nothing. It was a stage play, written for the stage, written by an author. All I had to do there was go in and photograph it.
(p. 297)


The interview is all about the element of 'style' mentioned in the title (as against 'content'), and Hitchcock contrasts the situation of this film with that of North by Northwest (1959), where his co-writer and he created the scenario, and he most interestingly goes to talk about the expectations that he sets up and then upsets in the famous crop-spraying scene.

Just for this interview alone, the volume is a very useful insight, through Hitchcock's own descriptions of what he was about with Psycho (1960), and how much more that it is that we think that we see, rather than the material that the cutting (pun intended !) actually used.



End-notes

* Vol. 172, no. 39 (November 20, 1962, 32nd Anniversary Issue).

** The unnamed interviewer, 'I' in the interview, claims (in response to Hitchock's enquiry as to what Cinema is) to be asking questions on behalf of the ?? intelligent cinema-goer ?? [actual wording needs to be checked]. However, he or she does not know what cross-cutting, art direction, or even 'a cut' are, and Hitchock - seemingly patiently - has to explain. (Why do I have the impression that Hitchock had a reputation for being 'difficult' - or was that at another time, or on set ?)

*** Originally published in Cinema 1, no. 5 (August – September 1963) 4–8, 34–35.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Saturday, 28 September 2013

It left me cold !

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29 September 2013

* Contains spoilers *

Definitely the word film that I have seen screened at this year's Festival was Cold, a film from Turkey that was, frankly, a turkey, and which, although it could have been filmed in the same snow-laden river-sited city as Kosmos*, one of my top three from the Festival in 2011, it in no way occupied the same space.



So what am I getting at ? Well, the title-characters of Chekhov's Three Sisters - one of whom is the very striking Valeria Skorokhodova as Balabey's desire - have taken their parlous state to heart, and found that prostitution in Turkey may pay for their future.

Said Balabey is a person at whom the audience was early laughing, although the mention of taking his pills should have alerted them to the fact that he has not only either some sort of social phobia or related learning difficulty, but also a mental-health condition (we also know that he has been in hospital) - they were laughing at him outright, not partly with him, partly despite him, as in the film of Dostoyevksy's The Idiot at last year's Festival.

Balabey has much in common with (Prince) Mishkin, not least lack of self-awareness and self-confidence, and a huge streak of self-destructiveness. Thinking that a woman paid to sleep with him reciprocates his feelings for her is an insight that only we have, and it, just as woman, whether he actually does ever sleep with him (rather than talking about prayer, her beauty, and trying to slope off when she is in the shower), is only sure near the end. Even the man, referred to as some sort of chief, we arranges and pays for the first liaison is laughing at his expense.

It seems common knowledge that the place that we are shown, where patrons / diners take a table, and then one or more women are called, by name, to go to the number of that table, is merely a staging-post for the seedy hotel (wallpaper peeling off the wall, etc.), one of whose rooms we see - for some reason, Balabey and his chosen partner always end up in the same room, which I would believe was for symbolism of the room number (22 ?), except that it clearly simplified the shoot and gave a (bogus) sense of continuity of the encounters into the bargain. So far, so good with the tawdry aspects of Dostoyevsky, except that that novel actually has a sense of ambiguity about whether the Prince is risible, or a saint.

Point already made that women and sex with them are bought and sold, so hardly surprising when Balabey's sexually frustrated brother Enver both takes it out on his wife with his fists (although the erectile dysfunction appears to be his fault, not the wife's lack of flirting or sexual provocation), and has recourse to the same venue as his brother. Neat ending to Balabey's enduring attraction, such that he even dynamites a bridge** to prevent escape to Moscow via (a boyfriend in) Georgia, to have Enver and friends hire the sisters for a house-party in which another sexual failure leads to shooting into the air, demanding that the sisters have sex with each other, and one of them being brutally killed ?

As life is cheap, most of all female life, the two others are killed as witnesses, only leaving Balabey to find out and to strap Enver to the railway-line, camouflaged with snow, and for the express (has the bridge miraculously been repaired ?) to go through***. All sewn up, you could say - but only in the sense that Terry Gilliam's massive animation foot coming down and stamping on everything provides a resolution...



End-notes

* I have checked, and it was Kars again.

** As another viewer agreed, he has already said that he checks the railways-line, and that trains stop or proceed on his say-so, which means that destroying it was overkill.

*** My fellow viewer concurred that nothing tells us how this is possible, both as to getting Enver there from the side of the crude grave, and the operation of a railway service. He was still included to give the film 4 out of 5 for highlighting the domestic and other violence.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Faber & Faber's [Film Director x] on x series

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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15 August

After a special screening of Time Bandits (1981) the other night, I have sought out Gilliam on Gilliam (edited by Ian Christie).

I did so, because these books are an excellent sourcebook of what, in interview with a suitable person from the world of film (in some way), directors have to say about their works, almost invariably grouping comments by film (or period) - I cannot commend them more warmly, and would certainly not be where I am without Woody Allen on Woody Allen (edited by Stig Björkman).


In the chapter that deals with Bandits, I have learnt, for example, how :

* Connery helped Gilliam with filming in Morocco, when there was more to do with shooting the fight than two days allowed, and the older man simplified his task for him

* Sir Ralph put Gilliam through various tests, both before accepting being God, and then in God-like mode, but was still a trouper

* The scene where the mirror / boundary that separates the Bandits from the fortress had not been originally written (and, if it were conceivable, more screen business, this time with Edwardian spiderwomen, had bridged from escaping the giant to getting to the fortress), but had arisen from David Rappaport's aloofness from the rest of his team

* The ending would have been different, if Connery had first not used up his fourteen days in the UK (and so it could not be shot as planned), and, because Gilliam then nabbed Connery when he came to the UK to see his accountant

* Palin had written the role of Robin Hood for himself, but had accepted that Cleese would be fine when billing / financial reasons had required

* The scene in Holy Grail where the animals are thrown over the castle walls was done (as this information impinges on effects in this film), and also the cage scene in Bandits

* Gilliam says that he had never read C. S. Lewis (or known of his use of wardrobes*)


As I hope that I may have demonstrated, a way of learning about films from the inside, and a book in which I shall next be reading about Brazil (1987)...



NB The British Film Institute (@BFI) now has an interview with Gilliam on its web-site...



End-notes

* I think that Christe errs, in his end-notes, in considering The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first of the books(though the ordering and publication history scarcely make matters clear).




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 5 July 2012

What sort of beast is Dark Horse?

This is a review of Dark Horse (2011)

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5 July

This is a review of Dark Horse (2011)


One is not exactly left, as David Lynch arranged in Eraserhead (1977), with a feeling of being uncertain what, if anything, has happened, and it's not quite the ending-after-ending impression left by how the Lord of the Rings trilogy winds up in and with The Return of the King (2003), and yet both elements are there: the latter promises resolution, the former confuses such a notion with presenting, amongst other things, a head being turned into an adjunct for pencils.

 As Lynch's film did, therefore, there is a questioning in Dark Horse of what 'a story' in a film is for, whether it is to satisfy and lead us, a bit like a classical sonata, from some sort of stasis into the turmoil of a movement in a minor key and back into the catharsis of the closing outer movement, or whether its roots are in the New Wave and before, which, in Buñuel's case, gave us, at the time time when the wave was breaking, the puzzle of The Exterminating Angel (1962).

 Just about anything has been fitted into that pattern of things going bad and turning good again, from 10* (1979) to You've Got Mail (1998) or, as I recall, One Fine Day (1996). Much more interesting is when Scorsese gives us, in After Hours (1985), a film that takes us back to where we began, but with an amazing and satisfying - not from moral or plot point of view of - artistic resolution, in a whizz around Paul Hackett's office. Or Gilliam - when he could still be gutsy - with that sickening moment inside the cooling-tower at the end of Brazil (1985).

 Subverting building up to an ending - or the expected ending - is one thing. Some view life as linear, and expect the beginning to be at the start. Others might prefer the sort of narration that Betrayal (1983), pretty close to the stage-play, gives us, and might relate more to a muddle of dream, day-dream, imagination, and sheer fantasy, such as, probably more convincingly than Dark Horse, films like Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997) (or, for that matter, Stardust Memories (1980)) give us.

 Though I do not think that writer / director Todd Solondz is aiming at that here: this is not Thurber's Walter Mitty gone slightly more wrong, but has, as it develops, really far more resonance with something very different, a sort of US Enter the Void, but without certain embellishments.

 Rather implausibly, you might infer from trusting what I am saying, IMDb seeks to sum up this work in a sentence as:

 Romance blooms between two thirty-somethings in arrested development: an avid toy collector and a woman who is the dark horse of her family
Hell, if that were what this film is about, it wouldn't deserve the time of day! These are superficialities, substituting for an appreciation of what the film implies about the creation and distinegration of personality, hope and desire. It is possible that reviews are more on target than what I have quoted, but I don't think that I want to trust having to wade through many opinions that will just criticize this film for not being what it is not - if, though, they were misled by IMDb's said 23-word snapshot (probably little worse than many a trailer), perhaps it is fair for them to air their grievances there.

 Confused - probably stunned - as I was when I came out of Dark Horse and incoherently tried to formulate a response in talking to Jon, who was ushering, I gratefully received his affirmation of that feeling, and I shall, at some point, be following up his recommendation of Solondz's Happiness (1998)...

 This review is dedicated to Jon, with thanks
End-notes

 * Which, before Baywatch, might have been seen as exploitative (probably of Bo Derek), if it didn't arrive at a convenient moral ending.
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Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Tired old nag of a film (2)

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25 January

And the amazing thing is that Peter Mullan (who could have done with being given a lot more to do in Trainspotting (1996) than the role of Mother Superior) is in this opus:

Some may not know his name, though - whatever one thinks of its ruling idea - he added immensely (as did his opposite number, Olivia Colman) to Paddy Considine's conception of Tyrannosaur (2011), but, for me, this is almost as incongruous as realizing that Robert De Niro really was playing the part of Tuttle in Brazil (1985)*!


* I haven't seen it since, and should, as it is a great film - than which many a Gilliam production is a pale (or very pale) lamp**.

I also must have known at the time, but I have just been reminded, that he had the great Tom Stoppard alongside to temper his inclinations on the writing side - I wonder if anything reveals how those two got on (other than in the finished film)...

Interesting also, I think, that Terry Jones was accepted as the director of the Python films (more or less, give or take a few grumbles about his perfectionism regarding certain aspects of a take, whilst ignoring what others sometimes thought more significant). Which could have been because Gilliam was in so many ways in a different relation to the others or that he simply had not developed in that way - not, at any rate, until his contribution to The Meaning of Life (1983).


** And I do not know whether I am being unfair to Gilliam for his direction, or to Robin Williams for that certain worthiness that he seems to have in all his acting (or to both), but The Fisher King (1991), for whatever it could have been without, sadly gave rise to a feeling akin to having gorged on too many Easter eggs (when that time of the year, marking Christ's death, necessarily had a highly chocolatey character, such that one could easily do it)!


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