Random Thoughts

Futura!

I’ve seen this movie randomly like a handful of times — the last time was perhaps four years ago? So… I’m not super enthusiastic about watching it again now. I mean, it’s a movie that has a lot of amusing scenes and some great performances, but it’s one of those satire¹ films with a lot of plot to get through, so when you remember how each scene goes, it can get a bit annoying.

But here we go. I’m just giving you a heads up that I may be less enthusiastic here than … rationally expected.

It’s a good movie for heckling in a group… lots of memorable lines that you can shout back at the screen.

It’s a movie that’s all plot and manoeuvres…

What! Not 100%! Who are the dangerous rebels!

Oh, that’s a crank…

What’s that then?

Strangelove Drops Controversial Bomb

Feb. 20, 1964

By Philip K. Scheuer

This will be a minority report — critically speaking, at any rate. Before I was served up “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” a publicist at Columbia, which is distributing the picture, assured me it would be my “cup of tea.” After suffering through two screenings of “Dr. Strangelove,” I would sooner drink hemlock…. To me, “Dr. Strangelove” is an evil thing about an evil thing; you will have to make up your own mind about it.

Oh, it’s not a review? Er… it’s very short…

The film is kinda comforting — I mean, the depiction of the president as a rational, effective person who can get things done without significant squabbles (except from the George C. Scott character) is very fairy tale like.

Well, I’m not surprised that Oliver Stone voted for this.

*slaps knee*

It’s a very quotable movie.

I do wonder what it was like watching this in 1964. Probably not much of a shock — you’d have “subversive” humour like this for a decade and a half at least — but perhaps unusual for a mainstream audience?

I mean, it’s satire¹.

It’s… I mean, Sellers’ performance is great (sorry if I’m being controversial here). But he’s so much better at this sort of thing that the other actors feel like amateurs. George C. Scott is up to the task of chewing the scenery in a satisfying way, but Sterling Hayden, for instance, is constantly shown up by Sellers.

It’s such a memorable movie — almost every scene seems iconic.

And it’s really really exciting — as it goes along, it gets more and more like a real thriller where we’re at the edge of our seats of our sofas.

It’s a pretty unusual film in that we’re (i.e., the audience) wants these nice people (who are kind of protagonists) to get killed.

And it’s fascinating how these guys are done — no gnashing of teeth or anything, but people doing their jobs professionally. If this movie had been made in 2023, we’d have gotten all their backstories and all their daddy issues and stuff, right?

Almost despite myself, I wound up enjoying watching this movie again — especially the last third. It’s just so memorable that the first half is just scenes that you’re waiting to happen, and the satire¹ is so heavy…

But let’s go with this throw of the die:

Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Stanley Kubrick. 1964. ⚄

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best 2022 series.

¹) “Satire” is code for “not actually funny”.

I watched this a few years ago. I was thinking about rewatching it for this blog series, but I should probably wait a bit more before rewatching it? So I’m not.

Anyway, it’s an amazing movie, so the odd thing here is that it hasn’t featured on the Sight & Sound directors’ list before. But the 2022 list has a number of more experimental films than the 2012 list, so I guess it makes sense in that context.

These are the directors that voted for it. And… Gaspar Noé and Frank Oz? Yes, I can see how both those directors would enjoy it. But now I’m wondering how Oz’s list looks like.

Hm… I guess Eraserhead is an outlier here, but perhaps it’s the puppy action that made him put it on the list?

Eraserhead. David Lynch. 1977. ⚅

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best 2022 series.

That’s some logo!

“Uhm hm uhm uhm”

You’d think after a lifetime of watching Italian movies I’d be used to the Italian approach to sound — i.e., not recording it, but adding it in post-production. But I’m not! Every time I watch an (old) Italian movie, it comes as a fresh shock.

Well, almost — sometimes it’s done so seamlessly that you almost don’t notice it, but more often than not (like here) I doubt the lines were even written when they filmed it, so the audio doesn’t match up with the actors much. I suspect the actors are just going “rabarbaro rabarbaro melanzane” in a vague way…

And the Italians allow the sound to go to absolute silence a lot — there’s foley work, of course, but sometimes the sound goes to _________ which never really happens in most movies — there’s almost always room ambience of some kind.

This movie isn’t on the critics’ top 250, but it’s #53 on the directors’ list because these directors voted for it. Hm… Roy Andersson makes sense… Sofia Coppola? Hm…

It’s an odd film. I think Antonioni is trying to say something with these constant juxtapositions of old (sometimes dilapidated) buildings and these brand new sky scrapers?

You know… sometimes you watch a movie and it’s not connecting, but then suddenly it snaps into focus and is riveting?

This is one of those movies. All of a sudden it’s the best! movie! ever!

Of course Jeanne Moreau is great.

That’s a good-looking gas station.

All these odd angles and weird ways of framing the shot… I love it.

It’s so weird… I feel like I’ve seen this before — but not exactly like this. Like a remake of this or something. But only certain scenes, like when she was walking around in that neighbourhood, and when they’re arriving at the party…

So many odd angles…

I can see why this isn’t on the critics’ list — it’s so oddly structured, and doesn’t go anywhere you’re expecting, really. But it’s just a fascinating movie: Every scene is gripping, and the stranger it gets, the more “right” it feels. It’s a stunning, gorgeous movie, with amazing performances by Mastroianni, Moreau and Vitti.

La notte. Michelangelo Antonioni. 1961. ⚅

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best 2022 series.

OK, strap in! It’s Bergman time!

I watched this movie five years ago, and it’s not new on the 2022 list — it was #16 then, and now it’s fallen down to #53. But Criterion has released a nice blu ray collection… which includes the TV series version! So I’m taking this opportunity to watch that.

Does that make sense? No? No.

But it’s more than five hours long (two hours more than the film version), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this version before, so… what evs.

(Actually, I’m not quite sure — it was shown on TV when it was new, and I’m pretty sure I saw it then. But I’m not sure whether they showed the film or TV version.)

Since the TV version is like *maths* *calculations* *slide rule* 40% longer than the film version (5:21 vs 3:08), I was wondering what Bergman had dropped — I mean, whole sub plots, or just dropped some scenes and shortened others. So far (I mean, I’m just half an hour in), it’s the latter, I think. That is, there’s definitely scenes here that aren’t in the film version, but no additional characters or plot points.

That is, it moves a lot slower than the film version. Each scene seems longer — which suits the material. More time is dedicated to the peripheral characters.

Like these two — were they in the film version? Hm…

It’s like a Mythical Swedish Christmas Performance thing.

Well, the first 90 minutes flew by. The first episode covers the Christmas party and what happens during the following night. There were a couple of scenes that felt slightly superfluous, so I can see why Bergman cut them for the film version, but it mostly just seems like a more sensitive version of that sequence than was in the movie. That is, Bergman didn’t really cut anything really essential.

And now we’re onto the next day, and I’m guessing we’re now going to be seeing a whole lot more scenes that weren’t in the film version.

He’s so evil!!!

They have sailor’s suits for mourning!? The Swedes are so advanced.

This section was perhaps better in the film? It was more compressed, and it’s a section that (perhaps bizarrely enough) doesn’t feel that important dramatically: The father dies, which takes us from the part of the movie where the children are happy, to the part where they’re unhappy, but it feels like it’s there because it has to be — not because Bergman is that invested in it.

OK, a part of why I enjoy this movie so much is just because I love these interiors. My ideal apartment is one that is 90% hallways.

SO EVEIEL

The film is called Fanny & Alexander, but Fanny barely has any lines…

I didn’t quite remember this bit being this melodramatic… I mean, waking up a kid in the middle of the night — with lightning flashing — that more than a bit over the top.

I’m not criticising — I’m just saying.

So evil!!!

Oh, this scene with the ghosts was cut, I think?

This couple must be the most pathetic in movie history. But funny.

He’s so evil!

And in this longer version, his evility (that’s a word) is rather over the top.

The three hour version of this is great drama, and the five hour version is great melodrama? In either film, it’s impossible not to cry when Jacobi stages the Kid Saving Heist, but it’s got a different resonance?

I’m not sure I would recommend the longer version over the shorter unreservedly. The first and last sections — the ones that have the least plot and the most magic — are definitely more better in the longer version: More of a good thing is an even better thing. The three middle sections (which are the shorter sections) don’t really benefit much from having more time. Those sections have a lot of plot that should move snappily, and in the longer version, the plots lack that snap.

So — is the added magic in the first and last sections worth the lack of snappiness in the middle sections? Uhm…

I dunno. It’s a great movie anyway.

Fanny & Alexander. Ingmar Bergman. 1982. ⚅

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best 2022 series.

What? This is in colour? But but

*phew* I thought I was watching the wrong movie… I saw this one a few years back, but I’m rewatching it now because Criterion published a fabulous Agnès Varda bluray box set — apparently with all her movies? I’m looking forward to watching them all after I’m done with this Sight & Sound movie thing…

Futura!

This is really nicely restored… it’s still got plenty of film grain, but absolutely all scratches and specks of dust have been removed.

Aaaahhh this is so good. Just the way Varda tipped the camera there from Cléo’s maid who was doing a boring story to this “random” couple… genius.

Of course, it’s hard to separate the charm of looking at Paris (well, I think it’s Paris) in the early 60s from the rest…

And these shots that shouldn’t work — driving the camera right into her face? And then doing a 160 degree? That shouldn’t work, but it just contributes to the giddiness of watching this.

Yes exactly.

There’s not even the slightest attempt at making the Cléo character sympathetic, which is fun.

That’s what I want my bedroom to look like!

I’m calling my interior decorator right now.

Oh, famous people…

I really enjoy this movie, but this section — where she meets a soldier boy destined for Algeria — it loses a lot of its charm. It’s not that it get more didactic than before, but it’s just not a very compelling character.

Eeek

It’s a great movie. If I have one criticism, it’s just that they didn’t do any audio when filming, so sometimes the video/audio connection is a bit vague? I mean, they’ve dubbed it nicely and all, but it sometimes gets a bit distracting — and I don’t think I noticed as much in the DVD edition, so the deficiencies just get clearer with added fidelity. Or something.

Cléo de 5 a 7. Agnès Varda. 1962. ⚅

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best 2022 series.