Random Thoughts

This is an unusual Eclipse box set — it’s three movies based on George Bernard Shaw’s plays. I think this is the only box set that’s focused on a writer?

Oh, Shaw and director Pascal collaborated of four films. This first one, Pygmalion, is the one people’s seen (but not as much as My Fair Lady of course), and this box collects the three other films that people have mostly forgotten about. Makes sense.

Uhm uhm… Oh! Rex Harrison! Of course.

Oh, the major is in the Salvos.

This is charming, and the plot is pleasingly preposterous. But I can see why this has been forgotten, and Pygmalion hasn’t been. Because it’s not firing on all cylinders — the pacing is oddly choppy.

Where did I see this a couple days ago…

There it is! It’s the same picture.

No scenery left unchewed.

There’s so much to enjoy here — Wendy Hiller is amazing, and the performances are really good throughout. Much of the film was apparently directed by David Lean, and it looks really great. And there’s a lot of wit here, of course, and a very sardonic ending.

But for me, it just doesn’t work, and it’s so frustrating to watch. Because this is one of those movies that is so close to being some kind of masterpiece. Every scene almost sparkles, but then instead they just chug along in a bumpy kind of way. One problem is the length — it’s not that there isn’t enough plot for the length, it’s just that a lot of it doesn’t seem to be actually germane.

So, and I’m probably being a bit too stern here, but:

Major Barbara. Gabriel Pascal. 1941.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

I forgot to watch this when I watched all the other films in the Pearls of the Czech New Wave box set, but Emacs reminded me.

This is very stylish.

And I’m guessing very symbolic and stuff?

Is that handsy guy supposed to symbolise the Russians? I can smell symbolism going on. Or are the posh people supposed to represent the Czech leadership and the handsy guy and his friends are the people?

He seems too smug and weird to be the people.

Or perhaps it’s just a horror movie — it’s got a classic start: Some twits go into the forest and meet scary, possibly deranged locals that terrorise them.

But with a Kafka twist, because art.

OK, that guy is Russia.

Anyway, it’s great.

A Report on the Party and Guests. Jan Němec. 1966.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

This is kinda brilliant? And so weird.

It’s about Samoan gangs in LA.

OH MY GOD! This is where Cabaret Voltaire sampled that whole long speech from! *gasp*

Heh, the video is just bits from this film! Man it’s so weird when you’ve listened to an album half your life and then finally stumble on the source of a sample. And this is basically the entire track.

That’s me!

Oh! It’s not a documentary? I thought this was a documentary, but with some creative flourishes, like that talking car. But it’s scripted? Or… documentary with some scripted bits? That Gorin guy is so slippery; I love it. Is the slang even real?

I’m still not at all sure what Gorin is doing here… but… he cuts to (apparently) real crime scene photos with dead people and a ton of gore at random, and that’s… OK, I can see the logic, but it’s a bit wha

The last third of this lost the weird nerve this movie had going on, unfortunately.

OK, now I have to find out whether any of this was real.

Uhm… the interwebs don’t seem to have too much to say about this movie.

Nope. Even the liner notes on the DVD only says that it “seems to have been arrived to by mutual accord”. I.e., that the (supposed) gang bangers have collaborated with Gorin with the staging when reenacting things that have happened. But I wondered whether the people were actually part of a theatre troupe and not actually criminals at all?

I have no idea, but the movie is brilliant anyway.

My Crasy Life. Jean-Pierre Gorin. 1992.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

Everybody lives in fear of the dentist, surely.

After a series of Kurosawa duds, this starts off in a pretty interesting way, at least. I mean, it’s not original or anything, but it’s got some interesting flourishes.

Good old-man acting!

Anyway, this is really good — it’s about fambly (FAMBLY!) and fear of the H-Bomb and stuff. But more importantly, it’s got compelling pacing and cinematography. And it doesn’t have cloying and annoying scoring (like so many of his earlier movies), but instead the scenes are given an opportunity to breathe, and to find an emotional core without the musical crutches.

That said, the last half hour or so is pretty turgid. It’s like Kurosawa went “how can I make this more didactic” and then did that. Still pretty good.

I Live In Fear. Akira Kurosawa. 1955.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

This is the kind of documentary that could be a lot of fun — it’s a filmmaker drilling down into a group of people being really passionate about something. But… Gorin just doesn’t seem that interested, really? And I can see why; it’s really hard to see how you could find anything interesting here. It’s about a group of people who’s doing a model railroad thing, and…

It’s just not interesting?

Perhaps I’m just not the right audience for this:

Great care was made to capture the action and the love of members for the layout and the prototype. The layout is quite complicated and has excellent detail. Model railroaders will want to watch it over and over again to experience all of it.

I can’t even tell if that’s sarcasm or not!

But then the movie changes, at about the same time they switch to colour, and things become a whole lot more interesting.

(They’re looking at a passing train.)

This movie starts off a bit wobbly — but probably on purpose, because it’s that’s kind of movie it is. And then it’s suddenly brilliant, and weirdly resonant.

So:

Routine Pleasures. Jean-Pierre Gorin. 1986.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.