OTB#59: Blow Up

Blow Up. Michelangelo Antonioni. 1966. ⚄

Whu uh. I thought I had seen this movie before, but in my mind it’s in black and white, and it’s set in Italy. This is in colour and is set in the UK. From the first five minutes, I would have guessed that this was a Nick Roeg movie.

Ok. *reset brain*

This movie would have been more enjoyable to watch if the lead hadn’t looked like consumptive Dickens urchin gone to weed. Uhm… David Hemmings.

OK, I’m shallow, but that’s basically the problem I have with this movie. I can watch endless scenes of 60s ennui: Vanessa Redgrave is great here, and the cinematography is fun and 60s and pop-art-ey, but it really comes down to me not liking Hemmings on the screen, I think.

But… despite that, this is really watchable. The centrepiece of the movie is a very nerdy “ENHANCE! ENHANCE!” sequence, and it’s kinda gripping. Very analogue, and somewhat paranoid. It’s like an action movie without much action. I’m not surprised that De Palma remade this with more photogenic actors.

Love the ending.

This uses more Benedictine, so that’s a good thing. Bobby Burns cocktail (Craddock’s recipe) calls for Dewar’s, but I substituted with Chivas. *gasp*

And I didn’t have shortbread, so I substituted with an oatmeal cookie.

Delicious!

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

OTB#59: Gertrud

Gertrud. Carl Theodor Dreyer. 1964. ⚅

Oh, wow — a Dreyer movie from 1964? I had no idea he lived that long. Hm… Ah. It’s his final movie.

I’ve seen the fabulous Joan of Arc he did back in the 20s, but not a lot of his later movies.

This is some grade-A bizarre acting. In the opening scene, I started wondering whether they’d filmed everything backwards, and then reversed the direction, but I think probably not. They moth move in a very stylised way, and seem to look off the frame of the camera (for direction?) from time to time, and they talk with deep ennui as if reading from a page.

I love it.

It’s kinda like L’Argent? Like later Nouvelle Vague…

It was not well received by the straights:

From the outset the film divided both critics and audiences. Immediately following the Paris premiere at a Dreyer retrospective where it was booed the film was frequently referred to as a “disaster” in the press; after the Danish premiere the reception became more nuanced but still divided, and the film caused a big debate in Danish media.

[…]

In Esquire Magazine, Dwight Macdonald wrote that “Gertrud is a further reach, beyond mannerism into cinematic poverty and straightforward tedium. He just sets up his camera and photographs people talking to each other.” An article in Cinéma65 wrote that “Dreyer has gone from serenity to senility…Not a film, but a two-hour study of sofas and pianos.”

Hipsters (the people who mattered) loved it:

Jean-Luc Godard rated the film number one in his list of the best films of 1964. As well, Cahiers du cinéma voted it the second-best of 1964, beaten only by Band of Outsiders.

Somehow in my mind, I want to compare this movie to Ingmar Bergman, but it resists all comparison. It’s not like it’s 180 degrees to Bergman, it’s like it’s 360 degrees, but rotated in the fourth dimension. Or… a perpendicular hypercube.

That is, while there are some obvious similarities (the focus on female characters and self-determination, as well as the long, well-composed takes), there isn’t a single frame of this movie that could have come from a Bergman movie.

Still plowing my way through the Benedictine recipes… Between the Sheets (Wondrich’s formula) only uses 1.5cl, though.


Tasty!

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

OTB#59: Aguirre, Wrath of God

Aguirre, Wrath of God. Werner Herzog. 1972. ⚅

Wow, this is the only Herzog movie on the list… and it’s a Herzog movie I haven’t watched! Amazeballs.

(Not really.)

Anyway, this is so incredibly lush… every scenes seems out of control and fraught with danger. And Klaus Kinski is insane here. (And probably in real life, too.)

It’s just the right mix of ennui and action, but what makes this movie fascinating is the performances and the shots. Everything seems iconic. Of course, it’s mostly Kinski hamming it up for the camera. Well, as hammy as you can get without moving a singly muscle in your face.

This movie is amazeballs.

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