More on Movies

1. Carl Dreyer. Danish director before and during WW2. I decided to check out his stuff as an extension of my Bergman obsession. "Day of Wrath" is a slow moving but emotionally sensitive chamber drama about a young wife falling in love with her step-son. A Bergman reference? Bergman seems to redo this theme, without the heavily religious overtones in "Smiles on a Summer's Night" where the whole affair ends up with a neat comic ending. The film of Dreyer's to watch is "The Passion of Joan of Arc". This was brilliant even if it is a silent movie. It has Antonin Artaud in the credits, though it's hard to work out which character he is (as none are really named in the film ...) though it may be that he is one of the priests that objects to the inquisition. The camera movement and ways that faces are framed are really original and almost obsessively twisted in a manner that forces you to wonder how he did the shot. I now know where Peter Brook got his opening seqence (largely remembered because I wrote an entire essay on these 30 secs of film ...) for his film version of "King Lear": an almost exact copy of Dreyer's opening!

2. Merchant-Ivory! Ah, being the good and faithful but always slightly troubled Anglophile that I am, I started a Merchant Ivory series. Watched "Howards End" (not so good) and "A Room with a View" (better). Esssentially -- how many times can Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson appear in films playing approximately the same roles and get away with it. But truth be told, these films contain great dialogue and nuanced acting -- so -- no apologies!

3. Luc Besson's "The Messenger". So this also elaborates a "medievalism goes to the movies" theme. This was a badly made film. Dustin Hoffman as conscience / god / Satan in the last third of the film just sealed its fate. The strange Americanisms that enter into it are also very distracting. Booo!