Category Archive: Drama Film
The Sorrow and the Pity
(dir. M Ophuls) (1969) A leisurely pace prevails, as diverse men chat about France under German occupation. This casual approach belies the serious and vital theme that slowly works into the brain and heart: courage and conscience under duress and in crisis.
Continue Reading →Silver Linings Playbook
(dir.D.O. Russell) (2012) Mad boy goes home to live with Mom and Dad (Jacquie Weaver and Robert De Niro, with little to do) finding love with a fellow screwball. You shouldn’t bet, but you can bet on this – the outcome is a fix from go to whoa. TVC saw this with mother. For a film about mental illness, it would have been nice to feature some authentic craziness but nooooo. Not a trace of subtlety or credibility – but Mum liked it!
Continue Reading →Picnic at Hanging Rock
(dir. Peter Weir) (1975) St. Valentine’s Day, 1900. The young ladies of Appleyard College are treated to a picnic at Hanging Rock, a volcanic pile in the heart of the Victorian countryside, near Mount Macedon. There is twittering around the teacups, too much cake and Australian sunshine, and whilst the party are having an al fresco siesta, people go missing. But while the film has aspects of a whodunit or a thriller, it cannot be categorised because it simply transcends classification. As F.R Leavis said of Wuthering Heights, you can call this a sport. Totally magical,…
Continue Reading →Klute
(dir. Alan J Pakula) (1971) Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) aspires to act. John Klute (Donald Sutherland) is a hick who comes to N.Y. to find his missing friend, who may have availed himself of Bree’s services. Together, they make a strange town-and-country team, each taming the other. This very nifty thriller has a fine look and feel to it. The ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ is a (venerable) Hollywood cliché but Jane Fonda’s performance gives you a real person. Amongst the rest of a fine cast, Charles Cioffi as the sinister boss is a standout.
Continue Reading →The Great Gatsby
(dir. Baz Luhrmann) (2013) We were in glamorous Station Street, Birmingham, which turned out to contain “The Electric”, the UK’s oldest cinema. So The V.C. went to see Gatsby in 3D. Looked great but Baz has not nailed the brief: who could? Joel Edgerton looks like Tom Buchanan but talks like Ron Burgundy…Jordan Baker, Meyer Wolfsheim, Owl Eyes, have walk-ons and nothing to do. Gatsby is played like a sad sack with Asperger’s…Luhrmann should take a tip from Visconti when he filmed “Death in Venice”: forget revision, in fact, forget a script – just film the book.
Continue Reading →