Category Archive: FILM
Primary Colors
"Aw, c'mon, Henry. This is ridiculous: you've gotta be with me."
(Dir. Mike Nichols) (1998) Probably the best political road movie, almost a primer of American Democratic Presidential politics. Great direction by Mike Nichols, solid performances and a sensational script (by Elaine May). The book published by Anonymous (Joe Klein) is a roman à clef about the Bill Clinton comeback campaign of 1992. Profane, salty, clever, hilarious and sad, it is a fascinating story of the politician’s challenge to be all things to all, a marathon, run as a sprint. John Travolta is uncanny as Governor* Jack Stanton. In P’s favourite scene, where Stanton addresses a union crowd in a cold, closed-down factory,…
Continue Reading →The Third Man
Here's Harry
(Dir. Carol Reed) (1949) Graham Greene once wrote on the back of an envelope; “I had paid my last farewell to Harry a week ago, when his coffin was lowered into the frozen February ground, so that it was with incredulity that I saw him pass by, without a sign of recognition, among the host of strangers in the Strand.” Thus the idea of a story was born and, although substantially re-jigged later, Greene had the outline and as he claims, “it is almost impossible to write a film play without first writing a story. Even a film depends on more…
Continue Reading →Odd Man Out
"When I was a child, I spake as a child."
(Dir. Carol Reed) (1947) A classic, sad and dreamlike treatment of a gang of IRA thugs and their leader, wounded and on the run after a mill robbery. Only, the leader is post-war dreamboat James Mason, and we are forced to be sympathetic by virtue of his great, Christ-like playing and the pathos-drenched script and direction. A powerful example of the potency of superior film technique, enlivened by some grand Irish-potato character roles, a very stern and noble Denis O’Dea as the Police Inspector, the impressively louche, kind and desolate Tober (Elwyn Brook-Jones), plus an eye-rolling, lip-smacking, face-twitching, whirling dervish cabaret turn by Robert…
Continue Reading →The Manchurian Candidate
"...when I take power they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you and for what they did in so contemptuously underestimating me."
(Dir. John Frankenheimer) (1962) This is a nifty thriller, based on the intriguing brain-washing novel of 1959 by Richard Condon. While not entirely satisfactory, it features a wild, paranoid but plausible plot, great narrative drive and top drawer performances. Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is given a Congressional Medal of Honour and general acclaim after his return from the Korean War, which is passing strange, since his entire unit hates him and there are several gaps in the story. Meanwhile, his vicious Mum and his churl of a stepfather, Senator John Iselin, a Joe McCarthy facsimile, have designs on the…
Continue Reading →Citizen Kane
"I'd make my promises now...if I wasn't so busy arranging to keep them"
(Dir. Orson Welles) (1941) The Most Famous Best Film in the World. Stunningly modern, stunningly Big, even today: when the RKO Radio signal and production credit fades, there it is in silently screaming faux neon: CITIZEN KANE. No film has ever made good on such immense ambition, no film has ever been so radically fresh in structure, tone, staging. It may take another art form to produce something as pure in its radical and daring arrogance. The opening is a morbid montage right out of S.T.Coleridge & Hammer Horror films – a “No Trespassing” sign, unofficial thematic emblem; an ascending cyclone fence, some iron tracery and…
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