CineMaven wrote:Nice YouTube fare on"Arch of Triumph." So, reunited after "Gaslight" ey? Is it my imagination...or is there a light that shines from inside Ingrid Bergman out into your heart when you watch her performances? Just asking.
What a perfect description of
Bergman at her finest. I was just thinking about this quality she had without putting it into words as you did the other day when viewing
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), CineM. In one of her most sensual and natural performances as the victim of Hyde, she seems so much more alive than most actresses who were her contemporaries.
Mr. Arkadin wrote:AOT is a film I've long wanted to see as a fan of Bergman and Remarque. I know it was just released on DVD, so hopefully my library will get a copy soon.
Wow, I thought this would never show up on a commercially issued dvd and I'm such a turnip, I didn't know I could actually get my mitts on a copy. Thanks for mentioning this, Ark. I agree about
Voyage to Italy (1954). I have recently seen the Jean Renoir film,
Elena and Her Men (1956). The director said he wished to photograph Bergman smiling on camera, since she so seldom had roles that allowed her to do so (this is before
Indiscreet, of course). Lovely, even "renoiresque" in her beauty, I suspect that
Max Ophuls could have blended the comic with the serious a bit differently than Jean, but
Bergman is really luminous and touching here too. All these movies are, thankfully, on dvd now.
MissGoddess wrote:I think the acting is great and the cinematography but I also like the way it captures a certain rueful, if understandably dark hopelessness that so many refugees must have felt in those sad days of occupation in Paris. They are so "gallant" in a way, but do everything possible NOT to speak or refer directly to their plight and circumstances---that is not the behavior of a "good soldier". I feel this movie also truly captures Remarque's "flavor" as an author...
That's such an apt way to describe the desolate yet valiant air of the displaced persons in this film. Have you seen
There Shall Be No Night (1941), also produced by that very interesting producer,
Walter Wanger from another novel on this theme by
Remarque?
MissGoddess wrote:I always liked Bergman "unhinged" and here she's so desperate to live fully in the moment, like a hunted thing who knows the hunter is on her heels. I like how Boyer shows himself alternately irritated and fascinated by her mercurical emotionalism.
Yeah, Miss G. Love it when
Boyer tries to distance himself from his own emotions in films by intellectualizing an experience, only to give in finally--for better
and worse--to the overwhelming longing for human contact and the possibility of love.
Madame de...,
Back Street,
Break of Hearts, H
old Back the Dawn. Is there another actor who does this as well?
MissGoddess wrote:Fantastic stuff! I need to watch it again, maybe tonight, and I can take a couple of screencaps if anyone's interested.
INTERESTED! Heck, yes. Please, screencaps would be great. Please include Louis Calhern too if you can.
Thanks to everyone for posting about this movie--which should be part of the
Charles Boyer month that needs to be done on TCM. Or at least a night of
Erich Maria Remarque stories to film, eh?
____________________________________
P.S. Having once seen the
Anthony Hopkins-Lesley Anne Down made for tv 1984 version of this story, I would not recommend it over the original black and white beauty, but
Hopkins is excellent in the
Boyer role. Trouble is, maybe most viewers first caught
Hopkins in some gory stuff like
Silence of the Lambs and don't know what a quietly powerful, nuanced, non-sinister actor he can really be, alas. This '84 version shows up on cable once in awhile, I believe.