WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[intothenitrate]

I wouldn't argue with you one bit, AH. I guess I was musing more about the age of impressionability. I did see the Asquith version as a teen and ended up getting a degree in linguistics years later! It's interesting that the Sound of Music and the Wizard of OZ, just recently mentioned, are other films that I just drank up when I was a youngster.

[JackFavell]

I'm totally with AnnHarding,

I agree on every point. I can't think of anyone else but Howard and Hiller as Higgins and Eliza. Again, though, I think they struck me as far more "real" at my impressionable age than Harrison and Hepburn who seemed like they were "acting" it - though I do feel that Audrey really immersed herself into the part. It's just that I don't think letting us see that you feel the role so strongly is a benefit here. I prefer the quiet emotion of Hiller.

I watched La Strada yesterday, and was reminded so much of Liliom. La Strada is also one of my favorite movies. It truly is a superb film.

I'm not sure why I am drawn to these movies about strength, weakness, and love, but I am. Perhaps I feel a little of both sides to this story in my own life - I have been the bullied, and I have been the bully.

There is something so moving about both Giulietta Masina (her face! her incredible, expressive face!) and Anthony Quinn as Zampano, who like Liliom, cannot express his love - he really is a dog who wants to talk but can only bark. Quinn is so earthly, so human, so sad, that even when he is at his basest, you begin to care what happens to him. Everything is written in his eyes - he hides himself or strikes out because he is ashamed of himself, he doesn't want to be found out....street life hasn't taken his softness, just buried it under a thousand layers of poverty and insults. Maybe he was always like this, his manliness and self worth are so fragile that it could break apart at a word from The Fool....or at the realization that Gelsomina is what is keeping their act from turning into a shambles. His jealousy and pain are like the knife he carries....ready to wound or be wounded. Then he'll puff himself up to go out and do his act for the thousandth time...

The scenes with Richard Basehart are so marvelous, even though he was dubbed - his pebble speech is still hugely moving, perhaps the most moving in the entire film, which is filled with great scenes. Why is it that I felt his insults hurt more than Quinn's? When he told Masina that her face was like an artichoke, I wanted to cry, he should have known better, being the philosopher that he was. And Masina - I literally have no words at all to say, she was perfection itself. The sight of strong man Quinn, curled up on the beach at the end of this story, forlorn and sobbing....and yet, I cried all the way through this story of the hardness of life on "The Road".

[feaito]

Thanks for the info Alison...I'm not particularly fond of Nouvelle Vague films....

[charliechaplinfan]

I love La Strada although it's been a long time since I watched it but I remember feeling all of those things and being mesmerised by Masina as a performer. My favorite Fellini, so far.

I'd hoped to watch Pygmalion tonight but it's not to be, I love Wendy Hiller so I'm quite anxious to watch it and contribute to the conversation.

[JackFavell]

I watched 8 1/2 today, I'd never seen it before.

I like his earlier, funny stuff better.

Seriously, I enjoyed the film very much after doubting I might like it from the clips I've seen. I really like Stardust Memories, Woody Allen's homage to the film (he was going to call it # 4, because he said he wasn't even half of Fellini in 8 1/2), and I hated the recent film Nine. Making a literal remake of 8 1/2 with music is like making bread without any yeast - to remove Fellini from his very personal mea culpa is to cut the life force out of it - it is not homage, it is a flat cardboard cutout of a photograph of Fellini. In so many ways, Woody Allen does the better job, because he creates a literate Americanization of the film. I think he completely captures the ideas, but makes them personal to himself.... he understands that the joke is on him.

And really, 8 1/2 is a comedy, isn't it? I have to say that no matter what "the director" did, I could not be angry or upset with him - there was such charm in him, and foolishness, how could you be upset by Fellini's (and it IS Fellini, no?) treatment of women, when he obviously loves them SO much? The scene that completely had me in stitches was the dream sequence when he was the king, the lord and master.... it was very funny, sad, and yes, charming....one must forgive Fellini, give him the benefit of the doubt when he has opened himself up so wide for us to see his faults in all their glory.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm inclined to agree with you about early Fellini. The power of La Strada hit me straight away whereas with La Dolce Vita I had to watch it twice to appreciate it. I haven't seen 81/2 yet for the same reason as you, however I can see me watching both LA Strada and 81/2 over the coming week.

[JackFavell]

I am quite sure I didn't get even half the import of 8 1/2.... it was a complex film, but not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be - still very much about the human condition like La Strada - but this time Fellini explored

The Ambivalences of Modern Life:

1. simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action

2. continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite)

3. uncertainty as to which approach to follow

all perceived through his own screwed up or maybe not so screwed up psyche, which is what really makes the movie fascinating.

[feaito]

I saw "I Love You Phillip Morris" (2009-2010), a black comedy in which Jim Carrey gives arguably one of the best performances of his career as the real life character Steven Jay Russell, a notorious con-man, who's currently imprisoned for life because of the many crimes he committed -he was condemned to 144 years!. Carrey gives a very complex performance and it's a difficult role to tackle. Phillip Morris, is the naïve, good natured man he meets in prison -perfectly played by Ewan McGregor- and who becomes the love of his life. The film was released in Europe first because it was quite controversial for the USA: the lead characters are gay and Russell is constantly and unashamedly breaking the law, escaping from prison, deceiving everyone, swindling et al (Russell is married at first and works as a police officer, he has a wife and a daughter and after a car accident he comes out of the closet -he's been leading a double life- leaves his family and goes to live to Miami with his newly acquired lover Jimmy (Rodrigo Santoro), where he begins to live the good life and break the law, and everything goes crazy...) A very interesting and offbeat film but certainly not for everybody.

[charliechaplinfan]

What did you think of Marcello Mastroianni in this role? I think it's meant to be a reflection on Fellini himself.

I coludn't find Pygmalion when I looked for it and then I remembered I'd let it to my Mum who had decided not to watch it because she doesn't like Leslie Howard.So I watched The Enchanted Cottage with Robert Young, Dorothy Macguire and Mildred Natwick, who stole the show for me. A lovely tale of a cottage that has an enchantment. It has always been leased to honeymooners and when Robert Young comes with his wife to be he looks set to be the next inhabitant, which he does become but without his fiancee, after he's disfigured in the war he returns to the cottage alone. His only companions are the housekeeper Mrs Minnion and Laura, played by Dorothy MacGuire, slowly Laura brings him out of his shell and he decides to marry her to provide himself with a companion, Laura realises this and marries him anyway and on the wedding night as Laura plays the piano they change, Laura blossoms and becomes beautiful and confident and he returns to how he was before the war. They invite their blind friend to try to explain the transformation but when his parents come to see them, they realise that they aren't changed people, they only look changed to one another. At first that upsets their dream but Mrs Minnion makes them see the magic of the enchantment.

Back to Mum, she's returned some films to me, some were hits, Lolita, Five Fingers, The Letter but she didn't like Dark Victory and Pushover was OK.

[JackFavell]

Mastroianni was just great, never over doing it.... he was a perfect reflection of Fellini. What I didn't expect was the humor of the movie. I wonder how much was from Mastroianni, and hopw much was from Fellini - it's such a balancing act - a light portrayal of some very dark ideas.

I love The Enchanted Cottage - it's one of those late 40's pictures that have a magical ghostly quality, and I am in love with all the pictures in that mini genre. Robert Young is so great here, he had the ability to play much darker than he got to very often. A perfect cast, and a really great story.

[charliechaplinfan]

I rewatched La Strada last night, I remember crying the last time I saw it but I thought they might have been the tears of a new mum but they weren't, they are the tears coming from a absolute classic movie with a heart wrenching performances from Guiletta Masina and Anthony Quinn. Gelsomina, surely one of the most memorable characters in films, is slow, a little strange but pleasant and willing to embark on a life working with Zampano like her sister did before her, her sister having died although we are never told how. Zampano gives the family 10,000 lire, is that guilt money? The life on the road is hard, a barely covered caravan pulled by a motorbike, Gerlsomina travels in the caravan as Zampano drives the bike. At night she sleeps next to him, he carely talks to her andis a bully. She develops an affection for him, in the early stages he either never acknowledges or never realises this. Her first realisation of what he is like is when he leaves her outside the bar and takes antoher girl to the caravan, he leaves her until dawn until a kindly woman tells Gelsomina where to find the caravan. He's a man who sleeps with women, she asks him the most direct questions sometimes and puzzles him with behaviour like planting tomatoes when they are due to move on. As he heaps further thoughtlessness on her and disappears oce again to enjoy himself, she tells him she's leaving and good for her she does, leaving with nothing but her own things. In town she's caught up in wonderment at the relgious festival and high wire act that takes place in the evening, she's given alcohol and is left sitting in the town square when Zampano drives past, it's not sure that he's been looking for her all day or just comes across her but he beats her until she rejoins him, although reluctant at first she rejoins him and takes it as a sign of how he needs her. They join up with a circus were the high wire act, Richard Basehart makes mischief winding up the strong man. Zampano is let go from the circus after chasing Basehart, Gelsomina is offered a place with them but she won't leave Zampano, he never acknowledges this loyalty. Later they lodge at a convent and she is offered to stay there but with tears in her eyes she stays with Zampano, then disaster strikes a couple of punches by Zampano kills Basehart, Zampano covers up his crime but Gelsomina can take no more and goes mad. Zampano tries to take care of her but carrying his own guilt and Gelsomina he deserts her. Years later he is in a town and hears the song she used to play, he finds out what happened to Gelsomina and we have one of the best of film endings.

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched La Strada yesterday, and was reminded so much of Liliom. La Strada is also one of my favorite movies. It truly is a superb film.

I'm not sure why I am drawn to these movies about strength, weakness, and love, but I am. Perhaps I feel a little of both sides to this story in my own life - I have been the bullied, and I have been the bully.

There is something so moving about both Giulietta Masina (her face! her incredible, expressive face!) and Anthony Quinn as Zampano, who like Liliom, cannot express his love - he really is a dog who wants to talk but can only bark. Quinn is so earthly, so human, so sad, that even when he is at his basest, you begin to care what happens to him. Everything is written in his eyes - he hides himself or strikes out because he is ashamed of himself, he doesn't want to be found out....street life hasn't taken his softness, just buried it under a thousand layers of poverty and insults. Maybe he was always like this, his manliness and self worth are so fragile that it could break apart at a word from The Fool....or at the realization that Gelsomina is what is keeping their act from turning into a shambles. His jealousy and pain are like the knife he carries....ready to wound or be wounded. Then he'll puff himself up to go out and do his act for the thousandth time...

The scenes with Richard Basehart are so marvelous, even though he was dubbed - his pebble speech is still hugely moving, perhaps the most moving in the entire film, which is filled with great scenes. Why is it that I felt his insults hurt more than Quinn's? When he told Masina that her face was like an artichoke, I wanted to cry, he should have known better, being the philosopher that he was. And Masina - I literally have no words at all to say, she was perfection itself. The sight of strong man Quinn, curled up on the beach at the end of this story, forlorn and sobbing....and yet, I cried all the way through this story of the hardness of life on "The Road".

I'm with you on this, there are similarities with Liliom, although Zampano is a brute I can reason it's the poverty and upbringing, Basehart I truly destest, he's got some education and he can both torment Zampano who can only react with his aggression and he can torment Gelsomina both by attracting her, talking things up to her and then slamming her with his cruel comments about her artichoke head or her very ugly face, all the time giving her a few crumbs so that she will always like him and will be there to be used as a tool against Zampano at a later date.

Gelsomina is loved by so many but what she wants is a man's love to validate her, Zampano doesn't recognise this but doesn't hide his other women Basehart I think does and uses it in his tormenting of her. She's an innocent, good with children and with people. She reminds me of the Tramp only with no street smarts but looking for affection from the other sex.

Zampano is a marvellous performance by Anthony Quinn, one can understand Zampano and read all about his life in his face, he uses the only thig he's been given, his brute strength to fashion an act and not a very good one. So why does he keep Gelsomina? I think there is care there for her but he can't show it. He really tries to help her after Basehart's murder but in the end it's torture for him.

The other quality that really brings this film alive for me is that it is filmed on the side of roads, in Italy of the early 50s with the poverty and the religious festivals. It's a glimpse back in time to when acts like Zampano's could travel around town to town living at the side of the road.

[JackFavell]

I agree -

Part of the dogged reality and also the beauty of the movie is that it is filmed in the real Italian countryside - taking a page out of Rossellini's book only adds tothe movie. Don't you feel as if you could step back through this movie into a different time, and actually find those people? The sad little nun, Rosa the barmaid, the traveling bands of performers - All these people who live on absolutely nothing.... it is quite amazing to me how these people scrape by. Even the pebble seems ultra real. There is such a timeless quality to the movie, as if it could happen any time at all in any era. You could go there and still find that pebble sitting there, waiting for someone to notice it and fulfill it's destiny. And Fellini somehow makes the film so personal as well as universal - you know the feelings and emotions and take them to yourself and apply them to your own life. It's a huge achievement.

La Strada is oddest mix of reality and magic. This is what I find so incredible about it. For Gelsomina, the world is a magical place, in which anything can happen - tomatoes sprouting from dirt in the ground - what a metaphor! Unfortunately, she never realizes that something bad can happen too. How Fellini was able to let us for 2 hours see through the wondrous Gelsomina's eyes I'll never know - I am sure that without Giulietta Masina, this film would never, never have been made. Zampano is the opposite of Gelsomina - only seeing the dirt and the evil, until she comes into his life - I find his humor at her planting the tomatoes to be one of the most charming of reactions. He finds a little surprise in thata and wonderment at her innocence. From this point on, he doesn't really make fun of her, only berates when he feels too close. He comes to need her more than she needs him, and this is the tragedy of Zampano, who will never really know his own emotions until it is far too late.

[JackFavell]

I'm sitting here watching David Copperfield with joy in my heart, thanks to the performances of W.C. Fields, Edna Mae Oliver, Jessie Ralph, Maureen O'Sullivan and Freddie Bartholemew, plus a sterling supporting cast. I think one could make a case for this being the second best Selznick picture after Gone With the Wind.

Particular favorites are Lennox Pawle as Mr. Dick, Roland Young as the definitive Uriah Heep, Jean Cadell (an unsung actress) as Mrs. Micawber, and Hugh Williams as a deeply conflicted and Byronically romantic Steerforth. In fact, all the performances for me are the definitive ones, capturing the novel without being heavy handed in the least.