July 21, 2008
Andrew
3-Minute Intros, Kid Stuff, Fantasy, Musicals
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Screened: July 18, 2008
Format: DVD - Warner Broethers (2005)
Selected By: Beth
What more can be said of Victor Fleming’s 1939 musical fantasy triumph, The Wizard of Oz, that hasn’t already been said before? It is the kind of film that proudly embodies the best features of cinema. It plucks out the affirming fable in L. Frank Baum’s original turn-of-the-century fantasy, wraps it in Broadway melody, and then adds movie-making opulence at its most wondrous. It is a glorious, shameless kind of film, one that succeeds and endures because of its fierce ambition to be a unprecedented work of imagination. What film before Oz contained such human warmth, such otherworldly delight, such grotesque terror, all in one package, and then had the audacity to add catchy show tunes?
At this point, perhaps we should just journey down the list of rumors and legends that swirl around the film. Most notoriously, no, the film does not capture an on-set Munchkin or stagehand suicide. Yes, actor Buddy Epson was slated to play the Tin Man, but was replaced by Jack Haley after the aluminum dust in his role’s makeup severely poisoned him. Yes, a second-hand coat purchased for Professor Marvel’s costume turned out to have been owned by Oz author L. Frank Baum. Yes, MGM originally wanted W.C. Fields to play the Wizard, and yes, the studio originally intended for the Cowardly Lion to be a live lion with a dubbed voice. Yes, many of Margaret Hamilton’s scenes as the Wicked Witch of the West were cut from the final film because they were deemed to frightening.
Yes, Terry the Dog, who plays Toto, was paid more than twice the rate received by the actors who portrayed the Munchkins. Yes, the original silver slippers of Baum’s novel were changed to ruby slippers to better show off the Technicolor film process. And, of course, yes, there are eerie synchronicities between this 1939 film and Pink Floyd’s 1973 concept album, Dark Side of the Moon. Since awareness of the phenomenon first surfaced on Usenet in the 1990s, it has been dismissed by the band and album engineer Alan Parsons, but this has not dissuaded film and Floyd devotees from exploring this odd coincidence.
June 7, 2008
Andrew
Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Dramas, Fantasy
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2006
Director: Tarsem Singh
Viewed: June 5, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print
The Fall is a story about stories, an enchanting visual poem that honors the curious power that fiction can exert over our lives. It is a film where unexpected delights and terrors appear at every turn. Perhaps for these reasons, it is also a baffling and demented work. It is not, in any sense, an easy film. It utilizes a familiar story-within-a-story conceit, but this nested structure is not, in itself, what makes it a challenging work. Rather, The Fall asks that the viewer accept a secondary story that is surreal, volatile, and frequently campy. Meanwhile, it offers a primary story that is unrepentantly sentimental and examines themes that are stunning in their intricacy. The Fall is nothing if not ambitious, perhaps even foolhardy. It waltzes with catastrophe. It snatches dazzling success from fiasco, I think, because the filmmakers trust the viewer implicitly, never stooping to coddle or condescend. This is an unrelentingly sincere film, and unquestionably the most invigorating work of cinema I have seen this year.
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May 30, 2008
Andrew
Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Fantasy, Action
1 Comment
2008
Director: Steven Spielberg
Viewed: May 26, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print
Let’s get the Bad News out of the way first: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the weakest chapter to date in the now-grizzled archeologist’s adventures. To put that statement into context, consider that I have stubborn admiration and affection for the series’ previous low point, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Given the mark the original trilogy left on my young mind, and given that it’s been so long since Harrison Ford last took up the fedora and bullwhip, I’m finding it somewhat difficult to put the new film into the proper perspective. What I can’t deny is that there’s a sense of melancholic disappointment to Kingdom, a sharp slap of reality that fades to a lingering sting. It’s like running into a an old schoolmate after nearly twenty years apart, and finding that the former star athlete and class president is now a termite inspector living in a trailer with five kids. Kingdom is a fine adventure film, and it superbly accomplishes its tricky task of updating the series for a new age. Yet there’s something a little shocking and unwelcome about unearthing a new Indy film at long last, only to discover that, in many ways, it’s just another action-film-as-amusement-park-ride in a bloated summer season.
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January 9, 2008
Andrew
3-Minute Intros, Foreign, Fantasy
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Screened: January 8, 2008
Format: DVD - Criterion (2003)
Selected By: Libby
Jean Cocteau was regarded as one of the leading French cultural figures of the early twentieth century when he created his 1946 fantasy Beauty and the Beast. Although he worked as a director, novelist, playwright, and designer, Cocteau considered himself first and foremost a poet, and a poetic sensibility runs throughout the output of his versatile career. A loose adaptation of an eighteenth century French fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast was Cocteau’s second film, and it shares the surrealism that characterizes much of his work. Far removed from the horrors of post-war Europe, yet infused with rich social and political commentary, Beauty challenged audiences to demand more from the fantasy genre. Cocteau was explicit about the film’s gender and sexual subtexts, and its deconstruction of traditional fairy tales motifs.
In Beauty, Cocteau utilizes baroque design and technical wizardry to create a phantasmagorical landscape where reality and fantasy mingle. The banality of the film’s opening sequences stand in stark contrast to the Beast’s castle, where Henri Alekan’s silvery photography reveals a new wonder or chill behind every corner. That Beauty and Beast was completed at all, let alone with such opulent production design and visual effects, is a minor miracle. The film suffered from post-war shortages of everything from film stock to textiles to medicine for Cocteau himself, who was seriously ill during the production. Under five hours of stifling makeup, French heartthrob Jean Marais conjures an amazingly affecting performance as the Beast. In his monstrous visage, Marais was widely regarded by French girls and women as much more appealing than when he appeared as the handsome prince. This subversive thematic twist is, of course, exactly what Cocteau intended.
Despite Beauty and Beast’s financial success in France and internationally, Cocteau wrote that his “greatest reward” was the enthusiastic response the film received at its first screening, held not for critics or the public, but for the film studio’s technicians. Six decades later, Beauty and Beast remains a milestone in early post-war French film, and in fantasy film generally. Its ambitious artistry has influenced filmmakers across genres, yet Cocteau’s sincere, challenging approach to his source material is still all too rarely emulated.
December 13, 2007
Andrew
Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Fantasy
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2007
Director: Chris Weitz
Viewed: December 9, 2007
Format: Theatrical Print
I’m hesitant to describe The Golden Compass as “epic fantasy,” given that the film clocks in at under two hours. This adaptation of the first novel in Philip Pullman’s engrossing His Dark Materials trilogy has a structural breeziness that does not complement the dense story it is striving to tell. It hits the right notes for an adolescent fantasy, but the methodical haste it insists upon—and the occasionally silly dialogue from writer and director Chris Weitz—does the rich source material a disservice. It’s still a pleasurable arctic romp, with some rare scenes of dramatic complexity from its captivating female leads. Nonetheless, as someone who adored Pullman’s novel, I find it tempting and all too easy to envision a more substantial adaptation, perhaps one where the filmmakers weren’t so dispassionately determined to get their franchise off and running.
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2008
