Showpeople: film festival folk

Antonioni and Fellini in 1982; below: Fellini, Jeanne Moreau and Antonioni at the Cannes festival in 1960 when L'AVVENTURA and LA DOLCE VITA caused a furore; Visconti and Losey at the 1971 Venice festival when both were competing - Losey got the main prize for THE GO-BETWEEN so they created a special prize for Luchino for DEATH IN VENICE.

Below: two shots of Sophia Loren, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider at the 1962 Cannes Festival (all that talent and glamour in the back of the car, Ponti is in front with the driver); plus Vitti, Delon and Schneider in 1960.

Moreau: Eve & Nathalie Granger

"Welsh writer Tyvian Jones (Stanley Baker) seems to have it all, 60s style: an international best seller, an apartment in Rome, holidays in Venice, a lovely fiancé Virna Lisi, but he is bitter anyway, He meets his existential match in ennui in the mod seductress Eve, played by Jeanne Moreau, who was never more cynical or iconic. Decked out in pointy pumps and heavy eyeliner, listening to Billie Holliday on scratchy LPs as she counts lire and smokes endless packs of cigarettes in strangers’ bedrooms, she is the epitome of frayed glamour. An emotional tyrant, Eve’s cruelly casual maneuvering forces Baker to confront his past – and his weaknesses – as a man and as an artist.

When the Hakim brothers (the notorious producers of PLEIN SOLEIL and BELLE DE JOUR) handed Losey a fat contract and a pulp potboiler by James Hadley Chase, Losey was sure it was his break. After years of tighly budgeted British programmers he hoped EVA would be his ticket to the glossy world of international cinema. But while Losey’s final cut was hailed by critics as equal to his masterpiece THE SERVANT, it was barely released and remains largely unseen after 30 years.Losey disowned the producers’ version, 15 minutes shorter than his own,

Losey’s original version (titled EVE) is now included on dvd, along with the Hakim’s cut. The only surviving print of the original longer version is a Swedish/Finnish release print with Swedish/Finnish subtitles and English dialogue."

Thus went the cover notes on the combinded dvd of EVE and EVA, Joseph Losey's 1962 film set mainly in a wintry Venice. Catching up with it is a fascinating experience now. Losey had done those thrillers like THE SLEEPING TIGER, TIME WITHOUT PITY and the excellent BLIND DATE in 1959 (which I like a lot, as per Losey label), and also THE CRIMINAL and that Hammer oddity THE DAMNED. EVE / EVA is his third with Stanley Baker (who would also co-star with the other Losey regular Dirk Bogarde in ACCIDENT in 1967) and Moreau was at the height of her European stardom. It seems though like a very disjointed odd film - perhaps Losey imagined he too could do an arthouse "sick soul of Europe" movie in the style of Resnais or Antonioni - then the height of intellectual cinema. EVE now though looks and plays like a parody of an early 60s arthouse flick.



Large parts of it seem unintentionally funny, Baker glowering and occasionally hitting Moreau when she provokes him too far - there is no logical ending or conclusion to their story, as it looks like she is going to keep on humiliating him as he keeps coming back for more. One extended sequence fascinates - as Baker and we the audience watch her arrive in her hotel room, she puts on the Billie Holliday record, messes up her hair, lights a cigarette, plays with a cat and finally goes to bed ... then Baker's hands encircle her throat - we wonder briefly if this is real or a fantasy or is he going to finally kill her ... but no, on and on they go. He turns out to be a hollow man - is it really his brother's book he is passing off as his own? How many admirers does she have at all those endless casino nights? There is too a wintry funeral in Venice, anticipating Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW a decade later. Moreau is a fully realised character in films like LA NOTTE and BAY OF ANGELS, (reviews at Antonioni and Demy labels), and in those Malle and Truffaut films, but here she is merely a cypher whom we do not get to know or understand at all. It points the way to Losey's next film though: THE SERVANT where all his themes of class and decadence would come together perfectly - lots of mirror shots here too. Later after he and Bogarde and Baker had gone as far as they could in British cinema, he teamed up with the Burtons for another pair of oddball films and thence to Europe to Delon and Romy Schneider, Montand (and Moreau again in MR KLEIN). Losey - a martinet and a sadist, according to critic Alexander Walker who knew him well - made so many interesting films which remain fascinating viewing - EVE or EVA certainly is. As I relate in other posts on him, I saw him and the Burtons on stage in 1970 when they were furious that SECRET CEREMONY which had been a box-office disaster had been recut and sold to television!

NATHALIE GRANGER - Marguerite Duras's 1975 puzzle film; to some it is a tedious boring mess, others find it a rivetting minimalist drama. I only know after watching it one remains in its unique mood for ages afterwards. It creates an atmosphere of unbearable tension, depression, grief, apprehension, as we watch two women living with some unexplained trauma, in a waiting that never ends (though the film is quite short). Something to do with the mother's anguish over a violent, abnormal daughter who is Nathalie Granger (whom we hardly see). The radio announces that the police are looking for a pair of depraved teenage boy killers on the loose in the local woods. Did they kill someone in the family? Or are they perhaps family members? Do the two women know something about these boys that the police don't? The shots suggest the house and garden is being watched ... A numbed mood separates them from the world outside in front of the house, and the equally claustrophobic garden at the back where they dully burn leaves. Great actresses are denied the opportunity to act, as they sit around staring dully into space or move from room to room in a trance. By bizarre contrast, the young Gerard Depardieu drops in as an awkward vacuum cleaner salesman who tries to sell them a hoover, as they blankly stare at him - it is like something out of Pinter or Beckett commenting on the futility of life.



Moreau - usually the protagonist in her films, seems to do nothing here, she just sits and observes and she is just titled the Other Woman - is she a friend, neighbour, lover of Lucia Bose who seems to be the owner of the house? Good to see Bose again here after catching the re-issues of those first two Antonioni features this year (CHRONICLE OF A LOVE AFFAIR, THE LADY WITHOUT CAMELIAS). A fascinating experiment then in what looks like real time from the ever-fascinating Marguerite Duras (author of THE SEA WALL - both versions of which are reviewed here, Silvana Mangano and Isabelle Huppert labels).

Below, right: Duras with Moreau (who took to directing herself with the fascinating LUMIERE in 1975).


Soon: Moreau with Gerard Philipe in Vadim's 1959 LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, and those other Philipe films like THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA, THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK, POT BOUILLE, LES FEMMES DE NUIT, LA RONDE, FANFAN LA TULIPE etc; my favourite KNAVE OF HEARTS and LOVERS OF MONPARNASSE are reviewed at French and Gerard Philipe labels.

Francois, Charlotte et Melvil sur la plage

A brace of sombre films by Francois Ozon, featuring the beach and meditations on mortality....

UNDER THE SAND (SOUS LE SABLE) When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional, as the brief synopsis puts it. This 2000 French film by Francois Ozon is notable for a stunning performance from Charlotte Rampling as Marie who has to adjust her life after her husband presumably drowns. She goes into denial and continues as though he is still there but gradually it all becomes too much. As she cannot accept his death she cannot access his funds and her friends, including a nicely mature Alexandra Stewart worry about her. What are her motives for getting involved with another man (Jacques Nolot) whom she is toying with? We see the husband (Bruno Cremer) as she imagines he is there with her – but tellingly at the beach we also see his expression before he goes into the sea.







His aged mother taunts Marie that her son has faked his death to get away from her as he was bored, or even committed suicide. Finally, a body is found – will Marie be able to accept that is her husband or does she continue in denial? Is it in fact her husband? There is that powerful scene at the morgue. The overweight husband does seem older and tired and weary in the early scenes as the couple head to their holiday home. It is splendidly directed by Ozon who focuses tightly on his star, but one does begin to get exasperated by Marie's behaviour by the end. It is a meditation on aging, loss, mourning, which would seem the domain of a more senior filmmaker [Ozon was 35 when directing this], but he has accomplished a thoughtful, serious, and compelling movie that we can all identify with, even if we do not share the extent of Marie's mourning process.



TIME TO LEAVE (LE TEMPS QUI RESTE) – Nice that Ozon’s new film POTICHE with Deneuve and Depardieu is an international hit. I had been putting off watching this, his 2005 more sombre drama as I imagined it might be too harrowing. Romain (Melvil Poupaud) a gay fashion photographer (who seems to have it all) is given a death sentence by his doctor – he has terminal cancer. He becomes reclusive as he begins to give up the world and people close to him, alienating himself from his lover, sister and parents. The only person he tells is his grand-mother (Jeanne Moreau, marvellous as ever) as she will be dead soon too. It is not harrowing at all but rather affecting at times, and also nicely compact at 75 minutes. Improbably, he is asked to impregnate a waitress he chats to whose sterile husband he quite fancies, which he at first refuses, but later all three get together.





Poupaud must have seriously lost weight by the final scene at the beach as the solitary man enjoys himself, with visions of his childhood past – one shocking moment has him throwing his ringing phone into a trashcan as he leaves the world behind him. The film’s pared down style is similar to his previous UNDER THE SAND and is a meditation on what it means to find out you only have a short time left to live. Melvil Poupaud carries the film beautifully and gives a performance that is both affecting and un-selfpitying, morphing from a fit, athletic young man to an emaciated invalid. It is indeed affecting as the sun goes down and people start to leave the beach... Francois Ozon continues to be one of the more interesting (and openly gay) directors around. I must return to that boxset of his earlier films: 8 FEMMES, 5 X 2 and SWIMMING POOL with Rampling again, and I also must watch that BFI dvd of his earlier shorts, REGARDE LA MER. It is good to see POTICHE is popular, one wonders what he will deliver next?

Soon: a new Andre Techine boxset, Assayas' SUMMER HOURS, several Catherine Deneuve and Belmondo titles and back to Chabrol and Melville, and summer repeats of Demy and Varda, and finally Truffaut's FINALLY SUNDAY, and Charlotte again HEADING SOUTH.

La Notte, 1961

Reviews will be forthcoming on more 'Movies I Love' in due course: JOHNNY GUITAR, A STAR IS BORN, OBSESSION, ALONE ON THE PACIFIC, THE DEAD, LOVE ME TONIGHT, SON OF FURY, A LETTER TO 3 WIVES etc, in the meantime here are a selection of stills from Antonioni's LA NOTTE from 1961, his film after L'AVVENTURA, the second of that 'trilogy' with L'ECLISSE which followed in 1962.
I have written extensively about those other Antonioni's here already, but a second look at LA NOTTE after several decades shows what a rich, complex work it is, and it remains, like JULES ET JIM for instance, the very definition of an arthouse movie. I may have been too young to realise it fully back when I was 20!

Giovanni and Lydia [Marcello and Moreau] are the bored married couple in Milan, visiting their dying friend Tommaso in hospital (director Bernhard Wicki) with Marcello, a well-regarded intellectual whose new book is just out, being tempted by a female patient ..... meanwhile Moreau walks around Milan - her state of mind being conveyed just as vividly as it was when she was walking around Paris in LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD. Milan here circa 1960 is in a state of flux with new impersonal buildings going up [just like in London in 1966 in BLOW-UP we are aware of the new evolving city around us]. Later, after some soul-less exotic dancing in a nightclub, there is that fashionable party by a rich industralist [who thinks he can buy an intellectual for his team], as again Marcello begins a flirtation with the owner's daughter Valentina, Monica Vitti - in black wig for a change. Valentina though realises this will not go anywhere ... Lydia (Moreau) also flirts with a flirtation but changes her mind. She also rings the hospital and is anguished to hear of Tommaso's death, as they all get wet in the rain by the pool. There is a nice scene between Lydia and Valentina as they dry out, as they understand each other. Later in one of those bleak Antonioni dawns, we follow the couple as she despairingly reads that letter he had written to her when their love was new and fresh - he does not remember writing it. It is an ending as saddening as that of LA DOLCE VITA - or indeed the ending of L'AVVENTURA or BLOW-UP where the photographer simply just vanishes. This slow-to-some film is of course a product of it's time and place, with usual Antonioni screenwriter Tonino Guerra among the collaborators. Hard to believe it is 50 years old - that marvellous photography by Gianni di Venanzo is as fresh and paint.



Moreau, Mastroianni and Vitti all look marvellous here in their early 60s prime. A 'Masters of Cinema' release well worth seeking out.

A Louis Malle double feature

Two of Louis Malle's early features, from that good box set [Vol 1] which also includes LES AMANTS and ZAZIE DANS LE METRO. Malle (who died in 1995 aged 63) began filming in the mid '50s with underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, their first documentary being the well-received LE MONDE DU SILENCE in '56.

LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD – (or ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS to give it it’s American title). Louis Malle’s 1958 thriller ASCENSEUR POUR L'ÉCHAFAUD is still a fascinating experience as the plot spirals off in different directions. We have Jeanne Moreau endlessly wandering around Paris by night and in the rain looking for her missing lover (Maurice Ronet) who was supposed to kill her wealthy industrialist husband and join her, but he get trapped in the lift/elevator when the power is turned off, after the murder which he fakes to look like suicide. Can he escape? Meanwhile, his car is stolen by a teenage delinquent and his girl, who speed off and get involved with a German couple. We wonder why we are spending so much time with them, but this too leads to murder as the stories converge …. The spare Miles Davis soundtrack is cool beyond belief and Paris in 1958 looks the place to be. For me Malle (like Demy) is the most interesting of the New Wave directors [he was just 25 when directing this] and it is still a fascinating movie with Moreau and Ronet in their early prime. Marvellous black and white photography too by Henri Decae.



LE FEU FOLLET (THE FIRE WITHIN). This made such a big impression on me when I saw it aged 18 in 1964 that I did not need to see it again until now. It is surely Malle's most outstanding work, adapted from the Drieu La Rochelle story, with an Erik Satie soundtrack (so appropriate) and those luminous images by Ghislain Cloquet and with an astounding performance by Maurice Ronet. This and Bogarde's role in THE SERVANT are surely the outstanding performances of 1963. Ronet captures every facet as Alain Leroy, a playboy drying out at a private clinic who really finds nothing to live for once he is "cured". His alcoholic playboy is also a terminally depressed and finds life hollow and meaningless. Even the visiting friend of his ex-wife, whom he sleeps with and who writes him a cheque, cannot rouse him. He likes the routine at the clinic as we observe him in his room - notice the picture of Marilyn Monroe (a supposed recent suicide) and other newspaper features on death clipped to the wall... and the date scrawled on the mirror - the next day's date.


He decides on a whim to return to his old haunts in Paris to see if any of his old friends can be of any help in giving him a reason to go on living. Paris again in the early 60s looks marvellous as we linger at the Cafe Flore and the Brasserie Lipp. But Alain seems a shadow of his former jolly self to the barman and hotel staff he used to know. His best friend has settled into domesticity with a wife and child and is writing a book, he meets Jeanne Moreau, and Alexandra Stewart and her high society friends, and he starts drinking again. There is also that group of homosexuals who notice Alain and comment on how he has changed as one comments that a friend of theirs had been in love with him. It sounds depressing but it isn't really, and is a mesmerising film about suicide as a rational way out for a hollow man who is all used up and cannot see any point in continuing.... it is inevitable when back at his room to see him pack up his belongings and his life.



Malle went on to lots more varied films from the jollity of VIVA MARIA and the dramatic LACOMBE LUCIEN to those American classics like ATLANTIC CITY - LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD is a young man's film exploring what cinema can do, but LE FEU FOLLET remains a personal favourite that simply endures. A key '60s film too, comparable to THE SERVANT or BLOW-UP or BELLE DE JOUR.