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.

Marcello & Romy ! !

Another new Italian discovery: I hadn't realised that Romy Schneider and Marcello Mastroianni had teamed up for FANTASMA D'AMORE in 1981, one of her last films, the year before her death in '82. This is another one we were denied in London, though surely there would have been an audience for it then when the art circuit was still going and international stars like these were still popular ... I have now though seen some scenes from this Dino Risi drama on YouTube and have ordered an Italian only dvd,so a full report in due course ...

Woody in Paris Barcelona London ....

The latest Woody Allen has attracted raves, one cannot wait to see MIDNIGHT IN PARIS - though I will have to for the moment (until my knee operation recovery is over). Instead I caught up with his Barcelona film VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA - it too attracted a lot of good notices, being at the time, 2008, his best in ages. I like the colours and the look of the film, it certainly captures the Catalan capital, as we follow the two American girls Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall in their entanglements with painter Javier Bardem and his complicated ex, Penelope Cruz. Lots of delicious moments here, the music is perfect too. A soundtrack album to investigate then. It cements Bardem and Cruz as THE Spanish couple. Prior to that I suppose the last Woody I totally enjoyed was EVERY0NE SAYS I LOVE YOU, in 1996, also with it's delicious Paris scenes.



Next up, his recent London effort YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER, another of his complicated comedies, but with another interesting cast. Good to see that great actress Gemma Jones in a good role, and also Pauline Collins (forever SHIRLEY VALENTINE). We follow two couples and their entanglements: wealthy Anthony Hopkins leaves wife Gemma Jones as she has got old and marries Charmain, a call-girl bimbo, and then realises he has made a ghastly mistake, Gemma though won't take him back as she has moved on with her belief in reincarnation; their daughter Naomi Watts married to dull writer Josh Brolin fantasies about her art gallery boss Antonio Banderas - she tries on a pair of expensive earrings for him which she later sees on her friend and then her mother won't lend her the money she needs to start her own gallery, while he, Brolin, has stolen the manuscript of a new novel (which he passes off as his own and is being published) written by a friend whom he thinks has been killed in a car accident only to find he is in a coma and may be recovering, as he also takes up with the girl in red across the road. Cue lots of comedy-drama then as these characters try to find their way through life. Not laugh out loud but wryly amusing. But, in the current American cinema, how many film-makers are getting to even try and address the complex questions of grown-up relationships, aging and the fear of death, and the lies we tell ourselves to get through it all? - without having to make comedies for juveniles. Or deal with the paradox that humans seem to need something to believe in, and yet that same belief can also lead us astray? Or give great older actors like Anthony Hopkins and Gemma Jones really meaty roles? As long as Allen keeps asking questions, he'll remain a voice worth listening to. Some interesting British locations and interesting familiar players in small roles: Pauline Collins, Celia Imrie, Anna Friel, Meera Syal, Joanna David, the old guy from BENIDORM etc.



It seems ages now from the early funny ones like LOVE AND DEATH, and that great run with ANNIE HALL, INTERIORS, MANHATTAN, STARLIGHT MEMORIES and then oddball delights like PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, RADIO DAYS, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS, then those later films like SEPTEMBER, ANOTHER WOMAN, ALICE. The other London films did not really work, we even hardly got a chance to see them .... but Woody keeps on in his 70s. Is it really 46 years since he was chasing Romy Schneider around that library in WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT - my insane delight from 1965.

Summertime blues ...

SUMMER THINGS, 2002. A quite amusing French comedy by Michel Blanc (MONSIEUR HIRE) who also wrote it. A disparate group go on vacation to Le Touquet: the wealthy Charlotte Rampling whose husband Jacques Dutronc decides to stay at home as his life is rather complicated – he has been having an affair with their friend, Julie a single mother, and is now seeing his personal assistant who seems to be a transsexual. Their friends Vero (Karin Giard) and her husband are broke and trying to keep up appearances – they are staying in a caravan site. Their teenage son Loic (Gaspard Ulliel – THE SEA WALL) hates this and manages to get a bed at the hotel as Vero is looking after Julie’s baby.
Julie falls for a hotel lothario, and Loic meets a rich girl who takes him sailing. There is also Michel Blanc who is insanely jealous over his beautiful wife Carole Bouquet as he imagines every man is having sex with her. Charlotte and Bouquet becomer friends and drink lots of champagne while poor Vero tries to keep up. Lots of comedy situations then, including Rampling and Dutronc’s sex-mad daughter who is in Chicago with an employee of his who has stolen some money for the trip and is promptly dumped by the daughter for a guy she meets on the plane – he is then mugged and robbed and left on his own in Chicago. By the end of it all Loic comforts Charlotte who is having a miserable time and gives her the courage to confront the holes in her marriage as she insists on separate bedrooms. It is all fitfully amusing in a Gallic way as Blanc works out his Robert Altman/Woody Allen inspired interweaving tales, it almost makes one feel like one has been on holiday too. Rampling is effective as usual in another of these late starring roles of hers (SWIMMING POOL, UNDER THE SAND, HEADING SOUTH etc).

SUMMER HOURS, 2008. A more sombre richly textured French drama by Olivier Assayas. Helene (Edith Scob – the mad doctor’s disfigured daughter in 1959’s EYES WITHOUT A FACE, reviewed here last year, French label) is the 75 year old matriarch facing her imminent demise as she sorts out the legacy she will leave for her 3 children. She was the mistress of a great artist so there are a lot of valuables which Museums are interested in. Two of the children though no longer live in France and rarely return – Juliette Binoche is the successful designer living and getting married in New York, Jeremie Renier and his family now live in China, only the eldest Charles Berling and his family live in Paris. He wants to keep the family home for all of them and their children to enjoy but the other two want to sell.


They get their way as we see the ramifications following Helene’s death. The house and grounds are loving explored, Isabelle Sadoyan is just right as the aged retainer. We see some pieces on display at the Musee d'Orsay as the house is stripped and teenagers have a farewell party there. There is a lot of sadness at the nature of how things change as families splinter and heritage takes over. A very satisfying movie then, like a good read with well-rounded characters.

10.30 PM SUMMER, 1966. A return visit to Dassin’s film of Marguerite Duras’s story which I had not seen since its release. A very oddball confection but with three people I like, heading by Melina Mercouri who is travelling around Spain with husband Peter Finch and friend Romy Schneider. A great cast then but it is all somehow very risible as Melina goes into over-drive. There is a murderer on the loose whom Melina tries to assist escape, as Finch and Romy also get involved. This provided a lot of hilarity at the time, I remember Pauline Kael being particularly choice on this version of exploring threesomes. For me though Finch and Schneider are always endlessly fascinating and I like Melina a lot too – I spent an afternoon with her once in 1968 when she was leading a protest march in London in Trafalgar Square about poverty in Africa – in Biafra then. I was an idealistic twenty-two year old and Melina looked terrific in a long red dress with lots of gold chains. The Dassin-Mercouri films get a lot of stick now but I like them! Melina can often resemble a croaky drag queen but she is certainlty intense here - that scene where she watches Finch & Schneider (a terrific pairing of favourite people of mine) together on the balcony as the rain beats down and the wanted murderer also hides on the roofs is brilliantly staged.



Now that summer is gone perhaps more summer movies?: SUMMERTIME, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, SUMMER AND SMOKE, SUMMER OF THE 17TH DOLL, LAST SUMMER, THE LONG HOT SUMMER ......

I will now be away for maybe two weeks - not alas on vacation as in SUMMER THINGS but have a hospital engagement (knee replacement surgery) followed by extensive physiotherapy, and I am not allowed my laptop! but I shall be returning with an appraisal of Visconti's LUDWIG, Antonioni's rare OBERWALD MYSTERY [below, with Monica Vitti] and his segment in I TRE VINTI, 5 Catherine Deneuve films (I shall keep her A CHRISTMAS TALE until that time), 4 versions of DORIAN GRAY, more silents like THIEF OF BAGHDAD and BEN HUR (1925), NATHALIE GRANGER and other Marguerite Duras films, KINSEY and other gay interest movies, and more People and Movies We Like and of course more Art, Trash and lots of Glamour!

Boccaccio 70

BOCCACCIO 70. That other great Italian compendium, produced by Carlo Ponti in 1962 – which was sold at the time on the starpower of the 3 actresses and directors: Anita Ekberg in the Fellini sketch (as the giant billboard advertisement which comes to life, stalking Peppino De Phillipo; Romy Schneider is a delightful tease in the lush Visconti episode making her cheating husband Thomas Milian pay for her favours, Romy dressed (and undressed) in Chanel stakes her claim to being a prestige actress here (as in Welles’ THE TRIAL, same year) and Sophia Loren in the amusing De Sica segment as the weekly prize in a fairground raffle - I had forgotten how hilariously funny this tale is as Vittorio piles on the local colour as the locals go gaga for Sophia, then the bull spies her red blouse so it has to come off, as the local hunk comes to her rescue, then the weedy cleric wins the raffle ticket! It is always amusing seeing Sophia acting as one of the common people and De Sica ramps up the laughs, just like that Naples segment in YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW.
The 3 ladies deliver what is expected of them, but there was a fourth segment, by Mario Monicelli, which was cut at the time but is now restored in the dvd release. This is an amusing little tale too of a young newly-married couple wanting to find time to be alone together (like that crowded scene at the swimming pool) but continually being thwarted in that new Italian economic boom of the early 60s. Finally, they they get their own apartment but he has work nights and comes home to go to bed as she heads off to work on the bus. The couple are the attractive Marisa Solinas and Germano Gilioli and it still looks marvellously fresh and amusing. But why is it ’70 if it was made in ’62?

Romy, Michel, Yves et Claude Sautet

I have only now caught up with the films of Claude Sautet (who died in 2000). His 1969 LES CHOSES DE LA VIE (THE THINGS OF LIFE) was a big hit in London in 1970 but has not been available for years, but now it is going to be a movie I will return to, as I will to CESAR & ROSALIE from '72, and I have now just seen the 1971 cop thriller MAX AND THE JUNKMEN. Sautet in all did 5 films with Romy Schneider in the '70s, her great era in France - it is fascinating seeing how she blooms in his films, she just looks so radiant, beautiful and relaxed as obviously star and director have such rapport - so along with Dietrich with Von Sternberg, Sophia with De Sica, Monica Vitti with Antonioni, Anna Karina with Godard, we have Romy with Sautet.

The films too are fascinating - I will have to catch up with his other 2 with Romy: MADO and A SIMPLE STORY [and his other films like UN COEUR EN HIVER]. I was reminded of Claude Lelouch at times, as there are lots of cars and driving, and that good life where the characters' milieu is that comfortable bourgeois life taking place in desirable mansions and seaside homes.



LES CHOSES DE LA VIE is all driving in fact, as Michel Piccoli is having a fatal crash as he remembers moments of his life. The crash itself is amazing with terrific editing and Piccoli slowly comes to and realises he is lying in a field. We see how he left his happy marriage to Lea Massari and his son whom he had just re-connected with when he visited the family home for some papers, and indeed had agreed to go on holiday with his son which meant postponing going away with Romy, whom he loves but she senses he cannot commit or sign the papers that need completing. Lots of middle-aged angst then on the choices one makes and has one done the right thing, but it is freshly handled here. That score is Phillipe Sarde is perfect too.
40 years later what stands out now is how they smoke all the time - Piccoli lights up one cigarette after another, "I smoke too much" he says at one stage; one feels that the cigarettes will get him if the crash doesn't! One can see why it was such a hit, and, cigarettes apart, it still works now.



CESAR & ROSALIE is a total joy, you may be laughing and also have a tear in your eye by the end. [They smoke too on the poster...]. One does not want to reveal too much of the plot, as it is best to see it unfold for yourself. Yves Montand is Cesar, the self-made man, a wealthy scrap dealer, jovial on the outside but wants things his own way and will not be beaten, even if a car overtakes him. Rosalie is the divorcee he is happily living with, then another man she loved David (Sami Frey) now a successful cartoonist returns from America and quietly tries to win Rosalie back. Cesar realises what is happening and tells David to back off and invents stories that Rosalie is pregant and going to marry him, which only succeeds in driving Rosalie and David together. In a rage, Cesar wrecks David's apartment and art works, Rosalie relatiates by taking David to Cesar's office and taking money from the safe and they move away to a seaside town with her little daughter. Some time passes, and then Cesar turns up, he has bought her childhood seaside home and they all spend the summer there with her parents and extended family. It seems they are going to be a threesome but Rosalie is an independent woman and one day she moves away (to Grenoble) leaving Cesar and David who become good friends ..... and then one day Rosalie returns. What is going to happen now? Montand is marvellous here, Schneider never looked more beautiful or animated, it is just so engrossing. It is essentially a frivolous romantic movie with twists and turns, as scripted by Sautet regular Jean-Loup Dabadie, and scored again by Philippe Sarde. Isabelle Huppert has a small role.



A change of pace with MAX AND THE JUNKMEN (Max et les Ferrailleurs) as we are in Chabrol or Duvivier or Melville territory. Michel Piccoli is Max, a Paris detective who used to be a judge but got tired of letting guilty criminals go free for lack of evidence and he is independently wealthy. The film takes it time, Romy does not appear until half an hour in as the prostitute girlfriend of a scrapyard dealer who is an old acquaintance of Max. Romy skillfully captures Lily, this German streetwalker whom Max becomes fascinated by. He buys her time but does not want her body (yet) and begins to hatch a plan to catch some criminals in the act. He sets himself up as a banker in a new apartment where he meets Lily, who is dissatisfield with her own life and that her junkyard lover Abel. Abel and his cronies are soon hatching the plan to rob the bank, which Max has told Lily about, so all they need is the day when the big money is in, while the police surround the area waiting to pounce. And so it happens - the robbery takes place .... fascinating stuff then, but who has trapped who.



Romy was very prolific around this time and I have seen some others of hers from this era recently, ranging from dreadful (MY LOVER MY SON, BLOOMFIELD) to ok (QUI?) [as per reviews at Romy label] but the Sautet films are in a class of their own.



Soon: Ozon, Techine, Assayas et les autres, plus several Catherine Deneuve titles; also more Romy's LE PASSANTE DE SANS SOUCI, CLOUZOT'S INFERNO, a German 3 pack THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: LOVE, LE VIEU FUSIL and INFERNAL TRIO, plus re-looks at BOCCACCIO 70 and 10.30 PM SUMMER.