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Tag Archives: Rear Window
Wonderwall [1968)
When the whole world tells you you’re worthless.
You stupid insomniac.
In your room.
Samuel Beckett goes here.
Jack MacGowran.
Penny Lane played by Jane Birkin.
The object of your desire.
Gallagher brothers.
Holes.
Dug by little moles.
To fill the Albert Hall.
Rear Window.
Peeping tom.
Stop hoovering.
Frittering.
Vacuum cleaner solo.
Concerto.
Metropolis.
Squat house.
Low doors.
hygge
Psycho.
Lime green is actually apple green.
Corps.
cores.
Magritte.
mod lang.
Directed by Joe Massot.
Not bad.
Song Remains the Same.
Makes sense.
Surreal.
Strange career.
Pallenberg.
Keith and George.
This soundtrack long with me.
Through me.
Pakistani.
Bangladesh.
Only way to get deeper.
Remember what you saw.
Fixing a hole.
Where the rain gets in.
The Nutty Professor.
-PD
Boeing Boeing [1965)
This one is pretty lame.
Maybe I will rewatch it someday and extol its hidden splendor.
But it’s not bloody likely.
Tony Curtis drags this film down with his horrible performance.
[like a photocopy of a fax of a teletype of his turn in Some Like It Hot]
Curtis is positively not funny in this film.
Or charming.
Or anything redeeming whatsoever.
He sucks.
Which isn’t much help for Jerry Lewis.
And as uber-talented as Lewis is, Jerry can’t salvage this last picture he made for producer Hal B. Wallis.
And perhaps Jerry didn’t really care to anyway.
Fuck it.
Just get the contract over with.
Suffice it to say, this film is fairly godawful in just about every way.
Even character actor Thelma Ritter [Rear Window] has one of her final performances ruined by this vacuous vehicle.
Bad film.
Not recommended.
-PD
The Man Who Knew Too Much [1956)
Netflix seems to be down tonight.
I tried several times. Several movies. Several fixes.
And so it is only fitting that history should trump the ephemeral stages of technological development.
Yes, time for a good old VHS tape.
And not a film about which I’ve previously written.
While I have surveyed many of the early Hitchcock films, I never wrote about the original version of this film.
1934.
To my knowledge, this is the only film of Alfred Hitchcock’s early career which he chose to remake.
Just on this fact alone, it would seem that the story was either very dear to the auteur or that he couldn’t resist something about the plot.
Granted, the two films are considerably different.
Even on a surface level, the 1934 version was (of course) in black and white.
But this was a VistaVision, Technicolor production.
1956.
22 years later.
For better or worse, I was familiar first with the earlier version.
It is a film I should revisit.
But it was not what I would call a “home run”.
The one aspect of the original which one might miss in the remake is the presence of Peter Lorre.
But we must move on to the future. The present.
1956.
Jimmy Stewart plays the leading male role. A doctor from Indianapolis.
Doris Day plays his wife.
The action is set for a good bit in Morocco.
Specifically, Marrakesh.
Indeed, the beginning of the film is a sort of travelogue.
In other words, its a good excuse to show off the exotic locale in North Africa.
Camels. Veils. [that one’s important] The social tradition of eating with the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand. While leaving the left hand in the lap.
All very edifying and exciting.
But Doris Day is suspicious from the start.
If we knew nothing of Hitchcock, we’d say her paranoia was unfounded.
But, in fact, it’s Jimmy Stewart’s ease which is the fateful misstep early on.
And so this movie is about suspicion.
Who can we trust?
In this age of anxiety (thank you W.H. Auden), everyone and everything is suspect.
The only true bliss is ignorance.
[and perhaps my only wisdom is that of paraphrase]
One thing which escaped me the first time I saw this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (in the theater…lucky me) was a funny detail about Brenda de Banzie.
Yes, dear readers (and fans of Peter Sellers), Ms. de Banzie would later appear as the annoying, flamboyant Angela Dunning in The Pink Panther (1963).
Indeed, her role as the terror of Cortina (d’Ampezzo) was her second-to-last film.
But here she is a much more mysterious character.
I will leave it at that.
We get some interesting things in this film.
“Arabs” in disguise.
Which is to say, certain personages of the spook variety in brown makeup (and native garb).
One need not look very far back in history to find a poignant parallel.
Consider, for instance, the “Basra prison incident” of 2005.
I’m guessing that T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) would provide another example, though I am no expert on this matter.
As are almost all Hitchcock films, this one is a tense affair.
Doris Day, in particular, does a surprising job of portraying the personal terror of her character.
Perhaps most notable about this film is the musical component.
As an accomplished percussionist in my own right, I heartily appreciate Hitchcock’s attention to the intricacies of an orchestral percussion section.
Indeed, the film begins with a close-up of this little-featured “choir” (in addition to the three trumpets and three trombones at the bottom of the frame).
What is most remarkable is Hitchcock’s use of the musical score (in various permutations) to tell this unique story.
Funniest is the shot of the cymbalist’s sheet music.
It is nearly a complete tacit…save for one fateful crash.
I fondly remember (with some measure of anxiety) a time when I manned the cymbals for the overture of Verdi’s La forza del destino.
It was a similar affair.
Interminable waiting.
And if you miss your one crash? Even in rehearsal?
Well, you are screwed!
The judging stares of oboists are enough to melt a man…
But the musical score appears elsewhere.
In the private box.
Perhaps a page-turner for an assassin.
Most vividly, Hitchcock makes the score come alive in a fascinating series of extreme close-ups.
It is like a very erudite version of “follow the bouncing ball”.
So yes…some of our action happens at the Royal Albert Hall.
In an interesting twist of fate, usual Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann garners copious screen time as the conductor…OF ANOTHER COMPOSER’S WORK!
Were it Beethoven, I’d understand.
But the piece is Storm Clouds Cantata by Arthur Benjamin (who?) and D.B. Wyndham-Lewis (not to be confused with [Percy] Wyndham Lewis).
And yet it is a moving piece.
The London Symphony Orchestra sounds lovely (really magical!) in their on-screen segments.
But the real Leitmotiv of our film is “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”.
Speaking of magic…it is always a gossamer thing to hear Doris Day sing this song in The Man Who Knew Too Much.
I remember a time when I didn’t know this song at all.
Being in a studio with Corinne Bailey Rae and hearing a playback of her wonderful band own this song.
And my discovery of Sly and the Family Stone’s inimitable version (sung by Rose Stone).
But few movie music moments equal Doris Day in her Marrakesh hotel room singing “Que Sera, Sera…” with little desafinado Christopher Olson.
The only ones which come close are Rita Hayworth (actually Jo Ann Greer?) singing the Rodgers and Hart masterpiece “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” the next year (1957) in Pal Joey and Ms. Hayworth “singing” (actually Anita Kert Ellis) “Put the Blame on Mame” in Gilda (1946).
An interesting note about this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much…
It seems to be a sort of forgotten classic, wedged as it is between the first of my Hitchcock “holy trinity” (Rear Window, 1954) and the other two perfect films (Vertigo, 1958, and North by Northwest, 1959).
Actually, this was a period of experimentation for Hitchcock.
Our film most precisely follows the odd comedy (!) The Trouble with Harry (1955) and precedes the black and white hand-wringer The Wrong Man (released later in 1956).
But The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) should not be forgotten!
It is such a beautifully-shot film!
Robert Burks’ cinematography is divine.
And George Tomasini’s editing is artfully deft.
Like To Catch a Thief (which is actually on Netflix in the U.S. [last time I checked]), The Man Who Knew Too Much is a film which perhaps needs multiple viewings to be truly appreciated.
-PD
Comoara [2015)
It’s such a joy to return to Romania.
Not that I’ve ever been there.
Except in films.
But so you understand, no national cinema has moved me quite so much as the Romanian.
[With exception to the French.]
Iran is close.
But oh so far.
Because we don’t see Iranian movies.
Not real ones.
And on Netflix, we don’t see the history of history.
Just a recent interpretation.
And that is so often fool’s gold.
Netflix, like its dire counterpart Hulu, is heavy on Holocaust films.
This would be appropriate.
If the films were any good.
Because the Holocaust is the most important event of the past hundred years.
But the films aren’t any good.
By and large.
However, fear not: this film does not try to take on what cannot be documented.
[see Histoire(s) du cinéma for the only good Holocaust film ever made]
No, we are after buried treasure.
Indeed, this film is listed as The Treasure on Netflix.
And I commend that streaming service for its ostensible dedication to quality foreign films.
[even if the same company has no concept of history]
If you look at the “classics” section of Netflix, you will find a paucity of titles.
This is problematic.
Last I checked Hulu (before I quit it), their “classics” section was just as bad (if not worse).
But Hulu had, for awhile, a distinct competitive advantage over Netflix (while it lasted).
The Criterion Collection.
Sure, it was not the collection in its entirety, but it was a treasure (pardon the extended metaphor) of classic films…many from countries other than the U.S. and U.K..
As I have reported previously, Hulu began to surreptitiously phase out its lost licensing (apparently) of the Criterion catalog.
Once I realized what had really happened, the damage was done.
I was out of there.
Nothing, I imagined, could be worse than the current laughable joint venture (and anemic selection) of Hulu.
And I was right.
Netflix has been a breath of fresh air.
I had previously seen Netflix’ hopper.
Years ago.
It seemed very light on classic films.
And it still is.
But what Netflix lacks in historical perspective, it makes up for (marginally) with its plentiful “international” category.
And thus we come to this fine Romanian film: Comorara.
It may be incredibly naive for me to postulate thusly, but Romanian cinema is the future.
No national cinema rivals the French.
Yes, Germany has had its share of important films (especially in the silent era and soon thereafter).
But the French-language library of films which has been passed down through the “ages” is nonpareil.
Of that tradition, nothing comes even close (for me) to equaling Jean-Luc Godard’s output.
[though he was, and always will be, gloriously Swiss]
Thus, he stands head-and-shoulders above the rest.
But there are others.
Especially those with whom Godard would have been nothing.
Jacques Becker. Robert Bresson! Marcel Carné. Henri-Georges Clouzot. Jean Cocteau. Jean-Pierre Melville. Jean Renoir! Jean Rouch. Jacques Tati.
And then there are those foreigners who worked in French (to varying extents) such as Luis Buñuel and Max Ophüls.
But the French cinema has given us other visionaries contemporaneous to Godard.
Alain Resnais. Eric Rohmer. François Truffaut. These are just a few that come to mind.
And until Netflix (and even the Criterion Collection itself) gets beyond to utter genius of Abbas Kiarostami, we will know little of the Iranian cinema beyond its undisputed master.
[Indeed, Netflix has not even broached the true cinema of Iran by featuring Kiarostami…as far as I know. It is solely the Criterion Collection which is to thank for exposing people to films like Taste of Cherry and Close-Up.]
But I must give Netflix their due.
They have made available the very fine Romanian film under review.
Yet, before we delve into that…I would like to delineate exactly what makes Romania different as far as being “the future” of cinema (in relation to, say, Iran…for instance).
The simple answer is that there are multiple genius (genius!) directors working in Romania.
They may not (certainly not) get the budgets they deserve, but their output is of the highest, most sublime quality.
And, sadly, Abbas Kiarostami is no longer among the living.
But it bears mentioning the auteurs of Romanian “new wave” cinema.
Cristi Puiu. Cătălin Mitulescu. Cristian Mungiu.
And the director of Comoara: Corneliu Porumboiu.
The Treasure must not have been an easy film to make.
Indeed, the very end of the film evinces a directorial sigh of relief (if I am interpreting it correctly).
Let me just say this: nothing much happens in this film.
Indeed, this might be the type of film which illustrates the different way in which film critics view films (as opposed to most moviegoers).
Not to mince words, my guess is that most people (98%?) would find The Treasure boring.
But I loved it!
The defining characteristic of this film is tension.
But it is not the type of tension which strings us along in a film such as Rear Window.
No.
The tension here is far more mundane in comparison.
And yet, there is real inspiration at work in Porumboiu’s mise-en-scène here.
Toma Cuzin is our brooding “star”.
And he is very, very good.
But his “foil” is the Dudley-Moore-lookalike Adrian Purcărescu.
Cuzin is calm. And yet, the dreamer…
One might even think “gullible”.
Purcărescu is frazzled. Cynical. Either a conman of a saint. Hard to tell…
But the fellow who pulls it all together is Corneliu Cozmei.
He’s the man with the metal detectors.
Yes, two…
[this is a treasure hunt, after all!]
Cozmei is caught between the personalities of Cuzin and Purcărescu.
And yet he’s not just an innocent bystander (so to speak).
He may be the independent party in this whole treasure hunt, but he’s smack dab in the middle of a very tense situation.
Bogart fans will not be far off if they faintly recall the Sturm und Drang of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
But most of all…it’s just good to be back in Romania.
To see a half-lit, grey day.
To see the funny looking cars.
To notice all the details of a culture I truly love.
-PD
Rear Window [1954)
Before there was Facebook, there was Rear Window. It was (and remains) Alfred Hitchcock’s most perfect film. In it we find “the gaze”…that phenomenon of lovers transposed to the art of memory, which is to say, cinema.
The telephoto lens of our protagonist is fitted to a camera, but he snaps no pictures during the entirety of our film. Nor does he film what he sees onto reels to later exploit the phi phenomenon. His gaze leads directly to his mind…and the events he witnesses are recorded into his memory.
Rear Window is really a film about film–self-referential cinema. It is no wonder that Jean-Luc Godard chose to feature images of Jimmy Stewart with the long lens in his magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinéma. Rear Window is pure cinema.
The further significance is that Stewart’s character L.B. Jeffries embodies the conscience of Hollywood. Indeed, in this case we are the ones watching the watcher (to paraphrase Juvenal). But the essential detail is that Jeffries is making a movie in his head…and we are watching him make it. It is documentary. He is a news photographer who is laid up in a wheelchair during a summer heat wave because he had gotten a little too cavalier on assignment from his magazine. But the true artist never stops working.
We enter the realm of Flaherty and the murky waters of fiction vs. reality–staged spectacle vs. actualités. This is a film about the pure process of motion pictures. The saving grace (other than the breathtaking Grace Kelly) is that the story is as airtight as an alibi. Rear Window is endlessly watchable because of this marriage between the abstract (which may, in many cases, be “felt” only intuitively) and the spectacular.
Before Facebook, there were rear windows. After Facebook, there will remain Rear Window.
-PD
To Catch A Thief [1955)
The first time I saw To Catch A Thief I was not overly impressed. Seemed like simply a 106 minute postcard, but oh how wrong I was. This is another Hitchcock masterpiece and, if not Vertigo-caliber, it should at least be considered in the same league as Alfred’s own excellent remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).
The whole gang’s here… Cinematography by Robert Burks, editing by George Tomasini, music by…ok, not the whole gang…but most of them.
Grace Kelly is simply stunning. When she first kisses Cary Grant, it is almost a heart-stopping moment–bursting with elegant sexuality. Grant, for his part, was never better for Hitchcock (outside of North by Northwest). And if the colors of mourning (to paraphrase Godard) made Notorious (1946) a less-than-vivid depiction of Rio de Janeiro, all sins are forgiven in this VistaVision take (breathtaking) on the French Riviera. I can’t let those poseurs at Cannes have all the fun this week 🙂 I am home studying. This is your dossier. And there was only one film worth seeing this year anyway: Adieu au langage.
Brigitte Auber gives a nice performance as the snotty enfant terrible and, though she herself is a pretty sight, Grace Kelly never looked better on film than in the “fireworks and diamonds” section of our film. Indeed, Hitch knew the power of the Kuleshov effect as well as anyone and the cinematic intercutting of this scene places him with the greats of film editing like Eisenstein (though let’s not forget Tomasini…the credited editor).
Perhaps there is no stronger tie among Hitchcock films to la Nouvelle Vague than this panoramic view dans le Midi–especially to Truffaut (considering his book on Hitchcock…though it didn’t appear till 1967). The fact that this film contains so much spoken French (sans subtitles) makes it unique in the director’s canon. Grace Kelly herself would marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco not but eight months after the premiere and retire from filmmaking in her new role as the Monégasque Princess Grace.
Edith Head’s costumes were never more perfectly worn than by Miss Kelly (especially the white gown against her honeyed skin in the fireworks scene).
Most of all, this film should be considered among the essential Hitchcock along with the three perfect films (Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest) [not forgetting the parallel perfection of Psycho]. Most, if not all, the secrets of filmmaking are contained in the work of cinema’s Beethoven: Alfred Hitchcock.
-PD
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