Sixties

The Amazing Nina Simone

Posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2015)

Amazing, indeed– both her talent and her life. This thorough documentary follows singer Nina Simone from her humble beginnings in a tiny North Carolina mountain town where she was Eunice Wayman through her death following a stroke in 2003. A piano prodigy early on thanks to her father– who her brother tells us is where her talent came from– Wayman’s dream of being America’s first black female classical concert pianist was dashed when the Curtis Institute rejected her application. She turned to nightclubs, changed her name to Nina Simone so her mother wouldn’t find out where she was working, and the rest as they say is history.

Director Jeff L. Lieberman touches on a lot of interesting stuff from every period of her life: Simone’s first marriage to a cute but lazy French sponge, her bisexuality, her association with Langston Hughes and MLK, her attitude toward the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, and her mental instability that worsened as she got older. He rounds it out with interviews of those who knew her, music and civil rights history, and academic commentary.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B

http://www.amazingnina.com

The Red Spider [Czerwony pajak]

Posted on by moviebloke

(Poland 2015)

It’s 1967 and a hammer-weilding serial killer is loose on the streets of Krakow. 19-year-old military diver Karol Kremer (Filip Plawiak) puts two and two together after he finds a bloody body at a carnival and spots the killer, a middleaged veterinarian (Adam Woronowicz), leaving the scene. His obsession gives way to a strange relationship that can’t end well. Grim and peculiar, The Red Spider unfolds deliberately and slowly– at times painfully so. But it pays off in the end.

(AMC River East) C+

Chicago International Film Festival

http://md4.eu/en/films/red-spider

A Married Woman [Une femme mariee]

Posted on by moviebloke

(France 1964)

The original show about nothing, A Married Woman walks us through fragments of a day in the life of Charlotte (Macha Méril), a young wife torn between two lovers: her practical husband (Philippe Leroy) and her passionate, intellectual paramour (Bernard Noël). Apparently not in a hurry to choose one over the other, she’s thrown into a pickle when her doctor informs her she’s pregnant and she realizes that she doesn’t know which one is the father.

Heavy on closeups and dialogue, A Married Woman is thoroughly Modernist: more a treatise than a story, it delves into subjects like relationships, love, sex, morality, and the differences bewteen men and women through conversations that are practically interviews. Jean-Luc Godard stated that this film “attacks a certain mode of life; that of air conditioning, of the prefabricated, of advertising.” His sentiment is evident in all three yuppiesque main characters: they seem detached and adrift, oblivious to the impact their actions have on those around them. A Married Woman is sensual but not sexy, intimate but not warm, critical but not exactly moralistic, and clever but not always interesting.

It’s not all dour, though. Rita Maiden as the couple’s chatty housekeeper adds a priceless air of levity. A scene revealing Charlotte’s thoughts as she eavesdrops on two girls discussing sex at a cafe is hilarious if kinda mean. Gorgeous shots of midcentury Paris play like moving postcards. The little stuff here kept me engaged. I appreciate what Godard was getting at, but I found his execution ultimately underwhelming.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) C+

http://en.unifrance.org/movie/5416/a-married-woman

Sandra [Vaghe stelle dell’orsa]

Posted on by moviebloke

(Italy 1965)

Sandra is Luchino Visconti’s scandalous, wonderfully melodramatic postwar reworking of the story of Elektra and her brother, Orestes. Here, Sandra (Claudia Cardinale) and her husband (Michael Craig), return to her girlhood family estate to dedicate property as a park in the name of her father, a victim of Auschwitz. To her surprise, her brother, Gianni (Jean Sorel), from whom she was “separated” years ago, shows up in the night, dragging skeletons out of the closet with him and his freshly penned novel.

Loaded with longing gazes, forlorn poses, dramatic sighs, and loud piano slams, Sandra plays out like an Italian soap opera. The big question involves incest: did Sandra and Gianni, or didn’t they? Cardinale and Sorel are both beautiful, contrasting nicely with the barren landscape and crumbling structures in Volterra, the Etruscan city where the story takes place. Visconti doesn’t answer the big question, but he offers evidence for us to draw our own conclusion. I sensed but didn’t quite grasp the significance of the siblings being half Jewish; I couldn’t tell whether this was intended to be antisemitic, but it added to the melodrama whatever it was about.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B

https://youtu.be/0vR9LkLY6bM

La Dolce Vita

Posted on by moviebloke

(Italy 1960)

What can I possibly say that hasn’t already been said about one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time? I loved it and I hated it at the same time.

I absolutely loved how beautifully it was filmed: the Italian landscape, the Roman street scenes, the elegant midcentury interiors, the cars and clothes and even hairdos. If nothing else, La Dolce Vita is a stunningly beautiful time capsule. Seeing Nico in action was also a treat—I have never seen her act anywhere else. I loved the character who was so obviously Marilyn Monroe. La Dolce Vita illustrates what a cool time the brink of the Sixties must have been.

What drove me crazy was the split up meandering “episodes” that did not seem cohesive or move quickly enough for my postmodern American sensibilities. And let’s be honest: three hours is a godawful length of time to sit through anything. However, the bad stuff is minor, and the good far outweighs it. I (think I) understand what Fellini was doing here, and I love it for that.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) A- (as if my little grade counts for anything)

Funny Girl

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1968)

Barbra Streisand classic: ugly duckling Fanny Brice (Streisand) makes her way to the top via the stage. In the process, she meets a hot mystery man (Omar Sharif) who is not what he seems. A lengthy Technicolor melodrama in some ways was ahead of its time.

Despite its merits, I got bored: Funny Girl is long, winding, and corny. Plus, Babs gets on my nerves after about an hour and a half. I’ll stick with Madge—her movies suck, but she’s more fun and has more bite.

In 2016, the United States Library of Congress deemed Funny Girl “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

(Evanston Century) C+

Fathom Events

http://www.barbrastreisand.com/us/film/funny-girl

Band of Outsiders [Bande à part]

Video posted on by moviebloke

(France 1964)

Jean-Luc Godard’s adaptation of Fool’s Gold, a 1958 novel by American author Dolores Hitchens. Two bad boys, Franz (Sami Frey) and Arthur (Claude Brasseur) convince Odile (Anna Karina), a pretty but simple classmate  in their ESL course, to aid and abet their robbery of her sponsor (Georges Staquet). Beautiful black and white shots of mid-Sixties Paris, old cars and clothes, and an iconic dance scene (not to mention a nine-minute long run-through tour of the Louvre) are big pluses. However, the overall pace was too slow and the plot uninteresting for my post-Modern sensibilities. Godard himself called it his least favorite film of his, so it’s not just me. Whew.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) C-

https://www.criterion.com/films/291-band-of-outsiders