There's Dark cinema and there's dark cinema. The term Film Noir was originally applied to American cinema in 1946, and seems to have been used by two French film critics at more or less the same time. The critic Nico Frank described a recent batch of American imports as "belong[ing] to what used to be called the detective film genre, but which would now be better termed the crime, or, even better yet, the "crime psychology film." Fellow critic Jean-Pierre Chartier was less charitable in his take on the subject, condemning what he called Film Noir's "pessimism and disgust for humanity." It is Chartier's take on Noir that feels most relevant to this week's film, although personally I would challenge the value judgement implied by his attacks. One of the characteristics of the "dark cinema" of this era was that it didn't necessarily need to have anything to do with crime. Or sex. It's possible to have a Very Bad Day for enti...
____________________________________________________ The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means. Oscar Wilde; The Importance of Being Earnes t ____________________________________________________ Depression/Comedy Part II: Are you Being Funny? Last January (a year ago!) I launched a film series that I called Depression/Comedy . As I said at the time, film-makers of the 1930s made a conscious decision to make their films as positive and enjoyable as possible, in an effort to help the country get through a very difficult and painful decade. Putting that series together was a genuine pleasure for me, and allowed me to showcase some of my all-time favourite films. This year, I want to look at what happened next . You might think of this as Depression/Comedy without the Comedy. Not that this season is going to be depressing . Not remotely. Like Depression/Comedy , this is going to be a celebration of a very specific period in the history of Cinema. ...
It gives me great pleasure to announce that we are screening Kiss Me Kate in 3D at the Victoria Park Baptist Church on Thursday, the 26th of May Kiss Me, Kate (the stage version had a comma; the film doesn't) is of course a re-working of The Taming of the Shrew . Almost five decades later, 10 Things I Hate About You would also use The Taming of the Shrew as its source, and as an appropriate tribute, I present the following list. 10 Things I Love About Kiss Me Kate 10. It's Shakespeare Okay, so this is one of Shakespeare's more problematic plays, but Shakespeare definitely knew how to write dialogue, and Cole Porter is one of the very few lyricists who could stand alongside him without looking foolish. Many scenes in Kiss Me, Kate are lifted directly from the source material, and some (not all) of the more uncomfortable elements are softened by the fact that the two female leads (Lilli Vanessi and Lois Lane) are shown to be very strong, independent women who are victim...
I don't like geniuses. They're dangerous. A man abler than his brothers insults them by implication. He must not aspire to any virtue which cannot be shared. -Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead *** Dash: You always say 'Do your best', but you don't really mean it. Why can't I do the best that I can do? Helen: Right now, honey, the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in, we gotta be like everyone else. Dash: But Dad always said our powers were nothing to be ashamed of, our powers made us special. Helen: Everyone's special, Dash. Dash: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is. -Dashiel and Helen Parr in The Incredibles *** The 1950s was a period when the Comic Book industry found itself under attack. A psychiatrist named Frederic Wertham had published a highly influential book entitled Seduction of the Innocent in which he claimed (in great detail) that comic books were directly responsible for the perceived rise in juvenile delinquen...
The Winter's Tale is not Shakespeare's most famous play. It doesn't have a balcony scene, and no one gets turned into a donkey. There are no introspective graveyard scenes with human skulls, and no one, at any point, longs for a horse at any price. But The Winter's Tale secures its position in the Shakespearian canon for at least one reason. It features what is beyond a shadow of doubt the most exciting, nerve-tingling, action-packed edge-of-your-seat, adrenaline-pumping Stage Direction in the history of theatre. ANTIGONUS Come, poor babe: I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o' the dead May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother Appear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream So like a waking. To me comes a creature, Sometimes her head on one side, some another; I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, So fill'd and so becoming: in pure white robes, Like very sanctity, she did approach My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me, And gasping...
Comments
Post a Comment