Down With... Drapes!

or...

"The Curtains Made Me Do It!"


This week's film is directed by Vincente Minnelli, one of the great visionary directors of Hollywood's golden age.

Even if you do not immediately recognise Minnelli's name, you will probably be familiar with at least some of his work, which includes such iconic musicals as An American in Paris and The Band Wagon, as well as Lust for Life; Kirk Douglas' memorable turn as Vincent Van Gogh.



Minnelli was also married to Judy Garland and father of Liza. 

As I say, you probably know at least some of his work.

What you probably don't know is the film I plan to show on Thursday.

The Cobweb was released in 1955 and centres on the patients and staff of a private psychiatric clinic. It features a large (and highly distinguished) cast of actors including Richard Widmark, Gloria Graeme and Lauren Bacall (at the height of their careers) alongside Oscar Levant, Charles Boyer and Fay Wray (older, venerable names) and Lillian Gish (whose career dated back to the very earliest days of cinema itself).


The story concerns itself with the interpersonal relationships between these characters, all of whom, it becomes clear, carry their own baggage. Insecurities, grudges and simmering resentments eventually erupt into full-blown conflict, focussed on... drapes.


That's right. Most of the plot of this big-budget, all-star CinemaScope epic revolves around plans to replace the curtains in the common room of the Institute.

If you think that sounds a little unlikely, many film-goers of 1955 would have agreed with you. The Cobweb did not do well at the box office, and it remains one of the least remembered entries in Vincente Minnelli's long and distinguished career. But The Cobweb is a quiet masterpiece of psychological drama.


Filmed in breathtaking CinemaScope (a format usually associated with Biblical epics and war movies, not claustrophobic psychological studies in upholstery) The Cobweb is bursting with subtle detail and careful nuance. Scene by scene, it creates a portrait of each of these troubled characters and skilfully weaves them together in a complex "web" (or - dare I say - a curtain?) that threatens to engulf anyone and everyone in the narrative.

You will never take your curtains for granted ever again.

We will screen The Cobweb at 7.30pm on Thursday, the 6th of July, at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A film about what now??

Image
One of the least shocking aspects of this week's film is the fact that it owes its existence to Charles Boyer and a cockroach. I should probably explain. In 1941, Billy Wilder wrote the screenplay for a film called Hold Back the Dawn . The story takes place in a small Mexican town just over the US border, where refugees congregate and wait (often for years) for their entry visas to be approved.  Billy Wilder had done his own stretch in just such a town, and the screenplay was written with a great deal of personal experience.  But the specific story he tells in the film follows the fortunes of a French/Romanian gigolo (ultimately played by Charles Boyer) who decides to shortcut his visa application by seducing and marrying a gullible American woman. One early scene in Wilder's script featured Boyer's character hitting emotional rock-bottom in his sweltering Mexican hotel room and conducting an existential conversation with a cockroach. Don't feel too badly if you know th
Read more

The Best Bond Film of All Time; Thursday the 14th of October

Image
 James Bond has been in the news quite a bit recently, following the much-delayed release of No Time to Die , the most recent offering in this (almost) 60-year-old film franchise. No time to die, indeed. Like all self-respecting zombies, the James Bond character is steadfastly refusing to lie down and stop breathing, despite (or perhaps because of) six decades of sexism, racism, casual violence, jingoism and sexism (sexism is a very big thing in the Bond franchise). It should really have been called  Enough Already. Still, the Bond Movie has become an important cultural icon, and each offering follows an instantly recognisable style and pattern: a suave hero in a tailored suit, a smooth-talking but quietly menacing villain with a dangerous and (devotedly) faithful henchman, a beautiful, sexually available girl, a wide variety of exotic and photogenic locations and an endless parade of increasingly complicated and implausible assassination attempts. What's not to love? With all this
Read more

The Walls of Jericho Go Up... and Down...

Image
When I launched this new series a couple of weeks ago, I shared my very personal reasons for doing so and received a variety of responses - overwhelmingly positive - for which I am very grateful. It would seem that I am not the only one who feels that we could all use some more joy in our lives right now. Just this morning, the BBC has run an article about a giant pink monster that appears to have inadvertently tapped into a global sense of despair and existential horror. You know the world is in bad shape when the entire internet decides to unburden its collective psyche onto a sock puppet.   I'm afraid I don't have a sock puppet to offer anyone at the moment, but perhaps you'll accept a red panda eating a sandwich...? I know we all have our own coping mechanisms when things get really bad. Some people talk to muppets, some join support groups, and others take up knitting. Personally, I'm going to screen It Happened One Night . It Happened One Night is a landmark fil
Read more

Down With... Architecture!??

Image
  Okay, folks, this one is just plain bonkers. We've had a month or so of fairly heavy films that tackle some difficult topics (Evolution; Witch-burning; Segregation; Rape.. nice, uncontentious subjects) so it's about time we pause for some refreshment. The rest of March is going to be fun, fun, fun. Say hello to Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand was born in Russia to a well-educated, upper-middle class Jewish family. The October Revolution of 1917 brought her comfortable childhood to a very sudden and violent end (she was twelve at the time) and her family lost absolutely everything. By the time she was able to travel to the United States in 1926, she had cultivated what was to become a life-long visceral hatred for Communism, or indeed for any remotely collectivist philosophy. She wasn't merely opposed to the Soviet Union (which you can sort of understand, given what happened to her family); she was violently opposed to any obligations that might be imposed upon the individual for the b
Read more

New Year; New Film Season!

Image
 Happy New Year to everyone! I know that "time" is starting to lose its meaning after two years of this dystopian, apocalyptic nightmare we have all been enduring for the last two years, but who knows; maybe 2022 will be different. What is clear, at least in the short term, is that our Thursday-night film evenings at the Victoria Park Baptist Church will be resuming on the 13th of January. The Church's roof works are still ongoing, so we will still be gathering in the basement (the Crypt!) but the films will still be completely free and open to everyone. Last year, I deliberately chose "classic" films that were explicitly uplifting and (dare I use the F-word) Fun . I felt that we all needed some quality time at the movies, losing ourselves in some truly great cinema, and enjoying the experience of being able to sit in a darkened theatre for a couple of hours, sharing a movie-going experience with like-minded people.  That what cinema can do (at its best). It got
Read more