Visual Index ~ Summertime (1955)

When I scheduled Summertime for the "Hit Me..." series I admit I expect a huge drop off in participation due to its lack of any significant or least still-discussed reputation in the careers of David Lean and Katharine Hepburn. So I was pleasantly surprised to see such a crowd hopping on the water buses in Venice with Kate as Jane Hudson (hee. no, not that Jane Hudson).

What a difference a year has made in this series. Last year, I couldn't get a crowd for Bonnie & F'in Clyde. I almost retired the series. So thank you to the many new participants and the very reliably regulars who have stuck with this series through its popular and fallow episodes. There are only three episodes left before a June hiatus and I hope you'll stick around and get reenergize from a month of No Viewing Assignments. I am a taskmaster I know... but a benevolent one! I bring you good movies.

5/15 The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) 
5/22 Fantasia (1941... special instructions)
5/29 Hud (1963) 50th Anniversary!

But for now, let's look at the selected Best Shots from Summertime in narrative order (though I fear my order is off here since the film isn't very plotty). It's like watching a slide show of your neighborhood spinster's summer vacation!

Y'all packed? Let's go...

Click to read more ...

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Summertime"

For this week's episode of Best Shot, the collective series in which bloggers are invited to choose their favorite image from a pre-selected movie, we went to Italy for David Lean's Summertime (1955) starring Katharine Hepburn. The film won both of them Oscar nominations, for Direction and Acting respectively, and since I'd never seen it it fills in two Oscar gaps in my 1950s cinema.

It's a relatively modest picture all told, concerned not with big sweeping travelogue beauty (though the travelogue beauty is accounted for) but with an internal flowering. Spinster Katharine Hepburn goes to Italy, goes a little wild (well, wild for an American spinster from Akron Ohio), and then -- spoiler alert -- leaves Italy again. It's all very E.M. Forster really! (See A Room With a View and Where Angels Fear to Tread).

She was coming to Europe to find something. It was way back in the back of her mind was something she was looking for, a wonderful mystical magical miracle. I guess to find what she'd been missing all her life."

My runner up shot comes early in the picture and I include it because I love the way it dialogues with my favorite image at the movie's end. Jane Hudson has just arrived at her summer home, and she has a conversation with her landlady about a girl she met on the way to Italy. She describes in detail the reasons the girl is travelling abroad. Jane is too guileless to be talking about herself in the third person but she is, in essence, talking about herself, whether or not she knows it. She's also prophesying her own journey including an amusing a "let loose a bit" comment that Katharine waves off with prudish modesty.

I find the light in this sequence quite astute. The women are not in silhouette exactly -- the scene is about Jane, after all, rather than Italy -- but Italy is bright and beckoning anyway. She's not really looking at Italy... not yet at least... wrapped up as she is in connecting with other people (she hopes to make friends) and her own internal possibilities. 

I often find Hepburn a little too fussy as an actress -- particularly in her later work -- but I think she's marvelous in key scenes here really capturing Jane's internal battle between her desire to connect and her own internal nature. Even in the scenes which are very much about her attraction to Renalto (Rosanno Brazzi) she's often just looking off into space and, one assumes, her own thoughts. Jane's just not very good at connecting for as much as she'd like to. She has too many fussy walls up.

I think that's why I found the final scene so moving, despite not particularly caring for the movie. My choice for best shot comes with the film's ending. Jane has opted to leave Italy and Romantic Love behind. She likens it to leaving a party before she's worn out her welcome. It's common sense really given the circumstances of the affair but you hurt for her for giving up the thing she's always wanted and you have to wonder if it isn't partially fear and retreat to a safer lonelier home. Whether or not Jane will be more open to love after the movie is up for debate. Yet in that sudden alarming lurch outward to wave goodbye one last time to Renato (but really, to Italy and Love) I think Hepburn's gestural performance provides a marvelous clue. If returning to Ohio is, in fact, a comfort zone retreat why does her body move with such spirited abandon? 

Next Week
We're staying in Italy for The Talented Mr Ripley (1999). You know you want to sound off on that one. So join us, will ya?

14 More People Summering in Italy with Hepburn
Amiresque is overwhelmed by architecture
Encore's World on the quintessential 'spinster' performance from Hepburn 
Antagony & Ecstasy wants to talk about Aspect Ratios... and perceptions of "low points"
The Film's The Thing a Cinderella of a certain age 
Cinema Enthusiast goes to a real ball with gardenias
We Recycle Movies on David Lean's undeniable obsession with trains 
Pussy Goes Grrr this is how you stage a breakup 
Cinesnatch really goes all out with shot commentary, contrasts and travelogue beauty 
Film Actually has coffee -- or doesn't rather -- with Hepburn 
She Blogged By Night picks the first shot I think we've ever seen in this series devoted to an extra. It's beautiful! 
Los Mejores Planos gives out gold, silver and bronze medals for his favorite shots 
Cal Roth sees Jane's secret sensuality
Dancin' Dan on the scene that makes the movie 
My New Plaid Pants memories of Italy come flooding back 

Capsules: 28 Hotel Rooms, Yossi, Caesar Must Die

In an effort to review every new film I see this year --  a task I have never accomplished but there's a first time for everything -- I will resort to capsules like these when I haven't reviewed properly. (I realize that my "Oscar" section of reviews implies that all films should be seen through this prism. This implication is not literal or an endorsement -- it's just something that's fun for me and some of you to think about.)

YOSSI
We're ten years on from Yossi & Jagger and Yossi is now a doctor, who buries himself in work to avoid living life or moving beyond that love cut short. When a chance encounter with Jagger's mother shakes him from his stupor, he ends up on holiday. Some of the notes are beautifully played -- the early tearful scene with Jagger's mother is super -- but Yossi is a maddeningly passive protagonist. The film happens to him rather than with hi, or even with his permission. He stubbornly refuses to participate in his own story which makes the redemptive new romance a really tough pill to swallow. Why would this vivacious younger man be interested in Yossi when Yossi himself isn't interested... in anything!? 

Yossi & Jagger & Tom

Grade: C (I would have loved to heartily endorse this movie because Yossi & Jagger was such a perfectly pitched mini-gem but it frustrated me despite a few really strong moments. So if you haven't seen Yossi & Jagger, please do rent it.)
Best in Show: Oz Zehavi almost sells you on the unfortunately lopsided romance as the young soldier Tom but I have to hand this one (emphatically) to Orly Silbersatz Banai as Varda, Jagger's mother who packs a surprising amount of drama into her two scenes. The rug is pulled out from under her but since she kept pretending the rug didn't even exist for ten-plus years...
Oscar Chances: Writer/director Eytan Fox has made 4 feature-length films prior to this one, and most of them have received international release, but he has yet to be selected for submission to represent Israel at the Oscars.

28 HOTEL ROOMS
A novelist (Chris Messina) and an accountant (Marin Ireland) have a fling in a hotel room on a business trip. She tells him it's one and done but they keep meeting on subsequent trips and a confusing, passionate relationship develops. It lasts for years. This is undoubtedly a 'one for the reel' project for both actors and sometimes plays like an acting exercize albeit a good one. Though it never quite transcends its gimmick (the title is the structure), it's affecting despite or maybe even because of the limitations of scope; their lives outside of these rooms begin to feel like fantasy or, in the inverse, like intrusions of reality on fantasy. (But honestly, for a drama that hinges on sexual compatability, it could've used a couple more sex scenes, or longer ones that developed the relationship. This is possible to do in sex scenes. See the great Israeli drama Late Marriage (2001) which is the film I always think of when I think of sex scenes that function as integral narrative and character development, like a great song in a musical or a perfect setpiece in an action film.

Grade: B
Best in Show: It's a complete duet so it'd be rude to pick one!
Oscar Chances?: This was from 2012 and got a teensy-teensy release. Now available on DVD.

CAESAR MUST DIE
This Berlinale winner from the Taviani brothers recreate an art therapy program of sorts in which inmates perform plays. By filming at a prison where they saw a play performed by inmates (a different play) with some real inmates and some actors, some play scenes and some scripted discussion of play scenes the movie effectively walks a line between documentary and drama. The line is no highwire though. The reality and fiction of the program and this particular production is blurred enough that the film never has the knife's edge of real danger that you'd think you'd feel watching real prisoners acting out murder plots, politics and betrayals. As we crosscut between auditions, production, and both formal and informal rehearsals we see the art begin to bleed into life for the inmates. The end result is intermittently moving as most productions of great work tend to be but it feels strangely abitrary; why wasn't it just a documentary?
Grade: B
Best in Show: Salvatore Striano as Brutus. There's a reason he became a professional actor after prison.
Oscar Chances?: Italy submitted this Cannes winner for Oscar consideration last season. It was one of the highest profile titles to not make the 9-wide finalist list.

To Woody With (Tough) Love

Dear Woody Allen,

I will always be there for you. Stop punishing me for my loyalty!

Back in 1984 my older brother drove me to see Broadway Danny Rose. I don't remember why. I'll readily admit that much of the movie went over my head but I laughed and laughed at the helium scene. To this day it's the only thing I remember about the movie which I never saw again. (There were always new and old Woody Allens to see so there was little time to rewatch!). My brother laughed, too. The next year I cajoled my entire family into seeing The Purple Rose of Cairo -- even though they kept grumbling about you stealing the Oscar from Star Wars -- because it was about the movies and because you made it.

It was a turning point. I was already heading towards cinephilia but that blissful melancholy miniature classic handed me a map to get there quicker; my destiny was sealed. 

As a reward to you and a treat to myself I go to each and every Woody Allen movie in the theaters. For a good long time this ritual reaped enormous rewards and I rushed out on opening night. I learned to live with the occassional dud and I still rejoice when you have a success --  hello Midnight in Paris! Nice to know ya --  but as the balance began tipping towards the "uhhh" side of the quality scale, I got lazier about it. It's been quite some time since I rushed out on opening night. I still see them but the passion has gone out of the trip ... it's now something mundane, like a favor you'd automatically do for an old friend without ever considering saying "no." You've a lifetime pass.

And so it was when I hit To Rome With Love, your follow up to a resounding success that brought you your third Best Picture nomination! Talk about wasting your post-Midnight advantage...

Click to read more ...

Thoughts I Had... About 5 Recent Movie Dads

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the readers celebrating their dad today whether or not he's a movie-lover. Especially big props go out to the proud papa readers out there raising their own movie-mad tots. (Please tell me you're starting them young! If so, I approve.) 

Today is my first father's day without my own dad so to distract me from this distressing realization which ruined an otherwise wonderful morning chez moi, I wrote this impromptu brain vomit list. Feel free to share your own in the comments...

The royal clan in BRAVE (2012)

Thoughts I Had on the Six Most Recent Movie Dads Screened

"King Fergus" (Billy Connolly) in BRAVE
I don't want to give too much away about Pixar's first "princess" movie, but let it suffice to say that I was very surprised that the Queen and not just the princess is so major in the narrative. It really is their first GIRL movie (...though not quite bent or rocking enough to be their first GURL or GRRRL movie). The movie's soul and heroism are female-centered but Brave also features a large collection of proud papas starting with the formidable King Fergus his leg legendary eaten by a fierce black bear. He may be a warrior but he is a big softie when it comes to the women in his life. The other proud dads on display -- each suggesting that their first born son deserves Princess Merida's hand -- are mostly comic relief and the animators clearly had great fun detailing  the similarities, differences and delusions in the father/son dynamics.

Ancient ancient Guy Pearce in "Prometheus""Peter Weyland" (Guy Pearce) in PROMETHEUS
SPOILER ALERT. The Evil* Weyland Corporation's ancient dead figurehead is seen only in holograms and flashbacks until he isn't. Ta da! He's still alive. Cyrogenically frozen just like Walt Disney and other Empire Builders and Iconic World Changers are always rumored to be at one point or another. You didn't see saw that coming, I take it. What I didn't see coming was that "David" (Michael Fassbender) and "Meredith Vickers" (Charlize Theron) were essentially siblings. This is completely and wonderfully "duh!" obvious in retrospect given their mutual Aryan iceiness, stiff gaits and weirdly intimate vibe of 'we avoid each other.' Perhaps I was too blinded by involuntary fantasies of a robotic blonde horizontal mambo to realize the fantasy was incestuous.

Of all the scripted and unscripted mysteries of Prometheus the one that bothers me most is Why the Hell Did You Hire 44 Year Old Guy Pearce to play this character when Max von Sydow, Christopher Lee, Peter O'Toole, Sir Ian McKellen and any number of other tall, thin, great elderly actors wouldn't have required an extensive make up prosthetics team to help them act the role. True they're more expensive than make up artists but so is Guy Pearce! 

*The "Evil" is silent in Evil Weyland Corporation. It's the Corporation and Aliens so everyone understands this.

"Darryl Van Horne" (Jack Nicholson) in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK
Jack's horny devil is very interested in impregnating the beautiful lonely big-haired movie star goddesses in this supernatural 80s comedy but he doesn't get to share custody. Who should play his sons in the imaginary sequel I long for?

Gay Son and Ignorant Dad in "Loose Cannons""Vincenzo Cantone" (Ennio Fantastichini) in LOOSE CANNONS
I had never seen this gay comedy from Turkish/Italian director Ferzan Ozpeteck and I think it might be the best of his films. It's the story of the gay son of a traditional family who run a pasta empire. The son fears coming out because his dad Vincenzo is a TOTAL drama queen about the gays. He just can't deal. It's rare to see a coming out comedy with this much gentle needling of homophobia that doesn't feel the need to demonize the people who suffer from it holding on to it (like Vincenzo). Loose Cannon just accepts that some people, some dads, have issues. You gotta be your own man anyway.

Loose Cannons is currently playing on iTunes as part of Focus Features Gay Pride Celebration this month

"Wink" (Dwight Henry) in BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
I'm still processing this movie but the father / daughter relationship at its center is heartbreakingly intimate without actual physical intimacy. "Hushpuppy," Wink's daughter, longs for more affection but Wink insists that his six year old live in her own house and fend (mostly) for herself. Tenderness is weakness in The Bathtub...

P.S. It's best to know very little about this movie before seeing it so ignore the clips, the trailers, the reviews and just go see it when it comes out. It's a true original and how often do movie theaters play those?! Treasure them.

"Mark" (Kyle MacLachlan) in PEACE, LOVE & MISUNDERSTANDING
Why does Kyle Maclachlan always dick dads / philandering husbands? He used to play so square they're hip guys in stiff suits. When David Lynch abandoned him it all went down hill!

What movie dads have you been watching?