Classic cinema - thoughts and questions

Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

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Yesterday, I saw Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday for the third time, and I have to say it's still one of my favourite films of all time. The main character is a newspaper editor - played by Cary Grant - who finds out that his ex-wife, who used to write for his paper, is about to marry again. Still in love with her, he convinces her to cover one last story about a convicted murderer, while doing everything in his might to keep her new fiancée away. This, of course, builds up to a number of complicated situations and revelations.

What strikes me about the film is how extremely well-written it is. The characters talk, shout and argue with each other virtually all the time and every line sparkles, to the point where the sheer intensity of the actors' delivery becomes hilarious in itself, regardless of what is said. You hardly ever see screenplays of this calibre nowadays.   

So if you ever get a chance to see this, go for it.
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Speaking of Cary Grant, what a coincidence! Last friday(!) I saw Bringing Up Baby (1938), another Hawks/Grant collaboration, starring Kathryn Hepburn.

Personally I disliked Grants constant manic talking in His Girl Friday a bit, but it surely was well written indeed!

I am not sure how many comedies you have seen with Grant, but if you haven't seen this one, go check out Arsenic and Old Lace (1944, director Frank Capra), I guess that's my favourite Grant comedy.

By the way, I always like Grant in a role where he is less dominant, and more helpless, a victim of unfortunate situations, when he doesn't have the situation under control. Sometimes he plays very emphatic roles, like e.g. in Indiscrete (1958, with Ingrid Bergman).

Some other favourite Grant comedies:
I Was A Male War Bride (1949, also Howard Hawks, with Ann Sheridan)
Monkey Business (1952, also Howard Hawks, with Marilyn Monroe & Ginger Rogers)
The Awful Truth - (1937, Leo McCarey, with Irene Dunne) It has a comparable plot to His Girl Friday but I find it more funny.


But as you probably know, there's way more, the list is endless....!

edit:
It's a shame that he never played in an Ernst Lubitsch film, though. The greatest comedy director with the greatest comedy actor, that could have been something!
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Fritz Lang said:
It's very nice to see all these Paris images!
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You tell ! I'm gonna see some more Paris images soon, in a few hours from now  :wub:

I've got some classic films that I've never seen till now, gonna put'em in my hard disk and bring them to my princess to watch them together.

Among them : La Personna -Bergman, Eisenhower -The Battleship Potemkin, Torkovsky -The Sacrifice, Solaris, Pasolini -Médée
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

free man said:
Eisenhower -The Battleship Potemkin
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Your talking about the revolutionary Sergei Eisenstein ! :)

An amazing and very innovative and influential film. The editing is very good, the pace is very fast, it's astounding for a feature from 1925!

You'll remember a particular scene for quite a while, I bet.

You should read this, but after you have seen it.
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Yeah, I have some friends inside film industrie and the tell me that the art of sinema started with Roussian School
(art of montage, revolutional new fashions in editing etc etc)

Thanks! I'll read it when I 'll see it  :)
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Is it just me, or does anyone else reckon that Michael Caine is the most overrated actor of his generation.In all the (many) films I've seen him in, he plays the same character......himself!
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Haha himself, never thought of that. :)
In what way?

Well, he's one of the rare older actors in the 21th century who still play important roles in big films. That's what I find special about him.

Have you seen Sleuth (1972)? That's a very good role I think.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069281/
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

what I mean by playing himself is that his characters always seem to be the same.For example you could stick the Harry Palmer(I think that was the characters name) character from Billion Dollar Brain and stick it into any of his other films and not tell the difference. I'm not saying he's a bad actor, or his films are all bad, just that i don't think he's as good as everyone seems to think he is.

I could use another example of someone whos characters ARE by and large different from film to film.Take Brad Pitt.I can't remember Michael Caine doing something completely different from what he normally does, unlike Pitts character in 12 Monkeys.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that Caines acting range is pretty crap.
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

I am not sure what your criteria of good acting range are and I don't know how many films you seen.
All I know is that you haven't answered my question.

Here another one to check if you know what kind of various roles he played: Have you seen Children of Men?

I didn't see as much Caine as e.g. Fonda, Stewart, or Bogart but I certainly saw enough different films in which he played different roles. Maybe you just missed them.
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

sorry Foro, was the question Have I seen The Sleuth? I don't think I have, but thats the problem, from the many Caine films i've seen,I can't imagine him acting any differently than all his others, same old Michael Caine.

By limited acting range, I suppose what I really mean is that I think in all the films I've seen him in he's kind of wooden.Another example would be Orlando Bloom, same accent, same characteristics etc in every film I've seen.I can't remember a film where he's played something remotely different from how he usually does it(again I'll refer to Pitts 12 monkeys character).

Caine,to me, always plays it safe,and the only reason he has reached iconic status is because he hasn't taken any chances, and has managed to hang around.But I'll say again, I don't think he's a bad actor, I merely suggest that he's a lucky man to receive all the plaudits he gets.
But hey, my favourite film of all time is Apocalypse Now, so that doesn't exactly qualify me as a film critic!
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Kopfanatic said:
sorry Foro, was the question Have I seen The Sleuth?
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Yes.

Kopfanatic said:
I don't think I have, but thats the problem,
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Hm hm, indeed. You also didn't see Children of Men?

Kopfanatic said:
from the many Caine films i've seen,I can't imagine him acting any differently than all his others, same old Michael Caine.

By limited acting range, I suppose what I really mean is that I think in all the films I've seen him in he's kind of wooden.Another example would be Orlando Bloom, same accent, same characteristics etc in every film I've seen.I can't remember a film where he's played something remotely different from how he usually does it(again I'll refer to Pitts 12 monkeys character).
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I still stand by the opinion that if you haven't seen certain films of an actor in which he played different roles, then you can't judge him well on his acting range.

A third film that I recall in which he played a very different role: Without a Clue. Seen that one?
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

From what I know, Sleuth is the most recommendable film with Caine, I'd say. Not only because of him, but because of Laurence Olivier and especially the remarkable story development. Mind you, check the original seventies version, not the remake in which Caine plays Olivier's role from the first version.

Caine has a certain style, perhaps it's also the look in his eyes which might give him this expression you're aiming at?

But he can get emotional (less woody) so to speak, and if I remember well, he had less woody moments in Sleuth. If you disagree, then I still hope you'll like the film itself.  :)


By the way, I still haven't seen MANY films with Caine. I've seen Zulu ages ago, but I was so small that I didn't even know names of actors. So I am looking forward to check that one out again. A small trivia: When interviewed some Maiden members answered that this was their favourite war film together with Where Eagles Dare.

I am also interested to see Get Carter (1971).
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Zulu is a really fantastic film, and Get Carter is well worth a watch too. I sort of understand where Kopfanatic is coming from, but I think it may be down to Caine having a distinctive "look" and accent, whereas Orland Bloom is just a wooden actor.

Foro, would you say that there are certain (close) similarites in Caine's acting in Children of Men and The Prestige?
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

I second the recommendation of Get Carter. Great film, although it's very bleak and brutal.
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

national acrobat said:
Zulu is a really fantastic film, and Get Carter is well worth a watch too. I sort of understand where Kopfanatic is coming from, but I think it may be down to Caine having a distinctive "look" and accent, whereas Orland Bloom is just a wooden actor.

Foro, would you say that there are certain (close) similarites in Caine's acting in Children of Men and The Prestige?
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No absolutely not. His acting and his character have more similarities when you compare The Dark Knight with The Prestige.

In Children of Men he plays a small role, you could say he is a kind of a
relaxed hippy
figure. I liked the film quite a lot but not as much as The Prestige.

Thanks both of you for the Get Carter recommendations. I have only seen a trailer yet, and the small idea that I have is that it could be in the vain of the early 1970s films a la Dirty Harry? If not, I am still interested! :)
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Forostar said:
when you compare The Dark Knight with The Prestige.

In Children of Men
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Hmm, I've only seen each of those three films once when they were first released at the cinema, so maybe I'm confusing roles.
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

I just saw one of the most direct anti-Nazi Hollywood films released before the American entry into the Second World War:

The Mortal Storm (1940), starring James Stewart & Margaret Sullivan.

The story came accross as pretty realistic, dealing with the terrible consequences of joining the Nazis or refusing to do so.

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Most definitely one the most serious films I have ever seen with a young Stewart.

wiki:
MGM purposely did not mention the name of the country or the religion of the main family because of the large German market for its films, but it was to no avail—the movie infuriated the Nazi government and it led to all MGM films being banned in Germany.
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Lately I have seen Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, Wrath of God), written and directed by Werner Herzog, released in 1972. The film is about a Spanish expedition, trying to find El Dorado

What a film. Amazing. I was very impressed, it all looks so realistic. Later on, some strange things happen* (which can't be real of course) but it all looks very authentic. This film was filmed in the vicinity of Macchu Pichu, in the jungle of Peru.

The commentary track is even more impressive. A lot of anecdotes about Klaus Kinski, the extreme character. Amazing to hear how dangerous and tough the whole filming was and how people dealt with it. I think I want to buy all Herzog films on DVD, just to hear those un-be-lie-va-ble commentaries.

Kinski moves like a crab, with demonic intensity. The extras were really afraid of him.

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I mean, read this(!!):

(from wiki)
On one occasion, irritated by the noise from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards, the explosive Kinski fired three gunshots at it, blowing the top joint off one extra's finger. Subsequently, Kinski started leaving the jungle location (over Herzog's refusal to fire a sound assistant), only changing his mind after Herzog threatened to shoot first Kinski and then himself. The latter incident has given rise to the legend that Herzog made Kinski act for him at gunpoint. However, Herzog has repeatedly debunked the claim during interviews, explaining he only verbally threatened Kinski in the heat of the moment, in a desperate attempt to keep him from leaving the set.

*My favourite scene:
Someone counts to ten and after nine, another guy cuts the counter's head off with a sword. The head rolls away, and says "ten"

That humor really fits the atmosphere of the film and it doesn't matter at all that it doesn't connect much with the story. The scenes, the atmosphere, the intensity, the actors, everything seems more important than the story. It doesn't happen often that I appreciate that, but in this film it's very acceptable.
 
Re: Classic cinema / current cinema - thoughts and questions

Yeah, that's a great film. I'm actually surprised you hadn't seen it yet, given it's probably the most famous one of post-war German cinema.. I read somewhere that it was part of the inspiration for Apocalypse Now.
 
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