Here's a side anecdote about my first viewing of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers...
My college roommate with whom I saw the movie was a devout Methodist who normally shunned most television shows and movies at the time because he believed that they were too offensive. He wanted to see Natural Born Killers, though, after a recommendation from his Methodist minister father, who had recently seen the movie with a bunch of other minister friends. This group of ministers often went to see controversial movies, such as Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, with open minds, and, in many instances, they genuinely enjoyed the movies.
We both had the same opinion of Natural Born Killers at the time, that it was an interesting movie with some valid symbolism, but that watching it was like spending two hours on the most rickety old wooden roller coaster in the world.
Can anyone recommend 2-3 must buys from the Criterion Collection that are only on DVD (not released on Blu). I am going to get Samurai Rebellion for sure. I was also considering Bicycle Thieves. Anything else?
La Strada (sometimes considered the first "real" Fellini film, not sure what that means)
The Lady Eve (great screwball comedy)
Written on the Wind (wonderful, campy but at times very emotional melodrama)
There are much more appropriate films to reference,like for example: Arsenic and old Lace. Bringing in those two films (especially Spring Breakers), just reads like a quick offhand dismissal. My stance on film appreciation is more of an inclusionist one, that sounds very exclusionary. Very few patrons dislike Chaplin, so it seems like the easy snub too.
I certainly could have referenced other movies, but Natural Born Killers and Spring Breakers share similar themes of violence and entitlement with Monsieur Verdoux, and they are also both popular movies that I chose to give a frame of reference to viewers who might not otherwise check out an older film like Monsieur Verdoux.
I personally did not care for JFK or Nixon. I get what he was going for with the movies, but they simply did not quicken my pulse.
insert off-color joke about JFK and pulse. too soon? . . . or maybe too late.
. . . I rather like Stone's work, some more than others, but don't revisit his films often, probably haven't seen one in about a decade - okay, so I basically never revisit them, but I used to like watching them, when I was in my teens and twenties (maybe this converge's with Owl's sentiments about growing out of Stone . . . on the other hand, I've now got a piqued interest in revisiting them sooner than, well, never).
I used to love watching JFK over and over again (back and to the left, back and to the left) back in the nineties, loved the soundtrack, the way Costner played the role, his earnestness, and the (to me, then) mysterious underbelly of America typified in characters like Pesci's and TLJ's.
La Strada (sometimes considered the first "real" Fellini film, not sure what that means)
The Lady Eve (great screwball comedy)
Written on the Wind (wonderful, campy but at times very emotional melodrama)
I found a brand new factory sealed "The Lady Eve" Criterion dvd at Goodwill last week, the price , one dollar + tax!
insert off-color joke about JFK and pulse. too soon? . . . or maybe too late.
. . . I rather like Stone's work, some more than others, but don't revisit his films often, probably haven't seen one in about a decade - okay, so I basically never revisit them, but I used to like watching them, when I was in my teens and twenties (maybe this converge's with Owl's sentiments about growing out of Stone . . . on the other hand, I've now got a piqued interest in revisiting them sooner than, well, never).
I used to love watching JFK over and over again (back and to the left, back and to the left) back in the nineties, loved the soundtrack, the way Costner played the role, his earnestness, and the (to me, then) mysterious underbelly of America typified in characters like Pesci's and TLJ's.
The Orson Welles involvement in Monsieur Verdoux is mentioned in the Criterion supplemental material. Welles did, indeed, have the initial idea to cast Chaplin in a role based on the life of Henri Désiré Landru, whose serial killings were the main inspiration for the Monsieur Verdoux character. Chaplin backed out of the proposed Welles-directed project, because he had no desire to work under another director after years of being at the helm of his own films.
[Show spoiler]After revisiting the other three Chaplin Criterions this past weekend, I sailed on my wave of enthusiasm and purchased Monsieur Verdoux today so that I could move it to the top of the Blu-ray stack and watch it this evening.
Even now, in 2013, it is easy to understand how the 1947 Charlie Chaplin film, Monsieur Verdoux, was the target of considerable negativity and contempt at the time of its release. For the masses of toughened Americans, those whom Tom Brokaw would later describe as the "Greatest Generation", who had weathered the Great Depression and were starting to make a life for themselves and their families after their horrific sacrifices during the second World War, the story of a murderous and opportunistic sociopath who is arrested for the murders of multiple middle-aged women only to imply in court that his wrongdoings pale in comparison to the violence endorsed by wars and economy must have struck many a nerve beneath the skin. Since I was a 1980s kid through and through, my first thought after watching Monsieur Verdoux was to remember a song, "Shoplifters of the World Unite", by The Smiths, where Morrissey, in all his bratty glory, sings, "My only weakness is a listed crime, but last night the plans of a future war was all I saw on Channel Four."
The Southern conservative in me who grew up attending church and believing that we are all individually responsible for all of our responses to other persons and events bristles at the shady and evasive morality of Chaplin's title character in Monsieur Verdoux, but I also cannot help but admire Chaplin's ability to arouse my sympathy, my laughter, and my curiosity for this character. Monsieur Verdoux is an unforgettable work of cinema that pulls us in by way of brilliant pacing and an effective mix of physical and situational comedy, only to leave us standing in the dust shaking our heads with bewilderment at what we have just watched.
Make no mistake about it. Monsieur Verdoux, a black-and-white 1947 film featuring a dapper Charlie Chaplin years past his cinematic prime is still a thousand times more subversive than, say for example, Oliver Stone's 1994 film, Natural Born Killers, or Harmony Korine's 2013 film, Spring Breakers.
Monsieur Verdoux does not entirely turn its back on the strengths of Charlie Chaplin's cinematic past, though, and prospective viewers should be assured that this movie has more than its share of hilariously fun moments. A scene where Charlie Chaplin, in the guise of one of his aliases, is attempting to perform a murder on a small fishing boat in the middle of a lake had me laughing out loud. A later sequence where Chaplin is evading a certain wedding guest, is one of the most brilliantly filmed situational comedy bits that I have ever seen. These lighthearted scenes that actually cause us to cheer for the title character despite our distaste for his life choices are occasionally interrupted by moments of bracing emotion. Monsieur Verdoux's mid-film encounter with a down-on-her-luck girl, played by the unbelievably beautiful Marilyn Nash, stops us dead in our tracks and gives us a view of Verdoux's psyche from a new angle altogether.
Monsieur Verdoux is what he is, and, in the end, we realize that even the most fearsomely remorseless people in our world have unacknowledged sides to their nature and that even these people are not incapable of kindness or altruism on occasion. Charlie Chaplin never asks us to let his character off the hook, because his character ultimately does not deserve to be let off the hook, but he does invite us to observe and understand. At a time when Chaplin himself was besieged by accusations about his character and about his political loyalties, his use of a character like Monsieur Verdoux to demand our understanding was a brave cinematic move.
This unnerving, but amusing film looks great in high definition on this Criterion Blu-ray presentation. The audio presentation comes through nicely for Charlie Chaplin's first honest-to-goodness talking picture where he grants us no shortage of witty dialogue. A handful of fun and informative documentaries shed light on the mystique behind this strange little addition to Chaplin's catalogue.
The Criterion Collection is at its best when it presents controversial films like Monsieur Verdoux and gives a second chance to movies that would otherwise be condemned to wither in the neglected underbelly of movie history. Monsieur Verdoux, in all its hilarious, gripping, beautifully-paced, unsettling, and shady glory, is a movie that deserves to be seen and judged by new generations of viewers.
. . . another interesting write up and read, right on. I'm gonna have to go on an Owl marathon ( you run don't you?) in which I watch the movies you've reviewed because these essays only seem to be getting better. And I like the conversations they can generate.
However, akin to the aforementioned umbrage from others regarding Natural Born Killers, we've departing ideas regarding Spring Breakers . . . I think it's a gem - I love all of Korine's work - although I've yet to see Verdoux so I can't compare. Your review, though, makes me want to do so. Muchas gracias.
Jonathan Rosenbaum's capsule on L'Avventura. I'm so jealous of you guys that get to see it on the big screen.
Quote:
The controversial, highly charged 1960 masterpiece that put Michelangelo Antonioni’s name on the international map. It’s a work that requires some patience — a 145-minute mystery that strategically elides any conventional denouement — but more than amply repays the effort. The ambiguous title adventure begins on a luxury pleasure cruise. The disconsolate girlfriend (Lea Massari) of a successful architect (Gabriele Ferzetti) mysteriously disappears on a remote volcanic island, and the architect and the woman’s best friend (Monica Vitti) set out across Italy looking for her, becoming involved with each other along the way. In the course of their epic travels, Antonioni paints a complex portrait of a crisis in contemporary values and relationships. His stunning compositions and choreographic mise en scene, punctuated by eerie silences and shots that linger expectantly over landscapes, made him a key Italian modernist director of the 50s and 60s, perhaps rivaled only by Rossellini. This haunting work — the first in a loose trilogy completed by La Notte and L’eclisse — shows him at the summit of his powers. In Italian with subtitles. (JR)
Based on your recommendations and what was available at my BN, I got Hoop Dreams and The Human Condition. I wanted the former for awhile actually and I got the latter due me loving Harikiri.
Thanks again. I will probably end up getting several of the othe movies that were recommended.
Well I watched Black Orpheus last night and I loved it. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a dream-like story with wonderful performances and fantastic music.
Spoilers ahead:
[Show spoiler]One scene in particular frightened me which was the first appearance of "death" as seen through the window. it reminded me of the ending scene in Vertigo when
[Show spoiler]the nun comes up the stairs and frightens the leading lady into falling to her death.
The scene in Black Orpheus had the same abruptness to it and Honestly got very frightened during this scene.
Overall I just loved the film and it instantly because one of my favorites that I have from Criterion.
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you run don't you?) in which I watch the movies you've reviewed because these essays only seem to be getting better. And I like the conversations they can generate.
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