Change Your Image
DavidB-7
Reviews
MacArthur (1977)
sound and thoughtful
This is a sound and thoughtful performance by Peck, who was saddled by a Ciceronian script, some of it presumably emanating from MacArthur himself.
MacArthur's conviction that war is a great evil is convincingly portrayed, as is the relish of a general doing the only thing for which he was trained: the prosecution of war to the utmost severity.
The real heroes of this movie are the politicians. Not just Roosevelt, but also the caricature of Truman, and the never seen or heard Eisenhower (a good clerk according to Peck's MacArthur). This movie reminded me that it is as important for a politician to compromise as for it is a general to combat.
MacArthur's greatest opportunity was to become military ruler of a defeated Japan, for 3 years. It appears that he seized this to some good effect. He later claimed that:
"The Japanese people since the war have undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history. With a commendable will, eagerness to learn, and marked capacity to understand, they have from the ashes left in war's wake erected in Japan an edifice dedicated to the supremacy of individual liberty and personal dignity, and in the ensuing process there has been created a truly representative government committed to the advance of political morality, freedom of economic enterprise, and social justice."
In this one seems to hear the tone of a general boasting about his troops. That is no small thing: for a fighter to impose a peace, on more or less unconditional terms, and seek to reconstitute, rather than to humiliate. He would have made an abominably bad politician, but as interim ruler he ain't done so bad, according to this thoughtful movie.
7/10 for movie making; 8/10 for thought provocation.
David Broadhurst
Alexander (2004)
surprisingly interesting
Like others, I had heard poor opinions of this movie. Watching it tonight, for the first time, I found many things of interest. Here are a few, in no particular order.
1) It is clearly an anti-war movie: most of the characters have no option but to fight; none seems to enjoy doing so.
2) It seems to me well tuned into pre-Aristotelian tradition. In the age of Aeschylus, it became possible to imitate dark things and -- through fear and pity -- partially to tame them. Stone seemed to understand this, particularly when Phillip shows Alexander the wall paintings.
3) At first I found it strange that Alexander remained so trapped in his teenage. At the age of 33 (the age of Jesus of Nazareth, reputedly, taking on Pilate and the Sanhedrin) he seemed to have grown little from the bright-eyed pupil at the Academy. Stone clearly intended this metastasis: the backtracking by 10 and then by 9 years was signposted in school-masterly fashion.
4) Hopkins' Ptolemy is intended to be a boring old f*rt. He gives us as much as a rational man can of A's genesis and nemesis. Stone wants us to explore what remains.
5) The charges made by some of homo-eroticism are ludicrous. There is only one sex scene, between A and Roxanne, which was presumably intended to deepen the platonic relationship between A and Hephaistion. (I imagine that Stone was being deliberately unhistorical in portraying A and H as chaste; such is the burden of writing for US audiences.)
6) Yet, ultimately, for me, the movie failed to convince. I wanted to see Alexander transformed by his ontogeny. Instead, he seemed to be trapped by it. But that was a failing of some import; perhaps Stone intended it.
7) This movie will get better and better ratings as more folk watch it, out of the hothouse of commercial ratings. Already I feel that I need to watch it a second time.
David Broadhurst
Artemisia (1997)
Treason or license?
The film of Artemisia may be considered treason, or as true artistic license.
Which might one aver?
In documented history, Artemisia Gentileschi was subjected to the thumbscrew, and still affirmed that she was r***ed, as Mary Garrard and Gloria Steinem have eloquently affirmed.
In the movie, under a different torture, she refused to condemn her lover/violator.
How may a movie deviate so much from received history, yet still inform the human heart?
The answer is not so hard to find. In the movie, the director and cast had filled a gaping hole in the historical record, with the power of imagination.
That led to a conclusion that differs from the record.
So be it. I find _both_ the record and the movie to be compelling.
In both the movie and (it seems) in history, Artemisia was a painter, before all else.
For that vision, framed in ravishing (sic) film composition, I am truly grateful.
Seldom have I seen a movie that so compelled my eyes.
David Broadhurst
Meeting Venus (1991)
stunning dubbing
I saw this last night on UK TV. Glenn Close looked the part as a diva.
Her mouthing of Kiri Te Kanawa's singing was stunning. I've seen Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Victoria de los Angeles sing, from the front row, and I would have believed this to be real thing, had it not been a movie.
I can only imagine that Te Kanawa recorded it after Close has shot the scenes. Otherwise, Close is a wonderful mimic.
Anyway, I was charmed by the movie. Simplistic it may be. But then so was Shakespeare in Love. And, as there, a miracle happens when the curtain goes up (except that there was no curtain at the Globe and here it doesn't actually go up, which is where the miracle happens).
David
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
a movie for all time
As others have remarked, it is quite extraordinary that this movie does not even get into the top-250 frame. It has, quite simply, the best script ever written, rendered by a cast that gets totally inside both the ideas and words. Today I read Bolt's 1960 play. From the page, Scofield, Hiller, McKern, Shaw, York, Davenport, Redgrave, et al, spoke the living dialogue. The only difference that I could detect from the original text is an improvement: the movie downplays the Common Man, who tends to alienate the play. Oh ye gods and little fishes, when will we again see a movie that so tellingly portrays the ultimate fascination of ideas, and does so with such reverence to the very vehicles of ideas: words! >
Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)
much affected
I was much affected by this movie, when I saw it 40 years ago. Recently reading Leo Marks book, it came back to me. Violette Szabo died in Ravensbrueck, shot in the back of the head, holding hands with a friend. The movie could not quite bring itself to tell us that. But it came close. I think that of all the movies I saw in my youth, this grabbed the heart closest. It has a fine understatement, without which the enormity of war would be hard to grasp.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Disappointing
A poor movie. Spielberg has a limited emotional compass and boxed himself into an impossible corner with the opening carnage. After that, he needed to make a serious movie, of the calibre of All Quiet on the Western Front, or La Grande Illusion, to avoid bathos. As it is, the film meanders hopelessly, unable to decide whether to take itself seriously. It's a shame, since Hanks can act better than here directed, and Spielberg showed in Schindler's List that he can handle a serious theme, with telling economy. For me the truly bathetic scene was when the band of motley misfits decides to do a John Wayne and kill as many Germans as possible. This erodes the impact of the opening scene.