Home Theater Forum - View Single Post - Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

Brook K · 03-16-2008, 01:57 PM

Wow...I loved The Music Room, preferred it to any of the Apu films even. Classical tragedy of hubris, failure, and regret. I suppose it helps that I enjoy that style of Indian music. I was even watching on a craptacular DVD, I'd love to get the chance to see it on film like you did.

Holding my positive review of Where is the Friend's Home? until I get around to seeing Life and Nothing More.

re: Chrysanthemum's...given what I saw on the Janus VHS, I hope they go the full blown Criterion restoration route with Chrysanthemums instead of putting it on Eclipse.

re: Baby Doll....I thought that's exactly what was so provocative/transgressive about it, that it WAS about people not having sex (that and Carol Baker was smoking hot)...about a woman's ability to sexually dominate and control men even in a society where they are overtly powerless. Hand in hand with that idea is Malden's portrayal of a man driven insane by not getting any. The power of man's natural need for sex, that drives them to submit to women or compromise themselves ala a certain former governor, has rarely been shown on film the way it is in Baby Doll. That's without even delving in to the racism elements of the piece, where Eli Wallach's character is someone the white men will do business with, but he can never be their equal.

03-16-2008, 01:57 PM	#3580 of 3711
Brook K Member Location: St. Louis, MO Join Date: Feb 2000 Local Time: 07:19 PM Local Date: 09-07-2008 Posts: 10,412	Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club Wow...I loved The Music Room, preferred it to any of the Apu films even. Classical tragedy of hubris, failure, and regret. I suppose it helps that I enjoy that style of Indian music. I was even watching on a craptacular DVD, I'd love to get the chance to see it on film like you did. Holding my positive review of Where is the Friend's Home? until I get around to seeing Life and Nothing More. re: Chrysanthemum's...given what I saw on the Janus VHS, I hope they go the full blown Criterion restoration route with Chrysanthemums instead of putting it on Eclipse. re: Baby Doll....I thought that's exactly what was so provocative/transgressive about it, that it WAS about people not having sex (that and Carol Baker was smoking hot)...about a woman's ability to sexually dominate and control men even in a society where they are overtly powerless. Hand in hand with that idea is Malden's portrayal of a man driven insane by not getting any. The power of man's natural need for sex, that drives them to submit to women or compromise themselves ala a certain former governor, has rarely been shown on film the way it is in Baby Doll. That's without even delving in to the racism elements of the piece, where Eli Wallach's character is someone the white men will do business with, but he can never be their equal. I know what I'm gonna do tomorrow, and the next day, and the next year, and the year after that. - George Bailey 2002 Sight & Sound Challenge: 313 Last Watched: Time of the Gypsies Last 10 Films Watched: The Odd Couple - C / Water Lillies - B+ Foreign Correspondent - B / The Small Back Room - B+ Days of Wine and Roses - B / Redbelt - C Torn Curtain - C+ / The Wrong Man - B+ Dial M for Murder - B+ / I Confess - A- DVD BEAVER My Collection