12/09/06:
THE PRESTIGE (Christopher Nolan, 2006) ***1/2
I’ve been interested in this period drama about the rivalry between a couple of magicians ever since I first heard about it, promising to be the kind of film they don’t make ‘em like anymore – it was that, and then some! Still, if there’s one criticism I’d level at THE PRESTIGE, it’s this: magic there is here but no poetry (the closest it comes is in the scene where the snow is ‘lit’ up and when Hugh Jackman stumbles upon the transported hats); having just rewatched Georges Franju’s JUDEX (1963), I felt this most strongly – what it needed, perhaps, was a more evocative score (a` la Maurice Jarre’s haunting theme for that film). Likewise, I somewhat regret the fact that the settings and the detail had to be so realistic – but I can see how this was vital to the psychology (which is, basically, what drives the plot in the first place!).
The film shows the essential fun of the craft but also the dedication it requires; the throat-cutting which goes on behind the scenes does seem a little far-fetched, even if propelled by a quest for vengeance (to say nothing of the extremity of the sacrifice to which the two men and those closest to them seem to be willing to go, or are made to, merely to feed their individual unhealthy obsession!) – except that the plot is so absorbing it’s only after the film is over that one has time to ponder on such details!! Of course, the multiple revelations during its last act are astounding, if not a little confusing and somewhat too clever for their own good (it’s ironical, too, that the two magicians end up ‘dying’ the same way as their respective spouses – but to reveal more would be unthinkable!): it certainly needs more than a single viewing for all the subtleties to be picked up and, while I’m not usually one to allow most recent films another look, this one is utterly fascinating and enjoyable…so I wouldn’t have a problem with that (and, in any case, reading the HTF’s “Official Discussion Thread” on THE PRESTIGE got me thinking about how much of it went over my head
!).
The casting works better than I had anticipated: both Jackman and Christian Bale
are their respective characters and they work off each other beautifully; Michael Caine and David Bowie, then, lend dignity to the proceedings with their knowing and underplayed roles. Still, while the contribution of the three women in their lives (Scarlett Johannson, Rebecca Hall and Piper Perabo) isn’t just decorative, only Hall as Bale’s long-suffering wife is handed a truly meaty character; in fact, as was the case with THE BLACK DAHLIA (2006), Johannson serves mainly as a device to accentuate the power play being enacted between the two self-destructing male leads – but, then, such high-profile and noteworthy assignments can only increase her own prestige [sic] as an actress…
I’ve loved all of Nolan’s films I’ve watched so far (I’m only left with his debut feature, FOLLOWING [1998], to catch up with) – but I can safely say that this one’s the best (or, if you like, my favorite) of the lot.
12/10/06:
VAGABOND (Agnes Varda, 1985) ***1/2
This is only my second proper Varda film: I’ve only watched her documentary on her late husband (director Jacques Demy), JACQUOT DE NANTES (1991) and her ode to nickelodeon days ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS OF SIMON CINEMA (1995); I do have 4 more titles by her on VHS but, alas, only in French i.e. with no English subtitles!
Despite being past her vintage, this is a remarkable piece of work: affecting but unsentimental, vivid rather than depressing. It deals with the last few days of a vagrant girl (a member of the working-class who got fed up with her vapid lifestyle and decided to find herself again ‘on the road’), played with candor and great passion by Sandrine Bonnaire – a deserving Cesar Award recipient (the film itself emerged triumphant at Cannes). Still, the film doesn’t romanticize her existence at all – the rejections and abuses she suffers throughout her journey, the abject poverty, the bitter cold, indeed her entire unwholesome environment – and, in fact, has all the air of being a story gleaned from the headlines (fittingly given a cine-verite` approach by Varda, providing intermittent interrogations by the police of the people who saw her last and one particular character addressing the audience directly at several stages during the film!).
Necessarily episodic in nature, the film does goes on a tad too long (especially the interlude with the Arabic immigrant, who actually plays himself!) but it basically covers the gamut of emotions, while also containing an unexpected – but most welcome – spurt of irreverence in the scenes involving a senile rich old lady, the messy (and vaguely Surrealist) Wine Festival towards the very end, and extending even to the droll final credit roll! Like a number of their early releases, the Criterion DVD is unfortunately bare-bones.
12/09/06:
FROM HAND TO MOUTH (Alfred J. Goulding, 1919) ***
This is quite a good Harold Lloyd short, perhaps the best I’ve watched so far. During the first reel, the comedy centers somewhat uneasily around the lead character’s poverty – but then it picks up with a lengthy chase involving the entire police district (actually anticipating Buster Keaton’s more celebrated COPS [1922]); likewise, Lloyd’s ineptitude as a burglar brings to mind Laurel & Hardy’s later Talkie short NIGHT OWLS (1930). The subplot about an attempt to fleece heroine Mildred Davis out of an inheritance (by a shady lawyer with the revealing name of Leech) is also interesting; given a macabre spin, it would soon see service in many an ‘old dark house’ thriller. Apart from Davis, Lloyd is supported in this one by two other amiable characters – a little street girl and her brave injured dog.
12/09/06: THE CAT'S-PAW (Sam Taylor, 1934) **1/2
This underrated Harold Lloyd Talkie feature is Capra-esque before the term was even invented – in fact, before that director ever really made those kind of films (which is not to say that it directly influenced him)! Anyway, it’s typical of Lloyd in many ways as well (the innocent at large in a big city) yet the film is more interesting as a political satire (with which many star comedians dabbled in around this time, with varying degrees of success). Una Merkel is an unlikely leading lady, however, being unsuited to Lloyd’s persona but the supporting cast – made up of familiar character actors of the era – is quite wonderful.
The film – in essence, a wish-fulfillment fantasy for Depression-era America – is, not surprisingly, rather talky and, ultimately, overlong; still, it contains much to be grateful for – especially once Lloyd’s character (a Missionary elected puppet Mayor of a city controlled by an all-powerful racketeer) turns dictator and decides to round up every known gangster he can lay his hands on: having spent his formative years in China, he pretty much lives by their code and, with the help of a Chinese magician, stages elaborate old-style executions in a cellar which enable him to get each of his captives to confess to their past crimes out of fear – thus ridding the town of corruption in one fell swoop!
12/10/06:
BUMPING INTO BROADWAY (Hal Roach, 1919) ***
Despite the title, the plot of this Harold Lloyd short is evenly distributed among three different settings: a boarding-house, a theater and an exclusive club. As in FROM HAND TO MOUTH (1919), comedy emerges out of the characters’ desperation – but there’s no denying the assuredness of the gags (in fact, I’d say that this one’s an even better film) and, in any case, H.M. Walker’s title cards are among the wittiest for a Silent that I’ve come across! Lloyd is in his element as the perennial dreamer, a novice playwright, and Bebe Daniels is an ideal co-star as an aspiring Broadway star. Still, the best scenes are probably those set in the casino – where the penniless Lloyd accidentally cops himself a large sum of money but, needless to say, he’s not allowed to reap the rewards of his fortune because the joint is raided soon after by the Police!
12/10/06: BILLY BLAZES, ESQ. (Hal Roach, 1919) **1/2
Harold Lloyd parodies the William S. Hart stoic Western hero prototype, resulting in an interesting one-reeler rather than an uproarious one; the later and somewhat similar AN EASTERN WESTERNER (1920) is, however, a superior effort because it was fitted to the star’s typical formula. Bebe Daniels is once again the heroine/damsel in distress (she made a staggering 146 shorts with Lloyd according to the IMDB – apparently, only a handful of these have survived to make it into New Line’s DVD collection devoted to the comic genius!).
Incidentally, I had first come across BILLY BLAZES, ESQ. while in Hollywood late last year on TCM, as part of an all-night Harold Lloyd marathon shown in conjunction with the release of the 7-Disc Set (compiling 28 of his films made between 1919 and 1936). In the end, it easily emerges as the least among 7 of the star’s Silent comedy shorts that I’ve watched up to this point.
12/10/06: THE FRESHMAN (Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1925) ***1/2
One of Harold Lloyd’s most popular vehicles, which Leonard Maltin rates **** – though I personally prefer SAFETY LAST (1923; only a *** in the famed and genial critic’s book!) over it. Still, THE FRESHMAN is a marvelous comedy and an unmistakable classic (which, as was Lloyd’s norm, featured wonderful cinematography that involved numerous in-camera ‘tricks’). However, as mentioned in the accompanying Audio Commentary (by Maltin himself among others), the film is more character-driven – and, therefore, less gag-laden – than usual for Lloyd; interestingly, too, while normally the star/producer would shoot the central set-piece first and then devise a plot around it, he couldn’t do so here because the central character’s motivation during the concluding football game wasn’t possible unless Lloyd and his writers had thoroughly worked out what led up to it!
Needless to say, the film’s college setting (a theme which endures to this day) has proven to be a very popular backdrop with star comedians along the years – beginning with Lloyd’s contemporaries: it was followed by Buster Keaton’s COLLEGE (1927), The Marx Bros.’ HORSE FEATHERS (1932) and Laurel & Hardy’s A CHUMP AT OXFORD (1940). The gags, too, are of a very high standard: the opening scene where Lloyd’s wacky college yells are mistaken by his father, an amateur radio enthusiast, for static (the look of disappointment on his face when he realizes the source of his ‘reception’ is priceless); Lloyd modeling his persona after the lead of a college-set film he watched, encapsulated in an elaborate dance step he makes prior to introducing himself to anyone, and which our hero fervently copies in the hope of gaining acceptance among his peers; Lloyd, rejected for the all-important football team, is eventually asked to serve as a ‘dummy’ on which his colleagues can perform their training!; the lengthy party sequence (in which the star is accompanied –because of his fragile costume – by an elderly tailor, suffering from periodical dizzy spells) is hysterically funny; the justly-clebrated football game, then, provides the perfect climax to the film (and was actually reprised over 20 years later by none other than Preston Sturges for the opening sequence of what turned out to be Lloyd’s swan-song, THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK [1947]).
As was the case with GIRL SHY (1924), the plot occasionally resorts to sentiment (one such scene, where Harold breaks down on leading lady Jobyna Ralston’s lap, was actually removed by the star himself for subsequent re-issues because it was deemed excessive but, happily, it has been re-instated for this version): here, too, the emotional scenes are beautifully handled and do not sit uncomfortably alongside the slapstick or deter from the fun in any way.
out of 
What did you think of the first one?