The Seventh Seal - seeing this film for the first time in a gorgeous 35mm print was an absolute treat. The photography was breathtaking, and the performances all around were absolutely outstanding, I really enjoyed the film quite a lot, though as of now it's not really a personal favorite of mine. I do love the ambiguous crisis of faith and how it is only resolved as the viewer wants to resolve it. It is also to the films benefit that no two characters are of the same mind about life, death, or faith. However it never felt like Bergman was deliberately creating stereotypes or just dropping them in there for a token alternate viewpoint. I get the unique feeling from this film that it has an agenda, but that agenda was more of a personal quest for Bergman in just making the film, and consequently the film never tries to impose its agenda (which I wouldn't know what it is) on you. This is an incredible balance for a film to walk, I've never seen a film deal with religious issues so beautifully, so adroitly, and so realy.
I saw this for a class I'm taking here at USC since it's a major lecture we're broken into small groups led by TAs. while I think my TA this semester is usually very good, and he loves the film, he thinks its a black comedy, which couldn't be further from my perception of the film. Sometimes films, like The Apartment, or Dinner for Eight deal with such serious issues that they need more levity than a usual drama does and are mistakenly labeled as comedies. This isn't as bad as my TA last semester whose first words to us were--after watching "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", our first movie of the year--"Oh I hate that movie so much, I think its so utterly worthless." since we were all stunned by this he elaborated "The mexican stereotypes in that film are simply apalling and awful, and theres nothing else in the film to redeem those major major flaws."
The Apartment -- I've already seen this, many times, but I saw if for the first time in a nice 35mm print this morning. First Black and White scope film I've seen in the theater. The more I see of black and white films, the more devastated I become that it is no longer used. what was it that happened between 1960 and 1970 that made studios terrified to make black and white films, after all black and white was still popular 20 years after the introduction of color, what made it so unprofitable all a sudden. the lack of black and white is even more unfortunate because so few films really know how to use color effectively, the really good directors and dps know what they're doing, but often it seems as though the color photography is some of the most boring things I've ever seen of your run of the mill studio flick nowadays (true of b&w back in the day as well though I suppose). I guess I"m just dispointed right now in color, because I saw the last showing of "the Red Shoes" in nitrate last weekend at the Egyptian (they announced before the showing that this was the last time the nitrate IB tech print would be projected as it was just beginning to deteriorate). So I just saw the most incredible use of color I've ever seen on the big screen or small, I guess I"m just a little snobbish right now.
Anway onto "the Apartment" which has solidified into definitely one of the best films ever made in my opinion. Seeing it in 35mm was absolutely marvelous, though not as revolutionary as going from pan and scan vhs to the letterboxed dvd was for me. Having the film so wonderfully large and beautiful in front of you, there is so much that I appreciated/noticed for the first time about the film. I'd considered the cinematography pretty good before, but now I think its absolutely fantastic, it's very subtle but very very good. I thoroughly enjoyed, so absolutely perfect in every possible category of evaluating the film that's its simply breathtaking, and almost agonizingly great to me. I can scarcely believe that movies this good exist, but I'm more than happy to continue to experience them and reexperience them.
I can also now scratch another film off my 'list'. ONe of my personal goals is to see a 35mm or better presentation of all the films in my top twenty (see below) and as many other favorite films of mine as I can. I got Apartment off this week, and will be striking off Bridge on the River Kwai this time next week.
Adam
(btw is The Red Shoes on the list? it should be, most definitely should be)
- 07/10/2005
Did you by any chance see it because of my recommendation?
Wages of Fear and the Sirk movies should be my first entries. One or two should show up by this weekend since I just mailed two Netflix back today.
