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Where's Robert Harris When You Need Him? (1 Viewer)

Brandon Conway

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Originally Posted by eric scott richard

Speaking of religious films, Jesus of Nazareth is a film masterpiece. Truly a work of art. For my money, no other film about the life of Christ comes close to it. You really feel as if you are walking alongside Jesus. Even though it was a television production (with a few theatrical showings in Europe) it is masterfully shot, expertly written, and magnificently acted. The music is breathtaking and the 6 hour running time flies by.


It is indeed. The only thing I would say that is a minor - very minor - criticism is that Powell is almost too somber as Christ. I think Gibson/Caviezel really nailed the idea of Christ's benevolence in the flashback scenes in The Passion of the Christ and in a perfect world I wished Jesus of Nazareth had a bit of that.


Of course, one thing all Biblical epics do that isn't truly scriptural is make the adulteress woman Mary Magdalene, but that's more a fault with traditional passion plays than the filmmakers.
 

Professor Echo

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I haven't seen JESUS OF NAZARETH since it first aired when I was young and not as intellectually invested in the ideas and ideals as I have become since then. I really need to see it again, but is the SD a good transfer and is it complete? Has there been any indication that a Blu may be released at some point? Who currently owns this title?
 

Brandon Conway

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The US DVD release of Jesus of Nazareth was by Artisan and it came out in February of 2000, so it definitely could be improved upon, but it's complete and it is certainly watchable. Lionsgate has current rights to all Artisan titles.
 

There is a photo online of John the Baptist's head on a plate from this film. I think it appeared in the novel version. I don't know if it was in the final cut. Another picture shows Jesus walking in the desert. That scene was definitely not used. Another version of the Resurrection was also filmed. I would love to see these scenes but they probably don't exist anymore. The film was originally shown in two 3.5 hour segments on NBC as The Big Event in 1977. In 1979, the film was shown in an much extended version that ran over four nights. That version is the basis of the current dvd, although the openings/end credits of the other episodes are not included.
 

marsnkc

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Originally Posted by 24fpssean

Ten Commandments, though a stunning blu ray, is agony to sit through for me. I knew it well as a child and even then wondered at the stilted acting and studio-bound action. It's suffocating. When you think of the marvelous cinema that had been made just before then - Black Narcissus, A Streetcar Named Desire, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, The African Queen - and then this thing gets released in 1956 feeling and acting like a film made in a 1927 sound stage, it's amazing. But the kitsch has helped it, apparently.


On a side note, my father's cousin and her best friend are in the Bacchanal sequence; they were in the Ballet Russe together and when the BR began to fall apart they got work in Hollywood. My cousin, Roberta, is the girl at the extreme left of the frame stomping grapes in a vat as the camera (moving for once!) rolls past. And her friend Betty is lolling about on the Golden Calf. She has some stories about those days shooting that scene!

Hope you got your problems with Howards End resolved, Sean.


Ol' Chuck was a stilted actor (Wyler said that directing him in Ben Hur was like moving a yard of lumber) but he was born to play Moses, that magnificent sculpted face not the least factor in his favor. The Ten Commandments is a different animal to the comparatively 'realistic' dramas you cite. Like Shakespeare, it required larger than life, even - particularly for the role of Moses - stilted acting, because the language and stories of the Bible and Shakespeare are larger than life, with ol' Moses dwarfing even monumental characters like Macbeth, Lear or the Richards ll and lll. It pains me to see directors and actors try to bring Shakespeare to a '21st Century audience' by producing it in a 'realistic', 'modern' style and either mumbling the text, whispering it or even throwing it away. Internalizing, method-style acting don't do it for ol' Bill. Even on television, with its annoying insistence on closeups, Shakespeare should be played with a higher energy level and style (good 'over the top' vs 'bad over the top') than your average kitchen sink drama. It ain't Tennessee Williams! (By coincidence, I downloaded the dinner scene from Streetcar and emailed it to a friend last night who'd never seen her icon Miss Leigh outside of GWTW).

But aside from acting styles, stilted or otherwise, and studio-bound or not, don't you think it's a gorgeous thing to watch? I envy your cousin and her friend.
 

24fpssean

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TTC is a staggering Blu ray! I will watch it again just for the detail and color. I didn't think anyone could out-do the African Queen disc, but damn they did. Plan to watch it again before Passover, then do another viewing of King of Kings before Easter. Good Friday, I always save to listen to Parsifal, just to get the full effect of what Monotheism has done to us.


I took a work friend to see a double feature of Streetcar and Virginia Woolf at the Egyptian Theater about two years ago. She had never seen either one though she is an editor (!!!). She fell asleep towards the end of each film and was actually miffed that Blanche was treated so badly in Streetcar. She said, "So, she was considered bad for sleeping with a seventeen year old boy??" I was aghast, though I shouldn't have been, knowing my friends nympho history. Apparently, the full scope of the tragedy of Blanche's life escaped her... On the other hand, when I took her to see GWTW, which she had also never seen (sigh), she was blown away. Everybody talks about the production design and costumes and music and color of GWTW, but no one ever speaks about the editing; it is astonishing what they got away with! The film was nearly five hours long and they trimmed and trimmed and trimmed, and after repeated viewings one can see the countless visual cheats that are invisible upon a first watch. My favorite sequence is the unmentioned Klan raid, when all the women are anxiously awaiting news of their men. When they hear the horse's hooves, there are four quick, silent cuts of each one standing up hurriedly - you know the sequence - and suddenly they are at the window looking out. Great stuff!!


Funny you should mention Howards End, I did another comparison last night, after all this time, and it's still horrible. The 2010 DVD from Criterion has exactly the same color and detail as the 2009 BD, only without the swarm of noise and the digital screen door grid, nor the phantom Tetris blocks marching up and down certain shots. Don't know if those flaws are hidden because it's standard def, or if Criterion knew what they did wrong and corrected it for the DVD release. Regardless, it's a gorgeous DVD but a travesty on BD. Funny how A Private Function, given a shoddy, barebones BD release, can look so much better than Howards End, both photographed by Tony Pierce-Roberts.


Having dinner with my cousin this weekend, I want to find out in detail how those days on TTC went. I haven't asked her about it in a long time, so I need to write this stuff down.
 

marsnkc

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Sean-

A final thought on acting 'styles'. Bible stories - particularly the Old Testament - and Shakespeare are the theatrical equivalent of grand opera and should be played in a heightened style. Utilizing a realistic style for these dramas is analogous to a pop artist attempting opera (have you ever heard the pop singers that Pavarotti used to invite to participate in his charity concerts attempt an aria? Sorry, Sting!). On the other hand, it's equally ridiculous to hear Pavarotti attempt a pop song, or Jose Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa sing the leads in the CD version of West Side Story, conducted by the man himself, Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein, of all people, should have known better that singers with huge voices, trained only for grand opera, can't be agile enough to sing popular music, which the rest of the young cast carry off beautifully. It's embarrassing to watch the filmed rehearsal, with Bernstein trying to get Carreras to adapt; the singer at one point walking out in frustration. So, suit the style to the material.
 

Robert Harris

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Please keep in mind, relevant to TTC, that Mr. DeMille's background and style began in the silent cinema.
 

Steve Christou

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"I'm sure DeMille could have had any actor he wanted... Yet the actors [he] chose with few exceptions are second and third rate... Heston... has a fine hatchet face on which a beard looks well, and nothing else... John Derek and Debra Paget have faces on which neither mind nor heart has left a trace. And how ridiculous Edward G. Robinson and Vincent Price are in Egyptian costumes!... The visual representation of supernatural occurrences are inexcusably crude... And I cannot understand how Mr De Mille allowed a voice on the sound track to represent the voice of God." (Henrietta Lehman, Films in Review)


ouch! :)
 

24fpssean

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Ouch, indeed. I wouldn't be as harsh as that. DeMille's directing style began in silent cinema... and apparently stayed there. Regardless, it's a gorgeous film and certainly a novelty and a legend in its own right. Dammit... all this talk makes me want to suffer through it again tonight. Wait, I'm supposed to go with a friend to the Egyptian to see Female on the Beach. Now there's some acting!
 

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Anyone who thinks silent film acting is stilted and phony hasn't seen Lon Chaney at his best.
 

24fpssean

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Most silent film acting is stilted, at least in America, but that's not to say it all is. Murnau, Lang, Dreyer, those guys made great films that blew our clunky silents off the map and they also got great performances out of their actors. Chaney was an outstanding example of what could be accomplished without dialogue. He still remains one of those great examples.
 

Robert Harris

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Silent films really need to be examined on a case by case basis. One other point to keep in mind is that the textures of makeup toward the orthochromatic film stock are also not of great help to a natural look, and dupes make it even more problematic.
 

24fpssean

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I've noticed that. Dreyer used no make up on his actors (or very little) in Jeanne d'Arc and it looks almost creepier than if their faces were pancaked. Apparently Dreyer was using a new film stock at the time which had even finer grain but more contrast, so everything has a startling clarity to it. But there's no telling for sure because what we see now was made from the print found in the Norwegian mental institution.
 

marsnkc

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Originally Posted by Robert Harris

Silent films really need to be examined on a case by case basis.

Exactly! Ditto performances.


About a year ago I watched Lang's M, followed by Spies and was shocked at how modern and realistic the former is (in directing and acting) compared to the earlier film, though separated by only three years and, for M, sound dialog - which apparently Lang hated adapting with a passion. Granted, Lorre's performance when he's trapped at the end is a little over the top, but Gerda Maurus's acting in Spies makes Joseph Swickert's (German-born, by the way, for Sean's information :) ) performance in the 1921 Four Horsemen look like the subtlest underplaying in cinema history.
 

Professor Echo

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Chaney, though in my list of Top 10 favorite actors of all time, needed some reigning in occasionally as THE MONSTER demonstrates. But then again, I haven't seen it in over ten years, so maybe my perception has adjusted in the interim.
 

24fpssean

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The editing in M is outstanding for so young a sound film. Cross cutting back and forth between the guild of criminals and the board of policemen, even cutting on the action, so that the entire sequence is like one location rather than two separate meetings - amazing!
 

Robert Harris

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Originally Posted by 24fpssean

The editing in M is outstanding for so young a sound film. Cross cutting back and forth between the guild of criminals and the board of policemen, even cutting on the action, so that the entire sequence is like one location rather than two separate meetings - amazing!

Not only young, but I believe the first German sound film.
 

JoHud

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Originally Posted by 24fpssean DeMille's directing style began in silent cinema... and apparently stayed there.

I really wouldn't go that far. It only really seems to apply to his epics, for the most part. I consider The Plainsman one of DeMille's finest post-silent features. I don't recall any of the stereotypes typically associated with DeMille features in that one, outside of having the usual high-budget.

I generally prefer DeMille's silent biblicals over later ones. Somehow, the grand spectacle of those epics translate better without the scripted dialogue and the silent cinematography. I'm glad Paramount saw fit to release the silent feature as well on blu-ray
 

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