grandisdavid Reviews

The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)

Beware, out of fashion and nearly unwatchable!!!

[1/10 · 28 May 2007]

I have a lot of admiration for Michael Powell and being a conductor, I wanted very much to see his Tales of Hoffmann. I've rarely been so disappointed! -If you are a film director student or a fan of old movies, I highly recommend you to watch his other movies such as "a Matter of Life and Death"/"Stairway to Heaven", "A Canterbury Tale", "Black Narcissus" or "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp". This one would only disappoint your sophisticated taste because it is utterly out of fashion and not even revolutionary for its time.

-If you are an opera buff like me, you'll hate it for several reasons: Offenbach's score has always been a problem in terms of musical accuracy and legitimacy. Some conductors have edited the manuscript (fully discovered only recently after decades of persevering research from many musicologists), some have added material composed by themselves or by others. This version is just ludicrous, it is completely manipulated and arranged for a cinema version. BUT that is not the worst: Sir Thomas Beecham's conducting is a heavy bore in many parts (dreadful overture for example). The singing is in English and not in french! Although, it was the fashion in those times to sing operas in the language of the country where it was performed and not in the original language: total heresy! At last, the voices are terrible: the tenor is way too light for Hoffmann and could never sing such a demanding role on stage, Giulietta is often flat, Antonia has the voice of a goat, and Olympia should rather sing the soundtrack of Snow White.

-If you don't know opera and want to discover this beautiful work, please avoid this! It won't make you appreciate it, it doesn't even remotely give justice to Offenbach's masterpiece. I can't recommend any version in particular as there are never flawless (wait for mine:)but the Brian Large's with Domingo will be more likely to make you love the music.

Marie Antoinette (2006)

Absolute Crap with capital C

[1/10 · 27 May 2006]

My poor fellow American friends! I would have loved to see a great movie about this captivating part of french history, unfortunately, the taste of the director, who I suspect, succeeded in the career thanks to her last name, is absolutely grotesque, ludicrous and so far from the historical truth. It is one thing to try to make art movies with random subjects of modern life, but it becomes extremely more hazardous with historical movies. In that case, the director must seek counsel from a major historian (and no need for a french one, I'm sure Harvard, Princeton or Yale are full of amazing teachers more than willing to help!). So, this could be fun if it was a parody, or a teenage movie, or even a cinema version of Saved By The Bell, but we are legitimately waiting for something more convincing or more accurate considering the topic. We are very far from the taste of, let's say, Kubrick in Barry Lyndon, and I see no genius in her direction, so what is the point to waste time watching this?

Last of all, the rock soundtrack on 18th century french history is less than a poor choice, it is idiotic. Please, if you still really want to see it, don't watch this movie in order to learn more about Louis XVIth and Marie-Antoinette, you have unfortunately no other choice than to read a good book about it as no movie has treated the subject really convincingly.

Brief Encounter (1945)

An unfairly forgotten movie of David Lean

[10/10 · 19 October 2005]

My title concerns rather the younger generation, too absorbed in watching "Sin City" and other dismaying commercial and violent flick to give a chance to anything in black&white.

Although, Brief Encounter has a stunning cinematography: the shots of the trains and the steam from the engines in the station, and the very inspired and very modern direction of Lean, considering the date (1946): particularly the close shot of Mrs Messiter when she never stops speaking, or the camera leaning slowly on the side as an effect of collapse to reinforce the drama when Laura feels overwhelmed by Alec's departure. Amazing.

The soundtrack is using the gorgeous second concerto of Rachmaninov. Some critics may say that the over use of music hides the imperfections of a script or a direction: it may be true most of the time but not here. The film is an excellent example of a 20th century Romantic love story (Romantic with capital R as the movement of the 19th century). Thus, it may appear a little outdated here, as most of people may unfortunately not make such a big deal about cheating relationships nowadays. However the guilt still exists and the movie strikes a very modern chord in this point of view.

The acting is excellent and I recommend the movie to anybody interested in the art of cinema. This is a much better love story than the later "Summertime" also by David Lean, with Katharine Hepburn (this one, extremely out of date).

Sin City (2005)

total *beep*

[1/10 · 13 October 2005]

Why should I even bother writing anything about that? Because I'm extremely annoyed of having waisted 1 hour of my time !(I could not make it through the entire thing) And also because I'm extremely worried of the direction Cinema is taking...I remember a time when we valued:

-actors' craft (I mean, real actors like Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, Max Von Sydow, Marcello Mastroianni, Bruno Ganz, and more recently people like Jeremy Irons, Geoffrey Rush, Robert De Niro etc...),

-directors' artistry (real directors like Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaud, David Lean, Cohen brothers, Theo Angelopoulos, Wim Wenders, Volker Schlondorff, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Luc Besson, Robert Benton, Roland Joffe, Terence Malick etc...)

-Screenwriters or great authors (from Charles Dickens and Jane Austen to Paul Auster, Virginia Woolf or Philip Roth...)

-cinematography (Nestor Almendros, Sven Nykvist...), soundtrack (ennio Morriconne, Rachel Portman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Nini Rota...)

But maybe all of that is not important, and maybe we can make movies without it: with terrible actors instead, terrible cinematography, terrible directors, terrible stories as long as we put sex and violence in it. And it will become a blockbuster (it is SO important to make money that we tend to forget about making art) and thousands of people will come on IMDb and give the ludicrous vote of 8 out of 10! (they must be kidding; I looked for 0 but the lowest is unfortunately 1! It's already way too much for that s...)

If you like cinema as an art, like theatre or classical music and painting, don't watch this. If you prefer entertainment blockbusters, if you hate Shakespeare, if you love techno, rap and other *beep*, if you prefer the painting on your wallpaper rather than any painting by Vermeer or by Monet, you will certainly love it!

About Schmidt (2002)

Poor Alexander Payne!

[10/10 · 8 October 2005]

When I see the dismaying comments about this movie, I really feel sorry for Alexander Payne. You may not like his movie but you cannot say it is badly made or it's crap... But again, some people do not like some masterpieces (it's also a matter of taste). Objectively speaking, Payne did a terrific camera and directing work, the acting of Nicholson is obviously OUTSTANDING as usual. The soundtrack is tastefully chosen (Erik Satie's gnossiennes are altogether mysterious, meditative and sad). The whole thing is extremely refined and makes me think that part of American audience really missed the point...I had a better opinion of American people, please guys, do not disappoint me! Try to appreciate something else than stupid blockbusters brimming with violence or shallow and cheesy love stories with the expandable and lame "actors" of the day... So, the argument could only be done about the screenplay which some (too many) did not like or thought it was boring. To me, it was very profound and realistic. Spend your entire life behind a desk in a gloomy office, trapped between four walls, doing something pointless: your life goes by, you worked like a dog and finally when retirement comes you discover altogether: -that you do not know any longer how to occupy yourself and you know only one thing: doing your stupid job, -that the passion you had once for your wife has vanished and she seems quite a stranger to you in many ways, -that you completely failed being close to your only child and there's a complete misunderstanding between you, -and finally, when your wife dies, that you're extremely lonely and that life may be vain...unless you find a little orphan on the other side of the world with whom you'll share a little bit of friendship. I think this represents a lot of common fears from all of us and it is particularly well exploited in this movie. Not everybody has got the chance of doing the job of his/her dreams, not everybody succeeds in his/her family life...so quit movies with the brainless bimbos (male and female)of the month, stop listening to Britney Spears, and have a look at Payne, Angelopoulos, Schlondorff, Bergman, Wenders, Truffaud, and listen to Brahms or anything with substance.

Nobody's Fool (1994)

Masterpiece

[10/10 · 8 October 2005]

Robert Benton has signed another masterpiece with this touching, refined and profound movie. The acting deserves tons of Oscars (Jessica Tandy and Paul Newman are amazing: the latest is acting one of his best roles). The support characters are excellent, so is the beautiful cinematography, the delightful dialogs and the screenplay. You OUGHT to watch this very underrated movie, woefully unknown. There is nothing cheesy about this aging man working on little odd jobs to make a living. He is known and tenderly loved by all his neighbors, even by his enemies. He is not flawless but has got a kind of wisdom through the simplicity of his life and through his attempt to correct the mistakes of his past. The character really grows on you so is this unpretentious art film.

Lust for Life (1956)

complete failure, watch rather Van Gogh by M. Pialat

[1/10 · 28 September 2005]

Well...I watched this movie yesterday because I was interested in the subject and I like Kirk Douglas very much. First, the acting is really disappointing, Douglas seems to act that like Spartacus having a knack for painting, and Quinn does not really fit in the shoes of Gauguin unless you expect him to behave like Zorba the Greek...but it may be mostly because of the direction, Second, the direction is awful, terrible soundtrack, absolutely out of fashion and inappropriate (very Hollywood like. It does simply not catch a single breath of the era! Chamber music of Ravel or anything else from the period would have been better! The dialogs are pathetic and dull. In fact it could really be entitled "Van Gogh for the dummies". Third, the cinematography is poor. Supposedly filmed on location, it seems that some of the backgrounds have been painted, and not by Van Gogh if you know what I mean!

The only good thing is that you get some good shots of Van Gogh's paintings (but you should mute the volume of your TV as the ridiculous soundtrack could ruin it).

In 1991, Maurice Pialat made a movie entitled "Van Gogh", based on the end of his life in Provence (it is not a complete bio) and far from being flawless, mostly because of its editing (the dancing towards the end is way too long). BUT, Jacques Dutronc acted splendidly as Van Gogh, and the cinematography, the soundtrack, were much better to catch the atmosphere of Provence at that time. This one is more refined and I advise it to anybody interested in Van Gogh.

Swann in Love (1984)

Good adaptation but not flawless

[7/10 · 21 September 2005]

I really admire the work of Volker Schlondorff, I think he is one of the best German director nowadays with Wenders (although in a very different style). His adaptation of Proust is quite good but several things really annoyed me.

_first, the soundtrack: why using an atonal composition of Henze when Proust, who loved Wagner, filled his novel with specific musical references? It simply does not fit the atmosphere! Any chamber music of the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries would have been better!

_second, the acting: I am french and I really think Alain Delon is way overrated, he's simply mediocre. However, I really like Jeremy Irons, and Ornella Muti is usually quite good, but their dubbing is absolutely awful and ruins totally their acting! So I understand that Irons would have had a very strong English accent if he had been asked to act in french but if Schlondorff decided to shoot the movie in Paris with 90 percent of the cast being french, why in the hell didn't he choose two other french actors for the leading roles? I have nothing against English actors, on the contrary, but then, he should have shot the movie in English rather than dubbing miserably these good artists.

_Third, the movie is sometimes a little slow. Usually, Schlondorff does a much better job with the editing. If you want to discover the terrific job of this great director, you should rather see "The Tin Drum", "The Ogre", "The Handmaid's Tale" or "Death of a Salesman" before this one.

Autumn Sonata (1978)

Heartbreaking masterpiece

[10/10 · 14 July 2005]

I have finished my complete cycle of Bergman's movies and here is my conclusion: -I liked a lot The Seventh Seal, Through A Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Scenes From A Marriage and Fanny & Alexander. -But I LOVED Autumn Sonata; it's an absolute masterpiece. Ingrid Bergman is amazing but Liv Ullmann is unbelievably perfect, her performance is an unforgettable chapter of Cinema History.

I wrote a comment on Wild Strawberries that you can check; I'm not always a Bergman's fan (I thought Persona and Cries And Whispers were interesting but too pretentious, Shame and Hour of the Wolf utterly disappointing and The Silence is for me an example of anti-cinema). If you are interested in Bergman's movies (anyone should anyway, even if they finally don't like them), you OUGHT to see this one, but wait, keep it for the end of your cycle as I did myself, you could otherwise be disappointed by the other ones. A must see

Wild Strawberries (1957)

Very good but overrated

[6/10 · 7 July 2005]

I just started a complete Bergman cycle as I hadn't seen any of his movies and was quite ashamed of it! This is my third one, I saw Sawdust & Tinsel and the Seventh Seal yesterday. Seventh Seal was very profound and original, although I was disappointed by the quality of the Black&White photography. I still graded it much higher than wild strawberries.

Here, the acting is excellent, the directing is unsurprisingly excellent too. The storyline is very profound so are the dialogs and before all there's grace. Although the soundtrack is disappointing and the photography still doesn't deserve any awe.

I was interested by this story of an old man looking back at his life; some people compared it to About Schmidt, on a similar subject it's true, but not as profound. An equally profound movie on this subject that I think is superior (despite some slow and long passages) is ETERNITY AND A DAY by Theo Angelopoulos. Bruno Ganz moves me much more than Sjostrom and the symbols all along make the dreams more subtle. The photography is better and the discreet soundtrack accompanies magnificently the pictures.

In conclusion, wild Strawberries is a very good movie but we may have done better since and it seems to me that it's a little bit overrated.

Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993)

a masterpiece amazingly acted

[10/10 · 22 June 2005]

I am a big fan of Richard Harris but he unfortunately hasn't had interesting roles very often. Camelot was endearing, Wild Geese was entertaining, Cromwell was interesting but none of that showed his real power as an actor. This movie does at last! Alec Guinness said once that true comedians are theater actors because we don't see their faces up-close and they can act a different personality than themselves whereas cinema actors are often shot very close and therefore, they show much more their own self: think about Jimmy Stewart (certainly very close from his characters). I think that Richard Harris was also very close to the characters he embodied and it makes me like him even more.

But let's talk about the movie: it's very well shot, edited, adapted, superbly acted. The storyline is very well developed with an amazing character study, very profound and very moving. Technically, it's not very far from deserving a 10 out of 10, but I may give this grade for personal reasons, because the movie touches me particularly. It talks about loneliness and the aging of the body, the frustrations from both. Harris meets Duvall (also amazing) and become friend with him. Both are very lonely. Harris waits for his son, who is living faraway, and who planned to take him to the fireworks for the 4th of July. At the last minute, the son cancels his visit. It leaves Harris devastated with disappointment and sadness. Maybe, the character that Harris plays hasn't been a very good dad and this maybe why the son isn't very kind and caring with him, but what about forgiveness? We obviously pick side for Harris' character because despite his flaws, he's touching and endearing. I live very far from my dad (he's back in Europe). He's aging, he's lonely and even if we get along very well and I have nothing to reproach to myself, I feel sorry for him and this movie reminds me of his life and breaks my heart. I am still young but I have known loneliness and I can imagine the difficulties of having an aging body. It scares me like most of us I presume. Watch this movie if you want to know a little bit more about life.

Prospero's Books (1991)

Pretentious and lame...killing Shakespeare a second time!

[1/10 · 13 June 2005]

I usually had a lot of respect for Greenaway's work but here, boy, what was he thinking about? This is so pretentious! He's using Shakespeare to promote his own creativity instead of serving a master who will survive him for centuries in the memory of western culture. I am a conductor and the same thing happens too frequently with stage directors who are serving themselves rather than the great composers they should serve; setting Carmen in Iceland and Turandot under communist era just to shock people. Think about it: we hear the singers, we see the musicians and the conductor but never the stage director, therefore, most of them think probably they have to shock audience to become famous and to be talked about. If one of them is doing something simple and faithful to the author, an army of snobbish critics will write condescendingly: "It was very classical".

This is exactly what happens here. Look carefully for Shakespeare, he's barely noticeable! What a mystery that such a sacred icon of cinema as Sir John Gielgud acted in this boastfulness! A lot of people were shocked about the nakedness: I am not a puritan and wouldn't care less if only it served a real purpose, but here again it doesn't, or, according to some amazingly intelligent people, it creates an atmosphere of surreality that suits the play...I think Greenaway could have done it in a more interesting way.

The recent adaptation of the Merchant of Venice by Radford or the films of Kenneth Branagh are perfect examples of humility in terms of directing, perfect examples of tasteful and intelligent adaptations. Unfortunately for them, we don't praise them enough, or as they would deserve it: when an adaptation is good, you talk about Shakespeare's play, when it's bad, you talk about the movie director.

When you make the adaptation of the work of the genius, put yourself down, at his feet, don't try to make anything too fancy or to pretentiously "improve" what you couldn't have written in the first place. Shakespeare was the genius, Greenaway, you're nothing.

Major Dundee (1965)

Oh Boy, what a mess!...

[1/10 · 6 August 2004]

Let's stay serious, who said this was a lost masterpiece?

This movie is certainly one the worst I've seen in the genre, I'm sorry to say that because I love Richard Harris and he's acting pretty well as usually in this movie. But the story line is absolutely lame: the Indians are obviously the bad guys, and the moronic cavalry major is the good guy, how out-of-date it looks!

The movie lasts 2 hours, action barely starts after 50 mn( and anyway just for a couple of minutes before a break of another 50 mn!!!) Heston is pathetic, so are the dialogs, and the final battle scene with french soldiers (we really wonder what were Napoleon III's troops doing in Mexico...) is badly filmed.

This movie is an absolute disaster, please, don't loose your time watching it, it comes from the heart.

The Mission (1986)

Masterpiece

[10/10 · 29 July 2004]

When I first saw this movie in Cannes film festival, I knew it would get the golden palm, Roland Joffe had already proven his mastery with his excellent "Killing Fields", but this time, he really reached a state of grace. The acting of Irons and De Niro is OUTSTANDING, the photography is gorgeous, the plot is extremely interesting and profound, I give it an absolute 10, I've seen many movies in my life, and it has never reached such a level of passion and enlightenment. As a conductor, I have also to point out the importance of the soundtrack, how many times I've seen a movie ruined by a poor musical background! But nothing like that here, Morriconne signed one of his best inspired scores. Some people talk about historic inaccuracy, I strongly disagree and I suspect this comment to come from religious zealots; ethnological studies of Claude Levi-Strauss, George Dumezil or Marcel Mauss have mentioned similar historical cases...

The Emerald Forest (1985)

The best movie of Boorman

[10/10 · 29 July 2004]

Certainly the best of Boorman. After seeing again Deliverance, which was thrilling when it was first released, and Excalibur, poetical, Wagnerian but a little bit out of date (regarding the shining 70's fake armors), Emerald Forest deepens philosophy and ethnology. Very profound and touching, very good acting, excellent photography, technically superb, there's nothing to really complain about. It hasn't aged at all and probably won't. I gave it a 10 because I do not see anything to improve. In our sad new era of ethnological destruction, where there's no place anymore for the Aborigene or any other tribal culture, this movie gives a little hope, a little reverie of seeing things turning in the right direction thanks to ancient magic. How vain but how beautiful!

Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)

Out of dated and failed attempt

[5/10 · 29 July 2004]

I truly worshiped this movie when I was a kid, I even had a giant poster of the seagull on the wall of my bedroom. But after having watched it recently, it seems out of dated, the photography is poor, even though it was pretty good for 1973, the music is too much on the foreground, and really not that great, may we say also out of dated? Some parts are terribly long and make you want to die instead of watching such a poor picture but the philosophy of Richard Bach is still lovely and endearing (even though not especially profound and quite fathomable), it is why I recommend henceforth the book instead. If only somebody like Jean-Jacques Annaud was willing to make a remake: The Bear and the recent Two Brothers, both excellent, proved more than convincingly his talent to shoot movies with animals and to make it interesting even without philosophy so how great would it be with! Unfortunately, Bartlett is not Annaud we must say, and the attempt of adaptation has failed.