"Joanna" is almost impossible to find on videocassette -- for a good reason. Director Michael Sarne (Myra Breckinridge) uses superimpositions, dream sequences, extraneous sounds, alternating b&w/color, Altmanesque overlapping dialogue, and long-held static shots to "orchestrate" the story of an innocent, pleasure-seeking art student (Genevieve Waite) trying to find happiness in "mod" London. Joanna herself is a sweet creation and an endearing character. But Sarne's irritating direction nearly ruins the film.
Stylistically, "Joanna" is over-the-top, embarrassing, and laughably self-indulgent. A classic example: the scene where Joanna enters a room, dressed all in green, and everything else in the room is painted the exact same color. What was Sarne thinking?
Sarne's humour (eg. the scene with the "jam jars") consistently falls flat, and he never manages to get decent performances from his actors --even Donald Sutherland looks disoriented here.
Some (though not all) of the music (by Rod McKuen) is gorgeous -- particularly "Two Schoolgirls," the title song, "I'll Catch the Sun," and "Ain't You Glad You're Livin' Joe" --- making the o.o.p soundtrack LP a valuable, worthy find. But Sarne has no sense of how to pair music with image in a film --- so the songs feel thrown, haphazardly, on top of their scenes -- as if Sarne wanted to use the music, but didn't know how or where to include it.
A rare exception to this rule occurs during the final sequence - a musical number at a train station. Joyous and refreshing (and not simply because it signifies the end of the picture), the finale recalls the bittersweet mood/style of Jacques Demy's picture "The Umbrellas of Chebourg." Why didn't Sarne use this mood/style for the entire picture? It would have improved the film substantially.
The dialogue in "Joanna" is wildly uneven. It might be easy to dismiss the characters' lines as all trite and cliched, but that isn't the case. From time to time, you'll hear a bit of dialogue in this picture that is (intentionally) laugh-out-loud hilarious, and reveals greater depth to the characters. The best example is when Joanna meets her soon-to-be-lover, a black nightclub owner/hipster (Calvin Lockhart), and he exclaims, "Hey, Joanna -- how you been?" Joanna, who constantly tries to fit in with everyone, seems to miss the "hip" rhetoric of his question and responds limply, "I been fine. How you been?" as he speeds away. It's a funny, well-planned beat, but those are few and far between in this picture.
If you have the chance to see "Joanna," it's a mildly interesting experience, but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find a copy (as I did). This picture is a failed experimental effort from the sixties that deserves to be forgotten.
Stylistically, "Joanna" is over-the-top, embarrassing, and laughably self-indulgent. A classic example: the scene where Joanna enters a room, dressed all in green, and everything else in the room is painted the exact same color. What was Sarne thinking?
Sarne's humour (eg. the scene with the "jam jars") consistently falls flat, and he never manages to get decent performances from his actors --even Donald Sutherland looks disoriented here.
Some (though not all) of the music (by Rod McKuen) is gorgeous -- particularly "Two Schoolgirls," the title song, "I'll Catch the Sun," and "Ain't You Glad You're Livin' Joe" --- making the o.o.p soundtrack LP a valuable, worthy find. But Sarne has no sense of how to pair music with image in a film --- so the songs feel thrown, haphazardly, on top of their scenes -- as if Sarne wanted to use the music, but didn't know how or where to include it.
A rare exception to this rule occurs during the final sequence - a musical number at a train station. Joyous and refreshing (and not simply because it signifies the end of the picture), the finale recalls the bittersweet mood/style of Jacques Demy's picture "The Umbrellas of Chebourg." Why didn't Sarne use this mood/style for the entire picture? It would have improved the film substantially.
The dialogue in "Joanna" is wildly uneven. It might be easy to dismiss the characters' lines as all trite and cliched, but that isn't the case. From time to time, you'll hear a bit of dialogue in this picture that is (intentionally) laugh-out-loud hilarious, and reveals greater depth to the characters. The best example is when Joanna meets her soon-to-be-lover, a black nightclub owner/hipster (Calvin Lockhart), and he exclaims, "Hey, Joanna -- how you been?" Joanna, who constantly tries to fit in with everyone, seems to miss the "hip" rhetoric of his question and responds limply, "I been fine. How you been?" as he speeds away. It's a funny, well-planned beat, but those are few and far between in this picture.
If you have the chance to see "Joanna," it's a mildly interesting experience, but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find a copy (as I did). This picture is a failed experimental effort from the sixties that deserves to be forgotten.