Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)

Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)

Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy, Nancy Gates, Leora Dana, Betty Lou Keim, Larry Gates. Screenplay: John Patrick, Arthur Sheekman, based on a novel by James Jones. Cinematography: William H. Daniels. Art direction: William A. Horning, Urie McCleary. Film editing: Adrienne Fazan. Music: Elmer Bernstein.

Like Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli had a special touch with the movie melodrama, taking its often objectively silly elements seriously enough that you can actually believe in them. The James Jones novel on which the screenplay for Some Came Running was based is one of those semi-autobiographical books that writers seem to need to get out of their systems, but adapting it meant challenging the Production Code strictures, particularly on sex, at almost every turn. So the characters in the film are only as believable as the actors can make them. There's a lot of shorthand in the film about the relationships between Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) and the two women in his life, the "schoolteacher" Gwen French (Martha Hyer) and the "floozie" Ginnie Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine). It's not immediately clear why Dave falls in love so swiftly with Gwen, who seems to want to mentor him as a writer more than she does to sleep with him, or why he stays connected with the illiterate and rattle-brained Ginnie, to the extent of marrying her on the rebound from Gwen. Fortunately, all three actors are adept at pulling characters out of the script, where they don't seem to have been fully written. Dean Martin was just beginning to show that he could act -- Howard Hawks would complete the process the following year with Rio Bravo -- and Minnelli helped give his career a boost by casting him as the alcoholic gambler Bama Dillert. And Arthur Kennedy completes the ensemble as Dave's go-getter older brother, Frank. Minnelli makes the most of these colorful performers, to the extent that MacLaine, Kennedy, and Hyer all received Oscar nominations. But he's also adept, as he would show in 1960 with Home From the Hill, at taking a real small town location and bringing it to full life, especially in the climactic scene that takes place in the carnival celebrating the town's centennial. The location gives the film a substance and reality that the script never quite supplies.

A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)

A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)

Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Anne Consigny, Mathieu Amalric, Melvil Poupaud, Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Chiara Mastroianni, Laurent Capelluto, Émile Berling, Thomas Obled, Clément Obled, François Bertin, Samir Guesmi, Azize Kabouche. Screenplay: Arnaud Desplechin, Emmanuelle Bourdieu. Cinematography: Eric Gautier. Production design: Daniel Bevan. Film editing: Laurence Briaud. Music: Grégoire Hetzel, Mike Kourtzer.

A Christmas Tale is not exactly brimful of seasonal cheer, but it warrants watching at any holiday in which families gather to both celebrate and bicker. The Vuillard clan is somewhat dysfunctional, but they're also French, which means that they smoke, drink, and talk a little too much, and have idiosyncratic ways of showing that they love one another. The matriarch, Junon (who would ever have thought Catherine Deneuve would be cast as matriarch?), has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant. The task of searching for a donor falls to the patriarch, Abel (and who would have ever thought of bringing together the goddess-like Deneuve and the froglike Jean-Paul Roussillon?), since Junon decides at this moment to leave everything to fate. And since this crisis is coming to a head at Christmastime, it means gathering the family for more than just celebrating a holiday. There are three living children -- the first-born died of cancer as a child -- and they don't entirely get along. Elizabeth, the oldest, has banished the middle child, Henri, from her life. The youngest, Ivan, naturally has to exhibit divided loyalties when the other two get together. Elizabeth and Ivan bring along their spouses and children; Henri, unmarried, brings his latest girlfriend, Faunia, who, being Jewish, has her own slightly distant take on the Christmas festivities. Elizabeth's teenage son, Paul, has recently had a nervous breakdown. He also turns out to be a match for Junon's transplant, as does the black sheep Henri, which sets up even more grounds for dissension, especially given the tension between Henri and Elizabeth. And so, out of all this stew of tensions, director Arnaud Desplechin puts together a fascinating portrait of what it means to be a family. He mingles a variety of filmmaking techniques with a whole range of literary, cinematic, and even musical allusions to give us a multifaceted view of the Vuillards, their past, present, and perhaps future. On second thought, maybe it's best not to watch this anytime near one of your own potentially volatile family gatherings -- it cuts a little too close to home.