Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, May 3, 2019

When a Man Loves (Alan Crosland, 1927)

When a Man Loves (Alan Crosland, 1927)

Cast: John Barrymore, Dolores Costello, Warner Oland, Sam De Grasse, Holmes Herbert, Stuart Holmes, Bertram Grassby, Tom Santschi. Screenplay: Bess Meredyth, based on a novel by Abbé Prévost. Cinematography: Byron Haskin. Film editing: Harold McCord. Music: Henry Hadley.

Thursday, May 2, 2019

The Widow Couderc (Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1971)

The Widow Couderc (Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1971)

Cast: Simone Signoret, Alain Delon, Ottavia Piccolo, Jean Tissier, Monique Chaumette, Boby Lapointe. Screenplay: Pierre Granier-Deferre, Pascal Jardin, based on a novel by Georges Simenon. Cinematography: Walter Wottitz. Production design: Jacques Saulnier. Film editing: Jean Ravel. Music: Philippe Sarde.

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

All the President's Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)

All the President's Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)

Cast: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, Jane Alexander, Meredith Baxter, Stephen Collins, Ned Beatty, Robert Walden. Screenplay: William Goldman, based on a book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Cinematography: Gordon Willis. Production design: George Jenkins. Film editing: Robert L. Wolfe. Music: David Shire.

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

La Vie de Bohème (Aki Kaurismäki, 1992)

La Vie de Bohème (Aki Kaurismäki, 1992)

Cast: Matti Pellonpää, Evelyne Didi, André Wilms, Kari Väänänen, Christine Murillo, Jean-Pierre Léaud. Screenplay: Aki Kaurismäki, based on a novel by Henri Murger. Cinematography: Timo Salminen. Production design: John Ebden. Film editing: Veikko Aaltonen.

Monday, April 29, 2019

Topper Takes a Trip (Norman Z. McLeod, 1938)

Topper Takes a Trip (Norman Z. McLeod, 1938)

Cast: Roland Young, Constance Bennett, Billie Burke, Alan Mowbray, Verree Teasdale, Franklin Pangborn, Alexander D'Arcy. Screenplay: Jack Jevne, Eddie Moran, Corey Ford, based on a novel by Thorne Smith. Cinematography: Norbert Brodine. Art direction: Charles D. Hall. Film editing: William H. Terhune. Music: Hugo Friedhofer, Edward B. Powell.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Karel Zeman, 1962)

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Karel Zeman, 1962)

Not as reined-in as his wonderful 1958 tribute to Jules Verne, Invention for Destruction, Karel Zeman's The Fabulous Baron Munchausen often has an anything-goes quality to its fantasy, which makes it a little too easy to detach yourself from its ongoing barrage of astonishing images. A revival of the film in the 1980s directly influenced Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), which suffers from a similar lack of groundedness.

Cast: Milos Kopecký, Rudolf Jelinek, Jana Brejchová, Karel Höger, Eduard Kohout, Jan Werich, Bohus Záhorský, Rudlof Hrusínský. Screenplay: Jirí Brdecka, Josef Kainar, Karel Zeman, based on a book by Gottfried August Bürger and stories by Rudolph Erich Raspe. Cinematography: Jirí Tarantik. Production design: Karel Zeman. Film editing: Vera Kutilova. Music: Zdenek Liska.