Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017)

 

Cast: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Hattie Morahan, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Screenplay: Stephen Chbosky, based on a screenplay by Linda Woolverton. Cinematography: Tobias A. Schliessler. Production design: Sarah Greenwood. Film editing: Virginia Katz. Music: Alan Menken. 

As one who thinks the Disney corporation’s decision to remake its cartoon films as live action ones is wrong-headed, I was prepared to be dismissive of Beauty and the Beast. But after saying that I think Bill Condon’s film is overlong and its production design is visually cluttered, I admit that I was won over, mostly by the casting and the reprises of the original Alan Menken-Howard Ashman songs. (I think the newer songs, with lyrics by Tim Rice, are just okay, not really so catchy and memorable.) Truth be told, I will watch almost anything that features Dan Stevens, Kevin Kline, and/or Emma Thompson, even their voices. And it’s nice to hear that their singing voices, as well as that of Emma Watson, are up to the demands. I also think that the “live” version (if you can call anything with so much CGI and motion capture live) improves on the cartoon in some regards. The characters of Gaston and LeFou are way too “cartoony,” if you will, in the cel-animated version. Luke Evans and Josh Gad do a good job of making them both funny and credible, and I love the hints of LeFou’s gayness that the new  version slips in – the film didn’t even need the fleeting glimpse of LeFou dancing with another man that caused so much stupid controversy.

Made in U.S.A. (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)

 

Cast: Anna Karina, László Szabó, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Marianne Faithfull, Yves Afonso. Screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard, based on a novel by Donald Westlake. Cinematography: Raoul Coutard. Film editing: Françoise Collin, Agnès Guillemot. 

Jean-Luc Godard’s Made in U.S.A. wasn’t released in the titular country until 2009 because Godard failed to secure the rights to the Donald E. Westlake novel on which it was based, although it’s unlikely that even Westlake would recognize the film’s relationship to the novel he published under the pseudonym Richard Stark. It’s an allusive (and some would say elusive) ramble through all manner of detective fiction and film noir, often wearing its sources on its sleeve, with references to fictional characters, movie actors (e.g., Richard Widmark, whose name László Szabó bears in the film), filmmakers (e.g. Otto Preminger), and screenwriters (e.g. Ben Hecht). But it’s also, as the character played by Jean-Pierre Léaud and bearing the name of the director Don Siegel says, “a political movie. Just like a Disney movie, only with blood.” Anna Karina’s detective Paula Nelson is searching for the killer of one Richard Politzer, except that we never hear the last name in the film: It’s always blocked out by some off-screen sound like a car horn. The reason seems to be that Godard is alluding to the Marxist philosopher Georges Politzer, a figure of some controversy in the  hyperpolitical France of the 1960s. Most of the movie’s literary, cinematic, political, and historical allusions can be ignored, if you just want to let the bright colors of Raoul Coutard’s cinematography dazzle you and the foolery of the film’s parody and nonsense scenes wash over you. (If you want more, there’s a very good short film about the allusions included with the Criterion Collection edition of the movie, which is also currently available on the Criterion Channel.) 

Firebird (Peeter Rabane, 2021)

 

Cast: Tom Prior, Oleg Zagorodnii, Diana Pozharaskaya, Jake Henderson, Margus Prangel, Nicholas Woodeson. Screenplay: Peeter Rabane, Tom Prior, based on a book by Sergey Fetisov. Cinematography: Mait Mäekivi. Production design: Eva-Maria Gramakovski, Kalju Kivi, Frantseska Vakkum. Film editing: Tambet Tasuja. Music: Krzysztov A. Janczak. 

Sergey, a private in the Soviet air force, and the fighter pilot Roman, the lieutenant he serves as orderly, fall in love. Under the laws of the Soviet military, their relationship puts them in jeopardy of being sentenced to hard labor if it’s found out. Firebird, which gets its name from the Stravinsky ballet that brings them together, is a solid romantic drama with a fine performance by Tom Prior, who also co-wrote the screenplay based on a memoir by the real Sergey. If I have a problem with the movie, it’s because the focus is almost necessarily on Sergey, given its source. We get very little backstory for Roman, played handsomely by the Ukrainian actor Oleg Zagorodnii, even though the burden of the conflict between love and duty falls largely on him. By contrast, we learn of Sergey’s boyhood love and its painful end, and about his post-service career as an actor. The lack of focus on Roman’s background almost reduces him to a beautiful object of desire, and saps the tragic impact of his story. Still, Firebird is an impressive debut feature for Estonian writer-director Peeter Rabane, and a cut above most contemporary movie love stories, especially those based in the world of LGBT relationships. 

Desert Fury (Lewis Allen, 1947)

 

Cast: John Hodiak, Lizabeth Scott, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey, Mary Astor. Screenplay: Robert Rossen, based on a novel by Ramona Stewart. Cinematography: Edward Cronjager, Charles Lang. Art direction: Perry Ferguson. Film editing: Warren Low. Music: Miklós Rózsa. 

Where there’s a desert there are going to be rattlesnakes, and the one in Desert Fury is full of them, hissing and showing their fangs. The opening scenes of the movie are so full of poisonous dialogue and hostile conversations that you wonder how anyone survives in the small Nevada town of Chuckawalla. Chief among the serpents is Fritzi Haller (Mary Astor), who runs a casino and tries to run the life of her rebellious 19-year-old daughter, Paula (Lizabeth Scott), who has a tendency to get involved with the wrong men. Eddie Bendix (John Hodiak) couldn’t be wronger, a gambler and racketeer whose wife recently died under suspicious circumstances and who also used to be involved with Fritzi. Now he makes a play for Paula, which not only upsets Fritzi but also irks his … well, what is Johnny Ryan (Wendell Corey)? Eddie’s sidekick? His factotum? His fall guy? When we see Johnny sitting on the patio with a shirtless Eddie we may get other ideas, especially when Paula shows up and Johnny treats her with contempt – as, we find out, he did Eddie’s late wife. The coded gay relationship only becomes more obvious when we find out that the two men first met in Times Square, where Johnny bought the down-and-out Eddie breakfast at the Automat and then took him home with him. The only apparent good guy in Chuckawalla’s nest of vipers is Tom Hanson (Burt Lancaster), a former rodeo rider who after a disabling accident moved there and became a deputy sheriff. Tom is such a good guy that he takes off his badge before he slugs Eddie and refuses Fritzi’s offer to set him up with a ranch if he’ll marry Paula and get her away from Eddie. All of this is familiar film noir stuff, even in glorious Technicolor, but it would take a Douglas Sirk to figure out how to make it good. Lewis Allen is not up to the task, and he’s hampered by the acting limitations of Scott and Hodiak. Astor and Corey (making his debut in a film career that never quite panned out) are fine, and Lancaster does what he can with a fairly thankless role. But too often, Allen seems to be letting Miklós Rózsa’s somewhat overbearing score tell the story.

Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021)

 

Cast: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal. Screenplay: Céline Sciamma. Cinematography: Claire Mathon. Production design: Lionel Brison. Film editing: Julien Lacharay. Music: Jean-Baptiste de Laubier.

After watching so many movies that thud and blunder along for more than two hours to no lasting effect, it’s a blessed relief to watch Céline Sciamma accomplish so much so quietly in just 72 minutes. Petite Maman begins with 8-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) saying goodbye to the residents of the nursing home where her grandmother has just died. She then accompanies her parents (Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne) to the house where her grandmother lived, but her mother is so overcome by emotion at the prospect of clearing out a place so laden with memories, that she leaves her husband and Nelly to finish the job. While her father does most of the work, Nelly wanders out to play in the autumnal woods near her grandmother’s house. There she meets another 8-year-old called Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), who is building a hut out of fallen branches in the forest. Immediately we are struck by the fact that Nelly’s mother, who is also named Marion, had told Nelly about the hut she had built in the forest. And so begins a bit of magic, in which we realize along with Nelly that she has traveled back in time to meet her own mother as a child. Sciamma does this revelation with such finesse that it took my breath away, crafting a haunting fable about family and memory and regret. It’s only the most recent of her triumphs as a director, following such remarkable films as Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011), Girlhood (2014), and the marvelous Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019).