| Culture Club reunion on the cards Boy George has confirmed there will definitely be a Culture Club reunion. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
All That Heaven Allows: No 11 Douglas Sirk, 1955A Douglas Sirk romance with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman: you know this isn't going to be a smart-assed dissertation filled with intellectuals swapping barbed, ironic witticisms. Even so, this 1950s melodrama – as underscored by Todd Haynes' modern riff, Far from Heaven – offers smart insights into the American class system and carries a powerful emotional clout way beyond the usual limitations of its genre. Wyman plays a widow slowly emerging from mourning to embrace the world again, caught between the daredevil impulses which see her step out in a gossip-generating, low-cut, crimson dress, and her deep sense of propriety and responsibility to her children. She rejects a marriage offer from an older man who promises her companionship and affection, but is drawn to her gardener, Ron, who is impetuous, bold, direct and opens wine bottles with his teeth. Everything you want from a tumultuous weepy is here: hard, breathless kisses; big, brave declarations of violent, undying love; battle-weary, star-crossed lovers who meet obstacles at every turn. But Sirk surpasses melodramatic cliches by securing an exceptional performance from Wyman, whose soft face, as watchful and nervously expectant as a child's, is captiÂvating throughÂout, subtly registering every chink of hope and approaÂching black cloud. This is her, and Sirk's finest hour. RomanceJane Grahamguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The Conformist : No 13 Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970A repressed upper-class intellectual is hired by Mussolini's fascist goons to go to Paris and kill a leading dissident who was once his philosophy tutor. Such is the premise for one of the most poetic and influential films ever made. Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg all cite this adaptation of Alberto Moravia's novel as a profound influence on their films. Coppola even lured Bertolucci's director of photography, Vittorio Storaro, to the Philippines to bring his talents to bear on Apocalypse Now.What wowed them? The symbolic colour-coded photography, the virtuosic flashback structure, and, no doubt, the idea that you could explore something as seemingly unfilmable as the psychopathology of fascism in that paradoxical object, an art film filled with car chases, sex and violence. Jean-Louis Trintignant was never more sinister than here, as Marcello Clerici – particularly when he gazes icily at his doomed lover through the window of his locked car door before watching her flee through the Piedmontese woods to be murdered – a scene shot with hand-held camera in order to make the hit feel inept and squalid. Indeed, The Conformist is a compendium of virtuosic flourishes: the chilly framing of iconic fascist buildings such as the Esposizione Universale Roma in Rome and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; the expressionist angles when Clerici visits his dotty mother. And, best of all, the ingenious sequence in a Parisian cafe in which Clerici's reluctance to participate in a dance leaves him surrounded by a tightening spiral of dancers shot from above, making him appear to us exactly what he is: a conformist alone in any crowd. Rarely has cinema been so daring or freighted.DramaWorld cinemaBernardo BertolucciStuart Jeffriesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
'Star whackers' who 'killed Ledger' will get us next, says asylum-seeking Quaid Actor Randy Quaid told Canada's immigration board that he and his wife are seeking asylum from "the murderers of Hollywood" and will therefore apply for refugee status in Canada, after they were arrested on US warrants related to vandalism charges. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
David Lynch on his debut music release David Lynch explains how he made the move from film-making to musicAlexandra Topping guardian.co.uk |