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kristavogelberg
Reviews
Le rouge et le noir (1954)
For Stendhal-lovers (and not only ...)
It was amusing to find out from a fellow-reviewer that Stendhal wrote "purple prose" "fit only for a trashy romance novel". Yes, the scene in Julien's prison cell, including "such nonsense as 'I feel for you what I should feel for God'", is taken almost word-for-word from the book (see Part 2, Chapter 43).
In fact, the script is the best part of the film. The way it manages to follow the spirit of the original though often modifying its letter (though, once more, the letter is, ironically, not modified in that "purple prose" scene) would merit a separate analysis. Not that fidelity to the original is a virtue in itself, but in the case of a writer as riveting as Stendhal it certainly does not hurt. I have been rereading the book and watching the 180 minute version (VHS, Collection Les Années Cinquante) of the film by turns, and the transition has been, at every time, seamless, as if moving within the same world. With the scenes added in the script I have the feeling of getting more of Stendhal. The strategy of compensation, common for good (inter-semiotic) translations, has been used to excellent effect. There is, for instance, the delightfully absurd dialogue between Mathilde and her mother that adds to the film Stendhal's subtly pervasive comic side, or the painful-to-watch scene where the priest dictates the letter to Mme de Renal – so effective that not much more is needed to convey Stendhal's intense anti-clericalism. Perhaps the strategy of compensation is facilitated by the complex, multi-layered nature of the original which suffers superficial changes gladly.
I do not think the emphasis on the "social side" is at the expense of the "romantic, human" one – with Julien's combative attitude to love, the love stories in the novel are not exactly that, up until the very end (the "purple prose" one, well, one cannot please everyone ...). Mathilde's part has been cut the most, but then again, her "love by reason" (Stendhal's "l'amour de tete" as opposed to "l'amour vraie" – genuine love) is perhaps the least worth dwelling on if time is short. In prison, where Julien's mind is finally wholly occupied with genuine love for Mme de Renal, Mathilde's daily presence is nothing but an irritant, so if it is left out of the film, the loss is minimal.
That said, Mathilde is played excellently (by Antonella Lualdi), as are all three of the main characters, and, what is remarkable, practically all of the supporting ones. One can, of course, reproach the film with not being cinematographic enough, lacking visual dynamics, being too rigid. Nowadays, it almost seems de bon ton to do so. Yet why not just change the framework of thinking and regard it as a cross between theatre and film, where the emphasis is on the actors? In tune with the intensely psychological (not to say slightly over-cerebral) nature of the novel itself.
The reproach of "rigidity" leads me to a major weakness of the film. Personally, I was lucky to see my version first with colours digitally removed. To have filmed it in colour, and the primitive version of Eastmancolor at that, was a huge mistake. The quality is so poor that the film actually looks colourised. Most of the impressions of the film's rigidity and artificiality are due to those miserable colours, which, worst of all, manage to muffle facial expressions, diminishing the perceived acting quality – an almost fatal loss for a work predominantly psychological. Also, the authors of the film clearly did not think in terms of colours. The only use Stendhal himself makes of colours is the juxtaposition of red and black, present in at least five key parts of the novel - parts missing in the film. Julien is often described as pale in the novel. His pallor, missing in the colour version, is part of his nature and image. In general, once Eastmancolor is gone, so are rigidity and artificiality, while all the nuances of excellent acting emerge.
Another weakness is the age difference between Julien and Gérard Philipe, which the actor himself cited as the reason for his initial refusal. I do not, obviously, mean that GP was old at the time of filming. It is just that he was not so very hopelessly vulnerably young as Julien at the beginning of the three years covered by the novel. This is not about fidelity to the source but about the inner logic of the film: for the young Julien who entered the Renal family it would have been outright impossible to have acquired the kind of wisdom borne from experience that is imprinted on the face and bearing of the 33- year-old actor. A very attractive kind of wisdom, yet something that the actor, quite justifiably, does his very best to erase, through uphill work. He succeeds, almost miraculously, in most of the scenes where the focus is on Julien, only to be betrayed in scenes "in- between", "non-scenes", as it were, where he, for instance, just goes and sits down at a table. In those treacherous moments he is not the fascinating Julien whose basic state seems to have been perpetual surprise ("étonné"=suprised is arguably the most frequent adjective used in conjunction with Julien in the novel).
However, Julien is a "fast learner", so in the second part of the film Philipe gets increasingly more believable. By the time he has tamed that "monster of pride" that is Mathilde, he is fully Julien. What is more, he is Stendhal's complex, ambiguous, mesmerising Julien, ambitious yet not quite a social climber, calculating yet impulsive and, indeed, romantic, feeling inferior and superior by turns, with mercurial changes of mood subtly and precisely conveyed by the actor. By far the best Julien of the three I have seen.
In sum, an excellent film for Stendhal-lovers, to be viewed, if at all possible, in black and white.
L'idiot (1946)
A great film with a stunning closing scene
(There are implicit references to other user reviews in this review)
The film is worth seeing for the final close-up alone. Other reviewers have been impressed by its horror and its power, but I need to go a step further. In my fairly long and extensive history of a cinema- goer this was the very first time that I caught myself thinking "No actor can ever do this, not even a genius. This is just not humanly possible". A reaction that stunned me, since, having seen so many excellent actors at their defining moments, I somehow took it for granted that great acting has no limits. And then, during just one scene, to become aware of those limits even as they are crossed and broken
I have watched the scene many times now, the sense of uniqueness, of a miracle has not faded. Gérard Philipe himself has never surpassed it in cinema - though a few photos give an intimation this might have happened on the scene, particularly in "Caligula".
A French critic wrote when the film first came out: "there is he ... and then there are the others". He being Philipe-Myshkine, of course, and not only in the closing frame. Philipe was reportedly given the task to play Jesus, and he did, admirably. Not the canonical, tamed, Jesus of Christianity, but that gentle strange young man, sometimes scary in his gentle strangeness, that shines through the Gospels both canonical and apocryphal, one that makes ordinary people profoundly uncomfortable. Drawn to him, yes, but not comforted.
Because they are all ordinary, the eccentricities of a traumatized courtesan or the follies of a man obsessed with passion notwithstanding. Not even the notorious "Russian soul" would have saved them from their ordinariness- and the other actors would have been saved only if Philipe had failed - which he did not. His Myshkine is just as extraordinary, just as pure, and just as authentic as the Jesus he stands for. Just as charismatic/sensually seductive, too. (Anyway, depriving Philipe of his sensual seductiveness is a hard task, and as "La Ronde" shows, not really worth the effort). And just as unpredictable.
Even his sins are unpredictable - giving a known alcoholic money, of all things, something ordinary sinners would not dream of doing (probably thinking of what a perfect waste of money it would be). Come to think of it, that very alcoholic is the one man in the film that Myshkine befriends.
Among the deviations from the book there is a telling one: in the original, Anastasya Filippovna is killed by Rogozhin (that deep Russian soul at work, perhaps?), in the film she is, to all intents and purposes, killed by Myshkine - the hand that actually held the knife is almost immaterial - via her jealous reaction, again a perfectly ordinary human one, to Myshkine telling her the truth. An innocuous truth from his point of view, one that he does not at first even see the need of mitigating. Because he always tells the truth. Something ordinary humans - the present writer included - never think they can afford to do. Perhaps rightly so, as in the world preoccupied with the vanity of vanities - be it Russian or French-Maupassantian - too much truth and purity tend to lead to tragedy, as it did with Jesus, as it did with Myshkine. A tragedy that hits us with the force of an almost physical blow, as it does in the words "Father, father, why have you left me?", and as it does in that haunting final close-up of the film.
The Pledge (2001)
A superb film true to the spirit of the Dürrenmatt original
I suspect it is more of a European kind of film: no ban on slowness, reflection, and no need for a clearcut happy ending. Many Europeans have probably also read the Dürrenmatt original - the very idea of the book is to demonstrate the artificiality of the clearcut, satisfying endings of most detective stories (including European ones such as Agathat Christie's:))) The main character tells a story to the narrator about a colleague who was a brilliant detective, was absolutely right in his conclusions (that nobody shared) and set up the ideal trap for the killer. And then something as stupid, irrational and "un-clear-cut" as a traffic accident that killed the murderer (just as in this movie) ruined everything. Ultimately, the truth was revealed but too late for the detective who had already ruined himself. I had read the original but totally forgotten about it(and the movie's American setting did nothing to remind me of it) until the end of the movie hit me with full force ("I remember now, I have read about it!") One does not have a usual "surprise" ending here but a genuine shock. And a recognition that life IS messy, that we have come to expect from detective stories a kind of orderliness that we think is there in real life but that actually only serves us as an escape from reality. Now never expect an escape from reality from Dürrenmatt! Perhaps I am influenced by the original (yet I do not quite think so since I only remembered it at the end), but sincerely I did not see any kind of undue "obsession" in the film. So a cop (OK, a retired cop) knows that there is a serial killer at large - one that is likely to strike again - and does everything to prevent this: even without the pledge it would have made sense. Incidentally, I totally agree with the commentator who suggests that the owner of the Christmas shop was the actual criminal. I did not give 10 for a film with superb actors and acting as well as superb directing for reasons that another commentator found crucial - the implausibility that the accident would not have come out and be linked to the potential crime both by the police and especially by the main character himself. The original did no have such small and close-knit communities so the ignorance was more plausible. But it is still a masterful film with the main message - that totally irrational chances can ruin our best rational efforts - coming across clear and loud.