Quote:
Originally Posted by neverending
A Face in the Crowd
If all you've ever seen of Andy Griffith is his TV work, you'd be incredibly surprized by this savage 1957 film in which he plays a down and out bum suddenly thrust into the role of a media star. His nasty portrayal is light years beyond anything else he did. With a stellar supporting cast that includes Patricia Neal, Walter Mathau, Lee Remick and Anthony Franciosa this is a highlight of Elia Kazan's career.
Alky & Fortunato, if you've never seen it- hunt it down.
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Will do- in fact, I've been meaning to for awhile. I missed Kazan night on TCM didn't I...?
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I Know Where I'm Going! (1947)
A film with confident direction but which, to me, felt a little bit stale and didn't create much emotional resonance. The first fifteen minutes are my favorite; they are stylistic and snappy and say a lot about central character Joan in only a few brief scenes. From there, P&P employ an intentional change in pace and tone which in its first few scenes is very interesting; but after awhile I grew weary of Joan's selfish persona, and I didn't think much of her male counter-part, either. What kept me interested was the expert control of the picture visually, and the inventive audio mix which conveyed concentration, memory, and even unseen ghosts.
A Matter of Life and Death (AKA
Stairway to Heaven) (1946)
A poignant disintegration of man-made divisions presented in both vivid technicolor and lavish black and white. What is so beautiful about the film is the way it avoids making heaven a place and instead uses it as a state of mind, something that defies time and space. While this most obviously enhances the set-pieces of the "otherworld", it also makes the scenes on Earth far more mezmerising; one can't quite place the locations in the film, and everything happens within dream-like cozy crevices- the floral beachside, the colorful library, even the warmly-lit operating room. This simplicity carries over to the people of the "otherworld" as well; P&P generate dozens of national representatives (based initially, maybe, on stereotypes) but challenge their fronts and expose them as nothing more than costumed human beings. Tremendous performances all round out an incredibly entertaining story full of rich visuals and grand ideas.