Columnists
Entries from March 2015
“YOU GOTTA GET A
GETâ€
By Raymond Benson
In
the world of the Jewish Conservative Orthodox community, a divorce is truly
final only when the husband presents his wife with a “getâ€â€”a document in Hebrew
that grants the woman her freedom to be with other men. Likewise, the wife must
accept the get before the man can re-marry, too.
This
is the crux of the story behind Hester
Street, an independent art-house film that appeared in 1975, written and
directed by Joan Micklin Silver. Starring Carol Kane, who was nominated for
Best Actress for her performance as Gitl, a newly arrived immigrant to New York
City in 1896, and Steven Keats as her husband Yankl, who, in an attempt to
assimilate, in public goes by the name “Jake.†Jake has been in America for a
while and isn’t looking forward to the arrival of his wife and son from Europe,
for he has begun an affair with a wealthy, assimilated actress in the Yiddish
theatre named Mamie. When the very traditional Gitl arrives with her son, the
marriage disintegrates.
Luckily,
Gitl meets Bernstein, an Orthodox man who is much more suited for her
requirements, seeing that Jake has become something of a capitalist cad.
Therefore, she needs a “get†from Jake so that both husband and wife can
divorce and go their separate ways. That’s when Mamie’s money comes into play.
Silver
beautifully rendered this period drama on a miniscule budget. Location shooting
took place in and around New York’s lower east side, where much of the flavor
of the late 19th Century Jewish Orthodox community is still pretty much the
same. Replace the cars with horses and buggies, get the correct vintage
costumes, and you’re more than halfway there. The dialogue is mostly in Yiddish
(with English subtitles), thus making it an American foreign language film—an
oddity in 1975, to be sure (although Coppola’s The Godfather Part II appeared a year earlier with a great amount
of its dialogue spoken in Sicilian).
Keats
plays Jake as a rake and a rascal, but our perception of him is not that of a
villain. In many ways, he is the generic immigrant who came to America and
sincerely tried to assimilate, become “American,†and leave the Old Country
traditions behind. His fault is that he dreams of making big money in the States and this becomes his all-consuming desire,
forgetting that he has a wife and son. Kane’s character and spot-on portrayal
not only illustrates the role of females in the Orthodox community, but in many
ways is a commentary on the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s.
Hester Street is a terrific
little film that went out of print on DVD years ago and became a collector’s
item on the resale market. Kino Lorber has thankfully re-issued the movie on
Blu-ray (and DVD). Filmed in black and white by Kenneth Van Sickle, the picture
is grainy and flat—much like the early silent cinema of the that era!—which
actually is quite appropriate for the movie’s setting. There are no extras.
Hester Street is an excellent synagogue
discussion-group item for American Jews who want to explore the immigration
scene and the topics of tradition and assimilation; but it is also a good
educational piece for non-Jews who want to learn a little bit about New York
history and the Jewish Orthodox religion. Recommended.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
BY RAYMOND BENSON
The
last of Woody Allen’s “early, funny†films, 1975’s Love and Death, is a delight, especially for those in the audience
who already have an appreciation for Russian literature (e.g., Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky)
and classic foreign cinema (e.g., Eisenstein, Bergman). Unlike his previous
works in the late sixties and early seventies, Love and Death is targeted more to a hip, intellectual audience,
the one that has pretty much remained his loyal following ever since. It was
after this picture that Allen began to specialize in the art-house, mature, and
less-zany comedies about relationships that became his trademark (Annie Hall was Allen’s next film, in
1977).
If
you’re able to get all the references to War
and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov or
to Battleship Potemkin and The Seventh Seal, then Love and Death is indeed one of the funniest—if
not the funniest—pictures Allen ever
made, as well as one of the best comedies of that decade. Not only is the
movie’s script witty and smart, the two stars—Allen and Diane Keaton—are in top
satirical form. Keaton, specifically, comes into her own with dead-on comic
delivery.
There
are terrific gags all the way through, such as when Woody has to enlist in the
Russian army and finds himself berated by a tough, all-American, black drill
sergeant. Or the one about his father that “owns a piece of land†(and he carries
it around with him). Or the ongoing pseudo-philosophical discussions between
Allen and Keaton that contain such lines as—
Allen: “Nothingness... non-existence... black emptiness...â€
Keaton: “What did you say?â€
Allen: “Oh, I was just planning my future.â€
Another
plus for the movie is its score, almost all of it taken from orchestral pieces
by Prokofiev. The composer is a perfect choice for his music’s liveliness and
obvious Russian flavor. You’ll actually find yourself humming the main theme
(from Lieutenant Kijé Suite) for a few days after a viewing.
After
making his previous few films in the U.S., Allen shot the picture in France and
Hungary; afterwards he swore he’d never make a movie outside of New York again.
For him, it was a horrible experience having to deal without the comforts of
home. At one point during the shoot he contracted food poisoning. Allen
eventually broke his homegrown decree in 1996 and has, more often since 2005,
made several films in Europe and England.
Twilight
Time’s release is limited to 3000 copies. Ghislain Cloquet’s colorful
cinematography looks great, but I’m not sure the image is that much better than
the original MGM/UA DVD. The only extra is the theatrical trailer and some
other Twilight Time trailers.
Nevertheless, if you’re a Woody Allen fan, and
if you don’t already own the DVD, you’d better grab this collector’s item fast
while there are still copies available. It’ll warm the cockles of your heart.
And, you know, that’s just great—there is nothing like hot cockles.
The Blu-ray contains an isolated music and effects track, a collector's booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo and the original theatrical trailer.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM SCREEN ARCHIVES
By
Mark Cerulli
The 1951 film The
Tales of Hoffmann, the acclaimed British adaptation of the opera by Jaques
Offenbach, was an early influence on major directors like Cecil B. DeMille,
George Romero (who said it was “the movie that made me want to make moviesâ€)
and Martin Scorsese. They were drawn to co-directors,
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger’s inventive camera work, vibrant color
palette (each of the three acts has its own primary color) and smooth blending
of film, dance and music. According to
an interview found on Powell-Pressburger.org, Powell wanted to do a “composed
film†– shot entirely to a pre-recorded music track, in this case, Offenbach’s
opera. Not having to worry about sound meant
he could remove the cumbersome padding that encased every Technicolor camera
and really move it around production designer Hein Heckroth’s soaring sets.
(Heckroth’s work on the film earned him two 1952 Oscar nominations.)
The film’s extensive
restoration was sponsored by Scorsese’s Film Foundation and the BFI Film
Archive, in association with Studiocanal. The entire project was overseen by Powell’s widow, longtime Scorsese editor
Thelma Schoonmaker. In fact it was
Scorsese who had introduced Powell to Schoonmaker, resulting in their 1984
marriage.
Ms. Schoonmaker – on
location in Taiwan to work on Scorsese’s next film, Silence - said the director was obsessed (in a good way!) with her
late husband’s and his partner’s work. She stated that Scorsese says their films are “in his DNA.†He was particularly interested in The Tales of Hoffmann because it taught him about
moving the camera, capturing the body language of actors and “celebrating the
emotion of music.â€
Aside from the film’s
pristine new look (which took over six months of “very intense†work), this
version features 6 minutes missing from the Third Act, apparently cut by
producer Alexander Korda who had wanted the filmmakers to drop Act Three
entirely! Another gem found in BFI’s
vaults was an epilogue the directors shot to introduce the opera singers who
voiced the dancers appearing in the film. As Schoonmaker recalls, “Since no
sound track was found for it, I created a sound track of applause and music
from the film. No one had ever seen this
epilogue, because it was never on the original release prints.†It’s
a delightful piece of filmmaking whimsy that has gone unseen for over six
decades.
The film had been
previously restored in the 1980s using the Technicolor three strip Interpositive,
but during the intervening years, the three-color strips had shrunk, creating
fuzzy images even after restoration. But as Schoonmaker relates, this version remedies
that, and then some… “The new restoration was able to digitally
realign the three strips perfectly. The
rich color of the film was rebuilt layer by layer, an arduous process, until
the restorers were satisfied the film looked as it had when it was first made.
“
Overseeing the entire
process along with Schoonmaker was a true student of the film – Martin Scorsese!
“Scorsese knew the film intimately
having screened it many times on a 16mm print and through watching the Criterion
DVD over and over again.†Schoonmaker
recalled, noting, “I had watched the film with my late husband, Michael Powell and
so Scorsese and I were able to guide the color restoration.â€
The film boasts a joint writer,
producer, director credit, which was quite rare in the 1950s. Schoonmaker explained that, “only Michael
directed on the set, but he admired Emeric’s contribution to their films so
much that he agreed to sharing the remarkable title (for the time) ‘Written,
produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’ long before
that kind of title was used as much as it is today.†The prolific duo made 19 films together.
The Tales of Hoffmann’s
influence on Scorsese can be seen in his gritty 1976 masterpiece, Taxi Driver. As his three time Oscar-winning editor points
out, “He (Scorsese) says the dancers in the film taught him so much about body
language. And the eye movements of (actor)
Robert Helpmann were a direct influence on De Niro’s eyes in the mirror of the
car ...â€
Having worked with the
director on revered films like Raging
Bull, Casino, Goodfellas, The Aviator
and Wolf of Wall Street – in fact on every
Scorsese film since 1980 – Thelma Schoonmaker should know!
The Rialto Pictures
release of the restored and expanded The Tales
of Hoffmann opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday March 13th,
with other cities to follow.
RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM CINEMA RETRO'S ARCHIVES
(The following article was originally run in November, 2014)
BY ADRIAN SMITH
With
around sixty special guests in attendance, the Westminster Central Hall on
Saturday the 7th of November was packed to its domed roof with excited Hammer
film fans.
Familiar
faces including Caroline Munro, Valerie Leon, Madeline Smith and Martine
Beswick were providing some glamour, but the organisers managed to make the
event extra-memorable by securing the presence of Edina Ronay, George Cole,
Freddie Jones and others who had not signed autographs at a fan event before.
At times queues to meet them ran out of the building and down the street! Other
rare UK appearances were made from Veronica Carlson and Linda Hayden, flown in
from the US to meet their fans. It was an incredible opportunity to meet an
amazing selection of Hammer stars, directors and producers.
A
huge selection of original Hammer film memorabilia was also available courtesy
of the brilliantly eclectic stalls around the hall. Prices ranged from the
eye-watering (£250 for an original poster!) to the affordable, with
hard-to-find DVDs, magazines, novels, t-shirts and more on offer. Between
browsing fascinating lobby-card sets and collecting autographed photos, I'm
sure several fans had to make more than one trip to the nearest cash machine.
As
if this alone did not make this a must-see event, there was also a busy
schedule of events throughout the day overseen by genre scholars Jonathon Rigby
and Sir Christopher Frayling. Peter Cushing's personal secretary Joyce
Broughton tearfully shared her feelings of this much-loved actor (who was
praised throughout the day by many who knew him). Joyce said that she would
never reveal the location of Cushing's ashes, as he requested that his last
resting place not become a shrine.
Lalla
Ward and Robert Tayman, the latter also attending a fan event for the first
time, discussed their experiences making Vampire Circus (1972). For
Lalla it was her first film role following acting school. Robert's sense of humour
was the driest and most sardonic of the day and he was clearly enjoying the
opportunity to talk about his role as Count Mitterhaus.
Barbara
Shelley made a lot of films for Hammer, from their WWII prison-camp dramas to Quatermass
and the Pit (1967). She revealed that she had swallowed one of her vampire
teeth during a scene on Dracula - Prince of Darkness (1965)! She also
expressed her gratitude to Hammer film fans for making her feel so good, and
revealed that co-star Julian Glover referred to the film as "Quater-piss
on the Mat" because of the smell of rank clay on the set!
A
Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974) reunion saw Dave Prowse
meeting up with Shane Briant, Madeline Smith and Philip Voss. Although in poor
health, and beginning with an admission that his memory is causing him
problems, Prowse was in good form and enjoyed talking about his playing
Frankenstein's monster for the second time in a Hammer film.
Hungarian
director Peter Sasdy made three films for Hammer including Taste the Blood
of Dracula (1970) and was very detailed in his discussion of the directing
process. Beginning his career in television, he had brought a new look to the
Hammer gothics with his take on Dracula, and continued that with Countess
Dracula and Hands of the Ripper (both 1971), all rather unique
entries in Hammer's late horror films.
Finally
event organiser Thomas Bowington was joined onstage by Caroline Munro, Veronica
Carlson and Martine Beswick, all three of whom were entertaining and honest in
discussing their time with Hammer. Martine shared the problems she had
experienced on Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) when demands came
through for her to appear completely nude, Veronica praised Freddie Francis,
her director on Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1868), and Caroline
never has a bad word to say about anyone, even when she was left buried in a
hole in the ground during a rain storm whilst everyone else took a tea break
during the shooting of Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972).
As the distance between classic Hammer and the 21st century continues to increase, eventsof this scale are unlikely to happen again. The good news however is
that The London Film Convention holds six events a year in Westminster!
For information on
forthcoming events go to http://www.londonfilmconvention.co.uk/index.html
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