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I seem to have hit a bump of several foreign films for this weekend--it was totally by accident. Last night I watched Purple Noon the 1960 Rene Clement directed french version of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley and I think it's by far the best. Alain Delon makes a gorgeous Ripley. The only thing that doesn't work for me is that Philippe (Dicky in the novel)Greenleaf is still supposedly from SF and that is just wrong. Couldn't they have swapped any US reference for someplace French or does the jazzy motif make it necessary to have the Greenleafs American. I don't recall the ending of the book but knowing that there are at least three other Ripley books, I assume he gets away with his murders. In this version he doesn't and it's quite satisfying that he doesn't.
Then I watched Bertolucci's very sexy The Dreamers. Michael Pitt and Eva Green, with Pitt as Matthew, a young American exchange student in Paris for a year just as the city and country is about to explode with revolutionary fervor in 1968. He meets Isabelle and Theo, a brother and sister who claim they're twins and who have an intense, and not very healthy relationship.
The three are obsessed with cinema. They first see each other at a showing of Shock Corridor and meet up later at a demonstration at the Cinémathèque Française. For about the first half of the film, cuts of movies they love and which seem appropriate are spliced with whatever their doing then abruptly stop (unless I just got used to them) except for one last splice in a climactic scene.
They take him home with them and the three spend a decadent, increasingly sexual period of (presumably) several weeks while the parents leave them checks to buy food and take care of expenses. It becomes increasingly obvious that the siblings are incapable of taking care of themselves--plus they're living in an insulated bubble that Matthew, try as he will, cannot really penetrate. Theo reads Marxist literature but these are they are almost a pure example of bourgeois narcissism. When they do take part, it merely is a way to shut out Matthew.
I think we're supposed to take the whole thing as a coming of age story for Matthew, although we know nothing of who he became (unless he's meant to be the author of the book that was made into this movie) so although it's entertaining and sexy
And tonight I watched Persepolis an autobiographical animation adapted by Marjane Satrapi from her graphic novel of the same name. It's about the history of a young girl living in Iran from the 1970s through the overthrow of the Shah and the Islamic Revolution to about 1992 when she leaves Iran for good. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. I feel the characterization of Marjane was superficial. Despite this, I was very moved by the ending.
Finally, I watched the first to episodes of Carnivale and loved them. I gather that the second season kins of flails about...then what does it just end or is there at least a fading out. I don't know if I can take another abrupt end in the middle.
Then I watched Bertolucci's very sexy The Dreamers. Michael Pitt and Eva Green, with Pitt as Matthew, a young American exchange student in Paris for a year just as the city and country is about to explode with revolutionary fervor in 1968. He meets Isabelle and Theo, a brother and sister who claim they're twins and who have an intense, and not very healthy relationship.
The three are obsessed with cinema. They first see each other at a showing of Shock Corridor and meet up later at a demonstration at the Cinémathèque Française. For about the first half of the film, cuts of movies they love and which seem appropriate are spliced with whatever their doing then abruptly stop (unless I just got used to them) except for one last splice in a climactic scene.
They take him home with them and the three spend a decadent, increasingly sexual period of (presumably) several weeks while the parents leave them checks to buy food and take care of expenses. It becomes increasingly obvious that the siblings are incapable of taking care of themselves--plus they're living in an insulated bubble that Matthew, try as he will, cannot really penetrate. Theo reads Marxist literature but these are they are almost a pure example of bourgeois narcissism. When they do take part, it merely is a way to shut out Matthew.
I think we're supposed to take the whole thing as a coming of age story for Matthew, although we know nothing of who he became (unless he's meant to be the author of the book that was made into this movie) so although it's entertaining and sexy
And tonight I watched Persepolis an autobiographical animation adapted by Marjane Satrapi from her graphic novel of the same name. It's about the history of a young girl living in Iran from the 1970s through the overthrow of the Shah and the Islamic Revolution to about 1992 when she leaves Iran for good. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. I feel the characterization of Marjane was superficial. Despite this, I was very moved by the ending.
Finally, I watched the first to episodes of Carnivale and loved them. I gather that the second season kins of flails about...then what does it just end or is there at least a fading out. I don't know if I can take another abrupt end in the middle.
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From:
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The second season was not everything I wanted it to be. It moves things along too fast, storywise, and it has an end that's more an 'end of part two' than an end. Still, the second season has some fantastic stuff in it.
One of these days I really am going to have to watch Purple Noon. I liked The Talented Mister Ripley a fair bit. Mean little movie.
My introduction to Bertolucci was Last Tango in Paris, and I think I developed an allergic reaction. It's really tough for me to get interested in his stuff. It just seems to be coming from a place so far away from me that I can't decode it.
I wanna see Persepolis, but I'm doing some stupid monomaniacal short-story thing where my brain doesn't want to let in things that aren't related to what I'm working on.
From:
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Try The Conformist --it's wonderful. I liked Last Tango... and saw it more than once. I also saw and enjoyed The Spider's Stratagem but don't remember it very well. I've got The Sheltering Sky coming up, despite the bad reviews ;-).
Persepolis is definitely worth seeing just don't expect too much. And anyway, you may love it ;-). A lot of people did.
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Edited to add:
Oh yes, Jude Law as Ripley would have been considerably more interesting. It would have radically changed the dynamic. Everything would have been more interior, I think.
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And re: "Carnivale"? I haven't seen any episodes myself, but I hear that the first season is amazing, and the second season is frustrating -- not least because it ends without ending. From what I gather from comments, "Carnivale" had a plan, and it was following that plan, and then it was canceled. I'd have borrowed it, but: I don't know if I can take another abrupt end in the middle. I really get that right now. Meh!
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Still, it was a fascinating and wonderful show. I can't recommend it enough -- with the caveat, though, that it will ultimately frustrate because it just ends.
Now I want to go and revisit the show...
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Carnivale had such promise, but sadly had to cut things short. The end of the season works but it does feel a bit sped up. The show was very expensive so when the audience wasn't deemed large enough, the plug got pulled fast.
A colleague and I posted a CFP for an (academic) anthology of essays on the show, and got a very impressive response. When we proposed it to IB Tauris, the editors were very interested but the sales dept. could not get on board; not dissimilar to the forces at work that forced the show to cancel prematurely. Tauris has asked us to do another book for them which we're thrilled about, but we're still seeking a home for that Carnivale book. It may be too late.
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Too bad about the Carnivale book. But yeah, the show ended in 2004, or so --and certainly its fans were not as avid as say, for Buffy.
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Carnivale was a six-season epic that only lasted two. It ends on a marvelous cliffhanger, but yes, it's still a cliffhanger.