#68 - Orpheus

And we're back! - (Wife is gone for a week after Nov 7th so expect a flurry - especially in light of the announcement that Filmstruck is shutting down - SOB!)

#68 was a much better experience for me than the last one - Orpheus isn't just a modern telling, but it's a re-imaging of the myth and an exploration of the art and immortality of poetry.   Jean Cocteau does his usual stellar job here of creating some magical film effects, and there's even a feature about that on this Blu-Ray/DVD/Stream

In this film, Orpheus is a modern day Elvis/Poet, who is enamored with a woman he meets at the site of a traffic accident, who actually turns out to be one of the incarnations of death - in this story, he is not merely going back for Eurydice, but for Death herself

The film is a great art-house film - there is one line that stuck out to me - at one point Orpheus says he is a poet - someone corrects him and says he's a writer - and Orpheus makes the remark that "A poet is a writer who doesn't write"  - In a sense, I think that's what Jean is also saying with film - it is poetry that isn't written - I'm looking forward to the 3rd and final film in the trilogy as a result of this powerful work, and that really says something about it's impact.  Cocteau is about poetry, and as discussed previously,

Jean Marais FEELS like an actor I should know - but his only other stint so far in the blog was Beauty and the Beast - he and Cocteau were very close, and he was in almost all his films - (close in more ways than one - according to IMDB they were lovers, but Marais was also married during some of those years) - He just has that rugged movie handsomeness. 

My last observation is that if the opening scenes at the Poet's Cafe in Paris don't make you want to find a time machine and go back to 1950's Bohemian Paris, you have no soul ;)

At this point I can kinda see why this one is still in print and readily available - I might find myself picking this up during the next flash sale at Barnes and Nobles.

up next - the final film in the trilogy

#67 - The Blood of A Poet

I call this entry - "The Blood of a Poet, or what the hell did I just watch?"

This is a surrealist sort of film, meant to provide images rather than a plot or narrative - this is a good movie to have a cliffs notes or wikipedia entry read BEFORE you watch

Of course, as the director points out Surrealism wasn't a thing in film when he did this - if there were 50's or 60's it might feel like a drugged out college director's debut but of course, Jean was a poet, and sought to create and make images out of the poet's struggles and lives

Might be worth a second watch at 55 minutes - an incredibly interesting snippet is that it was commissioned by a French Viscount who had a scene in it where he's in a balcony applauding, but when it was realized they were applauding over a gruesome scene filmed seperately, they forbid their footage and the balcony members were reshot with actors

a bit of a whacky film but no worries

RB

#66 - The Orphic Trilogy

So evidently, now the boxed set spines have a number and then the movies - So technically #66 is just the SPINE for this box set but my OCD won't have me skipping numbers - so I have an entry to talk about

Jean Cocteau was here before in film #6 - Beauty and the Beast - This series of three films are various takes on the story of Orpheus - (what now we'll have four in 68 films?) - The first and last films also bookend the film output of Jean, being his first and last film.  He was also a heck of a poet, writer, etc, but we're only doing films here, man - films...get with it

Not sure what I'm going to make of these but the first one is only 55 minutes so it should be doable

Most of this set is out of print - good ol' Netflix comes thru - even Filmstruck only has one of the three in it's library right now

#65 - Rushmore

#65 was probably added to the collection almost as soon as it was released (1998 release, 2000 addition) -

Amazingly, I never saw this when it came out till just now - I was more of a band and music guy in the late 90's - but this is an excellent film

Jason Schwartzman cements the lead role, with Bill Murray and Olivia Williams providing the three sides of the love triangle at a private Prep School where these three characters push and pull at each other with great amusement and dialogue.

I think what's most interesting about this film is there is a LOT to not like about Jason's character, Max Fischer.   Max is, for lack of a better word, probably today what we would call a serial harasser.  His attempts to woo Olivia's character, Rosemary, play out quite often in real life and end in restraining orders, toxic masculinity, and the like.  What the movie succeeds in doing is giving us just enough to root for him still, despite his obvious failings and arrogance. 

You never truly feel either his character or Bill's is a bad guy - just decent guys getting pulled into some bad behavior

Of course, Wes Anderson has a filming style all his own - you can almost identify one of his movies based on some of the little things he does in a film, like tone, music, and dialogue - I love that you can recognize a director's style by the kind of story and the way he films it and that he can make it a unique thing, instead of being an interchangeable cog in the machine.

Fun fact, he co-wrote this with Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson gets a small part - good for him - LOL

#64 - The Third Man

#64 is considered by some to be one of the best British Films ever made - a Noir flick about racketeers in Postwar Vienna - The Third Man

Disclaimer - it took a while to get thru this cause I was interrupted a lot - I'm sure one complete viewing would have been nice - maybe someday...

A pretty good film with Joseph Cotten as an American going to see a friend in Vienna for a job, and later investigating his mysterious death - the city of Vienna really stands out here as a set piece - not for it's beauty necessarily, but for it's devastation - 4 years later, the remains of the war were still obvious - half destroyed buildings, ruined and burned out cars - quite the contrast from films that highlighted the beauty of places like Rio or Venice as I've seen in some of the other films

the music was interesting too - probably the first soundtrack I've heard on a Zither -

There's a lot of good Criterion features including some voiceover, two commentaries, some documentaries, etc - BUT the disk is out of print on Criterion - and it's not even on Filmstruck and even has a delay thru Netflix right now.

I would have enjoyed it more had I been able to watch it straight thru but it is what it is - the camera angles and lighting and B/W make it a jarring piece at times - and the accents make me wish for subtitles occasionally, but it was a pretty good film that kept you hanging along for quite a while

RB

#63 - Carnival of Souls

#63 is a B-movie horror film with some interesting influence and backstory - a true cult classic - Carnival of Souls

Story goes the Director saw a spooky pavilion out by the Great Salt Lake, and decided to write an entire movie around it.  This is a low budget horror film about a woman who survives a car crash, only to move to Salt Lake City and begin finding her stalked by ghoulish figures, the main one being an old man played by the director himself.

The first thing that struck me immediately was how it could be (and was) an influence for another cult classic, Night of the Living Dead - Black and White, with a woman being stalked and chased is right up there with the opener of that film.   In another amusing similarity, both films had forgotten to put a copyright mark on their print titles, so both passed into public domain.

Criterion has re-released it in blu-ray and DVD with lots of special features, sadly only a couple of which were on my disk 1 from Netflix.   Not on filmstruck either, sadly.   BUT you can find several copies online and I see it all the time in those budger 50 horror film packs you can get at the used book store.

Surprised I hadn't seen it yet and it was pretty good - I won't spoil it for you except to say that it's even worth a second watch to hear the commentary

A spooky organ makes up the majority of the soundtrack, and gives the film a little something extra, especially as how the woman is an organist.

good for Halloween and other scary movie events - and probably it's on Mystery Science Theater 3000 - LOL

RB

#62 - The Passion of Joan of Arc

#62 is widely regarded as one of the finest films in Cinema, and I think it's our first silent film? 

The Passion of Joan of Arc is a masterful film about closeups - costumes/sets are sorta shortchanged here - more like an artistic mockup of a real castle/rooms/inquisition than an authentic set piece and I heard the costumes are the same

But this film's primary focus (and an unusual one for a silent film) is on the closeup - especially the closeups of Renée Falconetti who we won't see again in the movies.  Her acting here is astonishing as with just her face, she conveys a full range of extreme emotion from fear to terror and joy - all with those eyes that seem almost angelic upon closeup

There are some great stories about this film  (discussed in the extra) - about how the first negative was lost in a fire and they rebuilt the film using ALTERNATE takes - eventually THAT version was lost - and some versions had extra cuts and missing scenes cause the Church objected -

fast forward to 1981 and a copy is found in an Oslo closet of the first print - no one is sure why, but it's the first negative with all scenes intact, so we get this wonderful print here.

Also some interesting essays about 20 vs 24 frames a second (personally I was fine with 24 and 100 minutes is a little long for me on a silent film - I prefer 80 - LOL) - and lots of soundtracks - 3 separate ones you can use and audio commentary

Like Autumn Sonata, I think every aspiring actor/actress could watch this film and realize just how much the face can and should give you - good stuff