Eye candy.

Jacques Démy followed up his unique movie of 1964 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with the no less enjoyable The Young Girls of Rochefort in 1967.

Where the earlier musical is deeply dramatic under its layer of song, the later one is about nothing else but joy. Joy in performance, joy in dance, joy in color and, most especially, joy in two of the most beautiful French women ever given us by the silver screen.

Those two women are, again, Catherine Deneuve, and her biological sister François Dorléac, who tragically died just a couple of years later in a car crash at an unfairly young 25. Where Deneuve is all cool, remote beauty, Dorléac is warmth and charm and that indefinable something found only in the French.

Here are some images from this very special piece of eye candy, from a magnificent BluRay restoration by Criterion:

If Hollywood can claim to do one thing better than any other it’s the musical. Démy takes on the best and proves that he is fully up to the challenge.

There is no English version available, though it was allegedly made at the same time. French is all you need or want.

One of Coppola’s finest.

Click the image.

1974 was a great year for director Francis Ford Coppola for it saw his mystery movie ‘The Conversation’ come to the big screen.

Set in and around Union Square in San Francisco it’s about a professional sound snooper who makes a recording he wishes he had never heard.

As I remarked to my son:

To which he replied with a wonderful sense of the succinct:

This is a very low key, cerebral movie, one in which little happens, much reminiscent of the style of Antonioni. You can read my interview with the star of ‘Blow Up’ here.

But do not be fooled by the slow pacing of the movie. There are three scenes towards the end, each but a few frames, which are overpowering in their impact, but these are so brief, so shocking, that they are a ‘blink and and you will miss it’ sort of thing. The horrific lost in the banal. Absolutely chilling. If you think that Kubrick did not watch this movie before making ‘The Shining’ 6 years later, think again.

Highly recommended for anyone with an imagination and an attention span.

How great a year was 1974 for the director? The movie was nominated for Best Picture, Best Writing and Best Sound – work by the wonderful Walter Murch. It failed to win in all three categories. Was Coppola to be disappointed? Well, no. That same year he made ‘The Godfather, Part II’ which earned him no fewer than six Oscars.

As good as it gets.

Many actors have tried their hand at Churchill, most recently Gary Oldman whose performance in a horribly fictitious movie (WSC taking advice from a black man on the Underground? Please. …) garnered him an Oscar. But the definitive performance is by Albert Finney, true to the accurate biography by Martin Gilbert. And, truth in biographies of great men is a concept devoutely to be wished, and all the rarer for that.

Click the image for the complete movie, free.

Albert Finney died today leaving a legacy of great performances. None was finer than his WSC in ‘The Gathering Storm’.

Outstanding restoration work.

New Zealander Peter Jackson has made some of the highest grossing movies in history. In 2018 he set his energies to celebrating the centenary of the end of World War I by restoring old film from the conflict. He rid the images of the grain, tramline scratches and dust blobs . and adjusted the playback speed to get rid of the jerkiness. Film of that era was shot at a hand cranked 12fps against the 24fps used in the cinema, so everything looks speeded up unless you interpolate frames to adjust the framing rate. Finally, and best of all, he colorized the results to add interest and authenticity. The sole narrative in the 90 minute documentary is from voiceovers of period writings of the soldiers in the conflict, with the moving images supplemented with the words and sounds appropriate to the time. Amazon has the DVD, titled ‘They Shall not Grow Old’, but be sure that your DVD player is multi-region as the disc is formatted for UK players.

In 1914 the masses could still be suckered into fighting and dying for ‘King and Country’ and King and Country ensured that they did so in droves. Or maybe that should be Tsar and Country. Of the 4.8 million Allied deaths, 35% were Russian, 24% French and 15% British. The Kaiser did a better job of the slaughter, sending 3.2 million to an early grave.

Idealistic Americans were suckered in with the same appeals to patriotism and the Old Country in 1942 but by the time of Viet Nam they had cottoned on to the con perpetrated by the military industrial complex, to borrow Ike’s phrase, with many deciding to stay away. And those who did serve were cruelly rejected by their fellow Americans on their return. Interestingly, as the documentary makes clear, the surviving British soldiers were met with like indifference on their return home in 1918. War is never pretty.

Here are some images from Jackson’s landmark work:

Appropriately, the documentary commences and concludes with grainy, dirty, jerky stock footage making the transition to and from the restoration so much more effective.

A unique accomplishment.

In 1964 the French director Jacques Demy made a unique movie, a story of star crossed lovers where all the words are sung. Not a single one is spoken. This was not an attempt to compete with the great American musical. After all, how do you compete with perfection? No, rather it was a unique approach to telling a story where the quality of the singing is secondary to the narrative of the story in song. And it succeeds spectacularly. The lush score was written by Michel Legrand who passed away last week. Such were his accomplishments that he garnered three best song Oscars with “The Windmills of Your Mind” in the Thomas Crown Affair being the best known to American audiences.

But it’s the raw visual appeal of the movie, photographed by Jean Rabier, which is a standout. The very high contrast rendition – think Kodak Ektar on steroids – coupled with the bubble gum colored sets makes for a special visual statement. And throw in a very young Catherine Deneuve in what would become her breakout movie, and the no less lovely Anne Vernon as her mother and you have the makings of something very special.

Here is a collection of favorite images from this masterpiece:

You can turn on subtitles but why when you can listen to the glories of French instead?

For the follow up musical of 1967, click here.