Movie babble...
Sep. 28th, 2007 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieA nifty little Across the Universe picture to start with:
Seriously, the movie was delightful, but more than anything, it made me want to own every Beatles CD ever.
And in other movie news, I just received from Netflix, my DVD of Ryan’s Daughter, David Lean’s controversial 1970 movie. Considering that Lawrence of Arabia is my favorite movie, if I had to ever pick one (seeing it in a movie theater when they had a limited re-release was amazing), that I think Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the best movies I’ve seen, and I have even managed to enjoy Doctor Zhivago despite being from the former USSR, I had good hopes for it, which were quite realized. Haven’t finished it yet though.
RD has the requisite doomed love affair, beautiful cinematography, and gorgeous performances (it was apparently nominated for a slew of Oscars). The story is set in a remote part of Ireland at 1916. Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) is a naïve, spirited young woman who wants more than what her life has given her. Rosy is trapped in a loveless marriage to a much older man (Robert Mitchum) and equally trapped in her harsh, closed-off community, where the main occupations are hating the British and picking on the local halfwit (played by John Miles, who got an Oscar for the role). Temporarily, her life is made shiny when she notices the newly arrived British officer, Randolph Doryan (Christopher Jones). The shell-shocked, recovering from horrors of the war Doryan and Rosy fall into passionate love (or maybe it’s desperation, and physical compatibility, you decide). But of course, this is quite doomed. Not just because Rosy is a married woman in a puritanical land, but because Doryan is a British officer, something that is akin to a leper to the staunchly nationalistic villagers. When an incident happens, the villagers begin to look for a traitor in their midst and…
I promise to screencap shortly. Let me just say, on a very shallow front, that Christopher Jones as the Edwardian, upper-class, messed-in-the-head war hero is HOT.
Also, I just realized that the 1970s French adaptation of La Dame De Monsoreau actually gives some hope for a happy ending for Bussy and Diane! (!!!!!) As opposed to the total bleakness of the novel, where he survives the fight with the assassin squad, only to be killed by his patron and ‘friend,’ and she goes insane and disappears.
I was watching the ending, and there, after the assassin squad has been dispatched, and he is lying there, and she is over him, and then Chicot and Remy and others show up and she asks Remy if Bussy is going to live and Remy says ‘perhaps’ (!!!!!!). And I love that she goes to him and he lifts his hand (wearing yummy black gloves) and she interlaces her fingers and then Chicot basically addresses the camera directly. I think it’s to explain the deviation from what, until then, has been a remarkably faithful adaptation. And he says something to the effect of ‘politics is going to resume its dirty work shortly, and we so need at least the hope of love to get us through the day.’ The last shot is very ambiguous, because he is lying there, totally still, and she is lying by his side, as still as he is, and their fingers are still interlaced, but because of the above, there is at least some hope and with that novel, I am going to take all I can get! OMG Yes. I remember watching that adaptation and crying incredibly hard at the end. Still one of my favorite novels, years later. Mmmmm, Bussy. Probably still in my Top 10 fictional crushes. You know how I mentioned angsty, passionate, haughty aristocrats? Childhood reading has a lot to be responsible for. And mmmmm, Saint-Luc (SL/Jeanne are like the happy, functional OTP to Bussy/Diane’s doomed one. Of course, since SL is a former favorite of Henri III, I think they are still plenty far from normal, but I love them anyway). It’s funny though, because I adore Bussy, St-Luc, Chicot and Jeanne. But Diane herself, while I don’t mind her, is a little too fragile ‘Madonna on a pedestal’ for me to really love. Of course, how much of a Madonna you can be while you have a lover secretly from your husband is a separate matter. I am amused to note that Dumas was very careful to have her only ‘be’ with Bussy and never her husband, thus further maintaining her virtue, even if in a really peculiar way.
Oh, and last but not least, here are the newbie stars of the upcoming Saawariya, Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor (no relation). The whole thing is supposed be a loose interpretation of Dostoyevsky’s White Nights (!!!!!)
They look adorable:
Seriously, the movie was delightful, but more than anything, it made me want to own every Beatles CD ever.
And in other movie news, I just received from Netflix, my DVD of Ryan’s Daughter, David Lean’s controversial 1970 movie. Considering that Lawrence of Arabia is my favorite movie, if I had to ever pick one (seeing it in a movie theater when they had a limited re-release was amazing), that I think Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the best movies I’ve seen, and I have even managed to enjoy Doctor Zhivago despite being from the former USSR, I had good hopes for it, which were quite realized. Haven’t finished it yet though.
RD has the requisite doomed love affair, beautiful cinematography, and gorgeous performances (it was apparently nominated for a slew of Oscars). The story is set in a remote part of Ireland at 1916. Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) is a naïve, spirited young woman who wants more than what her life has given her. Rosy is trapped in a loveless marriage to a much older man (Robert Mitchum) and equally trapped in her harsh, closed-off community, where the main occupations are hating the British and picking on the local halfwit (played by John Miles, who got an Oscar for the role). Temporarily, her life is made shiny when she notices the newly arrived British officer, Randolph Doryan (Christopher Jones). The shell-shocked, recovering from horrors of the war Doryan and Rosy fall into passionate love (or maybe it’s desperation, and physical compatibility, you decide). But of course, this is quite doomed. Not just because Rosy is a married woman in a puritanical land, but because Doryan is a British officer, something that is akin to a leper to the staunchly nationalistic villagers. When an incident happens, the villagers begin to look for a traitor in their midst and…
I promise to screencap shortly. Let me just say, on a very shallow front, that Christopher Jones as the Edwardian, upper-class, messed-in-the-head war hero is HOT.
Also, I just realized that the 1970s French adaptation of La Dame De Monsoreau actually gives some hope for a happy ending for Bussy and Diane! (!!!!!) As opposed to the total bleakness of the novel, where he survives the fight with the assassin squad, only to be killed by his patron and ‘friend,’ and she goes insane and disappears.
I was watching the ending, and there, after the assassin squad has been dispatched, and he is lying there, and she is over him, and then Chicot and Remy and others show up and she asks Remy if Bussy is going to live and Remy says ‘perhaps’ (!!!!!!). And I love that she goes to him and he lifts his hand (wearing yummy black gloves) and she interlaces her fingers and then Chicot basically addresses the camera directly. I think it’s to explain the deviation from what, until then, has been a remarkably faithful adaptation. And he says something to the effect of ‘politics is going to resume its dirty work shortly, and we so need at least the hope of love to get us through the day.’ The last shot is very ambiguous, because he is lying there, totally still, and she is lying by his side, as still as he is, and their fingers are still interlaced, but because of the above, there is at least some hope and with that novel, I am going to take all I can get! OMG Yes. I remember watching that adaptation and crying incredibly hard at the end. Still one of my favorite novels, years later. Mmmmm, Bussy. Probably still in my Top 10 fictional crushes. You know how I mentioned angsty, passionate, haughty aristocrats? Childhood reading has a lot to be responsible for. And mmmmm, Saint-Luc (SL/Jeanne are like the happy, functional OTP to Bussy/Diane’s doomed one. Of course, since SL is a former favorite of Henri III, I think they are still plenty far from normal, but I love them anyway). It’s funny though, because I adore Bussy, St-Luc, Chicot and Jeanne. But Diane herself, while I don’t mind her, is a little too fragile ‘Madonna on a pedestal’ for me to really love. Of course, how much of a Madonna you can be while you have a lover secretly from your husband is a separate matter. I am amused to note that Dumas was very careful to have her only ‘be’ with Bussy and never her husband, thus further maintaining her virtue, even if in a really peculiar way.
Oh, and last but not least, here are the newbie stars of the upcoming Saawariya, Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor (no relation). The whole thing is supposed be a loose interpretation of Dostoyevsky’s White Nights (!!!!!)
They look adorable:
