Movie review - "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) ***1/2

 Where does this sit with audiences today? Gorgeously directed. A lot of standing around open jawed in wonder. Very sweet. Teri Garr excellent and Richard Dreyfuss amiable.

Book review - "Chasing the Panther: Adventures and Misadventures of a Cinematic Life" by Carolyn Pfeiffer

 I read this because I was keen to read about Pfeiffer's adventures as a producer in the 80s with Alan Rudolph, Chris Blackwell, Shep Gordon etc but there is very little of that. This memoir is mostly about her time in Europe in the 60s - as a student, then working in Italy as Claudie Cardinale's assistant, meeting people like Burt Lancaster, Visconti, Delon and Fellini, then working for Delon (being raped by one of Delon's dodgy bodyguards), then Omar Sharif as an assistant (shagging Robert Bolt), being friends with Nathalie Delon and Geraldine Chaplin, becoming a publicisit then eventually working for Shep Gordon, hanging with Robert Altman, dope with Blake Edwards. 

It's pretty interesting stuff - having Sean Connery put his hand on her leg while Diane Cilento was there, a fling with photographer Terence Donovan etc. There is heart break - a daughter (son of an affair with a married man) dies as a child, she finds true love with a journalist who dies of a heart attack. I wish there had been more on her work as producer. But I enjoyed the book.

 

Movie review - "Day for Night" (1973) **** (warning: spoilers)

 Popular Truffaut movie goes down easy - I think everyone likes this, especially film people. Full of touches like Truffaut playing a director and Jacqueline Bisset as a movie star, and the composer playing himself and the director receiving parcels of movie books.

Like a lot of Truffaut it ambles along. The death of a key character is described off screen. The movie they're making seems terrible.

I enjoyed how Truffaut's director character didn't really care about anything except finishing the film - if people had breakdowns he shrugs them off. I feel in real life Truffaut would be more of a sex pest but the character he plays here is accurate.

Nathalie Baye as a crew member gets all these close ups and action towards the end of the film. It's endearing in a way. Bisset is great value, brings star commitment.  Her hair in the fake movie is terrible but she looks great in "real life". 

I missed Valentina Cortese's drunken diva and Alexandra Stewart's pregnant star - they were lots of fun, I felt both need another beat. Jean Pierra Leaud's annoyingness suits his character.

It's fun.

Movie review - "The Story of Adele H" (1975) ****

Crazy women driven to desperate things in the name of love are a soapie staple - you can get months of story out of them with plenty of twists and turns. It's always kind of a jolt to remember that such things happen in real life. This Francois Truffaut film is based on the real saga of Adele Hugo, daughter of the legendary Victor Hugo, who spent a lot of her life chasing a British soldier.

He is Bruce Robinson, a handsome but awkward actor, best known as the writer-director of Withnail and I. Robinson looks the part but isn't very good. It doesn't matter that much as long as Adele is cast well and Isabelle Adjani is stunning in the part. It's a star making a role as say Captain Blood or The Graduate. She's beautiful, haunted, empathetic, touching, mad... It's wonderful.

The film is mostly from Adele's point of view, quoting from real life letters. Truffaut made a lot of films about nutty women and he is very sympathetic for Adele. The fact Adjani is so good looking adds an extra layer - as does the fact Robinson's character is such a prat.

Strong support cast and period detail (location filming in Guernsey and Barbados really helps). A powerful, romantic film.

Movie review - "Small Change" (1976) ***

Childhood and school was a horrible place in The 400 Blows but Truffaut offers a warmer, more optimistic view in this ensemble piece. It's set in a small town in France and consists of a series of vignettes and moments.

There's a memorable scene where a kid climbs out a window and falls to the ground. It's a real heart stopper although you wonder why at least some of the adults just staring at the kid don't yell or something, they just stand there. (The doll standing in for the kid isn't very realistic either).

Other key "storylines" include: a boy gets a crush on an older woman (there is a fair bit of boys perving on women), the reveal that one of the boys is being physically abused, a girl is stuck at home without any food, a boy and a girl have their first kiss. 

Sometimes the scenes are too on the nose eg two adults talking about how kids are more resilient than you think, the teacher talking to his students at the end how important kids are and how Abuse Is Bad. But generally the touch is light and warm and the film has a good soul. It is very male orientated.

Movie review - "Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me" (1971) **

One of Truffaut's lesser known and less successful films. The plot isn't bad - a sociologist interviews a woman in prison for killing her lover and falls in love with her. The girl is Bernadette Lafont, an actress I didn't recognise - maybe the film would've been more fun for me with someone I knew. Or more charming.

Lafont is pretty enough, goes topless in a few scenes, has lots of energy, running around like a maniac. She got on the nerves and can't sing.The overwhelming impression I carry away from this film is of her jabbering away.

Andre Dussolier is alright as the nerd who falls in love with her, Guy Marchand is a crappy longue singer who is one of Lafont's lovers, Charles Denner a rat exterminator, Claude Brasseur a lawyer, Philippe Leotard her husband.

The basic story is strong - man falls in love with woman, gets her out of prison, she frames him for murder. But its done comically and such movies are hard to pull off, to get the tone right. Truffaut doesn't.

I never really appreciated just how many Truffaut films were about innocent men falling for crazy mad arse bitches. I kind of felt this was inspired by shy academic directors who fall for their nutbag actresses, with the devoted secretary here (blonde, gorgeous, but with glasses) standing in for the continuity girl. He was also drawing from those 30s Hollywood madcap screwball comedies - and a death scene with someone falling off a castle feels very Vertigo.

It's full of random moments and characters: lounge singers, Marchant has a poster of Truffaut on his wall, the rat killer being a virgin. The ten year old filmmaker was pretty funny. That's the highlight of the film.

Movie review - "Mississip Mermaid" (1969) *** (warning: spoilers)

Catherine Deneuve was a natural Hitchcock blonde - icy beauty and suggested sensuality underneath; she never made a movie for him but Hitchcock fan Francois Truffaut was the next best thing and certainly she's very well cast as a mystery brie in this movie. Reunion Island planter Jean Paul Belmondo has fallen in love with her via letters - she rocks up, he marries her, but she's not who she appears to be.

Belmondo has great star charisma but his casting does throw the movie off - he's a handsome, virile guy, I didn't quite believe he would need to resort to a mail order bride, even on Reunion... the movie is set in the present day. I also didn't quite buy he would become so obsessed with Deneuve he would overlook all the lying and deception. (There's nothing wrong with his performance, it just took a stretch.) Mind you, Deneuve is very hot.

The first half is a decent mystery - Belmondo falling for Denueve, then trying to find her; very Hitchcock. The second half is more warped this-love-thing-is-crazy stuff, which feels more typically Truffaut.  (Though this is influential in it's way - the ending of this isn't that far away from Basic Instinct.) Bizarre scripting decision - Deneuve's actions are motivated by this evil gangster called Richard who we barely see.

There's beautiful locations - Reunion Island, the Alps, Lyon. The stars look stunning.

Movie review - "Breathless" (1959) ***1/2

I have heard so much about how this revolutionized filmmaking to be honest it's a bit annoying. Did it, really, or is that just something people say? Maybe I have to go back to 1959 to appreciate it. It does retain an energy thanks to the location shooting (not revolutionary at the time, surely?) but also two electric star performances. Jean-Paul Belmondo is one of the great anti heroes of all time: punched-face handsome, lean, borderline sociopathic, horny, Bogart obsessed. 

He's beautifully matched by Jean Seberg, with her oh-so-iconic short hair and stripey top and no bra.

I've seen this movie a bunch of times and forget most of it - the opening gangster sequence, pretty much all the action, the dreadful press conference with the pretentious fat man in sun glasses, all the scenes of people having meals in cafes.

The memories I have are associated around the stars: Seberg calling out "New York Herald Tribune"; Belmondo wiping his hand across the lips; Belmondo's death; the long scene of the two of them in bed.

It's sexy and exciting but surely film critics have been over-impressed by the pop culture references: the Cahiers du Cinema in jokes, Godard's own past as a critic, the references to Monogram and Bogart. I liked it - I just hate having it shoved down my throat.

Movie review – “Two for the Wave” (2010) ***1/2

Fascinating documentary about the relationship of the two biggest stars of the French New Wave – Francois Truffaut and Jean Luc Godard. Both film critics turned directors, they were friends who helped each other at various stages of their career – actually, it seems Truffaut helped Godard more than the other way around, providing a story and guarantee for Breathless, discovering Jean-Pierre Leaud who Godard used in several films, providing constant public support. Godard repaid this by becoming more militant, angry and eventually slagging Truffaut off so much that Truffaut cut off contact. 

That mightn’t have been how it happened but I believed it from the footage here – Godard was a doctor’s son and banker’s grandson, well off and sulky, given to radicalism and Marxism, seemingly humorless (he reminded me of Che Guevera) while Truffaut was a genuine working class battler, a humanist. Spoilt middle class brats always became the most hard core militants.

Some of the footage is terrific – interviews from the 60s, press conference from the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, Leaud’s audition tape for The 400 Blows. A little more context wouldn’t have gone astray – and I didn’t get that chick flicking through the old newspaper cuttings. I’m surprise Truffaut and Goddard battled so much over Leaud – he wasn’t that good an actor, at least not as an adult, but then I guess it was more symbolism than anything else.

Book review – “Sun and Shadow” by Jean-Pierre Aumont

Aumont belongs to that sub-category of movie stars – foreigners who went to Hollywood and usually played second leads in between some interesting marriages. Michael Wilding is another I can think of in this category. Nonetheless, he had a fascinating life and I really enjoyed his memoirs. 

 

Aumont has been blessed by good and bad fortune. He had only been acting for a short time before being picked to act in a play by Jean Cocteau and Louis Jouvet. Good luck. His looks ensured he enjoyed a steady film career as a leading man during the 1930s (good luck), until interrupted by war. (Bad luck) He was on leave visiting his dying mother (bad luck) when his platoon was mostly wiped out (good luck). He managed to get a visa to America from Vichy France, was picked to act in a play with Katherine Cornell (through a French theatre acquaintance) which didn’t go to Broadway, but got him film offers. (Good luck). He signed with MGM, starred in two films (no support roles for him), the most notable of which was The Cross of Lorraine (good luck), then went to fight for the Free French in Africa, Italy and France. Real service too – driving tanks, in amidst running into Marlene Dietrich; he was injured twice. (Good and bad luck)

 

He returned to Hollywood, where his reign as a leading man didn’t last long (very few French accented actors have had a long reign as a star - Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier, maybe Louis Jourdan). However he did carve out a decent career as a second lead, in films like Lili and Hilda Crane. He also worked in France and on stage (including Broadway)… and even had a nightclub act (despite the fact he wasn’t the best singer). 

 

Aumont is still perhaps best remembered (in a certain segment of the population, anyway) for his marriage to Maria Montez – the barely had started dating when he proposed, right before he took off for 18 months of service, but they were happy until her tragic early death (an odd one: a heart attack in a hot bath). Montez comes across a bit sketchy in this account - nice, beautiful, eccentric, devoted to her husband and astrologers. Apparently she and Aumont were going to star in Orphee for Jean Cocteau - the mind boggles. (They couldn't get the financing then the next they heard of it he was making it with Jean Marais.) Her death is one of the most moving sections of the book, though. 

 

Aumont later married Marisa Pavan, and was also in the 40s engaged to Hedy Lamarr; he also hints at a romance with Grace Kelly (who was alive when this book came out). His daughter Tina became an actor and was married to Christian Marquand (like Aumont, a French star who played some support roles in Hollywood). 

 

Aumont was probably too good looking to write a really good book – I get the feeling he wasn’t as an accomplished raconteur in the way, say, Michael Caine or David Niven was. He’s a bit up himself at times, constantly referring to the fact that he got better reviews on stage than his female co-stars. 

 

 But there’s lots to enjoy. Particularly strong is a chapter on starring with Vivien Leigh on Broadway, which includes some astute analysis of Leigh’s personality and acting, as well as an account of her breakdown; also performing with Al Pacino on Broadway (apparently Al loved to paraphrase), working with Cocteau, Louis Jouvet, Joan Littlewood (in a play on the Congo Crisis), and Francois Truffaut on Day for Night (he says things like “the problem with real life is it’s so badly directed” – very Truffaut – the director wrote the foreword to this book); the elongated shoot that was Castle Keep. Worth a read.

Movie review - "Love on the Run" (1979) **

The fifth and final installment of Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series feels at times like one of those compilation episodes they make on television series when they are running behind schedule: there is a rough sort of plot (Antoine's getting divorced, sees an ex hop on a train and follows her) but the film is mostly flashbacks, either to earlier films or new scene shot so they seem to be flashbacks to earlier films. It's interesting to watch since the same actors repeat their roles - instead of an actor playing "young" or a different actor who get the actual actor playing the actor roles. It also reminds you that Jean-Pierre Léaud, an OK actor as an adult, was exceptional in The 400 Blows (it would be interesting to see a documentary contrasting child actors who made it as adults eg Roddy McDowall, Dean Stockwell, Natalie Wood - to see whether they got better or more inhibited or whatever).

It's nice to see the clips again and I guess it brings things full circle, but Truffaut is slumming here - only once, when Antoine talks to his mother's ex lover, does the piece approach any depth. (It's like it needed a death or something not just an amiable divorce). A surprisingly large amount of screen time is spent on Antoine's ex, Colette (Marie-France Pisier, who co-wrote the script which is maybe why she gets so much screen time - she might be more familiar to American audiences since she played the lead in The Other Side of Midnight) - she gets her own story that doesn't involve Antoine (a lawyer who is also a high class hooker... c'mon Truffaut, stop it with the hookers, already). Dorothee, who plays Antoine's nice new girlfriend, was a children's television host in the 80s so presumably her topless scene has given the film a sort of pop culture immortality there.

Movie review - "The Man Who Loved Women" (1977) ***

When Aussies/Poms/Yanks think of French studs they normally imagine smooth-talking Charles Boyer types, dinner jackets, strong knowledge of wine and good dancing. The French take another view - studs in their films look world weary, as if they smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and drink wine for breakfast, look very tragic and well-read, as if they saw someone killed in Marseilles once and are on first name terms with several prostitutes. 50 year old Charles Dennard is the man who can't help himself when it comes to women - the first encounter we see him in engaged in borders on stalking (actually it is stalking - he uses deception to get a woman's phone number) but his success rate is fairly high.

This goes along briskly enough with that seemingly effortless Truffaut style, where the charm gradually creeps up on you. Truffaut seems a little uneasy at the criticism a sympathetic film about a womaniser would receive, so there is a scene after Dennard writes his memoirs where people at a publishing house sit around and chat about his character - is he good/bad, is he playing for sympathy (some pre-emptive criticisms - Woody Allen and David Williamson use the same technique). I wish the role of Brigitte Fossey, who is charming as Dennard's editor, were a bit bigger, she doesn't come in until the last 15-20 minutes. I really enjoyed the subplot about his crazy married girlfriend - I kept expecting her to be the one who killed him, but it doesn't happen (hey, she even takes part in a threesome). It is a bit pat in that the Reason For His Behaviour is Leslie Caron (though to be fair the film doesn't explicity say this).

Movie review – “Bed and Board” (1970) **1/2

There is a sort of masochistic school among some auteurs when illuminating their lives to have their re-created selves be these “oh I’m such a bad person, I have affairs and my wife she’s so perfect and isn’t life sad”. The first half of this involves newly married life between Antoine and his new wife, and it ambles along charmingly enough, with little plot (Antoine goes job hunting again and gets another wacky job – parking model boats), set in a neo family of an apartment block with some colourful neighbours, and plenty of shots of Claudette Jane’s legs. It gets more serious in the second half, when the wife has a baby (powerful scene where she says she doesn’t want him to stay with her the night after she’s given birth), and Antoine has an affair with a Japanese lady (another powerful scene when the wife finds out – I didn’t think that sort of thing bothered the French?). Antoine acts like such a prick (he even goes back to prostitutes again) that even considerable charm of Jean-Pierre Leaud starts to fade. I can’t help wish Truffaut had based the character a bit more on himself – at least he’d be doing something interesting like making films or being a critic instead of moping around like a loser (he does start to write a novel).

Movie review – “Stolen Kisses” (1968) ***

Truffaut’s alter ego finds love after being dishonourably discharged from the army in Paris in the late 60s. Many critics have written love letters about this film, which I don’t think it deserves – it is sweet and charming and all that and has a wistful atmosphere, but it is episodic and sort of ambles along. There isn’t a real plot apart from the hero going to work at a detective agency.
I think maybe because it’s about a nerd who does pretty good with women all things considered (he gets the girl and she’s gorgeous and also gets to bang his boss’ hot wife and one of his co-workers wants to have it off with him) and most film critics are nerds.
I do have to say I enjoyed the film more as it went along. Claudette Jane is enchanting as the girl, who tries to avoid Antoine except when he’s off chasing someone else whereupon she chases him. But the best performance is from later Bond villain Michael Lonsdale as the boss who wants to know why everyone hates him – this is a great character.
I guess it’s French in that the hero, even though he doesn’t have much money and is mooning over these women, still has funds and the time to have sex with hookers. The lead actor achieves the difficult task of making the lead character likeable.