This movie shows how way behind France the USA was in 1907 in film-making. In fact, most of the movies being shown in the nickelodeons that had multiplied all over the US in that year were from France, and even most of the output of the American Lubin company were copies of or just pirated French movies. Pathe in France was the first real movie studio to be up on its feet. When you compare the sophistication their The Life and Passion of Christ, made the same year, with this Ben Hur, it's astonishing to think that things were going to completely turn around within a decade. This movie is really worth seeing though; it's an unforgettable experience! Particularly the chariot race where we see even more than ten, even more than twenty even, people wave their arms up and down for several minutes and there is a brief blur of a chariot going by every now and then, until the card suddenly comes up to say The Victory of Ben Hur. The camera is completely static and the actors just wave their arms around in front of a stage set, endlessly. The 'Ben Hur Goes to the Galleys' section is just that, people waving their arms up and down against each other interminably, when Ben Hur is being arrested, in a house. No boat. No sea. And then straight into the 'chariot race', which at least was filmed from an angle, to try and keep the chariot in camera for a fraction of a second longer. But at least they made something! And there they still are, and continue to be, though they have all died, gesturing forever in silence.
Reviews
6 Reviews
The Notorious Bettie Page
(2005)
Surprisingly and pleasantly sweet and delightful
5 April 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Beautifully made with a wonderful performance from Gretchen Moll capturing such a stainless plain happiness in her work, and the recreations of the little movies and the photographs are perfectly made and often hilarious. According to Harron they used film stock that is no longer produced and fifties style studio lighting even for the outside locations to give the colour portions its distinctive look. Bettie Page saw the movie at Hugh Heffner's house (she is now eighty-three) with the producers there, but not the director, in case it got awkward if she didn't like it. She apparently did like it up until the official inquiry, which she found unsettling. Some great costumes too. The idea for the movie started in 1993, but this was worth the wait. The portrait of her never seems to ring false in reference to all those images and snippets of (dreadful) movies that many of us will have already seen. It would make an interesting companion piece with Goodnight and Goodluck, but much more pleasant viewing!
GamerZ
(2005)
Glasgow in California!
8 December 2005
I saw this at a game convention in Annaheim, southern California. Had to see good old Glasgow, but I was wondering whether the Californians would need subtitles. To my amazement they were all laughing and having a great time, and people told me afterwards that the dialect wasn't a problem for them because it was about being a human being and that communicated itself directly, and being gamers, they were all seeing themselves and the people they knew on the screen, so a great time was had by all. I thought the fantasy sequences were surprisingly hauntingly beautiful too. The lead actor has such a great face and he puts it and those eyes to good use! Hope this piece of Glasgow spreads further. I wonder how it would go down in Tokyo?
Arrowsmith
(1931)
Oh dear!
1 April 2005
Ronald Colman is dreadfully miscast, and far too old. He is supposed to be in his early twenties. At least as a teenager starting college Ford had the good idea of showing only the back of his head throughout a long scene, but the result is dreadful, particularly as a middle- aged voice is coming out of this first year student's invisible face. Gary Cooper, who played opposite Helen Hayes the following year in Farewell to Arms would have saved this movie, for me. I didn't believe Ronald Colman in many scenes. He seemed to be giving awkward readings of his lines. And the part where he is meant to be laughing in drunken despair is cringe- worthy. The final shot just looks as if he is stepping up to his mark in the studio with no intention of going any further, which is of course what he is doing, but it really looks as if it is what he is doing. This is Ford as the sorcerer's apprentice, making a frightful mess with his wands, before he mastered the art of miracle-making. The high points for me were those strong shots of Helen Hayes and a cane chair, earlier with a cigarette and later an open door, reminding me of the famous open door in The Searchers. But this clearly touched enough people in the Academy to be up for best picture of 1931. So a must for Oscar completest and a chance to see Helen Hayes in action during the early thirties. Also Myrna Loy, quietly choosing sexy clothing in her bedroom is a visual feast. And it's always nice to see Ronald Colman, even though he seems to have uncharacteristically failed to engage with his character for most of this rather clunky story.
Faded memory
28 March 2005
Isaw this when I was about ten or eleven, in our little house in Wales. My parents had read something about the program and decided to watch it. It made enough of an impression to remain with me in fragments. I had no idea who Dylan was. I remember him sitting on a doorstep or by a wall or something as the action went on in the foreground, and at some point he sang with the camera close on him. He was wearing his peaked cap. I don't even remember, or don't even know if I understood the story of the play. Now a Dylan obsessive, but the BBC wiped away so many things in its treasure trove. Now its just fragments in most people's memories. Presumably there is a script and stills still in existence.
Windtalkers
(2002)
Fascinating physics
13 February 2005
There seems to be a mysterious space-time divergence in this movie. A marine will regularly shoot six Japanese in a second without even having to aim, while half a dozen Japanese shooting at a marine only make the dust raise around his feet. Uncanny, or were they just being polite? There were some very powerful lungs around too.Whenever people are destroyed in the midst of a gigantic explosion, you can always hear their screams over the boom. I wouldn't like to be next to one of these guys in a football match, there'd be shattered ear-drums all around at a touch down. As the battles have all the traumatic effect of watching grown up kids playing at soldiers, it was delightful watching so many people being shot, a Peckinpah after-taste.
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