Tagline: There is no evidence. There are no witnesses. But for one, there is no doubt.
Storyline: Paroki St. Nicholas pada tahun 1964 di Bronx, pendeta karismatik Father Flynn berusaha menerapkan aturan yang berbeda dari yang sudah terbentuk oleh Sister Aloysius Beauvier. Kepala sekolah wanita ini terlalu percaya pada kekuatan ketakutan dan kedisiplinan dalam mendidik murid-muridnya yang perlahan mulai membangkang. Masuknya siswa kulit hitam pertama bernama Donald Miller semakin menimbulkan kekisruhan yang berbuntut pada kecurigaan Sister Aloysius akan perilaku menyimpang Father Flynn. Sister James yang masih muda dan belum berpengalaman semakin bingung menentukan sikap di antara keduanya. Benarkah tuduhan tersebut dapat mencoreng nama paroki terkait sekaligus memecat Donald sebagai Putra Altar?
Nice-to-know: John Patrick Shanley sempat menawarkan peran Sister James kepada Natalie Portman tetapi menolaknya. Sebaliknya Oprah Winfrey tertarik peran Mrs. Miller tetapi sang sutradara menolaknya tanpa memberi kesempatan samasekali.
Cast: Tak banyak yang tahu bahwa Meryl Streep pernah mengisi suara dalam The Ant Bully (2006). Kali ini ia bermain sebagai Sister Aloysius Beauvier yang konservatif dan penuh rasa curiga. Pernah memenangkan Oscar kategori Aktor Terbaik lewat Capote (2005), Philip Seymour Hoffman berperan sebagai Father Brendan Flynn yang mendapat tantangan berat. Terakhir kali mendukung Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), Amy Adams kebagian tokoh simpatik Sister James. Carrie Preston sebagai Christine Hurley John Costelloe sebagai Warren Hurley Lloyd Clay Brown sebagai Jimmy Hurley Joseph Foster sebagai Donald Miller (as Joseph Foster II)
Director: Sejauh ini baru film kedua bagi John Patrick Shanley setelah Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) yang juga ditulisnya sendiri
Comment: Nilai jual utama film ini adalah aktor-aktris utamanya yaitu Meryl Streep dan Phillip Seymour Hoffman yang sama-sama berkaliber Oscar. Dan mereka memenuhi harapan tersebut dengan menyajikan akting yang brilian dengan pertukaran dialog yang menarik. Salah satunya adalah menjelang ending dimana terjadi percakapan lebih kurang 10 menit antara Sister Aloysius dan Father Flynn yang sangat menguras emosi mulai dari kemarahan dan keangkuhan yang berbaur sempurna dengan pendakwaan dan pembelaan diri. Bagaimana hubungan mereka terus berkembang dari berusaha saling adaptasi dari cara yang normal hingga menjadi ketidak sukaan yang saling bertentangan. Penulis sekaligus sutradara Shanley bekerja dengan efektif dalam menjaga plot cerita agar tetap menarik dengan setting Paroki yang kaku sunyi yang mendukung serta penokohan yang simple tetapi sangat menggigit itu. Peran Adams sebagai supporting character juga cukup efektif, sedikit mewakili karakter penonton yang netral di antara hitam dan putih. Jelas sebuah kinerja tim yang pantas sekali dilirik para juri ajang penghargaan manapun di tahun 2008 itu. Konflik yang dihadirkan dalam Doubt memang cenderung sensitif dan controversial. Namun semua itu disampaikan dengan cara yang halus tetapi tidak kehilangan ketajamannya dalam bercerita. Sebuah contoh dimana setiap manusia memiliki sudut pandang dan harga diri tersendiri yang terkadang dituntut untuk mempertahankannya sampai titik tertentu tanpa peduli konsep benar salah yang mendasarinya. Film ini memberikan contoh yang teramat realistis untuk kasus tersebut.
Durasi: 100 menit
U.S. Box Office: $33,422,556 till April 2009
Overall: 8 out of 10
Movie-meter: Art can’t be below 6 6-poor 6.5-poor but still watchable 7-average 7.5-average n enjoyable 8-good 8.5-very good 9-excellent
Quotes: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: You want to make this leather smell good, don't you? Giuseppe Baldini: Why of course, and so it shall. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: With Amor and Psyche by Pelissier? Giuseppe Baldini: What ever gave you the absurd idea I would use someone else's perfume? Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: It's all over you.
Storyline: Pada abad ke-18 di Paris, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille terbuang oleh ibunya semenjak lahir. Beranjak dewasa ia mempunyai penciuman yang sangat tajam yang kemudian digunakannya untuk bekerja di sebuah toko parfum terkenal milik Giuseppe Baldini. Dengan kepandaiannya, Jean-Baptiste mampu meracik parfum-parfum beraroma baru hasil temuannya. Sayangnya rasa penasaran dan kreatifitasnya menuntunnya mencari formula-formula baru bagi parfumnya yang terkadang tidak biasa. Plus obsesinya mengabadikan kecantikan wanita bisa jadi menjerumuskannya semakin dalam sebagai orang yang berbahaya.
Nice-to-know: Ridley Scott sempat dikabarkan tertarik dengan proyek ini bertahun-tahun yang lalu dimana Tim Burton juga dipertimbangkan sebagai sutradaranya disamping Martin Scorsese, Milos Forman dan Stanley Kubrick.
Cast: Ben Whishaw sebagai Jean-Baptiste Grenouille Dustin Hoffman sebagai Giuseppe Baldini Karoline Herfurth sebagai The Plum Girl Rachel Hurd-Wood sebagai Laura Alan Rickman sebagai Antoine Richis Sara Forestier sebagai Jeanne
Director: Sutradara Tom Tykwer sempat menggarap salah satu segmen berjudul "Faubourg Saint-Denis" dalam Paris, je t'aime.
Comment: Film ini menyajikan tema yang tidak biasa apalagi dengan citarasa Eropa, rasanya bermimpi bisa ditayangkan di bioskop Indonesia. Namun hal ini tidak menghalangi saya untuk menyaksikannya juga sebab storyline nya sangat menarik bagi saya. Menyimpan penasaran karena apa yang akan disajikan lebih? Drama kah? Thriller kah? Slasher kah? Sutradara Tykwer menjawabnya dengan brilian. Ia sajikan thriller halus yang kental dengan unsur drama terutama dalam menyikapi sisi kemanusiaan yang terdalam sekalipun. Sinematografi yang lembut berpadu lengkap dengan elemen-elemen metafora yang dominan di sepanjang film. Sangat cantik! Whishaw mempotretkan karakter pemuda cerdas yang terobsesi pada kecantikan wanita dengan luar biasa. Ekspresinya yang dingin sekaligus sorot matanya yang tajam tetap menyiratkan kepolosan seorang remaja yang suka bereksperimen. Kita sendiri bingung apakah harus mengkategorikan Jean-Baptiste sebagai seorang psikopat atau bukan? Narasi John Hurt yang mengantarkan cerita dari awal hingga akhir semakin melengkapi storytelling yang gemilang dan menarik untuk diikuti selayaknya sebuah simfoni orchestra yang sempurna. Endingnya yang provokatif tergolong tidak biasa dan di luar dugaan saya. Namun tetap masuk akal walau bisa dikatakan absurd. Semua itu menjadikan Perfume : The Story Of A Murderer sebuah pengalaman menonton karya Eropa yang mumpuni dengan keindahan sekaligus kemisteriusan. Bagi yang sudah membaca novelnya, bisa jadi film ini sangat mendekati penulisannya. Anyone?
Durasi: 145 menit
U.S. Box Office: $2,208,939 till end of Feb 2007.
Overall: 8 out of 10
Movie-meter: Art can’t be below 6 6-poor 6.5-poor but still watchable 7-average 7.5-average n enjoyable 8-good 8.5-very good 9-excellent
Fair warning, I'm going to discuss pretty much the entire movie, so if you don't want to know the details, stick your fingers in your ears and sing, "La, la, la, la!" for the next half hour.
“The More the Merrier” (1943) brings the war story back to this side of pond now that the U.S. had entered the fighting and Americans had learned what it was to be, sort of, deprived. Americans had a different experience from Mrs. Miniver and family, and we handled The War with not so much with a stiff upper lip, as with a wisecrack. Tomorrow, December 7th, marks the anniversary of our reason for joining the fighting.
The main gag driving the film is the wartime housing shortage. For the first time in U.S. history, masses of people were moving all over the country at the same time. Servicemen and women were leaving home for military camps and then to points of embarkation. Young brides, those that could, followed inductee husbands to new posts stateside. Big cities called to a still mostly rural America to fill slots in war factories and civil government.
“The More the Merrier” is set in Washington, D.C., and teases us not only on the housing shortage, but on the befuddled bureaucracy of a democratic republic. The faux travelogue at the beginning reminds us we are in a city disparagingly once described as a place of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
That used to be a joke. Son.
The second running theme is introduced when Charles Coburn, a consultant to the government on the housing shortage, admires the statue of Admiral David Farragut, whose famous directive during the American Civil War at the Battle of Mobile Bay you’ll recall was, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” It is Mr. Coburn’s motto, too. He gets his own affairs and the affairs of others which are none of his business briskly managed with this war cry.
It also reflects wartime cheerleading to a frightened audience.
He shouts this motto so often, that one wonders if his exuberance is really because he gets to say the word “damn” with impunity. Evidently this caused less fuss than when Clark Gable uttered the cuss word in “Gone with the Wind” (1939) a mere four years earlier. You could say the dam broke.
Several other themes weave their way through this film, like the shortage of men leading to more women leaving the home and entering the workforce. The shortage of men also makes them a valued commodity, and turns women from the pursued into the pursuers. There is a scene in the movie where a line of women wait to punch in a time clock, and they tease a lone young man with whistles and catcalls that unnerves him into running away.
Charles Coburn has arrived in the city too early for the hotel reservation made for him, so he tricks his way past a line of applicants to take the room for rent offered by Jean Arthur. She is also a government worker, and she has a small flat with an extra bedroom that she has chosen to rent to serve her country.
Jean Arthur was nominated for an Oscar for this role, and Charles Coburn won Best Supporting for his role as Mr. Dingle. They had first teamed up for “The Devil and Miss Jones” (1941), and their wonderfully silly rapport is repeated here. He becomes a nosy, pushy sort of fairy godfather, not merely because he just likes to run everything, but also because he senses immediately, as do we, that Miss Arthur is drowning in her own lack of spontaneity. As she wails later on in the film, “I’m not the kind of person anything happens to!”
It is not until Coburn barges his way into her life that she begins to realize how empty her life has been.
She is reticent to take him on as a roomer because she prefers to have a woman living with her. She finally agrees to let him stay, but adds a caveat that they must be careful not to be seen coming and going together. Coburn’s rakish, proud, smile is so cute as he begins to understand she is afraid the neighbors will think they are shacking up, just one of the many instances they play off each other so well. He thanks her for the compliment.
More than most other very fine, but more “stagy” actresses in this glamorous era, Jean Arthur played her roles with a natural and almost otherworldly believability. She is identified mainly as a comedienne, but I think she was really a dramatic actress in comic roles, and that gave her a multidimensional quality far beyond just broadly playing clowns. Someone else in this role might appear shallow, and buffoonish. Miss Arthur makes this brittle woman interesting, and lovably obtuse. Along with her famous sure-fire comedic timing she adds a touch of pathos.
Perhaps her ability to remain so deeply in character, so locked in the moment, was a defense mechanism that enabled Jean Arthur, extremely shy and insecure in real life, to do her job. Many of her roles, coincidentally or not so coincidentally, were women who found themselves undergoing a metamorphosis, responding to deeply buried passions when stimulated by challenges, crisis, and in this film at least, a strong case of sexual arousal brought on by Joel McCrea. That happens later.
First, a little slapstick. A long scene (which I would have loved to have seen in rehearsal), of Coburn’s and Arthur’s first morning together, each with a timed set of tasks to accomplish before they head off to their respective jobs. Coburn calls it the steeplechase. A running gag involving his pants that keep disappearing and reappearing is mapped out well, and looks like a silent movie scenario.
Another funny bit is when he locks himself out of the apartment while Jean is in the bathroom brushing her teeth. Here’s where we get another glimpse at Miss Arthur’s unadorned believability. Yes, the toothpaste froth around her mouth dripping like a rabid dog is funny; she is not afraid of looking foolish. However, look at her eyes.
Though she looks into the mirror, it is an empty gaze. She inspects her ear as she scrubs her teeth. She looks like her mind is wandering. This is exactly what we do when we brush our teeth. Our minds wander. We are thinking about work, about picking up the kids at school, about what to wear, but the last thing we think about while brushing our teeth is brushing our teeth. She was meticulous about being natural.
“War brings people closer together,” Mr. Coburn states, and in large measure it did. We will see in the film numerous examples of crowding and inconvenience that would probably send people today, who seem to have a greater sense of entitlement, into rants and possible acts of revenge. Back then the greatest ranting, revenge, and sense of entitlement was to be found in Hitler or Mussolini. Nobody wanted to be like those guys.
Another aspect of life then that does not translate to today is the running gag on awkward grammar. Coburn shows his comic finesse with little more than dropping prepositions after a moment of wondering what to do with the leftovers, such as “because she borrowed it to go to it. In.”
He does this a few times and it’s quite funny, but today in a world of, “Uh, I’m, like, you know, whatever…” people speaking stupidly is the norm. When stupid is normal, it’s not funny. Also, breaking social rules is not an effective gag anymore when we live in a society where pretty much any behavior is accepted or tolerated. Breaking the rules is not daring or funny when there are no rules. (This is not meant to be a societal judgment, only a comment about script conventions.)
Obviously, Jean Arthur’s puritan worries about being caught living with men is also no longer standard today, so that joke may stretch very thin here. But perhaps the biggest theme moving the plot is also one that takes some translation. The War. It’s the reason why they’re all together here, it’s reason why Jean is renting her spare room, it’s the reason why Coburn and Joel McCrea need it, it’s the reason why the plot thickens, complications arise, new worlds open up, dreams are dashed, and why they must go on in spite of everything.
But, where was The War, exactly? Mrs. Miniver had it in her back garden, in her destroyed dining room, in the body of her dead daughter-in-law sprawled on the floor. When the enemy arrived in our country, it was as prisoners, and they were tucked safely into POW camps. Most people never saw them.
Here the war is less an effort to survive (though it would be if things got any worse), but more a sense of guilt and unrelenting responsibility. It may be difficult for younger audiences to comprehend how a war fought somewhere else could be so pervasive, could dominate every facet of daily life here, and demand personal sacrifice unheard of today.
We know of the tremendous sacrifices of service personnel in that war. What few people recall today is that a good part of the civilian population worked themselves nearly to death during those years. They had little support, only constant reminding not to complain. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
But, this is a comedy, so we hint at these subjects with typical American wisecracks. This is what makes this film so quintessentially American. We may exhibit a bit of awkwardness trying to interpret Mrs. Miniver’s wartime Britain, but here were are on home turf.
Flippancy makes things seem normal even when the world is upside down. Flippancy covers immense national anxiety, perhaps as much as Jean Arthur's smooth comic timing masks hers.
Back to Jean and her roomie. We discover a hint of loneliness in this rigid woman’s austere personality when she writes in her diary about Coburn, “At least someone around the house to break the silence.” He senses her social backwardness, and decides to play matchmaker when Joel McCrea stands out on the sidewalk with his suitcase and a large propeller over his shoulder. Coburn rents his half of his room, which has two beds in it, to McCrea.
Joel McCrea, as we will learn in small bits, is a mechanic from an airplane factory out in California, sent here to deliver what is probably classified aeronautic equipment to a Washington government department. In a few days, he is to be sent to North Africa as a sergeant on special assignment. Coburn decides Mr. McCrea is an eligible bachelor, but being eligible during World War II also meant eligible for military service. McCrea knows his dance card is full for the next few years, and he has no intention of getting involved with anybody in the meantime.
It is another intrusion of The War into this movie. McCrea knows where he is going, but he is still lost, between engagements. His life is not his own.
Joel moves in, and Coburn tries to find a way to explain it to Jean. Mr. Coburn’s and Mr. McCrea’s constantly calling each other by the wrong name is also a well-maintained running gag and smoothly done.
There is another slapstick scene of Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea not realizing the other is there, lots of just missing each other as they move from room to room. There is a cute moment where she is in her bedroom dancing to a rumba version of “What is This Thing Called Love”, glancing backward at her bum to see if she is sexy. It is our first clue there might be more to this schedule-obsessed wallflower.
Meanwhile, Joel, standing in the hall in his bathrobe, clutches his toiletries kit and starts to rumba as well. They are apart, but it is as if they dance together, a mating dance. We are, incidentally, treated to a tantalizing shot of Joel’s bare legs. More to come later.
A note here about rumba music (Yes, yes, I know. Just shut up already and talk about the “damn” movie.) A craze for Latin music began in the late 1930s and exploded during the war years, partly in response to our Pan-American re-awakening that we needed some allies in our own hemisphere. Maybe sometime we can go into the conga craze in movies. (You with the pencil, put that on our list of things to do.)
("The Devil and Miss Jones")
Just about everything you see in old movies is there for a reason. Well, maybe not everything…does it seem to you that the cropped top Jean is wearing in the rumba scene exposing her bare midriff is the same one she wore in the beach scene in “The Devil and Miss Jones” (1941)?
("The More the Merrier")
Back to Jean and Joel. Eventually each discovers the other and Mr. Coburn has some ‘splaing to do. Another cute bit with proper speech versus colloquial slang where the phrase, “six bucks” is passed back and forth between them.
“Well, give him back his six bucks.”
“I don’t have the six bucks. He gave you the six bucks.”
And Coburn dangles more prepositions, “And I’ll have the money to pay him. With.”
It’s only funny if you understand it’s bad English.
Jean relents and lets Joel stay. The next morning, our trio crams together in a little kitchen nook. Jean tries to keep to her precise schedule of eating her egg and getting ready for work, but here two big, hearty men sit down, invade her personal space, share her toast and make breakfast small talk. She is awkward at social banter, and we see her discomfort. She gradually displays a tentative willingness to be brought out of her shell that is as courageous as it is sweetly pathetic.
By the way, I love the dresser scarves in her apartment, that she has them. It’s such a miniscule touch that she wants things just so. She has precise standards. And the photograph of Abraham Lincoln on her desk.
She reveals she is engaged to a Mr. Pendergast, whom she always calls Mr. Pendergast. They chide her about his age, 42, and that he has kept her waiting at the altar nearly two years. We sense, and they know without meeting him yet, that Mr. Pendergast is a drip, whose career comes before Jean. When Joel gets on Jean’s nerves and the only bad thing she can think to call him is “messy”, he teases her that Mr. Pendergast must comb his hair constantly. She thinks she is putting Joel in his place when she retorts, “Mr. Pendergast has no hair!” and walks out.
Her “so, there!” moment falls dismally short of its mark, but she is saved from appearing ridiculous to the audience by stopping halfway down the stairs, glancing back, and thoughtfully half smiling to herself. They are now her boys, and they have become a kind of family.
Another wartime era moment is left to us when Jean Arthur boasts that Mr. Pendergast has had dinner at the White House, and Mr. Coburn replies, “Worst food in Washington.” By all accounts, during the Roosevelt years, it was.
One more topical war reference: Mr. Coburn uses the phrase “Eastern War Time”. Daylight saving time was established temporarily during World War I to save energy, and was re-introduced in 1942 for the same reason. We remained on daylight saving time the entire war, no changing the clocks, and this was referred to as War Time. (Somebody shut her up! Sit on her!)
On Sunday, the rooftops of D.C. become the playground of the apartment dwellers who all come up to catch some sun in an era where most people did not own cars, and even if you did, three gallons of gas per week was all you might be allotted by rationing.
Here’s Jean Arthur and co-workers driving in a car with an “A” gasoline rationing sticker on it, which would have allowed them about three gallons a week. Have a look here at this previous post on wartime gas rationing in the movies.
That wasn’t going to get you to the beach or out in the country for the day, even if pleasure motor trips were not banned by law (which they were). Off in the distance, we see the Capitol Dome, which we get several glimpses of in this movie. I suppose it’s like Paris: in the movies, every bedroom window has a view of the Eiffel Tower. Here it’s the Capitol Dome.
On the rooftops the neighbors pose for snapshots, read, paint, picnic, kids play war games with toy guns. War was probably the most popular child’s game during The War. While Toby Miniver clutches his cat’s tail in the backyard air raid shelter on another sound stage, these kids machine gun Charles Coburn for fun, who plays along and shoots back at them.
The “family” gathers on the roof with the Sunday paper and the portable record player, cushions and blankets. The director reminds us again how sexy Joel McCrea is by leaving him in the foreground in shorts and a beach robe opened to reveal his chest. In this world of government women, like Amazon warriors heading for the time clock, lazy, laconic Joel McCrea, must be, for this sweet pinup moment, the male Betty Grable. Like the small point about the dresser scarves, I love that he walks around in stocking feet, wearing white gym socks.
Jean sprawls on blanket nearby, knitting, and the boys read the Sunday funnies aloud to each other. She glances over them with a look that is half amused and half disapproving, like an elder sister forced to mind her younger brothers for the day.
Then Coburn really does the bratty kid brother act by reading her diary, and when she discovers, her “That was a miserable thing to do,” bleeds venom from her voice, and heartbreak because she has been humiliated. She learns what she has always suspected: it is risky to let people into her life.
She boots them out but later allows McCrea to remain because he has only a day left before he will join the Army and be shipped to Africa with his propeller.
Now we move into the romantic stage, for if it was Coburn that brought them together, his presence also keeps them apart. The family dynamic changes when a family member leaves, and both Joel and Jean grow up and discover each other now that they are on the island alone.
There’s a comically suspenseful scene when she waits for a call from Mr. Pendergast on whether or not he will decide to take her out on a date that evening. At a crucial moment, a teenage boy from downstairs named Morton, played by Stanley Clements, whom you may remember as the gang leader from “Going My Way” (1944), bursts in for advice from Jean. Note his “Jughead” hat (Archie Comics, you remember), which was popular among teens of that era. They took a man’s felt fedora hat, turned in up and cut the brim like a zigzag.
Don’t knock it. Someday tattoos are going to be funny.
He wants to know if he should join the Boy Scouts, and is as serious as if he were pondering joining the Army. She calls him her “fella”. Truly, they’re either too young or too old.
That was a song, by the way.
Eh, skip it. (I could sing it, but I won’t. I can see your attention is wavering.)
It’s a cute scene, and both Joel and Jean want to kill Morton for procrastinating. But Mr. Pendergast, who at last arrives to take Jean out for the evening, is the real party pooper.
But, the night is young, and Jean and Joel, and Mr. Coburn, and Mr. Pendergast all run into each other at a nightclub. Another cute moment when they are all sitting at a table, and a rumba plays in the distance. Both Jean and Joel, still seated, start to move their shoulders and succumb to the seductive rhythm. Mr. Coburn tells them to go dance so he can discuss business with Mr. Pendergast.
He keeps Mr. Pendergast, terrifically played with delightful self importance by Richard Gaines (who does a 180-degree turn in character when he plays Patrick Henry in “The Howards of Virginia” - see previous post), busy for the rest of the evening.
Jean sees Joel being ogled by a flock of other women, and she gets jealous and territorial in a way she never was over Mr. Pendergast. I love Mr. Gaines’ officious-sounding, radio announcer-quality voice. Mr. Pendergast, by the way, has a spectacularly ugly toupee that nobody mentions. It’s just there for all to see. Like the Capitol Dome.
When Joel escorts her home, we are treated to one of the most erotic and silly seduction scenes Hollywood ever produced. They walk down the street, passing lovers clutching each other in dark corners. They glance at these couples with interest and envy, as Jean tries to pry information out of Joel about his past, particularly his former girlfriends. She is apparently jealous of them, too. He takes her hand, her arm, puts his hand on her bare shoulder repeatedly as they walk all the while she smoothly, but without apparent alarm, plucks his hands from her person. It is like a dance.
They sit on the front steps of their apartment building, and talk more about her marriage plans with Mr. Pendergast. She continues to sing Mr. Pendergast’s praises while Joel slowly runs his hands over every part of her body the Production Code will let him. I don’t know how carefully this was rehearsed but some of it had to be improvised.
He clearly desires her, is doing everything but undressing her, but maintains a polite stream of conversation. If he just said “uh-huh” to her dialogue, as if ignoring what she is saying to him, it wouldn’t be as funny. Their equal determination to carry on the discipline of conversation despite their growing obsession with each other is a sparkling moment as comic as it is romantic. It’s like when they were doing the rumba separately, both preoccupied with their passions, but that time indulging them in secret.
Jean shows herself the master of both comedy and endearing emotion in this scene as she tries to soldier on through the proper social niceties and talking about her cousin’s stamp collection, battling to suppress her arousal as Joel explores her, kisses her neck, her hand, her bare shoulder. Her voice breaks. In perhaps the first spontaneous thing she ever did in her life, Jean takes Joel’s face in her hands and plants a kiss on him that makes him dizzy. Not bad for a first try. We have a feeling she’s been saving that one for a long time. They part breathlessly, but with polite formality, gathering bits of dignity they have left all over the steps.
The silliness never once lessens the steaminess of the scene. The sensuality never overwhelms the silliness. It’s a perfect marriage. THIS SCENE is why they call it “romantic comedy”.
Joel McCrea had, like Jean Arthur, a natural style so well suited to comedy, a quiet, light manner open to sudden dramatic shifts and surprising intensity. They were a great match, and this was their third and last film together. Another good scene, intimate and silly, is when they examine together all the compartments of the new travel bag he gives her. It’s really charming, with their low, quiet voices overlapping each other’s sentences, and you have to admire what two pros can do with a simple prop.
George Stevens directed this film, and responsible for much of its magic, worked particularly well with Jean Arthur. He also made her memorable final film “Shane” a decade later.
Early in the film, we are shown that the wall between her room and the spare bedroom is quite thin and Mr. Coburn and Jean can talk through the wall. Now, with Jean and Joel gone to their separate beds, we have a split screen effect of them in bed “together” that predates the similar device used in “Pillow Talk” (1959) with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. It is more erotic here, because they are not miles away in different apartments. Also, because they have more at stake. The scene decompresses from sexual tension into sorrowful tenderness when, after they have confessed their love for each other, realize that there’s not just a wall between them, it’s The War.
Yes, The War was that pervasive. It entered the bedroom as easily as it slipped into the workplace, the school, the wallet, the conscience, the subconscious. There was no escape.
It's sweet that she wears what looks like a gardenia in her hair for the evening out, and does not remove it when she goes to bed. If I wore a gardenia in my hair to bed, I'd wake up with petals up my nose.
Not that I've tried it. But I might sometime if curiosity got the better of me.
It might even be worth the embarrassement of going to the ear, nose, and throat doctor the next day to get the gardenia petals out of my nose.
There’s a bit more slapstick to go when suspicious young Morton has turned Joel into the FBI as a spy, another crowded cab ride shows us that gas rationing affected cabbies, too, who were not allowed to drive unless chair cabs were completely full of passengers, and when Joel and Jean succumb to a marriage of convenience arranged by Mr. Coburn to keep her reputation spotless. Lots of great dialogue, but this post is already stretching beyond the state line.
The last scene (yes, I know I’m telling you everything here. Don’t shush me. You’ve shushed your last shush, as Jean would say), brings the culmination of all the wartime crowding, the separation of lovers, and Admiral Farragut’s “damn the torpedoes” attitude.
Jean, miserable and crying over her cheap fake marriage, changes into a sexy negligee to sleep alone again. Joel goes dejectedly to the spare room to pack because he’s due to report for duty in a few hours. He demands she not take in any more roomers because of the riffraff she might attract, and she complains that he is already crabbing like a husband. A poignant moment when he pulls off his sprig of lily of the valley from his suit lapel (to match her wedding bouquet) and mutters, “Well, I am a husband…at least until it’s annulled.”
She cries and they lamely try to pick a fight with each other, when both suddenly realize the wall between their rooms is gone. Mr. Coburn has had workmen tear it out. Astonished, their reserve crumbles like the drywall.
Anguish turns to comedy, and then to sex when Joel and Jean, adopt slow, sly smiles. Jean’s crying has ceased, but she manufactures a few fake wails as a kind of mating call to demand comforting. Joel, who we’ve known from the beginning is her perfect mate, happily responds to the call of duty like any good bridegroom.
Full speed ahead.
But only until The War intrudes again.
Come back Thursday for our final post on “war stories” when we jump back across the pond to England and see that wartime deception has led to tragedy for Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones in “Love Letters.”
Have a look below at the silly seduction scene. Let me know what you think. (Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the page to mute the music so you can hear the video.)
What can possibly go wrong with a romance that stars the inimitable Shammi Kapoor and the charming Nutan? I'd say, a lot of things. If you are not sure of what you want your film to be--- a fresh love triangle, a sad drama or a thriller, if you do not have any idea of how to weave different elements together, if you lack the art of copying from other films craftily and if you allocate too much
Quotes: Katie: It wasn't Witchy! It made her feel better.
Storyline: Keluarga Rey terlihat seperti keluarga Amerika pada umumnya, harmonis dan berkecukupan. Rumah mereka cukup mewah dan berisikan suami istri Dan & Kristi, putri Dan dari pernikahan sebelumnya yaitu Ali serta pembantunya Martine dan anjing kesayangan Abby. Kebahagiaan semakin bertambah setelah lahirnya putra pertama mereka, Hunter. Tepat setahun setelah kelahiran Hunter, pada suatu hari seisi rumah mereka diacak-acak walau tidak kehilangan suatu barang apapun. Dan yang penasaran akhirnya memutuskan memasang kamera CCTV pada seantero ruangan. Apa yang akan terekam kemudian bisa jadi menggetarkan anda semua!
Nice-to-know: Rumah yang menjadi setting film ini dimiliki sutradara Oren Peli yang kemudian merenovasinya dalam skala besar setelah kesuksesan film pertamanya.
Cast: Brian Boland sebagai Daniel Sprague Grayden sebagai Kristi Molly Ephraim sebagai Ali Katie Featherston sebagai Katie Seth Ginsberg sebagai Brad Micah Sloat sebagai Micah Vivis Cortez sebagai Martine
Director: Merupakan film feature ketiga sejauh ini bagi Tod Williams yang diawali dengan The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (1998).
Comment: Tahun 2009 sebuah film indie berbujet rendah yang mencetak sukses besar sekaligus eforia hebat di seluruh dunia, Paranormal Activity bisa jadi banyak mengilhami konsep film-film found footage berikutnya. Setahun berlalu dan kali ini anda akan disuguhi prekuelnya, saya ulangi lagi prekuel, bukan sekuel! Film tersebut bisa jadi membosankan tetapi berhasil menciptakan momen-momen mengejutkan yang tidak pernah anda saksikan sebelumnya. Dan jika anda menyukainya maka dipastikan anda akan menyukai yang satu ini juga. Fokus dari Micah dan Katie akan beralih pada Kristi dan Daniel yang notabene masih saudara kandung sekaligus iparnya. Bukan hanya mereka, masih ada Ali, Hunter, Martine, Brad dan seekor anjing Abby. Itulah sebabnya karakterisasi disini lebih variatif dan tidak terlalu monoton. Semuanya bermain natural walau harus diakui kharisma Grayden masih di bawah Featherston sebagai leading femalenya. Si batita sendiri yang dimainkan oleh si kembar William Juan Prieto dan Jackson Xenia Prieto dipastikan akan mencuri perhatian anda. Mood film dibangun sedemikian rupa untuk lebih menakuti anda dengan setting yang lebih luas mulai dari tangga, gudang, kamar tidur bayi, dapur, ruang makan hingga kolam renang. Mata anda akan ditantang untuk mencari "keanehan" pada gambar-gambar yang tertangkap pencahayaan malam hari. Mengasyikkan sekaligus mendebarkan, bukan? Strategi yang jitu untuk menjaga audiens dari rasa kantuk yang mungkin muncul. Setelah apa yang ditunggu-tunggu hadir bisa jadi anda terlompat dari kursi, bukan dari apa yang anda lihat tetapi lebih karena apa yang anda dengar. Berbagai suara yang ditampilkan diyakini mampu mendirikan bulu kuduk anda. Sutradara Williams memang menggunakan format yang sama dengan originalnya. Namun bukan berarti tidak ada kejutan dalam Paranormal Activity 2. Link yang terhubung dengan film garapan Oren Peli dahulu itu menjadi jelas sewaktu mendekati endingnya, apa yang sesungguhnya menjadi misteri antara kakak beradik Katie dan Kristi. Twist yang menutup film ini mungkin tidak terlalu shocking tetapi cukup untuk membuat mulut anda ternganga. Secara keseluruhan, prekuel ini lebih menarik bagi saya karena intensitas yang "lebih" berwarna.
Durasi: 90 menit
U.S. Box Office: $83,583,230 till end of Nov 2010.
Overall: 7.5 out of 10
Movie-meter: Art can’t be below 6 6-poor 6.5-poor but still watchable 7-average 7.5-average n enjoyable 8-good 8.5-very good 9-excellent
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