Fragments of Cinephilia, Pt. VI

Short thoughts on: Stanley Kramer • Howard Hawks • Vivre sa vie • Anatomy of a Murder • John Ford • The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Mouchette • Young Mr. Lincoln • Ordet • Jules and Jim

Here we are with another collection of IMDb comments, my sixth in about as many years (albeit my second in two months, so maybe you can expect more in the near future). As we move back in time, here we reach the period where I was really posting on those board prolifically, watching many movies and eager to share my thoughts in the primary forum I used at the time. While the previous (or should I say, chronologically, next?) round-up featured a lot of European films, here I seem to be at least as much focused on American classics. What do you think of these movies? Do you agree/disagree with my judgments? Since this was almost a decade ago, I'm not sure how frequently I concur with my conclusions, but it is interesting to revisit these earlier opinions.

Jules and Jim

This is an entry in "The Big Ones," a series covering 32 classic films for the first time on The Dancing Image. There are spoilers.

Even fifty years later, there aren't too many films like Jules and Jim. It exists as freely on its own terms as its mercurial heroine Catherine. Like her, it does not linger dutifully over necessities or continuities (in this sense, Manny Farber's classification of the film as "white elephant" art is confusing). It is restless, impatient, yet it can also luxuriate in a moment if the mood is right. It blows hot and cold: some passages are lyrical, others are exhausting or exhausted. This correspondence is ironic because, while evoking her essence in style, the film also conveys the impression that Catherine is unknowable. Her smile is as sphinxlike as that statue; Jules and Jim seem to pin her down convincingly, yet she's always leaping overboard to prove them wrong. Nonetheless, the title characters continue to explain her, to themselves, to one another, to their other women, even to Catherine herself, and she continues to act in impulsive defiance, into the fatal last reel. Essentially, Jules and Jim embodies Catherine's spirit in form, but that same spirit eludes it in content - the shape of the movie tells us more about who she is than she herself does.

Runaway Cinema 1962 - 1963 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 14

The fourteenth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films.
(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)

View "Chapter 14: Runaway Cinema"

Runaway Cinema

A trio of friends racing across a bridge. A boy running cross-country and reflecting on his unhappy life. A woman fleeing terrible news through the city that has broken her heart. As the hero of one of our selections says, "All I know is you've got to run." Running toward, running away, running nowhere in particular. This sense of restless movement was in the air at the time these movies came out, and they all captured a spirit that was equal parts freewheeling and frustrated. Sometimes this run even turned to flight, yet with a nagging rope still tied around the floating freebird.