“Perfect“ films
- Thread starter Elpenor
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krtek a houby
Anger is Hi-NRG
Some Like it Hot
paul mckenna
Bellend
Children Of Men
Reno
The In Kraut
Don't let Atomic Suplex see that !
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
It’s a great film and one of my all-time favourites but I think the “Marina (Jenny Seagrove) is a mermaid” plot line is unnecessary and weird.
Reno
The In Kraut
I love that, it adds another layer to the film. It's not confirmed or dwelled on either, it's just suggested in one shot.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
A - yes she does, that’s why the magazine is hidden
B - do try to develop a sense of humour
Reno
The In Kraut
Reno
The In Kraut
That's what I thought we were doing but when I disagree with you, it frequently results in a personal attack on me.
krtek a houby
Anger is Hi-NRG
Or through a window
I dislike that actor who played the lead. Can't remember his name. he has Parkinsons
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
Yo dog, I heard you like etc. etc.
Reno
The In Kraut
The feminist discourse around Hitchcock's films has moved on a lot since Laura Mulvey and there have been plenty of reassessments by feminist film writers like Anne Billson, Tania Modleski, Camille Paglia and Robin Wood, who would disagree with you. Whole books have been written on the matter, so I'd dispute that its "a piece of piss". Many of Hitchcock films actively deal with a male/female power imbalance, they are about chauvinist men trying to change or mold women to their ideal. That doesn't mean that the films assert that the men are good guys for doing so. Other films of the period simply took a chauvinist stance for granted without investigating it. Hitchcock's films take that as their subject matter and deal with it. Doesn't mean he was a feminist, but his films aren't as simplistic as you make them out to be.
You appear to subscribe to a "showing means approving" type of interpretation, which assumes that films uncritically take the side of their main protagonist. That's never been the case with Hitchcock, who complicates things by giving his heroes unlikeable traits, while making his villains charismatic, charming and sometimes even quite vulnerable. Much has been written about how Hitchcock used James Stewart's decent, all-American image and darkened it, but giving him fetishistic, perverse and misogynist traits. Vertigo takes that to its logical and tragic end. The reason why that film is so highly acclaimed now, is not because people think James Stewart does right by Kim Novak.
If you come to Hitchcock's films with the bias that they must be misogynistic because men treat women poorly in some of them, then that's all you will see. Look further and it gets a lot more complicated. Thematically, it also makes the films far more rich.
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krtek a houby
Anger is Hi-NRG
Eric Stoltz
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Apologies, I don’t mean to be personal, just thought the reaction was a tad serious for a light hearted post. I shall endeavour to make my light heart more obvious.
All this shows is that it is a piece of piss to criticise them from a feminist angle, but that that doesn’t necessarily make that criticism right, or even particularly insightful on occasion. If Hitchcock films were just misogyny we wouldn’t still be watching and analysing them, there is clearly more to them than that. But his misogyny does often show through, even if he also challenges it within the same film. That tension is one of the things that make them great.
In RW Mrs Thorwald is, imo, shown as shrewish, both through the glimpses we see of her and more especially because of Stewart’s commentary (which we go along with for the ride, initially). As the film progresses we see that her husband is obviously much worse. And by the end of the film, Grace can still only read that mag when hubby ain’t watching.
of course the film can be read on many other levels as well, that’s why it’s a proper classic.
I think I am a bit out of my depth, don't quite feel qualified to reply ha, I was just winging it.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
The Broadway Melody(?) sequence in Singin in the Rain is iconic, yes. It’s absolutely everything that’s the Technicolor MGM musical. Glorious. One of the best bits. All I’m saying is it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the plot of the film, even down to the leading lady.
You’re right about West Side Story. The leads are duff. And Natalie Wood’s vocals are dubbed too. The stage version is perfect, though.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as a feminist film is... not a take I’ve come across before. I’ll have to rewatch at some point.
And it’s been decades since I last saw Meet Me in Saint Louis. It never really captured my imagination but I was probably no more than about ten or twelve...
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
Glorious in so many ways but Tony Curtis deliberately sets out to lie and deceive Sugar into bed. My sixth formers were quite scathing of how anyone could want them to end up together after that.
The key is, of course, that it’s Lemmon’s film all the way through. Except the moments where Wilder brings us Monroe at her most luminous. That dress in “I Want to be Loved By You” number (and thence on the boat) is breathtaking - she looks more naked and erotic than if she were actually nude. So between that and Lemmon’s comic mastery (and ok, Curtis doing his best Cary Grant), plus the screwball dialogue, George Raft sending himself up and Joe E Smith’s rubber face, I’ll go with glorious. But it’s too rapey to be “perfect”.
Which of course we would know, if we listen to the final line.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
To say Hitch has complicated and dysfunctional ways re: representation of women is so obvious as to be pointless. But it’s not misogyny. For each Ice Queen in peril there’s an older, less glam woman who speaks truth to our hero and puts him in his place... just as there was at home.
Later on his career he veered more towards putting women in sexual danger (there are some frankly vile quotes from the shooting of Marnie’s rape scene, and he got worse as the years went by) - but he also presents us with hopelessly imperilled and dysfunctional male characters. In Rear Window Stewart’s character’s dilemma at the start, and back grounding the whole film, is whether he should be “tamed” and settle down. And it’s not presented in such a way as we think he should stay independent. Grace Kelly’s character is gorgeous, elegant and wealthy, not clingy, she’s funny, she’s clever, she “puts out”... We think he’s an idiot for holding back. And by the end she’s got her way. He has been tamed. Domestic bliss awaits. She might be pretending she’ll be part of his roughing-it war photographer life, but right at the end we’re let in on the truth.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I think often the men come out of Hitchcock's films rather worse than the women. It's a while since I've seen Marnie, but I remember Connery's character as really very creepy, and his chauvanism as a form of insecure clinginess - a need to feel in control. Jimmy Stewart's always pretty messed up. Cary Grant normally stumbles through and isn't quite as in control as he makes out. Hell, in North by Northwest, he still lives with his mother, I think. It is very much Eva Marie Sant's character who shows him the way. In Psycho, I think I actually prefer the first half of the film that is all about Janet Leigh and her theft. She's certainly the most complex character in the film, and it all goes a bit flat for me after she's killed.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
You can be a misogynist and still write great female characters, especially if you think that one of their defining characteristics is being sly, which so many of his females are. They’re not alone in that, nor are all of them. Elderly women can be positively portrayed even while the lead is being abused (as in The Birds).
Notorious is possibly the most interesting film in this regard, with the entire film being about the nature of trust. Coming straight after the death of his mother, I think it’s clear what issues he’s working through.
Notorious is possibly the most interesting film in this regard, with the entire film being about the nature of trust. Coming straight after the death of his mother, I think it’s clear what issues he’s working through.
Reno
The In Kraut
A new film version of West Side Story by Spielberg was supposed to get released this year, but like most big films it has been pushed back to next year. In that one the lead actors do their own singing and Maria will be played by a Latin-American actress.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Et une vache!
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