And the addition of the Hun helmet at the end places the very concept of war in that context as well. It’s a playful montage (don’t tell PETA), but it’s also a cruel one - because the scene comes immediately after Clive and his aunt talk about his lost love, his decorating the walls with animal heads instead of establishing a happy home feels like a sad depiction of emotional displacement and corrupted domesticity. “Hun, Flanders, 1918.” And thus, we’re in the film’s next section, set at the end of WWI. 1907,” and so on… until we finally get a German helmet. each representing a different year and each announced on the soundtrack with a gunshot, and punctuated with a display label: “Lion. A lion, a gazelle, a rhino, an elephant, etc. We then get a montage of all the animal heads Clive Candy fills the walls with. She then tells him that she’s got an empty house and that it is essentially his: “Whatever you do, and wherever you go, you’ve always got a home here.” She then adds, weirdly, that he should feel free to fill up the walls with whatever he shoots. (He will, however, see other women played by Deborah Kerr.) He’s at his aunt’s house, and she questions him about the mysterious woman that he’s fallen in love with and left behind in Berlin. He will also spend the rest of his life haunted by this woman, though he’ll never see her again. He’s fallen for Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr) but has also lost her to another man - a German officer who will become his lifelong best friend (Anton Walbrook). It’s right after the film’s first half, after Clive Candy (Roger Livesey) returns from Berlin in the early 1900s, in the wake of a diplomatic row and an abortive duel related to the Boer War. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were particularly good at this sort of thing, and I think “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” contains one particular scene that might be the wittiest, saddest, most gruesome and profound depiction of the passage of time I’ve ever seen. Young Conan turning into Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Wheel of Pain. Obviously, the montage covering the first couple days of the Kumite in “Bloodsport.” It's not Hitchcock's best work, but it is the most direct statement of his concerning this motif which appeared in so many of his films, and certainly worth watching.After 25 Years, These Are the ‘Friends’ Characters Critics Love the Most There is a bit of a twist in the story concerning Fonda's wife, played by Vera Miles, which I didn't expect. The police procedures may have you shaking your head, as will the notoriously unreliable eyewitness testimony. The pace of this movie is a little slow at times, but a part of that is intentional, and heightens the realism. The scenes where Henry Fonda is imprisoned are absolutely brilliant, as are the ones of him on trial, looking around the courtroom, and noticing the trivial little behaviors of those around him, while his own life hangs in the balance. We might be have our freedom taken, get locked up in a cage, and find ourselves at the mercy of the judicial system. It's interesting to ponder why Hitch announces that fact at the outset, and I suppose it's because therein lies the true horror: that at any time, while minding our own business, we might be arrested and accused of crimes we haven't committed. I have to say, usually in this country it's an African-American man who gets arrested as the 'Wrong Man', but this Hitchcock film is indeed based closely on a true story.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |