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Parent Issue
Month
June
Year
1994
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
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Agenda Publications
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[1993. Directed by Alain Corneau. Cast: Jean-Pierre Marielle, Gérard Depardieu, Anne Brochet. French with English subtitles. October FilmsTouchstone Video. 115mins.] 

Perhaps the scariest thing about Gérard Depardieu is that there doesn't seem to be anything that he can 't - or won't - do on screen. When "Tous les matins du monde" opens with its unnerving five minute close-up on this actor's enormous face dandified in 17th century European high court custom, you know you're in for something special.

Essentially a ghost story that has been mingled with one of the grandest soundtracks since "Amadeus," this Comeau film ponders the metaphysical mysteries of music while paying its respects to two of France's fabled composers: "Monsieur" de Sainte Colombe and Marin Marais. Yet where many other films might pander to these genuises' eccentricities, Corneau instead focuses on the troubled relationship that can develop between a talented (if also unorthodox) master and his equally talented pupil.

Marais has been exiled from his choir for (literally) growing up and he's been sent to Sainte Colombe to study the viol. Striking an alliance (and liaison) with Saint Colombe's eldest daughter, Madeleine, Marais survives his teacher's intimidating pedagogy until he accepts a lucrative gig playing for the king of France. By contrast, Sainte Colombe mourns the untimely death of his young wife and he deliberately cuts himself off from the rest of the world to play his solemn strings in fond remembrance.

What might have been oppressively funereal is instead psychologically penetrating and the Baroque compositions that constantly refrain through the film's soundtrack are stunning. Adding extraordinary cinematography to the mix makes "Tous les matins du monde" a visual and aural feast for the patient movie buff.

Ultimately the film devolves into two distinct images: Depardieu as the opportunistic Marais and Marielle as the uncompromising Sainte Colombe. The passion that these two actors throw into their performances belies each character's passion for music. A film like this is enough to make it abundantly clear why a certain sort of person would find himself or herself happily lost in the invisible world of sound.

Midnight Cowboy

[1969. Directed by John Schlesinger. Dustin Hof fman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles. United ArtistsMGM-UA Video. 118mins.]

 It's the rare film that can be anachronistic in both senses of the word simultaneously, but then again, that's "Midnight Cowboy." For those who's memories go back to the end of the "swinging '60s," this film was a summing up of the best and worst of one of the most fascinating decades in American history. The only "X" rated movie to win a shelf of Oscars (including Best Picture), "Midnight Cowboy" is a walking and talking compendium of the times of our lives.

Stellar performances and a steady helmsman keep this tale about unlikely soul mates steadily focused. Indeed, the names Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck have entered our vocabulary to describe particular sociological pathologies. For the naive Texan, Joe, has it in his thick head that he's going to make a living servicing New York City matrons desperate for a "real man," and inner-city Ratso sees Buck as his ticket out of the burnt-out shell of New York City.

Uncannily touching upon many of the themes of urban America that were going to manifest themselves through this next quarter-century, "Midnight Cowboy" manages to cram quite a bit of sociology and psychology into a deft and entertaining two hours. Schlesinger has done nothing better since and the dual leads of Hoffman and Voight have striven mightily to keep their careers above this table high watermark.

"Midnight Cowboy" may not be a particularly pleasing movie to watch at points, but it is unceasingly compelling. The film's saving grace is the affection that the grudging Joe and the desperate Ratso develop for each other as they're sorely tried in the Big Apple. Of all the anti-hero buddy-buddy films of the past three decades, "Midnight Cowboy" is easily one of the best.

The Longest Day [1962. Directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marten, Gerd Oswald, Berhard Wicki, Darryl Zanuck. Cast: 50 international movie stars. English and French and German with English subtitles. 20th Century FoxFox Video. 180 mins.]

lV E 2d The "all-star" war extravaganza is a genre whose time carne and went with merciful quickness. Most of these films - "Anzio," "Battle of the Bulge," "The Battle of Britain," and "Is Paris Buming?" - were short on either narrative coherence or cinematic substance. The exception to this rule is Darryl Zanuck's painstaking homage to the decisive 1944 Normandy invasión that shifted the balance of power on the western front of World War II. To commemorate this event, Zanuck pulled in every major chip he had outstanding in Hollywood - John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Robert Mitchum - and sprinkled his cast with tons of newcomers - Steve McQueen, Sean Connery, and Vic Damon - to recréate one of the most dramatic moments of modem warfare. What's even more amazing is the sheer bravado Zanuck captured in this film. As a recreation of a complex historical event, the strategies and fortunes of the men and women who took part in this unyielding struggle is told in a dramatic and often understated fashion. The stakes are high and "The Longest Day" lays out in simple terms exactly what took place a half-century ago on each major landing site of this epoch-shaping encounter between the western democracies and Nazi Germany. As a general principie, glorifying war is a losing proposition. And "The Longest Day," unfortunately, has a touch of jingoism that is old-fashioned, but even this unabashed appeal to patriotism is informing in its own way. For despite the rather remarkable variance between acting styles- if you can imagine Richard Burton, Red Buttons, and Jean-Louis Barrault in the same movie - once one settles beyond the surface superficialities of the screenplay, the historical fact remains that good men and women on both sides of the conflict fought each other to preserve what they believed in. It remains for hindsight to remind us that such senseless camage can happen again. If only for this reason, it might be good on June 6 to remember the costs inherent in this sort of irrational conflict. The fact that "The Longest Day" holds up as a re-created life and death struggle is merely one of the sidelights of this fascinating, if also appalling, historically-based document. RATING KEY iL Acting H Cinematography Direction tL Editing 'Lo Narrative Sound Special Effects When a symbol appears following a title, it implies that the corresponding category is a strength of the movie.

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