Filmography
May. 30th, 2012 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyMe and Orson Welles
A slightly odd piece, this. The plot focuses around Welles' famous production of Julius Caesar in New York in 1937. Zac Efron plays Richard Samuels, a teenager who manages to talk his way into the role of Brutus' man servant and then talks his way out of it after the first performance. It's obviously a coming of age piece (he falls in Love with an unsuitable older woman and then finds companionship with a more suitable young aspiring writer in the film's final moments), but at the same time there is an excellent portrait of the young, ambitious and impetuous Welles (by Christian McKay).
I have to say that while there are some excellent scenes, particularly from McKay, the rest of the film doesn't quite hold up. There's some emotional flabbiness, some fantastical excess, which means that the drive and potential of the story doesn't ever quite hit as hard as it might. There are some nice touches of cinematography and the world is beautifully realised, of course, but I'm ultimately unconvinced by the piece as a whole. However, this didn't stop it being fun to watch.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen
This is a Barbara Stanwyck special - but what I hadn't realised is that it is also pre-Code and a pretty daring pre-Code at that, as it is one of the first films to explicitly deal with interracial desire. The film is set in the Chinese Civil War; Stanwyck plays Megan Davis, a bride coming out to marry her missionary finance and help him with his work. She is kidnapped by General Yen (Nils Asther, a Danish-born Swedish actor rather than an Asian actor) who holds her against her will in his palace while he courts her. However, Davis unwittingly helps Yen's enemies, and he is deserted by his troops; he commits suicide by drinking poisoned tea, in Davis' company (which is the closest the film gets to Davis admitting her attraction to the general).
It's actually a very moving and well-done piece of film, with some gorgeous cinematography and some beautiful cinematic sequences (including a dream sequence where Davis dreams she is being attacked by a monstrous-Nosferatu-style Yen only to be rescued by a handsome heroic swashbuckling Yen). Both Stanwyck and Asther give excellent performances, and the plot brings out some really interesting questions about American imperialism as well as American relations to people of other cultures and races. Definitely worth seeing if you can get hold of it.
Avatar
I watched this on the plane over to Canada. It has been called Smurfahontas. And boy, is it ever. I am very, very glad that I didn't watch this in the cinema as I would have been exceptionally rude. It essentially takes the whole noble savage/person from invading culture as saviour of the threatened noble savage/evil of the invader trope and runs with it. Using visual imagery that strongly echoes native American imagery from the whole filmic tradition with the excuse that it's Outer Space Indians and so it's alright. I mean... problematic or what? Which is actually really, really sad as there was some potential there for a consideration of disability issues (which, incidentally, gets totally undermined by the hero's transfer into a fully abled body in the film's last few minutes, although in fairness this is also to enable him to breathe the atmosphere of the planet when the humans have gone and to actually mate with the alien he has paired with).
Visually, it is brilliant - very pretty, very well realized, very realistic and a real advance in the sorts of CGI stuff that can be done. But pretty pictures are not enough to make up for a hugely problematic storyline that doesn't question its underlying social assumptions and the plots on which it draws. (Although at least it was a fairly friendly film gender-wise. Comparatively speaking.)
A slightly odd piece, this. The plot focuses around Welles' famous production of Julius Caesar in New York in 1937. Zac Efron plays Richard Samuels, a teenager who manages to talk his way into the role of Brutus' man servant and then talks his way out of it after the first performance. It's obviously a coming of age piece (he falls in Love with an unsuitable older woman and then finds companionship with a more suitable young aspiring writer in the film's final moments), but at the same time there is an excellent portrait of the young, ambitious and impetuous Welles (by Christian McKay).
I have to say that while there are some excellent scenes, particularly from McKay, the rest of the film doesn't quite hold up. There's some emotional flabbiness, some fantastical excess, which means that the drive and potential of the story doesn't ever quite hit as hard as it might. There are some nice touches of cinematography and the world is beautifully realised, of course, but I'm ultimately unconvinced by the piece as a whole. However, this didn't stop it being fun to watch.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen
This is a Barbara Stanwyck special - but what I hadn't realised is that it is also pre-Code and a pretty daring pre-Code at that, as it is one of the first films to explicitly deal with interracial desire. The film is set in the Chinese Civil War; Stanwyck plays Megan Davis, a bride coming out to marry her missionary finance and help him with his work. She is kidnapped by General Yen (Nils Asther, a Danish-born Swedish actor rather than an Asian actor) who holds her against her will in his palace while he courts her. However, Davis unwittingly helps Yen's enemies, and he is deserted by his troops; he commits suicide by drinking poisoned tea, in Davis' company (which is the closest the film gets to Davis admitting her attraction to the general).
It's actually a very moving and well-done piece of film, with some gorgeous cinematography and some beautiful cinematic sequences (including a dream sequence where Davis dreams she is being attacked by a monstrous-Nosferatu-style Yen only to be rescued by a handsome heroic swashbuckling Yen). Both Stanwyck and Asther give excellent performances, and the plot brings out some really interesting questions about American imperialism as well as American relations to people of other cultures and races. Definitely worth seeing if you can get hold of it.
Avatar
I watched this on the plane over to Canada. It has been called Smurfahontas. And boy, is it ever. I am very, very glad that I didn't watch this in the cinema as I would have been exceptionally rude. It essentially takes the whole noble savage/person from invading culture as saviour of the threatened noble savage/evil of the invader trope and runs with it. Using visual imagery that strongly echoes native American imagery from the whole filmic tradition with the excuse that it's Outer Space Indians and so it's alright. I mean... problematic or what? Which is actually really, really sad as there was some potential there for a consideration of disability issues (which, incidentally, gets totally undermined by the hero's transfer into a fully abled body in the film's last few minutes, although in fairness this is also to enable him to breathe the atmosphere of the planet when the humans have gone and to actually mate with the alien he has paired with).
Visually, it is brilliant - very pretty, very well realized, very realistic and a real advance in the sorts of CGI stuff that can be done. But pretty pictures are not enough to make up for a hugely problematic storyline that doesn't question its underlying social assumptions and the plots on which it draws. (Although at least it was a fairly friendly film gender-wise. Comparatively speaking.)
