1949: Jour de fete (Jacques Tati)

1949: Jour de fete (Jacques Tati)

The only time I ever saw this was its "Color Premiere" in France in 1995.  Tati wanted it to be the first French feature shot in color, but technology at the time wouldn't allow him to release it that way. Fortunately, he also shot a black-and-white version, and that's all that existed from 1949-1995.  

I've never seen the black-and-white version so I can't say with certainty, but it is one of these films where I really remember the colors.  I can only think this film's impact and power grew once the re-release happened (it was Tati's daughter, by the way, that did the restoration.)

This is definitely a sibling film for me to Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons.  Tati always seemed to have a fascination with the negative effects of technology.  But of all his work I've seen, this one affects me the most.  Like Ambersons, this movie is obsessed with the idea of our world getting faster and faster, and the dehumanization that comes with choosing this direction.  

As I hinted at in my Ambersons post, at this point in my career, this theme is probably more important to me than any other.  And Tati gets at it in his own special way, with humor, satire, and in a brilliant style that he made all his own.

Other contenders for 1949: As with other years, there are still some major titles I need to see.  These include: Joseph Mankiewicz's House of Strangers, Jean Cocteau's Orphee, Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring, Max Ophuls' Caught, Jacques Tati's L'ecole des facteurs, John Ford's She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Max Ophuls' The Reckless Moment, and Michael Powell's The Small Back Room.  Joseph Lewis' Gun Crazy is another one of these films that I really need to revisit.  The first time I saw it, it did not have the impact I would have expected.  This year, there are so many films that I like I have decided to create three tiers of runners-up:  films that I really like, films that I love, and films that are extremely close runners-up.  The films that I really like are: Howard Hawks' I Was a War Male Bride, Jacques Becker's Rendez-vous de juillet, Carol Reed's The Third Man, and Raoul Walsh's White Heat. The films that I love are: George Cukor's Adam's Rib, Jules Dassin's Thieves' Highway and Robert Wise's The Set-Up.  Finally, the four films that would most challenge for my top pick are Robert Siodmak's Criss Cross, Ted Tetzlaff's The Window, Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli, and William Wyler's The Heiress.  

10/23/10 I watched John Ford's She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.  A film with great reverence for the US cavalry and one that teaches and reminds us of an important part of ourselves.  But Ford gives it, at times, a little too much corniness for my liking and like some of Ford's other work, it can devolve into a cloying exuberance and boisterousness.  

10/27/10 I watched Joseph Mankiewicz's House of Strangers.  Conte's great and so is Edward G Robinson (in fact, they both deliver two of their more memorable performances).  Also another key link to The Godfather and Mean Streets.  Doesn't always hum and stay on track, but at times it's downright classic.  

11/5/10 I watched Jean Cocteau's Orphee.  A strange film with some beautiful, poetic touches where Cocteau demonstrates that he's an inventive and lyrical stylist.  But I never fully connected to it in the way that I might have hoped.  

11/14/10 I watched Michael Powell's The Small Back Room.  Lacks most of the verve and fun of some of my other favorite Powell films. Overall pretty disappointing.

11/21/10 I watched Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring.  Another extraordinarily tender and wise film about  life, relationships, and personal growth and evolution.  Ozu keeps things minimal and spare, as usual.  But whenever he goes outside he reminds us of his strong connection to nature and tremendous feeling and eye for the outdoors. Soft but packs a punch.  

3/14/11 I watched Max Ophuls' Caught.  Ophuls shows at times his gift at creating space and moving the camera.  But the script's creaky in this one, and all in all, I found it to be only a mediocre noir.

3/17/11 I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Under Capricorn.  Has anyone endured more psychological torment on screen than Ingrid Bergman? Just Gaslight, Europa '51, and this film alone might earn her the top spot.  She's excellent here, as always.  And this is an unusually oblique piece from Hitch with some of his most expressive camerawork ever. However, Michael Wilding seems wrong for the role.  Too loose when paired alongside two of the most contained actors in the history of cinema -- Cotten and Bergman.  

7/2/11 I watched Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets.  Dry and sometimes quite funny, in a very British way.  Also shows off Alec Guinness' extraordinary talents.  But it's too deliberate and clean in ways as to come fully alive.  

10/5/14 I watched Raoul Walsh's Colorado Territory.  A western remake of Walsh's great High Sierra enjoys a strong reputation and it has some wonderful moments even if I much prefer the original Walsh noir.  Mayo grates on me more than I find her appealing and the plot sometimes seem to lose some of its urgency and thrust.  Of great interest though is the final murder which seems unusually violent for its era and a true precursor for Penn's finale twenty years later in Bonnie and Clyde.  

4/4/15 I watched Joseph Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives.  As is usual with Mankiewicz the writing is intelligent and the direction is classy and there seems to be a real interest in emphasizing the female point of view.  And even though this one gets at some interesting emotional topics such as marital insecurity, I never was as fully captured in it like I have been with some of the director's other work.

3/25/16 I watched Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog.  Kurosawa does noir and he does it fairly well.  But it is too long, too meandering and for the most part less raw than the best films of the genre.  

1/15/18 I watched Nicholas Ray's Knock on Any Door.  Very bottom shelf Ray that never transcends the genre of noir or courthouse drama or even rises close to the level of the genre's just very good films.  

7/3/22 I watched Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's On the Town.  Most impressive is the way it feels to be dissecting the musical genre, stripping it away and distilling it into something more spare, more modern.  The characters nor the musical numbers are nowhere near as memorable as the team's effort three years later with Singing in the Rain. 

1946: The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)

1946: The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)
This might have to go down as the most stellar year in the history of cinema.  So how offensive of me to put William Wyler, the somewhat unrecognized auteur, at the top of the list.  Please, I promise my intention is not to offend, only to represent my favorite film of the year.  


Wyler made a slew of films in his career, and I've probably seen less than 20% of them, certainly not enough yet to determine whether he's been undervalued by film history.  I feel comfortable saying this though  -- Wyler sat a little more in the backseat of most of his films.  He preferred an invisible style rather than something more evident for the auteurists to latch onto and recognize.  


When I think about The Best Years of Our Lives, what I think I respond to most is the honesty of the storytelling and a certain realism that it strives for, thematically, emotionally, and formally.  There's also a special fluidness to the way that Wyler allows all of it to unfold.  It's fairly epic (at 172 minutes), but everyone is so well-drawn, and the story so well-written, that it all goes down quite easily for me.  


The film is one of these ultra-rare, incredibly well-balanced works where everything is there and seems possible -- heaviness/lightness, exploration/entertainment, universal/personal, and reality/escape.  I watch it and can't help but feel that it doesn't get much better than this.

Other contenders for 1946: What a year this was!  There aren't that many major titles I've yet to see, but there are a few:  Jean Cocteau's La belle et la bete, Kenji Mizoguchi's Five Women Around Utamaro, Michael Powell's A Matter of Life and Death, Raoul Walsh's The Man I Love, David Lean's Great Expectations, Ernst Lubitsch's Cluny Brown, and Lewis Milestone's The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.  Then, there is a special section this year of films that I have seen that I need to revisit at some point, as none of them had as great an impact as I would have expected.  These are:  Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, Roberto Rossellini's Paisa, Vittorio De Sica's Shoeshine, and Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  This year I also have more runner-ups than in any other year so far.  It's definitely not top-tier for him, but I really like Orson Welles' The Stranger.  Also not among my absolute favorites for each director but ones I really enjoy are Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep and Jean Renoir's The Diary of a Chambermaid.  John Ford's My Darling Clementine, on the other hand, is one of my favorite Ford films.  Charles Vidor's Gilda is among my favorite noir films.  And, Robert Siodmak had a banner year, directing my two closest runners-up: The Spiral Staircase and The Killers.  


10/10/10 I watched David Lean's Great Expectations.  A wonderful adaptation of a celebrated novel, Lean keeps things moving, depthful but entertaining, heartfelt with moments of relief and whimsy. Extraordinary acting with Lean's fantastic eye keeping it all interesting, I really enjoyed this one.  


10/10/10 I watched Jean Cocteau's La belle et la bete.  Cocteau, like James Whale before him, really brings great humanity to the monster and allows us to care deeply for him.  Cocteau also employs slow-motion in an incredibly magical way and shows off his unique sensibility throughout.  


10/13/10 I watched Michael Powell's A Matter of Life and Death.  It's a film I believe everyone needs to see.  It's incredibly ambitious and beautifully achieved, although perhaps not as warm emotionally as Powell/Pressburger might have hoped.   But it's a technical marvel and something to greatly admire.  


10/15/10 I watched Lewis Milestone's The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.  It's a prototypical noir with many interesting elements, including performances from Stanwyck, Douglas, and Heflin.  Rozsa's score is overbearing at times and not all the plot elements click as strongly as they could, but it's still a film that deserves a bigger reputation.


12/10/11 I watched Jacques Tourneur's Canyon Passage.  I have to thank the great Peter Lenihan for placing this gem on my radar.  And what a tremendous western it is.  The first thing that jumps out is how contemporary it feels.  It has the modern psychological complexity of the Anthony Mann westerns, and already in 1946, feels as though it's tearing the genre apart, with a most incisive analytical eye.  But it's not cold and clinical like the Mann films.  Tourneur's camera's always moving, and there's a tremendous vitality and feel for real-life in every single shot.  It brings to mind another Tourneur favorite of mine, Stars in My Crown, in its acute ability to capture early American group and community, and makes yet another extraordinarily strong argument for Tourneur's deserved place in the highest of all cinematic pantheons.  


1/21/12 I watched Jack Bernhard's Decoy.  A tough, sick and unafraid Monogram noir.  One of, if not, the strongest of all the Monogram pics I've seen.

7/22/12 I watched Joseph Mankiewicz's Somewhere in the Night.  Twisty entry into the amnesiac noir genre from the great director.  Some nice one-liners but fairly pat in terms of style or interest.

10/21/12 I watched Vittorio De Sica's Shoeshine.  Has its moments of greatness, although for me not up there with the very best ne0-realist works nor the best of De Sica.  The filmmaking is quite exquisite even when the storytelling a bit fatty and unfocused.  

12/22/13 I watched Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  I had not seen the film in almost twenty years and had no real memory of it.  What struck me first is just how well made it is - brilliantly plotted, masterfully cast and performed, and of course emotionally affecting of the highest order.  Sure it is manipulative and sure it is very much a Hollywood film.  But it is also very human and universal and as a result very life-affirming.  If only Hollywood still had this much talent behind their films and this much desire to connect rather than escape, for all these years our cinema would have continued as the most powerful and important artform the world over.  

2/6/18 I watched Ernst Lubitsch's Cluny Brown.  Watching the film is yet another reminder of the infusion of great skill and sophistication that Hollywood experienced in the forties and fifties.  The craft, perspective and sensibility brought to the States by the dozens of European craftsmen advanced the form in ways the country never again achieved by way of outside influence.  What is most remarkable is Lubitsch's timing and the way he achieves profound emotional moments without leaning on music whatsoever.  The film in fact is almost entirely devoid of a score.  Somehow I missed this one in my original exploration of Lubitsch's work but I think it ranks up there with the very best of his extraordinary films.  

10/7/21 I watched Douglas Sirk's A Scandal in Paris.  Sirk's special gifts for light, poetry, inventive framing are periodically on display in this period noir.  But for me it does not compare to Written on the Wind or some of his other towering work.