Category: Drama

Movies from the Trenches: SF Symphony’s “Vertigo”

On February 12, 2016, the San Francisco Symphony screened Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) at Davies Symphony Hall with live orchestral accompaniment.  Live accompaniment is a popular trend in vintage movie presentation: in similar fashion, a national tour of The Wizard of Oz with live orchestra made the rounds in the summer of 2015, and the San Francisco Symphony plans to perform the ET soundtrack in March of 2016.  It seems to me that Vertigo is probably one of the most desirable films to see and hear in this way.  Its astonishing score by Bernard Herrmann, Hitchcock’s frequent collaborator, is a symphonic landmark and Herrmann’s personal favorite of his many compositions.  Given the high quality of the music (let alone of the film itself, which was ranked number one on Sight and Sound’s 2015 poll of the greatest movies ever made), this seemed the perfect opportunity for me to explore the phenomenon of live soundtrack recreation.

Live accompaniment in the … Read the rest

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).  114 minutes.  Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer.  Starring Renée Jeanne Falconetti (as Joan of Arc), Eugène Silvain (as Évêque Pierre Cauchon), André Berley (as Jean d’Estivet), and Antonin Artaud (as Jean Massieu).  Cinematography by Rudolph Maté.

In honor of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, I am writing about a silent film that has disturbed me more than any other film, silent or otherwise, that I have seen in a long time.  It is Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc.  In response to the film’s intense emotional focus, Roger Ebert wrote, “Perhaps the secret of Dreyer’s success is that he asked himself, ‘What is this story really about?’  And after he answered that question, he made a movie about absolutely nothing else.”  Ebert does not explicitly tell us what that answer is, but I have an idea.  Dreyer has made a movie that is about a horrifying … Read the rest

Movies from the Trenches: “Rear Window” at the Paramount Theater

After my previous unsuccessful attempt to see the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window (1954) at a Bay Area theater, I was delighted to learn that the very same movie would be screened in late April at the Paramount Theater, the glorious art deco movie palace in downtown Oakland.  The screening began at 8:00pm, but the theater opened at 7:00pm.  Believe me, anyone who sees a movie at the Paramount as part of their classic film series will want to get there early as there’s so much to see.  People start lining up on the street at about 6:30pm, but the theater seats many thousands of people and the screen is one of the largest anywhere, so those who come later are in no danger of missing out on a good seat.

You will, however, want to enter the theater at 7:00pm so that you can tour the gorgeous, multi-floor structure at your leisure, gape in awe at the sublime … Read the rest

Movies from the Trenches: The Screening That Wasn’t to Be

I learned that Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) was coming to a theater near my Bay Area residence as part of a nationwide special screening of the film in digital format organized by Turner Classic Movies.  A friend and I made time to trek out to the matinee screening on March 25.  Oh, dear reader: that afternoon was such a sad commentary on the modern theater-going experience.  I distinctly got the feeling that no one was working hard to maintain the gargantuan multiplex that was showing the film.  The machine that printed the tickets necessary for admission broke as the clerk was attempting to use it.  The manager was called over but could not fix it.  It was determined that we would simply be let in to the multiplex and sent to our theater, ticketless, but the staff could not determine through the computer which theater Rear Window was playing in.  Phones were produced in an attempt to find the … Read the rest

That Hamilton Woman (1941)

That Hamilton Woman (1941).  128 minutes.  Directed by Alexander Korda.  Starring Vivien Leigh (as Emma, Lady Hamilton), Sir Laurence Olivier (as Admiral Horatio Nelson), Alan Mowbray (as Sir William Hamilton), and Gladys Cooper (as Lady Frances Nelson).

If you have heard of That Hamilton Woman, it may be for one of the following reasons:

  • First, it features Vivien Leigh and Sir Laurence Olivier cast as Emma, Lady Hamilton and Admiral Horatio Nelson (respectively) in the period of the Napoleonic Wars.  This casting is especially famous (or perhaps infamous) because Leigh and Olivier, while married to other people, had engaged in a well-known affair with each other prior to divorcing their partners and marrying each other, and in this film, in a situation that mimicked real life, they are cast as two people who are married to others and have a well-known affair together of international proportions.
  • Second, it was Winston Churchill’s favorite film.  Churchill was fond of movies of
… Read the rest

Greed (1925)

Greed (1925).  Directed by Erich von Stroheim.  140 minutes (MGM) / 239 minutes (restored version, 1999).  Starring Gibson Gowland (as John McTeague), Zasu Pitts (as Trina Sieppe), and Jean Hersholt (as Marcus Schouler).

Greed is based on the 1899 American novel McTeague by Frank Norris.  It takes place at the turn of the nineteenth century in California and was one of the first Hollywood films to be shot entirely on location.  As the story opens, McTeague, a miner, leaves his California mountain town to train as a dentist.  When he opens a practice in San Francisco, he meets Marcus Schouler and Schouler’s cousin Trina, with whom McTeague falls in love.  Trina wins $5000 in a lottery and marries McTeague, but soon she begins to obsess over her winnings and becomes miserly towards her husband.  Because Schouler feels cheated both out of Trina, whom he loved, and her fortune, he reports on McTeague to the dental board, which determines that he … Read the rest