Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis play two southern escaped convicts who are chained together as they flee from the police. This 1958 tale about racism won an Oscar for its screenplay (by Harold Jacob Smith and Nathan E. Douglas) and additional kudos for its director, Stanley Kramer. As James Baldwin pointed out, it’s a fable informed by a certain amount of white liberal wish fulfillment. Kramer was never much of a director, but there’s still power in some of the performances, especially Poitier’s. (Sammy Davis Jr. once revealed that he and Elvis Presley wanted to play the two leads; if they had, the results would undoubtedly have been a good deal more interesting.) With Cara Williams, Theodore Bikel, Charles McGraw, and Lon Chaney Jr. 97 min. (JR) Read more
I haven’t seen this striking independent feature by Shirley Clarke since it came out in 1964, so I’m wary of evaluating it on the basis of my memories. Adapted by Clarke and Carl Lee from a novel by Warren Miller and a play by Miller and Robert Rossen, and shot mainly on location in Harlem, it certainly had a visceral impact when it first appeared, helped enormously by Baird Bryant’s cinematography and Dizzy Gillespie’s score. But critics were divided at the time about the film’s meaning and impact as social protest. As a trip by a white woman filmmaker into what amounted to a third-world country, it was and probably is something of a shocker; the plot concerns the efforts of a 14-year-old boy (Hampton Clanton) to get a gun from a racketeer (Lee) so he can be the leader of his gang. Frederick Wiseman produced the picture, and Gloria Foster and Clarence Williams III also figure in the cast. This was Shirley Clarke’s second feature (The Connection was her first), and some critics still consider it her best. (JR) Read more
Giuseppe Tornatore directed this simplistic, nostalgic 1989 Italian film about a small-town movie theater in Sicily as experienced by a little boy (Salvatore Cascio) who hangs out with the projectionist (Philippe Noiret) and collects footage cut out of movies by the local censor. Eventually the boy takes over as projectionist and grows up to become a filmmaker (Jacques Perrin). Originally a two-part, three-hour film, this treacle has been reduced by almost a third, though it still seems to run on forevera bit like life but less interesting. The film is rife with outrageous continuity errors and unexplained anomalies, but people who want to have a good cry probably won’t mindthere’s more than enough bathos to drown in, or to win an Oscar for. With Marco Leonardi and Agnese Nano. PG, 123 min. (JR) Read more
Isabelle Adjani stars as Camille Claudel, the sister of Paul Claudel and lover of Auguste Rodin (Gerard Depardieu), and a troubled sculptor who spent the last 30 years of her life in psychiatric asylums. This project was launched by Adjani herself, evidently in an attempt to return to material resembling The Story of Adele H, her first film. The script, adapted from a book that’s said to whitewash certain aspects of Claudel’s life, is by Marilyn Goldin. Longtime cinematographer Bruno Nuytten makes his directorial debut here, and the cinematography is by the distinguished Pierre Lhomme. With Alain Cuny and Madeleine Robinson. (JR) Read more
Cowinner of the grand prize at the 1979 Moscow film festival, this satirical feature by Krzysztof Kieslowski describes everything that ensues when a Polish factory clerk (coscreenwriter Jerzy Stuhr) buys an eight-millimeter cameraincluding his growing obsession with his new toy, his altered relationships with his wife and boss, and the responses of other filmmakers (including Krzysztof Zanussi in a cameo) after he wins third prize in an amateur film competition. Suffused with Kieslowski’s dry wit and intelligence, this early feature provides an excellent introduction to his work. In Polish with subtitles. 112 min. (JR) Read more
One of the revelations of this 1924 feature by pioneer black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux is that, in contrast to the faltering technique and garbled film syntax of his sound pictures, he was stylistically assured as a silent director. The great Paul Robeson gives a memorable performance as a duplicitous preacher. 104 min. (JR) Read more
