Christian Blackwood’s fascinating documentary portrait of Eartha Kitt not only offers a multifaceted sense of its subject — as professional entertainer, private individual, political activist, and self-commentator — but also treats each of these facets in a kaleidoscopic manner. The relationship between Kitt’s champagne-and-furs persona and her traumatic deep-south upbringing is especially suggestive; by the end of the film, one may not be sure how much of Kitt is self-invented, but the sense of dialectical exchange between the aspects of her personality keep all of them intriguing (1982). (JR)
Mitchell Leisen’s 1934 Death Takes a Holiday, based on a 1924 Italian play hy Alberto Cassella, doesn’t regard itself as a comedy. But its realization is founded on what I take to be an unconsciously comic premise: the notion that Death, as played by Fredric March–who comes to Earth as a human for three days to enjoy a holiday in a mansion full of wealthy guests–is a foreigner. Admittedly, Death is actually impersonating a deceased foreigner, Prince Sirki,, in order to consort with humans, but March already has a foreign accent even before he assumes this disguise.
Why? Arguably this is because Death as a metaphysical reality is both exotic and romantic in the movie’s terms, which is apparently part of what makes the Prince so alluring to Grazia (Evelyn Venable). By the same token, whenever March seems to periodically lose his foreign accent and become as American or as pseudo-English as the other swells is when we’re asked to perceive him as a mortal.
In short, Death taking a holiday gives our mortality a reprieve and Death returning is something like a foreign invasion. [3/20/21] Read more
From the Chicago Reader (November 18, 2005). Click on the second photo below. — J.R.
Arguably Louis Malle’s best work (1960). Based on Raymond Queneau’s farcical novel about a little girl (Catherine Demongeot) left in Paris for a weekend with her decadent uncle (Philippe Noiret), this wild spree goes overboard reproducing Mack Sennett-style slapstick, parodying various films of the 1950s, and playing with editing and color effects (Henri Decae’s cinematography is especially impressive), though gradually it becomes a rather disturbing nightmare about fascism. Forget the preposterous claim by a few critics that the movie’s editing influenced Alain Resnais, but there’s no doubt that Malle affected Richard Lester — and was clearly influenced himself by William Klein, whom he credited on the film as a visual consultant. A rather sharp, albeit soulless, film, packed with ideas and glitter and certainly worth a look. In French with subtitles. 93 min. Sun 11/20, 3 and 5 PM, Facets Cinematheque.
