So another batch of movies I've seen that I'll attempt to whizz through before I go out to see Indy later. Seeing as Cannes is in full flow and Phillipe Garrel has a movie there, I took an opportunity to see one of his older films, Le vent de la nuit, because it has Catherine Deneuve in it and she's one of my favourite actresses. Now, my problem with it was she wasn't in it very much (about 35 out of the 90 minutes) and whenever she wasn't on screen the relationship with the two other men is very uninteresting and dull as they're not very good actors with very little to do. Deneuve excels though in her depressed, anxious state, but sadly she is the only reason to recommend the film (which I saw online).
I rented "the best french film in all of history", namely Les enfants du paradis, and I must say that while I don't believe in hype effecting reception (you either like a film or you don't, doesn't matter what anyone tells you before), it can effect the perspective within which you frame your reaction and I don't think this one lives up to the billing by any stretch. For long periods, I just don't know what this movie was about or trying to do, very often you've got these characters and ... they just won't shut up, they keep yapping on about nothing of consequence and at 3 hours long it becomes tiresome very quickly. That said though, luscious technicals and some fine performances, but this never integrates the on-stage performances to what's happening off stage the way we see in something like Topsy-Turvy. The second half is MUCH better than the first as it finally narrows the focus and gets interesting, but then everything is left in the air at the end and they haven't earnt the right to do that. I did think it was good, but, just a lot I'd change and get rid of in it.
On the same day I saw Mommie Dearest on tv, I've been intrigued by the prospect of seeing this for years and finally got around to it as I'm a fan of Faye Dunaway and it's interesting to see something which "killed her career" that some consider to be truly awful, but others think she's excellent in. The film, obviously, is not good - it's a trashy character assassination with absolutely no restraint whatsoever and is lurching in tone, which makes the outbursts that appear even more divorced from the rest of what's going on because they're so amusing. You can only laugh at it, it's impossible to take seriously. Also, it's very thin on the ground, skating over things to cram as much in as possible, there's a distinct lack of consistent focus. Dunaway is fine for most of it, but then horrendously over the top in the big scenes, she's let down very badly by her director who failed to show any restraint or balance of tone whatsoever. I'm not sure how many great roles there were for women in their 40s in America in the 1980s, thus meaning I don't think Dunaway's career would have been too different anyway, but this can't have helped.
Dunaway was always a very mannered actress and roles like Chinatown and Network brought out the best of that quality. What happened, even in the non-screaming scenes in Mommie Dearest was there wasn't a frame where I wasn't aware I was watching Faye Dunaway being Joan Crawford. I had a very similar reaction (albeit in a much more postive way) watching Denzel Washington in Malcolm X.
The film itself, for the most part, is a very generic biopic which distinguishes itself solely through the attempted epic nature of it all. Spike Lee has never been one for subtlety, but from the 2 1/2 hour mark on in it's very good stuff, oh that he hadn't spent *so* much time on unneccessary exposition prior to that. Washington gives a good performance, but like Dunaway, I'm always aware I'm watching Denzel act rather than naturally feel Malcolm X the person. The ending, showing real photos and clips of Malcolm has the equivalent of Jamie Foxx taking his glasses off at the end of Ray, it highlights this fact - the thing is, despite the power and change of Malcom's message, Lee revelled in the previous era and comments that Malcolm later regretted far too much to make that satisfactory in terms of the overall tone of the movie. So an average biopic with some plusses, but a lot of minuses.
Last I'll talk about (aside from Paper Moon, which I watched about 45 minutes of then switched off because it was just so meh and the girl so annoying) is The Swan, which was one of Grace Kelly's last films. It's about a family hoping to marry off their daughter (Kelly) to the crown prince (Alec Guinness), who in his 4 day visit seems to want to do anything except spend time with the daughter. I liked this much more than I thought I was going to, it's very entertaining at times and the ensemble cast are all very nicely played. Nothing revelatory, but very watchable indeed, with the obligatory excellent art direction and costumes to represent the setting.