I have 45 minutes to kill and 4 films to talk about so I'll just get on with it, all continuing themes from previous entries, it'll all reveal itself. The first carries on from my Doctor Zhivago post the other week (which I saw in the cinema due to the BFI celebrating David Lean's centenary) as Film Four has been showing David Lean films all week and I caught Great Expectations. I'm not a Dickens fan at all (I liked the BBC adapation of Bleak House the other year though) but I have a few problems with this film and some are from sticking to the story and some are from departing from it.
The film in general is very well made, Lean's direction is excellent, the imagery very powerful and in the main it's well acted (I especially enjoyed Francis L. Sullivan's Mr. Jaggers), the problem with the film is the story they're telling. It's unsuccessful because they keep all of Dickens' ridiculous coincidences (it really is complete hackery at times and requires a confident screenwriter to realise this, as Ronald Harwood did for Polanski's Oliver Twist) and then tacks on a happy ending at the end which is a joke considering the relationship between Pip and Estella (him, as presented in the film, loving her on sight for her looks and her being a miserable sow to him for almost the entirity of the running time). They had a real problem balancing the "love story" and the mystery surrounding Pip's benefactor, it's made a mess through the adaptation but it's so well made technically it remains inherently watchable.
Continuing my Italian odyssey I had to resort to downloading Divorce Italian Style (no relation to Marriage Italian-Style, which is a completely different story retitled cynically to ride off the popularity of this film which did so well) and I have finally found a film I unreservedly love Marcello Mastroianni in. It's a story of a man who has been married for ten years and after falling in love with his nubile young niece starts daydreaming about ways to murder his wife and get away with it. It's an extremely funny film with innovative direction and good performances from an ensemble cast. Internationally acclaimed at the time, it's beyond obscure here and I've no idea why, it's a fantastically dark comedy which holds up brilliantly today.
My third one I saw is a continuation of something I started 6 months ago - my obsession with Isabelle Carré. I got hold of Se souvenir des belles choses (it's so much better than the alleged English title Beautiful Memories), which won Isabelle a César and it's obvious to see why. The basic plot is (and I struggled initially with some sub-par subtitles, but I'm sure a rewatch will make everything clear to me) that Isabelle commits herself to a hospital to help her as she is having problems with her memory. There she meets a man who she becomes close to but as his memory improves (as it is due to a shock), it becomes more clear Isabelle is actually ill (her mother had Alzheimers - I think, this is where the subs let me down - and she fears she's inherited it) and getting worse.
It's another knockout performance from Carré, it's more in the realm of Judi Dench in Iris than Julie Christie in Away From Her (which while good I felt was quite wildly overpraised), it's the role that made her reputation in France and it's so easy to see why. She has, if not an arc, then a slide and where her character gets to by the end you haven't noticed her skip ahead or jump or change character, it's remarkable work. The film is by Zabou Breitman (a lovely actress who I saw years ago in Almost Peaceful on BBCFour) and she shows some very interesting choices visually. I don't think the film is amazing, it struggles at times and gets a tad repetetive but I'm almost positive I'll take more out of it on a rewatch now I'm fairly sure what was going on.
Finally I've been watching Greer Garson films a lot lately and I found another, The Valley of Decision, which co-stars a young Gregory Peck and was her last of 5 successive oscar nominations in Leading Actress. Again, not a challenge to understand that decision, it's one of Greer's finest performances. She has an "interesting" Irish accent, which would be the only flaw I could find in it but then again I've no idea how an Irish-emigree in late 19th Century America would talk, I just don't think it was especially even throughout, certainly it's no disgrace though. The film itself is solidly put together, but the story is signposted and not especially intelligent at times (the almost Shakespearian obstacles put in our couple's way seem contrived and unnatural and smack of the screenwriter more than anything else). Extremely well acted with a host of familiar faces for fans of classic hollywood (especially the always-terrific Gladys Cooper), not a cinematic masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but a good watch.