Posted on 03/06/2017 8:47:12 PM PST by nickcarraway
The End of a Beautiful Friendship
Why America fell for Casablanca, and why the classic film is losing its hold on movie lovers.
In 1957, the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square kicked off its Humphrey Bogart series with the 1942 classic Casablanca.* Bogart himself had just died, and the response to the film was rapturous. By the fourth or fifth screening, “the audience began to chant the lines,” the theater’s then-manager told Noah Isenberg, author of We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie. It was the dawn of the art-house era, the moment when film was beginning to be taken seriously as an art form by college students who flocked to theaters like the Brattle to see the work of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Michelangelo Antonioni. Casablanca didn’t exactly rank among those auteurist masterpieces—even the movie’s most ardent champions have always described Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz and credited to screenwriters Howard Koch and Julius and Philip Epstein, as the quintessential product of the Hollywood studio system. But it nevertheless became a cult object for a generation or two of cinephiles, particularly young men, over the next several decades.
Allen Felix, the fictional film-critic hero of Play It Again, Sam, Woody Allen’s 1969 play and 1972 film, epitomizes that breed of young man. The film begins with the closing scene of Casablanca, in which Rick Blaine (Bogart) nobly parts from Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) on a misty North African tarmac. Then the camera cuts to Woody Allen’s rapt face, his mouth gaping, as he inhales the movie’s glossy, yearning romance. Felix lives in an apartment wallpapered with movie posters, most of them featuring Bogart, and as he bumbles his way through a largely unsuccessful love life, the phantom of the movie star in his trademark
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
“I have NEVER seen a remake of any movie that would even hold a candle to the original. I’m so set in my ways”
has nothing to do with you being set in your ways: almost all remakes completely and totally suck compared to the originals.
Camera can’t stay still for 2 seconds. Even in quiet scenes the camera is handheld and bobbing about because of the low attention span of the cameramen these days.
“C.K. is the movie in which cinematography became an art form. The story isn’t what really makes the film great, but the way it was filmed. It totally changed the way movies were filmed. Welles didn’t follow the traditional cinematography methods at all. He was the pioneer of movie camera angles. Just watch a typical movie made before 1939 and compare it to C.K. and more modern movies to see the differences. “
who cares about how a film was filmed? What makes a great film is story, character, acting, and dialog. Just look at the visual brilliance of the CGIed films of the last decade; nearly everyone of them completely sucks because they completely lack story, character, acting and dialog.
OTOH, look at “South Park”, which has the crudest visual representation possible, and yet many episodes are brilliantly funny and portray brilliant social satire.
“Movies” are shot on video now and they are edited in computers as are music videos. the same techniques are at work.
I watched a feature length documentary about film vs. video (by Keanu Reeves) that addressed things including the prep an actor does before going “on camera”. They don’t stop the camera with video, just “Try it again”. And there isn’t the production cost of processing all that raw stock when an actor (or director) demands another retake of some scene.
Also movies are “photoshopped” extensively. Think “vintage” instagram filters (tint the whole movie green, or yellow or whatever). They even colorized all of the green vegetation in Oh Brother Where Art Though to make it appear “dead”.
Citizen Kane is yesterday’s outrage over Hearst and his newspaper empire.
Kane is not a pleasant man and so enduring a film about him isn’t a joy.
And if you don’t have stones to throw at Hearst you don’t have that pleasure either.
Modern audiences today are left with camera tricks and composition. Okayyyyy. Looks nice but not “the end all” of cinema.
I always thought Pottersville was kinda cool.
We always watched the Alistair Sims "A CHRISTMAS CARROL", which I continued with my family, and which is now shown by the progeny. :-)
It's how kids are raised.
Pottersville was a charming place, and reminded me of Mayberry, N.C., as portrayed by Andy Griffith.
The BOGART "THE MALTESE FALCON" is the SECOND REMAKE and the best of the lot.
"GASLIGHT", with Bergman and Boyer is the remake.
There are quite a few films, where the remake it the better film; however, the majority of remakes stink.
Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia
He was an English guy
He came to fight the Turkish
(Hollywood Knights, one of the funniest movies, ever)
“I’m one of the 25 people on the planet who gets next to nothing from ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’.”
I am also one of those 25.
It is easily one of the worst films of all time.
Ok, but seriously, I consider “Doctor Zhivago” the greatest movie ever made.
The character of Pasha/Strelnikov illustrates the tragedy of Communism probably better than anything. Turning idealistic people into monsters who eventually get eaten by the Revolution they helped to bring to power.
That makes three of us on this thread.
Blazing Saddles, It's a Wonderful Life, Overboard, the original Parent Trap, The Sound of Music, Quiet Man, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, Zulu, The Gods Must Be Crazy 1 and 2, Casablanca, Das Boot with the last 10 minutes removed, The entire Little Rascals series, the entire Mister Ed series, the entire series of Leave It To Beaver, and last but not least the entire series of Northern Exposure.
But that's just me.
It would have been better if they went with the “Lost Ending”
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7sqx2_its-a-wonderful-life-lost-end_shortfilms
That one with Alistair Sims, is a good Christmas Carol.
Sometimes a good movie (for a character study or a passion play)is one that appears natural, and is not over contrived, not over acted or excessively produced.
If the movie is meant purely to dazzle, entertain, shock and awe, that requires a different recipie. then sort of film becomes the creative plaything of a director, a petri dish of CGI experimentation, as with Star Wars films, Super Heroes, or something very gorey by Tarratino. I no longer see any Tarratino films. Way too bloody when it’s not even necessary.
2001 is my favorite movie, I’ve seen it twenty times!
Ed
It’s my 25 yos favorite movie of all time, ever since he saw it when he was about 17.
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