Working through the lengthy list of animated films that my wife wants to watch, we arrive at this French-Belgian-Irish production. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2010 Oscars but lost out to Up. I’d be the first to complain that the Academy Awards are unfairly biased in favored of American productions. For example in 2007 Persepolis lost to Ratatouille and in 2010 The Illusionist lost to Toy Story 3, both questionable decisions. But in this case, I have to say that the Academy was probably right.
Reviewing the filmography of the Coen brothers, I realized that we’ve actually watched quite a few of them over the years. I’ve also never disliked any of them, except for O Brother, Where Art Thou? whose humor I didn’t really get. One of the most impressive things about their body of work is that they cover such a remarkable range of genres and styles. No Country for Old Men for example is an implacably grim meditation on the nature of true evil while Raising Arizona is just plain wackiness. Apart from good craftsmanship, the one thing that they have in common is perhaps their eccentricity.
This is obviously a pick for the Marriage and the Movies course but we would have eventually gotten around to watching it anyway because it’s widely considered one of the greatest romances on film. It’s one of David Lean’s earliest directorial efforts, who would later go on to make such cinematic classics as Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai. It’s also the last of four films that he worked on in collaboration with playwright and scriptwriter Noël Coward.
Branded to Kill is the last film that Seijun Suzuki made before his studio finally fired him for making films that “make no sense and no money”. I’d previously written about his eccentric and colorful Tokyo Drifter in this blog. Apparently tired of his shenanigans, the director of the studio tried to force Suzuki to make a more normal movie by cutting his production budget to the bare minimum. This is why this film is in black and white. But Suzuki didn’t let this deter him and turned in even crazier and more absurdist offering.
Though billed as a documentary, Leviathan is really a work of pure visual artistry. Made by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel who are both anthropologists at Harvard University, it is best described as an attempt to capture what it feels like to be aboard a commercial fishing trawler as it works the seas around North America. With no narration and no dialogue beyond the rare incidental remark by the crew which are almost always completely unintelligible, it is up to the audience to glean whatever meaning that they can from the myriad images and sounds.
Skipping over the next film in the Marriage in the Movies course because I can’t for the life of me find The Marrying Kind, we come to Adam’s Rib. This one stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, another phenomenally successful and famous Hollywood duo. In this case, they actually were a couple in real life and remained so until Tracy’s death though the relationship was kept a secret.
Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the most interesting Hollywood performers to me. Aside from some exceptions like Prince of Persia and The Day After Tomorrow, his career is devoid of the stereotypical big but dumb blockbusters. His own acting acumen of course is not in doubt ever since Brokeback Mountain. Nightcrawler is therefore only the latest feather in his cap, being not only an excellent film but also one that brilliantly showcases his diverse skills.
