God was wrong

Over the course of the past few years (I don't know if it's me getting older or what), I've noticed a bit of a Criterion Collection backlash amongst film snob hacks. I'm not sure if this has to do with their earliest releases (Armageddon is the first one that springs to mind) or the fact that having a ready-made, readily available "canon" ruins a lot of fun, but I can't contest that their transfers are great. Plus, more often than not, I tend to be intrigued by what they release. Does this mean that Criterion is the be-all, end-all of cinema? Absolutely not. It goes without saying that tuning into its releases isn't an excuse not to look outside its boundaries, but I don't think there's any harm in its existence, by any means. Plus, they do sometimes bring movies to the States that were otherwise hard to come by here, causing me to wish they'd be more expansive (Brighton Rock, please. Les Idoles, please).

That being said, Bigger Than Life is a Criterion release!



It's kind of unfortunate that Nicholas Ray (and James Dean, for that matter) is best known for Rebel Without A Cause. I'm biased, because a) I don't like it b) it was the only Nicholas Ray movie I'd seen prior to Bigger Than Life, yet I am still comfortable making this statement!

Where most Hollywood dramas of the 1950s might have sought to show the troubles of the everyday, suburban post-war American family, Bigger Than Life might be the first one I've seen to attack the very idea of these suburban families, and viciously so. Behind the already controversial critique of modern medicine and its "wonders" is a thinly veiled ("They're dull." "So are we.") launch against the complacency of 1950s middle America. The only thing more irksome than James Mason's sudden transformation into an egomaniacal douchebag is that there are moments where you can understand where his outbursts are coming from. He's a highly unlikeable character, post-cortisone addiction, and though he may have been a stranger in 1950s American society, he sure as hell isn't in 2010.



Things spin from uncomfortably realistic to ridiculous pretty quickly, but the extent to which they become ridiculous, is satisfyingly shocking for its era (a protagonist justifying the murder of his son with the Bible? locking his wife in the closet to do so?) as well as for its typical suburban setting. Bigger Than Life is loaded with scenes and dialogue I wouldn't have dreamed of seeing or hearing in Old Hollywood. Its ending is predictable, but had Barbara Rush never gotten out of that closet, Bigger Than Life would've never seen the light of day in the U.S.

Don't let the cats out

With his retrospective now over, the Pierre Clémenti adoration posts will probably be coming to a halt lest I somehow get my hands on his filmography (no small feat in the US). Or my rental of The Leopard shows up and I can talk about how odd it is seeing him blonde and clean-cut.

That being said, I wrangled up a few friends to come with me to Anthology's second showing of Belle de Jour. A few scrolls down tells you I've recently rented it, but again it was proven that DVD home viewings, regardless of how clear they are, can never live up to their theater counterparts. I'd completely overlooked just how good Catherine Deneuve and Michel Piccoli were in it. Most of its odd humor had been completely missed and seeing it at Anthology only reinforced how significant Clémenti is as Marcel. I might be biased or maybe it was because I knew what was coming, but when he first showed up onscreen, you could literally feel the movie completely shift. In my opinion, Belle de Jour is a nice little gem, but Marcel ends up pushing it into new territory due to Clémenti's energy.

It was nice to know that my friends enjoyed the movie. I made a Clémenti fan out of my best friend. Another friend preferred Jean Sorel and couldn't understand how my calling his character a Ken doll was an insult. My third friend compared Clémenti to André the Giant, physically. If you understand this, please comment.

Small note: The version screened had different subtitles than the DVD's. White, and not nearly as inclusive (though what's cut is primarily small talk), they were also italicized at times to distinguish reality from Séverine's dreams. Takes a bit of the fun out, no? Sometimes knowing French has its perks, I guess.

Let's end this with a little list of Clémenti movies I'm anxious to see and some clips:

Benjamin, Il Gattopardo (though his role is quite minor), Wheel of Ashes, Le lit de la vierge, Les Idoles. He was in much more, but these would be my first stops.




(don't even get me started on this movie)

Bonus: This is from Sweet Movie, which apparently tests the "eww" limits, but I'd be up for it. This is precious:



Up next, Bigger Than Life!

In a way, I felt like Aleksei Kravchenko was Elem Klimov's Falconetti, in Come and See. What it lacks in dialogue, the film more than makes up for in its imagery and, perhaps just as important, its sound. The ending was a bit of a letdown, but overall the film was fantastic, providing more than a few scenes not to be forgotten.