Marnie - 'suspenseful sex mystery'

So I was overzealous and thought that the Chronicle Books grand opening party was happening yesterday, but it's not actually until December 1.


However, "Marnie" was playing as scheduled at MOMA, fortunately -- a 35mm print! This 1964 Alfred Hitchcock film stars Tippi Hedren (also leading lady of The Birds) and Sean Connery, and is decidedly different from the other Hitchcock films I've seen, which admittedly, is nowhere near the whole portfolio. The cinematography, colors and costumes are, of course, impeccable, though the film dragged in some parts - mainly some overly lengthy dialog scenes. Sir Connery sure was a swarthily handsome man in the 60s! Still handsome and virile, but so dark and delicious in the 60s.


"Marnie" was showing as part of MOMA's film series True and False: Jeff Wall on Cinematography in conjunction with the Jeff Wall exhibit.

Of this series I'd also like to attend:

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Persona
1966, 85 min.
Direction: Ingmar Bergman
Cinematography: Sven Nykvist
6:30 p.m.

The partnership between Bergman and Nykvist is perhaps the most famous one between a director and a cinematographer in the entire history of film. Persona centers on the relationship between two women spending days at a summer retreat on an island in Sweden: Elisabeth (Liv Ullmann) is an actress who has become unable to speak, and Alma (Bibi Andersson) is the nurse who cares for her and tells her stories. It's a scenario that yields deep, dark, and complex psychological meanings. Persona has become a landmark in the history of cinema, not least for the ways in which Bergman and Nykvist self-consciously foreground the very process of filmmaking.

Thursday, December 27, 2007
The Mother and the Whore
1973, 210 min.
Direction: Jean Eustache
Cinematography: Pierre Lhomme
6:30 p.m.

Eustache died young but left us one incomparable classic: The Mother and the Whore, an epic study of sexual politics in the aftermath of the failed French revolution of 1968. Jean-Pierre Léaud plays the troubled intellectual at the center of a love triangle. It is a dramatic, witty, erotic, and emotionally powerful film, and a late masterpiece of the French New Wave. In addition to working with Eustache, cinematographer Lhomme collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, Chris Marker, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, and many others. He received major awards for many films, including Cyrano de Bergerac and Camille Claudel.