settima

Bookadaptation

Lo straniero [The Stranger] (Luchino Visconti, 1967)

Jul

3

soup

Lo straniero (1967)

Arthur Meursault (Mastroianni) eating from a cracked bowl. DP: Giuseppe Rotunno.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)

Jun

30

campfire grub

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Curtin (Tim Holt), Dobbs (Bogart), and Howard (Walter Huston) eating campfire grub. DP: Ted D. McCord.

“Say, mister. Will you stake a fellow American to a meal?”

– Dobbs

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)

Jun

29

National Handshake Day

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Fred (Humphrey Bogart) and Curtin (Tim Holt) shake hands witnessed by gruff prospector Howard (Walter Huston). DP: Ted D. McCord.

Cheated out of their wages, broke Americans #Bogart and Holt are approached by a former prospector. There's #gold in the #SierraMadre mountains, he tells them.

“I know what gold does to men's souls.”

– Howard

Seemingly character driven, Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is an adventure moved by a relentless #landscape, the urge to drift, and #greed.

Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)

Jun

29

coffee

Compulsion (1959)

A squeaky young Stockwell and Varsi at a diner. We're looking in from the outside through an open window. The place is busy but she's all enthralled by his wit and intellect (and looks for sure). DP: William C. Mellor.

“Europe, a Stutz Bearcat, the best restaurants. You fellas really have a hard life, don't you?”

– Harold Horn, DA

La main du diable [The Devil's Hand / Carnival of Sinners] (Maurice Tourneur, 1943)

Jun

27

dinner (late)

La main du diable (1943)

A disgruntled man in a hotel restaurant. DP: Armand Thirard.

– Why so grumpy? – I'm starved! Dinner is always late!

Le trou [The Hole / The Night Watch] (Jacques Becker, 1960)

Jun

25

care package

Le trou (1960)

Butchering a care package – butter, sausage and other joys of life – for contraband. DP: Ghislain Cloquet.

Le procès [The Trial] (Orson Welles, 1962)

Jun

23

National Typewriter Day

Le procès (1962)

Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) crossing an enormous open office space. The endless room is filled with clerks, identical desks, telephones, and typewriters. DP: Edmond Richard.

Office worker Josef K. is brought to trial and at no point told what he is accused of, if anything. Orson Welles' Le procès is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's unfinished 1914/15 novel Der Prozess. The manuscript, guarded from Kafka by his friend #MaxBrod in an attempt to keep the self-doubting author from destroying his work, was against K's wishes posthumously (re)assembled by Brod without the latter knowing the intended sequence of the loose pages nor what chapters were finished.

“All these fancy electronics, they're all right in their place, but not for anything practical.”

– Uncle Max

The story holds up in its vagueness thanks to the quirks of #Kafka's Brotberuf; Franz K. was a trained lawyer, working as an insurance agent in an impossible artifice world of reports and precise wording. Within its extended logic, a man can get perplexedly lost, either within the walls of his #office or one's bed.

The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

Jun

21

National Arizona Day

The Searchers (1956)

Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) facing the endless desert. DP: Winton C. Hoch.

“Welcome home, Ethan.”

Le trou [The Hole / The Night Watch] (Jacques Becker, 1960)

Jun

19

International Box Day

Le trou (1960)

The prisoners keep themselves occupied with making cardboard folding boxes. The second man from the right is the novel's author and real-world (ex-) inmate José Giovanni aka Jean Keraudy as Roland Darbant. DP: Ghislain Cloquet.

Inmates preoccupy themselves with making cardboard boxes. While working together, talking, gaining trust, plans for an escape unfold.

“Hello. My friend Jacques Becker recreated a true story in all its detail. My story. It took place in 1947 at La Santé prison.”

– Jean Keraudy as himself

Le trou is based on a real prison escape and introduced by one of the men involved, Jean Keraudy.

Körkarlen [The Phantom Carriage] (Victor Sjöström, 1921)

Jun

13

International Axe Throwing Day

Körkarlen (1921)

David Holm (Victor Sjöström) attempts to break through a wooden door with the butt of an axe. This scene was the inspiration for the infamous door scene in Kubrick's The Shining (1980). DP: Julius Jaenzon.

“I want to be good, but no one believes me. Is it any wonder I cry?”

– David Holm