“Jesus Christ has promised to forgive you 490 times, whatever you have done… because those were his words. But about the 491st time… He has given no words. None at all.”491 (Vilgot Sjöman, 1964)
Jul
7
Global Forgiveness Day
One of the juvenile delinquents carving a simple arithmetical calculation into a desk during the Reverend's lecture about forgiveness. DP: Gunnar Fischer.
Early 60s, Sweden. A social experiment. Six hopelessly criminal juveniles are packed in a guesthouse – cynically named Objectivity – and loosely supervised by social workers and a reverend. The public servants speak of a new lease on life, God's servant of how Jesus forgives; all speak on their own behalf. We follow the young men closely and sense their need to break out, to be young, to be out of that house. We learn that their world, in or out, is eternally equally irrelevant.
– Reverend Mild
Vilgot Sjöman's 491 is an extremely, bleak, aggressive, and hopeless depiction of youth in postwar Sweden. Forgiveness is a tool of power, a method of control. And as empty as a repetitive lecture.
crime
Lo straniero [The Stranger] (Luchino Visconti, 1967)
Jul
3
soup
Arthur Meursault (Mastroianni) eating from a cracked bowl. DP: Giuseppe Rotunno.
O Bandido da Luz Vermelha [The Red Light Bandit] (Rogério Sganzerla, 1968)
Jul
1
prairie oyster
The bandit (Paulo Villaça) cracks a raw egg over his liquid breakfast while one of his female victims (Sonia Braga) is on the phone beside him. Her cigarette smokes itself and the kitchen table is packed with drugstore items. DPs: Peter Overbeck & Carlos Ebert.
“Europe, a Stutz Bearcat, the best restaurants. You fellas really have a hard life, don't you?”Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)
Jun
29
coffee
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.
– Harold Horn, DA
“He's still alive.”Muerte de un ciclista [Death of a Cyclist / Age of Infidelity] (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955)
Jun
28
National Insurance Awareness Day
Juan (Alberto Closas) looking out at María José (Lucia Bosè) and the car after the crash. The cyclist is never shown. The scene echoes Beckett's Waiting for Godot. DP: Alfredo Fraile.
A car crash on National Insurance Awareness Day (USA)
A couple rushing home at night hit a cyclist. Despite knowing that the man's still alive, they opt to leave the site of the #crash and never mention it again. News reports about the death of the cyclist cause a rupture; because of the couple's #class differences – she a wealthy socialite, he a former falange soldier turned university professor – because they're lovers, and because no one can know about their whereabouts on the night of the accident.
Striking about Bardem's Muerte de un ciclista is its outsiderness in the Spanish film landscape. By adopting the visual language of both Italian #Neorealismo and Hollywood #melodrama, Bardem elegantly circumvents #Francoist censorship.
– Aw, mom. You always talk about civilization. – Don't knock it, son. Jeopardy (John Sturges, 1953)
Jun
25
National Camp Counts Day
Behind the scenes. Barbara Stanwyck as unhappy camper Helen Stilwin having her lipstick reapplied by makeup man Pat McNalley. DP: Victor Milner.
A nuclear family of three goes out on a #camping-slash-fishing-trip on a remote Mexican beach. On arrival, son Bobby (Lee Aaker) causes trouble by climbing a rickety old jetty, which then collapses after dad Doug (Barry Sullivan) frees the boy's stuck foot. Now with Doug stuck and the tide rolling in, Helen (Barbara Stanwyck) is on her own and needs to find a rope. And help…
John Sturges' Jeopardy is a thrilling reverse home invasion based on Maurice Zimm's radioplay A Question of Time. Without falling into the trap of an illustrated radio broadcast, the haunting photography by Victor Milner, small, intense cast, short runtime and claustrophobic sets make for a very modern, economic thriller.
And Barbara Stanwyck the type of heroine we wouldn't see much of until decades later.
Le trou [The Hole / The Night Watch] (Jacques Becker, 1960)
Jun
25
care package
Butchering a care package – butter, sausage and other joys of life – for contraband. DP: Ghislain Cloquet.
“Hello. My friend Jacques Becker recreated a true story in all its detail. My story. It took place in 1947 at La Santé prison.”Le trou [The Hole / The Night Watch] (Jacques Becker, 1960)
Jun
19
International Box Day
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.
– Jean Keraudy as himself
Le trou is based on a real prison escape and introduced by one of the men involved, Jean Keraudy.
Suspense (1913)
Triangular split-screen in Suspense (1913). While the Wife (Lois Weber) is on the phone with her Husband (Val Paul), unbeknownst to them the Tramp (Sam Kaufman) cuts the telephone wire.
June 11: say Hi! on #SayHiDay
Suspense (Phillips Smalley & LoisWeber, 1913)
Now he's in the…
Suspense is not only the title of this short silent thriller, but also the state of mind the viewer is put into as soon as the film opens. Using POV (point-of-view) shots and breaking the fourth wall, the imminent threat – a vagrant trespassing and creeping up to a lone woman and her newborn child – creeps up on us. We know we're safe, on the other side of the screen, but the Tramp (a particularly haunting Sam Kaufman) looks us right in the eye. He passes us on the stairs, but he's going around us so he must be, hopefully, aware of our presence.
Meanwhile, we also see something that only cinema and books can give: multiple happenings at once. The Wife (Lois Weber) calls her Husband (Val Paul) on the phone. Suddenly the screen splits into three: in the middle, the Husband on call, listening to his Wife on the right who's begging him to hurry home. On the left, the Tramp. Unlike us, he cannot see the conversation promising a happy end. But instead that bringing some relief to the viewer, he cuts the phone cable. While we see that happen, we have no way to tell the Husband to make haste, or the Wife that the Tramp's getting closer.
What's striking too is the omnipresence of modernity: the couple's home and Husband's office have telephones and therefore electricity, and the Husband speeds off in an automobile. The cinematography for the telephone and car chase scenes are filmed and edited with great knowledge of the technical possibilities of the medium; split-screen (only gathering popularity much later, see Pillow Talk (1959), and the usage of the Entfesselte Kamera [unchained camera], the latter a mid 1920s German invention.
A similar, triangular split-screen scene from Michael Gordon's Pillow Talk (1959) with (LtR) Eileen (Valerie Allen), Jan Morrow (Doris Day), and Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) on the party line. With Ms Day's character centred, we know that she's the one to identify with in this particular scene. DP: Arthur E. Arling.
With that, Suspense not only preceded Italian futurist cinema, but also the usage of suspense as a cinematic technique. Now go and watch, and remember
it's only a movie it's only a movie it's only a movie
#Bales2023FilmChallenge #PhillipsSmalley #LoisWeber #SamKaufman #USA #ShortFilm #SilentFilm #drama #suspense #crime #thriller #HomeInvasion #1910s ★★★★☆
Les trois couronnes du matelot [Three Crowns of the Sailor] (Raúl Ruiz, 1983)
Jun
5
A woman at a table, writing in a notebook with a pencil. There's a Chinese newspaper, a lit candle and candle stump, and stacked tableware in the form of Chinese bowls and bamboo steamers. DP: Sacha Vierny.