Yikes! Huh, no thanks ... Too much going on, and none of it works. Much too clever dialogue (horrible sound, almost all of it dubbed), cinematography by Nicholas Roeg and even a score by John Barry of James Bond fame. None of it works. It's not George C. Scott's fault, certainly not Julie Christie's-even Richard Chamberlain manages ok. Joseph Cotten is sadly ridiculous, probably due to bad direction and Shirley Knight (the mother in As Good As It Gets) is well cast as Scott's ball and chain.
Films don't need to be this convoluted, especially when they're trying to be european-Ingmar Bergman springs to mind, so does Michelangelo Antonioni. But it's fun to watch them try. American film making didn't really get hip until the 70s (Director Mike Nichols excepted) and even then it took Roman Polansky and John Schlesinger to set them off.
Richard Lester's masterpiece is A Hard Days Night. I'm not much of a fan of anything else. A bit too wacky, silly for me. It's difficult to know just why this film fails-It's based upon a novel, and it's got two strong influences-Richerd Lester and Nicholas Roeg (About Roeg, I can't say it any better than Wikipedia, so here is a direct quote- "Roeg quickly became known for an idiosyncratic visual and narrative style, characterized by the use of disjointed and disorienting editing. For this reason, he is considered a highly influential filmmaker, cited as an inspiration by such directors as Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan, and Danny Boyle.)
Yes, this film is very disjointed and idiosyncratic, and not to good effect, but whose fault is it? This film is busy, noisy, badly edited and badly written, but watch it all the same, if only for nostalgia's sake and a surprise visit from Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead (can you say Blow Up? I knew your could ...).
Films don't need to be this convoluted, especially when they're trying to be european-Ingmar Bergman springs to mind, so does Michelangelo Antonioni. But it's fun to watch them try. American film making didn't really get hip until the 70s (Director Mike Nichols excepted) and even then it took Roman Polansky and John Schlesinger to set them off.
Richard Lester's masterpiece is A Hard Days Night. I'm not much of a fan of anything else. A bit too wacky, silly for me. It's difficult to know just why this film fails-It's based upon a novel, and it's got two strong influences-Richerd Lester and Nicholas Roeg (About Roeg, I can't say it any better than Wikipedia, so here is a direct quote- "Roeg quickly became known for an idiosyncratic visual and narrative style, characterized by the use of disjointed and disorienting editing. For this reason, he is considered a highly influential filmmaker, cited as an inspiration by such directors as Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan, and Danny Boyle.)
Yes, this film is very disjointed and idiosyncratic, and not to good effect, but whose fault is it? This film is busy, noisy, badly edited and badly written, but watch it all the same, if only for nostalgia's sake and a surprise visit from Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead (can you say Blow Up? I knew your could ...).