rjohnsonr Reviews

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Patricia Highsmith on-screen

[25 January 2003]

Dmitri Tiomkin's music and some of the acting are a little over-the-top, but that was Hollywood in 1951. As usual, Alfred Hitchcock himself appears briefly, boarding the train with a double-bass case just after Farley Granger gets off. No one seems to have observed that, two minutes later, Patricia Highsmith, the author of this and the Tom Ripley novels, appears (uncredited) very prominently. When Guy Haines (Granger) goes into Miller's Music Store to speak with his wife Miriam, who seems to work there, Miriam is at the cash register. Just behind her, looking over her shoulder at Guy and Miriam (and exchanging a couple of interesting glances with Guy) is another apparent store employee. She's checking out shelves and writing on a pad. This is Patricia Highsmith, whose face appears at various ages on numerous book jackets. If the film was made in 1950 she would have been about 29. She's more attractive than all the other women in the film. I haven't been able to find any reference anywhere to her appearance in this film.

The Hours (2002)

fear and loathing in suburbia, or who's virginia woolf afraid of

[21 January 2003]

Rare is the film which translates a masterful novel,trivializes nothing about it, and adds the textured richness of real life. Nicole Kidman deserved her Golden Globe for her vocal transformation alone, but Meryl Streep is also mesmerizing, and Julianne Moore as Laura Brown really has the hardest job, because she doesn't get any great philosophical lines. To convey such existential despair purely through tone of voice and facial expressions, while speaking nothing but the platitudes of 1951 daily life, shows a truly amazing talent. A little background certainly helps - my friend, who hadn't read any Virginia Woolf and had forgotten the film of Mrs. Dalloway, felt no sympathy for Mrs. Woolf. I would suggest seeing this at once on the big screen, but first watching Mrs. Dalloway and Carrington, to have some feeling for the London life that Virginia is being kept away from. In a way she speaks for Laura Brown when, at the train station with her long-suffering husband, she says 'If I had to choose between Richmond and death, I would choose death.' Just when you're starting to think a little pharmacological assistance would be just the thing for both Virginia Woolf and Laura Brown, Ed Harris tells Meryl Streep that he took a Xanax and a Ritalin and you know that's not the answer. There's not one supporting character who doesn't deserve some kind of award, but Toni Collette's brief performance as Laura Brown's friend and neighbor Kitty is especially heartwrenching, and Miranda Richardson as Virginia's sister Vanessa Bell is perfection. Sets, costumes, and cinematography manage to suggest parallels between 1923 Richmond, 1951 suburban LA, and 2001 New York while keeping the three worlds clearly separate. Every time we jump between the different eras, we know instantly which one we're in. Best film of the millenium so far, but try the novel too.

The American Friend (1977)

Wenders' masterpiece, but also Highsmith's

[12 January 2003]

Wim Wenders' tribute to American film noir, with cameos for two great American directors, Sam Fuller and Nicholas Ray, and boasting the most imaginative cinematography ever and the most beautifully ominous music, is finally available in widescreen enhanced DVD. What is it about about Patricia Highsmith which inspires so many directors? From Alfred Hitchcock (Strangers on a Train) to Anthony Minghella (The Talented Mr. Ripley), via Jean-Pierre Melville (Cry of the Owl) and Rene Clement (Plein soleil aka Purple Noon), her novels have translated to the screen with astonishing effect. Purple Noon and The Talented Mr. Ripley adapt the same book in such different yet equally gripping ways that curiosity forced me to seek out the novel, and then the other four Tom Ripley novels. Ripley's Game, the source for The American Friend, is arguably the best of the five, and perhaps of all her novels. Jonathan (Bruno Ganz), not Ripley himself (Dennis Hopper) is the real protagonist. The Hamburg-to-Munich train sequence is probably the centerpiece, but the Paris subway scene is just as incredible (ending in La Defense before the Grande Arche was built). Dialogue flows easily between German, English, and French. Just one example of sensitive detail - when Jonathan (Ganz)is reading his hopeless medical report in a steel/glass/concrete modernist Paris apartment, the camera zeroes in on the miniature Statue of Liberty replica on a concrete island under a bridge across the Seine. A symbolic representation of the title?

Series 7: The Contenders (2001)

brilliant concept, brilliantly executed

[27 December 2001]

While Daniel Minahan had the concept for 'Series 7' BEFORE the recent glut of so-called reality-based programming, the need for such a satire had become acute. Unlike the glitzy '10th Victim' from the sixties, which seemed like an excuse to ogle Ursula Andress, it's uncomfortably believable. All the characterizations are superb, and though the digital videography does provide the flavor of television, the anamorphic enhanced DVD reveals that it must have been shot in high-definition video - it's much less grainy than Spike Lee's 'Bamboozled' or Mike Figgis' 'Timecode'. After a good exposition of all the players, from the midpoint on there are constant surprises. The violence never seems gratuitous. The very fact that it feels only mildly absurd is quite an indictment of our current pop culture. One hopes for a prolific future for Mr. Minahan - a brilliant concept, brilliantly executed.