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1974 - Dir.: Sidney Lumet - 2 hours 8 minutes
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 26th April, 2014
It has to be admitted that at one time this film was never off the telly. However, those of us who saw it in the cinema have always felt that the small screen really didn’t do it justice. It’s a big film, made with big money, with big stars, big music and big acting - hardly the sort of thing to be confined to a box in the living room. Now, like so many pre-loved classics, it’s been dusted off, cleaned up and digitally restored to its sparkly, glossy bigness and is fit to dazzle us on the big screen once more.
It’s set 1934 - at a time where the very rich live a charmed existence born along on a fluffy cloud of luxury - or, in this case, in a fluffy train of luxury - untroubled by any thoughts of the poverty and strife endured by the lower orders (nothing changes!). It might be sacrilege to suggest that Agatha Christie was a snob but, let’s face it, she was. Servants and working folk are always “colourful” and quirky and quite often are proved conveniently to be the murderer (thus allowing the nobs to carry on with their carousing unhindered by the hangman’s noose). This story is perhaps her most socialist - we shan’t mention the reason lest there are any of you who have never read the book or seen the film. Let’s just say it’s an equal opportunity murder.
One of the enduring delights of this movie is the lush score by Richard Rodney Bennett. It was originally intended to do it on the cheap and get Bennett to arrange some 1930s tunes for the soundtrack. Bennett, a classical composer who loved jazz, persuaded the director to let him compose an original score. The composer wrote many film scores and one of the last was for “Four Weddings and a Funeral”.
The 84-year-old Agatha Christie attended the movie premiere in November of 1974. It was the only film adaptation in her lifetime that she was completely satisfied with. She felt that Albert Finney's performance came closest to her idea of Poirot though she hated his moustache.
La Grande Bellezza
2013 - Dir: Paolo Sorrentino - 2 hours 14 minutes
Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 6th April, 2014
The Film:
“Rome is the Eternal City, but it is also one of the great cities of cinema, which means continuous change and flow. “The Great Beauty” plunges headlong into the current. All you can do is plunge in there with it and clamber out a couple of hours later, sopping wet, gulping the air and perhaps having lost a shoe.” - extract from the Daily Telegraph review - you have been warned!
Rome:
“Rome is alive at night. If New York is the city that never sleeps, Rome is the party that never ends. (Clubs don't get going until after midnight.) Discos compete for extravagant themes and décor and provide a great evening for the young and foot loose. Thursdays through Sundays are club nights when the whole city seems to be out on the town.” - from a tourist guide to Rome.
This is the back ground against which this film is set and which provides a stark contrast with the classical beauty of the city. It is said that the film is a commentary on the world of Silvio Berlusconi - enthusiastically bunga-bunga partying (like Nero fiddled)... while his city, and the nation headed for certain destruction. It’s a theme echoed in the work of other Italian directors - Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini to name but two - and perhaps the “Eternal City” refers to the perpetual nature of hedonism and corruption that clings to this most lovely place.
The Director:
Paolo Sorrentino isn’t a well know name in the UK but that may all be about to change. The success of this much lauded film is about to propel him onto the international mainstream scene. His next project is to be “Into the Future” and will star Michael Caine. He’s also due to make a TV series for Sky entitled “The Young Pope”.
Sorrentino was born in Naples in 1970. His first film as screenwriter, “Polvere di Napoli”, was released in 1998. He also began directing short movies before making his feature-length debut with One Man Up (L'uomo in più), for which he was awarded the Nastro D'Argento prize. A string of successes followed, including a controversial biopic of politician Mario Andreotti and an English language film “This Must be the Place” starring Sean Penn..
This film “The Great Beauty” is his most spectacular success. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in the 2014 Academy Awards as well as the BAFTA award for Best Film Not in the English Language. It also carried off the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It has not been widely shown in the UK
