Frank Capra directed partner Barbara Stanwyck in religious roles twice: as The Miracle Woman (1931), a crowd-manipulating evangelist based on Aimee Semple McPherson, and as a quiet missionary who believes herself principled, in The Bitter Tea of General Yen. Once kidnapped in Shanghai amidst the chaos of civil war, and finding herself unexpectedly drawn to […]
Daily Archives: July 4, 2008
The French-Canadian The Barbarian Invasions (Les invasions barbares) won the Oscar as best foreign-language film of 2003. Prize-wise, 2003 was indeed the year of Barbarian Invasions. Its Québec-born filmmaker, Denys Arcand, won for his script at Cannes, where one of his actresses, Marie-Josée Croze, also placed first for the trenchant role of a young drug […]
Eric Rohmer’s work L’Anglaise et le duc is none of these: contemporary; comedy; romance. Based on her memoir Ma Vie Sous La Révolution, it revolves around Scottish-born Grace Elliott, who is living in Paris when the Bastille topples prior to the time the film covers, 1790-1793. A courtesan and a monarchist, Elliott suffers conniptions when […]
Chilean emigré Râúl Ruiz had been living in Paris for about twenty years when he made his surreal, intricate Trois vies & une seule mort about split identity and various forms of separation. It consists of three episodes, in each of which a major character looks identical (Marcello Mastroianni, captivating) while living a different life; […]
Dennis Grunes 