James M. Cain-ish adultery/murder mystery by writer-director Claude Chabrol, Les noces rouges boasts three superlative achievements: a powerful performance by Mme Chabrol, Stéphane Audran (watch for the moment when Audran’s Lucienne grabs her neck in anticipation of her likely guillotining—the audience gasps!); a terrific scene of passion between the two killers after a terrific scene […]
Daily Archives: November 6, 2008
France’s silent comic Max Linder was highly influential. Chaplin, for instance, referred to himself as Linder’s pupil and borrowed Linder’s cane—though of course this brought a more complex association of meanings when accompanying Charlie’s Tramp than when accompanying Linder’s dapper millionaire beneath a silk hat. Also, Clair’s silent and early sound comedies reflect Linder’s pace […]
Signed with his full name, Israel Adrián Caetano, the superlative Uruguay-born Argentinean filmmaker of Pizza, Beer, Cigarettes (1998) and Bolivia (2001) this time has made a film that has considerably less to recommend it—that is, apart for us Americans, a reminder of what evils the current U.S. administration has embraced. In Buenos Aires in 1977, […]
Dennis Grunes 