In the shadow of Germany’s annexation of Austria on March 15, 1938, Hollywood’s most radiant, rapturous musical biography appeared. Its ostensible subject: Johann Strauss II (Fernand Gravet, so-so); but at the outset the film admits that it aims for the “spirit” of the music and of Strauss rather than the “facts” of his life. Directors […]
Daily Archives: January 12, 2010
Launching his “Comedies and Proverbs” series, writer-director Eric Rohmer’s La femme de l’aviateur is another of his gems. An exquisite light comedy disclosing a depth of romantic anxiety, and hurt feelings alternately hidden and flashing, it revolves around a triangle—a woman, her former lover, her current sometime lover—that becomes another triangle, obliquely, when a girl […]
Dennis Grunes 