Acteurist oeuvre-view – Daniel Day-Lewis – Part 2: NANOU (1986) & THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988)

[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/21930218/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/standard/tdest_id/2333198″ height=”100″ width=”” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]

Our second Daniel Day-Lewis Acteurist Ouevre-view introduces us to the little-known, but very worthy, Nanou (1986), Conny Templeman’s first and seemingly only feature, which we liked enough to discuss it in detail even though Day-Lewis’s part is very minor. We draw comparisons between the film and Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, and between Day-Lewis’s part in it and Ben Stiller’s in Reality Bites. Then we move on to Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) – in which Day-Lewis plays a cool and detached womanizer – and try to articulate the various ways in which the main characters (the others played by Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin) reflect and differ from each other in their attitudes to sex, aesthetics, and love. 

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                Nanou (1986) [dir. Conny Templeman]

0h 21m 33s:                The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) [dir. Philip Kaufman]                                    

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

 

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »

Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – 20th Century-Fox – 1938: SUEZ & IN OLD CHICAGO

[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/21846437/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/standard/tdest_id/2333198″ height=”100″ width=”” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]

In this 20th Century-Fox 1938 episode we look at two Tyrone Power-starring historical disaster spectacles, Suez (directed by Allan Dwan), about the construction of the Suez Canal and various sorts of post-Napoleonic idealism, and In Old Chicago (directed by Henry King), a heavily fictionalized account of how Mrs. O’Leary’s cow started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Dave and Elise respectively take up the films’ causes, while agreeing that they each make a hash of history. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                       SUEZ [dir. Allan Dwan]   

0h 28m 39s:                       IN OLD CHICAGO [dir. Henry King]                                     

           

• Studio Film Capsules provided The Films of 20^th Century Fox by Tony Thomas and Aubrey Solomon
• Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler                              

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

 

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »

Special Subject – Anna Magnani Sampler, Part 1 – ROME OPEN CITY (1945), VOLCANO (1950), BELLISSIMA (1951) & THE GOLDEN COACH (1952)

[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/21773441/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/standard/tdest_id/2333198″ height=”100″ width=”” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]

In Part 1 of our Anna Magnani Sampler, we explore a range of the legendary Italian actress’s modes and moods: from the neorealism of Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1945) to the postmodernism of Renoir’s The Golden Coach (1952); from a working-class mother’s tragi-comic attempt to make her daughter into a neorealist child star in Visconti’s Bellissima (1951) to an ex-prostitute’s tragi-heroic attempt to keep history from repeating itself with her equally stymied and frustrated sister in Dieterle’s Vulcano (1950). Larger-than-life? True-to-life? The definition or antithesis of a star? We try to get a grip on the mercurial Magnani. 

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                Rome: Open City (1945) [dir. Roberto Rossellini]

0h 24m 56s:                Vulcano (1950) [dir. William Dieterle]

0h 42m 54s:                Bellissima (1951) [dir. Luchino Visconti]

0h 57m 23s:                The Golden Coach (1952) [dir. Jean Renoir]

                                                 

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

 

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »

Acteurist oeuvre-view – Season Five – Daniel Day-Lewis – Part 1: MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE (1985) & A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1985)

[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/21703439/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/standard/tdest_id/2333198″ height=”100″ width=”” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]

Our Daniel Day-Lewis Acteurist Oeuvre-view gets started with the two 1985 films that established his range, giving a naturalistic portrayal of a working-class youth in the one and a caricature of an upper-class aesthete in the other: Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette, Hanif Kureishi’s Oscar-nominated dark comedy about race, class, and sexuality in Thatcher-era England, and Merchant-Ivory’s A Room With a View, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Oscar-winning adaptation of E. M. Forster’s romantic comedy of ideas. We argue for Day-Lewis as the lynchpin of these ensemble pieces, providing the (problematic) heart of one and the void at the center of the other, and consider how they anticipate his future performances.  

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) [dir. Stephen Frears]

0h 44m 01s:                A Room with a View (1985) [dir. James Ivory]

                                                 

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »