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Trailer Film:

Crimă | Mister | Thriller – Durata: 80 min.

Plot Keywords: crimă, cufăr, secret, petrecere, funie, apartament

Un film care se petrece TOT, într-un singur apartament. Doi tineri comit o crimă, şi pentru a face din ea crima perfectă la nivel artistic, ascund cadavrul într-un cufăr. Imediat după…organizează o petrecere, la care printre invitaţi se numară părinţii şi prietena victimei.
Un film de Alfred Hitchock… se pare că am rămas tripat pe filmele lui, în ultima vreme. Însă motivul e cert: omu’ a fost prea tare în meseria lui de regizor.

Torrent Name: Alfred Hitchcock – Rope (1948) DVDRip (SiRiUs sHaRe)
Download Subtitrare RO: >>Link<<

Trailer Film:

Crimă | Mister | Romance | Thriller – Durata: 112 min.

Plot Keywords: curte, vecini, binoclu, spionaj, aparat foto, suspiciune, scaun cu rotile, picior în ghips

Plictiseală mare când ai picioru’ în ghips şi trebuie să stai în casă. Bineînteles fără internet şi alte tehnologii cum există în ziua de azi. Şi cum poţi să-ţi ocupi mai bine timpul, decât spionând vecinii ?!
Un alt film în regia lui Alfred Hitchcock, a cărui variantă modernă am regăsit-o rapid în Disturbia (2007).
James Stewart, personajul nostru principal în acest film, devine suspicios în privinţa unui vecin, pe care îl banuieşte că şi-a ucis nevasta. Cât despre Grace Kelly…she’s a wonderful piece of ass.

Torrent Name: Rear.Window.1954.25fps.512×304.789kbs.88abr.MultiSub.WunSeeDee
Download Subtitrare RO: >>Link<<

Movie posters exist for the most part to advertise a new film to people who happen to pass by a theatre or bus stop. American graphic designer Saul Bass (1920-1996) saw the potential for the medium to be more artistic and provocative when he began making posters for films back in 1954, starting with Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones. He continued to team up with Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock and others to design stylized posters, and even branched out into movie title sequences.

Even if you don’t know him by name, you are likely to recognize Bass’ work, or at least his influence.

In 1955, Bass re-teamed with Otto Preminger to create the poster for his controversial movie The Man With the Golden Arm in which Frank Sinatra starred as a heroin addict. Bass used the arm as a centerpiece, and established his signature style using deconstruction, bright colors and sharp angles.

Additionally, Bass designed the opening title sequence, once again highlighting the arm.

In 1958, Bass worked with Alfred Hitchcock for the first time with the release of Vertigo, the faux-supernatural mystery with a twist.

Also in 1958, Saul Bass worked again with Otto Preminger for Anatomy of a Murder. I think his deconstructive technique works especially well the dead body, and is a clever play of the “anatomy” part of the film’s title.

The design influence for the Anatomy of a Murder poster is evident in the poster for Clockers (Spike Lee, 1995). This was not put together by Bass.

Most recently, I spotted an homage to Saul Bass in this poster for Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009).

In addition to print work, the animation and motion typography featured in Bass’ movie title sequences has been imitated with some variation over the years. A great example is from the opening of Catch Me if You Can (Stephen Spielberg, 2002), which was created by graphic artists Kuntzel + Deygas.

If only there was an iPhone app where you could take a photo or video and Saul Bass-ify yourself.

The Birds

Director: Alfred Hitchcock.

Guión: Evan Hunter, basado en una obra corta de Daphne Du Maurier.

Intérpretes: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright.

Música: Bernard Herrman (mezcla de sonido).

Fotografía: Robert Burkes.

EEUU. 1963. 119 minutos.

De Du Maurier a Hitchcock

Uno de los misterios más sobrecogedores de la historia de la crítica cinematográfica es, para mí, que existan detractores a esta obra maestra del Cine que Alfred Hitchcock se sacó de la manga en 1962-1963, tras Psycho y antes de Marnie. The Birds parte de un solvente guión de Evan Hunter que Hitch lleva a su terreno en cada uno de los planos de la película. Las modernas, estilizadas, tan genuínas estratagemas narrativas del brillante realizador británico parecen llevadas al extremo en esta obra cuya multiforme y atravesada tensión no da tregua al espectador desde el primer al último instante de la película. Sus bazas son la adaptación de una short story de Daphne Du Maurier (adaptación tan libre que hereda simplemente el título y la idea del ataque de unos pájaros a una comunidad aislada); el juego entre dos géneros tan opuestos como la comedia romántica y la ficción de terror; la renuncia a la utilización de fondo musical alguno –Bernard Herrman sirvió para asesorar al director en el uso de los elementos electrónicos que reproducen los graznidos de los pájaros (sic)-; y el desarrollo del filme en un pequeño microcosmos, Bodega Bay, concentración espacial que también se corresponde con la temporal (toda la acción acontece en un lapso de cuatro días, un fin de semana largo).

La derrota del hombre

Todos estos elementos se convierten en ejes del juego cinematográfico, tan inspirado como cruel, tan brillante como despiadado, que Hitchcock propone al espectador. Sirviéndose de largos planos silentes para absorber el sentido clásico de la narración (y construir texturas muy diversas de suspense, logrando sobredimensionar el tono, al principio casi cómico, progresivamente más ominoso, hasta lo trágico), Hitch, cual demiurgo del tiempo y el espacio, consigue enjaular a los personajes en la inexplicable hostilidad: no sólo literalmente en la dantesca secuencia en la que Melanie está encerrada en la cabina telefónica, o aquélla en casa de los Brennen –al final del filme, cuando Mitch está tapiando todas las entradas para protegerse del foribundo ataque y Melanie, en la cocina, observa los dos lovebirds en su jaula, sugiriendo la equiparación entre los dos animales y los cuatro humanos, también enjaulados-, sino también en el propio bar donde quedan recluidos, y, en definitiva, en toda la extensión de aquel diminuto pueblo, cuya geografía se delimita perfectamente para que conozcamos lo difícil que resulta entrar o salir de él… Describir secuencias sobresalientes de la película daría para una lista demasiado extensa, prefiero recomendar al espectador que se libre de sus prejuicios, que se meta en la historia, que se enamore del personaje que encarna Tippi Hedren a pesar de que –a priori- sea su irresistible belleza lo único que le llame la atención, que se convierta en ciudadano de Bahía Bodega y que, cuando la ira de los pájaros despierte, se limite a hacer lo que todos hacen: sufrir y desesperarse. Hitchcock les pondrá todas las facilidades para ello. Aunó su inmenso talento en el encuadre y la construcción de atmósferas con un esfuerzo sin parangón en los apartados técnicos para dar credibilidad visual a tan dantesca coyuntura. Y el resultado está a la vista. La liviana, casí pícara, historia de un romance se quiebra cuando una gaviota hace algo más que despeinar a la protagonista, y de ahí… al Apocalipsis, a la derrota del hombre y de su lógica.

De redención

A diferencia de lo que solía ser habitual, en esta película Hitchcock no quiso contar con grandes estrellas. Tippi Hedren no tenía experiencia previa en el cine, pero Hitch le arrancó una esplendorosa interpretación. Por su parte –y con idéntica premisa de la brillante dirección de actores-, Rod Taylor, Susanne Pleshette y Jessica Tandy no le fueron a la zaga. Y es así porque, en un análisis que se atreva un poco más allá de lo evidente, que se fije en los abundantes y primorosos primeros planos que enmarcan actitudes y sentimientos de los personajes, se descubre que el pathos que vertebra esta The Birds se halla fundamentalmente en el paradójico trayecto de redención emocional de esos personajes –paradójico por cuanto el sufrimiento inherente al mismo no procede tanto de la voluntad antes bien de la inexplicable amenaza exterior-: sin la intervención de los pájaros rábicos, la posh juguetona y descarriada en la que en definitiva se erige Melanie Daniels al principio del filme no hubiera cedido el punto de vulnerabilidad que el personaje de Mitch, cínico abogado, precisaba para que la atracción meramente física entre ambos se convirtiera en algo más profundo y alcanzara cierto punto de equilibrio sentimental; lo mismo puede predicarse del personaje que encarna Jessica Tandy, la madre posesiva que revelará un cambio de actitud, un inesperado instinto maternal y una capacidad de comprensión ante la vulnerabilidad de Melanie (una actitud que, nos apunta el filme en no pocas situaciones, no cedió en el caso de la anterior novia de Mitch, Susan); ésta, por su parte, ya no necesita redención, pues vive arrojada a un calvario existencial –vivir cerca del hombre al que ama aunque no pueda conseguirlo-, y quizá por ello ese sacrificio incondicional se verá parangonado con su trágico final.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869/

http://www.filmsite.org/bird.html

 http://www.hitchcockfans.com/gallery_thebirds.php

http://billsmovieemporium.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/review-the-birds-1963/

http://monsterhunter.coldfusionvideo.com/TheBirds.html

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/birdsce.php

http://www.miradas.net/2005/n36/clasico.html

http://www.terrortrap.com/creaturefeatures/birds/

Todas las imágenes pertenecen a sus autores

Au lieu d’avoir les yeux rivés sur les cours de la bourse, le patron de General Motors aurait été bien avisé de braquer son téléobjectif sur la filmographie d’Alfred Hitchcock. A l’heure où le géant américain de l’automobile s’apprête à mettre la clef (de contact) sous la porte, un petit détour sur Rear Window (Fenêtre sur cour), le chef-d’oeuvre voyeuriste de Hitchcock (1954), s’impose en effet.

Le photographe Jeffrey (James Stewart), immobilisé chez lui suite à une accident, reçoit les soins d’une infirmière à domicile. Tandis qu’il espionne tranquillement ses voisins d’en face, celle-ci lui raconte comment elle avait prévu le krach de 1929. Comment ? En observant l’un de ses patients, le patron de General Motors, tout simplement.

« I asked myself : what’s General Motors got to be nervous about? Over production, I say. Collapse. When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go. » En résumé : en surveillant les allées et venues du boss de GM aux toilettes, on aurait pu éviter la catastrophe. Coût total des frais de consulting : une place de ciné.

Les dialogues particulièrement subtiles et souvent à double sens de ce film, notamment les remarques teintées d’un humour noir typiquement hitchcockien de Stella l’infirmières, sont signés John Michael Hayes, décédé cette semaine à l’âge de 89 ans.

Fenêtre sur cour, c’est comment le cinéma donne à voir la réalité et la déforme pour en faire un film. La Bourse, c’est comment les patrons donnent à voir un film et le déforme pour en faire la réalité.

• Sonorama : écouter le 20e épisode des entretiens Hitchcock/Truffaut dans lequel est analysé Rear Window ainsi que Dial M For Murder.

• Diaporama : le film en 1000 images.

• Interview : John Michael Hayes.

Trailer Film:

Crimă | Mister | Romance | Thriller – Durata: 128 min.

Plot Keywords: acrofobie, ex-poliţist, dragoste, supraveghere, pictura, sinucidere

O altă poveste genială adusă pe ecrane de Alfred Hitchcock, în care un ex-politist retras din cauza acrofobiei (frica de înălţime), este angajat de un prieten ca şi detectiv, pentru ai urmări nevasta… care se comportă oarecum ciudat. Probabil n-am avut eu dispoziţia necesară, însă pe alocuri mi s-a părut lungit aiurea şi puţin plictisitor. Ce mă mai amuză la filmele astea vechi, e lipsa totală de sex… însă per total a fost foarte OK.
Filmul este inspirat după cartea “D’Entre les Morts” (From Among the Dead), scrisă special pentru Alfred Hitchcock de către Pierre Boileau şi Thomas Narcejac, după ce au auzit că acesta a intenţionat să cumpere drepturile de autor la cartea lor precedentă: “Celle qui n’était plus” (She Who Was No More), care a fost filmată sub titlul Les diaboliques (1955).

Torrent Name: Vertigo.1958.DVDRip.XviD.MultiSub-CiN
Download Subtitrare RO: >>Link<<

K and I are fairly big on structured fun.  I’m talking about poetry readings, Iron-Chef-themed dinner parties, a book club: stuff like that.  Once a month, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to journey southward down Lake Shore Drive to the enviable Hyde Park apartment of our friends Mitchell and Bob, where we and a group of exceedingly smart and kind fellow Chicagoans partake of what has come to be known as “Movie Group.”  (These are the sort of smart and kind Chicagoans who appreciate good assonance.)  Although these gatherings are carefree and egalitarian, we participants universally hail Mitchell—formidably learned in the history of film, among other subjects—as our curator and captain.  Over the past months he has shepherded us through a Blu-ray-based curriculum of classic movies, all of which have resonated for me well past the end titles, some more so than others.

The Halloween-themed selection for October 2009 was The Birds, the last major film by Alfred Hitchcock.  (If somebody wants to make a case for Marnie or Frenzy, I’ll be happy to listen.)  I’d seen The Birds before, and found it troublesome.  Having now seen it again and discussed it with the Movie Group gang, I still find it troublesome, but in a way that’s maybe more productive.  A few things in particular are still bugging me.

The first is a multi-part observation that Mitchell made.  Mitchell, it must be said, is an eloquent and persuasive proponent of the belief that among the dramatic genres, comedy is superior to tragedy—if only because its canvas is broad enough to encourage sympathy and identification with a bunch of characters, thereby depicting a whole society instead of the struggles of a single flawed hero.  The Birds, Mitchell argues, is a comedy. 

In this clip from The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (start at 1:38), Slavoj Žižek suggests that the key to interpreting horror films is to imagine the story “without the horror element;” that’s basically where Mitchell goes, too, although he and Žižek part company rapidly thereafter.  Subtract the killer birds, and The Birds basically tells the story of an impetuous young San Francisco socialite (Melanie) who cutely meets a handsome lawyer (Mitch) and follows him home to the community of Bodega Bay, where she discovers that he’s ensnared in somewhat dreary family circumstances: his father has been dead for over four years, and his mother (Lydia) is all but paralyzed by grief and anxiety.  Melanie learns that she’s not the first girl to follow Mitch from San Francisco to Bodega Bay: the town schoolteacher (Annie) pursued him aggressively once, and has stayed around town to be close to him, although these days he seems to spare her hardly a thought.  The movie concludes with Mitch driving Melanie, Lydia, and his young sister Cathy away from the family home and out of Bodega Bay; Melanie has been weakened and humbled, while Lydia seems to have found new reserves of maternal strength.  Thus does Melanie (motherless from a young age) find a mother, Lydia a daughter, and Mitch (we presume) a bride.  The barren and dysfunctional family has become fertile and loving.  Bingo: a comedy in the classic sense.

I find Mitchell’s reading pretty convincing . . . more convincing than Žižek’s, anyway, which characterizes the film’s tension as the product of a “standard Oedipal imbroglio” between Mitch and Lydia; therefore the attacking birds are “the maternal superego [. . .] raw incestuous energy,” which only quiets down after it succeeds in inverting the power relations between Lydia and Melanie.  That’s pretty good, but not quite right.  The thing about The Birds is that it clearly EXPECTS to be interpreted—much of the dialogue actually CONSISTS of attempts at interpretation as the townspeople try to figure out why the birds are attacking, a question the film famously declines to answer—and it works hard to get out in front of the viewer’s interpretive act.  Speaking of Mitch’s mommy troubles fairly early in the movie, Annie tells Melanie, “So what was the answer?  A jealous woman, right?  A clinging possessive mother.  Wrong.  With all due respect to Oedipus, I don’t think that was the case at all.”  Thus is Žižek’s reading explicitly rejected by the film itself—which doesn’t make it wrong, of course, but does make me think we’re still missing something.

What stayed with me in Mitchell’s reading of The Birds was a fairly offhand comparison he made of the film to a middle-period Shakespearean comedy—particularly As You Like It—and of Bodega Bay to the Forest of Arden, the dreamlike Elsewhere where the characters’ frustrating and static entanglements become confused and dynamic, and are then transformed and resolved.  I think this Shakespeare comparison is really good—especially given how significant gender confusion is in both As You Like It and The Birds, a topic I hope I can get to later—but the Forest of Arden thing threw me a little.  Mitchell’s correct to say there’s a Forest of Arden in The Birds, but I don’t think it’s Bodega Bay.  I think it’s the birds themselves.

One of the things that makes the Žižek trick of separating out the horror element from The Birds so easy and rewarding is the fact that there are two distinct narrative tracks that run through the film, one of which (spelled out above) is linear and comic, and the other of which is cyclical and tragic.  The pathos of schoolmarm Annie basically derives from the fact that she attempted to proceed along the first narrative track and wound up mired in the second: she came to Bodega Bay to win Mitch away from Lydia and take him back to San Fran (just as we can probably assume that Melanie succeeds in doing), and instead wound up abandoning all her aspirations and opting to stay in Bodega Bay forever, unsexed and inert.  (This is the part where we point out that Annie—portrayed by Suzanne Pleshette—is kind of improbably sultry for a small-town schoolteacher; if this can happen to her, it can happen to Tippi Hedren’s Melanie, too.)

Mitchell also pointed out that the bird attacks in the film have a conspicuously cyclical quality which is not dissimilar to the slow wax and abrupt wane of sexual compulsion: gradual build, climax, quietness, repeat.  (I’m reminded here of Kevin Nealon’s old pornographic movie reviews on SNL’s Weekend Update: “I was interested . . . interested . . . VERY interested . . . and then, suddenly, I lost interest.”)  And of course the real engine of the film—its intensifier—is the irrational, unexplainable, compulsive, cyclical force of the attacking birds.  The other, linear, comic narrative gains its shape and actually BECOMES linear (Lydia becomes a proper mother, Melanie a proper wife and daughter) by virtue of its intersection with the attacking birds, just as Shakespeare’s characters emerge from the Forest of Arden “properly” coupled.  (It just occurred to me that the frogs at the end of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia might play a roughly analogous role.)

It’s significant that the linear narrative in The Birds is also a family narrative—and the WAY in which it’s a family narrative is also interesting.  When Shakespeare’s comedies incorporate family narratives, they typically do so to illuminate how a broader society emerges from overlapping familial bonds; The Birds seems to reverse that emphasis, dramatizing how an entire community can be paralyzed or even imperiled by the troubles of a single family.  In so doing, it seems to point toward a narrative form even more atavistic than that of classical comedy: the ritual narrative, more specifically a “life-death-rebirth” fertility narrative of the sort that used to dramatize the yearly rhythms of planting and harvesting in agrarian societies.  The ritual proceeds like this: when Melanie comes to Bodega Bay, she learns that the King (Mitch’s father) has died; the proper course at this point would be for the Prince to take a bride and assume the throne.  But there’s a problem: the old Queen is unable to surrender her role, to move aside for the new King and Queen.  (In a notable scene, Lydia confides to Melanie her frustration at her inability to properly mother her children; she also interacts with Mitch as if he’s a husband, not a son.)

The Birds drops a few clear hints that we should be thinking of Bodega Bay in agricultural terms.  For a bayside community, folks seems to be doing a lot of farming (or raising chickens, at the very least).  Furthermore, when we first meet Annie, she’s working in her garden—an activity that we’re not permitted to regard comfortably as productive or wholesome.  (“I’ve been wanting a cigarette for the past twenty minutes, but I couldn’t convince myself to stop,” Annie tells Melanie.  “This ‘tilling of the soil’ can get a little compulsive, you know.”)  I know what you’re thinking, and yeah, sure, Bodega Bay seems a trifle quaint for a Waste Land . . . but there are certainly plenty of semi-innocuous signs that something’s not quite right: the inability of the town’s adults to recall the names of children, for instance, or to recognize that inability.  And then of course there’s the cautionary example of Annie herself: the snared and enchanted schoolteacher, Mitch’s abortive Queen.  In this reading, it’s Annie’s snared enchantment, not any mere pecking-to-death, that represents the real peril confronting Melanie.  Likewise, it seems clearer than ever that it’s Melanie (and not Mitch) who must be understood as the protagonist—the hero—of the film, and whose headlong eagerness to pursue Mitch to Bodega Bay must be regarded as more frightening than cute.  (The stated justification for her impulsive/compulsive trip is, of course, her intent to deliver a pair of lovebirds to Mitch’s young sister Cathy as an eleventh birthday present, and this act prefigures and is recapitulated by the vaster transformative arrival of the impulsive/compulsive attacking birds.)

At this point I am reminded of another comment made during our post-Birds discussion, this one by our second resident cineaste, Alfred Max.  (Movie Group boasts an embarrassment of film-scholarly riches.)  Alfred pointed out that Melanie’s rather inexplicable decision near the end of the film to walk upstairs in Lydia’s barricaded house and enter a room that’s open to the outside—where she is, of course, attacked and nearly killed by birds—is her first and only misstep in a film in which she is otherwise disbelief-beggaringly hyper-competent.  This exception-which-proves-the-rule must, I think, lead us to consider that her mistake is no mistake at all: it is an act of self-sacrifice—deeply encoded into the structure of the ritual narrative—which makes possible the ultimate resolution of the linear plot, i.e. the Old Queen (Lydia) shifted into the proper role of Mother, the hero (Melanie) accepted as Queen, the motherless daughters orphans no more, and the Prince kinged at last.  It even seems appropriate that the restored family leaves Bodega Bay with the two lovebirds that initiated the journey still in their possession, and still securely caged; these evoke, perhaps, the erotic engine of Melanie’s and Mitch’s impending marriage.

Pretty neat, huh?  But hang on a minute, you’re thinking.  In a proper ritual narrative, wouldn’t the Waste Land of Bodega Bay be restored, instead of being escaped?  Yeah, that’s bothering me, too.  Two other things are also bothering me: 1) if Lydia is the Old Queen and Melanie is the New Queen and Mitch is the New King, what the hell is Mitch’s little sister Cathy doing in the car?  Why is she in the movie at all?  Do we really need another player on the field?  And 2) why do all the children in Bodega Bay seem to be about eleven years old?

I have a theory about all of that, but it’ll have to wait till after Thanksgiving.  In the meantime, try not to let these burning questions tamper with your digestion.

Flickr

I had been there several times before I actually knew the name of the place. It didn’t seem important.  All that mattered was that I could get a good chicken dinner there.  So I called it “the chicken place.”  I would usually wander over with my friend, Nick after spending time next door at The Bourgeois Pig.  We’d sip our lattes and cappuccinos, futz around on the net and then when it was evening, walk over.  There was no plan, it was just understood.

This rotisserie chicken place on Franklin Avenue in L.A. is usually crowded, both for  indoor and outdoor seating.  The low-lit dining room with its tables, booths and red and black decor is inviting.  Those who stop in to drink more than eat like to cluster around the bar… especially while rooting for their favorite football or basketball team on the overhead television screen.   Nick and I prefer an outdoor table under the white Chinese lanterns, if we can get it.  The curb side patio is less crowded and has a laid-back feeling, even with street traffic whizzing by.

One night as we sipped our dirty martinis and dipped our chicken parts into our respective chipotle and garlic sauces, we realized exactly where we were.  We were sitting at Birds Cafe.  Okay, I had seen the name above the bar, but thought it was just something kitschy.  I had also never noticed the name right on the outdoor awning.  When it’s late and you’re hungry, trust me, that’s the last thing you’re looking at.  We also never saw the name on the menu.  Who needs a menu when you order the same thing every time.   But that particular night I decided I would write about this hipster cafe.  So I did some investigating.  I asked our server.

Birds Cafe.  Of course, the name made perfect sense now that I thought about it, and not just for the obvious reason.  There were hints all over the place… a poster of Alfred Hitchcock from the movie, The Birds hangs on one wall while a poster of a large chicken hangs on another.  The restrooms are labeled, Hens and Roosters and there is a human-sized bird cage dangling from the ceiling to the right of the bar.

I could have been just as happy in my oblivious state, but I have to admit, it’s nice knowing the name.  It makes the restaurant that much more interesting with its kitschy Asian-bird decor.  So if you’re looking for an offbeat place to go for dinner, you might want to try Birds… the place I still fondly refer to as you know, the chicken place.

Happy Thanksgiving: An Impish Alfred Hitchcock Carves Your Holiday Turkey!

Photography by:  John Rawlings, NYC (1956)

Pick a Hitchcock of opulence rather than corpulence,
just pleasingly plump, with a snug silhouette,
To embellish the board when the places are set.
For the ultimate test, more closely examine it.
The Hitchcock supreme has a wide streak of ham in it.
-Ogden Nash

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(Entry contains spoilers)

Country: France.
Written and Directed by: Claude Chabrol.
Cast: Stéphane Audran, Jean Yanne, Antonio Passalia, Pascal Ferone.

To interpret Claude Chabrol’s movies can be a real challenge, as his movies are full of depth and symbolism, yet they are often simple in style and setting.

As a director, he is very interested in the psychological states of his protagonists and this particular movie, Le Boucher (1970) is among his so-called, “genteel-bourgeois-murder cycle” together with the movies; La Femme Infidèle (1969), Que La Bête Meure (1969), La Rupture (1970), Juste avant la nuit (1971) and Les noces rouges (1973). In these movies, Claude Chabrol dealt with the hidden truths of his seemingly sociopathic characters and to this day, he is much associated with the mystery genre, as it’s still a genre and subject matter that occupies his creative ideas as a living master of film-making. Interestingly, his movies is still often set in provincial towns.

Many of his movies show the influence director, Alfred Hitchcock has had on him, seen in his effective mise en scènes and in general, just the way he creates suspense in his mystery/thriller films. In fact, he often pays homage to Hitchcock in his films; in Le Boucher (1970) he pays homage to two of Hitchcock’s movies, Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Strangers on a Train (1951) . 

Noteworthily, Claude Chabrol co-wrote the book, Hitchcock with Éric Rohmer in 1957 which studied the cinema-work of Mr. Hitchcock. In terms of his passion for the cinema, he also wrote for the influential film-focused magazine Cahiers du Cinema (the magazine was founded in 1951) throughout the 1950s, before he became a director, along with such important directors and Cinemaphiles like; François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Jean-Luc Godard. He was one of the first to start the French New Wave which was to influence film-making not just in France but the world over. Interestingly, unlike many of his contemporaries, he still makes movies today; he has made an impressive number of 71 movies thus far (check out the new documentary about Claude Chabrol called, Claude Chabrol, L’Artisan (2009) as it’s really good) .

The film, le Boucher (1970) is, in my mind, a great example of his work with its Hitchcockian thriller aspects and Noir elements, to its complex and utterly flawed characters, to its symbolism in the small details and to its poetic stylization and brilliantly haunting score (done by Pierre Jansen). Right from the beginning of the film with its happy atmosphere at a wedding where the two seemingly happy but utterly lonely characters  meet, we’re engaged into a story of hidden truths. Helene (Stéphane Audran) is a confident and independent school headmistress and Popaul (Jean Yvanne)  is the local butcher. The music in the beginning is surprisingly light and it’s not until Helene walks back to the school where she also has her home, that we hear the haunting and effective music.

Interestingly, at the wedding she indicates that she loves weddings, yet she does not want to be in a relationship whatsoever, with any guy, after having been hurt badly 10 years prior. Though she keeps a certain distance from Popaul, he obviously excites her which is something that is lacking in her responsible life as a school headmistress. The inner wildness and excitement in her character is shown most vividly, in the morning scene after the wedding where she smokes a cigarette with an attitude on the street in a sexy and sensual way, signaling female dominance and mystery. She seems free as a bird (though she is under the influence of alcohol). But really, she isn’t!

Throughout the film, Popaul very clearly feels unworthy of her, symbolically seen when he visits her at home and his chair is much smaller than hers. The lack of confidence on his part is partly due to his time in the army, where the memories of war with an overload of death and blood still haunts him. She functions as his savior of sorts, though it’s not realized on her part until much later in the movie .

The film is very much a character study of flawed characters that is not what they appear; throughout the film Helene has to deal with the overwhelming suspicion that Popaul is the one that has killed all the girls that has been killed in the little French rural town they’re living in. Indeed, it turns out that Popaul is clearly the towns’  psycopatic killer, but it’s much more complex than that. Popaul has been, in many ways, ruined psychologically by the war and the lack of romantic and sexual affection from Helene clearly brings fort the killer in him.

The distance in their platonic relationship is effective and symbolically shown between them through the window scenes; Popaul outside the window looking in and Helene looking out.  They have both been emotionally scarred in their life; Helene who was abandoned by her former lover before she moved to this little idyllic town, and Popaul with his strained relationship to his father who abused him and his 15 difficult years in the French army - the film clearly argues or suggests that Popauls abusive childhood and time in the war has contributed to his crimes.

“I have a lot of blood – my blood doesn’t stop flowing. I know about blood. I’ve seen so much blood, blood flowing. … Once, when I was little, I fainted when I saw blood. I noticed the smell of blood – they all smell the same, that of animals and that of men. Some is more red than others, but all have exactly the same smell.” – Popaul in the poetic scene by the end of the film, in the car on the way to the hospital.

Popaul cannot get beyond blood by this point in his life and the rejection of affection from Helene, ultimately drives him to kill. The complexity of these two fractured souls are dealt by its director and writer, Claude Chabrol in an extremely simple but utterly depthful and sympathetic way, particularly in the character of Popaul. Claude Chabrol balances between the showing of the darkness of both characters to have scenes that sympathize more with the characters that make us, as viewers, understand the reason why the characters are behaving and doing what they do. The last few minutes of the film, suggests a much more flawed character in Helene, though subtly shown through her face expressions and in particular, her eyes; she has clearly been affected by the events with Popaul and the guilt she feels is apparent at the end of the film. 

Vincent Canby made an interesting point in The New York Times, september 14, 1970: “I’m not sure that “Le Boucher” works for me on the level of psychological realism. I find it impossible to accept the suggestion that Chabrol ultimately makes, that is, that Mile. Hélène could have saved the psychotic killer from himself had she not been afraid to love, and that, by withholding her love, she is in some way as much of a beast as he is, fit to be condemned to eternal loneliness.”

Claude Chabrol often shows the depth and flaws of women, most notably with actress, Isabelle Huppert. What is interesting about Stéphane Audran (married to Claude Chabrol from 1964-1980) in this movie, is her Hitchcockian blonde hair combined with her classical beauty showing a great sense of impassivity and mystery, much like Catherine Deneuve in some ways. The complexity Claude Chabrol shows of Helene as acted by Stéphane Audran is one of understanding; Claude Chabrol knows how to capture her essence on-screen and makes her a real flesh and blood character. Jean Yvanne who was often used in Claude Chabrol’s movies at this time, gives a complex performance with that moody quality that makes him so perfectly cast for this part and he compliments Stéphane Audran’s performance so well, too.  One of Claude Chabrol’s strenghts as a director, is his understanding of portraying realistic human beings in a complex and symbolic, yet understated way - it is one of the many reasons why this movie is endlessly fascinating.

Cross-posted to my blog, www.classicmaiden.com

Trailer Film:

Crimă | Mister | Thriller – Durata: 105 min.

Plot Keywords: plan, soţie, crimă, amant, inspector, şantaj, bani

În regia lui Alfred Hitchcock, un film care a fost tras în doar 36 de zile, cu un scenariu de-a dreptu’ genial. Cadrele se rezumă mai mult la un apartament, în care se petrece aproape tot misterul/acţiunea. Dialogurile sunt fluente şi aranjate foarte bine, expunând foarte facil şirul de evenimente ce are loc să urmeze.
Un ex-tenisman profesionist concepe un plan meticulos pentru a-şi ucide nevasta. Planul nu îi iese prea bine, şi dezvoltă spontan un plan B ingenios. Un film EXCELENT!

Torrent Name: (1954) Dial M For Murder
Download Subtitrare RO: >>Link<<

Michael Haneke es un director alemán que hizo una peli de ultraviolencia en 1997 con clara influencia de Stanley Kubrick y Alfred Hitchcock con un reparto completamente alemán del cual sólo puedo reconocer a Ulrich Mühe quien actuó en la impecable Das Leben der Anderen en 2006.

Recientemente, están rotando la versión americana en Cinemax y al parecer lo más interesante es que el director no cambió nada, igual que la distribuidora que hasta los cortos de avances de la peli los dejó idénticos. El escenario es una casa burguesa en las afueras, rodeadas por un lago y un ambiente calmado. Es de corte psicológico y de una profundidad actoral muy fuerte. En el reparto de esta versión se encuentra Michael Pitt que ya resuena como un monstruo de la actuación, Naomi Watts en una increíble y desgarradora actuación y Tim Roth. La trama es que dos jóvenes llegan a la casa donde se hospedan Roth, Watts y su hijo y empieza una cadena de torturas psicológicas que no tiene fin durante más de doce horas.

Hablabamos con un amigo y desde que Pitt le pide unos huevos a Roth, al principio de la peli, uno se estremece con el tono en el que le responde y se crea de ahí en adelante una tensión electrizante.

Es supremamente gráfica y violenta.
Es sencilla y estremecedora.
Es entretenida pero a la vez muy tensionante.

Es una pieza de teatro impecable y definitivamente recomendada para seguir analizando, una y otra vez, ya que logra involucrar al espectador en estos juegos mentales y dejarle la conciencia dañada después de ser testigo de esta interminable tortura. No es violencia por violencia, es el espacio dejado por Kubrick en los 70’s después de su A Clockwork Orange donde se critica la sociedad, la asimilación del crimen y la violencia de forma natural en nuestras vidas y la psique de los llamados civilizados.

Sería chévere repasar la versión de 1997 y reparar en paralelo las modificaciones, los actores y el final.

I recently read “How Alfred Hitchcock can make you a better storyteller,” a blog entry on the “10,000 Words: Where journalism and technology meet” blog by Mark Luckie.  I found it really interesting how Hitchcock’s filmmaking techniques can be so easily applied to journalism and media.  I’m a huge Hitchcock fan, so being able to apply my knowledge of his unique techniques to my work as a journalist will be very helpful.

Hitchcock was a master of keeping the viewers attention from beginning to end.  According to Luckie, this is also an important goal for journalists.  He suggests deleting any boring or useless information and keeping your story simple.  I think this is an important tip for journalists to remember because why take up valuable space in your article with words that aren’t useful or that no one wants to read.  As journalists, our job is to get every tidbit of information possible and then whittle it down until it fits into a good story.  Sometimes it’s hard to take a step back from the information and use only that which will be interesting to readers.  I know that after weeks of research, it’s hard for me to toss out data or quotes that took me a lot of time and effort to track down.  However, it’s worth it for the quality of the story to look at the material from a reader’s perspective and not your own.

Another important tip given by Luckie, is that everything you post, write, or create might not be immediately popular but may build popularity over time.  He points out that one of Hitchcock’s most famous films, “Vertigo” was actually not a box office hit when it was first released.  However, it was re-released in 1983 and is now considered a classic.  I think this idea of late popularity is even truer in the age of digital media.  Unlike in the past when a newspaper article was only available the day it was printed (unless you put a lot of effort into going through archives), or a movie only ran in theaters for a certain amount of time, things posted online are available 24 hours a day for a long, sometimes endless, amount of time.  An article you read in the paper today can be tracked down with ease online weeks, months, and even years after it was published. Stories and other aspects of journalism have a much longer life span now allowing for audiences to build up over time rather than just at the time of publication.

I find it interesting how the skills and techniques of a man who made films long before the digital age can be applied to the current world of journalism.  Reading this article made me wonder how Hitchcock would feel about his techniques being applied to the craft of journalism rather than just film.

I recently read “How Alfred Hitchcock can make you a better storyteller,” a blog entry on the “10,000 Words: Where journalism and technology meet” blog by Mark Luckie.  I found it really interesting how Hitchcock’s filmmaking techniques can be so easily applied to journalism and media.  I’m a huge Hitchcock fan, so being able to apply my knowledge of his unique techniques to my work as a journalist will be very helpful.

Hitchcock was a master of keeping the viewers attention from beginning to end.  According to Luckie, this is also an important goal for journalists.  He suggests deleting any boring or useless information and keeping your story simple.  I think this is an important tip for journalists to remember because why take up valuable space in your article with words that aren’t useful or that no one wants to read.  As journalists, our job is to get every tidbit of information possible and then whittle it down until it fits into a good story.  Sometimes it’s hard to take a step back from the information and use only that which will be interesting to readers.  I know that after weeks of research, it’s hard for me to toss out data or quotes that took me a lot of time and effort to track down.  However, it’s worth it for the quality of the story to look at the material from a reader’s perspective and not your own.

Another important tip given by Luckie, is that everything you post, write, or create might not be immediately popular but may build popularity over time.  He points out that one of Hitchcock’s most famous films, “Vertigo” was actually not a box office hit when it was first released.  However, it was re-released in 1983 and is now considered a classic.  I think this idea of late popularity is even truer in the age of digital media.  Unlike in the past when a newspaper article was only available the day it was printed (unless you put a lot of effort into going through archives), or a movie only ran in theaters for a certain amount of time, things posted online are available 24 hours a day for a long, sometimes endless, amount of time.  An article you read in the paper today can be tracked down with ease online weeks, months, and even years after it was published. Stories and other aspects of journalism have a much longer life span now allowing for audiences to build up over time rather than just at the time of publication.

I find it interesting how the skills and techniques of a man who made films long before the digital age can be applied to the current world of journalism.  Reading this article made me wonder how Hitchcock would feel about his techniques being applied to the craft of journalism rather than just film.

Trailer Film:

Horror | Thriller – Durata: 109 min.

Plot Keywords: bani, furt, fugar, motel, crimă, cuţit, dispariţie, detectiv, duş

O ecranizare a cărţii Psycho de Robert Bloch, în regia marelui Alfred Hitchcock. După vizionare, mi-am dat seama cât de mulţi regizori moderni, s-au inspirat din twistu‘ acestui film. Chiar acest fenomen, m-a făcut să-mi dau seama de final înca de pe la jumătate. Cu toate astea, nu am fost dezamăgit deloc.
Filmul este excelent de bine clădit, misterios, te ţine în priză din primele minute până la final.
N-am putut să nu remarc o chestie într-un dialog…şi anume că americanii aveau aer condiţionat în birouri în anii ‘60. Care va să zică noi ne bucuram de ele doar de câţiva ani :|… vai de curu’ nost’.
Revenind succint asupra filmului…it’s a classic, fuckin’ ay!!

Torrent Name: Psycho[1960]DvDrip[Eng]-Stealthmaster
Download Subtitrare RO: >>Link<<

Tre classiconi…

Lo spaccone:

Il sorpasso:

La finestra sul cortile:

The Lady Vanishes

Pais: GB
Año: 1938
Género: Intriga
Duración: 97 min.
Dirección: Alfred Hitchcock
Guion: Sidney Gilliat & Frank Launder (Novela: Ethel Lina White)
Música: Louis Levy
Producción: Gaumont British / Gainsborough

Reparto:
Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave,Dame May Whitty,Paul Lukas, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne.

Descripción:
Los viajeros del ferrocarril Transcontinental Express sufren el retraso de una noche a causa del mal tiempo en un pais de centroeuropa. Los pasajeros pernoctan en un pequeño hotel del pueblo, en donde Iris Henderson conoce a una vieja institutriz inglesa, la señora Froy. Poco después de reanudar el viaje Iris se da cuenta de la desaparición de la anciana, pero todos afirman que su amiga no existe y que padece una alucinación.

Críticas:
Las raices del maestro
Película que pertenece a la etapa inglesa de Hitchocock. Fué rodada en 1938 y ya incluye, aunque muy timidamente, todo lo que más tarde ofrecería el mago del suspense en sus posteriores obras de arte. Un argumento curioso, unas interpretaciones maravillosas (muy pocas veces Hitchcock se equivoca eligiendo actores) y un guión sorprendente. Destacar el tren como elemento muy socorrido en la filmografia del director, y por supuesto muy bien utilizado. Es una película donde se encuentran las raices cinematográficas del director y de su peculiar género que creó y que sigue, y seguirá, siendo modelo de referencia para todas aquellas personas que hacen cine.

Datos técnicos:
Tamaño:  1,33  Gb
Duracion: 01:31:50
Vídeo codec: Xvid (doble pasada)
Resolución: 608 x 432  Bitrate: 1808 Kbps. Qf: 0.275
Audio codec: Mp3 Cbr
Bitrate Castellano/Inglés: 48000Hz  128 kb/s total (2 chnls)
Subtítulos : [Castellano - Inglés]

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And Just Who Did What to Whom? Surprise!!

Surprise is a 1 1/2-minute stylish short thriller directed by Ben Dodd, which was commissioned for a special showcase at the Tate Modern Museum in London. The film tell a very tragic story as it unfolds from the end to the beginning.  It’s a “Hitchcockian” dark film-noir, where a  vengeful romantic murder is not at all what it seems. The dramatically circuitous and shadowy film leaves you wondering about just who did what to whom…Surprise!!

And Just Who Did What to Whom? Surprise!!

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A murder mystery set in Vienna in 1902 sounded like a terrific idea. Teaming up to solve the mystery: Oskar Reinhardt, a detective, and his friend Dr. Max Liebermann, a doctor who experiments with the new treatment known as psychoanalysis. (Naturally Dr. Freud appears in a walk-on part.) The victim is a beautiful blonde clairvoyant who has been shot in a locked room.  Along the way, the author places his characters in the famous coffee houses, at the Secession, and he even sets the climactic scene at the peak of the famous Reisenrand, the Ferris wheel in the Prater that Hitchcock so memorably employed in The Third Man.

It almost works, but Frank Tallis isn’t a terrific writer. Much of the historical and local color seems obligatory: why tell us exactly what everyone orders each time the characters sit down for a cup of coffee? Why trace their steps — right on this strasse, left on that brücke — when these are routes the characters would follow without thought? Why pause to tell us that Liebermann’s new coffee table was made by Koloman Moser? It’s all clumsy. And Tallis’s word choices are sometimes labored. “Weak spears of watery light angled through the mossy curtains, illuminating motes that glided through the air with the lymphatic grace of protozoa.”  ”Lymphatic grace?” If you say so.

That being said, the plot is satisfying and the pacing works nicely. The characters all feel a little bit second-hand, as if we’d met them before in other books (the bluestocking English governess, the sexually abusive bank president and his downtrodden wife, even the slightly plodding policeman Reinhardt and the more intuitive Dr. Liebermann). But the murder itself is quite ingenious and when all’s said and done, turn-of-the-century Vienna is a fine place to spend a few hours.

Rope

Pais: EU
Año: 1948
Género: Intriga
Duración: 80 min.
Dirección: Alfred Hitchcock
Guion: Arthur Laurents & Hume Cronyn
Música: Leo F. Forbstein
Producción: Warner Bros. Pictures

Reparto:
James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Cedric Hardwicke, Joan Chandler, Douglas Dick.

Descripción:

A casa de dos estudiantes van llegando personajes a los que han invitado a una especie de fiesta fin de curso. Al invitado que más temen es su tutor y profesor de criminología, una astuto criminólogo que defiende la no existencia del crimen perfecto. Ellos, precisamente, están preocupados porque tienen un cadáver en el arcón que sirve como mesa para la cena. Se trata de un amigo mutuo y prometido de una antigua novia

de uno de ellos. Con el asesinato intentan demostrar al profesor que sí existe el crimen perfecto. A lo largo de la noche, el profesor va comprendiendo que los dos amigos han asesinado a uno de sus alumnos y, utilizando métodos deductivos, intenta descubrirlos, desarmando sus coartadas.

Críticas:
Maravilla a tiempo real. Impresionante. Una gran obra muy bien desarrollada que con solo un par de escenarios consigue captar la atención del espectador durante todo el metraje creando una atmosfera de tensión logradísima. En mi opinión, una de las mejores obras de éste gran director.
Muy muy muy recomendable.

Datos técnicos:
Tamaño:  1,13  Gb
Duracion: 01:17:27
Vídeo codec: Xvid (doble pasada)
Resolución: 640 x 464 Bitrate: 1833 Kbps. Qf: 0.247
Audio codec: Mp3 Cbr
Bitrate Castellano/Inglés: 48000Hz  128 kb/s total (2 chnls)
Subtítulos : [Castellano - Inglés]

Capturas:

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