“Dones de cine” és un conjunt de retrats d’actrius mítiques del cinema, dibuixats a llapis i carbonet i amb collage de photoshop. La selecció de les actrius correspon a un criteri personal més que cinematogràfic. He intentat transmetre no tan sols a l’actriu sinó  també a la dona. La vida bohemia i rebel de la sensual i intel·ligent Louise Brooks que va ser arraconada pel cinema de Hollywood un cop va començar el cine sonor; la imatge de “femme fatale” de Veronica Lake, que va morir massa jove en la misèria.L’assatjament que va patir Tippi Hedren per part d’Alfred Hitchcock; la mirada penetrant de la temperamental Vivien Leigh, que patia profundes depressions….

“Dones de Cine” (“Mujeres del cine”) es un conjunto de retratos de actrices míticas del cine, dibujadas a lápiz y carboncillo y acabadas con photoshop. La selección de las actrices corresponde a un criterio más personal que cinematográfico. He intentado transmitir al espectador de la ilustración, no sólo a la actriz sinó a la mujer: la vida bohemia y rebelde de la sensual e inteligente Louise Brooks que fue olvidada por el cine de Hollywood después de empezar el cine sonoro; la imagen de “femme fatale” de Veronica Lakem que murió demasiado joven en la miseria. El asedio que sufrió Tippi Hedren por parte de Alfred Hitchocock; la mirada penetrante de la temperamental Vivien Leigh, que sufría profundas depresiones…

Siempre me había querido ver The Birds de Alfred Hitchcock pero nunca había tenido la oportunidad, de chiquito veía la serie de televisión donde se notaba que era un contador de historias, unas más predecibles que otras pero definitivamente con la perspectiva de un excelente maestro del suspenso.

The Birds de 1963 parece una cátedra para cineastas donde cada plano está concebido completamente entorno a la narrativa de la historia, planos secuencia, planos subjetivos, planos genralísimos, generales, americanos, medios planos, detalle, primeros planos, equilibrio en las tomas, continuidad, una innumerable cadena de artilugios cinemátográficos que hacen de esta peli una referencia obligada para cualquier amante del cine.

Obviamente, nuestra cultura nos ha enseñado mucho a nivel de suspenso y terror pero digamos que incluso esta peli con más de cuarenta años de historia logra entreponernos entre la tensión de un fenómeno anormal y extraordinario como es el ataque por parte de pájaros. Las tomas donde se hace referencia a ellos son verdaderamente electrizantes, las situaciones por fuera de la cámara como por ejemplo cuando Tippi Hedren, interpretando a la señorita Melanie Daniels, está esperando afuera de la escuela a Veronica Cartwright, quien hace de Cathy Brenner y de repente empiezan a posarse un par de cuervos detrás en un aparejo escolar y de repente pasando sólo de mostrar la ansiedad de Hedren a un plano donde todo el aparejo está repleto de cuervos es sencillamnete un logro magnífico.

Me encantan las historias inconclusas entre el personaje de Annie Hayworth y el de Rod Taylor, entre este mismo y su madre, e incluso entre su madre y todas sus pretendientes. No me gustó tanto la forma en como quedó abierta la historia al final pero pues es una clara firma de Hitchcock y el dominio de su género.

Excelentes actuaciones de todo el reparto que incluye a Tippi Hedren, Veronica Cartwright, Suzanne Pleshette, Rod Taylor y la magnífica Jessica Tandy.

Miss Harlem. Miss subways. Miss Brooklyn. The list of long-gone local beauty contests is filled with small-time titles and pageants. 

But one mattered so much to residents, it reportedly attracted almost as many city voters as a presidential election at the time did: Miss Rheingold.

A promotional jackpot for Brooklyn’s Rheingold Brewing Company, the Miss Rheingold pageant ran from 1941 to 1964. 

Every summer, grocery stores would be stocked with ballots featuring six finalists. The winner spent the following year on Rheingold billboards and in magazine ads. (Tippi Hendren, a 1953 finalist, above, didn’t snag the title.)

Miss Rheingold helped make the beer New York’s most popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Rheingold goes way back in the city; it opened in 1883 in Bushwick on the nabe’s famed “Brewers Row,” which earned its moniker because so many German-American beer companies began there.

Alas, they shut down in 1976, but the brand was revived in the 1990s. A new Miss Rheingold contest was also reinstated recently, but the contestants are all female bartenders.

Cinematograficamente parece ser o filme mais melodramático e ao mesmo tempo “tosco” do mestre Hitchcock. Mas eu adorei, de já dos meus preferidos! Trata-se de uma adaptação de um best-seller[do Wilson Graham] que eu sempre quis ler e sobre uma temática que super me interessa[eu já fui ladrona fina no passado, confesso].
O suspense retrata a relação entre uma cleptomaníaca(Tippi Hedren) e um ricasso(Sean Connery), passando longe do trivial. Destaque principal às soluções do diretor no momento de crises da Hedren quando a tela fica totalmente rubra. De curiosidade, foi o primeiro filme americano do Sean Connery, que está um charme só[óbvia]. Já a Hedren se esforça durante todo o filme, mas não merece muitos créditos por sua atuação.
*
Pesseguismo: minha gente, descobri no Imdb que o Connery não faz filmes desde 2006!? o.O

Kerry Cerberus is imprisoned in Jerry’s mind as an upper working class girl with aspirations to enter into middle class society through her education. He is a projection of what she will become, and in him she recognises her own faults.

She walks up the stairs to his room, hypnotically drawn to her quest to interrogate him. It represents her crossing the line from being an initial ally to evolving into an enemy. She invades his room, sussing out an emotional weak spot in his character and starts to needle him. She continues to belittle him, judging him by the standards of the culture she wants to enter into. But in passing judgement about him being unemployed she has condemned herself.

Just want to go to sleep and have this day be over.

31 Dagar. 31 filmer. Följ med in i Filmstar-crewets mörkaste och ljuvligaste mardrömmar i tiden nu när sommaren dör ut och mörkret gör entré. Älska att frukta hösten. Halloween närmar sig och vi på Filmstar.se räknar ner med en skräckis varje dag. Detta är Filmstars 31 dagar av skräck!

Då var det visst min tur att prata lite om en skräckfilm. Som ni märker så har jag valt kultfilmen Fåglarna (The Birds) av Alfred Hitchcock. En film som analyserats många gånger om av olika kritiker och forskare runt om i världen. Det är även den filmen som ligger näst högst upp på min topplista över Hitchcockfilmer (listan toppas av Repet). Det var även den här filmen som fick upp mina ögon för den runda lilla britten.

Klassisk scen från filmen

Vi backar tillbaka en bit i tiden till året 1963. Det var då den beryktade och berömde regissören Alfred Hitchcock gav ut filmen The Birds (Fåglarna här i Sverige). Detta var en film som var baserad på en novell av Daphne du Maurier. Detta var faktiskt inte första gången som Hitchcock använde sig av du Mauriers verk. Han hade tidigare regisserat filmerna Rebecca och Jamaica Inn skrivna av henne. Men enligt mig är Fåglarna den bästa filmen av de tre – huruvida novellerna är bättre eller sämre vet jag inte i dagsläget. Jag tror inte jag kommer att läsa dem då jag med all säkerhet kommer tycka att de är bättre än den filmiska efterlagan. Manuset till filmen plitades dock ner av Evan Hunter – en man som förmodligen är mer känd under sitt alias Ed McBain.

Storyn utspelar sig mestadels i det lilla samhället Bodega Bay som ligger utanför San Fransisco. Vi får möta en ung kvinna vid namn Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) som befinner sig i San Fransisco för att hämta upp en Mynafågel (googla). Inne i djuraffären stöter hon på Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) som är där för att köpa kärleksfåglar till sin lillasyster. Galant som han är inser han att Melanie har klass och han lägger in en stöt. Detta genom att han (medvetet) misstager henne för att vara en expedit i affären. Inget som inte direkt är populärt hos Melanie som kommer från den övre klassen. men likväl blir hon intresserad av Mitch.Men det blir lite smågnabbandes mellan dom inne i affären – dock på ett flörtigt vis.

Det hela leder till att Melanie köper kärleksfåglarna som Mitch ville ha (sista paret i butiken) och letar sedan upp hans adress efter att de skiljts åt inne i affären. Därefter åker hon hem till honom med fåglarna som en present och romantiken kan börja. Hon presenteras för Mitch lillasyster Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) samt hans kära moder (Jessica Tandy) plus hans exflickvän/lillasysterns lärare Anne (Suzanne Pleshette). Japp, triangeldramat är ett faktum.

Mitch och Melanie samspråkar över en drink

Än så länge låter detta inte som en skräckfilm eller hur? Ni har så rätt. Jag skulle mer vilja kalla det här för en romantisk film som totalvänder för att sedan bli en klassisk skräckis. För det är precis vad som händer, hade jag inte sett omslaget innan jag såg den första gången så hade jag blivit sjukt paff när skräcken kom. Vi kanske ska fokusera oss på skräckdelen nu istället. Men samtidigt vill jag poängtera att romantikdelen inte bör tas bort från filmen. Den tillför mycket för att vi skall lära känna karaktärerna och förstå hur de fungerar och tänker.

Triangeltrion

Det hela börjar med att en mås helt oprovocerat attackerar Melanie när hon är på väg hem till Mitch. Eller attackerar och attackerar. Den flyger upprepande gånger in i hennes ansikte. Men det kan väl räknas som en attack. Detta är dock bara början på vad som hända skall. Det hela eskalerar slutligen i att hundratals.. kanske tusentals fåglar attackerar den lilla byn. Folk dör som flugor. Men eftersom Hitchcock hade charm och finess så är detta inget splatteraktigt. oftast får man föreställa sig själv hemskheterna. Vilket gör filmen nästan ännu bättre. Speciellt i tider som denna då blodet sprutar åt alla möjliga håll.

Jag vet inte varför jag älskar den här filmen så mycket som jag gör, jag tycker den är genialisk på alla sätt och vis. Det beror inte bara på att jag är ett stort fan av djurfilmer. För egentligen kan man klassa in den här filmen i det facket också. Men det vore vulgärt och helt fel. Jag skulle inte direkt jämföra Fåglarna med exempelvis Babe – den modiga lilla grisen.

Nej, detta är en skräckfilm med stil och finess ut i fingerspetsarna. Visst är det lite knas att en massa fåglar börjar attackera folk utan egentlig anledning. Men vad gör det egentligen i en skräckfilm? Det vore samma sak att gnälla på att den långsamma mördaren i alla slasherfilmer alltid hinner fatt sina offer som springer för livet – Bara genom att gå?!?

Efter “fågelkastningen”

Om ni mot all förmodran skulle ha missat den här pärlan så tycker jag absolut att ni ska ta och se den. För den är snygg, spännande och faktiskt rolig vid sina tillfällen. Exempelvis är där en scen där Melanie blir attackerad av fåglar och man kan riktigt se hur filmcrewet står och kastar uppstoppade fåglar på henne. Men är det Ed Woodigt? Nej för bövelen! Det kanske låter lite så när jag sitter här och svamlar. Men nej nej nej. Så är inte fallet.

Slutet är också ett av de bästa jag sett i en skräckis på länge. Hade det länge som favorit, ända till The Mist kom och petade ner den. Men det är en helt annan historia….

Over at Brian’s Drive-In Theater, you can watch this George Montgomery hoot of a movie. The low-budget action hero stumbles upon a group of white South African drug runners trafficking in giggle weed. Tippi Hedren, acting as poorly as her hair styles, shows up to help him out.  I love how the bad guys never finish off Montgomery but save him for death “later on.” This happens at least a half-dozen times, including once when he’s mauled by vicious dogs! Damn!

I’m always wary to watch these old classics, with an innate fear that they can never live up to the hype.  It’s always encouraging when they  do.  Hitchcock’s “The Birds” did.

First off, the narrative frame is pretty close to perfect.  Opening up in SF and moving straight to Bodega Bay for the rest of the film gives us this false sense of movement.  Moving so quickly from one city to another, we expect to be on the move the whole film, but just like every one else, we are trapped in this quiet town, terrorized by the unknown enemy with wings.

There is no one quite as good as capturing that quiet but endless fear and doom as Hitchcock.  Even in the opening scene, mostly flirtatious and cutesy, the viewer gets the feeling that some shit is gonna go down.

Finally, the movie exists in its own reality with no apologies or exceptions, and this is, I believe, the trademark of all the really great directors.  Why are the birds attacking?  Why do the characters do what they do?  Can’t anyone think of anything else to do to escape?  Guess what?  IT DOESN’T MATTER.  The film is what it is, and that’s what makes it so great.  We don’t need to question any of this stuff because Hitchcock doesn’t let us.  And quite frankly, none of those questions matter.  All that matters is that these birds are gonna kick your ass, and you best do something about it or you gonna be toast.

Blut, Sperma, Klitoris.

Es gab Zeiten, da wäre Lars von Trier für einen Film wie diesen aus Cannes nicht ohne die Goldene Palme nach Hause gegangen. 1990 etwa, als die Jury für einen schicken Festivalskandal sorgte, weil sie David Lynchs Gewaltmärchen „Wild at Heart“ auszeichnete und dabei vorab genau wußte, wie kontrovers diese Entscheidung aufgenommen werden würde. Seit Mitte der 90er hat sich die Provokationsbereitschaft an der Croisette jedoch merklich gelegt, und so konnte man zwar das allgemeine Entsetzen, das deutliche Spuren in den leichenblassen Gesichtern mancher Premierenbesucher hinterlassen hatte, unmöglich ignorieren (verstärkt durch eine Pressekonferenz, in der so mancher Teilnehmer fast die guten Manieren vergaß), wollte sich aber doch nicht wirklich hinter einen Film stellen, der ganz offensichtlich Gefallen daran hat, mit der Selbstzweckhaftigkeit expliziter Gewaltdarstellung zum Bürgerschreck zu werden. Also zog man sich mehr oder weniger elegant aus der Affäre, erklärte Charlotte Gainsbourg zur besten Darstellerin und war noch einmal mit dem Schreck davongekommen. Dabei hat von Triers Horrortrip ausgerechnet mit Lynchs leicht entflammbarer Liebesgeschichte eine ganze Menge gemein – und schaut man genauer hin, könnte man gar meinen, beide Filme entstammten demselben Uterus.

Was sich sonst noch so im Unterleibsbereich abspielt, wird bei von Trier ausführlich gezeigt, verletzt, missbraucht, verstümmelt und allegorisiert. Dass er dabei ein Stück Pornografie in den Arthousefilm hinüberrettet, ist vielleicht auch eine Art Trotzreaktion auf das unfeiwillige Ende einer experimentellen Phase seiner Produktionsfirma Zentropa, während der er echte Hardcorebeiträge wie „Pink Prison“ oder „All about Anna“ auf den Markt schmiss, und damit nicht nur für Aufsehen sorgte, sondern auch die Legalsierung des Genres in Norwegen auslöste. Bereits 1998 hatte er in „Idioten / Idioteme“ mit unsimulierter Vaginalpenetration und einer sichtbaren Erektion für Aufruhr gesorgt. Gleich in den ersten (atemberaubenden) Einstellungen von „Antichrist“ vereint er beides in Großaufnahme, ganz so, als wolle er all den damaligen Diskussionen und Zensurmaßnahmen (bis hin zur gepixelten TV-Ausstrahlung) ein Jahrzehnt später noch einmal klarmachen, wie wenig ihn all das Gerede schert, und er eben macht, was er will.

Überhaupt gehört diese Haltung zum Grundprinzip dieses Films. Autor und Regisseur in Personalunion entscheiden, was es zu sehen gibt, wie groß, wie detailliert, wie blutig und schockierend. Ganz einfach. Nicht, dass von Trier das jemals anders gehalten hätte. Hier jedoch setzt er neben einigen gewohnten Eigenheiten zusätzlich noch ganz massiv auf grafische Gewalt, und das nicht gerade mit sonderlicher Bescheidenheit. Das Schöne für einen Berufsprovokateur wie ihn ist dabei, dass er weiß, auf welches Publikum er trifft, und wie sehr der Skandal damit vorprogrammiert ist. Sein Plan ging selbstredend voll auf. In Cannes sackten die ersten ohnmächtig in den Sesseln zusammen, und wer sich das Vergnügen bereiten will, den Film in einem gut besetzten Arthouse-Kino anzusehen, sollte nicht verpassen, sich in drastischen Momenten immer mal wieder umzuschauen und zu beobachten, wie so mancher damit kämpfen muss, nicht den Saal zu verlassen.

Für ein mit allen Wassern gewaschenes Genre-Publikum ist „Antichrist“ natürlich nur eine harmlose Spielerei, die neben manchen aktuellen Auswüchsen der Folterpornowelle (gerade verweigerten die britischen Zensurbehörden der japanischen Blutorgie „Grotesque“ mit guten Argumenten jegliches Aufführungsrecht) praktisch wie gediegene Familienunterhaltung wirkt. Aber die Kulturbeflissenen, die diskursbesessenen Caféhaus-Intellektuellen, die Ehepaare mittleren Alters, die zwischen Museum und modernem Regietheater bildungsbürgerlich über den dänischen Filmemacher schwadronieren – sie alle stößt „Antichrist“ vor den Kopf und sagt in etwa: „Ihr hattet es ja sehen wollen, jetzt müsst ihr es auch aushalten.“ Liest man die Danksagungen an all die Landräte und Gemeindevorstände in den End Credits (gedreht wurde der Fördergelder wegen – und laut Filmemacher ausschließlich aus diesem Grund – im Bergischen Land bei Köln), darf man das geradezu als Unverschämtheit empfinden – denn dass die Betreffenden ihre Unterstützung für einen Film leisteten, der die heimatlichen Wälder nicht nur zum Hort des absolut Bösen erklärt, sondern zudem wie selbstverständlich grausamste körperliche Misshandlungen in Großaufnahme zeigt, wird nicht gerade zu ihrer Beliebtheit beim Wähler und im Vereinsheim beitragen. Wie sich von Trier angesichts der Vorstellung all der schockierten Gesichter bereits im Vorhinein laut lachend den Bauch gehalten hat, kann man sich an fünf Fingern abzählen.

Lässt man all diese offensichtlichen Provokationen beiseite, ist „Antichrist“ das Verstörendste, Faszinierendste und Hypnotischste, was es dieses Jahr bisher auf der Leinwand zu sehen gab: Ein namenloses Ehepaar verliert den gemeinsamen Sohn auf denkbar grausame Weise. Die Frau (Gainsbourg) fällt in eine tiefe Depression aus Trauer und Schuldgefühlen. Der Mann (Willem Dafoe), ein Psychiater, beschließt, sie auf eigene Faust zu therapieren und bezieht mit ihr eine abgelegene Waldhütte, die offenbar eine wichtige Rolle im Heilungsprozess spielt. Doch seine Erfolge erweisen sich schnell als oberflächlich. Je tiefer beide in die Abgründe der Frau eintauchen, desto irrationaler wird auch das Setting um sie herum. Visionen, sprechende Tiere und beunruhigende Erkenntnisse über die Vergangenheit lassen die Konstellation der beiden mehr und mehr zu einem schleichenden Höllentrip werden. Nichts jedoch lässt erahnen, mit welcher Wucht die Macht des Irrationalen am Schluss über den Figuren einbrechen wird.

Immer gerne benutzt von Trier das Genrekino als Spielball für seine eigenen filmischen Experimente. Doch im Gegensatz etwa zu seinem diesjährigen Cannes-Kontrahenten Michael Haneke gebraucht er die Form nicht, um sie selber ad absurdum und dem Zuschauer die eigene Manipulierbarkeit vor Augen zu führen. Von Trier nimmt das Genre ernst, weitet aber dessen Tragfähigkeit nach innen aus (wer wissen will, was das heißt, muss nur einen Blick darauf werfen, wie sich „Dancer in the Dark“ die Spielarten des klassischen Hollywood-Musicals zunutzen macht). „Antichrist“ balanciert dabei ziemlich sicher über ein straff gespanntes Drahtseil aus Ingmar Bergman, Stephen King und Grand Guignol.

Dass King und von Trier mehr gemeinsam haben, als man zunächst vermuten würde, zeigte vor ein paar Jahren „Kingdom Hospital“, das US-Remake der Miniserie „Ridget“, für das der Horrorautor aus Maine verantwortlich zeichnete und der Vorlage über weite Strecken erstaunlich treu blieb. Von Trier outete sich als großer Fan und überließ King nur zu gerne die Rechte. Im Gegenzug bedient er sich jetzt im Motivwald des amerikanischen Seelenverwandten. Vom Tod des Kindes, der Ungeheuerliches ins Leben ruft, das seine Heimat in den Wäldern hat („Pet Sematary“) über den schleichenden Wahnsinn, der unerkannt längst die Herrschaft übernommen hat („Shining“) bis zu grausigsten Maßnahmen gegen die Verlustangst („Mysery“) lässt sich bei von Trier jede Menge wiederfinden, das ohne Umweg direkt aus archetypischen King-Fantasien stammt.

In äußerster Depression hätte er das Drehbuch verfasst, besessen von Strindberg und mit der festen Vorgabe, nichts, was einmal auf dem Papier war, wieder zu streichen. Das kann man glauben oder auch nicht, denn bei von Trier weiß man nie, welche seiner Aussagen in bester Orson-Welles-Manier schlichtweg frei erfunden sind. Für eine Promotion-Aufnahme zum Film ließ er sich jedenfalls unverkennbar in Hitchcock-Pose fotografieren, die schwarze Krähe jedoch nicht auf der Schulter, sondern tot am Boden liegend. Das Tier mag dabei zwar den oberflächlichen Bezug herstellen, näher als an der Klaustrophobie von „The Birds“ ist „Antichrist“ jedoch an den Machtkonstellationen von „Marnie“. Während dort Sean Connerys Figur sexuelle Erregung daraus bezieht, die psychotische Tippi Hedren zu therapieren, und deren verweigernde Haltung mal eben mit einer Vergewaltigung auf dem Ehebett bestraft, markiert Willem Dafoes Charakter das genaue Gegenteil. Sex und Therapie stehen sich gegenseitig im Weg, und so ist es hier die Frau, die den Mann vergewaltigt.

Überhaupt dienen die Geschlechterrollen bei von Trier in gleichen Maß zur Parodie wie zur Überhöhung. Ratio (Mann) und Uterus (Frau) können auf archaischem Boden (dem Wald mit dem geradezu absurd allegorischen Namen „Eden“) nur getrennt überleben, denn der Mann geht nicht auf die Jagd (sondern dringt in die Psyche der Frau ein), und die Frau sorgt nicht für den Nachwuchs (sondern macht in vielerlei Hinsicht das genaue Gegenteil). Eine solche Konstellation kann nur in Gewalt münden, und dass diese ihren Ursprung im Geschlechsakt hat, gehört eben zur Natur des Sündenfalls. Das Chaos regiert.

Artikel © 2009 Thomas Lenz. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Filmplakat / Fotos: MFA+ FilmDistribution e.K.

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It’s not ALL about “When Animals Attack” in spite of crappy TV shows designed to frighten. Yes, people are attacked by animals. Yes, animals are attacked by people exponentially more often. This clip is a wonderful reminder of how it can be when we take attack out of the equation…the lion was rescued by this woman 6 years ago, and they see each other every day.

On the topic of rescuing…the recent spate of fires in and around Los Angeles has put an alarming number of animals in danger. Everything from the lions and other big cats at Tippi Hedren’s Shambala Preserve and the Wildlife Waystation to the domestic housepets that were in evacuation areas. Many animals have needed to be relocated or faced evacuation…and evacuating lions, tigers, and bears is no easy task. Some are in temporary shelters and in desperate need of donations to erect emergency shade areas and watering systems for survival until tehy can get back to their homes. Horses from the fire endangered area were being located to emergency facilities at the Pierce College Equestrian Center.

Here is a link to a fantastic site with fire situation updates for the area’s threatened animal service charities and facilities. Kinship Circle Animal Disaster Aid Blog

Won’t you consider helping?

Por Bruno Pongas

Os Pássaros é daqueles filmes difíceis de resenhar, de conteúdo complexo, diferente, que aborda temas pouco comuns – especialmente para o universo hitchcockiano. Acostumado a romances, suspenses policiais e derivados, Alfred Hitchcock traz a tona nesse trabalho algo completamente novo em sua carreira: o sobrenatural. Pois é! Muito mais do que um exercício de suspense, o clássico de 1963 nos instiga a refletir sobre algo que nunca vivenciamos, sobre o que temos medo e aquilo que jamais desejaríamos enfrentar: coisas do outro mundo. Além de tudo, o cineasta mostrou para o mundo toda a sua criatividade ao brincar com um assunto tabu para as pessoas (assunto esse que gera polêmica até hoje). De quebra, Hitchcock ainda mostrou sua enorme capacidade ao brindar o público com mais um bom trabalho, apenas três anos após Psicose - uma de suas obras-primas.

Talvez a primeira impressão que o longa passe após seu término é: “ué, mas acaba assim mesmo?”. Sim, Os Pássaros acaba de uma maneira estranha, podemos assim dizer, pois o diretor constrói todo um clima de suspense para no final deixar a maioria das coisas por resolver. Para quem gosta de filmes inseridos naquela fórmula básica do começo, meio e fim, é bem provável que esse trabalho de Hitchcock seja decepcionante. Quase caí nessa, confesso, mas depois de pensar um pouco e contextualizar com a época, concluí que o cineasta executou uma grande obra, repleta de pequenos detalhes, bem filmada e assustadora.

Sim, assustadora! Embora muito dos efeitos soem como mera tosqueira (hoje em dia nem assustam mais), é bom lembrar que na época aquilo foi revolucionário, pois Hitchcock sempre esteve muito à frente de seu tempo. Ainda assim, mesmo parecendo infantil e por vezes até risível (nos dias de hoje, volto a ressaltar), o diretor consegue montar um clima dos mais intrigantes, pouco visto antes na história do cinema. O ar sombrio, aliás, ganha contornos mais tenebrosos com a ajuda da ‘trilha sonora’. Entre aspas porque simplesmente há ausência de qualquer tipo de trilha. O diretor, junto com Bernard Herrmann – seu consultor e compositor -, optou por trabalhar a trama sem músicas. Isso já fica bem claro logo no início, quando aparecem os créditos sem nenhum tipo de som além do ruído de pássaros. O filme todo é assim, repleto de ruídos de todos os tipos, o que torna o suspense ainda mais macabro e curioso.

O desempenho do elenco contribui com o ar intrigante e sobrenatural - desde os protagonistas aos personagens menos importantes. Vale ressaltar que, como de costume, Alfred Hitchcock aparece em uma das cenas. É logo nos primeiros minutos, quando ele é mostrado saindo da loja de pássaros com alguns cachorros. Mas como o assunto aqui é outro, alguns atores merecem suas ressalvas. A bela Tippi Hedren está muito bem na pele de Melanie Daniels; algumas cenas suas, como a da cabine telefônica, por exemplo, passam um sentimento claustrofóbico impressionante. Aqui, ela está muito bem auxiliada pela maquiagem, que consegue reproduzir seus ferimentos com uma realidade admirável para aquela época. Acima de Tippi, quem merece todo o destaque é Jessica Tandy. Como Lydia Brenner, Jessica nos entrega uma personagem sinistra, enigmática e indecifrável. Suas atitudes têm pouca justificativa; é uma pessoa confusa, diabólica… sobrenatural, talvez? Para completar o trio, Rod Taylor também merece elogios: na primeira metade como o bonitão convencido e na segunda como o mocinho da história.

O fato é que com Os Pássaros, Alfred Hitchcock se mostra capaz de obter destaque em diversas vertentes do suspense. Dessa vez sem roubos, sem assassinatos, sem vertigem, sem planos mirabolantes, sem nada comum em seu cinema. Talvez isso justifique o sucesso que a obra conseguiu ao longo das décadas, já que além de agregar elementos novos ao mundo hitchcockiano, temos ainda o ótimo trabalho de sempre, como personagens muito bem construídos, um suspense pra lá de amarrado e técnicas de filmagem impressionantes (é perceptível algumas cenas filmadas sem um único corte). Uma obra-prima das mais competentes que o cinema já viu, merecedora de muitos e muitos elogios.

Minha Nota: 8.5

Direção: Alfred Hitchcock
Gênero: Suspense
Duração: 119 minutos
Elenco: Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Tippi Hedren, Veronica Cartwright, Ehel Griffies e Charles McGraw.

Il 13 Agosto (1899) nasceva il grande regista, maestro unico del grande schermo. Vorrei rendergli omaggio ricordando le sue splendide attrici.

Nessuno come Hitchcock ha saputo esplorare la ricca vita psicologica e interiore delle sue donne e attrici (Naomi Watts, che si appresta -ahimè!- a girare il remake de Gli Uccelli).
Eppure è noto come le dive hichcockiane abbiano avuto un rapporto spesso difficile con il regista. Molto si è discusso e scritto su questo aspetto, ricorrendo anche alla psicanalisi per delineare un risvolto sadico nella personalità di Hitchcock: Un omosessuale misogino. Hitchcock prediligeva le attrici belle e glaciali (alla Grace Kelly) o le bionde più facili da seviziare (alla Kim Novak). Dichiarò che, in una scena durante la quale un corpo nudo di donna giace in mezzo a un mucchio di patate, la sua attenzione era tutta per le patate. Nei suoi film c’è poco posto per gli idilli, e anche per le smancerie romantiche… (Ubi73).
Quel che è sicuro è che Sir Alfred era molto esigente sul set, costringendo le sue attrici a prove fisicamente impegnative (impose a Tippi Hedren uccelli veri, corvi con il becco grande e cattivo e sorprese Janet Leigh con un getto di acqua gelata perché urlasse veramente…).

Denominatore comune a quasi tutti i film del grande regista inglese è il modello unico di donna ritratto: Hitchcock, scegliendo le protagoniste per i suoi film più famosi, ha imposto un modello di donna del tutto particolare: la ´bionda algida´. Bionde, eleganti, al primo impatto eteree e inavvicinabili, le attrici hitchcockiane in realtà avevano la caratteristica peculiare di essere ambigue e misteriose, talvolta così sensuali da trasformarsi in sex symbol sui generis (Alessandro Diegoli). Per Hitchcock le donne troppo sensuali toglievano suspense allo svolgimento degli eventi. Mentre le donne eteree, fredde, bionde… (Bernard Pivot). A conferma di tutto ciò, lo stesso regista ebbe a dichiarare: Se la seduzione è troppo evidente, non c’è più suspense.
Illuminante quanto affermato da Dominique Paini:
Leonardo, Rembrandt, Picasso hanno spesso disegnato i tratti di una stessa donna. Hitchcock ha forse filmato uno stesso modello immaginario?

Note:

Primo tra i registi a diventare una star riconoscibile dal grande pubblico, è giustamente soprannominato “il mago del brivido” per la sua personalissima capacità di far irrompere l’orrore (sempre psicologico, mai gratuito) nella normalità.
I suoi film hanno saputo raccontare, a volte con ironia, il silenzio improvviso e le sfumature di tenebra dell’animo umano.
Maniacale nei dettagli, meticoloso nella tecnica, elegante nello stile, ha realizzato opere che sono sofisticati esercizi di regia ma con lo scopo fondamentale di intrattenere lo spettatore miscelando magistralmente humour intrigo poesia: da qui la sua immensa popolarità.

]]> http://selectedreviews.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/the-birds/ Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:19:07 +0000 Bob W. http://selectedreviews.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/the-birds/

The Birds is generally regarded as an Alfred Hitchcock classic despite the uninspired casting of Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor in the lead roles. Hedren, a fashion model whom Hitchcock hired after seeing her in a TV commercial, is particularly awkward and unconvincing as bratty socialite Melanie Daniels. It’s not a performance that’s grown in stature over the years, like Kim Novak in Vertigo, or attained the iconic permanence of Grace Kelly in Rear Window. What has become the stuff of legend, however, is Hitchcock’s perverse mistreatment of Hedren on the set of The Birds, famously recounted in Donald Spoto’s 1983 biography, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. The five-day ordeal of filming the climactic scene in which her character is trapped in a roomful of attacking birds—hundreds of live crows and gulls were hurled at her face by off-camera stagehands—resulted in Hedren being hospitalized and the production closed down for a week. “An established actress,” says Spoto, “would never have submitted to this extreme abuse.”

Bird's eye view from "The Birds"

It is the birds themselves, of course, who are the stars of the show (the watchful protection of the ASPCA didn’t extend to Hitchcock’s cruelty toward Hedren). The movie isn’t character-driven, and in fact it’s barely plot-driven. With nearly 400 special effects shots, The Birds is the granddaddy of A-list horror shockers like Jaws and Alien. Hitchcock’s film is designed to accentuate the increasing ornithological mayhem. It’s not that the human actors are superfluous to the story—although no other top-drawer Hitchcock film so thoroughly overrides its cast—but they are at best subliminal pawns in a narrative comprised of murky and veiled motivations. From a technical standpoint, Hitchcock is working at the pinnacle of his formidable skills in The Birds, and it arguably represents his purest cinematic achievement. Indeed, the movie is a textbook of brilliantly edited set pieces and ingenious uses of color, sound, and landscape.

Hitchcock and screenwriter Evan Hunter borrowed only the title and basic conceit of Daphne du Maurier’s 1952 short story, “The Birds.” Du Maurier’s tale, conventional and utterly humorless, is a Cold War parable that uses the unexplained bird attacks as an apocalyptic metaphor for nature thrown out of balance by technology and warfare. It’s told from the perspective of Nat Hocken, a disabled war veteran and farmhand living in a cottage with his family in the British Isles. As the bird assaults escalate, Nat holes up with his wife and two children behind boarded-up doors and windows. For a while they follow BBC radio reports of similar chaos all across the country. There are rumors that the Russians have poisoned the birds to make them vicious and suicidal. RAF squadrons are dispatched to combat the birds, but the aircraft engines become clogged with winged carcasses. Planes crash at sea and along the coast near Nat’s cottage. His wife wonders if America will send reinforcements. The story ends with the radio dead and Nat out of cigarettes as he again hears the birds clamoring outside:

Nat listened to the tearing sound of splintering wood, and wondered how many million years of memory were stored in those little brains, behind the stabbing beaks, the piercing eyes, now giving them this instinct to destroy mankind with all the deft precision of machines.

Comparing the short story and the film, it’s clear that the central metaphor functions quite differently in each case. By shifting the context and jettisoning du Maurier’s banal antiwar message, Hitchcock was able to attach the same apocalyptic imagery to his own radical thematic concerns: sexual repression and existential alienation. In the film’s desolate vision, we’re cut off from any semblance of integration or wholeness with the natural world and with one another. We’ve lost our capacity for giving and accepting love. Personal desires and yearnings have been twisted beyond recognition by our damaged psyches and broken families. Instead of Nat Hocken and his vague “wartime disability,” Hitchcock and Hunter give us a rogues’ gallery of Freudian dysfunction: Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), a San Francisco lawyer and mama’s boy incapable of committing to an intimate relationship; Lydia Brenner (Jessica Tandy), Mitch’s neurotic mother, depressed since the death of her husband four years ago and desperately jealous of any woman who shows an interest in her son; Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), a spinsterish school teacher still bitter and obsessed long after Mitch has spurned her affections; and, finally, the frigid and vain Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), who begins a flirtation with Mitch that seems destined for the same failure that beset Annie Hayworth’s scuttled relationship.

Hitchcock and Hedren on the set of "The Birds"

It’s important to realize that these characters are static personalities. Nothing about their behavior suggests that they are capable of change or growth or insight of any kind. Their lives are condemned to a robotic repetition of neurotic impulses. (Adding to the unsettling atmosphere, Tippi Hedren’s clipped amateurish line readings and flat acting style are a remarkable simulation of psychotic dissociation.) Every interaction between the major players shows them emotionally stunted, and the screenplay refuses to advance or facilitate their maturation. During an ostensive romantic interlude with Mitch and Melanie sharing martinis on a cliff overlooking Bodega Bay, Mitch playfully says, “You need a mother’s care, my child.” Melanie reacts to the joke with pained grief, explaining to Mitch that she hasn’t seen her mother since childhood. Moments later, they rejoin an outdoor birthday party for Cathy Brenner, Mitch’s eleven-year-old sister (the same age at which Melanie was deserted by her mother). Suddenly a flock of crazed gulls dive-bombs the children playing in the backyard. This pattern of murderous interruption and failed intimacy is repeated throughout the film. Donald Spoto, in his analysis of The Birds, remarks that “each incident with birds immediately follows a scene describing a character’s fear of being alone or abandoned.”

Much attention has been given to the groundbreaking electronic soundscape (conceived by Remi Gassmann, Oskar Sala, Bernard Herrmann and an early synthesizer-like instrument called the Trautonium) that accompanies the film in lieu of a music score. But The Birds is also notable for numerous scenes that are keyed to simple ambient noises, like the spitfire whoosh of Melanie’s sports car as she zips along the California coast to Bodega Bay, and the putt-putt outboard that propels her rented boat to the Brenner house. Later, Mitch’s mother will make her fateful visit to the Fawcett farm in a rough-running pickup truck. The film’s famous final shot, too, is of Melanie’s sports car, now driven by Mitch, with Melanie as catatonic passenger. These sequences all invariably include at least one image of the vehicle in question dwarfed by a pitiless and immense landscape, the rasping motor little more than a death rattle echoing in the void.

Even minus a manipulative music score, The Birds manages to incorporate songs that add an ironic and disquieting commentary to the film. During Melanie’s dinner visit with the Brenner household, she sits at the piano and plays Debussy’s soothing “Arabesque No. 1” while Cathy talks about one of Mitch’s court cases, a client who “shot his wife in the head six times.” (Mitch gleefully adds the details: the husband was watching a ball game on TV and his wife changed the channel.) The scene is filled with macabre Hitchcock touches like the dour portrait of the deceased Brenner patriarch that hangs prominently on the wall above the piano, as if glaring at Melanie while she plays. The entire sequence seems to mock the cultured domesticity of Debussy’s music. In another scene—one of the film’s greatest—Melanie nervously watches crows massing on a playground jungle gym. We hear the children inside the Bodega Bay grade school singing chorus after chorus of an innocuous folk song with the refrain, “ristle-tee rostle-tee, hey donnie-dostle-tee.” Between the repetitions of the sprightly song and the ominous portent in the school yard, Hitchcock powerfully evokes the primal chills of a Grimms’ fairy tale. And as Melanie anxiously smokes her cigarette and eyes the crows, we feel the sickening transformation of a child’s fantasy into the grisly madness of a punishing adult world.

June, 2000

Tippi Hedren

Nem todo mundo concorda com a refilmagem de grandes clássicos, e segundo a Folha Online a atriz Tippi Hedren, que era protagonista do filme original “Os Pássaros”, de Alfred Hitchcock, afirmou que a ideia de lançar uma nova versão do clássico filme de 1963 é um “insulto”:

“Pegar uma obra de arte como esta e tentar copiar é como tentar imitar a Monalisa”, disse a atriz, cujo papel na nova versão do filme será interpretado por Naomi Watts. A declaração foi dada em entrevista ao “Daily Express”.

“Acho que Hitchcock diria que eles [a equipe envolvida na produção] são crianças tentando fazer um filme e perguntaria o porquê de não terem uma ideia original em suas mentes”, disse a atriz.

Leia mais clicando aqui.

The “Birds” movie poster

     The movie is a blend of thrill and suspense no doubt, and I must say I am lucky enough to get the scope to see it again. The first time I watched this movie, I was a 6 year old and this movie had me scared enough not to go outside if there were any crows near around. The storyline, lights, sound, and the stunts are great if we consider this several years back from now.

     Melanie Daniels (‘Tippi’ Hedren), a hilarious posh San Francisco girl who loves practical jokes, visits a pet shop in town in order to purchase a Mynah bird for her aunt, where she meets Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), an eligible bachelor who is also a lawyer. Mitch has come to buy a pair of lovebirds as a birthday present for his little sister. At the shop, Melanie and Mitch find themselves playing pranks with each other, which lead to Melanie’s curiosity towards Mitch. As there were no lovebirds available at the shop, Mitch leaves without buying them, and Melanie plans to present him with a pair of those. With her incredible energy to flirt, Melanie drives to Bodega Bay where Mitch lives with his mother and sister, just to surprise him with those lovebirds. There she finds herself getting attacked by a seagull all of a sudden on a boat. Within the next day a series of bird attack terrorizes the town and Melanie gets stuck into that chaos. The birds attack in flocks, in certain periods of interval, and these attacks include the school children on their playground, men in gas station, people’s residences, etc. causing a number of terrible deaths. Those birds attack people without any particular reason, and even the town’s senior ornithologist can not find an explanation for these attacks. Terrified and frustrated, most people leave the town that day, with only a few families remaining, and the Brenners are one of them. But due to the unavoidable attacks on them in their house, and after the horrible death of the town’s school teacher Anne Hayworth, the Brenner family finally leaves San Francisco, and their departure is shown from the birds’ eye view in the last scene.

     Alfred Hitchcock is one of the greatest movie directors of all time with no doubt. His creation was mostly based on thriller and suspense and ‘The Birds’ is no different from the others except in the way that, he had used much technology in his time to make this movie more realistic. The movie was made based on the classic novel by Daphne Du Maurer. The plotting was set for quality suspense, especially in the school scene as the crows gather in the playground to attack on children, and the scene where the gulls attack Melanie inside a room upstairs had got me sit tight in my place. The technology used to visualize were the best at the 60s for no doubt, mostly the sodium light technology, where they had 2 films in an old Technicolor camera, with 1 film sensitive to the sodium light on the backing of the silhouette image and the other film only sensitive to the white light falling on the actors colored image with dark background. In this movie, this technology was used in the boat scene and the car driving scenes as they did not have a compatible camera to capture driving scenes from a car those days. Hitchcock’s Cameo scene is seen at the starting of this movie while he passes Tippi with a pair of dogs. The bird attack scenes were done with trained birds, along with the interference of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (S.P.C.A) and also with the technology of using matte shots, e.g. when the birds came down through the chimney, Hitchcock used traveling mattes of sparrows, linnets, and other small birds shot against sodium to print into the final take.

     Throughout the whole movie, background music was absent, and this helped to stimulate the suspense along with the scenes. The usage of ambiance was brilliant compared to those days. The twittering, squawking chirping sounds mixed with the shrieking, cawing and large flattering sounds of birds made the situations even more realistic and terrifying. The scene where the gas flows across the street towards a smoking man was a little faulty, because when the gas flew, it was making its way in a curved pattern, but when the fire caught was shown from the birds’ eye view, the fire was burning in a straight lined pattern across the street.

     As a whole, the movie is a masterpiece of Hitchcock’s in combination of lights, sounds, and its genre which are thriller and suspense. The perfect way of taking shots from the perfect angles along with the natural expression of the actors to visualize the character has made this movie an incredible creation. For all these reasons, I would suggest people who seek to watch thrillers and suspense to see this movie, because it would be perfect for them.