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Wednesday, 10 November 2010

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Film Appreciation with K S Sivakumaran

Bubbling English films of the past

Adapting film from literature into the cinema medium is a hard task considering the different structures of the two forms of communication. But some filmmakers succeeded in their attempt to some extent. When we go through the list of film with titles beginning with letter 'B', we find at least two such films of the past I just enjoyed.


Ben Hur


Baby Doll

Let's begin with Baby Doll. Legendary American playwright Tennessee Williams wrote several dramas based on psychological and sex themes. Some of them are classics and some have been brought to the screen. Elia Kazan is a famous directed who succeeded in this direction adapting William's plays. One such film he directed was W's 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. This 1957 film was breaking grounds then as handling sexuality in aesthetic terms. Of course the film had suggestive sex depiction but never vulgar. If I remember right the story was revolving around a cotton farmer and his wife in southern American region -Tennessee. Carroll Baker and Eli Wallach were the main actors. In the 1950s the eroticism that oozed was a surprise to viewers in this part of the world.

The French playwright Jean Genet was notorious for the 'theatre of cruelty', but he had something to say through his plays. The Balcony was a film based on his play. I saw the film then but I couldn't stomach then. I saw it to only to know more about the writer. The story centres around a brothel in gay Paris. Sex fantasies and crude presentation was the hallmark of the film.

Let's move on to other genres in cinema.

Starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse as Broadway Musical dancers Vincent Minnelli made a film that had beautiful song cum dances. I can't remember the titles now, but they were very catchy bridging between classical and the Rock.

Remember vivacious Ava Gardner and a fine actor Humphrey Bogart? They were teamed together in the film Barefoot Contessa. Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz this film narrated the story of a Spanish dancer who became a Hollywood Star. It may be even called a spoof on the Hollywood system of film making. We will now look at a film in the 1990s, Basic Instinct.

Starring Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas this film was a thriller with implicit sex scenes. A murder suspect, a woman, is the centre of a controversy. This film's editing was superbly handled. Paul Verhoeven directed the film.

Students of cinema should know the development of the art of cinema and one way of understanding is to see the classic The Battleship of Potemkin. This film was made in 1925. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein this is basically a documentary and shows the beginning of sophisticated filmmaking later on.

The montage sequences and editing were pace setting examples in cinematic history. The photography was stunning. The film has Marxist overtones. It's about a mutiny in a Russian battleship Potemkin in the early part of the last century.

The tension created by the indiscriminate killings of civilians by the troops coming down a staircase was awfully captured in the camera. I saw this film at the Pune, Film Institute as a student there in early 1990.

I like to listen to people speak the English language in clear diction (not necessarily with a British accent) and with correct pronunciation and phrasing. One such actor who speaks English is the Welshman Richard Burton. He acted in the film Becket which was an adaptation from the famous play by the French dramatist Jean Anouilh.

It is a historical film during the reign of Henry II of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket and the Monarch are the main players in the drama. Friendship between them sours and the conflict between them ends in a tragedy. Peter Glenville directed this film.

Ben Hur was a stupendous spectacular film famous for the picturing of the chariot race in the story.

We learn that during the time of Jesus Christ a Palestinian Jew fought against the Roman Empire. William Wyler directed this film with Charlton Heston in the leading role. See theses films via DVDs or VHS. We shall stop here for this week.

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