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Salient. An organ of student opinion at Victoria University, Wellington. Vol. 23, No. 9. Wednesday, November 9, 1960

Film Fare: Summing Up

page 11

Film Fare: Summing Up

Movements have taken on a new significance in 1960: Italy, Britain, France and Germany are producing more "social comment" movies than ever before. Angry young men in several countries have been producing low-budget movies by the score, sweeping up festival prizes, impressing the critics (misleading some), and swiftly overtaking their elders' positions.

In France, Renoir and Cocteau have given way to young directors like Claude Charbrol and Marcel Carne, and films like Hiroshima Mon Amour and Les Amants. Italy has produced La Dolce Vita, forbidden by the Catholic Film Centre for all audiences. Purporting to "reflect something of the helpless chaos in which we are all of us living today," it is directed by Federico Fellini. In Sweden, sexennial Ingmar Bergman has been keeping up the good work in his own private movement with The Face and Jungfrukallan. The latter has been called a great screen tragedy; it is also full of the stuff of life which causes Bergman fans to remark–man if you gotta go, that's the way I want to go!. From Argentine, La Caida has impressed critics as the most important document to come out of Latin America yet.

These then, are representative of 1960's cinema work. In our own country, we have been fortunate enough to seeing two especially outstanding works — Eisenstein's Ivan The Terrible and the Indian Pather Panchalli. Pabst's Dreigroschenoper has been around again, as have also Moana. The Last Laugh, The Blue Angel and other great classics.

The Apartment

Earlier in the year, Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot caused a minor sensation: it is one of his finest works yet. No doubt many people are awaiting his next production, The Apartment, starring Jack Lemon. From America too, we have seen Anatomy of a Murder and Suddenly Last Summer. The first is Otto Preminger's witty adaptation of the bestselling novel, the latter is another of Tennessee Willlams's symbolfilms, full of gestations, frustrations, bongos and plain, oldfashioned psychotics. The Fugitive Kind, the latest of his adaptations promises to be even zanier.

Westerns

Western-wise we have seen The Hanging Tree and John Ford's Horse Soldiers. Delmer Daves, who made the first, will be well known to cowboy movie-goers; apart from 3.10 To Yuma, his Westerns have been of a consistent high standard. The Horse Soldiers wasn't the equal of The Hanging Tree—this in itself is interesting, because Daves isn't half the director Ford is.

The Golden Age of Comedy revivified old favourites: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon and the much underrated Laurel and Hardy. This is pure slapstick, never banal, always hilarious. Britain has produced Sons and Lovers, a capable movie, which, if nothing else, at least indicates the country is on the ascendancy in the movie industry, and Blitz On Britain. This film was designed to remind people that there was a World War II. The British are very cautious about these reminders — their studios spit out one of these crummy war films every two weeks.

The Angry Silence

Some films to watch out for in the immediate future include The Angry Silence and Sergeant Rutledge. Scripted by Bryan Forbes, The Angry Silence would seem to be a vitriolic comment on the British social scene; it stars Richard Attenborough in his best performance to date. Sergeant Rutledge is yet another western from John Ford. It is the story of a Negro regiment in America, soon after the Civil War. Woody Strode plays Sergeant Rutledge, the man indicted of raping and murdering a white woman. Two other movies worth looking out for are Fellini's La Strada and the British The Entertainer. Of The Entertainer, which stars Laurence Olivier, Roger Manvell said, "an actor's picture and another triumphant sign of renaissance in the realistic British cinema."

—M.W.

"I was once mightily impressed by a remark of Eric Warman's in this connection. We were meeting some high official in one of the film companies. At least, Eric was; I was merely present as an underling. All these big shots go about with underlings in attendance, and I used to go along to give Eric the proper status. Well, this important chap shook Eric warmly by the hand, nodded very civilly to me, and said "Eric Warman? I've heard the name before somewhere." To which Eric magnificently replied, "You may have done. I've published a couple of novels."

I went home and practised that: "I've published a couple of novels." Or better perhaps, "I've publisheda couple of novels." I found there were nearly as many ways of saying this as of saying the third line of Gray's Elegy. But unfortunately, the couple of novels remained Eric's and not mine.

—Kenneth Hopkins.