John Ford’s My Darling Clementine. I couldn’t spot the connection between the title and the story. Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) becomes Marshall of Tomb Stone along with his brother Morgan as law enforcer after their brother James is murdered by the Clayton gang and their cattle is stolen. Although Wyatt assumes the charge of Marshall…
Hang Men also Die is a 1943 war movie about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reich Protector of German-occupied Prague, number-two man in the SS. The film is a collaboration of two geniuses : Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang. Belonging to the genre of Film-noir, the movie captures the ruthless torture unleashed by the Nazi war machine and…
I watched the movie Silas Marner starring Ben Kingsley. It made me reflect about the novel by George Eliot that I had read long ago. George Eliot’s simple story of a lost and found treasure which had been robbed from Silas Marner is a profound and moving tale about the humanism and honesty of the…
Could watch two films only recently (thanks to Youtube) and felt I have to share with all film enthusiasts. Z by Costa Gavras is an edge of the seat political thriller. What matters is that it’s a Director’s Film. It is slick and stylish and conveys a stark mood of corruption, depravity, cold-blooded harshness and falsehood. Amidst…
The Revenant is about one man’s (Glass) resolve to seek revenge.He is the Revenant,the man who has returned from the Dead. The Dead have no words to speak and the living speak falsehood.The Revenant are the bridge between these two worlds. They have to straddle both these worlds. They must ensure justice for the Dead…
I watched John Ford’s “Young Mr. Lincoln” starring Henry Fonda. The movie carries that distinctive stamp of John Ford’s genius. Young Mr. Lincoln is the story of Abraham Lincoln in his young years practicing as an advocate in a Country Court. Ford achieves the aura and the mood of those days when life was more…
A few years ago while trying to get to know more about international cinema,I got interested in French cinema. The only French movie of international fame that I had watched until then was Joan Renoir’ s Rules of the Game. As I went through the list of Directors that had several names of repute, I…
Ritwik Ghatak’s Subarna Rekha: Ghatak’s style is different from Ray’s. It is raw and edgy, replete with repressed energy. The film has a hopeful ending but Ghatak’s depiction of the social reality hits you hard. Caste prejudice, unemployment, poverty and migration are some of the themes. These forces were very strong in independent India as…
Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book. Intertextuality of the novel made it difficult for me initially. It is also largely about an extraordinary range of reading, and in-depth intensive reading of a particular subject: in this case history, theology and philosophy. Pamuk’s way of looking at the situation is what the novel is about; what are…
Watched the movie Crucified Lovers by Kenzu Mizoguchi. Ugetsu Mongotrai, Sansho the Bailiff, Life of Oharu are all films by Mizoguchi that I had watched earlier. Japanese films of that era especially those of Mizoguchi and Yasuziro Ozu maintain a certain translucence and poise that is unmistakable. Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Yojimbo also have this quality….