I thought the movie was fantastic, a film that expects its audience to be both mature and intelligent. While Sandra Huller’s performance is receiving well-deserved praise, I was even more impressed with Milo Machado Graner.
People who want a tidy ending conclusively determining guilt or innocence will be disappointed, but whether or not she did it is almost beside the point. The film is really the autopsy of a deteriorating marriage and the devastation it can cause all parties, including children. It’s only thinly disguised as a murder mystery and a courtroom drama. I also saw the film as a representation of how societal judgement will descend like a ton of bricks on an unconventional, successful woman any time it is given the opportunity to do so.
"I also saw the film as a representation of how societal judgement will descend like a ton of bricks on an unconventional, successful woman any time it is given the opportunity to do so."
Reminder that in France women only got the right to vote in 1944.
Also France '44: The women who slept with Nazis got MUCH more brutal treatment after the liberation than the businessman who got rich running the factory that made weapons for the Nazis.
I thought it did well to underscore that the outcome of any legal procedure is a kind of mediated, agreed-upon "truth," and that every marriage (or deep relationship or any kind) shares that quality. A "conclusion" isn't really a conclusion, it's just a way of thinking of something that has been settled upon, to some degree, by the involved persons. But, of course, that changes over time, long after the participants are dead. And yeah, definitely a heavy dose of Blame the Woman (who may have indeed been "guilty").
This is the kind of film that you really like to see getting nominated because it's obviously pushing boundaries. Subverting expectations.
That being said it would probably drive me crazy. I'm not sure how well I deal with subverted expectations these days, being old and whatnot.
I was watching a '40s B Western last week. A Durango Kid film starring Bill Elliott. A typical film. Hollywood made a zillion of these. The Bill Elliott films seem particularly violent. 20 -30 people getting gunned down per movie. . Elliott will always shoot a guy three or four times when it seems like one shot would probably do the job. When they're not shooting each other they're pummeling one another with their fists . I usually don't pay much attention to these things when I watch. I love looking at the carriages and the buggys. Some of the films are extremely well made and there's always a few good shots at least in every one of them. It's mindless junk food for your brain.
So I was watching this film and Bill Elliott meets another guy in a saloon and within 30 seconds they're in a gunfight. Bill out draws the other guy and shoots him. As he's falling Bill shoots him three more times. Just to make sure.
So I'm thinking" Christ is this ever violent!" Then I think" Well, That's Entertainment!" and you know it, it is!"
Depictions of violence are a leading form of entertainment. I've been thinking about that a lot. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that when we give everybody a bunch of guns they start shooting each other.
After the Bill Elliott movie I watched some Japanese samurai film. No subtitles. Everyone sat down to stately tea ceremonies after which they got up and hacked each other's limbs off. It was obviously a low budget programmer. Everyday entertainment in Japan.
" "I'm not sure how well I deal with subverted expectations these days, being old and whatnot." Hear that, but I'm also reminded of the zen story included as a prologue to one published edition of David Rabe's Streamers -- about an old man who suffers a degenerative illness that twists his body up, but gives thanks to the Creator and looks forward to learning what new shape he'll be twisted into next.
I'll watch any old movie for the household appliances. Give me a scene set in a kitchen where I get a good look at the toaster (and maybe even one of those beehive chrome blenders!) or even better, a living-room scene where the maid is vacuuming, and I'm happy.
I've heard the floor-buffing for Fred & Ginger was epic. Hundreds of takes to get a dance bit perfect, a buffing after each one. Should be a special Oscar for that.
That's absolutely true. Easy to spot the scuff if you're looking for it.
Watch any old Three Stooges short where they're running down a waxed floor hallway, and you'll see the scuff marks flicker on and off. There, gone, there, gone...
Haven't seen it yet. I might get around to it now that Roy has weighed in. I do have a personal anecdote.
A friend told me, "Stop Making Sense" is getting a theatrical re-release, and there are worse ways to spend a Tuesday afternoon.
Popcorn and beverage in hand, we settled in to await Mr. Byrne and Co.
The "Anatomy of a Fall" trailer came up. Talk about a preemptive buzzkill.
If I was working in promotion, the copy would read: IF THIS FILM DOESN'T BRING YOU RIGHT DOWN, SEEK PSYCHIATRIC HELP IMMEDIATELY!
It was mostly the juxtaposition that got to us. I'm reminded of taking my mom to the movies in the 1980's. There would be ten minutes of teasers the next round of teenage slasher pictures before we could enjoy Shirley MacLaine's latest light comedy.
Don't get me wrong - I appreciate dark. Yesterday I watched "City Of Life And Death". Right up there with "Glengary Glen Ross" on the list of great films I never want to see again. In the 1970's the local PBS station corrupted me with DeSica and Kurosawa. Imagine being a school kid with his whole life ahead of him. Then get him to watch "Umberto D".
At least the marketing for "Anatomy Of A Fall" was honest. Going on the trailer to "Prick Up Your Ears" I bought tickets for what was supposed to be a witty comedic look at the swinging sixties. I went with my sister, brother-in-law, and our 13 year old cousin. Oops. Thank God we left mom behind for that one.
There's a great Friday thread idea in here: you got into something (a movie or whatever) thinking it was one thing, and it was something else entirely.
I suspect that's getting rarer and rarer, most movie trailers I've seen lately they just lay the whole damn thing out for you. But I think my favorite movie trailer is the one Hitchcock did for The Birds. From the trailer, which is very funny, you might be expecting a black comedy, and boy, would you be wrong.
You remind me of one time Mom and I went to see (I believe) "That's Entertainment" at the local bijoux. There was a trailer for "The Towering Inferno" which ended with a man engulfed in flames and writhing in slow motion. "The Towering Inferno," the narrator intoned. "Coming in time for Christmas." Mom and I both busted up.
I think films like these are hard for American audiences because they don’t have good guys and bad guys and the filmmakers don’t tell the audience to think. I liked the movie and thought the acting was great, but when thinking about it as “best picture “ I am reminded of an episode of Hell’s Kitchen in which a contestant made fish and chips. Ramsey said that’s really great fish and chips, but you know, it’s just fish and chips and this is a show about fine dining. So I’ll say this about Anatomy of a Fall: it is a really good courtroom drama, but it’s a courtroom drama…
My big issue with any work of art is "why does it exist?" Most just fulfill a market expectation and/or a need to scratch a personal itch. I couldn't shake the feeling that Triet was defying expectations to a purpose -- a point about family dynamics, maybe. But I can't be sure. Maybe it's just a higher order of puzzle.
Sigh. I always feel left out this time of year. I never see any of the movies. I'm sure I'll get around to Oppenheimer, but I resisted because I know I'll be yelling at the screen. Like Titanic, which have not and have no intention to see, it's a matter of extreme knowledge of a very specific historical event. ( Titanic pissed off Neil deGrasse Tyson because they got the stars wrong - of course). I know they got the horizon effect wrong even without seeing it. I'll be yelling That's wrong, That's wrong That's wrong the whole time I watch Oppenheimer. I understand, way too deep in the weeds for norms, but I still reserve the right to do so.
Me, my feeds are blowing up over how hideous the new live-action Avatar (Airbender, not blue goobers) is. And it is. As if that dirty, no good, waste of perfectly good protoplasm M. Night Shalaman hadn't already desecrated it enough.
Just thinking about the ambiguity here, "Did she or didn't she?" and how it seems the film leaves this unresolved, made me wonder about a related question: To what extent do we identify with (and root for) the protagonist of a film simply because they are the protagonist? Maybe truth or questions of guilt or innocence have nothing to do with it, maybe it's just a mechanical process: The film is shown from a certain character's point of view, we will tend to identify with that character, right or wrong.
This effect carried me through multiple seasons of Breaking Bad, rooting for Walt even as he became progressively more monstrous, and then just recently I felt a shock when watching Day of the Jackal, realizing that I always feel some disappointment at the end when the assassin's bullet doesn't find its home in de Gaulle's head. And it's not that I'm hostile to de Gaulle or a fan of political assassination, it's just the effect of seeing the Jackal's meticulous preparations, and wanting in some small part to see that carry through to success. Of course, I'm also seeing Inspector LaBelle's clever detective work and rooting for him to succeed, but who I'm rooting for at the moment doesn't have anything to do with right or wrong, or whether the character is a "good" person (the Jackal, for example, uses a woman for sex and then murders her in cold blood, what a monster he is) but simply whose eyes I'm looking through at that moment.
Another example, Anatomy of a Murder: Was Ben Gazarra's character really innocent? Do we really care? We come to identify so much with his attorney, played by Jimmy Stewart (and how can you NOT identify with Jimmy Stewart?) that it's not a question of guilt or innocence, it just becomes a matter of wanting to see "our" side win.
All of this has obvious political implications, our moral compasses can be easily deflected from True North by the magnetism of an attractive or interesting character, when we come to adopt that character's point of view as our own. We are a shifty and untrustworthy species.
Yeah, once I realized how easily manipulated I am by this simple device I see it in lots of movies. But I suspect most filmmakers don't really trust in its power so they feel a need to throw in some fig leaf of justification when the audience doesn't really need it at all. The really daring move is to rely fully on an audience's willingness to identify with ANY protagonist, and to refuse to give them even the slightest excuse. For example: Bonnie and Clyde, or Badlands.
A. I don't think one is supposed to empathize with the Jackal.
2. "the Jackal, for example, uses a woman for sex and then murders her in cold blood" I always thought the Jackal used her villa as a place to hide out, had to have sex with her to make that work and then needed to kill her so he could get away without anyone knowing what he looked like. Most modern movie viewers would find the original DotJ way too slow, but I loved it.
Well, I don't know how anyone's supposed to feel, all I know is how I felt, as that bullet passed harmlessly over de Gaulle's head and buried itself in the tarmac: "Ah, dammit!" I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm not normal.
I think the effect is so strong here because they put your eye right up to the gunsight. "The Jackal's point of view" isn't a metaphor, it's literal. In that moment, you are the assassin, watching your brilliant plan foiled by some stupid French cheek-kissing.
De Gaulle was one of those people who thought, "The bullet hasn't been made that will kill me" (and considering he faced actual combat in WWI, and had a price on his head from Vichy, not totally unjustifiable). But then I remember the million-plus "poilus" who died in WWI, and the 250,000 odd French soldiers who died in WWII, and realize they all probably thought the same thing too.
That assassination scene in the beginning is supposed to be taken from real life, 140 shots fired, one came within inches of de Gaulle's head. The story is that it was the brilliant engineering of the Citroen DS suspension that allowed his driver to escape on three flat tires. I watch it and wonder why nobody thought to bring a bazooka. I must really want de Gaulle dead.
I thought the movie was fantastic, a film that expects its audience to be both mature and intelligent. While Sandra Huller’s performance is receiving well-deserved praise, I was even more impressed with Milo Machado Graner.
People who want a tidy ending conclusively determining guilt or innocence will be disappointed, but whether or not she did it is almost beside the point. The film is really the autopsy of a deteriorating marriage and the devastation it can cause all parties, including children. It’s only thinly disguised as a murder mystery and a courtroom drama. I also saw the film as a representation of how societal judgement will descend like a ton of bricks on an unconventional, successful woman any time it is given the opportunity to do so.
"I also saw the film as a representation of how societal judgement will descend like a ton of bricks on an unconventional, successful woman any time it is given the opportunity to do so."
Reminder that in France women only got the right to vote in 1944.
[Johnny Carson voice] I did not know that.
Also France '44: The women who slept with Nazis got MUCH more brutal treatment after the liberation than the businessman who got rich running the factory that made weapons for the Nazis.
I thought it did well to underscore that the outcome of any legal procedure is a kind of mediated, agreed-upon "truth," and that every marriage (or deep relationship or any kind) shares that quality. A "conclusion" isn't really a conclusion, it's just a way of thinking of something that has been settled upon, to some degree, by the involved persons. But, of course, that changes over time, long after the participants are dead. And yeah, definitely a heavy dose of Blame the Woman (who may have indeed been "guilty").
I agree. My ex-husband, a lawyer, says that all trials are not really about what is or isn't true, but about what you can or cannot prove.
a film that expects its audience to be both mature and intelligent.
What if we aren't both of those?
Kinda wonder where they find those people.
There were a whole bunch of them at CPAC, I'm given to understand.
That understanding wouldn't be by way of NewsMax by any chance?
When I saw that image at the top, I thought, "Little Danny from the Shining takes the Stand, another of Stephen King's successful books."
Mummy did Redrum!
When we moved into our house (40 years ago), there was something written on the inside of a room door. R-E-D....
This is the kind of film that you really like to see getting nominated because it's obviously pushing boundaries. Subverting expectations.
That being said it would probably drive me crazy. I'm not sure how well I deal with subverted expectations these days, being old and whatnot.
I was watching a '40s B Western last week. A Durango Kid film starring Bill Elliott. A typical film. Hollywood made a zillion of these. The Bill Elliott films seem particularly violent. 20 -30 people getting gunned down per movie. . Elliott will always shoot a guy three or four times when it seems like one shot would probably do the job. When they're not shooting each other they're pummeling one another with their fists . I usually don't pay much attention to these things when I watch. I love looking at the carriages and the buggys. Some of the films are extremely well made and there's always a few good shots at least in every one of them. It's mindless junk food for your brain.
So I was watching this film and Bill Elliott meets another guy in a saloon and within 30 seconds they're in a gunfight. Bill out draws the other guy and shoots him. As he's falling Bill shoots him three more times. Just to make sure.
So I'm thinking" Christ is this ever violent!" Then I think" Well, That's Entertainment!" and you know it, it is!"
Depictions of violence are a leading form of entertainment. I've been thinking about that a lot. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that when we give everybody a bunch of guns they start shooting each other.
After the Bill Elliott movie I watched some Japanese samurai film. No subtitles. Everyone sat down to stately tea ceremonies after which they got up and hacked each other's limbs off. It was obviously a low budget programmer. Everyday entertainment in Japan.
" "I'm not sure how well I deal with subverted expectations these days, being old and whatnot." Hear that, but I'm also reminded of the zen story included as a prologue to one published edition of David Rabe's Streamers -- about an old man who suffers a degenerative illness that twists his body up, but gives thanks to the Creator and looks forward to learning what new shape he'll be twisted into next.
What a great story!
Makes me think of Saul Tenser and his organs.
"I love looking at the carriages and the buggys"
I'll watch any old movie for the household appliances. Give me a scene set in a kitchen where I get a good look at the toaster (and maybe even one of those beehive chrome blenders!) or even better, a living-room scene where the maid is vacuuming, and I'm happy.
I helped my grand-dad, the school janitor, when I was a kid (how lucky was that?!). He would let me run the floor buffer.
So it's the floors for me. MGM always first rate, WB ish, Columbia tsk-tsk.
I've heard the floor-buffing for Fred & Ginger was epic. Hundreds of takes to get a dance bit perfect, a buffing after each one. Should be a special Oscar for that.
That's absolutely true. Easy to spot the scuff if you're looking for it.
Watch any old Three Stooges short where they're running down a waxed floor hallway, and you'll see the scuff marks flicker on and off. There, gone, there, gone...
Haven't seen it yet. I might get around to it now that Roy has weighed in. I do have a personal anecdote.
A friend told me, "Stop Making Sense" is getting a theatrical re-release, and there are worse ways to spend a Tuesday afternoon.
Popcorn and beverage in hand, we settled in to await Mr. Byrne and Co.
The "Anatomy of a Fall" trailer came up. Talk about a preemptive buzzkill.
If I was working in promotion, the copy would read: IF THIS FILM DOESN'T BRING YOU RIGHT DOWN, SEEK PSYCHIATRIC HELP IMMEDIATELY!
It was mostly the juxtaposition that got to us. I'm reminded of taking my mom to the movies in the 1980's. There would be ten minutes of teasers the next round of teenage slasher pictures before we could enjoy Shirley MacLaine's latest light comedy.
Don't get me wrong - I appreciate dark. Yesterday I watched "City Of Life And Death". Right up there with "Glengary Glen Ross" on the list of great films I never want to see again. In the 1970's the local PBS station corrupted me with DeSica and Kurosawa. Imagine being a school kid with his whole life ahead of him. Then get him to watch "Umberto D".
At least the marketing for "Anatomy Of A Fall" was honest. Going on the trailer to "Prick Up Your Ears" I bought tickets for what was supposed to be a witty comedic look at the swinging sixties. I went with my sister, brother-in-law, and our 13 year old cousin. Oops. Thank God we left mom behind for that one.
There's a great Friday thread idea in here: you got into something (a movie or whatever) thinking it was one thing, and it was something else entirely.
I suspect that's getting rarer and rarer, most movie trailers I've seen lately they just lay the whole damn thing out for you. But I think my favorite movie trailer is the one Hitchcock did for The Birds. From the trailer, which is very funny, you might be expecting a black comedy, and boy, would you be wrong.
Best trailer ever was for "Down By Law".
Tom Waits half-whispered singing.
Black & white tracking shots of N'awlins shabby streets, and Louisiana bayous.
Women in beds, obviously pissed at their men. On woman has a gun.
No narration. No printed description.
Three guys in a prison.
Same three guys lost in the bayou.
"My friends!"
"What the hell is goin' on here Bob?"
Hard cut to the title card.
I wanted to ask the theater owner if I could just sit there until the premiere date.
I didn't remember it, so I searched it out on YouTube, and it is indeed awesome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHg4Ayewao
You remind me of one time Mom and I went to see (I believe) "That's Entertainment" at the local bijoux. There was a trailer for "The Towering Inferno" which ended with a man engulfed in flames and writhing in slow motion. "The Towering Inferno," the narrator intoned. "Coming in time for Christmas." Mom and I both busted up.
"That's no Yule log, it's O.J. Simpson!
Bravo! Would that I had more up-votes.
Had to stop reading this when I came to the spoiler alert. From what I read of this review and others, it sounds like a movie I want to see.
I think films like these are hard for American audiences because they don’t have good guys and bad guys and the filmmakers don’t tell the audience to think. I liked the movie and thought the acting was great, but when thinking about it as “best picture “ I am reminded of an episode of Hell’s Kitchen in which a contestant made fish and chips. Ramsey said that’s really great fish and chips, but you know, it’s just fish and chips and this is a show about fine dining. So I’ll say this about Anatomy of a Fall: it is a really good courtroom drama, but it’s a courtroom drama…
My big issue with any work of art is "why does it exist?" Most just fulfill a market expectation and/or a need to scratch a personal itch. I couldn't shake the feeling that Triet was defying expectations to a purpose -- a point about family dynamics, maybe. But I can't be sure. Maybe it's just a higher order of puzzle.
As you have on occasion reminded me, sometimes art is just for entertainment, and that’s okay.
Sigh. I always feel left out this time of year. I never see any of the movies. I'm sure I'll get around to Oppenheimer, but I resisted because I know I'll be yelling at the screen. Like Titanic, which have not and have no intention to see, it's a matter of extreme knowledge of a very specific historical event. ( Titanic pissed off Neil deGrasse Tyson because they got the stars wrong - of course). I know they got the horizon effect wrong even without seeing it. I'll be yelling That's wrong, That's wrong That's wrong the whole time I watch Oppenheimer. I understand, way too deep in the weeds for norms, but I still reserve the right to do so.
Me, my feeds are blowing up over how hideous the new live-action Avatar (Airbender, not blue goobers) is. And it is. As if that dirty, no good, waste of perfectly good protoplasm M. Night Shalaman hadn't already desecrated it enough.
Oscars for the autistic. Now, there's a thought.
Well, they stream these things now, so you can go ahead and yell!
Looking forward to it, when I feel like getting good and mad. Which is often.
Wait. You want good AND mad? Sorry pal, that’s an upgrade.
Wait, Putin didn’t do it?
The Sinister Defenestrator
Just thinking about the ambiguity here, "Did she or didn't she?" and how it seems the film leaves this unresolved, made me wonder about a related question: To what extent do we identify with (and root for) the protagonist of a film simply because they are the protagonist? Maybe truth or questions of guilt or innocence have nothing to do with it, maybe it's just a mechanical process: The film is shown from a certain character's point of view, we will tend to identify with that character, right or wrong.
This effect carried me through multiple seasons of Breaking Bad, rooting for Walt even as he became progressively more monstrous, and then just recently I felt a shock when watching Day of the Jackal, realizing that I always feel some disappointment at the end when the assassin's bullet doesn't find its home in de Gaulle's head. And it's not that I'm hostile to de Gaulle or a fan of political assassination, it's just the effect of seeing the Jackal's meticulous preparations, and wanting in some small part to see that carry through to success. Of course, I'm also seeing Inspector LaBelle's clever detective work and rooting for him to succeed, but who I'm rooting for at the moment doesn't have anything to do with right or wrong, or whether the character is a "good" person (the Jackal, for example, uses a woman for sex and then murders her in cold blood, what a monster he is) but simply whose eyes I'm looking through at that moment.
Another example, Anatomy of a Murder: Was Ben Gazarra's character really innocent? Do we really care? We come to identify so much with his attorney, played by Jimmy Stewart (and how can you NOT identify with Jimmy Stewart?) that it's not a question of guilt or innocence, it just becomes a matter of wanting to see "our" side win.
All of this has obvious political implications, our moral compasses can be easily deflected from True North by the magnetism of an attractive or interesting character, when we come to adopt that character's point of view as our own. We are a shifty and untrustworthy species.
A Clockwork Orange is perhaps the best/worst example of that, if not Natural Born Killers.
Yeah, once I realized how easily manipulated I am by this simple device I see it in lots of movies. But I suspect most filmmakers don't really trust in its power so they feel a need to throw in some fig leaf of justification when the audience doesn't really need it at all. The really daring move is to rely fully on an audience's willingness to identify with ANY protagonist, and to refuse to give them even the slightest excuse. For example: Bonnie and Clyde, or Badlands.
A. I don't think one is supposed to empathize with the Jackal.
2. "the Jackal, for example, uses a woman for sex and then murders her in cold blood" I always thought the Jackal used her villa as a place to hide out, had to have sex with her to make that work and then needed to kill her so he could get away without anyone knowing what he looked like. Most modern movie viewers would find the original DotJ way too slow, but I loved it.
Well, I don't know how anyone's supposed to feel, all I know is how I felt, as that bullet passed harmlessly over de Gaulle's head and buried itself in the tarmac: "Ah, dammit!" I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm not normal.
Right there with you. You missed?! Dammit!
Cyril Cusack's gunsmith will be SO disappointed.
I think the effect is so strong here because they put your eye right up to the gunsight. "The Jackal's point of view" isn't a metaphor, it's literal. In that moment, you are the assassin, watching your brilliant plan foiled by some stupid French cheek-kissing.
Apologies. I didn't know the specifics. ANY time a sniper missed deGaulle makes me say that.
An extreme form of "rooting for injuries."
De Gaulle was one of those people who thought, "The bullet hasn't been made that will kill me" (and considering he faced actual combat in WWI, and had a price on his head from Vichy, not totally unjustifiable). But then I remember the million-plus "poilus" who died in WWI, and the 250,000 odd French soldiers who died in WWII, and realize they all probably thought the same thing too.
That assassination scene in the beginning is supposed to be taken from real life, 140 shots fired, one came within inches of de Gaulle's head. The story is that it was the brilliant engineering of the Citroen DS suspension that allowed his driver to escape on three flat tires. I watch it and wonder why nobody thought to bring a bazooka. I must really want de Gaulle dead.
Well then I hope you’re happy now, mister!
I don't know, it took a lot of years before they were sure about Francisco Franco...
Point to the doll where De Gaulle touched you?
"Does she or doesn't she? Hope so!" George Carlin, <i>Class Clown</i>.
Such a great bit. It's a rare day that I don't say "Well ya don't have to be Fellini to figure that out"