Recent reviews

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  Breathless 1960

  Watched 13 Feb 1961

  Adventures of an Anti-Hero

  In addition to her function as aesthetic conscience of the Western world, France has always been a pioneer in moral matters. I don’t mean things like the so-called “French farce,” which has as little relevance to French life as to anyone’s; I mean, for instance, the fact that Madame Bovary was published in the same year as Little Dorrit and three years before The Marble Faun. The French continue to explore in both areas. Much of…

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  Psycho 1960

  Watched 29 Aug 1960

  "Sons and Lovers" might also be the title of Hitchcock’s new film "Psycho," which is a suspense story dealing with a son (Anthony Perkins) and some lovers (Janet Leigh, John Gavin). This time Hitchcock has put his usual close-up face-nibbling sex scene at the very beginning, (as usual, it is quite dispensable) and then goes on to pad the first half of the picture for a reason that can’t be revealed without giving away the twist. The whole thing is,…

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  Sons and Lovers 1960

  Watched 29 Aug 1960

  A few weeks ago we were grateful because the film of "Elmer Gantry" was so remote from Lewis’ novel, which is anyway of little importance, that the question of fidelity to the original was irrelevant. But with the film of "Sons and Lovers" the question does arise, and in more urgent form: for whom are the films of fine novels made?

  Obviously, adaptation must occur in an almost biological sense. The book must be anatomized and re-assembled so as to…

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  Ikiru 1952

  Watched 07 Mar 1960

  The Fact of Mortality

  Tolstoy’s entire novella might well be reprinted here for, in a sense, it is the best possible comment on the Japanese film under discussion. The picture is "Ikiru" (in English "To Live"), and the themes of the two works are the same: the realization of the approach of death; the bewilderment and anger at the course of one’s past life; the shame of fear; the knowledge that the world has already discarded you, that you merely…

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