Saturday, February 5, 2011

Watching Classic Films

Just as I am tackling classic novels I should have read decades ago (Vanity Fair, Middlemarch), I am gradually trying to fill in cinema gaps as well. I am seldom if ever disappointed in my viewing. As I have written in my profile at LibraryThing, I am easy to please, although that is partly attributable to my pre-selecting my experiences carefully.

Lately I've been watching some of the DVDs I've picked up locally. I bought a box set of Kieslowski's Three Colours and watched the first film, Blue, which I thought was great. I've purchased a whole bunch of budget Chaplin DVDs and watched Monsieur Verdoux, which lived up to everything I had ever heard about it. This weekend I took in Almodovar's All About My Mother, and found it extremely satisfying. So much has been written about these films (including, very well, by my friend Robert Kennedy here) that I doubt I have much meaningful to add to their praise. I am, however, taking the trouble to write up notes on the obscure films noir I've been viewing, and will do the same for Westerns, because if you don't do that, those sorts of movies tend to blend together in the mind -- there are too many similarities of plot, casting, photographic styles.

2 comments:

Robert Kennedy said...

Really nice tribute, Mark. Thanks. And of course I'm thrilled that you're finding the time to discover all these great films. Blue is my favorite of the Kieslowski Three Colors Trilogy, while Talk to Her remains my favorite Almodovar.

Thanks again for the link, Mark, as it's nearly impossible to find, and rarely updated.

Patrick Murtha said...

More people should read your site! I'm looking forward to the completion of the alphabet. Also, if you ever decided to blog your reviews as you write them -- a fairly easy matter to set up at Blogger or WordPress -- I'd be the first to subscribe. I feel certain that I miss some good pieces of yours, even though we share a web-group.