DARRYL DE CINE

(EN CASTELLANO DEBAJO) Have seen again  Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” on the big screen after more than 30 years. It was a brand new copy, so the quality of the colour and sound was good. Besides, it was shown in English with Spanish subtitles, not dubbed into Spanish as I had seen it years ago as this was the “rule” then. A few years ago I read a priceless book on Hitch by French film director, Truffaut, called “El cine según Hitchcock” in Spanish. In this book Truffaut interviewed Hitch and, when they talked about “Vertigo”, I got the impression I had missed it altogether. Well, I will quote that interview between Truffaut and Hitch in this article. Hitchcock declared, when asked about the novel on which “Vertigo” is based, that “I was intrigued by the hero’s attempts to re-create the image of a dead woman through another one who’s alive.” (1) We also learnt from that book that Hitch did not think greatly of Kim Novak (2) as originally he had conceived her role for Vera Miles ...

(EN CASTELLANO DEBAJO) At last a good American cop movie! The last ones I remember were made in the eighties of the last century: “To live and die in LA” (William Friedkin, 1985) and “the Year of the Dragon” (Michael Cimino, 1985). By a “good American cop movie” I refer to movies that are not just of action (like the “Lethal weapon” or “Die Hard” series), but portraits of the society at a certain time. There was also a third one, “State of Grace” ( by Phil Joanou, 1990) though it was more of homage to Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch”(1969) than a portrait of its time. In the case of “To live and die in LA”, the loose morality showed in the relationships with their female counterparts was quite shocking at the time. As well, the two main characters (two Secret Service agents trying to arrest a counterfeiter) even “crossed the line”(1)  in a chase scene that has not been surpassed since.  As for “the Year of the Dragon”, it was a classic tale of redemption set against the...

(EN CASTELLANO DEBAJO) On a recent trip to Palermo we had the chance to visit its “Opera House”, Teatro Massimo. For a visitor like myself it is quite an experience because it’s a very impressive theatre, one that makes you think, even if you don´t know its history, that important productions have taken place there (in fact there are guided tours in the mornings). Something that caught  my attention was that in Palermo the opera is popular: you could see people from all the social spectrum. I believe this to be something of an achievement because it is the only way to fill Opera Houses. I think Italians can be proud to have promoted this love towards Opera. Of course, I don´t know whether it is thanks to the powers that be, family tradition or teaching at school. But the fact is that Opera remains popular. This comes to mind because in Spain we have neglected our “zarzuela”, Spanish Operetta, to oblivion. There were some ladies in the stalls wearing the most incredible ...

(EN CASTELLANO DEBAJO) This is a movie that I have followed closely as I know some of the people who have worked in it. It has proved to be quite a success in Australia with more than 2M USD taken at the box office. As for the movie, it is a “British film” because the plot, location, dialogues and characters are all British while, in fact, it is a Spanish Production directed by a Catalan lady, Isabel Coixet. It is an atypical or non-commercial movie as there is no love story, sex scenes or unsolved murder to carry the plot. This movie deals with people’s reactions when faced with the unexpected or with what some of us would call progress. In the film a lady, played by Emily Mortimer in a marvellous low-key performance, moves to a seaside village on a UK shore in 1959, rents a store and opens a bookshop. This bookshop stocks a progressive style of literature, selling books by Ray Bradbury and Nabokov and other avant-garde authors of that time. There’s a delicious nod...

(DEBAJO EN CASTELLANO) This is an American movie (meaning that the story  could only happen in the USA), filmed in English and directed by an Italian,  Paolo Virzi.  I had read that Virzi wrote the script thinking of Donald Sutherland but I got the impression that Helen Mirren stole the show. The plot line basically is a comedy with an unexpected ending. Among its achievements, one is the language. The dialogue never sounds as if it were “translated” into English from another language. Somehow this movie reminds me of Sorrentino’s “The Youth” –a movie filmed in English but told from an Italian or European point of view as opposed to a Hollywood treatment-. But, as I think, Sorrentino’s model was Fellini’s “Otto e Mezzo”, I can´t tell which are Virzi’s models. Another good thing of this movie is that the two main characters seem credible despite their erratic behaviour and, in their relationship, the movie achieves an intimacy or closeness hard for Hollywood mo...

(DEBAJO EN CASTELLANO) This is the kind of movie that I can´t help recommending it. There have been two (2) movies on Churchill in 2017. The first one “Churchill”, in my opinion, was a complete failure perhaps with the exception of Miranda Richardson as his long, patient and suffering wife but without never losing her temper with him. The Churchill portrayed in that movie, played by Brian Cox, as a hesitant & fearful character afraid of launching the invasion of Normandy was –again, this is my opinion-  not credible.  Instead, the second instalment on Churchill in 2017, “Darkest Hour”, is about how Churchill became PM in 1940. What’s interesting in the movie is all the shadow manoeuvring behind the scenes to avert his designation while France was collapsing and Dunkirk was coming next. There was  previously last year a movie called “Dunkirk” seen from the point of view of the servicemen, while “Darkest Hour” is quite the same story but told from the to...