April 16th 2014. Pick of the Day.
New York City's premiere resource for classic film screenings in the metropolitan area. Offering reviews, recommendations, venues and a host of links keeping classic film and the silver screens alive.
Today's continuing series include Tout Truffaut at Film Forum, and An Auteurist History of FIlm and The Aesthetics of Shadow Part Two: Europe and America at MoMA. What I pray will be our last sojourn across NYC's tundra to the warm environs of our rep circuit screens is as follows;
Film Forum
SUCH A GORGEOUS KID LIKE ME (1973) Dir; Francois Truffaut
MoMA
POINT BLANK (1967) Dir; John Boorman
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941) Dir; John Ford
THE EXCLUDED (1982) Dir; Franz Novotny
BAM Cinematek
THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (1967) Dir; Jacques Demy
Today's Pick? Well, being as weather most Welsh has decided to revisit our burg, hopefully for its absolutely goddam FINAL encore (even Jolson knew when to exeunt and hit the bar), I'm passing up other worthy screen efforts like John Boorman's seminal guy flick POINT BLANK, and two more precious hours with Francois Truffaut as part of the Forum's magnificent trib, to ride the elevator to the colliery's depths in search once more for the soul of the Morgan family, in John Ford's HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY. Ford knew how to handle just about every type of picture, from grand scale epics writ with exotic location and breakneck action, to humble melodramas revolving around his fave subject; the nuclear family unit. What he didn't know how to do was craft a perfect work of cinema that had no connection whatsoever with our collective melancholia. Victories always carried a price unshakeable, futures secured always reminded of pasts sacrificed. Because of this artistic bent, which some would say is particularly Irish in nature, he was able to handle the weepie as well as the actioner, and on more than a few occasions make them one and the same.
20th Century Fox production head Darryl F. Zanuck was usually, famously wary of working with Ford, some accounts would have it that he loathed these occasions, as the leveraging for creative control more often than not became wars of attrition. However, Zanuck was always able to call upon the great man's service for what the latter referred to as a "job of work". Zanuck had originally purchased the rights to Richard Llewellyn's novel as intended competiton for rival David O. Selznick's GONE WITH THE WIND. Director William Wyler was originally hired to guide the proceedings, as prestigious a name to be had at that point in the Studio Era. Filming would take place on location, in glorious Technicolor, with a running time of nearly 3 hours. No expense was to be spared. Until a noxious lunatic running Germany at the time said the same thing about the British Blitzkrieg. Nix to filming in Wales, nix to 3hr running time, nix, ultimately, to William Wyler. Turnaround is putting it nicely. Thankfully, as in the past, Zanuck turned to his contracted foil, a man as well-esteemed as any in the biz but also as notorious.
Under Ford's watch the film lost Technicolor in favor of Arthur Miller's luminous B&W cinematography, lost a third of its running time, and lost whatever stoicism drawing room Wyler would have brought in favor of stoicism Irish tavern. No knock on Wyler, but there's not a chance in hell his version would've bested what Ford brought to the game. To wit, one of the famous anecdotes attributed to the great filmmaker; when filming the famous wedding scene, which sees Maureen O'Hara's Angharad married off to the wealthy son of the colliery's owner, her character's true love, Walter Pidgeon's preacher Gruffydd, enters the frame in the deep background, seems to observe as the couple are carriaged away, then slinks back off into the distant offscreen. When asked by DP Miller if Ford wanted a closeup of Pidgeon's reaction to the wedding the director reportedly replied, "hell, if I shoot it they'll just use it". The man knew.
John Ford's HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941) screens at MoMA as part of their excellent The Aesthetics of Shadow Part 2: Europe and America series. It only grows more verdant as time passes.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in April '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. For the monthly overview listen in to the inaugural podcast! And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back tomorrow with a brand new Pick, til then safe, sound, make sure the next knucklehead is too.
P. S. Should you be feeling charitable during this harsh weather period please remember to check in with the good folks over at Occupy Sandy. Some of our NY neighbors are still feeling the effects of the 2012 hurricane. Be a mensch.
