Friday, June 30, 2006
AUTUMN SPRING
I had a lot of negative premonitions (are premonitions always negative? It is not clear from the dictionary) about today's NYTimes 1176 Best Film
First, there is Audrey Hepburn, who I do not much like, paired with an aging Gary Cooper, who I would rather see in a western outfit. But no cattle, no Stetson here.
He plays a roué, a silver fox, a chicken hawk. She, on the other hand is a naif, a gamin, a (gasp) virgin. She falls in love at first bite and he does not. She keeps coming back for it.
Hard to swallow and the first half of the picture you cannot miss Cooper's awkwardness and sort of trying to back away from the role.
On the other hand there are some good jokes. And there is Maurice Chevalier as Hepburn's father. He is great.
But, premonitions aside, I did gasp at the ending and then, in retrospect, realized that I had just seen a film put together by a great craftsman, Billy Wilder, and that it worked better than I thought it did and maybe all those premonitions and trepidations and difficulties were somehow a setup for the surprising end.
I will give him that.
All the reviews of the film I have read object to its length. Hear hear.
I think we could have gotten there more quickly.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5. There is better Wilder and we could have skipped some of the scenes made to show off the costumes.
It is interesting that the film was a remake of an old Twenties French film called Ariane. So, when this one was released in France, that is what they called it.
Funny about the title. It is an obvious reference to May/November love. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop thinking about that other film called Death in the Afternoon. Bullfighting.
