Sunday, December 17, 2006
NEO NOIR
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Luchino Visconti's
This was Visconti's first film made from James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice; a popular source for movie directors. We will see the first American version which was made in 1946.
Here, Visconti invents the unromantic neorealistic look that became the standard for Italian film after WWII.
The whole thing is 'in the rough' including the charismatic anti-hero, Massimo Girotti, who may or may not have been bamboozled into killing the husband of a woman he gets obsessed with.
It was Girotti's 3d film. He went on to make 122 more. We saw him in The Leopard and Last Tango In Paris.
See how he looks in his 'golden' years.
There is some clunkiness to various parts of the picture. A child who we have never seen before becomes an important plot device to get us from one place to another.
On the other hand, most of the story is riveting and there is a homosexual slant to it when our man finds a 'friend' on the road who helps him sort out his options and get his feet on the ground.
There are a lot of really nice parts to it.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5 because it was disturbing and involving and did the job even with subtitles and some nits here and there.
