Saturday, October 25, 2008
CLASS JOCK
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Lindsay Anderson's
This is one of the more realistic, nitty gritty films by Anderson. It features the superb work of Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts.
They are intense.
A miner becomes a small city rugby star but never rises from his lower class background. In this regard the film is very British.
He falls in love with a frigid widow landlady. Complicated. Huge sexual tension. He is obsessed with her unavailability.
A classic tale of the straight man/jock who thinks that all a woman needs is a good fuck.
The film also highlights the plight of the professional athlete and his or her problems of self regard in a society that treats them as a projection of their fanciful heroic selves (men) or as objects of uncomplicated sexual desire (women).
Harris elevates his character's struggle to epic proportions. Much of the action reads as a classic Greek play.
Shakespeare it is not.
I would not mind seeing it again just to see the performances and this Criterion restoration is beautiful to watch in black and white.
A 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
