Pierrot le fou (1965), directed by Jean-Luc Godard
March 22-24 at BAM Rose Cinema
Overcome with boredom of his middle-class life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) ditches his family everything behind and runs off to the Mediterranean with his babysitter Marianne (Anna Karina), who is insistent calling him Pierrot. Unclassifiable with an indescribable plot (well, there isn't one, really), it takes on midlife crisis angst, film noir clichés, and American imperialism interspersed with violence, songs, and poetic invocations of loneliness with wit and playfulness contributed by the charming duo of Belmondo and Karina. I haven't seen this in 4-5 years so this capsule is clumsy (I would've catch a screening if money and time permits but I don't have much of both at the moment) though this is a personal favorite. It may feel pretentious and too arty for newcomers but this is a rewarding multi-layered spectacle that is a sublime joy and worth delving into. (Or maybe, as J. Hoberman puts it in his Village Voice capsule, it's just a "hip, Francophilic teenager’s idea of the greatest movie ever made", which is applicable to me when I first saw this back in '96-'97.)
New Directors/New Films at Museum of the Modern Art
Fan-organized New York Asian Film Festival 2002 entitled "ASIAN FILMS ARE GO!!!" from the good folks at Subway Cinema is coming in April. The schedule is now up. Every film on the list seems worthwhile, especially most of them don't have distribution here.
Un amico/Un ami (2.4MB), sung by Daniel Beretta, music by Ennio Morricone (conducted by Bruno Nicolai), lyrics by (uncomfired). From compilation Canto Morricone Vol. 3
Metti Una Sera A Cena (1972) (3.93MB), sung by Milva, music by Morricone, lyrics by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi. From compilation Canto Morricone Vol. 3
I was planning to also put some tracks from Morricone's unjustly maligned, innovative score for Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars (the movie is good despite all the bad reviews and the bad science in it). The music is ingenious and moving; too bad it got trashed because it went way beyond the audience's grasp. Since the files are huge (6-7MB for 128kbps quality) because the tracks are 7-8 minutes long, I scrapped the idea: it's a pain to upload them on a 56K connection. You've probably heard around 20 seconds of it in that Lancome perfume commercial with Uma Thurman.
Next update: maybe 2 more tracks from the Morricone compilation: Mireille Mathieu.
Capsule reviews of worthwhile, overlooked movies from around the globe with information of how to get them
Planned to review: One Fine Spring Day, Blow Out, Bombay, Sayta, Fulltime Killer, Friend (actually 2-3 are already completed in rough form)
Possibly a couple of new mp3 every week from soundtracks.
(Why is all this better thought out then the class registration project? But don't worry too much about me not getting any work done since I write these things quickly.)
Last updated: March 22, 2002
