My Fair Lady (1964)

USA
directed by: George Cukor
written by: Alan Jay Lerner + George Bernard Shaw (play)
starring: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Jeremy Brett
seen: 23rd December, 2007 - comment: 23rd April, 2017

I guess I just don't understand the purpose (point) of classical movie musicals. At least this particular movie musical. It seems to be a slavish adaptation of the Broadway play and doen't really seem to want to translate itself into language of cinema instead of theatre. Other thing that bothers me is the singing style concoction - Higgins and Pickering are talking their way through their singing parts using their normal voices, Eliza and Freddy are dubbed over by professional singers exhibiting their stylized prowess, and father Doolittle is using down-to-earth folk singing. And what should I make of the fact that on one hand I get extremely elaborate numbers like the Ascot sequence (which I actually like a lot) and on the other I see numbers like Higgins walking around his library for five minutes or Freddy standing alone in the street doing nothing for the whole song?

And while I'm at not understaning stuff, was there a particular reason we needed to hear the lengthy wedding song of father Doolittle and watch his innocent cavorting with pub floozies? His entire presence in the movie baffles me the most, probably because of the same reasons that kept me from finishing reading Colas Breugnon by Romain Rolland. I think I understand why G. B. Shaw put him in the play, but the movie uses social criticism as much as another cardboard set piece in the non-political spectacle and nobody expects it to actually mean something in the world outside of entertainment. I mean, the biggest uproar it caused was gossip as to why wasn't Julie Andrews cast.

To me, the most valuable thing about the movie is that Eliza herself decides to come to the professor because she would like to improve her life. And that's why it pains me that the film-makers dismiss the character the same way Higgins does. She's supposed to be the crown jewel of their work but literally everything else will get much more attention than her. Most of her character development happens off-screen. Instead of her voicing her feelings about the qualities she found in herself we get a shot of her walking down the stairs, contrieved and dolled up, with men gazing at her.
This approach to the leading lady seem very antediluvian to me. Other filmakers of early sixties are putting out works about relationships of men and women like Onibaba, Repulsion, Woman in the dunes, Red desert, and I am supposed to be amazed by a beautiful woman looking even more beautiful with diamonds hanging all over her?

(And let's not forget that 1964 is the year of A Hard Day's Night when it comes to music.)
In short, My Fair Lady is not a film for me.

The Shining (1980)

USA/United Kingdom
directed by: Stanley Kubrick
written by: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson + Stephen King (book)
starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
seen: 4th October, 2007 - comment: 27th April, 2017

-„All day work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.“ Every time this movie comes up my dad says great great, Nicholson is a manic genius, but everybody should also read the book, because that's the real place to learn why and how it's all happening and that King is going deep into the history of the hotel and its former ganster owners and so on. I'm telling to myself that if I read it I might find that problematic because King often doesn't know when to stop. And I'm telling to my dad that Kubrick is opting for something else. He's translating words into feelings and feelings into images and the resulting movie doesn't need any additional information to achieve its goal (which in my case is to trick me and scare me to death). And it's done so beautifuly that a mere "Tuesday" title is able to make me jump.

I love that Kubrick himself mentions Kafka in one interview when describing his decision to be realistic and believable in adapting the material: „His (Kafka's) stories are fantastic and allegorical, but his writing is simple and straightforward, almost journalistic. On the other hand, all the films that have been made of his work seem to have ignored this completely, making everything look as weird and dreamlike as possible.“ I only read the interview after I stumbled upon a terribly long and etremely thorough fan analysis of the movie. (The analysis consists of 21 chapters, some other files with research notes and several hours of additional videos.) For example, the author speculates about the real meaning of a stepladder placed in a hallway in the beginning of the movie (and amongst other things compares it to the pyramid on one dollar bills) or insinuates that Jack Torrence in fact represents president Woodrow Wilson. You see, the two people standing behind him in the enigmatic final "1921" photograph vaguely resemble Wilson and his wife Edith and the woman in the photo even wears a brooch that could somehow look like a dove and real life Edith Wilson got a diamond Peace Dove brooch after WWI. Coincidence? I don't think so! I don't usually read director interviews or explanations because I believe I should be able to get everything I need to know from the movie itself. But after reading this analysis I needed some calming down and Kubricks way of thinking certainly did the trick and allowed me to disregard doves and pyramids. Anyway, back to my own review.

Realistic (but subversive in his own right) approach is what leads to the smallest of details bearing the most frightening qualities. I, for one, thought from the first time I saw The Shining many years ago that maybe the biggest problem is Nicholson looking like a crazy guy even before he officialy goes crazy. And just recently a creeping thought came through that that's actually the case. Jack didn't change at all after coming to the hotel, he was already bad on the inside and the hotel just showed him a very particular way to release his anger. And that's cruel. That's evil. I mean, listen to the things he says to the bartender. "Just a little problem with the old sperm bank upstairs." He's such a disgusting person that waving an axe seems like one of his softer sides coming out. And it affects me deeply because Shelley Duvall's Wendy is one of my favourite on-screen mothers and Danny Lloyd's Danny is one of my favourite on-screen sons. When they are running together through the maze, holding hands and smiling, I am shedding reall tears of joy at how beautiful relationship these two have. It would be absolutely inhumane if they didn't have at least each other, given the circumstances. And I especially love that the boy gets as much attention as his parents, is smart and quick-witted, and plays an active part in ongoing events. Meaning: He doesn't suffer from the usual maladies of young children in (american) movies and that's just lovely.

And I leave with a thinking excersise in mind: I wonder what it's like to see bits of past and future, not knowing which is which, what already happend and what is yet to come.