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disappointingyet · 7 months

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Bell Book And Candle

Director Richard Quine Stars James Stewart, Kim Novak, Elsa Lanchester, Jack Lemmon, plus the apparently numerous cats who played Pyewacket USA 1958 Language English 1hr 46mins Colour

Witchy 1950s rom-com

In 1958, James Stewart and Kim Novak starred in Vertigo, which for at couple of decades now has been considered by critics as one of the best five or so movies ever made. In 1958, Stewart and Novak also made Bell Book And Candle, which is not widely thought of one of the greatest works of cinema, but is a film I’ve long been very fond of.

Stewart plays Shep Henderson, a publisher who’s recently moved into a Greenwich Village apartment. On the ground floor, there’s a shop selling tribal masks and statues from around the world (a bit dubious by 2024 standards?) run by a young woman called Gillian Holroyd (Novak). Gillian lives in the building, along with her brother Nicky (Jack Lemmon), aunt Queenie (Elsa Lanchester) and Siamese cat Pyewacket.

Gillian decides she rather likes Shep and thus will get Shep. Gillian is, you see, a witch – all the Holroyds have magical powers, in fact, although only hers are powerful enough to be of any practical use. So we’re off on one of those stories where a character wrestles with the idea of whether using magic to kickstart a relationship is unfair.

There’s a pretty valid reading of ‘magic’ = queerness in this film. It’s adapted from a play by John Van Druten, who was gay, and full of lines like, ‘I have always lived for and by the special. Not the ordinary. Why, I've never even thought of marriage’ and ‘Auntie, don't you ever wish that you weren't – what we are?’ The Holroyds hang out a basement club called The Zodiac with like-minded folk – early on, Shep and his fiancee (Janice Rule) turn up, very much sight-seeing straights.

But equally, it’s by no means obligatory to watch the film through that lens. Gil, Nicky and Queenie could just be classic Greenwich Village bohemians with rare gifts.

My impression has long been that Hollywood never quite figured out what do with Kim Novak. She’s a complicated version of a Hitchcock blonde in Vertigo, but that was her only film with him. Likewise, she made one movie for Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger and Robert Aldrich. (She made three with Richard Quine, director of this one, but that ended badly too and he's not thought of as belonging in the company of the chaps I just listed.)

She played an all-American beauty queen, a gangster’s moll, an unhinged movie star, a sex worker at least twice, Moll Flanders… Seems like execs took a look at her body and decided she was right for raunchy roles and I don't think that was the correct conclusion. Bell Book And Candle seems a better fit: she’s cool, hip, a bit weary, a bit schemey, Very much the kind of woman Don Draper would have been involved with, if you’ll allow me a cross-fictional thought.

Novak was only 25 when BB&C was made but the character feels like she’s in her early thirties, maybe? James Stewart turned 50 during shooting and not a young 50, either. Supposedly, after watching Bell Book And Candle he made the wise decision that he wasn’t going to play a romantic lead in movies with actresses half his age anymore. (Which effectively, at that point, meant not playing the romantic lead in Hollywood movies.) Cary Grant, who was four years older, persisted for another five years and then retired completely soon after. I’m glad Grant made Charade and I’m glad Stewart stars in Bell Book And Candle but think he was wise to acknowledge at this point it was looking a bit off.

So why do I like this film so much? A lot of it, I think, comes from the look – it’s a very classy Hollywood imagining of what Beatniks might be like. To me, Gil is one of the best-dressed characters in the history of film (her hair, short slivery blonde with a hint of lavender is cool too, only the greasepaint eyebrows are an issue.)

The colours are terrific – lovely work by the veteran cinematographer James Wong Howe. There’s a nice bit of location shooting (without the characters) in Manhattan that makes the sturdy studio sets feel like they could be the real thing and it really might be snowing.

BB&C is a romantic comedy, but like quite a lot of romcoms, it’s light on big laughs. Most of the funnier scenes involve Ernie Kovacs as a writer of non-fiction books about the supernatural who believes he knows what’s going on at the Zodiac Club. Rather, the film relies on charm and atmosphere. And, fortunately, it has more than enough of both.

#bell book and candle #kim novak

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: Glimpses of Laurie Simmons’s Life and Art in Her First Feature Film

Laurie Simmons as Ellie (portraying Kim Novak as Gillian ‘Gil’ Holroyd in Bell, Book and Candle) in MY ART, written & directed by Laurie Simmons (courtesy Laurie Simmons, photo by Dylan Nelson)

There’s a strong metafictional element in Laurie Simmons’s new film, My Art, which she wrote, directed, and stars in. The movie, on view at the Tribeca Film Festival, opens with her character, artist Ellie Shine, walking through the Whitney Museum’s inaugural exhibition, America is Hard to See, in the Meatpacking District location. Shine stands in front of a work by Simmons’s real-life husband, Carroll Dunham, and meets her real-life daughter, Lena Dunham, on an outdoor terrace. She plays one of Shine’s former students who’s clearly much more successful than Shine herself — she’s complaining about how many upcoming shows she has and having to spend too much time in Europe.

Unlike Simmons, Shine is unmarried, without children, and presumably not included in America is Hard to See. But are feelings of loneliness and a comparative lack of success always part of an artist’s life, no matter what kind of family or exhibition history he or she has?

In a subsequent scene, Shine visits her artist friend Mickey (Blair Brown) and a Marilyn Minter stand-in (the real Minter appears briefly at the end of the film). Shine describes her ideas for a future project in a way that relates to much of Simmons’s work as well (since the 1970s, the artist has photographed dolls and other miniature objects and interiors): “It’s still like excerpts from a visual diary,” she says. “It’s still stuff about memory and longing, nostalgia.”

Laurie Simmons as Ellie (portraying Marlene Dietrich) in MY ART, written & directed by Laurie Simmons (courtesy Laurie Simmons, photo by Dylan Nelson)

Mickey reveals that she owns Shine’s work and adored her friend’s last show. Later in the film, she helps Shine secure an exhibition with her gallerist. Here’s another metafictional nod: Simmons and Minter both exhibit at Salon 94, run by Jeanne Rohatyn Greenberg — in real life, the dealer has been credited with bringing renewed attention to both artists’ work. Simmons demonstrates an interest in the way that women of the art world support each other, privileging camaraderie over competition. Throughout the film, the importance of friendship remains a constant as Shine decamps upstate for the summer, enjoys a romantic interlude, and makes new art.

Notably, Shine’s work only really begins to take shape as she establishes new friendships in the small town. Two gardeners, out-of-work actors themselves, agree to act in her films, as does a lawyer who’s in the area. Her art, it turns out, benefits more from eager collaborators than it does from isolation. Together, they reenact scenes from old films such as The Misfits and A Clockwork Orange that relate in varying degrees to what’s going on in their lives. Throughout the scenes, Shine dons wigs and costumes to personify such stars as Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich. The videos allude to Cindy Sherman’s film stills and predilection for disguise. “I hate when other people give me ideas. It feels like art school,” Shine tells Mickey after the latter suggests, “you should embarrass yourself more.” Yet, Shine seems to have taken this advice, or at least agreed to take new risks in positioning herself in front of the camera. One might say the same of Simmons, for whom this film represents an entirely new direction — she’s never made a feature film before.

A few subplots attempt to add minimal drama the film. Shine has a fling with one of the gardeners, Frank (Robert Clohessy). The other gardener, Tom (Joshua Safdie), contends with an unhappy marriage to a wacky wife (Parker Posey). The lawyer, John (John Rothman), reconsiders his career choices. Shine has an adorable, aging dog whose death seems imminent the first time he limps on screen. These storylines can seem underdeveloped and incomplete. Yet thankfully, Shine’s creative efforts and her ultimate triumph — her time upstate allows her to make the work she wants to make — remain central to the film. Shine’s collaborators are more like playthings than serious romantic interests, and it’s fun to watch them fall under the artist’s spell and take her orders. In one of Shine’s reimagined scenes, the artist and a red-eyed cat seem to actually bewitch the lawyer.

Robert Clohessy as Frank, Laurie Simmons as Ellie, John Rothman as John, all portraying characters from A Clockwork Orange in MY ART, written & directed by Laurie Simmons (courtesy Laurie Simmons, photo by Dylan Nelson)

Shine needs a room of her own to create, and the large upstate house offers her plenty of space. Beyond that, friendship serves as the second most important key to success: it provides her with collaborators, secures her financial support for future projects, and gives her a forum to exhibit her work. After all, it’s one of Shine’s artist friends who literally gifts her that room of her own (the upstate home) to begin with.

The film ends back in New York, at an opening (at the real Salon 94) for Shine’s new work. Frank treks down, and Shine tells him that she’s surprised he came. The final shot features Shine standing alone, reading a review of her work that will be in print the next day. The romantic prospect seems trivial, and one suspects that Frank and Shine couldn’t actually sustain a relationship outside the idyllic upstate town. What seems more important for Shine is that her friends and students are there supporting her, and her new art is on view. For all the loneliness and success that will come and go for Shine — and, perhaps, for Simmons — the artist seems to have all she really needs.

My Art by Laurie Simmons continues at the Tribeca Film Festival through Sunday, April 30.

The post Glimpses of Laurie Simmons’s Life and Art in Her First Feature Film appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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