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theenigmaticmarksman · 12 years ago

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Rest in Peace Joan Fontaine (1917-2013)

Benjamin D. Skevofilax - 17/12/2013

Hollywood actress Joan Fontaine has passed away at the age of 96. Fontaine was best known for her association with two films by Alfred Hitchcock -- the gothic suspense melodrama Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941) in both she played mousy young women who find themselves caught in a web of mystery and danger when they fall madly in love.

Fontaine was born in Japan and is the sister of Oscar-winning actress Olivia De Havilland (Gone with the Wind, The Heiress) and the two have infamously been enemies for most their lives; in 1942 both sisters were nominated in the same category at the Academy Awards with Fontaine winning for Hitchcock's Suspicion although De Havilland would end up winning two Oscars in her career for 1946's To Each His Own and 1949's The Heiress.

Fontaine (born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland) started her career in the 30s usually as responsible and naive young women in films that included A Dame in Distress (1937) with Fred Astaire, Gunga Din (1939) with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Cary Grant and the all-star all-female ensemble of The Women (1939) with Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell.

Although she is most often remembered for her performances as the Second Mrs. De Winter in Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's best-selling novel Rebecca (1940) when she is terrorized by the memory and servants of the estate she moves into after marrying the mysterious and elusive Maxim De Winter (played by Laurence Olivier) and the role earned her an Oscar nomination for best actress -- the following year she would win the award for Suspicion playing a similar that of Lina, a timid English woman who suspects her husband of trying to murder her,

Other roles included Jane Eyre (1943) with Orson Welles, The Constant Nymph (also 1943) for which she was nominated for another Oscar and Max Ophuls' much loved Letter from an Unknown Woman (1949).

Her career in the 50s was less sucessful but still gave strong performances in the historical action film Ivanhoe (1952), the Ida Lupino directed and then controversial The Bigamist (1953) and Fritz's noir Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) while much of her later work came on television (including Hotel and the Love Boat), her final film performance was 1966's The Witches.

Rest in Peace Joan Fontaine

#joan fontaine #alfred hitchcock #olivia de havillan #rebecca #suspicion #golden hollywood #the women #daphne du maurier

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theenigmaticmarksman · 12 years ago

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REVIEW | ONLY GOD FORGIVES (2013)

By Benjamin D. Skevofilax Edited By Heidi Willis

Director: Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive)

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Tom Burke, Gordon Brown

Country: Denmark / France / USA / Thailand

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Ever since its debut in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival in May director Nicholas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives a moody and ultra-violent mood piece/character study set in a seedy part of the Thai capital Bangkok was greeted with both praise and hatred from critics several of whom walked out during the screening – this coming as a surprise for the Danish auteur who only two years earlier won the best director award for the critically acclaimed existential crime-thriller Drive and audiences who may have been expecting an cinematic experience in the similar vein as far as going as before it’s release unofficially dubbing it Drive II (the only real connection being a reunion with its leading star Ryan Gosling) but Only God Forgives is more in tone with the director’s last Danish language venture the intense and nightmarish minimalist Viking saga Valhalla Rising.

Set in Bangkok, American fugitive Julian (Ryan Gosling) and his older brother Billy (Tom Burke) run a Mauy Thai Boxing studio which operates as an underworld drug smuggling syndicate - one night Billy hires and then subsequently kills an underage prostitute resulting in a ruthless cop with a penchant for karaoke, samurai swords and an Old Testament ‘eye for an eye’ methodology allows the father of the slain prostitute to do what he will with Billy killing him leading to Julian and Billy’s godmother-like mother Crystal (Kristin Scott-Thomas) flies in from the States to seek vengeance on anyone involved in her first born son’s death even willing to mercilessly bring down the entire Thai capital.

Dedicated to Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (who’s first film in 23 years Dance of Reality also premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival) a director who has been a major influence on Winding Refn noted for the ‘acid western’ sub-genre of films that has included the seminal and much debated El Topo (1970) and the John Lennon-Yoko Ono funded Holy Mountain (1973) these films with their lack of a conventional narrative and dreamlike mood and feel is evident here there’s also the extreme and brutal violence of a Takashi Miike (13 Assassins, Audition) or Takeshi Kitano (Outrage Beyond, Hana-Bi) as the violence ranges from darkly comical (a gunman gets hot oil thrown in his face then gets bashed over the head multiple times) to the sadistic (one of Crystal’s hoods gets tortured in a nightclub when he is stabbed in the thighs by hairpins as well as through the wrist and… well the rest you have to see for yourself) all this carried out by the seemingly immortal Chang

While the blending of fantasy and reality bring to mind David Lynch (Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire) particularly in Chang’s karaoke scenes are reminiscent of Dean Stockwell’s unsettling musical performance in Blue Velvet while there are also stylisations that may remind some of Wong Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love, My Blueberry Nights) with its bright colour palette and claustrophobic surroundings and central characters walking corridors in long takes or even Jean Pierre-Melville’s Le Samourai which saw its ambiguous protagonist barely utter a word while going about his job as a contract assassin.

This being said Winding Refn is an individual talent and his style is evident throughout and while Drive firmly put his name on the map for non-European or art-house film fans it bares more in common with his earlier Valhalla Rising (2009) a film that used the Viking Era as a catalyst to tell a story not of Gladiator-style battles but a personal, horrific and psychedelic s proportions as it followed a warrior of supernatural strength and a band of Viking compatriots who trek from the Scottish moors intent on heading to the Holy Land but instead winding up in the New World.

Only God Forgives works as a spiritual successor to Valhalla Rising from its play of genre for while it may first seem like a crime-thriller it turns to the metaphysical as Julian is a stranger in a strange land caught between two forces neither of whom are good – Crystal, his mother a woman who is a terrifying force of nature as the head of the crime syndicate she runs from abroad with a heavily implied Oedipal bent while on the other side of the spectrum is Chang, the judge, juror and executioner who appears to own the Bangkok police force and exacts justice in his own bloody way with a samurai sword.

The characters aren’t what you would call human beings rather caricatures or archetypes of the genre amplified extended sequences of little to no dialogue as well as unnatural movements and postulating almost as if they are mythical beings sent to wreak havoc in a state of purgatory (or is it hell?) and the performances are beautifully nuanced and at times downright strange but this may one of the film’s greatest strengths – led by Ryan Gosling who barely changes facial expressions throughout the entire film and while he was an anti-hero in Drive and more recently in the excellent The Place Beyond the Pines here is a coward controlled by his mother and doing things on her whim and wishes even his eventual showdown with Chang works as an anti-climax with his fate already sealed before he enters the ring.

A barely recognizable Kristin Scott-Thomas dazzles and amazes in a role that of a flashy, trashy (the peroxide blonde hair and garish outfits make this clearly evident) sociopathic angel of death with echoes of Lady Macbeth and steals the show with some of the film’s best scenes with her foul language (the dinner scene is sure to become infamous) and manipulation while Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm (who starred in the Thailand set Hangover Part II (2011) is brilliant as Chang whether welding a samurai sword or performing love themed karaoke numbers work as a contradiction of each other – both these characters are some of the most interesting and intriguing antagonists in a long-time.

Larry Smith’s neon-lit cinematographic environments accompanied by the production design and costume design are gorgeously realized even in the most brutal of moments it’s easy to be entranced in these moments almost hypnotically while Cliff Martinez’s score is nothing short of ground-breaking and quite frankly the film just wouldn’t work without it or any other composer could do justice if you thought his score for Drive was good just wait to hear this.

Not without its flaws Only God Forgives occasionally overstays its welcome with some scenes that go for the Jean Luc-Godard school of filmmaking in that they seem to be here purely for aesthetics than anything else – not that this is necessarily a bad thing to some viewers it could seem like overkill but that’s the film as a whole either you hate it or as for myself is one of the stranger, most original and brilliant films released this year and superior to the director’s admittedly brilliant Drive and marks Winding Refn as one of the most original filmmakers working today.

5/5

#only god forgives #ryan gosling #kristin scott thomas #nicholas winding refn #bangkok #thriller #vithaya pansringarm #thaiand #surrealism

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theenigmaticmarksman · 12 years ago

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REST IN PEACE PETER O'TOOLE (1932-2013)

Benjamin D. Skevofilax - 16/12/2013

Proving himself as one of the most talented and respected actors of his generation Irish born Peter O’Toole passed away at the age of 81, in a career that spanned over half a century he appeared in film, television and theatre but it was his towering performance as the eccentric British military officer T.H Lawrence in David Lean’s legendary epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) that he has and will continue to be most identified with.

His turn in Lawrence of Arabia earned him an Academy Award nomination as best actor (the film would win 7 awards) playing a man who's allegiance is torn when he is stationed in the Middle East during the First World War -- this would be his first of what would become eight nominations making him the most nominated actor (male or female) without ever winning although he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2003 for her career achievements.

He was nominated twice for playing a real-life king in Becket (1964) opposite Richard Burton (anther perennial Oscar ‘loser’) and the Lion in Winter (1968) opposite Katharine Hepburn (who did the win Oscar for her performance) while his other nominations came in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982) and Venus (2006).

His career was varied and he was never afraid to take risks as was evidenced by appearing in the all-star Penthouse Magazine produced/Gore Vidal written Caligula (1979) which was in essence just a lavishly budgeted soft core pornographic Hollywood film, he even hammed it up to the max in 1984’s dud Supergirl he also provided the voices of Sherlock Holmes in an animated British television series in the 80s and Anton Ego in Pixar’s Ratatouille (2007)

Other films roles included Lord Jim, opposite Audrey Hepburn in the heist caper/romantic comedy How to Steal a Million (both 1965) a musical reimagining of The Man from La Mancha (1972), Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987) and in the later part of his career appeared in supporting roles in the likes of Phantoms (1998), Stephen Fry’s Bright Young Things (2003), Troy (2004) and Stardust (2007).

He was one of the greatest actors of his generation and can stand alongside Michael Caine and Albert Finney as being one of the finest actors to hail from the British Isles and his passing will leave a void but his legacy will be retained in the timeless appeal of film and television and if his most famous role is now over half a century it’s still a trip well worth taking time and time again!

Farewell, Mr. O’Toole and May you Rest in Peace!

Check Out His Filmography:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000564/?ref_=tt_cl_t6

#peter o'toole #lawrence of arabia

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