Louis Malle: Classic or Dud, Search and Destroy

Which titles?

Rumor has it these will come later:
MILOU EN MAI (aka May Fools)
AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
PLACE DE LA REPUBLIQUE
ZAZIE DANS LE METRO
THE FIRE WITHIN
CALCUTTA
HUMAN, TOO HUMAN
GOD'S COUNTRY
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS
LES AMANTS

haven't seen many of the other ones. am very interested to see calcutta and the other docs.

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/004780.html

I've seen Murmur and Elevator to the Gallows and loved them both. I really need to watch the Fire Within.

last two weeks:

MURMUR OF THE HEART
LACOMBE, LUCIEN
AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS
AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
GOD'S COUNTRY
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS
MY DINNER WITH ANDRE
ATLANTIC CITY
VANYA

i do not think there has ever been another director who managed to light his scenes as lusciously and sensually as malle -- and i think if anyone could their career might just be made by it.

He still doesn't get his due, does he? David Thomson sniffs when his name's mentioned.

Criterion recently released his eighties documentaries; I'm watching one of them, God's Country (1985), about a small Minnesotan town adapting to Reaganomics.

betting he could've put a light-hearted spin on the mackenzie phillips story

Caught The Thief of Paris on This the night before last. So good. Jean-Claude Carrière co-wrote the screenplay. Jean-Paul Belmondo stars against a great cast of actresses: Geneviève Bujold, Marie Dubois, Françoise Fabian, Marlène Jobert, and Bernadette Lafont.

The My Dinner With Andre DVD (Criterion, of course) is quite entertaining. Gregory and Shawn, interviewed by Noah Baumbach, remain great loquacious hams.

Au Revoir Les Enfants is an absolutely prefect thing. It's truly amazing.

Don't try to tell me otherwise because i'm not listening.

i gotta watch that. i've seen murmur of the heart and it's one of my favorites ever, so i got that trilogy from criterion and haven't cracked it because i'm distracted by the netflicks

well i watched the first 40 min once, don't know why i didn't finish

just watched the fire within & was kind of bowled over by it, by how crowded with glorious detail it was. like when alain is pawing through the piles of incredible clothes in his room (that room!) he picks out a pair of of cuff links that look like coils of golden rope. or the banter at lunch about françoise hardy that alain wld have kept up with teen idols - so perfect.

but mostly the camera has a way of observing things thats so tender & silent & accepting that it makes the film really pleasurable to watch. was thinking it was on some antonioni shit but idk really just it was ~lovely~ also the score was p fukken great too

also kinda read alain is gay? like is inability to "connect" sexually with women esp lydia at the start & his worry over being a terrible lover. also strangely charged moments like his encounter with the young man in the bathroom after taking a drink, followed by the gay (?) dudes talking abt how handsome he was

Is that 'Feu Follet' in French?

yep!

That is such a sustained piece of early 60's French style.

Terrific film -- I saw it again last month. It's got that early sixties fascination with American chic.

haha all the dudes are dressed like 50s ivy leaguers & all the women are dressed like high style parisians. the way lydia's blouse matches the lining to her jacket & the way she shrugs it on killed me. also alain reading (babylon revisited!) in an oversized cardigan & black-framed reading glasses

Do you think that Bruce Springsteen based the song "Atlantic City" on Louis Malle's film of the same name? There's a part where a hippie girl's drug dealer boyfriend is killed by thugs, and she comforts herself about his death by talking about reincarnation, convincing herself that he will come back in another form... it reminds me of Springsteen's line, "Everything that dies, someday comes back," as a way for the character in the song to reassure his girlfriend that if he dies doing his "favor" for someone, that it will be okay.

hm, wiki sez theyre unrelated but there are certainly similarities

i thought the film was really great. love the gradual development of lancasters character & how we're meted out info abt his past. & sarandon is a nice counterpart, sortof the opposite personality of his in a lotta ways

the way lydia's blouse matches the lining to her jacket & the way she shrugs it on killed me.

^ this was incredible omg

felt somewhat analogous to the dardennes 2 days 1 night imo w/ alain as a more hopeless detestable figure than cotillard