byrmcusyty
Lifetime Total
1+
IMDb Member
19 years
Reviews
Je vous salue, Marie (1985)
oui, non
Hmmm...I don't know if anything that I say about this movie will be relevant to anyone else. This movie has been in my consciousness for over 20 years and has influenced me in one way or another.
Trivia: It was because of the moving and sublime use of Mahler's 9th and Bach's Partita in this movie that I sought out the works of these composers and they've since become important points in my musical foundation.
At the lake the professor speaks of signals from outer space, the sound in the background is an electronic bzzt bzzt...but in the next shot we see the sound is merely the professor's magic marker as he doodles.
Mary politely nodding to instructions given by her basketball coach while piano music (J.S.Bach's wtc book1 prelude 1) swells in and out overwhelming the coach and the noise on the basketball court. She is still smiling and nodding and acting according to the earthly matters at hand even though The Voice calls to her. It is a very beautiful piece of cinema.
Mary and Joseph talking on the pier. In order to see him, Mary has to block out the blinding sun with her hand: that's the whole meaning of Mary brilliantly focused into one image.
The "oui, non" strophe/antistrophe appears first as a monologue by the student guiding the rubik's cube manipulator's hand to the solution, and then later as a monologue by Mary guiding Joseph's hand.
The "oui, non" strophe/antistrophe also appears in Godard's short film "Armide", his part of "Aria".
The little girl angel instructing Mary to "be pure, be tough." (I only have the Japanese DVD, so I'm paraphrasing. The original French is more flowing.) This is the first New Wave film - the first Godard film - I ever saw.
I discovered Jean-Luc Godard by reading James Monaco's "The New Wave".
I only plucked the Monaco book off the library shelf because at the time I was obsessed with "New Wave" bands like The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, New Order, etc.
The lipstick circles Myriem Roussel's open mouth, the end.
Trivia: It was because of the moving and sublime use of Mahler's 9th and Bach's Partita in this movie that I sought out the works of these composers and they've since become important points in my musical foundation.
At the lake the professor speaks of signals from outer space, the sound in the background is an electronic bzzt bzzt...but in the next shot we see the sound is merely the professor's magic marker as he doodles.
Mary politely nodding to instructions given by her basketball coach while piano music (J.S.Bach's wtc book1 prelude 1) swells in and out overwhelming the coach and the noise on the basketball court. She is still smiling and nodding and acting according to the earthly matters at hand even though The Voice calls to her. It is a very beautiful piece of cinema.
Mary and Joseph talking on the pier. In order to see him, Mary has to block out the blinding sun with her hand: that's the whole meaning of Mary brilliantly focused into one image.
The "oui, non" strophe/antistrophe appears first as a monologue by the student guiding the rubik's cube manipulator's hand to the solution, and then later as a monologue by Mary guiding Joseph's hand.
The "oui, non" strophe/antistrophe also appears in Godard's short film "Armide", his part of "Aria".
The little girl angel instructing Mary to "be pure, be tough." (I only have the Japanese DVD, so I'm paraphrasing. The original French is more flowing.) This is the first New Wave film - the first Godard film - I ever saw.
I discovered Jean-Luc Godard by reading James Monaco's "The New Wave".
I only plucked the Monaco book off the library shelf because at the time I was obsessed with "New Wave" bands like The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, New Order, etc.
The lipstick circles Myriem Roussel's open mouth, the end.
Der amerikanische Freund (1977)
I want to tell you how incredible this film is..
I want to tell you how incredibly joyous this film is...but I worry that I'll tell you the wrong way and sound ridiculous. So don't read any further. Just see the movie for yourself.
Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz are fantastic as the perverse Ripley and his randomly picked/stalked friend. I've never seen a buddy-buddy film where the bonding is done quite like this, unreal. Unreal how deep they go. No, really, it's that amazing.
Odd things that I liked: I like the way the two shift casually between English and German. I like the Bartok-ish music. The cinematography is great, and on the DVD commentary you will hear Wenders talk about Robby's inventiveness with gels. The train scene is one crisis after another but also contains some hilarious bits (the business with the tickets). Another powerful moment takes place later at Tom's house where they try to execute a reverse-ambush. Jonathan, pipe in hand, looking down sadly at the henchman he'd just sent down for good.
What else do I like without revealing too much of the plot? Gee, I guess I like everything about this film. This is one of those films (Je vous salue, Marie; Paris Texas; Lost in Translation; Chungking Express are others) that I LOVE so dearly that I hate myself for talking about it because it's inevitable that I will be wronging it with the inadequacy of my language (ie trying to capture something that is beyond words).
Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz are fantastic as the perverse Ripley and his randomly picked/stalked friend. I've never seen a buddy-buddy film where the bonding is done quite like this, unreal. Unreal how deep they go. No, really, it's that amazing.
Odd things that I liked: I like the way the two shift casually between English and German. I like the Bartok-ish music. The cinematography is great, and on the DVD commentary you will hear Wenders talk about Robby's inventiveness with gels. The train scene is one crisis after another but also contains some hilarious bits (the business with the tickets). Another powerful moment takes place later at Tom's house where they try to execute a reverse-ambush. Jonathan, pipe in hand, looking down sadly at the henchman he'd just sent down for good.
What else do I like without revealing too much of the plot? Gee, I guess I like everything about this film. This is one of those films (Je vous salue, Marie; Paris Texas; Lost in Translation; Chungking Express are others) that I LOVE so dearly that I hate myself for talking about it because it's inevitable that I will be wronging it with the inadequacy of my language (ie trying to capture something that is beyond words).