barter2009

This film is a must watch - the opinion of so many viewers, but on the other hand quite a few people complain about the shallow story and too obvious characters. It's a paradox, which we should look closer at. My guess is that this is a movie with a key (like a book with a key). Look at Lorelei Lee properly and you will notice that her character is about an opposite to the real character of Marilyn Monroe who never (or very rarely) put on a jewelry (and was certainly not stupid). So that that persona of a "dumb blond" she created so fine was never herself. I guess the same is valid also for Jane Russell, who was a devoted wife while playing a sexually concerned brunette Dorothy Shaw. Due to my embryonic knowledge of the history of Hollywood i can't say much more on this subject.

Another very interesting point is about the colors in this bright picture. Jane Russell changes her dresses 15 times, Marilyn Monroe 14 times during the movie. And what is also exiting, the colors of their dresses build up a rainbow: beginning with red, they move to the white through the orange (with black), yellow (with black and white), green, light blue (with white), dark blue and lilac, to the final white (in the scene of the wedding). Actually the white is a certain summary of the rainbow colors (at least i've heard of it at the physic lesson). The rainbow is mentioned in the song of Jane Russell "i'll be gloomy, but send that rainbow to me".

As to the "animal magnetism": we see the effect of Lorelei kisses upon her fiancé Gus. The boy (brilliantly played) simply formulates this in words. It's important thing to say that Lorelei is a name of Rhine Nymphe who has got supernatural power over the men. Some people call Lorelei a "man-trap" or "monster". Bytheway in the famous hit "Diamonds are a girls best friend" Lorelei mentions a "Rhine-stone", which is to be found in the legend of Lorelei (ask Brentano and Heine).

Yes, the number about Napoleon would be an another jewel.

As we see it's much more in this light musical comedy than one expects. So just watch it and you'll find out.

Why should we watch now this eighty years old film, made in black and white, slow moving forward, with only latent developing story? I'll try to answer this question. The thrill of "Morocco" lies in the characters of the protagonists, played by unforgettable Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper. I believe, Voltaire said once that the most beautiful thing in the world is a human face, and it seems to be true, when you watch their faces.

The sparkles between a legionnaire Tom Brown (Cooper) and a singer Amy Jolly (Dietrich) are immense, it's love from the first sight, we see this on his face and we see it in her handling him the key from her flat, just in the first evening.

While the rich gentleman Le Bessiere (Adolphe Menjou) is at the beginning just curious about her and her further fate, and only later gets really involved with her, the young legionnaire seems to be blown off by her first appearance on stage. Amy Jolly has certainly no "stage fright", she knows very well how to play audience, and doesn't need any advice from the owner of the place. She attracts attention by wearing her extravagant costume and then by taking a flower from a woman's hair and kissing her (rather teaching her manners than anything else). And then suddenly this flower will be given away: to Tom Brown. So we see the very beginning of the romance, and we see the reactions of the audience.

The thrill is in the nuances, in the play of shadows and light. Perhaps, the pauses in the dialogs are as meaningful as the words: when Tom Brown says: "Nothing... yet!", we know already what kind of fellow he is, or even more famous example: Amy Jolly says after a long pause: "I'll be back... wait for me." It's more impressive than those dozen words she could fill in this empty time space. But the intensity of the scene would be lost! I must also stress the brilliance of the love dialogs in "Morocco". For instance it's a wonderful line, when Amy Jolly says to Tom Brown: "You should go now... I'm beginning to like you." It's a deeper insight into a woman's soul.

About the rich man: somehow he seems rather playing games with Amy Jolly, so he provokes her by saying about the women following the legion into the desert that they love their men. I guess the meaning of his words was that she, Amy, does not love anyone really, and then she belongs to him, into his world. If she does, she should make her choice.

Cooper gives a genius imitation of the way Tom Brown speaks: he speaks like a soldier, in a hacked, simple, straight forward manner.

At the end of the film Amy Jolly takes off her shoes to follow her man; maybe this scene has influenced the other film makers ("The red shoes" (1948) and "The river of no return" (1954)).

What is also interesting about "Morocco" is a multilingual surrounding: we hear English, French, German, Arabic and Spanish.

In my opinion it's the best not only of Dietrich, but also of the young Cooper, because only after seeing "Morocco" I start to believe in him as a charming Casanova from Hollywood.

This film has a prologue about the jungle. The main part of the film starts with the opera house in Manaus, where to Fitzcarraldo, played by Klaus Kinski, and his girl friend Molly, played by Claudia Cardinale, hurry in a small boat. Fitzcarraldo wears an impressive hat. Bytheway, in this film the hats add a certain playful element to the whole story. It's also an interesting detail that Fitzcarraldo always wears a white suit, an old one probably but always recognizably white. Though they are late and have no tickets they are allowed to go inside after Molly's comment: "He has no ticket, but he has a right." The opera performed is "Ernani" by Verdi. The last scene of the film is also a scene from the opera "I Puritani" by Bellini, performed on a big boat (a steamboat)with Fitzcarraldo as a director of this performance. The question is: why has the director (also the writer and the producer) Werner Herzog chosen these two operas? Without a better explanation i assume that the development of the story plot goes toward the happy end (in "Ernani" the main hero dies, in "I Puritani" he survives). At the beginning of the film the fate of a passionate opera lover, an inventor and an adventurer is uncertain, he may go right to perdition with all his dreams, plans and obsessions. Yet he survives and even wins at the end of the film. Some commentators call Fitzcarraldo "a madman". But he is just a man with a dream. Let's have a dream, this makes life much more exciting. There is a remark on the IMDb site that Werner Herzog likes to show animals in his films. I found this quite interesting and watched the film from this point of view. There are following animals in the order of appearance: horses, drinking Champagne in front of the opera house, a parrot, a pig that is promised a seat the future opera house, a fish that swallows money, a white turkey in the jungle (appears when the rubber baron says to Fitzcarraldo: "You are a strange bird, but somehow i like you.", a young white cat at Molly's house and two snakes in the jungle. The best moments in the film are: Fitcarraldo comes into the opera with Molly, Fitzcarraldo shouting "I want my opera house!" on the top of the bell tower, Fitzcarraldo with his pals on the top of the tree in the jungle, Caruso's voice pacifying the Indians and the last scene when the opera is performed on the steamboat. This is an excellent cinema experience, one of my favorite films. Somehow it reminds me of Tarkovski's films, maybe because of the slow pace and a loving eye for the nature. Please, take your time and watch this film! I am sure you'll enjoy it.

It's a delightful and touching film about a very talented musician, the eldest son of Sebastian Bach. Along with "Amadeus" I'd call this film the best portrait of a musician on the screen. In the leading role we see Gustav Gruendgens, who is playing piano quite skillful, though we don't see his fingers. One can believe, he is really playing piano as well as Friedemann Bach did himself. Gruendgens had those radiant eyes in this film which made him to a great impersonator of an artist in general. Yet the talented musician was not successful and died at the end in a bitter poverty. The reason was as it's shown in the film his unstable, unsecure character. So he gave up his positions as a church organist and as a composer in Dresden and the ladies who loved him. There is at least one important question asked in this film: how likable should make the artist his creation? How much should he think of the benevolence of his audience? It's a vital question for every creative worker. There is also some puzzle about this film, which I could not solve on my own. It's about the movement of Gruendgens during his last talk to his former fiancé. He moved his arms as a marionette, which could be a link to some other film or stage play, unknown to me. So please watch him very attentively, he definitely deserves your attention. I always love to watch this film and can highly recommend it to you.

Swimming in the wake of so many preceding commentators, i still hope to point out few details which were left aside until now. Bytheway i've read every single comment on The Dark Knight posted on the IMDb.com. Well, it was fun, a serious one.

This film i'd call pleiotropic, because of it works simultaneously on several levels, and it works good.

Some miscellaneous notes on The Dark Knight

on Batman's voice: since it's a fantasy, it should be performed with exaggerations, so i welcome Batman played by Christian Bale

on Harvey Dent: Aaron Eckhart not only had a line about Gaius Julius Caesar, he actually resembles that distinguished Roman (look Caesar's bust in the Vatican Museum)

on Joker: i assume this figure is based on a representation of an evil, yet funny spirit that was portrayed by Goethe in "Faust". So there should be some German roots of the Joker: Mephistopheles or Mephisto, played brilliantly by Gustav Gruendgens, who painted his face white. There is a film "Faust" from 1960. I suppose, we might take seriously the fact that Heath Ledger kept himself under the lock for a month working on his role. It's obvious now that he did not waste the time. Here i suggest some videos he might have watched during his solitude (at least concerning his make up): Gustav Gruendgens (1960) as Mephistopheles, without black paint around the eyes Cesar Romero (1966) as Joker, without black paint, but with a broad smile Klaus Maria Brandauer (1981) in "Mephisto", with black paint around his eyes Klaus Kinski (1986) in "The Crawlspace", with black paint and with a smile Jack Nichilson (1989) as Joker, without black paint, but with a broad grin on his face Brandon Lee (1994) in "The Crow", with black paint and with a smile

Heath Ledger, a perfect Faust of our age, who was always moving on, has left this life far too early. In The Dark Knight he simply did his best, the quality of a genius, who is predestined to do his best at a proper time in a proper place, in reality. Since the Joker ought to be horrifying and funny he made him so.

A certain shade which casts this film on a viewer (so many people name it "dark") might be produced also by the psychedelic music (written by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard), which makes every scene with the Joker even creepier.

On a certain dizziness caused by watching this film, about which some commentators above have complained: well, yes, i felt dizzy, but i assumed it was a part of the plan.

I highly recommend The Dark Knight. Enjoy it!

barter2009@web.de

every time i watch this film i find it plain amazing. It's a light entertainment of the highest class. The music and the performance are superb, i always catch myself humming the tunes afterward. Surely the best of the film are Tommy Trinder and Stanley Holloway, but it's also the finest performance of Betty Warren. I assume that the ale-houses, as they are shown in the film, would be an origin of the karaoke evenings in our age. I also like the tiny hint to the Andersen's tale, when the mother and the daughter are admiring a mechanical toy. it's a shame that Cavalcanti left England so soon after making this film. He was like a rising star on the cinematic firmament, and he let the actors do their best. Enjoy it!

I like this movie very much! So many of you complemented the excellent use of Rachmaniniff's piano concerto 2. I agree with you absolutely and just want to point out that this music is associated with a male soul, in this case with Alec Harvey. This would explain why the husband wished to turn the music from the radio down and also why it dominates the whole story: because Laura is thinking actually of Alec Harvey, even talking in her thoughts to her husband. Why i make this link? Because that was Alec Harvey who spoke of the odd musician in the restaurant and also asked Laura whether she herself played the piano. I suppose we may assume that he was a very fine musician himself, not only a doctor.