MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE (1949)

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Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
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Saturday, October 30, 2010

EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE (1949)

This glamorous sudser from M-G-M tries ever-so hard to be daring & adult in the smart post-war manner, but it’s dramatically inert. It’s certainly filled with yummy-looking people making misery for each other; just not enough. Barbara Stanwyck is warily married to darkling James Mason who can’t quit gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous Ava Gardner. (She’s bad bad bad. That’s what he likes likes likes.) On a lower end of the social scale, fashion-shop model Cyd Charisse has grown up with a big crush on government man Van Heflin, but he falls big-time for Babs. (Van’s also lower on the gorgeous scale so he gets heaps of charm & sympathy.) And look!, there’s Nancy Davis. In this early role, the future Mrs. Ronald Reagan throws a Texas-themed party in her NYC duplex and proffers wifely advise. (Confidentially, she stinks.) Marcia Davenport’s big bestseller must have been more fun than this, but Mervyn Leroy megs like he’s driving Dad’s expensive car. And they barely give Manhattan’s West Side three minutes of screen time. Each second excruciatingly condescending.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Another 1949 pic, LETTER TO THREE WIVES, did this sort of marital fandango with wit, style & a great gimmick.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE (1949)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE