MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: HOUSE BY THE RIVER (1949)

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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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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

HOUSE BY THE RIVER (1949)

This Fritz Lang psychological thriller sustains a level of creepy atmosphere all out of proportion to its relative success. Louis Hayward is a failed dilettantish author who strangles the housemaid when she rebuffs him. He gets his gimpy brother, Lee Bowman, to help dump the body in the titular river. But then, when it floats back, he lets suspicion fall Bowman’s way. Meanwhile, Hayward’s wife, a miscast Jane Wyatt, who’s always preferred the gentle brother, slowly comes to realize what’s happened. But by this time, Lang & Co. have stepped firmly into a noir wonderland of forced angles, mannered expressionist acting (watch Bowman clutch his hat in the court sequence as if he’s auditioning for UFA) and some disturbingly strong thru-a-glass-darkly stylings on painfully budget conscious studio settings. This doesn’t have the sustained sense of style & attitude that Lang’s earlier UFA-in-Hollywood pics (SCARLET STREET, WOMAN IN THE WINDOW) achieve, but it makes for a riveting miss.

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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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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

HOUSE BY THE RIVER (1949)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE