MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: ARCH OF TRIUMPH (1948)

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

ARCH OF TRIUMPH (1948)

The second collaboration between writer Erich Maria Remarque & helmer Lewis Milestone was no ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT/’30. Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer & Charles Laughton were all going thru dry spells and the film flopped on release. But it looks uncommonly interesting now. It's 1939, Paris is a city of intrigue & refugees: Boyer is a doctor, trapped without papers; Bergman a lost soul with nothing to live for; Laughton a sadistic Nazi, unaware that Boyer is hunting him down. Boyer comes off best (with Louis Calhern giving grand support as a White Russian exile), but Laughton is hopelessly OTT while Bergman looks ill at ease with her role and terribly unhappy about her . . . well, about her hair. The plot runs in circles for over two hours, but the moody atmosphere is terrific, swanked up by the great scenic designer William Cameron Menzies whose elaborate models, matte shots & optical printing tricks* are better served by Russell Metty’s chiaroscuro lensing than Ingrid’s hair stylings. (Having to worry about your hair; no wonder she was so eager to get out of Hollywood.)
*Watch for a great 'seamless' tracking shot that uses a quick dissolve to take us straight thru a closed door. Very cool.

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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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Thursday, May 14, 2009

ARCH OF TRIUMPH (1948)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE