Regularly updated blog charting the most important films of the last 104 years.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
373. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Directed by Blake Edwards
Synopsis
A film about a poser with whom poser fans identify with while missing the whole point of the film.
Review
I really like Breakfast at Tiffany's. In fact it has a special significance for me as it was the first film me and my wife went to see at the cinema after we started going out together. Ahhh young romance.
Now some things are pretty objectionable about the film, first and foremost the character of Yunioshi, played by Mickey Rooney, "yellowing-up" for the part, is pretty disgustingly racist, from round glasses to buck-teeth to tea ceremony to exaggerated accent it still rings terribly of WWII propaganda. Blake Edwards seemed to have a penchant for racial stereotyping. Just at the pretty disgusting The Party from 1968 where Peter Sellars "browns-up" to play a comic Indian character again with all the comedy appealing the the most basic racial stereotypes... and this is not even mentioning the Pink Panther series where French(Inspector Closeau) and Asian (Kato) stereotypes are the basis for the whole series of films. At least Kato was actually Chinese.
However Yunioshi is very much a secondary character of the film and his presence should not let you stop from appreciating it. Audrey Hepburn is dazzling throughout the film even if she plays a character which is at the same time sweet and a complete air-head with her heart in very much the wrong place. It is George Peppard who is the real hero here, no matter what all the movie posters tell you. He is the one who is able to shift his life from superficiality due to his own initiative and eventually save Hepburn from herself. It is in the realisation of the emptiness of the "stylish-life" that the great moral teaching of the film appears, there is more to life than this, which is what most fans of the film seem to miss.
On the positive side the film is immensely pretty, the set and clothing are great throughout and with such good taste that they sometimes look downright timeless. Mancini's soundtrack is one of the great plus points of the film creating a completely adequate atmosphere throughout. The acting is passable... Hepburn not being such a great actress but looking pretty.
Final Grade
8/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
In the 45th anniversary edition DVD release, producer Richard Shepherd repeatedly apologizes, saying, "If we could just change Mickey Rooney, I'd be thrilled with the movie."Director Blake Edwards stated, "Looking back, I wish I had never done it...and I would give anything to be able to recast it, but it's there, and onward and upward."In a 2008 interview about the film, 87-year-old Rooney said he was heartbroken about the criticism and that he had never received any complaints about his portrayal of the character.
A free outdoor screening in Sacramento, California, scheduled for August 23, 2008, was replaced with the animated film Ratatouille after protests about the character Mr. Yunioshi. The protest was led by Christina Fa of the Asian American Media Watch. In light of the protest, Sacramento vice mayor Steven Cohn stated that "the intent was never to create controversy, to make political statements or to be on the avant garde of the movie world, let alone to offend significant members of our community."
Lola is a dancer, she awaits the return of her son's father, who left 7 years ago to seek his fortune. Meanwhile her childhood friend loses his job and is contracted to carry a briefcase to Johannesburg, but he finds Lola and decides to put it off because he loves her, she doesn't love him so he decides to leave. Her son's father returns.
Review
You can't tell much about the film from this synopsis, you can't particularly tell how delightful the whole thing is. Demy is attempting to create a musical with no musical numbers here, and despite a musical moment he manages to do it beautifully.
The dialogue has that lightness of touch so common to French cinema of the pre-Nouvelle Vague age. The characters, no matter how secondary, intertwine their plots and lives through the story in a way that is both spectacular and very funny.
The film ends up not being a comedy but being comedic all the same in the way the tropes of musical cinema are used in a serious context, the way characters parallel each other and in the simple events and references of the film. The acting is good but better still is the camera work and cinematography in a clear tribute to Max Ophuls. Another great film.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
The film was restored and re-released by Demy's widow, French filmmaker Agnès Varda.
A gang composed of Marlon Brando, Karl Malden and Ensign Smith rob a bank. While enjoying the fruits of their labour the federales come after them and Ensign Smith gets shot to hell. Malden and Brando take a stand, and Brando sends Malden to get fresh horses. Does he? Does he bollocks. After coming out of prison Brando wants to take revenge, he meets Malden and plans, he manages to impregnate his step-daughter who falls in love with him and eventually he gets arrested by Malden who is now a Sheriff. He escapes, there's a shoot out, Marlon Brando and impregnated lady are happy ever after... or are they?
Review
There is definitely something happening in the world of Westerns, in this case we have Marlon Brando very much taking method acting to the Western scenery. If you add to this the convention braking idea of having a Western shot next to the sea, there is something really new here. The dialogue is natural, the acting is great and the idea of Western as b-movie is completely out the window.
This is, unfortunately, the only film directed by Brando, but it is indeed a great one. The cinematography is amazing, and even if the plot is completely secondary and quite predictable the acting keeps it together through the 2 hours something of it.
In fact the film is completely made by the characters and dialogue, each main character is so multi-faceted that they become real riddles, your opinion on Brandon and Malden change throughout the film, also because they are both so adept at transmitting good and evil on the screen that they manage to do both equally convincingly in the space of 5 minutes. Great film.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
The movie had very little resemblance to the Neider novel, and what remains has much more resonance with history than fiction. At various times, the two credited screenwriters and the uncredited Peckinpah have claimed (or had claimed for them) a majority of the responsibility for the film, and Karl Malden has answered the query about who really wrote the story: "There is one answer to your question — Marlon Brando, a genius in our time."
