I don't think I have ever before seen a more powerful, tear-inducing, poignant human drama than KRAMER VS. KRAMER. It is a simple story about a man whose wife walks out on him and his 6 year old son and shows up 18 months later seeking custody. In lesser hands, such a simple film would come across like a LAW & ORDER episode. As it is...it is worthy of virtually all of its Oscar wins (100% behind Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress, and Screenplay...but I could argue Director for Coppolla in APOCALYPSE NOW. Hoffman is terrific and scenes like the infamous Ice Cream scene and when his son recieves stitches made my heart ache at the seriousness and relatability of young Billy's parents' predicament.
Movies about the lack of knowledge and characters that to not understand their situation are few and far between....because it is hard to tell a story about people who "don't know what happened". Peter Weir's film is a solid example on how to make a movie like this. It follows a trip by a bunch of college girls, in 1900, when 4 of them disappeared without a trace during their picnic at the locally famous geological outcropping. No one knows what happened, no one understands why no one knows, and we never find out. It is an odd approach to the movie....but Weir's cinematography and especially the score, project a sense of mystery that can easily be explained like it was a Twilight Zone episode written by Jane Austen.
I was just having a conversation about how Stanley Kubrick has historically had the ability to hypnotize me. Think about it. 2001, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, EYES WIDE SHUT, FULL METAL JACKET, THE SHINING...thse are all movies that kind of space you out in a way to get its point across...and they all work beautifully. This film is no exception, even though most people forget about it as one of Kubrick's masterpieces. It has the scope and epicness of any movie ever made. Its cinematography is astounding, the costumes and makeup are flawless, and the art direction is top notch. Into this epically scoped film is as simple a story as one could imagine....and that is sort of the film's brilliance. Amidst the backdrop of some of cinema's all-time greatest beauty...we have a simple man who fell into success and fell out again...and did it without much fanfare. I didn't need any more proof that Kubrick was a master before starting this project...but first PATHS OF GLORY, and now BARRY LYNDON has further solidified that fact.
Well...I guess I just don't quite get Carl Theodor Dreyer's fame. I wasn't much impressed with his PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and I wasn't too impressed with this spook story either. The man, for the time, had a good eye and projected eerie visuals onto his film...but VAMPYR just seems to meander along without direction or purpose, and the fact that this was his first non-silent film...is obvious. There is hardly any dialogue so the story is told through walking, seeing, and making faces...and it is simply odd.
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These are Kevin's viewings out of the above Steven Jay Schneider tome Archives
May 2012
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