Dance Dance Revolution

Film: Isadora
Format: Internet video on laptop

I’ve mentioned here before when I thought it was relevant that both of my daughters are dancers, and very serious dancers. My older daughter, at 18, is a year away from her college degree in dance performance, when what would have been her high school graduating class is fininshing its first year of college. My younger daughter spent this past summer at the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, much to the detriment of my bank account. When I come to a movie like Isadora (sometimes called The Loves of Isadora), I have certain expectations and preconceptions. This is, after all, the story of the dancer Isadora Duncan.

I should come clean at the start here and admit that the version of this that I could find—no library in my state seems to have a copy to lend and NetFlix certainly doesn’t have it—had some problems. The primary problem is that the film seems to have been cut off a bit at the sides and a little at the top. Whenever I’m faced with a situation like this in which the copy of the film I am reviewing has particular deficiencies, I try not to let that affect my final opinion. It’s worth bringing up, because it would be easy to suggest that had I seen this in a different format, I may have liked it more.

I Fall to Pieces

Film: Sweet Dreams
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

I do not consider myself a country music fan, although a lot of the music I like does have some country roots. I do make some exceptions for some country music, though, and Patsy Cline ranks pretty high on that scale. It’s not so much the songs themselves. It’s that the woman had the voice of an angel. Seriously, go listen to “I Fall to Pieces.” I’ll wait here until you come back.

Back? Okay. Sweet Dreams is the story of Cline’s life, or at least the relevant and most important parts of Cline’s life—her first and second marriages, he rise to stardom, and her tragic and untimely death in a plane crash at the height of her stardom. It’s fair for those not familiar with Patsy Cline and her career to wonder why she’d be worth a biopic. Cline was one of the first country music artists to experience crossover success, charting on both country and pop and contemporary charts in the early ‘60s. She’s still iconic in music in country music in particular and music in general, and still has tremendous influence. And, of course, her career was interrupted by a terrible car accident and then cut tragically short by her death after a few scant years of recording.

Deux for the Price of Un

Film: The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

The concept of a story within a story, a play within a play, or a movie within a movie is hardly a new one. Typically when something like this happens, the conceit is that the “real world” story mirrors the inner story in some significant way. That’s absolutely the case with The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Here, the surface story is about the making of a film about a Victorian romance. And, naturally, the story of that film within the film very much has parallels in a relationship in the real world.

This actually isn’t that difficult, but it’s tough to explain. I’ll do my best. In the film within the film, a Victorian scientist named Charles Henry Smithson (Jeremy Irons) has proposed marriage to a proper woman of some substance named Ernestina (Lynsey Baxter). Ernestina is the epitome of what a Victorian woman should be, and the romance appears to be pure in all ways that we expect the almost Puritanical Victorian romance ideal should be. Soon after the proposal, Charles becomes aware of Sarah (Maryl Streep), a woman who is the subject of many unsavory rumors in the area. Sarah is called “the French Lieutenant’s Woman” because of a very public affair with a French soldier. Of course, Charles becomes infatuated with sarah, and as the story progresses, the two slowly fall in love with each other despite the social differences and the social suicide that even spending time with a woman considered all but a whore is for Charles.

Morgan! (Morgan - A Suitable Case for Treatment)

Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

Every now and then I find a film where it feels like the nomination went to the wrong person. I’m not trying to denigrate the performance of Vanessa Redgrave, but her nomination instead of a nomination for David Warner for Morgan! (also called Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment) seems bizarre. David Warner is the heart and soul of this film and it’s his performance that turns it from a little film about obsession and insanity into something potentially far more interesting.

Morgan Delt (Warner) is a failed artist and a communist radical. He also has a failing marriage with Leonie (Redgrave), who comes from a wealthy family. It’s never stated but somewhat implied that Leonie may well have married Morgan as an act of rebellion against her parents. However, she has had enough of Morgan’s various antics and has decided instead to divorce him and marry Charles Napier (Robert Stephens), an art dealer. Morgan is against this plan and will do anything he can think of to keep Leonie married to him. Because Morgan is also sliding directly into insanity, “anything he can think of” covers a lot of territory.

I Get Knocked Down, but I Get Up Again

Film: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Format: VHS from Freeport Public Library through interlibrary loan on big ol’ television.

I love going into a film cold. Truth be told here, before I popped in the tape of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, I couldn’t have told you anything about it. In fact, I was mildly surprised that the film was in English; for whatever reason, I expected it to be German or Scandinavian. That changed the minute I heard a broad East Midlands accent.

There are no surprises as to the type of person Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney) is when we are first introduced to him. We see him working on a factory line counting out his piecework, hoping to get to his quota of 1000 pieces so he can knock off for the weekend. He tells us that he could easily get his work done in half the time allotted to him, but that this would mean his employers could cut his pay, and he refuses to let that happen. Arthur loves a good time more than anything. His days during the week are there to mark the time until Friday night. He gives his mother a bit of his pay as room and board and then spends the rest on booze and women. In particular, he spends money on Brenda (Rachel Roberts), the wife of his co-worker Jack (Bryan Pringle). Arthur has complete contempt for anyone who wants to get ahead, anyone married, anyone who doesn’t spend his time drinking and womanizing, and is in particular disgusted with Robboe (Robert Cawdron), his boss.