December Blind Spot- A Star is Born (1954)

         

           A Star is Born is about a singer named Esther Blodgett who while playing with her band at a theatre one night crosses paths with the drunk and troubled film star Norman Maine. Norman seeks her out and after seeing how talented she is, convinces her that she is fit for movie stardom. Although she has to overcome many obstacles on her path, this dream does come true and as Esther's star begins to shine bright, Norman's slowly begins to fade away.

           I really liked this film and the main reason for that is obviously Judy Garland and her incredible performance. Everyone has heard about her own personal issues that caused a lot of problem in her professional life, especially during this film. But one never really sees any of it in the film which is a tribute to both Garland and director George Cukor. 

          Garland goes from joyful to heartbreaking within seconds, both in her singing and in her acting. My biggest issue with the film was not exactly the film's fault. Since I saw the restored version, a considerable part of the film consists of production stills with dialogue being played over it that really annoyed me. However, every time Garland sang or danced, I forgot about all of that. She is so perfect in this role that all the problems seem trivial in comparison.

            She's not the only "star" in the film though. James Mason, who I knew as Humbert Humbert from Kubrick's Lolita, played Norman and he too is very good. He makes Norman's decline very poignant and universal. I liked that the film is as much about the end of a star as it is about the beginning, even though the title only addresses the second part. Therefore, both Garland and Mason become integral parts to what it's trying to show us and tell us about the entertainment business. They also have great chemistry together. I cried several times during the movie because of both of them.

           The film is a beautiful but ultimately biting portrayal of the fickleness of the Hollywood studio system. Sure, the sets and the costumes may be gorgeous, but what we end up remembering is the way Norman stumbles in drunk at the Oscars begging for a job. A lot of other gruesomer aspects of the business is shown, for example Esther's name change or her nose job or Norman's awful publicist or, of course, the fact that can true love exist in a place like that?

           The movie reminded me a lot of The Artist which I bet was inspired by it, or at least one of its other versions. This is the only version that I've seen but I am curious now to check out the 1937 version too, just to see how it fairs.


       This is my last Blind spot review of the year. I really wanted to make it bigger and talk about some other aspects of the film (for instance: how stunning it is) but I don't have the time right now :/ Let's hope I'm better with these entries next year.

My Eternal Struggle With The Sound of Music

        The Sound of Music is one musical that everyone, who speaks any remote form of English, has seen. I can personally vouch that it's the most famous English musical as far as Indian people go. This is because the songs are lovely, and (I think) the whole nun-meets-seven-children-and-father-and-sings-songs-and-falls-in-love-with-father-and-then-becomes-the-children's-mother-thing is something that Indian audiences will eat up.
       I am one of the very few people I know that didn't think the world of The Sound of Music. I had only seen it a couple of times as a kid, and it didn't really enamour me the way it did everyone else. This feeling of discontent only grew as I grew older. A couple of days back, I had a stupid argument with one of my friends because she kept on calling Maria a chimney-sweep and yeah...poor confused girl. Oddly enough, this whetted my curiosity about whether I still find the film silly or not. And so I watched it after many many years last night.


Things I liked about The Sound of Music:

1) The introduction to Maria- I think this has to be one of the loveliest introductions to a character ever. The film opens with images of the scenic Austrian town Salzburg, and then it brings us to this place- the greenest mountain top with the sapphire sky above it and this woman twirling with her arms wide open and taking in all its glory before breaking out into the song "The Sound Of Music". And the oddest thing is, I can actually imagine that the hills have sung this song for a thousand years. A place this magical...anything can happen.

2) The nuns- Screw the children; how cute were the nuns? Maybe it's because of my religious convictions, but whenever a person of God does something totally uncharacteristic...I love it! Whether it was them singing or bitching about Maria behind her back (in song and prayer of course), or kicking out the kids from the abbey, or just the ending when the super-bitchy nun and the nice one say that they have sinned- it just gives me too much joy. Peggy Wood, who played the Reverend Mother, was actually nominated for an Oscar for her role.

3) The songs- I think we've all grown up listening to these songs. My mother actually used to sing "My Favourite Things" to me to make me feel better as a kid. I liked all the songs, but ofcourse some of them can be a bit annoying to listen to constantly. Now one song that I didn't remember at all, and has sort of become my favourite since yesterday was "Edelweiss". And one of my friends had long ago used "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria" to describe me, and after yesterday that makes me very happy :)

4) Julie Andrews and her voice- I love Julie Andrews! So very much!! She is so sweet and funny and kind, and noone could have played Maria but her. One of my favourite parts is when the super awesome and bitchy nuns are singing "Maria" and she comes running in and then sees them and shrugs at her obvious and predictable clumsiness. But nothing compares to when she starts singing. Julie Andrews's singing voice is what I expect to hear when I enter the gates of Heaven (IF I got to Heaven, that is). I can't help but smile, and really smile big, whenever she sings. Her voice is one of the most beautiful things that can ever be.

5) The unbelievably sexy Christopher Plummer as Capt. Von Trapp- Good God! How did I not notice this? Christopher Plummer is still a very fine-looking old, old, old man, but he was so glorious in his youth. I am partial to men in uniform because well, they just look sexier, and I think Capt. Von Trapp may just become my favourite ever. The discipline, the hint of humour, the singing, that divine smile, and his pairing with Andrews...dazzling.

6) This shot- This film had beautiful quaint locations, and there was an incredible amount of wideshots, for example when Maria and the Captain dance the Laendler. But this one shot was just breath-taking. I love silhouettes, and as clichéd as it looks- the shadow and the kiss on the forehead, I think it's enchanting.

Things I didn't like so much about The Sound of Music:

1) The ending- It was so stupid. They just walked about the mountains and became mountain-folk or what? And even if they went to Switzerland, what the fuck happened there? Did the Captain finally sell out and made money from his children? The film is inspired by the real Von Trapp family, but the stories are still very different. One of the reasons I disliked the film as a kid was because of the dumb ending. I mean, how is it a happy ending? How can one be sure that the Nazis didn't get them still? With such a happy film, the ending should have been a clear cut one- not a vague one like this. It almost pisses me off as much as Gone With The Wind's ending (don't even get me started on that one).

2) The scene after the intermission- I don't understand why it annoyed me so much, but once the film resumes we see all of Salzburg again. We already saw it when the film started, with the scores of all the songs playing in the background, and then they do it all again after intermission. Why would one waste time like that? There are better ways of showing time lapse, I'm pretty sure.

3) The fact that EVERYONE can sing- Okay by rule of thumb, everyone in musicals can sing. But all of Austria could sing in this. And not in a happy way...but in that annoying harmonious high-pitched way. Maybe I'm just jealous, but seriously how can EVERYONE be so musically gifted...it don't make no sense to me, I'm sorry.

4) The fact that Liesel is the world's weirdest teenager- Okay kids in films like this are generally annoying, but how on earth can a teenager be this sweet? No teenager likes to play with their SIX siblings all the time. And sing songs with them. She's a little bad-ass with the whole Rolfe thing, but still they spend their time singing and choreographing. Even Friedrich was super-fake.

5) Maria and the Captain suddenly falling in love- I do not understand how people just fall head-over-heels in love with each other overnight. Love at first sight is something else, but out of the blue both the leads realise that they are made for each other-that is shit! Especially when the Captain keeps chatting up the ravishing Baroness and Maria looks happy for them. I didn't personally think anything till the Captain sang "Edelweiss" and the super-alert Baroness gives that look. And boom- they're in love! It's ridiculous.

6) Rolfe- What a fool! The whole Brown Shirt thing has never gelled with me. Liesel was stunning, albeit unrealistic...screw Hitler! I just think he was an unnecessary added layer, to make the film look serious, when it obviously wasn't.

        On the whole, I think I have now warmed up to this sweet and sappy classic. I suddenly really love the songs, and man...Christopher Plummer *heart*. And Julie Andrews is just so contagious in it, how can one not fall in love with her? I think upto the wedding, the film is fine. If they had focused more on the courtship between Maria and the Captain, and not so much on the Nazi-issues, it would've been much better. And I guess the extraordinary number of shots of the scenery was to show what a pretty place Austria was before the war, but it's still a tad bit too much. And ugh, EVERYONE singing. But still nice.

        I'm sure everyone's seen it, but give it a go again if you were like me all this while.

Auf Wiedersehen for now.

"You see once in a while, I suddenly find myself... dancing."

         Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing in the film Top Hat reminds me of a quote from a very, very different film-
"Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!" And not just slooshied, but viddied as well. Yes I know my Nadsat lingo real horrorshow.


        In the film Astaire's character Jerry Travers is an American professional dancer whose shows in London are being produced by a Horace Hardwick. While staying at a hotel, Jerry does a rather loud tap dancing routine which wakes up Roger's character Dale Tremont who is sleeping just a floor below him. Angered at this disturbance, she goes to confront him. Both of them meet and sparks fly immediately. But due to some confusion, Dale starts to believe that he is infact Horace, who is the husband of her friend Madge and is disgusted at his infidelity. They all end up in Venice, along with Horace's valet Bates and Dale's designer Alberto Beddini and the mix-up continues to expand. Through various situations and a couple of Astaire-Rogers magical dance numbers, everything clears up and this screwball comedy of errors has a very happy ending.

          The film is directed by Mark Sandrich and written by Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor. I had a little problem with the story... I thought everything happened too fast. I guess I believe in love at first sight only in Disney movies, but very rarely otherwise. And being of a "I Don't Need a Man to Make It Happen"-feminist ideology, I felt bad when Dale "marries" Beddini. Ofcourse it made sense in the comical way in the end, and I applaud the writers for that. Then little one-liners here and there make the film very enjoyable, especially those with Madge and Horace. I liked the way it portrayed the upper class and their absurd habits, whether it's the pin-dropping silence in the London Thackeray Club where if a pin did drop, it would probably cause a scene, or the acceptance of a spouse's infidelty with pride and joy practically.


         This is a very famous film, and I think I've always known about it. But the first time I remember being distinctly aware of it was at the bittersweet ending of Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo. Astaire and Rogers dance Cheek to Cheek, and the whole world seems to melt. They were great leads and I have unfortunately not seen any other films of theirs, even though I have spent hours on Youtube watching their various dance numbers. Fred Astaire is a funny-looking guy, but his smile is absolutely infectious and I liked how he was cavalier throughout the film, even at times when other actors might have looked desperate. Ginger Rogers is absolutely beautiful, but she too has a quirky look about her that makes her all the more engaging. There is no doubt why these two are such famous Hollywood onscreen sweethearts, they seem to belong with each other- in dance and just plain conversing. And boy can they dance and sing!

          The other cast members were very good also. I particularly loved the Hardwicks, played by Edward Everett Horton and Helen Broderick. I think that were it not for the dance numbers, they would've stolen the show from Astaire and Rogers. They were hilarious, Horace with all his little blunders and foolhardy and Madge with her sardonic acceptance of Horace's cheating habits. Bates played by Eric Blore was funny too; his way of talking about himself in plural reminded me of Gollum a lot. Now it might be my fault, but Beddini seemed very gay to me and I was surprised when he proposes to Gale. But I suppose that because for so many years when a similar character has been portrayed onscreen who has always been gay, it led me to believe that and if I had seen the film when it first came out, I wouldn't have thought otherwise.


        Now I must talk about the music. The divine Irving Berlin provided the music for this film. I think Top Hat is one of the most famous musical numbers there is, and with good reason. It's so upbeat and catchy and smooth that one cannot help but fall in love with it. I loved Cheek to Cheek and the Piccolino too. The dancing was choreographed by Astaire and Hermes Pan. It was absolutely splendiferous obviously, and just makes me want to tap dance too. So very bad.

        The clothes were gorgeous, especially those of Rogers. I, for one, loved the ostrich feather-ed dress and the way it moved when she danced with Astaire. Bernard Newman was the stylist for the film. Carroll Clark was the art-director of the film. I loved the sets, especially the stage during Top Hat and all of Venice, which just seemed like a gigantic ballroom floor made for Astaire and Rogers to dance so prettily around. I officially want the Big White Set to make a comeback now.


         All in all, it was one thoroughly enjoyable film, a solid reminder of the screwball comedy-musical days of Hollywood. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are Hollywood legends and noone can ever ever replace them. Do watch!