Precious Bodily Fluids

Tag: Rene Clair

  • Viewing Log: July 2013

    Thérèse Raquin (dir. Marcel Carné, 1953) – A step back from the poetic realism of Carné’s big-budget, big production Children of Paradise and lower-budget Port of Shadows, this is a melodrama that zooms in on French domestic life during the postwar economic boom of the early 50s. Of course, these folks don’t see a lot of money in…

  • Viewing Log, Week of 7/15/2012

    Play Time (dir. Jacques Tati, 1967) – This was goofy but not only that, maybe something approaching a Chesterton comedy, Father Brown or something. A clear critique of all things Modern and a substantive study of spaces, Play Time highlights form over narrative, sounds over dialogue, human over mechanistic, curves over straight lines, and colors…

  • À nous la liberté: Free-dumb

    It isn’t difficult to see how René Clair’s film À nous la liberté prompted a lawsuit against the production company of Charlie Chaplin’s subsequent film Modern Times. The most endearing aspect of that controversy was Clair’s own abstention, considering it rather an honor that a filmmaker like Chaplin might possibly include a nod to Clair’s…

  • And Then There Were None & Ten Little Indians

    In 1945 Rene Clair directed And Then There Were None, and in 1965 (a perfect twenty years) George Pollock directed Ten Little Indians. Ironically, the earlier title is the more politically correct, and Clair’s excellent abilities overall outdo Pollock’s freedom to insert sexier elements in the decidedly 60s later film. Two very similar yet very…