Chelsea the Cinéaste

Now widely regarded as an epoch-making masterpiece, premonitory of the rise of Italian modernism, Roberto Rossellini’s Viaggio in Italia (1954) suffered a thorough drubbing in its box office, though was greatly admired by auteurs like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. The film is, at its core, a bracing study on the fraught relationship of reverse elements- George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman played a British couple journeying to Naples to sell an inherited property; the husband is a stolid rationalist whilst the wife a sensitive romantic. Their glaring disharmony is more acted out through their overt disdain for one another; both are susceptible, the moment they touch down the foreign land, to the immaturity of making each other jealous to express their longing for mutual understanding. Amongst many of the couples’ venomous exchanges, the wife, on one occasion, recalls a past fancy for a now-deceased poet, to which the aggrieved husband responds derisively: “He was a fool… [...

M (1931) was Fritz Lang’s first attempt at sound cinema, after an impressive corpus of silent classics including the Dr. Mabuse trilogy and Metropolis , the highly expressionist style of which earned him the epithet- the “Master of Darkness.” To be making films during the dawn of sound era, the filmmakers had the privilege and the license of exploring many unchartered territories- the effects of sound as incorporated with motions and images was a vitalising experimentation for many; given the luck and the inherent ingenuity an innovative work of art was engendered. Such is not to write off the many legendary figures as merely “chancing upon” innovations whilst experimenting without a definite aim, but to underline Lang’s remarkable assurance and skill of tackling a new medium like an old hand- as a seasoned auteur whose previous films were noted for their austerity of technique and style, Lang, throughout his long career, never once explored or experimented like a reckless adven...

Psycho is in a class of its own; its brilliance insuperable by many. Released in 1960, in the wake of a spate of successful films, Alfred Hitchcock made Psycho as if it were his last, foregoing the wry humour and beguiling romance that set the tone of his previous films, and favouring the clinically menacing. Such bold and drastic departure from the familiar Hitchcock bent yielded a result that continues to fascinate and astound its viewers decades after its release, and is indisputably the paramount of horror films, with many filmmakers strove to follow its example and consequently failed. Pioneering a new genre called the “slasher film” without too heavily depending on the gratuitous violence and gore, Hitchcock evokes the old school horror, the preoccupation of which is a mixture of psychology and suspense. The film promises no let-up on its shuddering excitement; the audience’s breath is held bated from start to finish. One important factor of its success is that it plum...

Written in the 1920s, when mobsters were a constant scourge to America’s society, “The Killers,” though containing no more than 3,000 words, reflects palpably the spine-chilling horror and relentless hostility that accompany such organised crime. The novella bears testament to Ernest Hemingway’s unparalleled genius, in that the author’s penchant for laconicness creates the most timeless of beauty. It is a bracing thriller that comprises barely any descriptions of the incident but short, impetuous, unnervingly comical conversations between the characters. Hemingway’s purposely-designed ending- the built-up towards the final climax is perfectly dismantled by a wanting of dénouement- is the prime example of a great suspense. In a 1947 film directed by Robert Siodmak, Hemingway’s story becomes a point of departure whereon screenwriter Anthony Veiller appropriates the authorial voice and fills the audience in of the reason an ex-boxer, an outstanding debut from Burt Lancaster, is t...

One of the few attractions of  Bonjour Tristesse  (1958), a half-baked domestic parable by Otto Preminger, is Jean Seberg, then still on the cusp of young adulthood, whose performance in the film had made such an abiding impression on Jean-Luc Godard that he intended her for the seminal  À bout de souffle  (1960). Seberg was gifted with the kind of face that made her easily adaptable to a wide range of characters of varying natures. There was, however, one type of role that she could never attempt with convincing effect- a guileless maiden. No, her beauty was never wide-eyed. In  Bonjour Tristesse  especially her contrived precocity takes the hue of slyness, which is often symptomatic of one’s barely contained rebellious streak. A rebellious youth though she is, and admittedly a quite foolish one as it transpires, there is something rather poignant about Seberg’s Cecile that moves one to hedge one’s rash criticism. She is a miserable girl- only...

Enigmatic, world-weary, capricious and bewitching, such sort of women that preoccupy  L’Avventura  and  La Note  is also the focal point of  L’Eclisse . All of them were played by Monica Vitti, with such confidence and aptitude that one cannot help wondering if Antonioni had them all tailor-made, or simply that Vitti was born for these roles. Claudia, Valentina, Vittoria and Vitti all seem the same person with only slight variations. After all, maybe one shouldn’t bother too much with the distinction of life and art when both are so confusedly intermingled in Italian cinema. Especially with Antonioni’s films, the quotidian is often made ambiguous by virtue of the auteur-director’s invariable reliance on the more instinctive mode of storytelling. Antonioni once said: “I never discuss the plots of my films. I never release a synopsis before I begin shooting…I depart from the script constantly. I may film scenes I have no intention filming. Things suggest ...