Change Your Image
peter-de-rijcker
Reviews
Mourir à Madrid (1963)
A forgotten movie and score
All the comments reflect my own experience and feelings. Frédéric Rossif is a cineast who touches both heart and mind by his documentary work, as well as Ken Loach does in his social-political statements. More than the latter's "Land of Freedom" in color, the black-and-white of Mourir à Madrid reveals as much Spain's tragic sufferings of civil war as it pictures an archaic rural world now almost vanished.
The film score by Jarre, which I taped from the movie once shown on TV, is magnificent: it's Spanish guitar themes are still as beautiful and haunting as the ones of "Jeux Interdits". And yes, it's deplorable indeed that it hasn't already been re-edited and remastered on DVD; it can't be that difficult to bring it out and distribute it, seen the rubbish that does nowadays... An idea for Criterion?
Sign of the Pagan (1954)
A fifties experience
My fascination for history and antiquity certainly started by all sorts of "peplum" movies of which "Sign of the Pagan" was the first, setting my standards for this type of film for a long time, being a schoolboy of 10 at it's release. The first startling images of hordes of Huns on their small horses sweeping over plains and burning villages made my own imagination galloping for starters.
Then the impact of what followed still remains unforgettable: all that turmoil and fire brutally cut by the sudden appearance of Jack Palance on his battling horse, accompanied by some grave voice introducing "Attila... the HUN"!!!
Grinning Jack Palance, in silvery armour as well as bare-chested, immediately stole my youngster' Heart & Soul, sometimes conflicting though with some encouraging feelings for the silver-hared Jeff Chandler as the good guy: his becoming emperor in the end even started off a search as for the movie's accuracy in telling these events...
As for now I know that at first Chandler was chosen for the role of Attila but declined it out of a Hollywoodian fear for a "bad" image. As has been rightly said by some french author: in this movie the "bad" eclipsed the "hero", the brutal conqueror turning into the "tragic hero", and Jack Palance (whom I had never seen) made an overwhelming appearance with his face as kind of a expressive, terrifying and pathetic masque, and certainly ideally casted for the historic barbarian the real Atilla was.
Two more scenes to remember, brilliantly directed by Sirk : the pope encountering Atilla (who as a pagan clearly panicks for this ghostlike creature coming out of the mists as of creeping out of the underworld even he fears), and the confrontation of Atilla with a shining cross, driving him out of a burned-out church and, as I imagined, driving him to his fateful end by a woman's dagger instead of by Marcianus' sword.
Even if this kind of film-making is outdated by movies as Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Gladiator or Troy, this Sign of the Pagan can still be appreciated ... on the condition it's pellicule is restored and is seen in 16:9 version!
Ilektra (1962)
The most brilliant adaptation of any ancient Greek tragedy
From the first moment I saw the movie I rejoiced every bit of it : the crisp splendid black-and-white photography introducing an overwhelmingly barren landscape interacting with the drama we all know to come, the haunting "ancestral" score by Theodorakis, the impact of all sounds, the use of the choir with its laments and warnings and commentaries on everything and everybody, the tensions between good and evil mixed with love and hate, the unavoidable fate of the protagonists who cannot escape destiny as prescribed by bloodline and gods.
Besides being moved by too many unforgettable scenes enforced by splendid suggestive cutting (the actual murders, Electra's cutting her hair for the revenge to come, the confrontations between mother and daughter or brother and sister expressing their antagonistic emotions), the ultimate brilliance this masterpiece is Irene Papas outcry of grief and distress, the camera turning on itself as taking literally heaven and earth as her witness.
Appealing as strong to me as E. Munch's cry or Picasso's Guernica, I visited Mycene much later and still felt the movie's impact discovering this cursed place through Cacoyannis' lens.