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Posts from the ‘1958’ Category

Mar 17

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof

1958’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a scorching drama of family strife, sexuality, and internal conflict. Based on the Tennessee Williams play of the same name, the film is a masterful assessment of what occurs when a family goes through tragic and frustrating circumstances. Richard Brooks directed the motion picture and also helped adapt the Williams play for the screen, earning Best Writing and Best Director Oscar nominations. The movie was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Paul Newman), Best Actress (Elizabeth Taylor), and Best Cinematography. Somehow it didn’t win a single Oscar.

Newman stars as Brick, a former high school football star. He has degenerated into an alcoholic and a loser, spending most of his time looking back instead of looking ahead. Brick is in Mississippi with his wife, Maggie (Taylor), visiting his family to celebrate Big Daddy’s (Burl Ives) 65th birthday. Big Daddy is returning home after being at the hospital and is greeted by his eldest son Gooper (Jack Carson) and Gooper’s irritating wife Mae Flynn Pollitt (Madeleine Sherwood).

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Mar 16

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Vertigo

Vertigo

At the time Hitchcock’s Vertigo came out, the critical response was mixed. Premiering in San Francisco on May 9, 1958, the film performed very moderately at the box office and the critics found the film “too long” and was too “bogged down” in details. Now, almost 50 years later, Vertigo is considered somewhat of a classic suspense thriller and is often mentioned as one of Hitchcock’s finest films. Part of this change of popular critical opinion can be put to the French critics, as they began to re-evaluate Hitchcock and his films in the 1960s. Instead of seeing Hitch as merely a populist showman making films for the masses, the “Cahiers du cinema” began looking for something more.

It helped matters that film scholars started to consider Vertigo to be a significant film. The movie was also one of five owned by the Hitchcock estate that was removed from circulation in 1973. When it was re-released in 1983 to theatres and reached the home video market in 1984, the reviews were significantly different and Vertigo was considered a commercial success. Go figure. In 1989, it was recognized as “culturally significant” and was selected for the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Sight and Sound recognized it as one of the Best Films Ever Made and it started to show up on many top film lists. So then, is Vertigo one of the best films ever made or has it been influenced by other “smarter” bodies of critics so much so that the tide of opinion changed due to a sort of strange peer pressure?

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Jan 15

The Hidden Fortress

The Hidden Fortress

The Hidden Fortress, also known as The Three Villains of the Hidden Fortress, is a 1958 Akira Kurosawa film. This film was Kurosawa’s first to be filmed in widescreen Tohoscope, which would be a format that the director would use for the next decade. The Hidden Fortress was originally presented in Perspectasound, which would thankfully and beautifully recreated for the lovely Criterion Collection DVD I was able to see the film on. Perspectasound was created in 1954 and also used on films such as White Christmas, the 1954 reissue of Gone With the Wind, and Vertigo.

The Hidden Fortress is probably best known among film buffs as being an influence on George Lucas and his Star Wars films. It also marks a definitive moment in Kurosawa’s career, however. The film came about after the success of early films like Seven Samurai and Rashomon, as Kurosawa began to abandon his early interest in modern set films and began to focus more of his energy on period pieces. Kurosawa began to elaborate on elements he presented in his modern set films, but moved them to period locations and built on these elements in the “jidai” settings. This meant Kurosawa used a concentration on moral themes in his period pieces and The Hidden Fortress certainly focuses in on those.

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