Rivette’s dedication to the visual motif of imprisonment, bars holding Anna Karina’s Suzanne is quite the formal achievement Rivette’s second feature after 1961’s Paris Belongs To Us. Godard had made 9 features in that time- haha. Rivette has always been the long-form artist of the New Wave- this clocks in at over 140 minutes as well handsome black and white drawings in the prelude, unlike most of the New Wave- this is an 18th century story—but certainly has a contemporary statement from Rivette It is a nice resume builder for Anna Karina. Proves she’s more than just a muse

The debut French New Wave auteur Jacques Rivette—a leisurely-paced, but fascinating paranoia-infused opaque mystery 142 minutes for a debut- indeed, even early, Rivette is the long-form voice from the New Wave A strong opening as we travel through Paris with the camera and fly in through the window to our unlikely (and uknowning) detective Anne- played by Betty Schneider A bizarre score, part guitar and part jazzy percussion  secrecy, conspiracy, “we’re a cog in a vast machine” in the text and Lang’s Metropolis in the text, Rivette uses Parisian architecture in the shadows to effect-- but this is a

Chiefly, the carefully structured form of the story into four sections, is worthy of admiration. For every chapter break, Milius, a great writer, has the voice-over set to the landscapes of the shoreline. He names the chapters after different “swells”, the “west swell”, “south swell” (part 2) and the final “great swell” – strong form Milius calls it his How Green Was My Valley- and that makes sense that he’d see himself in Ford. Ford is sort of cinema’s Hemingway (minimal, masculine) and Milius certainly adored Hemingway and every one of his films is about masculinity Milius wrote (partially)

The narrative lacks the brilliance and freshness of Yojimbo (that can happen with sequels- same music borrowed here) and the worldview is a little more optimistic than Kurosawa’s finest work—but damn, Kurosawa sets up immaculate deep focus, layered, widescreen composition after composition and pack them into the 96 minute running time a strong variation on the same shot in Yojimbo-- one of the best here from Sanjuro Starts with a bang, there is a meeting of the clan of nine (of which Mifune’s titular ronin character will eventually become a part of) – and Kurosawa has five

A very funny film, it is no great accomplishment for Stanley Donen—any number of directors could have pointed the camera and comedians Dudley Moore and Peter Cook Moore and Cook were a sketch comedy duo—talented. Cook wrote the story and screenplay and he plays the devil character (played by Elizabeth Hurley in the 2000 remake by Harold Ramis starring Brendan Fraser which isn’t very good) Moore does the music Making a comedy of suicide here- four years before 1971’s Harold and Maude “the interior decorating is ‘early Hitler’” – haha It is a pretty straight forward comedy scenerio—Cook plays

An abnormal blend of B-movie melodrama and crime thriller—only Sam Fuller could deliver A strong opening- hand-held camera of Constance Towers (back with Fuller from their work together the year before in Shock Corridor) in a shaky POV close-up wearing a wig and beating a man with her purse to a loud jazz score- haha Fuller is about peeling back the truth- here there’s small-town hypocrisy (this would fit right in with David Lynch’s world- the seedy underbelly of this suburban morally righteous town (and cop). Intentionally hokey (like Lynch)- taking care of children in the hospital wildly unsubtle