Day: November 5, 2015

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Eight

Dan Seeger

#8 — Letter to an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948) Max Ophüls worked on five films during his aborted tenure in Hollywood, including Vendetta, which would have been his U.S. debut had he not been fired from it (one of several directors who passed through the troubled shoot). The moody, elegantly visual style favored by the European director fit awkwardly into the stateside model, even as it had obvious connections to the deliberate film noir approach that prevailed at the time. His movies were too deliberate, too cerebral, too firmly serious to truly succeed in a U.S. market that, even … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Eight

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Oh don’t lean on me, man, ’cause you can’t afford the ticket

Dan Seeger

There’s no disparaging the intent of the film Suffragette. To a large degree, the sterling motivation is spelled out by a crawl ahead of the closing credits which details when various countries across the globe first extended women the right to vote, including more than a few territories that did so only ridiculously recently. In depicting the harrowing track women had to follow to win suffrage in England, which was granted in compromised fashion in 1918 and then more in line with what was afforded men ten years later, director Sarah Gavron and screenwriter Abi Morgan strive for a echoing … Continue reading Oh don’t lean on me, man, ’cause you can’t afford the ticket