Betrayed by WordPress—”1776″ Review is Lost

by Sam Juliano

    After working three hours on my review of 1776, the review disappeared from wordpress after I clicked on the “save draft” icon.  This was surely the most disheartening  occurance I have ever experienced since helping to start Wonders in the Dark.  I don’t remember working this hard and long on a review, especially as I worked feverishly to complete it for some exposure on July 4th.  I am leaving my home for Manhattan now, and will attempt to get my thoughts together tomorrow for a re-write, but this really takes the wind out of you.  had I wisely opted to copy and save, before hitting the “save” I might still have it, but after going into wordpress, it is nowhere anymore.

     My holiday aspirations have been dashed, but more importantly I have had hours of my life squandered.  Ah well….

Read Full Post »

Cries and Whispers (no 27)

by Allan Fish

(Sweden 1972 91m) DVD1/2

Aka. Viskningar och Rop

The wrinkles of indifference

p/d/w  Ingmar Bergman  ph  Sven Nykvist  ed  Sib Lundgren  m  Frédéric Chopin, Johann S.Bach  art  Anna Asp, Marik Vos  cos  Marik Vos, Greta Johansson

Liv Ullmann (Maria), Ingrid Thulin (Karin), Harriet Andersson (Agnes), Kari Sylwan (Anna), Erland Josephson (Doctor), Georg Arlin (Karin’s husband),

There is surely no colour in the spectrum that has been so expressively and symbolically used in cinema as red.  Just think of the girl’s coat in Schindler’s List, the lipstick in Black Narcissus, the eponymous shoes worn by Norma Shearer, the room occupied by Michael Anderson in Twin Peaks, the free-falling carnations in Heimat, not to mention the incredibly rich textural use by Zhang Yimou and Krzysztof Kieslowski in films we needn’t name.  Yet no film, before or since, has ever tried to incorporate a colour into a film’s very being in the way Bergman’s masterpiece uses red.  It has often been thought to have represented blood and, while it may be too vibrant for that to be taken literally (Kubrick got it right with the blood gushing from the elevator in The Shining), it’s still an astonishing coup that Bergman pulls off with almost supreme brilliance.

            In its essence, the plot recalls the likes of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Genet and even Proust, and follows the dying days of a thirty-something woman, Agnes, cared for by her maid, who has recently lost a child of her own, and her recently returned sisters, the earthy Maria and the aloof, almost scary Karin.  Her final hours, and those that follow her death, force all three other women to face up to hidden demons. 

Read Full Post »