Based on Emile Zola’s 1980 novel La Bête Humaine, Fritz Lang’s Human Desire is an entirely different beast than Jean Renoir’s 1938 adaptation. The Renoir film’s pointed humanism and everybody-has-their-reasons ethos is swapped out here for a considerably steelier point of view. Indeed, the film is less interested in its characters’ interiority than it is in viewing their lives through a fatalistic lens.
What’s most compelling about Lang’s film is how elegantly it toys with noir tropes and subverts our expectations, particularly with regard to Vicki (Gloria Grahame), who’s initially presented as your prototypical femme fatale. Vicki is trying to convince her new lover, Jeff (Glenn Ford), to murder her slovenly, abusive husband, Carl (Broderick Crawford). It’s a setup familiar from countless noirs, most notably Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, so the audience is already...
What’s most compelling about Lang’s film is how elegantly it toys with noir tropes and subverts our expectations, particularly with regard to Vicki (Gloria Grahame), who’s initially presented as your prototypical femme fatale. Vicki is trying to convince her new lover, Jeff (Glenn Ford), to murder her slovenly, abusive husband, Carl (Broderick Crawford). It’s a setup familiar from countless noirs, most notably Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, so the audience is already...
- 7/19/2023
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Fritz Lang's Human Desire (1954) is showing from June 28 - July 28, 2018 in the United Kingdom as part of Human Beasts: A Fritz Lang Double Bill.The ringmaster and the architect—in the history of cinema, before the New Hollywood, before the French New Wave, there may be no directors who complement each other as well as Jean Renoir and Fritz Lang. The surface parallels are evident enough: both began their careers in silent cinema, made their most canonical masterpiece in the 1930s, fled to Hollywood as fascism took over Europe, and returned to their homelands after the war to make their final films. Both have a somewhat totemic place in film history, and in neither case is the totem the whole story. As much as he signifies cinematic humanism, Renoir could be an unsentimental and deeply cynical storyteller. And for all the dark cities,...
- 7/9/2018
- MUBI
Pierre Rissient, a French producer, publicist and formerly an influential festival selector, has died. He was 81.
His death was announced (in French) by the Institut Lumiere and French director Bertrand Tavernier. “Pierre Rissient died last night. His wife Yung Hee asked me to let you know this, and, thinking of her, it is with infinite sadness that I write this message. Pierre was a great human being and an total cinephile. We will miss him,” Tavernier wrote on the institute’s Twitter feed.
Former festival head Gilles Jacob tweeted, “Pierre Rissient was a super-discoverer of filmmakers, with an inestimable flair and curiosity. When he helped someone like Jane Campion, he took them under his wing and helped them develop their art. He loved and supported the Cannes Film Festival, I can say with sadness and feeling.”
After being an assistant to Jean-Luc Godard on “Breathless,” Rissient went on to become a publicist and film distributor.
His death was announced (in French) by the Institut Lumiere and French director Bertrand Tavernier. “Pierre Rissient died last night. His wife Yung Hee asked me to let you know this, and, thinking of her, it is with infinite sadness that I write this message. Pierre was a great human being and an total cinephile. We will miss him,” Tavernier wrote on the institute’s Twitter feed.
Former festival head Gilles Jacob tweeted, “Pierre Rissient was a super-discoverer of filmmakers, with an inestimable flair and curiosity. When he helped someone like Jane Campion, he took them under his wing and helped them develop their art. He loved and supported the Cannes Film Festival, I can say with sadness and feeling.”
After being an assistant to Jean-Luc Godard on “Breathless,” Rissient went on to become a publicist and film distributor.
- 5/6/2018
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero: Filmed mostly on the streets in newly-liberated territory, Roberto Rossellini’s gripping war-related shows are blessed with new restorations but still reflect their rough origins. The second picture, the greater masterpiece, looks as if it were improvised out of sheer artistic will.
Roberto Rosselini’s War Trilogy
Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 500 (497, 498, 499)
1945-1948 / B&W / 1:37 & 1:33 flat full frame / 302 minutes / Street Date July 11, 2017 / available from the Criterion Collection 79.96
Starring: Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani; Dots Johnson, Harriet White Medin; Edmund Moeschke, Franz-Otto Krüger.
Cinematography: Ubaldo Arata; Otello Martelli; Robert Julliard.
Film Editor: Eraldo Da Roma
Original Music: Renzo Rossellini
Written by Sergio Amidei, Alberto Consiglio, Federico Fellini; Klaus Mann, Marcello Pagliero, Alfred Hayes, Vasco Pratolini; Max Kolpé, Carlo Lizzani.
Directed by Roberto Rossellini
Criterion released an identical-for-content DVD set of this trilogy in 2010; the new Blu-ray...
Roberto Rosselini’s War Trilogy
Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 500 (497, 498, 499)
1945-1948 / B&W / 1:37 & 1:33 flat full frame / 302 minutes / Street Date July 11, 2017 / available from the Criterion Collection 79.96
Starring: Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani; Dots Johnson, Harriet White Medin; Edmund Moeschke, Franz-Otto Krüger.
Cinematography: Ubaldo Arata; Otello Martelli; Robert Julliard.
Film Editor: Eraldo Da Roma
Original Music: Renzo Rossellini
Written by Sergio Amidei, Alberto Consiglio, Federico Fellini; Klaus Mann, Marcello Pagliero, Alfred Hayes, Vasco Pratolini; Max Kolpé, Carlo Lizzani.
Directed by Roberto Rossellini
Criterion released an identical-for-content DVD set of this trilogy in 2010; the new Blu-ray...
- 6/19/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
'A Hatful of Rain' with Lloyd Nolan, Anthony Franciosa and Don Murray 'A Hatful of Rain' script fails to find cinematic voice as most of the cast hams it up Based on a play by Michael V. Gazzo, A Hatful of Rain is an interesting attempt at injecting "adult" subject matters – in this case, the evils of drug addiction – into Hollywood movies. "Interesting," however, does not mean either successful or compelling. Despite real, unromantic New York City locations and Joseph MacDonald's beautifully realistic black-and-white camera work (and the pointless use of CinemaScope), this Fred Zinnemann-directed melodrama feels anachronistically stagy as a result of its artificial dialogue and the hammy theatricality of its performers – with Eva Marie Saint as the sole naturalistic exception. 'A Hatful of Rain' synopsis Somewhat revolutionary in its day (Otto Preminger's The Man with a Golden Arm,* also about drug addiction,...
- 5/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
A Hatful Of Rain (1957) Direction: Fred Zinnemann Cast: Eva Marie Saint, Don Murray, Anthony Franciosa, Lloyd Nolan, Henry Silva Screenplay: Michael V. Gazzo, Alfred Hayes, Carl Foreman (originally uncredited); from Gazzo's play Oscar Movies Don Murray, Eva Marie Saint, A Hatful of Rain Based on a play by Michael V. Gazzo, A Hatful of Rain is an interesting attempt at injecting "adult" subject matters — in this case, the evils of drug addiction — into Hollywood movies. "Interesting," however, does not mean either successful or compelling. Despite real, unromantic New York locations and Joseph MacDonald's beautifully realistic black-and-white camera work, this Fred Zinnemann-directed melodrama feels anachronistically stagy as a result of its artificial dialogue and the hammy theatricality of its performers — with Eva Marie Saint as the sole naturalistic exception. Somewhat revolutionary in its day (Otto Preminger's The Man with a Golden Arm, also about drug addiction, had come...
- 2/7/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
By Carlos de Abreu
hollywoodnews.com: The Producers Guild of America (PGA), announced today that Sean Penn will be honored with the 2011 Stanley Kramer Award. The award will be presented to Penn at the 22nd Annual Producers Guild Awards ceremony on Saturday, January 22nd at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.
The Stanley Kramer Award was established in 2002 to honor a motion picture, producer or other individual, whose achievement or contribution illuminates provocative social issues in an accessible and elevating fashion. Kramer, considered within the film industry to have served as ‘Hollywood’s Conscience’ during his career as a film producer and director, created some of the most respected and successful works in the annals of American motion pictures. He was the master behind such classics as ‘The Caine Mutiny,’ ‘High Noon,’ ‘The Defiant Ones,’ and ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’
Previous recipients of the Kramer award include...
hollywoodnews.com: The Producers Guild of America (PGA), announced today that Sean Penn will be honored with the 2011 Stanley Kramer Award. The award will be presented to Penn at the 22nd Annual Producers Guild Awards ceremony on Saturday, January 22nd at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.
The Stanley Kramer Award was established in 2002 to honor a motion picture, producer or other individual, whose achievement or contribution illuminates provocative social issues in an accessible and elevating fashion. Kramer, considered within the film industry to have served as ‘Hollywood’s Conscience’ during his career as a film producer and director, created some of the most respected and successful works in the annals of American motion pictures. He was the master behind such classics as ‘The Caine Mutiny,’ ‘High Noon,’ ‘The Defiant Ones,’ and ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’
Previous recipients of the Kramer award include...
- 1/6/2011
- by Carlos de Abreu
- Hollywoodnews.com
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