Word: benton
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ROBERT BENTON, the writer/director who won two Oscars for introducing to the screen a new, more realistic depiction of family life with Kramer vs. Kramer, has now done the same for the mystery thriller genre. In Still of the Night, Benton expands on the Hitchcock tradition of studying the human mind as the true key to how and why crimes occur. Benton emphasizes character, not gore, the murder that precipitates the action is less the focus of the film than a device for exploring the inner lives of the characters involved...
...questions are not answered till the last scene, but Benton is evidently more concerned with how Rice sees this mysterious new woman in his life than with the murder itself. Rice becomes obsessed with unraveling the secret of Brooke's personality, and thus the mystery of her lover's death. Throughout the film. Streep brilliantly conveys a vulnerable sensuality and exoticism that makes her character at once alluring and fearfully repellent. Her strikingly blonde hair and pale skin are continually set against a dark background, thus reinforcing her ominous and mysterious image. At times, she seems a lonely apparition...
...demonstrated by this vast selection gleaned from millions of sketches, paintings and layouts. Abrams' book continues the elevation of Disney from the Barnum of the barnyard to an aesthetician with uncanny instincts. This is no Mickey Mouse collection; it includes paintings by, of all people, Thomas Hart Benton and Salvador Dali, which were commissioned by Walt as "inspirational sketches" for his animators. At the studio, "fine art" was stressed. As one executive had it, "If it works in a Rubens it must work in Donald Duck." Proof is offered in the book's juxtaposition of Renaissance sketches with...
Still, there is something distant and unemotional about the way Benton presents her mysterious case. As the movie proceeds, one finds oneself examining its references (Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Psycho, Spellbound) rather than getting truly involved with the story. Soon a longing for the rat-tat-tattiness of sleazier Hitchcock knockoffs like Dressed to Kill steals over the viewer...
...cheeky, jokey quality in him, as well as his unobtrusive technical mastery, that allowed him the pretense of being simply an entertainer all those years during which he was dripping his obsessions into his audiences' unsuspecting brains. Lacking both sides of the old boy's schizophrenic sensibility, Benton can do no more than offer a dispassionate mimicry of someone else's style. There are a few little scares in his film, but nothing to stir our dreams or haunt our memories...