Word: directorate
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...problems in grubby environments. Needless to say, a confrontation between the Hippies and the Mafia offers Preminger a field day, and in my opinion, Skidoo is very great indeed. But Preminger is almost impossible to discuss. Most people hate his films--I think he's the only major American director working steadily today, and before I advance a tentative explanation or two, a couple of immediate points might be stated: Skidoo is hysterically funny, although many people will disagree and I'd be hard put to tell them specifically what in it was funny. Skidoo is superbly acted, notably...
...Preminger's decision to control personally the behavior of his characters and the structure of his film, disregarding saner methods of storytelling. The abrupt insertion of musical numbers, for example, or the prison escape sequence may strike you as unbelievable or wretchedly excessive, but you know notwithstanding that a DIRECTOR is in control and is exercising his prerogatives. The cross-cutting (as in Hurry Sundown) makes no concessions to audience logic and proceeds solely on Preminger's sure and personal instincts. And at the end, when Preminger actually Stops the film and his voice on the soundtrack TELLS us that...
...California courthouse is violated by the encroaching teen-agers. If we know how to read the content of Preminger's images, Skidoo is often scary, often moving (an LSD sequence is surprisingly effective, given Preminger's initially labored treatment of psychedelic special effects). Fortunately it's a comedy; the director comes out for sex, Hippies, drugs, all that's good. This youthful tolerance, plus the fact that Preminger makes personal appearance these days in a Nehru jacket and beads might cause his devotees to worry a bit, were not the dark and obsessive pulls of his personality so evident...
Petulia, a sad and moving film by Richard Lester, shows its director capable of insight into his characters and instinct toward his actors. Lester's cinema is generally defined by tricky and overcontrived camera gymnastics (Petulia has its share of this, and none of it is good)--but here we have him leaving his camera rolling when his actors begin to groove, plainly sacrificing editorial cleanliness for dramatic punch. Petulia's occasional messiness is much to Lester's credit: the film ends at least six times in its attempt to chronicle a relationship realistically, but just before its strange construction...
Hour of the Wolf. Ingmar Bergman's best film in a long time poses some weighty questions and has the sense to treat them violently in stark and terrifying images reminiscent of Hitchcock (Bergman's favorite director). If you are interested in current discussions of artistic impotence, the dementia of Bergman's protagonist (Max von Sydow) becomes the film's focal point. I found myself more involved by his wife (Liv Ullman) who, in loving him, tries to share his madness but cannot ultimately follow...