Word: elizabeth
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ELIZABETH S. POTTER Morfelden, Germany
There are four cards in the hand: two boys, Mark and Eric; two striking girls, Elizabeth and Emilie. They see more or less of what is happening, the Jeu Total. (That is the title of a French poster in Eric's apartment. Poster of a face holding four cards, the cards are held by a witch who mixes hands from the hand. To know Jeu Total you must know the mind of the player, the Witch of Changes. "A sullen, sleepy-eyed girl--someone really nasty." You won't forget the line when you hear...
...their presence. Only Mark suspects--and finally discovers. Once, before the clock time of the movie, he lost a girl. (In the movie, she appears twice to his mind's eye.) Someone poisoned her, and when she left the hospital, she did not need him. His present girl, Elizabeth, came to him after her own poison trip. Very symmetrical, what? Mark uses both the past and the present caper to triangulate Diane Tremayne. Potions? Acid? Who is to judge the medium? "I made her see her soul," says the witch to Mark...
...NONE of the four cards understand Jeu Total. They play their own game, they conspire to create people. The scene in the hospital when Eric leaves Elizabeth for Emilie, the shortcake scene between Mark and Elizabeth, the park scene between Eric and Emilie--good moments. Something is felt, something is quietly shown. Put the witch out of mind to appreciate Tom Jones, Howard Cutler, Maeve Kinkead, Mary Smith. They make characters into beings...
...still a touch self-conscious. Too many zoom shots from point of view. Some angles which scream Staged, viz. shooting a collapse from behind a sofa so that suddenly the subject drops from sight. Some over-cute editorializing: Emilie walking beneath a marquee which proclaims "Thoroughly Modern Millie"; Elizabeth walking beneath a traffic sign which reads Playground. Hardly worth getting upset about...