Word: melodramas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Kazan is generally known as a "realistic" director, but The Visitors is a reminder that his style is really much closer to a kind of operatic melodrama reminiscent of Luchino Visconti. Sometimes this works well for him. His first shot of one of the Army buddies is from close behind, as the man stares at some distant hills; the image conveys an intangible sense of menace. More often, though, the style amounts only to mannerism. Even the performances-guiding actors has always been Kazan's greatest strength -are surprisingly disappointing. Only Steve Railsback and Chico Martinez, as the visitors...
...with such extraordinary virtuosity it is surprising he has such a difficult time with his cigar. Darcy Pulliam does nearly as well as Alice and perhaps it was only an echo from the medieval decor that gave some of her speeches the worn and familiar tone of Hollywood Tudor melodrama. At times also Martin Andrucki was more awkward and wooden than the Kurt he portrayed and in the climachi scene with Alice he showed his passion with the grace of a self-conscious grizzly with romantic designs on a Yosemite picknicker. Behind the set the lone sentry paces with stoicism...
...story is basically melodrama, but contains the seeds of something more complex. Dustin Hoffman plays David Sumner, an American mathematician who marries a stunning Cornwall lass (Susan George) and moves back to a farm in her hometown. It's primitive, this Cornwall; all the girls seem to have married out, and the only workers we see are farmhands and local craftsmen--aside from the minister, the sheriff, and the bartender...
...does Chabrol fall victim to melodrama in his direction. He gets impact from understatement and from two superb, low-key performances by Yanne and Audran (who is Mrs. Chabrol in private life). In Chabrol's treatment, the schoolmistress not only triggers the killer's dormant psychopathy but becomes a partner in his crime. Perversely, as he becomes more dangerous, she is all the more drawn to him. Finally, knife in hand, the crazed killer confronts her late at night in her apartment. It is only then, in a violent, weird, but somehow touching denouement, that the two finally...
There is plenty of that, and some melodrama, in Rabbit Redux, and the novel is every bit as complex as Updike's previous one. The politics are accurate, and interesting; Rabbit is a wavering hawk, his cagier father a sort-of populist, his used-carlot-owning in-laws, fashionably lib-rad. The changing landscape is vigorously perceived: the social differentiations between tract housing developments and more wooded lots, plastic hamburger stands moving ever-closer towards the heart of the old city. Dominant metaphors resonate with historical substance. As Rabbit journeys, the theater marquee goes from 2001 to TRUE GRIT...