Word: worke
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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THERE COULD probably be no more appropriate film with which to close a series entitled "The Crisis in Narrative Cinema" than Robert Bresson's Pickpocket. Bresson's work is highly individualistic, representative of no particular movement in the current cinema, and thus almost alone among current French filmmakers he has not benefitted by the surge of interest in the new-wave in this country. This is particularly unfortunate since Bresson is one of the few truly great living directors, and the unavailability of his films here makes us truly poorer indeed. Pickpocket, made in 1959, represents the very essence...
RECENT AMERICAN documentarians such as Leacock, Pennebaker, and the brothers Maysles have identified themselves with the the cinemaverite movement. According to their work, cinemaverite's "truthfulness" requires a chance meeting between subject and camera, where there is no time to bother with meaningful composition or cogent verbal statements. They assume that neither occurs in "real" life and thus has no place in "truth cinema". For them the presence of the camera (cinema) is only another aspect of truth, one which is expressed either by incessant zooms or reflections of the camera in the nearest mirror. Their films never appear...
...Koumiko Mystery emerges, however, as a very tightly structured work of art, one that illustrates clearly that the presence of the camera transforms reality, placing it firmly in the hands of the director who can order it however he will...
Marcia Tucci brings a glowing radiance to Irina, the youngest, who is loved by two men she cannot love and who ardently believes in the restorative power of hard work. One can see her vision of the future in her very eyes...
...holding all the reins, and who insists on pretentiously flaunting her inadequate knowledge of French. Few scenes in all drama are as chillingly cruel as the one in which Natasha upbrades the loyal octogenarian nanny Anfisa and proceeds to advocate kicking her out because the old woman can't work enough, both does not convey sufficient age. (It occurs to me that director Kahn might have improved his production by switching the roles of Misses Maxwell and Reid; the former looks young enough of an equally distasteful albeit quite different Natasha...