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Authors: David Thomson
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thick strips top and bottom had been removed from it. Some studios neglect their own treasures, so the negatives of great films suffer and will never be what they were. By now, it is increasingly difficult to find prints of films you loveâthey come as digital projection packages. And the two things are not the same, evenif the digital formats are more economical and convenient. The one was made from light, the other comes from electronics. So far at least, digital has been a little less human, a trait exacerbated by its facility at showing things that never could have happened.
Then there is the matter of how movies date, sometimes over years, but sometimes over the weekend. When The Exorcist opened in 1973 it was a very frightening experience. I had no faith in the devil or being possessed, but the growling voice coming out of the childâs head gave me the shivers. The film was a box-office hit. But when it was re-released in 2000, the tension was gone. People in the audience were laughing at it and at the idea that once upon a time they or their parents had been terrified. We take rapid vengeance on things that have frightened us.
So movies can shift. Of course, for its golden years, the film business never envisaged or cared about that alteration. They took the money in their now, the thing we regard as then. I had to wait a while to learn the emotional wisdom in some Lubitsch filmsâ Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, To Be or Not to Be . A similar passage of time was necessary to see that Howard Hawksâs comedies were richer than the epic companionship of Red River or Air Force or The Big Sky . Hadnât I always realized that Rio Bravo, To Have and Have Not , and The Big Sleep , despite the apparent crises of guarding a prisoner, saving Resistance fighters, and finding a killer, were comedies made by a man who had little respect for murder, war, or law and order, and no interest in anything except flight, women, and dreaming?
We should be wary of ourselves and that first viewing, no matter how heady it was at the time. When they opened inLondon, I saw Bonnie and Clyde and Pierrot le Fou five times in a week. Those films had a visceral, sensational rush, akin to the hot water in a shower or the taste of salted caramel ice cream. Itâs like your first encounter with serious kissing, and classical cinema adored the kiss. You want to do it again and again, and maybe those first kisses are the most momentous.
My love of film says, Again, please; and DVD lets me look at some highlight instead of the full, tedious ninety minutes: Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dancing âBegin the Beguineâ over and over so I donât have to bother with the rest of Broadway Melody of 1940 âI can now no longer remember what happens in that story. (George Murphy is the other man in that film, and he is as unnoticed now as a man who might have been with the woman in white on Bernsteinâs ferry to Jersey. Murphy was also the U.S. senior senator from California from 1965 to 1971âI suppose someone had to be.)
So I saw The Big Sleep three times one Saturday during the first Hawks season at the London National Film Theatre. I didnât care about the plotâand itâs a matter of famous history that Hawks didnât either. But I treasured being there with it and longing to be up on the screen in General Sternwoodâs hothouse, at the Acme book store as it closed for the afternoon, and in the car (or the shell of a car on a soundstage), where Bogart and Bacall gave up on snarly wisecracks at each other. They tried a kiss and went on from there.
5
WATCHING AND SEEING
K eep your eyes peeled!â I was told as a childâit might be for unexploded bombs, Nazi spies, or sixpence on the street. I relished the advice and I have tried to live by it, and sometimes these days you have to be alert lest someone locked into their iPhone (one of the new body-snatched?) bumps into
Then there is the matter of how movies date, sometimes over years, but sometimes over the weekend. When The Exorcist opened in 1973 it was a very frightening experience. I had no faith in the devil or being possessed, but the growling voice coming out of the childâs head gave me the shivers. The film was a box-office hit. But when it was re-released in 2000, the tension was gone. People in the audience were laughing at it and at the idea that once upon a time they or their parents had been terrified. We take rapid vengeance on things that have frightened us.
So movies can shift. Of course, for its golden years, the film business never envisaged or cared about that alteration. They took the money in their now, the thing we regard as then. I had to wait a while to learn the emotional wisdom in some Lubitsch filmsâ Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, To Be or Not to Be . A similar passage of time was necessary to see that Howard Hawksâs comedies were richer than the epic companionship of Red River or Air Force or The Big Sky . Hadnât I always realized that Rio Bravo, To Have and Have Not , and The Big Sleep , despite the apparent crises of guarding a prisoner, saving Resistance fighters, and finding a killer, were comedies made by a man who had little respect for murder, war, or law and order, and no interest in anything except flight, women, and dreaming?
We should be wary of ourselves and that first viewing, no matter how heady it was at the time. When they opened inLondon, I saw Bonnie and Clyde and Pierrot le Fou five times in a week. Those films had a visceral, sensational rush, akin to the hot water in a shower or the taste of salted caramel ice cream. Itâs like your first encounter with serious kissing, and classical cinema adored the kiss. You want to do it again and again, and maybe those first kisses are the most momentous.
My love of film says, Again, please; and DVD lets me look at some highlight instead of the full, tedious ninety minutes: Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dancing âBegin the Beguineâ over and over so I donât have to bother with the rest of Broadway Melody of 1940 âI can now no longer remember what happens in that story. (George Murphy is the other man in that film, and he is as unnoticed now as a man who might have been with the woman in white on Bernsteinâs ferry to Jersey. Murphy was also the U.S. senior senator from California from 1965 to 1971âI suppose someone had to be.)
So I saw The Big Sleep three times one Saturday during the first Hawks season at the London National Film Theatre. I didnât care about the plotâand itâs a matter of famous history that Hawks didnât either. But I treasured being there with it and longing to be up on the screen in General Sternwoodâs hothouse, at the Acme book store as it closed for the afternoon, and in the car (or the shell of a car on a soundstage), where Bogart and Bacall gave up on snarly wisecracks at each other. They tried a kiss and went on from there.
5
WATCHING AND SEEING
K eep your eyes peeled!â I was told as a childâit might be for unexploded bombs, Nazi spies, or sixpence on the street. I relished the advice and I have tried to live by it, and sometimes these days you have to be alert lest someone locked into their iPhone (one of the new body-snatched?) bumps into
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