Gaah! This weather can't make up its mind. The forecast for this coming Saturday has greatly improved over the last couple of days, so the silent film screening at the top of Mt Drury is on again for 5th November.
The Wildcat starts at 8:00pm. Free entry, but a donation of $5 to cover the cost of projection equipment would be appreciated.
See you there.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Mt Drury - new date 12 November
The weather for Saturday 5th November is not looking nice, so the outdoor silent film screening on top of Mt Drury has been shifted to Saturday 12th November at 8:00pm.
Friday, 28 October 2011
The Wildcat - Canceled due to rain
Naaaaaaaaaah........... The rain has become a bit too persistant to go ahead with the film screening, so it's postponed till next Saturday, 5th November. Being Guy Fawkes night there will be some fireworks on view around the city. Bring your own sparklers....
The Wildcat
Today’s weather is threatening the occasional shower of rain, but the screening of The Wildcat will still be going ahead on Mount Drury tonight. It’s an 8:00pm start, Saturday 29 October. You are welcome to come early for a picnic dinner, and I highly recommend grabbing a takeaway curry from the Bombay Brassiere restaurant (at the last roundabout on Maunganui Road, right next door to Mt Drury). Be sure to bring warm clothes and a rug to sit on, plus a rain coat just in case a sneaky shower creeps up on us.
It’s free entry, however a $5 donation is suggested to cover the cost of the projection equipment.
Review of The Wildcat by Fernando F. Croce
Ernst Lubitsch started his career in broad slapstick, and a gleam of rowdy humor never fully left his work. The kind of wildness that often peeks through the tuxedoed elegance of his more well-known films, flows freely and steadily all through The Wildcat. Proudly proclaiming itself "a grotesque in four acts," the picture takes place in a snow-covered kingdom that could provide the setting for one of Erich von Stroheim's scabrous fairytales, had Lubitsch already not made the territory his own early on by having the departure of uniformed lothario Lieutenant Alexis leave behind a crowd of weeping women to miss his "services." On his way to marry the daughter of the commander of the local fortress, Alexis is held up by a gang of mountain thieves led by spirited tomboy Rischka (Pola Negri), who jumps into action and leaves Alexis in his underpants in the ice, promptly smitten.
A film of merrily shifting angles and proportions, The Wildcat delights in raucous mock-opera and lyrical phantasmagoria: The palace, decked with corkscrewing staircases and what look like oversized, art deco question marks, is practically a knowing parody of Caligari expressionism, and in the midst of a mission to infiltrate the fortress, both the outlaws and the guards take time off to get caught up in the rhythms of the waltz emanating from inside. Lubitsch blithely explores sets and frame sizes as if playing with toy soldiers, yet, characteristically, the film is more than an effervescent confection: Beneath the froth is a sharp view of social conventions, as Rischka and Alexis are enchantingly united in dream (spirits rise out of their sleeping bodies for a twirl scored to a full orchestra of snowmen) only to be separated by the reality of class divide.
It's a tribute to Lubitsch's comic genius that his frenetic gags here brim with as much sly subversion as his later visions of glittering worldliness. Marriage is skewered, hilariously and witheringly, with the couple outfitted in a pair of handcuffs before sitting down in the snow to chow on borscht.
It’s free entry, however a $5 donation is suggested to cover the cost of the projection equipment.
Review of The Wildcat by Fernando F. Croce
Ernst Lubitsch started his career in broad slapstick, and a gleam of rowdy humor never fully left his work. The kind of wildness that often peeks through the tuxedoed elegance of his more well-known films, flows freely and steadily all through The Wildcat. Proudly proclaiming itself "a grotesque in four acts," the picture takes place in a snow-covered kingdom that could provide the setting for one of Erich von Stroheim's scabrous fairytales, had Lubitsch already not made the territory his own early on by having the departure of uniformed lothario Lieutenant Alexis leave behind a crowd of weeping women to miss his "services." On his way to marry the daughter of the commander of the local fortress, Alexis is held up by a gang of mountain thieves led by spirited tomboy Rischka (Pola Negri), who jumps into action and leaves Alexis in his underpants in the ice, promptly smitten.
A film of merrily shifting angles and proportions, The Wildcat delights in raucous mock-opera and lyrical phantasmagoria: The palace, decked with corkscrewing staircases and what look like oversized, art deco question marks, is practically a knowing parody of Caligari expressionism, and in the midst of a mission to infiltrate the fortress, both the outlaws and the guards take time off to get caught up in the rhythms of the waltz emanating from inside. Lubitsch blithely explores sets and frame sizes as if playing with toy soldiers, yet, characteristically, the film is more than an effervescent confection: Beneath the froth is a sharp view of social conventions, as Rischka and Alexis are enchantingly united in dream (spirits rise out of their sleeping bodies for a twirl scored to a full orchestra of snowmen) only to be separated by the reality of class divide.
It's a tribute to Lubitsch's comic genius that his frenetic gags here brim with as much sly subversion as his later visions of glittering worldliness. Marriage is skewered, hilariously and witheringly, with the couple outfitted in a pair of handcuffs before sitting down in the snow to chow on borscht.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Climbing Mount Drury
To get to the top of Mount Drury it’s easiest to park along Marine Parade or Pacific Avenue, and walk up from the seaward side.
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| Mount Drury viewed from Marine Parade |
I Don’t Want to Be a Man
Second up in our Saturday night programme of silent films on top of Mount Drury is Ernst Lubitsch’s I Don’t Want to be a Man.
Short review from Pacific Film Archive:
I Don’t Want to Be a Man is a wonderful and eye-opening early comedy of sexual identity; in addition to showcasing Lubitsch’s witty direction of actors and predilection for risqué situations, it also shows how early on the director developed milieu as a comic and dramatic force. Tomboy Ossi Oswalda, who boldly indulges in drinking, smoking, playing poker, and similar unladylike activities, is placed in the care of a male guardian who vows to “cut her down to size.” Chafing under his reign, she decides to go all out and live like a man, in convincing drag; the two “men” smoke cigars, drink, and wind up a little too cozy in the back seat of a cab.
And for a more in-depth look at I Don’t Want to Be a Man, the Senses of Cinema website has a well researched review by Michael Koller.
Short review from Pacific Film Archive:
I Don’t Want to Be a Man is a wonderful and eye-opening early comedy of sexual identity; in addition to showcasing Lubitsch’s witty direction of actors and predilection for risqué situations, it also shows how early on the director developed milieu as a comic and dramatic force. Tomboy Ossi Oswalda, who boldly indulges in drinking, smoking, playing poker, and similar unladylike activities, is placed in the care of a male guardian who vows to “cut her down to size.” Chafing under his reign, she decides to go all out and live like a man, in convincing drag; the two “men” smoke cigars, drink, and wind up a little too cozy in the back seat of a cab.
And for a more in-depth look at I Don’t Want to Be a Man, the Senses of Cinema website has a well researched review by Michael Koller.
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| Ossi in her new dinner suit, struggling to button the stiff collar |
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| Ossi, on the right and dressed as a man, having just caught the eye of her stern new guardian. But check out the background crowd in this ballroom scene. This is no staid affair: it’s a riot of dancing, drinking and fun. |
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Oyster Princess
The weather’s looking good for this Saturday, so the silent film screenings on top of Mount Drury are all go. Here’s a review of the Oyster Princess, one of two Ernst Lubitsch films being screened this Saturday, 22nd October.
Review by Allan Fish
Ossi is the spoilt twentyish daughter of an American oyster magnate, who lives in ridiculous luxury in a giant mansion. She spends much of her day wrecking everything simply because she can, and her latest acts of destruction occur after hearing of another heiress getting married to a count. Her father simply arranges to have her marry a prince and contacts Seligson the matchmaker to arrange it. He finds one, Prince Nucki (great name), with tip-top appearance and spiraling debts, reduced to living in a one room slum apartment with his adjutant friend Josef. Nucki decides to send Josef in his place to find out about Ossi while he can go off on a drinking binge with fellow wastrels. Josef in his turn winds up getting married to Ossi in the prince’s name.
Remember that awful spoilt brat Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory whose every other word was “I want it” or “I want one”? Well, add another ten years to her, make her a little less thin, and change her father from a rich British nut-man to a rich American oyster-man and you have Ossi. Ossi is nonetheless far more amusing that Roald Dahl’s walking advert for child euthanasia, a character living in such a fantasy that it verges upon the surreal. She holds meetings with other women chanting “down with dipsomania!” and proceeds to toast it with a glass of wine, challenges her companions to boxing matches to fight over the right to ‘cure’ a wandering drunkard (who happens to be the real prince Nucki) and, best of all, keeps her prospective husband waiting while she goes through her ritual of being undressed, bathed, dried, massaged and dressed by an army of retainers large enough to rival that of an Middle-Eastern princess in the Arabian Nights. All so elaborate as to parody the lengthy decorous bathing scenes of Cecil B.de Mille across the pond, while keeping Ossi’s nudity strictly out of eyesight.
Topping all, however, is the extraordinary foxtrot dance scene in which guests, servants, one and all, are caught up in an endless dance marathon paced by a conductor with a serious case of the jumps, and with an orchestra with such original instruments as a man sawing through a plank of wood and a bald man having the side of his face slapped rhythmically to the music. With enough wit in the interiors to merit an essay in themselves and a script littered with juicy morsels (though Ossi murmuring “oh bollocks!” gets the biggest laugh). And then the performances, which are all pitch perfect; Liedtke’s drunk prince, Falkenstein’s creepy Josef, Janson’s hilariously pampered tycoon and, best of all, Oswalda’s Ossi. Favourite moment? It has to be a truly Lubitschian sight gag involving seven drunks in a line whittling down to one due to six strategically placed benches. It’s a scene that out-Chaplins Chaplin. And I bet Charlie loved it.
Review by Allan Fish
Ossi is the spoilt twentyish daughter of an American oyster magnate, who lives in ridiculous luxury in a giant mansion. She spends much of her day wrecking everything simply because she can, and her latest acts of destruction occur after hearing of another heiress getting married to a count. Her father simply arranges to have her marry a prince and contacts Seligson the matchmaker to arrange it. He finds one, Prince Nucki (great name), with tip-top appearance and spiraling debts, reduced to living in a one room slum apartment with his adjutant friend Josef. Nucki decides to send Josef in his place to find out about Ossi while he can go off on a drinking binge with fellow wastrels. Josef in his turn winds up getting married to Ossi in the prince’s name.
Remember that awful spoilt brat Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory whose every other word was “I want it” or “I want one”? Well, add another ten years to her, make her a little less thin, and change her father from a rich British nut-man to a rich American oyster-man and you have Ossi. Ossi is nonetheless far more amusing that Roald Dahl’s walking advert for child euthanasia, a character living in such a fantasy that it verges upon the surreal. She holds meetings with other women chanting “down with dipsomania!” and proceeds to toast it with a glass of wine, challenges her companions to boxing matches to fight over the right to ‘cure’ a wandering drunkard (who happens to be the real prince Nucki) and, best of all, keeps her prospective husband waiting while she goes through her ritual of being undressed, bathed, dried, massaged and dressed by an army of retainers large enough to rival that of an Middle-Eastern princess in the Arabian Nights. All so elaborate as to parody the lengthy decorous bathing scenes of Cecil B.de Mille across the pond, while keeping Ossi’s nudity strictly out of eyesight.
Topping all, however, is the extraordinary foxtrot dance scene in which guests, servants, one and all, are caught up in an endless dance marathon paced by a conductor with a serious case of the jumps, and with an orchestra with such original instruments as a man sawing through a plank of wood and a bald man having the side of his face slapped rhythmically to the music. With enough wit in the interiors to merit an essay in themselves and a script littered with juicy morsels (though Ossi murmuring “oh bollocks!” gets the biggest laugh). And then the performances, which are all pitch perfect; Liedtke’s drunk prince, Falkenstein’s creepy Josef, Janson’s hilariously pampered tycoon and, best of all, Oswalda’s Ossi. Favourite moment? It has to be a truly Lubitschian sight gag involving seven drunks in a line whittling down to one due to six strategically placed benches. It’s a scene that out-Chaplins Chaplin. And I bet Charlie loved it.
The marriage ceremony.
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