Homework Movie - Don't Look Now (1973)

Looking over one's shoulder isn't the best idea to do when the title of the movie is Don't look now, however Donald Sutherland was constantly doing so as John Baxter in Venice. He's on an assignment to restore a building for the Church. At first I thought that he too was seeing things but wasn't telling his wife. Then, like so many other movies directed by Nicolas Roeg, the mood and story shifted to John Baxter's search for his wife who seems to have run off with some women that she met in town that communicate with the Baxter's deceased daughter.

Some of the double exposure shots in this movie are really impressive. I'm sure that at the time the movie was released for the first time it was really innovative. I'm sure Roeg's time as a cinematographer helped in choosing the locations and shot selections for this movie to compel the suspenseful tone and the disconnected feeling of the film.

I was surprised to see how well Donald Sutherland's character changed over the course of the movie. His crass dismissal of the two women as crazy and non-sense was later revealed to him as something he was afraid to understand. When he took the blind sister home it was a really nice gesture.

Of the movies we watched in class and Don't Look Now, there was some veiled attempt to place some sexual encounter in the story for what seemed a random scene. It didn't lead to anything in Don't Look Now, other than to follow in some unwritten rule that if you have sex in a horror movie, you would die. Sex in films show the immorality of the culture with men chasing their secretaries or friends of wives in some way. If it has no other bearing on the story, why put in in? This helps ticket sales and recognition of the actresses, right?! Yes, Julie Christie has had a wonderful career in film, however this film came 10 years after Julie's first movie and by then she was already in her 30's. She has gone onto a long and varied career in film, only returning to horror/thriller territory a handful of times.

Homework Movie - Vertigo

When your old friend asks you to watch his wife to find out where she's going, you know something's going to end up all wrong. Such is the case for detective John "Scotty" Ferguson played by James Stewart in Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958. I've had such a hard time following the muddled plot to this movie, now matter how many times I've watched it, it still takes too long to get the point across why Galvin Elster has his friend watch his wife to observe her behaviors. Is it a plot to rid Ferguson of his Vertigo issues? Does Galvin's wife really die?

Making a duel appearance is Kim Novak as Madeleine Elster, the wife of Ferguson's friend and then later as Judy the plant that looks exactly like Madeleine. In the climax of the film I was not sure if it was Madeleine or Judy that threw herself off the bell tower. No matter who it was, it sure made an impression on Mr. Ferguson, as he was completely infatuated with her looks, despite having to figure out which woman she is.

His quest was doomed from the beginning as his friend knew his condition would impair his ability to travel to anywhere with heights. On top of that, his relationship with his best friend and former fiancé was more than enough female interaction he should have needed, however his attraction to Mrs. Elster led her to her ultimate demise.

I've enjoyed more of Alfred Hitchcock's movies, but for some reason this doomed man story just doesn't hold up like the others. As for the other clips we watched in class, I was more interested in how the doomed character was involved with artistic choices in The Big Knife than Stewart's obsession with someone

Homework Movie - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

The year Invasion opened up, Peter Pan is televised on national TV, Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show for his 1st time, and the Yankees won the World Series. Horror movies were becoming more sophisticated with their stories and the acting was always improving, as was the special FX. But Don Seigel's Body Snatchers took a different approach. Based on a magazine's serial story, this movie took a group of normal people and had their brains and bodies taken over by aliens.

Mind control had become the focus of this story from the get go. People began to see things about their family members that didn't seem right away and the good doctor was determined to find out what was going on, no matter what the outcome. All of this was talked about in narration recounting the story to another group of medical and police folks we see in brief scenes in the front and tail end of the movie because a sort of test audience thought the movie was too much a downer for the mainstream film going community. Kevin McCarthy plays the convincing Doctor come back to his hometown to find the mystery already unfolding in front of him and there are very little townsfolk to speak of until they show up to try and cause trouble for the Dr.

Body Snatchers set itself apart from the rest of the film clips this week because most of the clips we watched were of genetic mutations or alterations made by accident (or on purpose) by a doctor or scientist. The Doctor in Invasion of the Body Snatchers was trying to find out what happened, with no clear definition as to the outcome. This movie spawned two official remakes in 1978 and in 2007, then a few spoofs or parodies.