litlover12 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
litlover12) wrote2011-03-29 10:26 pm
litlover12) wrote2011-03-29 10:26 pm
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Top 20 countdown: 'Rear Window' & 'The Sound of Music'
Today, we have murder, mayhem, and music!
8. Rear Window (1954; dir. Alfred Hitchcock; starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter)
This is one of those films that starts out slow, and then builds and builds and builds until you can hardly take the tension anymore. I saw it in a movie theater once, several years ago, when it was restored and given a brief re-release. The effect on the audience was fascinating. At the moment when Stewart grabs the phone and inadvertently reveals a crucial piece of information to the killer, there was a hush like I've never heard in a movie theater, before or since. I don't think a single audience member was breathing. Who says old movies lose their impact?
And in the age of reality TV, I think that this particular old movie, about a bored photographer who takes to spying on his neighbors, has more impact and relevance than ever.
This clip is a good example of how Hitchcock plays with "rear window ethics" (as Kelly puts it in another scene). Every word Kelly says about Stewart's "diseased" little hobby is true . . . and yet he's right, and by the end of the scene she knows it.
7. The Sound of Music (1965; dir. Robert Wise; starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker)
I grew up loving this movie, though it wasn't for years that I realized I'd never actually seen the whole thing! My dad had taped an edited version off the TV. But I eventually bought a copy and rectified that, and I still love it. Call it corny, but I don't care -- there's such sweetness and warmth and innocence in it, and such great songs and performances. And the scenery! That opening sequence among the mountains still takes my breath away.
As a side note -- this movie was an excellent gauge of when I hit puberty. I'm serious. When I was a kid I was totally indifferent to the romantic scene in the garden between Maria and the Captain. Then I reached an age when I fast-forwarded through it because it embarrassed me. And then I got to a stage when I kept rewinding it and watching it over and over and over again. Ah, youth.
(Note: When you search YouTube to find musical scenes from The Sound of Music, do you know how hard it is to find musical scenes that are actually FROM The Sound of Music? You get an avalanche of people's videos of themselves performing the songs. Everybody wants to get into the act! I wanted a clip of "My Favorite Things," but had to settle for "Do Re Mi.")
Next: The Philadelphia Story and Casablanca.
8. Rear Window (1954; dir. Alfred Hitchcock; starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter)
This is one of those films that starts out slow, and then builds and builds and builds until you can hardly take the tension anymore. I saw it in a movie theater once, several years ago, when it was restored and given a brief re-release. The effect on the audience was fascinating. At the moment when Stewart grabs the phone and inadvertently reveals a crucial piece of information to the killer, there was a hush like I've never heard in a movie theater, before or since. I don't think a single audience member was breathing. Who says old movies lose their impact?
And in the age of reality TV, I think that this particular old movie, about a bored photographer who takes to spying on his neighbors, has more impact and relevance than ever.
This clip is a good example of how Hitchcock plays with "rear window ethics" (as Kelly puts it in another scene). Every word Kelly says about Stewart's "diseased" little hobby is true . . . and yet he's right, and by the end of the scene she knows it.
7. The Sound of Music (1965; dir. Robert Wise; starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker)
I grew up loving this movie, though it wasn't for years that I realized I'd never actually seen the whole thing! My dad had taped an edited version off the TV. But I eventually bought a copy and rectified that, and I still love it. Call it corny, but I don't care -- there's such sweetness and warmth and innocence in it, and such great songs and performances. And the scenery! That opening sequence among the mountains still takes my breath away.
As a side note -- this movie was an excellent gauge of when I hit puberty. I'm serious. When I was a kid I was totally indifferent to the romantic scene in the garden between Maria and the Captain. Then I reached an age when I fast-forwarded through it because it embarrassed me. And then I got to a stage when I kept rewinding it and watching it over and over and over again. Ah, youth.
(Note: When you search YouTube to find musical scenes from The Sound of Music, do you know how hard it is to find musical scenes that are actually FROM The Sound of Music? You get an avalanche of people's videos of themselves performing the songs. Everybody wants to get into the act! I wanted a clip of "My Favorite Things," but had to settle for "Do Re Mi.")
Next: The Philadelphia Story and Casablanca.
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***
And I will not watch that second clip! I won't! That song will be in my head for DAYS!!!
:::twitch:::
My trouble with this movie is that I came to it as an adult. I was at my sister's house years ago and just as I was tired and ready to go home, the nieces got the idea to watch it and BEGGED me to stay.
What threw me off is that here I was watching a happy, family, music-filled movie and all of a sudden we're talking about NAZIS and WAR! These two things just didn't seem to fit together, and so I was just left shaken and a bit lost.
I'd always meant to give it another try, but now that I know Julie Andrews' real-life story, I don't think I can handle it. The thought of her no longer being able to sing breaks my heart. And as a fellow singer, it terrifies me.
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