Mysterious Island [1961]

Salaperäinen saari / Den hemlighetsfulla ön. GB/US © 1961 Ameran Films. A Charles H. Schneer Production. Original distributor: Columbia Pictures. P: Charles H. Schneer. D: Cy Endfield. Ass D: Rene Dupont. SC: John Prebble, Daniel Ullman, Crane Wilbur – based on the novel L'île mystérieuse (Paris, 1874) by Jules Verne – suom. Salaperäinen saari, lyhennettynä 1904, 1947, 1953, 1961, 1979 Samuli S./ Otava, kuv. Poika Vesanto – suom. täydellisempänä 1927, 1969 (Haaksirikkoiset ilmapurjehtijat, Saareen heitetty, Kaksi vuotta saarella, Saaren salaisuus) Urho Kivimäki / Karisto – suom. 1935, 1936 Petroskoissa / Kirja (Haaksirikkoiset ilmapurjehtijat, Saareen heitetty, Saaren salaisuus). DP: Wilkie Cooper – Eastman Color by Pathé – SuperDynaMation – 1,85:1. Underwater cinematography: Egil Woxholt. Camera operator: Jack Mills. AD: Bill Andrews. VFX: Ray Harryhausen. Text design: Bob Gill. M composer and conductor: Bernard Herrmann – performed by: London Symphony Orchestra. S: John Cox (sound supervisor); Peter Handford, Bob Jones (sound recording) – mono (Westrex Recording System). ED: Frederick Wilson. C: Michael Craig (Captain Cyrus Harding), Joan Greenwood (Lady Mary Fairchild), Michael Callan (Herbert Brown), Gary Merrill (Gideon Spilett), Herbert Lom (Captain Nemo), Beth Rogan (Elena), Percy Herbert (Sergeant Pencroft), Dan Jackson (Neb), Nigel Green (Tom). Studio: Shepperton Studios (England). Loc: Espanja: – Benidorm, Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana – Costa Brava, Girona, Catalonia – Sa Conca Beach, S'Agaró, Castell-Paltja d'Aro, Girona, Catalonia. Helsinki premiere: 5.1.1962 Adams, distributor: Columbia Films – tv: 30.6.2007 ja 1.1.2009 Nelonen – dvd: 2003 Egmont Entertainment – VET 56169 – K8 – 2775 m  / 101 min
    SFI-FA print at 97 min with Swedish subtitles viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Cinema and Music), 20 Feb 2015
    Other film adaptations: Salaperäinen saari (The Mysterious Island, US 1929, D: Lucien Hubbard, [Benjamin Christensen, Maurice Tourneur, n.c.], C: Lionel Barrymore / Captain Nemo = Prince Dakkar), Salaperäinen saari (Tainstvennyi ostrov, SU 1941, D: B. M. Tshelintsev, Eduard Pentslin), serial Salaperäinen saari (Mysterious Island I-XV, US 1951, D: Spencer Gordon Bennet), Mysteerien saari (La isla misteriosa y el capitán Nemo, ES/FR/IT 1973, D: Juan Antonio Bardem, Henri Colpi, C: Omar Sharif / Captain Nemo), tv series Salaperäinen saari (Mysterious Island CA/NZ 1995), Mysterious Island (US 2005, D: Russell Mulcahy, C: Patrick Stewart / Captain Nemo), tv-elokuva Jules Verne's Mysterious Island (US 2012, D: Mark Sheppard), Matka 2: Salainen saari (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, US 2012, D: Brad Peyton).

AA: Jules Verne's novel The Mysterious Island has constantly inspired film-makers since the silent age. This 1961 film adaptation, which belongs to the remarkable fantasy film series created by the team of Charles H. Schneer, Ray Harryhausen and Bernard Herrmann, is a solid, well-made fantasy film. It was screened at Cinema Orion in the context of our Cinema and Music lecture series, and the lecturer, the composer Mr. Pessi Levanto, had selected it for our series as a sample of the work of Bernard Herrmann - as a less obvious showcase of Herrmann's ability to create a unique sound world for each film.

Among Herrmann's main modes were "the sound of mental disturbance" and "the sound of fantasy adventure escape", both brilliantly in evidence for instance in the overture of On Dangerous Ground. Mysterious Island is a delightful example of the latter mode, Herrmann's fantasy inspiration - there are sounds that are thrilling, suspenseful, stormy, exotic, and droll.

Ray Harryhausen's creations provide much of the fascination: - the balloon caught in the biggest storm in American history that brings our Civil War refugees to a lost island in the Pacific - the giant crab, bird, bees and octopus - the pirate ship - Nautilus - and the volcanic eruption that causes the island to perish utterly. The miniatures, the stop motion animation, and the travelling mattes are not photorealistically smooth, but there is an endearing quality in their handcrafted artistry that is charming like in the work of Georges Méliès. My favourite Harryhausen sequence here is the one with the giant honeycomb where the young lovers are trapped. (Honey trap!).

The actors are not of the first rank, but Herbert Lom brings a quality of dignity to his performance as Captain Nemo, as does Joan Greenwood to hers as Lady Fairchild.

Cy Endfield's direction is sober and matter-of-fact which befits a fantasy adventure. We do not need visual and directorial flourishes in a story as outlandish as this. Mysterious Island is a satisfying fantasy adventure: we expect storms, giant monsters, ingenious devices, pirates, and volcanic eruptions from such a fairy-tale. Is there a sense of wonder? Yes, there is.

Mysterious Island is an original Robinsonade. The men and women work together for survival, for creating some comfort, and for building a vessel to escape. Although there is no psychological depth in the characters, there is a sense of team effort. The aspect of young love remains on the level of nice smiles and some cheesecake & beefcake.

At its most profound, Mysterious Island reminds us of Captain Nemo's pessimism about the self-destructive urge of mankind about to destroy itself via war. There is a subtext in Jules Verne's Nemo stories about the death drive. But Mysterious Island also reminds us of Captain Nemo's optimism about more effective nourishment via his incredible inventions. Better technology could be an alternative to a Neo-Darwinian battle of the survival of the strongest, and to a Hobbesian world of bellum omnium contra omnes.

Mysterious Island is both a Dystopian story about the end of the world and a Utopian story about how we can save ourselves via technology.

A worn vintage print with a duped look yet watchable and with a sense of the original colour.

OUR PROGRAMME NOTE BASED ON BARRIE MAXWELL'S REMARKS IN DVD VERDICT BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK

Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s (exhibition at LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Boris Bilinsky, poster for The Joyless Street (Die freudlose Gasse), c. 1925, directed by G. W. Pabst, La Cinémathèque française. Source: LACMA website. Click to enlarge.

Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s. LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Art of the Americas Building, Level 2. September 21, 2014–April 26, 2015. Visited on 12 Feb 2015.

Official introduction: "Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s explores masterworks of German Expressionist cinema. From the stylized fantasy of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (dir. Robert Wiene, 1919) to the chilling murder mystery M (dir. Fritz Lang, 1931), cinema during the liberal Weimar era was innovative in aesthetic, psychological, and technical terms."

"Organized by La Cinémathèque française, Paris, the exhibition features over 150 drawings, as well as manuscripts, posters, and set models, the majority gathered by Lotte Eisner, German emigrée film historian and author of the pioneering 1952 text The Haunted Screen. Additional works come from the collections of LACMA’s Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies and from the archives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Kino Ektoplasma—a three-screen installation created for the exhibition by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson—resurrects lost films of the Expressionist era in mesmerizing film sequences. The exhibition was designed by Amy Murphy and Michael Maltzan with Michael Maltzan Architecture, Inc."

"In Los Angeles, Haunted Screens is presented by LACMA in association with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is generously supported by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and Riza Aziz." (Official introduction).

AA: On display as an art exhibition some of the most legendary images from the German cinema before 1933, inspired by Lotte Eisner's groundbreaking art historical book L'Écran démoniaque, many of the images familiar from her book itself, but also with dozens of less known ones.

I did not see the original La Cinémathèque française edition of this exhibition, and this is a revised edition anyway with many works added from LACMA's own collections. This is a tribute to the great art of Hermann Warm, Otto Hunte, and their colleagues, who here can be appreciated not only as designers of unforgettable sketches but also as masters of the charcoal, pencil, watercolour, oil, and gouache. The sensual, aching quality of their art, expressionist, Neue Sachlichkeit or otherwise, comes into its own.

This exhibition is a part of the LACMA's long-term dedicated project of Expressionism and German culture, building on the Robert Gore Rifkind collection and other sources of their own. I had also the privilege to visit the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies and see samples of their fantastic collections of German graphic art before 1933.

I seriously considered visiting also the Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950 exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center (2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd), but the LACMA exhibition was so powerful and overwhelming that I could not have managed it after that.

AFTER THE JUMP BREAK: LACMA Blog articles by Britt Salvesen and Claudine Dixon.

The Grove (Los Angeles) with a Chinese New Year Theme

The Grove on Valentine's Day 2015. Photo: the official Facebook page of The Grove .

The Grove and Farmers Market, 189 The Grove Drive (3rd St. at Fairfax Ave.), Los Angeles. Visited on 11 Feb 2015.

Built in 2002, The Grove is now a quintessential Los Angeles phenomenon, an artificial paradise and a shopping center that has been compared with Rodeo Drive, the Universal CityWalk and Disneyland.

The last time I visited, the most famous Farmers Market of Los Angeles was still intact (there are some 50 Farmers Markets in L.A., but this is the best-known) and it still seems to thrive, incorporated now into the extravagant shopping theme park.

The Grove is an entertainment tour dedicated to consumption, today with a beautifully designed Chinese New Year theme. The bright red illumation of the stylish dragon and sheep ornaments dazzle as darkness falls.

When I lived in L.A. the Universal CityWalk had recently opened, and it was amusing to realize that in this city you need a specially constructed space to actually to enjoy a walk on a city street. The same applies to The Grove.

Bookstores thrived in Los Angeles twenty years ago. One could spend a day in them on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica or in the Media City Center in Burbank. Now they are in death throes thanks to the black plague of culture called Amazon. I ask friends for advice on bookstores in L.A. now and get three:

1. Barnes & Noble - The Grove. For books in general. A fine grand full service bookstore, also with music and dvd / blu-ray departments. Three floors.

2. The Iliad Bookshop. 5400 Cahuenga Boulevard, North Hollywood, CA 91601 (Corner of Cahuenga and Chandler Blvds.). Good for film books and out of print books.

3. Larry Edmunds Bookshop, 6644 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA, 90028. In business over 70 years, (one of) the most legendary film bookshop(s) is still with us.

I was determined to visit all three, but distances are overwhelming. I need to return soon again.

The Imitation Game

Photo credit: Jack English. Copyright: © 2014 The Weinstein Company. All Rights Reserved. Click to enlarge.

The Imitation Game / The Imitation Game. GB/US © 2014 BBP Imitation LLC. P: Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, Teddy Schwarzman. D: Morten Tyldum. SC: Graham Moore - based on the book Alan Turing: The Enigma (1983) by Andrew Hodges. DP: Óscar Faura - shot on 35 mm film (Kodak Vision3 250D 5207, Vision3 500T 5219) - Super 35 - cameras: Arricam LT and Arricam ST, Zeiss Master Prime Lenses - 2K digital intermediate: Company 3 - processing: i-Dailies (London) - colour - 2,35:1 - Dolby Digital - released on: DCP. PD: Maria Djurkovic. Cost: Sammy Sheldon Differ. Make-up and hair designer: Ivana Primorac. M: Alexandre Desplat. ED: Willam Goldenberg. D: Benedict Cumberbatch (Alan Turing), Keira Knightley (Joan Clarke), Matthew Goode (Hugh Alexander), Rory Kinnear (Det. Robert Nock), Allen Leech (John Cairncross), Matthew Beard (Peter Hilton) with Charles Dance (Commander Denniston) and Mark Strong (Stewart Menzies). 114 min
    DCP viewed at The Samuel Goldwyn Theater (Motion Picture Academy screening), Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, 9 Feb 2014.
    Academy Award nominations: - Best Motion Picture of the Year: Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, Teddy Schwarzman - Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Benedict Cumberbatch - Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Keira Knightley - Best Achievement in Directing: Morten Tyldum.

Official synopsis: "During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of ‘gross indecency’, an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality – little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing. Famously leading a motley group of scholars, linguists, chess champions and intelligence officers, he was credited with cracking the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany's World War II Enigma machine. An intense and haunting portrayal of a brilliant, complicated man, The Imitation Game follows a genius who under nail-biting pressure helped to shorten the war and, in turn, save thousands of lives. Directed by Morten Tyldum with a screenplay by Graham Moore, the film stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard, Charles Dance and Mark Strong." (Official synopsis from the Production Notes).

AA: A well-made mainstream biopic with special insight in WWII, foreign intelligence, and the birth of the computer. A character-driven story firmly grounded in history and the evolution of information technology. The subject, Alan Turing, is considered the "Father of Theoretical Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence" (Wikipedia).

Compared with The Imitation Game, the simultaneous British success film of a troubled genius, The Theory of Everything is feelgood entertainment. The Imitation Game is a tragedy. The British government, having benefitted immensely from Alan Turing's insight during the war, poisons him with hormons to "cure" him of homosexuality.

The screenplay is intelligent, discussing ever-relevant themes about human and artificial intelligence.

The Imitation Game is also a different kind of a war film. We are in one of the centers where the outcome of the war was settled. Although we are far from the front, we often sense the immediacy of the war. There are telling details such as a brief shot of a legless war invalid, which convey the general horror quite powerfully.

A puzzling aspect is the ethical dilemma of war. Not all discoveries could be put to use, because that would have exposed to the Nazis the fact that the Enigma had been cracked.

The codebreaking philosophy has wide-ranging implications. "How's that different from normal people talking. They never say what they mean". As an outsider, Alan Turing has been able to make observations like that.

The Imitation Game will be remembered as the film about the first computer. The film creation, here called Christopher, is bigger and more exciting than the real thing, almost a character in its own right.

The characters are contradictory in a way that feels true to life, but there is a mainstream (Weinstein?) polish in the production. For instance the talented and incredibly prolific Alexandre Desplat has here composed a conventional score that I feel simplifies the emotional flow.

As a Finn I start to think that an interesting film could be made of WWII Finnish codebreakers, too. And also of the Stella Polaris operation of rescuing intelligence abroad when the war was about to end.

THE LONG SYNOPSIS, MATTERS OF ACCURACY AND TONY SALE'S ARTICLE "THE BREAKING OF ENIGMA BY POLISH MATHEMATICIANS" AFTER THE JUMP BREAK

The Packard Humanities Institute: The Film and Preservation Center (Santa Clarita)

The Film Archive and Preservation Center. Photo: BAR Architects. Click to enlarge

The BAR Architects presentation: "Located on a 64.5 acre site in Santa Clarita, The Film Archive and Preservation Center provides the highest standards of preservation and storage for one of the most significant collections of film and television moving images in the world. The buildings are designed to preserve the park-like setting of the oak tree savanna hillsides and maximize views to create a quality workplace. The project includes a film preservation laboratory, digital moving image and audio preservation laboratory, film video and paper storage archive, central plant and staff offices adjoining the existing underground nitrate film storage vaults."

"Client: Packard Humanities Institute
Architect: BAR Architects
Total Site Area: 64.5 Acres
Total Planned Area: 226,400 gsf
Project Components:
Two 20-Seat Screening Rooms
Digital, Moving Image and Audio Preservation
Laboratory
Film, Video and Digital Archives Storage
Nitrate Film Vaults
Central Plant
Gallery Exhibit Space
Research and Study Center
Offices"
- BAR Architects

"The new building will be comprised of two distinct parts, the Collection Storage and the Stoa. The Collection Storage portion is a large, unobtrusive, functional structure—primarily underground—housing temperature and humidity controlled collection storage vaults, collection services, loading dock, film lab facilities and a central plant for the entire project. The Stoa, inspired by ancient Greek Stoas with two story colonnades, is an L-shaped structure housing the preservation labs, work rooms, preservationists’ offices and administrative functions. The interior architecture recalls motifs from the Florentine monastery of San Marco and is designed to inspire the preservationist’s work. The palette of materials is Mediterranean with terracotta roof tiles, light-colored precast columns and walls, terracotta floors, plaster walls with parking located beneath an olive orchard." (Architecture MMXII)

AA: An amazing place: state-of-the-art film archiving in an architectural setting that is faithful to the Classical vision, even utilizing Italian marble. A tribute to the craft and profession of film archiving. The buildings are there, and the installation of the equipment is going on. The premises will house the giant collections of the UCLA Film and Television Archive; many of their treasures are here already. Perfection in every detail: high quality premises can inspire high quality work. While marvelling at the view we notice condors patrolling the sky.*

* Evidence of the success of the California Condor Recovery Plan. Some 30 years ago there were no wild condors left in California; all survivors lived in captivity.

Hollywood Costume (exhibition at the Academy Museum)

Hollywood Costume. The Hollywood edition of the exhibition inaugurated in Victoria & Albert Museum in 2012, curated by Deborah Nadoolman Landis. At Academy Museum, 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, 2 Oct 2014 until 2 March, 2015. Viewed on 9 Feb 2015.

The exhibition catalogue: Deborah Nadoolman Landis: Hollywood Costume. First published by V&A Publishing, London, 2012. Published in America by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills. 320 large pages, high quality illustrations.

The official intro: "The Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences present the final showing of the groundbreaking multimedia exhibition Hollywood Costume in the historic Wilshire May Company Building, the future location of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. Organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, this ticketed exhibition explores the central role of costume design–from the glamorous to the very subtle–as an essential tool of cinematic storytelling. On view October 2, 2014 through March 2, 2015 the exhibition brings together the world's most iconic costumes from the Golden Age of cinema to the present."

"The Academy is enhancing the V&A's exhibition and includes more than 150 costumes. The Academy's presentation added more than 40 costumes to this landmark show, including Jared Leto's costume from Dallas Buyers Club (Kurt and Bart, 2013) – a recent acquisition from the Academy's Collection – as well as costumes from such recent releases including The Hunger Games (Judianna Makovsky, 2012), Django Unchained  (Sharen Davis, 2012), Lee Daniels' The Butler  (Ruth E. Carter, 2013), The Wolf of Wall Street  (Sandy Powell, 2013), American Hustle  (Michael Wilkinson, 2013), and The Great Gatsby  (Catherine Martin, 2013)."

"In addition, Hollywood Costume showcases the Academy's pair of the most famous shoes in the world – the original ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz (Adrian, 1939) shown with Dorothy's blue and white gingham pinafore dress."

"Hollywood Costume is curated by Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Academy Award®–nominated costume designer and founding director of UCLA’s David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design, whose credits include National Lampoon’s Animal House  (1978), Raiders of the Lost Ark  (1981), Coming to America   (1988) and the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”  (1983); with Sir Christopher Frayling (Professor Emeritus of Cultural History, Royal College of Art), and set and costume designer and V&A Assistant Curator Keith Lodwick."

"Swarovski is the presenting sponsor of Hollywood Costume.
Additional support is provided by Pirelli and the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
In-kind support provided by Barco, ARRI, JBL and Samsung."

AA: Many of the obvious choices are here, as they should be, and it is hard to imagine the amount of work needed in putting all these precious and legendary pieces together.

I admire Deborah Nadoolman Landis's artistic concept and the execution of the huge show. The word that comes to mind is eloquent. This is a history of the American cinema seen through costume design. Costume drama can be heavy, but the vision here is guided by wit. Martin Scorsese sums it up: "Costume is character". It is all about costume, and it is all about character.

There is a dramaturgy in this exhibition, most excitingly in a series of dialogues orchestrated between the director and the costume designer, seen on vertical screens facing each other: - Edith Head and Alfred Hitchcock - Sandy Powell and Martin Scorsese - Ann Roth and Mike Nichols - and Colleen Atwood and Tim Burton.

Of the obvious exhibits, Charles Chaplin's tramp costume is for me especially poignant in this context, among all this splendour. Last year in Le Giornate del Cinema Muto the mayor of Pordenone commented that it is a sad fact that the Tramp is a more topical figure today than a generation ago.

Two costumes from Alfred Hitchcock's movies linger in my mind. The vibrant, rich, full green of the costume of Judy Barton (Kim Novak) in Vertigo, and the eau de Nil green of Melanie Daniels's (Tippi Hedren) costume in The Birds. Green is my favourite colour, but it almost always fails in clothes although it never fails in nature. My interpretation of the secret of the green is that in nature it is not a single colour at all but a combination of dozens of shades that are permanently changing. Yet green can in exceptional cases succeed in costumes, and those two Edith Head-Alfred Hitchcock creations are among them.

The new Academy Museum scheduled to open in 2017

The design for the new Academy Museum scheduled to open in 2017

"The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is building the world's leading movie museum in the heart of Los Angeles. Located in the historic Wilshire May Company building on the campus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the six stories Academy Museum was greenlighted by the Academy's Board of Governors in October 2012." (From the official Academy site).

They are all set to build a new magnificent movie museum for the Motion Picture Academy on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. It can definitely become the international landmark.

Meanwhile, there is still a chance to visit the superb Hollywood Costume exhibition in the current museum space here, curated by Deborah Nadoolman Landis.

Back in Hollywood

Image: ConstructionOwl.com: Backyard Buzz: How to Attract Hummingbirds

I have not been in Los Angeles in 19 years. My first impression: it is still the same, only more so.

My friends tell me the traffic is still getting heavier all the time, and Los Angeles keeps spreading out. But now we have GPS navigators. They are amazingly helpful. I plan my way with a combination of an internet route map and a GPS navigator, and they do make life simpler.

At breakfast I buy the morning papers, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times, still classical quality papers, but now slimmer, thinner, and narrower. I remember how startled I was when I saw for the first time a Sunday edition of an American quality newspaper, the size of a telephone directory. That is long gone.

Everything they say about Hollywood is true. But the glamour is but the surface, never to be trusted.

What I'm interested in is in line with John Ford's concept when he planned a film about Hollywood, never realized. He wanted to make a movie about the Hollywood professional. Here are many of the finest professionals and craftsmen of the cinema and the media world.

In the garden of a little old quiet restaurant bungalow in the heart of Hollywood, not far from the thunder of the freeways, I look at the tree top and see hummingbirds.

Kesäkaverit / Summertime

Sommarkompisar. FI 2014 © Solar Films Inc. Oy. EX: Jukka Helle, Markus Selin. P: Jesse Fryckman, Oskari Huttu. P manager: Jonna Enroth. D: Inari Niemi. SC: Juuli Niemi. DP: Daniel Lindholm - colour - scope - 2K DCP. AD: Heini Erving. Cost: Susanna Moilanen. Make-up: Hanna Minkkinen. M: - soundtrack listing after the jump break. S: Mikko Mäkelä. ED: Hanna Kuirinlahti. 90 min
    C: Anna Paavilainen (Iiris), Iina Kuustonen (Karoliina), Minka Kuustonen (Eeva), Pihla Viitala (Hertta, big sister of Iiris).
    With: Lauri Tilkanen (Jussi), Sampo Sarkola (Tommy), Eero Ritala (Olli), Matleena Kuusniemi (Linda, wife of Tommy), Milka Ahlroth (Liisa, aunt of Eeva), Aku Hirviniemi (Akseli, husband of Hertta).
    Loc: Hanko.
    Nordisk dvd with Finnish (hard of hearing) / Swedish / English subtitles viewed at home, 3 Feb 2015
    The film and its title were inspired by the song "Kesäkaverit" by PMMP, selected as the theme song of the movie.

AA: A humoristic rhapsody covering the summer of three young women of 25 years of age, working as summer waitresses in the seaside holiday paradise of Hanko. There is a relaxed approach, and no sense of a tightly knit plot or structure. It is a character-driven and performance-driven movie in which the director Inari Niemi and her sister, the screenwriter Juuli Niemi explore the space of young women in a kind of narrative usually dominated by a male viewpoint. It all starts with appearances and poses. While they crumble true substances of characters emerge. Iiris (Anna Paavilainen) usually works as a waitress in Spain but returns to Finland for the summer. Karoliina (Iina Kuustonen) is a bright student with no fixed career plan yet. The slow-witted and absent-minded Eeva (Minka Kuustonen) has severe issues of focus and concentration. Iiris's big sister Hertta (Pihla Viitala) tells a horror story about having a baby, adding it's the best thing ever, and that she is going to have another one. The happy family life of Hertta and Akseli is a contrast to the partying; the marriage inferno of Tommy and Linda (Matleena Kuusniemi) is another kind of contrast. Both Iiris and aunt Liisa are living abroad, contemplating about the possibility of returning to Finland. A point of gravity is about gravidity: Iiris is afraid of having been gotten pregnant by Jussi. Meanwhile, Linda fails to get pregnant by Tommy although they keep trying. There is a nadir of desperation when everything fails and the three girlfriends even start to fight one another. Things begin to get settled, but there is a mild letdown in the way the film proceeds to the conclusion.

AFTER THE JUMP BREAK: THE TEXT FROM THE KESÄKAVERIT MEDIA INFO AND THE SOUNDTRACK

Le Jour se lève / Daybreak (2014 re-release version, a digital restoration in 4K by Éclair Group)

Click to enlarge.

Varjojen yö / Päivä koittaa. FR 1939. PC: Productions Sigma. P: Jean-Pierre Frogerais. D: Marcel Carne. SC: Jacques Viot - adaptation and dialogues: Jacques Prévert. DP: Curt Courant - assisted by Philippe Agostini, André Bac, and Albert Viguier - 1:1.37. AD: Alexandre Trauner. Cost: Boris Bilinsky. M: Maurice Jaubert. ED: René Le Hénaff. S: Antoine Petitjean. C: Jean Gabin (François), Jacqueline Laurent (Françoise), Jules Berry (Mr. Valentin), Arletty (Clara), Mady Barry, René Génin, Arthur Devère, Rene Bergeron, Bernard Blier (Gaston), Marcel Pérès, Jacques Baumer, Jacqueline Lauren Françoise), Georges Doukin, Léonce Corne, Germaine Lix (la chanteuse). Helsinki premiere: 1.5.1940 Kino Palatsi, released by Suomi-Filmi – tv: 19.2.1976 MTV2, 26.6.1993 YLE TV1 – classification number 22969 – K16 – 92 min
    Screened a 4K DCP from Tamasa with English subtitles - 2014 restoration by Éclair (image) and Diapason (sound), "version restaurée inédite", "version non censurée pour la première fois depuis 1940" - source: a second generation nitrate print - three scenes deleted during the Vichy regime reinstated - Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Marcel Carné), 22 Jan 2015

AA: It feels futile to write about Le Jour se lève after reading André Bazin's remarks about it. Bazin's major insight is that Le Jour se lève is a tragedy which can even literally be compared with classic Greek tragedy. Just a few thoughts here.
     Fatalism is prominent in this last film of the wonderful Carné team (including Prévert, Trauner, Jaubert, Gabin, Arletty, etc.) before WWII. François and Mr. Valentin seem marked by death from the start.
    François is a sandblaster at an engine mill, and he has pneumoconiosis. His coughing, his constant feeling of his chest, and even his incessant smoking belong to the signs of death. The final tear gas is merely a redundant supplement to the dangerous substances. François is dead already.
    The screenplay by Jacques Viot and the dialogue by Jacques Prévert are great literature. For example the dialogues of François and Clara are full of biting wit and unique tenderness.
    There is an atmosphere of magic created by the Carné team. A strong unity of vision, each detail pregnant with meaning (the eyes, the teddy bear, the brooch, the bicycle, the flowers, the gun, the photographs, the postcards, the alarm clock).
    Le Jour se lève is a demonstration of the genius of the system in studio production entirely created on constructed sets (Alexandre Trauner). A masterpiece in the Expressionistic tradition.
    The events take place at night, and the film is dream-like in its overwhelming darkness and the fluidity of its superimpositions and flashbacks. Le Jour se lève is a death dream.
    The performances are perfect. Jean Gabin compared by Bazin with heroes of Greek tragedy. Jules Berry as the pathological liar. Jacqueline Laurent as sweetness incarnate. And especially Arletty as the second woman to both men. Her performance is the most demanding, and she manages it with subtle tenderness. Her expressions are delicate and illuminating.*
    The final score by Maurice Jaubert (he died on the front in WWII in 1940) is stark and ominous. The chanson sung by Germaine Lix adds a personal touch to the cabaret sequence.
    The cinematography by Curt Courant, assisted by Philippe Agostini, André Bac, and Albert Viguier has a special graphic quality in each scene, in each shot. There is nothing indifferent here.
    This film of dark foreboding is, however, peculiarly exhilarating. That is the secret of tragedy. We emphatize with the fundamental greatness and dignity of the protagonists, even though a fatal weakness or mistake makes them perish. The other secret is that this film is so breathtakingly well made that it is a sheer pleasure to watch even though the subject is fatalistic. There is an assured sense of mythical crystallization here.

The restoration has been conducted by the best talent with utmost care, and mostly the result looks really great, but as the Éclair Group states in their restoration report (see beyond the jump break) there were problems and difficulties in the source material. For starters, the camera negative has been destroyed. Due to the source material there are minor instances of fluctuation, wavering and lack of definition. But overall this is a great restoration and a complete one as scenes deleted during the Vichy regime have been reinstated.

* Again Arletty gets some wonderful self-parodical lines that seem to debunk the fatalistic Carné corpus: "Des souvenirs... Est-ce que j'ai une gueule à faire l'amour avec des souvenirs?" It seems to reflect on Arletty's remark in Hôtel du Nord: "Atmosphère? Atmosphère? Est-ce que j'ai une gueule d'atmosphère?"

AFTER THE JUMP BREAK OUR PROGRAMME NOTE AND THE ECLAIR GROUP RESTORATION REPORT

Rolf Lindfors (FIAF obituary by Jon Wengström)

FIAF, International Federation of Film Archives

Dear colleagues,

We are sad to inform you that Rolf Lindfors, former Head of the Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute in Stockholm, died on December 22nd, 2014 at the age of 75.

After studies in Uppsala, where he also ran the local ciné-club, Rolf Lindfors was in 1968 hired by Harry Schein, founder and then-CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, to become the Curator of the Archival Film Collections, a position he held until 2003. When Rolf arrived, the collections were still held at the Museum for Science and Technology, and with Schein he ensured that the new facilities of Filmhuset, when they were ready to take in use in 1971, included one of the first sub-zero climate controlled vaults in the world.

In the 1980s and 90s, together with his partner Bertil Wredlund, Rolf published Långfilm i Sverige, a series of volumes on all Swedish and non-Swedish films submitted to the Swedish censorship authorities. The publication included facts about lengths, cuts, distribution titles, release dates etc, which over the years has proven to be an invaluable source of information for scholars and journalists, and arguably the most consulted publication in the daily work of the Stockholm archive staff.

Rolf was a keen champion of the global archival movement, and he was very happy to be involved in hosting the FIAF congress twice (in 1983 and 2003). He served on the FIAF Cataloguing Commission between 1979 and 1997, during which time he worked on the current FIAF cataloguing rules. This experience made Rolf the key figure in the conversion of the catalogue card holdings into the first database of the Swedish Film Institute in the 1990s. He was also very much involved in the establishing of the film archive in Grängesberg, the first Swedish archive for small-gauge and non-professional film, for which he worked as a consultant in his final year at the Swedish Film Institute before retiring in 2004.

Rolf was a very kind and sociable person, with a wry sense of humour and appreciating good food and drinks among friends, and used his vast knowledge of film and archiving for the benefit of others. He was a member of the executive committee of Svenska filmakademin (the Swedish film academy) for many years, and he enjoyed touring all corners of Sweden with illustrated lectures, screening films from the region. I remember with great fondness his generosity in sharing his tremendous experience with me when I was asked to succeed Rolf after his retirement.

Jon Wengström
Curator of the Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute & FIAF Treasurer

Reproduced with the kind permission of Jon Wengström and FIAF.

Citizenfour

DE/US © 2014 Praxis Films. P: Mathilde Bonnefoy, Laura Poitras, Dirk Wilutzky. D: Laura Poitras. DP: Kirsten Johnson, Trevor Paglen, Laura Poitras, Katy Soggin - DI: ARRI Film & TV Services. VFX: Killian Manning. Titles: Neil Reynolds. M: portions of the Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV. S: Frank Kruse. ED: Mathilde Bonnefoy. A documentary film. Featuring: Edward Snowden. And: Jacob Appelbaum, Julian Assange, Kevin Bankston, William Binney, Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, Lindsay Mills, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill. And: Barack Obama (archival footage). Loc: Room 1014, Mira Hotel, Kowloon, Hong Kong. 114 min
    2K DCP with German (Fran Sahlberg) and English subtitles viewed at Kant Kino 3, Berlin, on New Year's Eve, 31 Dec 2014
    The title: Citizenfour was the alias of Edward Snowden.
    "Dedicated to those who make great sacrifices to expose injustice."

Official synopsis: "Citizenfour is a real life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s encounters with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA)."

"Poitras had already been working on a film about surveillance for two years when Snowden contacted her, using the name “Citizenfour,” in January 2013.  He reached out to her because he knew she had long been a target of government surveillance, stopped at airports numerous times, and had refused to be intimidated. When Snowden revealed he was a high-level analyst driven to expose the massive surveillance of Americans by the NSA, Poitras persuaded him to let her film."

"Citizenfour places you in the room with Poitras, Greenwald, and Snowden as they attempt to manage the media storm raging outside, forced to make quick decisions that will impact their lives and all of those around them."

"Citizenfour not only shows you the dangers of governmental surveillance—it makes you feel them. After seeing the film, you will never think the same way about your phone, email, credit card, web browser, or profile, ever again." (Official synopsis)

The final film in the documentary trilogy of the United States post 9/11 by Laura Poitras: My Country, My Country (2006, on Iraq under U.S. occupation), The Oath (2010 on two men whose paths cross with al-Qaeda), and Citizenfour (2014).

AA: Citizenfour belongs to the heavyweights among current documentaries, those which challenge us to reflect upon the state of the world with utter gravity - like The Salt of the Earth (2014) by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado.

At the center of Citizenfour is the Edward Snowden whistleblowing story recorded in real time as it happened at Mira Hotel in Hongkong. We register the nuclear news bomb explode all over the globe.

The taut and sober documentary by Laura Poitras also expands to relevant contexts with startling testimonies by William Binney and Jacob Applebaum.

It is all about the subject-matter, but the personal presence of Edward Snowden is essential for us to be aware that here is someone who has sacrificed everything and has benefitted nothing from his revelation.

A parallel story is that of Laura Poitras herself who has been forced to settle from the U.S. to Berlin to secure her footage from being seized.

The gravity is in the fundamental concern for the ideals of freedom, the right to privacy, free speech, and democracy. The reality of surveillance and the police state today makes Orwell's 1984 and Stasi look amateurish.

"Privacy is dead" is the motto here. I remember when I first went to the Internet in the mid-1990s that ECHELON was supposed to register everything. "In cyberspace everybody can hear you scream" became my motto. Yet all this was an educated guess until Snowden proved it.

What can we do? On the Citizenfour homepage (https://citizenfourfilm.com/) there is a surveillance self-defense kit for starters. In the movie is included a sequence of the FBI's attempt to crush Lavabit, so it is an ongoing battle.

Citizenfour is a key film for our age. Films of espionage, surveillance and paranoia have a distinguished tradition, Fritz Lang and Alan J. Pakula belong to its masters, and in Finland Matti Salo has written a great book on that legacy (Viitta ja tikari / Cloak and Dagger, soon forthcoming). Reality has now surpassed fiction as documented in Citizenfour.

Patong Girl

Quelle: Barnsteiner Film, DIF, © Yoliswa von Dallwitz

Aisawanya Areyawattana, Max Mauff. Filmportal

DE/TH 2014. PC: Hanfgarn & Ufer Film- und TV-Produktion (Berlin). P: Andrea Ufer, Gunter Hanfgarn. D+SC: Susanna Salonen. DP: Yoliswa von Dallwitz - HD - 1:1,85. PD: Pongnarin Jonghawklang, Iris Trescher. Cost: Stefanie Jauss. Make-up: Stefanie Jauss, Alexandra Lebedynski. S: Manuel Meichsner. ED: Bettina Böhler.
    C: Max Mauff (Felix Schröder), Aisawanya Areyawattana (Fai), Victoria Trauttmansdorff (Annegret Schröder), Uwe Preuss (Ullrich Schröder), Marcel Glauche (Tommy Schröder), Gigi Velicitat (Maurice).
    Loc: Thailand. Kinostart: 25.12.2014. FSK Freigabe 6 J. In German, Thai, and English. Filmportal 89 min, I counted 93 min
    2K DCP with German subtitles viewed at Bundesplatz-Kino, Berlin, 29 Dec 2014
    In the presence of Susanna Salonen.
   
Official synopsis: "It's their last Christmas vacation together as a family, and the Schroeders are spending it on a resort island in Thailand. There, the 18-year-old son Felix falls in love with Fai, a beautiful Thai woman. His brother and mother suspect that the slightly enigmatic Fai is a prostitute, but Felix is simply swept away by her. At the end of the vacation, already at the airport, he announces that he has decided to simply stay longer and follow Fai to the North of the country, where her parents live. Felix' parents are appalled. Mother Annegret too decides to cancel her flight home and goes looking for her son in the backwaters of Thailand, which leads to several complications. Meanwhile, Felix discovers the true mystery behind the beautiful Fai." (Filmportal)

AA: Patong Girl is the fiction feature film debut of Susanna Salonen who was born in Finland but has lived all her life in Germany.

The narrative may have a distant affinity with The Crying Game or even Some Like It Hot, but it is not based on other films. Instead, it is based on first hand observation. Susanna Salonen has been a diving instructor in Patong since 1990, studying Thai life for a long time.

The story of a German family's Christmas vacation leads to a cycle of revelations. The 18-year old Tommy has a holiday romance with Fai. The first revelation: his mother suspects Fai to be a gold-digger, but she is nothing of the kind. The second revelation: Fai is not a regular woman but a member of the third sex. The third revelation takes place during the last part of the movie which takes us to North Thailand where we meet Fai's very conservative, highly respected and affluent family.

Susanna Salonen has an eye for the interesting observation and the illuminating detail. The difficult roles are carried well by Aisawanya Areyawattana and Max Mauff.

There are memorable images by the water. The flying lanterns lit to the memory of the victims of the tsunami ten years ago, meant to catch their still erring souls, to carry them to heaven. The rising light phenomena by the sea in the finale at night.

Salonen calls her film little, but there is a delicate psychological sense in Patong Girl that is out of the ordinary.

There was a Q and A with Peter Latta after the screening.
    Salonen told us about her fascination with the witty, weird and interesting scene in Thailand.
    Patong / Phuket / Pattaya / Bangkok are the great bordellos of Thailand, but 97% of the people have nothing to do with that.
    The ancient Thai view is that there are three genders; in some cultures there is a view of five genders and also a view of a grayscale of genders.
    Salonen was happy with her actors, including with the young Max Mauff, who is very good in underplaying.

NB. Also for a Finn, this was in an important way a decennial screening of the tsunami of 26 December 2004. 179 Finns died in the biggest peacetime disaster for Finns.

AFTER THE JUMP BREAK: A LONGER SYNOPSIS

The Theory of Everything

Black hole with corona, artist's concept from Wikipedia: "NASA's NuSTAR Sees Rare Blurring of Black Hole Light". NASA. 12 August 2014. Click to enlarge.

Kaiken teoria. GB © 2014 Universal. PC: Working Title Films. P: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten. D: James Marsh. SC: Anthony McCarten - based on the book Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen (2008) by Jane Hawking. DP: Benoît Delhomme - DI: Technicolor, Creative Services London. M: Jóhann Jóhannsson. ED: Jinx Godfrey. C: Eddie Redmayne (Stephen Hawking), Felicity Jones (Jane Hawking), Charlie Cox (Jonathan Hellyer Jones, Jane's second husband), Emily Watson (Beryl Wilde, Jane's mother), Simon McBurney (Frank Hawking, Stephen's father), David Thewlis (Dennis Sicama), Maxine Peake (Elaine Mason, Stephen's second wife), Christian McKay (Roger Penrose). - Stephen Hawking provides his Equalizer computerized voice. - Loc: London, Cambridge, Ealing. 123 min
    Technical specs from the IMDb: - Dolby Digital - Color - 2.35:1 - Camera: Arri Alexa, Leica Summilux-C Lenses - Negative Format: SxS Pro - Cinematographic Process: Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format), ProRes 4:4:4 (1080/24p) (source format) - Release Format: D-Cinema
   2K DCP, DF (Deutsche Fassung = German spoken version) viewed at Eva, Berlin, 29 Dec 2014.

Official synopsis: "Starring Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Felicity Jones (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”), this is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde. Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed. The film is based on the memoir "Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen," by Jane Hawking, and is directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh (“Man on Wire”)." (Official synopsis from the homepage).

AA: "A British biographical romantic drama film" (Wikipedia), a well-made film, a mainstream entertainment film about the engrossing story of Stephen Hawking.

Regarding his brilliant ideas on cosmology Stephen Hawking has done a lot to popularize them himself, and his books are illuminating even for laymen. I was very impressed by The Grand Design. There is nothing of the kind in this film. And there are already other films about Hawking's ideas, for instance the fascinating A Brief History of Time by Errol Morris.

This film is the private story: the battle against odds to cope with the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or motor neurone disease, which gradually paralysed Hawking over the decades (this formulation I copied from Wikipedia). The viewpoint is that of Jane, his wife, and the film is largely about her battle for Stephen.

A true story about the triumph of the spirit.

Mr. Turner

J. M. W. Turner: Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth, exhibited 1842. Oil paint on canvas support: 914 x 1219 mm frame: 1233 x 1535 x 145 mm painting Tate. Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856. From the production notes. By permission of Tate Press Office. Click to enlarge.

GB/FR/DE © 2014 Channel Four Television Corporation, The British Film Institute, Diaphana, France3 Cinéma, Untitled 13 Commissioning Ltd. EX: Tessa Ross, Norman Merry, Gail Egan. P: Georgina Lowe. Co-P: Michel Saint-Jean, Malte Grunert. Line producer: Danielle Brandon. D+SC: Mike Leigh. DP: Dick Pope. PD: Suzie Davies. Cost: Jacqueline Durran. Make-up & hair: Christine Blundell. M: Gary Yershon. S: Lee Herrick (supv), Tim Fraser. ED: Jon Gregory. Research: Jacqueline Riding. Casting: Nina Gold.
    C: Timothy Spall (J. M. W. Turner), Paul Jesson (William Turner, Sr.), Dorothy Atkinson (Hannah Danby), Marion Bailey Mr. Booth), Ruth Sheen (Sarah Danby), Sandy Foster (Evelina Dupuis), Amy Dawson (Georgiana Thompson), Lesley Manville (Mary Somerville), Martin Savage (Benjamin Robert Haydon), Richard Bremmer (George Jones), Niall Buggy (John Carew), Fred Pearson (Sir William Beechey), Tom Edden (C. R. Leslie), Jamie Thomas King (David Roberts), Mark Stanley (Clarkson Stanfield), Nicholas Jones (Sir John Soane), Clive Francis (Sir Martin Archer Shee), Robert Portal (Sir Charles Eastlake), Simon Chandler (Sir Augustus Wall Callcott), Edward de Souza (Thomas Stothard), James Fleet (John Constable), Patrick Godfrey (Lord Egremont), Nicola Sloane (brothel keeper), Kate O'Flynn (prostitute), John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire), Stuart McQuarrie (Ruskin's father), Sylvestra Le Touzel (Ruskin's mother), Eleanor Yates (Ruskin's wife), David Horovitch (Dr. Price), Leo Bill (J. J. E. Mayall), James Dryden (Cornelius), Sinéad Matthews (Queen Victoria), Peter Wight (Joseph Gillott).
    Technical specs from the IMDb: - Color - 2.35:1 - Cameras: Arri Alexa Plus, Cooke Speed Panchro Lenses; Canon EOS C500, Cooke Speed Panchro Lenses - source format: Codex - Cinematographic Process: ARRIRAW, Canon Cinema RAW - release format: Digital (Digital Cinema Package DCP). 150 min
    2K DCP viewed at b-ware! ladenkino (Gärtnerstrasse 19, Friedrichshain, U-Bhf Samariterstrasse, Berlin), OmU = Original mit Untertiteln = original version with German subtitles, 29 Dec 2014

Mike Leigh: Director’s Statement:

Back at the turn of the century, when ‘Topsy-Turvy’ was released, I wrote that it was “a film about all of us who suffer and strain to make other people laugh.”

Now I have again turned the camera round on ourselves, we who try to be artists, with all the struggles our calling demands. But making people laugh, hard as it is, is one thing; moving them to experience the profound, the sublime, the spiritual, the epic beauty and the terrifying drama of what it means to be alive on our planet – well, that’s altogether something else, and few of us ever achieve it, much as we may try.

Turner achieved all of it, of course. He was a giant among artists, single-minded and uncompromising, extraordinarily prolific, revolutionary in his approach, consummate at his craft, clairvoyant in his vision.

Yet Turner the man was eccentric, anarchic, vulnerable, imperfect, erratic and sometimes uncouth. He could be selfish and disingenuous, mean yet generous, and he was capable of great passion and poetry.

Mr. Turner is about the tensions and contrasts between this very mortal man and his timeless work, between his fragility and his strength. It is also an attempt to evoke the dramatic changes in his world over the last quarter century of his life.

Mike Leigh (from the production notes)

Synopsis (from the production notes):

MR. TURNER explores the last quarter century of the life of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), the single-minded artist who worked hard and travelled extensively.

Turner is profoundly affected by the death of his ex-barber father, he takes up with a widow, Mrs Booth, a seaside landlady, and is plagued occasionally by an ex-lover, Sarah Danby, by whom he has two illegitimate adult daughters, whose existence he invariably denies.

He enjoys the hospitality of the landed aristocracy, he visits a brothel, he is fascinated by science, photography and railways, he is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, and he has himself tied to the mast of a ship in bad weather in order to paint a snowstorm.

He is celebrated by some, and reviled by others. He refuses an offer of £100,000 from a millionaire who wants to buy all his work, preferring to bequeath it to the British nation, whereas Queen Victoria loathes his work.

Throughout the story he is loved by his stoical housekeeper, Hannah, whom he takes for granted and whom he occasionally exploits sexually.

Eventually, he leads a double existence, living incognito with Mrs Booth in Chelsea, where he dies. Hannah is unaware of this until the very end. (Synopsis from the production notes).

AA: Mr. Turner is one of the best films of Mike Leigh and one of the best films on painting, ranking with: - Lust for Life (Vincente Minnelli / Van Gogh) -  Montparnasse 19 / Les Amants de Montparnasse (Jacques Becker / Amedeo Modigliani) - Le Mystère Picasso (Henri-Georges Clouzot) - Andrei Rublyov (Andrei Tarkovsky) - The Agony and the Ecstasy (Carol Reed / Michelangelo) - Painters Painting (Emile de Antonio) - and Basquiat (Julian Schnabel) - not forgetting the unique documentaries by Luciano Emmer and Alain Resnais.

Mr. Turner is a turning-point and landmark in digital cinematography.

It is a magical film about the passion and devotion to painting. It focuses on the essential: the sorcery of light and colour and how Turner was ahead of his time or timeless, already in tune with what was later to emerge in impressionism, abstract painting, and action painting.

Turner was irresponsible in his human relations and uncompromising in his art.

Digital cinematography has justifiedly been celebrated for its brightness and sharpness. The Turner aesthetics is a most perfect imaginable opposite to that.

But the cinematographer Dick Pope, in close collaboration with Mike Leigh, has managed a lot in reproducting a genuine Turnerian softness, fogginess, and cloudiness, and the warm colour palette of Turner. I had been wondering what someone with the actual Turner paintings in fresh memory would say, and I happened to meet Mr. Anders Carpelan who in London had seen Mr. Turner and the next day visited The Late Turner exhibition at Tate Gallery, and in his opinion the colour world of the film was spot on.

It has so far been difficult for digital to capture the warm authenticity of the colours of nature. Cold harshness and ultra bright have been typical digital colour worlds. There have been exceptions from the start, but now Mr. Turner is a high profile demonstration of digital achieving very well what has mostly been a privilege of photochemical film, including fog, clouds, and hazy contours. Having said this, I also add that the interiors are better than the exteriors, and some of the nature exteriors are slightly underwhelming. The red may be a touch too sweet (at least in this screening).

The vignette style of the movie is successful. Many (all?) scenes are based on well-known incidents and anecdotes. I was impressed by - Turner being tied to the mast during a thunderstorm - the sublime of the nature - the red blot transforming into a life-buoy - the action painting - Aphrodite the love goddess - Mr. Booth's story of the slave ship - witnessing the Temeraire - Turner as an awful lecturer on perspective - the old Turner being reviled by his contemporaries - the demonstration of the magnetic properties of violet light - the camera obscura - the Daguerrotypes - Turner turning down the offer of the millionaire and bequeathing his legacy to the British nation - laughing at the Pre-Rafaelites.

The sense of the epoch is engaging.

The Fighting Temeraire sequence evokes the latest James Bond film Skyfall where Bond visits National Gallery to see Turner's painting. It is about the domination of the sea and the transience of everything.

 BACKGROUND INFORMATION FROM THE PRESSBOOK AFTER THE JUMP BREAK

The Salt of the Earth (2014)

Sebastião Salgado at work. Photo: Unifrance. Click to enlarge.

Le Sel de la terre / O Sal da Terra / Il sale della terra / Das Salz der Erde. FR/BR/IT [production 100% French according to Unifrance] © 2014 Decia Films / Amazonas Images. EX: Wim Wenders. P: David Rosier. D: Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. SC: Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders, David Rosier, Camille Delafon. DP: Hugo Barbier, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado - digital post: Digimage. ED: Maxine Goedicke, Rob Myers. A documentary film. A biographical film on Sebastião Salgado. Feat: Sebastião Salgado, Lélia Wanick Salgado, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. Narrators: Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado.
    Locations include: - Yalimo, Papua, Indonesia (Yali tribe) - Aimorés, Minas Gerais, Brazil (Salgado's hometown, Instituto Terra) - Vitoria, Espirito Santo, Brazil (archive footage) - Pará, Brazil (Zo'é tribe) - Wrangel Island, Russia (arctic island).
    Sebastião Salgado projects covered: - The Other Americas (1999) - Sahel, The End of the Road (2004) - An Uncertain Grace (1992) - Workers: Archaeology of the Industrial Age (1993) - Terra (1997) - Migrations / Exodus (2000) - Africa (2007) - Genesis (2013).
    110 min - in Portuguese, English, and French - 2K DCP of the English-language version [title on screen: The Salt of the Earth] viewed at Neues Off (Hermannstr. 22, Berlin), 28 Dec 2014

SYNOPSIS "For the last 40 years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed some of the major events of our recent history; international conflicts, starvation and exodus. He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of wild fauna and flora, and of grandiose landscapes as part of a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet’s beauty. Sebastião Salgado’s life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last travels, and by Wim Wenders, himself a photographer." (Pressbook / Unifrance website)

AA: The Salt of the Earth came to us highly recommended by friends, and it is worth all the acclaim. It is a magnificent film, introducing through the lens of Sebastião Salgado the biggest possible topics and themes. It starts in the gold mine of Serra Pelada in Brazil. Salgado's epic photographs of 50.000 mud-covered workers evoke "the history of mankind": the pyramids, the skyscrapers - the hard work of immense masses behind our greatest achievements. This is a global movie, taking us to several continents and dozens of countries.

Salgado's epic themes include also - drought - famine - cholera - Sahel - Sahara - Ethiopia - Africa - refugees - and - genocide. The unflinching images on the famine in Ethiopia and the genocide in Rwanda are hard to watch. Salgado documented the biggest refugee camps in history - with two million people.

Sebastião and Lélia Salgado left Brazil during the 1960s military dictatorship, inspired by radical ideas and the liberation theology. They settled in Paris. Sebastião, an economist, worked for the International Coffee Organization and the World Bank before his professional career as a photographer, starting in 1973, for Sygma, Gamma and Magnum before forming their own agency, Amazonas Images.

Rwanda was devastating for Salgado, and he started a new life and a new career as an environmentalist. The conclusion of the film is about the Genesis project, "a love letter to the planet". It has taken Salgado once again around the world: - to Galapagos in the footsteps of Darwin - to the sperm whales in Argentine - to the penguins of the Antarctic - to the Nenets with their reindeer herds - "to the beginning of time" - to the paradisiacal Zo'é tribe in Brazil, observed by Jesuits centuries ago and then undetected by Western eyes until recently, distinguished by wearing a poturu lower lip plug and living in polyandry and polygamy with both wives and husbands having 4-5 spouses. The circle of Salgado's life is closing by re-planting trees to the family farm where the rain forest had turned barren. The farm was created a national park, a model for abused lands.

The imagery of the film respects the Salgado aesthetics of black and white, wide angle and deep focus. Many Salgado photographs are particularly powerful in huge enlargements on a big screen, as in the Serra Pelada cycle that starts this film.

The Salt of the Earth, one of the best films of Wim Wenders, belongs to his documentary portraits of artists - such as Tokyo-Ga (on Yasujiro Ozu), Aufzeichnungen zu Kleidern und Städten (on Yohji Yamamoto), and Pina (on Pina Bausch). Co-directed with Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, it is his strongest statement on society.

Susan Sontag criticized Salgado for "the inauthenticity of the beautiful". Perhaps there are magazines and contexts where the grim veracity of Salgado's photographic images has been exploited as "art for art's sake". (This has also been the fate of many films of social commitment, starting with Eisenstein.) But in this film one cannot help being convinced of the devotion of Salgado to the people he is photographing and to the biggest of concerns, expanding from human society to the fate of the planet. His photographs alert us from our inertia but also inspire us to action. He has a mission, and he has the passion.

Beyond the jump break: interviews with Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado (from the pressbook)

Ziegfeld Follies

Ziegfeldin tähtirevyy / Ziegfeld Follies. US 1945. PC: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. P: Arthur Freed. DP: George J. Folsey, Charles Rosher - Technicolor. AD: Cedric Gibbons, Merrill Pye, Jack Martin Smith. Cost: Helen Rose. Cost: Irene. Makeup: Jack Dawn. Hair: Sydney Guilaroff. Dance D: Robert Alton. ED: Albert Akst. A musical built of episodes.
    1. Florenz Ziegfeld (William Powell) in heaven, his reminiscences as puppet animation (Lou Bunin, Florence Bunin). He decides to produce a new revue from heaven.
    2. Introduction by Fred Astaire: "Here's To The Girls" / "Bring On the Wonderful Men" with Cyd Charisse, Lucille Ball, and a parody by Virginia O'Brien (*) D: George Sidney.
    3. "A Water Ballet" - Esther Williams's underwater number. D: Merrill Pye.
    4. "Number Please" comedy skit with Keenan Wynn. D: Robert Lewis.
    5. James Melton and Marion Bell: "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" from La traviata (Giuseppe Verdi).
    6. "Pay the Two Dollars" comedy skit with Victor Moore and Edward Arnold (lawyer). D: George Sidney.
    7. "This Heart Of Mine" (Harry Warren, Arthur Freed) with Fred Astaire (as a jewel thief) and Lucille Bremer (as a rich heiress). D: Vincente Minnelli. *
    8. "A Sweepstakes Ticket", a comedy skit with Fanny Brice, Hume Cronyn, and William Frawley. D: Roy Del Ruth.
    9. "Love" (Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane) sung by Lena Horne. D: Lemuel Ayers. *
    10. "When Television Comes", a comedy skit with Red Skelton. D: George Sidney.
    11. "Limehouse Blues" with Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer. D: Vincente Minnelli. ***
    12. "The Great Lady Has An Interview", starring Judy Garland, D: Vincente Minnelli, SC: Kay Thompson, CH: Charles Walters. *
    13. "The Babbitt And The Bromide" with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. D: Vincente Minnelli. *
    14. "Beauty" / "There's Beauty Everywhere" with Kathryn Grayson under Daliesque shadows of clouds. D: Vincente Minnelli.
    110 min. 35 mm print viewed at Arsenal, Berlin, 26 Dec 2014.

Wikipedia:
"Ziegfeld Follies is a 1946 Hollywood musical comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Lemuel Ayers, Roy Del Ruth, Robert Lewis, Vincente Minnelli, Merrill Pye, George Sidney and Charles Walters. It stars many of MGM leading talents, including Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice (the only member of the ensemble who was a star of the original Follies), Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, James Melton, Victor Moore, William Powell, Red Skelton, and Esther Williams."

"Producer Arthur Freed wanted to create a film along the lines of the Ziegfeld Follies Broadway shows and so the film is composed of a sequence of unrelated lavish musical numbers and comedy sketches. Filmed in 1944, '45 and '46, it was released in 1946, to considerable critical and box-office success."

Key songs/dance routines

"Dance director was Robert Alton, Astaire's second-most-frequent choreographic collaborator after Hermes Pan. All of Astaire's numbers were directed by Vincente Minnelli."

    "Here's To The Girls/Bring On The Wonderful Men: by Roger Edens and Arthur Freed. Sung by Astaire with a short solo dance by Cyd Charisse, followed by Lucille Ball cracking a whip over eight chorus-girl panthers, and finally Virginia O'Brien spoofs the previous scene by singing "Bring on those Wonderful Men""
    "This Heart of Mine: Classic standard by Harry Warren and Arthur Freed and written specially for Astaire who sings it to Bremer and then leads her in an extravagantly romantic dance of seduction and power-play. The choreography integrates rotating floors, concealed treadmills and swirling dance motifs."
    "Love: Another standard, this time by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, sung by Lena Horne"
    "Limehouse Blues: Conceived as a "dramatic pantomime" with Astaire as a proud but poverty-stricken Chinese labourer whose infatuation with the unattainable Bremer leads to tragedy. The story serves as bookends for a dream ballet inspired by Chinese dance motifs in a vast and extravagant, albeit racially-stereotyped, setting."
    "The Great Lady Has An Interview: Written by Kay Thompson originally for Greer Garson (she turned it down). Judy Garland spoofs a movie star who can only be cast in Oscar winning dramas, but wants to play "sexy" roles (a la Greer Garson, or Katharine Hepburn) giving an interview to dancing reporters about "her next picture": a bio-pic of Madame Cremantante (the "inventor of the safety pin"). Originally to be directed by Garland's friend Charles Walters, Vincente Minnelli ended up directing the sequence (the two were dating at the time), and Walters was reassigned as choreographer."
    "The Babbitt And The Bromide: Astaire and Kelly team up in a comedy song and dance challenge in three sections, to music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin. All choreography was by Astaire (third section) and Kelly (sections one and two). This was the only time Astaire and Kelly appeared on screen together in their prime. In spite of efforts by Freed and Minnelli, the two would not partner again on film until That's Entertainment, Part II in 1976."
    "There's Beauty Everywhere: Originally filmed as a balletic finale with tenor James Melton singing and Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and Lucille Bremer dancing in a melange of soap bubbles. But when the bubble machine malfunctioned (leaving only a fragment of the number filmed) and the formula flowed into the hallways of the soundstage, the number had to be restaged and the Astaire and Bremer part of this number was cut out altogether." Kathryn Grayson replaced Melton. Segments of the "bubble dance" with Charisse remain in the final film." (Wikipedia)

AA: Revisited a MGM genre feast from the golden age of the Hollywood musical. This episode film is uneven but there is a generous supply of truly fine numbers.
    The highlight now and always is "Limehouse Blues", a tragic ballet with Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer, one of the all-time greatest musical production numbers, masterfully directed by Vincente Minnelli. They are good in "This Heart Of Mine", too.
    The comedy bits are mostly forgettable. The gems are the witty satires with Virginia O'Brien and Judy Garland.
    Ziegfeld Follies was produced during 1944-1946, and it is striking to observe the familiar approach to death here. The film begins with Florenz Ziegfeld in heaven. In "The Babbitt And The Bromide" we follow the comedy duel of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly to the beyond. And of course, most unforgettably, there is "Limehouse Blues" with its sublime death dream sequence.
    The print screened was complete and clean but perhaps from a duped source without full Technicolor intensity.

Listening to Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, William Walton, 1948)

Laurence Olivier as Hamlet and Eileen Herlie as Hamlet's mother Gertrude in the most moving performance of the film.

In celebration of the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare.

I have been listening to soundtracks and scores of films lately, including that of William Walton to Laurence Olivier's profoundly melancholy film interpretation of Hamlet. I do not like Olivier's Hamlet performance, but it is interestingly original and unique. He is like a spoiled brat, with a smug and snobbish habitus. At 40 years, Olivier was too old to play Hamlet convincingly on screen. Eileen Herlie as Hamlet's mother Gertrude was 11 years younger. Olivier must have had an electrifying voltage in live performances on the stage. On screen he was often too big, over-projecting, overbearing, a ham actor, although he was conscious of this, and for instance in Hamlet did much to tone his presence down. The famous monologues became whispered interior monologues. But somehow he still feels like a slithery tomcat who has just had his fill of fresh cream and also his other appetites satisfied. Olivier could be great in performances in films such as Carrie, The Entertainer, and The Merchant of Venice. His grandeur is evident in the fact that he was always developing and curious to learn something new.

I played Hamlet just to listen to William Walton's magnificent score but could not help being deeply moved by Shakespeare's dialogue. To native English speakers it must be a special experience to hear so many beloved idioms, bons mots, and winged words that here appeared for the first time.

Act I

This above all — to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- Polonius, scene iii

But to my mind, — though I am native here
And to the manner born, — it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
- Hamlet, scene iv

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet, scene v

The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
- Hamlet, scene v

Act II

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
- Polonius, scene ii.

More matter with less art.
- Gertrude, scene ii.

Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
- Hamlet, from a letter read by Polonius, scene ii

Polonius: Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. — Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
Hamlet: Into my grave.
- scene ii

The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
- Hamlet, scene ii

Act III

To die, to sleep; —
To sleep, perchance to dream: — ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
- Hamlet, scene i

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
- Ophelia, scene i

I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
- Hamlet, scene iv

Act IV

Laertes: This nothing’s more than matter.
Ophelia: There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thought.
Laertes: A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
- scene v

Act V

The rest is silence.
- Hamlet, scene ii

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
- Horatio, scene ii

Finnland im Kampf

Anzeiger für die Stadt Bern, 30 Jan 1941

Finnland im Kampf / Ein kleines Volk wehrt sich: Finnlands Freiheitskampf. Ein Dokument vom heroischen Verteidigungswillen eines kleinen Volkes, geschaffen von zwei Schweizern in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Schweizer Hilfswerk für Finnland. CH 1940. D: E. O. Stauffer. DP: Charles Zbinden. S (Vertonung): Cinegram A. G. Genf. Visatone. Lizenz Marconi. The film was not released in Finland. 77 min
    Restored in August 2014 by Cinémathèque suisse (Lausanne). Kopierwerk: Digimage, Paris.
    Music excerpts include: Jean Sibelius: "Finlandia", "The Swan of Tuonela", and "Belshazzar's Feast".
    Featuring: Wäinö Aaltonen, flygflott 19 commander Bäckhammar, A. K. Cajander, minister Ecker (Swiss ambassador), Carl-August Ehrensvärd, Erik von Frenckell, Ragnar Grönvall, Haakon VII, Väinö Hakkila, Kristian X, Kustaa V, Kyösti Kallio, Heikki Kekoni, C. G. E. Mannerheim, Jussi Mäntynen, Johan Nykopp, Aitanga Oesch, Alli Paasikivi, J. K. Paasikivi, Aladár Paasonen, E. O. Stauffer, Väinö Tanner, Charles Zbinden.
     A 1940 French-language parallel version: La Bataille de la Finlande / Un petit peuple se défend / La Bataille de Finlande.
    A 1970 re-release version, 50 min
    A 1988 re-release version, at 16 mm, in a German version and a French version, 25 min
    A screener dvd of the 2014 Lausanne restoration viewed at home, 24 Nov 2014

Commissioned by the Schweizer Hilfswerk für Finnland two young Swiss, E. O. Stauffer and Charles Zbinden, traveled to Finland to cover the Winter War (30 November 1939 - 13 March 1940) equipped with a 35 mm camera and a 16 mm Bolex camera [source: Roland Cosandey, memo 2011]. The temperatures of minus 30-40 grades Centigrade did not scare them.

Erwin Oscar Stauffer was born in 1912, and he represented Berg & Heimat Film. Carl Zbinden was born in 1910, and he represented Peka-Film. They stayed in Finland from 16 February until 3 March, 1940. (Source: Martti Julkunen: Talvisodan kuva. Ulkomaisten sotakirjeenvaihtajien kuvaukset Suomesta 1939-40. Helsinki: Weilin+Göös, 1975. [The source there: Valtioneuvoston tiedoituskeskus (Matti Pyykkö) Helsingin poliisimestarille 3.3.1940 (VA Da. 4).] [Another source mentioned there: Erwin Stauffer: "Ein Finnland-Film von zwei Schweizer unter Todesgefahr aufgenommen". Schweizer Film-Revue 11.1.1941]. Stauffer and Zbinden were sportsmen, skiers, mountaineers, and mountain film makers. The Bolex camera was the best choice for extreme temperatures. [Source: Roland Cosandey, 28 Nov 2014].

There is an introduction to Finland and to events in the autumn 1939 before the war. We witness a modern total war with an all-out murderous bombing of civilians in order totally to demoralize the people. We see huge crowds of refugees. Most of this footage is from pre-existing sources.

The film then is structured as a travel story.

The first journey takes us to Lemetti. Finnish officers explain us the motti tactics with which courageous fighters can cut up a superior aggressor and destroy it bit by bit. The tactics was put into practice against the fearsome Blue Division, the 44th Division, infamous from the attack to Poland, now destroyed by Finns at the Raate road / Raatteen tie. The stunning footage of the war loot of the destroyed enemy is shot at Itä-Lemetti and perhaps Länsi-Lemetti

The second journey brings us to the bitter cold of Lapland, to Salla, where some of the most ferocious battles of the war took place. The Swiss film the Finnish trek to Salla and illustrate the counterattack to Joutsijärvi via military rehearsal footage. The Russians are beaten with heavy losses. Mannerheim inspects the troops and decorates Swedish volunteers.

The film is a heartfelt tribute to the heroism of the Finnish people. It is not a militaristic film, however. There is a profound sense of mourning about the devastation of the war. There is a human connection in the footage which always emphasizes the human face, often eloquently: the children at play, the Lotta women helping with air defense and medical care, the refugees who have lost their homes, the firemen facing superhuman challenges, the soldiers with their laconic attitude on the front, and the Russian prisoners-of-war who are treated as human beings, too. Stauffer and Zbinden also cover the Finnish madness of the sauna ritual of rolling naked in the snow at minus 30 grades temperature.

Frontline combat footage in war films, including documentaries, is almost always faked, and that is the case here, too. The combat scenes have been photographed at show battle demonstrations for foreign journalists and at military training centers.

Cinémathèque suisse has conducted a valuable work of restoration. Thanks are due to Roland Cosandey who has championed this film and reminded also us in Finland about it. There has been a 16 mm study print in Finland, but it has not been in general release.

Anzeiger für die Stadt Bern, 29 Jan 1941

Guy de Maupassant: Bel-Ami (a novel)

Bel-Ami. Illustration de Ferdinand Bac, gravure sur bois par G. Lemoine for Œuvres complètes illustrés de Guy de Maupassant (1906). Reproduction in Billeskov Jansen - Stangerup - Traustedt: Verdens litteraturhistorie 9

Guy de Maupassant: Bel-Ami. [A novel]. FR 1885. Finnish translation: Bel-Ami. Translated by Arvi Nuormaa (Kansanvalta 1926, Tammi 1944, 1955, 1980). Read in the 1945 Finnish edition, Helsinki: Tammi.
    Originally published as a serial in the Gil Blas magazine.

A satirical Bildungsroman (un roman d'apprentissage, un roman de formation, un roman d'éducation). The novel is told by a neutral narrator. The protagonist, the subject and the central consciousness is the journalist Georges Duroy, a veteran of the French military in Algeria. The action takes place in the recent present in Paris, and there are excursions to Cannes and Rouen / Canteleu.

Bel-Ami is the story of a playboy, arriviste and opportunist - "l'arriviste absolu". In the beginning, Georges is an insecure, poor country lad from Normandy who has interrupted his military service as he has interrupted his studies before. In Paris he discovers he is irresistible to women. The women protagonists include: - Miss Rachel, a dancer at Folies-Bergère - Mrs. Madeleine Forestier, the wife of Charles Forestier, an army buddy of Georges, a journalist - Mrs. Clotilde de Marelle whose husband is seldom at home - Mrs. Virginie Walter, the wife of the owner and editor-in-chief of the Vie Française newspaper - and Miss Suzanne Walter, their daughter. In the finale there is a wedding between Georges and Suzanne. Georges is rising fast to the top of the society. The result of this novel of education is what we in Finland call "a political broiler".

Georges is active and clever, but in the beginning the aspiring journalist cannot write well, and his famous articles are ghost-written by Madeleine Forestier whose approach connoisseurs recognize not only in the writings of Georges but also of Charles Forestier and even in a successor in another newspaper much later. In the beginning Clotilde helps Georges with money, which he later pays back.

Appearances are deceptive. Articles are ghost-written. Marriages are facades behind which affairs take place. The official government policy is a front for a completely different agenda. Thanks to the double play cunning investors can buy property at ridiculous prices, and when tables turn, they become the richest men in the world. The Vie Française newspaper is a formidable tool in the power game. Georges the playboy is at first a pawn in a big game, but he learns the rules of the game and is becoming a key player in his own right.

Sex in this story is both a means to an end and an end in itself. It is not all instrumental. There is true attraction between Georges and Rachel. There is genuine admiration between Madeleine and Georges. There is real tenderness in the affair of Clotilde and Georges. The only mostly instrumental relationship is between Virginie and Georges. The marriage of Georges and Suzanne is based on calculation but not exclusively; they really love one another.

There is cynical dimension in the story, but it would be wrong to call the novel all cynical. It offers a rich perspective into life. It tells about corruption in society, in the government, in financial affairs, in the news media, and in the institution of marriage. The novel is a satire. People get power, wealth, and sex, but do they find happiness? And do we find them admirable or even likeable?

As a contrast to the high society of Paris there is a rustical episode of a visit to the countryside in Normandy, as Madeleine insists in visiting the parents of Georges. But the cultural gap is insurmountable. Georges loves his parents, but his mother and Madeleine cannot stand each other.

The account of the sex drive is a celebration of the life force. The contrast to that is the naturalistic death sequence in Cannes of Charles Forestier who perishes with TB. There is also the warning example to Georges of his colleague at the newspaper, the ageing poet Norbert de Varenne, now bitter and lonely, urging Georges to get married and have children.

The contrast to the profane goings-on is in the episodes with the sacred, the holy. The main rendez-vous between Virginie and Georges takes place in a church where Virginie also gives her confession. A central setpiece is the artwork of the decade, a painting of Jesus walking on the water, bought by the newly rich Walter family. Belatedly they realize that Jesus looks like Georges.

The main power player behind the scenes is Monsieur Walter. There is a touch of anti-semitism in the way in which his Jewish background is emphasized.

"Bel-Ami c'est moi" said Maupassant who named his yachts Bel-Ami and Bel-Ami II. But there is something profoundly paradoxical, incredible and unconvincing in such an identification. Maupassant is no Bel-Ami. Rather, Bel-Ami is something Maupassant might have become. A dark, twisted, satirical and self-mocking double.

Leo Tolstoy wrote about Bel-Ami and Maupassant in general in his Fundamentalist "What Is Art?" period. If we skip his excesses there is something there that is difficult to ignore.

The almost 90 year old Finnish translation is still a page-turner. My French is not good enough for art fiction, but occasionally glancing at the original I had a feeling that the translation is faithful. The original novel is of course in public domain as is the delightful illustrated edition available for instance at the address
https://archive.org/stream/belamiillusdefer00maupuoft#page/n8/mode/1up