Category: 1960

Reel 58: This Woman’s Work

So many times, it seems, films where women are the central characters seem to treat those women as rather monolithic

That may not be quite the right word; let me amend that to say that they’re often treated the same way. Too many of them fail the Bechdel Test*, and that’s a pity.

In our continued journey Around the World in Twenty Films, the women in this film fail as well, but there’s a different dynamic involved so it’s not as glaringly obvious.

We start with 1960’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, a Japanese film directed by Mikio Naruse. It’s a look at the Geisha life that follows one of the veterans of the craft and her struggle to achieve a specific dream.

From there it’s a jump to Spain and 1988, for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, directed by Pedro Almodóvar. It’s a rather dark story played as a comedy, and you’ll have a bunch of fun following all the odd coincidences that allow this story to unfold the way it does.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

Our journey takes us back to Asia, with 2018’s Shoplifters, a Japanese film that manages to re-define family ties in a way you won’t necessarily argue with. And then it’s off to Korea and 2019’s Parasite, a film that won four Oscar awards—three of them in the big categories.

*for those not in the know, the Bechdel Test is defined as: a way of evaluating whether or not a film or other work of fiction portrays women in a way that is sexist or characterized by gender stereotyping. To pass the Bechdel test a work must feature at least two women, these women must talk to each other, and their conversation must concern something other than a man. It gets its name from the US cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who formulated the criteria in 1985 in a comic strip “The Rule “, part of the series Dykes To Watch Out For (1983–2008).

Reel 54: Les Crimes Français

We continue our trip Around the World in Twenty Films with a stopover in France, and a look at a couple of crime dramas, told largely from the criminals’ point of view.

In Part One we’re reviewing Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (À bout de souffle). This 1960 film stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. Belmondo is a petty criminal who’s graduated to cold-blooded murder. Seberg is his old girlfriend, in whose apartment he’s hiding. The ending to the film is something that’s been debated for years. Do we solve the mystery? Of course not; who are we? However, we do provide some additional information that either seals the deal…or it further muddies the water. We’ll leave that part to you.

From Breathless we make a ten-year jump to 1970’s Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle). No, we don’t know why most people refer to one film by its English title and the other by its French title. Just go with it. This epic-length film, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, stars Alain Delon. He and a host of other big-name French actors carry us through a complicated caper to steal jewelry.

Now, in Breathless the ending was (in our opinion) inevitable, but if you haven’t seen Le Cercle Rouge, it’s probably fair to say that you will be on the edge of your seat up until the ending, because everyone’s motivations are suspect. Also, you should see it before listening to the episode, because by now you should know that we are all about the spoilers.


COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

We reach the halfway mark with our world tour as we go to Germany. The films we’re screening show different ways that the Germans confront their past. First up is The Lives of Others, a 2006 drama that takes place on the other side of the Berlin wall. Then we move forward two years to review The Baader Meinhof Complex. You may have heard of the Baader Meinhof Phenomenon, which oddly enough is only loosely related to this film.

Reel 16: Foreign Exchange, Part 3

For this episode you’re going to need a lot of popcorn, movie fans, because this is an overstuffed show where we discuss a couple of very long movies. Combined, they’re clocking in at over five hours and change.

First up is the 1954 film Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa. It’s a favorite of both Sean and Claude, and pretty much anyone else who happens to be somebody. Seven Samurai‘s influence can be seen in many, many films, from the basic plot structure to the snumerous character tropes that are seen. 

Seven Samurai was so popular, in fact, that numerous people wanted to make an American version of it, and in 1960 The Magnificent Seven was made and released, with John Sturges at the helm. It’s worth noting here (because we didn’t mention it in the show) that The Magnificent Seven is one of those films that didn’t do very well, either with the critics or the box office, but it grew in stature over the years because of its star power and the soundtrack, and ultimately people came to respect the scriptwriting as well. 

These are two fantastic films that, despite their length, don’t waste a single frame of film and are well worth your time investment. 

COMING ATTRACTIONS: We close out this series with another Kurosawa film, Yojimbo, which became Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars.