In most arts, there’s a fine line between homage and imitation. Go too subtle and nobody gets the references. Go too hard and chances are, you get dinged for pandering.
This time around we land on a couple of films that may do a little of each (in my opinion; Sean might disagree), but they’re good enough that you don’t really care.
We start with Away From Her, a 2006 film written and directed by Sarah Polley. We’ve talked about Polley as an actress in The Sweet Hereafter way, way back in Episode 5. You may recall that the director of that film was Atom Egoyan. In this film Egoyan acted as an executive producer for Polley’s feature directorial debut. In this film Julie Christie is a woman whose Alzheimer’s is advancing to the point where she has to go into a nursing home. Her husband (Gordon Pinsent) has to deal with the guilt, the loneliness, and a few other unexpected consequences of that decision.
From there we go to 2021’s Bergman Island, written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve. Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth are a filmmaking couple who travel to Faro Island to attend a film screening and generally be Bergman Tourists. Krieps’ character is having trouble working, while Roth’s is very productive. In Bergman style, we see a film-within-a-fim, along with reminders that we, as audience members, are watching a film in progress. If that looks confusing, my apologies. But if you’re familiar with Bergman’s films, you’ll get it as soon as you see this movie.
COMING ATTRACTIONS:
Next time around, the influential director is Howard Hawks, and we look at another pair of modern-era films. We begin with Speed (1994), directed by Jan de Bont. (Some people call it The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down.) Then we move on to The Martian, from 2013 and directed by Ridley Scott. This may be the only science fiction movie that has an inaccuracy in it that has actually turned off some viewers completely. Fie on them, I say.
Join us, won’t you?