Going Steady
Encyclopedia
Going Steady: Film Writings 1968-1969 is the third collection of film reviews by the critic Pauline Kael
, comprising the years 1968-1969, when she first began her film-reviewing duties at The New Yorker
and which covers, " a crucial period of social and aesthetic change at the end of the sixties."
The collection for the most part consists of reviews of individual films, but includes one long essay, (which appeared originally in Harper's Magazine
), entitled "Trash, Art, and the Movies " , perhaps the closest Kael comes to a manifesto defining her personal aesthetics
in regards to films. In the essay, Kael dissects, compares, and contrasts the merits of "trash" films that are nevertheless entertaining, as well as "art" films that are uninteresting. In doing so, Kael lambastes "art" films such as Kubrick
's 2001: A Space Odyssey
, concluding her treatment of that particular film by declaring: "If big film directors are to get credit for doing badly what others have been doing brilliantly for years with no money, just because they've put it on a big screen, then businessmen are greater than poets and theft is art." The essay is divided into ten parts, ranging from discussions of The Thomas Crown Affair
to Petulia
. Kael's overriding theme is to dismantle the intellectual pretences of those who deride films deemed to be "trash" on the basis of dubious aesthetic concerns, notwithstanding the entertainment appeal a particular "trash" film might possess.
Other notable reviews include Kael's treatment of the Norman Mailer
film Wild 90
, its relation to cinéma vérité
, and the implications of that particular film-making technique.
This book is out-of-print in the United States, but is still published by Marion Boyars Publishers
of the United Kingdom.
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
, comprising the years 1968-1969, when she first began her film-reviewing duties at The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
and which covers, " a crucial period of social and aesthetic change at the end of the sixties."
The collection for the most part consists of reviews of individual films, but includes one long essay, (which appeared originally in Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
), entitled "Trash, Art, and the Movies " , perhaps the closest Kael comes to a manifesto defining her personal aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
in regards to films. In the essay, Kael dissects, compares, and contrasts the merits of "trash" films that are nevertheless entertaining, as well as "art" films that are uninteresting. In doing so, Kael lambastes "art" films such as Kubrick
Kubrick
is a line of collectible block-style figures and associated products created by Japanese toy company MediCom Toy Inc. Kubrick figures are produced in three scales, designated as 100% , 400% , and 1000%...
's 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
, concluding her treatment of that particular film by declaring: "If big film directors are to get credit for doing badly what others have been doing brilliantly for years with no money, just because they've put it on a big screen, then businessmen are greater than poets and theft is art." The essay is divided into ten parts, ranging from discussions of The Thomas Crown Affair
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968 film)
The Thomas Crown Affair is a 1968 film by Norman Jewison starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. It was nominated for two Academy Awards and won the Award for Best Song with Michel Legrand's "Windmills of Your Mind"...
to Petulia
Petulia
Petulia is a British drama film directed by Richard Lester. The screenplay by Lawrence B. Marcus is based on the novel Me and the Arch Kook Petulia by John Haase...
. Kael's overriding theme is to dismantle the intellectual pretences of those who deride films deemed to be "trash" on the basis of dubious aesthetic concerns, notwithstanding the entertainment appeal a particular "trash" film might possess.
Other notable reviews include Kael's treatment of the Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
film Wild 90
Wild 90
Wild 90 is a 1968 experimental film directed and produced by U.S. novelist Norman Mailer, who also plays the starring role.-Plot:A trio of Mafia gangsters – The Prince , Cameo and Twenty Years Wild 90 is a 1968 experimental film directed and produced by U.S. novelist Norman Mailer, who also...
, its relation to cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
, and the implications of that particular film-making technique.
Movies reviewed
- China is NearChina is NearChina is Near is a 1967 Italian drama film written and directed by Marco Bellocchio. It is a satirical movie about the struggle for political power...
- " Bellochio's talent - so distinctive that already it resembles genius - flourishes within the confines of intricate plot. China Is Near has the boudoir complications of a classic comic operaComic operaComic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
...Bellochio uses the underside of family life for borderline horror and humor. His people are so awful they're funny." - Wild 90Wild 90Wild 90 is a 1968 experimental film directed and produced by U.S. novelist Norman Mailer, who also plays the starring role.-Plot:A trio of Mafia gangsters – The Prince , Cameo and Twenty Years Wild 90 is a 1968 experimental film directed and produced by U.S. novelist Norman Mailer, who also...
- " the worst movie that I've stayed to see all the way through...Basically MailerNorman MailerNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
uses cinéma-vérité methods as a shortcut - a way of making a movie without going to too much effort, and of providing the raw look of 'life'. " - How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your LifeHow to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your LifeHow to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life is a 1968 film directed by Fielder Cook. It stars Dean Martin and Stella Stevens.-Cast:*Dean Martin as David Sloane*Stella Stevens as Carol Corman*Eli Wallach as Harry Hunter*Anne Jackson as Muriel Laszlo...
- " The dialogue has the desperate, strained sound of burned-out gag-writers' dialogue; the wisecracks come out sourcracks - nastiness pretending to be low-down wisdom." - SebastianSebastian (1968 film)Sebastian is a 1968 British film directed by David Greene, produced by Michael Powell, Herbert Brodkin and Gerry Fisher, and distributed by Paramount Pictures...
- " a trivial little movie, a London-set comedy-thriller..with not much in the way of comedy and less in the way of thrills. It's just classy pulp, but the whole thing goes by before one has time to begin to hate it." - Poor CowPoor CowPoor Cow is a 1967 British drama film directed by Ken Loach, based on Nell Dunn's novel of the same name.Although Malcolm McDowell is listed in the credits on the commercial release of the film, the scenes in which he appeared were deleted....
- " The trouble with actors when you hardly know they're acting is that they don't hold your attention. Several of the minor players show a more theatrical zest for their roles, and, seen against the stolidly modulated, undramatic acting of the principals, these conventionally acted bits stand out like music-hall turns.." - The Fox - " is monumentally unimaginative, but it certainly has been mounted; the color photography is banally handsome, and there's a tricky Lalo SchifrinLalo SchifrinLalo Schifrin is an Argentine composer, pianist and conductor. He is best known for his film and TV scores, such as the "Theme from Mission: Impossible". He has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations...
score to supply excitation...It's easy to sink into and soak up, and it may be a popular success, because many people will enjoy the sexy romance.." - Planet of the ApesPlanet of the Apes (1968 film)Planet of the Apes is a 1968 American science fiction film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. The film stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly and Linda Harrison...
- " is a very entertaining movie...It isn't a difficult or subtle movie; you can just sit back and enjoy it...Franklin SchaffnerFranklin SchaffnerFranklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
has thought out the action in terms of the wide screen, and he uses space and distance dramatically. Leon ShamroyLeon ShamroyLeon Shamroy, A.S.C. was an American film cinematographer. Together with Charles Lang, he holds the record for most number of Academy Award nominations for Cinematography...
's excellent color photography helps to make the vast exteriors, (shot in UtahUtahUtah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
and ArizonaArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
) an integral part of the meaning." - Sweet NovemberSweet November (1968 film)Sweet November is a 1968 romantic drama film written by Herman Raucher and starring Sandy Dennis, Anthony Newley and Theodore Bikel. The film had originally been written as a stage play by Raucher, but before it was even performed, Universal Pictures got wind of the project and paid Raucher...
- "Sandy DennisSandy DennisSandra Dale “Sandy” Dennis was an American theater and film actress. In 1966, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.-Early life:...
spews out such wisdom as People must be remembered, Charlie. Otherwise, they were never here at all. All we are the people who remember us. She's an icky little rabbit Babbit..I'm sure pictures like this give people pimples." - Doctor FaustusDoctor Faustus (1967 film)Doctor Faustus is a 1967 film adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, written in 1588. The first theatrical film version of a Marlowe play, it starred and was directed by Richard Burton, , who played the title character Faustus...
- " BurtonRichard BurtonRichard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
gives a dead, muffled reading.." - IntoleranceIntolerance (film)Intolerance is a 1916 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and is considered one of the great masterpieces of the Silent Era. The three-and-a-half hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines each separated by several centuries: A contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; a...
- " one of the two or three most influential movies ever made, and I think it is also the greatest...crosscutting back and forth to ancient BabylonBabylonBabylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, sixteenth-century France, the modern American slums, and CalvaryCalvaryCalvary or Golgotha was the site, outside of ancient Jerusalem’s early first century walls, at which the crucifixion of Jesus is said to have occurred. Calvary and Golgotha are the English names for the site used in Western Christianity...
...Intolerance is like an enormous, extravagantly printed collection of fairy tales. ..The movie is the greatest extravaganza and the greatest folly in movie history." - Charlie BubblesCharlie BubblesCharlie Bubbles is a British film of 1967 starring Billie Whitelaw and Albert Finney, and also featuring a young Liza Minnelli. It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.The film made great play of its...
- " The movie is glum Charlie's life seen through his eyes..This unfertile ground was already plowed to dust in La NotteLa NotteLa Notte is a 1961 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It is considered the central film of a trilogy beginning with L'avventura and ending with L'Eclisse.- Plot :...
(and Michelangelo AntonioniMichelangelo AntonioniMichelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
managed to do a few other things besides).." - The Two of Us - " there's so little going on in The Two of Us that one has to begin thinking of it as an idyll-fable, which has never been my idea of a good time."
- Bye Bye BravermanBye Bye BravermanBye Bye Braverman is a 1968 American comedy film directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Herbert Sargent was adapted from the 1964 novel To An Early Grave by Wallace Markfield...
- " Though the movie isn't meanspirited, it isn't very satirical either; it's crudely affectionate, and often rather gross. ..George SegalGeorge SegalGeorge Segal is an American film, stage and television actor.-Early life:George Segal, Jr. was born in 1934 Great Neck, Long Island, New York, the son of Fannie Blanche and George Segal, Sr. He was educated at George School, a private Quaker preparatory boarding school near Newtown, Bucks County,...
may try a little too hard, but it's good to see him in a role that gives him a chance to stretch himself " - The Good, the Bad and the UglyThe Good, the Bad and the UglyThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles. The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone...
- "everything is made vast because Europeans love the wide-open spaces in our Westerns... if a man crosses a street in Sergio LeoneSergio LeoneSergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
's Santa Fe, the street looks half a mile wide; a farmer's hut has rooms opening into rooms into the distance, like the Metropolitan Museum..The bad men must then be enormously, peposterously evil - and each wound inflicted is insanely garish. Yet, stupid as it all is, and gruesome, the change of scale is rather fascinating." - A Matter of InnocencePretty Polly (film)Pretty Polly, also known as A Matter of Innocence, is a 1967 British film, directed by Guy Green and based on the short story, Pretty Polly Barlow, by Noël Coward. It stars Hayley Mills, Shashi Kapoor, Trevor Howard, Brenda De Banzie...
- "On paper, Pretty Polly probably looked like a winner...But it's a mess..[though] Hayley MillsHayley MillsHayley Mills is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Tiger Bay , the Academy Juvenile Award...
is surprisingly good, and, as the gigolo, Shashi KapoorShashi KapoorShashi Kapoor , born Balbir-Raj Prithviraj Kapoor on 18 March 1938 in Calcutta , is an award-winning Indian film actor and film producer. He has also been film director and assistant director in Hindi Films. He is a member of the Kapoor family, a film dynasty in India's Bollywood cinema...
reads his parodistic lines with lovely comic inflections." - We Still Kill the Old WayWe Still Kill the Old WayWe Still Kill the Old Way is a 1967 Italian crime film directed by Elio Petri. It was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for Best Screenplay. It is based on the novel To Each His Own by Leonardo Sciascia.-Cast:...
- " Based on Leonardo SciasciaLeonardo SciasciaLeonardo Sciascia was an Italian writer, novelist, essayist, playwright and politician. Some of his works have been made into films, including Open Doors and Il giorno della civetta .- Biography :Sciascia was born in Racalmuto, Sicily...
's A Man's Blessing , We Still Kill the Old Way is a thriller with a theme..probably influenced by KafkaFranz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
..The director Elio Petri keeps one tense and uneasy, wary, expecting the worst at each moment. His method is indirect, and he exposes entangled social relations without comment...Gian Maria VolontéGian Maria VolontèGian Maria Volonté was an Italian actor. He is perhaps most famous outside of Italy for his roles as the main villain in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.-Early life:Volonté was born in Milan, and graduated in Rome in 1957...
is one of those rare actors who are so believable on camera that one is caught up in the character rather than in the performance." - The Secret War of Harry FriggThe Secret War of Harry FriggThe Secret War of Harry Frigg is a 1968 comedy film set in World War II. It was directed by Jack Smight and starred Paul Newman.-Plot:Several brigadier generals are unexpectedly taken prisoner by the Italians while in the sauna - which is a public relations disaster. The generals are held in an...
- " a stillborn service comedy.." - 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia - " the whole damned thing looks like a television commercial. Dudley MooreDudley MooreDudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
, one of the Beyond the FringeBeyond the FringeBeyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller. It played in London's West End and then on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s, and is widely regarded as seminal to the rise of satire in 1960s Britain.-The...
group, had seemed to be a funny man - and in BedazzledBedazzled (1967 film)Bedazzled is a 1967 British comedy film directed and produced by Stanley Donen. It was written by and stars Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. It is a comic retelling of the Faust legend, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s...
he was funny. Now he has become one of those awful multiple talents - cavorting like crazy...Some of the jokes aren't bad, but they don't further the plot.. " - Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush - " Banal when it's tender and when it focuses on the hero..the movie is rather charming when it's absurd and farcical, and there are several amusing little girls, especially a blank-eyed kewpie named Adrienne PostaAdrienne PostaAdrienne Posta is an English film and television actress and singer, prominent during the 1960s and 1970s. She adopted the surname Posta in 1966. She recorded a number of singles. She is now semi-retired and works as a teacher in the Midlands and at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts...
.." - The ProducersThe Producers (1968 film)The Producers is a 1968 American satirical dark comedy cult classic film written and directed by Mel Brooks. The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop...
- " Mel BrooksMel BrooksMel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
as writer relies upon wild ideas, but he doesn't yet know how to join them and make them grow into a comic structure...That's not screenwriting;it's gagwriting...Terrible as this picture is, I enjoyed parts of it, because I love satire of the theatre. And for satire of the theatre as good as Brooks' gags at their best, one can endure even the rank incompetence and stupidity of most of The Producers. " - Up the JunctionUp the Junction (1968 film)Up the Junction is a 1968 British film directed by Peter Collinson and starring Dennis Waterman, Suzy Kendall, Adrienne Posta, Maureen Lipman and Liz Fraser. It is based on the book of the same name by Nell Dunn and was adapted by Roger Smith...
- " The material is based on the writer Nell DunnNell Dunn-Early years:Dunn was born in London and educated at a convent, which she left at the age of fourteen. Although she came from an upper class background, in 1959 she moved to Battersea and made friends in the neighbourhood and worked for a time in a sweets factory...
's experiences: the upper class heroine takes a factory job and goes to live among the working class, seeking the vitality that is missing in her own inhibited group...She believes that in the working class, you're free to be yourself ...if we can forget this drool and project into the picture, we can make it a little more interesting..The boy's role is well written and is exceedingly well played by Dennis WatermanDennis WatermanDennis Waterman is a British actor and singer, best known for his tough-guy roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks.-Early life:...
; as a little factory girl who gets pregnant, Adrienne PostaAdrienne PostaAdrienne Posta is an English film and television actress and singer, prominent during the 1960s and 1970s. She adopted the surname Posta in 1966. She recorded a number of singles. She is now semi-retired and works as a teacher in the Midlands and at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts...
's as lively as a baby Bette DavisBette DavisRuth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
. " - A Midsummer Night's Dream - " remarkably modest and unpretentious...photographing the dances fluidly within the limited space, with unobtrusive camera shifts cut to the musical beat. The result is lovely..The dancers, fortunately for the camera, are extraordinarily beautiful - especially the principals (Arthur Mitchell as PuckPuck (Shakespeare)Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream that was based on the ancient figure in English mythology, also called Puck. Puck is a clever and mischievous elf and personifies the trickster or the wise knave...
, Suzanne FarrellSuzanne FarrellSuzanne Farrell is an eminent 20th century ballerina and the founder of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C....
as Titania, and Edward Villella as Oberon).." - BenjaminBenjamin (film)Benjamin is a 1968 French comedy film directed by Michel Deville who co-wrote screenplay with Nina Companéez...
- " harmless, rather pretty little nothing of a movie...It's the kind of movie in which the dashing, devastating Don Juan (Michel Piccoli, glowering romantically) is - oldest cliché in the sophisticated-sex business - conquered by the girl who pretends to be indifferent to him ( Catherine DeneuveCatherine DeneuveCatherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
, who is given stupid, stilted lines..) " - No Way to Treat a LadyNo Way to Treat a LadyNo Way to Treat a Lady is a darkly comic thriller directed by Jack Smight, with a screenplay by John Gay adapted from William Goldman's novel of the same name. The film starred Rod Steiger, Lee Remick, George Segal and Eileen Heckart...
- " basically crummy stuff, entertaining at some degraded level - maybe because it isn't as bad as it might be. It's bad enough...Except for the flashback scenes in The PawnbrokerThe PawnbrokerThe Pawnbroker is a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant which tells the story of Sol Nazerman, a concentration camp survivor who suffers flashbacks of his past Nazi imprisonment as he tries to cope with his daily life operating a pawn shop in East Harlem...
I've never seen Rod SteigerRod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
so bad, so uninventively, ordinary bad as he is in his undisguised role in this movie, and he's only a little better in his disguises, acting high on the hog. " - La ChinoiseLa ChinoiseLa Chinoise is a 1967 French political film directed by Jean-Luc Godard about young revolutionaries in Paris.-Plot summary:La Chinoise is a loose adaptation, if not parody, of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1872 novel, The Possessed...
- " Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
is, at the moment, the most important single force keeping the art of the movie alive - that is to say, responsive to the modern world, moving, reaching out for new themes...Véronique (Anne WiazemskyAnne WiazemskyPrincess Anne Wiazemsky is a French actress and novelist, of the Russian Rurikid family of Princes Vyazemsky-Counts Levashov. Through her mother, she is the granddaughter of François Mauriac. She appeared in Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthazar and in Godard's films La Chinoise and Week End...
), is a new version of Godard's unreachable, perfidious girl...La Chinoise is a satire of new political youth, but a satire from within, based on observation, and a satire that loves its targets.." - Funny GirlFunny Girl (film)Funny Girl is a 1968 romantic musical film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart was adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title...
- " one of the great pleasures of moviegoing: watching incandescent people up there, more intense and dazzling than people we ordinarily encounter in life..The end of Funny Girl..is a bravura stroke, a gorgeous piece of showing off, that makes one intensely, brilliantly aware of the star as performer and of the star's pride in herself as performer. The pride is justified." - Week End - " When Godard is viciously funny, he's on top of things, and he scores and scores, and illuminates as he scores..his fervor and rage are so imaginatively justified that they are truly apocalyptic. It is in the further reaches - in the appalling, ambivalent revolutionary vision - that Weekend is a great, original work...the barbarousness of these bourgeois - their greed and the self-love they project onto their possessions - is exact and funny...The excellent score, by Antoine DuhamelAntoine DuhamelAntoine Duhamel , is a French composer, orchestra conductor and music teacher.Born in Valmondois in the Val-d'Oise département of France, Antoine Duhamel came from a cinematic family and studied music at the Sorbonne. He wrote the score for his first film in 1960, going on to work with many of...
, is ominous and dramatic; the pulse of the music helps to carry us through some of the weaker passages..." - The Charge of the Light BrigadeThe Charge of the Light Brigade (1968 film)The Charge of the Light Brigade is a 1968 British war film made by Woodfall Film Productions and distributed by United Artists . It was directed by Tony Richardson and produced by Neil Hartley....
- " an ambitious, desperate, flashy movie that can't seem to find an appropriate emotional tone. Trying for Goya-like scenes of the miseries of the poor and the floggings and humiliations of the common soldiers, Richardson achieves careful clichés - the illustrated suffering of that age. " - Les BichesLes Biches (1968 film)Les Biches is a 1968 French film starring Stephane Audran, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and Jacqueline Sassard. It was directed by Claude Chabrol, and depicts a tortured lesbian relationship between the Audran and Sassard characters. Audran won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 18th Berlin...
- " [an] empty attempt at classy eroticism...The movie looks like those imitation Marie LaurencinMarie LaurencinMarie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. -Biography:Laurencin was born in Paris, where she was raised by her mother and lived much of her life. At 18, she studied porcelain painting in Sèvres...
s in hotel powder rooms. This vulgarly exquisite style gives the show away; the intentions of the movie are as vacuous and enervated as the characters." - You Are What You EatYou Are What You Eat (film)You Are What You Eat is a 1968 American counter culture semi-documentary movie that attempts to capture the essence of the 1960s flower power hippie era and the Haight & Ashbury scene...
- " an ugly , stupid instant movie..the aesthetic equivalent of mugging the audience." - DuffyDuffy (film)Duffy is a 1968 Anglo-American comedy film directed by Robert Parrish and starring James Coburn, James Mason, Susannah York and James Fox.-Plot:...
- " a cheat at every level.." - CharlyCharlyCharly is a 1968 American film directed by Ralph Nelson. The drama stars Cliff Robertson , Claire Bloom, Lilia Skala, Leon Janney and Dick Van Patten and tells the story of a mentally retarded bakery worker who is the subject of an experiment to increase human intelligence...
- " this cheap fantasy with its built-in sobs...Charly may indeed represent the unity of schlockSchlockSchlock is an English word of Yiddish origin meaning "something cheap, shoddy, or inferior "In the field of science, "schlock" refers to shoddy or unreliable results....
form and schlock content - true schlock art." - Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet (1968 film)Romeo and Juliet is a 1968 British-Italian cinematic adaptation of the William Shakespeare play of the same name.The film was directed and co-written by Franco Zeffirelli, and stars Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design; it was also...
- " Franco ZeffirelliFranco ZeffirelliFranco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
's version is lusty and rambunctious, and busty, of course, and he provides a fashion show in codpieces....the luscious Nino RotaNino RotaNino Rota was an Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti...
music is poured on in emotional torrents...It's a new development, in a way - teen-agers as grand and passionate. The movie gets so theatrical, in a nineteenth-century melodramatic fashion, that it begins to be rather fascinating. " - I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! - " Toklas is thin - no more than an extended television situation comedy - but it has some of the appeal of the Harold LloydHarold LloydHarold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
comedies (especially one that Preston SturgesPreston SturgesPreston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...
wrote for him), and it makes you laugh surprisingly often. It's the best of Peter SellersPeter SellersRichard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
's recent vehicles. Sellers turns stereotypes into characters; he embodies the stereotype totally, so that we see the man." - Finian's RainbowFinian's Rainbow (film)Finian's Rainbow is a 1968 American musical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola that stars Fred Astaire and Petula Clark. The screenplay by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy is based on their 1947 stage musical of the same name.-Plot:...
- " a socially conscious whimsey-fantasy operetta...this big, clean family musical isn't so bad...and Petula ClarkPetula ClarkPetula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
is lovely in her fist big number - though the spectres of Jeanette MacDonaldJeanette MacDonaldJeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
and Nelson EddyNelson EddyNelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
hover over her duets with the stolid Don FrancksDon FrancksDonald Harvey Francks or Iron Buffalo is a Canadian actor, vocalist and jazz musician.- Life and work :Francks was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a drummer, poet, native nations champion, motorcyclist, author and peace activist...
. " - The Subject Was RosesThe Subject Was Roses (film)The Subject Was Roses is a 1968 American drama film directed by Ulu Grosbard. The screenplay by Frank D. Gilroy is based on his 1964 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same title.The film stars Patricia Neal, Martin Sheen and Jack Albertson...
- " although the play concerns a family of three talking together in an apartment, the director never avails himself of the opportunities that movies provide for conversational intimacy ..." - Star!Star! (film)Star! is a 1968 American musical film directed by Robert Wise. The screenplay by William Fairchild is based upon the life and career of British performer Gertrude Lawrence.-Plot:...
- " One gets the feeling that Robert WiseRobert WiseRobert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
the director, and the writer, William Fairchild, didn't really like Gertrude LawrenceGertrude LawrenceGertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
very much, and that, rather than make the usual star-bio, they were trying for a dispassionate look at her ...They've made her a bitch, all right, but they've failed to make her a star." - BullittBullittBullitt is a 1968 American police procedural film starring Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Vaughn. It was directed by Peter Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. The story was adapted for the screen by Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner, based on the 1963 novel Mute Witness by Robert L....
- " efficiently made and extremely well-edited but basically uninteresting..Steve McQueenSteve McQueenTerrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...
plays the police-officer hero seriously and well, but I prefer the fun and romantic fantasy of his Thomas Crown...San Francisco is used for the interiors as well as the exteriors, and is shown to best advantage in a spectacular chase sequence, with cars bouncing up and down those witty steep streets." - The Boston StranglerThe Boston Strangler (film)The Boston Strangler is a 1968 film based on the true story of the Boston Strangler and the book by Gerold Frank. It was directed by Richard Fleischer, and stars Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo, the strangler, and Henry Fonda as John S...
- " the movie offers no illumination of human conduct, nothing that would help us understand the nature of the crimes or the criminal - only a facile account of split personality that is not only unilluminating but unconvincing." - Pretty PoisonPretty Poison (film)Pretty Poison is a thriller film directed by Noel Black, starring Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld, about an ex-convict and high school cheerleader who commit a series of crimes....
- " This is a remarkable first feature film by a gifted young American , Noel BlackNoel BlackNoel Black is an American film and television director, screenwriter, and producer.Black was born in Chicago, Illinois. He won awards at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival for an 18-minute short subject filmed in 1965 called Skaterdater. It had no dialogue, but used music and sound effects to advance...
...Black comes from the same film school (U.C.L.A.) as Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
, but his style is less commercial and less forced..there's not a shot in the movie which doesn't clearly and directly contribute to the theme." - Secret CeremonySecret CeremonySecret Ceremony is a 1968 film, produced in Britain and released by Universal Pictures. It stars Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, Robert Mitchum, Pamela Brown, and Peggy Ashcroft. Joseph Losey directed, from a script by George Tabori.-Plot:...
- BarbarellaBarbarella (film)Barbarella is a 1968 Franco-Italian science fiction film based on Jean-Claude Forrest's French Barbarella comics. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda, who was Vadim's wife at the time.-Plot:...
- The Lion in WinterThe Lion in Winter (1968 film)The Lion in Winter is a 1968 historical drama made by Avco Embassy Pictures, based on the Broadway play by James Goldman. It was directed by Anthony Harvey and produced by Joseph E...
- The Shoes of the FishermanThe Shoes of the FishermanThe Shoes of the Fisherman is a 1963 novel by the Australian author Morris West, as well as a 1968 film based on the novel.The book reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for adult fiction on 30 June 1963, and became the #1 bestselling novel in the United States for that year, according...
- The Split
- HeadHead (film)Head is a 1968 psychedelic comedy-adventure major motion picture, starring TV group The Monkees , and distributed by Columbia Pictures...
- Yellow Submarine
- JoannaJoanna (film)Joanna is a 1968 British drama film directed by Michael Sarne. It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.-Cast:* Geneviève Waïte - Joanna...
- FacesFaces (film)Faces is a 1968 drama film, directed by John Cassavetes and starring John Marley, Cassavetes' wife Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel and Lynn Carlin, who both received Academy Award nominations for this film....
- Oliver!Oliver! (film)Oliver! is a 1968 British musical film directed by Carol Reed. The film is based on the stage musical Oliver!, with book, music and lyrics written by Lionel Bart. The screenplay was written by Vernon Harris....
- The Killing of Sister GeorgeThe Killing of Sister GeorgeThe Killing of Sister George is a 1964 play by Frank Marcus that was adapted as a 1968 film directed by Robert Aldrich.- Stage version :Sister George is a beloved character in the popular radio series Applehurst, a nurse who ministers to the medical needs and personal problems of the local villagers...
- The FixerThe Fixer (film)The Fixer is a 1968 British drama film based on the 1966 semi-biographical novel of the same name, written by Bernard Malamud.-Plot:Like the book, the film's main character Yakov Bok, a Jew living in the Russian Empire, who was unjustly imprisoned based on prejudice and the charge of having...
- The Girl on a MotorcycleThe Girl on a MotorcycleThe Girl on a Motorcycle , also known as Naked Under Leather, is a 1968 British-French film starring Alain Delon, Marianne Faithfull, Roger Mutton, Marius Goring, and Catherine Jourdan. It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of...
- A Flea in Her EarA Flea in Her EarA Flea in Her Ear is a play by Georges Feydeau written in 1907, at the height of the Belle Époque.-Plot:...
- The MagusThe Magus (film)The Magus is a 1968 film British mystery film directed by Guy Green. The screenplay was written by John Fowles, based on his novel of the same name. It starred Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, Candice Bergen and Anna Karina...
- The Birthday PartyThe Birthday Party (film)The Birthday Party is a 1968 British drama film directed by William Friedkin, based on an unpublished screenplay by 2005 Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, which he adapted from his own play The Birthday Party, considered an example of Pinter's "comedy of menace".-Plot:The protagonist is a lodger in his...
- GreetingsGreetings (film)Greetings is a 1968 film directed by Brian De Palma. The film, which featured a young Robert De Niro in his first major role, is a satirical film about men avoiding the Vietnam War draft....
- Shame
- Ice Station ZebraIce Station ZebraIce Station Zebra is a 1963 thriller novel written by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. This was the last of MacLean's classic sequence of first person narratives which began with Night Without End, and represented a return to that earlier novel's Arctic setting...
- CandyCandy (1968 film)Candy is a 1968 sex farce film directed by Christian Marquand based on the 1958 novel by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, from a screenplay by Buck Henry. The film satirizes pornographic stories through the adventures of its naive heroine, Candy, played by Ewa Aulin...
- Chitty Chitty Bang BangChitty Chitty Bang BangChitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car is a children's book written by Ian Fleming for his son Caspar, with illustrations by John Burningham...
- The Sea GullThe Sea GullThe Sea Gull is a 1968 British-American-Greek drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Moura Budberg is adapted from Anton Chekhov's classic 1896 play The Seagull....
- The Night They Raided Minsky'sThe Night They Raided Minsky'sThe Night They Raided Minsky's is a 1968 musical comedy film directed by William Friedkin and produced by Norman Lear. It is a fictional account of the invention of the striptease at Minsky's Burlesque in 1925...
- The SergeantThe Sergeant (film)The Sergeant is an American drama film starring Rod Steiger and John Phillip Law, directed by John Flynn, and released by Warner Brothers.-External links:**...
- The BrotherhoodThe Brotherhood (1968 film)The Brotherhood is a 1968 crime drama film, directed by Martin Ritt. It stars Kirk Douglas, Irene Papas, Alex Cord, and Luther Adler. The script was by Lewis John Carlino....
- The Stalking MoonThe Stalking MoonThe Stalking Moon is a 1968 western film in Technicolor starring Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint. It is directed by Robert Mulligan and based on the novel of the same name by T.V. Olsen.-Plot:...
- Simon of the Desert
- Model ShopModel Shop (film)Model Shop is a 1969 film by French writer-director Jacques Demy starring Gary Lockwood, Alexandra Hay and Anouk Aimée and featuring a guest appearance by Spirit who also recorded the soundtrack...
- Mayerling
- Hell in the PacificHell in the PacificHell in the Pacific is a 1968 World War II film starring Lee Marvin and Toshirō Mifune, the only two actors in the entire film. It was directed by John Boorman....
- Stolen KissesStolen KissesStolen Kisses is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut. It continues the story of the character Antoine Doinel, whom Truffaut had previously depicted in The 400 Blows and the short film Antoine and Colette...
- Three in the AtticThree in the AtticThree in the Attic is a 1968 movie, starring Christopher Jones and Yvette Mimieux, with Judy Pace and Maggie Thrett. Nan Martin, John Beck, and Eve McVeagh appear in supporting roles.-Premise:...
- The Night of the Following DayThe Night of the Following DayThe Night of the Following Day is a 1968 film starring Marlon Brando, Pamela Franklin, Richard Boone and Rita Moreno. Filmed in France, around Le Touquet it tells a simple story: a kidnapped heiress is held hostage in a remote beachhouse on the coast of France.The film starts with Dupont's...
- If...
- The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (film)The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a 1969 drama film, based on the novel of the same name by Muriel Spark.The novel was turned into a play by Jay Presson Allen, which opened on Broadway in 1968, with Zoe Caldwell in the title role, a performance for which she won a Tony Award...
This book is out-of-print in the United States, but is still published by Marion Boyars Publishers
Marion Boyars Publishers
Marion Boyars Publishers is an independent publishing company located in Great Britain, publishing books that focus on the humanities and social sciences.-External links:*...
of the United Kingdom.