Post by Capo on May 9, 2007 23:33:31 GMT
Topaz
Alfred Hitchcock 1969 USA
A French secret agent travels to Cuba and comes across information implicating his own government.
Either incredibly measured or terribly messy, with characters coming and going, and the overall structure seeming to lack any sort of coherence or sense of direction whatsoever. It’s interesting for the most part even with its glaring weaknesses: for one, it shows how dependent Hitchcock was on the star system to create commercially and critically successful films; it is one of the few films in his oeuvre which lacks a persistent, consistent gaze through which we see events - the narrative meanders from country to country and character to character without a care in the world for empathy or emotion; and for all the espionage and intrigue, you'd expect some usual, explosive set-pieces, but there are none - instead, it's a wordy film which produces its real villain as late as the final act. At the end of the day, it's less Hitchcock than it is Le Carré, and even if it's no Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, it's still worth seeing if you're into that sort of thing. In fact, with its omniscient narrative, it's probably more like an early Tom Clancy novel.
Alfred Hitchcock 1969 USA
A French secret agent travels to Cuba and comes across information implicating his own government.
Either incredibly measured or terribly messy, with characters coming and going, and the overall structure seeming to lack any sort of coherence or sense of direction whatsoever. It’s interesting for the most part even with its glaring weaknesses: for one, it shows how dependent Hitchcock was on the star system to create commercially and critically successful films; it is one of the few films in his oeuvre which lacks a persistent, consistent gaze through which we see events - the narrative meanders from country to country and character to character without a care in the world for empathy or emotion; and for all the espionage and intrigue, you'd expect some usual, explosive set-pieces, but there are none - instead, it's a wordy film which produces its real villain as late as the final act. At the end of the day, it's less Hitchcock than it is Le Carré, and even if it's no Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, it's still worth seeing if you're into that sort of thing. In fact, with its omniscient narrative, it's probably more like an early Tom Clancy novel.