classic films on the big screen in the center of Hollywood? It was the event last week in Los Angeles during the first edition of the TCM Classic Film Festival . From April 22 to 25, a broad selection of feature and short films were presented in the center of the Mecca of American cinema. With prestigious guests (Martin Landau, Tony Curtis, Eva Marie Saint, Ernest Borgnine, Anjelica Huston ,...) and film screenings in beautiful restored copies, it was a unique opportunity rediscover the mythical works. And why the myth was the appointment: 2001, A Space Odyssey, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, A Star is Born, North by Northwest, Sunset Boulevard, and many other masterpieces were presented.
With full houses and a new edition already announced for next year, success was at the rendezvous. What may seem surprising, given that most of these films are available on DVD and have already been seen and reviewed. What drew the crowds was obviously the prospect to see these classics on the big screen and with an enthusiastic and passionate. Here, no ringing cell phone or neighbor gossip. A passion for film. And especially the opportunity to attend discussions before or after the movies, with actors, directors and others in prestige, which were told with anecdotes sometimes crusty, how these films were made.
Martin Landau, Anjelica Huston, Ben Mankiewicz on TCM Festival 2010 (photo credit: Mark Hill, TCM)
Such was the occasion of a discussion between Martin Landau and Eva Marie Saint just before the screening of North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock , and a meeting with the special effects Douglas Trumbull, who had about the 2001 Kubrick, for whom he designed the famous StarGate sequence. He took the opportunity to give its opinion on the current fashion of 3D * and talk about his work with Terrence Malick current.
'll also mention a projection of to Heaven ( Leave Her to Heaven, 1945), a beautiful thriller in color by John M. Stahl, in which Gene Tierney portrays masterfully seductive unbalanced. Darryl Hickman, actor who played the young boy whose character Tierney is keen to get rid to be alone with her lover, was present at the end of the session. He told the actress remained in character even outside shooting and it was not very pleasant with him (he was 13 at the time). He left the famous sequence of swimming in the lake, whose water was freezing, with pneumonia. He also spoke of the fate of child actors, and strength of character it took to resist the enormous pressures that swooped down on their frail shoulders. He told a humorous engulfed in the huge amount psychoanalysis that he had begun ...
Saturday night, the great hall of Grauman's Chinese Theater (1100 seats) was invaded by fans nostalgic for the heyday of John Travolta, a moving picture of The Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977). The director gave a few key elements about the making of the film, which required a lot of work for the sequences in the nightclub, and whose success surprised the studio completely which produced it. The rest is legend.
Finally, the last day Sunday and concluding on a high note with Forward-North American premiere of the new edition of Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). The film projected digitally, was accompanied by an original score by Alloy Orchestra, a group specializing in accompanying silent films, including percussion married to perfection with black and white of this seminal work of German cinema. The precious extra minutes found in Argentina recently gave a new richness to the film. If Metropolis has both influenced the history of cinema is of course because of its futuristic decor, its unusual characters (the woman-robot) but also for the game of Brigitte Helm, who moves from one character to another with an ease amazing.
Such an initiative, coming from a U.S. cable channel, gives confidence about the future of cinema and if the average age of participants was well over fifty, the public, it was of all ages. Hopefully the current rumors of a Paris edition of the event are based.
Jean-Christophe Manuceau
* note in passing a fascinating article by Roger Ebert about 3D, titled Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too) , thank you Chris!
