| This week's Tribune reviews: The Apartment (1960)[7/10], Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)[7+/10] |
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| Friday, 11 July 2008 | |
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Apartment USA 1960 Starring : Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine Director : Billy Wilder ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Memories of Underdevelopment Cuba 1968 Starring : Sergio Corrrieri, Daisy Granados Director : Tomas Gutierrez Alea ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HAVING nabbed two Oscars for The Lost Weekend (1945) and one for Sunset Blvd. (1950), Billy Wilder instantly doubled his Academy Award haul when The Apartment dominated the 1961 ceremony. He became the first person to win for producing, directing and writing the same film - sharing the latter prize with his frequent collaborator I A L Diamond. A remarkable achievement, especially when one considers that in the directing 'race' he beat Alfred Hitchock (Psycho), and among the writing 'also-rans' was Marguerite Duras (Hiroshima, mon amour.) Nearly half a century later, The Apartment - a nimble, ahead-of-its-time combination of comedy, romance, drama and social satire - remains a much-loved favourite among film-makers, critics and audiences alike. Two newly-restored versions of the black-and-white, Cinemascope-ratio film are being released - one on 35mm, the other on digital - which at least gives audiences the freedom to choose. That's a refreshing, commendable step in an era when older films are too often only released via digital "prints". I say "older films" rather than "classics", because in many instances movies can fail to live up to their exalted reputations when they return to the big screen. And while The Apartment retains much of its humour, charm and tangy cynicism, only the most charitable viewer could realistically now describe it as a creative landmark in American cinema - Hitchcock, in short, was robbed. Wilder regular Jack Lemmon stars as C C Baxter, who works long hours at a monolithic Manhattan insurance company. While Baxter isn't an especially bright or talented employee, he is very popular with his bosses - because he owns a small, conveniently-located flat which is ideal for extra-marital liaisons. Baxter finds himself ascending the corporate ladder - but finds that the 'arrangement' with his superiors hampers his own private life when he becomes besotted with lift-girl Fran Kubelik (MacLaine). MacLaine's lovely, sympathetic performance (Elizabeth Taylor beat her to the Oscar) remains the freshest, most engaging aspect of The Apartment - the character's breezy straightforwardness all the more appealing given the sleazy, hypocritical behaviour which surrounds her. But while Wilder and Diamond's skewering of conservative corporate culture is suitably deft, their picture lacks the rapier severity of, say, Alexander McKendrick's The Sweet Smell of Success (or, in another medium, Hubert Selby Jr's novel The Demon.) It's much more of a mainstream-oriented crowdpleaser, tart of dialogue and knowingly genial as it explores contemporary mores. THIS week's other 1960s revival may prove harder to track down: Memories of Underdevelopment, is showing at the Barbican as part of a 'Cine Cuba' focus (itself an element of the current, London-wide Cuban Cultural Festival) before rolling out to "selected" arthouses across the country from next week. It's long been acclaimed as one of the key films from the country - the first from the nation to obtain worldwide exposure and USA release post-revolution - and indeed its director Tomas Gutierrez Alea has been described as the greatest of all Cuban filmmakers. As with The Apartment, however, while it's great to see the picture on the big screen again, not every critically-lauded movie from previous decades is a five-star masterpiece. And while Memories of Underdevelopment still stands up pretty well four decades on - as well as being accessible even to viewers who know little of Cuba's recent history - it's a rather self-satisfied and flashily "artistic" affair which reflects its solipsistic hero's world-view all too well. Based on the novel Memorias del subdesarrollo by Edmundo Desnoes - who pops up briefly as himself and is (amusingly) ridiculed - and set in 1961/2 Havana, this is essentially a character-study of 38-year-old Sergio (Corrieri), a once-affluent bourgeois intellectual whose family and (few) friends have fled to Miami in the wake of Fidel Castro's coup d'etat. Sergio remained - though largely because of inertia than anything resembling revolutionary fervour. Making a (meagre) living from renting out apartments, he spends his days smoking in his high-rise flat, peering out at the city through a telescope, flirting with women in cafes, and recalling past 'conquests' (which are presented in a 'living flashback' style that vaguely prefigures Annie Hall.) Structured as a discursive diary of Sergio's mental processes, the Nouvelle-Vague- influenced film (which deploys freeze-frames, captions, experimental techniques, on-screen-captions, etc) is punctuated with documentary footage of new events - and thus ambitiously aims to trace the psychological of a particular individual while also providing a socio-political snapshot of a country in radical transition. While he's hardly the most engaging of sympathetic of individuals, Corrieri's performance ensures Sergio makes for fascinating company, and, while the film has numerous slow patches where proceedings temporarily grind to a halt, it's an intriguing bold idea to examine 60s Cuba by concentrating on such a lethargic, old-before-his-time misfit who semi-unwittingly finds himself caught up in such a turbulent malestrom. Neil Young 1st July, 2008  THE APARTMENT : [7/10] : US 1960 : Billy WILDER : 125m (BBFC timing) : seen CineWorld cinema, Great Park, Birmingham : 5th June 2008 (press show - CinemaDays event) MEMORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT : [7+/10] : Memorias del subdesarrollo aka Inconsolable Memories : Cuba 1968 : Tomas GUTIERREEZ ALEA : 98 mins (BBFC timing) : seen at Side cinema, Newcastle, 9th May 2004 : public show : (original review) |
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