Sunday, March 16, 2008

ORDINARY PEOPLE and THE 400 BLOWS

I am sheepish to say that I had never seen the 1980 Oscar Award Winning film for "Best Feature" ORDINARY PEOPLE. Wow. WOW! What a truly amazing and intimate portrait of a family. Timothy Hutton was incredible. Powerful.

Also saw the first half of Francois Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS. (second half it tonight at the MTI theater). Matt would be an amazing college professor in film history. Well, he's been teaching me about the French New Wave movement. Back when THE 400 BLOWS was made (in 1959) Hollywood films all had a polished look to their lighting and acting styles that seemed heightened and "unreal". The Italian Neo-Realist movement and the French New Wave movement were reactions to this polished Hollywood style that featured more naturalism to the acting (and many times non-actors, in the Italian movement) and also didn't have to follow the strict three-act plot structure where "something important happens". Pretty cool.

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