prelibation
Joined Dec 2019
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prelibation's rating
The complain I hear most about old movies is the "slow pace" . The audience was conditions over the last decades to faster and faster action, cuts lasting a fraction of a second, jumps from scene to scene that can make one nauseous. But nothing like this happens in real life and a more pedestrian pace is not only more realistic, but much more rewarding.
So if we ignore the "slow pace" we have here a good solid story slowly reaching its solution. And really everything is going in favour of the movie: good acting, good photography, authentic locations. And like any movie from some 60 years ago, it is an interesting document, a time capsule with the real objects (not fake props), the real customs and details. We usually do not see this in the anachronistic period movies made decades later.
From the very first image of the classic British binoculars, the WW2 Bar & Stroud Cf41, to the scenes of the Dublin airport with the Vickers Viscount airplanes - it is all as authentic as it can be for the early 1960s.
So if we ignore the "slow pace" we have here a good solid story slowly reaching its solution. And really everything is going in favour of the movie: good acting, good photography, authentic locations. And like any movie from some 60 years ago, it is an interesting document, a time capsule with the real objects (not fake props), the real customs and details. We usually do not see this in the anachronistic period movies made decades later.
From the very first image of the classic British binoculars, the WW2 Bar & Stroud Cf41, to the scenes of the Dublin airport with the Vickers Viscount airplanes - it is all as authentic as it can be for the early 1960s.
Could have been much better: good actors, good photography....but a hopeless script. The plot is full of holes - but this is nothing unusual in most crime films (especially today).
The worst parts are the dialog (consisting almost entirely of cliche one-liners) and the many tedious, superfluous scenes that add nothing to the plot.
Despite a honest effort by most of the actors the charters come out flat like cardboard marionettes.
This was Robert Rossen's first attempt as script writer and director. His other efforts as a screenwriter were much better: for example "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" and "The Hustler"
The worst parts are the dialog (consisting almost entirely of cliche one-liners) and the many tedious, superfluous scenes that add nothing to the plot.
Despite a honest effort by most of the actors the charters come out flat like cardboard marionettes.
This was Robert Rossen's first attempt as script writer and director. His other efforts as a screenwriter were much better: for example "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" and "The Hustler"
This is a unique attempt to transpose a painting into alive action. There were other films inspired by paintings; for example the "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (2003) and "Nightwatching" (2007) - but this is the first time I see a painting slowly coming to life on the screen.
"The Girl with a Pearl Earring" is a decent fictional story inspired by the subject of the painting by Vermeer and the incredibly bad "Nightwatching" can forever ruin Rembrandt's "Night Watch" for art lovers.
However in the Mill a Cross there is no any real plot; it just portrays the brutality of the Spanish occupation by random vignettes based on the details of The "Procession to Calvary" by Bruegel - a major masterpiece of this Netherlandish genius.
The seamless integration of the painting's landscape, slowly filled by the figures and finally materializing into Bruegel's vision is very skilfully done and impressive, as is the richness of colours, textures and details. My only criticism is the often unnecessary graphic depiction of violence. Yes, those were violent times but a better approach would have been the one in fact used by Bruegel himself, hinting rather than directly showing: the distant gallows, the row of torture wheels on the horizon, the remnant of a cloth on the right margin wheel.
"The Girl with a Pearl Earring" is a decent fictional story inspired by the subject of the painting by Vermeer and the incredibly bad "Nightwatching" can forever ruin Rembrandt's "Night Watch" for art lovers.
However in the Mill a Cross there is no any real plot; it just portrays the brutality of the Spanish occupation by random vignettes based on the details of The "Procession to Calvary" by Bruegel - a major masterpiece of this Netherlandish genius.
The seamless integration of the painting's landscape, slowly filled by the figures and finally materializing into Bruegel's vision is very skilfully done and impressive, as is the richness of colours, textures and details. My only criticism is the often unnecessary graphic depiction of violence. Yes, those were violent times but a better approach would have been the one in fact used by Bruegel himself, hinting rather than directly showing: the distant gallows, the row of torture wheels on the horizon, the remnant of a cloth on the right margin wheel.