Film of the Week
Bonnie and Clyde, Saturday 19th May, 11.40pm, ITV1
Loosely based on the real life exploits of depression era bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Clyde, this is one of the films that heralded the arrival of a new modern Hollywood. Along with films like Easy Rider and The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde borrowed liberally from the New Wave cinema of Europe led by the likes of Jean Luc Godard and Francoise Truffaut (both of whom were offered the chance to direct this film). Bonnie and Clyde is especially indebted to Godard’s groundbreaking Au Bout De Soufflé – the fast choppy editing, sharp shifts in tone and the amoral anti-hero. Old Hollywood, of course, was pretty aghast at these developments. Warner Films initially released it on the B-Movie circuit so it just played as a support feature or at drive-ins. Only when younger people starting showing up in large numbers did they give it a wider release and it went on to be a big hit. The head of the studio himself, Jack Warner, allegedly went to his grave still hating the film.
Worth Another Look
The Limey, Monday 14th May, 11.50pm, Film Four
Director Steven Soderbergh likes to veer between mainstream commercial films (Ocean’s Eleven, Traffic, Erin Brokovitch) and, sometimes impenetrable, arthouse experimentation (Bubble, Schizopolis, Kafka). His most interesting work often occurs when he decides to shift his gaze to somewhere between the two. The Limey’s plot – a recently released British gangster (Terence Stamp) comes to L.A. to find and seek vengeance on the people who killed his daughter – is standard Hollywood fare, but the approach is not. The fractured timeline and overlapping editing techniques – dialogue from future and past scenes often spills over into the present – reflect Stamp feeling unmoored in the alien landscape and culture of Los Angeles. The film’s really ingenious device though is the creation of Stamp’s back-story, told in flashback and using footage from Ken Loach’s 1967 debut, Poor Cow, which starred a fresh faced Stamp himself. No need to wince at some young actor failing to channel the spirit of some older star nor squirm at some faded star trying to wish away the years with a combination of makeup and lighting, this film has the real deal. We can see, and feel, the toll the passing years and all of life’s failures have taken on Stamp’s face.
Guilty Pleasure
Escape From New York, Thursday 11pm, ITV4
A movie that is so gloriously B it might as well paint its arse black and yellow and start making honey. John Carpenter, the man behind such lean low grade classics as Halloween, The Thing and Assault On Precinct 13, camps it up a bit here an over the top tale from a dystopian future America in the grip on gangs and crime. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell, pulling off the eye patch look with aplomb) is a convict given a shot at freedom if he agrees to a suicide mission to rescue the president who has crash landed in New York – now a maximum security prison. Just to make sure he finishes the job, he’s injected with microscopic explosives that will detonate if he doesn’t return within twenty four hours. With a grizzled supporting cast that includes Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton and even Isaac Hayes, you know there won’t be much in the way of introspection, soft spoken feeling and meaningful heart-to-hearts, but there will be plenty of pumping testosterone, steely-eyed stand offs and more mumbled asides than a Marlon Brando impersonators convention.
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy, Sunday 20th May, 11.10pm, BBC1
Will Ferrell perfects the man-child persona that he introduced on Saturday Night Live and honed during his first few films. He seems to be having a blast playing Ron Burgundy, a sexist seventies San Diego anchorman who is struggling to accept working with new female reporter Christina Applegate, especially when she gets promoted to co-anchor. The comedy is broad and dumb but delivered with brio and vigour that it’s hard to suppress a grin. Ferrell is ably helped out by a cast that includes Fred Willard as a put upon station manager and an excellent turn by Steve Carell as a weatherman who is, it would be most charitable to say, not the brightest (in much the same way that Ronnie Corbett is not the tallest). His character may have a brain but it doesn’t really seem to be connected to his mouth. A lot of the scenes were improvised and they seem to have just kept rolling until something funny or weird (or preferably both) came out. So much so that they were able to release an entire second film (Wake Up Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie) comprised of solely of takes from unused scenes. It’s also recently been announced that Anchorman 2 us on the way, so we can look forward to San Diego staying classier than ever.