077 - The Wild Angels

Synopsis: The life, loves, fights and deaths of a gang of Hell's Angels

Director: Roger Corman

Actors: Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, 

Date: 1966

How viewed: Rented from Lovefilm

Rating: 3/5

David Meyer says:
Corman both romanticises the biker life and finds it bereft of worth. Corman understood anti-heroes like nobody's business. 

I say:

My, we've come a long way in the last few decades! So, here we have a film about a gang of Hell's Angels in the 1960's, led by Peter Fonda (in almost an exact copy of his role in Easy Rider 3 years later). The gang 'want to be free' - free to ride their motorbikes and party and not be hassled. But it all seems pretty tame, even for the 60's - yes, there's hints of sex (consentual and non-consentual) and drugs, but no rock n roll (the sound track is completely out of place tinny surf music), and indeed the scenes of the gang riding through the fantastic Californian scenery and canyons at times looks like an impressive travelogue. There's a sense of disillusionment (Fonda feels his best friends death is 'all his fault') and an oblique reference to the ongoing Vietnam war, but generally it just seems to be about partying and fighting (it must have been galling for Bruce Dern to have to play dead during the drinking and orgy scenes!!). Interesting to see Diane Ladd looking exactly like her (and Bruce Dern's) daughter Laura Dern in David Lynch's film 'Wild at Heart', and the guy who plays the preacher (Frank Maxwell) looks awfully familiar as well. From a 21st century viewpoint the most disturbing thing now about the film is probably the widespread use of the swastika, and easily the most impressive is the scene at the end as the gang ride through town with the coffin to the cemetery as the townsfolk look on. 

076 - Le Mepris (Contempt)

Synopsis: Screenwriter's marriage disintegrates during film production

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Actors: Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, Michael Piccoli, Fritz Lang

Date: 1963

How viewed: Rented from Lovefilm

Rating: 3/5

David Meyer says:
Godard understand cinema perhaps too well; his insights into how camera movement and even light itself can provoke emotion led him to abandon narrative early in his career.

I say:

Le Mepris (aka 'Contempt') is a key film in the French 'New Wave' of the 50's/60's - a movement in which directors such as Jean-Luc Godard broke the mould by introducing techniques such as fragmented discontinuous editing, and long takes, using portable equipment to produce a documentary style. As a result it's rather difficult to watch films like this in terms of simple story-telling - you probably need a few viewings to catch the mood and start to sit back and and enjoy it - but on first viewing it's pretty irritating! Le Mepris is a film about the making of a film  of The Odyssey - the real life director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M) plays himself (is himself, or plays a part?), who clashes with the producer (Jack Palance) who wants something more commercial and asks a writer (Michael Piccoli) to re-write the screen-play, partially, one senses, because he fancies his wife (Brigitte Bardot). There's a long, long, long middle section where the screen-writer and his wife interminably discuss and argue whether he should take the job and/or go to Capri where the next scenes are bring shot. They go, it doesn't turn out well. The film seems riddled with indecision, you just want someone to make their minds up about something so that the the plot can move along - but perhaps thats exactly what the New Wave were revolting against! As straightforward storytelling it didn't do it for me though. Best bit - the house in Capri where they film. Worst bit - the dubbing into English, very strange.