Cach day, 2 movies to see on television : a exclusively on TNT and the other on all channels. Tonight, BIRD and HUSBANDS.
BIRD
20.45
Release Date : 1 June 1988 (2h40min)
Director : Clint Eastwood
Actors : Forest Whitaker, Diane Venora, Michael Zelniker
Genre : Biopic, Drama, Musical
Country : United States
Bird is a performance film of the life of Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, jazz visionary and accomplished musician who took up the saxophone to a level of expression never before heard. The film portrays alternately the youth and the maturity of this man and creative genius, his career and his personal tragedies.
Charlie Parker was an enigma. The power and beauty of his style made him a precursor, but his private life was a hell. This film tries to illuminate the penchant of Parker to drugs, alcohol and women, to understand the nature of his passion for Chan Richardson, the complexity of its vision and, especially, his music.
Rewards :
• Cannes film Festival 1988 : best actor to Forest Whitaker, Grand Prix de la Commission Supérieure Technique for the quality of sound treatment.
• Oscar-1988 (awarded in 1989) : oscar for best sound at The Fresholtz, Rick Alexander, Vern Poore and Willie D. Burton
• Union de la critique de cinema 1989 : Grand Prix
• César awards 1989 : Nominated for the césar of best foreign film
• Golden Globes: 1989 : best director
Anecdotes :
• The film is one of the very few devoted to jazz (with the film Ray by Taylor Hackford dedicated to the musician Ray Charles, played by Jamie Foxx, the documentary Straight, No Chaser Charlotte Zwerin dedicated to the pianist Thelonious Monk and Round midnight by Bertrand Tavernier, evocation mixed with the saxophonist Lester Young and pianist Bud Powell), and emanates from a filmmaker himself, a musician. This side exceptional is also reinforced by the structure of the film, which, far from being a biography a linear or a long flashback, the shape of a piece of jazz by bringing in and return of themes, by circulating its history between some of the speakers and main places, all bathed in a light, often at night.
• The processing of the soundtrack was the subject of a single work : the taken original of Charlie Parker, often of simple recordings monophonic, have been scanned, the portion of the saxophone has been isolated and then remixed with a new orchestration Lennie Niehaus. The technical performance, praised by several awards, it has nevertheless been greeted with skepticism by many jazz fans.
SOURCES : ALLOCINÉ – WIKIPEDIA
HUSBANDS
20h40
Release Date : December 1, 1970 (2h34min)
Director : John Cassavetes
Actors : John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk
Genre : Comedy, drama
Country : United States
Harry, Archie and Gus, forties, happy husbands and fathers, learn the death of their fourth friend, Stuart. This disappearance will face a sort of identity crisis, a questioning of their entire life. They get together and make a fugue of a few days before returning to their respective homes.
Anecdotes :
It is the first color film of John Cassavetes. Even so, it is the first of his films where look Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara, who will join the final team of friends in the adventure cassavetienne. For their roles, Anthony Quinn, and Lee Marvin had first been approached. It is also the first time that John plays in one of his films. The film is very prepared, even if it is in phases fluctuating, but it has a very long scene of improvisation where, in the night bar, the three friends persecute a woman (the actress, Leola Harlow, is clearly not advised of what is going to happen to him) forcing him to start again to sing continually the song. Cassavetes could not hold back their laughter at the second rank, one could see a sort of metaphor for the relationship between the actor and his director. Similarly, the character of the Countess (Dolores Delmar) in the casino in london is clearly taken on the fly.
About this film John Cassavetes has written Notes on the making of a film, published in France in the journal of film Positive n° 431 in January 1997. It explains in particular the fundamental importance that have for him the actors that must be protected at all costs technicians, the film crew, whom he considers as mercenaries and professionals, while, for the players ” in Any degree of indulgence was too great, no small victory could not be sufficiently extolled, and I never attached too much time in the twenty-four hours to support the ego of the actor and keep in mind the importance of the film. “.
As often, John Cassavetes, will produce two versions of the film. But this time, it will not be to obey commercial imperatives, or producers, but to transform what was initially a light comedy around the character of Harry, in a drama more serious with the three protagonists of equal importance, are dramatic.
SOURCES : ALLOCINÉ – WIKIPEDIA