DVD/150: VISKNINGAR OCH ROP (Cries and Whispers) (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)

While filming THE TOUCH, Ingmar Bergman had a recurring idea: four women dressed in white in a large red room; he pursued it through his imagination and made it real in the unrelenting and powerful VISKNINGAR OCH ROP or CRIES AND WHISPERS.

Despite financing problems it won a Cannes jury prize and it's worldwide success culminated in the rare occurance of a foreign language film being nominated for five main Academy Awards, winning for Sven Nykvist's stunning cinematography.

In a large, nearly-empty family mansion, ornate clocks tick away Agnes' life as she slowly dies from cancer, watched over by her attentive maid Anna who mourns the death of her own daughter.

The only other occupants are Agnes' married sisters Katrin and Maria who have come to watch and wait...

The oppresive atmosphere conjours up unhappy memories in each sister; Agnes dies and the sisters let their polite masks drop...

Shelf or charity shop?  Haunting the shelf.  Even with Bergman's body of work the 50 year-old CRIES AND WHISPERS remains an unsettling, disturbing film with four extraordinary performances by the actresses he always envisioned playing the roles - although he actually originally wanted Mia Farrow as Anna the maid!  Kari Sylwan appeared in her first Bergman film playing Anna, the only one who shows any real love for Agnes.  His three other actresses each made 10 films with Bergman:  Harriet Andersson is astonishing as the dying Agnes (in her 8th Bergman role), Ingrid Thulin (in her 9th Bergman role) is icily disdainful as the emotionally dead Katrin - the scene where she cuts her vagina with a broken wine glass has lost none of it's horrific intensity - but the most complex role goes to the magnificent Liv Ullmann who delivers wonderfully.  In her 5th Bergman performance, Ullmann as Maria, whose beauty and sensuality covers an immature and petulant interior, is the one you always watch; in flashback she also plays the sister's mother, beautiful but remote.  Only at the end does Bergman allow a flash of happiness, all the more touching coming after all we have witnessed.

DVD/150: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (Ronald Neame, 1972)

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE is now fifty and holds a very special place for me - so don't expect criticizing.

What started with 1970's ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS, blew up with POSEIDON - it made me a Movie Buff: any magazine that featured it was bought, any film that starred any of the actors was watched, it played a week at Kensington Odeon and I went every night.

I know POSEIDON so well but seeing it always casts a delicious spell, so easy to lose myself in.  There is always the subliminal feeling that whatever has happened in the intervening years, the ten survivors of the New Year's Day sinking of the SS Poseidon are still there, battling upwards to escape.

20th Century Fox wouldn't finance all the $4 million budget after recent losses so producer Irwin Allen secured half ot it from private investors - it went on to earn $125 million!

Shelf or charity shop?  Sitting happily on an upside down shelf!  THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE won two Academy Awards, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and my unswerving devotion! I read the 1969 Paul Gallico novel at the time and disliked it's grubby, nasty characters. To this day I remain obsessed with Gene Hackman and his turtle-neck with the torn shoulder, Pamela Sue Martin's long skirt / hot pants ensemble and everything about the glorious Stella Stevens. especially in her wonderful blue negligee and white bias-cut evening dress with the plunging neckline - the height of 70s costume design!  And yes, I still blub when brave Shelley Winters takes her last dive.  I was surprised how often the actors had appeared together in other films leading up to POSEIDON but the most interesting was that director Ronald Neame, then a cinematographer, and a 10 year-old Roddy McDowall had worked together 34 years before on a George Formby film!  Ah Ronnie Neame, what a hero... the man who co-produced personal favourites like BRIEF ENCOUNTER and OLIVER TWIST and director of this, the film that lead me to Movie Buffdom. I owe him and the cast a debt of gratitude.