Cohen Media Group presents a double feature of two mid-period films from French auteur Alain Resnais, both significant titles overlooked on a resume of important and notable works. The first is 1983’s Love is a Bed of Roses, featuring revolving cast members who would frequent other titles from the director throughout the remainder of that decade, and also represents his first collaboration with actress/wife Sabine Azema, who would appear in nearly every one of his remaining film productions. The second is the superb 1984 film Love Unto Death, an existential portrait of love and death as fluid states of mind.
The playful Life is a Bed of Roses premiered at the Venice Film Festival and nabbed Cesar nominations for Azema as Best Supporting Actress and for production designer Jacques Saulnier. Penned by Jean Gruault (who wrote Resnais’ previous feature, 1980’s superior Mon Oncle D’Amerique), it’s a non-linear film divided into three distinct parts,...
The playful Life is a Bed of Roses premiered at the Venice Film Festival and nabbed Cesar nominations for Azema as Best Supporting Actress and for production designer Jacques Saulnier. Penned by Jean Gruault (who wrote Resnais’ previous feature, 1980’s superior Mon Oncle D’Amerique), it’s a non-linear film divided into three distinct parts,...
- 8/4/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Tosca
Avatar Films
The rarefied, stylistic excesses of Italian opera and the more naturalistic aspects of film uneasily combine in Benoit Jacquot's cinematic treatment of Puccini's 1899 classic musical melodrama. Apparently unwilling to trust that contemporary audiences would understand that what was unfolding before them on the movie screen wasn't real, the director has injected self-consciousness into the proceedings at every turn. The results are far more alienating than involving.
It's a shame, really, because the opera contains some of Puccini's most beautiful music (which is saying something), and the two leads are played by the opera world's reigning couple, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. As the fiery Diva Tosca and her painter lover Mario, these two invest their performances with the requisite passion and gorgeous vocalizing. Ruggero Raimondi, as the villainous Baron Scarpia, matches them in intensity.
Unfortunately, the performers' efforts are undercut by Jacquot's tiresome approach to the material. The film contains three distinct modes: black-and-white footage of the singers recording the score in a studio; grainy shots of locations appropriate to the story; and studio-shot scenes featuring the performers in full costume, lip-syncing to their vocals. Jacquot intercuts among these three styles at will, effectively jarring us out of the story every time. Fortunately, the music sounds wonderful.
"Tosca" is playing an exclusive theatrical engagement at New York's Quad Cinemas, before expanding later in the summer.
The rarefied, stylistic excesses of Italian opera and the more naturalistic aspects of film uneasily combine in Benoit Jacquot's cinematic treatment of Puccini's 1899 classic musical melodrama. Apparently unwilling to trust that contemporary audiences would understand that what was unfolding before them on the movie screen wasn't real, the director has injected self-consciousness into the proceedings at every turn. The results are far more alienating than involving.
It's a shame, really, because the opera contains some of Puccini's most beautiful music (which is saying something), and the two leads are played by the opera world's reigning couple, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. As the fiery Diva Tosca and her painter lover Mario, these two invest their performances with the requisite passion and gorgeous vocalizing. Ruggero Raimondi, as the villainous Baron Scarpia, matches them in intensity.
Unfortunately, the performers' efforts are undercut by Jacquot's tiresome approach to the material. The film contains three distinct modes: black-and-white footage of the singers recording the score in a studio; grainy shots of locations appropriate to the story; and studio-shot scenes featuring the performers in full costume, lip-syncing to their vocals. Jacquot intercuts among these three styles at will, effectively jarring us out of the story every time. Fortunately, the music sounds wonderful.
"Tosca" is playing an exclusive theatrical engagement at New York's Quad Cinemas, before expanding later in the summer.
- 7/17/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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