Film Book...

I just finished a really fine film book by Ryan Gilbey titled It Don't Worry Me: The Revolutionary American Films of the Seventies.

Ryan has a good many fresh insights into a lot of the films and the filmmakers / stars of the seventies. Here are a few choice excerpts from the Coppola chapter:

- [in Godfather Part II] the formerly boyish [Al] Pacino has calcified; he moves more slowly than ever, like a pallbearer doomed to perpetual procession....Even the Brylcreem in his hair looks like it was smeared there to snare wayward flies; you can imagine him counting his gold bars in the wee hours, and reaching into his hair for a midnight snack.

- Gordon Willis shot much of [Godfather Part II] in a virtual blackout.... The atmosphere itself [in Michael's study] is like leather upolstery, the air in that room impedes the character's movements. It takes an age to raise a glass, or to advance a few steps. The darkness gathers in Michael's hollowed cheeks like pools of oil, just as it did in his father's eye sockets.... The oppressive gloom rules out anything more hot-blooded than necrophilia.

- Coppola's eye for iconic casting is astute. Besides trading on the tarnished glory of Brando...there is the use of Dennis Hopper [in Apocalypse Now] as a photojournalist festooned with cameras and too full of chatter. Hopper had acted, on and off, in the eight years since The Last Movie was made. But most viewers must have looked at him playing Kurtz's court jester in Cambodia and thought, 'Oh, so that's where he's been all these year.'

- [Apocalypse Now] is a wild, sprawling, sometimes silly film that is almost torn apart by its attempts to fill unbridgeable gaps. Coppola's propensity for indulgence jars sharply with the pictures eloquence about the indulgences of others.

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I'll have more tomorrow.