Category Archives: drama,

7,0-7,9, drama,, male director, romance,

“These Three” + “The Children’s Hour” (William Wyler, US, 1936 – 1961)

these-three

Director: William Wyler
Writer: Lillian Hellman (original story and screen play)
Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel McCrea

the-childrens-hour

Director: William Wyler
Writers: Lillian Hellman (play), John Michael Hayes (screenplay)
Actors: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner

Because of the M.P.P.C. (or Hays Code)  that started to be fully implemented in 1934, Lillian Hellman had to change the story of her first play The Children’s Hour based on a true story in which two teachers are accused of being lesbians into a more acceptable triangular relationship..In These Three the two female teachers are in love with the same man.
In 1961, William Wyler made a remake of his own 1936 film, using this time the original story and the original title of the play.

6,0-6,9, crime, drama,, female director, romance,

“The Dressmaker” (Jocelyn Moorhouse, Australia 2015)

the-dressmaker

Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Writers: Rosalie Ham (novel), P.J. Hogan
Actors: Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth

A film over bullying with very intelligent aspects and many contrasts, but some very weak points as well.

A few remarks (SPOILERS ahead):

  • The main personage, Tillie, has been bullied and chased away when she was a girl, but comes back as a strong woman wanting to have her revenge. However, at the contact of the people at the origin of her sufferings, she turns weak and is bullied again (for ex., the scene when the teacher closes the door of the church on her).
    Other interesting personages: the mother, the policeman…
  • There’s an impossible chain of events: within one afternoon, Tillie learns that the man she hates is her father, that the boy she’s supposed to have killed is her brother, that she eventually didn’t kill him… and then, just after all this, she crowns her day by making love with the man she loves for the first time … and he then stupidly kills himself afterwards!!!
  • For me, the most annoying was the music: David Hirschfelder had made a musical patchwork in which we hear Ennio Moriccone, Johann Söderqvist, Bruno Coulais, and a few others. The final effect is that the music fills the movie with gratuitous references instead of sustaining its narrative. For example, whereas the imitation of Ennio Morricone nicely fits what the camera shows and how it shows it, the (over)use of the music of Les Choristes (The Chorus) makes no sense at all.