The Arrangement
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Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
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Strangely, I've yet to come across an online review of this new Kazan disc. Anyone got it? I'm especially interested in reading about the chemistry between the two main characters, Kirk Douglas and Faye Dunaway. And it's an infidelity and mid-life crisis/soul-searching story which certainly adds to my curiosity. It also appears to be beautifully shot.
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souvenir
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 4:20 pm
It's not much, but Mike Clark of USA Today gave it four stars and wrote:
The Arrangement
* * * * (out of four)
1969, Warner, rated R, $20
Kazan's film version of his No. 1 best seller was considered a flop on screen but has become a cult favorite. Then and now, it's among the most personal works by any major filmmaker.
Back story: This personal favorite is all but ripped from the pages of Kazan's subsequent autobiography, which equals Moss Hart's Act One as the best showbiz memoir I've ever read. Kirk Douglas is the Greek immigrant son who defies a crudely ranting father to attain — his way — material success he then comes to hate. Deborah Kerr is the wife he respects but can't live with, and Faye Dunaway is his complex lover (a performance matching anything she has ever done). Panavision cinematography and scoring (Robert Surtees, David Amram) are tops, and no one ever notes that it's often wickedly funny.
Extras, extras: Vintage featurette.
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Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
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Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
Finally watched Kazan's amazing The Arrangement today and you all know around here that I'm a big fan of the man so my hopes were high, to say the least. They were dutifully met.
I was enraptured for the whole 2 hour running time, what with the various bravura displays of acting by the main three actors, Kirk Douglas (in excellent form!), Deborah Kerr (some of her bravest acting here) and the always trustworthy Faye Dunaway (God, where has she gone to? I miss her).
Yes, it's a mid-life crisis story, yes, there's infidelity involved and yes, we've seen it all before. But have we really? There are so many memorable lines spoken throughout this 2 hour deconstruction of a human being (in this case, a married man, with a great job, a loving wife and a fantastic lover to boot on the side) that you really have to watch it to see what I mean. There's enough soul-searching here to rival the best of Bergman and there's plenty of rifle-range bickering to make Strindberg proud. This was adapted from a novel by Kazan himself so I guess that the material must be challenging enough to produce such intense emotions on the screen.
But make no mistake, Kazan is not simply making a screen adaptation of his own book: he clearly understood the possibilities afforded by the visual medium of cinema and it really shows. Lots of clever editing abound and really help to mold our perception of just what is going on in the main character's head. At times, it feels like a precursor to Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing, because we literally get flashes of images shot at us, showing us what he is thinking at that or other particular moment. It works very effectively.
All in all, a very satisfying movie with excellent performances all around (it could not be any other way in a Kazan production), really wonderful cinematography and daring exploration of still uptodate subjects. Watch it!
I was enraptured for the whole 2 hour running time, what with the various bravura displays of acting by the main three actors, Kirk Douglas (in excellent form!), Deborah Kerr (some of her bravest acting here) and the always trustworthy Faye Dunaway (God, where has she gone to? I miss her).
Yes, it's a mid-life crisis story, yes, there's infidelity involved and yes, we've seen it all before. But have we really? There are so many memorable lines spoken throughout this 2 hour deconstruction of a human being (in this case, a married man, with a great job, a loving wife and a fantastic lover to boot on the side) that you really have to watch it to see what I mean. There's enough soul-searching here to rival the best of Bergman and there's plenty of rifle-range bickering to make Strindberg proud. This was adapted from a novel by Kazan himself so I guess that the material must be challenging enough to produce such intense emotions on the screen.
But make no mistake, Kazan is not simply making a screen adaptation of his own book: he clearly understood the possibilities afforded by the visual medium of cinema and it really shows. Lots of clever editing abound and really help to mold our perception of just what is going on in the main character's head. At times, it feels like a precursor to Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing, because we literally get flashes of images shot at us, showing us what he is thinking at that or other particular moment. It works very effectively.
All in all, a very satisfying movie with excellent performances all around (it could not be any other way in a Kazan production), really wonderful cinematography and daring exploration of still uptodate subjects. Watch it!