Showing posts with label Danny Huston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danny Huston. Show all posts

Saturday 9 February 2013

Hitchcock



Hitchcock is a behind the scenes telling of the making of Psycho (1960) and the relationship between its Director Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife and long time collaborator Alma Reville (Helen Mirren). The plot encompasses Hitchcock’s search for a follow up to the hugely successful North by Northwest and then the difficult production of Psycho, ending at its Premier. Although Psycho and its production provide the backdrop, the plot is really about love, jealousy and aging. Hitch and Alma had been married for almost thirty-five years by 1960 and one of the avenues the film explores is the fractious relationship which they share. Hitch’s obsessions with his leading ladies, here Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) is something which Alma has put up with for decades but when the writer Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) takes an interest in Alma, Hitch’s jealousy effects their relationship and his work.

Hitchcock isn’t a bad film and it’s always nice to see behind the scenes of a Hollywood production but even if it had been great there would still be one problem and that is that it isn’t Psycho. All the way through I thought to myself that I wish I was watching Psycho and the underwhelming central performance and flabby plot just made me think back to what is in my opinion one of the greatest films in history.

Thursday 14 June 2012

The Proposition

"Ah Australia. What fresh hell is this?"

After a gang commits a horrific crime in 1880s Australia, local Police Captain (Ray Winstone) offers to spare the lives of two Burns’ brothers if one of them, Charlie (Guy Pearce) kills their older brother Arthur (Danny Huston) who was responsible for the crime. As the youngest brother (Richard Wilson) rots in jail with his execution looming, Charlie has just nine days to track down Arthur and bring his body to the Captain.

The film’s opening titles show original photos mixed with stills from the set which are made to look aged. This is a nice little touch which helps to create the period setting. The look and feel of late Victorian Australia is captured wonderfully with a mixture of fantastic sets, costumes and locations. There is a fabulous juxtaposition between the Captain’s little bubble and the rest of the film’s locations. He often remarks that “I will tame this land” and his house, garden and wife look as though they have been neatly dropped from a London suburb. Outside of this however the land is sweaty, dusty and grim. People are unwashed and clothes are stained brown and torn.