The last few weeks Ive watched two films that I thought i knew pretty well and my assumptions of them were set in stone..but it is odd that in the weird world of your mind how things can change due to the sands of time (and i dont mean that CGI sand in 'Prince of Persia')
The films in question are THE UNTOUCHABLES (Brian de Palma, US, 1987) and CASINO (Martin Scorsese, US, 1995) - two familiar and popular films from two directors who are esteemed in their fields.
The Untouchables I watched when I was much younger, one of those films you felt naughty watching because it had that 18 certificate and you were like 12 years old staying up late..but like most memories of my film my chronological grip of the film was all over the place. I do not remember Charles Martin Smith gettting killed off first in the lift and thought the Canadian border shootout occured nearer the end which led to the Battleship Potemkin ripoff.
The film was on Film4 and it was gripping; I was watching it with my girlfriend who I felt would not like it that much but she loved it. Picking out actors like Connery and Costner (before he ruined Robin Hood) and loving the action and gruesomeness of DeNiro's attack on his colleague with a baseball bat.
The film has much substance in equal to its style which you expect from De Palma, but there was things I just did not expect. Like Ness (Costner, never being better) throwing a criminal off the roof and therefore ruining his chances of conviction; the glory of Connery's death (gift wrapping an Oscar for himself) but it is also thanks to David Mamet's script - economical, clever (using fact as entertainment, 'Oh, I'm an accountant') and funny on occasions. And De Palma has fun with audience expectations, when Ness rushes into his daughter's bedroom and sees her not there, your heart is in your mouth and then the camera pans to the right and there she is at her dollhouse - simplicity and brilliantly effective.
Casino, when I first saw it was an equal of Goodfellas, now having watched it again I found it to be incredibly flawed and a film that runs out of legs by the film's end. Whereas Goodfellas did not seek to make martyrs of those hoodlums, and actually did not make you think everyone would die; in Casino, you know everyone is doomed. Maybe it is the opening sequence and seeing DeNiro blow up in that car - the sheer fatalism of it is forebearing.
DeNiro is great as Ace - all style and plenty of layers, but Pesci is like a clown, bursting on to screen beating up anyone that moves or looks at him funny. I felt sorry for Ace on occasion, he wants to do everything legitamately before the carpet gets pulled from under him; whilst his 'friends' intend on ruining him. And Sharon Stone's performance was Oscar-baiting before Witherspoon, Paltrow, Swank even thought of it. A whore who attempts to grow a heart of gold, or a wolf in sheep's clothing bought for her by Ace, but Ace must know you got to have a heart first. I felt somewhat disappointed once Pesci came out to Vegas, before that when Ace explains everything you see Scorsese having fun with the Vegas milieu, eyes in the sky, cheats at the tables and the violence is fun such as when they catch the guy with the wire on his leg. But then Pesci beats up Irish hoodlums and its gets silly. And when there are a lot of holes in the desert, you know someone will end up there.
Memories can cloud your judgment of films, something you thought run-of-the-mill might be better than you thought, and something you thought brilliant might be run-of-the mill.
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