THREE AGES - Buster Keaton

 

Buster Keaton's directorial debut released for first time on Blu-Ray in celebration of the film's centenary.

Masters of Cinema/Eureka Entertainment are back with another Buster Keaton release, this time proudly releasing the directorial debut of old Stoneface from 1923. 

A film that was made as a swipe or reaction to D. W. Griffith's Intolerance which spanned several centuries of early American history, Keaton here takes the notion of love through the ages. Keaton shows the stone age, the roman age and the modern age. We spend the most abundant time in the modern age naturally as Keaton and Wallace Beery (Treasure Island, The Champ) as they attempt to win favour and the hand of Margaret Leahy - portraying heightened versions of themselves.

Keaton has fun mimicking and making fun of the eternal quest for a companion using sight gags (hitting a tall cavewoman over the head, she promptly stands up and dwarfs him) and stunt work of the highest order from the collapsing car to his death-defying jump across the street at height. A jump that nearly ended in tragedy yet he kept the seeming mistake in the final cut.

Keaton sets himself apart due to the little nuance and details he gives his characters, from the playful tapping of fingers on the arm of a sofa next to Leahy in contrast to the harsh brashness of Beery's modern day neanderthal bully.

There is the little touch of taking his American safe headwear off as a man and team-mate (he essentially) is helped get maimed leaves the field on a stretcher, this deftness sets someone apart. Whilst Chaplin would yearn to be the centre of the attention, Keaton is someone who tries to stay on the sidelines and prevent the spotlight hitting his characters.

The ending works so well as a foreshadowing of how love does and does not change - it becomes an unlikely foreshadow for Mike Nichols' The Graduate and then the final shot of a couple happy in domesticated bliss with man's best friend is one of how perhaps things have changed somewhat from little tykes running amok everywhere to one of coupledom taking time to enjoy life before a family begins - not unlike how many find ourselves nowadays. Another notch as to how Buster was ahead of his time.

Keaton shared directing credit with Edward F. Cline, the style and auteur streak can be seen that he would repeat in such classics as Sherlock Jr. and The General. While it may not reach the heights of those films that landed on the BFI's Top 100 of all time, it never the less serves as a reminder that Keaton was a pioneer and revolutionary in the still young medium of motion picture cinema. 

On the centenary of its release, we should never lose sight of the fact that modern day comedy stands upon the shoulders of Keaton and his peers.

The new release has a first run of 2000 copies for the Limited Edition slipcase; a new 1080p presentation on Blu-Ray from Cohen Film Collection featuring reconstructed original intertitles. Brand new audio commentary from film historian David Kalat. A new video essay This Side of Impossible by David Cairns. A new video essay by Fiona Watson entitled Under the Flat Hat. A 1912 D.W. Griffith short Man's Genesis that Keaton parodies in Three Ages; archival recordings of Keaton. And a collector's booklet featuring new writing by Philip Kemp and Imogen Sara Smith.

This is the UK debut on Blu-ray in celebration of the 100th Anniversary.

THREE AGES is released from Eureka Entertainment on August 21st.

PARIS MEMORIES

The new film from Alice Winocour is out from Picturehouse Entertainment on August 4th

Paris Memories is a film that is at once still and about being alive, living but coping with death, Winocour's new film follows Mia (Virginie Efira) our lead protagonist who is present for an atrocious act of barbarity when seeking refuge from a torrential downpour in a Parisian bistro. Her beau has had to return to work and she is alone when the attack happens, she hides under a table holding an African man’s hand they remain safe and are connected by this moment.

For Winocour this was a personal film as she states; 'My brother was at the Bataclan on November 13th. While he was hiding, I stayed in contact with him by text for part of the night. The film was inspired by my own memories of the trauma and by the account my brother gave in the days after the attack. I experienced for myself how events are deconstructed, and often reconstructed, by memory.” 

The Bataclan attacks occured in 2015 and much like the July 7th attacks in London, they are a constant reminder that a threat is around the corner but from the ashes of tragedy the power of healing and resilience can come to the fore.

An admired linguist who is renowned for her professionalism and a sort of rebel or outsider due to her riding a motorbike, she seeks solace following the event. Three months later, Mia is still unable to get her life back in order only remembering fleeting moments of the night, she attempts to investigate her memories to return to happiness. She attends therapy groups at the location as survivors tell their stories and yet she is met in opposition by one lady who accuses her of locking the bathroom door saving herself while others died.

Winocour is a director who engages with the milieu and mise-en-scene of the film, having her characters become one with the location and the location a part of the story. Tellingly the first shot we see post-siege is that of a Paris landmark with cars circling the monument, life goes on for everybody else in the major city yet for those who had to endure the attack the feeling of moving on is one that fills them with dread. A guilt of surviving while others were lost, she learns to cope through the struggle of daily work as anxiety grips her existence.

Winocour and Efira (as the focal point) have created a drama of quiet intensity and introspection about confronting the build up of overwhelming emotion that comes with witnessing a seismic event of tragedy; the film takes care to show that there is beauty in the world (a baby's cry) and yet there are those that will kill innocents willingly.

Yet Efira capably shows envy in her eyes at those who go about their business and how anything from the lighting of candles on a cake can illicit memories of the night. As Winocour mentions in press notes, she was more interested in the traces the attack left on the victims than attempting to explain the attack itself.

Efira deservedly won Best Actress at the 2022 Cesar Awards (French Oscars) for this performance is an actress who usually plays women who are unravelled or provoked (Verhoeven's Benedetta), her she plays Mia as a tightly wrought ball until the emotion finally comes to the surface. The empathy of her work here coupled with natural charm is a primer to the success of the film and how her every-person quality endears her to the viewership as she becomes a sort of detective in her quest for answers as she pieces together the fragments of her memory from that horrific evening.

Shot beautifully by Stephane Fontaine (A Prophet), the film is a message of hope in a sometimes mad world. Photograhed for the majority in medium and close up so that the intensity of the performance never waivers from the viewer and that comes from the quiet brilliance of Virginie Efira. This coupled with the same team of regular collaborators such as Julien Lacheray (Editor) and Pascaline Chavanne (Costume Design), this is a film of maturity and importance.

Paris Memories is the first time Winocour has filmed in her capital city and Paris itself becomes a character within the film wearing its scars for all to see while its inhabitants attempt to make sense of their position in the tragedy.

The recurring trope of hands touching and the need for connection amongst these souls, almost ghosts, is paramount and in Winocour's sympathetic and delicate handling the film touchingly attempts to make sense of the upheaval thrust upon Mia, Thomas and the others.

A film that is both resonant and emotional, touching and clear that there is hope within the world.

Paris Memories is out on 4th August in cinemas nationwide.