Even by arthouse standards, the French director Eugène Green's minimal, formalistic films are an acquired taste, and his latest work, which centres on a beautiful French actress in Lisbon to shoot a film version of the 18th-century novel about the affair between a nun and a French naval officer, is fairly characteristic. There are only two outright jokes, one being Green himself as the film's director, Denis Verde (ho! ho!), the other a hotel desk clerk mocking pretentious French films.
Otherwise, it's a solemn, portentous affair, dramatically, verbally and visually, where everyone talks in an uninflected manner. This does have its payoff in an oddly moving, all-night encounter in a chapel between the actress playing a nun and an authentic Portuguese religieuse, in which they discuss the nature of secular and spiritual love.
Watching the movie two days after the death of Peter Yates, the versatile British director best known for Bullitt,...
Otherwise, it's a solemn, portentous affair, dramatically, verbally and visually, where everyone talks in an uninflected manner. This does have its payoff in an oddly moving, all-night encounter in a chapel between the actress playing a nun and an authentic Portuguese religieuse, in which they discuss the nature of secular and spiritual love.
Watching the movie two days after the death of Peter Yates, the versatile British director best known for Bullitt,...
- 1/23/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Versatile British film director known for Bullitt, The Deep and Breaking Away
The director Peter Yates, who has died aged 81, helped Steve McQueen achieve iconic status with the cop movie Bullitt (1968), enjoyed a massive box-office success with The Deep (1977) and made one of the most beguiling of all youth movies in Breaking Away (1979). He maintained a steady career throughout five decades, initially in the theatre and then in mainstream cinema, but he suffered the critical neglect so often accorded those who tackle a variety of subjects and genres and become known, somewhat disparagingly, as journeyman directors.
Pauline Kael described him as a competent director "with a good serviceable technique for integrating staged movie action into documentary city locations". David Thomson suggested that, in America, Yates had "done nothing more profound than send hubcaps careering around corners". Bullitt's famous San Francisco car chase (later revived by Ford as part of...
The director Peter Yates, who has died aged 81, helped Steve McQueen achieve iconic status with the cop movie Bullitt (1968), enjoyed a massive box-office success with The Deep (1977) and made one of the most beguiling of all youth movies in Breaking Away (1979). He maintained a steady career throughout five decades, initially in the theatre and then in mainstream cinema, but he suffered the critical neglect so often accorded those who tackle a variety of subjects and genres and become known, somewhat disparagingly, as journeyman directors.
Pauline Kael described him as a competent director "with a good serviceable technique for integrating staged movie action into documentary city locations". David Thomson suggested that, in America, Yates had "done nothing more profound than send hubcaps careering around corners". Bullitt's famous San Francisco car chase (later revived by Ford as part of...
- 1/11/2011
- by Brian Baxter
- The Guardian - Film News
Some sad news to start your week as four-time Oscar nominated director Peter Yates has died at the age of 82, following a long illness. Yates graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and got his start in the movie industry as an assistant and assistant director to Tony Richardson. His first film as a director was the Cliff Richards vehicle "Summer Holiday," based on the play "One Way Pendulum" which Yates had directed at the Royal Court. However, it wouldn't be long until he broke out in a big, big way. If 1967's "Robbery" opened the door to…...
- 1/10/2011
- The Playlist
The versatile British director Peter Yates has died in London, at the age of 81. He began his career as a dubbing assistant, after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, working his way up to assistant director on films such as Tony Richardson's A Taste of Honey and J Lee Thompson's Guns of Navarone. The early 60s saw him gravitate to television, directing some episodes of The Saint and Danger Man, but his feature directorial debut was Summer Holiday, the colourfully jolly pop musical that packed Cliff Richard off to the seaside on a red London bus. The Eric Sykes vehicle One Way Pendulum, and Robbery (about the Great Train Robbery of 1963) followed, before Hollywood, Steve McQueen and Bullitt secured his place in cinema history.That iconic car chase on the streets of San Francisco came out of Yates' early experiences driving racing cars and managing Sterling Moss. The...
- 1/10/2011
- EmpireOnline
Actor with great stage presence who found his metier in comic and satirical roles
There was something extra-terrestrial about the character actor Graham Crowden, who has died aged 87 – a mix of the ethereal eccentricity of Ralph Richardson and the Scottish lunacy and skewiff authoritarianism of Alastair Sim. He specialised in portraying doctors, lawyers or teachers in a satirical way.
Crowden was a tall, red-haired, serious and sometimes professionally diffident man – he turned down the opportunity of succeeding Jon Pertwee as the fourth Doctor Who, remarking that working with a lot of Daleks did not sound like much fun. He had a tremendous stage presence, always moving with an emphatic, loping gait.
Despite his eminence in plays at the Royal Court and the National Theatre, where he introduced roles in works by Nf Simpson and Tom Stoppard, and in films directed by Lindsay Anderson, he did not become widely familiar until...
There was something extra-terrestrial about the character actor Graham Crowden, who has died aged 87 – a mix of the ethereal eccentricity of Ralph Richardson and the Scottish lunacy and skewiff authoritarianism of Alastair Sim. He specialised in portraying doctors, lawyers or teachers in a satirical way.
Crowden was a tall, red-haired, serious and sometimes professionally diffident man – he turned down the opportunity of succeeding Jon Pertwee as the fourth Doctor Who, remarking that working with a lot of Daleks did not sound like much fun. He had a tremendous stage presence, always moving with an emphatic, loping gait.
Despite his eminence in plays at the Royal Court and the National Theatre, where he introduced roles in works by Nf Simpson and Tom Stoppard, and in films directed by Lindsay Anderson, he did not become widely familiar until...
- 10/22/2010
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
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