Cinema Interruptus
Really, I blame the government, since I was up so late doing my taxeswhy does the Connecticut Part-Year Resident form have to be so byzantine? But, my anger also lies with myself: tonight I lucked into an on-campus screening of a restored 35mm print of Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive, the very day that one of Nathaniel's readers named it as having one of the best child performances ever, and in perfect synchronicity with my own embarrassingly sluggish New Year's Resolution project, and with a free ticket to boot... and then I promptly fell asleep less than a minute in. I woke up about 50 minutes later, to find little girls hanging little wooden organs on a life-size anatomical model in a schoolroom, and then wandering out to a shack in a field (see photo). Beehive is only playing one more time, tomorrow, so I'm going to sleep early and staying in bed late.
Labels: 1970s, International
3 Comments:
I'm sure I've dozed off in this before. Not that it's dull, but it does do that fine-line-between-the-soporific-and-the-hypnotic thing.
It is not suprisingly one of my all time favorites. I saw it a few weeks ago here, but my first viewing was in Ithaca. How did I see it without you?
Seeing BEEHIVE at Cinestudio was my second viewing. But seeing a print this gorgeous obliterated that other viewing, years ago. One tracking shot, following the mother as she bikes a letter to meet an incoming train, goes near the top of the most beautiful images I've ever seen on film. Can't think of anything like BEEHIVE-- neither as a depiction of national trauma or a dramatization of the other country that is childhood. As with THE NEW WORLD, I sat there feeling ulimate anger that the film's effect would only be distantly implied by a DVD viewing.
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