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The Barefoot ContessaRating:
Release Date: 19 June, 2001 Retail Price: $14.95 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.96! Cast: Complete Cast (10 total) |
The Barefoot Contessa Reviews
Mediocre
On the positive side, the color and clarity of the movie are good for a older movie, almost not seeming old at all in that way. Ava Gardner looks gorgeous.
I read all the glowing reviews of this movie here before buying it, but I was dissappointed in it. I was bored by the predictable arc of the story, the cartoonish stereotypical characters (the evil abusive millionaire, the sweaty faced agent), and the long drawn out conversations which could have been edited down 80% without losing much. The entire story is improbable and not in any way adequately developed - a bar dancer suddenly becoming a huge star, yet we never see her dance in the bar, and never see her act in her "movie".
Garnder is not convincing in her role at all, especially with the fake spanish accent. She is beautiful but she lacks the pizaz and confidence of a Monroe, Taylor, or Bardot. I am no fan of Bogart but he comes across as decent uncle-like figure - which Ava ascertains by talking to him for 60 seconds after he barges into her room as a stranger. But he is so terribly miscast as a filmmaker, that I could never really even accept it. The big scene with the agent on the phone is such an obvious acting job of the actor yelling to the audience its painful to watch. There is nothing genuine in any way about this movie's story or the characters playing it.
To me the only value in it, is in a specimen of early 50's Hollywood. If you like old movies then fine. But this is not up to snuff by modern standards at all. I find myself wondering why there are shadows on every wall in an interior room and hair always lit (due to the multiple stage lights used for filming). Its also amusing to see the subtle sexism (e.g. the ease in which men put their hands on Gardner and talk to her like a child). The only curiosity is the strangely anti-mother twist to it. By the way what is a "bent kopec"?
The bitter cynicism!
If there is some aspect that featured the Fifties was the chilling cynicism and full questioning respect all what it was associated with power. On the other hand this psychological reaction molded and was molded too by a sociological state of anger, fury and hopeless around the social body. Far beyond the fact to have wined the war, the surrounding atmosphere was of total rebelliousness in the youth (birth of Rock & Roll), evasion (Science fiction) or sharp facing respect social realism (Noir film expansion, to other latitudes, as Kiss me deadly that deals with the possible nuclear consequences or the vanished line between law and justice As pick up on South street), but there was still another third way that was initiated among others filmmakers (Elia Kazan, Billy Wilder, Edward Dmytrik, Samuel Füller, Robert Aldrich, Nicholas Ray, Otto Preminger and Mankiewicz) who focused around the inner demons (Baby Doll), vices (The man with the golden arm), adultery in the military statement (Anatomy of a murder), syndicalism (On the waterfront) where the anti hero reached a status legend.
In this sense, The barefoot Contessa, should be watched under this somber perspective. All about Eve meant somehow the first step in this sense, but Sunset Boulevard went far beyond; its thematic audacity shocked the collective conscious. "The barefoot..." signified an absolute reject respect the tinsel of the success in Hollywood and how you can lead an unknown woman to the peak of stardom without a special talent, just supported by other attributes. If you realize for instance, the crucial meaning of The sweet smell of success you would complete the ambitious gaze respect a Decade signed for the fugacity of the fame; and that is why Bogart, in the first minutes of the film about Faust; the analogy is more than obvious. You sold your soul in the market of values disregarding the ulterior and mortal consequences this decision may convey.
The powerful anecdote was perhaps, too strong in those days; where the avidness of the producers to recreate another stories obligated to many directors to find in the Literature waters abundant material, but Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neil, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway would not give the audiences sweets for the spirit. The beatnik generation was in its boiling point, but that is another story.
Go for this bold and not easy to swallow picture. In spite of the elapsed years it contains still a strong doses of bitterness. Superb cast, glorious script and eloquent direction.
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