THE GREAT GATSBY
Odeon: June 2-7
Opening this year’s Cannes Festival Baz Luhrmann’s much anticipated (and possibly much dreaded) adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald ‘unfilmable’ Jazz Age classic tale of impossible romance and the delusions of the American Dream has had mixed reviews; at least it has had reviews despite Warner Brothers pathetic attempts to embargo British reviewers ahead of the U.S, release. Luhrmann’s MTV aesthetic and eclectic stylistic excesses, especially when it comes to music, may have worked for Moulin Rouge and even Romeo + Juliet but may not be necessary for an adaptation of a revered novel that has no need of a breath of fresh air. Leonardo di Caprio probably has the mix of gravitas and boyishness that makes Jay Gatsby so special, but will Carey Mulligan have a voice that sounds like money and the delicate frivolous prettiness of her predecessor as Daisy Buchanan, Mia Farrow? And with a soundtrack featuring Jay Z, Amy Winehouse, Brian Ferry and George Gershwin amongst others, can this ever be more than a pastiche? ‘Luhrmann lays on a cinematic buffet of such sense-addling, smack-you-in-the-face-with-a-halibut brazenness that it takes around an hour before you notice the film is finger-food and nothing more’ (Daily Telegraph).
Odeon
piazza Strozzi 2, tel. 055/295051
www.cinehall.it, www.odeonfirenze.com
PSYCHO
May 29, 8pm
Hitchcock and Herrmann’s collaborative masterpiece features perhaps the most memorable and identifiable score in all movies. The movie depends heavily on Herrmann’s music for its ‘tension and sense of pervading doom,’ and the reduced score (for budgetary reasons) is ‘unprecedented in its use of strings soli to match the texture of the cinematography… [“to complement the black-and-white photography of the film with a black-and-white score”] featuring probably the most famous (and most imitated) cue in film music’ (Steven C. Smith). Hitchcock conceived the shower scene without music and it was Herrmann who persuaded him to use the score he had secretly composed, the stabbing violins signifying pure terror. ‘Where would we be without “Psycho”? Fifty years on and Hitch’s delicious cod-Freudian nightmare about a platinum-blonde embezzler (Janet Leigh) who neglected to consult a guide before selecting her motel still has much to answer for. It blazed a bloody trail for the much-loved slasher cycle, but it also assured us that a B-movie could be A-grade in quality and innovation. It dared to suggest that your star didn’t need to surface from an ordeal smelling of roses (or, indeed, at all)’ (Time Out).
CAPE FEAR
June 5, 8pm
‘One of those shockers that provokes disgust and regret. There seems to be no reason for it but to agitate anguish and a violent, vengeful urge that is offered some animal satisfaction by [a] murderous fight at the end’ (New York Times). J. Lee Thompson’s brutal psychological revenge thriller set in a lawless milieu with terrorism an ever-present reality needed Herrmann’s Hitchcockian pedigree to underscore its malice. ‘Herrmann’s score reinforces Cape Fear’s savagery. Mainly a synthesis of past devices, its power comes from their imaginative application and another ingenious orchestration … Like earlier “psychological” Herrmann scores, dissonant string combinations suggest the workings of a killer’s mind’ (Smith). (Martin Scorsese used the same score reworked by Elmer Bernstein for his 1991 remake with Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte.)
The British Institute
Lungarno Guicciardini, 9 tel. 055/267781
