Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The Good German
I went to see the Good German at the weekend and was thoroughly gripped by it.
Steven Soderbergh shot this as thought it were actually filmed in the 1940s, shooting in black and white, with no radio mikes or fancy grip gear.
It takes a while to sink into the style, because it's a completely different visual style than today. I also found I was missing the odd line here and there, because the dialogue wasn't always crisp.
The story-telling style owes more to theatre than film, with the locations becoming characters in their own right, telling as much about the scars of war as the people living in them. Everyone has a part of themselves they have to sell in order to survive. Cate Blanchette, who channels Garbo/Dietrick/Bergman throughout, is simply, stoically brilliant. And the ending has "Casablanca" stamped all over it.
Steven Soderbergh shot this as thought it were actually filmed in the 1940s, shooting in black and white, with no radio mikes or fancy grip gear.
It takes a while to sink into the style, because it's a completely different visual style than today. I also found I was missing the odd line here and there, because the dialogue wasn't always crisp.
The story-telling style owes more to theatre than film, with the locations becoming characters in their own right, telling as much about the scars of war as the people living in them. Everyone has a part of themselves they have to sell in order to survive. Cate Blanchette, who channels Garbo/Dietrick/Bergman throughout, is simply, stoically brilliant. And the ending has "Casablanca" stamped all over it.
