Post by doomedbloodwork on Jul 17, 2004 6:06:02 GMT -5
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is currently the biggest documentary on the planet. Regardless of your views of Michael Moore and how the Iraq war has affected perceptions of government (certainly in England where there appears to have been a clear vindication of the Blair Government) it provides a compulsion to see this style of film-making that often is left in limited release and on special edition reissue DVDs.
It seems fitting to go back over 50 years to a film that started production just as the US entered into World War II and, just like the subject it portrayed, came as an optimistic point of reference for a world that was being transformed, just as it is now.
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942) has a valid message for people today and won a well-deserved Oscar for James Cagney as George M Cohan, the Cameron Mackintosh of his day who received special recognition by the President for his lyrical contributions to the war cause through music hall. It is also the sort of movie that the world needs again with the positive uplift that a film like FAHRENHEIT 9/11 denies in some ways.
There is currently a James Cagney season at the NFT and this is one of two films I am seeing (the other being Milos Forman's 1981 movie RAGTIME, Cagney's last). It is also a valid testament to a talent who to most people is known as primarily a gangster with the likes of PUBLIC ENEMY and ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (imagine Pacino starring in CHICAGO)
Told in part-flashback, the story opens with Cohan meeting the President after his latest successful show and recounting his road to success as part of a family troupe. He becomes a musical director in the face of adversity, even to the point of writing a song for then big-starlet Fay Templeton in the interval and tries to diversify with mixed results.
This is simply a splendid musical movie with many layers within it's heart and in light of how celebrity is perceived these days and the way generations view past ones, it has as much to say about that.
It seems fitting to go back over 50 years to a film that started production just as the US entered into World War II and, just like the subject it portrayed, came as an optimistic point of reference for a world that was being transformed, just as it is now.
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942) has a valid message for people today and won a well-deserved Oscar for James Cagney as George M Cohan, the Cameron Mackintosh of his day who received special recognition by the President for his lyrical contributions to the war cause through music hall. It is also the sort of movie that the world needs again with the positive uplift that a film like FAHRENHEIT 9/11 denies in some ways.
There is currently a James Cagney season at the NFT and this is one of two films I am seeing (the other being Milos Forman's 1981 movie RAGTIME, Cagney's last). It is also a valid testament to a talent who to most people is known as primarily a gangster with the likes of PUBLIC ENEMY and ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (imagine Pacino starring in CHICAGO)
Told in part-flashback, the story opens with Cohan meeting the President after his latest successful show and recounting his road to success as part of a family troupe. He becomes a musical director in the face of adversity, even to the point of writing a song for then big-starlet Fay Templeton in the interval and tries to diversify with mixed results.
This is simply a splendid musical movie with many layers within it's heart and in light of how celebrity is perceived these days and the way generations view past ones, it has as much to say about that.