Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Director: Robert Bresson
Country: France
Length: 95 minutes
Type: Drama
'Au Hasard Balthazar's reputation as a soul shattering "greatest film ever" and the fact that I've loved all the other
Robert Bresson films I've seen so far, gave me expectations that were difficult to meet. The film is good but I wasn't ever moved to tears or anything. There are a lot of Christian overtones to the story, so if you bring all that baggage with you into the film, I imagine you'll probably take more away from the experience as a result.
Network (1976)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Country: United States
Length: 121 minutes
Type: Drama, Satire
This is the 2nd time I've watched
'Network', the first time was over a decade ago, when I remember really liking it. This time, in 2023, in an age where performatively insane ramblings are routinely broadcast (or that should be uploaded) for profit without anybody batting an eyelid, where it's becoming it's own industry, a film about 1970s TV execs worrying if they should put a mentally unstable man on live TV seems very quaint. Plus of course the setting within the network TV industry seems so far in the past. 'Network' was ahead of it's time in 1976 and still was for many years, plus it remains funny and pertinent in many places, so I respect that.
Faye Dunaway's role as the new young morally bankrupt female executive, who sleeps her way to the top, supplanting older experienced, upright, "responsible" male broadcasters, also feels misjudged now, as does
Marlene Warfield's character's thinly veiled ridiculing of female black power leaders like
Kathleen Cleaver and
Angela Davis. This was a big commercial hit and garnered nine Oscar nominations in it's day, where as another caustic TV satire like
Martin Scorsese's 1982 film
'The King of Comedy' died a death. That film has grown stronger and more relevant, this one has slipped into irrelevance. All the material around the iconic
"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!" is still powerful, quotable stuff though.