Friday, May 13, 2016

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:



Laura: [voiceover] This can't last. This misery can't last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There'll come a time in the future when I shan't mind about this anymore, when I can look back and say quite peacefully and cheerfully how silly I was. No, no, I don't want that time to come ever. I want to remember every minute, always, always to the end of my days. 

Celia Johnson, Celia Johnson, divine Celia Johnson. One of the greatest performances ever captured on screen, this one. So Film Forum here in New York is doing a week-long series of Noel Coward movies and this weekend they'll be screening, amongst others, this gem from director David Lean, which I consider the most romantic movie ever made, give or take a Notorious. (I go back and forth with the two, depending on how fatalistic I'm feeling.) If you've never seen Brief Encounter oh my god have you got a treat coming your way. Nothing makes the prospect of true romance swoonier than stiff upper lips crumbling.

Oh and as long as you're heading to Film Forum you should watch Design For Living, Ernst Lubitsch's sparkling ode to having a threesome with Gary Cooper and Fredric March, which is also screening this weekend over there...
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1 comment:

Pierce said...

I had the pleasure of directing Still Life, the play that Brief Encounter is based on, after seeing the Kneehigh Theater production in London. I think though that Coward's best work on film is that lovely World War II film, In Which We Serve. Blithe Spirit is marvelous too. The Noel Coward Collection has a terrific production of Tonight At 8:30 starring Joan Collins and Anthony Newley, former husband and wife who reunited shortly before Newley's death to perform this series of plays.