Tuesday, August 18, 2020

5 Off My Head: The Comfort of Venice

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Paul Schrader's 1990 film The Comfort of Strangers, starring Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson as a couple contemplating their engagement along the dark alleyways of Venezia, and Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren as the strange couple they find waiting for them there, is hitting Criterion today and I'd say it's a fairly joyous occasion -- I just watched the film last week for the first time and it's a bit of a forgotten, lost treasure if you ask me. Schrader conjures a strange mood from that city on the water that might just be the closest I've seen come to what my own experience visiting it was -- I didn't love Venice in the daylight but when the night came and the tourists evaporated and you find yourself lost in its byzantine streets it's a weird, creepy, darkly magical place, outside of time.

That was my favorite bit of my visit, the memories of that place that I appreciate more than any other, and The Comfort of Strangers manages to roll around in that doomed romantic vibe and make a movie out of it. I recommend! It's not perfect, but not many Interesting Movies are -- most are more all the more interesting for their missteps. Anyway I tweeted about it at the time but after watching TCOS last week I immediately wanted to watch just movies set in Venice and I made a whole day out of just that, and now I am going to make a whole list out of it.

My 5 Favorite Venice Movies


Summertime (1955)



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What your your faves? Even if only scenes,
like with Indiana Jones or Casino Royale...


10 comments:

david said...

My list would include most of yours plus The Wings of the Dove.

Laramie Dean said...

We just watched THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY the other night (because it's my very favorite; I was hoping it would be on this list!

Eugene said...

My all time favorite Venice movie and one of my all time favorites in general is Don't Look Now. Venice in the winter, which is when I was there. Wonderful sense of dread and beauty combined in the city. Loved it. Also love Comfort of Strangers which I saw in it's original release and none of my friends went to see. One of the best things Walken has ever done and perfectly showcasing his odd delivery. Had me scratching my head and buying the book to try to understand what I had just seen. I will definitely be purchasing the Criterion edition. However, the full film the last time I looked was available for free on YouTube.

joel65913 said...

I had looked forward to seeing The Comfort of Strangers because of its cast but hated it when I finally caught up with it sadly.

My five favorites set in Venice:

Summertime
Dangerous Beauty
The Italian Job (the Charlize Theron version)
Wings of the Dove
Casino Royale

Anonymous said...

I was hoping you'd do a Gratuitous Rupert Everett post after seeing The Comfort of Strangers...

Unknown said...

I'd add "pane e tulipani". Let's have an Italian film.

Shawny said...

Summertime is the best one of the lot in terms of featuring Venice. I will always keep a fond memory of the first time the red goblet popped out of the screen, so vibrantly. Gives me a case of the romanticals just thinking about it. Oh Renato!

Jason Adams said...

Unknown -- it occurred to me, with shame (which is why i didn't mention it) that I didn't actually have an Italian movie on the list, but glancing through Wiki's page of movies set in Venice I didn't really the few Italian movies they mentioned, but then a movie made by Italians isn't going to fetishize the place like a tourist would, which is where I'm coming at Italy from, and where all of these movies I listed are. I guess it's an outsider mindset -- if you're in Paris you've got to have the Eiffel Tower in the background, dontcha know ;)

Kevin said...

Gotta add "A Little Romance" to this list. A lovely film by George Roy Hill that made me fall in love with the idea of Venice and has beautiful performances by Laurence Olivier & a very young Diane Lane.

Shawn said...

Way too much death in Venice.