Everybody Loved Them; I Cringed

If "Breakfast" were filmed today, the homosexuality from the novel would be in the spotlight!

What? There was homosexuality in Breakfast at Tiffany's? <thinking hard & not recalling this> It never held my interest either.

I wasn't crazy about this movie either. What homosexuality?

The George Peppard character in Capote's novel was gay.,

Casting George Peppard was kind of like casting an ambulating armoire...

How in the hell did he get that big role, anyway?

Gawd knows but it was obviously on looks so perhaps the casting couch had something to do with it. I don't believe Capote was very happy about the released version.

Lightwizard,

You pointed out that Orson Wells, in his movie Citizen Caine; created some of the techniques used in The Godfather. And, I agree, The Godfather does owe gratitude to Wells.

But it doesn't stop there. Orson Wells owed a debt of gratitude to the Russian film maker Serge Eisenstein.
Eisenstein, in such films as Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky, developed the concept of montage and other
techniques.

That was funny, Tartarin!

Welles has been quoted as saying he was influenced by Eisenstein in particular. You can find frames in "Ivan the Terrible: Part 1" where deep focus is utilized and camera angles are strikingly similar to those in "Kane." My favorite Eisenstein is still "Ten Days That Shook the Earth." The way the actors are blocked in many scenes makes me think of the newspaper milieu of "Kane."

I can't believe I wrote "Caine" for "Kane."
My main excuse is I recently watched "Zulu" with Michael Caine.

Thanks for the additional, specific information about Eisenstein. Eisenstein also created some important editing techniques.

Lightwizard, is there a name for his editing violence by first showing the victim's face in horror, cutting to the killer's action, and cutting back to the victim?
(Or am I attributing someone else's contribution to the
art of film.)

LOL, if "Kane" had been made in our era, Caine might be cast in the Joseph Cotton role!

I don't think there is a particular name for any editing "gimmick" that is successful or not successful but I know Ebert has come up with some in his books (especially "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Film.") I don't think there is enough emphasis on what editing can do for a film or how it can also be detrimental. Of course, the most brilliant editing of a scene you describe is in "Psycho." The editing technique you are describing I have heard as "cutting back". I'm surprised someone like Mel Brooks has never exploited it (I thought "High Anxiety" had it's moments of satirizing Alfred Hitchcock, especially the shot through the glass coffee table, but ultimately only an average Brooks outing.)

American Beauty

Alan Ball, the writer of "American Beauty" (a juggernaut of a script) created "Six Feet Under."
Some viewers are put-off by the down-and-dirty realism of real personalities in AB but I find it highly entertaining and, at the end, quite a jolt to the senses.

Not my idea of "entertainment."

Hmm, I seem to remember liking "Zulu", but - perhaps I am mixing it up.

I wasnt much impressed by "American Beauty", either. If that's the Americans' idea of a "deep" movie ...

No, a deep movie would be "Jaws." AB was a satirical look at the "American dream." Or was it the American nightmare?

I didn't like American Beauty either, though I appreciate the acting of Kevin Spacey (Shipping News, K-PAX, both good enough to be watched again.)

A deep American-made movie? Geez...Bowling for Columbine? I'm not sure I'd like a deep movie; it would probably be too dark.

What about something from Canada? They're Americans, too.

Remember Peggy Lee's song, "Is That All There Is?" After I saw Shane, that's how I felt.

Movies that become "legendary" are almost impossible to live up to one's expectations. I guess it's best to see them when they first come out, before there's a chance for the legend to grow. Or maybe it just wasn't that good.