THE DEVILS

 You know when Ken Russell does "The Devils of Loudun" it won't be like anyone else's version of "The Devils of Loudun" and it certainly won't be another "Mother Joan of the Angels" and although the opening credits tell us that what follows is based on fact and that the events portrayed actually happened I'm pretty sure they didn't happen quite the way Russell shows them.

This is a piece of pure cinema, stunningly designed, (by Derek Jarman, no less), and photographed, (by David Watkin); a feast of mounting hysteria totally in keeping with its subject and with 'realism' conspicuously absent from almost every shot as Sister Jeanne's fantasies and accusations come to dominate. Considered both blasphemous and obscene at the time of its release it now looks like something of a near-masterpiece, the kind of film Powell and Pressburger might have made but were never allowed to.

Like Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" it's about what happens when lust and religion collide and of the terrible aftermath of such a collision. In 17th century France, in the town of Loudun, during the plague, a handsome, if randy, priest Father Grandier, (Oliver Reed, excellent), is accused of being in league with the Devil by hunchback nun Sister Jeanne, (Vanessa Redgrave, embracing hysteria as if it were going out of fashion).

The thing is, Grandier may be guilty of committing 'sins of the flesh' but is actually in all other respects a good man and it is Sister Jeanne, her nuns and the powers-that-be who are really tainted by evil. Of course, it won't appeal to everyone; this is a brilliant, challenging work, funny and disturbing in equal measure and beautifully played by Russell's stock company. Essential viewing.

THE CRIME IS MINE

 I've always preferred Francois Ozon when he's in a playful mood and he's certainly in a playful mood here revamping a creaky old play by George Berr and Louis Verneuil that's already been filmed twice before and giving it a bright new glow, dispensing with realism from the start. "Mon Crime" is definitely an old-fashioned comedy-thriller with nary a thrill to be found, silly enough to keep a soppy grin on our faces for most of its running time.

The daft plot has young actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz accused of murdering an over-sexed producer only to be defended in court, in something of a parody of "Roxie Hart", by her roommate and best friend Rebecca Marder and that's just the half of it. It's totally daft and thoroughly delightful with a superb performance from Fabrice Luchini as the investigating judge and if that's not enough there's always Isabelle Huppert as a wildly over-the-top actress insisting on her day in court. Minor Ozon but even minor Ozon can be a real treat.

THE MUSIC LOVERS

 The story of a homosexual who fell in love with a nymphomaniac! At least that's how the publicity department tried to sell Ken Russell's Tchaikovsky biopic "The Music Lovers". Russell was never known for his subtlety and "The Music Lovers" certainly isn't subtle. It's a kind of 'Tchaikovsky's Greatest Hits' and since Nina, the nymphomaniac he marries, is given pride of place it more often than not verges on hysteria and purists are going to find it a hard pill to swallow but it's also hugely entertaining, even when it's terrible, and as Tchaikovsky Richard Chamberlain, previously known as the boyishly good-looking Dr. Kildare, is surprisingly good while as Nina, Glenda Jackson chews the scenery and everything else in a wildly over-the-top performance. It looks fantastic and if, in the musical sequences, Russell is playing to the gallery, (wait until you get to the 1812 Overture), it's certainly never dull. Of course, the composer deserves a lot better than this but as biographies of the great composers go, it's definitely a step up on "A Song to Remember" and the blandness of Cornel Wilde.

DARLING LILI

 After the success of "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music" did Hollywood ever worry about what they might do with the hottest property on the planet? Did anyone ever doubt that Julie Andrews could act or that she was more than just a voice, even if that voice seemed limited in its range? The 'big' Hollywood musical did seem to be on the way out, (even "Camelot" went with Vanessa Redgrave and not Julie, who was the stage Guinevere), but Miss Andrews was still holding her own in such non-musicals as "Hawaii" and "Torn Curtain" and she would prove a splendid Gertrude Lawrence in "Star" and for a time she would continue in roles that allowed her a certain dramatic or comedy license while also giving her the chance to sing.

In 1970, cast in "Darling Lili" she had the role of a music hall entertainer who also happened to be a German spy during the years of World War One. It was a frivolous epic, part romantic comedy, (though never a particularly funny one), and part spirited action flic with some splendid aerial sequences as well as being a mildly engaging spy yarn with perhaps the least likely German spy in all of movies. Of course, if Julie is to change her allegiance it's going to take the right man to do it and I suppose who better than Rock Hudson, still flaunting his hunk status almost 20 years after first baring his chest on screen. Unfortunately for Rock, (not looking very happy here), Jeremy Kemp is there to steal his every scene. The director was Blake Edwards and if it isn't one of his finest films let's just say it has its moments.

QUILLS

 More ambitious than successful, "Quills" hasn't quite stood the test of time. If you want de Sade you really need to go to Pasolini and if you want the Asylum of Charenton you should stick with Peter Brook. To be fair to Philip Kaufman, "Quills" at least went as far as mainstream cinema might have gone in 2000 and it did pick up 3 Oscar nominations, (including one for Geoffrey Rush's Marquis), as well as several other prizes but it's hardly a manifesto for free speech, liberty or even carnality sometimes coming across like a Carry On movie with the cheap laughs removed.

On the plus side it is splendidly designed and well acted with Rush giving us a de Sade more sinned against than sinning making Michael Caine's 'doctor' the film's real sadist and there's nice work from both Kate Winslet as the laundress with a mind of her own and Joaquin Phoenix as the young priest whose good intentions backfire on him. Doug Wright's script, taken from his own play, aims for the literate but he can't quite escape the fact that he's written a horror film complete with the requisite amount of torture-porn, an obligatory dash of necrophilia and a touch of blasphemy . By the time we get around to the Marquis' final declaration, written in feces on the walls of his cell, the film has nowhere to go but down.

SCENT OF A WOMAN

 Most people are probably familiar with the American remake if only because Al Pacino finally won his Oscar for it but how many people have seen this superior Italian original? "Profumo di Donna" or "Scent of a Woman" was directed by Dino Risi in 1974 with Vittorio Gassman in the role of the blind former soldier being guided around Italy by a young private, (Alessandro Momo, tragically killed in a motorcycle accident shortly after the film was completed).

Whereas Pacino cut the ham fairly thickly in an Oscar-bait performance, Gassman plays the part in a much lower key, (he won the Best Actor prize at Cannes), making his character largely sympathetic and likeable from the get-go. Momo, too, is excellent as the poor lad who would seemingly be rather doing anything else than chaperoning Gassman. It's a slight film with a rather improbable plot, and one that's very different from the American version, but it has a lot of charm and none of the sentimentality you associate with American movies of this ilk.

HOFFA

 Not as bad as many people say but it's not good either. "Hoffa" certainly looks terrific, (Stephen H. Burum was justly Oscar-nominated for his cinematography), but despite a screenplay by none other than David Mamet it lacks heft and there are long dull stretches as it flits back and forth in time, (it's told in flashback), through the career of Union boss and mob associate Jimmy Hoffa, (Jack Nicholson in one of his least charismatic performances).

The director of the picture is Danny DeVito who also plays his life-long friend Bobby Ciaro but this is a film that needed a Scorsese and not a DeVito at the helm. There are some good set-pieces, again enhanced by Burum's cinematography, but the acting is all over the place and at two hours and twenty minutes it's far too long. Mamet probably hoped this would be an epic tragedy but he keeps missing the mark. It's certainly not a total write-off, (there's a great supporting turn from J.T. Walsh), but it still counts as a failure albeit an ambitious one with an ending that is pure conjecture.

REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT

 A masterpiece and one of the greatest of all movies set in the world of professional boxing even if scenes of actual boxing are conspicuous by their absence. "Requiem for a Heavyweight" also represents one of the great debuts in American cinema. Ralph Nelson was already 46 when he made this and had already more than a decade working on television behind him, where in 1957 he had already directed the original television version of this film.

As the heavyweight of the title Anthony Quinn is magnificent; it is almost certainly his best performance and in any year other than 1962 he would have been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. He is superbly supported by Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney and Julie Harris. Arthur J. Ornitz did the luminous black and white cinematography while as the young fighter who lays Quinn out in the pre-credit sequence Mohammad Ali appears under his original name of Cassius Clay, naturally playing himself.

LOOK BACK IN ANGER

Before George and Martha there were Jimmy and Alison, the vituperate couple at the heart of Osborne's legendary play and I suppose you could say the British Kitchen Sink movement started here. The difference, of course, being that while the Arthur Seatons and Colin Smiths of this world were unequivocally working-class kicking against the system and the intelligentsia, Jimmy and Alison were the intelligentsia playing at being working-class. And therein lies the rub; unlike later 'kitchen sink' movies "Look Back in Anger" isn't so much looking back as mired in the past, an uneasy amalgam of the kind of British films that were coming out in the late fifties and the kind of ground-breaking British cinema that would come to prevail in the early sixties.

There is no denying it is extremely well played. Burton is loudly splendiferous as Jimmy yet he seems strangely miscast at the same time. Perhaps it's that booming, melodious voice; this is a Jimmy that is more Shakespeare than Osborne, (note how Olivier completely subsumed his Shakespearean tendencies to become the definitive Osborne hero in "The Entertainer"). By the time Burton got around to playing George in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" you could say he had grown into the part.

Better cast are Mary Ure as Alison and Claire Bloom as Helena. Their performances feel new and edgy, a move away from the traditional kind of performances that British actresses had been giving up to then while Gary Raymond is an admirable Cliff and a miscast Edith Evans does what she can with Ma Tanner. Tony Richardson opens it out from the Porter's depressing flat to give a more 'cinematic' feel yet it still feels stagey and not in a good way. It's a refreshingly 'grown-up' movie but you may still wonder what all the fuss was about when the original play first opened.

 

RIDE WITH THE DEVIL

 Ang Lee's "Ride with the Devil" deals with an aspect of the American Civil War usually ignored by the cinema; not the great battles between the Yankee and Confederate armies but the brutal and bloody skirmishes carried out by those Southern 'gentlemen' and farm boys who didn't join up and this, being an Ang Lee film, is remarkably faithful to the period both in look and in the patina of James Schamus' antiquated dialogue from Daniel Woodrell's novel "Woe to Live On".

Lee cast the film mostly with young actors whose careers had yet to take a foothold, (Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jim Caviezel, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jeffrey Wright and the singer Jewel who really is excellent), and the pace of the film is certainly measured. The action scenes are indeed bloody and the film's one great set-piece, (an attack on a town by Quantrill's Raiders), is suitably savage but Lee prefers a slow, almost documentary-like approach to his material and the film often goes in directions we don't expect. This is definitely a post-modern western and in the Lee canon it's been largely overlooked but it remains one of his very best pictures, one that makes no concessions to its potential audience. It really is very fine.

PROVIDENCE

 Filmed in English, (though originally in France with the actors dubbed into French then 'dubbed' back again for an English-speaking audience), from a screenplay by David Mercer yet unmistakably Resnais and set mostly inside the head of dying novelist John Gielgud. I have to admit I hated "Providence" when I first saw it finding it both arch and pretentious and at the time I couldn't quite understand why so many international critics thought it was a masterpiece.

Maybe it seemed to me to be an old man's movie or at least a middle-aged man's movie, a picture about being old and dying but now that I'm a relatively old man myself I finally 'get' it and "Providence" does indeed feel like a masterpiece and a worthy companion piece to "Last Year at Marienbad".

As I said it takes place mostly inside the mind of dying author Gielgud who spends his long sleepless nights mostly drunk and in pain, this thoughts a mixture of memories, some real, others imagined and amalgamated with ideas from the novel he's writing and in which his family are the characters. Dirk Bogarde, (superb), is his fey son, at least fey in Gielgud's mind. Ellen Burstyn is Bogarde's wife, Elaine Stritch his mistress and his mother depending on Gielgud's point of view and David Warner both Burstyn's lover and Bogarde's half-brother.

Like "Marienbad" it's a memory piece, even at its most fantastical and, of course, it's highly literate as perhaps you would expect from a film about a writer and it's often very funny. It may never be as profound as it thinks it is, a smart doodle by a great director enjoying playing with his audience and this time round, to quote a particular Oscar-winning actress, I liked it...I really liked it.