Like magic, the art of the filmmaker is illusory. But every once in while, a director (most recently, Clint Eastwood with White Hunter, Black Heart) will enter another level of legerdemain and pretend to show us the world behind the camera, seemingly revealing the tricks of the screen trade. Here are some of the most notable juxtapositions of the real world and the reel world — five films about filmmakers and filmmaking.
The Barefoot Contessa (1954, MGM/UA)
Humphrey Bogart is Harry Dawes, a Hollywood writer-director making a comeback. He discovers
the beauteous, libidinous Ava Gardner in a Madrid flamenco club. He
turns her into a star but winds up narrating her unhappy story from
her graveside. This is writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz trying to do for moviemaking what he did for the theater in All About Eve. Contessa is a witty, appealing film. B+
8 1/2 (1963, MPI)
Having trouble deciding on his next project
following the international success of La Dolce Vita, Italian
director Federico Fellini went ahead and made a movie about just that — a director's creative block. Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido, who faces down a mid-life crisis while at a health spa. In a dazzling succession of surreal images, Fellini weaves the director's memories
and fantasies into a brilliant blend as Guido comes to realize that
lives, like movies, need direction. But watch out: Shot in wide
screen, the movie has been electronically squeezed (all the
characters look 10 pounds thinner) for video release. Black and
white. Dubbed and subtitled versions. A-
Day for Night (1973, Warner)
The director of a movie being shot
on the French Riviera (portrayed by the film's own director, François
Truffaut) has his hands full, from a cat that won't take direction to the raging hormones of human cast and crew. Jacqueline Bisset costars with Jean-Pierre Léaud and Valentina Cortese. An affectionate,
light-toned tribute to the drudgery and the intricacies — and, of course, the magic — of making movies. But beware: This print is horribly dubbed. B
Stardust Memoris (1980, CBS/Fox)
Woody Allen plays a serious
filmmaker famous for his early, funny movies (ahem). He's besieged by
autograph hounds, studio executives, and the three women in his life
during a weekend retrospective of his work. Self-consciously shot in
black and white, this film borrows shamelessly from both Fellini and
Antonioni, not to mention Allen's own Manhattan. C
Good Morning, Babylon (1987, Vestron)
Two brothers (Vincent Spano
and Joaquim De Almeida), Italian marble cutters, come to America and
work for the granddaddy of directors, D.W. Griffith (Charles Dance),
on the set of his 1916 epic, Intolerance. Codirectors Paolo and
Vittorio Taviani created a giddy valentine to pioneer moviemaking,
but they work in English, not their native tongue, resulting in some
verbal clumsiness. Yet there are moments of utter enchantment, and
Dance makes a dandy Griffith. B-
