20th Century Films: 1990 to 1994

British Cinema

It is interesting to note the number of British films that were taken forward as international co-productions from the late 1980s onwards. In the early 1990s the USA was the predominant partner. With some productions there was an understandable and logical meeting of minds and subject matter; but American support for some peculiarly British projects speaks volumes for the quality of the home industry and the respect gained by the imagination and wit of British writers and directors.

Prospero's Books / Peter Greenaway

1991. Colour. UK. 124 mins. VHS.

A tour de force from Sir John Gielgud, who takes on a marathon reading of Shakespeare’s The Tempest against a moving mosaic of Renaissance-inspired sets and graphics. The overall impression is of Jacobean court revels and masques, where scenery and magical displays by designers such as Inigo Jones could be equally as important as content. Peter Greenaway has here used film in a way that is unique and seems, at the same time, to pose questions about film itself: The Tempest is a tale of illusions and effects presented, in Prospero’s Books, through a medium that depends entirely on illusion and effects. The Tempest was Shakespeare’s last single-authored play and Prospero can be taken as a personification of the playwright, whose theatrical conjurings were drawing to a close. ‘Our revels now are ended …..’

The Tempest / William Shakespeare

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Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead / Tom Stoppard

1991. Colour. UK. 127 mins. DVD.

A clever, funny and imaginative take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Gary Oldman and Tim Roth play the interchangeable minor characters (there are times when they themselves seem uncertain which is which) who try to fathom their own reality and the meaning of life outside of the brief moments when they touch base with the main action of the play. Reality seems illusory as they wander aimlessly without references, memories or any sense of direction. In the meantime Oldman’s amiable buffoon stumbles across scientific principles that he is unable to replicate for a cynical Roth. Richard Dreyfuss supports effectively as The Player King. This was Tom Stoppard’s cinematic directorial debut, based on his own stage play. To fill in the gaps see Laurence Olivier’s version of Hamlet (1948 qv) (which excludes Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern).

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The Commitments / Alan Parker

1991. Colour. UK/USA. 113 mins. DVD.

Rollicking and immensely enjoyable comedy that follows the rise and fall of a Dublin soul band. The new group work their way through the soul classics and, predictably for the genre, achieve musical mastery and popular acclaim with amazing rapidity. Equally predictably it all comes apart in chaos and recrimination. Roddy Doyle wrote the original novel and Ian LeFrenais and Dick Clement helped with the script.

The Commitments / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 14 Tracks.

The Commitments / Roddy Doyle

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Chaplin / Richard Attenborough

1992. Colour/BW. UK/USA. 139 mins. DVD.

Biopic that gallops through Chaplin’s life and dalliances so quickly as to hardly touch the sides. But the film is unmissable for Robert Downey Jr’s startling performance in the title role, particularly when revisiting Charlie Chaplin’s classic routines. Richard Attenborough’s reverent homage is coloured by a glittering cast that includes Dan Aykroyd as Mack Sennett, John Thaw as Fred Karno, Kevin Kline as Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Chaplin’s daughter Geraldine as Chaplin’s mother Hannah. Bryan Forbes, William Goldman and William Boyd share the writers’ credits.

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The Crying Game / Neil Jordan

1992. Colour. UK. 107 mins. DVD.

Irony is piled upon irony as each false ending leads on to the next — too detailed a discussion of Neil Jordan’s film would give away too many games! In brief, a British soldier (Forest Whitaker) is taken hostage by an IRA unit whose members include Miranda Richardson and Stephen Rea. Whitaker dies during an escape attempt and Rea flees to London, where he becomes involved with Whitaker’s lover (Jaye Davidson). Frequently seeming on the verge of the conventional but always taking a leap into the unexpected, The Crying Game delivers surprises to the end.

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Four Weddings and a Funeral / Mike Newell

1994. Colour. UK. 112 mins. DVD.

Romantic comedy ably directed by Mike Newell from a witty script by Richard Curtis. Hugh Grant is an ineffectual charmer who carries on an intermittent affair with Andie MacDowell. This provides the background for the lives and loves of a group of friends, including Kristin Scott-Thomas, James Fleet, David Bower, Charlotte Coleman and a magnificent Simon Callow as the exuberant partner of John Hannah. The main actors make up a superb ensemble cast. Slightly saccharine, perhaps, but Four Weddings manages to engender unconditional affection for its characters. The film’s international success spawned a series of inferior British comedies until Richard Curtis peaked again with Notting Hill (1999 qv). To look out for: Kenneth Griffith as an irascible wedding guest, Rowan Atkinson as a trainee clergyman and Hannah’s heartrending reading of W H Auden’s ‘Funeral Blues’. Stop all the clocks.

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Interview With The Vampire / Neil Jordan

1994. Colour. UK/USA. 118 mins. DVD.

Screenplay by Anne Rice based on her best-selling novel of vampiric melancholy. Modern-day reporter Daniel Malloy (Christian Slater) interviews Louis Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt), who claims to have been granted eternal life in the 18th Century by vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise). Although Louis is opposed to murder and depends on killing animals for blood, he lapses and attacks a young girl ; the result is a strange ménage with Louis and Lestat acting in loco parentis to the undead Claudia (Kirsten Durst). There are some unexpected, if dark, comic moments. Rice fans and Anne Rice herself objected loudly to the casting of Cruise as Lestat; but his portrayal was so accomplished that Rice published a two-page retraction in the national press.

Interview With The Vampire / Anne Rice

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Shallow Grave / Danny Boyle

1994. Colour. UK. 88 mins. DVD.

Three flatmates recruit a fourth, who immediately dies of a drug overdose leaving behind a suitcase full of money. Panic, bloodshed and paranoia follow. Danny Boyle’s rather soulless debut features Christopher Eccleston, Ewan McGregor and Kerry Fox.

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The Madness of King George / Nicholas Hytner

1994. Colour. UK/USA. 105 mins. DVD.

Adapted by Alan Bennett from his stage play, this is a sympathetic account of the descent into delirium of George III. Now believed to have been caused by porphyria, the monarch’s bouts of temporary insanity expose him to a series of ‘cures’, the last and harshest of which is imposed by the unrelenting Dr. Willis (Ian Holm). Political infighting escalates in the background as Tory Prime Minister William Pitt (Julian Wadham), Whig leader Charles Fox (Jim Carter) and a lethargic Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett) fight for advantage. Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren are outstanding as King George and Queen Charlotte. Amanda Donohoe deals coolly with Hawthorne’s ribald lapses. Alan Bennett’s script meets expectations.

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American Cinema

The debt owed by American cinema to maverick directors becomes more and more apparent. Tim Burton, Spike Lee and Oliver Stone stand out, but above all the pyrotechnic entry of Quentin Tarantino announced a new departure into a kind of post-post-modernism, where plots thrive on fragmented cross-reference and where familiarity with the cinema of the past brings the pleasure of recognition to audiences.

Dances With Wolves / Kevin Costner

1990. Colour. USA. 173 mins. DVD.

Kevin Costner directs, and stars as a Union officer wounded in the Civil War who requests a transfer to a frontier outpost. His solitary existence is relieved by a curious wolf and an even more curious band of Sioux Indians. The civilisation from which he has tried to escape eventually intrudes, with disastrous consequences for the wolf, the Sioux and himself. Over-romanticised and over-revisionist perhaps, but a box office blockbuster in its day.

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Edward Scissorhands / Tim Burton

1990. Colour. USA. 103 mins. DVD.

A beautiful sad fairy tale that symbolises the thin boundary between the normal and the bizarre. Edward (Johnny Depp) is left alone in his Gothic pile by dying inventor Vincent Price. Incomplete and with a collection of metal blades for hands, he is discovered and taken into the suburban world of sympathetic Avon Lady Dianne West and her daughter Winona Ryder. Initially welcomed by her neighbours because of his hairdressing and hedge-trimming talents, his happiness is threatened when he is suspected of a crime. Harking back to Frankenstein (1931 qv) and reflecting the frequent themes of alienation and the unjust persecution that is attracted by those who stray beyond the limits of the conventional, Edward Scissorhands is full of haunting and occasionally transcendental images. Great performances from all concerned, with Depp demonstrating the enthusiasm for challenging roles that marks his career.

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Godfather III / Francis Ford Coppola

1990. Colour. USA. 163 mins. DVD.

The temptation to make a second sequel could have been usefully resisted. The Corleone Family are now seeking legitimacy via the rather strange route of extending their business interests into the global arena through association with a corrupt Catholic Church and a corrupt Vatican Bank. The film’s turbulent production history was followed by a critical thrashing that placed most of the blame on the casting of the director’s daughter Sofia in the role of Michael Corleone’s daughter Mary. But the real problem was the attempt to encompass the complex conspiracy theories that revolved around the Masonic Lodge P2, the death of Pope John Paul I and the murder of Alberto Calvi, as expounded in David Yallop’s book In God’s Name, available from our Bookshop.

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Goodfellas / Martin Scorsese

1990. Colour. USA. 139 mins. DVD.

If Godfather III strayed too far into the realm of fantasy, Goodfellas has its feet firmly on the ground with a solid foundation in Nicholas Pileggi’s factual book Wiseguy. The focus of the film is Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), a minor hood who was taken into the witness protection programme after testifying against his associates. Martin Scorsese ranges across mobster macrocosm and family microcosm whilst tracking the rise through the gangster hierarchy of Robert De Niro and a chillingly psychopathic Joe Pesci. Lorraine Bracco adds texture as feisty Karen Hill, who takes no prisoners in her battle against husband Henry’s misdemeanours. Henry’s regretful redemption is marked by his descent into suburban insignificance — but 25 years after the film’s events Hill produced his own account of life on the run.

Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family / Nicholas Pileggi

Gangsters & Goodfellas / Henry Hill

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Green Card / Peter Weir

1990. Colour. USA. 102 mins. DVD.

A marriage of convenience between American Andie MacDowell and French composer and ex-thief Gerard Depardieu attracts the attention of the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service. The couple are forced to learn the details of each other’s lives so as to weather the investigation. But the match between the French carnivore and the tree-hugging vegetarian hardly seems made in heaven ….

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Jacob's Ladder / Adrian Lyne

1990. Colour. USA. 108 mins. DVD.

Vietnam vet Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) is haunted by memories of his war experiences and his dead son. From here he descends into confusion over his personal life and enters an hallucinatory world in which monsters and demons populate the streets and subways of New York. Are his visions real? Is he deteriorating into madness? Is he suffering from post-traumatic stress? Is he experiencing the after effects of drug testing in Vietnam? The multi-layered plot is not entirely thought through but is unsettling nonetheless.

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Mo' Better Blues / Spike Lee

1990. Colour. USA. 127 mins. VHS.

Nice characterisations flesh out a journey through the cool world of cool jazz. Denzel Washington is a womanising trumpeter torn between Joie Lee (sister of Spike) and singer Cynda Williams. At the same time his professional life reaches a critical point. Funny and moody, with atmospheric visuals, plot twists to spare and a wonderful soundtrack featuring Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bradford Marsalis and others. The supporting cast includes Wesley Snipes, John Turturro and director Spike Lee. For much more of the music, visit our Jazz Store.

Mo' Better Blues / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 9 Tracks.

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White Hunter, Black Heart / Clint Eastwood

1990. Colour. USA. 107 mins. DVD.

An intriguing departure for director Clint Eastwood who also stars, as a John Huston-like director, in a fiction based around the shooting of The African Queen (1951 qv). Eastwood’s role captures much of the idiosyncrasy of the great man, who seems more concerned with trophy hunting than with cast, crew or film.

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Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café / Jon Avnet

1991. Colour. USA. 124 mins. DVD.

Sentimental and engaging slice of nostalgia with a touch of tragedy, a vein of Southern racism and a hint of homely cannibalism. Drab small-town housewife Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) meets ageing Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), who enthrals Evelyn with tales of the free-spirited Idgie Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Masterson), Idgie’s friend Ruth (Mary Louise Parker) and their life together at the local café in 1930s Whistle Stop, Alabama. Sterling performances from all four leading ladies.

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Hearts of Darkness / Eleanor Coppola

1991. Colour. USA. VHS.

Subtitled ‘A Filmaker’s Apocalypse’, this is Francis Ford Coppola’s wife’s account of the trials and tribulations involved in the making of Apocalypse Now (1979 qv). Based on her journals and documentary footage shot during filming in the Philippines, the result is a fascinating saga of disasters, budget over-runs and hellish locations.

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JFK / Oliver Stone

1991. Colour. USA. 181 mins. DVD.

A virtuoso production from Oliver Stone that breaks all the rules of narrative structure by meandering through a confusing spectrum of plots and politics and leading towards an inconclusive ending. All the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy are knitted together in a three hour epic that follows the efforts of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to bring the only prosecution to date. Garrison is fixated on the view that the shooting could not have been the work of a lone gunman. His investigation takes him into the ambiguous and intertwined world of intelligence agencies, the Mafia, Cuban exiles and anti-Castro plots. A scintillating cast includes Kevin Costner (Jim Garrison), Sissy Spacek (Liz Garrison), Gary Oldman (Lee Harvey Oswald), Tommy Lee Jones (Clay Shaw) and Joe Pesci (David Ferrie), with telling support from Kevin Bacon and John Candy. JFK poses many oft-repeated questions and creates an intricate atmosphere of paranoia that demands frequent viewing. The film led to legislation that attempted to obtain the release of FBI, CIA and government files.

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Medicine Man / John McTiernan

1991. Colour. USA. VHS.

Slight but well-meaning and well produced entertainment that picks up the theme of the destruction of the rainforests and their indigenous peoples (see also The Emerald Forest, 1985, and The Mission, 1986, qv). Medicine Man takes up an additional concern: the loss of a potential pharmacopoeia. Sean Connery is an eccentric scientist, living with an Amazonian tribe, who has stumbled across a cure for cancer. Lorraine Bracco is sent to find the maverick researcher by his funding foundation and is drawn into his quest for the source of the cure. The search is threatened by the impending clearance of the forest.

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The Silence of the Lambs / Jonathan Demme

1991. Colour. USA. 113 mins. DVD.

Author Thomas Harris had already had his novel Red Dragon and his psychotic protagonist Dr. Hannibal Lecter translated to the screen in Manhunter (1986 qv). The Silence of the Lambs treads a similar path in spectacular fashion, with Anthony Hopkins as the cannibalistic doctor and Jodie Foster as rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling who enlists his help in her search for a serial killer. Lecter’s twisted genius contrasts nicely with Foster’s vulnerability as he tries to manipulate his way into her head but ultimately awards her his respect. Scott Glenn plays Foster’s mentor Jack Crawford, Ted Levine is the creepy killer Buffalo Bill. Anthony Heald is the obnoxious doctor in charge of the incarcerated Lecter who seems destined to get his comeuppance as the film ends. There are well known and much parodied moments, some of which involve considerable amounts of gore.

The Silence of the Lambs / Thomas Harris

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Thelma and Louise / Ridley Scott

1991. Colour. USA. 124 mins. DVD.

Totemic feminist road movie starring, respectively, Geena Davies and Susan Sarandon in the title roles. The pair embark on a weekend camping trip which goes awry almost immediately. Thelma suffers a near-rape outside a redneck bar and Louise shoots her attacker. The couple take off across the South West, heading for Mexico and leaving a trail of larceny and destruction with the FBI in hot pursuit. Vivid, powerful and by no means insubstantial, even the climactic ending is life affirming. Brad Pitt had a breakthrough role as a young cowboy stud and Marianne Faithful sings ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ and Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground provides a refrain (available from our Blues Store).

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The Two Jakes / Jack Nicholson

1991. Colour. USA. 132 mins. DVD.

Jack Nicholson directs the sequel to Roman Polanski’s classic Chinatown (1974 qv) and reprises his role as Chandleresque gumshoe Jake Gittes. Since the tragic denouement of Polanski’s masterpiece the Second World War has come and gone, and Gittes has risen from seedy divorce-hound to respectable and prosperous private eye. But the ghosts of Chinatown return when Gittes is hired by Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel) to tape an adulterous liaison between his wife Kitty (Meg Tilly) and his business partner Mark Bodine. The assignation ends with Berman’s murder of Bodine, and Gittes is drawn into a convoluted intrigue where the past is always present. Oil replaces the water of Chinatown as the profit motivation; the orange groves are, again, the setting for the dirty dealings; Kitty Berman is revealed to be the daughter of Chinatown’s Evelyn Mulwray. Above all the theme of Polanski’s tour de force is revisited: don’t mess with stuff you don’t understand! With James Hong as Kahn, the former servant, and Perry Lopez as Gittes’ old sparring partner Lou Escobar. Good support, especially from Madeleine Stowe as the widowed and libidinous Lillian Bodine; and from Eli Wallach, Ruben Blades, Richard Farnsworth and Frederic Forrest.

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Malcolm X / Spike Lee

1992. Colour. USA. 193 mins. DVD.

Surprisingly, perhaps, this filmic biography of Malcolm X focuses more on the man than on political polemic. Denzel Washington is totally persuasive as the self-educated activist who progressed from criminal beginnings to become the spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Albert Hall takes the role of the fellow prisoner who introduces Malcolm Little to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, played unerringly by Al Freeman Jnr. Angel Bassett is Malcom’s wife and Spike Lee appears as his early partner-in-crime. Absorbing, even after three hours.

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Of Mice and Men / Gary Sinise

1992. Colour. USA. 106 mins. DVD.

Although not up to the mark of the classic 1939 version starring Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr. (qv) Gary Sinise makes a competent fist of directing and co-starring in the remake of John Steinbeck’s sad short novel. George and Lennie (Gary Sinise and John Malkovich) are a couple of drifters moving from job to job during the Great Depression. George feels a paternal sense of responsibility for his innocent, simple minded and powerful companion. When they are taken on as farmhands the rancher’s son and his wife start a train of events that lead to tragedy. Malkovich gives a notable performance as the baffled giant Lennie.

Of Mice and Men / John Steinbeck

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Reservoir Dogs / Quentin Tarantino

1992. Colour. USA. 95 mins. DVD.

The consequences of a jewellery heist gone wrong provide a vehicle for a major new directorial talent. Tarantino constructs a fragmented narrative that owes much to his obsession with cinema but which is never self indulgent or incoherent. Lawrence Tierney organises a group of strangers to carry out the robbery. As the caper ends in a bloodbath and the band scatter in all directions it becomes apparent that one of the team is an undercover cop. Complication is piled on complication as another lawman, taken as hostage, is brought to the gang’s rendezvous. Wordy but never tedious in its examination of capitalism, professionalism and honour amongst thieves. The film was a showcase for Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Eddie Bunker and Tarantino himself as the colourful gang members, with Christopher Penn and Kirk Baltz on the periphery.

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Scent of a Woman / Martin Brest

1992. Colour. USA. 149 mins. DVD.

Ironically, Al Pacino won the first Oscar of a distinguished career for this unashamedly populist offering. Pacino plays a blind and embittered ex-Lieutenant Colonel who takes off on a final spree that is intended to end with his suicide. He is accompanied by Chris O’Donnell, an impoverished scholarship student at an elite college, who has been hired to baby-sit the prickly Pacino over Thanksgiving. O’Donnell has his own problems at the college and Pacino, persuaded out of suicide, delivers an aggressive diatribe during a scarcely believable final act that puts all to rights. Good performances carry a somewhat trite plot, and Pacino scores heavily as the abrasive Lt. Colonel Frank Slade.

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Unforgiven / Clint Eastwood

1992. Colour. USA. 126 mins. DVD.

Eastwood is at the peak of his directing career and delivers a fine performance as Will Munny, an ageing gunfighter who is lured out of retirement. A group of prostitutes have placed a bounty on the head of a cowboy who has slashed the face of one of their number. Munny is drawn in by wannabe gunslinger the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) and involves his old sidekick Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman). Gene Hackman is ‘Little Bill’ Daggett, the domineering sheriff of Big Whiskey and Richard Harris is marvellous as English Bob. An unromantic vision of the Old West that sets out to dismantle many of the archetypal myths, the script is by David Peoples (Blade Runner, 1982 qv) and the dedication is to Sergio (Leone) and Don (Siegel). The debt owed to both is obvious. This is the 10th Anniversary edition.

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In the Name of the Father / Jim Sheridan

1993. Colour. USA. 127 mins. DVD.

Based on the case of the Guildford Four, this account of government response to a terrorist act is very relevant to the post-9/11 world. After the IRA bombing of a Guildford pub a pressurised police force detains a group of suspects and, through unrelenting interrogation, force a number of bogus confessions. The Four are charged with abetting the IRA and given long prison sentences. The film focuses on the relationship between Gerald Conlan (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his father Guiseppe (Pete Postlethwaite), who died in prison. Day-Lewis fights to exonerate his family with the help of lawyer Emma Thompson. The film is equally condemning of the self-interest of the IRA and the police that left innocent people the victims of massive injustice.

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Philadelphia / Jonathan Demme

1993. Colour. USA. 120 mins. DVD.

It is often difficult to know whether Hollywood is driven by altruism or opportunism when dealing with controversial topical themes. Philadelphia was the first film to deal with AIDS and the prejudice that the ‘gay plague’ provoked. Slick corporate lawyer Tom Hanks is fired by his bosses, ostensibly because of professional failings but in reality because they have discovered that he is homosexual and HIV positive. When he decides to sue his only option is to use struggling black lawyer Denzel Washington, a closet homophobe who is reluctant to be associated with the high profile action. Jason Robards and Bob Seidman are the pompous employers, Joanne Woodward is the totally supportive mother and Antonio Banderas plays Hanks’s lover. Hanks is superb as he fights against bigotry and debilitating illness. With a poignant title track by Bruce Springsteen.

Philadelphia / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 10 Tracks.

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Schindler's List / Steven Spielberg

1993. BW/Colour. USA. 187 mins. DVD.

Overpowering drama based on Thomas Keneally’s Booker Prize-winning novel Schindler’s Ark. Small time wheeler-dealer Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) sees an opportunity to bribe his way to German army contracts and cheap labour from the Kracow ghetto as the Holocaust in Poland gathers pace. In this he is assisted by Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), who uses his position to infiltrate high-risk ghetto inmates into Schindler’s factory. Schindler is drawn into an ambivalent relationship with sociopathic Nazi commandant Amon Roth (Ralph Fiennes) who is charged with liquidating the ghetto and building a forced labour camp. As the horrors increase Schindler takes a more and more active role in Stern’s rescue schemes and has his factory moved into Roth’s labour complex. Schindler’s List is by no means a conventional Holocaust movie. The film is less about the detail of the Final Solution than about the universal theme of personal redemption, or its opposite as exemplified by the unnerving performance of Ralph Fiennes. The dispersed ‘Schindlerjuden’ and their descendants outnumber the total Jewish population of modern Poland.

Schindler's Ark / Thomas Keneally

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Ed Wood / Tim Burton

1994. BW. USA. 121 mins. DVD.

The bizarre director Ed Wood and his bizarre circle of friends and colleagues are the subject of this delightful homage from Tim Burton, who fully acknowledges Wood’s significance for his career. Johnny Depp is the cross-dressing ‘worst movie maker of all time’ and Martin Landau plays the ageing Bela Lugosi, befriended by Wood and the star (of sorts) of the ‘worst movie ever made’ - Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959 qv). Funny, sad and glowing with humanity. Depp and Landau are supported by Sarah Jessica Parker as Wood’s girlfriend and Bill Murray as an aspirant transsexual.

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Pulp Fiction / Quentin Tarantino

1994. Colour. USA. 148 mins. DVD.

The hugely energetic second feature from Quentin Tarantino crackles with stylish and stylised dialogue as three apparently separate stories are cut-and-pasted together with scant regard for chronological logic. Los Angeles low-lifers drift through situations full of re-invented and refreshed cinematic clichés — corruption, temptation and desperate, if inept, quests for salvation. In turn violent, romantic and hilarious, the twists and cartwheels are completely absorbing. John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson head up a strong cast that includes Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Harvey Keitel, Uma Thurman and Ving Rhames.

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The Shawshank Redemption / Frank Darabont

1994. Colour. USA. 136 mins. DVD.

A feelgood throwback to an older Hollywood tradition, based on the novel by Stephen King. Tim Robbins is the innocent banker goaled for the murder of his wife and her lover. Frequently brutalised by inmates during his early days in Shawshank prison, he uses his financial expertise to ingratiate himself with the prison guards and the corrupt warden (Bob Gunton). Time passes and he settles into institutional life, lobbying for books for the prison library and developing a lasting friendship with fellow lifer and ‘fixer’ Morgan Freeman, who had obtained a couple of seemingly insignificant items that turn out to be essential to the plot. But mild mannered Robbins is not the model prisoner that he seems ….

Different Seasons / Stephen King

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Foreign Cinema

A series of superlative performances in his native France (including Jean de Florette, 1986 qv) were to pave Gerard Depardieu’s way to Hollywood.

Cyrano de Bergerac / Jean-Paul Rappeneau

1990. Colour. Fr. 128 mins. DVD.

An accomplished update of the stage play by Edmond Rostand that premiered in Paris in 1898 and produced a notable film performance from Jose Ferrer in 1950 (qv). Gerard Depardieu is magnificent as the long nosed poet in a lavish production that was, at the time, France’s most expensive movie. Anne Brochet plays Roxanne and Vincent Perez is Cyrano’s protégé Christian.

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