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The writer recalls some of the superb film sequences, which were much ahead of their times
And for this, the script plays an important part. Didn’t E. M. Foster in his Aspects of a Novel say "the story is the thing." So also in cinema, it is the narrative that comes first. Which in cinema means the screenplay. Then in any film there is always one particular sequence that stands out. Like in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, it is the howling of Paul Newman and Robert Redford before they jump off the ravine into the river. A close second is Katherine Ross on the bar of Paul Newman’s bicycle singing "Raindrops are falling on my head". In Zorba the Greek, it would be the dance in which Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates try and rid themselves of their grief though the music too is an additional factor of endearment. In Lawrence of Arabia, it is the advent of Omar Shariff as he appears from a dot-like figure to a full-sized human being. Eventually, however, it is Peter O’Toole as Lawrence who towers over him. The same happens in The Night of the Generals in which O’Toole overshadows Shariff. Both the films were made in the mid-1960s when the British actors star was fast rising after his role in Becket where he outshines the hero played by Richard Burton."
Yes, it is in Becket (a play by Jean Anouih) that one comes across those shocking one-liners. When Richard refers to his wife (Irene Papas) as "a withered flower in the pages of a hymn book where duty led me to wander in." They really came like a bolt from the blue in those largely conservative mid-1960s. In Amarcord, this Frederico Fellini masterpiece, there is the sequence where an old man climbs a tree and shouts "I want a woman." It was a recap of those fascist days under Mussolini but the words still echo in our ears with retrospective power. It was the power of these neo-realists like Vittorio DeSica, Bernardo Bertolucci and Michelangelo Antonioni, who brought out the angst of human nature in everyday problems of life. Why in Zebriskie Point, it is Antonioni who surprises us with those resounding lines. When the heroine Daria Halprin comes across a bunch of kids who ask her "Can we have a piece of arse?" to which she counters, "would you know what to do with it." It was moments like this one did not believe one’s years. So alarming were they, very much ahead of the times. Oh yes, I did run into Antonioni during the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1976 when I gate-crashed into a party at the Sun n Sand. Sitting on the floor next to his sofa I dared to ask him a few questions which he reluctantly answered. He then lost his cool, and he was known for it at that time. "Ask me one more question and I’ll walk out," he threatened. No, I did not but got my story anyway the next morning’s newspaper. Sometimes a non-story also becomes a story. Bernardo Bertolucci was a different kettle of fish. He was in the foyer of a hotel in Kathmandu waiting to drive off to his shooting. With him was cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, his brother-in-law. When I addressed him as prima dona, he corrected me with "no, ultima dona" which I thought was rather cocky but then these Italians are not known for their modesty. But he was pleasant and co-operative. But when I saw Little Buddha, it was a real disaster, a total sell-out to the American company that financed the film. Whatever happened to his ultima dona. But to come back to the
shocking one-liners, we might as well end up on that 1969 classic Anne
of a Thousand Days in which an ebullient Genevieve Bujold was cast
against veteran Richard Burton, who played Henry VIII. Bujold, of
course, was Anne Boleyn for whom he deserted his wife Catherine of
Aragon. It is when speaking of succession and other royal problems
that Anthony Quayle as Cardinal Wolsley says, "the seat of power
does not lie between a woman’s legs." Quite stunning way back
in 1969 but then that was the power of those shocking one-liners.
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C
