LP on film
Best greetings! This is my first appearance on this blog. Congratulations toall of you, and especially Dheeraj; a lot of hard work going on here in a goodcause.I'm Les Phillips, and I'll be writing a weekly column on movies. I'll alternateclassic and current films, week by week. Ordinarily the column will appear onThursdays.
ROMAN HOLIDAY (William Wyler, 1953) is the film that made Audrey Hepburn astar. I saw it epochs ago and remembered it as charming but very slight. I musthave been very stupid. ROMAN HOLIDAY is beautifully crafted, and has a genuine,understated poignance.ROMAN HOLIDAY is an arrangement in grey and black, but also an arrangement ofold and new. Hepburn, whose origins were Belgian/French/Dutch/English, plays aprincess from some indeterminate European country. She's been sent on a tour ofEuropean capitals, a goodwill mission; but her beauty and good nature mask agrowing impatience. Her quarters in Rome are old, majestic and dull. Everyonewho attends her is old and dull. She is always indoors. When she runs away, sheexits through a series of somber, elegant, ancient corridors and entrances andexits, into the freedom of the city. The viewer travels with her through thestreets of everyday and tourist Rome.
ROMAN HOLIDAY is one of the first majorfilms to be shot entirely on location. The city is bright, the people are happyand young and casual and friendly. It is only seven years after the end of theSecond World War, but for Princess Ann, it seems like her first glimpse of thetwentieth century.She also gets to meet Gregory Peck and his sidekick Eddie Albert (who plays asort of 1953 hipster! Named Irving!!). They're American journalists, and theyplay poker and drink bourbon. The black and white of the "holiday" section ofthe film is still black and white, but it plays like color. No music in the film, until the Princess Ann runs away; none after she returns after herholiday, either. The contrast is meticulous and thoughtful.
Hepburn was 23 when she filmed ROMAN HOLIDAY. She wears her grace and gravitas so naturally that she seems older. She is exceptionally beautiful. (I hope Idon't have to tell you about Audrey Hepburn.) William Wyler is such a gooddirector: subtle, fully in control, superb taste, yet capable of surprise. Wyler made gazillions of silent films in the Twenties (18 of them in the year1927!). His experience shows; this is a quiet movie. The screenplay, by theblacklisted Dalton Trumbo, isn't afraid to be silent. The major emotionalshifts in the film are signaled nonverbally. We know that Princess Ann is boredand restless not because she tears her hair and screams, "I'm bored!!!", butbecause Hepburn acts it, and because Wyler shows her slipping one foot, ever so tentatively,out of her shoe. Behold a fifties Hollywood movie almost entirely withoutmusic, virtually without any emotional manipulation of any kind.
The final sequences of ROMAN HOLIDAY are a small masterpiece. THe princess saysgoodbye to Rome in a majestic receiving hall. Hepburn's back to herprincesshood, formal and correct, but expressing a lovely range of emotion,almost covertly. The very last scene is Peck's. He says not a word; Wyler'sdirection of the final ninety seconds says everything for him.
ROMAN HOLIDAY is easy to overlook, if you're not really looking. The romantic story isn't fresh, the suspense is nothing special, even the one actionsequence (a fistfight) is done gently. Really it is a film about nobility, ofthe common and royal varieties, and what it might mean to be noble. See thisfilm if you haven't; see it again, if you have.
Les Phillips
les_phillips98@yahoo.com
ROMAN HOLIDAY (William Wyler, 1953) is the film that made Audrey Hepburn astar. I saw it epochs ago and remembered it as charming but very slight. I musthave been very stupid. ROMAN HOLIDAY is beautifully crafted, and has a genuine,understated poignance.ROMAN HOLIDAY is an arrangement in grey and black, but also an arrangement ofold and new. Hepburn, whose origins were Belgian/French/Dutch/English, plays aprincess from some indeterminate European country. She's been sent on a tour ofEuropean capitals, a goodwill mission; but her beauty and good nature mask agrowing impatience. Her quarters in Rome are old, majestic and dull. Everyonewho attends her is old and dull. She is always indoors. When she runs away, sheexits through a series of somber, elegant, ancient corridors and entrances andexits, into the freedom of the city. The viewer travels with her through thestreets of everyday and tourist Rome.
ROMAN HOLIDAY is one of the first majorfilms to be shot entirely on location. The city is bright, the people are happyand young and casual and friendly. It is only seven years after the end of theSecond World War, but for Princess Ann, it seems like her first glimpse of thetwentieth century.She also gets to meet Gregory Peck and his sidekick Eddie Albert (who plays asort of 1953 hipster! Named Irving!!). They're American journalists, and theyplay poker and drink bourbon. The black and white of the "holiday" section ofthe film is still black and white, but it plays like color. No music in the film, until the Princess Ann runs away; none after she returns after herholiday, either. The contrast is meticulous and thoughtful.
Hepburn was 23 when she filmed ROMAN HOLIDAY. She wears her grace and gravitas so naturally that she seems older. She is exceptionally beautiful. (I hope Idon't have to tell you about Audrey Hepburn.) William Wyler is such a gooddirector: subtle, fully in control, superb taste, yet capable of surprise. Wyler made gazillions of silent films in the Twenties (18 of them in the year1927!). His experience shows; this is a quiet movie. The screenplay, by theblacklisted Dalton Trumbo, isn't afraid to be silent. The major emotionalshifts in the film are signaled nonverbally. We know that Princess Ann is boredand restless not because she tears her hair and screams, "I'm bored!!!", butbecause Hepburn acts it, and because Wyler shows her slipping one foot, ever so tentatively,out of her shoe. Behold a fifties Hollywood movie almost entirely withoutmusic, virtually without any emotional manipulation of any kind.
The final sequences of ROMAN HOLIDAY are a small masterpiece. THe princess saysgoodbye to Rome in a majestic receiving hall. Hepburn's back to herprincesshood, formal and correct, but expressing a lovely range of emotion,almost covertly. The very last scene is Peck's. He says not a word; Wyler'sdirection of the final ninety seconds says everything for him.
ROMAN HOLIDAY is easy to overlook, if you're not really looking. The romantic story isn't fresh, the suspense is nothing special, even the one actionsequence (a fistfight) is done gently. Really it is a film about nobility, ofthe common and royal varieties, and what it might mean to be noble. See thisfilm if you haven't; see it again, if you have.
Les Phillips
les_phillips98@yahoo.com
posted by Les Phillips at 8/29/2005 08:09:00 AM
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