Romance of Astrea and Celadon by Eric Rohmer (2007, 109 min.). From My Night at Mauds to A Tale of Springtime, Eric Rohmer has made a career from treating modern romance like great classical love stories. In his latest film, the romance of ill-fated lovers Celadon and Astrea is torn asunder by a sudden misunderstanding. A suicide attempt lands Celadon in the clutches of the sensual Galathea and her handmaidens, but a helpful passerby soon inspires our hero to reconcile with Astrea. Filled with nymphs, druids, and angels, the film is literally atwitter with medieval soundslutes, crickets, and waterfalls dominateand sensuously aflutter with countless breezes caressing the billowing shirts of our hero, heroine, and sundry nubile lasses. Like all things old becoming new again, this ancient tale embodies Rohmers contemporary themes, presenting its mlange of romantic befuddlement, entanglement, and desire as effortlessly and entertainingly as any modern romance.
final showing
Directed by Sam Peckinpah.
William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan
US 1969, 35mm, color, 145 min.
Peckinpah’s classic tale of aging desperados determined, against all odds, to forge one last stand, gives new meaning to Hemingway’s dictum of “grace under pressure.” The Wild Bunch gained instant notoriety for its extended sequences of orgiastic violence, with less attention paid to the technical and artistic genius behind them— Peckinpah’s combination of distinct camera setups and the complex, lyrical montage and slow motion camerawork that extended the pioneering work of Kurosawa and Arthur Penn, two directors Peckinpah greatly admired. The film is riveting not only for its violence but also for its vision of a forgotten generation of obsolete warriors, not unlike the wandering ronin so prominent in the films of Kurosawa and Kobayashi. The extraordinary cast of weathered tough guys, helmed by William Holden and Robert Ryan, seem an almost Shakespearian embodiment of the studio system’s decline, a gang of vanquished matinee kings complete with the hoary Edmund O’Brien as
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