The lasting horror of war is the blight it leaves on the lives of those left behind. Early sound pictures tried to deal with the guilt and pain of WW1, and the great Ernst Lubitsch took time out from romantic comedies and musicals for this very grim rumination on lies and responsibility. A French soldier decides to contact the family of a German he killed in the trenches; with no clear purpose or plan, he’s apt to make things worse for everybody. Lionel Barrymore and Nancy Carroll are wonderful, but you’ll choke up in the scenes with the German mother, played by Louise Carter. The film is best known for its opening montage, in which Lubitsch openly attacks the hypocrisy of militarist patriotism. It’s an exceedingly effective, non-hysterical piece of anti-war filmmaking.
Broken Lullaby
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / The Man I Killed / Street...
Broken Lullaby
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / The Man I Killed / Street...
- 3/29/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Serious movie lovers tend to view remakes at best with caution and at worst with outright derision. That’s understandable: With Disney cranking out live action updates to a number of its beloved animated properties, Marvel producing three iterations of “Spider-Man” in less than 20 years and rumors flying about an ill-advised reboot of “The Matrix,” the very notion of a remake is an instant cause for concern.
But at least one remake released in 2017 exists outside of that trend: French director François Ozon’s “Frantz,” a tender revision of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 drama “Broken Lullaby,” alternately known as “The Man I Killed.” It was the only straight dramatic effort by the screwball comedy master, and a flop upon release that only diehard cinephiles have tracked down. But Ozon’s version isn’t entirely faithful to the original.
Read More: Why French Cinema Faces an Uncertain Future in America
“Frantz,” shot...
But at least one remake released in 2017 exists outside of that trend: French director François Ozon’s “Frantz,” a tender revision of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 drama “Broken Lullaby,” alternately known as “The Man I Killed.” It was the only straight dramatic effort by the screwball comedy master, and a flop upon release that only diehard cinephiles have tracked down. But Ozon’s version isn’t entirely faithful to the original.
Read More: Why French Cinema Faces an Uncertain Future in America
“Frantz,” shot...
- 3/20/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
“Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later every asshole gets one,” François Ozon, one of France's most prolific director/screenwriters, has noted.
With Frantz, his pacifistic, feminist, and slightly homoerotic chronicling of a post-World War I love affair of sorts opening Stateside this week, he can say that with a smile. After all, this feature has already garnered eleven Cécar nominations, including one for best film, and a dozen more from various international film festivals.
For many folks, that’s no surprise. All they have to hear is that a new Ozon is unspooling at their local art house, and they’re hotfooting it to the ticket booth. Why? Few other directors have the ability to depict the psychosexual permutations of our fellow man better, at times accompanied with an unexpected Hitchcockian twist or a good dose of Almodóvarian tongue-in-cheek perversity.
In his 1996 short, "A Summer Dress," a young gay man,...
With Frantz, his pacifistic, feminist, and slightly homoerotic chronicling of a post-World War I love affair of sorts opening Stateside this week, he can say that with a smile. After all, this feature has already garnered eleven Cécar nominations, including one for best film, and a dozen more from various international film festivals.
For many folks, that’s no surprise. All they have to hear is that a new Ozon is unspooling at their local art house, and they’re hotfooting it to the ticket booth. Why? Few other directors have the ability to depict the psychosexual permutations of our fellow man better, at times accompanied with an unexpected Hitchcockian twist or a good dose of Almodóvarian tongue-in-cheek perversity.
In his 1996 short, "A Summer Dress," a young gay man,...
- 3/20/2017
- by Brandon Judell
- www.culturecatch.com
It's a rare beauty, this odd-duck of a period piece from the great French director François Ozon (Under the Sand, 8 Women, Swimming Pool). Frantz starts out as a remake of the 1932 film Broken Lullaby by Ernst Lubitsch, a maestro whose work only a fool would mess with. But here's Ozon doing just that, taking the second half of the film down a different path that's sure to piss of purists. The filmmaker is walking a creative tightrope. How do you resist that? My advice is: don't. There are a few fits and starts,...
- 3/16/2017
- Rollingstone.com
(Note: This review was originally published after the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September 2016.) There is exactly one great sequence in “Frantz,” the latest film from modern master François Ozon (“The New Girlfriend,” “8 Women”), and even though it’s a short scene, it creates an impact that suggests that it was the entire reason for the film’s existence. The rest of “Frantz,” unfortunately, is a mostly dreary and heavy-handed affair in which the director (who co-wrote with Philippe Piazzo, loosely adapting a play by Maurice Rostand) examines the damaging cost of nationalism and the toll that war.
- 3/15/2017
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
François Ozon with Katell Quillévéré (Réparer Les Vivants) and Emmanuelle Bercot (La Fille De Brest) Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
A highlight of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York, Frantz (César winner - Best Cinematography to Pascal Marti) is François Ozon's inspired take on Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 post-World War I drama Broken Lullaby, which tells the story of a French soldier, here called Adrien (Pierre Niney) who locates the family of a German soldier, Frantz (Anton von Lucke) who died at the front.
Based on the play by Maurice Rostand, Ozon switches perspective to that of the grieving fiancée Anna (Paula Beer), an orphan living with Frantz's parents (Ernst Stötzner and Marie Gruber). A painting by Manet of a pale young man, head back, that hangs in the Louvre triggers a variety of Carlotta moments. Cyrielle Clair as Adrien's mother would be perfectly at home in a lineup of dangerous Alfred Hitchcock matriarchs.
A highlight of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York, Frantz (César winner - Best Cinematography to Pascal Marti) is François Ozon's inspired take on Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 post-World War I drama Broken Lullaby, which tells the story of a French soldier, here called Adrien (Pierre Niney) who locates the family of a German soldier, Frantz (Anton von Lucke) who died at the front.
Based on the play by Maurice Rostand, Ozon switches perspective to that of the grieving fiancée Anna (Paula Beer), an orphan living with Frantz's parents (Ernst Stötzner and Marie Gruber). A painting by Manet of a pale young man, head back, that hangs in the Louvre triggers a variety of Carlotta moments. Cyrielle Clair as Adrien's mother would be perfectly at home in a lineup of dangerous Alfred Hitchcock matriarchs.
- 3/6/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
François Ozon Photo: UniFrance
He has dressed down for our meeting in the Grand Hotel in Paris, with a baseball cap, jumper and jeans. François Ozon, 49, sips water and and settles back in an all-enveloping settee. He once tried to be an actor but found it did not suit his demons and he retreated behind the camera instead. His latest film, Frantz, was shot in black and white and is based on a play written by Maurice Rostand just after the First World War. When Ozon found that it had already been made into a film by his hero Ernst Lubitsch under the title Broken Lullaby, he felt like giving up. When he saw it, however, he realised his take would be different: rather than focusing on the Frenchman Adrien he wanted to take the point of view of the young woman Anna. The pair meet at a graveyard in a.
He has dressed down for our meeting in the Grand Hotel in Paris, with a baseball cap, jumper and jeans. François Ozon, 49, sips water and and settles back in an all-enveloping settee. He once tried to be an actor but found it did not suit his demons and he retreated behind the camera instead. His latest film, Frantz, was shot in black and white and is based on a play written by Maurice Rostand just after the First World War. When Ozon found that it had already been made into a film by his hero Ernst Lubitsch under the title Broken Lullaby, he felt like giving up. When he saw it, however, he realised his take would be different: rather than focusing on the Frenchman Adrien he wanted to take the point of view of the young woman Anna. The pair meet at a graveyard in a.
- 2/15/2017
- by Richard Mowe
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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