Strangers on a Train (1951)

IMDb Listing
Glenn Erickson, who writes the excellent DVD Savant online column, says in his writeup that “Strangers on a Train is like a textbook on how to ‘read’ a film on a visual-literary level.” I think that’s a fair assessment, but I also think that it’s a weakness of the film. This is one of Hitchcock’s classic films, but it feels a little too ready-made for the director. The film’s premise is well-known; two strangers meet on a train and discuss, over lunch, the idea of each committing a murder for the other, with the idea that the lack of connections between the two will make it difficult for the police to track them. This is obvious Hitchcock material, but the movie has several elements and themes that were treated more artfully in other Hitchcock movies. The movie also is a good example of Hitch’s frequent laziness when it came to certain details, whether they have to do with performance (star Farley Granger is extremely dull) or the creakier story elements (a major suspense scene centered around a tennis match, of all things, is completely nonsensical and one of the worst sequences Hitch ever directed). It had been 15 years or so since I had seen the film before watching it again recently, and I have to confess major disappointment. There’s an interesting story buried in this film, but it’s treated ham-handedly enough that this is a lower-tier Hitchcock for me. 5/10

Pierrot le fou (1965)

IMDb Listing
To date, Pierrot le fou is the last Godard film that I’ve seen and actually liked. It’s definitely a testament to Godard’s interest in mixing and subverting genres, and in some ways this film feels like a remake of his own Breathless, only with a wider scope and more overtly political edge (there are also moments, especially in the use of music, that reminded me of Contempt). As in that film, Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as a man on the run from the law with his girlfriend, here played by Anna Karina, as the two engage in random criminal mischief (stealing cars, robbing tourists, etc.). The difference between this movie and some of the later ones that I dislike is that the story is still cohesive and not as subject to Godard’s scorn for narrative and character as, say, his Week End, which came two years later. Plus, it’s simply difficult for me to dislike anything too strongly when it stars Belmondo and Karina, two performers that both keep the film grounded and provide it with incredible charm despite Godard’s occasional efforts to irritate; I especially love Karina’s two musical numbers. The film feels like a bridge between two different movements in Godard’s career, between the playful cinematic mischief of his earlier works and the more strident, antagonistic films that would follow. 8/10