Charlie Bubbles (1968)
Country: GB
Technical: col 91m
Director: Albert Finney, (Stephen Frears)
Cast: Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Liza Minnelli, Colin Blakely
Synopsis:
A phenomenally successful writer - so much so that his face is familiar to the general public - has lunch with his financial advisors, goes on a binge with an old pal and takes his intern up to Manchester to visit his son and ex-wife.
Review:
Based on a Shelagh Delaney script, this unusual film is a sort of last gasp of the British New Wave and, apart from the films of Richard Lester perhaps, the one that most resembles the French Nouvelle Vague. Finney is a study in blankness throughout, his voice only exceeding a mutter when he berates his ex for her slack-handed approach to motherhood. This leaves us free to take in the many absurdities: the idea, first of all, of a writer having so much money, the excesses of London life, the house with its surveillance system, the intern who makes matter of fact love, the brass band rehearsing among the semi-demolished Manchester terraces. It's a kind of Billy Liar in reverse, the protagonist reduced to apathy by success, surrounded by people who feed off him in one way or another. Which is perhaps why he takes off in the end towards an uncertain freedom, in a nod to Albert Lamorisse.
Country: GB
Technical: col 91m
Director: Albert Finney, (Stephen Frears)
Cast: Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Liza Minnelli, Colin Blakely
Synopsis:
A phenomenally successful writer - so much so that his face is familiar to the general public - has lunch with his financial advisors, goes on a binge with an old pal and takes his intern up to Manchester to visit his son and ex-wife.
Review:
Based on a Shelagh Delaney script, this unusual film is a sort of last gasp of the British New Wave and, apart from the films of Richard Lester perhaps, the one that most resembles the French Nouvelle Vague. Finney is a study in blankness throughout, his voice only exceeding a mutter when he berates his ex for her slack-handed approach to motherhood. This leaves us free to take in the many absurdities: the idea, first of all, of a writer having so much money, the excesses of London life, the house with its surveillance system, the intern who makes matter of fact love, the brass band rehearsing among the semi-demolished Manchester terraces. It's a kind of Billy Liar in reverse, the protagonist reduced to apathy by success, surrounded by people who feed off him in one way or another. Which is perhaps why he takes off in the end towards an uncertain freedom, in a nod to Albert Lamorisse.
Country: GB
Technical: col 91m
Director: Albert Finney, (Stephen Frears)
Cast: Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Liza Minnelli, Colin Blakely
Synopsis:
A phenomenally successful writer - so much so that his face is familiar to the general public - has lunch with his financial advisors, goes on a binge with an old pal and takes his intern up to Manchester to visit his son and ex-wife.
Review:
Based on a Shelagh Delaney script, this unusual film is a sort of last gasp of the British New Wave and, apart from the films of Richard Lester perhaps, the one that most resembles the French Nouvelle Vague. Finney is a study in blankness throughout, his voice only exceeding a mutter when he berates his ex for her slack-handed approach to motherhood. This leaves us free to take in the many absurdities: the idea, first of all, of a writer having so much money, the excesses of London life, the house with its surveillance system, the intern who makes matter of fact love, the brass band rehearsing among the semi-demolished Manchester terraces. It's a kind of Billy Liar in reverse, the protagonist reduced to apathy by success, surrounded by people who feed off him in one way or another. Which is perhaps why he takes off in the end towards an uncertain freedom, in a nod to Albert Lamorisse.