Nightmare Alley

Started by WorldForgot, September 14, 2021, 12:47:51 PM

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WorldForgot

https://twitter.com/searchlightpics/status/1438140775385026563?s=21

Currently slated for December 17th, 2021

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/09/nightmare-alley-guillermo-del-toro-awards-insider

Quote"That is a distinct possibility," del Toro tells Vanity Fair. "It has happened to me in the past with Crimson Peak, where people went in expecting a horror movie. I knew it was a gothic romance but it was very difficult to put that across. But yes, this has no supernatural element. It's based completely in a reality world. There is nothing fantastic. It's a very different movie from my usual, but yes, the title and my name would create that [impression]."

There are still monsters in this film, out December 3, but these are all human beings: glamorous, elegant, and more alluring than off-putting. Maybe that makes them even more dangerous. Bradley Cooper stars as Stanton Carlisle, a former carnival worker who becomes a big-city star as a nightclub performer, using cold-reading tricks he picked up in the sideshow to create the impression he is a powerful mind reader. Now the marks and rubes he targets are millionaires. Cate Blanchett plays Dr. Lilith Ritter, a psychiatrist who first tries to expose him as a charlatan, then becomes embroiled in his schemes.

[...]

Nightmare Alley is based on a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham, made previously into a gritty 1947 film starring Tyrone Power. Del Toro says his screenplay with Kim Morgan is drawn from the page rather than the screen, which required heavy reworking. "From the beginning, our interest was to go for the novel, but it's almost impossible to adapt because it has a very kaleidoscopic, very peculiar voice. You would need a six-hour miniseries and shifting points of view, and this and that," del Toro says. "We started from the novel, and didn't want to do a remake as much as a new adaptation."


WorldForgot



and the first adaptation of the novel:


Drenk

Ascension.

Find Your Magali

The Nightmare Alley trailer is visually stunning, which comes as no surprise. It's like Pan's Labyrinth meets the Coen brothers meets Something Wicked This Way Comes.

polkablues

Oh cool, it's that dark and gritty "Water for Elephants" reboot we've all been clamoring for.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Alma

Still excited for this but I much prefer the way his older films look, not sure about the sheen his last few have - I guess it's since he switched to digital?

RudyBlatnoyd

Digital cinematography, when deployed appropriately, can be utilised inventively and beautifully – just look at Michael Mann's work – but when it's used to try to recreate the look of genres from cinema history, like film noir, that owe their aesthetic to the particular qualities of film stock, it is almost invariably disappointing.

wilberfan

Based on a recent first-time watch of the original (which had me rolling my eyes--and not in a good way), my expectations for this have been lowered.   I'm not sure even Marty can get me jazzed to see this:

Commentary: Martin Scorsese wants you to watch 'Nightmare Alley.' Let him tell you why

QuoteA few weeks ago, I caught up with Guillermo del Toro's "Nightmare Alley." I was impressed and moved. I look forward to watching anything that Guillermo does, but this particular picture had a special power and resonance for me.

Then I came to realize that people just weren't coming out for it, which was distressing. Obviously, this past holiday season was a tricky moment to release any movie. But I also wonder if there has been a real appreciation of Guillermo's accomplishment.

I would bet that the term "noir" has appeared in most of the reviews and comments about "Nightmare Alley," and with good reason. The characters are all haunted, many are doomed, and the film is based on a novel with the kind of wild labyrinthine plot that is a hallmark of film noir. On top of that, the novel was filmed once before, right after its publication in 1946, and the earlier version directed by Edmund Goulding has long been considered a classic of the genre.

But the term "noir" has been used so often and in such a cheeky way that it seems more like a flavor than anything else, and it might just lead someone seeking information about the picture in the wrong direction. They might be expecting a noir "pastiche," of which there have been many. That doesn't even begin to do justice to Guillermo and Kim Morgan's adaptation.

The majority of the picture takes place in the '30s, and it seems to grow out of the bitterness and despair of the depression: You can feel it in the images and in the body language of the actors. All the characters in this film are feeling real pain, a sense of spiritual desolation rooted in everyday life. This isn't just a matter of "style" or "visuals," exquisite as the film is. It's a matter of Guillermo's complete commitment to the material, to bringing his vision to life with his production designer, his costume designer, his DP and his amazing cast, led by Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett. They work together to create a dead-end universe from out of the American past, and they do it inside and out, through and through.

In that sense, the film is truer to the animating spirit of film noir than the many "homages" that have been made over the years and are still being made now. Guillermo is certainly speaking from and to his own time, but he's doing so in the idiom of a time gone by, and the urgency and despair of then overlaps with the urgency and despair of now in a way that's quite disturbing. It's like a warning bell.

Disturbing, but exhilarating at the same time. That's what art can do.

COVID-19 has also been extremely tough on the cinema in general. It's added time-consuming protocols and extremely expensive insurance packages to the budgets of all films, big and small. It's resulted in the closure of many theaters and a resistance to going back to the ones that are still open. And on top of everything else ... Omicron.

If you decided to just file "Nightmare Alley" away under "noir" or some other category, I would urge you to take a second closer look. And if you decided to skip it altogether, for whatever reason, please reconsider. In essence, what I'm trying to say is that a filmmaker like Guillermo, who gives us pictures this lovingly and passionately crafted, doesn't just need our support: he deserves it.


Alma

Saw this the other day and I thought it was phenomenal (with the caveat that I haven't read the book or seen the previous film). The cinema was packed, which was heartening (if a little alarming), and it seems to be doing fairly well at the box office here considering it's received barely any promotion. Loved the atmosphere, thought the script was great and enjoyed the performances (especially Jenkins and Blanchett). This is easily my favourite Del Toro since Pan's Labyrinth and I think it's up there with his best for me - I was surprised how much enjoyed it given the lukewarm reactions, although that may have somewhat lowered my expectations. It is a long film, and it feels long, but I didn't have a problem with that, it was nice to soak in the atmosphere.

wilberfan

I watched my own 'customized B&W' version of this last night--and to my great surprise, actually thought it was mostly pretty OK!   (I didn't think much of the original AT ALL.)   Cooper did an excellent job--as did Richard Jennings who I almost missed under his full beard.  The third act makes me roll my eyes (both versions--as the ending is stupifyingly easy to figure out in the first 10 minutes), but it worked well enough before that to carry me thru till the end.

I thought after BOTH versions that this would have made a much better Very Special Episode of The Twilight Zone--with a script by Richard Matheson or Serling himself.  (As Alma said, above, it didn't need to be 2 1/2 hours long...)

I went back and spot-checked the color version of the del Toro--and my B&W'ed one was infinitely more engaging for me.   I'm not sure I would have stuck with it in color, to be honest...  (I was a little proud of myself for the two tweaks I made before a re-render!  It looked really good.)

WorldForgot

Although it's true that this film has no "supernatural" elements, it certainly leans on the culture surrounding Spiritualism enough that the moral aspect also ties into what we figure might compose a soul. And with souls, comes the question of will, fate, and whether death entombs more than a body.

Its runtime hits smooth, with each act having a full arc so it never felt rote or overlong with digression to me. And that was sort of my biggest fear, because the original wasn't exciting at all. Yes, the 1947 film uses noir in a way that was perhaps original to it at the time, but we've seen enough con films since then that I wasn't engrossed during the first adaptaion. Del Toro's totally fulfills the text's intention and has fun doing so. Carlisle and Lilith especially are a treat to watch.

Sick frkn gore, reminiscent of Pan's Labyrinth in fablist spiral. Reinventing ourselves, piercing spiritual veils, the way war encroaches like the ticking of a watch. Nathan's Johnson score chambers the era's pining and loss.