Roman Holiday + reading

For me Roman Holiday was a nice flick but nothing too spectalular. I think that the thing I liked most wasn't the movie itself as much as being able to say that I have finnally seen it. It's like a number of pieces of classic literature or cinema, you usually have about an equal chance of liking it or disliking it, but in the end by having experienced it you can now use it as a point of reference for other works. Thats not to say I didn't enjoy the film but it didn't really blow me away, but since most films to date are a remake of aremake of a remake, by watching a classic like this I can add to my knowledge and appreciation of cinema history.

As far as the film itself it felt a bit light to me, something like a hallmark picture but with better writing and after seeing it I can only assume that this film was the mold from which they made "Chasing Liberty", not any of that is a bad thing I just happen to not be a huge fan of light films. On that Note I must say that there were some aspects that I particularly enjoyed, first Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn didn't end up together, GOOD. My mother, who throughly enjoys hallmark movies would say that ending isn't a happy one, well in my opinion its the happiest you can make it and still make sense, so for me that was a point it the movies favor. There also wasa a few bits that I thoroughly enjoyed, first the slapstick bit between Peck and Albert where in Peck uses less than subtle ways to hint to Albert's character, who seems to miss the point entirely. It's simple slapstick comedy but I think that there must be some portion of the male genome that makes us mentally defenceless against slapstick (thus the continued post mortem success of the Three Stooges). The other bit I enjoyed was Gregory Peck and the face of truth, or whatever it is called, I had ages ago seen the image of Peck with his hand in his sleeve stand in front of the face and I got the gag but I wasn't aware of the context, so that was a bit of a treat for me.

I quickly skimmed the material from Gianetti and I was relatively impressed, this piece seemed to find a nice balance between being comprihensive and easily absorbed and understood. The tradoff being the why and the technical subtleties are lost, which I understand but it makes me sad that in the process the argument of video versus film stock seems to have been lost. In either case I particularly appreciated the section on style, since I tend to focus on the tech heavy side of film making a small piece about style was refreshing and pleasant.

And I tried to skim the bit on modern Italy but that seems to have flowed out of my brain like sieve so I have to go back and try again.

Any way so far so good.