Atlantic City
Added 10/4/2009
This movie is an American classic. Burt Lancaster and Susan Saradon deliver fine performances, but Kate Reid ( as Grace) steals the show! Louis Malle delivered a fine, fine movie.
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I think only a European could have made this film...
Added 9/22/2009
Watching Atlantic City again, I thought of a comment from producer Robert Evans. Evans didn't produce this film, but he did once remark, in an interview about Chinatown, which he *did* produce, that European directors have a darker, more cynical view of America than Americans themselves do. Louis Malle was a Frenchman who definitely had a dark view of America's promise judging by this film. Atlantic City really isn't "about" Atlantic City. It's about the American Dream, filtered through the eyes of a less naive, somewhat jaded Frenchman. The film was made during the period when the old Atlantic City was dying, one crumbly building at a time, and being replaced by...what? Casinos were seen as the savior for the famed resort, but as we know since then, they really didn't do much to stem the area's decline, unless you were a high roller put up in one of the fancy suites, and instead introduced their own special style of blight. But to the down-and-out, former-winners-now-losers who populated the seashore resort, anything was a welcome relief. It is this aspect of the real Atlantic City (which I remember well enough myself) that the film gets oh so right.
Burt Lancaster plays a vague underworld figure who never had the big past he likes to--and needs to--think he did. But his dream of having been, and still being, important to women in need--the type who used to be called "dames," is very important to his sense of self-worth. Susan Sarandon plays a young, naive woman who has big dreams, which we can tell are as likely to be realized as Lancaster's past. Both are dreamers more than doers, or at least they don't have whatever it takes to realize the grandiose dreams they both have. In that respect they are soul mates.
Malle, Lancaster and Sarandon nail this aspect flawlessly. During the 70s and into the early 80s, until the advent of Luke Skywalker turned things around again, the Hollywood hero was replaced by the anti-hero--flawed, a bit self-delusional, and ultimately tragic. This is how their plot plays out. Malle seems to be telling us that what we Americans see as "the land of hope" has a ratty underbelly, one most of us look away from. Neither Lancaster or Sarandon seem to see it. Or perhaps Lancaster does, but he'd rather not dwell on those thoughts too long--illusion of opportunity is more important than the reality of where he--and we, as the audience of this film--are stuck. The way their relationship ends, which I won't reveal, is pitch-perfect. Each gets what they want while appearing to be at least somewhat noble, giving the other something they want as well. Although each is ultimately selfish, each is selfish in a very human way. Lancaster exudes the illusion of power in his physical acting alone, even as we can see another layer beneath, that of an old, frail man whose only real attribute is the ability to dress and talk well. Sarandon is all youthful eagerness and curiosity with her wide bug-eyes and rounded mouth. When she tells him she admires him because of all the things he knows and all the nice things he appears to have, and asks him to teach her everything he knows, rather than wince at a scene that could come off as very sexist, we believe, and even admire her in some way. She is trying hard to break out of her shell, even if she doesn't quite seem to have all that she needs to succeed.
That part, as I said, is pitch-perfect. The secondary plot, involving Sarandon's hippy-dippy sister, Lancaster's "employer," a shrew of a woman who also fancies herself to have been important once, and some 24/7 poker players with a coke habit, is less satisfying. These scenes are played so broad they often border on sitcom humor. Malle and screenwriter John Guare (of Six Degrees of Separation fame) don't seem to have invested as much care and thought into these characters--they are two-dimensional and ultimately not believable. Maybe, for commercial reasons, they felt they had to counter-balance the harsh qualities of the Lancaster-Sarandon plotline with one that is lighter, "funnier" and ultimately escapist, as if it's renouncing everything the film has just worked two hours to say. The very last moment is totally unbelievable to me. And the recurring drug delivery motif with Al Waxman is just plain silly.
So AC is ultimately a rather uneven film, but the main plotline is so powerful and unique that I'm willing to overlook the flaws. I also should mention Robert Joy as Sarandon's ex and a weaselly-opportunistic thug, so unsympathetic that when the real drug thugs eventually corner him, place him in a headlock and stab him in cold blood, I found myself cheering.
Often films that try to use events or moments in time as metaphors come off as pretentious. It's especially tough if you have a French director and your subject is the decay of America and shattered dreams and all that stuff that fuels late-night coffee-and-cigarette blab sessions by art students dressed in black. But this movie nails it. Actually I think if it had trusted itself to go even further into this realm and didn't have the secondary plot (or a richer secondary plot) it would have been a better movie. But as it is, it's special, it's something a mainstream American filmmaker probably couldn't have done (with the exception of maybe Philip Kaufman), and it's extraordinarily well-acted by Lancaster and Sarandon (and Joy, during his relatively brief time on screen). And there's a scene where Sarandon manages to do for a paint-splattered old shirt what Lena Olin did for bowler hats in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
The DVD itself is pretty bare-bones. (Of course it is, it's from Paramount!) The list of "special features" on the back cover is hilarious. Aside from the trailer (which is well-done, by the way) these "features" include a wide-screen presentation (wow, thanks) and English mono sound (woooohoooo!) The print is all-around good, though it shows some of its age and has grain; the sound is adequate, though with a movie like this you really don't need a booming six-channel THX presentation. Also interesting is the Michel Legrand credit for music. I don't recall a single bit of original music in the film, so I'm not sure exactly what Mr. Legrand did. Perhaps he wrote a score which Malle declined to use (the long silences work better anyway), but contractual agreements required a credit?
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3 stars out of 4
Added 4/4/2009
The Bottom Line:
Somewhat slow-moving and occasionally improbable, Atlantic City nonetheless succeeds as a film due to a fine acting turn by Lancaster and the perfect setting offered by the city itself; not as good as many of Malle's other works, it's a good movie but not a great one.
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A natty numbers runner certain that everything is outbound (5 Stars)
Added 7/21/2008
As Lou, an almost prissily natty numbers runner certain that everything - even the ocean - has deteriorated, Burt Lancaster gives the performance of his life in Louis Malle's Canadian-financed film Atlantic City (opening today at the Imperial).
It might be fairer to call the picture a John Guare film, for Malle, best known in Ontario as the director of the unseen Pretty Baby, has entered entirely into his gifted playwright's episodic, jazzy view of the universe - Guare's script for Atlantic City is a commodious comic masterpiece, but it's also a serious fable about the dangers of dreaming.
Everyone in the picture, placed affectionately in an evocative Atlantic City devolving from tasteful faded glory to tasteless refurbished glitter, dreams of getting ahead. (Is Atlantic City a metaphor for the filmmakers' America? Probably.) For the renegade sixties couple Dave (the talented Canadian actor Robert Joy) and Chrissie (Hollis McLaren, the schizo of Outrageous]), the boardwalk is a substitute for the San Francisco of 1966, buried as completely as Atlantis. The pregnant Chrissie wants to take LSD "so we can learn from the baby's wisdom" and Dave, a coke dealer, wants to dump his stash and his past.
Sally (Susan Sarandon), who is both Chrissie's sister and Dave's estranged wife, shovels shrimp behind the counter of a casino oyster bar but meanwhile sees to her dream by attending dealers' school - "I gotta develop my blackjack; I'm gonna deal my way to Europe" - and, total woman that she is, works on improving her body with lemon juice and her soul with a cassette of Bellini's Norma. When she becomes romantically involved with Lou, she has one request: "Teach me stuff." Near Sally's tattered domicile (Sally would use that word, rather than the mundane "apartment") Lou waits gallantly on Grace (Kate Reid), a former beauty queen and mobster's moll reduced by time and Lou's lack of discipline to a state of kitschy caterwaul.
Grace, lying in a bed strewn with ribbons and poodles and other fussy things, bitches at and about Lou; if she were an inanimate object, she'd be a battered pink plastic lawn flamingo, but Lou, a romantic to the tips of his carefully ironed silk ties, cherishes the memory of what she was, while mildy grousing at the monstrous Baby Jane she is.
Lou's most notable characteristic is his tolerance: a man old enough to have "run numbers for the dinosaurs," a man who can say wistfully, "The Atlantic Ocean was something then" - this is not a man apt to be angry long at infirmity, senility or even cruelty.
Lou's dapper, chivalrous, compassionate existence informs the sensibility of Atlantic City with something very much like love; the movie's unpredictably explosive, joke-like tone can be inferred from the fact that Lou's splendid reviviscence is made possible by murder. Atlantic City is a cautionary comedy about a place where dreams can come true. Too true. Conrad Alton, Filmbay Editor.
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Simply Lancaster
Added 3/7/2008
This movie in my opinion is the last great performance of Burt Lancaster. Lancaster plays an aging gambler, who falls for a young woman played by Susan Sarandon. All the performances in the film are good but it's Lancaster who shines the most.
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Atlantic City
Added 10/4/2009
This movie is an American classic. Burt Lancaster and Susan Saradon deliver fine performances, but Kate Reid ( as Grace) steals the show! Louis Malle delivered a fine, fine movie.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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I think only a European could have made this film...
Added 9/22/2009
Watching Atlantic City again, I thought of a comment from producer Robert Evans. Evans didn't produce this film, but he did once remark, in an interview about Chinatown, which he *did* produce, that European directors have a darker, more cynical view of America than Americans themselves do. Louis Malle was a Frenchman who definitely had a dark view of America's promise judging by this film. Atlantic City really isn't "about" Atlantic City. It's about the American Dream, filtered through the eyes of a less naive, somewhat jaded Frenchman. The film was made during the period when the old Atlantic City was dying, one crumbly building at a time, and being replaced by...what? Casinos were seen as the savior for the famed resort, but as we know since then, they really didn't do much to stem the area's decline, unless you were a high roller put up in one of the fancy suites, and instead introduced their own special style of blight. But to the down-and-out, former-winners-now-losers who populated the seashore resort, anything was a welcome relief. It is this aspect of the real Atlantic City (which I remember well enough myself) that the film gets oh so right.
Burt Lancaster plays a vague underworld figure who never had the big past he likes to--and needs to--think he did. But his dream of having been, and still being, important to women in need--the type who used to be called "dames," is very important to his sense of self-worth. Susan Sarandon plays a young, naive woman who has big dreams, which we can tell are as likely to be realized as Lancaster's past. Both are dreamers more than doers, or at least they don't have whatever it takes to realize the grandiose dreams they both have. In that respect they are soul mates.
Malle, Lancaster and Sarandon nail this aspect flawlessly. During the 70s and into the early 80s, until the advent of Luke Skywalker turned things around again, the Hollywood hero was replaced by the anti-hero--flawed, a bit self-delusional, and ultimately tragic. This is how their plot plays out. Malle seems to be telling us that what we Americans see as "the land of hope" has a ratty underbelly, one most of us look away from. Neither Lancaster or Sarandon seem to see it. Or perhaps Lancaster does, but he'd rather not dwell on those thoughts too long--illusion of opportunity is more important than the reality of where he--and we, as the audience of this film--are stuck. The way their relationship ends, which I won't reveal, is pitch-perfect. Each gets what they want while appearing to be at least somewhat noble, giving the other something they want as well. Although each is ultimately selfish, each is selfish in a very human way. Lancaster exudes the illusion of power in his physical acting alone, even as we can see another layer beneath, that of an old, frail man whose only real attribute is the ability to dress and talk well. Sarandon is all youthful eagerness and curiosity with her wide bug-eyes and rounded mouth. When she tells him she admires him because of all the things he knows and all the nice things he appears to have, and asks him to teach her everything he knows, rather than wince at a scene that could come off as very sexist, we believe, and even admire her in some way. She is trying hard to break out of her shell, even if she doesn't quite seem to have all that she needs to succeed.
That part, as I said, is pitch-perfect. The secondary plot, involving Sarandon's hippy-dippy sister, Lancaster's "employer," a shrew of a woman who also fancies herself to have been important once, and some 24/7 poker players with a coke habit, is less satisfying. These scenes are played so broad they often border on sitcom humor. Malle and screenwriter John Guare (of Six Degrees of Separation fame) don't seem to have invested as much care and thought into these characters--they are two-dimensional and ultimately not believable. Maybe, for commercial reasons, they felt they had to counter-balance the harsh qualities of the Lancaster-Sarandon plotline with one that is lighter, "funnier" and ultimately escapist, as if it's renouncing everything the film has just worked two hours to say. The very last moment is totally unbelievable to me. And the recurring drug delivery motif with Al Waxman is just plain silly.
So AC is ultimately a rather uneven film, but the main plotline is so powerful and unique that I'm willing to overlook the flaws. I also should mention Robert Joy as Sarandon's ex and a weaselly-opportunistic thug, so unsympathetic that when the real drug thugs eventually corner him, place him in a headlock and stab him in cold blood, I found myself cheering.
Often films that try to use events or moments in time as metaphors come off as pretentious. It's especially tough if you have a French director and your subject is the decay of America and shattered dreams and all that stuff that fuels late-night coffee-and-cigarette blab sessions by art students dressed in black. But this movie nails it. Actually I think if it had trusted itself to go even further into this realm and didn't have the secondary plot (or a richer secondary plot) it would have been a better movie. But as it is, it's special, it's something a mainstream American filmmaker probably couldn't have done (with the exception of maybe Philip Kaufman), and it's extraordinarily well-acted by Lancaster and Sarandon (and Joy, during his relatively brief time on screen). And there's a scene where Sarandon manages to do for a paint-splattered old shirt what Lena Olin did for bowler hats in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
The DVD itself is pretty bare-bones. (Of course it is, it's from Paramount!) The list of "special features" on the back cover is hilarious. Aside from the trailer (which is well-done, by the way) these "features" include a wide-screen presentation (wow, thanks) and English mono sound (woooohoooo!) The print is all-around good, though it shows some of its age and has grain; the sound is adequate, though with a movie like this you really don't need a booming six-channel THX presentation. Also interesting is the Michel Legrand credit for music. I don't recall a single bit of original music in the film, so I'm not sure exactly what Mr. Legrand did. Perhaps he wrote a score which Malle declined to use (the long silences work better anyway), but contractual agreements required a credit?
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3 stars out of 4
Added 4/4/2009
The Bottom Line:
Somewhat slow-moving and occasionally improbable, Atlantic City nonetheless succeeds as a film due to a fine acting turn by Lancaster and the perfect setting offered by the city itself; not as good as many of Malle's other works, it's a good movie but not a great one.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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