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 4/10 Good --- glennkenny.premiere.com http://feeds.feedburner.com/typepad/glennkenny/blog
| the online hangout of Premiere film critic Glenn Kenny ... |
Tuesday, April 01, 2008 --- 94 days ago http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/glennkenny/blog/~3/261988718/jules-dassin
| Sarris put him in the "Strained Seriousness" category in The American Cinema , calling him a "lively director in a minor key" while bemoaning his "softheaded social consciousness." The social consciousness no longer seems to function overmuch when screening his pictures today...and years and years of unimaginative ripoffs of Rififi have shown us it's not wise to undervalue such originals. Dassin's run of pictures between 1947 and 1955— Brute Force , The Naked City , Thieves Highway , Night and the City and Rififi —was about as inspired as any director ever pulls off, and Dassin didn't break his stride of inspiration even as he was going into exile. The cinematic vision of hell in Night and the City is no less unforgettable for being set in London as opposed to New York, where the conventional wisdom would deem the story better-suited.
Dassin had not directed a film since 1980, but he remained active and, it appears, pretty feisty until the end of his life , which came less than a week after the death of his City star Richard Widmark. He gave some very lively interviews to The Criterion Collection for the DVDs of the five films listed above; those movies, and the reminiscences Dassin contributes to their video editions, are as good a way to get to know him as any.
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