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Poll

What's your favorite film by Fred Zinnemann?

haven't seen any
1 (8.3%)
don't like any
0 (0%)
other
0 (0%)
Kid Glove Killer
0 (0%)
Eyes in the Night
0 (0%)
The Seventh Cross
0 (0%)
My Brother Talks to Horses
0 (0%)
Little Mister Jim
0 (0%)
The Search
1 (8.3%)
Act of Violence
0 (0%)
The Men
0 (0%)
Teresa
0 (0%)
High Noon
2 (16.7%)
The Member of the Wedding
0 (0%)
From Here to Eternity
1 (8.3%)
Oklahoma!
0 (0%)
A Hatful of Rain
0 (0%)
The Nun's Story
1 (8.3%)
The Sundowners
0 (0%)
Behold a Pale Horse
0 (0%)
A Man For All Seasons
1 (8.3%)
The Day of the Jackal
5 (41.7%)
Julia
0 (0%)
Five Days One Summer
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 12

Author Topic: Zinnemann, Fred  (Read 6506 times)

pixote

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Re: Zinnemann, Fred
« Reply #40 on: April 25, 2020, 05:43:06 PM »
A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966) — I needed something comforting to watch, so the first film in my unofficial “What’s Leaving the Criterion Channel This Month” marathon was something I had been fairly enamored of when I first watched it long ago. The sheen has definitely worn off this Zinnemann film for me, though. His direction feels trapped in a netherworld between the semi-modern classical style he achieved with The Nun’s Story and the style of his modern masterpiece Day of the Jackal. The brief exterior scenes have a lovey painterly quality to them (with some 60s zooms thrown in for pizazz), but then the interior scenes are too beholden to the work’s theatrical origins. As terrific as the cast is on paper, only Paul Scofield really rises above it all with a performance that’s both true to the period setting but also very contemporary. I guess there’s a timelessness to humanity. He actually might be too good for the movie, making his fellow castmates all seem a bit unnatural by comparison, creating a certain restlessness for the audience whenever Thomas More isn’t speaking at length. Maybe it’s time for me to reread Utopia. Grade: B-

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Teproc

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Re: Zinnemann, Fred
« Reply #41 on: April 25, 2020, 05:47:28 PM »
I remember Robert Shaw being an obvious but excellent Henry VIII, but I certainly agree that Scofield towers above everyone else in the film... which makes sense, he is supposed to be quite literally standing on higher ground, the eponymous man for all seasons.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Zinnemann, Fred
« Reply #42 on: April 25, 2020, 07:15:06 PM »
I remember really liking but not quite loving this one. Need to see it again.

pixote

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Re: Zinnemann, Fred
« Reply #43 on: April 25, 2020, 08:19:38 PM »
Shaw comes off second best, probably. If you transferred this performance to a different film (Robin and Marian, perhaps), I’d probably absolutely love it, but his royal bombast just feels so very performative in contrast to the measured intelligence of Scofield’s presence (which as you say is kind of the point, but still, lol).

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