Thinking Out Loud

Tag: Criterion Collection

  • Crin blanc: Le cheval sauvage (White Mane) and Le ballon rouge (The Red Balloon)

    Crin blanc: Le cheval sauvage (White Mane) and Le ballon rouge (The Red Balloon)

    Janus Films and the Criterion Collection have released two classic short films for children from French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse: White Mane (1952), and The Red Balloon (1956). Each is mostly silent, with only the odd line or two of dialogue. In essence, both are extended chase sequences that deserve to be taught in film school.

    I vaguely recall seeing The Red Balloon in elementary school, as an ancient film print running through our rattling projector. As the little boy Pascal (Pascal Lamorisse) makes his way to school through a depressingly grey Paris, he frees a stray balloon (the reddest red you’ll ever see on film) tangled on a lamppost. The balloon becomes his faithful and playful pet, but causes him nothing but grief. He is kicked off the bus, made late for school, gets in trouble with maman, and provokes a gang of ruffians in short pants. Still, throughout, the boy remains the faithful defender of his adopted friend, and is ultimately rewarded after suffering tragedy.

    The Red Balloon
    Le ballon rouge (The Red Balloon)

    White Mane is the story of a proud, wild horse sought after by cruel ranchers. Only Folco (Alain Emery), a poor young fisherman, treats the horse with the due respect in order to be able to approach and eventually ride him. The two become equals, as opposed to master and pet. Shockingly, their tale ends in an apparent suicide, as Folco and the horse both chose the freedom of death over living under oppression (poverty for Folco, captivity for the horse).

    White Mane
    Le cheval sauvage (White Mane)

    Together, the two films present the following morals: adults are cruel and unfair, intent on stamping out pleasure and freedom, and animals and inanimate objects make better friends than humans. Both feature heartbreaking tragedies that would almost certainly never figure into contemporary children’s films.

  • The atmospheres and soundtracks of Al Reiner’s Apollo Missions documentary For All Mankind

    The atmospheres and soundtracks of Al Reiner’s Apollo Missions documentary For All Mankind

    It was a weird experience to finally see the original film for the soundtrack to which I’ve listened to countless times. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois’ Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks is a gorgeous piece of work, and very much colored my expectations of what the film would be. Having long pictured a largely abstract compilation of otherworldly lunar footage, I was surprised to find For All Mankind a more straightforward documentary than what was already in my head. (Bits and pieces from the compilation album Music for Films III also appear.)

    Unlike In the Shadow of the Moon, the 2007 feature documentary on the same subject, For All Mankind exclusively uses original footage taken during the Apollo Missions, much of it by the astronauts themselves. The absence of new narration or footage rightly places the emphasis solely on the achievements of the original participants. But a drawback is that the interviewees on the soundtrack are not identified (the Criterion DVD edition includes an option to display subtitles identifying the speakers).

    I have little to add to Matthew Dessem’s excellent review on The Criterion Contraption, or to my own thoughts on In the Shadow of the Moon. Three small observations:

    • I was completely ignorant that NASA first began spacewalks during the Apollo missions. I was under the impression they began during the later space shuttle missions. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that NASA would test spacewalks in orbit over the Earth before attempting to step out of a capsule onto the moon, but: Wow!
    • The astronauts were very conscious of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Each astronaut could bring one cassette tape to play on a portable deck, and one chose Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra”. Another describes seeing the moon surface up close as being like something from 2001.
    • Due to the film’s nature of being comprised of original footage, there’s perhaps too much of the astronauts goofing off in zero-G, and not enough of the spectacular lunar footage. But it goes to show that even the pilots selected for being the most sane and calm people in the word still turn to excited kids when playing in outer space (with the rare exception to prove the rule).