The Stranger (1967)
(Lo straniero)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: col 104m
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Karina, Bernard Blier
Synopsis:
A Frenchman living and working in Algiers between the wars buries his mother and kills an Arab, and through society's horrified response at his indifference becomes aware of the absurdity of human life and death.
Review:
The sixties were an odd decade in which to turn Camus's epoch-making text into a film, so far is it removed from the racial factors contingent on the Algerian war. The adaptation follows the letter of the novel pretty slavishly, so much so, indeed, as to render the juridical liberties taken at the trial more glaring than ever. Irritations stem partly from the director's roving zoom lens, and partly from his inability to stop and observe more closely (at the funeral, on the beach) in the hope of capturing the essence of the author's description at these critical passages. There are also the dubbing of the women's exaggerated laughter and the fact that Mastroianni has just too much star baggage to make a satisfactory Meursault: it needed an unknown, or someone like Trintignant. (He is also too old, as becomes apparent in the scenes where he must wear a bathing costume!) This said, there are a number of scenes from the first part of the novel, and the confrontation with the priest at the end, that work well, and much of this is closer to Visconti's neo-realist work than anything else he did since.
(Lo straniero)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: col 104m
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Karina, Bernard Blier
Synopsis:
A Frenchman living and working in Algiers between the wars buries his mother and kills an Arab, and through society's horrified response at his indifference becomes aware of the absurdity of human life and death.
Review:
The sixties were an odd decade in which to turn Camus's epoch-making text into a film, so far is it removed from the racial factors contingent on the Algerian war. The adaptation follows the letter of the novel pretty slavishly, so much so, indeed, as to render the juridical liberties taken at the trial more glaring than ever. Irritations stem partly from the director's roving zoom lens, and partly from his inability to stop and observe more closely (at the funeral, on the beach) in the hope of capturing the essence of the author's description at these critical passages. There are also the dubbing of the women's exaggerated laughter and the fact that Mastroianni has just too much star baggage to make a satisfactory Meursault: it needed an unknown, or someone like Trintignant. (He is also too old, as becomes apparent in the scenes where he must wear a bathing costume!) This said, there are a number of scenes from the first part of the novel, and the confrontation with the priest at the end, that work well, and much of this is closer to Visconti's neo-realist work than anything else he did since.
(Lo straniero)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: col 104m
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Karina, Bernard Blier
Synopsis:
A Frenchman living and working in Algiers between the wars buries his mother and kills an Arab, and through society's horrified response at his indifference becomes aware of the absurdity of human life and death.
Review:
The sixties were an odd decade in which to turn Camus's epoch-making text into a film, so far is it removed from the racial factors contingent on the Algerian war. The adaptation follows the letter of the novel pretty slavishly, so much so, indeed, as to render the juridical liberties taken at the trial more glaring than ever. Irritations stem partly from the director's roving zoom lens, and partly from his inability to stop and observe more closely (at the funeral, on the beach) in the hope of capturing the essence of the author's description at these critical passages. There are also the dubbing of the women's exaggerated laughter and the fact that Mastroianni has just too much star baggage to make a satisfactory Meursault: it needed an unknown, or someone like Trintignant. (He is also too old, as becomes apparent in the scenes where he must wear a bathing costume!) This said, there are a number of scenes from the first part of the novel, and the confrontation with the priest at the end, that work well, and much of this is closer to Visconti's neo-realist work than anything else he did since.