CBL Series One
Film plots based on hetero-romance leading to marriage and family are well-trod tropes from cinema’s beginning. The films in CBL Series One explore indiscretion, influence of wealth, problems encountered in a long marriage, and marriage values that cross ethnic and cultural barriers. See Top 25 Films About Marriage.
Sunrise – directed by F. W. Murnau [1927] – Germany.
Subtitled “A Song of Two Humans,” this film influenced by German Expressionism is a “melodramatic masterpiece – a beautiful, atmospheric, lyrical and poetic work of art” about indiscretion and redemption. Filmsite.org
L’ Atalante – directed by Jean Vigo [1934] – France.
Vigo’s final film is “a poetically-told, lyrical, sensual, visually-rich, playful drama –about a newly-married couple struggling with their wedded relationship” while traveling on a working barge. Michel Simon’s performance is not to be missed. Filmsite.org
Dodsworth – directed by William Wyler [1936] – USA.
From the director of “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946), Dodsworth tells of the “disintegration of an older couple’s troubled marriage during an extended grand tour of Europe.” Wyler challenged the restrictive Production Code of the time. Filmsite.org
Tokyo Story – directed by Yasujirō Ozo [1953] – Japan.
Lauded as Ozu’s “best film of his career.” “A classic family drama that illustrated how changing industrialized times in post-war Japan of the 1950s had severed the virtue of children and society honoring one’s parents.” Filmsite.org
La Notte – directed by Michelangelo Antonioni [1961] – Italy.
“Two of the screen’s most melancholic beauties, Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni, are the searchers in “La Notte.” The virtuosic 1961 drama is the second film in what’s regarded as a trilogy, beginning with “L’Avventura,” Antonioni’s international breakthrough, and concluding with “L’Eclisse.” Made in quick succession, the three pictures explore disillusion and romantic emptiness, and they all feature Monica Vitti.” LA Times
*Watch each film prior to the CBL conversation.
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