Episode 73: THE LOST WEEKEND

[GregoryJamesAnderson 15]

Everyone else voting NO has hit the nail on the head. A well-made film but not Canon worthy. Although I had the exact same thought as Devin in that it would have been amazing to see Wilder go all-out horror. I wonder what his version of The Shining would have been like.

[AlexChristianLovendahl 34]

First time COMMENTING before listening. Upon watching just now, I found it uneven, but ultimately good. Remarkable? Not so much.

 

As a Billy Wilder film, I'd put it far above Sunset Boulevard (that movie and I really don't get along) but far below Ace in the Hole; it'd be in the lower end of the mix with Double Indemnity for me. As a paranoia/depression apartment film, I love it far less than Repulsion, Pi, or Eraserhead. As an addiction film? I'm struggling to come up with examples off of the top of my head; it's more serious but maybe less expansive than Don Jon, and I like it a hell of a lot more than Requiem for a Dream. It's losing to movies like Nosferatu or Only Lovers Left Alive which displace addiction and the monstrous into the supernatural.

 

First instinct? I give it a pass on the canon. It's an interesting precursor to how Italian neorealism and Yasujiro Ozu would impact "social cinema" and realistic drama, an alternate timeline that ultimately gets supplanted.

 

Now to listen and finalize my verdict.

[AlexChristianLovendahl 34]

I'm ready to vote!

 

Ultimately, what it comes down to is this. I think The Lost Weekend does capture some serious pathos and catharsis, both for alcoholism and for depression. It does that with some good dialogue and some good performance work by Milland. But it's just lacking in breadth; in many ways, this movie is over six minutes in, and it so underserves the other interesting themes (family, relationships, honesty, avoidance, reality vs. fiction) in favor of making all serve to the God of dependence that it ends up making the thing feel flat.

 

But it's still a soft no for me. I've never been as dependent as The Lost Weekend's addiction portrays, and I respect that several people in this thread have opened up and discussed their own histories with dependence. If the film has the power to help these lives, then I hope to be pleasantly overruled.

[chaplinatemyshoe 46]

I really liked Devin's argument this week largely because he took a more personal tact. I'm not really won over by the "historical importance" argument because there are just a lot of movies that have interesting historical context, even the bad ones (sometimes especially the bad ones). There's an argument to be made that movies like Heaven's Gate or Cleopatra have more historical importance than The Lost Weekend, but I wouldn't necessarily say they're better movies.

 

Anyway, I'm digressing. I'm another soft no. It's a good movie. I'm glad I finally saw it. But there are a dozen other Billy Wilder movies I'd rather recommend people watch (if we're going lesser heralded Billy Wilder, I'd love to hear what you guys think about some of his 60s comedies), and I'm not really a big social problems movie guy.

 

Good movie. Great episode. Soft no.

[sjmills 0]

People are voting for some stupid thing called Pather Panchali, but not for this true classic? You people are weird. Really weird.