New movie vid!

[hazelk]

Title: Rock Steady

Artist: All Saints

Movie: Gilda

Format: DivX

Size: 36.8 MB

Summary: Rita Hayworth gave good face

Download here (Right/control click and save target as)

Feedback is a very exciting emotion.



Notes
Gilda is an odd movie. It’s also a queer one but the oddity comes more from the different types of film at war within it than the big gay love-hate triangle. The whole thing is shot and narrated like a noir but climaxes with a musical number that would make Minnelli proud and oozes melodrama like a classic woman’s movie. The eponymous Gilda has a lot in common with the anti-heroines featured in that much maligned genre, the women played by Joan Crawford, Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck who would spend most of the movie having a ball, ruling roughshod over the men-folk in fabulous frocks before unaccountably dying of cancer or otherwise seeing the error of their ways in the final reel. Rita Hayworth’s Gilda survives but isn’t even allowed the dignity of repentance, the movie ends with one of the male characters finally telling the hero that she was never really bad after all, that it was all an act.

I guess my main aim with this vid was to re-write that final reel and give Gilda the last word. At first the thought of vidding in black-and-white was scary but the movie does such wonderful things with light and shadow, the soft blur of the bedroom scenes contrasted with the harsh party-light of the casino, the way the slippery-when-wet sheen of Ballin’s sword stick matches that of the satin sheath dress Gilda dons for her performance of “Put the Blame on Mame.” The camerawork is quite traditional, no steadicam trickery, but the way it creates movement by blocking and lingers on the actors faces is to die for. Finally there’s the hair, this vid has the best hair of any I’ve ever made and has probably been worth making for that reason alone.



Rock Steady Lyrics

Years on the run
Boy I know I can take it
And now that I'm here
I know you can't stand the waiting, boy
Lets say no more games
No messing with the mind
Always room for change
Let's give it one more try
(Come on lets give it a try)

I got my bags packed baby and i'm ready to go
Look at my eyes rock steady and I promise you more
I got My heart back baby and it's skipping a beat
I got my ass in check, checkin' out, I'm ready to feel

It's all good to go
I'm right here for the taking
(oooh ticky ticky ticky)
Don't cross the line
I'll promise you no fakin', boy
(no no no no)
Its all understood
No messing with the rules
(the rules, the rules)
If I let you go
Boy I will be a fool
(What kind of girl wants to be a fool?)

I got my bags packed baby and i'm ready to go
Look at my eyes rock steady and I promise you more
I got My heart back baby and it's skipping a beat
I got my ass in check, checkin' out, I'm ready to feel

Tell me why we act so stupid, the games we're playing (oooh)
If life is the rule then we're heading towards the same thing
You are not worthless with love instead of the fighting (oooh)
Let's get together forever with no more hiding

I got my bags packed baby and i'm ready to go
Look at my eyes rock steady and I promise you more
I got My heart back baby and it's skipping a beat
I got my ass in check, checkin' out, I'm ready to feel

I got my bags packed baby and i'm ready to go
Look at my eyes rock steady and I promise you more
I got My heart back baby and it's skipping a beat
I got my ass in check, checkin' out, I'm ready to feel

Comments

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Wow. I love to see people vidding movies of the kind I watch (new TV shows, old movies is the way I swing), especially since my computer isn't displaying colour very well right now. This vid is wonderful! The way you keep up the movement -- it fit both the source and the song well, with the effect that the two never jarred at all. It certainly did have a more upbeat take on Gilda than the original movie did. When I watched the movie I expected Gilda to be a real bad girl, but she seemed such a sad figure, a mischievous wench, caught in the company of two darkly obsessive men and desperately trying to assert some control. In this vid I can believe that she always retains some.

Two of my favourite moments are around 2:10 where she collapses in front of him and the portrait looks on, and at 2:26, where the thrown guitar matches the impaling sword stick.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Yay another old movie fan! (is your icon from Shall we Dance?

I'm really glad the vid worked for you. I was watching the original trailers for Gilda on the dvd and they're all about what a manipulative Jezebel she is, which I've never seen. Making the vid one of the most striking things is how creepily predatory Ballin is portrayed, always circling around whoever he's in a scene with and how unpredictably violent Johnny can be, just eaten up with rage.

Two of my favourite moments are around 2:10 where she collapses in front of him and the portrait looks on, and at 2:26, where the thrown guitar matches the impaling sword stick.
I drafted the end to this vid early on in making it and having those two juxtapositions was what made me feel it was going to work out :-)

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

is your icon from Shall we Dance?

Yes! "Shall We Dance" is my favourite movie, and you made my day by recognizing it just from a 100x100 icon.

I was watching the original trailers for Gilda on the dvd and they're all about what a manipulative Jezebel she is, which I've never seen.

I suppose the trailers are also from Johnny's POV. It's something of a modernist thing (postmodern? I never know the terms) for the film to examine a character by looking through his eyes, but it makes for confusing trailers. On the other hand, maybe it's just that the Jezebel angle sells.