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Bigger Than Life is directed by Nicholas Ray and stars James Mason (who also co-wrote and produced the film), Barbara Rush & Walter Matthau. It's about a school teacher and family man whose life spins out of control after he is diagnosed with a serious life threatening illness that leads to him becoming addicted to cortisone.
A box office flop on release, the film was considered controversial with its attack on the nuclear family residing in conformist suburbia. Yet today many modern day critics, coupled with high praise dealt by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard & François Truffaut, has given the film a new lease of life. So much so it's considered by some to be an ahead of its time masterpiece. While I personally think that masterpiece is a bit too strong a statement, there is no denying that Ray's movie is a potent piece of work backed up by yet another magnificent turn from James Mason.
Excellently adapted by Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum from a New Yorker article written by Berton Roueché, the film is also technically smart. Shot in Cinemascope, Ray & cinematographer Joseph MacDonald brilliantly use bold colours and expressionistic shadows around the domestic home to convey atmosphere and meaning. But it's with the story, and its subsequent interpretations that Bigger Than Life soars high on the interest scale. There's many musings on it available at the click of a mouse, from critics prepared to go deep with it, to a thought process delivered by the genius that was Truffaut himself. They are there if one is inclined to peruse either prior or post viewing of this most intriguing picture.
Me? I have my own thoughts, but that's the point, and the thrill of diving into a film of this type. To form ones own interpretation and to then open up to other perspectives is one of cinemas great little peccadilloes. See this if you can. 7.5/10
score 7/10
hitchcockthelegend 10 March 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2218899/ |
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15-3-2021 18:06:09