Gone with the Wind

Original Name: Gone with the Wind

Country: United States

Direction: Victor Fleming

Script: Sidney Howard (adapted from the novel "Gone with the Wind" written by Margaret Mitchell)

Genre: Romance

Length: 238 minutes 

Year: 1939

In "Gone with the Wind", we can see that the film is very poetic. Besides the obvious characteristics inherited from the theater (such as the long opening music and closing music and a musical interlude in the middle of the film), this "poetry" is also evidenced by the analysis of two other aspects of the feature.

The first is photography, which brings us the war by creating a violent environment through their dark colors and special features (the green screen is an example). There are also some moments of "inner peace" of the characters, almost always transmitted in backlit. 

The second aspect is the script, which is extremely nationalistic. The southerners are very patriotic (except Rhett Butler) and the main character, Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), is characterized as an immature woman who survives at the expense of affection from other men and has a strong bond with Tara, her birthplace.

Analyzing the work by an angle completely subjective, I believe that both the writer and the director wanted the main character representing the Confederates and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) symbolizing the Yankees. Although there are several scenes where it's exalted the similarities between the two characters, their actions always culminate in a quarrel, proving that they are lovingly and socially incompatible.

The name of the movie, "Gone with the Wind", has nothing to do with the romance existed in the plot. The title refers, as you will see early in the film, to a society that disappeared along with the American Civil War. The society, represented by Scalett O'Hara and Tara, her land, is the former enslaver South from US.

As an adaptation of a novel, the film has achieved its goal. As a romance movie, it deserves to be remembered. However, depicting American history is that "Gone with the Wind" reached its apex and it became what it is today.

This is definitely a must-read for those hopeless romantics and lovers of history.

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Sabrina

Original Name: Sabrina

Country: United States

Direction: Billy Wilder

Script: Billy Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor and Ernest Lehman (adapted from the play "Sabrina Fair" by Samuel Taylor)

Genre: Romantic comedy

Length: 113 minutes 

Year: 1954

Although I consider Sandra Bullock as the queen of romantic comedies, I must admit that Audrey Hepburn was born to act on romances.

You've Got Mail

Original Name: You've Got Mail

Country: United States

Direction: Nora Ephron

Script: Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron (based on a play called "Parfumerie" by Miklós László)

Genre: Romantic comedy

Length: 119 minutes 

Year: 1998

Great films are made by great directors and, after speaking of Woody Allen and Garry Marshall, who also deserves a mention is Nora Ephron, who made great romantic movies in the 90s and continues to direct beautiful romances today. 

Annie Hall

Original Name: Annie Hall

Country: United States

Direction: Woody Allen

Script: Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman

Genre: Comedy

Length: 94 minutes 

Year: 1977

After talking about Garry Marshall, I couldn't fail to quote Woody Allen in our special month dedicated for lovers. His acid and intelligent comedies about love create a unique point of view that only he can show us.

From Here To Eternity

Original Name: From Here To Eternity

Country: United States

Direction: Fred Zinnemann

Script: Daniel Taradash (adapted from the novel by James Jones)

Genre: Romance

Length: 118 minutes

Year: 1953

Every movie fan has seen the famous kiss with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in "From Here to Eternity". The scene represents the most erotic kiss in cinema history, beyond the fact that the movie has been chosen by American Film Institute as one of the "hundred most romantic movies" of all time.

The kissing scene, actually encompasses two kisses. It begins by framing in the screen the riots waves of the sea, and following their movement, takes the look to Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) lying on Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster). In full-shot, the camera shows the two kissing while the water flows over the sand and partially covers their bodies. From a subjective point of view, the water seems to be the seconds passing by and the two kissing represent the love that survives to time and space of any narrative film.

After a first kiss, Karen gets up and runs to a highest point of the beach, where the water no longer knocks on her feet. There she lies, on a stretched towel on the sand, while Warden follows her. He looks her for a few seconds, kneels, looks at her again and, then, Warden concludes the romantic moment with the second kiss, which in turn is shot in two different angles.

The first angle, focusing Holmes and Warden on the diagonal, shows his hand holding her hair. He wears no wedding ring. Then, the camera moves to the second angle, which shows the back of Milton and Karen under him. In this view, is shown her right hand, which has a wedding ring. This transmits to the viewer the feeling of guilt and the idea that he loves her more than she loves him. As guilt, in movies, is a potential feeling to start fights of couples, the two begin to discuss seconds after the romantic act.

Something also interesting is that the kissing scene is the only one where the beach is shown. The other scenes take place in military field and housing, and in other bustling spots in Pearl Harbor.

Apart from this particular scene, the film features many clichés used in other movies of the time and doesn't show anything innovative to the film industry. I didn't like the performance of Frank Sinatra and I really believe that he could have contributed more if he had passed the entire film singing - something he doesn't do in his scenes.

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Casablanca

Original Name: Casablanca

Country: United States

Direction: Michael Curtiz

Script: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch (adapted from the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison)

Genre: Romance

Length: 108 minutes

Year: 1942

People are dying, cities are being destroyed... But even so, still wasn't found a better context for romantic stories than a war. The scenario of the World Wars brings uncertainty, fear and loneliness, feelings that enhance the romance between any couple in love. And it wasn't different for Rick and Ilsa, the most romantic couple in movie history.

Following a storyline that is now widely imitated by many filmmakers, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) proves to be an extremely seductive man who doesn't seek a love that lasts more than one night. This is because, long ago, a woman named Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) hurt him deeply and he now is trying to put together the pieces of his broken heart, seeking in other females what he only had with her. Cliché, I know. But that always works.

Something that also marks the feature film is the song "As Time Goes By". It seems to have been made exactly for this movie (though it was written eleven years earlier). The nostalgic lyric and a melody with influences of jazz translate the message the film tries to pass about how ephemeral things are and also the struggle between France (along with Allies) and Germany (and the other Axis countries) - Jazz translate it because it's a tone that combines African and European influences and most of its interpreters were black, which became it as a music style hated by Germans and loved by most of the West.

We also can't forget the part of the script where Rick tells Ilsa, "We'll always have Paris". This sentence contains a passion to start a memory, as says the song "As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld.

Out of curiosity, Casablanca actually exists. It's a city in Morocco, a former French colony. In World War II, was a strategic point where refugees were sheltering from the Nazi regime. As for Rick and Ilsa, they also exist. But only in our memory and how much we believe that love really can cross time and space of a cruel and unforgettable war.

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Jules and Jim

Original Name: Jules et Jim

Country: France

Direction: François Truffaut

Script: François Truffaut, Jean Gruault (Based on the novel written by Henri-Pierre Roché)

Genre: Romance

Length: 105 minutes

Year: 1962

The trailer says: "A story about love. A story about friendship. A love story about friendship". If this is indeed true, then it's fair to say that François Truffaut's vision of love is quite limited, unreliable and open to various interpretations. I'll try, then, to analyze the movie under my also limited and doubtful point of view.

Jules and Jim, different than some might imagine, are the names of two friends, not of a couple. Jim (Henri Serre) is a confident man, serious and aware of the dominance he has over women. He has an old passion - which is more like a whim - called Gilberte (Vanna Urbino), a frail woman that is dependent of his caresses.

Jules (Oscar Werner), on the other hand, is a romantic man, but that doesn't have any attractive that make women desire him the way they desire Jim. His inability to find a love that guides him makes him even closer to his friend, that with the years pass becomes a faithful companion yours.

Even with this friendship between incompatible beings, which is quite interesting to create different lines of script and film styles, the subject is developed in less than five minutes and after it's placed as the background of a love story that's more annoying than captivating.

This happens because of Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a heroine who doesn't have free rein when it comes to creating intrigue and jealousy to the man she loves, besides having extreme dissatisfaction with her life. Her relationship with Jules and Jim ends up as a relationship of her with herself, because she responds only to her own whims and pleasures. Jules also gets to be annoying. He loses his personality to be a shadow of a woman who has always been found in pieces.

The film follows the magic formula of Hollywood (click here to know more) by inserting a funny character different from others (Thérèse, played by Marie Dubois), a heartthrob who doesn't convey humor (Jim), an unique family (consisting by Jules, Catherine, their daughter and Jim) and the love triangle of Jules, Jim and Catherine.

Truffaut, in his film, also incorporates influences from Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Goethe and the Belle Époque, making his movie a worthy representative of the Nouvelle Vague of the sixties.

Love is the air the cinephile breathes

I say this with certainty. A teacher told me once that from all kinds of love, as the love of a mother, a brother or a friend, the only one we can live without is passion. Still, this is the only one we don't relinquish. And is in this same way that Hollywood works, filling gaps that, without the presence of a romantic couple, would probably lead the film into bankruptcy due to lack of identification with the spectator.

What I mean is that in most movies we see there's always the support of romance. Even in horror movies there are couples. Frightened, sometimes apart, but that help the narrative due to the romanticism that exists between them. And the same thing happens in comedies, dramas, musicals, adventures, stories of action and suspense... Currently, even in children's films, which are often more focused on the importance of friendship, we can see reflections of the naive and subtle pre-adolescent passion.

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Men in the City

Original Name: Männerherzen
Country: Germany
Direction: Simon Verhoeven
Script: Simon Verhoeven
Genre: Romantic comedy

Length: 107 minutes

Year: 2009

"Men in The City" speaks of six men with particular problems. One is Jerome Ades (Til Schweiger), a bachelor who hates commitments. He has borne Justus von Dohnányi (Bruce Berger), a singer who writes songs with no potential for success and sings badly, besides being extremely needy.

While Jerome tries to accomplish this difficult task, Günther Stobanski (Christian Ulmen) wants a woman whose ex-husband, Roland Feldberg (Wotan Wilke Möhring), is very jealous and can't stand see the woman who still loves with other.

Ronald workout in the same gym of Philip Henrion (Maxim Mehmet), a young man who impregnated a woman he barely knows. He has a friend, Niklas Michalke (Florian David Fitz), who is engaged and will have to decide whether or not to betray his future wife with a woman he met at the gym.

All this happens to the sound of a catchy soundtrack. "If You'll Be Mine", by Baybird, possesses a great electronic beat and "Watch and Wait", by James Morrison, increases the romance with his melodramatic style and close to folk.

The alternative rock of Gary Go with the song "Wonderful", along with "Don't wanna feel this way", by Marshmellow Club, cheers the film and gives it that sense of "happy ending" we all always hope.

The photography follows the contemporary trend of using bright places without too many objects evidenced on the scene. The spots chosen for filming should also be commended, for they are really beautiful and reflect the western architecture of our time.

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Frankie & Johnny

Original Name: Frankie & Johnny

Country: USA

Direction: Garry Marshall

Script: Terrence McNally

Genre: Romantic comedy

Length: 118 minutes

Year: 1991

There couldn't be a month dedicated to romantic comedies without an emphasis on Garry Marshall. He directed successful movies as "Pretty Woman", "Runaway Bride" and "The Princess Diaries", proving his brilliance in designing works that reveal talented actors, engaging scripts and a team that's specialized in showing the best things in the world: comedy and romance.

"Frankie & Johnny" talks about a waitress very unhappy with her life. She externalizes it openly, which doesn't come as something over-the-top (like "The Blind Side", for example). At the same time, it is shown a man that had just been released from prison. He's lonely and is aware of his unhappiness, but uses his skills and good humor to not let it show.

This contrast of acceptance of grief with the escape of it makes Johnny (Al Pacino) fall in love with Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer) and, thereafter, the two spend much time together listening the familiar song "Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy.

Something interesting is that even that Al Pacino doesn't appear, at first glance, to be born for romantic comedies, in this film he manages to show his sex appeal hidden behind his raspy voice and wrinkles already evident. As a great professional that he is, Al Pacino makes us forget Michael Corleone and Scarface. In this movie, he's just Johnny.

Something valued in "Frankie & Johnny" is the commitment to reality. Nowadays, even a movie that tackles poverty presents the actors with flawless skin and clean clothes and adjusted to their body measurements. Marshall, however, presents a realistic romance with Michelle Pfeiffer wearing a simple hair cut and very dried hair. The makeup used is little and traces of her thinness reveal the bad condition of her character. Her clothes are wide and all the same, showing her routine dreary and exhaustive.

Another thing explored in this film is the voyeurism. It seems like every time Frankie stands in front of her window to observe distant lives from her, she realizes that they dialogue with her existence by the same tone of melancholy that exists in all of them. Simultaneously, Frankie finds herself in front of a mirror that is, in fact, just a distant image of what she really wanted to be.

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While You Were Sleeping

Original Name: While You Were Sleeping

Country: USA

Direction: Jon Turteltaub

Script: Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric LeBow

Genre: Romantic comedy

Length: 103 minutes

Year: 1995

In Brazil, June is a month dedicated to lovers. This tradition is due to that June 13 is the day of St. Anthony, known to brazilians as a "matchmaker saint". As a way to honor all the sweethearts in Brazil and worldwide, I will make a special this month only with romance movies.

For starters, I had to talk about my favorite film, "While You Were Sleeping". This feature has the magic recipe that Hollywood has discovered years ago and still uses in the most successful romantic comedies in its history.

This formula consists of: a funny character that stands out for not having similarities with others in the plot (in the case of "While You Were Sleeping", this character is Joe Fusco Jr. (Michael Rispoli)), a beautiful and sometimes bad-tempered man (in this film is Jack Callaghan (Bill Pullman)), an eccentric family (the Callaghan) and, finally, a complicated love triangle (Jack, Lucy (Bullock) and Peter (Gallagher)) that difficults the relationship between the central characters.

In "While You Were Sleeping", this recipe was sustained by Sandra Bullock, the queen of romantic comedies. She is funny, with common features and always reflects in love stories an alone woman, without family, with few friends, but satisfied with life.

Despite being my favorite movie, I must admit that Bill Pullman is loaded on the back for all the other performers. Not that he's a bad actor, is that he's simply not made for romance films, the same way Jim Carey wasn't done to make horror films and Johnny Depp made to make movies with Angelina Jolie.

Still, the feature works very well with this whole "love at second sight", which I think to be something very interesting and way better than the legend of prince charming. We can't know someone at first sight, and because of that love is impossible to happen so quickly.

Showing the development of the romantic feeling makes the film more realistic and attractive, increasing the tension in the plot and the expectations for what will happen in the final act, even though we know right from the beginning of the movie that the two are going to be together and happily ever after.

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