Meet Me in St Louis (Minnelli, 1944): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.10pm
This
classic Christmas film is also being screened, on December 20th and 23rd at BFI Southbank. You can find all the details here.
There
are numerous articles and features on this film, including an excellent
one by Richard Dyer in the January 2012 edition of Sight & Sound.
Dyer refers to work by Andrew Britton on the film which has been
reproduced in the recent publication of his complete film criticism and by Robin Wood in his collection Personal Views. Both are well worth seeking out.
And here is an excellent piece by the Guardian's John Patterson on Minnelli to coincide with a previous re-release of today's film.
Time Out review:
In 1939, rosy-cheeked chanteuse Judy Garland trumpeted
the cosy, all-American proverb that ‘there’s no place like home’ in
‘The Wizard of Oz’. She returned five years later to reaffirm those
beliefs in Vincente Minnelli’s
musical masterpiece, ‘Meet Me in St Louis’, a Technicolor ode to the
joys and tensions of living side-by-side with your fellow man. In a snow
globe rendering of St Louis, Missouri circa 1903, the affluent Smith
clan must face the prospect of ripping up their ancestral roots to chase
future fortunes. The film has only a whisper of a plot, preferring to
amass the simple pleasures of life (flirting with neighbours, riding the
trolley, Christmas with the folks) into a single romantic vision of a
perfect society. Framed as a sepia-tinted postcard come to life,
Minnelli’s panoramic city symphony examines the meanings of nostalgia
and memory while offering a sweetly ironic depiction of Middle American
conservatism where sex is taboo, dinner is at six, money is evil and
father knows best. A heavenly slice of brassy Hollywood romanticism
that’ll still have you swooning all the way to the trolley stop.
David Jenkins
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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