Henry & June
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Movie Reviews of Henry & June
Movie Review: sexy and factual
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie chronicles the true life adventures of Anais the famous author. The movie is very sexy,sensual, and risky. Lovely flick.
Enjoy:
David
Movie Review: A TRULY GREAT PERFORMANCE: UMA THURMON
Summary: 4 Stars
I don't intend to burden either of us with my ideas about Anias Nin or Henry Miller's art and methods, or their lives together, or their careeers. I went through my Sex-As-Personal-Liberation phase several decades ago, read their work, and my opinion of their efforts, in particular, both carnal and literary, are not enthusiastic. However, this film is a good one in that it is very nearly a "You Are There" recreation of Paris Between the Two Wars, and that in itself is worthwhile. Lots of time-specific nuggets of the real stuff, including snatches of "J'ai deux amours" in the earliest recorded version, with Jo Baker's unmistakable voice, street songs and carnival behavior, as well as little montage-like glimpses of Man Ray and his photographs. The exteriors of buildings, streets and courtyards of The Quarter are shown (not much changed even now) as well as the cramped, medieval interiors; but not a glimpse of the terrifying interior plumbing. For that you'll have to see Bill Murray's THE RAZOR'S EDGE, another great literary/historical recreation, though fictional.
But as good an historical recreatin of an eara as this movie is, with an exceptionally interesting actress Maria di Madiernos playing Anias Nin, and even our Kevin Spacey somewhere in the mix, nothing is evenly remotely as interesting as Uma Thurman's incredible tour de force as June, Miller's ex-taxi-dance hall wife and emotional and financial support during the lean years of his early career. As an actress on film, Thurman is always at least interesting to look at, for as Merle Streep said of her, "She is six foot tall, extremely beautiful and supremely talented." She is so secure in her sexuality, she is comfortable in homosexual and heterosexual roles. She is alternately graceful and powerful, as needed, whenever and however called for, and can summon up emotional power in whatever amount and whichever degree as may be required. We can take that for granted whenever we pay to look at one of her films. Here, in HENRY AND JUNE however, she demonstrates something I was completely unprepared for; her vocal abilities and in particular, her use of diction. Understand; HENRY AND JUNE is filmed in English, with only tiny snippets of French, as needed. What struck or didn't strike me, at first, is that Uma plays her role speaking in the flat, uninflected Brooklynese of the original woman throughout, without the tiniest lapse. (I mistook it for bad acting, or laziness.) But watching and listening more carefully, it came to me that in order to catch the poignance of Clara Bow's performances, I had to imagine Clara's own Brooklyn, working-class voice. Uma played June as sounding, and therefore being, or appearing, utterly COMMON. Utterly American. That is the key to her sexual appeal, and it is the key to Nin's fascination with her. Nin's view of her, of Henry and their literary efforts, is an aristocrat's view, and her erotic interest in June, is tied to her condesention. (Nin's Diary is all about slumming.) June is the new, independent and unencumbered woman, with her own erotic and emotional destiny, and Nin wants to become that woman.
The urgency of sex in the face of doom: This tiny aspect of the story characterizes most of it (most of Henry and Anias' copulative drama) as well as most of the turmoil of the age, in Europe. It is no secret that Orwell, working in the same Parisian neighborhood, was writing exactly contemporaneously and that Nin, Miller and Orwell were primarily self-obsessed diarists. Proust was alive and working too, as well as Gide, yet another diarist. Their Paris was exactly what you'd expect in a culture on the verge of suicide, in which more than half the male population of the leading European nations died on the battlefields of WW I. Naturally the brothels were filled with poor, lonely young women with no possible way of making a living or of making family. With European social presumptions about personal behavior in ruins, unsecure men and women fornicated in the streets, or wherever impulse found them. And the "American Girl" of the Cinema, who turns up as a character in Satie's ballet PARADE, became a kind of an erotic archtype. Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks and others, typified a kind of "cheap" new and easily available sensuality that seemed to be inevitable; something akin to Chanel's #5, the first popular synthetic female essence, or her inimitable, all-purpose "Little Black Dress" which was her version of Henry Ford's Model T. Somehow, Thurmon apparently managed to absorb everything the characters and their circumstances offered, and to embody it on screen, and miraculously she is able to transform and then display it as the original character might have done, with seeming effortlessness.
This may not be the performance of her lifetime, but for students of film, this may be the performance of our lifetime. Quelle artiste!
Movie Review: Anaïs Nin: "Something is always born of excess...
Summary: 4 Stars
... great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them."
"Henry & June" (1990) by Philip Kaufman which is based on the book by Anais Nin is a wonderful film, a rare and admirable example of how an art-house erotic film should be made. It tells an interesting story that concerns the famous and scandalous American writer Henry Miller during the period of work on his first major work, "Tropic of Cancer" in 1931 in Paris and two women without whom the book would not have happened. One of them is his wife, June Miller, who is a constant presence under the different names in all Miller's works. The other - Henry's (and June's) close friend, lover, and confidant, Anais Nin. The film is an adaptation or mediation over the Anais Nin's journal which she wrote for 60 years and described in it the intimate details her inner world, including experiences with sexuality, and the meetings and relationships with prominent bohemian personalities of literature and art, who came from around the world to Paris, always known as the Mecca for creative individuals. Nin said about her life long writing in diary, "This diary is my kief, hashish, and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice." Anais met in Paris provincial but talented non-conformist Miller and his exotic, sensual, and irresistible wife June (Uma Thurman never looked so attractive, as in this movie) and began affairs with both of them that would change their lives and influence enormously both Miller's and Nin's literary work. Anais is also known and praised as one of the first and the finest female writers of erotica. One of the reasons for film's success was director/writer Philip Kaufman's ability to delicately transfer to the screen the erotic intense atmosphere of Nin's writing as well as the spirit of Bohemian Paris in the beginning of the 1930s.
At the of Anais' request, her journal was published only after the death of all the participants in the events. Anais' relationship with Henry and June, which led to her own realization as writer, served as the basis for the Philip Kaufman's film. Kaufman wrote the script together with his wife Rose, and made a brilliant, disturbing, outrageous film, which had made history by having been the first USA film to receive the NR-17 Rating, so called "kiss of death". Henry and June is an adult film in the literal meaning of this word, it is the movie made for adults which explores in the insightful, exiting and artistic way the motivations, inspirations, and desires of the famous figures of Art. The acting is universally good with terrific Maria de Medeiros as Anais Nin. It is impossible to take one's eyes off her face - so charming, lovely, and desirable she is. She possesses the power of commanding the screen and she is the best thing in the movie which belongs to her Anais Nin.
Movie Review: Henry and June and Anaïs
Summary: 4 Stars
June is Henry's wife - that's Henry Miller, the once-controversial author. Anaïs Nin is also married, to a man who loves her passionately and romantically. Miller is a man of huge and lusty appetites, and Nin has decided to explore her own capacities for physical affection. This story describes encounters between them, encounters that that turned hotly passionate and seemed to fuel both writers' careers.
This isn't always easy on the others around them. Nin manages to keep her husband sweetly oblivious to her affair with Miller. Miller lacks her natural discretion, though. An unstable triangle forms between Henry, June, and Anaïs. Elegantly filmed sequences show Anaïs' making love to each (though never together). Perhaps Nin sought out the full range of experience with men and women, or perhaps her involvement with Miller demanded an involvement with his wife, as well. Or maybe, as June said, Nin had a writer's uncontrollable appetite for material.
I'm not wholly sure what to make of Nin, as portrayed here. The actress in her role is petite, round-faced, and big-eyed, and makes me think of Nin's contemporary Betty Boop. She's almost childlike in many ways, and more often in the led position than the leading one in her sexual encounters. Uma Thurman's brassy chick from the Bronx (June) is generally good, though the faux Bronx accent didn't always succeed. The sparks struck between Thurman and Nin (Maria de Medeiros) were good, though, both in passion and in anger.
It's a generally enjoyable movie, with warm, sometimes torrid physicality. I'm not sure how much I really learned about Miller or Nin, but I'm not sure that really matters.
//wiredweird
Movie Review: Another infamous author who expresses her sensual/sexual exploration.
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved this picture because it has beautiful cinematography and settings of Paris. This film is just flat out exotic in every sense. The period details and characterizations are perfect and the controversial erotic material well integrated into plot and pacing of the film. All of the actors and actresses involved in this film performed very well. Uma Thurman shines here even though she's only in the film for about 25 minutes but those scenes are radiate with eroticism. Any person doubting her acting ability due to her poor script choices recently should check out her performance in this film. Uma Thurman as the wife of Fred Ward who charms the young, naive, but tricky Anais Nin played superbly by Maria de Mardieos. Fred Ward as a little weird as the American writer who charms Anais. Uma was great with her thick New York accent and her beauty.
I think the rating should have been R instead of NC-17.I have seen R rated movies much worse than this picture. The much talked-about erotic elements and explicit sex scenes that caused the MPAA to create the now useless NC-17 rating are actually well integrated into the film and actually work to create better understandings of the 3 principle characters through their sexual behaviors and practices. The film isn't all sex like some people think, but when the erotic elements rear their head; the intensity and focus of these scenes throw people off kilter.
Overall this is a fantastic film that drags just a little bit near the beginning and end, but is perfectly acted and stunningly filmed. This picture is an epic which should not be overlooked.