is this a movie that's sad, exhilerating, or film noir, retrospective, futuristic, or just now, as life is?
malle's slice of low, or aspiriring to high life is the 1981 comment on hopes.
malle creates a masterpiece of hope, regret, opportunity, and nostaglia between two unlikely partners.
lemons?
they wash away the stink.
burt lancaster says it concisely, "...the ocean, you should of seen it then."
AC is as good in 2003 as it representd AC in 1981.
God, what a movie.
The only other movie I've ever seen Lancaster in was "Field of Dreams"...he's *beep* great!
I especially liked the relationship between Lancaster and the kid (what was his name?)...it turned out to be somewhat paternal...I'm going to get it on DVD, it's one of my secret faves now.
And yes, it is a commentary on hopes, no matter how pitiful or far-reaching they may be....and Atlantic City appears to be the perfect vehicle for this theme.
Atlantic City was a great film. If you've only seen Burt Lancaster in two films, even though you posted this a long while back, you're in for a real treat. Sweet Smell of Success, Elmer Gantry, From Here to Eternity, Birdman of Alcatraz, and The Swimmer are just some of the films Burt Lancaster was excellent in. He's one of my favorite actors.
"Dry your eyes baby, it's out of character."
Burt Lancaster is also one of my favorite actors. Besides those films mentioned, he was also great in The Train, Trapeze, Local Hero, and The Rainmaker, just to name a few. AMC did a special on his life, which is run now and then.
I've recently been watching Burt Lancaster films - Ulzana's Raid, The Professionals, Lawman, Go Tell the Spartans and especially Atlantic City are all great. What an actor
shareYou could do a week-long Lancaster Film Fest, show three movies a night, and still agonize over what does and doesn't make the cut..."Don't touch the suit". A great one, Lancaster...an all-timer.
shareITA that this film was a masterpiece. Just a marvel of filmmalking by the amazing Louis Malle that frightenly examines the concept of loneliness as a way of life. Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon deliver electrifying performances that garnered them well-deserved Oscar nominations and I would have liked to have seen them both win. Unfortunately, Henry Fonda was a deadlock for his final performance in ON GOLDEN POND. I do think Sarandon's performance was better than the best actress winner, Katherine Hepburn in ON GOLDEN POND, which I think was a strong sentimental choice more than anything else. An important film for all serious lovers of film and great acting.
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Susan Sarandon rubbing lemons on her nipples......one of the great erotic moments in cinema.
shareBurt was fantastic!! I'm a long-time fan and he will always be one of my favorites. The Leopard was released a few years ago on dvd after fans demanded it's production for a long time. If you want to see a magnificent film -watch it, but don't be in a hurry. It's long and moves slowly -relax and enjoy a real treat.
shareNICE Nips!
I'd rather go hunting with Dick Cheney, than driving with Ted Kennedy
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I always thought of Burt Lancaster parts as far too stylized (except for Birdman of Alcatraz which was brilliant), that sort of acting went out with the silent films but the actors who were afraid of the new "method" stuck with the hard to stomach stylization. His performance here was far more subtle
than usual, but he just didn't have anything to work with as the screenplay was a desperate attempt at writing just to use up funds that were soon to be revoked.
Personally, I don't find Susan Sarandon attractive or sexy by any stretch of the imagination, so the "lemon" scenes were pretty repugnant. As far as a "break-out" performance....well the old movie houses must have been pretty dismal this year for this to be a break out anything. Actually I could, offhand, name at least 20 other performances by lead actresses in this year that were so much superior to Sarandons. And none of them were even mentioned for an academy award.
As for 'lemons', this whole movie was boring, slow paced, poorly shot, under directed and ineptly written. It's as if Louis Malle was so desperate to spend the money to make a movie before he lost it that he just threw up his hands and said "OK..PEOPLE, WE'RE GOING TO DO..WHATEVER!" And this is the painful result. The only reason it was so highly garnered is due to hollywood politics, not because of any artistic merit or entertainment value.
Chaplin, I think you need to sit down and watch this film again. You have certainly missed something here. Its an absolute masterpiece - give it another go and get wrapped up in the drama, humour and emotion. Forget the lemon scene and if Sarandon was sexy or not and look at the movie from a perspective of how people were left behind in the transisitions in AC.
Sav
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It's nice. If only this had been a European production, the camera would have shown us that from within the room rather than just an obscured view from outside the window with objects in front of her. Yeah, we saw a little more in the second lemon scene later. But not much.
sharemalle's slice of low, or aspiriring to high life is the 1981 comment on hopes.
malle creates a masterpiece of hope, regret, opportunity, and nostaglia between two unlikely partners.
For me, you really summed up this movie in these two sentences.
"malle creates a masterpiece of hope, regret, opportunity, and nostaglia between two unlikely partners"
I feel the same way too. I love this movie.
It's a great film, I agree. Burt Lancaster is awesome in this film, I think it's his best performance in a career of great performances. He's magnificent. And Susan Sarandon is great too. I have yet to meet a guy who isn't crazy about her.
shareTalking about Burt Lancaster his role in Atlantic City is amongst his best performances ever, Just behind his roles in Il gattopardo and Elmer Gantry.
BTW I'd have killed not 2 but 6 thugs in order to drink a glass of Sally's lemonade. Susan Sarandon was uber hot!
Atlantic City has always been one of my top 5 favorites of all time. It affected me so deeply. I used to have grandparents living in the *old* Atlantic City and we used to love visiting and playing on the boardwalk so it's is especially poignant to me. I recently saw Robert Joy who played the young deadbeat and is now pushing sixty, in another role, and thought, "but...you're dead!". That death scene was so brutally realistic. Every few years I get a hankering to see this again. Louie Malle is sorely missed by me. Imagine all the great films he could have made.
I kill for Zardoz
So many intersecting elements that merge beautifully here – little slices of life (so to speak) that relate to others' lives. The changing of the guard from a mob-run town to a family center, just as a new generation is trying to make their lives there with help from their elders.
This is one of the finest films of the '80s. Leave it to a Frenchman to capture a true piece of Americana, as relevant 30 years ago as it is now.
Can we get back on the topic of those lemons, now?
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