It's the Snyder Cut!

First things first.  The four hour long director's cut of "Justice League" is a significant improvement over the 2017 version.  The tonal clashes are mostly gone, and all the characters are much more fleshed out and well-developed, especially the villain Steppenwolf and the new superheroes, Cyborg and Flash.  Zack Snyder is fully in control here, and indulging in all his favorite bits of stylistic indulgence - slow motion, awkward needle drops, and desaturated visuals.  The bleak, joyless atmospherics are actually kind of nostalgic.

The theatrical cut of "Justice League" had the fundamental problem of being a half-finished project that was overhauled by Joss Whedon, a director with completely different sensibilities from Zack Snyder.  Even if I still prefer Whedon's punchier take on some of the material to Snyder's, the directors' cut is a better experience  because it's finally something cohesive.  The four hour run time doesn't feel overlong, because the whole thing has been restructured into serialized chapters.  The characters gel better.  The plot points are set up better.  There is actual suspense and buildup to the big, stupid fight scenes.  And make no mistake that the fight scenes are very big and very stupid, but that's what we're all here for, right? 

What surprised me the most about the new version is how much of "Justice League" has been entirely reworked.  There must be at least an hour of completely new and restored footage, including a mostly different third act, and additional scenes to set up Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg.  Remember that this was the movie that introduced Aquaman?   Warners didn't skimp on the budget, so all the effects and creature animation look stellar.  Superman's CGI upper lip issues are gone.  The villains, Steppenwolf and Darkseid, are still cartoonish and half-baked, but they look amazing.  Another big change is the score, supplied entirely by Junkie XL instead of Danny Elfman, keeping everything moody and grim.     

Despite all the improvements, this version still has many problems.  It's ponderous, overserious, and downright gloomy at times.  Roy Fisher looks great, but is stuck with one scowling expression for the whole film.  I miss some of the laugh lines from the theatrical version.  I don't like the extended epilogues at all, and think they're easily the worst part of the film.  A lot of scenes feels tacked on, especially the cameos from other DC characters.  Some of the more fundamental issues, like the angsty depiction of Superman, still carry over from the previous installments.  I'm sad to say that Amy Adams and Henry Cavill still seem utterly disconnected as Lois and Clark.  And Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne gets more screen time, but not any more depth.   

I know that everyone has complained about Snyder's use of slow-motion to the point where it's kind of a given, but good grief, he really overdoes it here.  It's gotten to the point of parody, especially combined with the self-serious music and certain aesthetic choices.  I can already see the spoofs involving a certain sesame seed, a photograph of Kevin Costner, and the already infamous "ancient lamentation" tracks.  Still, I have to admire Snyder for doubling down and committing to this.  I mean, if it's going to be "Zack Snyder's Justice League," he might as well go full Zack Snyder.   

A film the size of "Justice League" getting a redo is practically unheard of, and I'm happy that Snyder made good use of the opportunity.  Considering all the story trouble that his previous DCCU movies have had, I wonder if the problem has been that he doesn't function so well under the intense pressure of blockbuster filmmaking's usual constraints - the rushed schedule, limited screen time, and crazy expectations.  On the other hand, the longer version of "Batman v. Superman" didn't do that film any favors.  Or maybe, it just wasn't long enough.     

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The Great Directors Week: My Favorite Ang Lee Film

I've been spacing these posts a little too far apart, and letting them pile up.  So, I'm devoting a full week to new installments of my "Great Directors" series.  Enjoy.  

"The Wedding Banquet" is a film about love, not just romantic, but also filial - about the lengths that a son will go to in order to maintain his parents' happiness.  They expect him to find a wife, to have children, and to follow the only path that they know to a happy and respectable life.  Played by Gua Ah-leh and Sihung Lung, the parents are lovely, wonderful people who care very much for their son and do not deserve to have their hearts broken.  The son, Wai-Tung, played by Winston Chao, is also a very sympathetic figure who deserves to have a happy life with his American partner.  No one can be expected to change their ways, but it turns out that there's quite a lot of room for compromise.  

I saw "The Wedding Banquet" for the first time a few months after I saw "The Farewell," and it was everything that I wanted that movie to be.  Maybe it's because Ang Lee's portrayal of the Taiwanese and American culture clash feels much closer to my own experience, even though I was never a gay man in the 1990s.   I suspect it's because Wai-Tung's relationship with his parents and other relatives overseas is more like mine - with the mismatched expectations, the long distances, and the little fictions that everyone maintains to keep the comfortable status quo.  In "The Farewell," Awkwafina argues with her relatives about whether it's morally right to maintain a lie being told to an elder.  In "The Wedding Banquet," such discussion is not even attempted.  It's unthinkable to upend the traditional norms and admit the subterfuge, even when everyone figures out the truth in the end.    

Built around the happy chaos of the parents' visit to America, a hastily conducted sham marriage, and the complicated fallout, the film is structured as a classic farce with many satirical moments.  However, it's a comedy that has very few punchlines and is far more interested in its characters' relationships and communication issues than the usual laughs and mayhem.  Still, the movie is very funny, especially the wild wedding banquet of the title, where Lee is able to put the raucous Chinese wedding traditions onscreen in their full glory, and gives himself one of the greatest director cameos of all time.  The authenticity of the portrayal makes all the difference - the drinking, the pageantry, and the tight-knit community where everybody knows everybody else, even thousands of miles away from Taiwan.  

I'm not surprised at all that the film is based on events from the filmmakers' own lives, or that Ang Lee, Neil Peng, and James Schamus wrote and rewrote the film in both English and Chinese multiple times, before finally settling on a film that was a good mixture of both.  This was only Ang Lee's second feature, a rare Taiwanese and American co-production that raised his profile considerably on both sides of the Pacific.  Nobody else made films about Asian characters like this in the 90s, or showed the full complexity of their family and social dynamics.  It was because of his work on "The Wedding Banquet" that Lee was hired to direct "Sense and Sensibility," which really launched him to superstardom.

Lee's filmmaking style was still coming into focus at this stage in his career, but he was already very comfortable with intimate dialogue scenes, and doing a lot of interesting things with settings and space.  I like how he works in so many wider shots that simply let the action play out, and observes the characters from a more distant vantage point.  It does so much to help ground the story in a contemporary, familiar milieu.  Frankly, as Lee's cinema has gotten more and more removed from his early films and early subject matter over the years, it's a side of him that I've missed.  More filmmakers are making films about the Chinese and Taiwanese diaspora, but nobody makes them like he does.      

What I've Seen - Ang Lee

The Wedding Banquet (1993)

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

The Ice Storm (1997)

Ride with the Devil (1999)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Hulk (2003)

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Life of Pi (2012)

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016)

Gemini Man (2019)

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The Great Directors Week: My Favorite Frank Perry Film

I've been spacing these posts a little too far apart, and letting them pile up.  So, I'm devoting a full week to new installments of my "Great Directors" series.  Enjoy.  

Frank and Eleanor Perry were a husband and wife filmmaking team, sometimes referred to as "The Perrys."  Frank directed and Eleanor wrote.  Their work was almost all contemporary dramas, often intensely psychological character pieces.  The partnership resulted in six films together, and several more separately, after they parted ways.  Their success often feels like a reflection of the era when they thrived - New Hollywood in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that brief moment where movies could be about truly adult subjects and adult themes without compromise.  You could make weird, difficult to categorize films like "The Swimmer," or "Diary of a Mad Housewife."  You could make a tragic, painful movie about growing up, like "Last Summer."

There was a vein of deeply felt cynicism about relationships and social constructs in the 50s and 60s that seemed to run through everything.  "Last Summer" embodies this, following the friendships and romances that develop among four bored teenagers vacationing on New York's Fire Island.  From the outset, the dynamics are unbalanced.  Two of the kids are from wealthy families, and the other two are not.  One girl is beautiful, cruel, and beginning to test her ability to manipulate and influence others.  One girl is overweight, awkward, and already touched by tragedy.  You can see the awful ending coming long before it happens, but there's such a familiarity and such a magnetic pull to the early scenes of the kids' casual encounters and conversations.  Everyone is so heartbreakingly normal, and the horrible things that happen to them are heartbreakingly normal too.

The lazy summer atmosphere, the empty landscapes, and the occasional glimpses of uninterested parents quickly exiting the frame, all contribute to the creation of this rare, specific moment in time where the story unfolds.  You know immediately what kind of headspace the four characters are inhabiting before they even say a word.  Body language is often more important than the dialogue, especially in the case of Rhoda, the awkward, idealistic girl who is marked from the beginning as an outsider to the group.  Rhoda was played by Catherine Burns, who received an Academy Award nomination for her work in this film, but reportedly hated the end result.  I don't blame her.  The performance is brilliant and vulnerable, but the framing of it is so merciless, it borders on the disturbing.

The Perrys are able to get into their characters' heads, and show the patterns of their thoughts on film in a way that I've seen few other filmmakers manage.  They capture the experience of being a fifteen or sixteen year old left to their own devices, suddenly aware of the new possibilities of sex and power, yet painfully inexperienced in handling the emotions that come with them.  There's such a clarity to the visual language and the editing, such a careful handling of the tone.  A frivolous moment can quickly turn into a dangerous one, or vice versa.  In the hands of different filmmakers, "Last Summer" might be framed as a cautionary tale, about the dangers of peer pressure or moral lapses.  The Perrys, however, show their characters' darker impulses are on some level innate and natural, the inevitable result of group dynamics, sexual tensions, and simple curiosity.    

"Last Summer" is one of several high profile X-rated films that were released at the end of the '60s, and quickly became notorious for its graphic ending.  Though highly regarded at the time, audiences were less receptive and the film became an obscurity for decades.  However, a film this good will be rediscovered eventually.  I have no doubts about it whatsoever.  It remains a haunting, emotionally devastating film that captures so much of the sadness and the cruelty of adolescence, that it barely feels dated, even fifty years later.   

What I've Seen - Frank Perry

David and Lisa (1962)

Ladybug Ladybug (1963)

The Swimmer (1968)

Last Summer (1969)

Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)

Doc (1971)

Play It as It Lays (1972)

Man on a Swing (1974)

Rancho Deluxe (1975)

Mommie Dearest (1981)

Compromising Positions (1985)

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The Great Directors Week: My Favorite Rob Reiner Movie

I've been spacing these posts a little too far apart, and letting them pile up.  So, I'm devoting a full week to new installments of my "Great Directors" series.  Enjoy.  

It's rare in this day and age that directors excel in so many different genres.  Rob Reiner, however, managed to make classic films in the spoof, coming-of-age, horror, romantic comedy, courtroom drama, and fantasy adventure genres - not just good films, but some of the best ever made.  Your favorite Rob Reiner film depends on what kind of a movie fan you are.  As I'm a fantasy fan at heart, naturally my favorite is "The Princess Bride," one of the undisputed classics of the 1980s.  

Everyone knows this film.  Everyone quotes this film.  Everyone has an impression of Andre the Giant, or Wallace Shawn, or Mandy Patinkin to pull out for special occasions.  The William Goldman novel and script are legendary.  As a film nerd, I must point out that this is a spoof on the swashbucklers of the 1930s and 1940s.  However, for my generation, who mostly didn't have much exposure to these old adventure movies, "The Princess Bride" was often taken at face value.  And its genius has always been that it works anyway, in spite of all the meta humor and the framing device with the sarcastic young Fred Savage rolling his eyes at Peter Falk's knowing grandfather.  Every tropey, sappy, sentimental, silly, over-familiar beat of the fairy tale works, and works beautifully.

 "The Princess Bride" is one of those films that I only saw in bits and pieces during my childhood, and occasionally mixed up with other fantasy movies like "The Never-Ending Story."  I finally watched the whole thing in one sitting after I read Goldman's novel as a teenager.  That's when I finally got the humor, and everything else snapped into place.  "The Princess Bride" has less in common with the old Errol Flynn movies than it does with other '70s and '80s movie spoofs like "Young Frankenstein" and Reiner's "This is Spinal Tap."  The laughs are gentler and more kid-friendly, but the absurdity and the specificity of the caricatures are aimed at more discerning grown ups.           

The universality of the film never fails to amaze me.  For some, the entry point is Inigo Montoya, the stirring, romanticized ideal of a man of unimpeachable honor on a quest for vengeance.  For some it's Buttercup and Westly overcoming the endless hurdles to their love.  For some it's the comic bumblings and heartwarming friendship of Fezzik and Inigo and Westly, when they join forces against the loathsome Humperdinck.  For me, it was Fred Savage, because I was once one of those know-it-all brats who thought they were too smart to enjoy an earnestly told story, and was delighted to discover otherwise.  These days, I find myself sympathizing a lot more with his patient grandfather, for obvious reasons.     

Trying to figure out why the film works so well feels like an exercise in futility.  The filmmaking is geared toward showcasing the comedy and the performances, and takes most of its visual inspiration from the films that it's paying homage to.  My guess is that the film's magic has a lot to do with its tone - the perfect balance between the satirical, cynical side of the story, and the nostalgic, impossible joy of the Cliffs of Insanity, the fire swamp, Miracle Max's miracles, and the promise of True Love.  And there's such a wonderful rapport that Reiner has with his actors, letting everybody do their best work and leave a real impression on the film.  Even parts as small as the booing lady and the ditzy old king have their chance to shine.   

"The Princess Bride" is one of the best examples of a film that found its audience over time.  It went from a modest box office success to a cult film to a bona fide timeless classic that seems to be constantly being rereleased in theaters and on home media.  It's even responsible for one of the only good things to have come out of Quibi: "Home Movie: The Princess Bride," an impromptu COVID-era remake orchestrated by Jason Reitman and a passel of homebound celebrities - including Rob and Carl Reiner.

What I've Seen - Rob Reiner

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Stand by Me (1986)

The Princess Bride (1987)

When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

Misery (1990)

A Few Good Men (1992)

North (1994)

The American President (1995)

Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)

The Bucket List (2007)

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The Great Directors Week: My Favorite René Clair Film

I've been spacing these posts a little too far apart, and letting them pile up.  So, I'm devoting a full week to new installments of my "Great Directors" series.  Enjoy.  

One of the often overlooked pioneers of early cinema is the French director René Clair, who did his best work at the beginning of the sound era, in musicals and comedies.  He was one of the first to use sound as an element of his comedy, characterized by complex set pieces, fanciful concepts, and a certain optimism about life and humanity, even in hard times.  Despite his successes with sound, his filmmaking always felt more reminiscent of the silent era, with their larger-than life characters, gag-based humor, and simple narratives.  

Most of Clair's best loved films are about the working class, and feature large casts of ordinary folks who inevitably get caught up in big chases or commotions by the end of the picture.  "À Nous la Liberté," or "Freedom For Us," is a fable about two escaped prisoners who take very different paths.  One becomes a lowly vagabond who falls in love, and one becomes a rich factory owner whose crimes catch up to him.  The whole thing is a satire on the modernization and mechanization of labor, where toiling away at the factory is equated with miserable incarceration, and much humor is mined from the endless conveyor belts, assembly lines, and timekeeping machines.  It has long been rumored that Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" lifted its sequences of factory chaos from "Liberté," though Clair himself dismissed this.  It's difficult not to have lingering doubts, however, when you look at the similarities in the production design and the anti-capitalist themes of the two films.    

       

"À Nous la Liberté" was Clair's third sound feature, and by this point he had largely worked out how to use sound for his own purposes.  One of his biggest breakthroughs was the realization that sound didn't have to be used realistically, but could be used as an element of fantasy the same way he used his visuals.  So in "Liberté" there's the lovely sequence where it appears to the hero that flowers are singing, before it's revealed to be a phonograph just out of sight.  The relentlessness of the assembly lines are echoed by clattering xylophones, and the percussion of the marching prisoners' shoes.  Songs are also an important element of all of René Clair's early films.  Though there aren't often full musical numbers, everyone sings.  A chorus narrates events through song.  The two prisoners keep singing lines from the title song to each other, usually when they're about to try and get away with something.    

René Clair was one of the first directors who was successful enough to have creative control over nearly all aspects of his films, from the scripts to the editing.  This gave him the ability to experiment and innovate in his filmmaking the way that few others did at the time.  His roots were in surrealist and avant garde cinema, and he got his start making amusing shorts like "The Crazy Ray" and "Entr'acte," where he essentially played with the film form, seeing what it could do.  As his productions became more complex, they embraced a certain artifice - he nearly always shot on meticulously prepared sets, and his films presented a very idealized, often nostalgic view of France and the French.     

There's a charming naivete and Utopian worldview to the film's ending that is awfully poignant in retrospect.  Simply handing over the new automated factory to the workers means that nobody ever has to work again, and they can all spend their time at their leisure.  And after failing in their attempts at romance and financial ventures, in the end, the two prisoners decide to go off and be happy tramps, washing their hands of society altogether.  I don't think it's any surprise that the work of René Clair is considered a major precursor to the films of my favorite French filmmaker, who would return to many of the same themes - Jacques Tati.         

What I've Seen - René Clair

The Italian Straw Hat (1928)

Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)

Le Million (1931)

À Nous la Liberté (1931)

Bastille Day (1933)

The Ghost Goes West (1935)

I Married a Witch (1942)

And Then There Were None (1945)

Man About Town (1947)

Beauty and the Devil (1950)

Beauties of the Night (1952)

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The Great Directors Week: My Favorite Blake Edwards Film

I've been spacing these posts a little too far apart, and letting them pile up.  So, I'm devoting a full week to new installments of my "Great Directors" series.  Enjoy.  

I was surprised to discover Blake Edwards' "Victor/Victoria" airing on a weekday afternoon on one of my local syndicated stations a few years ago, a station known for hosting a lot of conservative programming and old reruns from decades past.  It was edited, of course, to remove instances of sex and nudity, but the plot was left more or less intact despite the eyebrow-raising subject matter.  Then again, I shouldn't have been surprised - the comedy is so gentle, so elegant, and so tastefully deployed that it was nearly impossible to take offense.  And Julie Andrews bringing down the house with some of her best showstoppers doesn't hurt either.

Based on a 1933 German film that was previously remade at least three times, "Victor/Victoria" is a classic farce about a down-on-her-luck soprano who finds success pretending to be a "female impersonator," a polite early term for a drag queen.  However, as far as I can tell, the version written and directed by Blake Edwards is the first to incorporate gay characters - the darling rascal Toddy and the steady bodyguard Squash - and to acknowledge and celebrate the gay nightlife of 1930s Paris.  The primary relationship is an emphatically heterosexual one, between Julie Andrews's Victor/Victoria and James Garner's gangster King Marchand, but delivered in a fascinating genderfluid context.  Watching Julie Andrews playing with androgyny and with her screen image recalls Marlene Dietrich's famous cabaret performance in white tie and tails.  Another major influence was surely "La Cage aux Folles," which enjoyed stage and screen success a few years earlier.  

Of course, the biggest reason they got away with it is because "Victor/Victoria" is a slapstick comedy coming from Edwards, who is best known for his madcap "Pink Panther" movies.  The plot is greatly concerned with mistaken identities, love triangles, criminal ventures, and keeping up appearances.  Nearly every steamy moment where Garner's character questions his sexuality is played for laughs or to add more complications to the ridiculous plot.  Every insightful observation about the characters' sexual politics also doubles as a pithy punchline.   The film's great irony is that the gay characters are perfectly comfortable in their sexuality and masculinity, while the straights are tying themselves in knots, trying to figure out who and what they are to each other.  A great source of comedic energy is Lesley Ann Warren, who plays the jealous showgirl trying to keep King Marchand's attentions, and is absolutely shameless in her tactics.  The part of Toddy, the charming huckster, was originally envisioned for Peter Sellers, but I can't imagine anyone but Robert Preston in the part.  His cheeky delivery of "Gay Paree" is a delight.   

The film was clearly created as a vehicle for Julie Andrews, the way many of Edwards' later films were.  This is the best of their collaborations, and features some of Andrews' most iconic screen numbers - "The Shady Dame From Seville," "Le Jazz Hot," "Crazy World," and the adorable duet "You and Me," where she gets to play off Preston.  But as impressive as her singing is, it's the rest of her performance that continues to entrance me.  Andrews walks a fine line, maintaining such a beautiful, ambiguous balance between masculline and feminine, that I always feel disappointed when the spell is broken at the end of the movie, and Victor/Victoria is obliged to become Victoria again.  

Blake Edwards was a popular entertainer first and foremost, so capable at delivering laughs and engineering sparkling romances, that he was able to push boundaries much further than people thought you could at the time.  There are plenty of viewers who never notice that Holly Golightly is, as Truman Capote put it, an "American Geisha," and I expect that many simply overlook the fact that there are any LGBT folks in "Victor/Victoria" at all.  Everyone in the movie is so warm, and so sweet, and so funny - it doesn't feel like you're watching anything revolutionary at all.       

What I've Seen - Blake Edwards

Operation Petticoat (1959)

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

The Pink Panther (1963)

A Shot in the Dark (1964)

The Great Race (1965)

The Party (1968) 

Darling Lili (1970)

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

10 (1979) 

Victor/Victoria (1982)

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The Great Directors Week: My Favorite Mikio Naruse Film

I've been spacing these posts a little too far apart, and letting them pile up.  So, I'm devoting a full week to new installments of my "Great Directors" series.  Enjoy.  

Of the major Japanese directors, Mikio Naruse is one of the least well known in the west, though he operated at the same time, and used many of the same actors as the more famous luminaries like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu.  Naruse's films were almost all contemporary dramas about the lives of ordinary people.  They examined various social ills, and the transition of Japan into the modern age.  He took a special interest in the struggles of women, who were often caught between traditional Japanese values and the demands of modern society.   

"Late Chrysanthemums" stars Haruko Sugimura, a familiar face from countless Ozu films where she usually played a gossipy neighbor or relative.  Here, she has a rare leading role as O-Kin, a former geisha and businesswoman.  She spends most of her time in the film collecting debts and interacting with other former geisha, who all owe her money.  Everyone we meet is struggling in the post-war era to get along and make ends meet.  The film is low on incident, but does a good job of capturing little moments of heartbreak and melodrama.  O-Kin and her friends are long past their prime, their glory days far behind them.  They have few options in a Japanese society that is still terribly restrictive to women, especially to disreputable figures like former geisha.  Happiness seems as elusive as financial security.  At one point, the return of an old client seems to bring some hope, but alas, his arrival only leads to disappointment.

The harsh realities of women in middle age would seem to make for a depressing film.  However, the actresses are so personable, and each of their personal tragedies is so deftly drawn, the narrative easily drew me in.  It helps that the retired geisha are initially introduced as broader comic types - the miser, the nagging wife, and the dissatisfied mother - before we get to know them better and learn how fraught their lives really are.  Our heroines suffer from illnesses, addictions, poverty, social repression, and persistent loneliness.  Only one managed to get married to a dependable man, and the ones who had children find no joy in them.  The womens' friendships bring them some comfort, giving them a chance to reminisce over the good times and commiserate.  However, there are limits, especially in the case of O-Kin, whose relationships are all compromised by her status as a moneylender.  Initially she seems like the luckiest and most well-off of the ex-geisha, thanks to her shrewdness, but her success has come at a price.  

"Late Chrysanthemums" is based on a collection of three short stories by feminist writer Fumiko Hayashi, whose work was adapted by Naruse for several films.  Their work had similar aims - depicting the darker side of urban Japanese life with as much realism as possible.  Unhappy marriages, disrupted families, and economic instability characterized most of their projects, in stark contrast to the more romanticized views of their more celebrated contemporaries.  Naruse's later films grew more and more tragic, and his worldview more pessimistic, but most of them ended with the heroines bravely picking themselves up and carrying on.  In "Late Chrysanthemums," change is inevitable, and all four of the women have to take responsibility for themselves.     

Naruse's filmmaking style is simple and unfussy, and has been praised for its subtlety and sensitivity.  Everything he did was to help emphasize the dramatic weight of his stories, down to the smallest details of the set designs and shot compositions.  What is so striking about "Late Chrysanthemums" is that it appears so ordinary.  Like it's unglamorous lead actress, the film's depicted tragedies are commonplace and easily overlooked, which makes its unusual poignancy all the more remarkable.

What I've Seen - Mikio Naruse

Repast (1951) 

Mother (1952)

Lightning (1952)

Sound of the Mountain (1954)

Late Chrysanthemums (1954)

Floating Clouds (1955)

Flowing (1956)

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)

Yearning (1964)

Two in the Shadow (1967)

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