{"id":3439,"date":"2011-08-22T14:46:32","date_gmt":"2011-08-22T18:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=2325"},"modified":"2011-08-22T14:46:32","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T18:46:32","slug":"and-justice-for-all-the-films-of-norman-jewison-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3439","title":{"rendered":"And Justice for All: The Films of Norman Jewison, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

'You know, people, it IS okay to laugh a little.'<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Last Wednesday marked the only screening of Norman Jewison\u2019s The Thomas Crown Affair<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1968), his next film after In the Heat of the Night<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1968). It\u2019s still one of the best fluff films ever made, mixing caper, romance, sex appeal, and humour into one slickly designed package resembling a glossy magazine pictorial from the sixties.<\/p>\n

Art d\u00e9cor, artifice, and style, all lovingly set to Michel Legrand\u2019s zippiest jazz-pop confection, and the classic song \u201cWindmills of Your Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, it was surprising how few in the audience realized they were allowed to laugh. I\u2019ve seen the film a number of times, and know every raised eyebrow and quip by heart, but it took an hour before the stiffer attendees loosened up and started to chuckle; like the infamous chess game broke the ice between Vicki (Faye Dunaway) and Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen), it too seemed to be the sledgehammer that convinced the more tightwad members that laughing<\/em> was okay.<\/em><\/p>\n

At home I\u2019d laugh aloud, but there\u2019s an official comportment that\u2019s apparently the law when the audience is comprised of a certain chemical makeup, and it may be this marginal contingent who mandated that no food be consumed during the Jewison films (it\u2019s an Official Retrospective), but chowing down on popcorn during a Fellini flick is fine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Der originale freshmacher.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Tiff Bell Lightbox\u2019s source copy was probably an original late sixties \/ early seventies print, sporting the old Transamerica logo<\/a> before UA adopted the \u2018scary logo<\/a>\u2019 featuring Joe Harnell<\/a>\u2019s marvelous music. Condition was pretty good overall, and Haskell Wexler\u2019s cinematography really needs to be seen on the big screen; Thomas Crown<\/strong> may be his most commercial production among filmmkaers such as Elia Kazan (America America<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>]), Mike Nichols (Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?<\/strong>), Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/strong>), and Hal Ashby (Bound for Glory<\/strong>, Coming Home<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve uploaded a review of the film, and would\u2019ve loved to have found some related archival material at TVOntario\u2019s streaming website, but I can\u2019t quite recall where I heard a specific anecdote regarding Wexler that was always rather amusing.<\/p>\n

Wexler may have been the one who told the story to TVO’s filmic emcee Elwy Yost, and it concerned a break during the filming of the glider sequence. Wexler liked the way a bunch of grass was blowing in the wind under a sunny sky, so he grabbed a camera and shot a few feet just for fun. When the film was edited, he found his grass footage in the movie, and the production’s reason for inclusion was simple: while it had nothing to do with the glider nor any of the montage elements, it was pretty<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It is, and so is the film, and if The Thomas Crown Affair <\/strong> reappears again on the big screen, do catch it.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com <\/strong>( Main Site<\/a> \/ Mobile Site<\/a> )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Follow-up Editor’s Blog on the current Norman Jewison retrospective at the TIF Bell Lightbox, with a review of his pastry puff, fluff-tart confection (say that line fast) The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Tt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3440,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3439\/revisions\/3440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}