What, exactly, makes Petulia such a great movie?
Is it the ravishing Julie Christie, who never seemed more appropriately out-of-place? The kismet-touched production, which was somehow at Haight-Ashbury at the right time? Maybe it's the editing, the fractured juxtaposition of images that both disorients and clarifies, making it more than the sum of its parts? The images by Nicholas Roeg, the fluent guidance of Richard Lester?
What about the pitch-perfect supporting cast— Shirley Knight, Joseph Cotten, Richard Chamberlain (!), even Austin Pendleton, Howard Hesseman, and Rene Aberjonois (the last mysteriously uncredited on the IMDb)? Certainly, the haunting John Barry theme doesn't hurt. And the great George C. Scott, so far removed from the pyrotechnics of a General Turgidson or Patton, anchors it all with the kind of unshowy performance that most so-called great actors never get around to giving.
It's all these, and more. Most of all, for me it's the profound and true sadness it evokes, its humor which does anything but lighten or elevate— the spiritual emptiness to which Petulia testifies. 40 years later, few movies have captured the spirit of contemporary life so well. It's terribly pertinent. And yet, Petulia is (like the character herself!) a paradox— so very much of its time, as well, that it seems caught between two worlds. Time is rarely this kind to a movie, but this one is anything but a relic, much less an exercise in nostalgia.
Life is full of regret, both for things we've done, and things we've not done. The older I get, the more I love Petulia.
Is it the ravishing Julie Christie, who never seemed more appropriately out-of-place? The kismet-touched production, which was somehow at Haight-Ashbury at the right time? Maybe it's the editing, the fractured juxtaposition of images that both disorients and clarifies, making it more than the sum of its parts? The images by Nicholas Roeg, the fluent guidance of Richard Lester?
What about the pitch-perfect supporting cast— Shirley Knight, Joseph Cotten, Richard Chamberlain (!), even Austin Pendleton, Howard Hesseman, and Rene Aberjonois (the last mysteriously uncredited on the IMDb)? Certainly, the haunting John Barry theme doesn't hurt. And the great George C. Scott, so far removed from the pyrotechnics of a General Turgidson or Patton, anchors it all with the kind of unshowy performance that most so-called great actors never get around to giving.
It's all these, and more. Most of all, for me it's the profound and true sadness it evokes, its humor which does anything but lighten or elevate— the spiritual emptiness to which Petulia testifies. 40 years later, few movies have captured the spirit of contemporary life so well. It's terribly pertinent. And yet, Petulia is (like the character herself!) a paradox— so very much of its time, as well, that it seems caught between two worlds. Time is rarely this kind to a movie, but this one is anything but a relic, much less an exercise in nostalgia.
Life is full of regret, both for things we've done, and things we've not done. The older I get, the more I love Petulia.