BEFORE: OK, I took some time and scribbled the Hitchcock chain out on a calendar, and I'm satisfied enough with the results to move ahead with it, starting on Tuesday. Some of those older films are shorter, which means I can double up twice and reduce my list more quickly, and it also gives me a plan that will take me almost all the way to my San Diego trip. Plus if all goes well, it means that Movie #1800 will be a big one, like "X-Men: Days of Future Past" or "Amazing Spider-Man 2".
Also, since some of the Hitchcock films are relatively short, it could give some more time each night to work on my comic-book collection. I've got a few hundred books that need to be bagged, plus I started a massive re-sorting project about a year and a half ago that never got finished, I need to bring some more longboxes to storage, and then it will be time to get the new Overstreet guide and start updating the values of my collection on my spreadsheets again. (Yes, this is how I used to spend much of my time before undertaking the Movie Year project).
Anthony Hopkins carries over again, for Movie #3 in a 5-part chain.
THE PLOT: A butler who sacrificed body and soul to service in the years post World War II realizes too late how misguided his loyalty has been.
AFTER: This is another of those films with a two-timeline structure: the "present" storyline picks up years after WW2, when a retired American congressman becomes the new owner of a British estate, and the manor's butler drives across England to try and get the previous housekeeper to return to service. Throughout this process, we see flashbacks of the years gone by, and we learn about what went on there in the days leading up to the war, what caused the housekeeper to leave her job in the first place, and exactly what kind of chap this butler is, and isn't.
I still rally against this format, because it tends to lead to confusion if the two time periods are not clearly defined, it makes the viewer work to assemble the scenes into the proper order himself, and it usually covers up a weak story in one timeline or even both. But at least here the editing trickery serves a purpose, as information about the past is slowly doled out over the years, apparently the mansion's previous owner was rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer, so we're kept in suspense, looking for clues to support this, or dispute it.
In the meantime, we're also shown the relationship that develops over the years between the butler and the housekeeper - or, rather the one that never came about. This is technically classified as a "romance", but to mean it seemed rather like the opposite. I wasn't sure if Hopkins' butler was so dedicated to his job that he wouldn't allow himself to have a relationship with a co-worker, or whether in fact he lacked the experience, the mental software or the emotional capacity to even consider such a relationship. I suppose in the end the result is the same, and you can choose whichever justification you prefer.
Then again, his character is British, so as we saw with his previous two characters earlier this week, there's much consideration over what is proper and what is not. The Brits must be deathly afraid of putting themselves out there and being rejected, or worse, entering into a relationship and having others gossiping about it. Oh, but giving Germany more military freedom and sticking up for Hitler, that's perfectly fine...
I sort of identify with the butler character in a weird way, having worked for so long for the same boss. In the same way that Lord Darlington expects his butler to do certain things but to not have an opinion on political matters, I'm expected to do certain tasks, and not mention when I happen to see continuity mistakes in an animated film, for example. And I'm similarly afraid that after too many years doing the same job, if something were to happen to my boss, I'd just go seek out the same job for a different person, just because I'm so used to it.
Also starring Emma Thompson (also carrying over from "Howards End"), Christopher Reeve (last seen in "Speechless"), James Fox, Peter Vaughan, Hugh Grant (last heard in "The Pirates: Band of Misfits"), Ben Chaplin (last seen in "The New World"), Tim Piggott-Smith (last seen in "Quantum of Solace"), Michael Lonsdale (last seen in "Moonraker"), Lena Headey (last seen in "Ripley's Game"), with a cameo from Wolf Kahler (Col. Dietrich from "Raiders of the Lost Ark").
RATING: 6 out of 10 bottles of port
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