When filmmakers are coming to the end of their lives, occasionally they make a film that transcends their place in cinema. Such a film is Lilith. Robert Rossen was a fine and highly competent director, but, even in 'The Hustler', there was no sign in his work that he could make anything quite as jaw-dropping as Lilith. Rossen was dying when he made this film, and his veteran cinematographer, Eugene Shufftan was also getting very old. It seems to me that they both thought 'we won't get another chance like this' and went for broke.
Lilith shows the very best of Rossen, the very best of Shufftan and the very best of Jean Seberg - the 60s' most luminously beautiful star. I have read J R Salmanca's novel, and it weaves a wonderful spell. In the up-market asylum, Salamanca found a metaphorical island somewhat like that in 'The Tempest' where pure aspects of the human psyche could be explored - particularly that most precious and fundamental aspect, love.
Indeed, the film deals in visual/conceptual metaphors in many ways - think, for example, of the analogy that is drawn between spiders and the inmates of the asylum. The Beatty character, Vincent, sees the beautiful Lilith as a victim of schizophrenia, being trapped in it, as if in a spider's web, but he ends up being trapped in her web.
Rossen does a fabulous job in keeping this really very static story moving and ensuring our identification with the central relationships. Vincent seems excessively mannered, but, like Travis Bickle, he is just back from the war and is trying to integrate back into society. We rarely see Vincent other than in a hospital environment until he has completely fallen for Lilith, so his attempts to re-integrate into society are, in effect, attempts to integrate into madness.
Seberg as Lilith is completely dazzling, her beguiling beauty hiding a gorgon in disguise as she plays each character off against the other until she has them helplessly reliant on her. She never looked, or acted close to this level before or after. Forget Breathless, forget Bonjour Tristesse or Saint Joan; forget even Birds Come to Die in Peru. This is essence of Seberg!
It is the visual aspect of the film, however, that is so wonderful, and that visual splendour is such that seeing the film on a television barely gives a small reflection of its qualities in this respect. Shufftan's black and white cinematography would get my vote for the greatest black & white cinematography of all time (Seven Samurai comes close...). On a cinema screen, you get the impression of being able to see every hair on the head of the central characters and light becomes a vehicle of meaning and wonder as in no other film that I can remember.
As the silent cinema came to an end, there was one monumental masterpiece that showed what was being lost in its passing - Dovzhenko's Earth. Now, as black and white cinema was coming to a close, Rossen and Shufftan showed what had been lost. There have been several major black and white films in the last forty years, but nothing that has the visual splendour of this magnificent work.
Lilith shows the very best of Rossen, the very best of Shufftan and the very best of Jean Seberg - the 60s' most luminously beautiful star. I have read J R Salmanca's novel, and it weaves a wonderful spell. In the up-market asylum, Salamanca found a metaphorical island somewhat like that in 'The Tempest' where pure aspects of the human psyche could be explored - particularly that most precious and fundamental aspect, love.
Indeed, the film deals in visual/conceptual metaphors in many ways - think, for example, of the analogy that is drawn between spiders and the inmates of the asylum. The Beatty character, Vincent, sees the beautiful Lilith as a victim of schizophrenia, being trapped in it, as if in a spider's web, but he ends up being trapped in her web.
Rossen does a fabulous job in keeping this really very static story moving and ensuring our identification with the central relationships. Vincent seems excessively mannered, but, like Travis Bickle, he is just back from the war and is trying to integrate back into society. We rarely see Vincent other than in a hospital environment until he has completely fallen for Lilith, so his attempts to re-integrate into society are, in effect, attempts to integrate into madness.
Seberg as Lilith is completely dazzling, her beguiling beauty hiding a gorgon in disguise as she plays each character off against the other until she has them helplessly reliant on her. She never looked, or acted close to this level before or after. Forget Breathless, forget Bonjour Tristesse or Saint Joan; forget even Birds Come to Die in Peru. This is essence of Seberg!
It is the visual aspect of the film, however, that is so wonderful, and that visual splendour is such that seeing the film on a television barely gives a small reflection of its qualities in this respect. Shufftan's black and white cinematography would get my vote for the greatest black & white cinematography of all time (Seven Samurai comes close...). On a cinema screen, you get the impression of being able to see every hair on the head of the central characters and light becomes a vehicle of meaning and wonder as in no other film that I can remember.
As the silent cinema came to an end, there was one monumental masterpiece that showed what was being lost in its passing - Dovzhenko's Earth. Now, as black and white cinema was coming to a close, Rossen and Shufftan showed what had been lost. There have been several major black and white films in the last forty years, but nothing that has the visual splendour of this magnificent work.