Enough of this half-ass "I love Boom! but I know it's a guilty pleasure, because everyone says it's crap" nonsense.
Boom! is a great movie. Period.
There. Someone needed to say it.
I first saw this film at a young age when it was first shown on TV, and found it fascinating and unforgettable. (Literally unforgettable, scene after scene and shot after shot; how often is that true?) Since then I've watched it a number of times, and never failed to be completely mesmerized by it on every level.
My most recent viewing (on the DVD now available from the UK) comes after a sustained period of tracking down and watching all the available movies of director Joseph Losey. Boom! was the first Losey movie I ever saw, and for years after, any time I happened to see a Losey film, I found the experience fascinating but difficult to pin down. What was the Losey "thing"? Now, after seeing almost all of his work, I return to Boom! Is it as profound as Losey's best (King & Country, The Servant, Accident, Mr. Klein)? Absolutely.
If anything, as I've drawn closer to death myself, the film's themes have grown more profound for me--the acceptance of inevitable death and the realization that all (not some of life, but ALL of life) is vanity. Tennessee Williams came to know a truth which cannot be expressed in literal terms, and so he wrote the original play, which is even more stylized and fabulous (literally: like a fable) than the movie. Joseph Losey was perhaps the only film director working at that moment with the artistic touch to transmute the story to film. The cast was perfectly suited to the larger-than-life (but not larger-than-death) theatricality of the film.
Can the movie be enjoyed at the level of "camp"? Yes. Is it also a profound work of art? Yes.
And there has never been another movie even remotely like it.
Boom! is a great movie. Period.
There. Someone needed to say it.
I first saw this film at a young age when it was first shown on TV, and found it fascinating and unforgettable. (Literally unforgettable, scene after scene and shot after shot; how often is that true?) Since then I've watched it a number of times, and never failed to be completely mesmerized by it on every level.
My most recent viewing (on the DVD now available from the UK) comes after a sustained period of tracking down and watching all the available movies of director Joseph Losey. Boom! was the first Losey movie I ever saw, and for years after, any time I happened to see a Losey film, I found the experience fascinating but difficult to pin down. What was the Losey "thing"? Now, after seeing almost all of his work, I return to Boom! Is it as profound as Losey's best (King & Country, The Servant, Accident, Mr. Klein)? Absolutely.
If anything, as I've drawn closer to death myself, the film's themes have grown more profound for me--the acceptance of inevitable death and the realization that all (not some of life, but ALL of life) is vanity. Tennessee Williams came to know a truth which cannot be expressed in literal terms, and so he wrote the original play, which is even more stylized and fabulous (literally: like a fable) than the movie. Joseph Losey was perhaps the only film director working at that moment with the artistic touch to transmute the story to film. The cast was perfectly suited to the larger-than-life (but not larger-than-death) theatricality of the film.
Can the movie be enjoyed at the level of "camp"? Yes. Is it also a profound work of art? Yes.
And there has never been another movie even remotely like it.