On a clear day...

OMG I am back! That’s all I’m going to say on the matter; I won’t dwell on my weeks of abandonment if you won’t.

You’re going to enjoy this one.

  

When: Friday 25^th May

Where: BFI (No popcorn allowed. They’re serious. Nice seats though.)

Why: Ongoing Barbra appreciation

On a clear day you can see forever

1970, directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring the screen goddess that is Barbra Streisand.

This film is fucking mental. It is genius. I have never been so entertained in a cinema – never, and that includes the final scene of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which features Ron Weasley’s pot belly and Harry’s creepy creepy dad hands.

The basic premise is that Barbra’s an earnest and fundamentally quite annoying student trying to quit smoking for the benefit of her social-climbing fiancé. The obvious solution to this is to stalk the campus’s hypnosis lecturer (which self-respecting uni doesn’t have one of those?), and she sneaks into a lecture which leads to a hilarious accidental hypnosis (a lengthy scene which very much introduces her as the obvious lead character and star of the movie, at which point my friend’s boyfriend leans over and asks ‘Who is that?’ He was referring to Barbra. A beautiful moment). She’s already a bit special – she can make flowers grow really fast and find stuff that you’ve lost with her mind. This persuades the hypnosis lecturer to take her on, and when he has her under, he discovers that she has memories of a former life, as Lady Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees, a saucy, ballsy and insanely styled 19th century English lady who’s secretly the child of a servant. She’s ENGLISH. Barbra’s accent defies expectations. I couldn’t get enough.

Basically, the hypnotist becomes completely obsessed with the Melinda personality, ends up totally using Barbra (her character’s name is Daisy but as with any Streisand film, it’s not really about the character. In a good way) to get to her and, when all is revealed to Daisy, he ends up delivering the fantastically insulting line ‘Melinda's soul inside of you? God! What a housing shortage!’ But although he’s a bit of a bastard, he has got a sort of sexy French accent so you can almost forgive him.

Other highlights of the film include an incredibly disturbing seduction scene in the Brighton Pavillion (obviously), mostly involving Barbra’s cleavage and a wine glass; the best selection of hats and outrageous headgear ever seen on screen; and a young Jack Nicholson occasionally popping up on the roof in a delicious chunky mustard jumper.

Many thanks to my pals Martin and boy Harry for introducing me to this classic.

Watch and enjoy. 

Brixpig x