59-433: The L-Shaped Room is a 1962 British drama romance film directed by Bryan Forbes , based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Lynne Reid Banks . It tells the story of Jane Fosset, a young French woman, unmarried and pregnant , who moves into a cheap London boarding house, befriending a young man, Toby, in the building. The work is considered part of the kitchen sink realism school of British drama. The film reflected
118-572: A 'rough cut' with editors in Hollywood". Writing about L'Avventura (1960), Crowther said that watching the film was "like trying to follow a showing of a picture at which several reels have got lost." The career of Bosley Crowther is discussed at length in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism , including his support for foreign-language cinema and his public repudiation of McCarthyism and
177-462: A better understanding of the film. According to the taxonomy, combining the type with the genre does not create a separate genre. For instance, the "Horror Drama" is simply a dramatic horror film (as opposed to a comedic horror film). "Horror Drama" is not a genre separate from the horror genre or the drama type. Crime dramas explore themes of truth, justice, and freedom, and contain the fundamental dichotomy of "criminal vs. lawman". Crime films make
236-775: A biography of the head of the MGM studio, The Great Films: 50 Golden Years of the Motion Picture Industry (1967), and Treasury of the Talking Picture . Perhaps conscious of the power of his reviews, Crowther adopted a tone that New York Times obituarist Robert D. McFadden considered to be "scholarly rather than breezy". Frank Beaver wrote in Bosley Crowther: Social Critic of the Film, 1940–1967 that Crowther opposed displays of patriotism in films and believed that
295-715: A brilliantly authentic piece of scene setting, with the unseen landlady's spine-chilling small talk on the stairs and the lights going out on each landing of the hideous house, he disappointingly spills over into melodrama – bugs in the bed, bangings on the wall, black face at the window. ... Moreover, neither direction nor script is ever tough enough to succeed in suggesting loneliness, and Forbes' obvious talent (and preference) for drawing likeable performances from his actors tends to work against him. Avis Bunnage's unpredictable landlady, Cicely Courtneidge's self-contained old trouper, Patricia Phoenix's gregarious prostitute ... are all "characters". Emlyn Williams' unprincipled gynaecologist
354-505: A child, Crowther moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina , where he published a neighborhood newspaper, The Evening Star . His family moved to Washington, D.C., and Crowther graduated from Western High School in 1922. After two years of prep school at Woodberry Forest School , he entered Princeton University , where he majored in history and was editor of The Daily Princetonian . During his final year in 1928, he won The New York Times 's Intercollegiate Current Events Contest and won
413-440: A highly unfavorable review, and panned David Lean 's later works. He called Lawrence of Arabia (1962) a "thundering camel-opera that tends to run down rather badly as it rolls on into its third hour and gets involved with sullen disillusion and political deceit." Crowther often admired foreign-language films, especially the works of Roberto Rossellini , Vittorio De Sica , Ingmar Bergman , and Federico Fellini . However he
472-526: A juvenile delinquent's descent into murder: "Rubbish! The only shortcoming of society which this film proves is that it casually tolerates the pouring of such fraudulence onto the public mind." Crowther opposed censorship of movies, and advocated greater social responsibility in the making of them. He approved of movies with social content, such as Gone with the Wind (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), The Lost Weekend (1945), All
531-685: A more central component of the story, along with serious content. Examples include Three Colours: White (1994), The Truman Show (1998), The Man Without a Past (2002), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), and Silver Linings Playbook (2012). Coined by film professor Ken Dancyger , these stories exaggerate characters and situations to the point of becoming fable, legend or fairy tale. Examples: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and Maleficent (2014). Light dramas are light-hearted stories that are, nevertheless, serious in nature. Examples: The Help (2011) and The Terminal (2004). Psychological dramas are dramas that focus on
590-650: A movie producer "should balance his political attitudes even in the uncertain times of the 1940s and 1950s, during the House Un-American Activities Committee ". Crowther's review of the wartime drama Mission to Moscow (1943), made during the period when the Soviet Union was one of the Allied Powers with the United States, chided the film by saying it should show "less ecstasy", and wrote: "It
649-455: A nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress . Cicely Courtneidge gave what she considered her finest film performance, in a role wholly unlike her usual parts; she played an elderly lesbian, living in a drab London flat with her cat, recalling her career as an actress and forlornly trying to keep in touch with former friends. The Times described her performance as a triumph. For Bell,
SECTION 10
#1732906224046708-400: A particular setting or subject matter, or they combine a drama's otherwise serious tone with elements that encourage a broader range of moods . To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict —emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline. All forms of cinema or television that involve fictional stories are forms of drama in
767-633: A person's life and raises their level of importance. The "small things in life" feel as important to the protagonist (and the audience) as the climactic battle in an action film, or the final shootout in a western. Often, the protagonists deal with multiple, overlapping issues in the course of the film – just as we do in life. Films of this type/genre combination include: The Wrestler (2008), Fruitvale Station (2013), and Locke (2013). Romantic dramas are films with central themes that reinforce our beliefs about love (e.g.: themes such as "love at first sight", "love conquers all", or "there
826-457: A specific approach to drama but, rather, consider drama as a lack of comedic techniques. Examples: Ghost World (2001) and Wuthering Heights (2011). According to the Screenwriters' Taxonomy, all film descriptions should contain their type (comedy or drama) combined with one (or more) of the eleven super-genres. This combination does not create a separate genre, but rather, provides
885-560: A trend in British films of greater frankness about sex and displays a sympathetic treatment of outsiders "unmarried mothers, lesbian or black" as well as a "largely natural and non-judgmental handling of their problems". As director, Forbes represents "a more romantic, wistful type of realism" than that of Tony Richardson or Lindsay Anderson. Caron's performance earned her the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for best actress, as well as
944-465: A trip to Europe. Following his return, Crowther was offered a job as a cub reporter for The New York Times at a salary of $ 30 per week. He declined the offer, made to him by the publisher Adolph S. Ochs , hoping to find employment on a small Southern newspaper. When the salary offered by those papers was not half of the Times offer, he went to New York and took the job. He was the first nightclub reporter for
1003-596: A writer and artist; and Jefferson, a banker and the father of Welles Remy Crowther who died in the September 11 attacks in 2001. In 1937 he became assistant screen editor and in 1940 replaced Frank Nugent as film critic for The New York Times as well as screen editor. He was film critic for the Times until he semi-retired in 1967 and became critic emeritus. In 1954, he received the Directors Guild of America 's first film criticism award. After he semi-retired from
1062-506: A writer. Jane befriends the other residents and they help her when she goes into labour. Toby visits her in hospital and gives her a copy of his new story, called The L-Shaped Room . After leaving hospital, Jane journeys home to her parents in France, saying goodbye to the room where she has lived for seven months. Peter Katin 's recording of Johannes Brahms 's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 with orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson
1121-417: Is a cardboard villain. On the other hand, Leslie Caron has never been more appealing ... and Tom Bell exactly hits off frustrated attitudes of a would-be intellectual who cannot afford a bottle of non-vintage wine, let alone a wife with child. Indeed, when the film is soberly engaged in telling a simple, romantic story, it does achieve a certain assurance as well as considerable charm. There are scenes, like
1180-447: Is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction ) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera , police crime drama , political drama , legal drama , historical drama , domestic drama , teen drama , and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate
1239-526: Is a final fight to the death; the idea of the protagonists facing death is a central expectation in a war drama film. In a war film even though the enemy may out-number, or out-power, the hero, we assume that the enemy can be defeated if only the hero can figure out how. Examples include: Apocalypse Now (1979), Come and See (1985), Braveheart (1995), Life Is Beautiful (1997), Black Book (2006), The Hurt Locker (2008), 1944 (2015), Wildeye (2015), and 1917 (2019). Films in
SECTION 20
#17329062240461298-517: Is just as ridiculous to pretend that Russia has been a paradise of purity as it is to say the same thing of ourselves". In the 1950s, Crowther was an opponent of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy , whose anti-communist crusade targeted the State Department, the administration of Harry S. Truman , the U.S. Army , and individual government employees. However, he also criticised the left-wing film Knock on Any Door for blaming law-abiding society for
1357-452: Is not all Miss Caron's. She must share it with an excellent cast, including Tom Bell, a new actor who plays the writer on a par with her. Particularly she must share it with the remarkable young director Bryan Forbes, who also wrote the screenplay from a novel by Lynne Reid Banks. Mr Forbes is a sometime actor whose first directorial job was last year's beautiful and sensitive Whistle Down the Wind . In this little picture, he has achieved much
1416-421: Is someone out there for everyone"); the story typically revolves around characters falling into (and out of, and back into) love. Annie Hall (1977), The Notebook (2004), Carol (2015), Her (2013) , and La La Land (2016) are examples of romance dramas. The science fiction drama film is often the story of a protagonist (and their allies) facing something "unknown" that has the potential to change
1475-622: Is that in a documentary it uses real people to describe history or current events; in a docudrama it uses professionally trained actors to play the roles in the current event, that is "dramatized" a bit. Examples: Black Mass (2015) and Zodiac (2007). Unlike docudramas, docu-fictional films combine documentary and fiction, where actual footage or real events are intermingled with recreated scenes. Examples: Interior. Leather Bar (2013) and Your Name Here (2015). Many otherwise serious productions have humorous scenes and characters intended to provide comic relief . A comedy drama has humor as
1534-487: Is used as the background music, and excerpts occur frequently throughout the film. The original film score for the jazz club scene was composed by John Barry . The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Although it is full of the trappings of contemporary frustration ... the film has nothing specific to say about life in a London bedsitter in 1962. Despite his cogently amusing dialogue, Bryan Forbes' rather capricious direction makes this only too clear quite early on, for after
1593-473: The Blacklist . In this 2009 documentary film, contemporary critics who appreciate his work, such as A. O. Scott , appear, but also those who found his work too moralistic, such as Richard Schickel , Molly Haskell , and Andrew Sarris . The end of Crowther's career was marked by his disdain for the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde . He was critical of what he saw as the film's sensationalized violence. His review
1652-468: The Times , and in 1932 was asked by Brooks Atkinson to join the drama department as assistant drama editor. He spent five years covering the theater scene in New York, and even dabbled in writing for it. While at the Times in those early years, Crowther met Florence Marks, a fellow employee; the couple married on January 20, 1933. They had three sons, Bosley Crowther III, an attorney; John M. Crowther ,
1711-426: The Times , he also started to work for Columbia Pictures helping them identify stories and films to buy. One of the stories he suggested was S. J. Wilson's To Find a Man . In addition to his film criticism, Crowther wrote The Lion's Share: The Story of an Entertainment Empire (1957), the first book documenting the history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , Hollywood Rajah: The Life and Times of Louis B. Mayer (1960),
1770-755: The western super-genre often take place in the American Southwest or Mexico, with a large number of scenes occurring outdoors so we can soak in scenic landscapes. Visceral expectations for the audience include fistfights, gunplay, and chase scenes. There is also the expectation of spectacular panoramic images of the countryside including sunsets, wide open landscapes, and endless deserts and sky. Examples of western dramas include: True Grit (1969) and its 2010 remake , Mad Max (1979), Unforgiven (1992), No Country for Old Men (2007), Django Unchained (2012), Hell or High Water (2016), and Logan (2017). Some film categories that use
1829-489: The Apes (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Blade Runner (1982) and its sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Children of Men (2006), Interstellar (2014), and Arrival (2016). In the sports super-genre, characters will be playing sports. Thematically, the story is often one of "Our Team" versus "Their Team"; their team will always try to win, and our team will show the world that they deserve recognition or redemption;
The L-Shaped Room - Misplaced Pages Continue
1888-742: The King's Men (1949), and High Noon (1952). Crowther barely concealed his disdain for Joan Crawford when reviewing her films, saying that her acting style in Female on the Beach (1955) was characterized by "artificiality" and "pretentiousness," and also chided Crawford for her physical bearing. In his review of the Nicholas Ray film Johnny Guitar (1954), Crowther complained that "no more femininity comes from (Crawford) than from rugged Mr. Heflin in Shane (1953). For
1947-407: The audience jump through a series of mental "hoops"; it is not uncommon for the crime drama to use verbal gymnastics to keep the audience and the protagonist on their toes. Examples of crime dramas include: The Godfather (1972), Chinatown (1974), Goodfellas (1990), The Usual Suspects (1995), The Big Short (2015), and Udta Punjab (2016). According to Eric R. Williams ,
2006-412: The broader sense if their storytelling is achieved by means of actors who represent ( mimesis ) characters . In this broader sense, drama is a mode distinct from novels, short stories , and narrative poetry or songs . In the modern era, before the birth of cinema or television, "drama" within theatre was a type of play that was neither a comedy nor a tragedy . It is this narrower sense that
2065-543: The careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though some of his reviews of popular films have been seen as unnecessarily harsh. Crowther was an advocate of foreign-language films in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly those of Roberto Rossellini , Vittorio De Sica , Ingmar Bergman , and Federico Fellini . Crowther was born Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. in Lutherville, Maryland , the son of Eliza Hay (née Leisenring, 1877–1960) and Francis Bosley Crowther (1874–1950). As
2124-533: The characters' inner life and psychological problems. Examples: Requiem for a Dream (2000), Oldboy (2003), Babel (2006), Whiplash (2014), and Anomalisa (2015) Satire can involve humor, but the result is typically sharp social commentary that is anything but funny. Satire often uses irony or exaggeration to expose faults in society or individuals that influence social ideology. Examples: Thank You for Smoking (2005) and Idiocracy (2006). Straight drama applies to those that do not attempt
2183-473: The course of the film. Thematically, horror films often serve as morality tales, with the killer serving up violent penance for the victims' past sins. Metaphorically, these become battles of Good vs. Evil or Purity vs. Sin. Psycho (1960), Halloween (1978), The Shining (1980), The Conjuring (2013), It (2017), mother! (2017), and Hereditary (2018) are examples of horror drama films. Day-in-the-life films takes small events in
2242-481: The family as a whole reacts to a central challenge. There are four micro-genres for the family drama: Family Bond , Family Feud , Family Loss , and Family Rift . A sub-type of drama films that uses plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience. Melodramatic plots often deal with "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship, strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional and physical hardship". Film critics sometimes use
2301-450: The father. On her first visit to a doctor, she wants to find out if she really is pregnant and consider her options. The doctor's assumption that she must want either marriage or an abortion annoys her to the extent that Jane determines to have the child. She and Toby start a romance which is disrupted when he learns that she is pregnant by a previous lover. They try to work things out but he is also unhappy with his lack of income or success as
2360-409: The film and television industries, along with film studies , adopted. " Radio drama " has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a live performance, it has also been used to describe the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio . The Screenwriters Taxonomy contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film's atmosphere, character and story, and therefore
2419-479: The film marked his breakthrough as a leading actor in film and television. A 27-year-old French woman, Jane Fosset, arrives alone at a run down boarding house in Notting Hill , London, moving into an L-shaped room in the attic. Beautiful but withdrawn, she encounters the residents of her house, each a social outsider in his or her own way, including a gay, black trumpeter. Jane is pregnant and has no desire to marry
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2478-434: The film weren't reddened with blotches of violence of the most grisly sort... This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste, since it makes no valid commentary upon the already travestied truth. And it leaves an astonished critic wondering just what purpose Mr. Penn and Mr. Beatty think they serve with this strangely antique, sentimental claptrap. Other critics besides Crowther panned
2537-424: The film, Crowther recanted his criticism and named it one of the top ten movies of the year, writing that Psycho was a "bold psychological mystery picture.... [I]t represented expert and sophisticated command of emotional development with cinematic techniques." He commented that while Satyajit Ray 's Pather Panchali (1955, US: 1958) took on "a slim poetic form" the structure and tempo of it "would barely pass as
2596-416: The future of humanity; this unknown may be represented by a villain with incomprehensible powers, a creature we do not understand, or a scientific scenario that threatens to change the world; the science fiction story forces the audience to consider the nature of human beings, the confines of time or space or the concepts of human existence in general. Examples include: Metropolis (1927), Planet of
2655-416: The hallmark of fantasy drama films is "a sense of wonderment, typically played out in a visually intense world inhabited by mythic creatures, magic or superhuman characters. Props and costumes within these films often belie a sense of mythology and folklore – whether ancient, futuristic, or other-worldly. The costumes, as well as the exotic world, reflect the personal, inner struggles that the hero faces in
2714-408: The labels "drama" and "comedy" are too broad to be considered a genre. Instead, the taxonomy contends that film dramas are a "Type" of film; listing at least ten different sub-types of film and television drama. Docudramas are dramatized adaptations of real-life events. While not always completely accurate, the general facts are more-or-less true. The difference between a docudrama and a documentary
2773-507: The lady, as usual, is as sexless as the lions on the public library steps and as sharp and romantically forbidding as a package of unwrapped razor blades". Though his preferences in popular movies were not always predictable, Crowther in general detested action and war films that depicted violence and gunplay. He defended epics such as Ben-Hur (1959) and Cleopatra (1963), but gave the World War II film The Great Escape (also 1963)
2832-484: The legal system. Films that focus on dramatic events in history. Focuses on doctors, nurses, hospital staff, and ambulance saving victims and the interactions of their daily lives. Focuses on teenage characters, especially where a secondary school setting plays a role. Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His work helped shape
2891-427: The movie in reviews of other films and in a letters column response to unhappy Times readers. The New York Times replaced Crowther as its primary film critic in early 1968, and some observers speculated that his persistent attacks on Bonnie and Clyde had shown him to be out of touch with current cinema and weighed heavily in his removal. Crowther worked as an executive consultant at Columbia Pictures after leaving
2950-421: The movie. John Simon , the critic of New York magazine, while praising its technical execution, declared "Slop is slop, even served with a silver ladle." Its distributor pulled the film from circulation. However, the critical consensus on Bonnie and Clyde reversed, exemplified by two high-profile reassessments by Time and Newsweek . The latter's Joe Morgenstern wrote two reviews in consecutive issues,
3009-456: The one when Toby fails to turn up at the café, when music, camerawork and acting pull together on a genuinely elegiac note. In this context, too, one likes the film for its inherent wholesomeness." In The New York Times , Bosley Crowther wrote "[Leslie Caron] pours into this role so much powerful feeling, so much heart and understanding, that she imbues a basically threadbare little story with tremendous compassion and charm. The credit, however,
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#17329062240463068-450: The same human quality, with shadings of spiritual devotion, as in that." The film was restored and issued on DVD and blu-ray in 2017; extras include later interviews with Caron and Reid Banks. A recording of the song " Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty " sung in the film was sampled at the beginning of the title track of the album The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths . Drama (film and television) In film and television , drama
3127-516: The second retracting and apologizing for the first. Time hired Stefan Kanfer as its new film critic in late 1967; his first assignment was an ostentatious rebuttal of his magazine's original negative review. A rave in The New Yorker by Pauline Kael was also influential. Even in the wake of this critical reversal, however, Crowther remained one of the film's most dogged critics. He eventually wrote three negative reviews and periodically blasted
3186-530: The story does not always have to involve a team. The story could also be about an individual athlete or the story could focus on an individual playing on a team. Examples of this genre/type include: The Hustler (1961), Hoosiers (1986), Remember the Titans (2000), and Moneyball (2011). War films typically tells the story of a small group of isolated individuals who – one by one – get killed (literally or metaphorically) by an outside force until there
3245-514: The story." Examples of fantasy dramas include The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), and Life of Pi (2012). Horror dramas often involve the central characters isolated from the rest of society. These characters are often teenagers or people in their early twenties (the genre's central audience) and are eventually killed off during
3304-578: The term "pejoratively to connote an unrealistic, pathos-filled, camp tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences". Also called "women's movies", "weepies", tearjerkers, or "chick flicks". If they are targeted to a male audience, then they are called "guy cry" films. Often considered "soap-opera" drama. Focuses on religious characters, mystery play, beliefs, and respect. Character development based on themes involving criminals, law enforcement and
3363-488: The word "comedy" or "drama" are not recognized by the Screenwriters Taxonomy as either a film genre or a film type. For instance, "Melodrama" and "Screwball Comedy" are considered Pathways, while "romantic comedy" and "family drama" are macro-genres. A macro-genre in the Screenwriters Taxonomy. These films tell a story in which many of the central characters are related. The story revolves around how
3422-415: Was critical of some iconic releases as well. He found Akira Kurosawa 's classic Throne of Blood (1957, but not released in the U.S. until 1961), derived from Macbeth , ludicrous, particularly its ending; and called Gojira (Godzilla) (1954) "an incredibly awful film". Crowther dismissed Alfred Hitchcock 's Psycho (1960) as "a blot on an otherwise honorable career". After other reviewers praised
3481-546: Was negative: It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cut-ups in Thoroughly Modern Millie ... [S]uch ridiculous, camp-tinctured travesties of the kind of people these desperadoes were and of the way people lived in the dusty Southwest back in those barren years might be passed off as candidly commercial movie comedy, nothing more, if
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