They Live by Night
Perhaps this was viewed by some at the time as somehow a step forward, giving plenty of space for a tragic love story within a (rural) film noir setting that expressively traps its young protagonists “within the frame”, betrayed by a cold universe. Etcetera. In fact, it’s draggy and sappy, with weak dialogue and performances (especially by Granger, who seems throughout like nothing more than an actor playing a second-rate part in a second-rate theatrical production).
Both Pauline Kael and Robert Kolker clearly vastly prefer Altman’s remake, THIEVES LIKE US (1974), and it is hard to understand how anyone could disagree. In 5001 Nights at the Movies, Kael refers to “Ray’s tense choreographic staging and tightly framed compositions”, but adds that it “is also very simplistic”, suffering from “metaphysical liberalism – social injustice treated as cosmic fatalism”, while in Reeling she says of the remake that it is “the closest to flawless of Altman’s films – a masterpiece”. In A Cinema of Loneliness, Kolker notes that “Ray’s characters are trapped within their world, enclosed in a darkness that seals up their innocence like a coffin”, but draws attention in particular to the superiority of Altman’s ending: “Where Ray ends in despair, Altman ends on a notion at least of a world in which some sad flow of life continues”, lifting “the noir fatality that trapped Ray’s characters” and “diffusing it into a wider context, the larger trap of the world they inhabit”, where “Keechie endures, […] ensnared in the promises of comforts and security, ever-present in the radio shows she hears, promises negated by the narrow, marginalized life she must lead”, but which has signs of “at least some community, even the faceless, slow-motion crawl of a crowd in transit”.
Both Pauline Kael and Robert Kolker clearly vastly prefer Altman’s remake, THIEVES LIKE US (1974), and it is hard to understand how anyone could disagree. In 5001 Nights at the Movies, Kael refers to “Ray’s tense choreographic staging and tightly framed compositions”, but adds that it “is also very simplistic”, suffering from “metaphysical liberalism – social injustice treated as cosmic fatalism”, while in Reeling she says of the remake that it is “the closest to flawless of Altman’s films – a masterpiece”. In A Cinema of Loneliness, Kolker notes that “Ray’s characters are trapped within their world, enclosed in a darkness that seals up their innocence like a coffin”, but draws attention in particular to the superiority of Altman’s ending: “Where Ray ends in despair, Altman ends on a notion at least of a world in which some sad flow of life continues”, lifting “the noir fatality that trapped Ray’s characters” and “diffusing it into a wider context, the larger trap of the world they inhabit”, where “Keechie endures, […] ensnared in the promises of comforts and security, ever-present in the radio shows she hears, promises negated by the narrow, marginalized life she must lead”, but which has signs of “at least some community, even the faceless, slow-motion crawl of a crowd in transit”.
Mini Review: Perhaps this was viewed by some at the time as somehow a step forward, giving plenty of space for a tragic love story within a (rural) film noir setting that expressively traps its young protagonists “within the frame”. Etcetera. In fact, it’s draggy and sappy, with weak dialogue and performances (especially by Granger). Both Pauline Kael and Robert Kolker clearly vastly prefer Altman’s remake, THIEVES LIKE US, and it is hard to understand how anyone could disagree.
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