Tags
Language
Tags
March 2024
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
25 26 27 28 29 1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 1 2 3 4 5 6

Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

Posted By: Someonelse
Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

Fingers (1978)
DVD5 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:41:36 | 4,21 Gb
Audio: English, French - AC3 1.0 @ 192 Kbps (each) | Subs: English, French
Genre: Crime, Drama

Director: James Toback
Stars: Harvey Keitel, Tisa Farrow, Jim Brown

Keitel plays the lead in this schizophrenic movie in which he is continually pulled by the two conflicting sides of his personality, on the one hand that of a quiet piano virtuoso and on the other a ruthless debt collector for his mobster father. Keitel is introspective as only Keitel can be, really making the audience feel for him and his pained existence.

IMDB
Amazon

James Toback was supposed to be on hand to introduce Fingers and take questions afterwards, but his visit to Edinburgh was sadly cancelled at the last minute. It was still great to see his savage character-study on the big screen (even in a slightly red-tinted old print). I saw it on video over a decade ago, and certain scenes and lines have stuck firmly in my memory ever since. Two moments in particular – one involving major-league swearing, the other an incident of stunningly unexpected violence – pack a real punch, and it was a pleasure waiting for and then experiencing the audible audience reactions.

Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

Fingers is an archetypal directorial debut, in that Toback poured his heart, soul and mind into it, perhaps fearing he'd never get such an opportunity again (it's hard to imagine a 'Toback' figure getting this kind of leeway in modern-day Hollywood).
Result is at times a little dated to today's eyes, and Tisa Farrow (looking more like sister Mia than Mia herself) isn't the most charismatic leading-lady ever. But the picture has an emotional force and intensity that continues to burn impressively strong all these years later. Harvey Keitel delivers the key performance of his remarkable career as Jimmy, a small-time, volatile, sexually-conflicted hood who also happens to be a gifted classical pianist.

Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

Fascinating to compare and contrast with the current French remake, Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped, and while Fingers is undeniably the more seedily jagged of the two (appropriate that it was a 'Brut' production, paid for by the Faberge Brut company responsible for the legendarily rough-arsed seventies-tastic aftershave of the same name), Fingers has an immediacy and originality that can't be replicated. Like the Toback-scripted The Gambler, this is one of the key overlooked films of seventies US cinema.
Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

You may not actually enjoy this formidable film, and Toback in his directorial debut plainly does not aim at pleasing an audience, but it remains a startling first film. Keitel is torn between dual roles of would-be concert pianist and debt-collector on behalf of his Mafia hood father. He's not so much split as disintegrating and he becomes as intrigued by the violence he perpetrates as by the prospect of a Carnegie Hall audition. The plot hardly matters since the movie is driven by Finger's character and his complex relationship with his family, and by his obsessive care for a woman (Farrow) which contributes to his downfall. The film displays inexperience (and probably a low budget) compensated for by the performances, especially Brown as the woman's lover. Toback's credits are sparse, and on the strength of this film one can assume that compromise is not part of his vocabulary, so farewell mainstream cinema.
Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

James Tobak’s Fingers has an only-in-the-movies premise – a debt collector for his small-time mobster father aspires to be a classical pianist – yet through sheer force of filmmaking will, the director and star Harvey Keitel turn this somewhat ridiculous plot into a penetrating portrait of tortured, impotent masculinity and the foolishness of attempting to be something you’re not. Jimmy (Keitel) is a two-bit thug who roughs up lazy debtors by day and passionately tickles the ivories at night (or does he?), and just like his conflicted protagonist, Tobak’s mise-en-scène – defined by an interplay between light and dark, interiors and exteriors, and the Bach and ‘50s-era Bebop and R&B blasting from Jimmy’s portable radio – is defined by contrast.

Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

Jimmy yearns to leave behind crime for art, and thinks he discovers an opportunity to transcend his dingy, immoral life via a piano audition with his professional musician mother’s former manager. Unfortunately, his romantic pursuit of a woman named Carol (Tisa Farrow) ends only in disaster (during a tension-wracked scene in which Jim Brown teaches Jimmy a thing or two about virile machismo), and his piano dreams are, in typical noir fascination, shown to be nothing more than the dangerous illusions of a man who doesn’t know his rightful (lowly) place in life.

Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

It may have been forgotten amongst the era’s more notable NYC crime sagas (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver), but Tobak’s underappreciated 1978 neo-noir boasts a gritty splendor, and Keitel’s simmering volatility is a sight to behold – especially in the film’s mesmerizing final shot, which encapsulates all the dashed hopes and misery of its socially and emotionally trapped protagonist.
Fingers (1978) [ReUp]

Special Features:
- Commentary by James Toback
- Cast & Crew
- Fingers: A Conversation About Independent Film with Harvey Keitel and James Toback
- Theatrical trailer

Many Thanks to Original uploader.


If you want to download it, but found out that links are dead,
just leave a comment or PM me!


No More Mirrors.