Welcome to The Penny-Pinching Cinephile, a weekly spotlight of the best free flicks on the web. ‘Cuz sometimes you gotta eat.
1.) Murder!
A clock chimes, a woman screams, the titles come up: Murder! Thus begins Alfred Hitchcock’s second sound film, a murder mystery set amidst the backdrop of working class London and the milieu of the traveling acting troupe. The victim is a beautiful young actress, and so is the suspect. It appears the motive for murder is another actor, so why won’t the suspect give up his name? Hitchcock deftly navigates the perils of early sound recording with an emphasis on expressionist montage and the director’s signature “pure cinema” aesthetic. The result is a complex mystery that involves the audience in its investigatory intrigue.
2.) Big Fish
Perhaps Tim Burton’s most accessible film, this gentle comic fable blends fantasy with romance. Featuring circus sideshows, witches, werewolves and a giant, Big Fish takes the viewer on a fantastic journey through one man’s life full of tall tales and unbelievable fibs. At the core of the story is the relationship between sons and fathers and how living larger than life comes between the authenticity of familial love.
3.) Tout va bien (Everything’s Fine)
One of Jean-Luc Godard’s most blatantly political films, Tout va bien uses self-reflexivity to directly address the political situation in France after the 1968 revolution. To do so, Godard and co-director Jean-Pierre Gorin (purposefully counter-intuitively) cast Hollywood stars Jane Fonda and Yves Montand as an American reporter and her Godard-like Nouvelle Vague director husband. Indicting capitalism, revolution and himself, Godard seems to wrestle earnestly with his earlier work but do so in his typically flippant manner. Tout va bien is a must-see for cinephiles only familiar with ’60s Godard and want to get into his later, more didactic work.
Roman Polanski’s 1962 psychological thriller is available as part of Criterion’s Nail Biters selection this week on Hulu. A film as icily evocative as its title, Knife in the Water is a superb example of suspense strained to the nth degree. When a wealthy couple picks up a young hitchhiker and invites him to join them on their yacht, the three enter into a deadly menage a trois. Polanski squeezes every little bit of drama out of the cramped location by using unique and unusual camera angles (above). Even though it was only Polanksi’s debut film, Knife in the Water has had a vast impact on world cinema, influencing the films of Michael Haneke among others.
5.) Primer
With director Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color making a splash at Sundance this year, it’s worth it to check out his first film, the brain-breaking, science fiction puzzle movie, Primer. Featuring a dizzying amount of detailed math and physics, Primer might be the most elaborately accurate breakdown of time travel ever committed to film. I say “might be” because I’m not a genius; I have no idea what is going on in this movie. I don’t even know if Einstein could have figured it out. Utilizing Memento-like flashback editing and non-narrative storytelling, Carruth’s film moves at a breakneck pace and expects you to keep up. More than warranting multiple viewings, Primer is a mind-bender sure to delight dedicated sci-fi nerds with just enough stylish filmmaking and narrative ambition to lull the rest of us non-geniuses into a pleasantly awed stupor.
If you’d like to suggest a website or film that’s screening for free, leave us a comment below.
