"the knack" and films like it

this is a thread about richard lester's 1965 film "the knack and how to get it":

http://www.impawards.com/1965/posters/knack_and_how_to_get_it.jpg

are there any other films remotely like this one? ("a hard day's night" doesn't count.)

Smashing Time.

Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave travel down to Swinging London from the somwhere up North. Lynn plays Yvonne, the girl who gets everything wrong. She becomes an unexpected pop star. Rita is discovered by a really switched on photographer (Michael York) and becomes a Twiggy-esque figure. Written by George Melly. Fantastic soundtrack.

thanks, arthur!

The Knack is basically a british attempt to do Godard minus the crime stuff and the politics y/n?

Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment?

Hi Arthur!

The Knack is basically a british attempt to do Godard minus the crime stuff and the politics y/n?

― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, January 3, 2009 12:44 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jokes bruv.

lester is doing just as inventive stuff than godard in the early-mid '60s and a lot less cackhandedly. ('british' is a bit off too ain't it?) you would have to fill me in on 'the crime stuff' in godard, but let's just say he isn't exactly francesco rosi when it comes to, well, you know, making serious films about crime. jlg's politics are never straightforward (starts out kind of right-wing, ends up switzerland's most famous maoist) but few of his pre-knack films are very political -- petit soldat and les carabiniers, yeah. (there is an argument that breaking the formal 'rules' of filmmaking is inherently 'political' already. i think this is silly but 1) it makes lester equally political and 2) no-one thought this at the time.)

lester is coming out of tv and advertising rly tho.

Customers who bought this film also bought:

Georgy Girl
Blow Up
Bedazzled

I've never seen Dick Lester's Petulia (cinematographer- Nic Roeg, which is still only available in the UK as a US import. Is it any good?

1x interesting thing about it is how much like performance it is, editing-wise.

it has the same editor as 'performance', though -- and 'the knack'. (and 'ronin'.)

Also 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush' - which is often described as a rip-off of the Knack, but not as good.

I chanced across an early 60s Michael Winner movie called The System the other day, the precis of which reads like a total The Knack rip-off.

lester is doing just as inventive stuff than godard in the early-mid '60s and a lot less cackhandedly. ('british' is a bit off too ain't it?) you would have to fill me in on 'the crime stuff' in godard, but let's just say he isn't exactly francesco rosi when it comes to, well, you know, making serious films about crime. jlg's politics are never straightforward (starts out kind of right-wing, ends up switzerland's most famous maoist) but few of his pre-knack films are very political -- petit soldat and les carabiniers, yeah. (there is an argument that breaking the formal 'rules' of filmmaking is inherently 'political' already. i think this is silly but 1) it makes lester equally political and 2) no-one thought this at the time.)

You're bringing a lot more value judgement into my post than I intended it to have! I really don't think it's relevant to the discussion whether Godard was *good* at doing crime (which is what A Bout De Suffle and Bande A Part are about to some extent, I think that's pretty hard to argue with) or politics, I was just saying those are aspects of the Godard formula that The Knack doesn't bother with. But I think that the editing, the livelyness of the film and the way the characters constantly break out of the narrative to do their whimsical, absurdist stunts has Godard written all over it; it reminds me of Une Femme Est Une Femme more than anything (and I think I actually prefer it to that movie, to be honest.) Of course Lester already had an eye for that sort of comedy from working with Sellers & etc, but The Knack is a step further, I think. I reckogn maybe I shouldn't have used the word "attempt" (I don't think it's a failure!.) British being "a bit off" is really too much nitpicking for me tho, is calling Sirk movies american "a bit off"?

sorry for flying off the handle: i've gone from godard stan to hater over the last few years and am doing the 'zealotry of a convert' thing.

re. brit cinema: we're all "transnational" now innit. cliche alert but the striking thing about 'british' cinema of the 60s is that so much of it is directed by furreners. lester, kubrick, antonioni, losey, polanski.

sirk and hollywood is a slightly different case in that foreign nationals have played a big part in it from practically year zero -- definitely since the 1920s, and most of the moguls were relatively recently arrived there. (guess im saying 'british culture' if not cinema is a more entrenched thing but otoh... this is why we say 'transnational'.)

Petulia is okay. Not very zany. In fact the zaniest thing about the film is that it was originally a Robert Altman/Sandy Dennis project.

Isn't it the opposite of zany? A real downer, kind of an Dark Underbelly/End of the Sixties picture, though it came it in '68.

I tried to like The Knack but after about 40 mins deemed it unwatchable. This is perhaps a fault in the viewer and not the film, but considering I was predisposed to love the settings, wardrobes, etc, it was a very long way down.

Does Rita Tushingham have a fanbase anymore, apart from Morrissey?

i think she's pretty decent in "the knack" and even better in "a taste of honey."

there's some interesting stuff on gender and sexism going on in "knack," though i'll have to give it a second watch before i venture what i think it's saying. certainly all the "rape! rape!" stuff at the end is unsettling in a way i haven't seen in any godard film. mostly what i enjoyed about the film was the time-capsule sense of being thrust into a world that's now irretrievably lost to time. it was nice to see swinging london without any of the usual obvious cultural baggage -- the stones, etc.

actually i kind of regret that "taste of honey" is so widely associated with morrissey, it really is a wonderful fillum in its own right. it's shameful that it's impossible to find in the states.