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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Movie Listings
The Film File
What do Napoleon Bonaparte, Doris Day, and the Incredible Hulk have in common, apart from the fact that they all look great in pink? One answer is that each has been deemed worthy of a split image. Abel Gance's silent "Napoleon" (1927) was designed to be projected onto three screens, in a process known as Polyvision; at the climax of the film, the screens turn red, white, and blue respectively, which may not be subtle but which nonetheless, with a live orchestra, retains the power to overwhelm. For our other contenders, the multiple shots were sliced and squashed onto a single screen, the act of compression, in every case, hinting smartly at the tastes of the time. Ang Lee bowed--too deeply, as it turned out--to the studios' near-deranged obsession with comic strips by yanking panels of action to and fro between the center of the frame and the edge, whereas the line down the middle of "Pillow Talk" was the Berlin Wall of sex, making it perfectly clear that Doris and Rock could chatter all they liked, but never touch.
No such nicety attends Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter, who play an unnamed couple in "Conversations with Other Women." The movie, written by Gabrielle Zevin and directed by Hans Canosa, is a pas de deux about a man and woman who meet at a wedding, hit it off, and get it on. Over the course...
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