Review of Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) by Steven P — 09 Mar 2012

I didn't expect to like this movie half as much as I did. I knew the film by reputation alone, and the idea of watching rich people party for two hours coupled with what I had seen of Mickey Rooney's infamously racist character Mr.

Yunioshi (a hot bundle of leftover WWII angst and anger) didn't sound appealing to me, which is probably why I avoided it for so long. It is a strange little film, but the presence of Audrey Hepburn is just hypnotizing.

She commands the screen with her beauty and her power, and I often forgot there were other actors sharing the screen with her (except when the brilliant Martin Balsam was there, an actor I find under-appreciated and incredibly talented).

Blake Edwards is one of my favorite American directors of the sixties because he could transform comedy into something with weight and purpose and because he knew when to lets his cameras do the talking and when to let his actors do their jobs.

His films feel very organic, even at their zaniest, and I think he had a great understanding of people and the way their flaws could be their greatest attributes and their most terrible curses. The movie is painted in stunning colors, and accented with Henry Mancini's brilliant music, and if nothing else the movie stands as showing just how sweeping the sixties could be.