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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.
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1601
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 11:16am
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
> > is an auteur
> > necessarily a great or even good filmmaker?
This has been discussed in this forum before, but I realize I don't know how to find it using the Yahoo search.
I guess I've always thought of the notion of a "bad auteur" as, if anything, only a kind of exceptional perversion of the natural case -- like a bad oyster. (Can't resist those culinary metaphors.) But there do seem to be a lot of them.
IF an auteur is defined as good, shouldn't there be a separate term for the bad version? (...not to be confused with a non-auteur, or director not distinctive in any way.)
Fauteur (faux-teur)? (Take that, Baz Luhrmann and Darren Aronofsky...)
P.S. Recently found that Sarris originally considered J. Tourneur, back in the American Directors issue, "a stylist, if not a full-fledged auteur" -- almost the same language he now (in "You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet') uses for Leisen ("something more than a studio artisan if something less than a full-fledged auteur").
1602
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 4:41pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Charles Marquis Warren and John Ford both directed
> esterns. But whose would you care to see more than
> once?
>
> I rest my case.
(I tried to make another reply hours ago, but I think it got lost in
the void.)
In message 263 I wrote about Warren as a figure to watch out for. I
think he's a talented director with a likable, low-frequency (but
subtly engrossing) sensibility. Sure, John Ford is greater than
Charles Marquis Warren, but Ford is greater than pretty much
everyone, and why choose when even the lesser offers good things?
I'd like to see CMW's films more than once ...
--Zach
1603
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic! Defining the word...
Well, following Tag's and Jess's comments, it seems to me that there are
four common meanings of the word "auteur" when used to refer to the
director as author of a film.
As Bill suggested, one can simply define the director as the auteur.
Then every director is an auteur.
Or, there's Maxime's quote, which suggests that while not every director
is an auteur any director who has control should be called an abutter,
whatever the evidence on the screen.
Or, one can argue auteur is a director whose work exhibits common
stylistic motifs and common themes from one film to the next. By that
standard, Spielberg and Fellini are both auteurs.
Or, one can use the word to mean "good or great director in my opinion
who also fulfills definition three." This actually seems to be the most
common. All four meanings have their uses and I don't think one can
proscribe any of them; one just has to be clear as to which meaning one
is using.
Back in 1967 I read a newspaper article about an upcoming made-for-TV
movie called "The Loneliest Runner," directed by TV star Michael Landon.
This one promised to be different from the usual, bland,
manufactured-to-push-the-viewer's-buttons-thereby-selling-beer product.
It was a "personal" film. Landon didn't only direct it: he wrote it, and
acted in it, and it was based on his own personal life story. It seems
that he was a bed-wetter as a boy, and his cruel mom's attempts to cure
him included hanging his urine-stained sheets out of his bedroom window
for his friends to see. Therefore, he would run home to take them in
before any of his school friends could see them, and thus became an
athlete from all that running. Or something like that. I will say that
the shots of sheets hanging out his second floor window have stuck in my
memory, for some strange reason, but that reason doesn't have anything
to do with any cinematic or aesthetic virtues. Sometimes really stupid
images just stay with you, you know?
Before viewing this piece of drek, or should I say piss, I certainly
knew that just because a film is "personal" doesn't mean it will be
good, and Landon's film was a stunning reminder. What was so
disappointing about it was that it was stylistically so completely
bland, with the smooth cinematography and editing of nearly every other
made-for-TV movie. A tiny smidgen of the stylistic crudeness of Kenneth
Anger's "Fireworks" would have done wonders for it.
- Fred
1604
From: Maxime
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 1:58pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
At the very beginning, auteurism was introduced with a high degree of
arbitrary. Exclusions were pretty rough. Years of theorization did
not bring any light, as far as I know. I like that. "This is
cinema / This is not cinema".
Believe that a film-maker only has to write script and dialogue, and
serve his favourites themes once again seems quite absurd to me.
This is not a matter of personality, or technique. Damien
mentions "domination". Paraphrasing Michel Mourlet, I would add
that the notion of auteur is defined by the influence that have the
film-maker over the very substance of his art : light, space and
time, the insistent presence of objects, the elegance of a gesture,
the depth of an expression, the weight of a whisper.
We don't care any coherence in the views, we need it in the approach
to beauty.
1605
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
Maxime wrote:
>...the very substance of his art : light, space and
>time, the insistent presence of objects, the elegance of a gesture,
>the depth of an expression, the weight of a whisper.
>
>
>
Hmmm, this is about as close as anyone has come to defining what makes
film an art, for me.
Of course it's going to be a little different for different films --
not all films have people or sound -- but thank you!
- Fred
1606
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 6:47pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
I'm so glad you brought up Michel Mourlet!
The High Priest of the "MacMahonists" his "La Mise en
Scene Comme Langage" (Henri Veyer, 1987) cries out for
English translation.
--- Maxime wrote:
> At the very beginning, auteurism was introduced with
> a high degree of
> arbitrary. Exclusions were pretty rough. Years of
> theorization did
> not bring any light, as far as I know. I like that.
> "This is
> cinema / This is not cinema".
> Believe that a film-maker only has to write script
> and dialogue, and
> serve his favourites themes once again seems quite
> absurd to me.
> This is not a matter of personality, or technique.
> Damien
> mentions "domination". Paraphrasing Michel Mourlet,
> I would add
> that the notion of auteur is defined by the
> influence that have the
> film-maker over the very substance of his art :
> light, space and
> time, the insistent presence of objects, the
> elegance of a gesture,
> the depth of an expression, the weight of a whisper.
> We don't care any coherence in the views, we need it
> in the approach
> to beauty.
>
>
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1608
From: Maxime
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 8:45pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> I'm so glad you brought up Michel Mourlet!
> The High Priest of the "MacMahonists" his "La Mise en
> Scene Comme Langage" (Henri Veyer, 1987) cries out for
> English translation.
It should be a bedside book for every budding critic.
I bought it a few years ago, nearly by chance, attracted by the name
of Cottafavi, to whom Mourlet devotes several superb pages...
1609
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 6:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
OK, then how about Monte Hellman or Budd Boetticher?
I much prefer them to Warren.
--- Zach Campbell wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
>
> wrote:
>
> > Charles Marquis Warren and John Ford both directed
> > esterns. But whose would you care to see more than
> > once?
> >
> > I rest my case.
>
> (I tried to make another reply hours ago, but I
> think it got lost in
> the void.)
>
> In message 263 I wrote about Warren as a figure to
> watch out for. I
> think he's a talented director with a likable,
> low-frequency (but
> subtly engrossing) sensibility. Sure, John Ford is
> greater than
> Charles Marquis Warren, but Ford is greater than
> pretty much
> everyone, and why choose when even the lesser offers
> good things?
> I'd like to see CMW's films more than once ...
>
> --Zach
>
>
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1610
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:04pm
Subject: Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
"Auteur" means "author," not "great author" or even "good author." It
has certainly been used a lot as a term of evaluation, but like
Damien and Jess I would vote to use it as a neutral descriptive term,
for heuristic purposes and also to acknowledge certain obvious facts.
Fred, we're once again focused on narrative film, but the study of
avant-garde and structural film has a lot to say to some of these
points:
1) The director isn't ALWAYS the author - look at GWTW and the
Lewtons. So it still means something to say that the author of a
particular film is the director - or the producer, or the actor, or
the writer. I'm not sure the latter are really possible, given the
nature of the medium, but at least it's something that can be
discussed, and specifics can be cited to support what's being said or
to call it into doubt.
2) Sarris said in a NY colloquium in '88 that he had over-
emphasized "personality" as a criterion of value. I agree. I think
auteurism needs better criteria of value than expressiveness or
control, which are (in my opinion) necessary but not sufficient
accomplishments for good art. As I said before, "He really got the
paint up on the canvas" doesn't strike me as the ultimate compliment
for a painter.
3) As Jess keeps saying, the woods are FULL of bad auteurs - more
than ever today. This is an obvious fact that we need to pay
attention to! I vote for calling Michael Bay or Alan Parker a "bad"
or "mediocre auteur" (respectively), just as one would say that Paul
Auster is a "mediocre author" (for example).
4) Watching lots of movies has convinced me that most directors have
some kind of visual and even thematic signature. I may be wrong, but
again, this is at least an empirical proposition that can be debated
in particular cases, and details can be adduced to support or refute
it. (To retract an overstatement I made in my "I Believe" post, study
of the production process can be very useful for this purpose, and
not just for the general purpose of validating auteurism.)
5) The idea that all directors are auteurs is valuable because it
will piss people off - the Writers Guild, for starters; a lot of
executives and producers; critics who don't even know what a director
does; and academics who'd rather talk about ideology or genre or
gender politics. The auteur politics/policy was a polemical position
in the 50s and 60s, and it needs to have its polemical force
reactivated now. This is one way to do that.
And we need to know what we mean when we say a film is good or bad,
and what our canons are built on! Is it esthetics, morality,
politics, distinctive personality (hey, I'll listen to arguments),
emotional power, religious enlightenment, entertainment value,
commercial value, realism, visionary truth, subversiveness, pretty
actresses and/or actors (hey, don't forget John Simon), sexual
liberation, structure, control, openness to contemporary culture,
semiotic richness or subtlety, something ineffable... What are we
talking about on this site?
At the same time, I have to admit to a contradiction - when I said
that I agreed with Jean Eustache that the big distinction is between
films that "get me off" and those that don't, which I compared to
chicken-sexing, I certainly wasn't calling for this kind of
discussion. However, according to what I've heard about chicken
sexing, there ARE details by which you can tell, but the way to learn
them is to look at a lot of baby chicks with an expert chicken-sexer
(Sarris, for us) and keep saying "male" and "female" until he tells
you you've started to get it right (or in the case of Sarris, starts
getting it wrong himself...)
Discussion topic (one randomly chosen among several that could help
clarify these issues): Remember when Walter Hill was the next big
thing? What happened after that?
1611
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 1:14pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
David:
> Charles Marquis Warren and John Ford both directed
> esterns. But whose would you care to see more than
> once?
>
> I rest my case.
I don't know if this is a veiled dismissal of my endorsements or not,
but I've mentioned Charles Marquis Warren here a handful of times as
a director worth keeping an eye out for. (See post 263.)
Sure, "John Ford's better," but John Ford's better than almost
anyone, and that's stacking the deck against a skilled, unknown
director like Warren who does possess a little something special.
So I'd like to see the films of both of them more than once.
--Zach
1612
From:
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:33pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
In a message dated 8/31/03 3:23:04 AM, damienbona@y... writes:
>Baz Luhrmann is another unwatchable auteur for me
I was intrigued by the citation of Luhrmann in context of a discussion of
McG. I'm a rather big fan of McG (and, Paul, I actually cite that moment you
discuss in "Full Throttle" in my review; I'm glad to find someone else who
spotted it as being emblematic of the film's attitudes), but have disliked all of
the Luhrmann films I've seen. Kent Jones made such an eloquent case for "Moulin
Rouge" in Film Comment that I actually saw it again after reading his review;
I still didn't like it. It strikes me as though he's just throwing in the
kitchen sink stylistically speaking, whereas I think McG is - and this may sound
laughable - relatively graceful and careful from a visual standpoint.
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1613
From: Maxime
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 10:21pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
I'm not sure to agree with Bill.
I would say that if a writer may be said the auteur of a movie, it
means this is simply not cinema.
The world of directors can't be separated between good auteurs and
bad auteurs. The fact that we have to acknowledge is the following:
98% of the movies production (past and current) has absolutely
nothing to do with cinema (as an art). As far as I know, Michael Bay
did not direct anything that was even close of what cinema
should/could be. Does that qualify him for "bad auteur"? Maybe. But
I simply believe he is not an auteur at all. Since he does not make
movies.
Should the notion of auteur be neutral, objective and descriptive?
Descriptive of what? This guy is the one who says "action!" on the
set. So what?...
I believe this notion carries a significant judgmental value. But,
yes Bill, it takes us back to the very question: What is a (good)
film?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> "Auteur" means "author," not "great author" or even "good author."
It
> has certainly been used a lot as a term of evaluation, but like
> Damien and Jess I would vote to use it as a neutral descriptive
term,
> for heuristic purposes and also to acknowledge certain obvious
facts.
> Fred, we're once again focused on narrative film, but the study of
> avant-garde and structural film has a lot to say to some of these
> points:
>
> 1) The director isn't ALWAYS the author - look at GWTW and the
> Lewtons. So it still means something to say that the author of a
> particular film is the director - or the producer, or the actor,
or
> the writer. I'm not sure the latter are really possible, given the
> nature of the medium, but at least it's something that can be
> discussed, and specifics can be cited to support what's being said
or
> to call it into doubt.
>
> 2) Sarris said in a NY colloquium in '88 that he had over-
> emphasized "personality" as a criterion of value. I agree. I think
> auteurism needs better criteria of value than expressiveness or
> control, which are (in my opinion) necessary but not sufficient
> accomplishments for good art. As I said before, "He really got the
> paint up on the canvas" doesn't strike me as the ultimate
compliment
> for a painter.
>
> 3) As Jess keeps saying, the woods are FULL of bad auteurs - more
> than ever today. This is an obvious fact that we need to pay
> attention to! I vote for calling Michael Bay or Alan Parker
a "bad"
> or "mediocre auteur" (respectively), just as one would say that
Paul
> Auster is a "mediocre author" (for example).
>
> 4) Watching lots of movies has convinced me that most directors
have
> some kind of visual and even thematic signature. I may be wrong,
but
> again, this is at least an empirical proposition that can be
debated
> in particular cases, and details can be adduced to support or
refute
> it. (To retract an overstatement I made in my "I Believe" post,
study
> of the production process can be very useful for this purpose, and
> not just for the general purpose of validating auteurism.)
>
> 5) The idea that all directors are auteurs is valuable because it
> will piss people off - the Writers Guild, for starters; a lot of
> executives and producers; critics who don't even know what a
director
> does; and academics who'd rather talk about ideology or genre or
> gender politics. The auteur politics/policy was a polemical
position
> in the 50s and 60s, and it needs to have its polemical force
> reactivated now. This is one way to do that.
>
> And we need to know what we mean when we say a film is good or
bad,
> and what our canons are built on! Is it esthetics, morality,
> politics, distinctive personality (hey, I'll listen to arguments),
> emotional power, religious enlightenment, entertainment value,
> commercial value, realism, visionary truth, subversiveness, pretty
> actresses and/or actors (hey, don't forget John Simon), sexual
> liberation, structure, control, openness to contemporary culture,
> semiotic richness or subtlety, something ineffable... What are we
> talking about on this site?
>
> At the same time, I have to admit to a contradiction - when I said
> that I agreed with Jean Eustache that the big distinction is
between
> films that "get me off" and those that don't, which I compared to
> chicken-sexing, I certainly wasn't calling for this kind of
> discussion. However, according to what I've heard about chicken
> sexing, there ARE details by which you can tell, but the way to
learn
> them is to look at a lot of baby chicks with an expert chicken-
sexer
> (Sarris, for us) and keep saying "male" and "female" until he
tells
> you you've started to get it right (or in the case of Sarris,
starts
> getting it wrong himself...)
>
> Discussion topic (one randomly chosen among several that could
help
> clarify these issues): Remember when Walter Hill was the next big
> thing? What happened after that?
1614
From:
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:29pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
In a message dated 8/31/03 4:45:37 PM, zerospam@n... writes:
>Paraphrasing great Michel Mourlet, I may add
>that the notion of auteur is defined by the influence that have the
>film-maker over the very substance of his art : light, space and
>time, the insistent presence of objects, the elegance of a gesture,
>the depth of an expression, the weight of a whisper.
Beautifully put and I'm really glad to read someone talk about the importance
of vocal intonation ("the weight of a whisper") in many great films. As Fred
reminds us, not every film has sound or even people. But in the ones that
do, I find that the way an actor or actress delivers a line is of paramount
importance and can create in combination with light, space, and time some of the
most moving things in cinema. My perennial favorite example is the penultimate
scene in Welles' "Chimes at Midnight" and, specifically, the moment of Hal's
rejection of Falstaff. The way Keith Baxter delivers "I know thee not, old
man" - the literal sound of his voice as he says this - is unbearably painful
and made tragic through the force of the mise en scene. Actually, such moments
abound in Welles' cinema: the single word "Rosebud" in "Kane"; the singing of
"The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" in "Ambersons"; "He was some kind
of a man" in "Touch of Evil"; and "Left to right, Marcus, but never home
again" in the unfinished "The Dreamers."
I'm talking here about the way these lines are delivered by the actors, but
surely what makes these moments great involves every one of the things Maxime
talks about so eloquently above.
>We don't need any coherence in views, but we need it in the approach
>to beauty.
Very well said! As Dan has said before, form can be located in many
different places, but I think many of us will agree that, no matter where we might
locate it (visuals, performance styles, etc., etc.), it's what's most important.
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1615
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sun Aug 31, 2003 9:47pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
I have no idea how this works or where to look up the source, but now
Ive read the last 10 replies on this subject and wish to add a comment
to the matter myself. As I dont know the origin of the discussion,
please forgive me if Im going of a tanget.
In my opinion the notion of the auteur is flawed to begin with. While
its great to be able to elevate ones favorite directors to standards
they in some cases dont deserve, its a bithc to watch others elevate
directors who hardly can say "action" to the same level, all because
the director uses identifiable motifs and is techinically skilled.
Point is, if you want to make Sam Fuller an auteur, then you have to
make Michael Bay one too.
Basicly only "no budget" independent director/writer/producer is an
true auteur.
Auteur, as mise en scene, has become a buzzword. Today everyone
obscure director is an auteur, because it makes them... more; its like
the amplifier in Spinal Tap that goes to 11... its like more.
Auteur theory represents a dilemma. On one side it is a very usefull
tool to bring forgotten directors into attention and to discuss their
work vs others similar directors. One the other side it allows basicly
everyone to be an auteur. So the question is: Is auteur theory
obsolete?
When Truffaut and later Sarris defined the "rules" there was very
little examination and discussion about directors, but today we disect
directors to the point that we submit their childhood nitelamp as
influential on their view on repressed homosexuality in collage
basketball. So I do believe that auteur theory has become obsolete. We
have far better tools at hand when discussing motifs and themes.
I have no idea how this will fit into the discussion, but I had to get
it of my chest.
1616
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 7:10am
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
Bill (in particular), didn't Barthes distinguish between an author
and a writer? (And Truman Capote suggested a third activity, typing.)
MIchael Bay has a certain definite skill, but I'd place it as more
akin to "writing" than "authoring."
--
- Joe Kaufman
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1617
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 2:00pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
And I'd call it typying!
--- Joseph Kaufman wrote:
> Bill (in particular), didn't Barthes distinguish
> between an author
> and a writer? (And Truman Capote suggested a third
> activity, typing.)
>
> MIchael Bay has a certain definite skill, but I'd
> place it as more
> akin to "writing" than "authoring."
> --
>
> - Joe Kaufman
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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1618
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 3:09pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
I personally don't find the word "auteur" to be needed. "Good director"
and "bad director" seem to do the job. I do believe that there are many
shadings between these two extremes, and the word "auteur" has a kind of
0-or-1 quality, so I don't use it much. - Dan
1619
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 3:13pm
Subject: Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
Joe,
You've been dipping into Barthes more recently than I have, but my
recollection is that author/writer was a distinction that
favored "writer," which was a term for someone doing "writerly"
texts: the kind of newfangled writing represented by "Finnegan's
Wake" or Philippe Sollers' "H," which has since disappeared from
everyone's radar while Sollers decided that being an author of
conventional novels was more profitable - particularly if you bash a
thinly disguised version your old friend Barthes in a one of them.
In film terms, the Tel Quel bunch (Barthes, Sollers et al.) thought
there was just one film that fit the bill, Jean-Daniel Pollet's
Mediterranee. But the author/writer distinction (which was supposedly
in the service of the Revolution) is another that has been proposed
for distinguishing wheat from chaff in the film world, which we might
consider. Although they never appropriated Barthes' term and had
plenty of their own, the Cahiers were more inclusive when it came
to "writerly" films - post-68 Godard, Duras and the Straubs all made
the cut, along with Mediterranee, I suppose.
Of course, as Fred can attest, Americans filmmakers have been
doing "writerly" films for ages. I like Mediterranee, but I'd just
call it a film lyric and leave it at that.
As for Capote's "typing," I reread In Cold Blood Saturday: excellent
research, clever structure (which Brooks imitated in his film -
knowing a good audience tease when he saw it), workmanlike prose with
almost no purple passages (I love the descriptions of Kansas), and a
fair amount of typing - all the inserted material by Perry. If
Richard Brooks had used Capote's last chapter (Dewey meeting Nancy
Cutter's best friend in the cemetery) in place of the execution house
statements against capital punishment, his film would hold up better
today. But on a scale of 1 to 10 for true crime tales, In Cold Blood
gets a solid 6 and Gary Indiana's Three Month Spree gets a 10. That's
writing! Er, authoring....
1620
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 3:17pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> "Auteur" means "author," not "great author" or even "good author." It
> has certainly been used a lot as a term of evaluation, but like
> Damien and Jess I would vote to use it as a neutral descriptive term,
For whatever it's worth (since I can't claim to have thought deeply about this), if I voted thus, I didn't mean to, since I do seem to associate the term with a director with a particular kind of artistry, and usually one who's been rescued from the taint of commercialism (or general "anonymity") by critics, like Sarris, identifying that artistry. In this "classic"(?) sense, art film makers who are already recognized as such wouldn't be proclaimed as "auteurs" because they proclaim it themselves in every frame (although the auteurist canon certainly contains some exceptions to this). I wouldn't dispute that all directors are authors in a way, but it seems redundant to make "auteur" a mere synonym for "director"...?
I wonder what would have happened if Sarris had simply translated the word, though. (He gave this probably debatable explanation: "When Truffaut writes of Gide or Giraudoux, and refers to them incidentally as 'auteurs,' there is no special point being made, and 'author' is both an adequate and accurate translation. It is another matter entirely when Truffaut describes Hitchcock and Hawks as 'auteurs.' 'Author' is neither adequate nor accurate as a translation into English mainly because of the inherent literary bias of the Anglo-American cultural Establishment.... The notion that a non-literary director can be the author of his films is difficult to grasp in America.") In any case, I have the feeling he used the word more in a general sense (the auteur theory, auteurism, auteur critics) than to describe individual filmmakers, in the current style, but I may be wrong about this.
1621
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 3:13pm
Subject: Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
Joe,
You've been dipping into Barthes more recently than I have, but my
recollection is that author/writer was a distinction that
favored "writer," which was a term for someone doing "writerly"
texts: the kind of newfangled writing represented by "Finnegan's
Wake" or Philippe Sollers' "H," which has since disappeared from
everyone's radar while Sollers decided that being an author of
conventional novels was more profitable - particularly if you bash a
thinly disguised version your old friend Barthes in a one of them.
In film terms, the Tel Quel bunch (Barthes, Sollers et al.) thought
there was just one film that fit the bill, Jean-Daniel Pollet's
Mediterranee. But the author/writer distinction (which was supposedly
in the service of the Revolution) is another that has been proposed
for distinguishing wheat from chaff in the film world, which we might
consider. Although they never appropriated Barthes' term and had
plenty of their own, the Cahiers were more inclusive when it came
to "writerly" films - post-68 Godard, Duras and the Straubs all made
the cut, along with Mediterranee, I suppose.
Of course, as Fred can attest, Americans filmmakers have been
doing "writerly" films for ages. I like Mediterranee, but I'd just
call it a film lyric and leave it at that.
As for Capote's "typing," I reread In Cold Blood Saturday: excellent
research, clever structure (which Brooks imitated in his film -
knowing a good audience tease when he saw it), workmanlike prose with
almost no purple passages (I love the descriptions of Kansas), and a
fair amount of typing - all the inserted material by Perry. If
Richard Brooks had used Capote's last chapter (Dewey meeting Nancy
Cutter's best friend in the cemetery) in place of the execution house
statements against capital punishment, his film would hold up better
today. But on a scale of 1 to 10 for true crime tales, In Cold Blood
gets a solid 6 and Gary Indiana's Three Month Spree gets a 10. That's
writing! Er, authoring....
1622
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 3:51pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
For common sense purposes I believe that directors are the authors of
their films (by definition, so to speak) and that there are good
directors and bad directors. But since for me "good" and "unique" are
roughly synonymous terms, I would also agree with the statement that
bad movies are not really "authored," because they fail to exist as
singular objects for discussion. Taken together these premises imply
that good movies are unlikely to eventuate when the director is
stripped of power or fails to exert it effectively (cf the ongoing
horrors of PROJECT GREENLIGHT). So "X is an auteur" as a value
judgement makes sense to me, though I might not put it that way
myself.
As a footnote, since we know that credits don't tell the whole story,
perhaps we need to pay more attention to the possibility of genuine
collaborative authorship -- by which I don't mean multiple authors
vying for control, but rather a single "auteur" consisting of
multiple persons. After all, there are a fair number of directorial
teams (the Dardenne brothers, for example) who are treated as auteurs
without anyone feeling the need to assign all responsiblity to a
single individual. Equally, I'm sure there are numerous cases where
one of an credited director's key collaborators -- say a screenwriter
or lead actor -- is really a co-director of sorts, or at least a full
participant in constructing a shared vision. (Ultimate example of a
writer-driven movie: Samuel Beckett's FILM, directed by Alan
Schneider.)
Dropping down a peg or three, to this distant observer it seems that
in contemporary Hollywood the shape, look and feel of many films is
determined to a large extent by star-producers. CHARLIE'S ANGELS may
be as much Drew Barrymore's film as McGs, and VANILLA SKY is
(surely?) more Tom Cruise than Cameron Crowe. If it still falls to
the director to perform the nitty-gritty work of writing with sounds
and images, that might explain why a lot of these films are only
approximately "written".
Behind-the-scenes research is obviously helpful if you want to get at
the facts of any particular case. But inevitably the kinds of
conclusions you reach will vary depending on what kinds of creativity
you value to begin with -- e.g. whether you believe a director's
relation to a script is more like a composer with a libretto or a
conductor with a score. Personally I don't think either analogy is
very helpful, but it does bug me when screenwriters start whining
about how the director changed everything AND claimed all the credit.
I think Walter Hill is (still) an auteur. What was the question?
JTW
1623
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 4:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
>"After all, there are a fair number of directorial
teams (the Dardenne brothers, for example) who are
treated as auteurs
without anyone feeling the need to assign all
responsiblity to a
single individual. Equally, I'm sure there are
numerous cases where
one of an credited director's key collaborators -- say
a screenwriter
or lead actor -- is really a co-director of sorts, or
at least a full
participant in constructing a shared vision. (Ultimate
example of a
writer-driven movie: Samuel Beckett's FILM, directed
by Alan
Schneider.)"
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger constitute an
even mor fascinating example in htat they co-signed
their films as "written-produced-directed by"
though in the accounts of the work it's clear that
Pressburger was the actual screenwriter and Powell was
the "hands-on" director.
--- jaketwilson wrote:
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1624
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 3:41pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
The script of "Mediteranee" is by Sollers.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
>
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1625
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 5:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
from a foreign standpoint, I have always thought as funny the fact that
american critics didn't translate "auteurs" into "authors" and preferred
referring to the good directors in french terms. It's not necessarily
criticism, but I think it is something of symptomatic.
If you dig Cahiers bibliography, you'll see the Truffaut texts where he
defends authorship per se, eg. the review of ALI BABA & 40 THIEVES by
Jacques Becker (on which he writes one of the auteurist axioms, that even a
bad film by Becker, an author, is better to watch than a good movie by
Autant-Lara).
But suddenly if you keep up with these critics-moviemakers' choices, you'll
see they abandon the defense of the authorship per se pretty soon. Godard
starts making films with Gorin (is there authorship "à deux"?) and claims
that the important word in the "politics of authors" expression was
"politics" (a statement I fully agree with); Rohmer and Rivette start making
films on which they can't keep control, as a regent or a writer, of the
whole experience of the film (La Collectioneuse, L'Amour Fou). Somewhere I
can't find anymore, Antoine de Baecque claims that the "politics of authors"
kept in itself the germ of the "effacement" of the author.
Abandon of the politics of authors has a lot to do with the fact that
authorship has been assimilated by mainstream criticism and turned against
the makers of the movement. On a first moment, it was important for
Truffaut, Rohmer, Godard et al. to say cinema was art and that art was
mise-en-scène, but then when everyone agreed and started to talk: "Hey,
let's take a look at the Louis Malle mise-en-scène", you'll need to go
further.
"Politics of authors" was not at all about defending good directors or
identifying directors that had "universes". If it were, there'd be no logic
in the Cahiers writing against John Huston (and defending Ray) or Fellini
(and defending Rosselini) in the 50s-60s. It was, in fact, a politics:
choosing certain directors that push the boundaries of the image against
directors that just "do a good job" (if you compare the Cahiers and Positif,
you'll see that that's where the two differ most). If so, politics of
authors today would not be trying to identify style or coherence in the
works of a director (even if you have to do it when you defend certain
directors that are not generally regarded as authors, such as Eastwood,
Carpenter or the Farrellys), but defending Wong Kar-wai against Patrice
Chereau, McG against Luhrmann, Wes Anderson against big Paul Thomas (always
the fight against academicism).
in portuguese, we have the common expression "cinema de autor", but there
seems to be no gap between critics considered as auteurists or not. Just the
gap between the despisable and the non-dispisable. Which varies from person
to person, but...
those were my two cents on the subject :)
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Sallitt"
To:
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
> I personally don't find the word "auteur" to be needed. "Good director"
> and "bad director" seem to do the job. I do believe that there are many
> shadings between these two extremes, and the word "auteur" has a kind of
> 0-or-1 quality, so I don't use it much. - Dan
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
1626
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 6:15pm
Subject: French gossip
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 8:41 am
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
ADVERTISEMENT
The script of "Mediteranee" is by Sollers.
Yes. Just a wild coincidence, I guess. By the way, Technie's portrait
of Barthes in "J'embrasse pas" is much kinder and, from what I hear,
more accurate than Sollers' in "Femmes."
1627
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 6:22pm
Subject: Re: French gossip
Well that's scarcely a surprise because Barthes was
keeping Techine and Sollers wasn't.
Barthes makes an appearance as Thackery in "The Bronte
Sisters."
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> From: David Ehrenstein
> Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 8:41 am
> Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Auteurism: Don't Shoot the
> Critic
>
>
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
>
> The script of "Mediteranee" is by Sollers.
>
> Yes. Just a wild coincidence, I guess. By the way,
> Technie's portrait
> of Barthes in "J'embrasse pas" is much kinder and,
> from what I hear,
> more accurate than Sollers' in "Femmes."
>
>
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1628
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 6:25pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurism? Don't shoot the critic!
>"but defending Wong Kar-wai against Patrice
Chereau"
Hunh? They're scarcely working in opposition to one
another. One could easily imagine a Chereau "Happy
Together" or a Wong Kar Wai "Son Frere."
--- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
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1629
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 6:41pm
Subject: French gossip
I know about Barthes and Techine, but J. D. Salinger kept Joyce
Maynard, and look what she did to him!
1630
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 6:39pm
Subject: Re: Auteurism? Don't Shoot the Critic!
Ruy,
You are very learned in Cahiers matters - more than de Baecque,
although you attribute some of what you say to him. It's true that in
the 60s - and "L'Amour Fou" was very much a part of this - the idea
of the "effacement of the author," accompanied with a polemic against
the idea of "control," became the dominant esthetic idea at Cahiers,
and in a sense that also gave rise to the deconstruction of auteurism
that followed, and the politicization of film - Godard's unsigned
May '68 Cinetracts (still recognizable because of his handwriting!),
Un film comme les autres and eventually the partnership with Gorin
being the most blatant case of it. But if ever there was a situation
where Hegelian dialectics applied, this was it, because that
particular run of antitheses could only come from people who had
totally internalized the thesis - auteurism - and who were all
destined to return to it, the Cahiers, Rivette, Godard - everyone.
But the idea had changed when it returned. For one thing the polemic
against the idea of "control" had become part of it, through the
adoption of the Lacanian term "non-dupe." Self-satisfied "little
masters" (as Daney called Altman in our interview) pride themselves
on being "non-dupes," and so do their audiences (watch Nashville with
an uptown New York audience sometime if you doubt the latter)*, but a
true auteur (if I'm reading this right) is always a master who is the
dupe of his own mastery (like Ford in the Young Mr. Lincoln article).
That idea was behind my polemic against Hitchcock's myth of himself
in Hitchcock at Work. I think he was a control freak, but also a
connoisseur of chaos, as Wallace Stevens would say. He made his
famous remark to Truffaut about the difficulty of filming babies,
animals and motorboats while he was in the midst of the turbulent
post-production on a film about...birds!
You probably also know the interview Toubiana et Cie. did with Demy
in the late 80s, when he kept complaining about not being allowed to
write his own scripts, or not being allowed an extra week in the
schedule to put in little details purely for his own pleasure, the
refrain being: "But I'm an auteur!" That was the last pure statement
of the old politique - auteurs are different from metteurs-en-scene,
and they have certain rights (including writing their own scripts).
I understand Dan's desire to lose the term, if it is going to be
interpreted in that binary 1/0 way, but I have heard so many
proclamations of the "death of the auteur theory" that I'm suspicious
of them by now. I'd rather see the term radicalized and theorized
anew - redefined if necessary - and obviously I think that's what
this site is for, in part. Words like "auteur" - with its
fascinating, layered, even contradictory history - are just too
useful to throw away.
* I think Altman is more complex than Daney gave him credit for
being. For one thing, I also saw Nashville with a stoner audience at
the Bleecker Street, and the smug attitude toward the cracker
characters was nowhere to be heard.
1631
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 7:18pm
Subject: Re: French gossip
True.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> I know about Barthes and Techine, but J. D. Salinger
> kept Joyce
> Maynard, and look what she did to him!
>
>
__________________________________
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1632
From: jrosenbaum2002
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 7:23pm
Subject: Re: French gossip
I don't know about "J'embrasse pas," but I always thought that
Catherine Deneuve's character in "Les voleurs" was both a spot-on and
an extremely touching portrait of Barthes as well.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> From: David Ehrenstein
> Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 8:41 am
> Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Auteurism: Don't Shoot the Critic
>
>
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
>
> The script of "Mediteranee" is by Sollers.
>
> Yes. Just a wild coincidence, I guess. By the way, Technie's
portrait
> of Barthes in "J'embrasse pas" is much kinder and, from what I
hear,
> more accurate than Sollers' in "Femmes."
1633
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 7:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: French gossip
Hey Jonathan, do you remember when that boyfriend of
Techine's was stranded in New York and got a job at
Max's Kansas City to earn enough to fly back to
France?
Now THAT would make a movie -- but I very much doubt
Techine would want to direct it.
--- jrosenbaum2002 wrote:
> I don't know about "J'embrasse pas," but I always
> thought that
> Catherine Deneuve's character in "Les voleurs" was
> both a spot-on and
> an extremely touching portrait of Barthes as well.
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
>
> wrote:
> > From: David Ehrenstein
> > Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 8:41 am
> > Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Auteurism: Don't Shoot
> the Critic
> >
> >
> > ADVERTISEMENT
> >
> >
> > The script of "Mediteranee" is by Sollers.
> >
> > Yes. Just a wild coincidence, I guess. By the way,
> Technie's
> portrait
> > of Barthes in "J'embrasse pas" is much kinder and,
> from what I
> hear,
> > more accurate than Sollers' in "Femmes."
>
>
__________________________________
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1634
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 10:51pm
Subject: French gossip
"I don't know about "J'embrasse pas," but I always thought that
Catherine Deneuve's character in "Les voleurs" was both a spot-on and
an extremely touching portrait of Barthes as well."
A little less jowly, maybe. I don't think I would have enjoyed the
bathtub scene as much if it had been Philippe Noiret, who plays the
rather edifying Barthes character in "J'embrasse pas." Actually, the
Deneuve character was originally written as the girl's mother. I can
just hear Techine and Bonitzer and whoever coming up with the switch
in a story meeting - "Hey, guys, let's do something crazy! We'll make
Catherine her lover!" I thought the seams showed a bit, but it's
probably as you say.
I hope it's true that Techine's new WWII film is a return to form. He
can be pretty terrific.
Getting back to Sollers, I'm sure he thought his caricature of
Barthes in "Femmes" was literary tough-love at its best, but to do
that you have to be a real writer, and not just a dedicated follower
of fashion. Sylvie Pierre's astounding portrait of Serge Daney in
Trafic is a good example of how to do it right.
Besides that screening of A Night at the Opera, I saw RB one other
time - in a cafe where he was waiting to have an egg-cream with Alain
Robbe-Grillet, who entered just as I did. I'll never forget the look
of sheer friendly joy on Barthes' face when he saw his pal. I would
guess that sitting around and talking shit over a couple of egg
creams was his favorite occupation.
1635
From:
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 6:50pm
Subject: Jospeh Pevney
Enjoyed the posts on "what makes an auteur".
Some directors were mentioned in passing, among them Joseph Pevney. He
directed some outstanding works for episodic television.
Pevney made a whole series of Star Trek episodes. One can argue that his
episodes are the core of the series, and most of its best works. These include:
Arena
Return of the Archons
A Taste of Armegeddon
The Devil in the Dark
The City on the Edge of Forever
Amok Time
The Apple
Catspaw
Friday's Child
The Deadly Years
Wolf in the Fold
The Trouble With Tribbles
Many of these episodes have gifted writers: Harlan Ellison, Theodore
Sturgeon, Robert Bloch, Gene L. Coon, David Gerrold. So Pevney was hardly the only
creative force on them. Still, along with the pilot "The Menagerie", The Gene
Nelson/Margaret Armen "The Gamesters of Triskelion", and the two episodes
directed by Gerd Oswald, this is the core of Star Trek!
Other outstanding TV epodoes helmed by Pevney include that rousing thriller
"Memo From Purgatory" on the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and dream-like "The Lady
on Thursday at Ten" on the Nancy Drew show in the 1970's.
TV series episodes are almost entirely ignored in film history. Even
something as famous as the original Star Trek seems to drop into critical limbo. Here
Pevney is the director of what most science fiction fans consider the best sf
work in film history since Metropolis. Yet most film historians ignore him
completely!
Seeing these films can be difficult. I watched "The Lady on Thursday at Ten"
many times during the original run of Nancy Dream. Its strange atmosphere
always fascinated. By contrast, I only have been able to see "Memo From Purgatory"
once.
Pevney had the ability to take us to another world. He achieved dramatic
conviction with futuristic scenarios. One suspects this is very difficult.
Mike Grost
1636
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 11:42pm
Subject: Re: French gossip
>"Sylvie Pierre's astounding portrait of Serge Daney
in
Trafic is a good example of how to do it right."
Which issue is that in? I'd love to read it. How does
she deal with AIDS?
--- hotlove666 wrote:
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1637
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 11:24pm
Subject: Re: French gossip
Was LOIN released on the U.S.? I think of it as one of the greatest films by
Techiné I ever saw. WILD REEDS is also great.
----- Original Message -----
From: "hotlove666"
To:
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 7:51 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] French gossip
> I hope it's true that Techine's new WWII film is a return to form. He
> can be pretty terrific.
1638
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:10am
Subject: Re: French gossip
"Loin" was shown at festivals in the U.S. but not
given a general release.
"Wild Reeds" is Techine's greatest film.
--- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
> Was LOIN released on the U.S.? I think of it as one
> of the greatest films by
> Techiné I ever saw. WILD REEDS is also great.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "hotlove666"
> To:
> Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 7:51 PM
> Subject: [a_film_by] French gossip
> > I hope it's true that Techine's new WWII film is a
> return to form. He
> > can be pretty terrific.
>
>
>
__________________________________
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1639
From:
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 9:13pm
Subject: Walter Hill
(Picking up on a very small thread in Jake's post)
>I think Walter Hill is (still) an auteur.
Hill's done some fabulous work of late. I thought "Undisputed" was a great
movie: as lean and compact as they come, but injected with an added degree of
resonance due to the generous performances of Snipes and Falk. "Last Man
Standing" was also rather good and I think there's a great Walter Hill movie buried
somewhere in the assemblage of footage known as "Supernova."
Does anybody have any idea what this is?
http://imdb.com/title/tt0341533/
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1640
From:
Date: Mon Sep 1, 2003 9:15pm
Subject: Re: French gossip
In a message dated 9/1/03 9:12:44 PM, cellar47@y... writes:
>"Wild Reeds" is Techine's greatest film.
I think my own favorite would be the sublime "My Favorite Season," but I like
most all of them (including the underrated "Alice and Martin.")
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1641
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:16am
Subject: Re: French gossip
same as in Brazil. Alice et Martin, which I found really poor, has been
subtitled but never released.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ehrenstein"
To:
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 10:10 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] French gossip
> "Loin" was shown at festivals in the U.S. but not
> given a general release.
>
> "Wild Reeds" is Techine's greatest film.
>
> --- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
> > Was LOIN released on the U.S.? I think of it as one
> > of the greatest films by
> > Techiné I ever saw. WILD REEDS is also great.
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "hotlove666"
> > To:
> > Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 7:51 PM
> > Subject: [a_film_by] French gossip
> > > I hope it's true that Techine's new WWII film is a
> > return to form. He
> > > can be pretty terrific.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
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>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
1642
From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:29am
Subject: Group housekeeping (all please read, and especially Scott Tobias and edwardjsabol)
We've been delighted with what we consider to be our group's great
success thus far, and think that as it continues to attract contributors
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who has posted.
A couple of housekeeping matters:
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helps keep things conversational and, more importantly, lets newcomers
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3. Please do NOT quote the entire message you are replying to
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Fred Camper and Peter Tonguette Co-Moderators
1643
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:56am
Subject: Re: French gossip
The climactic scene in "Wild Reeds" where our hero
gets a ride back on the motorcycle, clinging to the
man he loves but cannot have, caressing him for what
he knows will be the very last time, tears me to bits.
--- ptonguette@a... wrote:
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1644
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 2:03am
Subject: Alternative Joe's Place
Many thanks to Paul Gallagher for pointing me in the
direction of this stimulating group. After reading
through half the posts here (no small feat!), it
seems that I've rubbed shoulders with many of the
members. Just to introduce myself a bit, let me
recount a brief parallel universe version of the
Joe's Place thread (minus Joe).
Starting out from Chicago, I soon passed the
auteurists' travel test by taking a 900-mile
Greyhound trip from Washington D.C. to Manhattan
for the sole purpose of seeing "La Terra Trema" at
the New Yorker. Soon I relocated to a tenement on
Avenue C, but spent all my time in MOMA's basement
(I particularly recall a sparkling print of "Forbidden
Paradise"), at the Thalia (the only theater on earth
raked UPwards, so that every seat was a bad seat. If
a dwarf sat in front of you, your view was blocked),
and that tiny cinema on St. Mark's Place, across
from the Dom (saw "Yolanda and the Thief" and "Dames"
there). Of course, there were rarities on 42nd Street
("Le Streghe"! "The Fifth Horseman Is Fear"!), Saturday
nights at the New School for William K. Everson's
forgotten-Hollywood double-bills, and the annual camping
out at Lincoln Center for the latest
Bresson/Godard/Resnais/Pasolini/Straub at the NY Film
Festival.
Eventually I took my English teaching act on the road,
first to Cairo, then Algiers, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Singapore, and Tokyo. The first time I hit Paris,
I made a beeline for the Cinémathèque Française (at
the Trocadéro) and happened to hit on a Mizoguchi
retrospective that I regarded as life-changing,
especially "My Love Has Been Burning/Flammes d'Amour".
In 1971, the Cinémathèque in Algiers was quite lively,
with an especially memorable series of mainland Chinese
films from the 1950s and 60s, including one extraordinary
(and startlingly John Ford-like) war spectacle, the title
of which has escaped me for decades. In Kuwait, I attended
the premiere of the first feature film made in that country
("Bass ya Bahr") and in Nepal it was fun to see the country's
first production in color.
To my surprise, I've ended up where I started, in Chicago,
where I'm trying to cobble together some form of film
culture at National-Louis University. It's a very different
city now than it was in 1959 when the first Mayor Daley's
censor board, composed of police officers' widows, demanded
a cut in "Les Quatre Cent Coups" (the scene where the
father clasps the mother's breasts). This so irked Truffaut
that he flew to Chicago to fight for the uncut version,
and remarkably he won (and stirred up a fortune in publicity,
of course).
Okay, enough with all my context, and that's the micro-version!
(Hi, Gary and Dave Garnett and Rick Curnutte!)
--Bob Keser
1645
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 2:49am
Subject: My Favorite Year: 1932
If people don't mind revisiting the My Favorite Year
idea, let me make my case for ... 1932.
Not only does 1932 produce the peak of Lubitsch in
Trouble In Paradise, the apogee of the musical in
Love Me Tonight, the shining masterwork of Borzage
in A Farewell to Arms, but also the stunning originality
of Sternberg in both Shanghai Express and Blonde Venus.
And that was just Paramount!
Also working at the absolute top of their game were Walsh
(Me and My Gal is sublime), Ford {Air Mail is terrific),
and Capra (Forbidden is tremendously fresh and close to
his best film). Then, there's Scarface, One Way Passage,
Jewel Robbery, and Tiger Shark.
Even titles that might be more arguable are still uncommonly
interesting: Blood Money, Hell's Highway, What Price Hollywood?,
The Half-Naked Truth, A Bill of Divorcement, I Am a Fugitive
From a Chain Gang, Blessed Event, While Paris Sleeps, Cynara.
The big crowd pleasers like Sign of the Cross, Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde, Tarzan the Ape Man, The Mummy, Grand Hotel,
Back Street, The Old Dark House, The Kid From Spain, and
Red Dust are all classics of their sort (and even Smilin'
Through is pretty good).
Heck, 1932 was just about the last time that MGM allowed
peculiarities like Freaks and Flesh.
And overseas? Boudu sauvé des eaux, A Nous la Liberté,
Der Rebell,and Kameradschaft (1931 in Germany, but 1932
everywhere else) are all-time great originals, as is
Duvivier's beautiful but almost forgotten Poil de Carotte.
(However, 1933 was almost as great, but that's another story).
--Bob Keser
1646
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 2:52am
Subject: Sylvie on Serge
David,
It's in the Daney tribute issue of Trafic. I don't have a copy, so I
can't tell you the number. She doesn't deal with Serge's illness, or
his criticism, for that matter - she describes his soul.
1647
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 3:27am
Subject: Re: French gossip
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> The climactic scene in "Wild Reeds" where our hero
> gets a ride back on the motorcycle, clinging to the
> man he loves but cannot have, caressing him for what
> he knows will be the very last time, tears me to bits.
At least they'll live to have a surprise reunion in LOIN, bringing each other up to date some years later ... a somewhat Demy-like moment.
1649
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 4:02am
Subject: Re: French gossip
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> The climactic scene in "Wild Reeds" where our hero
> gets a ride back on the motorcycle, clinging to the
> man he loves but cannot have, caressing him for what
> he knows will be the very last time, tears me to bits.
For me it's the scene where Maite embraces Francois and sobs his
name. I've only seen a few Techine films, but I've liked them so
far. And WILD REEDS is one of my all-time favorites. He's a
beautiful filmmaker.
--Zach
1650
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 3:05am
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
A lot of your 1932s are listed elsewhere as 1931s. Glad to see some one
praising Air Mail, extraordinarily underrated movie.
To your excellent titles, I'd add: Tabu; Dishonored; The Champ;
Liebelei; American Tragedy; La Chienne; American Madness. Some of these
are also 1931...
Tag Gallagher
who bought his projector at Joe's place and was in Algiers in 1971.
1651
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 4:39am
Subject: Re: Re: French gossip
Really? The same characters?
--- jess_l_amortell wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > The climactic scene in "Wild Reeds" where our hero
> > gets a ride back on the motorcycle, clinging to
> the
> > man he loves but cannot have, caressing him for
> what
> > he knows will be the very last time, tears me to
> bits.
>
> At least they'll live to have a surprise reunion in
> LOIN, bringing each other up to date some years
> later ... a somewhat Demy-like moment.
>
>
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1652
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 4:41am
Subject: Re: Sylvie on Serge
Well if she overlooked the illness she took a pass on
a good part of his soul.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> David,
>
> It's in the Daney tribute issue of Trafic. I don't
> have a copy, so I
> can't tell you the number. She doesn't deal with
> Serge's illness, or
> his criticism, for that matter - she describes his
> soul.
>
>
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1653
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 4:44am
Subject: Re: Alternative Joe's Place
Good grief, Bob! We must have tripped over one another
in New York.
You're so right about the Thalia. I adored it
nonetheless.
--- Robert Keser wrote:
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1654
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 4:47am
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher wrote:
> A lot of your 1932s are listed elsewhere as 1931s. Glad to see
some
one
> praising Air Mail, extraordinarily underrated movie.
I've always believed that Air Mail would be much better
known if it had starred actors with more enduring charisma
than Ralph Bellamy, Pat O'Brien, and Gloria Stuart (although
all three are perfectly decent). But if Spencer Tracy had
played Bellamy's part, or maybe Bette Davis had played
Gloria Stuart's, Universal would have been forced to
reissue it, just out of corporate cupidity. Now, however,
it's a major task just to see it!
>
> To your excellent titles, I'd add: Tabu; Dishonored; The Champ;
> Liebelei; American Tragedy; La Chienne; American Madness. Some of
these
> are also 1931...
According to Claude Beylie's book on Ophuls, Liebelei
is counted as a 1932 production but its premiere was on
March 3 1933 (Go figure). I looked up La Chienne which
opened in November 1931.
A Farewell to Arms is another tricky one because it
opened in November 1932 but wasn't shown in general
release until 1933.
>
>
>
> Tag Gallagher
> who bought his projector at Joe's place and was in Algiers in 1971.
I was that guy running around frantically in Algiers
(from around August 71 to maybe February 72), with a
strange job for the Ford Foundation, teaching English to
French-speaking Algerian agricultural experts who only
wanted to learn Spanish (they were slated for some U.N.
training program in Mexico).
I remember the Algerian Cinémathèque also showed both
of Fritz Lang's Indian Tomb movies, in pretty shoddy
color prints, but they seemed like great rarities at
the time.
--Bob Keser
1655
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 5:03am
Subject: Re: Alternative Joe's Place
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Good grief, Bob! We must have tripped over one another
> in New York.
See what I mean? It's a small world. Or it's a wonderful
life. Or something like that.
>
> You're so right about the Thalia. I adored it
> nonetheless.
Didn't you have the impression that they played Sadko
or some Bolshoi ballet movie (in glorious Sovexportcolor)
about every three days?
One I particularly remember seeing at the Thalia was
Mildred Pierce, because the manager came out (which he
*never* did) and announced that in the audience (and in
the movie) was Butterfly McQueen...and she was sitting
next to me! Her glory days, such as they were, from Gone
With the Wind and Duel In the Sun were long gone by then,
and she was apparently supporting herself as an attendant
for some disabled person in Harlem. After the movie, she
answered a few questions. She said "Miss Crawford was so
wonderful to me," and "Mr.Gable was so wonderful to me",
which seemed mighty poignant under the circumstances.
--Bob Keser
>
> --- Robert Keser wrote:
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
1656
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 5:17am
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
I was in Algiers only for a night, April?, and I slept on a parking lot
in a sleeping bag. There're lots of fabulous movies from c. 1932 with
Bette Davis that are unknown, ditto Spencer Tracy, and Me and My Gal is
also pretty obscure. Air Mail has shown up on cable tv; it was part of
AMC's Ford marathon a few years ago. (And I have a gorgeous 16mm.) Notes
on a recent BFI dvd of The iron horse refer to Air Mail as typical of
.action genres," which seems to me to miss the movie. The people in Air
Mail are so alienated; still I think they manage to be about as
charismatic as one can be while simultaneously being miserable or obnoxious.
Robert Keser wrote:
>
>
> I've always believed that Air Mail would be much better
> known if it had starred actors with more enduring charisma
> than Ralph Bellamy, Pat O'Brien, and Gloria Stuart (although
> all three are perfectly decent). But if Spencer Tracy had
> played Bellamy's part, or maybe Bette Davis ...
1657
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 5:45am
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher wrote:
> I was in Algiers only for a night, April?, and I slept on a parking
lot
> in a sleeping bag.
I feel your pain!
There're lots of fabulous movies from c. 1932
with
> Bette Davis that are unknown,
Last year I had a chance to see the rather good
Waterloo Bridge on the big screen (it's 1931, but
why quibble!). Anyway, Bette Davis has only a
peripheral role, but everytime she comes on screen,
the pulse of the movie quickens. How could Carl
Laemmle not see the potential?
ditto Spencer Tracy, and Me and My Gal
is
> also pretty obscure.
If people could only see it, Me and My Gal would
be appreciated for its considerable warmth, sense
of community, and relaxed humor.
Air Mail has shown up on cable tv; it was part
of
> AMC's Ford marathon a few years ago.
Yes, that's where I saw it.
(And I have a gorgeous 16mm.)
Notes
> on a recent BFI dvd of The iron horse refer to Air Mail as typical
of
> .action genres," which seems to me to miss the movie. The people in
Air
> Mail are so alienated; still I think they manage to be about as
> charismatic as one can be while simultaneously being miserable or
obnoxious.
I need to see it again, but I remember feeling that the
film was rather shockingly dark, and certainly not "typical
of action genres" (and Karl Freund's lighting seemed
surprisingly dark, but in an expressive way: very Murnau).
--Bob Keser
1658
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 5:56am
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
1932 is rather a good year, isn't it. Here's a few that the IMDb lists
for that year that I don't think have been mentioned so far....
I WAS BORN, BUT... (Yasujiro Ozu, Japan)
THE CROWD ROARS (Howard Hawks, USA)
WHERE NOW ARE THE DREAMS OF YOUTH? (Yasujiro Ozu, Japan)
MARIE, A HUNGARIAN LEGEND (Pal Fejos, Hungary)
ONE HOUR WITH YOU (Ernst Lubitsch and George Cukor, USA)
AFTER TOMORROW (Frank Borzage, USA)
SERVICE FOR LADIES (Alexander Korda, UK)
THE GREEKS HAD A WORD FOR THEM (Lowell Sherman, USA)
THE IMPATIENT MAIDEN (James Whale, USA)
L'ATLANTIDE (G. W. Pabst, Germany)
MOVIE CRAZY (Clyde Bruckman, USA)
RAIN (Lewis Milestone, USA)
LADIES OF THE JURY (Lowell Sherman, USA)
RICH AND STRANGE (Alfred Hitchcock, UK)
THE MAN I KILLED (Ernst Lubitsch, USA)
- Dan
1659
From: Maxime
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 6:11am
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
1932. If I had to keep only one, it would be Mater Dolorosa (Gance).
Far beyond the silent version by himself. Horribly underrated.
Back Street (Stahl) is a pretty good movie, no?
1660
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 6:11am
Subject: Re: Alternative Joe's Place
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser" wrote:
> at the Thalia (the only theater on earth
> raked UPwards, so that every seat was a bad seat. If
> a dwarf sat in front of you, your view was blocked),
> and that tiny cinema on St. Mark's Place, across
> from the Dom (saw "Yolanda and the Thief" and "Dames"
> there).
That cinema on St. Mark's Place was Theatre 80 St. Mark's, and just
as the Thalia was unique for its bizarre reversed rake, Theatre 80
was unique in that the projector was behind the screen.
Theatre 80 today is a legit house, home of the Pearl Theatre Company,
although I believe that the cement footprints of Myrna Loy et al. are
still there.
1661
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 6:40am
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
> 1932. If I had to keep only one, it would be Mater Dolorosa (Gance).
> Far beyond the silent version by himself. Horribly underrated.
Hmmm. I've seen only the silent version.
> Back Street (Stahl) is a pretty good movie, no?
Yes indeed. I'm hungry to revisit Stahl now, after having recently seen
THE WALLS OF JERICHO and PARNELL. - Dan
1662
From:
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 2:43am
Subject: My Favorite Year: 1932
The early 1930's are very rich.
The best films I've been able to see:
1931
La Chienne (Jean Renoir)
City Lights (Charlie Chaplin)
Dishonored (Josef von Sternberg)
Dracula (Tod Browning)
M (Fritz Lang)
Man to Man (Alan Dwan)
Le Million (René Clair)
The Miracle Woman (Frank Capra)
Monkey Business (Norman Z. McLeod)
Platinum Blonde (Frank Capra)
Possessed (Clarence Brown)
Street Scene (King Vidor)
Tarnished Lady (George Cukor)
Three Who Loved (George Archainbaud)
Vampyr (Carl Theodore Dreyer)
The Woman Between (Victor Schertzinger)
Two 1931 films that are not fully successful, yet have many scenes of merit:
An American Tragedy (Sternberg), Chances (Dwan).
1932
American Madness (Frank Capra)
Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg)
Boudu sauvé des eaux (Jean Renoir)
A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage)
The Half-Naked Truth (Gregory La Cava)
Hell's Highway (Roland Brown)
Horse Feathers (Norman Z. McLeod)
I Was Born, But... (Yasujiro Ozu)
The Lost Squadron (George Archainbaud)
Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian)
À Nous la liberté (René Clair)
Number 17 (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Old Dark House (James Whale)
The Penguin Pool Murder (George Archainbaud)
The Red Shadow (Roy Mack)
Scarface (Howard Hawks)
Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang)
Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch)
Union Depot (Alfred E. Green)
Mike Grost
1663
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 7:55am
Subject: The Elgin
I dimly remember the Elgin in NY as a theatre that just kept playing
the same classics, like a huge loop - was it the Janus collection? We
referred to them as the Elgin Marbles.
1664
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:07pm
Subject: Re: The Elgin
I recall first seeing "Senso" at the Elgin.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> I dimly remember the Elgin in NY as a theatre that
> just kept playing
> the same classics, like a huge loop - was it the
> Janus collection? We
> referred to them as the Elgin Marbles.
>
>
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1665
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: Alternative Joe's Place
I was there the night Myrna Loy made those cement
footprints. They had a double bill of Powell-Loy
Comedies : "I Love You Again" and another whose title
I can't recall. Neither of them world-beaters, but
great fun. She sat behind me. When the screening was
over she got up and I heard her say whistfully to a
friend "Oh my, I'd forgotten just how good Bill was."
--- Damien Bona wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser"
> wrote:
> > at the Thalia (the only theater on earth
> > raked UPwards, so that every seat was a bad seat.
> If
> > a dwarf sat in front of you, your view was
> blocked),
> > and that tiny cinema on St. Mark's Place, across
> > from the Dom (saw "Yolanda and the Thief" and
> "Dames"
> > there).
>
> That cinema on St. Mark's Place was Theatre 80 St.
> Mark's, and just
> as the Thalia was unique for its bizarre reversed
> rake, Theatre 80
> was unique in that the projector was behind the
> screen.
>
> Theatre 80 today is a legit house, home of the Pearl
> Theatre Company,
> although I believe that the cement footprints of
> Myrna Loy et al. are
> still there.
>
>
>
>
__________________________________
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1666
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
href="http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g007/gloriastuart.html"
target="_blank">Gloria Stuart is seriously
underrated. She was given a lot of shlock to do (which
was why she retired, married Arthur Sheekman and
became a Hollywood hostess. But take a closer look at
"Roman Scandals" as well as her James Whale classics.
She didn't pull her performance in "Titanic" (and the
film quite frankly doesn't work without her) out of
thin air.
--- Robert Keser wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher
> wrote:
> > A lot of your 1932s are listed elsewhere as 1931s.
> Glad to see
> some
> one
> > praising Air Mail, extraordinarily underrated
> movie.
>
> I've always believed that Air Mail would be much
> better
> known if it had starred actors with more enduring
> charisma
> than Ralph Bellamy, Pat O'Brien, and Gloria Stuart
> (although
> all three are perfectly decent). But if Spencer
> Tracy had
> played Bellamy's part, or maybe Bette Davis had
> played
> Gloria Stuart's, Universal would have been forced to
>
> reissue it, just out of corporate cupidity. Now,
> however,
> it's a major task just to see it!
> >
> > To your excellent titles, I'd add: Tabu;
> Dishonored; The Champ;
> > Liebelei; American Tragedy; La Chienne; American
> Madness. Some of
> these
> > are also 1931...
>
> According to Claude Beylie's book on Ophuls,
> Liebelei
> is counted as a 1932 production but its premiere was
> on
> March 3 1933 (Go figure). I looked up La Chienne
> which
> opened in November 1931.
>
> A Farewell to Arms is another tricky one because it
> opened in November 1932 but wasn't shown in general
> release until 1933.
> >
> >
> >
> > Tag Gallagher
> > who bought his projector at Joe's place and was in
> Algiers in 1971.
>
> I was that guy running around frantically in Algiers
>
> (from around August 71 to maybe February 72), with a
>
> strange job for the Ford Foundation, teaching
> English to
> French-speaking Algerian agricultural experts who
> only
> wanted to learn Spanish (they were slated for some
> U.N.
> training program in Mexico).
>
> I remember the Algerian Cinémathèque also showed
> both
> of Fritz Lang's Indian Tomb movies, in pretty shoddy
>
> color prints, but they seemed like great rarities at
>
> the time.
>
> --Bob Keser
>
>
__________________________________
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1667
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Back Street (Stahl) is a pretty good movie, no?
>
> Yes indeed. I'm hungry to revisit Stahl now, after having recently
> seen
> THE WALLS OF JERICHO and PARNELL. - Dan
Only Yesterday is a quite remarkable film. I showed it in a class
last year, to unanimously positive reactions.
--Bob Keser
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1668
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 1:52pm
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
MG4273@a... wrote:
> The early 1930's are very rich.
>
> Two 1931 films that are not fully successful, yet have many scenes of merit:
> An American Tragedy (Sternberg), Chances (Dwan).
Chances has eluded me so far, but I agree heartily about An
American Tragedy, which keeps some of the backstory of the
street-preacher mother as well as intimating about Clyde's career
as a bellhop-gigolo. The extended trial scene is staged with such
dynamism (despite Irving Pichel's fruity oratory) that it's difficult to
credit the usual story that it was just a routine assignment to
Sternberg. One friend of mine rather shrewdly commented that
the movie is slow when it should be fast but too fast when it should
slow down. At the very least, it serves as a good corrective to A
Place In the Sun.
>
> 1932
>
> The Red Shadow (Roy Mack)
Good grief: where did you see this one, and what was it like?
--Bob Keser
1669
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 2:08pm
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> href="http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g007/gloriastuart.html"
> target="_blank">Gloria Stuart is seriously
> underrated. She was given a lot of shlock to do (which
> was why she retired, married Arthur Sheekman and
> became a Hollywood hostess. But take a closer look at
> "Roman Scandals" as well as her James Whale classics.
Oh, she was a unique personality (and very beautiful) in those films
(she's makes a really charming companion for Dick Powell in the
"I'm Going Shopping With You" number in Gold Diggers of 1935).
The point I was trying to make is that she somehow never struck
the public nerve with the force of Hepburn or Davis or even
Margaret Sullavan, so the films she made don't automatically
get revived.
Your photo really captures her open warmth and intelligence, I think.
--Bob Keser
1670
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 2:34pm
Subject: Re: French gossip (Loin)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> Really? The same characters?
Well, the same character names, I think -- although the Rideau character's metamorphosis here would be a bit of a stretch (which is probably partly the point). I'm no longer clear about all this, though. Wasn't the film supposed to be distributed?
There's a pontificating Paul Bowles-ish character who's presumably based on someone -- presumably not Barthes?
1671
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 2:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: French gossip (Loin)
It still could be Barthes. Have you read "Fragments"?
--- jess_l_amortell wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > Really? The same characters?
>
> Well, the same character names, I think -- although
> the Rideau character's metamorphosis here would be a
> bit of a stretch (which is probably partly the
> point). I'm no longer clear about all this, though.
> Wasn't the film supposed to be distributed?
>
> There's a pontificating Paul Bowles-ish character
> who's presumably based on someone -- presumably not
> Barthes?
>
>
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
1672
From:
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 3:02pm
Subject: Big Mack Attack
Roy Mack directed a large number of 20-minute long musical shorts,in the early 1930's. He seems to be written out of film history today, but many of his film shorts show a lot of verve. They pop up on Turner Classic Movies, shown as One Reel Wonders.
The Red Shadow (1932) is a mad, 20-minute dash through the popular Broadway stage show, The Desert Song (1926). It preserves the main songs and most of the plot. The film stars Alexander Gray and Bernice Claire, who were the screen's first operetta team, predating Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Gray had played in The Desert Song on its original stage tour, following its Broadway run, and this little film preserves his dynamite performance.
For whatever reason, The Desert Song has always struck a deep chord with me. Also enjoyed the 1953 H. Bruce Humberstone version, and even read the original libretto at the library. I love musicals (and am the only fan of Baz Luhrmann on a_film_by - no one else can figure out why I like Luhrmann, and I can't understand why everyone else just isn't nuts about his movies.) Also deeply enjoyed "Billy Rose's Jumbo" (Charles Walters, 1962), this past weekend on TCM.
I write little mystery stories, available on my web site. One of them began with an intense mental image of a character singing "The Riff Song" from "The Desert Song" at a Hollywood charity benefit in 1924. After this, the story just HAD to be written.
Alert readers will note that the mystery stories takes place in 1923-1924 Hollywood, while The Desert Song premiered in 1926. Figured no one would notice this little anachronism. Just one day after putting a story out on the web, a professor at Columbia University who is an authority on musical history wrote to point this out! He was so nice about this - and enjoyed the story, anyway. The anachronism is purposeful - there are others in the tales as well - sometimes you just want to bend chronology a little bit and improve the world.
Mike Grost
author of:
Classic Film and Television
http://members.aol.com/MG4273/film.htm
And
The Jacob Black Mystery Short Stories
http://members.aol.com/MG4273/mymyst.htm
1673
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 5:09pm
Subject: Re: The Elgin
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> I dimly remember the Elgin in NY as a theatre that just kept
playing
> the same classics, like a huge loop - was it the Janus collection?
We
> referred to them as the Elgin Marbles.
My recollection is that it was the Thalia that always trotted out the
Janus Classics. What I remember about the Elgin was that it tended
to show what back in the day were referred to as head movies (El
Topo, Fleischer cartoons, Pink Flamingoes).
1674
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 5:27pm
Subject: Luhrman
I liked Moulin Rouge.
Watch for a comment soon on Murder on Times Square, Mike.
1675
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 2:51pm
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
Gloria Stuart shows up again in The Prisoner of Shark Island. She was
interviewed on line re Titanic in 1997 by Cinemania:
Gloria Stuart: The first picture I made with John Ford, Air Mail . he
was not a great big famous director [then]. He was hired independently
at Universal. And I think the Yiddish word is potchkeh [time-wasting] .
it was really a potchkeh picture, low-budget and everything. James
Whale's movies were the only ones I made at Universal of quality,
distinction, talent.
Cinemania: Ford's The Prisoner of Shark Island, which you made for Fox,
is a superb film.
Gloria Stuart: It was a major production, but I didn't have much to do
in that. In both Ford pictures I don't remember what I call directing.
He was very good with the camera. I don't remember much dialogue between
John and actors. He always had top scripts and top actors. It's very
hard to go wrong that way.
***
To which I'll add that I much prefer Lillian Bond in Air Mail. Patricia
Neal was also unappreciative of Ford (or Vidor or Sternberg), not to be
compared with Martin Ritt: there's a REAL director. Ford and those
others were good with other things, like lights.
It was fun to have a sleeping bag in Algeria! One could sleep anywhere,
anytime.
Bette Davis is also good in 1932 in George Arliss's Man Who Played God
(if you like Arliss, and I love him!) and Wellman's So Big. I think
Wellman's early 30s pictures are fabulous and I suspect influenced
mid-30s French cinema.
>
> I need to see it again, but I remember feeling that the
> film was rather shockingly dark, and certainly not "typical
> of action genres" (and Karl Freund's lighting seemed
> surprisingly dark, but in an expressive way: very Murnau).
>
> --Bob Keser
Very Murnau. Very moods. I wrote a long comparison between it and Only
Angels Have Wings; I much prefer Ford.
For me personally, American Tragedy is as good as anything von Sternberg
did (I'm told we're supposed to say von Sternberg, and that he's a V not
an S, regardless of European usage) -- for the first half. His autobio
gives a misleading portrait of himself as disinterested in social
problems, but they're all there in this movie, and his sympathies are
with the proletarian, in contrast to George Stevens in his remake.
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/19/sternberg.html
Tag Gallagher.
1676
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 5:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
> For me personally, American Tragedy is as good as anything von Sternberg
> did (I'm told we're supposed to say von Sternberg, and that he's a V not
> an S, regardless of European usage) -- for the first half.
Yeah, for me too. The courtroom scenes don't always sustain the amazing
mood of the first part of the film, but the good stuff is so incredibly
good that I still value the film very highly. - Dan
1677
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 8:02pm
Subject: NYC: Barnet
Something I have often wished for but never really expected: in
December, the BAMcinematek promises "a comprehensive look at the work of
pioneering Russian director Boris Barnet." This makes my year. - Dan
1678
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 9:23pm
Subject: Re: NYC: Barnet
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Something I have often wished for but never really expected: in
> December, the BAMcinematek promises "a comprehensive look at the
work of
> pioneering Russian director Boris Barnet." This makes my year. -
Dan
Ooh, wish I could be there
The high point of the year for me is the coming DVD
release of Sirk's La Habanera (on November 2), which
I've wanted to see my entire life.
--Bob Keser
1679
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 9:54pm
Subject: Sirk
> The high point of the year for me is the coming DVD
> release of Sirk's La Habanera (on November 2), which
> I've wanted to see my entire life.
Is that the only European Sirk being released on DVD? I must confess to
having been a bit disappointed by LA HABANERA, though I know that some
love it. The one I'd really like to see is STUTZEN DER GESELLSCHAFT,
which I missed when it came to the US in the 80s.
I have a tape here, made for me by a friend in Cyprus, with APRIL,
APRIL! and DAS HOFKONZERT on it, but it's in PAL format.... - Dan
1680
From: Maxime
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 10:14pm
Subject: Re: NYC: Barnet
Beside the indispensable classics (House on Trubnaya, By the Bluest
of Seas, The Wrestler and the Clown) don't miss, if shown (I hope
so...), his late production, especially
"Alyonka" (1961) and
"The Small Railway Station" (63)
"The Old Jockey" (59, made in 40) is quite good too.
"Once at Night", quite unexpectedly, is one of the most terrifying
picture I have ever seen.
Not only a virtuous stylist ("It is there with these long shots dead
straight as a garden by Le Notre. It is there with these rare camera
movements when grace spontaneously rivals precision. It is there
with such genius in the narration that makes the auteur a born
storyteller. It is there, thanks to Boris Barnet, this inimitable
style that will die only with cinema", Godard 59), he was a true
poet. And he was funny.
For decades he fought to build a free work, free from all
ideological and aesthetic canons.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Something I have often wished for but never really expected: in
> December, the BAMcinematek promises "a comprehensive look at the
work of
> pioneering Russian director Boris Barnet." This makes my year. -
Dan
1681
From: Robert Keser
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 10:17pm
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher wrote:
>
> Gloria Stuart: The first picture I made with John Ford, Air Mail .
he
> was not a great big famous director [then]. He was hired
independently
> at Universal. And I think the Yiddish word is potchkeh [time-
wasting] .
> it was really a potchkeh picture, low-budget and everything.
Not much of an auteurist, is she? Interviews with actors
can be valuable (I liked Patrick McGilligan's interview
of Joel McCrea), but they can also be not so valuable.
In both Ford pictures I don't remember what I call directing.
> He was very good with the camera. I don't remember much dialogue
between
> John and actors. He always had top scripts and top actors. It's
very
> hard to go wrong that way.
Can't argue with that!
>
> ***
>
> To which I'll add that I much prefer Lillian Bond in Air Mail.
Patricia
> Neal was also unappreciative of Ford (or Vidor or Sternberg), not
to be
> compared with Martin Ritt: there's a REAL director. Ford and those
> others were good with other things, like lights.
Some actors, especially post-Method ones, seem to love
the self-conscious approach of discussing everything
thoroughly before lifting a finger, which I gather was
Ritt's modus operandi. Of course, actors understandably
get focused on...acting!
My impression of Ford's approach was that he trusted in
his casting and only addressed the acting when he felt the
performance was going in the wrong direction, or if the
performer wasn't delivering the point of the scene. Would
you say that sounds right?
>
> It was fun to have a sleeping bag in Algeria! One could sleep
anywhere,
> anytime.
Yes, the freedom! I remember sleeping on a concrete bench
in a shuttered railroad station in a provincial Algerian
town. On the other hand, comfort isn't everything: I also
remember a waterfront hotel with insect life that could
have starred in Starship Troopers!
> Bette Davis is also good in 1932 in George Arliss's Man Who Played
God
> (if you like Arliss, and I love him!) and Wellman's So Big. I think
> Wellman's early 30s pictures are fabulous and I suspect influenced
> mid-30s French cinema.
>
I haven't seen either of those, but Beggars of Life is
extraaordinary (Wild Boys of the Road seems to me like
a lively but inferior variant). Other Men's Women and
The Purchase Price both suffer from budget anemia, but
in the latter George Brent is a revelation as a shy,
socially uncomfortable hayseed in overalls, not at all
the mustachioed smoothie of a hundred other films.
I've always felt that Wellman was the director most
harmed by the imposition of the Code (or maybe it was
the drinking and carousing). The only post-code titles
of his that I enjoy watching are those in his more
classical style, especially Battleground.
The connection with mid-30s French cinema is intriguing:
do you mean Carné? Grémillon?
> >
> > I need to see it again, but I remember feeling that the
> > film was rather shockingly dark, and certainly not "typical
> > of action genres" (and Karl Freund's lighting seemed
> > surprisingly dark, but in an expressive way: very Murnau).
>
> Very Murnau. Very moods. I wrote a long comparison between it and
Only
> Angels Have Wings; I much prefer Ford.
To me, the Hawks seems very theatrically noisy, with
characters pushing their way into conversations all the
time, everybody yakking a lot (although it's lively
dialogue, of course). In Air Mail, though, and in Ford
in general, the characters spend more time in silence,
and tend to talk when there's something important to say
(maybe the dialogue was on those script pages that Ford
was famous for tearing out!)
Anyway, I prefer the Ford too (though luckily we don't
have to choose between them!)
>
> For me personally, American Tragedy is as good as anything von
Sternberg
> did (I'm told we're supposed to say von Sternberg, and that he's a
V not
> an S, regardless of European usage) -- for the first half.
It's the second half that I really like. Oh, to tell the truth,
I like most of it!
His autobio
> gives a misleading portrait of himself as disinterested in social
> problems, but they're all there in this movie, and his sympathies
are
> with the proletarian, in contrast to George Stevens in his remake.
All that treacly reaching for "nobility" at the end of the
Stevens really compromises Dreiser's message, I agree. To
me Sternberg understood power (all his movies work as
studies of how power gets exchanged for sex or money or
fame), and he understood that Dreiser's Clyde simply
didn't know how to muster any power and was not equipped
with the socio-economic wherewithal to accumulate any power.
Sentimentalizing Clyde's story simply never occurs to Sternberg,
so he fully (ruthlessly, to his detractors) shows the way a
person like Clyde would be treated by an uncaring social
structure.
Okay, now I'll read this:
> http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/19/sternberg.html
>
--Bob Keser
1682
From:
Date: Tue Sep 2, 2003 7:50pm
Subject: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
Haven't had a chance to see An American Tragedy in decades. Would love to see
it again! The scene that sticks in memory is the factory. It showed
Sternberg's sense of rhythm and visual style. Its working women also recall all the
sympathy Sternberg has for the exploited working women in Blonde Venus and Macao.
He certainly did have deep concern for working people and women!
Another hard to see Sternberg that impressed greatly decades ago was his
first sound film, Thunderbolt (1929). This builds and builds and erupts into
dramatic fire in its second half. The speech patterns are remarkable, too. It is as
if Sternberg were discovering how people talked for the first time - and sang
(lots of singing in this film). (By the way, Thunderbolt is on Jonathan
Rosenbaum's list of top 100 American movies.)
Never had any chance to see any pre-Hollywood Sirk. Or anything at all by
Boris Barnet. Would like to!
Tonight, TCM is showing "The Man I Love" (Raoul Walsh) at 10 EST. And Parnell
(John M. Stahl) is coming up early Thursday morning 3:30 AM EST.
For what it's worth, I suspect Bill Krohn is right: many directors probably
do have both personal visual styles, and consistent thematic interests, too.
This does not mean that they have these to the same level as Welles or
Sternberg. But still, far more directors than many people suspect have a personal
style. A detailed, sympathetic study of their works often turns up the most
astonishing things. We need to be open minded, and look for the art in films.
Mike Grost
1683
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 0:57am
Subject: Re: Sirk
Maybe Scandal in Paris is my favorite....
1684
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 1:18am
Subject: Re: Big Mack Attack
MG4273@a... wrote:
> Roy Mack directed a large number of 20-minute long musical shorts,in
> the early 1930's. He seems to be written out of film history today,
> but many of his film shorts show a lot of verve. They pop up on Turner
> Classic Movies, shown as One Reel Wonders.
I'm TCM-deprived, but it seems I *have* seen a Roy Mack: on the
new DVD of Silk Stockings, one of the extras is a Warner-Vitaphone
mini-musical called Paree, Paree [sic!], with a very young Bob Hope
(in 1934) and a not-especially appealing dancer named Dorothy Stone.
The real attraction is a passle of very good Cole Porter songs, but Roy
Mack keeps it moving quite nicely (though he doesn't help Dorothy
Stone much).
>
> For whatever reason, The Desert Song has always struck a deep chord
> with me.
Is the 1930 version with John Boles extant?
> I love musicals (and am the only fan of Baz Luhrmann on a_film_by -
> no one else can figure out why I like Luhrmann, and I can't understand
> why everyone else just isn't nuts about his movies.)
There's a scene in Gladiator where someone simply crosses the
street (the via!), but Ridley Scott is so fancy that he covers it from
six or seven different angles, and is equally so undisciplined that he
shows them all to us for no good reason that I could figure out.
To me, Luhrmann does much the same thing in Moulin Rouge, with
cutting that makes no sense, not even to build excitement. His
concept of a pop fantasia seems very imaginative, just as his
Romeo + Juliet gave a fresh spin to that play. The Shakespeare
provided a solid base (despite the inevitable shredding of the poetry),
but the scenario for Moulin Rouge seemed no better than a feeble
copy of Camille. Okay, that's why I'm not a fan.
> Also deeply enjoyed "Billy Rose's Jumbo" (Charles Walters, 1962), this
> past weekend on TCM.
Haven't seen that in years, but I remember thinking its bad rap from
the critics was unjustified. Lots of nice Rodgers and Hart songs and
graceful, expansive staging makes up for the oddly cast Stephen
Boyd.
>
> I write little mystery stories, available on my web site. One of them
> began with an intense mental image of a character singing "The Riff
> Song" from "The Desert Song" at a Hollywood charity benefit in 1924.
> After this, the story just HAD to be written.
> Alert readers will note that the mystery stories takes place in
> 1923-1924 Hollywood, while The Desert Song premiered in 1926. Figured
> no one would notice this little anachronism. Just one day after
> putting a story out on the web, a professor at Columbia University who
> is an authority on musical history wrote to point this out! He was so
> nice about this - and enjoyed the story, anyway.
You just can't fool those folks at Columbia!
> The anachronism is purposeful - there are others in the tales as well
> - sometimes you just want to bend chronology a little bit and improve
> the world.
That could stand as a definition of art: an attempt to improve
the world!
--Bob Keser
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1685
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 1:38am
Subject: Re: Sirk
Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > The high point of the year for me is the coming DVD
> > release of Sirk's La Habanera (on November 2), which
> > I've wanted to see my entire life.
>
> Is that the only European Sirk being released on DVD?
La Habañera is the only one announced. Facets has an okay VHS
of Zu neuen Ufern, but w/o English subtitles (not too hard to follow,
though).
> I must confess to
> having been a bit disappointed by LA HABANERA, though I know that some
>
> love it. The one I'd really like to see is STUTZEN DER GESELLSCHAFT,
> which I missed when it came to the US in the 80s.
>
> I have a tape here, made for me by a friend in Cyprus, with APRIL,
> APRIL! and DAS HOFKONZERT on it, but it's in PAL format.... -
It's almost worth buying PAL equipment...
--Bob Keser
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1686
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 1:44am
Subject: Re: Big Mack Attack
"Billy Rose'sJumbo" is a lovely piece of work.
The only "Moulin Rouge" I like is John Huston's. And
that in turn takes a back seat to Renoir's "French Can
Can."
--- Robert Keser wrote:
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
1687
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 1:50am
Subject: Re: Big Mack Attack
I trust it's several parsecs back...
>
> The only "Moulin Rouge" I like is John Huston's. And
> that in turn takes a back seat to Renoir's "French Can
> Can."
> --- Robert Keser wrote:
>
>
1688
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 2:45am
Subject: Re: Re: NYC: Barnet
> Beside the indispensable classics (House on Trubnaya, By the Bluest
> of Seas, The Wrestler and the Clown) don't miss, if shown (I hope
> so...), his late production, especially
>
> "Alyonka" (1961) and
> "The Small Railway Station" (63)
>
> "The Old Jockey" (59, made in 40) is quite good too.
>
> "Once at Night", quite unexpectedly, is one of the most terrifying
> picture I have ever seen.
I'm not planning to miss any of them!
The only three I've seen are OKRAINA, which I think is a beautiful film;
THE GIRL WITH THE HAT-BOX, which is a fine comedy, more
American-influenced than most Russian films of the time; and LEDOLOM,
which has very expressive moments but gets bogged down in the "Soviet"
subject matter.
I once amused myself by reading up on Barnet and making a list of the
films that I most wanted to see, not expecting to get the chance:
1. BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS
2. THE HOUSE ON TRUBNAYA SQUARE
3. THE SCOUT'S EXPLOIT
4. WHISTLE STOP (aka THE SMALL RAILWAY STATION)
5. BOUNTIFUL SUMMER
6. THE WRESTLER AND THE CLOWN
7. MOSCOW IN OCTOBER
8. THE OLD JOCKEY
9. MISS MEND
I'll happily add ALYONKA and ONCE AT NIGHT to that list. Do you have
any thoughts about the films on this list that you haven't mentioned? - Dan
1689
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 1:34am
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
Robert Keser wrote:
> My impression of Ford's approach was that he trusted in
> his casting and only addressed the acting when he felt the
> performance was going in the wrong direction, or if the
> performer wasn't delivering the point of the scene. Would
> you say that sounds right?
I tried to summarize his colleagues' opinions on this score at the end
of my book. Consensus was there was no consensus, no method, no
consistency. No, he wouldn't spend hours day after day psychoanalyzing
a part the way many actors want, but he did use Method-like methods at
times. Mostly his ways were indirect or deceptively non-existent. The
bottom line is that I think it's hard to find any director who more
intensely focused and controlled and transformed the actors who worked
with him -- not all of them, but almost.
> > It was fun to have a sleeping bag in Algeria! One could sleep
> anywhere,
> > anytime.
>
>
> Yes, the freedom! I remember sleeping on a concrete bench
> in a shuttered railroad station in a provincial Algerian
> town. On the other hand, comfort isn't everything: I also
> remember a waterfront hotel with insect life that could
> have starred in Starship Troopers!
Try a five day train ride (Istanbul/Teheran) sleeping on luggage racks!
The only horrible experience in Algeria was the one time I had a
hotelroom. I can't describe it without distressing our moderators.
> Beggars of Life is
> extraaordinary (Wild Boys of the Road seems to me like
> a lively but inferior variant). Other Men's Women and
> The Purchase Price both suffer from budget anemia, but
> in the latter George Brent is a revelation as a shy,
> socially uncomfortable hayseed in overalls, not at all
> the mustachioed smoothie of a hundred other films.
>
> I've always felt that Wellman was the director most
> harmed by the imposition of the Code (or maybe it was
> the drinking and carousing). The only post-code titles
> of his that I enjoy watching are those in his more
> classical style, especially Battleground.
>
> The connection with mid-30s French cinema is intriguing:
> do you mean Carné? Grémillon?
I don't know what it was, perhaps changes at Warners after Zanuck left?
but Wellman's are among the most interesting films 1931-34 (there must
be about 20 titles!) but after that the magic dissipates. Night nurse;
Other men's women; Purchase prise; The conquerors; Midnight Mary; Lilly
Turner; Hatchet Man, etc. I suspect early 30s Hollywood affected 30s
France more intensely than early 50s did the New Wave. Even if we don't
count the massive influence of Chaplin and Vidor, there's Wellman,
Sternberg, LeRoy, Bacon -- or maybe it was Warners; certainly it was
James Cagney (Have you seen Picture Snatcher!? !!!) On one hand,
there's the workingclass orientation of so much of this period, the
feminism, the critiques of religion and government and business (all of
which rudely comes to an end when the banks take over and impose much
much more than that that silly Code). There's also a mixture (amply
present in Chaplin and Vidor) of documentary and fiction (like in Renoir).
I think the most egregiously neglected major filmmaker is King Vidor.
His centenary (1994) passed without a peep. I couldn't get Film
Comment even to note it. Their excuse was that nobody knows who he is.
>
> All that treacly reaching for "nobility" at the end of the
> Stevens really compromises Dreiser's message, I agree. To
> me Sternberg understood power (all his movies work as
> studies of how power gets exchanged for sex or money or
> fame),
Yes !!!
Tag Gallagher.
1690
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 4:36am
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
"Their excuse was that nobody knows who he is."
That is so fucking disgusting I don't know where to
begin.
But burning their offices to the ground might be a
good start.
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
1691
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 4:43am
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
Tag Gallagher wrote:
> http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/19/sternberg.html
Fascinating stuff, Tag, not least because I'm in the midst of planning
a course for Facets called "Making Marlene Dietrich" which proposes
studying the various personae she evolved through half a century, and
especially how she collaborated with cinematographers, designers,
musicians, and writers to develop the images and change them as
need be. I'm starting with the excellent and virtually unknown Die Frau
nach der man sich sehnt by Kurt (Curtis) Bernhardt, as an example of
her pre-Sternberg presentation of self, which is consciously erotic but
sophisticated, quite different from Lola-Lola.
Your piece made me realize that there the flashback does not exist in
Sternberg, or at least I can't think of any. There's plenty of talk about
the past (I'm thinking especially in the two Shanghai pictures), but
matters progress in strict chronology.
How true that "Never for a moment in any of the seven Marlene Dietrich
pictures can we stop wondering what she is feeling"! We need only watch
Song of Songs to see much of the spark missing from her eyes. The
"mystery" still persists through Seven Sinners and Flame of New Orleans,
but turns dull forever after that. We might wonder, "Is she telling the truth
or not?" in A Foreign Affair or Stage Fright, but the sense of complex
depths has dissipated.
I agree that "Shanghai Express continues for nineteen minutes after it's
over", but not "solely to ponder faith". The way I see it, the power
relationship has to be re-established by Lily purchasing the wristwatch,
a fetish object to test her ex-lover's acceptance of her dominance by
allowing her to "handcuff" him. In this action, she's like an animal marking
its property. This seems well worth nineteen minutes to me (although
maybe you are making a different point).
I admire your making the connections about Sternberg's "sculpture
in motion" and the insight about "These are people who have
discovered what is truly important in their lives" hints at the
profoundly grownup concerns of Sternberg's movies, a quality
that's so rare in films today, I think.
As I recall, Sternberg gets amazingly specific about money in
a number of movies: Shanghai Lily reviews all her finances for us
when she's trying to bribe the war lord, and Concha's negotiations
are there for us to see (and Amy Jolly strikes her deals with Menjou).
One of my favorite things in Anatahan is not a scene but the lack
of a scene: as I remember it, at one point the island dwellers get
ahold of some parachutes that all have a distinctive notched pattern
on the cloth. Suddenly, in the next scene, people are wearing shirts
and clothes with this notched pattern! Our brains have to make a
leap to process this, and we understand that Sternberg has skipped
a part, a pedestrian five or ten minutes wherein the parachutes are
gathered, someone suggests using the cloth for clothing, others start
the work of assembling and hand-sewing the garments, then the
characters try on the clothes. This would all be paralyzingly banal,
so the ellipsis cuts it out completely, crediting us with being intelligent
enough to focus on the real concerns (or else so hopelessly dense that
we wouldn't notice anyway). For reasons that I'm finding hard to
explain, I find this very witty: what other director would this? So
many directors operate on a literal level, spelling out matters in a
plodding linear "progression". (I hope no one is going to tell me
that those scenes were shot!)
Just as witty is the impudence of the old team of Sternberg and
Jules Furthman concocting the Jet Pilot plot that requires arch
conservative John Wayne to renounce the United States and
move to Soviet Russia, at the very height of the Cold War. And
they got Howard Hughes to pay them for this story!
Incidentally, when you mention 'benshi' Sternberg, it reminds me
that Roger Ebert is bringing "the world's leading benshi" to
accompany a showing of I Was Born, But... (another 1932 title!)
for the Chicago International Film Festival next month.
Whew! As I said: fascinating stuff!
--Bob Keser
1692
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 4:48am
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
"I Was Born But..." is sublime.
Marlene is thinking about Travis Banton. And of her
own beauty. Always.
Maximillian Schell's film makes that clear.
--- Robert Keser wrote:
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1693
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 4:59am
Subject: Re: Re: My Favorite Year: 1932
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> "I Was Born But..." is sublime.
>
> Marlene is thinking about Travis Banton. And of her
> own beauty. Always.
>
> Maximillian Schell's film makes that clear.
His film is going to be the (somewhat grim!) finale of the course,
but I prefer to think of it as an astringent ending, a kind of memento
mori.
--Bob Keser
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1694
From:
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 1:16am
Subject: Who is King Vidor?
In a message dated 9/3/03 12:37:55 AM, cellar47@y... writes:
>"Their excuse was that nobody knows who he is."
>
>That is so fucking disgusting I don't know where to
>begin.
When Tag told me this in a recent email conversation, I couldn't believe my
eyes. I mean, King Vidor? The same King Vidor who created imagery so
iconographic in "The Crowd" that both Orson Welles >and< Billy Wilder borrowed from
him? But put aside the issue of influence or 'recogniziablity': we're talking
about one of the finest, most distinctive directors in American cinema. And
talk about a case for "late works" (as I like to; a director's last films are
often among my favorites, I find): set aside "Solomon and Sheeba" and you have
three perfect jewels with which Vidor ended his career - "War and Peace,"
"Truth and Illusion," and "Metaphor." Of course, the latter two are more
beginnings than ends in many ways.
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
1695
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 1:28pm
Subject: Re: Who is King Vidor?
What we're talking about is anti-intellectualism at
its most smug. The other rendition of this is "Well
I'VE never heard of him!" -- a reply designed to end
all conversation. The linchpin of this culture's
ideology is that everyone has sufficient knowledge
because they know who and what is being publicized by
major coporations. Anything that isn't is ipso facto
unworthy of one's time.
--- ptonguette@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 9/3/03 12:37:55 AM,
> cellar47@y... writes:
>
> >"Their excuse was that nobody knows who he is."
> >
> >That is so fucking disgusting I don't know where to
> >begin.
>
> When Tag told me this in a recent email
> conversation, I couldn't believe my
> eyes. I mean, King Vidor? The same King Vidor who
> created imagery so
> iconographic in "The Crowd" that both Orson Welles
> >and< Billy Wilder borrowed from
> him? But put aside the issue of influence or
> 'recogniziablity': we're talking
> about one of the finest, most distinctive directors
> in American cinema. And
> talk about a case for "late works" (as I like to; a
> director's last films are
> often among my favorites, I find): set aside
> "Solomon and Sheeba" and you have
> three perfect jewels with which Vidor ended his
> career - "War and Peace,"
> "Truth and Illusion," and "Metaphor." Of course,
> the latter two are more
> beginnings than ends in many ways.
>
> Peter
>
> http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
>
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1696
From: Eric Henderson
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 1:42pm
Subject: Re: Who is King Vidor?
I agree with this. One of the seeming touchtone characteristics of
cinephiles, I think, is an awareness of just how much one is still
unfamiliar with, even at the same time as one is aware of how much
they already know.
--- David Ehrenstein wrote:
> The linchpin of this culture's
> ideology is that everyone has sufficient knowledge
> because they know who and what is being publicized by
> major coporations. Anything that isn't is ipso facto
> unworthy of one's time.
1697
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 3:26pm
Subject: Re: Who is King Vidor?
This is odd, since Film Comment in 1994 (I'm going by an index, which only gives highlights) had articles on Leisen, Sidney, and Mackendrick, not exactly household names and in any case probably less well known, at least, than Vidor.
The magazine published Durgnat's two-part article on Vidor in '73 (classic period under Corliss).
1698
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 3:30pm
Subject: Re: NYC: Barnet
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I once amused myself by reading up on Barnet and making a list of the
> films that I most wanted to see, not expecting to get the chance:
>
> 1. BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS
> 2. THE HOUSE ON TRUBNAYA SQUARE
> 3. THE SCOUT'S EXPLOIT
> 4. WHISTLE STOP (aka THE SMALL RAILWAY STATION)
> 5. BOUNTIFUL SUMMER
> 6. THE WRESTLER AND THE CLOWN
> 7. MOSCOW IN OCTOBER
> 8. THE OLD JOCKEY
> 9. MISS MEND
HOUSE ON TRUBNAYA SQUARE has been screened at least once within the past few years at one of the major silent film festivals - a regular poster to the silents newsgroup raved about it at the time, and ever since then it's been high on my own want-to-see list.
Dave
1699
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 3:37pm
Subject: Re: Who is King Vidor?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell" wrote:
> This is odd, since Film Comment in 1994 (I'm going by an index, which only gives highlights) had articles on Leisen, Sidney, and Mackendrick, not exactly household names and in any case probably less well known, at least, than Vidor.
>
> The magazine published Durgnat's two-part article on Vidor in '73 (classic period under Corliss).
I find it amazing that any cinephile would actually use the argument "no one knows who he is" in all seriousness. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that Vidor is absolutely a first-rank director, one would think that one of the missions of a publication like Film Comment should be to champion lesser-known filmmakers whose work has merit. Such a comment is especially vexing in that light.
Dave
1700
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 3:52pm
Subject: Re: Digest Number 105
The refusal of Film Comment to "recognize" Vidor was matched by its total lack of interest in a piece on any of the recent Munich "restorations" of shorter and unfinished Welles works--or the fascinating episodes done for AROUND THE WORLD WITH ORSON WELLES, including the unfinished DOMINICI AFFAIR (available on DVD in the U.S. for at least a year and never before seen in the U.S., but ignored by everyone) at the same time that it was commissioning reviews on such junk as RKO 281 (if I remember the title correctly). This is not unusual but standard in mainstream American journalism: assign coverege of the remake of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS or the Hickenlooper decimation of THE BIG BRASS RING or anything else that has the name Welles attached to it and that might conceivably line the pockets of suits, but stay away from anything that Welles made himself and that remains unseen or unchronicled. In other words, despite its many claims to the contrary, the magazine is generally about the
film business first of all, and everything else secondarily.
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