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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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2101
From:
Date: Sat Sep 27, 2003 3:59pm
Subject: Re: festival do rio, first loves
Thanks for the update, Ruy. Having contributed my piece on "The Dreamers" to
the most excellent section on the festival in Contracampo, I also know that
there's a major Welles retrospective planned. Filipe's told me that some of
the more rarely screened finished films - like "Filming 'Othello'" - will be
shown, as well as possibly some of the unfinished works. If you guys are able to
see this stuff, please post your thoughts!
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
2102
From: vincent lobrutto
Date: Sat Sep 27, 2003 11:06pm
Subject: Re: Lost in Translation
>I mentioned, without listing any, "60s and 70s films
>where two characters come together out of a shared sense of
>isolation that is transformed into love, then separate at the end
>for reasons not explained." How many can the group name?
The reasons not explained part is tough or else I would add Psycho - Gavin and Leigh - Harold and Maude - 2001 - HAL and Bowman - Two Lane Blacktop - several combinations both guys with the girl both guys with each other and each guy with the car - Bonnie and Clyde - but then the reasons are clearly explained.
Vinny
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2103
From:
Date: Sat Sep 27, 2003 7:40pm
Subject: Re:Lost in Translation
Lovers who part at end without explicit reasons:
L'eclisse / The Eclipse (Antonioni)
There are failed romances in two Vincente Minnelli films:
Home From the Hill
The Sandpiper
(IMHO "The Sandpiper" is really good, but nobody else seems to like it)
Films which are ambiguous at the end:
Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais)
My Fair Lady (Cukor)
George Bernard Shaw was unequivocal in his play "Pygmalion": Eliza Doolittle
would NOT marry Prof. Higgens, but would go off at the end with handsome but
unimpressive Freddy. In My Fair Lady, there is much more of a hint at the end
of an Eliza / Professor relationship.
In "Lilies of the Field" (Ralph Nelson, 1963), nothing develops in the end,
because the heroine is a nun. There is a just a hint of tragic romance here.
This is such a terrific movie, but most auteurists have never seemed enthused
about it, unfortunately.
The pilot for the Batman TV series: Batman cannot romance the beautiful lady
thief, because she is a crook. At the end, he tells Robin tragically: "We were
like two ships that passed in the night". At this point in 1966, my Mother
broke up and started laughing uncontrollably. "I get it!" she said. "It is all a
put-on". She explained to us kids that the show was deliberately working
awful old cliches tongue-in-cheek. The next day, there were big newspaper articles
everywhere explaining to the USA what Camp was.
Mike Grost
2104
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sun Sep 28, 2003 0:45pm
Subject: Re: Lost in translation
it's curious... i didin't take Brief Encounter as a major reference when I
saw the film... I think that Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise had more to
do with it. And one of the most interesting things about the film is that
you can never tell exactly the real feelings they have for each other...
It's not exactly romantic love, not physical attraction... rather a strange
mix of attachment and companionship turned into affectiveness and, perhaps,
love. The scene in which Murray e Scarlett talk, in bed, about how the
marriage gets easy or not will be stuck in my mind, i guess, for ages...
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Lost in translation
> Like Bill and Ruy, I also found much to like in "Lost in Translation." I
> loved the way Coppola defined her characters' relationship in terms of
place: it
> seems to me unlikely that these characters would have formed a bond, even
> under similar circumstances, had they met in Los Angeles or New York.
Their
> inability to connect with everyone around them or to even >understand<
anyone
> around them (a theme summarized by that hilarious scene where Murray
imitates the
> man in the hospital who draws a circle in the air) forced them together -
which
> is why they must inevitably part at the end. Yes, these characters'
> loneliness goes deeper than merely being in a foreign country (i.e.,
Murray's
> disconnect from his wife; Scarlett's disconnect from her husband), but I
think that
> placing them in an alien enviroment is what made a few days of connection
> between them possible. Quite sad when you think about it.
>
> Now to Bill's question:
>
> >I mentioned, without listing any, "60s and 70s films
> >where two characters come together out of a shared sense of
> >isolation that is transformed into love, then separate at the end
> >for reasons not explained." How many can the group name?
>
> Hmm... though it doesn't precisely match the criteria you name, for some
> reason I'm thinking of Richard Lester's "Petulia." Anyone else?
>
> Peter
>
> http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
>
>
> 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/
>
>
2105
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Sun Sep 28, 2003 5:27pm
Subject: Speaking of Rivette (NYC)
The Alliance Francaise is showing Rivette's L'AMOUR PAR TERRE this
Tuesday. Later in the fall (actually winter, Dec. 23) they will be
showing his Renior documentary.
I was thinking that what Fred said of Rivette's building of alternate,
parallel spaces might in some way be an extension of the direction
Lang moved in the Indian films--the caves vs. the palaces. Not that
Lang and Rivette are very similar directors, but Rivette is the author
of the greatest piece of Lang criticism ever.
PWC
2106
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Sep 28, 2003 9:10pm
Subject: Lost in Translation
Does he says "Goodnight, Alice" at the end of the bed scene?
2107
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Sep 28, 2003 9:18pm
Subject: Re: Speaking of Rivette (NYC)
Did you get to see Jane Birkin perform at Alliance
Francaise last week?
--- Patrick Ciccone wrote:
> The Alliance Francaise is showing Rivette's L'AMOUR
> PAR TERRE this
> Tuesday. Later in the fall (actually winter, Dec.
> 23) they will be
> showing his Renior documentary.
>
> I was thinking that what Fred said of Rivette's
> building of alternate,
> parallel spaces might in some way be an extension of
> the direction
> Lang moved in the Indian films--the caves vs. the
> palaces. Not that
> Lang and Rivette are very similar directors, but
> Rivette is the author
> of the greatest piece of Lang criticism ever.
>
> PWC
>
>
__________________________________
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ADVERTISEMENT
2108
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 1:45am
Subject: Only Angels Have Wings
I recently finished writing a brief essay on ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS
for Slant Magazine, and thought I'd post it here to drum up
discussion from any interested parties ... I've deleted the
introductory paragraph that gives quick plot and character sketches,
which I trust anyone here reading this won't need.
-------
A bizarre and gorgeous film to say the least, Only Angels Have Wings
is a masterpiece that embodies a fantastic range of opposite states
of mind and being: stoicism/grief, pragmatism/mysticism,
functionality/romance, stasis/change. It is one of the Howard Hawks
films where the standard Hawks ethos is most fully autocritiqued—for
how can one be entirely professional, practical, stoic, and strong in
face of great emotional (and material) loss, mutability, and
uncertainty?
The ingenuity of the film's conception (by Hawks and Jules Furthman)
is partly in situating the Hawksian Professionals as white Americans
in the mountain-and-jungle terrain of South America. Not only is the
exotic, romantic appeal of boyish adventure there (Hawks, of course,
loved this angle in his films), but the setting underscores that the
Professionals are in some way out of place, or more accurately, that
they are in a different place than the one that shaped them and
provided them with their deepest values and mores. In Hawks' films,
the Group is often insulated and tightly-knit, but they are generally
not displaced from their original environment, culturally or
geographically, as they are in Only Angels.
It's apparent early on with Joe's death that these professionals are
used to bad news and have formulated a type of callousness as a
coping method ("Who's Joe?" is the mantra Geoff and the others use to
teach Bonnie how to deal with these sudden tragedies). Here's what's
happening: on an intuitive level, Hawks is acting as an armchair
sociologist, and is documenting the efforts of (and effects on) a
Group to consciously erect new ways of dealing with loss and grief
when their adopted environment forces new patterns of loss and grief
on them.
But I must stress the loose, amateur, intuitive nature of Hawks'
sociological insights. For one thing, they are hardly scientific,
and what's more, Only Angels Have Wings is not exactly an analytical
film. It is vital to recognize that Hawks is allowing a trickle of
emotional content that eventually becomes a deluge that finds itself
seeping more quietly out of Cary Grant's eyes in the poignant scene
where implacable Geoff weeps over the death of his best friend.
There comes a point where the coping devices simply give way to the
emotions bubbling beneath these characters' tough, professional, can-
do surfaces, and the ultimate, tacit, maybe unattainable goal in the
Hawks Group is always to reconcile these dueling energies. It's no
special feat to realize that Hawks always has this kind of duality in
mind in his Group films—but it's never literalized and critiqued in
quite the same overt way as it is in Only Angels Have Wings.
The other reason why Hawks' film can't be treated as pure
sociological interrogation is the fact that it is, very visibly, a
Hollywood production with certain inescapable commitments to
entertainment convention. This is not to downgrade the movie,
though, as there is a reason why Hawks and other Old Hollywood
filmmakers have become so well-admired. The film organizes its space
within a nodal web of foggy-smoky, slightly claustrophobic scene
locations. Barranca comes alive in its "movieness." The strength of
these locations is in their charming specificity and artifice: look
at the bachelor-flat plainness of Cary Grant's room and office, or
the bright warmth of the local bar singing after Joe's death, and its
dimly lit loneliness later that night.
Consider one early scene after Joe's death, where Geoff and Dutchy
are in a room. Tall, imposing Geoff (in a wide-brimmed hat and
leather jacket) paces and barks on the radio on the right side of the
screen. Dutchy, disheveled, is sitting down in the bottom left
corner, very sad and guilty about "sending" young men to their
deaths. An overhead lamp stretches out in an ellipse above Dutchy's
body and echoes (sometimes practically mirroring) Geoff's hat,
creating a three-quarter, L-shaped compositional domination of
Dutchy's figure. We're witnessing a spatial, pictorial, and
psychological depiction of one energy (Geoff's sureness and stoicism)
dominating another (Dutchy's doubt and grief).
Late in the film we see a startlingly similar composition with
reversed meaning—not long after the death of his best friend, Geoff
sits alone in his office at a table, grief-stricken, a lamp
overhead. Bonnie enters the office and walks up to stand to the
right of Geoff, fulfilling the same three-quarter L-shape composition
as in the Geoff-Dutchy scene. Bonnie is planning to say goodbye to
Geoff despite her love for him, a calculated choice made to cut her
(emotional) losses; it doubles on the pilots' stoic responses to
death. This time, however, Geoff is in Dutchy's earlier position—
spatially, pictorially, and psychologically. Bonnie begins to speak,
without much confidence, and her attempt at stoicism fails, however,
once she sees that Geoff is crying. Her defenses begin to fall apart
as we cut to a close-up of her face, and then to her movement to
Geoff's level as the two, in medium close-up, hold one another.
Geoff and Bonnie finally share a communal, open moment, and those
dueling energies are for a moment reconciled.
Hawks is never one to end on quite this note, however, and suddenly
introduces an immediate jump into adventure again, as Cary Grant,
reconciled, dashes off to make a flight, leaving behind with Bonnie a
certain, steadfast token of his affection.
2109
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 1:55am
Subject: Spoilers in ONLY ANGELS post, just in case ... (n/t)
2110
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 3:02am
Subject: Re: Speaking of Rivette (NYC)
No, unfortunately--apparently there was a whole host of visa problems
getting her troop of singers in the country...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> Did you get to see Jane Birkin perform at Alliance
> Francaise last week?
>
> --- Patrick Ciccone wrote:
> > The Alliance Francaise is showing Rivette's L'AMOUR
> > PAR TERRE this
> > Tuesday. Later in the fall (actually winter, Dec.
> > 23) they will be
> > showing his Renior documentary.
> >
> > I was thinking that what Fred said of Rivette's
> > building of alternate,
> > parallel spaces might in some way be an extension of
> > the direction
> > Lang moved in the Indian films--the caves vs. the
> > palaces. Not that
> > Lang and Rivette are very similar directors, but
> > Rivette is the author
> > of the greatest piece of Lang criticism ever.
> >
> > PWC
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
2111
From: Tristan
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 4:32am
Subject: Re: Only Angels Have Wings
I'd like to be nosey and ask if that is for the 100 Essential Films.
If it is, they certainly chose the right Hawks(in my opinion).
2112
From: vincent lobrutto
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 7:25pm
Subject: Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan died yesterday. For decades I wondered how I would feel on this day. In the very early 1970s - it may have been 1970 MOMA did a retrospective of Kazan's films. I had just entered film school and was only vaguely familiar with his work. Day after day I sat amazed at the power of the performances in his films, the energy and of course there was On The Waterfront which may be the great American Movie. Next I remember a summer issue on the blacklist in film comment. In there was the whole story and a complete list of every name Kazan had named. I was devistated - too young to understand the mysteries in the relationship between an artist and his art. I read every book on the blacklist, talked to many who had been blacklisted and those who are scholars in the field such as Pat McGilligan. I read Kazan's autobiography embarrased by its candor and frustrated by his inability to understand what he had done by naming names. I was given a contract to write a study of his work - I
interviewed Dick Sylbert, Dede Allen, and other crew members, I talked to Karl Malden. I got nowhere - stopped in my tracks when trying to deal with the blacklist. I tried to look at his papers and was told I needed his permission. He wrote me a personal letter which was polite but firm. I thought I could write an essay that would fairly deal with his involvement with the blacklist but no such wisdom came - I had plenty to say on the films - interviews, an approach but I could move forward. One day I received a letter saying the whole series of books this was to be a part of was canclled along with my contract - in a way I was relieved. I never stopped thinking about Kazan. I show The Visitors in my Cinema of the 1970s class and engage in those anguished discussions about that black period in American History. The real devils were HUAC but many did not name names, many went to jail, others caved in and spent the rest of their years trying to redeem themselves but not Kazan - defiant
to the end. It is always been my belief that we somehow pay for all we do the good hopefully gets rewarded - the bad can do a harm that never goes away but everybody pays a price - only Kazan knows what was his - he never let anyone see him sweat. The lifetime Oscar award proved the wounds were still open and bleeding - he looked old and unable to comprehend why he was still hated. There is little justice in the fact that Kazan outlived so many he hurt but if he had ever really explored the truth as he did so brilliantly in films and on stage maybe he suffered in silence - that does little good. So how do I feel now that Elia Kazan is gone? I know that a man and his art are connected but I know that you can not judge a man's integrity by his work. Kazan's work had integrity but as a man whose morality was tested he not only failed but never wavered from the lies he would have refused to accept from an actor in a performance. On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Face in
the Crowd will live on as well the memory of what Kazan did in a moment in time that will continue to burn as long as the story of the blacklist is preserved and past on. In the end he got lucky - I always thought the first line of his obit would contain his success and the stain on his character - most obits I saw today waited a paragraph or two. Maybe someday someone will finally write a honest and balanced biography of Elia Kazan one in which the truth will cut both ways.
Vinny
---------------------------------
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2113
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 7:55pm
Subject: Re: Elia Kazan
But the Truth cuts only one way, Vinny. He was a rat.
A supremely talent stage and screen director, but a
rat.
--- vincent lobrutto
wrote:
> Elia Kazan died yesterday. For decades I wondered
> how I would feel on this day. In the very early
> 1970s - it may have been 1970 MOMA did a
> retrospective of Kazan's films. I had just entered
> film school and was only vaguely familiar with his
> work. Day after day I sat amazed at the power of the
> performances in his films, the energy and of course
> there was On The Waterfront which may be the great
> American Movie. Next I remember a summer issue on
> the blacklist in film comment. In there was the
> whole story and a complete list of every name Kazan
> had named. I was devistated - too young to
> understand the mysteries in the relationship between
> an artist and his art. I read every book on the
> blacklist, talked to many who had been blacklisted
> and those who are scholars in the field such as Pat
> McGilligan. I read Kazan's autobiography embarrased
> by its candor and frustrated by his inability to
> understand what he had done by naming names. I was
> given a contract to write a study of his work - I
> interviewed Dick Sylbert, Dede Allen, and other
> crew members, I talked to Karl Malden. I got nowhere
> - stopped in my tracks when trying to deal with the
> blacklist. I tried to look at his papers and was
> told I needed his permission. He wrote me a personal
> letter which was polite but firm. I thought I could
> write an essay that would fairly deal with his
> involvement with the blacklist but no such wisdom
> came - I had plenty to say on the films -
> interviews, an approach but I could move forward.
> One day I received a letter saying the whole series
> of books this was to be a part of was canclled along
> with my contract - in a way I was relieved. I never
> stopped thinking about Kazan. I show The Visitors in
> my Cinema of the 1970s class and engage in those
> anguished discussions about that black period in
> American History. The real devils were HUAC but many
> did not name names, many went to jail, others caved
> in and spent the rest of their years trying to
> redeem themselves but not Kazan - defiant
> to the end. It is always been my belief that we
> somehow pay for all we do the good hopefully gets
> rewarded - the bad can do a harm that never goes
> away but everybody pays a price - only Kazan knows
> what was his - he never let anyone see him sweat.
> The lifetime Oscar award proved the wounds were
> still open and bleeding - he looked old and unable
> to comprehend why he was still hated. There is
> little justice in the fact that Kazan outlived so
> many he hurt but if he had ever really explored the
> truth as he did so brilliantly in films and on stage
> maybe he suffered in silence - that does little
> good. So how do I feel now that Elia Kazan is gone?
> I know that a man and his art are connected but I
> know that you can not judge a man's integrity by his
> work. Kazan's work had integrity but as a man whose
> morality was tested he not only failed but never
> wavered from the lies he would have refused to
> accept from an actor in a performance. On the
> Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Face in
> the Crowd will live on as well the memory of what
> Kazan did in a moment in time that will continue to
> burn as long as the story of the blacklist is
> preserved and past on. In the end he got lucky - I
> always thought the first line of his obit would
> contain his success and the stain on his character -
> most obits I saw today waited a paragraph or two.
> Maybe someday someone will finally write a honest
> and balanced biography of Elia Kazan one in which
> the truth will cut both ways.
>
> Vinny
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product
> search
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
2114
From: jerome_gerber
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 9:18pm
Subject: Re: Elia Kazan
The man was obviously glued to the idol of his own
success...one might say monomoniacally so...success
appeared to be his credo...moral issues didn't seem to kick in
easily...for example:
From his obit in Variety, they quote him on his naming names.
""There's a normal sadness about hurting people, but I'd rather
hurt them a little than hurt myself a lot," he said of the decision.
He also wrote of it at length in his 1987 autobiography "A Life,"
recounting how he debated it with his wife Molly and studio
magnates Spyros Skouras and Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck
reportedly advised him that "the idea there is not to be right but to
win."
Reading his take on how little he believed he would hurt others
and how much he would have been hurting himself, I think gives
one some insight to his character...However, there is no reason
to believe that a good artist need not be a bloody bastard.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> But the Truth cuts only one way, Vinny. He was a rat.
> A supremely talent stage and screen director, but a
> rat.
>
> --- vincent lobrutto
> wrote:
> > Elia Kazan died yesterday. For decades I wondered
> > how I would feel on this day. In the very early
> > 1970s - it may have been 1970 MOMA did a
> > retrospective of Kazan's films. I had just entered
> > film school and was only vaguely familiar with his
> > work. Day after day I sat amazed at the power of the
> > performances in his films, the energy and of course
> > there was On The Waterfront which may be the great
> > American Movie. Next I remember a summer issue on
> > the blacklist in film comment. In there was the
> > whole story and a complete list of every name Kazan
> > had named. I was devistated - too young to
> > understand the mysteries in the relationship between
> > an artist and his art. I read every book on the
> > blacklist, talked to many who had been blacklisted
> > and those who are scholars in the field such as Pat
> > McGilligan. I read Kazan's autobiography embarrased
> > by its candor and frustrated by his inability to
> > understand what he had done by naming names. I was
> > given a contract to write a study of his work - I
> > interviewed Dick Sylbert, Dede Allen, and other
> > crew members, I talked to Karl Malden. I got nowhere
> > - stopped in my tracks when trying to deal with the
> > blacklist. I tried to look at his papers and was
> > told I needed his permission. He wrote me a personal
> > letter which was polite but firm. I thought I could
> > write an essay that would fairly deal with his
> > involvement with the blacklist but no such wisdom
> > came - I had plenty to say on the films -
> > interviews, an approach but I could move forward.
> > One day I received a letter saying the whole series
> > of books this was to be a part of was canclled along
> > with my contract - in a way I was relieved. I never
> > stopped thinking about Kazan. I show The Visitors in
> > my Cinema of the 1970s class and engage in those
> > anguished discussions about that black period in
> > American History. The real devils were HUAC but many
> > did not name names, many went to jail, others caved
> > in and spent the rest of their years trying to
> > redeem themselves but not Kazan - defiant
> > to the end. It is always been my belief that we
> > somehow pay for all we do the good hopefully gets
> > rewarded - the bad can do a harm that never goes
> > away but everybody pays a price - only Kazan knows
> > what was his - he never let anyone see him sweat.
> > The lifetime Oscar award proved the wounds were
> > still open and bleeding - he looked old and unable
> > to comprehend why he was still hated. There is
> > little justice in the fact that Kazan outlived so
> > many he hurt but if he had ever really explored the
> > truth as he did so brilliantly in films and on stage
> > maybe he suffered in silence - that does little
> > good. So how do I feel now that Elia Kazan is gone?
> > I know that a man and his art are connected but I
> > know that you can not judge a man's integrity by his
> > work. Kazan's work had integrity but as a man whose
> > morality was tested he not only failed but never
> > wavered from the lies he would have refused to
> > accept from an actor in a performance. On the
> > Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Face in
> > the Crowd will live on as well the memory of what
> > Kazan did in a moment in time that will continue to
> > burn as long as the story of the blacklist is
> > preserved and past on. In the end he got lucky - I
> > always thought the first line of his obit would
> > contain his success and the stain on his character -
> > most obits I saw today waited a paragraph or two.
> > Maybe someday someone will finally write a honest
> > and balanced biography of Elia Kazan one in which
> > the truth will cut both ways.
> >
> > Vinny
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product
> > search
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been
> > removed]
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
2115
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 10:52pm
Subject: Elia Kazan, sic transit gloria mundi
Kazan's alleged "rattiness" was nothing compared to the truly sickening rattiness of American Communists, such as Walter Duranty, who were unalloyed apologists for Josef Stalin, the gulags, the pogroms, and the KGB, all of which would have been duplicated here if they had had their way, which they didn't, thank God. Those who stand in judgement of my fellow New Rochelle High School alumnus, Elia Kazan, I ask them, how can you be so certain of yourself that you would have acted any differently?
jerome_gerber wrote:The man was obviously glued to the idol of his own
success...one might say monomoniacally so...success
appeared to be his credo...moral issues didn't seem to kick in
easily...for example:
From his obit in Variety, they quote him on his naming names.
""There's a normal sadness about hurting people, but I'd rather
hurt them a little than hurt myself a lot," he said of the decision.
He also wrote of it at length in his 1987 autobiography "A Life,"
recounting how he debated it with his wife Molly and studio
magnates Spyros Skouras and Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck
reportedly advised him that "the idea there is not to be right but to
win."
Reading his take on how little he believed he would hurt others
and how much he would have been hurting himself, I think gives
one some insight to his character...However, there is no reason
to believe that a good artist need not be a bloody bastard.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> But the Truth cuts only one way, Vinny. He was a rat.
> A supremely talent stage and screen director, but a
> rat.
>
> --- vincent lobrutto
> wrote:
> > Elia Kazan died yesterday. For decades I wondered
> > how I would feel on this day. In the very early
> > 1970s - it may have been 1970 MOMA did a
> > retrospective of Kazan's films. I had just entered
> > film school and was only vaguely familiar with his
> > work. Day after day I sat amazed at the power of the
> > performances in his films, the energy and of course
> > there was On The Waterfront which may be the great
> > American Movie. Next I remember a summer issue on
> > the blacklist in film comment. In there was the
> > whole story and a complete list of every name Kazan
> > had named. I was devistated - too young to
> > understand the mysteries in the relationship between
> > an artist and his art. I read every book on the
> > blacklist, talked to many who had been blacklisted
> > and those who are scholars in the field such as Pat
> > McGilligan. I read Kazan's autobiography embarrased
> > by its candor and frustrated by his inability to
> > understand what he had done by naming names. I was
> > given a contract to write a study of his work - I
> > interviewed Dick Sylbert, Dede Allen, and other
> > crew members, I talked to Karl Malden. I got nowhere
> > - stopped in my tracks when trying to deal with the
> > blacklist. I tried to look at his papers and was
> > told I needed his permission. He wrote me a personal
> > letter which was polite but firm. I thought I could
> > write an essay that would fairly deal with his
> > involvement with the blacklist but no such wisdom
> > came - I had plenty to say on the films -
> > interviews, an approach but I could move forward.
> > One day I received a letter saying the whole series
> > of books this was to be a part of was canclled along
> > with my contract - in a way I was relieved. I never
> > stopped thinking about Kazan. I show The Visitors in
> > my Cinema of the 1970s class and engage in those
> > anguished discussions about that black period in
> > American History. The real devils were HUAC but many
> > did not name names, many went to jail, others caved
> > in and spent the rest of their years trying to
> > redeem themselves but not Kazan - defiant
> > to the end. It is always been my belief that we
> > somehow pay for all we do the good hopefully gets
> > rewarded - the bad can do a harm that never goes
> > away but everybody pays a price - only Kazan knows
> > what was his - he never let anyone see him sweat.
> > The lifetime Oscar award proved the wounds were
> > still open and bleeding - he looked old and unable
> > to comprehend why he was still hated. There is
> > little justice in the fact that Kazan outlived so
> > many he hurt but if he had ever really explored the
> > truth as he did so brilliantly in films and on stage
> > maybe he suffered in silence - that does little
> > good. So how do I feel now that Elia Kazan is gone?
> > I know that a man and his art are connected but I
> > know that you can not judge a man's integrity by his
> > work. Kazan's work had integrity but as a man whose
> > morality was tested he not only failed but never
> > wavered from the lies he would have refused to
> > accept from an actor in a performance. On the
> > Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Face in
> > the Crowd will live on as well the memory of what
> > Kazan did in a moment in time that will continue to
> > burn as long as the story of the blacklist is
> > preserved and past on. In the end he got lucky - I
> > always thought the first line of his obit would
> > contain his success and the stain on his character -
> > most obits I saw today waited a paragraph or two.
> > Maybe someday someone will finally write a honest
> > and balanced biography of Elia Kazan one in which
> > the truth will cut both ways.
> >
> > Vinny
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product
> > search
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been
> > removed]
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
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> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
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2116
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 11:28pm
Subject: Re: Elia Kazan, sic transit gloria mundi
And where would they have set up the gulags? New
Rochelle? Levittown?
Dream on neo-connie, dream on!
The American Communist Party's 15 minutes were long
over by 1947. They weren't coming back, as Kazan knew
perfectly well. What he did in naming names was
political only in the "personal is political" sense.
It was a passive sado-masochistic act of revenge on
his own success.
The actual impact of Communism was best described by
Gadge's last great star, Warren Beatty, in his
matchless "Reds."
--- Rick Segreda wrote:
> Kazan's alleged "rattiness" was nothing compared to
> the truly sickening rattiness of American
> Communists, such as Walter Duranty, who were
> unalloyed apologists for Josef Stalin, the gulags,
> the pogroms, and the KGB, all of which would have
> been duplicated here if they had had their way,
> which they didn't, thank God. Those who stand in
> judgement of my fellow New Rochelle High School
> alumnus, Elia Kazan, I ask them, how can you be so
> certain of yourself that you would have acted any
> differently?
>
> jerome_gerber wrote:The
> man was obviously glued to the idol of his own
> success...one might say monomoniacally so...success
> appeared to be his credo...moral issues didn't seem
> to kick in
> easily...for example:
>
> From his obit in Variety, they quote him on his
> naming names.
>
> ""There's a normal sadness about hurting people, but
> I'd rather
> hurt them a little than hurt myself a lot," he said
> of the decision.
> He also wrote of it at length in his 1987
> autobiography "A Life,"
> recounting how he debated it with his wife Molly and
> studio
> magnates Spyros Skouras and Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck
>
> reportedly advised him that "the idea there is not
> to be right but to
> win."
>
> Reading his take on how little he believed he would
> hurt others
> and how much he would have been hurting himself, I
> think gives
> one some insight to his character...However, there
> is no reason
> to believe that a good artist need not be a bloody
> bastard.
>
>
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > But the Truth cuts only one way, Vinny. He was a
> rat.
> > A supremely talent stage and screen director, but
> a
> > rat.
> >
> > --- vincent lobrutto
> > wrote:
> > > Elia Kazan died yesterday. For decades I
> wondered
> > > how I would feel on this day. In the very early
> > > 1970s - it may have been 1970 MOMA did a
> > > retrospective of Kazan's films. I had just
> entered
> > > film school and was only vaguely familiar with
> his
> > > work. Day after day I sat amazed at the power of
> the
> > > performances in his films, the energy and of
> course
> > > there was On The Waterfront which may be the
> great
> > > American Movie. Next I remember a summer issue
> on
> > > the blacklist in film comment. In there was the
> > > whole story and a complete list of every name
> Kazan
> > > had named. I was devistated - too young to
> > > understand the mysteries in the relationship
> between
> > > an artist and his art. I read every book on the
> > > blacklist, talked to many who had been
> blacklisted
> > > and those who are scholars in the field such as
> Pat
> > > McGilligan. I read Kazan's autobiography
> embarrased
> > > by its candor and frustrated by his inability to
> > > understand what he had done by naming names. I
> was
> > > given a contract to write a study of his work -
> I
> > > interviewed Dick Sylbert, Dede Allen, and other
> > > crew members, I talked to Karl Malden. I got
> nowhere
> > > - stopped in my tracks when trying to deal with
> the
> > > blacklist. I tried to look at his papers and was
> > > told I needed his permission. He wrote me a
> personal
> > > letter which was polite but firm. I thought I
> could
> > > write an essay that would fairly deal with his
> > > involvement with the blacklist but no such
> wisdom
> > > came - I had plenty to say on the films -
> > > interviews, an approach but I could move
> forward.
> > > One day I received a letter saying the whole
> series
> > > of books this was to be a part of was canclled
> along
> > > with my contract - in a way I was relieved. I
> never
> > > stopped thinking about Kazan. I show The
> Visitors in
> > > my Cinema of the 1970s class and engage in those
> > > anguished discussions about that black period in
> > > American History. The real devils were HUAC but
> many
> > > did not name names, many went to jail, others
> caved
> > > in and spent the rest of their years trying to
> > > redeem themselves but not Kazan - defiant
> > > to the end. It is always been my belief that we
> > > somehow pay for all we do the good hopefully
> gets
> > > rewarded - the bad can do a harm that never goes
> > > away but everybody pays a price - only Kazan
> knows
> > > what was his - he never let anyone see him
> sweat.
> > > The lifetime Oscar award proved the wounds were
> > > still open and bleeding - he looked old and
> unable
> > > to comprehend why he was still hated. There is
> > > little justice in the fact that Kazan outlived
> so
> > > many he hurt but if he had ever really explored
> the
> > > truth as he did so brilliantly in films and on
> stage
> > > maybe he suffered in silence - that does little
> > > good. So how do I feel now that Elia Kazan is
> gone?
> > > I know that a man and his art are connected but
> I
> > > know that you can not judge a man's integrity by
> his
> > > work. Kazan's work had integrity but as a man
> whose
> > > morality was tested he not only failed but never
> > > wavered from the lies he would have refused to
> > > accept from an actor in a performance. On the
> > > Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Face
> in
> > > the Crowd will live on as well the memory of
> what
> > > Kazan did in a moment in time that will continue
> to
> > > burn as long as the story of the blacklist is
> > > preserved and past on. In the end he got lucky -
> I
> > > always thought the first line of his obit would
> > > contain his success and the stain on his
> character -
> > > most obits I saw today waited a paragraph or
> two.
> > > Maybe someday someone will finally write a
> honest
> > > and balanced biography of Elia Kazan one in
> which
> > > the truth will cut both ways.
> > >
> > > Vinny
> > >
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------
> > > Do you Yahoo!?
> > > The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product
> > > search
> > >
> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been
> > > removed]
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product
> search
> > http://shopping.yahoo.com
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups SponsorADVERTISEMENT
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
=== message truncated ===
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2117
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Sep 29, 2003 11:30pm
Subject: Kazan
One of my best friends of that generation was Betty Wilson, wife
of Dick Wilson, who was Welles' close friend and collaborator,
and eventually mine on It's All True, of which he was the
producer in 1943. All I knew about their past was that he and
Betty met at a young communists dance and were rarely
separated for 50 years plus after that - you can see her in her
70s recalling Jacare's death in the documentary we made at the
beginning, and as a bombshell in a bathing suit waving to
Jacare and the others as they pull into Rio harbor at the end of
the reconstructed 4 Men on a Raft. She and Dick were part of the
6-man crew that went to Fortaleza after RKO plulled the plug on
the production and shot the beautiful footage of village life.
Anyway, we were talking one day and she hauled out a
scrapbook to show me how she had testified against Party
members before HUAC. The newspaper headlines portrayed
her as a mysterious blonde bombshell ratting out the commies.
(She had worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter after returning
to the States, while Dick and Welles were doing The Stranger
and Macbeth, and later while Dick was starting his own directing
career.) I couldn't believe it - Betty, the most civilized woman I
ever met, a friendly witness? She said she did it because she
saw what the Party was doing and had a change of heart. I
gather Welles was miffed with her for years, although he and
Dick and she remained close. (He may have been more miffed
that she stole Dick from him - Welles wanted them to follow him
into exile, and they chose to stay here.)
So there it is, my one friendly witness friend. She didn't brag
about it, but she didn't conceal it from people she figured would
get it. I got the part about it being Stalinism, but chose not to
delve into who suffered from her testimony. She said that there
were people who were still mad at her, and she could
understand it. I'm sure if I'd mentioned her to Abraham Polonsky
he would have said something negative, but probably not as bad
as what I heard him say, humorously, about Kazan the day
before the Oscar ceremony.
In my eyes, the Academy had more to answer for that day than
Kazan. The battles over communism were predated by the
battles over unionizing, and the Academy was the studios'
toothless alternative to the unions. Nothing in its subsequent
history has shown it to be anything else, certainly not its behavior
during the blacklist - the unions were much quicker to attempt
some restituition. So there are institutions and states and
businesses, and there are the people - sometimes the most
sincerely charitable and progressive - who get ground up in their
machinations. I heard Polonsky jokingly consign Kazan to the
lowest circle of hell, the circle of ice reserved for traitors, along
with Stalin. I think that's a bit thick. Not everyone is cut out to be
the guy standing in front of that tank in Tienamen square. The
people who deserve to freeze are the ones who sent the tank,
and put the guy inside it behind the wheel. The rest of us just do
the best we can.
On a subject more appropriate to this group, I recently resaw The
Visitors, which I was taught to consider a fascist film in 1971. It
isn't a fascist film, as far as I can see - that's the least you could
say in answer to that charge, although the parts that are clearly
anti-rightwing (the father) are the least successful parts. What do
the rest of you think of it today? - assuming you've even had a
chance to see it. Peter, was Kazan an MIA?
Clearly he was an auteur, but was he what Biette would call a
filmmaker, one who applied a personal conception of film art to
portraying a piece of the world in a way that escapes the cliches
and conventions of his/her time, "with a little more world than art
in the final result"? Antonioni, yes. Kazan____?
The Kazan film I like best is America, America. I'm sorry the
insurance companies kept him from making the sequel, Beyond
the Blue Agean, which Jean-Luc Ormieres, the producer of the
It's All true remix, wanted very much to make in the 90s: The boy
in AA has grown up and become corrupt; he returns to his
homeland, and ends up becoming a "mule" on the docks again.
2118
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 0:43am
Subject: Re: Kazan
Abraham Polonsky was absolutely hilarious about Kazan.
When he won the Los Angeles FilmCritics Association's
"Career Achievement" award it was the same year as the
Oscar flap. So when he mounted the podium to get his
prize, Abe said "Well was it worth it? Was it worth
the shit you're going to get for giving me ths award?
Because there's another organization in this town
that's planning to give an award like this to a RAT!
Everyone says you should forgiv and forget. Well I
NEVER forgive because I NEVER forget!"
It may read as an angry statement, but Abe delivered
it with great humor. In fact Warren Beatty, who was
present at the ceremony laughed and loudly applauded
Abe. And truth to tell we HAD gotten a ton of shit for
years,as the fact that LAFCA never voted a "Career
Achievement" award to Kazan (he simply never got
enough votes) was transformed into a Urban Legend that
we had specifically voted AGAINST giving him this
prize.
Abe died quietly one morning, passing away over
breakfast while reading the NY Times in his condo on
McCarty Drive in Beverly Hills.
"Remember, it's McCarty Drive, not McCarthy drive!" he
used to tell me.
And there's no question he died a happy man. He'd
outlived most of his enemies, and made a comeback at
an age when even the most successful filmmakers think
only of retirement.
Elia Kazan, talented as he was, was incapable of
making a film as searingly honest as "Force of Evil."
But then I'm reminded (as always) of Dietrich's last
lines in "Touch of Evil" --
"He was some kind of man. What does it matter what you
say about people?"
--- hotlove666 wrote:
__________________________________
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2119
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:34am
Subject: Re: Elia Kazan, sic transit gloria mundi
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Rick Segreda
wrote:
> Those who stand in judgement of my fellow New Rochelle High School
alumnus, Elia Kazan, I ask them, how can you be so certain of
yourself that you would have acted any differently?
>
The right-wing defenders of Kazan's rottenness never fail to trot out
this specious line, in an attempt to turn the tables and make people
with a moral code against informing seem like self-righteous prigs.
Funny how they never see fit to ask similarly how can you be so
certain that if you weren't an economically disadvantaged German in
the 30a looking for advancement in an exciting field you wouldn't
have become a member of the SS. Or how can you be so certain that if
you were President of the United States you wouldn't have taken
advantage of your Office to get a blow job from an intern. Morality
is subjective only when it serves the purpose of these defenders of
rats like Kazan.
Of course Kazan wasn't as evil as Joe Stalin or George W. Bush, but
what he did was still contemptible. He stands apart from the other
friendly witnesses for several reasons. One is that, according to
people who knew him, he didn't rat out all the folks he knew to have
been members of the Communist Party, only those he held grudges
against; in the guise of being a "patriotic" citizen, he carried out
a personal vendetta. Secondly, when he testified in 1952, he was as
prestigious a creative figure as there was in Hollywood, and he had
the clout to stand up to HUAC, condemn the Committee for the
nefarious and Un-American tool of repression that it was, and emerge
unscathed. Even under a worst-case scenario, if he did incur the
wrath of Zanuck and other moguls, he could have returned to his very
lucrative directing career on Broadway, where there was no blacklist
to speak of; he was every theatre producer's and playwright's first
choice as director. Moreover, the members of HUAC were among the
worst reactionaries in America – who stood in direct contrast to the
progressive ideals in which Kazan claimed to believe – and Kazan's
testimony helped to give them greater credence; the reflection of his
prestige gave them prestige Add to that the fact that he never
evinced regret for the lives he helped to destroy.
That said, I will still always cherish East of Eden, which I consider
his masterpiece, the work in which he showed complete mastery of film
language. And Streetcar is probably the best screen adaptation of a
great play. I also like Gentlemen's Agreement, which holds up today
not so much for its anti-Semitism theme but because of its acute
portrayal of a very particular social milieu and the believable and
adult treatment of the Gregory Peck/Dorothy McGuire relationship;
Pinky which, despite the ludicrous miscasting of Jeanne Crain as a
black woman, has some nice ambience and moments of deep feeling; and
Baby Doll, which showed that Kazan was surprisingly adept at raucous
comedy.
On the other hand, many of his other films are mediocrities.
Boomerang is indistinguishable from the other Fox semi-documentary
crime dramas of the late 40s; Panic In The Streets could have been
assigned to Jules Dassin or Henry Koster with no likely discernible
difference in quality. In a year (1976) when Hitchcock and Minnelli
had fascinating "Old Man's" movies in release, Kazan made the
emotionally dead Last Tycoon." And Splendor In The Grass is really
nothing more than a high-toned version of a teen angst drive-in
vehicle from AIP, where it would have starred John Ashley rather than
Warren Beatty. .
Then there's On The Waterfront, another in the vast parade of 50s
movies that were ridiculously overrated at the time of their release
and which are almost completely devoid of interest – other than for
historical reasons -- today (From Here To Eternity, Picnic, Marty,
The Defiant Ones are a few of the others). Simplistic, overly
schematic and with crudely drawn characters, On The Waterfront
consists of a sophistic rendering of a dubious morality, and in terms
of filmmaking, it lacks the excitement and kineticism of, say, a Phil
Karlson racketeer movie from the same period.
I've always felt that the celebrated taxi cab sequence was terribly
shot by Kazan. This scene, which shows the disappointments of and
recriminations between the two brothers cried out to be done in a
single two-shot so that we can see the unspoken emotions of the two
men. Instead, Kazan cuts to close-ups with no particular rhyme or
reason. And the hamola of Lee J. Cobb and Rod Steiger shows that
Kazan could be less than adept in handling actors.
Of course, Kazan's true legacy is as a theatre director, but that was
all before my time, so I just have to take the word of people who
were there. Then again, these are the same people who lauded On The
Waterfront, so who knows?
2120
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:32am
Subject: Polonsky
Force of Evil AND Tell Them Willy Boy Was Here. Great films. There
should have been twenty more.
2121
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:40am
Subject: Ships Passing in the Night Films Like Lost in Translation
Red Desert
Model Shop
Kings of the Road
They All Laughed
Gigli (till Roth and Sherak ordered a new ending)
2122
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:50am
Subject: Re: Kazan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> On a subject more appropriate to this group, I recently resaw The
> Visitors, which I was taught to consider a fascist film in 1971. It
> isn't a fascist film, as far as I can see - that's the least you
could
> say in answer to that charge, although the parts that are clearly
> anti-rightwing (the father) are the least successful parts. What do
> the rest of you think of it today? - assuming you've even had a
> chance to see it. Peter, was Kazan an MIA?
I've been following this thread with interest because I must admit to
not being terribly familiar with Kazan's cinema (I know a bit more
about his life, but haven't read any of the biographies nor his
autobiography). There are a few key titles I've not seen and many of
the ones I have I've only seen years and years ago. I'm a bit on the
fence about the ones in the latter group: I think Bill's "more world
than art" category fits a lot of the recognized "classics." On the
other hand, I saw "Splendor in the Grass" a few months ago on
television and I thought there was really something to it. I believe
Dan Sallitt is in Europe at the moment and may be with or without
Internet connection or else I'd ask him to chime in: I know he's a
fan of "Splendor" and makes a case for some of the other Kazans too.
So I'm not sure if I'm completely equipped to answer Bill's question,
though I'd lean towards a "yes." Novel-writing and (relatively)
marginalized filmmaking are some of the earmarks of the MIA group of
filmmakers (discussed at length by Bill in archived posts). And
although Kazan's last feature was a big Hollywood production - and,
as I remember, not a very good one - the IMDB intriguingly lists
something from 1989 called "Beyond the Aegean." No information is
given as to its length, subject, cast, or crew (other than Kazan).
What is this?
Peter
2123
From:
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 0:54am
Subject: Re: Ships Passing in the Night Films Like Lost in Translation
In a message dated 9/29/2003 23:41:00 Central Standard Time,
hotlove666@y... writes:
> They All Laughed
How could I have missed this! Am I correct in remembering (I've only seen
the film once) that there's a wonderful shot towards the end of "Lost in
Translation" of Scarlett disappearing into an elevator? If so, this recalls a
similar shot of Audrey Hepburn doing the same near the conclusion of "They All
Laughed" - and the shots are nearly identical context-wise. They are both
almost-goodbyes between lovers. "Translation" is certainly one of the best urban
romances since Bogdanovich's film - and by "urban" I mean that the filmmakers make
real use of the cities their stories are set in beyond ornamental backdrop.
Good finds, Bill.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2124
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:23am
Subject: Re: Speaking of Rivette (NYC)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
> Later in the fall (actually winter, Dec. 23) they will be
> showing his Renior documentary.
Wow! I've wanted to see these for years, particularly after reading
Dave Kehr's capsule review of it for the Chicago Reader. Read Kehr
and you'll see what I mean. Anyway, this makes a guy wanna just pack
up and move to New York. Of course, I have no such excuse for not
seeing the Lang Indian films, easily available on DVD and recommended
to me effusively by many on this group... might just have to break
down and get them this weekend.
Peter
2125
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:38am
Subject: Re: Ships Passing in the Night Films Like Lost in Translation
I don't believe anyone's mentioned Richard Linklater's beautiful
Before Sunrise.
2126
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 6:13am
Subject: Re: Ships Passing in the Night Films Like Lost in Translation
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
> I don't believe anyone's mentioned Richard Linklater's beautiful
> Before Sunrise.
Actually, I think Ruy did a few days ago, Damien. In any case, if
there's a movie in the "Lost in Translation"-vein that I like even
more than "Lost in Translation," it's "Before Sunrise." And talk
about taking full advantage of a locale! Few movies capture the
feeling of walking around in a foreign place with someone you care
about better than "Before Sunrise."
Reportedly, Linklater is currently at work on a sequel. I know this
must sound like an awful idea to some, but I have a feeling that
Linklater's smart enough (and has good enough taste) to make it work
and I long to see what he does with these characters 10 years late
2127
From: filipefurtado
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 6:26am
Subject: Re: Polonsky
> Force of Evil AND Tell Them Willy Boy Was Here.
Tell Them Willie Boy is here is wonderful, woberful film.I'd
take it over almost Kazan whole career any day (almost
because I do love Wild River).
Filipe
Great films. There
> should have been twenty more.
>
>
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2128
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 6:30am
Subject: The Visitors
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> On a subject more appropriate to this group, I recently resaw The
> Visitors, which I was taught to consider a fascist film in 1971. It
> isn't a fascist film, as far as I can see - that's the least you
could
> say in answer to that charge, although the parts that are clearly
> anti-rightwing (the father) are the least successful parts. What do
> the rest of you think of it today? - assuming you've even had a
> chance to see it.
I think The Visitors is one of Kazan's most affecting and deeply-felt
films. I don't see it as fascist in any real sense -- to me it's a
mournful study of violence and machismo and honor in Nixon-era
America and beyond.
Kazan drew exceptional performances from his cast of non-
professionals and unknowns (including James Woods and Steve
Railsback) and, as so often in his movies, Kazan beautifully conveys
a palpable ambience -- in this case creating a world the
plaintiveness of which is punctuated only by violence.
2129
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 8:48am
Subject: Re: Ships Passing in the Night Films Like Lost in Translation
>Red Desert
>Model Shop
>Kings of the Road
>They All Laughed
>Gigli (till Roth and Sherak ordered a new ending)
THE SILENCE.
Apropos not of this topic, Bill did you know that one well-known book
dealer has the "rare hardcover edition" of HITCHCOCK AT WORK listed
at $225.00?
--
- Joe Kaufman
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2130
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 0:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan
"Baby Doll" is my favorite, and the true only impact a Kazan film has made
on me. (Haven't seen America America yet).
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Tonguette"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 1:50 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Kazan
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
>
> > On a subject more appropriate to this group, I recently resaw The
> > Visitors, which I was taught to consider a fascist film in 1971. It
> > isn't a fascist film, as far as I can see - that's the least you
>
2131
From: jerome_gerber
Date: Tue Sep 30, 2003 1:38pm
Subject: Re: Polonsky
There's a tight fisted energy to Polonsky's work that remains in
repeated viewings...over the years and out of their time, Kazan's
films find a flabbiness, a lassitude that eat at their central worth
for me...and that includes On the Waterfront. Perhaps Baby Doll
escapes...but even it feels like a one joke conceit.
So I agree with the comment that Polonsky should have had
twenty more!
Jerry
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "filipefurtado"
wrote:
> > Force of Evil AND Tell Them Willy Boy Was Here.
>
> Tell Them Willie Boy is here is wonderful, woberful film.I'd
> take it over almost Kazan whole career any day (almost
> because I do love Wild River).
>
> Filipe
>
>
> Great films. There
> > should have been twenty more.
> >
> >
> > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -------------
> --------~-->
> > Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon
> or Lexmark
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> US & Canada.
> > http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
> > http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/b5IolB/TM
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------~->
> >
> > 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.co
> m/info/terms/
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> ---
> Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
> AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
> http://antipopup.uol.com.br
2132
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Wed Oct 1, 2003 11:34am
Subject: Need help finding articles
It is next to impossible for me as a dane to get hold of english and
american articles. Hence I ask you guys for help..
I am looking for the following specific articles, I know of...
- Howard Hampton, "Good-As-Deadfellas: The Films of Takeshi Kitano",
Artforum, April 1997
- Takeshi Kitano, "Respect at Last?", Japan Quarterly, 1998
- Nicholas D. Kristof, "Where Conformity Rules, Misfits Thrive", The
New York Times, 18 May, 1997
- Gavin Smith, "Takeshi Talks", Film Comment, March–April 1998
- Aaron Gerow, "Recognizing 'Others' in a New Japanese Cinema", The
Japan Foundation Newsletter, January 2002
- David Bordwell, "Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in
Contemporary American Film", Film Quarterly
- Tony Rayns, "The Harder Way", Sight & Sound, June 1996
- Tony Rayns, "To Die in America", Sight and Sound, April 2001
- Tony Rayns, "Puppet Love", Sight & Sound, June 2003
- Dave Kehr, Film Comment, March–April 1998
- Darrell Davis, "Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-Bi", Cinema
Journal, Summer 2001
Books with info about Kitano not available thru my university library
- Lee Server, Asian Pop Cinema: Bombay to Tokyo, Chronicle Books, San
Francisco, 1999, (Essay about Kitano)
- Mark Schilling, Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture, New York,
Weatherhill, 1997, pp. 253–257
Transcripts, PDF or simple scans of these articles are more than
welcomed. Also there must be other articles in american / english film
magazines. In short, ANYTHING about Kitano from any english source is
welcomed.
Henrik
2133
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Wed Oct 1, 2003 3:59pm
Subject: Polonsky's Oevre
I still think it is unfair to judge Kazan like this. Rightly or wrongly, Kazan made many, many films. Polonsky only three. If Polonsky hadn't been blacklisted, there's no guarantee that he would have made a film as good as "Force of Evil" every year. Who does? If Polonsky had only made "Willie Boy" and "Horsethief," we wouldn't even be discussing this issue.
And I doubt that if Jean Vigo had made thirty movies, that they all would have been a par with Zero for Conduct and L'Atlante.
Rick
jerome_gerber wrote:There's a tight fisted energy to Polonsky's work that remains in
repeated viewings...over the years and out of their time, Kazan's
films find a flabbiness, a lassitude that eat at their central worth
for me...and that includes On the Waterfront. Perhaps Baby Doll
escapes...but even it feels like a one joke conceit.
So I agree with the comment that Polonsky should have had
twenty more!
Jerry
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "filipefurtado"
wrote:
> > Force of Evil AND Tell Them Willy Boy Was Here.
>
> Tell Them Willie Boy is here is wonderful, woberful film.I'd
> take it over almost Kazan whole career any day (almost
> because I do love Wild River).
>
> Filipe
>
>
> Great films. There
> > should have been twenty more.
> >
> >
> > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -------------
> --------~-->
> > Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon
> or Lexmark
> > Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the
> US & Canada.
> > http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
> > http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/b5IolB/TM
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------~->
> >
> > 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.co
> m/info/terms/
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> ---
> Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
> AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
> http://antipopup.uol.com.br
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2134
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 1, 2003 4:59pm
Subject: Michael Powell's Bluebeard's Castle
Powell apparently made a film of this Bartok opera which barely
got released. Anyone know where I can get hold of it?
2135
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Oct 1, 2003 5:22pm
Subject: Re: Polonsky's Oevre
It's not a numbers game, Rick.
Charles Laughton made only ONE film, "The Night of the
Hunter," and it's the greatest American film ever
made, bar none.
--- Rick Segreda wrote:
> I still think it is unfair to judge Kazan like this.
> Rightly or wrongly, Kazan made many, many films.
> Polonsky only three. If Polonsky hadn't been
> blacklisted, there's no guarantee that he would have
> made a film as good as "Force of Evil" every year.
> Who does? If Polonsky had only made "Willie Boy" and
> "Horsethief," we wouldn't even be discussing this
> issue.
>
> And I doubt that if Jean Vigo had made thirty
> movies, that they all would have been a par with
> Zero for Conduct and L'Atlante.
>
> Rick
>
>
>
>
>
> jerome_gerber
> wrote:There's a tight fisted energy to Polonsky's
> work that remains in
> repeated viewings...over the years and out of their
> time, Kazan's
> films find a flabbiness, a lassitude that eat at
> their central worth
> for me...and that includes On the Waterfront.
> Perhaps Baby Doll
> escapes...but even it feels like a one joke conceit.
>
>
> So I agree with the comment that Polonsky should
> have had
> twenty more!
>
> Jerry
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "filipefurtado"
> wrote:
> > > Force of Evil AND Tell Them Willy Boy Was Here.
> >
> > Tell Them Willie Boy is here is wonderful,
> woberful film.I'd
> > take it over almost Kazan whole career any day
> (almost
> > because I do love Wild River).
> >
> > Filipe
> >
> >
> > Great films. There
> > > should have been twenty more.
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> -------------
> > --------~-->
> > > Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP,
> Epson, Canon
> > or Lexmark
> > > Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or
> more to the
> > US & Canada.
> > > http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
> > >
>
http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/b5IolB/TM
> > >
>
------------------------------------------------------------
> > ---------~->
> > >
> > > 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.co
> > m/info/terms/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua
> tela.
> > AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
> > http://antipopup.uol.com.br
>
>
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2136
From:
Date: Wed Oct 1, 2003 5:59pm
Subject: Michael Powell's Bluebeard's Castle
Sorry, do not have a copy of this!
In the late 1960's, American Public TV showed a terrific version of Bartok's opera "Bluebeard's Castle". Could this be the Powell Version (1963, 1964)? The TV version was sung in English. It has fascinating but not too real looking stage-like sets. It was NOT a stage production. There was no audience, and it was shot like a film. It had fine acting and atmosphere, as well as good singing. One really got caught up in the story. Have always wanted to see this again. "Blood is on your castle, Bluebeard..." "Open! Open!"
Film versions of operas and plays constitute a whole parallel world of fim history. We should be exploring them more.
Mike Grost
PS Saw a clip on CAS Chanel of a long (35 minute) music video (1999) directed by Germany's Oliver Hermann. It is based on Schoenberg's song cycle "Pierrot Lunaire". The film is apparently known as "Ein Leben, Eine Nacht" / "One Night. One Life" on DVD. Ha anyone seen this? The clip was fascinating, full of CGI special effects.
2137
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Wed Oct 1, 2003 6:06pm
Subject: Re: Michael Powell's Bluebeard's Castle
This is a Christine Schäfer dvd, Art Haus, easily purchased in the US or
Europe. There is also a Herrmann video on the same dvd of Schäfer and
Schumann's Dichterliebe, and a 45 minute interview with her. Staging
Lieder cycles is the current rage. Herrmann is Shäfter's companion and
I can't find anything nice to say about his filmmaking so I shan't say
anything more on the subject. There's a withering review of his work on
this dvd online, if you search.
MG4273@a... wrote:
>
> PS Saw a clip on CAS Chanel of a long (35 minute) music video (1999)
> directed by Germany's Oliver Hermann. It is based on Schoenberg's song
> cycle "Pierrot Lunaire". The film is apparently known as "Ein Leben,
> Eine Nacht" / "One Night. One Life" on DVD. Ha anyone seen this? The
> clip was fascinating, full of CGI special effects.
>
>
2138
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Wed Oct 1, 2003 6:35pm
Subject: Re: Michael Powell's Bluebeard's Castle
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Powell apparently made a film of this Bartok opera which barely
> got released. Anyone know where I can get hold of it?
Check out Steve Crook's website:
http://www.Powell-Pressburger.org
You should be able to find his email address there and contact him -
if anyone knows where to get a copy, he will.
Steve also runs a Yahoo! Group called "PnP" that is devoted to Powell
& Pressburger.
Dave
2139
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Oct 1, 2003 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Need help finding articles
Henrik--
You might find these articles about Kitano from the JAPAN TIMES
useful: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/JTsearch3.pl5?
You should also note that the very knowledgable Mark Schilling has an
excellent new volume out called "The Yakuza Movie Book" which has a
few pages on Kitano plus pieces on individual films
including "Brother", "Sonatine", and "3-4 Jugatsu".
If you cannot get this book any other way, maybe I can scan the
relevant pages for you (although Mark Schilling will probably not
thank me!) I might possibly have one or two of the articles you
mention also.
--Robert Keser
Takeshi+Kitano&&&
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
> It is next to impossible for me as a dane to get hold of english
and
> american articles. Hence I ask you guys for help..
>
> I am looking for the following specific articles, I know of...
>
> - Howard Hampton, "Good-As-Deadfellas: The Films of Takeshi
Kitano",
> Artforum, April 1997
> - Takeshi Kitano, "Respect at Last?", Japan Quarterly, 1998
> - Nicholas D. Kristof, "Where Conformity Rules, Misfits Thrive",
The
> New York Times, 18 May, 1997
> - Gavin Smith, "Takeshi Talks", Film Comment, March–April 1998
> - Aaron Gerow, "Recognizing 'Others' in a New Japanese Cinema", The
> Japan Foundation Newsletter, January 2002
> - David Bordwell, "Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in
> Contemporary American Film", Film Quarterly
> - Tony Rayns, "The Harder Way", Sight & Sound, June 1996
> - Tony Rayns, "To Die in America", Sight and Sound, April 2001
> - Tony Rayns, "Puppet Love", Sight & Sound, June 2003
> - Dave Kehr, Film Comment, March–April 1998
> - Darrell Davis, "Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-Bi",
Cinema
> Journal, Summer 2001
>
>
> Books with info about Kitano not available thru my university
library
> - Lee Server, Asian Pop Cinema: Bombay to Tokyo, Chronicle Books,
San
> Francisco, 1999, (Essay about Kitano)
> - Mark Schilling, Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture, New York,
> Weatherhill, 1997, pp. 253–257
>
> Transcripts, PDF or simple scans of these articles are more than
> welcomed. Also there must be other articles in american / english
film
> magazines. In short, ANYTHING about Kitano from any english source
is
> welcomed.
>
> Henrik
2140
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 2:20am
Subject: KITANO TAKESHI
These should all be available on the net from the following web site:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/filmdirectors/Kazan-Kusturica.htm
scroll down to KITANO
Brother. On-line pressbook, including director's statement.
(http://www.magiclanternpr.com/films/brother.html)
Edwards, Daniel. `The Willing Embrace of Destruction: Takeshi
Kitano's Brother'. Senses of Cinema,17,
Nov-Dec 2001. (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/17/
brother.html)
Fireworks (Hana-bi). Pressbook, including an extensive intervie=
w.
(http://www.milestonefilms.com/pdf_press/Fireworks.pdf)
Freeman, Mark. `Kitano's Hana-bi and the Spatial Taditions of Y=
asujiro
Ozu'. Senses of Cinema, 7, June
2000. With links to 5 other Kitano essays in Senses.
(http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/7/kitano.html)
Hoberman, J. `The Ultimate Renaissance Man'. Interview, 1 March=
1998.
(http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1285/n3_v28/20468513/p1/
article.jhtml?term=kitano)
Kunio Kuroda. Kikujiro review. Kinemo Junpo, 1288.
Tessier, Max. `Kikujiro's Summer' (review). Cinemaya, 44, 1999.=
Both
reviews are together at:
(http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/asianfilm/japan/kikujiro/revie=
ws.html)
Macnab, Geoffrey. `Sonatine'. Sight & Sound, May 1994. (http://=
filmsociety.wellington.net.nz/Sonatine.html)
Rayns, Tony. `The Harder Way'. Sight and Sound, June 1996.
(http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cine_doc_detail.pl/
cine_img?3453?3453?1)
Rayns, Tony. `Kids Return'. Sight & Sound, May 1997. (http://
filmsociety.wellington.net.nz/KidsReturn.html)
Rayns, Tony. `Puppet Love'. Sight & Sound, June 2003. (http://
www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/2003_06/puppet_love.php)
Senses of Cinema, 10, Nov 2000. Special Section on Kitano
comprising:
Saunders, Andrew. `Kikujiro: Tapestries'
Gardner, Geoff. `Kikujiro'
Edwards, Daniel. `Never Yielding Entirely into Art:=
Performance
and Self-obsession in Takeshi
Kitano's Hana-bi'
Harper, Dan. `Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine'
Saunders, Andrew. `A Scene at the Sea: Reflections'=
(http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/10/index=
.html)
2141
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 3:23am
Subject: Re: Michael Powell's Bluebeard's Castle
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Garrett" wrote:
> Check out Steve Crook's website:
>
> http://www.Powell-Pressburger.org
>
> You should be able to find his email address there and contact him -
> if anyone knows where to get a copy, he will.
>
> Steve also runs a Yahoo! Group called "PnP" that is devoted to
Powell
> & Pressburger.
Thanks for the link, Dave. Indeed, Steve maintains a page on this
site listing the P&P titles he has and those he is still looking for:
http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Wanted.html
It looks like he has obtained a copy of "Bluebeard's Castle," so
undoubtedly he'll be able to point Bill in the right direction.
This provides me with an excuse to mine the collective filmgoing
experiences of our many esteemed members and ask if anyone has
actually seen some of Powell's late films? I'm thinking of "Age of
Consent," "The Boy Who Turned Yellow," and the fascinating-
sounding "Return to 'The Edge of the World'"? The last one is, I now
see, readily available on DVD. It sounds a bit like
Welles' "Filming 'Othello'"...
Anyway, I'm curious how many of you have seen these and what your
opinions are. I'm a passionate fan of P&P, "The Red Shoes" and "The
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" standing as my favorites, but I've
seen virtually nothing after Powell's "Peeping Tom"...
Peter
2142
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 4:20am
Subject: Live from the Vancouver International Film Festival
I am priveledged at this moment to be in my favorite cities in the world which plays host to one the best film festivals around. Hundreds of films play in theatres around town twelve hours a day, and attendance at almost all showings is high.
I just came out of two showings, a Quebecoi film written, directed, and starring Robert Lapage called "Far Side of the Moon." Funny, poignant character study of two middle-aged brothers in middle-age, one gay and one straight, both played by Lapage. I loved it, but it was funny as in quiet chuckles rather than hilarious -- almost Chekovian, really -- so not quite enough of a Hit-The-Audience-Over-The-Head knockout that distributers go for. That's why I am greatful for festivals like this, since it allows me to see movies I'd never otherwise get a chance to.
Then: To Kill a King, a tedious historical drama featuring Tim Roth as Oliver Cromwell and Rupert Everret as Charles Stuart. Historically more accurate than "Elizabeth," but not half as fun. That'll teach them to be earnest. I actually love historical costume pictures, so I write this more in sorrow than in anger. Maybe I will look up the Alec Guiness "Cromwell" (in which Sir Alec plays Charles I) for comparison.
Next, "Feeding Boys," from China, about male prostitution.
Cheers,
Rick
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2145
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 6:30am
Subject: Vancouver International Film Festival II
Sorry about the multiple posting; I was at this
Internet Kiosk with a touch pad, which I am not used
to.
"Feeding Boys" was horrible, pretentious, middle-brow,
soft-core twaddle. Actually, the few minutes of
soft-core was about the only entertainment value this
shot-on-video film had.
The big movie that everyone is talking about is Tom
McCarthy's "The Station Agent," which has won all
sorts of awards at Sundance.
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2146
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 1:34pm
Subject: Re: Vancouver International Film Festival II
I saw an early screening of "The Station Agent" two
months ago. And while it's certainly well-made it
didn't impress me much at all. What's knocking people
out about it?
--- Rick Segreda wrote:
> Sorry about the multiple posting; I was at this
> Internet Kiosk with a touch pad, which I am not used
> to.
>
> "Feeding Boys" was horrible, pretentious,
> middle-brow,
> soft-core twaddle. Actually, the few minutes of
> soft-core was about the only entertainment value
> this
> shot-on-video film had.
>
> The big movie that everyone is talking about is Tom
> McCarthy's "The Station Agent," which has won all
> sorts of awards at Sundance.
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product
> search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
>
__________________________________
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The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
2147
From:
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 4:30pm
Subject: Vincente Minnelli and Max Ophuls
This is the Minnelli Centennial: he was born February 28, 2003.
Here are some notes on two scenes in Minnelli that recall Max Ophuls (two of my all-time favorite directors).
Minnelli was a great admirer of the film director Max Ophuls. He called Ophuls his "spiritual leader" as a filmmaker.
Towards the beginning of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962), there is a long sequence showing the hero and heroine falling it love. It recalls a similar and much celebrated sequence in Madame De... (1953) directed by Max Ophuls. Both sequences show a series of dates between the hero and heroine, during which they become more and more involved. The dates are cut together, even though they take place over several days, so that they form one apparently continuous progression. Both Minnelli and Ophuls include a scene in a restaurant, in which a long, tilted horizontal mirror behind and over the couple reflects the room and its other occupants as a whole.
Other aspects recall Minnelli's own films. The restaurant episodes recall that in Minnelli's The Clock (1945). Once again, there are sideboards full of plates and other beautiful objects. Each of the diners is also a beautifully conceived cameo, in the tradition of The Clock. Especially endearing is a French Army officer, who tenderly feeds his little girl. This recalls the family with the little girl in The Clock. (The huge crowd scenes throughout the film also recall The Clock.)
The color progressions are also Minnelli like. At the beginning, in the auction house, the heroine wears a light pink dress, that matches the pink background color of the Renoir pastel at auction. Glenn Ford is in a light gray suit. These are the two lightest colors worn by anyone at the auction, and make the hero and heroine stand out in the crowd. Women extras are in a series of purple suits here, providing a stunning series of color harmonies. Each one gets a bit of business in the Minnelli manner. After the auction proper, the hero and heroine move out into the hallway of the auction house. This set recalls the Mayor's room in The Pirate. In the background of both, their is a high region reached by a staircase going up at one side. Below this, there are a series of smaller steps going down. A white bust on a tall pillar reflects Minnelli's love of statues forming strong verticals. All of these features recall The Pirate. A later scene along the Seine recalls the waterside sequences in The Pirate and An American in Paris.
A restaurant is full of white tulips in vases, recalling the scenes in Some Came Running filled with white flowers.
Soon, we see the hero's red roadster. It forms a strong red horizontal along the bottom of the Cinemascope frame. It is echoed by a canopy along the top of the frame, in an identical color red. There is also a woman in a red dress in the background. She is seated under a green archway, which recalls both Minnelli's love of arches in his sets, and his fondness for garlanding sets with green plants. Later, in a second restaurant, Minnelli will have the couple seated against another long vividly red wall. It too forms a long red horizontal region at the bottom of the frame. This is just the start of a whole series of flaming red color schemes throughout the rest of the sequence. In many of these red, is contrasted with pale blues, recalling the dominant color scheme of Some Came Running; Red versus Blue. A restaurant mixes red walls with blue chairs. And the carriage in which the couple ride at the end has red-orange seats and blue lanterns on the side.
The carriage lights recall "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" in An American in Paris, which is imaginatively staged on a lighted staircase, in which the changing lights form dynamiv patterns of movement. The lights recall the moving neon lights in Some Came Running, the hypnotic revolving mirrors which flash light in The Pirate, the moving pillars glowing internally with light in Lovely to Look At, and the blue lantern on the carriage side in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. All five films have strong elements of Kinetic Art and Light Art in them, and are highly original in approach.
Some of the scenes link the hero with red. He keeps taking the heroine out to red restaurants, red carriages and his red roadster. He also makes a progression down a long red corridor exiting from the Club Latin dance club, a club that echoes his Argentinean heritage. But the heroine herself also has red associations: she wears an iridescent dark red dress. This beautiful evening gown is of a much darker shade of red than the flaming red-oranges associated with the hero here.
Kismet
Kismet is one of Minnelli's weakest films. But it has some good musical numbers.
Best of all is "Stranger in Paradise", sung by Vic Damone and Ann Blyth. This is shot on a set representing a hillside garden. Everything in the garden is in three colors: green foliage, red flowers, white walls and ornaments. The hero's clothes are in white with accents of green. They synchronize with the white and green colors of the garden. He seems like nature himself come to life, and his fervent singing of "Stranger in Paradise" seems to be a plea from nature for love. The white and green color harmonies here recall Meet Me in St. Louis. Towards the end of the hero's singing, the camera moves to a region where there are a great mass of red flowers in the background. The way the screen gets a large quantity of red here echoes other key moments in Minnelli when the screen fills with red, such as the finale of Some Came Running. The red and green harmony here also recalls a different part of Meet Me in St. Louis, the Christmas scene.
The heroine is in a yellow-orange dress, which is in complete but pleasing contrast with all the white, green and red in the garden. When she joins in with the song, the camera moves to reveal some orange colored leaves in the foreground. The orange seems to pick up and harmonize with the yellow-orange color of her dress.
During the song, the characters walk down a path in the hillside garden. The path is marked out by low white fences. It also includes pavilions, and other places of rest along the way. The following by the camera of characters walking on a staircase recalls Minnelli's idol Max Ophuls. As in Ophuls, the characters are on a predetermined path, one carefully designed for both walking and the moving camera. One difference: here the path seems to be a ramp, unlike the stepped staircases one typically meets in Ophuls. There are several shots at the beginning, while the characters are still talking. Even here, Minnelli is sparing with cuts, preferring to follow his lovers with a moving camera, in the manner of Ophuls. When the singing actually starts, the whole rest of the sequence is shot in two long takes.
The Caliph (Vic Damone) is undercover as a commoner here, in the Arabian Nights tradition. He is one of several young men in Minnelli of position, who secretly take on new roles and alliances with social outsiders. See also brother Lon in Meet Me in St. Louis, the roommate in Tea and Sympathy, and the hero of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Vic Damone sings very well here. He was mainly known as a singer, not an actor, and made only a few films, notably Richard Thorpe's Athena (1954) and Phil Karlson's Hell to Eternity (1960). In all three, he was a supporting performer, not the star. Damone had an earnest manner and clear diction: one could understand every word he sang.
Next year, Minnelli will include another hillside garden in Tea and Sympathy, one that is also largely green. The hero of that film will be an expert gardener: the same role that the Caliph here (Vic Damone) is pretending to take on. In both films, the garden is owned by the heroine, who asks the hero's advice about what to grow in the garden. In both films, the garden is a private place of refuge for the hero and heroine. They have intimate conversations there, in a protected environment. The hero enters the garden in Tea and Sympathy from above, then moves to the lower section of the garden down the hill; both characters do the same here.
The later brief scene where the Caliph announces his engagement is also charming. Damone is one of the gentle young men often featured in Minnelli, and he radiates good cheer here. He is standing on a slightly raised platform in front of a crowd. The platform has a few steps in front: they are the long, shallow steps that often serve as a base for Minnelli sets, and compositions. The platform has two raised columns on either side: Minnelli verticals. The columns are crowned with gold circular abstract statues; Damone's costume is full of gold, and so are those of half the crowd; and the platform has a polygonal, almost circular edge, also of bright gold. Once again, Damon is in a costume that makes him in color harmony with his surroundings. Two more circular forms are provided by two functionaries standing on either side; each carries a nearly circular large horn. The two men remind one of the two men in hunter's costume on either side of Red Skelton, at the start of the fashion show in Lovely to Look At.
Mike Grost
2148
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 4:02pm
Subject: STATION MASTER
I saw STATION MASTER in LA last week. A Q&A by the writer/director
McCarthy and male leads Dinklage and Cannavale followed. Clarkson was
performing or working elsewhere.
The story was originally written without a dwarf actor in mind and I
wondered how the "I AM A DWARF" scene might have been otherwise if the
main character was not an actor who is a dwarf.
I thought it interesting what was done with the roaring sound of the
train / music overlays and asked it that was as planned to use the
music in such a way in the writing or something done afterwards when
the soundtrack was being developed and the answer was it was done
after. As a writer, I found that part of the story telling interesting.
McCarthy mentioned that he had the idea of a WESTERN in mind in the
writing when referring to the laconic Finbar character.
My personal questions for movies include:
1) Would I like to see it again?
2) To whom can I recommend the movie?
The movie is easy to recommend to many, but interestingly, I feel no
need to see it again in the near future, perhaps at a later date.
Critical questions will follow after the buzz dies down.
On Thursday, October 2, 2003, at 12:30 AM, a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
wrote:
> The big movie that everyone is talking about is Tom
> McCarthy's "The Station Agent," which has won all
> sorts of awards at Sundance.
2149
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 4:57pm
Subject: Re: Vincente Minnelli and Max Ophuls
The fashion show finale of "Lovely to Look At" (whose
shooting took longer than the rest of the entire film)
also cross-references "Ziegfeld Follies" with Marge
and Gower Champion playing the girl and the jewel
thief like Astaire and Bremer in the "This Heart of
Mine" number.
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
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2150
From: vincent lobrutto
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 0:16am
Subject: Re Cineaste
Forgive me if this has been posted and I missed it but we are mentioned on the editorial page of the current issue of Cineaste. The topic is Film Criticism in Cyberspace. "...A Film By invites die-hard auteurists to lovingly consider the career of cherished directors auch as Howard Hawks, Douglas Sirk, and Frank Borzage..." Way to go! (is the mention of die-hard a reference to John McTernan???)
Vinny
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2151
From:
Date: Thu Oct 2, 2003 9:15pm
Subject: Re: Re Cineaste
Very cool and also very gratifying. We have group member (and Cineaste
editor) Richard Porton to thank for this honor; several months ago, Richard asked
if Fred and I minded the group being named in an upcoming editorial. Of
course, the answer was a hearty "no"!
P.S. - Vinny, I actually think McTiernan has a pretty strong and resilient
rep among auteurists, so let's just all pretend Richard was referencing "Die
Hard." :)
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
2152
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 6:31am
Subject: Re: Vincente Minnelli and Max Ophuls; Madame Bovary
Thanks Mike, for your post. I admire both directors as
well, and I always thought Minnelli's "Madame Bovary"
with it's sweeping camera movements and 19th century
setting was the closest Minnelli came to approximating
Ophuls both stylistically and thematically. I actually
much prefer Minelli's Bovary to Claude Chabrol's
tediously faithful version with Isabelle Hubert, even
though Minelli and his screenwriters, under the gun of
the censors, made one crucial compromise with
Flaubert's novel. Still, for me, the movie really
works as drama, and that ballroom scene, where Van
Heflin's provincial doctor stumbles about trying to
ingratiate himself amongst his betters is a real coup
in terms of being able to capture so many of
Flaubert's themes and feelings in a way that even
Flaubert's prose couldn't match.
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> This is the Minnelli Centennial: he was born
> February 28, 2003.
> Here are some notes on two scenes in Minnelli that
> recall Max Ophuls (two of my all-time favorite
> directors).
> Minnelli was a great admirer of the film director
> Max Ophuls. He called Ophuls his "spiritual leader"
> as a filmmaker.
>
> Towards the beginning of The Four Horsemen of the
> Apocalypse (1962), there is a long sequence showing
> the hero and heroine falling it love. It recalls a
> similar and much celebrated sequence in Madame De...
> (1953) directed by Max Ophuls. Both sequences show a
> series of dates between the hero and heroine, during
> which they become more and more involved. The dates
> are cut together, even though they take place over
> several days, so that they form one apparently
> continuous progression. Both Minnelli and Ophuls
> include a scene in a restaurant, in which a long,
> tilted horizontal mirror behind and over the couple
> reflects the room and its other occupants as a
> whole.
>
> Other aspects recall Minnelli's own films. The
> restaurant episodes recall that in Minnelli's The
> Clock (1945). Once again, there are sideboards full
> of plates and other beautiful objects. Each of the
> diners is also a beautifully conceived cameo, in the
> tradition of The Clock. Especially endearing is a
> French Army officer, who tenderly feeds his little
> girl. This recalls the family with the little girl
> in The Clock. (The huge crowd scenes throughout the
> film also recall The Clock.)
>
> The color progressions are also Minnelli like. At
> the beginning, in the auction house, the heroine
> wears a light pink dress, that matches the pink
> background color of the Renoir pastel at auction.
> Glenn Ford is in a light gray suit. These are the
> two lightest colors worn by anyone at the auction,
> and make the hero and heroine stand out in the
> crowd. Women extras are in a series of purple suits
> here, providing a stunning series of color
> harmonies. Each one gets a bit of business in the
> Minnelli manner. After the auction proper, the hero
> and heroine move out into the hallway of the auction
> house. This set recalls the Mayor's room in The
> Pirate. In the background of both, their is a high
> region reached by a staircase going up at one side.
> Below this, there are a series of smaller steps
> going down. A white bust on a tall pillar reflects
> Minnelli's love of statues forming strong verticals.
> All of these features recall The Pirate. A later
> scene along the Seine recalls the waterside
> sequences in The Pirate and An American in Paris.
>
> A restaurant is full of white tulips in vases,
> recalling the scenes in Some Came Running filled
> with white flowers.
>
> Soon, we see the hero's red roadster. It forms a
> strong red horizontal along the bottom of the
> Cinemascope frame. It is echoed by a canopy along
> the top of the frame, in an identical color red.
> There is also a woman in a red dress in the
> background. She is seated under a green archway,
> which recalls both Minnelli's love of arches in his
> sets, and his fondness for garlanding sets with
> green plants. Later, in a second restaurant,
> Minnelli will have the couple seated against another
> long vividly red wall. It too forms a long red
> horizontal region at the bottom of the frame. This
> is just the start of a whole series of flaming red
> color schemes throughout the rest of the sequence.
> In many of these red, is contrasted with pale blues,
> recalling the dominant color scheme of Some Came
> Running; Red versus Blue. A restaurant mixes red
> walls with blue chairs. And the carriage in which
> the couple ride at the end has red-orange seats and
> blue lanterns on the side.
> The carriage lights recall "I'll Build a Stairway to
> Paradise" in An American in Paris, which is
> imaginatively staged on a lighted staircase, in
> which the changing lights form dynamiv patterns of
> movement. The lights recall the moving neon lights
> in Some Came Running, the hypnotic revolving mirrors
> which flash light in The Pirate, the moving pillars
> glowing internally with light in Lovely to Look At,
> and the blue lantern on the carriage side in The
> Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. All five films have
> strong elements of Kinetic Art and Light Art in
> them, and are highly original in approach.
>
> Some of the scenes link the hero with red. He keeps
> taking the heroine out to red restaurants, red
> carriages and his red roadster. He also makes a
> progression down a long red corridor exiting from
> the Club Latin dance club, a club that echoes his
> Argentinean heritage. But the heroine herself also
> has red associations: she wears an iridescent dark
> red dress. This beautiful evening gown is of a much
> darker shade of red than the flaming red-oranges
> associated with the hero here.
>
> Kismet
>
> Kismet is one of Minnelli's weakest films. But it
> has some good musical numbers.
>
> Best of all is "Stranger in Paradise", sung by Vic
> Damone and Ann Blyth. This is shot on a set
> representing a hillside garden. Everything in the
> garden is in three colors: green foliage, red
> flowers, white walls and ornaments. The hero's
> clothes are in white with accents of green. They
> synchronize with the white and green colors of the
> garden. He seems like nature himself come to life,
> and his fervent singing of "Stranger in Paradise"
> seems to be a plea from nature for love. The white
> and green color harmonies here recall Meet Me in St.
> Louis. Towards the end of the hero's singing, the
> camera moves to a region where there are a great
> mass of red flowers in the background. The way the
> screen gets a large quantity of red here echoes
> other key moments in Minnelli when the screen fills
> with red, such as the finale of Some Came Running.
> The red and green harmony here also recalls a
> different part of Meet Me in St. Louis, the
> Christmas scene.
>
> The heroine is in a yellow-orange dress, which is in
> complete but pleasing contrast with all the white,
> green and red in the garden. When she joins in with
> the song, the camera moves to reveal some orange
> colored leaves in the foreground. The orange seems
> to pick up and harmonize with the yellow-orange
> color of her dress.
>
> During the song, the characters walk down a path in
> the hillside garden. The path is marked out by low
> white fences. It also includes pavilions, and other
> places of rest along the way. The following by the
> camera of characters walking on a staircase recalls
> Minnelli's idol Max Ophuls. As in Ophuls, the
> characters are on a predetermined path, one
> carefully designed for both walking and the moving
> camera. One difference: here the path seems to be a
> ramp, unlike the stepped staircases one typically
> meets in Ophuls. There are several shots at the
> beginning, while the characters are still talking.
> Even here, Minnelli is sparing with cuts, preferring
> to follow his lovers with a moving camera, in the
> manner of Ophuls. When the singing actually starts,
> the whole rest of the sequence is shot in two long
> takes.
>
> The Caliph (Vic Damone) is undercover as a commoner
> here, in the Arabian Nights tradition. He is one of
> several young men in Minnelli of position, who
> secretly take on new roles and alliances with social
> outsiders. See also brother Lon in Meet Me in St.
> Louis, the roommate in Tea and Sympathy, and the
> hero of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Vic
> Damone sings very well here. He was mainly known as
> a singer, not an actor, and made only a few films,
> notably Richard Thorpe's Athena (1954) and Phil
> Karlson's Hell to Eternity (1960). In all three, he
> was a supporting performer, not the star. Damone had
> an earnest manner and clear diction: one could
> understand every word he sang.
>
> Next year, Minnelli will include another hillside
> garden in Tea and Sympathy, one that is also largely
> green. The hero of that film will be an expert
> gardener: the same role that the Caliph here (Vic
> Damone) is pretending to take on. In both films, the
> garden is owned by the heroine, who asks the hero's
> advice about what to grow in the garden. In both
> films, the garden is a private place of refuge for
> the hero and heroine. They have intimate
> conversations there, in a protected environment. The
> hero enters the garden in Tea and Sympathy from
> above, then moves to the lower section of the garden
> down the hill; both characters do the same here.
>
> The later brief scene where the Caliph announces his
> engagement is also charming. Damone is one of the
> gentle young men often featured in Minnelli, and he
> radiates good cheer here. He is standing on a
> slightly raised platform in front of a crowd. The
> platform has a few steps in front: they are the
> long, shallow steps that often serve as a base for
> Minnelli sets, and compositions. The platform has
> two raised columns on either side: Minnelli
> verticals. The columns are crowned with gold
> circular abstract statues; Damone's costume is full
> of gold, and so are those of half the crowd; and the
> platform has a polygonal, almost circular edge, also
> of bright gold. Once again, Damon is in a costume
> that makes him in color harmony with his
> surroundings.
=== message truncated ===
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2153
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 6:47am
Subject: I did not like STATION MASTER
I just came out of a screening of "Station Master."
I'm with David on this one. What's the big deal?
(Since the movie is about a dwarf, maybe that's an
unfortunate pun)
The central problem with "Station Master" is the
inert, inarticulate, withdrawn, emotionally
constipated dwarf protagonist, Finn.
I think writer/director fell prey to the sentimental
notion that characters that don't say much have
compellingly mysterious inner depths. I prefer Sydney
Greenstreet's point in "The Maltese Falcon" about
prefering people who talk to much rather than people
who talk to little, because people who talk to little
invarably say the wrong thing when they do.
The story concerns a dwarf who inherits an old train
station from his late boss. The dwarf, "Finn," for
reasons we are never told, is a loner with no interest
in other people. Yet when he moves to this small town,
a handful of attractive locals are immediately drawn
towards him and spend much of the movie begging to be
his friend or lover. Yes, he is also seen recieving
some nasty taunts, but I didn't get the point. Is that
why he is withdrawn? Is this meant to lay a guilt trip
on the audience? What?
A very comely young woman kisses him at a certain
point, yet when she asks to stay the night, he agrees
to do so platonically, as if this were the 1930's and
the production code was still being enforced.
I couldn't get the wild enthusiasm for the the other
main characters for Finn, but the audience laughed at
every bit of "humor" set up by McCarthy. I sat bored
and confused.
Want to see a good dwarf movie? Rent the Argentine "I
Only Want You to Love Me," with Marcello Mastrioni.
Rick
--- Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> I saw STATION MASTER in LA last week. A Q&A by the
> writer/director
> McCarthy and male leads Dinklage and Cannavale
> followed. Clarkson was
> performing or working elsewhere.
>
> The story was originally written without a dwarf
> actor in mind and I
> wondered how the "I AM A DWARF" scene might have
> been otherwise if the
> main character was not an actor who is a dwarf.
>
> I thought it interesting what was done with the
> roaring sound of the
> train / music overlays and asked it that was as
> planned to use the
> music in such a way in the writing or something done
> afterwards when
> the soundtrack was being developed and the answer
> was it was done
> after. As a writer, I found that part of the story
> telling interesting.
>
> McCarthy mentioned that he had the idea of a WESTERN
> in mind in the
> writing when referring to the laconic Finbar
> character.
>
> My personal questions for movies include:
> 1) Would I like to see it again?
> 2) To whom can I recommend the movie?
>
> The movie is easy to recommend to many, but
> interestingly, I feel no
> need to see it again in the near future, perhaps at
> a later date.
>
> Critical questions will follow after the buzz dies
> down.
>
>
>
>
> On Thursday, October 2, 2003, at 12:30 AM,
> a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
> wrote:
>
> > The big movie that everyone is talking about is
> Tom
> > McCarthy's "The Station Agent," which has won all
> > sorts of awards at Sundance.
>
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2154
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 7:00am
Subject: Film Festival Update
Speaking of Argentine movies, the best film I have
seen so far is Marcello Piñyero's "Kamchatka," about
an upper middle class family hiding out during the
start of the 1976 military dirty wars. The story is
told as a memory piece from the point of view of a
12-year-old boy, and it has much in common with
Roberto Begnini's "Life is Beatiful" in that the
parents coach their sons to think that the hiding out,
the changed identities, and such, is part of an
elaborate game.
I actually thought the film was a little too
leisurely, too low-key, and almost too pleasant to do
it's subject justice. But that the conclusion came and
I realized that that was a perfect set-up for a
powerful, kick-in-the-solar-plexus, wallop of an
ending. Suddenly this movie became closer in spirit
not to "Life is Beatiful" but Roman Polanski's "The
Pianist," and I was reminded what Blaise Pascal once
said that man is but a fragile, thinking reed.
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2155
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 7:15am
Subject: THE CINEMA OF LONELINESS
Interesting that STATION AGENT and LOST IN TRANSITION are getting a lot
of attention as they are both films dealing with LONELINESS, although I
would say Lost in Transition is ennui personified.
I see artistic merit in both, but no personal need to see either again and that is
the least I want from a movie.
I've had THE CINEMA OF LONELINESS by Robert Phillip Kolker in my stack
of cinema books for a while as I'm working on a story about a person alone in
the world (different from a lonesome sort).
Anybody familiar with THE CINEMA OF LONELINESS?
2156
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 8:19am
Subject: An Auteurist Adventure
One thing that I've noticed from reading posts almost daily on this
board is that there are few things more effective in getting
people to see films than simply telling them, powerfully and
persuasively, and telling them why. When certain people, like Fred
and Dan and Mike Grost, just for starters, recommend a film, I pay
attention. They mention a film and say "ladies and gents, heed my
word, it is the very bee's Sunday knees" and all that jazz, and it
goes in the little notebook, for near future reference.
In other words.
I WILL SEE THAT FILM.
Okay then.
What would be great is this: if there was a way to collect all these
recommendations (and those not made yet, here) in one place. I'm not
talking about a Top 50 or Top 100 list that simply spits out titles
after calculating some mathematical bullshit and distills/elides
personal input for the "greater good" of consensus. I'm talking
about a guide that lists directors first (included because they're
said to be "essential" by, well, frankly, those who know) and which
of their films, second, are the cinephile's highest priority. And,
most importantly, why. It would be nice, really helpful even, to
have a kind of "what to see" index at our fingertips.
Because, after all, what is the all-important, nothing-else-matters
reason for talking about movies...if not the movies themselves?
My plan is to set up a critical database that is somewhat (or, uh, a
lot) less ambitious than the same-monikered Great Directors project
on 'Senses of Cinema', a Critical Database that aims to provide young
and aspiring cinephiles with a road map of sorts, a manual that will
take them on a potentially extremely gratifying, productive, and
exciting journey through the cinema, organized by AUTEUR.
Which brings us to
Why do *you* need to know this? What is the answer to: "Great idea
dude, so why am I reading this post?" Easy. Because this will
require the input of YOU, the a_film_by member. Because I want the
user of this database not only to say, I guess I should see this
film, but also: aha, the word of Joseph R. Jones, cinephile at
large, a man of impeccable taste/an eye for under-the-radar
masterpieces/patron saint of Thai video art/the dude that knows
westerns [or film noirs, or Japanese postmodern collages of violence
and detective story iconography] from asterisk to obelisk, and back
again, is as good as gold, so when he recommends such-and-such
Ford/Borzage/Cornell/Doillon/Resnais/Miike/Polonsky/Bellocchio/etc.
movie, I'm as good as THERE. Or at least I will be when the
opportunity arises.
[/done talking in the, what, fifth person or whatever]
So that's it. For now. There are a lot of brilliant minds in this
group that I wish to tap into, to hire as consultant, for this sorta-
ambitious project. It will be ongoing, starting small and increasing
as it goes along, I hope.
So stand by, watch the skies, etc. I hope you will agree to
participate. I hope that you, if you are not asked directly for your
input, will nevertheless feel that *this* *message* *here* will serve
as an invitation to join the project, in whatever capacity you can.
That is all. I look forward to working with so very many of you.
best
Jaime
2157
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 8:33am
Subject: Re: THE CINEMA OF LONELINESS
I've had my eye on CINEMA OF LONELINESS for some months now, it's
been a constant presence in the Film section of every bookstore.
Unfortunately I haven't read it yet, I tend to get suspicious of
books that look like they've emerged from a course taught by the
author, or somebody's doctoral thesis, etc.
I have always, if at times possibly erroneously, supposed that
loneliness in specific films could often be most striking in a film
that did not include Loneliness as one of its main (or most clearly
articulated) themes. In other words, I've frequently sensed the
Cinema of Loneliness* in films where I wasn't "supposed" to sense it,
because it wasn't among the film's top priorities. Indeed, the very
concept of the single hero seems to have become increasingly
inextricable from loneliness, isolation, etc. Whether that's because
the concept is chic, of-the-moment, etc., or because it's essential
to our existence on this planet, I suppose we have yet to really
determine.
* Again, I haven't read the book to get a concise definition of what
that exactly means.
Jaime
2158
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 8:34am
Subject: Kazan: the balance sheet
Dear comrades -
A friend and I often like to quote a great line from AMERICAN GIGOLO, near
the end when the creepy pimp says (of Richard Gere's character): "I never
liked him much anyway".
With Elia Kazan, I think some people are in danger of concluding: he was a
political rat (and I don't disagree with that) - and therefore, his film
work was never much good anyway.
But I think this would be wrong. At the very least, I think SPLENDOR IN THE
GRASS is a major film melodrama. And Catherine Breillat's appreciation of
BABY DOLL turned me on to that film (even if she makes it into more a
Breillat film than a Kazan film!!). And there's WILD RIVER and a few others
that are terrific. I do agree, however, with the negative opinion of ON HE
WATERFRONT. And THE ARRANGEMENT, which I recently saw on a big screen, is an
almighty stinker! So, the balance sheet is uneven, but we shouldn't write
the guy off as an artist and filmmaker.
On the political level, there is also this: nothing to do with the quality
or otherwise of the films, but wouldn't it be a fascinating piece of
cultural psuchoanalysis to dig out all the traces of guilt, denial, evasion,
dissociation, etc that accrued in Kazan's work post the 'ratting'? I
remember once Michel Ciment once mounting a defense of Kazan's art and
politics along just these lines (roughly). On the other hand, there is
Berenice Reynaud's fascinating psychoanalytic reading of Kazan's 'symptoms'
(as expressed in his autobiography) in her brilliant piece on Barbara Loden,
which is in the augmented LAST AMERICAN PICTURE SHOW book coming out soon (I
hope).
Adrian Martin
2159
From:
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 5:34am
Subject: Kazan
Kazan seems to be an interesting but not quite top director.
"Gentleman's Agreement" is a still trenchant treatment of the horrors of
anti-Semitism.
"Panic in the Streets" is the best Kazan film seen here. It is the granddaddy
of all the "scientists versus germ" movies made since. Such TV shows as "The
Burning Zone" come directly out of this.
Both of these early Kazan films have the benefit of interesting subject
matter. They also have good acting. They seem to be high points of his career.
Among the later movies, "Wild River" and "Splendour in the Grass" both have
their moments. "Wild River" is another film with a scientist hero - always an
interesting subject. Like other Kazan films, it benefits from its location
shooting.
Nothing seen here by Kazan remotely equals the matchless artistry of such
films as "Some Came Running" (Vincente Minnelli), "Fallen Angel" (Otto
Preminger), "Sergeant Rutledge" (John Ford) or "Vertigo" (Alfred Hitchcock).
Mike Grost
2160
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 11:02am
Subject: Re: Welles and Sganzerla
> there's a major Welles retrospective planned. Filipe's told
me that some of
> the more rarely screened finished films -
like "Filming 'Othello'" - will be
> shown, as well as possibly some of the unfinished works. If
you guys are able to
> see this stuff, please post your thoughts!
They're showing all the finished films plus some more rare
like Around the World with Orson Welles and The Fountain of
Youth. Unfortunately I ended not going there, so it isn't
this time that will be seeing Chimes at Midnight and Filmming
Othello. about Welles, it seems like the man keep playing
tricks with its audience. The festival organizers forgot that
many of Welles films have different versions and didn't try
to find which ones they would get copies of and made the
eletronic subtitles for a random version. Results: in some
films the subtitles and the film didn't match at all. I
probably wouldn't say this, if I was there, but I can't stop
thionking that Welles hilmsef would think the whole thing is
very amusing.
Bill ask me to write something about Rogerio Sganzerla's new
film O Signo do Caos (The Sign of Chaos) but since now I'm
only foing to see it later this month, here goes Ruy's
passionate review of it (I put it in the translator and them
did some corrections, sorry if it's still hard to understand
in some spots):
"It goes and it comes back, it goes and it comes back" or
A film cut to the electric chair
to Jairo Ferreira
to Rogério Sganzerla
to Julio Bressane
to Mair Tavares
to Bruno Andrade
Sofia, Remier, Karen, Snir, Gisella
And anyone else who wants it
a) The Sign of Chaos composes with Tudo É Brasil (It’s All
Brazil) a strange compendium of devotion and repulsion to the
country. While the later was a chant of assimilation and
enchantment taking for base the eyes of an foreigner who made
cinema, the former is melancholic, enraged and disenchanted
shout of poisonous loathing, a certification - in first
person, it would be said - of the stagnation of the Brazilian
cultural process and all in this process involved. While It’s
All Brazil evolve us in the relationship of a character with
its environment, tells a sad but flavorful passage of
discovery, the Sign of Chaos paralyses any evolution, plays
its shots and characters – all leads, or all supporting
parts – in labyrinths of a straight line, where they know
themselves to be lost but they do not have nor the hope to
run some place and to be found.
b) An antifilm, but more than everything a terrorist one:
throw us in the screen dramatically, with clinical cruelty
and frenetic fervour all the laziness climate that surrounds
the relation between the art and the Brazilian state.. A
bureaucratic stagnation: few times a film (or a work of art
in general) took so far took the repetition with destructive
ends – of the relation of fetish with the screen – and self-
destructive. Fury of the eye of the whirlwind: everything is
played with centripetal force for a black hole of denied
sense. As much the systematic rigidity of
Beckett’s "Comedy", where the story eats it’s own tail and
slowly changes into cacophony and redundancy, as the
pirandellian feeling lack of aiming of the characters. "N
characters in search of a fiction – or in the drift of it,
since we were stolen", a possible sub-title to the Sign of
Chaos.
c) Fellini said, in the documentary that played before
Sganzerla’s film, that the only criterion that counts for
everything and for all the artistic manifestations are the
vitality. Let us be clear and brief, because perhaps the
reader has still not perceived: The Sign of Chaos is vital,
transpires blood and sweat and print its fluids in the
screen. Near it some fruits assume other colorations - or the
same coloration with another meaning -, the minerals fly more
far, the rebels turn pale.
d) the most extreme film, jusqu'auboutiste of (brazilian)
cinema since The Age of Earth, sign by Glauber Rocha, itself
a kind of non-recognized tribute to Sganzerla/Bressane.
e) Banal to say that the film is the nth film of Sganzerla on
Orson Welles. No film of Sganzerla is on Welles. All are made
from him – counting from the first , The Red Light Bandit,
from all the works of its auteur the one that The Sign of
Chaos closest resembles. Strange and far from easy similarity
to explain, sorry. We confess our insufficiency.
f) Still thus Welles is there, in the plagiarized shots of
Citzen Kane – repetitive plongé of the DIP villain (Otávio
III, fenomenal) throwing high the leaves and seeing them
fall; in the incredible editing of the B&W section, that
flies as Mr. Arkadin; but above of all in the appearence of
the omnipotent character that believes to hold the truth and
sees hilmself in the right to imprint the law whatever it
takes: Charles Foster Kane, Hank Quinlan, Arkadin, Bannister.
Disconnected from the world they all see themselves as
owners, they find in the character of Otávio III a legitimate
successor. Aware that he exerts its power without without
correspondent knowlodge to doing it, he can only say the same
phrases – like the already omnipotent and wellesian character
played by Jô Soares in Everybody’s Woman.
g) Never let us forget: The Sign of Chaos has as many
memorable quotes as The Red Light Bandit. The one with most
staying power is from Welles himself: "It’s necessary to take
cinema off the toy’s room".
h) Estructure of the film’s plot: In the first section, the
DIP’s thugs find a trunk with negatives from It's All True;
unresigned with the savagey and broken of protocol by
the "genius" who direct the film, decide to veto it ad
aeternum. One of them, however, sees in the film’s rushes the
purest expression of cinematographic art (or the art tout
court) and tries without success to convince his boss that
the film should be seeing, (this is done all in black-and-
white). There’s a small first interlude filmed with little
definition and saturated colors: Camila Pitanga behind a
Brazil’s flag: lying in splendid cradle, she poses, drink,
talçk with a man and plays with a transparent small ball (we
will come back to this). Later, a second interlude in which a
little girl runs from a small farm. The film’s only "pretty"
sequence, in off the girl and his mother talk about color,
black-and-white in cinema and the confuse mind of the
artists. Up to 1940, the world was in black-and-white.
Finally, a second section where the characters celebrate in a
watered little party the destruction of the cans of Welles’
film. In a deck, a certain lady (from Xangai?) waits the
defender of Welles’ film with open arms, till later blaming
him for having lost all the money to save it (always the
money).
i) An animal film: a parrot is the Tiresias and chorus of
the plot, the most discerning character is a bird stuffed
with straw (the only one who knows its condition). Perhaps
the other characters are even more animal-like.
j) The most beautiful scene in the film: Camila Pitanga
beating ball with the spherical and transparent amulet that
is in the hand of Charles Kane when, dying, pronounces the
famous word "Rosebud". Worth the entire career of some
filmmakers...
l) "The image of chaos is chaos itself." Th film doesn’t want
to explore this chãos, but to be taken by it. Self-centered,
savage and unexpectable as a particle, the film anticipates
shots, repeat them to exhaustion (the thug that only
laughs...), but more than anything carries through the
strategy of chambered each character and situation in a
claustrophobically and direful frame. But it’s us that ended
up feeling like Janet Leigh in Touch of Evil, encircled by
vicious agents from DIP (or DOPS, or to any effect the
marketing managers that became new-secretaries of culture
nowadays) trying submitting us to their authority.
m) Still Brazil as the sleeping giant, represented here by
the image of the tropical amazon that Camila Pitanga is. The
exuberance of her natural richness corresponds an autism of
the tale, an incapacity of fiction and the impossibility to
project her beauty outiside her own sequence. "Brazilians
shouldn’t never be born" (quote by memory, as everything
here), but, worst, allright, because " they are already
condemned by the moment they are born ". Stays the
impression that Sganzerla could have already surpassed the
national question in favor of the notional one (Bressane’s
Miramar), but in any case The Sign of Chaos justifies and
reworks to content this concern.
n) If the rhythmic cells of the samba were the key to
decipher Welles’ wondered with the country in It’s All
Brazil, here Ary Barroso’s " Brazil", our informal hymn (and
therefore perhaps our true hymn), is whistled here with a
loathing tone. A pandeiro is played, but treated as bas as
the film cans with the negatives of It's All True.
o) Hard to think of films as opposite as Julio Bressane’s A
Love Film and The Sign of Chaos. Opposite in the way they
work their relationship with the world (surrender in
Bressane, rebellion in Sganzerla), in how they take part in
existancial moments and recognition of different works and
how these passges written themselves in the work. We can say
with some certainty that this was not the film we all
expected from a veteran Sganzerla. The Sign of the Chaos has
the virulence, the aggressiveness of a newcomer, and the
experience of cut of a veteran.
p) Also, for the degenerate state in which is find the
filmmaker illness, the film does not come at certain moment
for a climate of predisposition to make Sganzerla para a poor
fellow that deserves our attetion. But him, as an artist at
least, don’t need this. Is still and always an enragé, and is
ready to spit in our piety. Fairly. Leave the charity and
benevolence to who needs it. To Sganzerla only justice is
enough.
q) An aspect that is perhaps little observed is the condition
of women as muses. And, as inspirations to art, the are in
second plain in the film: beuatiful, Djin Sganzerla appears
in the screen many times but isalways ignored by the
colleagues that are in the same shot. She can only pose to
the viewer, because inside the film she can’t captivate
nobody.
r) Montage mon beau souci. Again a film that solves itself in
the editing room (Sganzerla still wants to work in the film,
by the way), the operation of putting shots together as the
real defining of sense. Rhythm, breath, continuity and
planned discontinuity, nostalgic compliment of dubbing
(almost always out of sync, as in the italians or our best
national films). A film that makes itself more in the space
between lineses than in the lines.
s) Guará Rodrigues, Helena Ignez. Impossible not to mention
them.
t) More than Ary Barroso, the film has the tone of another
music in it, Charles Mingus’ The Black Saint And The Siner
Lady. Discord, energetic, congregated metals kicking for all
places, love and voracity together in a single piece.
u) Because it’s not because The Sign of Chaos is a fiery-
tempered film that it doesn’t have a possible adhesion (a
visible substratum of the world to be explored, and a
consequent love for this hypothesis). Therefore, also, the
film goes more far than certain similars recent apocalyptic
films. The world is destroyed, the enemy is strong and very
well determinable, but art is still to be making. Even with
only as possibility, it still persists.
v) "The only American novelist living today who may
conceivably be possessed by Genius" (Norman Mailer on William
Burroughs). The only brazilian filmmaker living today
possessed by genius, we can say about Sganzerla. Mr.
Sganzerlá.
x) A film that tries to purge in itself a whole country, a
whole life experience, a whole infamous long relationship
between power and art. The cost is expensive, the retribution
improbable: it will be a maudit film forever.
z) A suicidal film for suicidal people. Love it or leave it
in peace.
>
> Peter
>
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2161
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 11:05am
Subject: Re: Re: Vincente Minnelli and Max Ophuls; Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary seems to be a problem. The only one who put it
off was Manuel de Oliveira (but Abraham's Valley iasn't
exactly an adaptation). Even Renoir made one of his lesser
intersting films while adapting it (Sokurov's version is a
complete disaster, according to some friends).
Filipe
> Thanks Mike, for your post. I admire both directors as
> well, and I always thought Minnelli's "Madame Bovary"
> with it's sweeping camera movements and 19th century
> setting was the closest Minnelli came to approximating
> Ophuls both stylistically and thematically. I actually
> much prefer Minelli's Bovary to Claude Chabrol's
> tediously faithful version with Isabelle Hubert, even
> though Minelli and his screenwriters, under the gun of
> the censors, made one crucial compromise with
> Flaubert's novel. Still, for me, the movie really
> works as drama, and that ballroom scene, where Van
> Heflin's provincial doctor stumbles about trying to
> ingratiate himself amongst his betters is a real coup
> in terms of being able to capture so many of
> Flaubert's themes and feelings in a way that even
> Flaubert's prose couldn't match.
>
>
>
> --- MG4273@a... wrote:
> > This is the Minnelli Centennial: he was born
> > February 28, 2003.
> > Here are some notes on two scenes in Minnelli that
> > recall Max Ophuls (two of my all-time favorite
> > directors).
> > Minnelli was a great admirer of the film director
> > Max Ophuls. He called Ophuls his "spiritual leader"
> > as a filmmaker.
> >
> > Towards the beginning of The Four Horsemen of the
> > Apocalypse (1962), there is a long sequence showing
> > the hero and heroine falling it love. It recalls a
> > similar and much celebrated sequence in Madame De...
> > (1953) directed by Max Ophuls. Both sequences show a
> > series of dates between the hero and heroine, during
> > which they become more and more involved. The dates
> > are cut together, even though they take place over
> > several days, so that they form one apparently
> > continuous progression. Both Minnelli and Ophuls
> > include a scene in a restaurant, in which a long,
> > tilted horizontal mirror behind and over the couple
> > reflects the room and its other occupants as a
> > whole.
> >
> > Other aspects recall Minnelli's own films. The
> > restaurant episodes recall that in Minnelli's The
> > Clock (1945). Once again, there are sideboards full
> > of plates and other beautiful objects. Each of the
> > diners is also a beautifully conceived cameo, in the
> > tradition of The Clock. Especially endearing is a
> > French Army officer, who tenderly feeds his little
> > girl. This recalls the family with the little girl
> > in The Clock. (The huge crowd scenes throughout the
> > film also recall The Clock.)
> >
> > The color progressions are also Minnelli like. At
> > the beginning, in the auction house, the heroine
> > wears a light pink dress, that matches the pink
> > background color of the Renoir pastel at auction.
> > Glenn Ford is in a light gray suit. These are the
> > two lightest colors worn by anyone at the auction,
> > and make the hero and heroine stand out in the
> > crowd. Women extras are in a series of purple suits
> > here, providing a stunning series of color
> > harmonies. Each one gets a bit of business in the
> > Minnelli manner. After the auction proper, the hero
> > and heroine move out into the hallway of the auction
> > house. This set recalls the Mayor's room in The
> > Pirate. In the background of both, their is a high
> > region reached by a staircase going up at one side.
> > Below this, there are a series of smaller steps
> > going down. A white bust on a tall pillar reflects
> > Minnelli's love of statues forming strong verticals.
> > All of these features recall The Pirate. A later
> > scene along the Seine recalls the waterside
> > sequences in The Pirate and An American in Paris.
> >
> > A restaurant is full of white tulips in vases,
> > recalling the scenes in Some Came Running filled
> > with white flowers.
> >
> > Soon, we see the hero's red roadster. It forms a
> > strong red horizontal along the bottom of the
> > Cinemascope frame. It is echoed by a canopy along
> > the top of the frame, in an identical color red.
> > There is also a woman in a red dress in the
> > background. She is seated under a green archway,
> > which recalls both Minnelli's love of arches in his
> > sets, and his fondness for garlanding sets with
> > green plants. Later, in a second restaurant,
> > Minnelli will have the couple seated against another
> > long vividly red wall. It too forms a long red
> > horizontal region at the bottom of the frame. This
> > is just the start of a whole series of flaming red
> > color schemes throughout the rest of the sequence.
> > In many of these red, is contrasted with pale blues,
> > recalling the dominant color scheme of Some Came
> > Running; Red versus Blue. A restaurant mixes red
> > walls with blue chairs. And the carriage in which
> > the couple ride at the end has red-orange seats and
> > blue lanterns on the side.
> > The carriage lights recall "I'll Build a Stairway to
> > Paradise" in An American in Paris, which is
> > imaginatively staged on a lighted staircase, in
> > which the changing lights form dynamiv patterns of
> > movement. The lights recall the moving neon lights
> > in Some Came Running, the hypnotic revolving mirrors
> > which flash light in The Pirate, the moving pillars
> > glowing internally with light in Lovely to Look At,
> > and the blue lantern on the carriage side in The
> > Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. All five films have
> > strong elements of Kinetic Art and Light Art in
> > them, and are highly original in approach.
> >
> > Some of the scenes link the hero with red. He keeps
> > taking the heroine out to red restaurants, red
> > carriages and his red roadster. He also makes a
> > progression down a long red corridor exiting from
> > the Club Latin dance club, a club that echoes his
> > Argentinean heritage. But the heroine herself also
> > has red associations: she wears an iridescent dark
> > red dress. This beautiful evening gown is of a much
> > darker shade of red than the flaming red-oranges
> > associated with the hero here.
> >
> > Kismet
> >
> > Kismet is one of Minnelli's weakest films. But it
> > has some good musical numbers.
> >
> > Best of all is "Stranger in Paradise", sung by Vic
> > Damone and Ann Blyth. This is shot on a set
> > representing a hillside garden. Everything in the
> > garden is in three colors: green foliage, red
> > flowers, white walls and ornaments. The hero's
> > clothes are in white with accents of green. They
> > synchronize with the white and green colors of the
> > garden. He seems like nature himself come to life,
> > and his fervent singing of "Stranger in Paradise"
> > seems to be a plea from nature for love. The white
> > and green color harmonies here recall Meet Me in St.
> > Louis. Towards the end of the hero's singing, the
> > camera moves to a region where there are a great
> > mass of red flowers in the background. The way the
> > screen gets a large quantity of red here echoes
> > other key moments in Minnelli when the screen fills
> > with red, such as the finale of Some Came Running.
> > The red and green harmony here also recalls a
> > different part of Meet Me in St. Louis, the
> > Christmas scene.
> >
> > The heroine is in a yellow-orange dress, which is in
> > complete but pleasing contrast with all the white,
> > green and red in the garden. When she joins in with
> > the song, the camera moves to reveal some orange
> > colored leaves in the foreground. The orange seems
> > to pick up and harmonize with the yellow-orange
> > color of her dress.
> >
> > During the song, the characters walk down a path in
> > the hillside garden. The path is marked out by low
> > white fences. It also includes pavilions, and other
> > places of rest along the way. The following by the
> > camera of characters walking on a staircase recalls
> > Minnelli's idol Max Ophuls. As in Ophuls, the
> > characters are on a predetermined path, one
> > carefully designed for both walking and the moving
> > camera. One difference: here the path seems to be a
> > ramp, unlike the stepped staircases one typically
> > meets in Ophuls. There are several shots at the
> > beginning, while the characters are still talking.
> > Even here, Minnelli is sparing with cuts, preferring
> > to follow his lovers with a moving camera, in the
> > manner of Ophuls. When the singing actually starts,
> > the whole rest of the sequence is shot in two long
> > takes.
> >
> > The Caliph (Vic Damone) is undercover as a commoner
> > here, in the Arabian Nights tradition. He is one of
> > several young men in Minnelli of position, who
> > secretly take on new roles and alliances with social
> > outsiders. See also brother Lon in Meet Me in St.
> > Louis, the roommate in Tea and Sympathy, and the
> > hero of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Vic
> > Damone sings very well here. He was mainly known as
> > a singer, not an actor, and made only a few films,
> > notably Richard Thorpe's Athena (1954) and Phil
> > Karlson's Hell to Eternity (1960). In all three, he
> > was a supporting performer, not the star. Damone had
> > an earnest manner and clear diction: one could
> > understand every word he sang.
> >
> > Next year, Minnelli will include another hillside
> > garden in Tea and Sympathy, one that is also largely
> > green. The hero of that film will be an expert
> > gardener: the same role that the Caliph here (Vic
> > Damone) is pretending to take on. In both films, the
> > garden is owned by the heroine, who asks the hero's
> > advice about what to grow in the garden. In both
> > films, the garden is a private place of refuge for
> > the hero and heroine. They have intimate
> > conversations there, in a protected environment. The
> > hero enters the garden in Tea and Sympathy from
> > above, then moves to the lower section of the garden
> > down the hill; both characters do the same here.
> >
> > The later brief scene where the Caliph announces his
> > engagement is also charming. Damone is one of the
> > gentle young men often featured in Minnelli, and he
> > radiates good cheer here. He is standing on a
> > slightly raised platform in front of a crowd. The
> > platform has a few steps in front: they are the
> > long, shallow steps that often serve as a base for
> > Minnelli sets, and compositions. The platform has
> > two raised columns on either side: Minnelli
> > verticals. The columns are crowned with gold
> > circular abstract statues; Damone's costume is full
> > of gold, and so are those of half the crowd; and the
> > platform has a polygonal, almost circular edge, also
> > of bright gold. Once again, Damon is in a costume
> > that makes him in color harmony with his
> > surroundings.
> === message truncated ===
>
>
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2162
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 11:10am
Subject: Re: Film Festival Update
Rick, I like Kamchatka a good deal. Marcelo Pinyero's Ashes
in Paradise and Plata Quemada are very well worth seeing too.
I don't know with I agree with the Life is Beautiful
comparison, there's a game ok, but not obly the older son
seems to have some idea about what's happening but Pinyero
uses it for a far different objective. And I agree that the
ending is very effective.
Filipe
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2163
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 11:16am
Subject: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
Adrian,
I didn't want to sound like I was writing Kazan completly
off. I love Wild River. Panic in the Streets is very good.
Glentment's Agreement is a lot better than it sound and The
Last Tycoon is pretty daam good as long as you forget its
self-important tone. But he was very very uneven and I do
think most of his better known films are overrated at best
(and true stinkers at worst).
Filipe
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2164
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 11:27am
Subject: Re: Re: Vincente Minnelli and Max Ophuls; Madame Bovary
> intersting films while adapting it (Sokurov's version is a
> complete disaster, according to some friends).
I guess that makes me a friend. I despise SPASI I SOKHRANI (SAVE AND
PROTECT), while I have a hard-on for almost all of the rest of
Sokurov's filmography.
Jaime
2165
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 11:31am
Subject: Re: Re: Vincente Minnelli and Max Ophuls; Madame Bovary
> > intersting films while adapting it (Sokurov's version is a
> > complete disaster, according to some friends).
>
> I guess that makes me a friend. I despise SPASI I SOKHRANI
(SAVE AND
> PROTECT), while I have a hard-
on for almost all of the rest of
> Sokurov's filmography.
>
It's one of the two Sokurov's feautures that I haven't seen
(the other is Stone), but everyone whose taste I respect
seems to have really hate it when it was showed at last year
São Paulo film festival. And you are not the only one who
hate it and love almost everything else.
Filipe
> Jaime
>
>
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2166
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 11:42am
Subject: Re SAVE AND PROTECT (Sokurov)
STONE is pretty amazing, I like it a lot. I consider RUSSIAN ARK one
of the major films of all time, and therefore one of the key films in
Sokurov's filmography, and STONE, I think, is essential to
approaching Sokurov's meditations on museums, history, historical
fiction, and museum culture.
Given some distance from my first viewing of SAVE AND PROTECT, I'd
love to see it a second time. Same goes for other Sokurov works I
wasn't nutty about (such as DOLCE... and A HUMBLE LIFE), and hell,
any others, too. But I really had a hard time with it when I saw it.
All that aside, I've overheard more than a few people who have
referred to SAVE AND PROTECT as a major work, and with some gravity.
I have to wonder if I'm missing something key.
Jaime
2167
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 2:19pm
Subject: Marcelo Piñyero
Plata Quemada is at my neighborhood video; now my
interest is piqued.
--- filipefurtado wrote:
> Rick, I like Kamchatka a good deal. Marcelo
> Pinyero's Ashes
> in Paradise and Plata Quemada are very well worth
> seeing too.
> I don't know with I agree with the Life is Beautiful
>
> comparison, there's a game ok, but not obly the
> older son
> seems to have some idea about what's happening but
> Pinyero
> uses it for a far different objective. And I agree
> that the
> ending is very effective.
>
> Filipe
>
>
> ---
> Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
> AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
> http://antipopup.uol.com.br
>
>
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2168
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 2:21pm
Subject: My bad; the movie title is STATION AGENT, not MASTER. Still: film bad.
--- Rick Segreda wrote:
> I just came out of a screening of "Station Master."
> I'm with David on this one. What's the big deal?
> (Since the movie is about a dwarf, maybe that's an
> unfortunate pun)
>
> The central problem with "Station Master" is the
> inert, inarticulate, withdrawn, emotionally
> constipated dwarf protagonist, Finn.
>
> I think writer/director fell prey to the sentimental
> notion that characters that don't say much have
> compellingly mysterious inner depths. I prefer
> Sydney
> Greenstreet's point in "The Maltese Falcon" about
> prefering people who talk to much rather than people
> who talk to little, because people who talk to
> little
> invarably say the wrong thing when they do.
>
> The story concerns a dwarf who inherits an old train
> station from his late boss. The dwarf, "Finn," for
> reasons we are never told, is a loner with no
> interest
> in other people. Yet when he moves to this small
> town,
> a handful of attractive locals are immediately
> drawn
> towards him and spend much of the movie begging to
> be
> his friend or lover. Yes, he is also seen recieving
> some nasty taunts, but I didn't get the point. Is
> that
> why he is withdrawn? Is this meant to lay a guilt
> trip
> on the audience? What?
>
> A very comely young woman kisses him at a certain
> point, yet when she asks to stay the night, he
> agrees
> to do so platonically, as if this were the 1930's
> and
> the production code was still being enforced.
>
> I couldn't get the wild enthusiasm for the the other
> main characters for Finn, but the audience laughed
> at
> every bit of "humor" set up by McCarthy. I sat bored
> and confused.
>
> Want to see a good dwarf movie? Rent the Argentine
> "I
> Only Want You to Love Me," with Marcello Mastrioni.
>
> Rick
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> > I saw STATION MASTER in LA last week. A Q&A by
> the
> > writer/director
> > McCarthy and male leads Dinklage and Cannavale
> > followed. Clarkson was
> > performing or working elsewhere.
> >
> > The story was originally written without a dwarf
> > actor in mind and I
> > wondered how the "I AM A DWARF" scene might have
> > been otherwise if the
> > main character was not an actor who is a dwarf.
> >
> > I thought it interesting what was done with the
> > roaring sound of the
> > train / music overlays and asked it that was as
> > planned to use the
> > music in such a way in the writing or something
> done
> > afterwards when
> > the soundtrack was being developed and the answer
> > was it was done
> > after. As a writer, I found that part of the
> story
> > telling interesting.
> >
> > McCarthy mentioned that he had the idea of a
> WESTERN
> > in mind in the
> > writing when referring to the laconic Finbar
> > character.
> >
> > My personal questions for movies include:
> > 1) Would I like to see it again?
> > 2) To whom can I recommend the movie?
> >
> > The movie is easy to recommend to many, but
> > interestingly, I feel no
> > need to see it again in the near future, perhaps
> at
> > a later date.
> >
> > Critical questions will follow after the buzz dies
> > down.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thursday, October 2, 2003, at 12:30 AM,
> > a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
> > wrote:
> >
> > > The big movie that everyone is talking about is
> > Tom
> > > McCarthy's "The Station Agent," which has won
> all
> > > sorts of awards at Sundance.
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
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2169
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 2:24pm
Subject: Re: THE CINEMA OF LONELINESS: Vincent Minnelli
I do remember that Andrew Sarris wrote (in "The
American Cinema") that Vincent Minelli's films have an
underlying theme of loneliness, exemplified by Fred
Astaire's "By Myself" number in "The Bandwagon
--- Elizabeth Anne Nolan wrote:
> Interesting that STATION AGENT and LOST IN
> TRANSITION are getting a lot
> of attention as they are both films dealing with
> LONELINESS, although I
> would say Lost in Transition is ennui personified.
>
> I see artistic merit in both, but no personal need
> to see either again and that is
> the least I want from a movie.
>
> I've had THE CINEMA OF LONELINESS by Robert Phillip
> Kolker in my stack
> of cinema books for a while as I'm working on a
> story about a person alone in
> the world (different from a lonesome sort).
>
> Anybody familiar with THE CINEMA OF LONELINESS?
>
>
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2170
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 2:28pm
Subject: Re: An Auteurist Adventure
I am waiting for Bill Gates to invent a microchip that
I can in my brain; thus I can catch up on all these
films before I get old and die by feeding them
directly from my hardrive into my head, at high speed.
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> One thing that I've noticed from reading posts
> almost daily on this
> board is that there are few things more effective in
> getting
> people to see films than simply telling them,
> powerfully and
> persuasively, and telling them why. When certain
> people, like Fred
> and Dan and Mike Grost, just for starters, recommend
> a film, I pay
> attention. They mention a film and say "ladies and
> gents, heed my
> word, it is the very bee's Sunday knees" and all
> that jazz, and it
> goes in the little notebook, for near future
> reference.
>
> In other words.
>
> I WILL SEE THAT FILM.
>
> Okay then.
>
> What would be great is this: if there was a way to
> collect all these
> recommendations (and those not made yet, here) in
> one place. I'm not
> talking about a Top 50 or Top 100 list that simply
> spits out titles
> after calculating some mathematical bullshit and
> distills/elides
> personal input for the "greater good" of consensus.
> I'm talking
> about a guide that lists directors first (included
> because they're
> said to be "essential" by, well, frankly, those who
> know) and which
> of their films, second, are the cinephile's highest
> priority. And,
> most importantly, why. It would be nice, really
> helpful even, to
> have a kind of "what to see" index at our
> fingertips.
>
> Because, after all, what is the all-important,
> nothing-else-matters
> reason for talking about movies...if not the movies
> themselves?
>
> My plan is to set up a critical database that is
> somewhat (or, uh, a
> lot) less ambitious than the same-monikered Great
> Directors project
> on 'Senses of Cinema', a Critical Database that aims
> to provide young
> and aspiring cinephiles with a road map of sorts, a
> manual that will
> take them on a potentially extremely gratifying,
> productive, and
> exciting journey through the cinema, organized by
> AUTEUR.
>
> Which brings us to
>
> Why do *you* need to know this? What is the answer
> to: "Great idea
> dude, so why am I reading this post?" Easy.
> Because this will
> require the input of YOU, the a_film_by member.
> Because I want the
> user of this database not only to say, I guess I
> should see this
> film, but also: aha, the word of Joseph R. Jones,
> cinephile at
> large, a man of impeccable taste/an eye for
> under-the-radar
> masterpieces/patron saint of Thai video art/the dude
> that knows
> westerns [or film noirs, or Japanese postmodern
> collages of violence
> and detective story iconography] from asterisk to
> obelisk, and back
> again, is as good as gold, so when he recommends
> such-and-such
>
Ford/Borzage/Cornell/Doillon/Resnais/Miike/Polonsky/Bellocchio/etc.
>
> movie, I'm as good as THERE. Or at least I will be
> when the
> opportunity arises.
>
> [/done talking in the, what, fifth person or
> whatever]
>
> So that's it. For now. There are a lot of
> brilliant minds in this
> group that I wish to tap into, to hire as
> consultant, for this sorta-
> ambitious project. It will be ongoing, starting
> small and increasing
> as it goes along, I hope.
>
> So stand by, watch the skies, etc. I hope you will
> agree to
> participate. I hope that you, if you are not asked
> directly for your
> input, will nevertheless feel that *this* *message*
> *here* will serve
> as an invitation to join the project, in whatever
> capacity you can.
>
> That is all. I look forward to working with so very
> many of you.
>
> best
> Jaime
>
>
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2171
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 3:07pm
Subject: Rogerio Sganzerla
Wow - that sounds great! In the long-ago discussion of essay films I
neglected to mention This Is Noel Rosa and The Language of Orson
Welles, the latter being perhaps the best essay film I know. I
remember walking in Rio with Rogerio when something he saw made him
remark: "They've made us into a third world country!" After all those
wonderful films about Brazilian culture, it sounds like he has
finally decided to assume the mantle of Rocha and make a prophetic
film (in the sense of the Old Testament prophets) against the
unchanging power structure that keeps the disparity of wealth and
poverty greater in Brazil than in any other country in the world. A
reminder to members of the group: Brazilian videocasettes are NTSC.
2172
From: iangjohnston
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 4:20pm
Subject: Re: THE CINEMA OF LONELINESS
Quite coincidentally, I've just finished reading Kolker's A CINEMA
OF LONELINESS (3rd ed); I remember reading the first edition when it
came out in 1980, which as I recall (I don't have it at hand) was
essentially a survey of the New American Cinema of the seventies,
taking in Kubrick and Arthur Penn along the way. The "loneliness" of
the title is more in the modernist/existentialist line (think Gene
Hackman at the end of NIGHT MOVES) which is where Kolker's
interests/passions lie: an amalgam of High Modernism and a left-wing
political agenda (both of which I have a fair bit of sympathy for);
which also means that there's a lot of American cinema of recent
years he's quite hostile to. Hence, his book values Oliver Stone
over Spielberg (!). But there's some great critical writing along
the way: the chapters on Kubrick and Altman are exemplary, and the
one on Scorsese is also very good. Kolker's good at analysing the
visual language a particular director is working through. The other
two chapters are on Arthur Penn and Oliver Stone; and on Spielberg
and the more recent cinema of spectacle. (Note that Coppola's out.)
I think it's a great read.
Ian Johnston
2173
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 5:41pm
Subject: Re: The Cinema of Loneliness
I haven't read Cinema of Loneliness, but I can recommend - not in
absolute terms - Ryan Gibney's It Don't Worry Me: The Revolutionary
American Films of the Seventies. He's a Brit and a mainstream
reviewer who didn't experience the 60s and 70s firsthand, so he gets
some things wrong. What I like about it is what all the American
reviews posted on Amazon miss: he's very revisionist in the way he
looks at his chosen directors (who are not always mine). So
Spielberg's work is described as an expression of the director's
nausea at everyday life - the shark in Jaws is just a pretext for
exposing the vulnerable innards of the human body for what they are,
etc. Typically, reviews of the book here - all favorable - pretend
that it repeats the cliches about these directors which the reviewers
already know by heart - a good example of how film criticism in
general works, unfortunately. In fact, the book, while hardly
definitive, is a refreshing read on a subject that already appears to
have been buried under moss by official film culture.
2174
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 7:32pm
Subject: Re: The Cinema of Loneliness
Bill on Ryan Gibney:
> What I like about it is what all the American
> reviews posted on Amazon miss: he's very revisionist in the way he
> looks at his chosen directors (who are not always mine). So
> Spielberg's work is described as an expression of the director's
> nausea at everyday life - the shark in Jaws is just a pretext for
> exposing the vulnerable innards of the human body for what they
are,
> etc.
Sounds like an interesting book, thanks for the heads-up! I think
Henry Sheehan might (*might*) have pioneered this sort of view of
Spielberg back in '92, though. I wonder if we're beginning to have a
certain minority school on Spielbergian cinema.
--Zach
2175
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 10:05pm
Subject: Contender for All Time Worst movie list (Warning: plot spoiler)
I just came out of what has got to be the very worst film I have in years -- decades? -- certainly the worst film I've ever seen at the Vancouver International Film Festival. It's Bruno Dumont's French-American "Twenty-nine Palms." The story outline is vaguely similar to Jean-Jacques Beneix's classic "Betty Blue:" man in love with young, sexy, but volatile and crazy young woman; how much of her erratic and dangerous behavior will he tolerate in exchange for the depth of passion in their relationship? Okay. Dumont has an American for the male, and a French for the female, placed the characters in a Hummer and has them drive from LA to Joshua Tree. Most of the film alternates between their screaming at each other, scenic vistas, and graphic sex scenes. That's it for most of it's two hours running time...but the movie and the characters need to come a resolution, right? Something has got to give, no? So in the last ten minutes, the Hummer is rear-ended by a white SUV that suddenly
appears out of nowhere. The Hummer is forced off the road; out come three thugs, they rip off her clothes, beat him with a baseball bat...but then pull down his trousers and do a "Deliverance" on HIM (gets rear-ended twice, I suppose), while leaving her alone, then they take off, though not before we see the rapist actually shed a brief spasm of remorse. The couple staggers back to a motel, suddenly she's the sane one, telling her lover to call the police. He refuses, runs into the bathroom, comes out with his long hair chopped off, and stabs her repeatedly. The last shot of the film shows his naked body lying in a desert, while a patrol officer tries to convince an unbelieving dispatcher that there is a naked, bleeding man in the desert. I guess it is supposed to be a comment on...???...As Marcus Aurelis might have told Bruno Dumont, "I knew Seneca, Bruno. You're no Seneca."
Who funds movies like this? I mean, if Dumont can pull this off, my own screenplay should be a cinch to pitch.
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2176
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Contender for All Time Worst movie list (Warning: plot spoiler)
Sounds perfect for a double-feature with "The Brown
Bunny"!
--- Rick Segreda wrote:
>
> I just came out of what has got to be the very worst
> film I have in years -- decades? -- certainly the
> worst film I've ever seen at the Vancouver
> International Film Festival. It's Bruno Dumont's
> French-American "Twenty-nine Palms." The story
> outline is vaguely similar to Jean-Jacques Beneix's
> classic "Betty Blue:" man in love with young, sexy,
> but volatile and crazy young woman; how much of her
> erratic and dangerous behavior will he tolerate in
> exchange for the depth of passion in their
> relationship? Okay. Dumont has an American for the
> male, and a French for the female, placed the
> characters in a Hummer and has them drive from LA to
> Joshua Tree. Most of the film alternates between
> their screaming at each other, scenic vistas, and
> graphic sex scenes. That's it for most of it's two
> hours running time...but the movie and the
> characters need to come a resolution, right?
> Something has got to give, no? So in the last ten
> minutes, the Hummer is rear-ended by a white SUV
> that suddenly
> appears out of nowhere. The Hummer is forced off
> the road; out come three thugs, they rip off her
> clothes, beat him with a baseball bat...but then
> pull down his trousers and do a "Deliverance" on HIM
> (gets rear-ended twice, I suppose), while leaving
> her alone, then they take off, though not before we
> see the rapist actually shed a brief spasm of
> remorse. The couple staggers back to a motel,
> suddenly she's the sane one, telling her lover to
> call the police. He refuses, runs into the bathroom,
> comes out with his long hair chopped off, and stabs
> her repeatedly. The last shot of the film shows his
> naked body lying in a desert, while a patrol officer
> tries to convince an unbelieving dispatcher that
> there is a naked, bleeding man in the desert. I
> guess it is supposed to be a comment on...???...As
> Marcus Aurelis might have told Bruno Dumont, "I
> knew Seneca, Bruno. You're no Seneca."
>
> Who funds movies like this? I mean, if Dumont can
> pull this off, my own screenplay should be a cinch
> to pitch.
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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> search
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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2177
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 10:24pm
Subject: Re: Contender for All Time Worst movie list (Warning: plot spoiler)
Rick Segreda wrote:
> I just came out of what has got to be the very worst film I have in
> years -- decades? -- certainly the worst film I've ever seen at the
> Vancouver International Film Festival. It's Bruno Dumont's French-
> American "Twenty-nine Palms."
Have you seen Dumont's other work to compare and contrast? I really
like L'HUMANITE and was looking forward to this one. (I haven't seen
LA VIE DE JESUS.)
--Zach
2178
From:
Date: Fri Oct 3, 2003 6:41pm
Subject: Asolo Art Film Festival
The Asolo Art Film Festival keep sending me press releases. This Italian
festival concentrates on films about art and artists, broadly speaking. I have
never heard on ANY of the people or films involved, other than Martha Argerich -
she is a classical pianist, I think. The prize winners are listed below. It is
sent here as an example of how broad the world of cinema is.
Mike Grost
ASOLOARTFILMFESTIVAL
22-28 September, 2003
Asolo – Montebelluna
GRAN PREMIO ASOLO 2003 TO MARIO MARTONE
The jury of the AsoloArtFilmFestival 2003, with the following members:
Vittorio Fagone (President of the jury), Corrado Balest, Luca Massimo
Barbero, Giuseppe Barbieri, Fabrizio Borin, has awarded the following prizes
after viewing the 59 films in competition:
GRAND PRIZE ASOLO FOR BEST FILM IN COMPETITION to Nella Napoli di Luca
Giordano by Mario Martone (Ananas, Italy, 2001).
PRIZE ASOLO FOR BEST FILM ON ART to Orba/Cian by Eduardo López López (Jaime
Genovart, Argentina, 2003).
A Special Mention for the following film in the same category: Lluvia by
Diego Agudo Pinilla (Emilio Lujan, Spain, 2002).
PRIZE ASOLO FOR BEST FILM ON LIVES OF ARTISTS to Martha Argerich, Evening
Talks by Georges Gachot (Georges Gachot/Ideale Audence, France, 2002).
PRIZE ASOLO FOR BEST VIDEO/COMPUTER ART to Gestalt by Thorsten Fleisch
(Thorsten Fleisch, Germania, 2003) ex aequo with Regard de pierre by Pierre
Yves Cruaud (Pierre Yves Cruaud, France, 2002).
PRIZE ASOLO FOR BEST EXPERIMENTAL PRODUCTION (SCHOOLS) to Roll over
Ehrenfeld by Olaf Geuer (Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany, 2002).
A Special Mention for the followings films: Aggigma by Giuliano Vece and
Petra Biondina Volpe (KHM, Germany, 2002) and to Cocteau Cento by Dan Boord
and Luis Valdovino (Luis Valdovino, Fine Arts Department, University of
Colorado, USA, 2003).
In addition, the jury has signalled the praiseworthy activity done by the
Istituto Statale d’Arte di Urbino “Scuola del Libro” – Section Animation
Drawing (2002) which revealed itself to be actively involved in
experimenting new audiovisual techniques.
PRIZE GIAN FRANCESCO MALIPIERO FOR BEST SOUND TRACK to Foreign Bodies by
Isabelle Birebent (Isabelle Birebent, Germany, 2002).
SPECIAL PRIZE “FLAVIA PAULON”: The Presidency of the Asolo International Art
Festival (A.I.A.F.) has instituted this year the Special Prize “Flavia
Paulon” entitled to the founder of both the “Festival of Films on Art and
the Lives of Artists” (1973) and of the “International Cartoon Festival”
(1974) and has assigned it to Mario Verdone for extraordinary and
incomparable merits accumulated during over half a century of activity in
the fields of historical research, of critical interpretation, of promotion
and diffusion of the cinematographic culture.
2179
From:
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 0:28am
Subject: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
In a message dated 10/3/2003 4:34:56 Eastern Daylight Time,
apmartin@n... writes:
> With Elia Kazan, I think some people are in danger of concluding: he was a
> political rat (and I don't disagree with that) - and therefore, his film
> work was never much good anyway.
We've got to be thinking pluralistically when it comes to guys like Kazan.
As David Ehrenstein suggested several posts ago, he can be a major talent while
also being a major rat. I'm kind of on the fence when it comes to applying
the word "major" to his talent, but I don't think that's because I'm hesitant
to embrace his work due to my disgust at his actions.
I am really glad to see some support for "Splendor in the Grass," which is
the Kazan film I saw several months ago that prompted me to rethink him a
little. I haven't seen some of the other titles widely liked by contributors to A
Film By, so I can't say how much of an anomoly it is. I will say that
"Splendor" does appear to have that tragic quality pegged by Dan Sallitt ages ago as
something auteurists tend to respond to: life happening to its protagonist(s)
rather than the protagonists(s) controlling it. Maybe Dan can elaborate, or
disagree with my characterization of "Splendor" as belonging to his category,
once he catches up with this thread.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2180
From:
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 0:46am
Subject: Preminger, Hellman, and Allen
Instead of writing three separate posts, I thought I'd group my impressions
on three films I've recently watched into one mega-post. So far as I can tell,
there's no connection between these films apart from the fact that they're
each good or great and that I've watched them within the past week or so.
- The Human Factor (Preminger, 79)
I recently re-watched Preminger's last film and am closer than ever to
agreeing with Dave Kehr (and Tag Gallagher) that it's the greatest of the late
Preminger films. It's less radical than his other late works (is there a stranger
moment in the whole Preminger canon--"Skidoo" aside--than the relentless
tracking in and out during the party in "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon"?),
but arguably more resonant. Indeed, the sense of loss achieved in the shot of
the protagonist's wife and child leaving the driveway--the wife and child
driving away to leave the protagonist isolated in the frame--is very nearly
unprecedented in his canon--if it wasn't for the existence of "Daisy Kenyon,"
"Bonjour tristesse," "The Cardinal," "In Harm's Way," et al. "The Human Factor"
stands as Preminger's testament film, his definitive cinematic statement on his
favorite theme: the spaces people draw between each other and the spaces drawn
between them. The final shot (whose imagery Preminger chose to replicate in
the Saul Bass opening titles) is shattering in its depiction of the latter.
- Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out (Hellman, 89)
Let me join Bill and Filipe as someone who loves this late Hellman film, the
last he's directed to date. This is a marvelous movie which has Hellman's
mise en scene in full force. It's fascinating to watch his minimalist aesthetic
"interact" with the tropes of this horror/serial killer movie; the opening
dream sequence, shot in the largely empty, white corridors of a hospital, is a
perfect example of how effective his spare approach is with this material.
Indeed, the film is masterful in the way it folds in dreams, fantasies, and
nightmares into the fabric of the characters' realities; the presence of Laura
Harring makes me think of another great dream film--"Mulholland Drive." "Better
Watch Out" is just as good. Hellman's minimalism is also felt in the highly
restrained use of music and his choice to contain the action to several distinct
locales: namely, the hospital and Granny's house. With regards to the latter,
I also think the film's a kind of fairy tale. I'll let Bill and Filipe (and
anyone else who has seen this film) do the rest of the talking.
- Anything Else (Allen, 03)
Finally, a belated note on the latest Woody Allen movie, just as its about to
exit theatres. I think it's his best film since "Everyone Says I Love You"
and let me give props to a particularly memorable sequence: lead characters
Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci come home from a disastrous party and instantly
launch into the latest in a series of fights. Allen frames their return home
in a single shot which remains static. In a composition which recalls the
director's best collaborations with Gordon Willis, Biggs and Ricci wander in and
out of frame, all the while arguing. Several minutes later, Ricci's mother,
played by Stockard Channing, appears and the camera comes alive: dollying in as
her figure enters the room. An aspiring singer, she plays a tune at the
piano. For a while, Allen stays on his master shot, but eventually he cuts to two
perfectly timed close-ups of Biggs (who has by now sat down to listen to
Channing perform) and Ricci (in another room, also listening.) A shared moment of
respite and a glorious moment of mise en scene. See this film, I guess, on
video--but make sure it's letterboxed as these are the best 'Scope compositions
I've seen all year.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2181
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 6:33am
Subject: Re: Rogerio Sganzerla
they are mainly Pal-M but they play NTSC also. Most VCRs only records Pal-M.
Mine records both.
----- Original Message -----
From: "hotlove666"
To:
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 12:07 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Rogerio Sganzerla
> Wow - that sounds great! In the long-ago discussion of essay films I
> neglected to mention This Is Noel Rosa and The Language of Orson
> Welles, the latter being perhaps the best essay film I know. I
> remember walking in Rio with Rogerio when something he saw made him
> remark: "They've made us into a third world country!" After all those
> wonderful films about Brazilian culture, it sounds like he has
> finally decided to assume the mantle of Rocha and make a prophetic
> film (in the sense of the Old Testament prophets) against the
> unchanging power structure that keeps the disparity of wealth and
> poverty greater in Brazil than in any other country in the world. A
> reminder to members of the group: Brazilian videocasettes are NTSC.
>
>
>
> 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/
>
>
2182
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 6:52am
Subject: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
What I find fascinating is that while most of us abhor Kazan's
cowardly self-serving behavior before HUAC and also agree that his
rottenness as a person shouldn't detract from his artistic
accomplishments, there is no agreement among this group of auteurists
as to which of his film's are memorable, and which were dross.
I've already spoken in favor of East of Eden and Streetcar, but I'm
very surprised that Splendor In The Grass -- which to me is nothing
more than an unmodulated piece of hysteria about raging hormones --
has strong defenders here. Other than everyone seeming to, at least,
like Wild River, there really is no consensus at all about Kazan's
films. Even On The Waterfront has a defender or two.
As to filmmakers and their political beliefs, all I can say regarding
my five favorite directors is thank God for the lefty-ness of Jean
Renoir, Douglas Sirk and Blake Edwards, which balances out Leo
McCarey and John Ford.
2183
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 2:20pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
My admiration for "Splendor in the Grass" relates to
four specific things:
1) Inge's script (he was a very great American writer
and a serious re-evaluation of his work is overdo.)
2) Natalie Wood's performance (props to Kazan for
helping her explore areas that even Ray feared to
tread.)
3) Jump-starting "Milton Armitage's" career (again
props to Kazan for seeing something more than
conventional leading man in Shirley MacLaine's little
brother.
4) Inpiring "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg."
--- Damien Bona wrote:
__________________________________
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2184
From: chris_fujiwara
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 3:04pm
Subject: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
A.O. Scott had a piece in the New York Times last week noting that
Kazan's films have been rated lower in the "auteurist pantheon" than
those of Nicholas Ray. Scott thought this was because Kazan's films
were "readily embraced and easily understood" by audiences and Oscar
voters. The simpler explanation - that Ray's films are better -
doesn't seem to have occurred to him.
I've long thought there were two Kazans: a black-and-white one and a
color one. The black-and-white Kazan is bombastic and clumsy in his
personal films, and less personal than Preminger, Mankiewicz, and
King in his Zanuck films. I'm willing to make a temporary exception
for Baby Doll which I haven't seen in 15 years and which struck me at
the time as slightly above the director's usual level, more like a
Buñuel film. All the other black-and-white films I've seen, including
America America which I especially wanted to like, range from limited
in interest (Boomerang! which at least has Dana Andrews and Arthur
Kennedy) to almost unwatchable (Streetcar, Face in the Crowd).
The color Kazan made one film I like a lot, Wild River, which is a
little too concerned with its political balance (put beside Wind
across the Everglades which is thematically very similar) but which
has some excellent scenes and three excellent performances and which
does everything it needs to do in order to work - on its level, a
perfect film.
I find Splendor in the Grass, even though I must concede that it
comes dangerously close to being an "unmodulated piece of hysteria"
in Damien's words, a moving if lesser companion piece to such works
of middle-America romanticism as Rebel without a Cause, Tea and
Sympathy, and Some Came Running. Maybe Splendor benefits from being
seen as part of a diptych with Wild River.
East of Eden is an interesting early-Scope film. The Arrangement is
ridiculous, but I find it more appealing than some of Kazan's better-
regarded films. I haven't seen The Visitors or The Last Tycoon.
2185
From: chris_fujiwara
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 3:18pm
Subject: i forgot to mention barbara loden
If Kazan's encouragement and support had something to do with Wanda's
getting made - that can stand as the man's lasting contribution to
cinema as far as I'm concerned.
2186
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 3:17pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
That's a terrible charge to make against Ford. And not merited.
Damien Bona wrote:
> thank God for the lefty-ness of Jean
> Renoir, Douglas Sirk and Blake Edwards, which balances out Leo
> McCarey and John Ford.
>
2187
From: filipefurtado
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 3:31pm
Subject: Re: Preminger, Hellman, and Allen
>
> - The Human Factor (Preminger, 79)
>
> I recently re-
watched Preminger's last film and am closer than ever to
> agreeing with Dave Kehr (and Tag Gallagher) that it's the gr
eatest of the late
> Preminger films.
I think it's the greatest of all Preminger's films.
The final shot (whose imagery Preminger chose to replicate i
n
> the Saul Bass opening titles) is shattering in its depiction
of the latter.
I think the final shot is further proof that all the talk
about Preminger being a cold filmmaker are nonsense. How many
films has a final shot as devasting as this?
>
> -
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out (Hellman, 89)
>
> Let me join Bill and Filipe as someone who loves this late H
ellman film, the
> last he's directed to date. This is a marvelous movie which
has Hellman's
> mise en scene in full force.
He says that it's his best directed film.
It's fascinating to watch his minimalist aesthetic
> "interact" with the tropes of this horror/serial killer movi
e;
When I wrote a small monograph on Hellman a few months ago, I
use this as the starting point for my chapter about Hellman's
relationship with genre. I think he does some wonderful
things here and who else would make a film as effective as
this from a sequel to a 80's slasher film about a killing
santa claus?
With regards to the latter,
> I also think the film's a kind of fairy tale.
It has, I keep thinking this was the weirdest version of
Little Red Riding Hood imaginable. I also think Hellman
manage to make an oddly evocative romance and a strong
exploration of the space separating his carachters. As
curiosity, this was the first Hellman film that I saw, and I
was turned into a fan from the dream sequence on.
Filipe
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
2188
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 4:04pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
I just knew this can or worms was going to be opened.
"My Son John" and "Vietnam Vietnam" speak for
themselves.
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> That's a terrible charge to make against Ford. And
> not merited.
>
> Damien Bona wrote:
>
> > thank God for the lefty-ness of Jean
> > Renoir, Douglas Sirk and Blake Edwards, which
> balances out Leo
> > McCarey and John Ford.
> >
>
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
2189
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 4:14pm
Subject: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
All this talk about Kazan keeps reminding me that, despite his
reputation for stimulating great acting, some of his films have
gratingly awful one-note performances, notably Andy Griffith's hee-haw
lipsmacking in "A Face In the Crowd" and Eli Wallach's leering in
"Baby Doll". (And nobody's mentioning "Man On a Tightrope"!)
To me, despite the received opinion, the worst offender is "A
Streetcar Named Desire": Vivien Leigh is convincingly batty but seems
totally unrelated to the resolutely wholesome Kim Hunter, much less
her sister, while it's maddeningly distracting to hear Leigh's
mouthful-of-marbles diction and Hunter's clipped Midwestern-speech. Of
course, Leigh was basically reproducing the stage performance that
Olivier had directed, so her stale beignet accent may be traceable to
Olivier's own awful ventures into regional speech, especially his
Bollywood Mahdi in "Khartoum".
Kazan deserves credit for the film's pace, but as a visual experience,
it's certainly uninspired (and Tennessee Williams' writing is so
strong that even community theater productions can produce memorable
performances). The aural disjunctions are even more grating in
"America, America", where Mother Anatolia hosts a mishmash of
authentic local accents and rampant New York voices.
On the other hand, I'll join Damien and Mike to put in a good word for
"Gentleman's Agreement", which is too easily dismissed on the evidence
of Gregory Peck's boxy suits and the faux-naïve "discovery" of
anti-Semitism in the heartland. As Damien pointed out, the
relationship between Peck's character and Dorothy McGuire's—where
physical attraction comes into conflict with cultural
repulsion—requires a surprisingly adult negotiation, and the script
bravely resists a sentimental conclusion. In the long run, all this
seems more attributable to Moss Hart than Kazan, and especially to
Zanuck, the only non-Jewish mogul, but the movie is still as visually
dull as "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn".
--Bob Keser
2190
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 4:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
If My Son John speaks for itself, then McCarey was on the left.
Ford had almost nothing to do with Vietnam Vietnam. I wonder if you
have seen the film. And maybe you would care to explain why this movie
so utterly negates everything Ford did between 1917 and 1965, that you
can sum up his whol oeuvre in one nasty word.
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> I just knew this can or worms was going to be opened.
>
> "My Son John" and "Vietnam Vietnam" speak for
> themselves.
>
> --- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> > That's a terrible charge to make against Ford. And
> > not merited.
> >
> > Damien Bona wrote:
> >
> > > thank God for the lefty-ness of Jean
> > > Renoir, Douglas Sirk and Blake Edwards, which
> > balances out Leo
> > > McCarey and John Ford.
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
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>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2191
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 4:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
What "nasty word"?
Ford was right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
Does it make me regard him as being unworthy of
serious respect? Of course not. "Seven Women" s one of
my favorite films.
And I don't know what version of "My Son John" you saw
but it must have been different from the one Robert
Warshow wrote about and that I saw.
Want to talk about "Satan Never Sleeps"?
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> If My Son John speaks for itself, then McCarey was
> on the left.
>
> Ford had almost nothing to do with Vietnam Vietnam.
> I wonder if you
> have seen the film. And maybe you would care to
> explain why this movie
> so utterly negates everything Ford did between 1917
> and 1965, that you
> can sum up his whol oeuvre in one nasty word.
>
>
>
> David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> > I just knew this can or worms was going to be
> opened.
> >
> > "My Son John" and "Vietnam Vietnam" speak for
> > themselves.
> >
> > --- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> > > That's a terrible charge to make against Ford.
> And
> > > not merited.
> > >
> > > Damien Bona wrote:
> > >
> > > > thank God for the lefty-ness of Jean
> > > > Renoir, Douglas Sirk and Blake Edwards, which
> > > balances out Leo
> > > > McCarey and John Ford.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product
> search
> > http://shopping.yahoo.com
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> > ADVERTISEMENT
> >
>
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>
> >
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo!
> Terms of Service
> > <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>.
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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2192
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 5:18pm
Subject: Politics, Art, & Life
""Dreiser and James: with that juxtaposition we are immediately at the dark and bloody crossroads where literature and politics meet." -Lionell Trilling
And I am left wondering why being right-wing and ant-communist is any more of a transgression than being left-wing and liberal. Certainly, as far as I am concerned, Oliver Stone has made for a compelling example that a talented left-wing filmmaker can be a total and complete idiot (i.e; reverentlly speaking of the 9/11 attack as "the uprising," or his kissing Castro's ass).
It's unfortunate, but true: at a certain point we have to seperate an artist from his work. I think Roman Polanski is a great filmmaker, but how he conducted his personal life (drugging and raping a minor) was pretty venal. Ditto for many other great filmmakers, writers, and other artists. You'll find very few artists in this world who are great role models for living.
David Ehrenstein wrote:
What "nasty word"?
Ford was right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
Does it make me regard him as being unworthy of
serious respect? Of course not. "Seven Women" s one of
my favorite films.
And I don't know what version of "My Son John" you saw
but it must have been different from the one Robert
Warshow wrote about and that I saw.
Want to talk about "Satan Never Sleeps"?
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> If My Son John speaks for itself, then McCarey was
> on the left.
>
> Ford had almost nothing to do with Vietnam Vietnam.
> I wonder if you
> have seen the film. And maybe you would care to
> explain why this movie
> so utterly negates everything Ford did between 1917
> and 1965, that you
> can sum up his whol oeuvre in one nasty word.
>
>
>
> David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> > I just knew this can or worms was going to be
> opened.
> >
> > "My Son John" and "Vietnam Vietnam" speak for
> > themselves.
> >
> > --- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> > > That's a terrible charge to make against Ford.
> And
> > > not merited.
> > >
> > > Damien Bona wrote:
> > >
> > > > thank God for the lefty-ness of Jean
> > > > Renoir, Douglas Sirk and Blake Edwards, which
> > > balances out Leo
> > > > McCarey and John Ford.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product
> search
> > http://shopping.yahoo.com
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> > ADVERTISEMENT
> >
>
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>
> >
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo!
> Terms of Service
> > <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>.
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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2193
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 5:29pm
Subject: Re: Politics, Art, & Life
Rick Segreda wrote:
>
>
> Ford was right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
Ford was not right wing. Whis is that so hard to admit?
>
> Does it make me regard him as being unworthy of
> serious respect? Of course not. "Seven Women" s one of
> my favorite films.
Tell me why you consider 7 Women to be right wing.
>
>
> And I don't know what version of "My Son John" you saw
> but it must have been different from the one Robert
> Warshow wrote about and that I saw.
Here's my argument about MY SON JOHN -- in context of McCarey's career:
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr1201/tgfr13a.htm
2194
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 5:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
>
>
> Ford was right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
Ford was not right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
>
> Does it make me regard him as being unworthy of
> serious respect? Of course not. "Seven Women" s one of
> my favorite films.
Tell me how 7 Women is right-wing.
>
>
> And I don't know what version of "My Son John" you saw
> but it must have been different from the one Robert
> Warshow wrote about and that I saw.
My argument, in context of McCarey's career:
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr1201/tgfr13a.htm
>
>
2195
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 5:33pm
Subject: Preminger
My favorite late Preminger movie is "Tell me that you love me, Junie Moon." For me, the story, the acting, the script, the direction all come together in a work of art that is both funny and moving.
I liked "The Human Factor" as well, but frankly, Iman is not an actress and Nicol Williamson's forte as an actor is cold, dry, irony, not romantic passion. Regrettably Preminger couldn't get Richard Burton for the lead, nor could he get a reasonably skilled actress to play Sarah. It's the "Lola Montes" problem wherebye the film is more exciting to the mind than the heart because of the emotional hollowness of it's performers.
That last shot, of a phone dangling, is so Preminger; most of his movies conclude with a close-up on an object that serves as the objective correlative for the feelings and themes that have preceded it; i.e; the shotgun-blasted clock in "Laura," the discarded shoe in "Anatomy of a Murder."
filipefurtado wrote:
>
> - The Human Factor (Preminger, 79)
>
> I recently re-
watched Preminger's last film and am closer than ever to
> agreeing with Dave Kehr (and Tag Gallagher) that it's the gr
eatest of the late
> Preminger films.
I think it's the greatest of all Preminger's films.
The final shot (whose imagery Preminger chose to replicate i
n
> the Saul Bass opening titles) is shattering in its depiction
of the latter.
I think the final shot is further proof that all the talk
about Preminger being a cold filmmaker are nonsense. How many
films has a final shot as devasting as this?
>
> -
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out (Hellman, 89)
>
> Let me join Bill and Filipe as someone who loves this late H
ellman film, the
> last he's directed to date. This is a marvelous movie which
has Hellman's
> mise en scene in full force.
He says that it's his best directed film.
It's fascinating to watch his minimalist aesthetic
> "interact" with the tropes of this horror/serial killer movi
e;
When I wrote a small monograph on Hellman a few months ago, I
use this as the starting point for my chapter about Hellman's
relationship with genre. I think he does some wonderful
things here and who else would make a film as effective as
this from a sequel to a 80's slasher film about a killing
santa claus?
With regards to the latter,
> I also think the film's a kind of fairy tale.
It has, I keep thinking this was the weirdest version of
Little Red Riding Hood imaginable. I also think Hellman
manage to make an oddly evocative romance and a strong
exploration of the space separating his carachters. As
curiosity, this was the first Hellman film that I saw, and I
was turned into a fan from the dream sequence on.
Filipe
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
Yahoo! Groups SponsorADVERTISEMENT
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2196
From: filipefurtado
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 5:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
I hate this right/left dichotomy. Things are so more complex
than this two small words.
Filipe
> I just knew this can or worms was going to be opened.
>
> "My Son John" and "Vietnam Vietnam" speak for
> themselves.
>
> --- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> > That's a terrible charge to make against Ford. And
> > not merited.
> >
> > Damien Bona wrote:
> >
> > > thank God for the lefty-ness of Jean
> > > Renoir, Douglas Sirk and Blake Edwards, which
> > balances out Leo
> > > McCarey and John Ford.
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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2197
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 5:47pm
Subject: John Ford: right or left?
You do raise a good question, Tag. I mean, he made the very New Dealish "The Grapes of Wrath," "How Green Was my Valley" took a sympathetic view of the striking miners, and late in his career, with "Cheyenne Autumn," "Seven Women," and "Seargent Rutlidge" he almost outdid Stanley Kramer laying a guilt trip on the audience for being racist and sexist.
Yet, his films, for better or worse, are very hardcore patriotic, pro-military, and pro-family values. He still upholds traditional notions of chivalry, duty, and responsibility. There is no moral relativism, no Bergman-like religious doubts, no making fun of the church, no questioning of the majesty of the law, no regrets about engaging in war and battle, no mockery of nationalistic pride (could you imagine Ford making "Paths of Glory?"). So in a sense, Ford was more "conservative" than "right-wing."
Tag Gallagher wrote:>
>
> Ford was right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
Ford was not right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
>
> Does it make me regard him as being unworthy of
> serious respect? Of course not. "Seven Women" s one of
> my favorite films.
Tell me how 7 Women is right-wing.
>
>
> And I don't know what version of "My Son John" you saw
> but it must have been different from the one Robert
> Warshow wrote about and that I saw.
My argument, in context of McCarey's career:
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr1201/tgfr13a.htm
>
>
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2198
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 5:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
I agree.
filipefurtado wrote:
> I hate this right/left dichotomy. Things are so more complex
> than this two small words.
>
> Filipe
>
>
> >
2199
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 5:57pm
Subject: Re: John Ford: right or left?
Rick Segreda wrote:
> You do raise a good question, Tag. I mean, he made the very New
> Dealish "The Grapes of Wrath," "How Green Was my Valley" took a
> sympathetic view of the striking miners, and late in his career, with
> "Cheyenne Autumn," "Seven Women," and "Seargent Rutlidge" he almost
> outdid Stanley Kramer laying a guilt trip on the audience for being
> racist and sexist.
>
> Yet, his films, for better or worse, are very hardcore patriotic,
I don't know what hardcore means here. Can one be left-wing and be
patriotic?
.
> pro-military,
One can be left-wing and be pro-military.
I probably disagree vehemently that Ford is pro-military. I spent 600
pages arguing this in my book.
> and pro-family values.
What on earth does that mean?
Most of his films are about families that are split because of vicious
community intolerance. He wants to get them back together again. Is
that what you're referring to?
> He still upholds traditional notions of chivalry, duty, and
> responsibility.
None of these are anymore right- than left-wing.
He sympathizes with John Wayne slapping the rump Maureen O'Hara and
Elizabeth Allen...
Duty is the source of most evil in Ford's way of seeing things.
> There is no moral relativism,
I think what sets Ford apart (and above) almost all other filmmakers is
that he sees much more moral relativism.
> no Bergman-like religious doubts,
7 Women. And many other pictures.
> no making fun of the church,
The Quiet Man. 7 Women.
> no questioning of the majesty of the law,
He has a film by that name which questions it.
> no regrets about engaging in war and battle,
In almost every movie. And in marked contrast to Hawks who thinks these
things are marvelous.
> no mockery of nationalistic pride (could you imagine Ford making
> "Paths of Glory?").
He did, several times, with far more mockery than Kubrick's simplstic
one-note toot could manage.
> So in a sense, Ford was more "conservative" than "right-wing."
Only in nonsense.
>
>
>
> Tag Gallagher wrote:>
> >
> > Ford was right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
>
>
> Ford was not right-wing. Why is that so hard to admit?
>
> >
> > Does it make me regard him as being unworthy of
> > serious respect? Of course not. "Seven Women" s one of
> > my favorite films.
>
> Tell me how 7 Women is right-wing.
>
>
> >
> >
> > And I don't know what version of "My Son John" you saw
> > but it must have been different from the one Robert
> > Warshow wrote about and that I saw.
>
>
> My argument, in context of McCarey's career:
> http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr1201/tgfr13a.htm
>
2200
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2003 6:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: Kazan: the balance sheet
TELL IT TO KARL ROVE!
TELL IT TO HOWIT KUTRZ!
TELL IT TO THE "MAINSTREAM" MEDIA!!!!
--- Tag Gallagher wrote:
> I agree.
>
> filipefurtado wrote:
>
> > I hate this right/left dichotomy. Things are so
> more complex
> > than this two small words.
> >
> > Filipe
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