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2601
From: Eric Henderson
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:51am
Subject: Re: Violence is Boring
This is an interesting concept, but the only thing that troubles me is the
possibility that ignoring, or even actively subverting one's own preferences (in
genre or what have you) seems like a move towards fetishizing cinephilia.
(Now, mind you, this is something I suspect myself guilty of almost as often as
I indulge in liking horror films for their horror-ness.)
2602
From: Tosh
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:59am
Subject: Re: Kill Quentin Volume 1
I just saw Kill Bill Vol. 1, and my wife and I had a great time. The
film is hysterical. I don't think his work is about real life or
violence -it's about movie violence and the world of the otaku.
Quentin is not the type of artist I like to think about - he 's more
of a guilty pleasure. And I need my guily pleasures!!!!!!
ciao,
Tosh
--
Tosh Berman
TamTam Books
http://www.tamtambooks.com
2603
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:14am
Subject: Re: Kill Quentin Volume 1; huh?
I came, I saw, I...raised my eyebrows?! This is an actual passage from the blog you "heartily concur" with:
"Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence?"
???
David Ehrenstein wrote:
Here's a piece on Tarantino with which I heartily
concur:
http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml?pid=844
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2604
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:44am
Subject: Boring violence AND sex
I have to admit that in the brave new, post-Production Code world of modern movies, two things that have always bored me are when sex and violence is shoehorned into the film for no other reason than to make sure the male teen punks are packed in for the all-important opening weekend crapshoot.
Then we have mechanical sex scenes and mechanical violence taking the place of compelling characters and intriguing narratives.
And I especially hate the increasing dependence on two-backed-beast sex scenes --where we see her tits, her ass, her snatch, his ass, but almost never (?!!) his wenie -- as a substitute for actual passion in the acting (and dialogue).
The same goes for the brainless violence-for-violence's sake that is routine in R-rated studio blockbusters.
But I do enjoy the sex and the violence when it is the service of some real spark of creativity. That's what I have always enjoyed about Quentin Tarantino, from "Resevoir Dogs" to "Kill Bill." There is a real wit, spunk, and verve in all of his movies (including "True Romance" and "From Dusk till Dawn"), and a real concern for his characters and what happens to them. He's not out there just to pump his audience for money, like Stallone did and now Vin Diesel and the Rock does.
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2605
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 7:32am
Subject: Re: The Coens and Wilder
Jaime,
I am snowed under with writing and out-of-town visitors, but I do
plan to answer you when I can do it right. Thank you for asking.
Bill
2606
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 7:42am
Subject: New Republic, Sex, Violence
Joe Dante sent around that article with a comment that "it's a good
thing Tarantino isn't Jewish." My friend Marvin replied: It reads
like the writings of a somewhat anti-Semitic 16 year old writing a
really bad high school paper. "Thought film was inspired and
commented upon extreme violence in Italian, Japanese and Chinese
movies. Argument shaky, and see me after class about comments about
Jewish people. C+"
Truffaut recalled that when one of his friends had seen a film, the
other kids would always ask two questions to find out if it was worth
seeing: "How are the fights? Is there any skin?"
2607
From: ingysdayoff
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 8:21am
Subject: Re: Rose Hobart (was: LISTS etc.)
Last spring, a bunch of students and I watched Rose Hobart in a few ways:
with the blue filter and no soundtrack, blue filter and soundtrack, no blue filter
and soundtrack, and no blue filter or soundtrack. This is an inexhaustable
masterpiece, and the editing (like Fred stated) is so sharp and sometimes
frighteningly surreal. I also loved Cornell's "Legend for Fountains".
Michael
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
>
> David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> >A number of yeas ago in New York there was a screening
> >.... of "Rose Hobart" followed by the film from which it's
> >chiefly derived, "East of Borneo." ....
> >
> >
> David, we may have been at the same screening. At least, I was at a
> screening exactly like the one you describe, at the Collective for
> Living Cinema.. But I'm sorry, I don't remember your presence, though I
> tend to walk around in a fog and might well have just not noticed.
>
> I certainly agree with you about the (a) influence and (b) greatness of
> "Rose Hobart." Indeed, it seems to have set the modern American found
> footage movie on its course, though that mode took a few decades to get
> going.
>
> One thing I love about "Rose Hobart" is the abrupt ruptures or breaks in
> the editing, moments of extreme disjunction through which magic seems to
> enter, a little bit like the effect Cornell gets when marrying disparate
> materials or images in his sublime boxes and collages.
>
> It was interesting to see "East of Borneo" too. Near its opening,
> there's a scene in which the woman journeys to the jungle kingdom, and
> there are lots of hokey Hollywood cuts between her and close-ups of all
> those bad things in the forest. I wondered if that highly synthetic
> editing, which any experienced movie watcher -- and Cornell, a film
> collector himself, certainly was one -- would read not as a successful
> creation of menace but rather as failed attempts at synthesis, might
> have inspired the extreme disjunctions of Cornell's film.
>
> To anyone who doesn't see the magic of "Rose Hobart," I'd suggest
> looking at Cornell's boxes and collages. The Art Institute of Chicago
> has a great collection of boxes. The MoMA has some great boxes too,
> though who knows if they have any out in their temporary warehouse.
>
> - Fred
2608
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 0:16pm
Subject: Re: the appeal of the problematic text
> And I must stay that I found Hideko's chipperness a little too
much - or
> rather, I found it a little too much for its own sake, a little too
much
> there to entertain us rather than to characterize her. Her banter
with
> Uehara lacked variety, at the least: that routine where she
imitates an
> old-fashioned theater narrator is worked pretty hard.
Oddly enough, I felt like I was going to grow weary of that little
act, and in fact felt myself seize up when she started it for like,
what, the fifth or sixth time. But that was the exact moment when
she would stop and go into a different mode.
Like Hideko being
> the modern girl and Kinuyo representing old-fashioned Japan. It
doesn't
> connect enough to anything else.
True, that seemed to have been brought in and then dropped again.
> He's never without interest, but most everything I've been seeing
has
> been levels of inspiration lower than LATE SPRING.
I agree with the first part, but so far there are no films that I can
say "no other film attains these heights." To me, there has been a
number of films that I have really thought were great, some really
great (like LATE AUTUMN), but none that were as great for me as LATE
SPRING is for you. Alas...
You go to see MUNEKATA, which is thorny and problem-ridden, and then
you follow it up with one of your favorite films of all time! Poor
Hideko & Co. haven't got a chance... :)
SPOILERS
The Ophuls moment I picked up on was when Hideko is seen staring
intently at So Yamamura's body, slowly realizing that he has died.
If this was not an intentional visual, and in some ways textual (?),
reference to a similar scene towards the end of CAUGHT, it's a
strange coincidence.
-Jaime
2609
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 0:18pm
Subject: Re: The Coens and Wilder
Hey Bill,
Not to snow you under further, but when you get a chance is it
possible to pass this Biette article around (scan it and put it up
online, photocopy and mail it, or some other solution)--I have no
access to Trafic, unless some knows of a New York-area library that
carries it, and the article is so damn enticing.
Thanks,
Patrick
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> Jaime,
>
> I am snowed under with writing and out-of-town visitors, but I do
> plan to answer you when I can do it right. Thank you for asking.
>
> Bill
2610
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 0:18pm
Subject: Re: The Coens and Wilder
Bill,
Not at all, I wasn't gunning for you specifically - I have to guess
that nearly everyone here is familiar with terms
like 'auteur,' 'matteur-en-scene,' and so on. Anyone is welcome to
answer, if they like. (Please?)
Thanks
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Jaime,
>
> I am snowed under with writing and out-of-town visitors, but I do
> plan to answer you when I can do it right. Thank you for asking.
>
> Bill
2611
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 0:32pm
Subject: Re: Taste
Fred,
I mostly would agree with you, but how would you explain matters of
taste on the part of a filmmaker? In a somewhat exaggerated example:
what if Nick Ray's actual favorite color (as you describe favorite
colors) was red, and that was the only reason that Jim Stark's jacket
is red, that Vicki Gaye's dress at the beginning of PARTY GIRL is red,
that Jesus' robes are red? I think that in the these three films,
these things can really not be red without reducing the formal
greatness of the films (well, at least REBEL), so would you still
question Ray's "taste" in choosing red.
Again, somewhat hypothetical, but I'm sure you could find more solid
examples from actual production histories.
PWC
2612
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 0:48pm
Subject: Nick Ray and Red
> what if Nick Ray's actual favorite color (as you describe favorite
> colors) was red, and that was the only reason...
But Ray's work with color, red simply being the most memorable one,
produces effects and meanings that exist autonomously from the idea
(hypothetical or otherwise) that he simply likes one of them & that's
that. What if we found out that Ray didn't give a shit about red,
and he just used it in a basic film-school "look, I'm using red a
lot" sort of way. What if we discovered that he had a crippling fear
of cyan? Even if we could know these things, whatever bearing they
have on the texts themselves seems kind of slippery to me.
(I hope it was okay that I tried to answer this before Fred
responded.)
-Jaime
2613
From: jerome_gerber
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 0:57pm
Subject: Re: "Uzak" means "Far" in Turkish
For those unaware, UZAK is screening at the NYFF tomorrow
evening, Oct. 16.
Jerry
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser"
wrote:
> I also felt that UZAK is a good film, but that the elements did
not
> quite add up, despite some very impressive images. The
following is
> what I'm writing about the film for the next issue of Bright Lights
> (Chicago International Film Festival report).
>
> --Robert Keser
>
> A scrawny mouse struggling to free itself from a strip of
> sticky paper becomes a metaphor for both protagonists of
> DISTANT (UZAK), two cousins who enact a country mouse/city
> mouse polarity while trapped in their own circumstances.
> One is a lean, languid, fastidious photographer accustomed
> to indulging his refined tastes (his intellectual friends
> squabble over Tarkovsky) . The other is a young
> village man laid off when the local factory closes, leaving
> him only with a desire to see the world and a responsibility
> to send home money. Snowy vistas of Istanbul alternate with
> stunning Anatolian landscapes as attention shifts from one
> man to the other. The photographer pursues his career,
> reluctantly tends his ailing mother, and still more
> reluctantly faces up to his own shortcomings.
> Meanwhile, the cousin's goal of a seafaring life proves
> to be a pipe-dream, as wrecked as the massive ship on its
> side that forms one splendid image, and he longs to connect
> with a woman yet cannot make a decisive move. With no
> dialogue at all in the opening fifteen minutes, and much
> natural sound thereafter, including wind-chimes tinkling
> and discreet passages of Bach, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan
> lets the contrasts between the men build, using Turkey's
> economic downturn as simply a jumping-off point to trace
> the knots of alienation in his characters. Eventually,
> personal frustrations boil over in the arena of sharing
> the photographer's electronics-filled apartment, with
> the camera moving into intense close-ups to support the
> sincere, thoughtful performances of the two stars (who
> shared the Best Actor prize at Cannes). Despite the polished
> widescreen photography, which plays with shallow focus to
> map out visual planes, the emotional content still seems to
> thin out in the end. When Ceylan withholds details—about how
> the intellectual contributed to the failure of his
> marriage, about what provoked the villager's final
> decision—it may seem modish, but life and meaning live in
> those details. Considering that the film won the Grand Prize
> at Cannes, its concluding image of loneliness—-the cold sea
> splashing across the stormy waterfront with
> Angelopoulos-like drama—-falls somewhat short of the
intended
> resonance.
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
> > I enjoyed this film, but mildly. There's no denying the
ingenuity
> of
> > Ceylan's framing and his ability to express the theme of
isolation
> > (even when you're in close proximity with another person,
and he's
> > your brother), but the development of the narrative felt cliched
to
> > me, and that there was more dry (as in, me itching) space
than the
> > visual and thematic expressiveness could really carry.
> >
>
2614
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 1:13pm
Subject: Nick Ray and Orange
> I mostly would agree with you, but how would you explain matters of
> taste on the part of a filmmaker? In a somewhat exaggerated example:
> what if Nick Ray's actual favorite color (as you describe favorite
> colors) was red, and that was the only reason that Jim Stark's jacket
> is red, that Vicki Gaye's dress at the beginning of PARTY GIRL is red,
> that Jesus' robes are red? I think that in the these three films,
> these things can really not be red without reducing the formal
> greatness of the films (well, at least REBEL), so would you still
> question Ray's "taste" in choosing red.
This is apropos of nothing, but I thought I'd share: Blake Lucas once
asked Ray in a Q&A about Barbara Rush's orange dress in BIGGER THAN
LIFE. According to Blake, Ray beamed and said that he stayed up all
night the night before those scenes were shot, dyeing that dress himself
to make it the exact orange that he wanted. - Dan
2615
From: jerome_gerber
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 1:12pm
Subject: Re: Favorite Theatres
The Reade, one of the world's truly great spaces to view movies,
is moving into a state of sad repair. Many, if not most, of the
seats are broken. One's looking at ceilings rather than the
screen. Chatting with the manager, he brings up the issue of
dollars, of course, and how they just aren't around for any
refurbishing.
Jerry
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Greg Dunlap
wrote:
> > My few choices: The Anthology Film Archives, The
> > theater in the National Gallery in DC, and the Walter
> > Reade... and I hear the Music Box in Chicago is just
> > beautiful.
>
> The Music Box was going to be my choice, its such a great
place. I'm
> actually looking into having my wedding there. When I sit down
and
> think about it, I know that much of my reaction to it is emotional
> because of the many many wonderful Music Box viewings I've
had. Half
> the chairs have busted springs. You can't see the screen in the
front
> third of the house unless you're six feet tall. Still, it is gorgeous,
> the sound is great, and I can't think of anything I'd rather do on
a
> Saturday morning than go a little early, listen to the organist,
and
> watch some Buster Keaton movies or whatever else they
happen to be
> pulling up. They just got outfitted for 70mm too.
>
> I can't say much about places out of town, I've done very little
> traveling film viewing.
>
> =====
> --------------------
> Greg Dunlap
> heyrocker@y...
>
> __________________________________
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> http://shopping.yahoo.com
2616
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 1:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: the appeal of the problematic text
> Oddly enough, I felt like I was going to grow weary of that little
> act, and in fact felt myself seize up when she started it for like,
> what, the fifth or sixth time. But that was the exact moment when
> she would stop and go into a different mode.
In a way, Ozu has to watch out more than other directors that his actors
don't start showing off. Because he tends to shoot conversations with
those nearly-head-on medium-close-ups, which throw a lot of weight on
the state of being of the actor. It works great when it's Chishu Ryu
smiling faintly, nodding his head and going, "Mmmm," but it can turn
into a showcase for exhibitionism.
As I mentioned after the screening, I found it interesting that Hideko,
the Shirley Temple of Japan and presumably well loved for her endearing
comic shtick, is always rather restrained in the umpteen films she made
for Naruse, even in the vehicles like HIDEKO THE BUS CONDUCTOR. But Ozu
seemed okay with letting her do her act (which admittedly has its appeal).
I had thought that this was the only Takamine-Ozu collaboration, but the
IMDb says that she played a daughter in TOKYO CHORUS, when she was seven.
> I agree with the first part, but so far there are no films that I can
> say "no other film attains these heights." To me, there has been a
> number of films that I have really thought were great, some really
> great (like LATE AUTUMN), but none that were as great for me as LATE
> SPRING is for you. Alas...
LATE SPRING is my favorite so far, but I'm aware that it's not a lonely
eminence. Certainly TOKYO STORY, which I like just a tiny bit less than
most do, is equally organic. And, in a different mode, I WAS BORN,
BUT... is just as terrific. But lots of the big films give me the
impression that Ozu was working at less than 100%. I saw EARLY SUMMER
last night, which Audie Bock says was Ozu's most acclaimed post-war film
along with LATE SPRING and TOKYO STORY. I wound up liking it, but it
certainly didn't seem as inspired moment-by-moment as some other Ozus,
and not as much of a piece. (Interestingly, it also featured some
extended shtick with the actresses: the girlfriends play an endless game
of exaggerating the "...ne" at the end of their sentences, and Ozu and
Noda never seem to tire of it.) I hope to revisit the rest of the films
in the series (including the series' buzz film LATE AUTUMN, which I
haven't seen since it screened at the Harvard-Epworth church in the
early seventies) now that I'm back in town, so maybe I'll revise my
opinion. I'm definitely more predisposed to like Ozu now than I was 20
years ago, the last time a comprehensive retro came around.
Now if only someone would do this good a retro of Naruse or Toyoda - or
any kind of a retro for Gosho, Uchida, Yamanaka.... - Dan
2617
From: jerome_gerber
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 1:44pm
Subject: Re: (taste)Nick Ray and Orange
As I read these posts, I believe Fred was speaking of the
filmviewer (the critic) rather than the filmaker... an important
disctinction.
J.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt
wrote:
> > I mostly would agree with you, but how would you explain
matters of
> > taste on the part of a filmmaker? In a somewhat
exaggerated example:
> > what if Nick Ray's actual favorite color (as you describe
favorite
> > colors) was red, and that was the only reason that Jim
Stark's jacket
> > is red, that Vicki Gaye's dress at the beginning of PARTY
GIRL is red,
> > that Jesus' robes are red? I think that in the these three
films,
> > these things can really not be red without reducing the formal
> > greatness of the films (well, at least REBEL), so would you
still
> > question Ray's "taste" in choosing red.
>
> This is apropos of nothing, but I thought I'd share: Blake Lucas
once
> asked Ray in a Q&A about Barbara Rush's orange dress in
BIGGER THAN
> LIFE. According to Blake, Ray beamed and said that he stayed
up all
> night the night before those scenes were shot, dyeing that
dress himself
> to make it the exact orange that he wanted. - Dan
2618
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 1:53pm
Subject: Re: Nick Ray and Red
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> > what if Nick Ray's actual favorite color (as you describe favorite
> > colors) was red, and that was the only reason...
>
> But Ray's work with color, red simply being the most memorable one,
> produces effects and meanings that exist autonomously from the idea
> (hypothetical or otherwise) that he simply likes one of them &
that's
> that.
But that's what I was arguing--what if, regardless of the formal
autonomy these elements, what if the red's presence was merely a
matter of taste--is taste transubstantiated into formal greatness
equal something else?
> Even if we could know these things, whatever bearing they
> have on the texts themselves seems kind of slippery to me.
>
TEXT! Films are not texts; they can't be read either! (see Tag's
article --
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr0301/tgbfr12
a.htm , plus many others, Legrand, Bordwell, etc) Text is words,
writing, literature. Would one describe Chartres as a text?
Patrick
2619
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 2:22pm
Subject: Re: the appeal of the problematic text
> that routine where she imitates an
> old-fashioned theater narrator is worked pretty hard.
I wondered if her shtick (complete with choruses of "Hearts and Flowers," if that's what that song is) was partly Ozu's device for poking fun at the glossy material he was presented with here. Also wondered if that was a benshi she was imitating (never having seen one), but Donald Richie refers to her "endless _kodan_ [old-time storyteller] imitations."
> Kinuyo didn't seem quite in
> the Ozu mold. Apparently Ozu had difficulty working with her, not that
> that's relevant.
And not that this is relevant, but what is Richie referring to when he writes "Kinuyo Tanaka had just returned from America and was full of herself and new ideas on acting, none of which Ozu agreed with"? Did she work (or study) in America? (Gotta see that biopic.)
2620
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 2:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: Taste
To all, as your group co-founder and "owner" I must say I continue to be
pleased by the activity here. But, it's obvious to me I should no longer
try to read all the posts, and I'm sure some others feel the same, so it
becomes important for everyone to accurately title the subject in the
subject line.
To Eric, "fetishizing" my type of cinephilia, is, I hope, not exactly
possible, because it's a cinephilia that doesn't care about a particular
object. This cinephile doesn't care if the film has Barbara Stanywyck
with a whip or Jennifer Jones in a frilly dress or only some of
Brakhage's out-of-focus blobs. I look for something that I'd liked to
think is "deeper," and that isn't focused my like or dislike of
particular objects, subjects, or modes of filmmaking.
To Jake, and to some extent to Patrick, I should be clear that I'm
talking about a way of trying to focus one's attentions and interests,
not about some state of ego-less perfection I think anyone can achieve.
Of course taste is somewhat subjective; how can it be otherwise. But
also, of course aesthetic value, at least among a particular social
group at a particular time and place, is not totally subjective: how
else can we almost all agree on the relative merits of "Vertigo" versus
(to choose a horrible film I've actually seen) "The Towering Inferno."
I'm not seeking to root out subjectivity, just to push it deeper, to a
taste for forms rather than particulars, to an appreciation of the way
beauty and meaning can emerge from possible relationships between
elements in a film rather than a liking for particular elements. This is
my problem with cinephilia as it's usually practiced: I don't care about
a particular performance, script, or actor all that much except in
relationship to the whole. And I'm not saying I don't derive pleasure
from any particulars, or from something as trivial as a goofy line of
dialogue in an otherwise great film, just that I try not to make things
like that my main focus.
To Patrick, artists have long been known for their quirky tastes. If
they are great artists, their tastes can be of interest for offering an
insight into their art, as well as sometimes constituting strength for
them in terms of making new work. That Joseph Cornell was fascinated
with the actress Rose Hobart, to take a relevant example, would be
subject to my critique if I were judging him as a cinephile, but of
course it was a "fetish" of his that produced a very great film. So I'm
not carving anything in stone here, since I suppose anyone might make a
great film someday. Perhaps Mike Grost has it within him to make a great
video response to violence in media, for example. But at the other
extreme we all know how discussions between cinephiles can de-evolve
into, "I prefer films that have some social merit and content" versus
"No, social content always kills the illusion for me," or, worse, "I
didn't find her nearly as hot as she was in her last picture" versus
"What do you mean, you must be nuts, what about the way her bodacious
bod was almost bursting out of those tight tights she was wearing in her
latest flick."
My argument against the taste for specifics is not an absolute, in other
words, just something I thought worth throwing into the mix here.
- Fred
2621
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 2:48pm
Subject: Re: Re: Nick Ray and Red
Patrick Ciccone wrote:
>-
>
>>
>>
>But that's what I was arguing--what if, regardless of the formal
>autonomy these elements, what if the red's presence was merely a
>matter of taste--is taste transubstantiated into formal greatness
>equal something else?
>
>
If all that Ray's films consisted of was colors that he liked, the films
wouldn't be any good. What makes them great is (among other things) the
relationship of colors to other colors. It's great to hear that story
about the dress (assuming it's true), but I don't think the dress color
itself is good or bad. The color in relationship to the other parts of
the film could be great.
Ray's "taste" is also for particular kinds of relationships, some kinds
of camera angles and movements over others. He redeems his tastes by
putting them in aesthetic relationships to each other. The viewer's job,
according to my thesis, is to see those relationships, not to become
enamored particular colors, movements, compositions.
>
>
>TEXT! Films are not texts....
>
Don't give Jaime too much of a hard time, he's trying to get throughNYU
Cinema Studies, he's got to think this way part of the time! It's part
of the student's necessary survival mechanism.
- Fred
2622
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 2:57pm
Subject: Ozu, Tanaka
> And not that this is relevant, but what is Richie referring to when
> he writes "Kinuyo Tanaka had just returned from America and was full
> of herself and new ideas on acting, none of which Ozu agreed with"?
> Did she work (or study) in America? (Gotta see that biopic.)
Not only is there no American film in her IMDb filmography, but there's
no visible gap in her output before MUNEKATA, so my guess is that the
American interlude wasn't long.
I found two interesting Ozu facts while I was reading Audie Bock's
JAPANESE FILM DIRECTORS:
1) Ozu had an interesting way of timing out his famous transition shots
of landscapes, objects, etc.: in the editing room, he would look away
from the image at the moment of transition, then hit a stopwatch button
when he felt that enough time had elapsed.
2) When studio head Shiro Kido visited Ozu on his deathbed, Ozu's last
words to Kido were, "Mr. President, it is after all the home drama,
isn't it?"
- Dan
2623
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 2:56pm
Subject: Re: Nick Ray and Red
> But that's what I was arguing--what if, regardless of the formal
> autonomy these elements, what if the red's presence was merely a
> matter of taste--is taste transubstantiated into formal greatness
> equal something else?
I guess my answer is that Ray's motivation (intention) is
immaterial. The reasons Nick Ray had for putting something into the
work (treading carefully here) are independent of what we take away
from it. I don't think there's any transubstantiation or anything -
in fact I think there's a barrier, a membrane, where you see
(perhaps) a conduit, a highway, etc.
(Maybe that membrane is permeable and maybe it admits leakage - viz.
extratextual [oops!] data having an effect on our experience that we
can't put out of our minds completely. But nothing can pass from the
artist to the spectator, or even from one person to another,
without...well, I guess you know the rest. But the point is, Ray's
personal taste may be the primary factor for the red. Maybe it's the
only factor. But that has nothing to do with me.
> TEXT! Films are not texts; they can't be read either! (see Tag's
> article --
>
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr0301/tgbfr12
> a.htm , plus many others, Legrand, Bordwell, etc) Text is words,
> writing, literature. Would one describe Chartres as a text?
Yes sir!
So these articles all argue the point, "Don't call films texts,
stupid, they aren't made up of words"? I didn't realize the idea had
already been put through the mill by scholars and rejected.
I thought that one of the ways we come to process a particular film
or a body of work, or whatever, is *as a text*, perhaps not one that
is made of words on paper or billboards, but with blocks of visual
and sound information, and so on and so forth.
What's the problem here? I feel as if I've violated some taboo, but
on the other hand I hand I also had the impression that our language
was a little more dynamic than "you can't call a film a text because
a text is literature, writing, etc."
-Jaime
2624
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 2:56pm
Subject: Paramount Theater in Austin
> what theaters... just the feel of the place, do you love
> to visit?
This is an old time theater, not as flashy as the Hollywood
re-furbished EL CAPITAN, etc but a real throw back to (well, I don't
know, probably before my time). It even has a balcony and the theater
white mice occasional show up for a screening. I've been there for
screenwriting conferences / festivals.
One design feature that gives an old feel to the theater is the balcony
with steep stairs and no handrails. {{{Texas does not have the same
governmental safety requirements as California, or as a historical
building, requirements are eased.}}}
The theater serves alcohol.
2625
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 3:00pm
Subject: Re: Nick Ray and Red
> Don't give Jaime too much of a hard time, he's trying to get
throughNYU
> Cinema Studies, he's got to think this way part of the time! It's
part
> of the student's necessary survival mechanism.
No offense to you veterans, etc., but this kind of chiding comes
dangerously close to bullying, and it's only going to lead from one
form of zombie thinking (to you, the academy) to another (FILMS
AREN'T TEXTS, STUPID!). Also your tone seems a little
condescending. Maybe you didn't mean it that way, but I'm just
telling you how it sounds.
-Jaime
2626
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 3:33pm
Subject: Fred on Taste
A most excellent creed, Fred!We should all preserve it like Jed
Leland did CFK's first editorial.
As to giving accurate titles to post, I couldn't agree more. Most of
the time it's impossible to guess what a post is going to be about
until you read it. This is a problem with every single internet group
I ever contributed to or looked at.
JPC
2627
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 4:07pm
Subject: Re: Ozu, Tanaka
Japanese studios sent several actors, directors, cinematographers to Hollywood in the early to mid-1950s to study state-of-the-art technique or to promote distribution deals. Mizoguchi was sent to investigate CinemaScope at Fox.
JOYU (FILM ACTRESS) does not depict Tanaka's visit to the US.
Richard Modiano
Dan Sallitt wrote:
Not only is there no American film in her IMDb filmography, but there's
no visible gap in her output before MUNEKATA, so my guess is that the
American interlude wasn't long.
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2628
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 4:42pm
Subject: Re: Nick Ray and Red
Me, then Jaime:
> > TEXT! Films are not texts; they can't be read either! (see Tag's
> > article --
> >
> So these articles all argue the point, "Don't call films texts,
> stupid, they aren't made up of words"?
> What's the problem here? I feel as if I've violated some taboo,
but
> on the other hand I hand I also had the impression that our
language
> was a little more dynamic than "you can't call a film a text
because
> a text is literature, writing, etc."
Here is a Merriam-Webster definition of text, in which no. 8 is the
kind of text you're talking about:
Main Entry: text
Pronunciation: 'tekst
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French texte, from Medieval
Latin textus, from Latin, texture, context, from texere to weave --
more at TECHNICAL
Date: 14th century
1 a (1) : the original words and form of a written or printed work
(2) : an edited or emended copy of an original work b : a work
containing such text
2 a : the main body of printed or written matter on a page b : the
principal part of a book exclusive of front and back matter c : the
printed score of a musical composition
3 a (1) : a verse or passage of Scripture chosen especially for the
subject of a sermon or for authoritative support (as for a doctrine)
(2) : a passage from an authoritative source providing an
introduction or basis (as for a speech) b : a source of information
or authority
4 : THEME, TOPIC
5 a : the words of something (as a poem) set to music b : matter
chiefly in the form of words that is treated as data for processing
by computerized equipment
6 : a type suitable for printing running text
7 : TEXTBOOK
8 a : something written or spoken considered as an object to be
examined, explicated, or deconstructed b : something likened to a
text
Michiko Kakutani>
D. J. Boorstin>
I just don't see any point of using no. 8 as a critical term (maybe
only as a metaphorical one, but even that is skittish), even for
literature, except for the relation between, say, text and image in
an illuminated book are a photographic work (cf. Alan Trachtenberg)
It seems like text is a stopgap for something else--if we're
analyzing something, why don't we say what we're analyzing?
Especially since "text" has been so abused by the cultural studies
ilk--e.g. Reading the Body, etc. (Chapter 2: Turn Over?)
PWC
2629
From:
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 4:44pm
Subject: Retraction and Apology
I do not know anything about violence or fighting in film.
And I should not pontificate about subjects of which I am ignorant!
In general, I do much better as a film critic on subjects I know something about: Lang, Minnelli, Anger, Antonioni. These are directors whose films have been seen and re-seen, books and articles on them read, and the subject of a lot of thought. By contrast, my aquaintance with subjects I don't like tends to be superficial.
Fred Camper's post is deeply true. Films are best understood as the works of individual artists. And they should be seen as very complex wholes, in which everything works together. I have always believed this - but did not practise this last night. Yikes!
An analogy occurs here. Suppose someone asked me what I think about "prison movies". Shooting off my trap without thought, I'd think: yecch! Rotten guards, chain gangs, prisoners escaping in swamps, endless reruns of "Prisoner: Cell Block H", a truly awful (and campy) soap opera popular in the 1970's.
But then, suppose someone asked me what I thought about "Thunderbolt" (Sternberg), "Up the River" (Ford), "A Man Escaped" (Bresson), "Le Trou" (Becker). These are all classics by great directors, and all set in prisons. I love all of these movies, and would heartily recommend them to everyone. Seeing these as works of art, in context of atists' careers, is a much deeper way of looking at them.
Mike Grost
2630
From: samfilms2003
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 4:56pm
Subject: Re: Boring violence AND sex
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Rick Segreda wrote:
>
> -- as a substitute for actual passion in the acting (and dialogue). >
If you think about it, what you end up with is actors on the screen squirming around
actually trying NOT to have sex !
Not to mention, in Hollywood films what you see/don't see has been worked out
beforehand by agents & the producers, in specific contractual detail..
-Sam Wells
2631
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:09pm
Subject: We need more terms
I have gone all day thinking about a casual comment by Bill about
Peter Greenaway
"I saw Draftsman's Contract and bowed out. Yes, if he's anything at
all, he's an auteur. Which is why we need more terms."
Where I think of "auteur" as one, limited by its definition, approach
to filmmaking, others believe in it religiously and see it as the only
truth; especially if it applies to one favorite filmmakers.
But, and this is where I critic, I have for some years seen "auteur"
been streched, pulled and redefined to allow it to support certain
directors, not only borderline but also so not "auteurs" in a general
definition. Perhaps it is based on students using the word to sound
smart, perhaps it comes from the rethinking of what filmmaking is,
perhaps there is a third, forth or fifth reason. But where Bazin and
Sarris looked after a set of rules by which a certain sort of
filmmaker worked to define an Auteur, todays definition is in my
opinion reversed, today we define a group of filmmakers who we want to
call auteurs and then later find a set of rules they all work under.
"Which is why we need more terms."
When Biette divided a film into the three elements (the telling of the
story, the structure of the story and the production) and a director
into four types (director, metteur en scene, auteur and cineaste),
what does he do that already hasn't been done before?
While I look forward to read "What makes a filmmaker?", I ask the
question, why do we need more terms?
Henrik
2632
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:10pm
Subject: Favorite theatres of yore and now
There are at least three main reasons to call a movie house
a 'favorite": technical (quality of projection and sound, sightlines,
comfort...), cinephilic (quality of programming) and sentimental
(memories associated with the place). The three may combine, but not
always do -- actually rarely do.
Many of my favorites have disappeared or have been redesigned beyond
recognition -- thus in Paris the legendary Studio Parnasse (even the
name has changed)where I once saw Singin' in the Rain sitting next to
Francois Truffaut. La Pagode was wonderful with its mirrors on both
sides of the house reflecting the screen. Ideal to watch Welles (I
saw Kane and Lady from Shanghai there) or von Sternberg (especially
The Shanghai Gesture). These are cinephilic/sentimental favorites,
and so is, with nostalgia a-plenty, the tiny screening room of the
original Cinematheque on Avenue de Messine, where I first saw
Sherlock Jr, Pabst's Pandora's Box and dozens of rare masterpieces...
I also loved (and many Parisian films buff with me) the Cineac Ternes
on Avenue des Ternes because it showed great American films in
subtitled (not dubbed) version, which very few second-run theatres
did (second-run theatres were cheaper than first run)... Today I love
the Max Linder for its outstanding projection and sound and huge
screen and very comfortable seats (saw Branagh's Hamlet there among
others) and because it is one of the very few in the world to have
resisted the multiplex craze. In New York so has the Paris, which is
certainly not a favorite from a technical point of view, but it is a
historical place with so many great foreign films shown over some 75
years... For projection and sound the Ziegfeld is hard to beat (this
is where I first saw Barry Lyndon, Apocalypse Now, Close Encounters
of the Third Kind, films that really benefit from outstanding
projection/sound quality). Also a favorite, Alice Tully Hall (The New
York Film Festival), and for cinephilic/sentimental reasons certainly
the Bleeker and the Carnegie Hall, especially when it was programmed
by Roger McNiven and Howard Mendelbaum.
Sorry for reminiscing...
JPC
2633
From:
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:28pm
Subject: Text: Why it is a hot button word
"Text" has often been used to describe films, by critics who do not think that films are works of art. Frequently, they subscribe to critical theories that deny the existance of works of art, or of artists, or "authors", in any medium: poetry, film, painting. Instead, they see a novel or a film as the result of "conditions of production" or "culture" or some other social institution.
Most auteurists are in complete diagreement with these points of view. Almost by definition, an auteurist regards a film as a "work of art", and regards film makers as artists.
As far as one can tell, the word "text" is fairly harmless in itself. But it makes most auteurists' fur stand up, because it is widely used by critics who are opposed to seeing "art" in films.
Mike Grost
2634
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:52pm
Subject: Re: Nick Ray and Red
Red is not a color. Red is violence, at least in Nickray movies.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime N. Christley"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 9:48 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Nick Ray and Red
> > what if Nick Ray's actual favorite color (as you describe favorite
> > colors) was red, and that was the only reason...
>
> But Ray's work with color, red simply being the most memorable one,
> produces effects and meanings that exist autonomously from the idea
> (hypothetical or otherwise) that he simply likes one of them & that's
> that. What if we found out that Ray didn't give a shit about red,
> and he just used it in a basic film-school "look, I'm using red a
> lot" sort of way. What if we discovered that he had a crippling fear
> of cyan? Even if we could know these things, whatever bearing they
> have on the texts themselves seems kind of slippery to me.
>
> (I hope it was okay that I tried to answer this before Fred
> responded.)
>
> -Jaime
2635
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:57pm
Subject: Re: Ozu, Tanaka
Dan mentioned Audie Bock. She was one of our candidates for
governor, ran as a Democrat, and got 2872 votes, coming in at # 22 in
a field of 135.
--
- Joe Kaufman
2636
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:05pm
Subject: Audie Bock
> Dan mentioned Audie Bock. She was one of our candidates for
> governor, ran as a Democrat, and got 2872 votes, coming in at # 22 in
> a field of 135.
Hey, Joe. Now there's a candidate worth supporting - if she'd won, we'd
have gotten that comprehensive Naruse retro for sure! I heard years ago
that she ran for some local office in Berkeley, and I think she was
elected. So she might have more political experience than some film
people who ran for governor.
Audie was the teaching assistant for some film classes I took at Harvard
in the 70s - she was already making her reputation as a Japanese film
scholar at the time. - Dan
2637
From: Frederick M. Veith
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:11pm
Subject: Trafic in NYC
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
You don't need an NYPL card, but you will have to get an ACCESS card
(available for free on site). Film holdings are in the Theater collection.
They should have the whole run of Trafic, but are usually a bit slow to
make available the most recent issue.
Fred.
On Wed, 15 Oct 2003, Patrick Ciccone wrote:
> Hey Bill,
> Not to snow you under further, but when you get a chance is it
> possible to pass this Biette article around (scan it and put it up
> online, photocopy and mail it, or some other solution)--I have no
> access to Trafic, unless some knows of a New York-area library that
> carries it, and the article is so damn enticing.
>
> Thanks,
> Patrick
2638
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:15pm
Subject: The text metaphor, why more terms?, La Pagode
I know that "text" rankles, but I prefer to hear why it's invalid from
someone who has used the metaphor to think about film and
come to that conclusion - that way I'll learn something about the
metaphor that I don't know. I'm talking like Godard in that 1967
interview on La Chinoise when he said - "there are no auteurs,
but you can only say that after you've said for a hundred years
that there ARE auteurs." In other words, I don't want to hear it
from some academic who never gave a shit about the auteur
theory in the first place. (By the way, isn't "author" as applied to a
film director a metaphor not unrelated to "text" as applied to a
film?)
Godard has always been anti- structuralism, according to that
interview, where he questions "the necessity" of Foucault's
Words and Things, and while his critique is interesting, I think
he is/was in denial about the "text" metaphor, which his way of
making films helped to launch. And that's interesting, too.
Rohmer is more objective. In a 1971 CdC interview he says
there are two possible approaches: cinema as a language, and
cinema as a window. He goes on to specify that when he and
Bazin opted for the window metaphor (which is also a metaphor,
by the way) they meant a window on God's creation. And when
I'm asked if I'd call Chartres a text, as if the answer were
self-evident, I suspect that my questioner considers Chartres -
or art - to be sacred.
But Chartres has been treated as a text by art historians,
theologians and occultists for ages, and the idea that it is a text
is grounded in medieval ideas of the world as text - ideas that
the architects of Chartres probably believed in. Take a look at
Panofsky's book on Chartres and scholastic philosophy for
someone who makes that case well.
Henrik, I believe we need more terms for precisely the reasons
you state, and others. We had a discussion here weeks ago
about Wilder and Huston, during which it became obvious to me
at least that it makes no sense to say that they aren't auteurs.
But that leaves some important distinctions - the difference, say,
between Ford and Huston, or Wilder and Murnau - unmade.
M. Cousodon - I saw Hitler, A Film from Germany in four
installments at La Pagode, twice - quite an experience. But J-P
Oudart said in CdC that he wished it had been shown in one of
the old movie palaces.
2639
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:24pm
Subject: Re: Text: Why it is a hot button word
The fashionable concept that"authorship", the "artist", the "work
of art" are naive, romantic -- and bourgeois -- notions that must be
done away with has been around for some 40 years at least but it's
more a trendy attitude (especially in academia)than a workable
proposition. Text is a convenient term (although I avoid using it
myself)because it's so polyvalent -- it can apply to anything; and it
is also used by critics who do think films are "works of art"
although many of them wouldn't be caught dead using such an old-
fashioned term.
JPC
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> "Text" has often been used to describe films, by critics who do not
think that films are works of art. Frequently, they subscribe to
critical theories that deny the existance of works of art, or of
artists, or "authors", in any medium: poetry, film, painting.
Instead, they see a novel or a film as the result of "conditions of
production" or "culture" or some other social institution.
> Most auteurists are in complete diagreement with these points of
view. Almost by definition, an auteurist regards a film as a "work of
art", and regards film makers as artists.
> As far as one can tell, the word "text" is fairly harmless in
itself. But it makes most auteurists' fur stand up, because it is
widely used by critics who are opposed to seeing "art" in films.
> Mike Grost
2640
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:34pm
Subject: Re: Audie Bock
Dan wrote:
>Hey, Joe. Now there's a candidate worth supporting - if she'd won, we'd
>have gotten that comprehensive Naruse retro for sure!....
With her Harvard education, she had, along with Arianna Huffington's
Cambridge degree, the most distinguished scholarly background of all
the candidates. I considered voting for her, and not just for the
Naruse retrospective.
--
- Joe Kaufman
2641
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:34pm
Subject: Re: The text metaphor, why more terms?, La Pagode
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
>
> M. Cousodon - I saw Hitler, A Film from Germany in four
> installments at La Pagode, twice - quite an experience. But J-P
> Oudart said in CdC that he wished it had been shown in one of
> the old movie palaces.
I don't know what he meant because I consider La Pagode one of the
old movie palaces. Maybe he meant one of the huge Radio-City-like
places, such as Gaumont Palace and Rex in Paris -- which also have
disappeared. I saw The Thief of Bagdad and The Great Dictator there
when I was ten or eleven. The screen opened up for the scene of the
genie coming out of the bottle and Chaplin's final speech.
I really liked the rest of your post (deleted here for convenience).
By the way the name is Coursodon. But nevermind, everybody misspells
it.
JPC
JPC
2642
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:52pm
Subject: Cousodon
Scusi - a typo, not ignorance.
2643
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 7:40pm
Subject: Re: The text metaphor
Bill,
The Chartres thing was out of the hat--just grasping for a famous
building; I have no doubt that Chartres can and should be "read" that
way--not the least in that the sculptural elements actually have to
be read left to right in some parts of the cathedral. And of course
there's probably a connection between the medieval illuminated text,
stained glass, etc. But my point was (stupidly) much simpler; that
different forms stipulate different types of analysis and different
languages modes of discourse (to use another fave academe term) so
why should we call what were analyzing a text when we simply can call
it what we're talking about--so hopefully if we choose another
building (say, the one I can see from my cubicle, which happens to be
the Empire State Building) my point might be clearer. The sacred
part of the question was unintentional, though that religious angle
does seem to keep slipping into my posts, for reasons unknown.
About Rohmer and the cinema as a window vs. cinema as language: I do
agree that cinema is a sort of language, but per Gerard Legrand
(thanks for those who recommended this excellent book) it is not a
language which can be broken into units with definite denotation (as
words can be). I know this is simplistic, but I think it's true.
Also, for me language is often inseparable from thought--can we say
the same of cinematic language? (I don't know.)
Last word on this topic: my own problem with "text": for me, the word
connotes something purely physical--the words on the page, not what
they mean. But those words on the page do mean something apart from
their placement there, a meaning that would stay intact even if one
transcribed them elsewhere or spoke them aloud (though of course the
meaning does often change, especially with poetry). With a film,
however, the meaning really is in the framing, the mise en scene, the
movement of bodies is a way that can't be transposed without
destroying or at the very least paraphrasing it. The "text" there is
not composed of the building blocks of language that can be juggled
like Gutenberg movable type.
Patrick
2644
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 8:09pm
Subject: Re: Nick Ray and Red
> I just don't see any point of using no. 8 as a critical term (maybe
> only as a metaphorical one, but even that is skittish), even for
> literature, except for the relation between, say, text and image in
> an illuminated book are a photographic work (cf. Alan Trachtenberg)
> It seems like text is a stopgap for something else--if we're
> analyzing something, why don't we say what we're analyzing?
> Especially since "text" has been so abused by the cultural studies
> ilk--e.g. Reading the Body, etc. (Chapter 2: Turn Over?)
Patrick, you dragged out the dictionary! But is it wrong to view
*that* text (the dictionary) as a descriptive, rather than
prescriptive, reference? If I use the word text in a sensible
manner, and the reasons against its usage are (to me, anyway) kinda
weak and arbitrary, then I don't see how I've stepped wrong.
Anyway, since M&W have been kind enough to provide me with Entry #8
(the Cover My Ass entry, but good enough), I'm not sure I buy the
argument against it.
I usually end up using the word "text" to describe a film if the
discussion goes into the zone of analysis, reading, interpretation,
etc. I mean, come on, it's not like I meet up with you and the
Fileris or whoever and say, "Hey guys, I just saw a great text the
other day." Jeez.
-Jaime
2645
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 8:13pm
Subject: Re: Text: Why it is a hot button word
I guess I'd like to think a single person can handle more than one
way of seeing films. Why I should let the turf wars of yesteryear
define my thinking today is beyond me. I don't belong to any camp
that doesn't make me feel unwelcome more often than not, and I don't
subscribe to any critical precept that I won't abandon if the need
arises.
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> "Text" has often been used to describe films, by critics who do not
think that films are works of art. Frequently, they subscribe to
critical theories that deny the existance of works of art, or of
artists, or "authors", in any medium: poetry, film, painting.
Instead, they see a novel or a film as the result of "conditions of
production" or "culture" or some other social institution.
> Most auteurists are in complete diagreement with these points of
view. Almost by definition, an auteurist regards a film as a "work of
art", and regards film makers as artists.
> As far as one can tell, the word "text" is fairly harmless in
itself. But it makes most auteurists' fur stand up, because it is
widely used by critics who are opposed to seeing "art" in films.
> Mike Grost
2646
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 8:19pm
Subject: Re: Nick Ray and Red
Red is not a color! I'm learning all kinds of things today.
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> Red is not a color. Red is violence, at least in Nickray movies.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jaime N. Christley"
> To:
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 9:48 AM
> Subject: [a_film_by] Nick Ray and Red
2647
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 8:25pm
Subject: Re: "Uzak" means "Far" in Turkish
I haven't seen the film (it's at the NYFF tonight as well as tom'w -- I'll =
try to save five bucks and catch it later), but I thought it was interesting=
that Elvis Mitchell's Times review today began, "I have to admit that 'Dist=
ant' ... didn't initially grab my attention. It was on a second viewing tha=
t the minimalist scale of the Turkish comedy-melodrama ... began to work its=
spell on me." It's interesting (though probably not as rare as I'm assumin=
g) to find a Times reviewer confessing to a second viewing of anything -- ev=
en if some of the rest of his review sounds as if it might have been based o=
n the first viewing.
2648
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 9:52pm
Subject: Re: The Text Metaphor
Patrick, your points are all well-taken. The differences between
films and literary works are enormous, and the ones you cite are
very pertinent. (For the sake of argument, however, movies have
become reproducible - even parts (the soundtrack) can be
reproduced separately.) The abstract nature of language is a big
point of difference with film images.
M. Coursodon, I never use the word text either, because of those
historical reasons you cite, Mystery Mike: 9 out of 10 who do use
it don't love film. Nonetheless, Patrick is right that the use of a
term or idea by writers who aren't any good is no reason to bury
the term. In fact I'd say that at this point it probably needs to be
dug out from under all the drek!
Coincidentally, in what I'm writing at the moment I'm responding
to some ideas in Robin Woods' great article "The Incoherent
Text" without using the T-word myself. Maybe I should look at
Woods' usage as part of what I'm doing, even though I love his
article.
2649
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 10:27pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Text Metaphor
To speak of the "text" is to speak of a specified
analytical process -- not a casual critique or opinion
of a film. And it ertainly doesn't describe the entire
experience of moviegoing. The famous CdC collective
analysis of "Young Mr. Lincoln" rendered Ford's film
as a text to be studied in quasi-psychoanalytic depth.
Likewise Heath on "Touch of Evil" in "Screen."
There are, needless to say, severe limits to this as
my "Film Quarterly" piece on "Desert Fury" was at
pains to underscore.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
__________________________________
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2650
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 10:29pm
Subject: In defense of text
Dear friends -
I gave up using 'text' in film articles some years back - in a journalistic
context, anyhow - for one simple reason: there are always howls of protest
and derision from readers!!!
But the word is, can be, good, and there's a real point to it that I don't
think we have hit upon here yet.
A story: the editor of a famous art magazine - who happened to be among the
first translators of Deleuze, Irigaray and a few others - was once talking
about Fellini's AND THE SHIP SAILED ON with me. In an attempt to express his
thought and his emotion he reached the point of ecstasy: 'It's not a film,
Adrian, it's ... A TEXT!'
Now, he sure as hell didn't mean that the film should be 'read'
mechanistically or purely 'linguistically', that it isn't art, or unemotive.
I am aware that some semiology and cultural studies can give the word this
kind of coldness. BUT for many of us 'text' means what Roland Barthes so
richly made it mean, in 'From Work to text', S/Z and a hundred other places.
(Has the great Barthes been forgotten so soon??)
A text is something complex, multi-layered, mobile, Barthes called it a
'weave' - of textures, voices, drives, etc. The 'work', by contrast, is
ordered, orderly, 'classical', it has a 'restrained economy' of content to
form (just to drag Derrida into the fray also!). A text is heterogenous, not
homogenous. It may be all 'surface' but that surface is virtually infinite
in its detail and extensions. Textuality is the pliable, slippery stuff of
film: the signifier, not the signified, the materiality of language (which
is more than mere words, but a whole machinery of utterance and expression
in every medium) at work ...
Hey, I'm getting nostalgic for true text-talk (in the Barthesian mode) here!
But maybe the insight has been lost that there's a huge affinity between,
say, Manny Farber's criticism and 'textuality' in this sense I'm evoking,
even if that wasn't his personal bag. But then, I am very aware, in this
group, of how my own sense of the dynamic, multivalent film-text has been
formed down the decades by critics of the calibre of Jonathan R, David E and
Bill K. Or Durgnat, or Australia's John Flaus, or many others. None of them
are 'chapter and verse' semiologues (to use Flaus' witty description) by any
means, but rather, people who are alive to the vital, dynamic possibilities
arising from many kind of film-talk, be they journalistic or academic. Take
what you can ... there's a Deleuzian motto !!!!
Bill is spot-on to remind us that film as text, language or window are all
metaphors: that to me means they are all exploratory terms, terms that help
us to illuminate or pursue something (not an absolute, total thing) about
cinema. Film-as-text still sparks for me a particular, and rich, dimension
of the film experience that other metaphors do not manage to spark.
textual Adrian
2651
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 10:31pm
Subject: Re: the appeal of the problematic text
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:
>
> And not that this is relevant, but what is Richie referring to when
he > writes "Kinuyo Tanaka had just returned from America and was full
of >
> herself and new ideas on acting, none of which Ozu agreed with"?
Did > she work (or study) in America? (Gotta see that biopic.)
She visited Hollywood in 1949. I don't see any indication she
worked in American films. This is briefly mentioned in an
interesting online article:
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr1201/ckfr13a.htm
I could e-mail the author and ask her.
Did anybody here attend see Kyoko Kagawa when she appeared at
the screening of "Tokyo Story"? I'm not sure, but as far as I
can tell, she and Kinuyo Tanaka are the only actors to have
worked with all of the big four: Ozu, Naruse, Kurosawa, and Mizoguchi.
Did anyone attend the weekend conferences? They sold out quickly.
Paul
2652
From:
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 7:07pm
Subject: The Big Four of Japanese Directors
Paul Gallagher writes:
"the big four: Ozu, Naruse, Kurosawa, and Mizoguchi".
They are my four favorite Japanese directors, too!
Do most people think of them this way?
I have only been able to see two Naruse films, but "Late Chrysanthemums"
really makes one want to see all the others.
Could Audie Bock move to Indiana, say, become Governer and arrange a Naruse
retrospective there?
Her book is a favorite here.
Mike Grost
2653
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2003 11:58pm
Subject: Text, Barthes, Marx (Bros)
The on-going discussion on the Text and the mention of the (not-
forgotten) Barthes brings to mind this Barthian fragment (from "RB by
RB"): "What a true textual treasure 'A Night at the Opera' is!...
each of [its] episodes is the emblem of the logical subversions
operated by the Text; and if these emblems are perfect, it is because
they are comical..." And he concluded: "The logical future of the
metaphor would then be the gag."
Pleasure of the Text. Text as fun. The Marx Bros. as "texte
carnavalesque". How far this is from academic structuralism!
JPC
2654
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 0:04am
Subject: The pleasure of the text
Adrian is reminding us of a specific use of "text" that has gotten a
bit lost because of widespread use of the term to just mean
"something to be interpreted." For those who are following this
thread and haven't yet read Barthes, his book The Pleasure of
the Text talks about the special pleasure we take in literary works
like Joyce's Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake - both of which were
imitated by Barthes colleagues like Phiippe Sollers and Severo
Sarduy (sp?) in the 70s, most successfully, I felt, by the latter.
At the other end of the spectrum, Barthes first introduced the
term textuality to describe the little bit of a classical work that is
LIKE Finnegan's Wake, as he demonstrates in great detail in
S/Z, his study of a classical Balzac short story, by showing that
the classical work itself functions through controlled polysemy --
as if a Rembrandt could be said to have been created by
transforming a Pollock so that the Pollock-stuff is organized in
such a way as to fool you into thinking you're looking at a real
person, while still being enjoyable in and of itself, but to a limited
extent in comparison with how it functions when it is cut loose in
a Pollock painting.
The Cahiers Young Mr. Lincoln collective text was "doing an S/Z"
on that example of classic Hollywood cinema. Back at the
"pleasure of the text" end of the spectrum, much of the 70s in
French film theory was spent looking for the film equivalent of
Joyce, which was finally produced in the 90s by Godard in his
Histoire(s) du cinema. Which is why I find it interesting that
Godard never really accepted those theories - he is arguably the
only good example of them!
I was never sure what was in between those extremes. Another
thing I'm not sure of:
1. There may in fact have been many successful examples
before the Histoire(s) in the domain of avant-garde, underground
and structural filmmaking, as well as that in-between thing we
were talking about a while back, the essay film.
2. On the other hand, maybe Godard was the first to get it right.
Stop me if I've told this one (Alzheimer's, you know), but I
remember attending an Annette Michelson lecture where she
talked about the film equivalents of the various kinds of
conjunctions and other linking words. I was with Daney, who had
just shown Ici et ailleurs at the Bleecker Street, and in that film
Godard says flat-out that the only link possible between two
images is "and" ("et" in French). I think I brought this up from the
audience, but my recollection is that it ended up being like one of
those guys yelling "What about the workers!" during an MP's
speech on Peter Sellers' Best of Sellers comedy album.
Or maybe I didn't....
2655
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 0:04am
Subject: Re: The text metaphor
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
> About Rohmer and the cinema as a window vs. cinema as language: I do
> agree that cinema is a sort of language, but per Gerard Legrand
> (thanks for those who recommended this excellent book) it is not a
> language which can be broken into units with definite denotation (as
> words can be). I know this is simplistic, but I think it's true.
> Also, for me language is often inseparable from thought--can we say
> the same of cinematic language? (I don't know.)
I'd use "semiotic system" instead of language for these reasons --
in other words, the question is, is the cinema a semiotic system? -- in
order to avoid hard questions about what exactly "natural languages"
are.
Some web pages that might be useful:
http://academics.vmi.edu/english/hel.html#Saussure%20and%20Chomsky
http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~jeffp/phil417/SemanticsMeaning.html
http://www.emich.edu/~linguist/issues/7/7-1478.html
http://assets.cambridge.org/0521780055/sample/0521780055WSN01.pdf
Paul
2656
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 0:49am
Subject: Re: The Big Four of Japanese Directors (& an aside on Audie Bock)
And Gosho Heinosuke makes 5. Gosho was of the generation of Ozu, Naruse and Mizoguchi and was once highly regarded by both Euro-American and Japanese critics. He seems to have fallen into obscurity in the West sometime in the mid 1970s. I was able to see 6 of his pictures when I was in Japan several years ago. WHERE CHIMNEYS ARE SEEN and AN INN IN OSAKA were once in circulation in the US. It's time his films were revived. At least Narsue received the dignity of revivals in LA and NYC in the 1980s and 1990s.
As to Audie Bock, she ran for the California State Legislature in 1998 as a Green from Oakland. She won, thus becoming the first Green to hold office at the state level. Unfortunately she switched to independent when she came up for re-election and lost because her constituents felt betrayed.
MG4273@a... wrote:
Paul Gallagher writes:
"the big four: Ozu, Naruse, Kurosawa, and Mizoguchi".
They are my four favorite Japanese directors, too!
Do most people think of them this way?
I have only been able to see two Naruse films, but "Late Chrysanthemums"
really makes one want to see all the others.
Could Audie Bock move to Indiana, say, become Governer and arrange a Naruse
retrospective there?
Her book is a favorite here.
Mike Grost
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2657
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 2:33am
Subject: Re: Retraction and Apology
Mike,
I'm glad you agree. I didn't think a big apology was needed; you weren't
making a grand declaration, it seems to me, and I know from your other
posts that you weren't going to try to ban violence or something like that.
On the level of those personal tastes I believe in trying to overcome, I
actually agree with you about extreme, anatomically explicit violence.
I'm not talking about the shower murder in "Psycho," which happens so
fast, but about things like the slow dismemberment of bodies. I have
been known to refuse to watch such scenes as intended by turning them in
to flicker movies -- blinking my eyes open and shut rapidly -- which
blunts their impact. I don't *want* to get used to watching images of
people bering tortured and murdered.
- Fred
2658
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 2:42am
Subject: Re: Re: Text
Jaime N. Christley wrote:
>
>No offense to you veterans, etc., but this kind of chiding comes
>dangerously close to bullying...
Jaime, I'm sorry you were so offended, but to quote your "jeez" in
another part of this thread, "Jeez," it was just an attempt at humor.
Don't take everything as grand opera.
I agree with almost everything that's been said about film as text, pro
and con (Barthes good, unnamed academics bad). Like others, I never use
it myself, and Adrian's counter-example notwithstanding, sentences like,
"I was so moved by that text I couldn't see it very well because I
couldn't stop crying" don't, somehow, sound quite right. In my
experience people all too often use "text" in order to sound superior to
the work they are mentioning, prior to performing a dissection using
instruments that are rarely if ever specific to, or very well suited to,
cinema.
All that said, I agree that words can be made to mean whatever we want
them to mean, through usage. So my policy has been to not use "text"
myself, but not question others who do so unless their mode of talking
goes down a really wrong path. All I was trying to do was forestall a
big brouhaha. But my attempt wasn't necessary -- a good discussion followed.
- Fred
2659
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 2:55am
Subject: Re: Re: Nick Ray and Red
you should check out the interview Nick Ray gave to the yellow Cahiers,
maybe you'll learn even more.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime N. Christley"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 5:19 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Nick Ray and Red
> Red is not a color! I'm learning all kinds of things today.
>
> -Jaime
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
> wrote:
> > Red is not a color. Red is violence, at least in Nickray movies.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Jaime N. Christley"
> > To:
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 9:48 AM
> > Subject: [a_film_by] Nick Ray and Red
>
>
>
> 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/
>
>
2660
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 3:13am
Subject: Re: Nick Ray and Red
Also "I Was Interrupted" Ray, passim - another addition to my list of
recommended film books. There's a passage that blew my mind about the
experiences we accumulate that form a little marble-sized repository
of feeling and thought and sensation in our brain that we draw on
whenever we create.
2661
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 4:08am
Subject: Re: The Big Four of Japanese Directors
> "the big four: Ozu, Naruse, Kurosawa, and Mizoguchi".
> They are my four favorite Japanese directors, too!
> Do most people think of them this way?
There are a lot of fine Japanese directors, more than enough for
individual taste to come into play. Personally, I have some serious
problems with Mizoguchi, though I'm also astonished at his talent. And
Kurosawa was just never my thing - all I see is the bluster.
The old-timers I'm most interested in are Naruse (my favorite of them
all), Ozu, and Gosho. I have a feeling that Tomu Uchida might be up
there too - what I've seen has been remarkable. And then there's the
wonderful Sadao Yamanaka, who died at 29.
Of the early sound directors, Shiro Toyoda is the one I like the best.
Then there's the 60s generation, including Oshima, who's too talented to
dismiss despite his weirdness, and Imamura, who certainly deserves by
now to be ranked with the best.
In recent decades, my favorites are the late Shinji Somei and the
amazing new talent Nobuhiro Suwa.
- Dan
2662
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:26am
Subject: Re: The Big Four of Japanese Directors (& an aside on Audie Bock)
>As to Audie Bock, she ran for the California State Legislature in
>1998 as a Green from Oakland. She won, thus becoming the first
>Green to hold office at the state level. Unfortunately she switched
>to independent when she came up for re-election and lost because her
>constituents felt betrayed.
>
>Mike Grost
Since she lost for governor, she might have time to be recruited for
"a film by."
--
- Joe Kaufman
2663
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:35am
Subject: Re: The text metaphor
>Also, for me language is often inseparable from thought--can we say
>the same of cinematic language? (I don't know.)
>
>Patrick
For me the best cinema evokes, mimics or perhaps is analogous or even
identical to the flow of perception, which is different from verbal
thought. (Perception being non-verbal, non-material, intuitive.)
For that reason I find the use of the word "text" to be bothersome,
as it suggests words. Great cinema has stillness, silence behind the
motion and the sound. To take a cue from Welles, it is the other
side of the wind.
--
- Joe Kaufman
2664
From: jaketwilson
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:34am
Subject: Particularity (was: taste)
"General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer;
For Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized
Particulars"
-- Blake
Not intended as a reflection on anyone here!
I agree that we shouldn't let ourselves be governed by biases against
particular themes or genres, but I don't think this is because good
filmmakers can transcend boring subject matter. Rather, I think it
proves that anything is interesting if looked at in the right way.
And looking at something in the right way surely means seeing it in
its particularity, as a unique object distinct from any other. I
think it matters that Cornell was fascinated with Rose Hobart, and I
think his film would fail if it didn't persuade us to share that
fascination on some level. Even if part of what interests us (as
opposed to Cornell) in Hobart is her very ordinariness, so to speak.
(First aside: Movies are "objects" that allow us to think about other
objects, and also about the difference between the object and its
representation, and so forth, all of which can be apprehended
intuitively and emotionally rather than as an intellectual problem to
ponder. For instance we know without having to be told that ROSE
HOBART is about the image of Rose Hobart as well as being about Rose
Hobart herself. Ditto Pam Grier in JACKIE BROWN! "Fetishism" is at
work in both cases, but this fetishism itself becomes part of the
subject matter: form doesn't obliterate content but reveals it.)
(Second aside: Generally, I think it's fair to say that people are
more intensely and complexly aware of the differences between human
beings than of the differences within any other class of entities.
This is why I tend to think of actors -- or, at least, performers --
as central to cinema.)
JTW
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> To all, as your group co-founder and "owner" I must say I continue
to be
> pleased by the activity here. But, it's obvious to me I should no
longer
> try to read all the posts, and I'm sure some others feel the same,
so it
> becomes important for everyone to accurately title the subject in
the
> subject line.
>
> To Eric, "fetishizing" my type of cinephilia, is, I hope, not
exactly
> possible, because it's a cinephilia that doesn't care about a
particular
> object. This cinephile doesn't care if the film has Barbara
Stanywyck
> with a whip or Jennifer Jones in a frilly dress or only some of
> Brakhage's out-of-focus blobs. I look for something that I'd liked
to
> think is "deeper," and that isn't focused my like or dislike of
> particular objects, subjects, or modes of filmmaking.
>
> To Jake, and to some extent to Patrick, I should be clear that I'm
> talking about a way of trying to focus one's attentions and
interests,
> not about some state of ego-less perfection I think anyone can
achieve.
> Of course taste is somewhat subjective; how can it be otherwise.
But
> also, of course aesthetic value, at least among a particular social
> group at a particular time and place, is not totally subjective:
how
> else can we almost all agree on the relative merits of "Vertigo"
versus
> (to choose a horrible film I've actually seen) "The Towering
Inferno."
> I'm not seeking to root out subjectivity, just to push it deeper,
to a
> taste for forms rather than particulars, to an appreciation of the
way
> beauty and meaning can emerge from possible relationships between
> elements in a film rather than a liking for particular elements.
This is
> my problem with cinephilia as it's usually practiced: I don't care
about
> a particular performance, script, or actor all that much except in
> relationship to the whole. And I'm not saying I don't derive
pleasure
> from any particulars, or from something as trivial as a goofy line
of
> dialogue in an otherwise great film, just that I try not to make
things
> like that my main focus.
>
> To Patrick, artists have long been known for their quirky tastes.
If
> they are great artists, their tastes can be of interest for
offering an
> insight into their art, as well as sometimes constituting strength
for
> them in terms of making new work. That Joseph Cornell was
fascinated
> with the actress Rose Hobart, to take a relevant example, would be
> subject to my critique if I were judging him as a cinephile, but of
> course it was a "fetish" of his that produced a very great film. So
I'm
> not carving anything in stone here, since I suppose anyone might
make a
> great film someday. Perhaps Mike Grost has it within him to make a
great
> video response to violence in media, for example. But at the other
> extreme we all know how discussions between cinephiles can de-
evolve
> into, "I prefer films that have some social merit and content"
versus
> "No, social content always kills the illusion for me," or,
worse, "I
> didn't find her nearly as hot as she was in her last picture"
versus
> "What do you mean, you must be nuts, what about the way her
bodacious
> bod was almost bursting out of those tight tights she was wearing
in her
> latest flick."
>
> My argument against the taste for specifics is not an absolute, in
other
> words, just something I thought worth throwing into the mix here.
>
> - Fred
2665
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 10:12am
Subject: Re: Text
This may come some belated, as I wrote it twelve hours ago, but my ISP
crashed as I was in the midst of writing it.
I use the word text alot. I use it because to me a "text" is a source
I can dissect semioticly.
It was Carnap who coined the term "metalanguage" about any system
containing signs, which later became the foundation for semiotics by
Saussure and Peirce. So when I read Eisenstein's notes on ideograms
and Hjemslev's notes on sign functions, I get this warm fuzzy feeling
of familiarity, because they are talking about the same thing - about
signs, the meaning of signs. I almost said language.
Yet film is not a language nor language system, its a system of signs,
that equally to langue has grammar and rules, ranging from blissful
simplicity to enigmatic complexity. But its still just interpretation
of signs.
It was Metz who first used the word "text" in relation to film.
Saussure differentiated between langage (language) and langue
(language system), which Metz transposed onto film. To Metz the goal
of semiotics was to study discours, text. Metz however took distance
from langue and instead suggested film a text system.
In short, "text" is the semiotic term for film.
While I dont agree with Mike in the original comment, I agree that
"text" is used indifferently as a buzz word; But not as much as
"auteur" and "mise en scene".
A problem is, that as some film is intuitive, all film must be
intuitive understandable aswell - hence why bother to learn "film
language". When film can be approached so indifferently, why do we
wonder when key topics are approached likewise. Another problem is,
that since some film is non intuitive and only understandable by
reading (as a text) and interpretation of signs, all film can be
understood better if read as a text. But whom are we to disagree with
a reading of "Alien" and "Aliens" as pro abortion.
But what happends when someone who approaches film indifferently
becomes a teacher, or worse, a film critic / writer?
Where Mike says that the reason is "critics who do not think that
films are works of art", I would rather say, that the reason is an
"escalating attribution of indifference towards film in general."
Henrik
2666
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 10:38am
Subject: re: particularity (a tangent)
Jacket Wilson wrote:
"I agree that we shouldn't let ourselves be governed by biases against
particular themes or genres, but I don't think this is because good
filmmakers can transcend boring subject matter."
When I worked on developing a genre key, I discovered, that genre is
the first stage of identification cinema. Genre is easy recognizable,
has a wide range in stories by which a few important genre motifs and
themes are explored. But most of all, genre allows taste to suggest
quality, as we mainly watch what he like.
I argued, that our favorit genres, were the ones we saw as a child,
thus when revisiting genre, we revisit first the enchantment of
cinema, next our childhood joy. I further argued, that we use genre to
reset our inner "film-o-meter" and restore the standards by which we
approch cinema beyond genre. Genre rekindles why we in the first place
began watching film.
I believe that we all have standards by which we see and "judge" film,
but as we are exposed by other standards, our own become distorted and
twisted. If we dont reset our inner "film-o-meter", we become short
sighted as we get caught up in the standards which we are watching at
a given time.
When Fred Camper comments "...we all know how discussions between
cinephiles can de-evolve into "I prefer films that have some social
merit and content" versus "No, social content always kills the
illusion for me", he is, in my opinion, commenting on us getting
caught up by a set of standards perhaps not our own.
Henrik
2667
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:12am
Subject: Re: Re: Text
Henrik Sylow wrote:
>....Yet film is not a language nor language system, its a system of signs....
>
>
Obviously most films, excluding the important category of the completely
abstract film, can be "read" in terms of "signs." The problem I have
with this approach is that it seems almost completely useless, for me,
in getting at what makes film an art, which depends (in narrative film)
on things such as the way a small camera movement can transform a space,
and the way that transformation can (with a nod to a point made much
earlier by Patrick Ciccone) transform the way we perceive a performance,
or a twist in the narrative.
Also, it's been a long time since I've read the Eisenstein essay you
mention, but I remember it not as an essay on "the meaning of signs,"
but an essay on the inner structure of the ideogram and its relaitonship
to his theories of montage, which is a very different thing: talking
about how something makes meaning, and the implications of that "how,"
is very different from parsing it for the particular meanings it makes.
- Fred
2668
From: Damien Bona
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 3:08pm
Subject: The Munekata Sisters and Early Summer
I love both The Munekata Sisters and Early Summer and think they're
both great movies. Regarding the reservations for Munekata, for me,
the thing with Ozu is that the particular narrative is of little
importance; what matters in his films (those from his mature period,
at least) is the conveyance of a remarkable understanding of how
human beings are affected by and react to the touchstones of life
such as the passage of time, dreams that didn't come to fruition,
the learning of one's place in the world, unusual turns in familial
and marriage relationships, aging and death. Ozu's truths are
present in all his films, and so the soap opera aspects of The
Munekata Sisters are irrelevant – the plot is a starting point for
Ozu's beautiful and acute ruminations to take flight. If it was a
difficult production, the fact that he fashioned it into such an
affecting film is all the more impressive. And it doesn't bother me
that the (admittedly schematic) contrast of the traditional and
modern sister is dropped – the point has been made and the theme
continues to resonate throughout the picture.
Early Summer may be my new favorite Ozu. It is filled with an
incredibly rich use of inanimate objects, such as an errant helium
balloon, and rituals taking on unaccustomed meanings to heighten an
emotional response in the audience. In this film, a broken loaf of
bread is a stand-in for dashed hopes and unfulfilled desires. A
family genially sitting down for a portrait photograph becomes
devastating because we know that it is the last time these people
will be together in this configuration – it's all the more aching
because of their delightfully unaffected and playful manner as they
prepare for the snapping of the picture, an emphasis that what is
disappearing is something very precious.
What makes a particular Ozu movie minor to me isn't the superficial
trappings such as a trashy plot, but rather simply the fact that he's
working on a smaller canvas. The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice and
Record Of A Tenement Gentlemen, for example, are second-tier Ozu
works for this reason, as their concerns are more telescoped. But
still, even if these films don't have the same breadth as his great
movies such as Tokyo Story, An Autumn Afternoon, etc, they still have
the same depth. I don't know of any other filmmaker who so
frequently breaks your heart so quietly.
2669
From: Yoel Meranda
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 6:32pm
Subject: Tarantino's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
I was 13 when I saw Pulp Fiction and it changed the way I look at
cinema in
the best way possible. It was a film where the story and narrative
seemed
unimportant and the characters and ideas were the center of
attention. I also
liked all of his other films before Kill Bill when they came out.
Since then, my way of looking at cinema changed so although I still
admire
many things about Tarantino, I have to question how much of an artist
he is.
I saw Pulp Fiction on DVD last night and although there might be
something I
have missed because of the "DVD effect" I was convinced that he is
not
interested in form as much as he is interested in dialogue and
characters. He
is one of those directors that I have to call a genius and not an
artist. I realize
this is a matter of taste but I really won't understand anyone who
does not
enjoy Pulp Fiction. Tarantino definitely comes up with a very
original way of
looking at the world and characters around us. If there is nothing
else, there
is his humour that is so definitely unique.
Need an example for my last point?
Jules: Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal. I ain't
eat nothin' that
ain't got enough sense to disregard its own faeces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eat their own feces.
Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're
definitely dirty. But,
a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality,
it'd cease to
be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we gotta be talkin' about one charmin' motherfuckin' pig.
I mean
he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green
Acres, you
know what I'm sayin'?
This humour was definitely there in Jackie Brown and in Reservoir
Dogs.
Kill Bill seems to be very different than all the other films in that
he does not
use as much dialogue and instead has long action sequences. Tarantino
uses violence to mock our idea of violence and especially our idea of
its
representation in film and tv. When the head of that "yakuza" is cut
off and a
huge amount of blood "springs", or when the Bride says "For those of
you
lucky enough to leave with your lives, go! But leave your limbs! They
belong
to me! ", I don't get any pleasure from the violence itself but from
the fact that
the violence, or rather my idea of it, is being ridiculed.
A friend of mine, who likes Kill Bill a lot more than I do, said
about Kill Bill
"Tarantino waited, waited, waited... and exploded". I see what he
means by
explosion but I don't like it. Kill Bill is full of ideas, and
that's what is all about.
The blue screen with silhouettes fighting, the shot of the plane
almost flying
between the skyscrapers in Tokyo, or the nurse with one eye who
whistles
Herrmann's twisted nerve are all amazing. However, my problem is that
no
real emotions is really expressed in the film. And I think it becomes
obvious
when you ask yourself the quetion "What was the theme or the subject
of the
film?" Revenge seems to drive the plot but it is not expressed
cinematically in
any way, and it is even made fun of. (In one scene, Michael Madsen,
who was
in the gang who massacred the people in the Bride's wedding, says:
"She
deserves her revenge, and we all deserve to die")
I really like Andrew Sarris' article in New York Observer since he
writes how
much he admires the film in many ways and finishes his article by
saying that
Kill Bill is a "marvelous entertainment".
I recommend Kill Bill to everybody and I like to think that everyone
in this
group will "enjoy" it if they are open-minded enough. If you expect
art, you
might be deceived.
I will see it once more to give another chance. I am positive that
Tarantino's
genius is going to overwhelm me again but not all geniuses are
artists, even if
they make films.
Yoel
2670
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 6:42pm
Subject: Re: Tarantino's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
"I realize
this is a matter of taste but I really won't
understand anyone who
does not
enjoy Pulp Fiction."
And I don't understand anyone who DOES.
But you're very young and you haven't seen very many
films as yet.
--- Yoel Meranda wrote:
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2671
From:
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 7:06pm
Subject: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
Only the quality of ideas matter in film writing.
Age and other personal matters do not.
I hope no one will write me off as a critic because I'm fifty.
First person to call me an old fogey has to do public penance (model: the penitents in Mr. Arkadin!)
When I was young I identified with Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo.
Now I get reassured by Walter Brennan!
Mike Grost
(Cackling away Walter Brennan style here in Detroit)
2672
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 7:15pm
Subject: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
I've got six years on you, Mike. And age DOES matter.
One of the most crippling problems of this culture is
it's insistence on the "new" which is always regarded
as the "improved."
"You've Got Mail" is NOT an improvement on "The Shop
Around the Corner." In fact it's not even an
improvement on "In the Good Old Summertime." Yet
everything in this culture would insist that at some
level it HAS to be.
Consdier the fact that there are film students today
who won't even so much as LOOK at a black and white
film.
The mind reels. The stomach heaves.
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
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2673
From:
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 7:45pm
Subject: Re: Ideas Matter - Age Doesn't
I'm with you all the way about the importance of looking at films from all periods. But it is not clear that this is a problem related to young people. Plenty of 50 year olds like me won't look at anything but brand new films. I try to tell people my age that "Les Vampires" (1915- 1916) is terrific, and they look at you as if you were crazy!
Mike Grost
2674
From:
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 7:50pm
Subject: The Mid-List Horror
I think there is evidence that popular culture has been "dumbed down". Around 1994, there was a major shake-up in prose mystery novel publishing, for instance. Only writers who were "best sellers" were allowed to continue publishing. Writers who were "mid-list" (their books made money, but not millions) were black listed. I could name dozens of such writers. It is still Subject A in mystery fan circles to this day.
Because of that, if you go into a supermarket, there are lots of thrillers about Jack the Ripper, kidnapped kids, psycho killers, but very few actual mysteries, in which detectives solve mysterious crimes. The whole genre is shifting towards small press publishers, who put out traditional mysteries as if they were poetry or avant-garde fiction. New York mainstream publishers ONLY want to publish potential best sellers, mainly lurid thrillers.
This is not a generational problem (young or old readers). It has to do with money. I think similar phenomena are now affecting film, TV, comics, etc.
Mike Grost
2675
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:21pm
Subject: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> I've got six years on you, Mike. And age DOES matter.
> One of the most crippling problems of this culture is
> it's insistence on the "new" which is always regarded
> as the "improved."
>
> "You've Got Mail" is NOT an improvement on "The Shop
> Around the Corner." In fact it's not even an
> improvement on "In the Good Old Summertime." Yet
> everything in this culture would insist that at some
> level it HAS to be.
>
> Consdier the fact that there are film students today
> who won't even so much as LOOK at a black and white
> film.
>
> The mind reels. The stomach heaves.
But Yoel didn't say anything like the statement above about YOU'VE
GOT MAIL. It was merely a comment about how much he liked PULP
FICTION. Then you basically said his opinion was unimportant because
he's young.
Which is ludicrous.
Rick
2676
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
No it's not ludicrous. "Pulp Fiction" is a piece of
crap.
"Band of Outsiders" is a minor masterpiece.
For me that's about as obvious as saying that the sun
will rise tomorrow.
--- Rick Curnutte wrote:
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2677
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:36pm
Subject: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> No it's not ludicrous. "Pulp Fiction" is a piece of
> crap.
>
> "Band of Outsiders" is a minor masterpiece.
>
> For me that's about as obvious as saying that the sun
> will rise tomorrow.
It's not ludicrous to say that PULP FICTION is a piece of crap.
That's called "opinion".
To say that a person who likes PULP FICTION has an unimportant
perspective because he/she is young...that's ludicrous. And I would
feel the same about this issue if I was 57 and not 27.
And I agree with you about BAND OF OUTSIDERS (though I suppose my
opinion doesn't matter since I'm half your age).
Rick
2678
From: David Westling
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:38pm
Subject: Re: particularity (a tangent)
Henrik Sylow:
> I argued, that our favorit genres, were the ones we saw as a child,
> thus when revisiting genre, we revisit first the enchantment of
> cinema, next our childhood joy. I further argued, that we use genre to
> reset our inner "film-o-meter" and restore the standards by which we
> approch cinema beyond genre. Genre rekindles why we in the first place
> began watching film.
Interesting proposition. I seem to have come back full circle, starting
out loving science-fiction at my mother's breast (figuratively speaking),
"going beyond" this bias, and making a partial return. On the "top ten of
all time" list I recently sent to Peter, all 10 are definitely in the
"fantasy" genre, and 2 are explicitly "science fiction", "A Clockwork
Orange" and "Creation of the Humanoids". But I made some detours along the
way, through some stuff I don't think nearly so highly of now, like "Women
in Love" and "The Green Wall". George Pal's "The Time Machine" was my
favorite film when I first saw it at 10. But then, I thought I wanted to be
a scientist. After that, I swung hard to the Humanities, at 18. And now,
at 49, I look for a certain type of dream on film, something that I believe
runs counter, or at any rate at an obtuse angle, to the "scientific" basis
of the technology. But aren't they all just dreams captured
cinematographically? Have to say I never did go much for musicals, I was in
a video store the other day and "Moulin Rouge" was on and I wanted to gag,
what with Elton John and "Heroes" done in that syrupy way that only
blockbuster musicals can really deliver on. So many fall into that trap of
being too...insistent--is it really just a matter of taste? But I did (and
do) like "The Band Wagon".
This theory does seem to jibe with my idea of the omniprescence of the
spiral. One starts at a certain place, and one returns, but it's different
somehow. Did you ever wake up to find a day that broke up your mind
destroyed your notion of circular time
David Westling
2679
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:41pm
Subject: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
You must be the life of your retirement community, David.
-Jaime
p.s. Just kidding. People have been telling me to lighten up
lately, so this is my attempt at levity. We love David here. Let us
hear a unilateral clicking of those dentures, everyone.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> No it's not ludicrous. "Pulp Fiction" is a piece of
> crap.
>
> "Band of Outsiders" is a minor masterpiece.
>
> For me that's about as obvious as saying that the sun
> will rise tomorrow.
>
> --- Rick Curnutte wrote:
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
2680
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:47pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
If you happen to be in New York, join the denture
clicking at the Museum of Modern Art on Octobert 31 at
9 pm where "Those Who Love me Can Take the Train"
(aka. the Greatest Motion Picture Ever Made) will be
shown, followed by a Q & A with its maker, Patrice
Chereau.
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
__________________________________
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2681
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:32pm
Subject: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
Patrice Chereau = 59!!!
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> If you happen to be in New York, join the denture
> clicking at the Museum of Modern Art on Octobert 31 at
> 9 pm where "Those Who Love me Can Take the Train"
> (aka. the Greatest Motion Picture Ever Made) will be
> shown, followed by a Q & A with its maker, Patrice
> Chereau.
>
> --- "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
2682
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:54pm
Subject: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
The first time in chat here I met Peter and Fred. It was at 4am and I
didn't really have Fred Camper on my mind, so when he continuous
flamed any film mentioned, I asked him how old he was, believing he
was some teen, because he sounded like one of those teens who call any
director they like "auteur" and say "mise en scene" 5-10 times every
minut.
But instead of scoring cheap points using the "You wont say that when
you grow older", I just said a stupid "ohh ok".
My point is, apart from me looking like an ass, that age really doesnt
matter.
2683
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:56pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
href="http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/bride/g001/b_patricechereau.shtml"
target="_blank">And One Fabulous Babe!
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> Patrice Chereau = 59!!!
>
> -Jaime
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2684
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
"You wont say that when
you grow older", is not a "cheap point."
It's brutish, insensitive, and rude -- but not cheap.
--- Henrik Sylow wrote:
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2685
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 10:55pm
Subject: Re: ideas matter - age doesn't
As a very bald (but undentured and quite fit) sixty-eight-year old I
feel compelled to jump in and give the point of view of the would-be
wise elder on this somewhat goofy exchange.
Although it is true that an idiot's ideas are equally worthless
whether he is 20, 40 or 70, I would argue that age does matter. With
time a person is likely to become less arrogant, less naive (the
arrogance of the young often being the result of their naivety and
ignorance), more understanding and open to different views.
However, cinephilic passion knowing no age barrier we see right here
young kids and veterans alike indulging in the exhilarating excesses
typical of inveterate buffs. Jaime tells us that "Ceux qui m'aiment
prendront le train" is the Greatest Movie Ever Made; David that "Pulp
Fiction" is a piece of crap. Just like Rivette announcing 50 years
ago that "L'evidence est la marque du genie de Hawks," both Jaime and
David obviously consider their proposition as self-evident... I've
done the "Greatest Movie Ever Made" thing when I was in my twenties
and I still can do the "piece of crap" thing. But on the whole the
violence and hyperbole have considerably subsided from my discourse.
I like the Chereau very much (especially the first third of it) but
think it's patently absurd to call it the Greatest. I have my
reservations about "Pulp Fiction" but would never call it a piece of
crap, although I would like to hear (read) a demonstration.
But let's face it, it's fun to do the "Greatest/piece of crap" thing.
No matter how young or old you are. Maybe everybody should submit
a "Top pieces of crap" List... (Greatest Ever has been done to death).
JPC
2686
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:25pm
Subject: Re: Re: ideas matter - age doesn't
jpcoursodon wrote:
>....I would argue that age does matter....
>
But only in the most general sense, on average, in the sense that young
people are more likely to make extreme statements and older people more
likely to make nuanced ones. But this generality does not apply in every
case, to put it mildly, and the case in point is a good counter-example.
It was David, not Jaime, who named the greatest film ever, and it was
"young" Yoel who made what I thought was a very nuanced, measured,
balanced post. I found "Pulp Fiction" cinematically worthless, and the
attention it has gotten makes me angry, but I also admit I was mildly
entertained, and I saw nothing to disagree with in Yoel's post. He makes
no real claims for the film as art; what one person finds entertaining
is quite subjective; even I admit to having been diverted.
So is Yoel wiser and more intellectually supple than David?
I think the reason the whole thread started is that David basically said
he was taking Yoel's opinions less seriously because of his age. THAT is
a road this group will never be permitted to go down, as it violates the
most basic prohibition in our statement of purpose. Now that JPC has
told us his age, I can say with pride that our group's age range is 15
to 68, and it's the uniting of people of different ages and from
different parts of the world around a common interest is one of our
best aspects.
- Fred
2687
From: Damien Bona
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:30pm
Subject: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> If you happen to be in New York, join the denture
> clicking at the Museum of Modern Art on Octobert 31 at
> 9 pm where "Those Who Love me Can Take the Train"
> (aka. the Greatest Motion Picture Ever Made) will be
> shown, followed by a Q & A with its maker, Patrice
> Chereau.
Gee, David, I hate Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train even more
than I hate Pulp Fiction. For me, the former is totally worthless,
the latter only mostly worthless.
>
-- Damien
2688
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ideas matter - Age Doesn't
I'm shocked.
--- Damien Bona wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> Gee, David, I hate Those Who Love Me Can Take the
> Train even more
> than I hate Pulp Fiction. For me, the former is
> totally worthless,
> the latter only mostly worthless.
> >
> -- Damien
>
>
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2689
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: ideas matter - age doesn't
"I like the Chereau very much (especially the first
third of it) but
think it's patently absurd to call it the Greatest."
Hey J-P, I was being Deliberately Provocative.
I happen to THINK it's the greatest.
It's the film that has mean the most to me in over 50
years of moviegoing.
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
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2690
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:09am
Subject: Re: Tarantino's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Yoel, I appreciate your response to PULP FICTION. I had a similar experience at about the same age. Thanks to my father who was partners in a film distribution venture I got to see hundreds of films for free and had grown used to standard Hollywood story-telling to such an extent that I thought I could predict the next shot in any given movie. So when I saw OPEN CITY I was shocked and fascinated at this utterly different way of film making. In all honesty I believe OPEN CITY to be infinitely superior to PULP FICTION, but if it opened your eyes good.
If you're interested in learning why someone would find Tarantino in general and PULP FICTION in particular without merit you should read the chapter on it in FROM REEL TO REAL by bell hooks (sic) an Afro-American essayist and critic.
Richard
Yoel Meranda wrote:
I was 13 when I saw Pulp Fiction and it changed the way I look at
cinema in
the best way possible. It was a film where the story and narrative
seemed
unimportant and the characters and ideas were the center of
attention. I also
liked all of his other films before Kill Bill when they came out.
---------------------------------
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2691
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:29am
Subject: Re: Re: ideas matter - age doesn't
>
There are all sorts of young cinephiles as there are all
sorts of older ones. There's young people who hate to see B&W
films, that's true (and I got into arguments with some of
them). But I also know more than one older cinephile who
barely see new films (which is their right) and then make
remarks about how contemporary films are mostly worthless and
start to talk about how great the 70's or 60's were (which
make me as angry as the kid who hates B&W films).
Filipe
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
2692
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:47am
Subject: Re: Tarantino's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Richard Modiano wrote:
> If you're interested in learning why someone would find Tarantino
> in general and PULP FICTION in particular without merit you should
> read the chapter on it in FROM REEL TO REAL by bell hooks (sic) an
> Afro-American essayist and critic.
hooks can be a smart critic, but I think she's actually very bad on
aesthetics. I admit I haven't read this essay of hers, but any time
I read hooks on art, I think she has a crippling lack of
sophistication and nuance. The formula for hooks' work: decide (with
minimal explication) whether a work of art reinforces or subverts
white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Assign a one-to-one
correlation between linear political schema and aesthetic quality.
Bada-boom.
p.s. Go Red Sox
--Zach
2693
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:21am
Subject: M. Coursodon
> typical of inveterate buffs. Jaime tells us that "Ceux qui m'aiment
> prendront le train" is the Greatest Movie Ever Made; David
that "Pulp
> Fiction" is a piece of crap. Just like Rivette announcing 50 years
> ago that "L'evidence est la marque du genie de Hawks," both Jaime
and
> David obviously consider their proposition as self-evident...
????????????????
Okay, folks, let's be more careful about these things.
I never said any of that.
Thanks,
Jaime
2694
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:35am
Subject: meanwhile, Christmas on Earth...
After some technical snags due to poor planning, my avant-garde class
watched this great, strange, hilarious film. Rubin-heads, let me
know if the "performance" was done correctly: two projectors, one
image superimposed onto the other, one slightly smaller than the
other, with the projectionist using various color filters at random.
A tape recording of various pop/rock songs from the 1960s and '70s
(the Stones, Hendrix, another I can't place), replaced by radio about
halfway through (classic rock station: Allman Brothers band,
commercials, the Scorpions).
It's pretty insane. Lots of close-ups of a, shall we say, un-trimmed
vagina, some flaccid penises, some erect penises, some ejaculation,
some gay sex, some kissing, some posing, and mostly a lot of all-
around being strange. Oh, and a LOT of body-paint.
I don't know how else to describe it, it's very stimulating visually
but very off-putting, sexually. Very hard to watch at times, but the
music was groovy and the commercials were even better. (Rather late
in the film, the announcer began talking about OysterFest 2003, which
nearly got a standing ovation.)
Off to see KILL BILL...
-Jaime
2695
From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:43am
Subject: Re: ideas matter - age doesn't
Age does matter. It's one variable among many, of course.
But the reasons why some of us like Tarentino (for instance) and some
of us don't seem to be partly generational, and it might be
interesting to talk about that rather than get into a slanging match
about whose taste has more authority.
Naivety and sweeping statements may be typical of youth, but equally
there are many cases where age brings increasing shrillness, dogmatism
and unwillingness to consider new work. F.R. Leavis, to take a non
filmcrit example.
That said, it's always particularly exciting when an artist or thinker
formed in a long ago cultural mileau remains alive enough to tackle
the present on its own terms. This must be part of what's behind the
taste which we've talked about for "late works", from Wilder and
Preminger to Bresson and Oliveira.
JTW
2696
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 3:11am
Subject: Tarantino
No one here would make a case for Tarantino as an artist? Here are some
slightly doctored posts I sent to other mailing lists. (Probably best
not to read this if you don't like the word "realism.")
-------------------
The dialogue (of PULP FICTION) is
indeed sociologically displaced, and that systematic a disregard for
verisimilitude is often a clue that something interesting is going on.
The people who hang at the counters of video stores are the exact target
audience for this film: the dialogue is the audience's dialogue. And
the hitmen are a trope of the genre that this audience likes, which
means that Tarantino is playing with levels of realism. When he puts
the audience in the place of the genre protagonists that the audience
has always fantasized about, he's acknowledging that he's making a
fiction and playing with it. That's part of why the sadism is so
unbridled: Tarantino tells us moment by moment that it's movie sadism,
which he has a good conscience about. (Better than I do.)...
More than anyone, Tarantino has tapped into the secret of Hawks: there's
a lot of energy to be released when you make the cross from genre
conventions to your audience's more contemporary conventions of
behavioral realism.
--------------
I take Tarantino to be the modern cinema's preeminent Hawksian - much
more than Carpenter, or Lamont Johnson, or anyone else I can think of.
(Well, there's Dan O'Bannon, but we haven't heard from him in a
while.)...I think that Tarantino's work
evokes the spirit, if not the letter, of Hawks' reflexive approach to
art. The "background" of Tarantino's approach in PULP FICTION is the
rules of the gangster genre, and the "foreground" is the behavioral
style of the presumptive audience, young dudes raised on film who want
to project themselves into the genre out of an adolescent love of
coolness. I think Tarantino is quite conscious of the fact that his
killers talk more like young college-educated urban guys, and he gets a
lot of his effects out of juxtaposing genre thrills and reflexive yuppie
sensibility, playing the two levels of realism off of each other.
(A moment that makes this contrast overtly clear is the climax of his
FOUR ROOMS episode, about a bunch of yuppies trying to live out an
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode. Tarantino builds suspense in a
classical, agonizing manner, then delivers the ending coup with neat,
hyper-Hawksian dispatch, rolling the credits before we know what hit
us.)
----------------
- Dan
2697
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 3:11am
Subject: Re: meanwhile, Christmas on Earth...
Sounds like they did it right.
She would have loved "Oysterfest."
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
__________________________________
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2698
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 3:15am
Subject: Re: Tarantino
"The "background" of Tarantino's approach in PULP
FICTION is the
rules of the gangster genre, and the "foreground" is
the behavioral
style of the presumptive audience, young dudes raised
on film who want
to project themselves into the genre out of an
adolescent love of
coolness. "
It's the "adolescent love of coolness" aspect that's
the most off-putting for me. Tarantino is notwithout
technical skill.And lord knows anyone capable of
talking actors like this into such a project certainly
has verbal skills as well. But his vaunted dialogue
skills never impressed me as anything other than
superficial smartass posturing.
Nothing draws me to thse characters. Nothing.
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
__________________________________
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2699
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Oct 17, 2003 3:17am
Subject: Re: M. Coursodon
I'm the one who said that about those films, not
Jaime.
And I rather like "Land of the Pharoahs."
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
__________________________________
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2700
From:
Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:31pm
Subject: Re: Tarantino
Dan,
I agree with most of your points, though I think you like "Pulp Fiction"
somewhat more than I do. For me, it's "Jackie Brown" and "Kill Bill" which really
auger for Tarantino's ultimate importance - not his importance in terms of
cultural influence (as the dialogue of "Pulp" has influenced, much to my
chagrin, hundreds of '90s movies, while the quiet tragedy of "Jackie" has probably
influenced none), but certainly his importance as a real filmmaker. I can't
relate to David's comment about nothing drawing him to Tarantino's characters
when we're talking about a film like "Jackie Brown" - I can hardly think of an
American film in the '90s where I'm more drawn into the characters' minds and
hearts or more frustrated and saddened by the developments their lives take.
The moment Gabe talked about a few days ago - of Robert Forster walking away
from camera after Grier has left him - is heartbreaking and, to respond to Yoel,
I'd argue that a lot of its force comes from the film's mise en scene, which
does some extraordinary things with P.O.V. shots.
Now "Kill Bill" has none of the "quiet tragedy" of "Jackie Brown" - I think
anyone who has seen the ad campaign, let alone the film, can see this very
clearly. But I'd still argue for its superiority over "Pulp Fiction" and it
providing evidence of Tarantino's continuing development and growth as a film
artist. There's great elegance and intelligence behind Tarantino's mise en scene;
he's movie mad, but he's also very, very smart and I frankly love the way he
quotes other films and filmmakers with such passion. Although "Kill Bill" may
be a negative vision - predicated on the rules of the revenge film - there's
absolute exhilaration and a total lack of cynicism in Tarantino's belief in the
powers of pure cinema. I equate it to the pleasures offered by De Palma's
"Femme Fatale" and, who knows, "Kill Bill," like "Femme," may too prove to have
a real moral vision beneath it all.
Peter
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