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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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3001
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 7:30pm
Subject: Re: Re: NYFF reactions?
Ken Jacobs on DVD?!!!!
I can hardly wait.
--- ingysdayoff wrote:
__________________________________
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The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
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3002
From: Damien Bona
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 7:52pm
Subject: Re: Raja
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>I know this isn't your main point, but I don't see him as all that
>naive. He's getting what he wants out of the situation until he gets
>tangled with Raja, and his downfall there isn't naivete.
I see him as the typical colonialist of fiction, someone who feels
he's in control but his misreading of local culture (as personified
here in Raja) leads to his emotional downfall. Granted, he;s not
particularly well-drawn and lacks the moral dimensions of, say, a
Graham Greene protagonist.
>Actually, her boyfriend isn't that abusive, I don't think.
Well, he's not someone I would want as a boyfriend :o)
>There are so many points in the film where Raja and Fred react in
>individualized ways, depending on their emotional state, that I
>can't see them as abstractions.
For me, their reactions are based on their positions as archetypes
and seem not to be based in any kind of recognizable reality. I
didn't find them to be particularly nuanced (or interesting) people,
though that's, of course, a subjective response.
>I think there was only one serious misunderstanding in the film,
>other than the language problems between the lovers: when one of the
>kitchen maids lies to Fred about her conversation with Raja and
>reports that Raja talked only about money. This misunderstanding is
>intentionally created by a character with an agenda (which alone
>would disqualify her from being part of a Greek chorus, even apart
>from the character detail in her scenes) and would have been hard to
>correct, which makes it sadder and more organic. I really think the
>wailing and gnashing of teeth in this film would have been hard to
>avoid, given the characters'desires. Am I forgetting other
>misunderstandings?
There was Raja's inability to comprehend why Fred brought the other
girls to his home. But throughout they each had a lack of clarity as
to the other's motves and feelings. Raja's cousin was the voice of
reason and if she Doillon didn't capriciously drop her in and out of
the picture, her presence could have smoothed things out.
(By the way, isn't it a bit odd that Fred, who's successful and well-
established in Morocco, doesn't speak the language. That's the kind
of illogic that generally doesn't bother me, but it does seem
particularly arbitrary because it just serves to make it much easier
for Doillon to make his points within the narrative.)
Similarly, there's a "good" kitchen maid and a "bad" and the good
one also disappears for long periods.
>I found the film quite funny, and laughed a lot. Almost all the humor
>was wit, I think, attributable to the sensibility of one of the
c>haracters. (And not just the Westerner.)
Humor is, of course, a totally subjective quality and can't be
argued. So I'll just say that I didn't find the film funny and
Doillon's attempts at humor provided groaners.in contrast
>The character of Fred is so detached from practical concerns that he
seems to inhabit a more rarified world: he wanders around with a smile
>of amusement at his own reactions as he takes in the spectacle of his
>surroundings.
It seems here that your descroption of Fred is in agreement with my
assessment of him as an abstraction. There's little to him beyond his
presence. (It didn't help that I found Pascal Greggory to be so
utterly unappealing.)
>It strikes me that this is a colonial love affair in more than just
>the superficial sense. It is plagued by the issues of age imbalance,
>power imbalance, money imbalance, language difference, unfamiliar
>customs, and the hidden threat of physical violence.
Oh, I agree, but I think what this means is simply that there are
just that many more issues that Doillon allowed to lumpishly lie
there.
-Damien
3003
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 8:20pm
Subject: Re: Re: Raja
I guess everyone has figured out that there are SPOILERS for RAJA in
here....
> I see him as the typical colonialist of fiction, someone who feels
> he's in control but his misreading of local culture (as personified
> here in Raja) leads to his emotional downfall.
I think he read local culture correctly, but decided to take an
existential gamble anyway. I can think of only one spot where he isn't
completely in political control, and that's the very ending, when
Scooter breaks into the room. And at that point he's not even trying
for dominion, he's so overwrought.
> There was Raja's inability to comprehend why Fred brought the other
> girls to his home.
He didn't do it for nice reasons, so whether she comprehended or not (I
think she did) wouldn't have helped much, I don't think.
> But throughout they each had a lack of clarity as
> to the other's motves and feelings.
Sure. Of course, what clarity they did have didn't promote the love
affair. It's not as if either of them was motivated purely by love, and
both of them knew that about the other.
As for the confusion: one of the things about being a colonist is that
your relations with the colonized are likely to be fraught with
misunderstandings. So maybe the movie's goal was to make the
misunderstandings meaningfully representative of the social situation,
not to eliminate them.
This is a movie where the audience is set up to expect a bittersweet
love story, and then is frustrated in its expectations. To my mind, the
forces that frustrated these expectations had social and political meaning.
> (By the way, isn't it a bit odd that Fred, who's successful and well-
> established in Morocco, doesn't speak the language.
I don't know, but he was getting along just fine there! And will
probably continue to after the film's end.
> Similarly, there's a "good" kitchen maid and a "bad" and the good
> one also disappears for long periods.
I really didn't feel this way about them. The "good" one might have
done exactly what the "bad" one did - she was just protecting her
colonial master against the presumed base motives of her own people.
>>It strikes me that this is a colonial love affair in more than just
>>the superficial sense. It is plagued by the issues of age imbalance,
>>power imbalance, money imbalance, language difference, unfamiliar
>>customs, and the hidden threat of physical violence.
>
> Oh, I agree, but I think what this means is simply that there are
> just that many more issues that Doillon allowed to lumpishly lie
> there.
I meant that these issues were actually part of the plot, that the
mechanics of working out the story naturally raised the political
issues. Which I thought was a virtue. - Dan
3004
From: Damien Bona
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 8:20pm
Subject: Re: Guilty Unpleasures
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tosh wrote:
> Charlie Chaplin. I don't really like any of his films. I don't
> think he's funny.
> --
It's not just that Chaplin isn't funny – and for me he emphatically
is not – there's also the appalling self-reverence through which he
holds himself above everyone else, insisting that his sensitive soul
feels more acutely and suffers greater pain than the rest of the
world. In his supposed guise as Common Man, he was actually the
king of self-aggrandizement. A most obnoxious filmmaker. Plus, he
has the flattest mis-en-scene of just about anyone this side of
William Beaudine.
I can't stand Jules and Jim either. Among its shortcomings are the
narration which is telling us all sorts of things about the
characters that we should, but never do, see for ourselves. As some
other posters have mentioned here, Jeanne Moreau's character is
utterly without appeal – she's supposed to be a complete magnet for
all sorts of men, but she comes across as a self-centered woman
lacking in charm and allure. Truffaut just couldn't resist jump
cuts, freeze frames, zooms, etc. and they all come across as
grandstanding effects, utterly at odds with the mood that this
narrative warrants. An insufferably coy film.
But then again, Day For Night is the only Truffaut I found tolerable.
I guess the two Godfather movies don't really qualify for this
discussion because they've never rated high with auteurists, but what
a couple of ludicrously over-praised mediocrities.
-- Damien
3005
From: samfilms2003
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 8:27pm
Subject: Re: Lancelot print quality, & subtitles
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tag Gallagher wrote:
> The point is, Jaime, that if they were using decent equipment, you
> wouldn't know it was a dvd, unless someone told you.
I'd know it was a DVD in about 10 seconds.
I like DVD for home use, it can look very good on a good monitor or - my pref -
Apple TFT screen.
It is NOT for the big screen - 480 / 570 lines and compressed color don't cut it on 30'
screens.
-Sam
(sorry for wacked page formatting - I'm replying dir to yahoo - I'll see if I can fix)
3006
From: samfilms2003
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 8:36pm
Subject: Re: Lancelot print quality, & subtitles - Digital
Don't confuse DVD with all digital theatrical exhibition. Much of this is being shown off
of dedicated disk servers at higher resolution than DVD, and less compromised color.
Still, it's a work in progress.
I don't want to go on about it, I've had this headache thinking about it before ;-)
Eventualy I think it will be very good.
-Sam
3007
From:
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 4:49pm
Subject: Bergman, Truffaut, Chaplin
Bergman: I know Bill has recently 'rediscovered' Bergman and likes a lot of
what he's seeing, so perhaps the auteurist tide is turning a bit. I haven't
revisited the films in many years, but my memory is that "Cries and Whispers" is
by a healthy measure his most cinematically expressive (and thus, for me,
most emotionally wrenching) work. I think I read somewhere recently a similar
opinion of "Cries," so I guess I'm not alone.
Truffaut: I love a handful - "The 400 Blows," "Two English Girls," "The Green
Room" - and like a good many others. I agree with Dave Kehr that the darker
films are the ones which really endure although, oddly enough, I've never
quite been on the "Jules et Jim" bandwagon. Dan should probably speak up here
because I know he's a big fan of at least three of the four films I've mentioned
here.
Chaplin: I'm nervous to revisit him because I think Damien's probably more
right than wrong. I think Chaplin basically admitted to his own dearth of
mise-en-scene (and the self-aggrandizement Damien speaks of too) when he made that
comment about not needing to make interesting camera moves because he himself
was interesting enough. I like "Easy Street" and "A Countess from Hong Kong."
"Imitation of Life" a blind spot, JPC? You've got some 'splainin' to do!
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
3008
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:11pm
Subject: JULES ET JIM
> Truffaut: I love a handful - "The 400 Blows," "Two English Girls," "The Green
> Room" - and like a good many others. I agree with Dave Kehr that the darker
> films are the ones which really endure although, oddly enough, I've never
> quite been on the "Jules et Jim" bandwagon. Dan should probably speak up here
> because I know he's a big fan of at least three of the four films I've mentioned
> here.
I love JULES AND JIM, but I hate to throw gasoline on the fire in one of
those "That's your least favorite? It's my most favorite!" discussions.
Interestingly, the first part of JULES AND JIM feels different from the
rest, more Godard-influenced. I feel the familiar Truffaut sensibility
coming together over the course of the movie, so that everything before
this feels like a prelude to his real career. (Though I admire some of
that early work.)
Truffaut's approach to the problem of voiceover narration was very
influential, and I'm still impressed by the way literary and cinematic
expression interact in his films. The ideas in Bazin's fine essay on
DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST were probably important to Truffaut -
Truffaut's voiceover is not just a device to propel the story (though it
does), it's also a fragment of a literary work, a snapshot of an attempt
at the same subject matter via a different medium.
I'd give the edge to TWO ENGLISH GIRLS over JULES AND JIM as Truffaut's
greatest work. Most of Truffaut's films in his last ten years don't
work for me - he went through some bad change, I think, some loss of
perspective on how to handle semi-autobiographical material. - Dan
3009
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:25pm
Subject: Re: Truffaut, Marienbad
I believe that the rollercoaster ride I have experienced with
Truffaut is not mine alone, and is not over. I loved him
inordinately, then I hated everything but the first 6, then I couldn't
get enough of the later stuff (although I never went for Green
Room: go figure), then I cooled off again, then I did the Hitchcock
book and wanted to see everything again, if only as Hitchcock
criticism on celluloid - a task I am still behind on.
My current favorites are the first 6 (I'm just crazy about Bride and
Farenheit) plus Kisses, English, Mermaid and Adele, but I know
where Dan is coming from - the films are formally very
consistent, and it's not entirely clear that I at least understand
what the form is up to. Moullet did a great career piece in CdC
after FT died that opened the discussion for me, and it's still
open. I'd love to hear more of what Dan has to say, because this
subject is one big mystery to me.
I don't know any filmmaker about whom I have experienced
greater mood-swings. Not even close.
On the other hand, anyone who doesn't acknowledge that Last
Year at Marienbad is the supreme work of modern cinema had
better fear my footsteps.
3010
From: Maxime
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:43pm
Subject: Re: Paul Vecchiali
Deep honesty in the views. Amazing work with actors, a true relation
with them and a true respect of the caracters. Be attentive to
social realities, but avoid naturalist perversion. Temptation of
onirism or melodrama. Infinite science of light and color.
Uncompromising cinema that looks things as they are.
Vecchiali can't work anymore.
Fist to be see:
CORPS A COEUR
ONCE MORE
ROSA LA ROSE
and
LA MACHINE
EN HAUT DES MARCHES
It is my yearly exasperation to see that within the little selection
of French movies that cross the Atlantic, among so many Téchiné and
other Assayas there is no place for some Vecchiali....
Maxime
http://mapage.noos.fr/maximer/The_Movies_I_Like.htm
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I've seen CORPS A COEUR, and I think it's a masterpiece. I've
never
> seen another Vecchiali film, nor heard of screenings of any, nor
even
> heard anyone talk about him. Offhand, I can't think of another
> filmmaker I love that I know so little about. - Dan
3011
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:50pm
Subject: Re: Re: Paul Vecchiali
"I can't think of another
> filmmaker I love that I know so little about. - Dan"
He's gay.
--- Maxime wrote:
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
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3012
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:59pm
Subject: Re: Bergman, Truffaut, Chaplin
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> Chaplin: I'm nervous to revisit him because I think Damien's probably more
> right than wrong. I think Chaplin basically admitted to his own dearth of
> mise-en-scene (and the self-aggrandizement Damien speaks of too) when he made that
> comment about not needing to make interesting camera moves because he himself
> was interesting enough. I like "Easy Street" and "A Countess from Hong Kong."
I just saw COUNTESS for the first time (on video) about a week ago, and didn't think it was nearly as bad as its reputation among Chaplin fans had led me to believe. It's certainly no masterpiece, and Brando is miscast in a role obviously written for a much younger version of Chaplin himself, but it's a pleasant enough diversion that's redolent of Old Hollywood.
Chaplin's high point was almost certainly prior to any of his feature films, with the shorts he made for the Mutual Film Company. Among the features, I like LIMELIGHT a lot, particularly for the all-too-brief scenes between Chaplin and Buster Keaton - the only time they ever appeared on screen together.
Dave
3013
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:03pm
Subject: Re: Vecchiali
Maxime, Now that we all have all-zone DVD players, is any of his
work available in France on DVD? Ditto for all the other people
who haven't made it to these shores: Guiguet, Arrietta - these are
just names in the Cahiers to me. I found Double Messieurs at a
French videotheque in LA, but I've yet to see Passe Montagne or
the new Stevenin. And sue me for breathing whoever disagreed,
but I like everything I'v been able to see by Limosin: Only Tokyo
Eyes is out here on DVD, probably because it's in Japanese!
3014
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:04pm
Subject: Guilt: Bad Good Movies
Outside of "La Guerre est Fini," just about everything else by Alain Resnais leaves me cold, and I feel the same about Jean-Luc Goddard with everything after "Breathless." The latter is a sore point for me, especially, since my approach to film (as well as politics and culture) has been so deeply shaped by Andrew Sarris. In 1981 Sarris put "Every Man For Himself" at the top of his year's best list, calling it the one film that came closest to expressing how he felt about life itself. So when my eighteen-year old self went to see it back then, I was dismayed and bewildered by came across to me as nasty, pretentious, self-indulgent, nihilistic crap. Years later I approached Andrew Sarris at a film seminar hosted by him and Molly Haskell, and asked him if anyone had ever put out a "Goddard for Dummies" type book. He more or less responded that you either "get" Goddard or you don't. I guess I don't.
With Rainer Werner Fassbinder, I either tune in to him completely, or I'm out. Hence, I love "Verniko Voss," "Ali:Fear Eats the Soul," "In a Year of 13 Moons," among many others, yet "The Merchant of Four Seasons" and "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (at least the first five hours that I sat through) do nothing for me.
As an adolescent, "The Rules of the Game" bored me, but watching years later as an adult was a totally different experience.
On the other hand, I've seen "Jules and Jim" as a kid, a young man, and as an older man, and in all three occassions I cheered (well, not literally) when Jeanne Moreau drove herself and Jules (or was it Jim?) off that bridge. Sorry.
---------------------------------
3015
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:14pm
Subject: Re: Re: Vecchiali
There's a Guiget short in a compilation film about
AIDS that's available on DVD. The short is called "An
Ordinary Night" and it's about a guy riding his bike
to the hospital to see his lover who's dying of AIDS.
It's a very sweet film, and despite the subject matter
not at all depressing.
I'm crazy about "Double Messieurs"!
--- hotlove666 wrote:
3016
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:15pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bergman, Truffaut, Chaplin
Chaplin made "City Lights."
It's churlish to ask for anything more.
--- Dave Garrett wrote:
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
3017
From: Damien Bona
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:32pm
Subject: Re: Raja
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
"I think he read local culture correctly, but decided to take an
existential gamble anyway. I can think of only one spot where he
isn't completely in political control, and that's the very endin
when Scooter breaks into the room. And at that point he's not even
trying for dominion, he's so overwrought."
I felt that there were many times he wasn't in control, mostly
because of his inability to understand the language. Indeed, the
kitchen maid has power over him because she knnows the language of
both the oppressor and the native.
>He didn't do it for nice reasons, so whether she comprehended or not
>(I think she did) wouldn't have helped much, I don't think.
What he did wasn't nice (expoiting and using the new girl and hurting
Raja, but one could say he did it for "nice reasons" in that it was
intended to help him and Raja end up together, assuming one feels
that's a positive outcome.
>Sure. Of course, what clarity they did have didn't promote the love
>affair. It's not as if either of them was motivated purely by love,
and >both of them knew that about the other.
>As for the confusion: one of the things about being a colonist is
>that your relations with the colonized are likely to be fraught with
>misunderstandings. So maybe the movie's goal was to make the
>misunderstandings meaningfully representative of the social
situation, >not to eliminate them.
Incidentally, I think by the time Fred attempts to set up Scooter and
Raja in business the film has irretrievably slid into absurdism, and
the perplexed reactions of Scooter seem to have come out of a bedroom
farce.
>This is a movie where the audience is set up to expect a bittersweet
>love story, and then is frustrated in its expectations. To my mind,
the >forces that frustrated these expectations had social and
political meaning.
But I still maintain that a reasonably well-educated, aware viewer
would come into the movie fully aware of the social and political
dynamics that would have a negative impact upon any such relationship
Damien
3018
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:34pm
Subject: Chaplin
To those who feel that Chaplin's mise en scene is on the level of a
William Beaudine (and I must confess that I have myself more than
once disparaged Chaplin-as-director in writing)I recommend (if you
can read French) Francis Bordat's superb book "Chaplin cineaste"
(Editions du Cerf, 1998). His close and brilliant analysis of
Chaplin's use of space, sets and editing (especially in the Essanay-
Mutual-First National period) convinced me that there is more than
meet the (negligent) eye in Chaplin's direction and urged me to look
at the early shorts again. I still find him, on the whole, not all
that funny and I'll always place Keaton far above him (especially the
shorts), but there is no doubt that he was, at the very least
historically, an important filmmaker.
JPC
3019
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: Paul Vecchiali
> Fist to be see:
> CORPS A COEUR
> ONCE MORE
> ROSA LA ROSE
> and
> LA MACHINE
> EN HAUT DES MARCHES
It's very hard for me to find anything at all on Vecchiali in my
reference library. I did find an appreciative piece by Guy Gauthier in
900 CINEASTES FRANCAIS D'AUJOURD'HUI. I can't read French that well,
but he focuses on three consecutive films in the 80s - EN HAUT DES
MARCHES, TROUS DE MEMOIRE, and ROSA LA ROSE, FILLE PUBLIQUE, all of
which he praises.
There's a flattering piece on the net, at
http://www.chez.com/alaincine4/Vecchiali/Vecchiali.htm, that discusses
some of Vecchiali's films. The writer lists his favorites:
L'ETRANGLEUR; FEMMES, FEMMES; CHANGE PAS DE MAIN; LA MACHINE; LE CAFE
DES JULES; CORPS A COEUR; EN HAUT DES MARCHES; and ROSA LA ROSE, FILLE
PUBLIQUE.
There's a quote on this page from Jacques Demy, who said to Vecchiali.
"We're probably the only two people who like both Robert Bresson and
Danielle Darrieux."
The writer of the Yahoo Encyclopedia
(http://fr.encyclopedia.yahoo.com/articles/jb/jb_1252_p0.html) seems to
think that ONCE MORE is the film that best presents Vecchiali.
There's a letter to Vecchiali in Truffaut's correspondence, in which
Truffaut praises LES RUSES DU DIABLE and asks Vecchiali to work on
clarifying the script for the as-yet-unmade L'ETRANGLEUR.
I was surprised to learn that Vecchiali was the producer and editor on
the film SIMONE BARBES, OR VIRTUE, which I saw at Filmex in 1981 and
didn't care for at all.
- Dan
3020
From: Maxime
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:35pm
Subject: Re: Vecchiali
Unfortunately, nothing available here.
Anyway, I could make a DVD copy (French language) of CORPS A COEUR
for anyone interested. Just let me know.(though this movie should be
seen in theater, as any movie, but....)
Arrieta's FLAMMES is truly amazing... not more available here...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Maxime, Now that we all have all-zone DVD players, is any of his
> work available in France on DVD? Ditto for all the other people
> who haven't made it to these shores: Guiguet, Arrietta - these are
> just names in the Cahiers to me. I found Double Messieurs at a
> French videotheque in LA, but I've yet to see Passe Montagne or
> the new Stevenin. And sue me for breathing whoever disagreed,
> but I like everything I'v been able to see by Limosin: Only Tokyo
> Eyes is out here on DVD, probably because it's in Japanese!
3021
From: Tristan
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:40pm
Subject: Czech New Wave
Is anybody else here a fan of the Czech New Wave. I've only seen a
few films(Loves of a Blonde, Fireman's Ball, Closely Watched Trains,
Daisies) but I've found them very unique and fascinating. Daisies is
my favorite, and is very interesting as a piece of non-narrative
fimmaking. What do others think of this "movement"?
3022
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:45pm
Subject: Re: Re: Raja
> But I still maintain that a reasonably well-educated, aware viewer
> would come into the movie fully aware of the social and political
> dynamics that would have a negative impact upon any such relationship
Yeah, true. Speaking for myself, I came in expecting the romance to
happen, to be appealing to the audience, and eventually to founder on
social/political/whatever. This trajectory is reasonably familiar, and
there's nothing especially problemsome about it.
Because I expected this, I misinterpreted the missteps in the early part
of the film as being tactics to delay our pleasure. It took me
two-thirds of the film to realize that I wasn't seeing delaying tactics,
that the obstacles were all that we were going to get. And then I
rethought the film using this new paradigm, which is rather more unusual
than what I was expecting, and I thought it fell together well along
those lines. - Dan
3023
From: Tristan
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:44pm
Subject: Re: Truffaut
I'm also a fan of Truffaut. A few weeks ago I saw The 400 Blows on
the big screen and it was amazing. Jules et Jim and Shoot the Piano
Player is liked when I saw, but I will soon also see on the big
screen. I've only seen a few others, Fahrenheit 451 and the Doinel
films. Fahrenheit I really liked, but the Doinel films I really
disliked(post-400 Blows). They seemed too Miramax-y, like the trendy
foreign art house films that 70 and 80 year olds flock to see. I did
not find them funny at all. Also, Love on the Run wasn't even a
movie, just a bad flashback episode on a TV show.
3024
From: rpporton55
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 11:00pm
Subject: Re: Raja
-
>
> Because I expected this, I misinterpreted the missteps in the early part =
> of the film as being tactics to delay our pleasure. It took me
> two-thirds of the film to realize that I wasn't seeing delaying tactics, =
> that the obstacles were all that we were going to get. And then I
> rethought the film using this new paradigm, which is rather more unusual =
> than what I was expecting, and I thought it fell together well along
> those lines.
For me, the perverse ingenuity of this film was bound up with our realizati=
on that the
protagonists haven't changed much at all by the deliberately "absurdist"
conclusion.The certainly haven't "grown," —to use the lingo favored by conv=
entional
film criticism and self-help books. The fact that Fred and Raja remain esse=
ntially
static says a great deal about the colonialist legacy in itself and how dif=
ficult it is to
change the power imbalance which ensnares these two people.
R. Porton
3025
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 11:20pm
Subject: Re: Cheering when Moreau drives off the aqueduct
You're supposed to cheer by that point, Rick. Audiences always
have.
It was interesting trying to show Jules et Jim to my ex- , thinking
she was a bit like the character. She made me stop after ten
minutes, saying that Catherine was a c**t. Then I showed her
The Golden Coach, and the same thing happened. "All she does
is bitch, bitch, bitch..." So much for learning about ourselves from
the movies.
3026
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 11:24pm
Subject: Re: Re: Paul Vecchiali
"I was surprised to learn that Vecchiali was the
producer and editor on
the film SIMONE BARBES, OR VIRTUE, which I saw at
Filmex in 1981 and
didn't care for at all."
Oh I LOVE "Simone Barbes"! I thought it a lot while
watching "Porn Theater" (aka."La Chatte a Deux Tetes")
which was written, directed and stars another
Vecchiali collaborator.
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
3027
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 11:26pm
Subject: Re: Czech New Wave
The best Czech New Wave film is "Daisies." It's
available on DVD.
--- Tristan wrote:
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
3028
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 0:23am
Subject: Arrietta
Adolfo Arrietta must be one of the most fascinating unknown figures in film
history. I was lucky enough to be a judge at the 1994 Semana de Cine
experimental in Madrid (is that event still going?), which held a
retrospective of his work, and he was there too. His films are extravagant
camp melodramatic fantasies (about bomber pilots, jewel thieves, etc) made
on miniscule budgets, with a florid charm that bears a relation to George
Kuchar's or FJ Ossang's work. And he obviously moved in celebrity circles:
the stars of these amateur movies include Jean Marais, Anne Wiazemsky,
Francoise Lebrun, Howard Vernon, Severo Sardoy, Michele Moretti, Jonas
Mekas, etc. His first films were made in the early 60s and he was still
working in the 90s; his career crosses France and Spain. Titles include
IMITATION OF THE ANGEL, FLAMES, MERLIN and THE INTRIGUES OF SYLVIA KOUSKY !
The Festival put out a booklet ARRIETTA O LA POETICA DE LA SIMPLICIDAD (The
Poetry of Simplicity) by Alvaro del Amo and Antonio Gasset, which includes
interview material, and reprints of appreciations by Marguerite Duras,
Jean-Claude Biette, Dominique Nogeuz, Noel Simoslo and Kenneth Anger. Not a
bad fan list!!
Adrian M.
3029
From: jaketwilson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 0:38am
Subject: Re: Bergman, Truffaut, Chaplin
Bergman and Chaplin will always be great, regardless of critical
fashion.
I think CRIES AND WHISPERS is definitely second-tier, way below
SUMMER WITH MONIKA, WINTER LIGHT, THE SILENCE, PERSONA, SHAME, etc.
> I think Chaplin basically admitted to his own dearth of
> mise-en-scene (and the self-aggrandizement Damien speaks of too)
when he made that
> comment about not needing to make interesting camera moves because
he himself was interesting enough.
He was right!
My guilty unpleasure: Hou Hsiao-hsien.
JTW
3030
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 0:40am
Subject: Late Truffaut, Late Resnais
Bill writes:
> then I couldn't
> get enough of the later stuff (although I never went for Green
> Room: go figure)
The later stuff is pretty fascinating to me, too. I already
named "The Green Room," but how about those two little movies he made
with Fanny Ardant at the end of his life, "The Woman Next Door"
and "Confidentially Yours"? They seem to embody the two sides of
Truffaut - the dark, brooding one who often goes unmentioned and the
warm, movie-mad humanist everybody loves. Pretty interesting films
and "Confidentially Yours" is on my list if for nothing else than
that delightful opening shot, with the credits running over a dolly
shot of Fanny Ardant simply walking across the street. That shot
pretty much defines "offhand lyricism" for me.
When I saw "The Last Metro" back during the Truffaut retro which
played here in Columbus in '99, I managed to convince myself that it
was Truffaut's late, neglected masterwork. I know it has all the
earmarks of Euro-pudding, and has (pace Vincent Canby) a fairly
marginal rep in the Truffaut canon, but I wonder if I'd react the
same way to it if I saw it today.
Anyway, I'd nominate, as several others have, "Two English Girls" as
his greatest.
> On the other hand, anyone who doesn't acknowledge that Last
> Year at Marienbad is the supreme work of modern cinema had
> better fear my footsteps.
I too love "Marienbad." Has anyone here seen the really interesting
late film by Resnais, scripted by Jules Feiffer, "I Want to Go
Home"? A marvelous, funny, atmospheric, and formally very eccentric
movie.
Peter
3031
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 0:47am
Subject: A Countess from Hong Kong
Dave,
I'd agree with your comments on "Countess." I think the hatred with
which it was met on its release in America was more about what people
perceived as Chaplin's dated-ness than the merits of the film itself -
sort of like "Eyes Wide Shut". I'm not sure why it works better for
me than the more personal late films which precede it -
like "Limelight" or "A King in New York" (Rossellini's comment about
which I love to use in reference to other, better movies!) Rohmer
apparently wrote an appreciation of the film's mise-en-scene, but
I've never been able to track it down.
In general, though, Keaton's my man.
Peter
3032
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 0:54am
Subject: Bresson on film
Bill writes:
> On the other hand, I can testify from experience that Bresson is
> one of those directors who literally doesn't exist on tv,
particularly
> the color films
I actually just saw a week ago my first Bresson film
theatrically: "The Devil, Probably." It played at the Wexner Center
as part of an Olivier Assayas retro (the film is one of Assayas'
favorites). It instantly has become my favorite Bresson, although I
believe this has more to do with Bill's comment about the huge, HUGE
gap between Bresson-on-film and Bresson-on-tape than anything. My
experience of "Devil" was more shattering than I could have ever
guessed based on my experiences with Bresson's cinema on tape; maybe
when I've seen all of them in 35mm, I'll be able to properly
determine my favorite.
Peter
3033
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 0:58am
Subject: Re: Fuller and lists
Jonathan,
Thanks for the info. on "Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film
Canons"! Fortunately I live near several excellent libraries and
university libraries, but maybe the expense of xeroxing all those
pages will ultimately be as much as just buying it myself.
Cheers,
Peter
3034
From: filipefurtado
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 3:40am
Subject: Re: NYFF reactions?
Obviously, I was not at he NYFF. But that is what I've been
seeing at the São Paulo film festival till today (not
including the João Cesar Monteiro Retrospective):
Masterpieces:
Come and Go (João Cesar Monteiro)
demonlover Olivier Assayas
Very Good:
The Return of the Prodigal Son - The Humilhiated (Jean-Marie
Straub/Danielle Hulliet) -- Maybe a masterpiece too.
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
Robinson's Crusoe (Lee Chen-Shang)
Gozu (Takashi Miike)
Good
The Saddest Song in the World (Guy Maddin)
Watchable:
Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet
(Kaurismaski/Erice/Herzog/Jamursch/Wenders/Lee/Kaige)
Worthless:
The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand) -- Nearly th worst of
the year
Ten Minutes Older: The Cello
(Bertollucci/Figgis/Menzel/Szabo/Denis/Schandorff/Radford/Goda
rd)
> I skipped the NYFF this year for a handful of reasons. What
are
> other New Yorkers thoughts--favorite films, must-
sees, etc? How has
> it compared to previous years overall?
>
> --Zach
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -------------
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>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.co
m/info/terms/
>
>
>
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
3035
From:
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2003 11:44pm
Subject: Lamont Johnson
Would anyone here care to direct a (relative) newcomer to the works of Lamont
Johnson to some essential and/or flawed-but-interesting titles of his? I've
seen "The Last American Hero" and perhaps one or two others, but that's it and
none of them at all recently. I know Bill just referenced his tele-film
"Paul's Case" and I can infer some of Dan's favorites from his lists, but I still
thought I'd ask the group at larger for some recommendations (and perhaps Bill
and Dan for some elaboration on their enthusiasm for this filmmaker.)
Thanks!
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
3036
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 4:08am
Subject: Re: Lamont Johnson
> Would anyone here care to direct a (relative) newcomer to the works of Lamont
> Johnson to some essential and/or flawed-but-interesting titles of his? I've
> seen "The Last American Hero" and perhaps one or two others, but that's it and
> none of them at all recently. I know Bill just referenced his tele-film
> "Paul's Case" and I can infer some of Dan's favorites from his lists, but I still
> thought I'd ask the group at larger for some recommendations (and perhaps Bill
> and Dan for some elaboration on their enthusiasm for this filmmaker.)
Johnson seemed himself like the last American hero in the early 70s: a
filmmaker with a flair for directing understated yet energetic
performances, a good sense of fast-slow dynamics, and an underlying
sadness that complimented his directoral vigor. Sarris once wondered in
print if he was the new Hawks, but he was probably more like a Siegel or
a Joseph H. Lewis. (Maybe I thought of the latter because Johnson acts
in his RETREAT, HELL!)
One of the good things about Johnson is that he made a lot of good
films, many of them for TV or under low-budget circumstances. I lost
track of him at the end of the 80s as the TV-movie vanished (or went to
cable) - I'd be interested in hearing recommendations on his work from
the 90s and later. - Dan
3037
From: Tristan
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 4:12am
Subject: Re: NYFF reactions?
Filipe, you mention Ten Minutes Older. I taped these off of Showtime
and they turned out to be pretty good. Some shorts weren't that good,
but a few were quite good. I'm not sure if there's been many recent
omnibus films, but this seems promising that there may be more in the
future. I admit that a few segments were worthless, but a few were
quite good. Did anybody else see these?
3038
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 4:21am
Subject: Lamont Johnson
I'm not going to go overboard on this, but he's a good director and
definitely a tv movie auteur. He started in live drama and then the
classier episodics (Naked City, always); he made tv movies; he made
features, one of which, the Tom Wolfe "adaptation," won praise from
Kael, who was still talking about him in her Last Sundown interview.
His heroes are sometimes victims, often a little dumb, or otherwise
maladapted: this keeps John Henry Faulk, the blacklisted radio guy,
from being a Costa-Gavras hero - a little bit more like a Dreyer
hero/heroine, whom we value not for him/herself (per J-L Comolli) but
as a victim of the social mechanism that is persecuting them. A
little.
Ditto: The Execution of Private Slovik, or the film LJ considered his
best, Paul's Case, which he shot right off the pages of the Willa
Cather story. It's an impressive piece of work, and Eric Roberts is
really superb as the autistic hero, but I'd say: auteur and metteur-
en-scene (like De Sica), not cineaste (like Rossellini). I'm quoting
that Biette article again, where he contrasts the two Italians in
terms of their conception of the world and of cinema: conventional in
De Sica, original in Rossellini. To put it succinctly.
When we interviewed Johnson he cracked up Daniele Dubroux and Serge
Le Peron by talking about the tv censors, how you had to trade them
two damns for a hell, and so on. The fact that his language was
peppered with four-letter words seemed to all of us to be the result
of years of censorship: the return of the repressed.
I know Dan has kept up with LJ's work, but I haven't, so he'll have
more and more recent recommendations than I will.
3039
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 4:24am
Subject: Chaplin, Truffaut
The Rohmer essay on Countess from Hong Kong is in the Bazin Chaplin
book - he added it to complete the book.
No one has mentioned Shoot the Piano Player, but that has always been
my favorite Truffaut.
3040
From: filipefurtado
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 4:45am
Subject: Re: NYFF reactions?
Actually I think that Erice's and Lee's shorts from The
Trumpet are very good. And Godard's an Denis' from The Cello
are good. But that's it. Almost everything else is worthless
(with the Szabo, Figgis, Wenders and Herzog been specially
awful).
Filipe
> Filipe, you mention Ten Minutes Older. I taped these off of
Showtime
> and they turned out to be pretty good. Some shorts weren't t
hat good,
> but a few were quite good. I'm not sure if there's been many
recent
> omnibus films, but this seems promising that there may be mo
re in the
> future. I admit that a few segments were worthless, but a fe
w were
> quite good. Did anybody else see these?
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -------------
--------~-->
> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon
or Lexmark
> Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the
US & Canada.
> http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
> http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/b5IolB/TM
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.co
m/info/terms/
>
>
>
---
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3041
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 5:42am
Subject: Re: NYFF reactions?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "filipefurtado"
wrote:
> Actually I think that Erice's and Lee's shorts from The
> Trumpet are very good.
I wonder whether the baby in "Lifeline" was intended to be Erice
himself, who also was born in the summer of 1940.
Paul
3042
From: Michael Lieberman
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:43am
Subject: Re: NYFF reactions?
I only saw the Jarmusch and Godard shorts from the Ten Minutes Older series, both were outstanding. How were the others?
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tristan"
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 04:12:05 -0000
To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re:[a_film_by] NYFF reactions?
Filipe, you mention Ten Minutes Older. I taped these off of Showtime
and they turned out to be pretty good. Some shorts weren't that good,
but a few were quite good. I'm not sure if there's been many recent
omnibus films, but this seems promising that there may be more in the
future. I admit that a few segments were worthless, but a few were
quite good. Did anybody else see these?
3043
From: Michael Lieberman
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:45am
Subject: Demonlover
"demonlover" might be a masterpiece, though I'm unsure after one viewing in March. I'm mostly "unsure" about whether Assayas made a horrible miscalculation about his
idea of corporate threats, or one that's ahead of its time. Could be both.
----- Original Message -----
From: "filipefurtado"
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 01:40:35 -0200
To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re:[a_film_by] NYFF reactions?
Obviously, I was not at he NYFF. But that is what I've been
seeing at the São Paulo film festival till today (not
including the João Cesar Monteiro Retrospective):
Masterpieces:
Come and Go (João Cesar Monteiro)
demonlover Olivier Assayas
Very Good:
The Return of the Prodigal Son - The Humilhiated (Jean-Marie
Straub/Danielle Hulliet) -- Maybe a masterpiece too.
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
Robinson's Crusoe (Lee Chen-Shang)
Gozu (Takashi Miike)
Good
The Saddest Song in the World (Guy Maddin)
Watchable:
Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet
(Kaurismaski/Erice/Herzog/Jamursch/Wenders/Lee/Kaige)
Worthless:
The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand) -- Nearly th worst of
the year
Ten Minutes Older: The Cello
(Bertollucci/Figgis/Menzel/Szabo/Denis/Schandorff/Radford/Goda
rd)
> I skipped the NYFF this year for a handful of reasons. What
are
> other New Yorkers thoughts--favorite films, must-
sees, etc? How has
> it compared to previous years overall?
>
> --Zach
3044
From: Paul Fileri
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:20am
Subject: Rouge issue 1
Rouge launches, boasting an aesthetically pleasing design, slim and
trim. Much to be read (yet no lead editorial?).
http://www.rouge.com.au/index.html
- Paul
3045
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:43am
Subject: Re: Print quality - bon voyage
>By the way, you guys do know that this is another ship that has
>sailed, right? The El Capitan in LA regularly screens Disney
>releases digitally, and the Chinese Theatre across the street
>does the same, even advertising when Signs, say, is being
>shown digitally. Ditto the Arclight, the 14-dollar-a-pop uberplex
>that was added onto the old Cinerama Dome. Right, Joseph K?
The Arclight has one or two screens with digital projection as an option.
I've seen a number of features projected digitally, and I find them
fatiguing: bright peppy colors but compression artifacts and no
chance to be contemplative. Bresson wouldn't have liked it.
The exception with digital projection is if the film was shot
digitally (ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO) or animated digitally (FINDING
NEMO, et al). These, I think, are actually better in digital.
The big Hollywood Pacific Theater on Hollywood Blvd., formerly a
Cinerama house, now is home to experiments in digital projection.
They have higher-resolution projection systems being tested in there.
The results are better than what one sees in theaters now, but still
well short of a good film print.
--
- Joe Kaufman
3046
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:50am
Subject: Re: Re: Guilty Unpleasures
I actually prefer Godfather III; I like it's autumnal quality. But, then, I
can't stand Coppola, another vastly over-praised, self-hyped mediocrity.
George Robinson
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Bona"
To:
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 4:20 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Guilty Unpleasures
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Tosh wrote:
> Charlie Chaplin. I don't really like any of his films. I don't
> think he's funny.
> --
It's not just that Chaplin isn't funny - and for me he emphatically
is not - there's also the appalling self-reverence through which he
holds himself above everyone else, insisting that his sensitive soul
feels more acutely and suffers greater pain than the rest of the
world. In his supposed guise as Common Man, he was actually the
king of self-aggrandizement. A most obnoxious filmmaker. Plus, he
has the flattest mis-en-scene of just about anyone this side of
William Beaudine.
I can't stand Jules and Jim either. Among its shortcomings are the
narration which is telling us all sorts of things about the
characters that we should, but never do, see for ourselves. As some
other posters have mentioned here, Jeanne Moreau's character is
utterly without appeal - she's supposed to be a complete magnet for
all sorts of men, but she comes across as a self-centered woman
lacking in charm and allure. Truffaut just couldn't resist jump
cuts, freeze frames, zooms, etc. and they all come across as
grandstanding effects, utterly at odds with the mood that this
narrative warrants. An insufferably coy film.
But then again, Day For Night is the only Truffaut I found tolerable.
I guess the two Godfather movies don't really qualify for this
discussion because they've never rated high with auteurists, but what
a couple of ludicrously over-praised mediocrities.
-- Damien
3047
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:03am
Subject: Re: Re: NYFF reactions?
Below is my NYFF piece for one of my more obscure venues, a Philly-based
quarterly called INSIDE Magazine, distributed by the Philadelphia Jewish
Exponent. I wouldn't do this ordinarily -- it's a heck of an imposition and
really chutzpahdik -- but I doubt if anyone on the list will see this column
any other way, and it basically talks about my favorite stuff from the
Festival.
George Robinson
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
By George Robinson
Directors as different as Jean-Luc Godard, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven
Spielberg are predicting the end of film projection, which they agree will
be gradually replaced by some digital process over the next couple of
decades. Godard and Spielberg both say this with a sigh of dismay, readily
acknowledging that one of the great beauties of film is the detail, depth
and weight of the image, the product of film grain, something that is lost
in any form of video, any digital image, no matter how many pixels per inch.
At any rate, there is a definite end-of-an-era feeling in the air among
filmmakers.
Perhaps that is why most of the best films at this year's New York Film
Festival had an elegiac, frequently melancholy quality. One hesitates to
attribute it to the zeitgeist; too many filmmakers are enclosed in their own
cocoons of concern and it takes too long from conception to release for a
film to reflect current feelings. But the sense of loss bordering on the
nostalgic was palpable on Lincoln Center screens this fall, and the result
is at least a half-dozen films that will be well worth a few winter hours.
One of those films is almost a direct response to the latest "death of
cinema" rhetoric. Tsai Ming-Liang's "Goodbye Dragon Inn" is set on the last
night of a battered old movie palace in downtown Taipei, and features a
handful of old-timers from the great Hong Kong swordplay epic that it
invokes in its title, King Hu's "Dragon Inn." The film is about as
dissimilar to Hu's acrobatic, wildly energetic vision as one can imagine;
only 81 minutes long, it has almost no dialogue, very long takes and an
extraordinary use of direct sound. Not much happens - the crippled cleaning
girl walks around the projection booth longing for the projectionist, a
Japanese tourist coming in out of the rain finds himself part of an
elaborately choreographed dance of gay desire, the sparse audience eye one
another suspiciously or hopefully. Hypnotic, occasionally very funny,
"Goodbye Dragon Inn" is one of the most triumphant - if occasionally
difficult - odes to cinema I have ever seen.
Ross McElwee has been making witty, discursive first-person documentaries
for 25 years, although he didn't breakthrough to a larger audience until his
wonderful 1986 film "Sherman's March." McElwee uses his own life and his
ambivalent relationship to his roots in North Carolina as a lens through
which to explore issues of gender, representation and political agency, but
his films are a lot more fun than that description makes them sound. His
latest film, "Bright Leaves," jumps off from an obscure piece of family
folklore, that his grandfather, a failed tobacco baron, was depicted by Gary
Cooper in the minor Michael Curtiz film, "Bright Leaf." With that as the
trigger, McElwee examines the ever-changing face of the South as it weans
itself away from the tobacco economy reluctantly, while revealing a lot
about his own feelings about aging, parenthood and family. "Bright Leaves"
is radically different from the Tsai Ming-Liang film in means and style, yet
like "Goodbye Dragon Inn," a wry yet gently nostalgic work.
The same might be said of Julie Bertuccelli's first fiction film, "Since
Otar Left." Bertuccelli has an impressive CV as a documentarian and
assistant to the likes of Krysztof Kieslowski, Bertrand Tavernier and Otar
Iosseliani, and the title of this film may be a playful homage to
Iosseliani, who left the former Soviet republic of Georgia to work in
France. The film's Otar, who is never seen except in a still photo, does the
same, but unlike the highly regarded filmmaker, he dies in Paris, a thousand
miles away from his family, which consists of three generations of women
dependent on money he sends home, his doting granny (Esther Gorotin),
dyspeptic mother (Nino Khomassouridze) and admiring niece (Dinara
Droukarova). When Otar dies, the two younger women conspire to keep the
terrible news from the elder with surprising results. A luminous,
bittersweet film, life-affirming in the best sense (rather than the
smothering, manipulative Hollywood sense), a film in which not much happens
but it's all quite wonderful.
If "Bright Leaves" and "Since Otar Left" reaffirm the mixed blessings of
family ties, new films by Claude Chabrol, Marco Bellocchio and the Polish
filmmaker Jan Jakub Kolski present a more jaundiced view of families both
real and surrogate.
Of course, the horrors of family are at the heart of most of Chabrol's work.
Last year's "Merci Pour le Chocolat" was one of his most excoriating
depictions of the haute bourgeosie and the new film, his 50th feature, "The
Flower of Evil" is more of the same. Perhaps a little too much so. "Flower,"
which is a surgical dissection of three generations of incest and murder, is
minor Chabrol, more slack than "Chocolat" or "Le Ceremonie," the best of his
recent films, but it is wonderfully mean-spirited fun, vivified by a
splendidly addled performance by Suzanne Flon as the presiding elder spirit
of a madly dysfunctional family who sets forty years of bad faith to rights.
Like Chabrol, Bellocchio has been scourging the bourgeosie since the early
'60s. Much more overtly political than Chabrol, he was always the neglected
wacky kid brother of the new Italian cinema of the '60s. Now 64 (nine years
younger than Chabrol), he is a bit more settled, almost regretful and it
shows in "Good Morning, Night," his latest work, a recounting of the Aldo
Moro kidnapping-murder as told from the point of view of the one woman Red
Brigade cadre who was directly involved. The film is an elegantly worked-out
chamber drama, with a refreshingly effective and restrained use of fantasy
and dream sequences to convey the growing attachment of his heroine for her
prisoner, who gradually becomes a sort of father-figure in her mind.
Surprisingly, Bellocchio's once-corrosive anger and humor have been replaced
by a sadness that makes this film particularly moving.
For East and Central European filmmakers, World War II is the wound that
never heals. One is forcefully reminded of this when viewing "Pornography"
by Jan Jakub Kolski, a thoughtful adaptation of the novel by the great
20th-century Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz, a darkly wry comedy of bad
manners that goes startlingly off the tracks into the realm of tragedy. It
is 1943 and occupied Warsaw is crumbling. Under the credits, we see two Jews
exhaustedly placing a corpse inside a coffin under the grim eyes of a German
soldier. Gombrowicz (deftly played by Adam Ferency) is living out a parody
of the prewar bohemian life, now centered on private homes rather than the
once vibrant café scene. His mysterious friend Fryderyk (Krzysztof Majchzak)
accompanies him for an extended stay in the countryside home of Hippolit
(Krzysztof Globisz) and his family, which includes the coquettish Henia, and
a coltish housemaid who reminds Fryderyk of someone from his own deeply
hidden past. Gradually, Gombowicz and Fryderyk begin a game of manipulating
Henia and a local farmboy, a seemingly innocent but in truth rather sinister
pastime.
This is no idle idyll; there are partisans and Nazi troops in the wood not
far away, and their skirmishing can be heard frequently at night.
Eventually, the violence of war and the childish gameplaying of the two
urbane intellectuals will have a devastating collision. Every one of the
film's characters has a secret, even a very minor character like the
kerosene dealer whose basement is filled with Jewish refugees. But no one
has a secret more appalling than Fryderyk's, which involves his fragmented
identity, ties to Jews and the brutality of the Nazis.
"Pornography" sustains the foreshortened vision, the paranoia and the
extraordinarily dense textures of its opening moments for nearly all of its
two-hour running time, abetted no doubt by Gombrowicz's structural devices,
the shift in tone from black comedy to stark tragedy is startlingly
effective. Brilliantly photographed in a severely reduced palette by
Krzysztof Ptak, "Pornography" is a film that really ought to find a
distributor.
3048
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:21am
Subject: Godfather Coppola
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
wrote:
> I actually prefer Godfather III; I like it's autumnal quality. But,
then, I
> can't stand Coppola, another vastly over-praised, self-hyped
mediocrity.
>
George, I agree with you that III is by far the best of the Godfather
pictures; the montage in the opera house sequence is easily the best
thing Coppola's ever done.
I would slightly disagree with you in your description of him
as "self-hyped." Pauline Kael, with her typical uber-ignorance
really got the ball rolling on Coppola (although I seem to remember
that Judith Crist had You're A Big Boy, Now on her 1966 10 Best
List). Coppola merely bought into the hype, and a very modest talent
voraciously came to believe that yes, Virginia, he was a genius, and
the sad, sorry results were Apocalypse, Now and One From The
Heart.
3049
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:31am
Subject: Re: Godfather Coppola
But I understand that his wines are quite nice.
g
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Bona"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 4:21 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Godfather Coppola
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
> wrote:
> > I actually prefer Godfather III; I like it's autumnal quality. But,
> then, I
> > can't stand Coppola, another vastly over-praised, self-hyped
> mediocrity.
> >
>
> George, I agree with you that III is by far the best of the Godfather
> pictures; the montage in the opera house sequence is easily the best
> thing Coppola's ever done.
>
> I would slightly disagree with you in your description of him
> as "self-hyped." Pauline Kael, with her typical uber-ignorance
> really got the ball rolling on Coppola (although I seem to remember
> that Judith Crist had You're A Big Boy, Now on her 1966 10 Best
> List). Coppola merely bought into the hype, and a very modest talent
> voraciously came to believe that yes, Virginia, he was a genius, and
> the sad, sorry results were Apocalypse, Now and One From The
> Heart.
>
>
>
>
> 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/
>
>
>
>
3050
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:32am
Subject: Re: Rouge issue 1
That is slim design if any lol
While the design needs alot of work, I really like the way you place
footnotes (left margin). It allows reading notes without losing track
of the text itself. Great idea :)
Bookmarked and Congrats!
Henrik
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Paul Fileri wrote:
> Rouge launches, boasting an aesthetically pleasing design, slim and
> trim. Much to be read (yet no lead editorial?).
>
> http://www.rouge.com.au/index.html
>
> - Paul
3051
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:41am
Subject: Re: Re: Rouge issue 1
The design is very . . . uh, Bressonian?
But the content is exemplary -- talk about an all-star team!
I'm impressed.
George Robinson
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
3052
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:42am
Subject: Re: Godfather Coppola
To argue that Godfather 3 is the best makes me lose all hope for the
future of mankind.
Then again, van Sant's remake of Psycho is perhaps better than
Hitchcocks too, since it has a unique Tarantinoesque quality.
(hehe)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
> wrote:
> > I actually prefer Godfather III; I like it's autumnal quality.
But,
> then, I
> > can't stand Coppola, another vastly over-praised, self-hyped
> mediocrity.
> >
>
> George, I agree with you that III is by far the best of the
Godfather
> pictures; the montage in the opera house sequence is easily the best
> thing Coppola's ever done.
>
> I would slightly disagree with you in your description of him
> as "self-hyped." Pauline Kael, with her typical uber-ignorance
> really got the ball rolling on Coppola (although I seem to remember
> that Judith Crist had You're A Big Boy, Now on her 1966 10 Best
> List). Coppola merely bought into the hype, and a very modest
talent
> voraciously came to believe that yes, Virginia, he was a genius, and
> the sad, sorry results were Apocalypse, Now and One From The
> Heart.
3053
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:59am
Subject: Re: Godfather Coppola
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
> To argue that Godfather 3 is the best makes me lose all hope for
the
> future of mankind.
>
> Then again, van Sant's remake of Psycho is perhaps better than
> Hitchcocks too, since it has a unique Tarantinoesque quality.
>
> (hehe)
>
Godfather III wasn't a remake by a different filmmaker, it was the
original director addressing and re-assessing his characters a decade-
and-a-half-later, so your analogy doesn't hold up. If you're
placing your hope in the future of mankind on such banalities as the
first Godfather pictures, then God help us all, and, more
specifically, God help you.
3054
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 9:27am
Subject: More unloved "classics"
Looking at the first issue of Rouge and some non-list e-mails I am reminded
of a couple more directors whose work leaves me utterly uninvolved (or
worse).
I completely understand the importance of Maurice Pialat and John
Cassavettes as avatars of a fearlessly and ferociously independent cinema,
but I just don't see the films themselves as successful. On the other hand,
I love Cassavettes as an actor.
And while we're on the subject of Coppola, I have to say that I think Altman
and the whole cult of the '70s as "the best decade in American film" is a
pain in the ass. Altman has made some films I like a great deal (McCabe, The
Long Goodbye, Streamers) and a few I respect and admire but don't care for
(Nashville) but I think the adulation he inspires is wildly out of
proportion. As for the '70s, well, if one of the building blocks of your
defense of the decade is the emergence of Coppola, Lucas and Spielberg --
and I have seen that case made, albeit not here thank goodness -- you are
really grasping at straws.
I think the most interesting decade in American film by far is the 1950s,
with many of the best filmmakers in history at the peak of their powers and
an industry whose disarray opens up crevasses through which people like Ray,
Fuller, Sirk and Aldrich can dynamite the whole classical narrative
paradigm -- is that a mixed metaphor or what?
George (Mixing Metaphors Is My Business) Robinson
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
3055
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 9:37am
Subject: Let me propose a different list
Wandering back a few threads ago, I share the discomfort of many of you with
the relentlessly negative. I believe "destructive" criticism has its place,
if only as an antidote to the knee-jerk me-tooism of industry shills like
Peter Travers, but I get tired of hearing myself whine.
This afternoon, while waiting for something else I wanted to see, I was
running the dial on the TV. (I'm going to love 500-channel cable -- it will
take all day to find out there's nothing on.) I stumbled quite happily upon
Irving Lerner's "Murder by Contract," a deliciously chilly little crime film
with Vince "Ben Casey" Edwards and Herschel Bernardi. Lerner made a few
other features of no apparent merit but this is just wonderful.
What are some of your favorite one-offs? Of course "Night of the Hunter" is
probably the greatest example of all time, but "Murder by Contract" is one
of those extraordinary leaps that can't be explained by any normal cognitive
means. I've never seen "Carnival of Souls" but I suspect that if it's as
good as its reputation, it might be another.
George (sort of a one-off myself) Robinson
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
3056
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:46am
Subject: Re: A Countess from Hong Kong
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Tonguette"
wrote:
> Rohmer
> apparently wrote an appreciation of the film's mise-en-scene, but
> I've never been able to track it down.
>
> In general, though, Keaton's my man.
>
> Peter
Rohmer also wrote an interesting essay, "Cinema: the Art of Space,"
that examined the use of space in films of Chaplin, Keaton, Murnau,
Eisenstein, and others. It appeared in La Revue du cinema 14 (June
1948) and was translated into English in "The Taste for Beauty."
Rohmer thought movement in Chaplin's films was based on and
limited to the expression of psychology, while movement in Keaton's
films was a kind of investigation into the nature of space.
We have already shown how in Chaplin's films there is a perfect
understanding of the demands of cinematic perspective, of the
difference between the screen and scenic space. Yet his films
cannot be considered examples of a spatial art of expression
depicting a universe in which movements and gestures acquire
meaning beyond their emotional sense, which is somehow more
essential to their mobile nature. This type of research seems
incompatible with the human character of Chaplin's art. Visual gags
such as Charlie followed by the barrel of the carbine (The Gold
Rush), Charlie near the freight elevator (Pay Day), Charlie followed
by the policeman (The Adventurer), and so on, are sufficient proof
of Chaplin's purely cinematic genius. Yet gestures, stances, and
movements take on meaning only in reference to the series of states
of consciousness or intentions that they reveal, one by one: Spoken
language or mimicry is replaced by an "allusive" mode of expression,
less conventional than the first, subtler and richer than the
second, but whose value depends not on the necessary quality that
gesture acquires by means of its presence in a certain space, but
on the relationship we establish between the gesture and its
significance. Sometimes, it is true, in the most intense emotional
moments - joy or fright, adversity or triumph - the movement ends
up devoid of any precise meaning and develops by following its own
rhythm. These moments, which constitute the height of Chaplin's
art - Charlie menaced in the store (The Store), Charlie fighting
a duel (Carmen), Charlie ripping open the pillow (The Gold Rush) -
cannot be considered the most typical examples of a pure comedy
of movement, as they spring from an overflow of emotion, which in
expressing, they transfigure, but from which they still derive
meaning.
... a less refined cinema, based on a less psychological
concept of the comical, is closer to a pure art of movement:
A more intense though less "intelligent" laughter is born of the
simple confrontation of two dimensions, of the mechanical
repetition of a gesture. One can find many examples of this
in Mack Sennett's films and in the first American burlesque films.
The Marx brothers' burlesque, even in its most purely
cinematic moments (the curtain dropped to stop the
cannon balls in Duck Soup, the state room full of people in A Night
at the Opera), still refers too much to the usual signification of
gesture. The absurd in their work becomes apparent only in relation
to an already established code of meaning.
Though rarely noticed, it is mostly in Buster Keaton's films
that we can see a spatial universe in which gestures and
movements take on new meaning. Buster Keaton is not only one of
the greatest comics of the screen but also one of the most
authentic geniuses of film. Many people have pointed out the
mechanical quality of his comic scenes, which a certain
dryness renders rather disconcerting at first glance. True,
he cannot be included among the burlesque, whose rich imagination
he lacks, or among Chaplin's imitators, although he was strongly
influenced by him. One is correct in considering the allusive style
he frequently uses to be rather poor. The reason is that the
psychological significance of a movement counts much less for him
than does the comical aspect, which is revealed in the way the
movement is etched on the space of the screen. In Battling Butler,
for example, for almost fifteen minutes we watch the novice boxer
try in vain to recreate the simple uppercut movement that his
manager is trying to teach him. This comedy of failure would not
be original if the awkwardness of the gesture had not been developed,
so to speak, in its own right - to the extent that the gesture can
finally find an aesthetic justification through repetition - but
especially because it appears as a sort of questioning of space,
an inquiry into the "workings" of the three dimensions - in this
case ludicrous, but one that could just as well be troubled and
tragic. To continue with this film, its most extraordinary moment
is undoubtedly when, in spite of himself, the boxer gets tangled
in the ropes as he tries to enter the ring. The impossibility of
describing the humor of such a "position" to someone who has not
seen the film guarantees the authenticity of its cinematic value.
Conversely, even Chaplin's most visual discoveries - Charlie
juggling bricks, Charlie walking on his knees, Charlie sinking
into a tub he thought was empty - make us laugh when we describe
them. This is not an isolated incident: Throughout his films,
Buster Keaton expresses an obsession with a certain type of
clumsiness and solitude whose equivalent cannot be found in film.
In a note attached to the publication of America, Max Brod tells
us that certain passages of Kafka "irresistibly evoke Chaplin."
But it is more in Buster Keaton, than in Chaplin or even in
Langdon, that one should look for a vision of the world that,
because of its rigorous nature and geometrical activity,
would approach the inhuman world of Kafka. Solitude for Chaplin,
even in the famous scenes of The Circus or The Gold Rush, is
never more than man's solitude in an indifferent society.
For Buster Keaton, the isolation of beings and things
appears instead as intrinsic to the nature of space. Such isolation
is expressed particularly by a back-and-forth movement - as if
everything were continually "returned" to itself - as well as by
the brutal falls, the flattening on the floor, and the awkward
grasping of objects that turn or break, as if the external world
were impossible to grasp. Moreover, this obsession can take on a
more static nature: The relationships among the dimensions of
objects or among the characters' respective heights are always
carefully attended to.
3057
From: madlyangelicgirl
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 0:41pm
Subject: Auteur study
Well…
I'm doing an auteur study on Baz Luhrman for my degree. I'm
going to
be really obvious and use his red curtain trilogy (Strictly
Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge). Now I have never
written an auteur before and would like some advice on how to
approach it. Will I need to bring structuralism and semiotics into
the study? The study itself is only 1500 words, which is nothing. I
have written about 20 pages of notes whilst watching the films.
Please, please help!
I am also answering a genre question on Mel Brooks and a
structuralism question on Tim Burton, does anybody know of any good
resource sites for these directors?
Thankyou,
Rebecca Shone
3058
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 1:13pm
Subject: Re: Let me propose a different list
"I've never seen "Carnival of Souls" but I suspect
that if it's as
good as its reputation, it might be another."
You're quite right on that score.Herk Harvey was a
director of industrial films. This is his sole fiction
feature and it's a minor masterpiece.
--- George Robinson wrote:
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
3059
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 3:12pm
Subject: Re: More unloved "classics"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
wrote:
,
>
> I think the most interesting decade in American film by far is the
1950s,
> with many of the best filmmakers in history at the peak of their
powers and
> an industry whose disarray opens up crevasses through which people
like Ray,
> Fuller, Sirk and Aldrich can dynamite the whole classical narrative
> paradigm -- is that a mixed metaphor or what?
>
> George (Mixing Metaphors Is My Business) Robinson
>
>
> The man who does not read good books
> has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
> --Mark Twain
I agree 100% about the fifties. And the remarkable thing was
that hardly anyone at the time paid any attention. Most of the
greatest films of the decade were underrated, ignored or reviled by
the mainstream critics (and there was very little else (Farber...) A
golden age is never golden for those who live through it.
JPC
3060
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 3:28pm
Subject: Re: Auteur study
> I'm doing an auteur study on Baz Luhrman for my degree. I'm
> going to
> be really obvious and use his red curtain trilogy (Strictly
> Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge). Now I have never
> written an auteur before and would like some advice on how to
> approach it. Will I need to bring structuralism and semiotics into
> the study?
I guess that depends on whether your committee will get upset if you
don't! There are certainly other ways to approach an auteur study, as
many ways as there are writers.
If you'd like to read a good auteur study that incorporates
structuralist ideas, I'd recommend Jim Kitses' HORIZONS WEST.
In any case, the best thing is probably to read some auteur studies to
help you find an approach that you like. - Dan
3061
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 3:40pm
Subject: Re: Godfather Coppola
>>I actually prefer Godfather III; I like it's autumnal quality. But,
> then, I
>>can't stand Coppola, another vastly over-praised, self-hyped
> mediocrity.
>
> George, I agree with you that III is by far the best of the Godfather
> pictures; the montage in the opera house sequence is easily the best
> thing Coppola's ever done.
>
> I would slightly disagree with you in your description of him
> as "self-hyped." Pauline Kael, with her typical uber-ignorance
> really got the ball rolling on Coppola (although I seem to remember
> that Judith Crist had You're A Big Boy, Now on her 1966 10 Best
> List). Coppola merely bought into the hype, and a very modest talent
> voraciously came to believe that yes, Virginia, he was a genius, and
> the sad, sorry results were Apocalypse, Now and One From The
> Heart.
Sarris, too, thought YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW promising. I'd go with THE
RAIN PEOPLE as Coppola's best, I think.
But THE GODFATHER was the highest-grossing film of all time for a while,
so it's not just critics that inflated Coppola's reputation. He was
doing something that people liked, and still like. - Dan (another
Coppola detractor)
3062
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 3:40pm
Subject: Negative criticism
OK, we've all had our fun, and what started off as guilty unpleasures
(confession is good for the soul) has subtly morphed into bashing
official classics, which is another thing altogether. Now let me
reiterate a small semi-theoretical point I have made twice about
the "Mizoguchi move": when bwe are bashing a faux classic (The
Godfather), we are very impoverished in reason, and reasons - more so
than when we're raising questions about Chaplin or Mizoguchi. Tosh's
quiet remark about Chaplin cracked me up, and the long excerpt from
Rohmer actually makes points that can be discussed, as do other
remarks about Chaplin's personality, but I have yet to hear why
Coppola or Lucas or any specific film by them is bad. In other words,
the Mizoguchi Move tends to be productive - as it was in Dan's hands -
because we seem better able to analyze (and therefore critique) good
work than bad, but it's important to be able to say why something is
bad, and to be able to say it at great length. Otherwise we're just
opinionating. I have seen detailed analysis of badness, or
wrongnesss, or reactionariness, or fake beauty, fake avant-gardeness
etc. in French, but not in English, where that is left to the daily
reviewers. They actually do try, sometimes, to say why, but it's
usually like a studio script reader's analysis of a script she's not
recommending for purchase: this character doesn't work, the third act
is too long etc. Daily reviewers like Farber or Sarris or Rosenbaum
who say why they hate something from an esthetic standpoint are rare.
The day I see a 40-pp. analysis of why The Godfather or Star Wars is
a bad film will be a new day dawning for American auteurism, whether
I happen to agree with it or not.
3063
From: Tosh
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 4:01pm
Subject: Re: Negative criticism
Let me give you a slightly more detailed reason why I don't like
Chaplin's films :
I don't really like any of his films. I don't think he's funny.
Well, let me even add more details. Generally I think his humor is
mean spirted and very egotistical. He never laughs at himself - which
for me is important in comedy. He is obviously a skilled performer -
and maybe even as a filmmaker - but with even that I find his imagery
really flat. In fact it reminds me of Kabuki theater - but without
the content.
Chaplin is either sentimental or mean. He's very black and white and
very little gray comes into focus regarding his character. Compared
to Keaton (in my opinion one of the great 20th Century artists)
Chaplin comes off un-important. Regarding pop U.S.cultural history,
he's a really important figure - but as an artist - I think he's
quite poor in that area.
So in a nutshell:
I don't really like any of his films. I don't think he's funny.
--
Tosh Berman
TamTam Books
http://www.tamtambooks.com
3064
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 4:39pm
Subject: Star Wars and The Godfather
I think both of these films are great. So you won't be able to count
on me for in-depth negative commentary.
There's no audience for negative criticism. It's a dirty job, and
it's immensely unfulfilling for both the reader and the writer. And
let's not beat around the bush, people have their egos attached to
the movies they love, and they don't want to hear about what's
supposedly bad about them. On the other hand, nobody's going to get
burned up if you praise a film (unless they've got a bone to pick, in
which case, jeez, get some perspective).
-Jaime
3065
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 4:56pm
Subject: negative criticism (another nail...
...in the coffin)
Just read David Denby's patently smug pan of KILL BILL made me
realize another trait among reviewers who take pleasure in pretending
that they're ripping a movie to shreds - and it's an essential defect
in negative criticism. These writers frequently must *prove* a
negative, that is, prove that something isn't in the picture when
(after looking at a scene/shot/frame/moment/etc another way) it
definitely is, or we find something else there instead that the
writer has failed to acknowledge or even notice, and it's good or
interesting or great or beautiful...
OR the writer has to harp on things that are "missing" that don't
matter.
OR things that are badly done that don't matter as much as things
that are great.
OR things that are badly done that are, in fact, really beautiful.
-Jaime
3066
From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 5:14pm
Subject: Re: Let me propose a different list
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
wrote:
>
> What are some of your favorite one-offs? Of course "Night of the
Hunter" is
> probably the greatest example of all time, but "Murder by Contract"
is one
> of those extraordinary leaps that can't be explained by any normal
cognitive
> means. I've never seen "Carnival of Souls" but I suspect that if
it's as
> good as its reputation, it might be another.
Leonard Kastle's only film, The Honeymoon Killers, is an impressive,
very dark black comedy about self-delusion and the complexities of
perception, which also manages to be quite compassionate in its
contemplation of human longing. In addition, the film's sense of
morality is nicely ambiguous, as Kastle manages to implicate the
audience in the crimes we witness. The film suffers from a lack of
modulation in it's tone, but it's still a very fine movie, one which
makes you lament that Kastle made no others. Tony Lo Bianco and
Shirley Stoller - who sounds like she's channeling Ida Lupino - are
unfalteringly pitch perfect in their dryly comic performances.
-- Damien
3067
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 5:32pm
Subject: Re: Negative criticism
"He never laughs at himself - which
for me is important in comedy."
I disagree. He laughs at himself quite a bit in "A
King in New York," and in many scenes in "City Lights"
and "Modern Times." And that's not to mention his
ishandling at the hand of martha Raye in "Monsieur
Verdoux." But Chaplin vs. Keaton is like Callas vs.
Tebaldi in many ways, as far as most of their
respective fans are concerned: the knives are out and
nobody wants to pull them back in.
Frankly I don't think they're comparable at all. Very
different artists working in very different ways.
But the bottom line is if you don't find Chaplin funny
there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.
--- Tosh wrote:
__________________________________
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3068
From:
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 1:38pm
Subject: Re: Re: a_film_by 1990s poll?
> Tag says that there are only three or four films that should be
> seen on the big screen only. New Rose Hotel is not among them.
>
>
I'm quite shocked to hear this. I would have thought that most people, if not
everyone, on this list would be vehemently opposed to the idea that only
three or four films should be seen on the big screen only. So Tag, what are they?
Or did I misunderstand this post?
Kevin
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
3069
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 5:56pm
Subject: Chaplin and Dwan and Hitchcock
Rohmer mentions Douglas Fairbanks as an artist of space, but
Dwan, who did some of DF's best films, was one, too. They built
giant sets for Robin Hood, and Chaplin smuggled himself onto
the set when they were going to film a shot of the great
drawbridge coming down. As the cameras rollled, the
drawbridge was lowered and out came Chaplin in his
nightgown, carrying a cat. He set the cat down, went back in and
the drawbridge was raised again. I wish to God someone had
saved that shot!
BTW, it's quite possible that Chaplin did a walk-on for Hitchcock
in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, in the shot where AH was originally
supposed to do his cameo (the beginning of the Italian
restaurant sequence). It sure looks like his silhouette. I said
Stan Laurel in the book, but I was talked into it - I think it's
Chaplin.
3070
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:13pm
Subject: Re: Negative Criticism
Some of the best articles in Cahiers during the Marxist period
were negative. Not the ones on Morocco and Lincoln and Sylvia
Scarlet and Intolerance, which were something else. I'm talking
about dissections of films that were supposed to be progressive
to show that they weren't. Off the top of my head: Ramparts of
Clay, Murmur of the Heart, Le Sauveur, The Go-Between, The
Visitors, State of Siege, Z, The Night Porter, In the Name of the
Father, the Taviani film about the shepherd that won at Cannes,
Thermroc, Dupont Lajoie, The Story of O, Camarades, Le fond
de l'air est rouge (lots of French titles, because they saw that as
their job). I don't agree with all of them, and some good films got
thrown into the mix during the Maoist period - Lancelot, The
Mother and the Whore - but they still make fascinating reading,
and I still use them. Films denounced as rightwing included
Jaws (Daney - the version in the magazine said "fascist," but he
changed it in La rampe) and The Exorcist (Kane). Serge Le
Peron deconstructed Star Wars pretty well, although personally I
love the film.
BTW, David does this well, and Dan when he was reviewing did
it a well, from a formalist perspective. The habit has stayed with
him. Andy Klein does it well now. And many people on this site
could do it if they tried.
Obviously, it's easier to "prove a negative" if the film purports to
be political, or modern or whatever. Then you can bash it for
failing or faking it (as in that Cahiers pan of A Man and a
Woman). But since most films DO purport to be doing
something fairly specific, it's very do-able, and who cares if a few
people get mad? Of course, doing it from an esthetic
perspective is hardest, but beauty is the hardest thing to write
about, as are its many contraries.
3071
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:15pm
Subject: Popups
My last post for the day: Why does yahoo assume we only go to
horror films? personally I love the genre, but if I'm going to be
seeing a pop-up every time I read or write a post, I'd rather see
the beautiful Cat in the Hat ad art. Can we petition them?
3072
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:30pm
Subject: The Corleone Saga, the Honeymoon Killers
When oh when is "The Godfather 1902-1959: The Complete Epic" going to be released on DVD? It's long been a dream of mine to actually watch all twelve hours of the Corleone saga in chronologicial order. I can't help wondering if some of the animosity towards the Godfather movies is simply due to their being popular. Anyhow, I think their great, though Sofia Copolla's bad acting in G3 is unfortunate.
I don't think "Stars Wars" is bad, just not anything more than silly entertainment. But more than anything it permanently dumbed-down American films, shifting the audience demographics and studio focus from adults to cocky male teenagers, and we have all been the poorer for it.
"The Honeymoon Killers" is one of my all-time favorites from the 1970's; I've read that Martin Scorsese started to direct it, but was then fired and screenwriter Leonard Kastle took over. I wonder why Kastle never wrote or directed anything else.
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3073
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:28pm
Subject: 1968-1975; the last great renaissance
My favorite time in film is the late sixties to the mid-seventies, probably from John Cassavetes' "Faces" to Altman's "Nashville." The production code was banished for good, and there was an explosion of intelligent adult filmmaking dealing with stuff like sex and relationships with an honesty and sophistication that had been the province of novels (and European films) for years. When I think of this time, I think of movies like "Midnight Cowboy," "The Last Picture Show," "Five Easy Pieces," "The Last Detail," "Badlands," and, as someone mentioned, Copolla's "The Rain People." Even the Western caught the wave, and we exceptionally smart and provocative examples of the genre with "Once Upon a Time in the West," "Little Big Man," and "Ulzana's Raid." Not to mention great Western comedies like "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" and Robert Benton's "Bad Company." Sophisticated, intellectually ambitious movies were "in vogue" for a few years, and it looked like Hollywood had finally matured.
There were some silly exceptions, of course, most notably the disaster movies (though Richard Lester's "Juggernaut" is a great-- and very grown-up -- movie) Then, starting with "Jaws" and finally, with "Stars Wars" the studios retreated from adulthood with a vengeance, becoming sillier and more childish than production code Hollywood ever was.
This is not to say that great movies weren't made before the late sixties; of course I love all the Pantheon auteurs, and all the great B-movie directors, but you could feel the shadow of American puritanism and what DeToqueville observed was a resistance in American culture of coming off as too learned hanging over popular American films in a manner that never affected novels and plays. For a brief while we seemed really liberated, and that I will always miss.
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3074
From: Tag Gallagher
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:48pm
Subject: Re: Re: a_film_by 1990s poll?
Tag didn't say "only three or four films should be seen on the big sceen
only."
Tag said that Jean-Pierre needed to see STROMBOLI on a big screen (and
optimal auditorium conditions: I would recommend the Vienna film museum,
but not a family night), that it loses too much on a small screen and
without loud sound.
Tag thinks that certain movies, once you get to know them properly, and
providing you have a really good video monitor and turn out all the
other lights, can be re-experienced on video.
Tag cited Battle of Midway as a movie that needs a big impact. Also
Gertrud, if only to see people's faces. A few others.
*
Tag thinks the problem is, on the whole, not a question of big screen vs
home video, but rather of social screening vs solipsistic screening.
What is lost with home video is the "support" of mass audience, which
was a factor built in to most of our pre-1960s movie masterpieces (cf,
for example, my pieces about McCarey or Sirk or Ophuls: how a filmmaker
"plays" an audience through camera angles and cutting). But this
"support" did not disappear because of video. Tag saw many a film at
MoMA during the 1970s where the audience could not possibly have been
called supportive: you never never never got to see the last shot of The
Searchers unless you were in the first row, because half of them were on
their feet walking out, and their performance during the rest of the
show wasn't much better -- for any movie. Tag thinks most of us movie
freaks long ago concluded that the fewer people, the better, and best to
sit as far away from anyone else as possible.
But this is not what God or Max intended. For the record, Tag has had
four (only, alas!) movie experiences in my life in which the audience
was supportive (meaning that, like in a college basketball game, they
were totally invoved in every moment of the spectacle, and reacted en
masse with total emotion and involvement). One of these was seeing 7
Women with an all-black packed audience in Philadelphia in 1965.
Another was seeing Imitation of Life at a suburban theater around 1960,
where they handed out Kleenex at the end. Another was seeing Sunrise in
Amiens last year. Another was a classroom screening of The Long Gray
Line in 1992 which left every student in tears (at the end of a course
where they started out loathing and despising Ford through the first two
films).
This is the true nature of cinema, at least pre-1960s.
LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
>
> > Tag says that there are only three or four films that should be
> > seen on the big screen only. New Rose Hotel is not among them.
> >
> >
>
> I'm quite shocked to hear this. I would have thought that most people,
> if not
> everyone, on this list would be vehemently opposed to the idea that only
> three or four films should be seen on the big screen only. So Tag,
> what are they?
> Or did I misunderstand this post?
>
> Kevin
>
3075
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:51pm
Subject: Re: Negative Criticism
In an episode of "The Simpsons" Homer becomes a food critic. First he
only give good reviews, because he love food. Then he becomes "a
serious" critic and begins to give negative reviews only. Lisa
confronts him and says "These are not reviews Dad, these are just mean
comments".
The truth of a child.
I remember the first time I actually got upset reading a critic. It
was in 1984, when Time Out wrote "Heartless fireworks ignited by a
permanently retarded director with no brain and to much cash" about
"Star Wars". I love that film, I've seen it 157 times - and while I
dont consider it high art, such mean words were in my opinion unjust.
I can understand why some wannabe would write something like that to
draw attention to himself. But the day we begin to acknowledge such
comments we become impoverished.
Sadly it has become fashion to be mean as a substitute for
originality, and worse, mean critics often stand alone without
arguments, because the critic only had 250-500 words available.
And what critic would go back years later and honestly say: "Listen, I
was wrong, this really is a great film, Im sorry for writing what I
did" - would he even be respected if he did?
3076
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: Negative Criticism
"And what critic would go back years later and
honestly say: "Listen, I
was wrong, this really is a great film, Im sorry for
writing what I
did" - would he even be respected if he did?"
I did that with "Once From the Heart."
--- Henrik Sylow wrote:
__________________________________
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3077
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:09pm
Subject: Re: changes
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Rick Segreda
> wrote:
"I don't think "Stars Wars" is bad, just not anything more than silly
entertainment. But more than anything it permanently dumbed-down
American films, shifting the audience demographics and studio focus
from adults to cocky male teenagers, and we have all been the poorer
for it. "
When sound was introduced Lillian Gish said that cinema was dead, as
you didnt have to pay attention to the screen to follow the film. As
TV was introduced, cinema died again.
Yet despite all these changes, even "change in demograpics that made
us poorer", cinema lived on and gave us great film, even masterpieces
that changed not only us but our culture.
I say these changes made us richer and cinema will keep on giving us a
reason to say "WOW" on and on again :)
Henrik "CINEMA" Sylow
3078
From: Yoel Meranda
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:10pm
Subject: negative criticism and guilty unpleasures
I don't believe in negative criticism, not when we are talking about
aesthetics.
Everybody here would agree that there might be infinite ways of
making good
films so it's always possible that I miss something very beautiful in
a film I don't
like. Moreover, I don't believe that films are bad because of any
simple
reasons such as "the acting is bad" or "it doesn't make me involved"
any
combinations of reasons like that. They are usually bad because
there is
nothing expressive in them, because there is no profound vision
behind it.
That's why I won't try to defend why I really HATE godard. I haven't
seen that
many of his films, and I will definitely give him another chance
(breathless and
contempt or going to be screened in Block cinema in the next month or
so).
He is pretentious and the worst thing about him is that he is a
pseudo-
intellectual.
My favorite Godard story is the following: (i'm sure there are people
here who
know the dialogue word by word, I'm not claiming to be exact, but the
main
idea is there).
An interviewer asks Godard: "You said ten years ago that 'cinema is
dead'
and there are still films you like and you still make films, what did
you mean?"
and the answer of the most profound person in the history of cinema
is: "What
I meant is that the cinema, the way we know it, is dead" (Doesn't
the cinema,
the way we know it, die with every single great filmmaker we
discover?)
He also said that Spielberg became guiltier than Nazis when he made
Schindler's List. I agree that Schindler's List is a bad film, and I
see his point,
but to say that he is worse than Nazis?
To me, Godard is a 'provocateur'.
And the statement that proves his shallowness is the following: "The
most
honest image you can have is a camera directed towards a mirror" I
don't
know if he has seen anything by Ernie Gehr but I am glad I have and
know
what honesty really can be in cinema.
I know that his statements above do not prove he is a bad filmmaker.
It just
proves that his thinking is flawed and that he is a
pseudo-intellectual.
The fact that he projects this attitude to his films is the reason
why I think his
films are almost worthless. (He has his moments here and there, but
as a
whole?)
Sorry if anybody here genuinely loves Godard and is offended by my
comments!
Yoel
3079
From: rpporton55
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:59pm
Subject: Re: Negative Criticism
Among Pauline Kael's most obnoxious traits was undoubtedly her refusal to =
see films
more than once —which was part and parcel of her refusal to re-evaluate pas=
t
positions. A particuarly egregious example of negative criticism (if it can=
be called
criticism at all) is cited in the odd David Denby piece in last week's New =
Yorker which
recounts his "life as a Paulette." Kael apparently confronted Nicholas Ray =
over a
Chinese meal and made many condescending remarks about his remarkable outpu=
t.
Whatever Denby's faults (and they are legion), he at least recognizes that =
his mentor's
behavior was both heartless and stupid.
R. Porton
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> "And what critic would go back years later and
> honestly say: "Listen, I
> was wrong, this really is a great film, Im sorry for
> writing what I
> did" - would he even be respected if he did?"
>
> I did that with "Once From the Heart."
>
>
>
> --- Henrik Sylow wrote:
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
3080
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Let me propose a different list
Oh yeah! I'd forgotten all about that one. Definitely!
g
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Bona"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 1:14 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Let me propose a different list
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
> wrote:
> >
> > What are some of your favorite one-offs? Of course "Night of the
> Hunter" is
> > probably the greatest example of all time, but "Murder by Contract"
> is one
> > of those extraordinary leaps that can't be explained by any normal
> cognitive
> > means. I've never seen "Carnival of Souls" but I suspect that if
> it's as
> > good as its reputation, it might be another.
>
>
> Leonard Kastle's only film, The Honeymoon Killers, is an impressive,
> very dark black comedy about self-delusion and the complexities of
> perception, which also manages to be quite compassionate in its
> contemplation of human longing. In addition, the film's sense of
> morality is nicely ambiguous, as Kastle manages to implicate the
> audience in the crimes we witness. The film suffers from a lack of
> modulation in it's tone, but it's still a very fine movie, one which
> makes you lament that Kastle made no others. Tony Lo Bianco and
> Shirley Stoller - who sounds like she's channeling Ida Lupino - are
> unfalteringly pitch perfect in their dryly comic performances.
>
> -- Damien
>
>
>
> 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/
>
>
>
>
3081
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:23pm
Subject: Re: Godfather Coppola
Don't underestimate the attraction of the book in feeding the box office for
The Godfather. It's been more than three decades and maybe we've all
forgotten but that sucker just jumped off the shelves.
g
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
3082
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:23pm
Subject: Re: Re: Negative Criticism
And I did it with Chinatown, although I still find the film rather cold.
George Robinson
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ehrenstein"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Re: Negative Criticism
> "And what critic would go back years later and
> honestly say: "Listen, I
> was wrong, this really is a great film, Im sorry for
> writing what I
> did" - would he even be respected if he did?"
>
> I did that with "Once From the Heart."
>
>
>
> --- Henrik Sylow wrote:
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
>
>
> 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/
>
>
>
>
3083
From:
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:53pm
Subject: A Countess from Hong Kong; Gleason
A Countess from Hong Kong seemed like a very charming comedy, when I saw it years ago.
The soundtrack used to be available on LP. It has perhaps the best melodies of any Chaplin film. Chaplin wrote the tunes for his sound films, although apparently professional musicians were brought in to orchestrate them. The big waltz number of this film seems magical. You can listen to it countless times, and still get pleasure from its beautiful progression of moods and melodies.
By the way, I have to be counted as a Chaplin fan. "The Gold Rush" and "The Great Dictator" seem like classic comedies. His change of pace short, "The Idle Class" (1922), where he plays a rich drunken wastrel, is also a gem.
Jackie Gleason also had a rich drunkard among his stock characterizations, "Reginald Van Gleason the Third". This was a thinly disguised version of Reginald Vanderbilt, the society playboy who drank himself to death in the 1930's. Gleason looked astonishingly like him while made up as Reggie, right down to the frock coat and idiotic "society" mustache. The wordless sketch where Reggie swears off drinking, and empties out all the caches of booze he has hidden around his mansion, is a gem. Gleason was making great silent comedy shorts, all through the 1960's.
Mike Grost
I also like Crazy Guggenheim and Joe the Bartender. The SSOTFS and all it subcommittees lives!
3084
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 9:51pm
Subject: Henrik, the analogy doesn't work
Henrik, please...this is a bizarre analogy. Comparing what "Star Wars" did to film to what color, sound, widescreen, and television did to films is like comparing blank verse and the invention of printing presses in terms of how they affected modern poetry.
A more appropriate analogy with "Stars Wars" would be Hollywood's imposition of the Hays Code in 1934 on movies. For the long duration of the censor, movies were the poorer for their not being able to deal with adult themes with the same degree of freedom given to plays and novels. American movies had to be incredibly and ridiculously circumspect when it came to dealing with sex; a certain ludicrous childishness set in, and even the best movies from that time suffered for it. For example, in "The Letter," Bette Davis simply couldn't say she shot a man because he tried to rape her (as in Maugham's story), but because "he tried to make love to me." Or look at what Hollywood did to "Street Car Named Desire."
Great movies continued to be made, but when you look at the French, Italian, Swedish, and Japanese films from that same time, it is dismaying to think about how much better old movies would hold up if they were allowed to deal with sex more honestly, and not have each movie conclude with and ending that was either happy and/or morally correct.
With "Star Wars," movies reverted to a different kind of infantilism; grown-up, realistic movies became the exception rather than the rule; the rule became stupid Bruckheimer blockbusters, produced for zillions of dollars, full of violence and special effects, one-dimensional characters, cynically geared towards nothing more than making a killing during the opening week, and earning enough with video-game tie-ins. That occasionally, a good Bruckheimer movie or a good sci-fi movie got made doesn't invalidate my point that the overall effect of "Star Wars" impoverished mainstream American filmmaking.
Henrik Sylow wrote:
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Rick Segreda
> wrote:
"I don't think "Stars Wars" is bad, just not anything more than silly
entertainment. But more than anything it permanently dumbed-down
American films, shifting the audience demographics and studio focus
from adults to cocky male teenagers, and we have all been the poorer
for it. "
When sound was introduced Lillian Gish said that cinema was dead, as
you didnt have to pay attention to the screen to follow the film. As
TV was introduced, cinema died again.
Yet despite all these changes, even "change in demograpics that made
us poorer", cinema lived on and gave us great film, even masterpieces
that changed not only us but our culture.
I say these changes made us richer and cinema will keep on giving us a
reason to say "WOW" on and on again :)
Henrik "CINEMA" Sylow
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3085
From:
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:20pm
Subject: Negative criticism
I'm just now catching up with this discussion and I see that lot of what I'm
about to write here has already been said by others, but I'll post my take on
this anyway.
I remember reading "The American Cinema" for the first time years ago and
relating profoundly to the anecdote Sarris mentions about Ian Cameron, "Movie,"
and "Lawrence of Arabia." For those not familiar with it, Sarris writes that
since neither Cameron nor his colleagues at "Movie" liked "Lawrence" enough to
analyze its mise-en-scene, no review of the film was published. Here comes
the interesting part. Cameron justified the shutout on the grounds that "the
best review of any film will be written by the critic who best understands the
film, usually because he is most sympathetic to it."
This motto instantly became my own motto, as it were, as a film critic. It's
a sentiment which also relates to something Fred, I believe, has said over
the years: that he's more confident of the films he loves than the films he
hates - because there's always the chance he's missing something in the films he
hates. (Let me know if I'm misquoting you, Fred!) I wholeheartedly agree.
Personally, I'm much more interested in what people like than what they dislike,
even if what they like are films (or directors) I've previously dismissed; if
someone makes a compelling enough case for just about anything, there's a
good chance I'll revisit it.
Now, I've published negative criticism in my time and I'm sure I'll continue
to do so. But since I don't write for a paper or other media outlet which
requires me to review many releases each week, I have the freedom to more or less
write about whichever films I want to - and the films I most want to write
about are the films I love. I don't get any particular pleasure from talking
about a film I dislike (unless it's an "interesting failure" or a minor film by
a noteworthy director; those reviews can be fun to write), but I get a great
deal of pleasure from unpacking what's great about a great film, from trying to
evoke in words the particular spell it casts over me. So on the one hand,
it's about what I enjoy writing about most. But I also think there's some real
truth to Cameron's idea that the most perceptive writing on a film usually (or
frequently) comes from its staunchest defenders.
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
3086
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:30pm
Subject: Re: More unloved "classics"
JPC writes:
> A golden age is never golden for those who live through it.
Amen to that. I'm fond of saying that almost every period in movie
history has its own justifications, its own "classics" and unsung
gems; the challenge is to get past one's biases to recognize the good
stuff at the time. I plead guilty here: almost all of the films
from, say, the '90s that I would accord "Masterpiece" status to now,
I undoubtedly underestimated at the time (even if I liked them.)
As for the greatest film decade, I'm with you guys on the '50s. I
look at what came out in some random year like 1958 and I can't get
over it: "Touch of Evil"; "Bonjour Tristesse"; "Vertigo"; "Some Came
Running"; "A Time to Love and a Time to Die"; and on and on. Sigh.
Peter
3087
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:33pm
Subject: Re: Rouge issue 1
Congrats, Adrian! I look forward to reading the full contents.
Peter
who likes the pared down, easy-on-the-eye aesthetics of ROUGE in this
age of aesthetic clutter
3088
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:39pm
Subject: Re: More unloved "classics"
> As for the greatest film decade, I'm with you guys on the '50s. I
> look at what came out in some random year like 1958 and I can't get
> over it: "Touch of Evil"; "Bonjour Tristesse"; "Vertigo"; "Some
Came
> Running"; "A Time to Love and a Time to Die"; and on and on. Sigh.
Jack of CINEMANIA fame told me that's the generally agreed-
upon "greatest year for American cinema"; those films but also (based
on reputation; I haven't seen all of these) MAN OF THE WEST, THE LAST
HURRAH, TARNISHED ANGELS, THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, BUCHANAN RIDES
ALONE, not to mention A MOVIE BY BRUCE CONNER and whatever Chuck
Jones was doing that year.
-Jaime
3089
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:46pm
Subject: Re: Re: More unloved "classics"
"and
> whatever Chuck
> Jones was doing that year."
"Robin Hood Daffy":
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052139/
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
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3090
From:
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:05pm
Subject: Realism: Pro and Con
A healthy discussion is occurring on a_film_by about the value of realism.
Most film critics today seem deeply convinced that realism is very important
to make a quality film. Implicitly, realism is defined as "serious films about
the daily life of ordinary talentless people in modern times". Such highly
touted films as "You Can Count on Me", "Yi Yi" and "American Beauty" fall in
this category.
I sometimes like movies that are realistic in this sense. "Solas" (Benito
Zambrano) is an excellent Spanish film about a poor woman in Seville and her
problems. It has a lot to say about the problems of "the working poor".
But I also like films that are completely non-realistic. IMHO, most critics
today are dismissing such films out of hand, or even unseen. Huge areas of the
cinema become invisible: science fiction films, silly comedies, action
thrillers, all sorts of surrealist experimental movies.
You NEVER see serious film journals discuss sf films like "Wing Commander"
(Chris Roberts) or "Murdercycle" (Tom Callaway). These films are actually fairly
respectable productions - they do not wallow in gore, have no politically
offensive material - far from it, "Wing Commander" has some good points about the
evils of prejudice. In fact, there are actually more social commentary
"messages from Western Union" in "Wing Commander" than in "Yi Yi".
Similarly, one notices that the LEAST experimental foreign movies seem to
dominate critical discourse in film writing. A film like Sucre amer / Bitter
Sugar (Christian Lara) has some simple experimental film techniques that should
not baffle anyone who has spent time with Resnais in Marienbad or Providence.
But Lara seems like a non-person in contemporary film criticism, whereas the
strictly realistic Edward Yang seems about ready to enter most critics' Pantheon.
Other experimental films like "Rampo" and "Souzhou River" and "Desperate
Remedies" also seem to have sunk without a trace.
What bother me a bit about all this is that "realism" is not argued as an
explicit aesthetic position. If a critic believes that "realism" is a superior
form of cinema, and defends this position explicitly, then that is a respectable
aesthetic choice. But if this is just a hidden prejudice, then we are missing
a lot of cinema - maybe three quarters of all the films made.
Aesthetic convictions are one thing; merely following critical fashion is
another.
Mike Grost
3091
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:14pm
Subject: Re: Realism: Pro and Con
"we are missing
a lot of cinema - maybe three quarters of all the
films made."
Indeed. One of my favorite "unrealistic" films of
recent years is "The Sticky Fingers of Time" --
arguably the best lesbian time-travel film ever made.
I scarcely know anyone who has seen it. And it's on
DVD.
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
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3092
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:30pm
Subject: Re: More unloved "classics"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Tonguette"
wrote:
> JPC writes:
>
> > A golden age is never golden for those who live through it.
>
> Amen to that. I'm fond of saying that almost every period in movie
> history has its own justifications, its own "classics" and unsung
> gems; the challenge is to get past one's biases to recognize the
good
> stuff at the time. I plead guilty here: almost all of the films
> from, say, the '90s that I would accord "Masterpiece" status to
now,
> I undoubtedly underestimated at the time (even if I liked them.)
>
> As for the greatest film decade, I'm with you guys on the '50s. I
> look at what came out in some random year like 1958 and I can't get
> over it: "Touch of Evil"; "Bonjour Tristesse"; "Vertigo"; "Some
Came
> Running"; "A Time to Love and a Time to Die"; and on and on. Sigh.
>
> Peter
But, Peter, come to think of it, I must reverse myself, because at
the time I, and a few others, were actually aware that it was a
Golden Age, that amazingly, every month, every week almost, there
came some new stupendous marvel.
Take 1950 (it's already the fifties, I'll assume): All About Eve,
Sunset Blvd, Night and the City, The Asphalt Jungle, In a Lonely
Place Wagon Master, Gun Crazy, Panic in the Streets, Where the
Sidewalk Ends, The Gunfighter, The Breaking Point, Outrage, Never
Fear, The Steel helmet, The Flame and the Arrow, No Man of Her
Own.... And you could make as stunning a list for almost any year in
the decade. Let's not get carried away, I won't...
JPC
3093
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:32pm
Subject: Re: Realism: Pro and Con
> Indeed. One of my favorite "unrealistic" films of
> recent years is "The Sticky Fingers of Time" --
> arguably the best lesbian time-travel film ever made.
> I scarcely know anyone who has seen it. And it's on
> DVD.
Ardent fan of lezzie action that I am, I have always been intrigued
by the DVD cover of this one, which has two hot chicks
(sorry Fred, but they are aesthetically awesome)
in lingerie and they are totally about to make out or something. I
want to rent it but then I remember, there are dozens of John Ford,
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Howard Hawks, and Vincente Minnelli films I
haven't seen yet. One of these days; I try to throw in something off-
kilter every so often when I go a-rentin'.
-Jaime
3094
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:38pm
Subject: Re: block busting
Rick
The impact and effect of "Star Wars" (the film) on the Block Buster is
dismisable. Even after three re premieres, its sequal, "Empire Strikes
Back", was neither produced as nor considered a block buster, even
after early 80s standards. "Empire Strikes Back" was below average
budget and only opend on 125 screens, where a true block buster, as
for instance "Raiders of the Lost Ark", would opend on 1000 screens.
"Star Wars" wasnt the phenomenon we consider it today before after the
succes of "Empire Strikes Back" ("Return of the Jedi" had twice the
budget and opend on 1000+ screens).
Yet despite its slow start, once the "Star Wars" machine began to roll
around 1983, it began an avalance, that to date has grossed about $28
billion. Thats not tickets alone, thats also VHS, DVD, merchandise and
crossmarketing.
The shift in consumer segment age was not done before 83/84 with
"Return of the Jedi" and "Temple of Doom" that even got a new rating
PG-13. Prior to this the main consumer segment was 15-24, today its
13-21(24), who place 60% at the box office, but only are aprx 15% of
the population. The lowering of age in the consumer segment was
natural thing to do. Kids today have part time jobs outside school,
they spend tons of money and its all about getting their hands on it.
With all respect, the shift is -2 years from 15 to 13 over about ten
years, thats is hardly "infantilism". I dont have the years on hand,
but when did voting age drop from 21 to 18? and did that make the
political institutions "infantile" aswell?
Today a block buster isn't advertised, its branded. Disney already in
1991 spoke about exposure, instead of advertisement and it all was so
"out of hand" that Katzenberg wrote his famous 1991 memo. With all
modesty, the Block Buster is far more important to the development of
cinema than color and scope combined. It redifined cinema in terms of
box office, it began computer effects, it revitalized the adventure
genre, and as such "Star Wars" is the grandfather of modern cinema.
If Mayer or Selznick knew what we know today, they would have done the
exact same thing.
I understand your point of view. Even within the buisness your point
of view is being discussed. In 1991 Katzenberg wrote a memo asking
people to "calm down", to "avoid being sucked in by the Block Buster
mentality" and "to create story driven films again". But I dont see
the Block Buster as a problem, I see it as a potential blessing and I
foresee a new Golden Age of cinema. When I look at the amounts of bad
films produced by the studios during their Golden Age and look at
today, I have faith, because there has never been more talent and the
more talent, then more chance of great film.
Henrik
3095
From: jaketwilson
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:54pm
Subject: Re: Negative Criticism
I've spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of years writing
negative criticism -- covering Australian cinema, it's hard to do
otherwise. But I do find myself wondering much of the time, what's
the point? It's always depressing to put significant amounts of
energy into thinking about films that don't interest or excite you; a
lot of the most forcefully written pans have a neurotic undercurrent,
as if the critic was secretly fascinated by the work but unable to
acknowledge his or her own ambivalence.
It goes back to the issue of pleasure; if other people are having a
good time, why ruin it for them by making snide comments? A lot of
people (not just movie buffs) define themselves partly by their
tastes, and if you tell them that a movie they liked isn't any good
they feel upset and personally insulted. I think this is completely
reasonable! There are few things less edifying than critical malice,
i.e. writing that exists solely to prove that the critic is superior
either to the reader or to the filmmaker under attack. And I agree
that critics flatter themselves when they presume to give "advice" to
filmmakers about how they could do better.
So why bother at all? The conclusion I've come to is that if negative
criticism is going to have value on more than a consumer guide level,
it needs to have a political or moral purpose. Not just "This film is
weak, and can be safely ignored" but "This film is actively
pernicious, and deserves to be trashed as thoroughly as possible."
But in order to make that kind of argument, you need a theory of
badness, i.e. a working account of why some pleasures are legitimate
and others not. Most of the terms traditionally used to describe bad
art (like "kitsch") have fallen into disfavour, so maybe a new
vocabulary is needed.
Armond White does great negative criticism. Anyone read his pan of
MYSTIC RIVER?
JTW
3096
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: Realism: Pro and Con
And one of those hot chicks has a prehensile tail.
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
__________________________________
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The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
3097
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Oct 22, 2003 0:04am
Subject: Re: Realism: Pro and Con
I AM SO THERE IT'S NOT EVEN WORTH MENTIONING.
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> And one of those hot chicks has a prehensile tail.
>
>
> --- "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
3098
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Wed Oct 22, 2003 0:42am
Subject: someplace I learned that the firework displays were linked to sexual happenings... why is that so? Where did I learn that?
> "Henrik Sylow" wrote:
>
> So how does a well educated cinephile tell the difference between PhD
> Bob's sophisticated code and Highschool Bub who just wants to stand
> out in the crowd?
> --------------------------------------------
> From: "Eric Henderson"
>
> (Speaking for myself) He doesn't. And he doesn't worry about it.
> Because there are plenty of self-taught high-schoolers who seem to
> know just as much about film theory as do people working on their
> Master's. And vice versa.
I've mentioned that I spend most of my time learning about film as I am
interested in screenwriting. Having a Ph.D and MD, I've masted quite a
bit of info. What amazes me about film studies (and granted, I am
doing this informally except for sitting in on some classes) is the
lack of a basic "curriculm." Bear with me a moment. I suspect there
are probably textbooks (I have Gianetti's, and others) that share a
common set of classic films, etc. but there seems to be no common
ground, ala a periodic table or three rules of thermodynamics, etc.
that all film students would seem to know about. As a physician, I
have a basic knowledge that I share with other physicians. Even as a
psychologist studying the elusive human, there is still common ground
of discussion.
Comparing the basic knowledge of science courses and even social
science courses, cinema seems so much more dependent on the 'tastes'
previously discussed. Are there no standards in cinema?
I recently attended the screenwriting expo in LA. A great 3 day event
with about 6 daily time slots to hear different speakers give their
take on screenwriting...the entire gamut...theme, plot, character,
dialogue, etc. I made an interesting suggestion that hopefully will be
implement next year: could each speaker reference the 10 films that
best demonstrate his/her take on screenwriting? IE, which films best
show character development (as the speaker understands it), or dialogue
great for subtext, or plot twists. The reason specific film examples
are needed is because in the course of a day, a single film will be
praised and decried for different reasons, and the student is left
wondering...
If labels or definitions could be given to some set of definitive
scenes, the student could better grasp the concepts being
described...and that is the point I am getting to. When I read
reviews, they tell me what the movie is about. When I read criticism,
they tell me what the critic felt about the movie. There has to be
something in the middle, something that describes what is happening in
a particular scene that helps me understand what I feel (or the critic
feels) about that scene. I don't want to be spoon fed, but someplace I
learned that the firework displays were linked to sexual happenings...
why is that so? Where did I learn that?
3099
From:
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:50pm
Subject: Rick, the analogy doesn't work
Rick, I don't think Henrik was comparing Star Wars to the importance of the
coming of sound (at least not in the post you pasted in your email). And I
wouldn't presume to speak for Henrik. But the way I read his post is that he was
railing against the totalizing view of cinema history in this phrase of yours:
"More than anything (Star Wars) permanently dumbed-down American films,
shifting the audience demographics and studio focus from adults to cocky male
teenagers, and we have all been the poorer for it." C'mon, Rick - you had to expect
someone was going to poke huge holes through a statement like that. If indeed
"grown-up, realistic movies became the exception rather than the rule," as you
say in your follow-up post, is the number of "grown-up, realistic movies" so
small nowadays that you seriously feel the poorer for it? That number is so
small that you can keep on top of them all of them and still feel the poorer for
it? Maybe I'm an idiot or I don't see enough movies (that would be a laugh)
but I know I personally don't have time to see all the movies I want to/should
see and I get into many of them for free. Just in the last two weeks, I've
seen the following new American films all of which I liked (even loved) to
varying degrees: Party Monster, Down With Love, Destino, Los Angeles Plays Itself,
Panels for the Walls of Heaven, Lost in Translation and Pieces of April (and
one American film I hated - A Mighty Wind). Now, you may think I'm an idiot for
liking these and I'm not sure how "grown-up" or "realistic" any of them are. I
don't even know how American some of them (Lost in Translation, Destino) are.
But this is just films from 2003. I shudder to think of all the great
post-1977 American films I've missed. In short, I agree with Henrik when he says that
the world went on after various "deaths." Cinema survived sound and it
survived Star Wars with more great movies than there is time to see them.
I also think you need to nuance your reading of the Hays Code. You say that
"movies were the poorer for their not being able to deal with adult themes with
the same degree of freedom given to plays and novels." Instead of making a
list of incredibly rich, adult films from this era, I suggest you check out the
"Reading the Code(s)" chapter from Patricia White's book Uninvited - Classical
Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability, one of the finest books on
film I know. The chapter concerns, in part, the differences between These Three
(1936) and The Children's Hour (1961), two film versions of Lillian Hellman's
play, and what was lost in the latter film's challenge to the Code. Her
ostensible point, though, is that homosexuality was very much "there" in Code-era
cinema. The presence of "actual" gay characters in a film doesn't automatically
make it more realistic or progressive or adult or richer or whatnot. Gay and
lesbian films like But I'm A Cheerleader (1999) and The Broken Hearts Club
(2000) are gay-positive and feature openly gay characters. But films with no openly
gay characters and with no gay-positive themes like Rebecca (1940) and Torch
Song (1953) can be termed gay and lesbian films just as easily (they're even
gayer, sez I).
And maybe you can toss in Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape. Her cinema
history is pretty totalizing as well. But what I've always loved about it is
that she doesn't find post-Code films necessarily so damn liberating. Instead,
she sees both an intensified disgust with/violence towards women (Mikey &
Nicky) and a large-scale absence of women in the spate of buddy films of the
Jeremiah Johnson ilk whereas women had a certain mobility and irreverence in, say,
1930s screwball comedies.
In general, I think it's problematic to always draw from, to paraphrase
Judith Mayne, the realm of the obvious rather than the explorable and the
questionable.
Kevin
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
3100
From: jaketwilson
Date: Wed Oct 22, 2003 1:04am
Subject: Re: someplace I learned that the firework displays were linked to sexual happenings... why is that so? Where did I learn that?
Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> What amazes me about film studies (and granted, I am
> doing this informally except for sitting in on some classes) is the
> lack of a basic "curriculm." Bear with me a moment. I suspect
there are probably textbooks (I have Gianetti's, and others) that
> share a common set of classic films, etc. but there seems to be no
common ground, ala a periodic table or three rules of thermodynamics,
etc. that all film students would seem to know about. As a
> physician, I have a basic knowledge that I share with other
physicians. Even as a psychologist studying the elusive human, there
is still common ground of discussion.
>
> Comparing the basic knowledge of science courses and even social
> science courses, cinema seems so much more dependent on
> the 'tastes' previously discussed. Are there no standards in
> cinema?
Probably the most widely-used textbook along these lines is FILM ART:
AN INTRODUCTION by David Bordwell and co. I really don't like
Bordwell, though I've learnt from him, and I think the problem is
exactly the pretence of scientific objectivity, which leads him to
reduce aesthetics to various kinds of quantifiable data.
JTW
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