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This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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3801
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 3:21pm
Subject: Re: Spielberg
I have no problem with the final part of AI. I'm suspicious, however, on how
Spielberg uses identification in the film. Getting to see all films by
Kubrick from the 60s on, there's no identification between viewer and main
character. If we didn't get that "oh, poor boy, a robot with feelings is a
child" stuff, the film would fit clearly into Kubrick filmography. My main
problem with the film is that it always tries to make me forget that the boy
is a machine programmed to love and, because it suffers and he's so cutey, I
have to feel compassion for it.
Of course the film is strange and daring enough, it's for sure a "big sick
film" (grand film malade) and, when Spielberg is in question, this makes
everything more interesting.
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "hotlove666"
To:
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 7:38 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Spielberg
> As for the endings, they are a symptom of the problem George
> has fingered, and they are truly horrrible, but SS finally beat the
> problem in A.I., because he had an ending and a story Kubrick
> handed him after 15 years of getting it right. I think the ending of
> A.I. is exquisite and profound. Many accused it of being a
> Spielberg add-on, but no one who has suffered through the
> endings of Close Encounters, ET and Schindler could imagine
> that it came from the maker of those films.
3802
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 4:45pm
Subject: AI
They spent a million dollars digitally removing Osmond's eye-blinks.
But I agree that a real android, which is what Kubrick wanted, would
probably have been better.
3803
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 5:57pm
Subject: AI
3804
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 5:58pm
Subject: AI
INTRODUCTION
The basis for AI is a thirteen-page short story by Brian Aldiss, about
Henry and Monica Swinton, a couple who live in luxury. They are
childless, as procreation is limited to those few winning a lottery,
thereby getting a pregnancy permit. Meanwhile to fill out the void
Henry gets an android child, accompanied by a Teddy, who educates and
comforts the child. The story ends when Henry and Monica win the
lottery.
Kubrick never wanted to film Aldiss' story. According to Aldiss,
Stanley was set upon making a modernized version of Pinocchio in which
David the android boy meets the Blue Fairy and becomes transformed
into a real boy. Aldiss warned Kubrick about picking up the fairy tale
motif. He thought that the story should create modern myth, not
imitate a fairy tale. But Kubrick wanted the fairy tale motif,
especially the Pinocchio motif, since it was so obvious. It also
allowed a form to flesh out the characters, which Aldiss' short story
lacked. To Aldiss the story was a vignette of wants and needs; to
Kubrick it was a tale about man's desire to create.
That is why several elements of Aldiss' world are lacking. For
instance all rich people are thin and well build, because they have a
tapeworm (a parasite) implanted, which eats 50% of all food consumed.
The world is also vastly overpopulated and procreation is limited by a
lottery to control fertility rate (children born without permission
are killed if caught). In Kubrick's version social comments were
removed and replaced with motifs concerning androids.
THE BLUE FAIRY
The core of AI is the pursuit of a dream. Hobby explains it to David
by proxy of the Blue Fairy: The Blue Fairy is to chase down a dream.
The Blue Fairy is introduced in the first part of the story thru the
tale of Pinocchio
"As he slept, he dreamt he saw the fairy, lovely and smiling, who gave
him a kiss, saying: Brave Pinocchio. In return for your good heart I
forgive you all you're past misdeeds. Be good in future, and you will
be happy. Then the dream ended and Pinocchio awoke, full of amazement.
You can imagine how astonished he was when he saw that he was no
longer a puppet, but a real boy, just like any other boy."
To David it becomes important to become a real boy, as it is
equivalent of being loved. As a Mecha, David's love to Monica is
unconditional and targeted. While Monica loves David, her love is
divided for Martin as well; but her love is nevertheless real, it's
just different.
The love that David has for Monica is the love Martin demands of her.
She is his mother, he wants her love and Martin's demand is selfish
and unconditional. David is just a super toy, at best, he is not real,
hence deserves no real affection. The cruelty of Martin is obvious.
Its not jealousy, its simply cruel indifference for an object which
holds no more interest. That is why he wants Monica to read Pinocchio;
David is a puppet and Martin wants David to realize it. Thus David
wants to find the blue fairy to become a real boy, so Monica will love
him again.
MONICA
Monica herself is a complex character. She is introduced as a shallow
person, as she, by an associated cut, is presented as an equivalent of
the female Mecha presented by Hobby; The Mecha mirrors herself and
uses make up when not the center of attention, Monica does the same in
the car.
Her emptiness is conditioned by the coma of Martin. She is in an
emotional coma herself and insists of reading to Martin as if he was
alive and conscious. She first comes to life again when introduced to
David. Fully aware of the consequences she activates the love of David
and henceforth become a happy woman; She awakens to life once again as
she becomes mother renewed.
Several questions concerning motherhood and rivalry between siblings
are addressed but never answered in this first part of AI. The only
fleshed out character is Monica. Her life is so empty (she is a mere
reflection of herself, illustrated by several reflections of her in
objects), until David comes along. He is her object of love and the
more he loves her, the more she lives. I strongly doubt that she is
happy with Martin. There are motifs that indicate that her affection
to Martin is "of the mind (logic)" and her affection to David is "of
the heart (emotional)".
Monica abandoning David is an act of the heart. It's not cruel at all.
This is another fairy tale element of AI, as being left in the forest
represents the first stage of independence and coming of age.
JOE / THE FLESH FAIR / ROGUE CITY
From here on AI is a mess. What follow is not Aldiss but other writers
ideas. Where Aldiss has Teddy as the guide of David, AI creates an
adult guide in a more than one-dimensional Joe the Gigolo. He is
introduced; we suddenly have a murder, but its never followed. Some
have suggested that the murder is a McGuffin, but that is misreading
of what a McGuffin is. The introduction of Joe is plain bad writing.
In essence the Flesh Fair is a redneck white supremacy fair full of
heavy metal and neon lighted motorcycle "hounds" which seem to be more
at home in an Italian post apocalypse flick and it all looks like the
leftovers from Mad Max and the Thunderdrome. This part is extreme
racist (towards Mecha) and the notions of "white supremacy" is
directly addressed by nazi rhetoric as:
"What about us? We are alive and this is a celebration of life and
this is commitment truly human life"
But despite an attempt to inject social consciousness into AI by this
extreme ideology, the Flesh Fair really does nothing than stretching
time. The story is not affected nor changed if one skips this chapter.
Hence, Flesh Fair stands as pointless and empty text.
Then we get to Rouge City, a pastiche of Emerald City from the Wizard
of Oz, just as well as Dr. Know is a pastiche of the wizard himself.
Again bad taste has taken over, as the entrance of Rogue City is a
pink neon mouth, suggesting oral sex and sin. The reason for going
there is found in Joe, who is a mindless sex Mecha.
HOBBY / DAVIDS / DARLENES
Only when David meets Hobby we get some depth again. There is a truly
haunting sequence here. Hobby explains that the Blue Fairy is about
chasing a dream, and later when David discovers the dozens of David's
/ Darlene's, he sees the Fairy in the blue light of his own inner
self.
But the moment only is short. We then get an extremely corny
underwater sequence, where the notions of Pinocchio are punched down
with seven-inch nails for those who still haven't gotten it. Only to
get the super Mecha's to give David his dream. Talk about Corny.
COMMENTS
AI is one hell of a shallow and empty film, based on a very short
story, which reflects on an idea. It directly goes against the
warnings and wishes of Aldiss, it overuses fairy tales (especially
Pinocchio) and never allows characters to develop depth. It is a film
very unworthy both the memory of Kubrick and the skill of Spielberg.
The main problem with AI is its narrative. The only fleshed out
element is the one dealing with the Swinton's, yet instead of
following up on the question it asks on parenthood and siblings, it
leaves them unanswered (we never learn how Monica deals with her loss)
. The part between Monica and Hobby is scriptwriting when it's worst.
It's so amateurish, that I refuse to believe Spielberg's or Kubrick's
direct involvement in it.
Worse is, that AI is a story without moral and moral implications. We
never learn if Monica suffers (I believe she does). The husband, who
frames Joe, gets away with murdering his wife. David and Joe get away
with stealing the ambicopter (the police never sets in a pursuit).
Hubby never pays any attention to the "killing" of "David" by David;
he even diminishes David by saying "You're not one of a kind, you're
the first of a kind". Whenever important issues are addressed, they
are skipped instantly. The rivalry between David and Martin is skated
over and David's actions are seen as maleficent. The collector for the
Flesh Fair makes an important speech concerning the roles of the
Mecha, but he seems to be the only one who thinks so, since he gets
attacked by the audience for trying to pass someone who looks and acts
human. If the Mecha's represent a danger towards human kind, "David"
certainly is the greatest danger. Tarkovsky said it directly, that
Spielberg's manipulates action by intervening in the logic of the
narrative.
Henrik Sylow
3805
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 6:40pm
Subject: Re: Spielberg
"My main
problem with the film is that it always tries to make
me forget that the boy
is a machine programmed to love and, because it
suffers and he's so cutey, I
have to feel compassion for it."
Oh really? The most startling moment in the film is
when we're informed that David has been praying before
the statue of the Blue Fairy (EXACTLY the way an
Orthodox Jew prays before the Wailing Wall) for two
thousand years.
TWO THOUSAND YEARS!
That's inconcievable for a human -- but perfectly
understandable for a machine that has been programmed
to shut itself off after a particular cycle has been
run.
In that sense David is very much like a washer-dryer.
Haley Joel's adorableness is thus double strange.
But the most beautiful line in the film is delivered
by Jude aw's Gigolo Joe when he's snatched away by the
Mecha Police: "I am. I was."
--- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
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3806
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 8:31pm
Subject: Re: Spielberg
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier" wrote:
> I have no problem with the final part of AI. I'm suspicious,
however, on how
> Spielberg uses identification in the film. Getting to see all films by
> Kubrick from the 60s on, there's no identification between viewer
and main
> character. If we didn't get that "oh, poor boy, a robot with
feelings is a
> child" stuff, the film would fit clearly into Kubrick filmography.
My main
> problem with the film is that it always tries to make me forget that
the boy
> is a machine programmed to love and, because it suffers and he's so
cutey, I
> have to feel compassion for it.
My impression was that the mechas in A.I. were conscious, and
therefore it was natural to feel compassion for them. In the
material put on the web for film, this is addressed explicitly:
some people believed the mechas were sentient, others did not.
Kubrick might have been interested in the science and philosophy
of artificial intelligence, but I suspect Spielberg is more
interested in its uses as metaphor for childhood.
Paul
3807
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 8:46pm
Subject: Re: my Special Effects adventure (Frampton)
Jaime N. Christley wrote:
>....http://filmwritten.org/#specialeffects....
>
[a report on banging erasers together to make dust, looking at the
projector beam rather than the screen, and using distorting lenses
during the projection of a great Hollis Frampton film]
>... I hope this stuff was "okay" to do....
>
Jaime,
In the manner of Brakhage's comments on people who want to play music
with his films, I have to tell you that while you and your fellow
students may have created a new work, whose merits I cannot judge
without having been there, you destroyed Frampton's film. None of you
even saw it before you started destroying it. What you did was contrary
to his intentions, and I can tell you almost for sure that had he been
able to see or hear of such an event, it would have made him very very
sad very very angry, or, likely, both. That is my reaction as well. (For
those who don't know, Frampton, the heaviest chain smoker I ever knew,
died of lung cancer in his late 40s, in 1984.)
Please tell us the name of your instructor!
The treatment this Frampton film received is shameful. While Anthony
McCall's "Line Describing a Cone" is intended to be shown with smoke,
and with the audience looking at the projector beam, I don't think
"Special Effects" was ever intended to be shown that way. This is not to
say Frampton would have thought looking away from the screen on one's
own and at the projector beam was inappropriate on occasion, but what
you describe sounds like a circus.
Were you made aware by that instructor that while "Special Effects" is
available as a separate film, it is also a part of Frampton's seven-part
masterpiece, "Hapax Legomena," which is his last completed film?
Frampton said contradictory things about whether he preferred "Hapax
Legomana" to be shown complete, though he made that option available.
But when I told him that I much preferred to see all its parts as one
film in a single screening (running time 3 hours and 21 minutes), rather
than separately as they were almost always screened, there was a
significant pause, and then he said, with what I took to be a tremendous
sadness, "That makes two of us."
He was responding to the fact that two or three of the early parts,
"(nostalgia)" and sometimes "Critical Mass" and "Poetic Justice," were
almost always shown alone. And at NYU in particular, in the 1970s, they
were shown with reductionist commentary on the level of "this makes you
aware you're watching a movie in the following six ways."
There's a hilarious parody of the way "(nostalgia)" was viewed back then
in George Landow's "Wide Angle Saxon."
When the parts of "Hapax Legomena" are restored to the whole, each part
becomes very different, to the extent that the whole then really
requires a second viewing, so that you can see the early parts in light
of what you now know is to follow.
The whole is a cultural autobiography, in which Frampton traces his
interest in various kinds of image making, movie and video making, and
linguistic explorations. Seen as a whole, the parts actually trace a
kind of spiritual journey via media, with stops at still photography,
failed romance, an imagined Brakhage film, video art, commercial TV,
Stonehenge, and beginning Chinese pronunciation. When I view these parts
and arrive at "Special Effects," this last part has always seemed, to
me, immensely, almost overwhelmingly moving, and on a gut emotional
level too. It's actually the greatest film of the seven. And it evokes
the ineffable qualities of the illusionistic image that it never shows,
and the imagination's power to provide it in that empty frame, which
"Poetic Justice" also refers to. The relationship of the dotted line to
the edge of the frame is very important, as is the "hand-held" effect of
the line, which I take as a reference to Brakhage. The film as a whole
is about the selectivity inherent in the act of framing images of the
world, and in that sense it also refers to the opening part,
"(nostalgia)", while at the same time forecasting the return to the
spectacularly poetic illusionistic imagery that Frampton was to make the
basis of his unfinished magnum opus, "Magellan."
That this film of his should receive such treatment at NYU Cinema
Studies, the longtime home of one of his closest friends and advocates,
Annette Michelson, is really depressing.
I suggest you change you're header from "What is up with this movie,"
which is incredibly inaccurate. The performance you describe has nothing
to do with that movie. I shudder to think someone seeking information
will find your post in a Web search and get the idea the professorially
sanctioned, New York University sanctioned behavior you describe is an
acceptable way to see the film. Perhaps you can modify your post with a
link to mine, whether you agree with mine or not.
I *really* want to know the name of the instructor! Don't worry, I'm not
going to report him or her to the Frampton police. They don't exist
anyway, and never did.
By the way, not that it's strictly relevant, but I think Frampton was
the most widely "cultured" of all avant-garde filmmakers. He studied
with Pound in his youth (as one of the group of people who surrounded
Pound at St. Elizabeth's); he knew Latin and Greek and God knows how
many other languages; he was, unlike most filmmakers, well-versed in and
fascinated by mathematics and physics, as witnessed by some of his movie
titles; he was widely read in literature, poetry, philosophy, and
history; he had a deep knowledge of and love for cinema; he was
technically one of the most accomplished filmmakers, having worked in
labs and become intimately familiar with photo-chemistry; he was
originally a still photographer whose vast knowledge of the history of
that medium is evidenced by his often brilliant essays, commixed by
Annette Michelson for "Artforum" and "October" and published in his
book, "Circles of Confusion."
While you don't have to know this about Frampton to appreciate his
films, I think that in fact his films reflect the cultural
sophistication and subtlety of argument of someone with his background.
That's not what makes them great, that's just one of their qualities.
But still. Yikes!
I await your reply.
- Fred
3808
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 8:55pm
Subject: Re: my Special Effects adventure (Frampton) Correction
Fred Camper wrote:
> commixed by Annette Michelson for "Artforum" and "October" a
>
should be "commissioned" by Annette Michelson
3809
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 9:05pm
Subject: un-Special Effects
Well, I don't know what to say, I feel very bad that we did Frampton
and the film an injustice. And I feel equally bad (sad, angry) that
an enjoyable experience was actually bullshit. I'm also sorry to
have made you angry. I was under the impression that this was in
line with Frampton's idea of the film (which is actually quite
fascinating, to me anyway).
Hmmm, since I didn't actually see the film, I suppose it doesn't get
an entry in my screening log.
You can contact the NYU Cinema Studies department at (212) 998-1600
between the hours of 9am and 5pm, Monday through Friday, and ask to
be put in touch with the "History of Avant-Garde Film" instructor;
otherwise I'd prefer not to rat him out in public (especially since I
would rather shoulder the blame myself).
Well damn.
-Jaime
3810
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 9:05pm
Subject: Re: my Special Effects adventure (Frampton)
"I think that in fact his films reflect the cultural
sophistication and subtlety of argument of someone
with his background."
Somewhat. Most of his films aren't that difficult to
deal with conceptually. "Zorns Lemma" is a lot of fun.
Personally I found him pompous and arrogant. Lord
knows the American A-G has no shortage of that, but
some can bring it off better than others. And some,
like Snow, aren't pompous or arrogant at all.
--- Fred Camper wrote:
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3811
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 9:33pm
Subject: Re: un-Special Effects [final word]
I guess I should not have done this chalk dust exercise during AU
HASARD BALTHAZAR, either, huh. Oops.
-Jaime
p.s. (Just kidding.)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> Well, I don't know what to say, I feel very bad that we did
Frampton
> and the film an injustice. And I feel equally bad (sad, angry)
that
> an enjoyable experience was actually bullshit. I'm also sorry to
> have made you angry. I was under the impression that this was in
> line with Frampton's idea of the film (which is actually quite
> fascinating, to me anyway).
>
> Hmmm, since I didn't actually see the film, I suppose it doesn't
get
> an entry in my screening log.
>
> You can contact the NYU Cinema Studies department at (212) 998-1600
> between the hours of 9am and 5pm, Monday through Friday, and ask to
> be put in touch with the "History of Avant-Garde Film" instructor;
> otherwise I'd prefer not to rat him out in public (especially since
I
> would rather shoulder the blame myself).
>
> Well damn.
>
> -Jaime
3812
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 9:50pm
Subject: Weird screenings
I can't comment on the Frampton screening, but Greg Ford once
described a class he walked into where Manny Farber was
simultaneously projecting Touch of Evil and The Man Who Shot
Liberty Valance on two screens, the latter run backwards (I don't
even know if that's possible), with the vague comment: "This is
kind of an interesting comparison..." I think it was supposed to
have happened at UC San Diego.
3813
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 10:01pm
Subject: Re: Weird screenings
Re: a projector's capability to run a film backwards:
> (I don't
> even know if that's possible)
It is - you just rewind each reel heads-out (head = the start of the
film or a specific reel) and feed the film through the projector tail-
first. You just have to make sure, if it's a 16mm film, that the
sprockets are correctly inserted. 35mm has sprockets on both sides,
so you could not only run the film backwards, but you could flip the
image vertically and horizontally.
The point is, Farber's screening was a deliberate attempt to "modify"
the original work. No one was under any illusion that they were
seeing LIBERTY VALANCE, but rather a severely distorted version of
the same film. This is different from my experience yesterday, when
we were under the impression that we were doing the right thing.
-Jaime
3814
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 10:55pm
Subject: Daves - 3:10 to Yuma (vague, mild spoilers)
A short while back, around the time Tavernier wrote that rather good
article on Delmer Daves in Film Comment (if only we had more like
it), I watched Daves' THE BADLANDERS as my introduction to his work,
and found the movie sorely lacking--schematic and unfocused.
But this afternoon, on a whim, I watched 3:10 TO YUMA and was awed.
This is one of the peaks in Hollywood's greatest decade. Complex
characterizations leading to nuanced understanding of human
motivations and interactions--this film isn't blurring the boundaries
between dichotomies so much as it's declining to worry about
dichotomies much in the first place. Check out the pristine
photography and camera movements, with the camering hovering in air
as it peers down on figures or flattens the landscape down to the
bottom of the frame and fills the screen with sky. There's an
expressionistic use of sound ("Do you hear the thunder?") that pulls
us formally into the hero's world near the end but, at the same time,
can serve to underscore the alien frame of mind in which his
character operates.
I've just been turned into a Delmer Daves fan, not to mention
everyone else in the cast & crew. What are everyone's thoughts here
on the guy?
--Zach
3815
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 11:17pm
Subject: Daves
For a long time, my only knowledge of Daves was a memorable
line from Louis Skorecki's review of Spencer's Mountain in CdC
("The scent of glazed chestnuts"): "Delmer Daves, confronted
with the screen that is always too large for him to fill" - which
became a touchstone for me for the idea (discussed in many an
early post at a_film_by) that "all directors are auteurs."
I finally started catching up with the films at a Daves roundup at
the Amiens Festival (which is doing a Fregonese roundup this
November, hooked up to an Argentine roundup, with the
[reportedly crummy] Argentine Fregoneses as the bridge), and I
saw that Daves was indeed an auteur with no need for Zen-like
Sorecki-isms to define his individuality: A progressive
much-loved in the cine-clubs in the 40s and 50s, he was born to
be championed by Positif, and had been, extensively. (There was
also a little book of essays on him published by the festival, in
French of course.)
I was struck by the sheer weirdness of Dark Passage, a
subjective-camera tour de force where we don't see Bogart's
face in a mirror till the halfway mark, when he is seeing it for the
first time himself after one of those quicky face-changes H'wd
specialized in in those days. (This film inspired "I, Murderer," a
high-tech Tales of the Crypt by Zemeckis.) I also thoroughly
enjoyed A Summer Place, which applied sexual liberalism to a
melodrama of trans-generational luvin' that I had known only for
the great Max Steiner single spun off it. Would I see more
Daves? In a heartbeat. Should I consider him more than a
"mere" auteur? Sounds like the jury's out.
3816
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 11:37pm
Subject: Re: Daves - 3:10 to Yuma (vague, mild spoilers)
To the few Chicagoans on the list (and neighboring Indianians and
Wisconsinites), 3:10 TO YUMA screens at Doc Films this Wednesday in a
35mm print.
I'll be there!
3817
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 11:42pm
Subject: Re: Daves
> I finally started catching up with the films at a Daves roundup at
> the Amiens Festival (which is doing a Fregonese roundup this
> November, hooked up to an Argentine roundup, with the
> [reportedly crummy] Argentine Fregoneses as the bridge)
Geez. I so wish I could be there - I expect to die before getting a
chance to see these films.
Jean-Pierre has a very useful piece on Daves in his AMERICAN DIRECTORS.
- Dan
3818
From:
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 7:13pm
Subject: John Sturges' Mystery Street, TCM 11/8 8 AM
"Bad Day at Black Rock" (John Sturges) has been mentioned here. It has good
landscapes (awesome Death Valley locations, if memory serves) and some
interesting widescreen compositions. If you watch it on tape or TV, be sure to see it
letter-boxed. It gets awfully hokey before it ends, however.
Even better: Saturday Morning (11/8 - Tomorrow) at 8 AM EST, Turner Classic
Movies in the USA will be showing "Mystery Street" (Sturges, 1950). This is a
modest little movie about a policeman and a forensic scientist trying to solve
a mysterious murder. It is low key - a semi-documentary film, not a thriller.
But it definitely succeeds at what it sets out to do. Good performances too,
especially by a young Ricardo Montalban as the cop. And it is one of the few
films shot in Boston - never a favorite locale for filmmakers, for some reason.
Do not skip that Ozu or Renoir festival to see this! But if you are in the
mood for a little police story movie, this is not bad at all.
Mike Grost
I've also seen "Ice Station Zebra" (Sturges). But unlike Howard Hughes, I did
not see this film 168 times while eating gallons of banana ice cream. I have
no idea what Hughes saw in this film. Maybe it cooled him down - it is set in
Antarctica (recreated with campy studio sets and multi-colored paper mache
rocks - sort of an Alice in Wonderland version of the Southern Continent.)
3819
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 0:16am
Subject: Re: Daves
Agnes Moorehead's performance in "Dark Passage" was
much-admired by Jack Smith.
It also inspired a Ruiz film I've never seen (and I
doubt very many others have either) whose title
escapes me at the moment.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
3820
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 0:17am
Subject: Re: Spielberg
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> I have no problem with the final part of AI. I'm suspicious,
however, on how Spielberg uses identification in the film. Getting to
see all films by Kubrick from the 60s on, there's no identification
> between viewer and main character. If we didn't get that "oh, poor
boy, a robot with feelings is a child" stuff, the film would fit
> clearly into Kubrick filmography. My main problem with the film is
that it always tries to make me forget that the boy is a machine
programmed to love and, because it suffers and he's so cutey, I have
> to feel compassion for it.of those films.
But the big philosophical question raised in AI, from the title and
opening scene on, is how we can differentiate between human beings
and "programmed robots" -- if indeed there is any fundamental
difference. I think AI argues, seriously, that consciousness is a
product of the love instinct -- the "programmed" need for others --
and David undeniably achieves "humanity" in the final scene (through
renunciation). Anyway compassion for the non-human, the mechanical,
and the manufactured is a constant in Spielberg (the dinosaurs in
JURASSIC PARK are "real" animals and brand-name products all at
once).
Remember, Spielberg and Kubrick talked about this story for years and
years, and Kubrick at one point asked Spielberg to direct it himself.
I suspect that with AI Kubrick deliberately set out to construct the
ideal "Spielberg" film, tear-jerking devices and all (maybe because
he was fascinated how Spielberg made so much money).
"Identification" in Kubrick is always problematic, but I don't think
that he's asking for a "detached" viewer, either – don't we suffer
along with Alex in CLOCKWORK ORANGE as he's tortured out of his
individuality? Don't we feel for both Barry Lyndon and his son? Hal
singing 'Daisy Daisy' is classic pathos.
JTW
3821
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 0:19am
Subject: Re: John Sturges' Mystery Street, TCM 11/8 8 AM
"I have
no idea what Hughes saw in this film."
Rock Hudson and submarines of course.
John Greyson "samples" it in his marvelous video
feature "Moscow Does Not Believe in Queers." John was
in the (now former) Soviet Union when the Hudson/AIDS
story broke,and the film is a commentary on that fact.
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> "Bad Day at Black Rock" (John Sturges) has been
> mentioned here. It has good
> landscapes (awesome Death Valley locations, if
> memory serves) and some
> interesting widescreen compositions. If you watch it
> on tape or TV, be sure to see it
> letter-boxed. It gets awfully hokey before it ends,
> however.
> Even better: Saturday Morning (11/8 - Tomorrow) at 8
> AM EST, Turner Classic
> Movies in the USA will be showing "Mystery Street"
> (Sturges, 1950). This is a
> modest little movie about a policeman and a forensic
> scientist trying to solve
> a mysterious murder. It is low key - a
> semi-documentary film, not a thriller.
> But it definitely succeeds at what it sets out to
> do. Good performances too,
> especially by a young Ricardo Montalban as the cop.
> And it is one of the few
> films shot in Boston - never a favorite locale for
> filmmakers, for some reason.
> Do not skip that Ozu or Renoir festival to see this!
> But if you are in the
> mood for a little police story movie, this is not
> bad at all.
> Mike Grost
> I've also seen "Ice Station Zebra" (Sturges). But
> unlike Howard Hughes, I did
> not see this film 168 times while eating gallons of
> banana ice cream. I have
> no idea what Hughes saw in this film. Maybe it
> cooled him down - it is set in
> Antarctica (recreated with campy studio sets and
> multi-colored paper mache
> rocks - sort of an Alice in Wonderland version of
> the Southern Continent.)
>
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3822
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 0:20am
Subject: Re: Daves
> Jean-Pierre has a very useful piece on Daves in his AMERICAN
DIRECTORS.
> - Dan
Thanks Dan! (by the way I also translated Tavernier's article for
FILM COMMENT)
Daves has been one of my favorites ever since I first saw DARK
PASSAGE at the Studio Parnasse in Paris when I was 16 or 17. I was
totally fascinated by this film. I was active in a suburban Cine Club
at the time and I started a little mimeographed film mag and wrote a
piece about PASSAGE in it, my first "published" article!
Trivia: Daves's son Michael (who became an AD) plays the kid in
the bus station sequence at the end.
In my AMERICAN DIRECTORS essay I expressed puzzlement (a widely
shared feeling) at the turn Daves' career took in the sixties after
THE HANGING TREE, his last major work. Very few people knew the
reasons for his switching to WB adaptations of "mediocre popular best
sellers featuring such Warners juveniles as Troy Donahue, Connie
Stevens and Suzanne Pleshette." His son told me many years later that
Delmer had had a near-fatal heart attack in July 1958 during the last
week of shooting THE HANGING TREE. As Michael put it "He could no
longer free-lance or take chances. It determined the kind of pictures
he could direct -- and forced changes that few outside our family
understood. He made a ghastly trade-off: his artistic development for
the security of the contract at WB -- with anything physically
challenging, like his westerns, no longer possible." Even then
directing A SUMMER PLACE was an extremely stressful ordeal for Daves
physically. No one was told about the heart condition...
3:10 TO YUMA is of course one of the greatest westerns (certainly on
my "10 best Westerns" List)and I envy anyone who discovers it today.
It's my favorite Daves film with DARK PASSAGE (I like the Bogart-
Bacall rapport in the latter film better than in the two Hawks --
which of course is very unfashionable and non-auteurist...)
I understand BAM is planning a Daves retrospective for some time next
year.
JPC
3823
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 0:25am
Subject: Re: Daves
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Agnes Moorehead's performance in "Dark Passage" was
> much-admired by Jack Smith.
The ultimate bitch -- borderline campy. The way she throws herself
out that window, just to spite the poor guy...
> It also inspired a Ruiz film I've never seen (and I
> doubt very many others have either) whose title
> escapes me at the moment.
> --- hotlove666 wrote:
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
> http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
3824
From:
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 7:27pm
Subject: Spielberg's Amistad
I've seen a lot fewer of Spielberg's films than most of this list. Definitely
have to catch up with AI. But one film that is very absorbing is "Amistad".
It has a fascinating subject, a literate script, and lots of interesting story
and social developments throughout the picture. Plus it has lots to say about
what is still the most important subject in American life - the evils of
racism.
Despit all the talk about "emotional manipulation" in Spielberg, this is one
film that seems designed more to educate, and make the audience think.
"Amistad" is not a "heavy" movie. Actually, mainly it is a fun courtroom
drama, like "Witness for the Prosecution", say (to name my all time favorite
courtroom show).
Somehow "Amistad" is rarely discussed when Spielberg comes up.
Mike Grost
3825
From:
Date: Fri Nov 7, 2003 7:50pm
Subject: Re: Daves
The building in Dark Passage is a real one: The J. S. Malloch Apartments,
1360 Montgomery at Filbert, San Francisco. Built, 1936. Its glass elevator is
awesome to the max!
There is a picture of the building in one of my favorite art books:
"Rediscovering Art Deco U.S.A." (1994) by Barbara Capitan, Michael D. Kinerk,
Dennis W. Wilhelm. Photographs by Randy Juster. Very rich look at Art Deco
architecture in the United States. The best place to start learning about
American Art Deco architecture.
Mike Grost
PS
Comic books are full of Art Deco architecture, at once imaginary and
imaginative. Alex Raymond used Art Deco as the style of futuristic other planets in
his comic strip "Flash Gordon", and this was widely influential in comic books.
Wayne Boring's Art Deco version of the planet Krypton in Superman comics, and
Carmine Infantino's look at the planet Rann in the Adam Strange stories
(1959-1964) in "Mystery in Space", are both classics.
3826
From: Eric Henderson
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 1:09am
Subject: Re: Spielberg's Amistad [and Schindler]
"Amistad" is the one Spielberg film I'm most interested to revisit
(in addition to "1941"). At the time it came out, I dismissed it
without a second thought, and so did everyone else around me. The two
scenes that still stand out clearly to me are a) when rows of
slaves en route to America are shakled to one another and weighted
down, so that when one of them is thrown overboard, others are
dragged along behind to their deaths by drowning (for my money, as
disturbing an image as anything in "Schindler's List," though I'm not
too sure about "Private Ryan")... and b) Djimon Hounsou reaching a
breaking point in (yet another in a long string of) courtroom
proceedings, shouting "Give us Free!" over and over again. At the
time, I scoffed big time at this backlit-by-the-cleansing-sunlight-of-
simple-truth sequence.
Incidentally, though I agree with Damien 110% on his view of
Polanski's "Pianist" as an absurdist film, I do remember one or two
elements of "Schindler's List" also seeming as sickly humorous as
they were terrifying: the lining-up of ten or so Jews and shooting
them head on to see how far a bullet will go before it loses its
momentum springs immediately to mind. So, yeah... I guess I'm just
chiming in to offer some small amount of support to Spielberg. My
true favorite Spielberg films (and I'm sure you know this, Damien)
are the two "collaborations" of "Poltergeist" and "Gremlins."
3827
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 4:59am
Subject: Re: Re: Spielberg's Amistad [and Schindler]
"My
true favorite Spielberg films (and I'm sure you know
this, Damien)
are the two "collaborations" of "Poltergeist" and
"Gremlins." "
"Poltergeist" was indeed a collaboration. But
"Gremlins" is pure, unadulterated Joe Dante. Spielberg
has a walk-on in it, but that's about it.
Really.
--- Eric Henderson wrote:
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3828
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 5:01am
Subject: Re: Spielberg
>
> Kubrick might have been interested in the science and philosophy
> of artificial intelligence, but I suspect Spielberg is more
> interested in its uses as metaphor for childhood.
>
> Paul
I'm surprised that none of the discussion so far (at least if I've
followed it all) deals with the metaphorical and allegorical side of
A.I. whereby feeling invested in nonhuman matter becomes the
fundamental experience (and the moral paradox) of cinema itself. This
is the point where Kubrick's and Spielberg's obsessions come
together. And, as I tried to argue in my Reader piece about the film,
every Spielberg heart-tug in the story is counteracted by a sardonic
Kubrick kickback. Therefore those who reject the final scene as a
gooey Spielbergian wet dream seem to be overlooking that this goo is
occasioned by a robot going to bed with the clone of his adopted
mother and this act constitutes the final gasp (or echo of a gasp) of
humanity--a sicko shadow dance if I ever heard of one. I suppose one
could also argue that Spielberg deconstructs Kubrick to the same
degree that Kubrick deconstructs Spielberg--but one should bear in
mind that Spielberg's contribution WAS PART OF KUBRICK'S EVOLVING
CONCEPTION OF THE PROJECT. So I'm afraid I can't buy the arguments
that dismiss whole sections of the film as anti-Kubrick. As with
Welles, it was an essential part of Kubrick's genius to invariably
confound whatever expectations we had about him.
As far as I'm concerned, A.I. isn't only Spielberg's greatest film
but one of Kubrick's greatest films as well--the perfect complement
to 2001. I hope you'll all eventually get a chance to read James
Naremore's brilliant defense of the film, which was done for a
forthcoming Robert Ray anthology and which deals at length with the
implications of the film's digital effects. Jim is also writing a
book on Kubrick for the BFI which I fully expect will be the best
critical study on him to date.
Jonathan
3829
From:
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 0:04am
Subject: Re: The Pianist
I completely, completely agree with Bill on "The Pianist." This was, to my
thinking, a masterpiece and Polanski has arguably given us several over the
course of his career (my other two selections for this title would be "Chinatown"
and "Tess"; the former is canonized, but I'd love to hear what people think
of the latter, a film I've been a proponent of for many years). But I also
want to resist the temptation to overrate this film due to its subject matter; in
his capsule review of the film, Jonathan R. emphasized this point.
Polanski's just about always good whether he's dealing with something profound or not
(his previous film, the 'trivial' "The Ninth Gate," was a little jewel of a
movie, perfectly crafted and very funny). Of course, that isn't to say that "The
Pianist" isn't in a lot of ways special; never before has Polanski come so
close to autobiography and undoubtedly the profound similarity between his story
and Szpilman's contributes incalculably to the film's resonance and power.
The biggest observation I have to make about the film's mise-en-scene is to
note the way Polanski's continual, career-long interest in spatial confinement
plays itself out in this film; the whole latter section of the film has
Szpilman moving from room to room, cut off from humanity in a very literal sense.
This relates to Polanski's genius with P.O.V. (most obvious example: when he
fades out of a scene after Nicholson is punched out in the orange groves in
"Chinatown.") I haven't seen "The Pianist" since last April, so maybe I'm
forgetting a shot or two, but from what I could tell there wasn't a single scene in
the film in which Szpilman is not present. Consequently, Polanski's visual
style often tends to be quite intimate; when big shots do appear (the long shot
of the yard in which the family is gathered before they board the trains; the
crane shot of Szpilman climbing over a wall and limping through a bombed out
city street), they have an incredible impact.
This guy is simply a master filmmaker.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
3830
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 5:07am
Subject: Re: Weird screenings
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> I can't comment on the Frampton screening, but Greg Ford once
> described a class he walked into where Manny Farber was
> simultaneously projecting Touch of Evil and The Man Who Shot
> Liberty Valance on two screens, the latter run backwards (I don't
> even know if that's possible), with the vague comment: "This is
> kind of an interesting comparison..." I think it was supposed to
> have happened at UC San Diego.
Manny wasn't the only one who sometimes ran films backwards (and it
IS possible)--I saw Ray Durgnat do the same thing at one of his
lectures at the same school.
3831
From:
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 0:23am
Subject: Spielberg
I don't consider myself a Spielberg supporter in general, so I always
surprise myself when I go through his filmography and discover that, yeah, there are
five or six films of his I really, really like. I love the first part of
"Jaws"; it becomes less interesting to me when they get on the boat (and I hate
the final shot.) "E.T." is very good (especially the "Quiet Man" sequence.)
"Empire of the Sun" is often outstanding. But I think the best is the one Zach
turned me on to: 1989's amazing "Always." Half-seriously, I once divided all
of Spielberg's films into termite and white elephant art categories; "Always,"
with the profound personal meaning "A Guy Named Joe" had for him, definitely
falls into the former category. To my eyes, Spielberg wasn't trying to prove
anything with this remarkable film; he wasn't trying to prove his
'seriousness' by tackling an 'important topic,' nor was he trying to prove his box office
clout by making a movie everyone would love. I think he made it for himself
and the film is all the better for it. I think "Always" is just waiting to be
rediscovered, although as early as the film's year of release, Dave Kehr (not
generally a Spielberg fan) placed it on his 10 Best list.
I like "A.I.," but I haven't really seen it since it came out and don't trust
my memories of that viewing; I firmly believed at that time that some facts
were being lost in the story of Kubrick 'giving' the "A.I." project to
Spielberg and that we weren't being told the whole truth by Warner Bros and
DreamWorks. So my devotion to Kubrick's cinema, and to his artistic legacy, undoubtedly
clouded my perceptions of the film's artistic merit. I'm looking forward to
seeing it again.
"Schindler's List," "Amistad," and "Private Ryan" don't do much for me at
all. "Private Ryan" has one great sequence: the scene, played in long shot
during the key emotional moment, of Mrs. Ryan being informed of her sons' deaths.
However I must say that nothing Spielberg had done since "Always" impressed me
as much as "Catch Me if You Can" and it seems to me that they come from very
similar places. Although "Catch Me" is obviously more tied up with being a
big, comfy holiday entertainment than "Always," I'd argue (as I did in my review
of the film) that it's one of his most personal movies. This is a filmmaker
who has gone ON THE RECORD as saying that when he started out in Hollywood, he
wanted to be anyone but himself - Antonioni, Capra, whoever, just anyone but
Spielberg. What better metaphor for his filmmaking life than Frank Abagnale's
story?
As I wrote in my piece on the film:
"...it also represents an extremely welcoming acknowledgment of the
filmmaker's essentially adolescent perspective: his lead character flees from emotional
strife and heartache to assume the identities of others, the particulars of
which he picks up from television shows, comic books, and a certain wily
ability to fit in."
Finally, I think it's Spielberg's best film formally in quite a long time.
He ditched that ugly overexposed handheld stuff from "Minority Report" and (for
most of its duration) "Private Ryan" and eased into a film grammar which
looks practically classical to my eyes.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
3832
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 5:25am
Subject: Re: Spielberg's Amistad [and Schindler]
David E. writes:
> "Poltergeist" was indeed a collaboration. But
> "Gremlins" is pure, unadulterated Joe Dante. Spielberg
> has a walk-on in it, but that's about it.
I think that's true. Was it Bill who wrote that John Glover's warm-
hearted corporate madman in "Gremlins 2" (also produced by
Spielberg's company) was probably a parody of Spielberg?
Peter
seeing "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" tomorrow and VERY pumped about
it, Dante's first feature since the amazing "Small Soldiers"
3833
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 5:38am
Subject: Re: Woody Allen's Anything Else
JPC writes:
[Re: "Stardust Memories"]
>I felt it
> was his most daring, most interesting, richest movie, and it's
still
> one of my favorites. With "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and the
> neglected "Another Woman", his most Bergmanian film.
I'm glad to find another fan of "Another Woman" here. As I was
writing my post where I call "Manhattan" and "Stardust Memories" his
two greatest, I knew I was forgetting a key one - "Another Woman" was
it. I think it is BY FAR his most successful 'straight' drama (and
Allen thinks so too); the least stilted (not that 'stilted' is
necessarily bad or anything) and most affecting. The dream sequence
in which John Houseman talks about his life's regrets may be one of
the single greatest pieces of acting in Allen's entire body of work.
I'm always very moved by "Another Woman." I wonder if I can ever
find someone who makes a case for the despised "September"...
>But there are so
> many great ones -- until "Husbands and Wives" after which Allen
> pretty much lost me.
I know a lot of people who feel the same way. The post-H&W period
is, as I detail in my piece, a difficult one made even more difficult
by the fact that it's not any 'one' thing: the films are themselves
quite diverse, ranging from the incredibly angry ("Deconstructing
Harry" and "Celebrity") to the lovable ("Small Time Crooks"
and "Curse of the Jade Scorpion"). The great one for me is "Everyone
Says I Love You"; there are many people whose taste in film I have
great respect for who find its upper class attitudes completely
offensive, but that final scene between Woody and Goldie is just
magical. "Manhattan Murder Mystery" is another one which stands out
from this period; it has a laidback charm that's worth a
million "Interior"s.
Peter
3834
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 5:51am
Subject: Re: Re: Weird screenings
Brakhage supposedly ran feature length narrative films out of focus on
occasion, to help show people the rhythms. Markopulos has done two
projector events with two different prints of "Twice a Man." George
Landow once spliced his separate short films onto two reels and showed
them as a single, two screen work side by side. This was at the Film
Forum when it was still on the Upper West Side. I saw it and thought it
was a disaster. I asked him why he did it and he said it emphasized how
"artificial" they were.
But Jaime's point holds. When a filmmaker does it he is using his films
to create a new work. When a critic or teacher does it in the ways we've
been describing no one assumes they are seeing the film as intended, but
rather experiencing it in a different way for the sake of the teacher's
pedagogical point.
I must admit that I haven't caught up with most of the Spielberg thread
yet, but if I were ever forced to teach his films, or I should say more
properly to teach one of the ones I've seen, I might try my own "weird
screening," running it with the sound off and the projector bulb also
off. I would call it "128 ' 26"" -- or whatever the running time of the
film was, my own version of John Cage's 4' 33". As an R. Crumb character
-- it's actually the incestuous father in the infamous "Joe Blow" --
says when asked why he's watching the TV with it turned off, "Cause I
can think up better shows than the ones that are on."
- Fred
- Fred
- Fred
3835
From: Tristan
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 5:53am
Subject: Re: Elephant
I haven't seen very much discussion of this film, and I really would
like to discuss it. Most people I know haven't gotten a chance to see
it yet, but it seems that many people here have. I just read Mr.
Rosenbaum's excellent review of the film, and I agree with many of
the comments. I also noticed the Bela Tarr influence(while watching
it, I turned to my parents and whispered "Just like Satantango," but
they gave a puzzled look back). One of my favorite things about the
film is that I haven't stopped thinking about it since I saw it, and
I still have many questions about it. First question that has been
bugging me, what was the purpose of Bennie? I know he had a purpose,
I'm just not quite sure yet.
3836
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 6:12am
Subject: Re: Delmer Daves
I haven't seen enough Delmer Daves films to have formulated a
complete opinion on him, but I would like to call attention to his
1945 film, Pride of the Marines, the true life account of a war hero
who was blinded in battle. The film is remarkably harrowing and
direct, and Daves presented as vivid a portrait of working class
America as in any film from the 40s. Daves also created a very nice
and believable interplay among the characters – both in happy and
downbeat moments – and drew impressively naturalistic performances
from the cast. John Garfield is the center piece of the film, and he
is typically riveting in his embodiment of the edgy everyman. (I'm
very happy that Garfield, whom I consider to be among the handful of
truly great screen actors, is seemingly being rediscovered these
days.) The film is also memorable for the proudly left-wing script
by future Hollywood 10 member Albert Maltz. (It would be fascinating
to learn of discussions between the Communist Maltz and the liberal
Republican Daves regarding the film.) It's a quite remarkable film
in many ways.
Daves's 1943 debut Destination Tokyo is one of the best of the World
War 2 propaganda war films, and even after several viewings I find
it almost unbearably tense. Here, as in other films, Daves's strong
suit seems to be his agility in presenting nuanced characterizations
and believable interaction between characters. (The film also
contains perhaps the most racist line I've ever heard in a Hollywood
picture. Cary Grant: "Females are useful [in Japan] only to work or
have children. The Japs don't understand the love we have for our
women.")
I'm not as enthusiastic for Dark Passage as some other folks – the
camera-as-proxy for Bogart in the early part of the film strikes me
as a gimmick the movie never quite recovers from. (Another movie
using the camera subjectively as a character, Robert Montgomery's
Lady In The Lake was a year earlier -- Does anyone know if the
Montgomery was in release when Daves began his movie?) The same year
as Dark Passage (1947) made better use of San Francisco locations in
Nora Prentiss. I think Agnes Moorehead's performance does cross into
camp, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable or effective.
Hollywood Canteen is in the middle quality-wise of the all-star World
War 2 era extravaganzas – not as cohesive or as much fun as George
Marshall's Star Spangled Rhythm or David Butler's Thank Your Lucky
Stars, but a damn sight better than George Sidney's Thousands
Cheers. On the other hand, his 1949 romantic comedy, A Kiss In The
Dark, is a absolutely atrocious, with stupid unbelievable characters
in stupid unbelievable situations and speaking inane dialogue. The
director's comic timing is excruciating.
The only Daves western I've seen is Cowboy, a dull thing that is a
perfect example for the Louis Skoreck line Bill quoted: "Delmer
Daves, confronted with the screen that is always too large for him to
fill"
I haven't seen them in years, but I recall his overblown melodramas
of the late 50s and early 60s to be great fun although not of any
particular artistic value. Susan Slade, in particular, is an
endearing camp classic.
3837
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 6:22am
Subject: Re: Re: Elephant
> First question that has been
> bugging me, what was the purpose of Bennie? I know he had a purpose,
> I'm just not quite sure yet.
Seems as if he's there to create a narrative expectation and then
frustrate it. Which is odd, because other than Bennie there's not a lot
of character-driven stuff in the film. - Dan
3838
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 6:28am
Subject: Re: The Pianist
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> and Szpilman's contributes incalculably to the film's resonance and
power.
>
> The biggest observation I have to make about the film's mise-en-
scene is to
> note the way Polanski's continual, career-long interest in spatial
confinement
> plays itself out in this film; the whole latter section of the film
has
> Szpilman moving from room to room, cut off from humanity in a very
>literal sense.
WHat most struck me about the mise-en-scene of The Pianist is how
Polanski's camera works as a detached observer-- and, as such, is a
thematic stand-in for Szpilman. Perhaps the key scene of the film is
when the family across the street has their home invaded by Nazis and
an old man in a wheel chair is thrown out the window. We witness
this from the distance of the Szpilman apartment, wnich for me makes
the scene all the more horrifying, for the removed presence of Adrien
Brody and his family is akin to the removed poosition from the film
we in the audience hold. The ghetto uprising is handled in a
similarly removed fashion.
This treatment also highlights George's astute comment that the
material is treated as if rendered by the little boy Polanski was
during the time these events occurred.
3839
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 6:57am
Subject: Re: Re: Elephant
"Seems as if he's there to create a narrative
expectation and then
frustrate it."
Not at all. It's not a narrative. It's a piece of
sculpture.
If you've ever seen any of Gus' short films you'd
recognize precisely what he's doing here.
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
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3840
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 7:00am
Subject: Re: Re: Elephant
"First question that has been
bugging me, what was the purpose of Bennie? I know he
had a purpose,
I'm just not quite sure yet."
Portland is a VERY racially exclusive city.
Bennie is there to speak to that exclusion.
Among other things.
Basically he's very beautiful and for Gus that's
reason enough to put him on screen.
--- Tristan wrote:
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3841
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 7:02am
Subject: Re: Re: Spielberg's Amistad [and Schindler]
"Was it Bill who wrote that John Glover's warm-
hearted corporate madman in "Gremlins 2" (also
produced by
Spielberg's company) was probably a parody of
Spielberg?"
I don't think so. I've met and hung with Spielberg on
several occasions over the years and that's not him.
--- Peter Tonguette wrote:
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3842
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 7:23am
Subject: Re: Re: Elephant
> If you've ever seen any of Gus' short films you'd
> recognize precisely what he's doing here.
All the other major characters are shown throughout the film, but Benny
appears near the end, much later than all the other characters who have
title cards to introduce them. And all the other characters are
introduced in mundane circumstances, whereas Benny appears like an angel
to help the girl out the window to safety. And then he makes a beeline
for the armed killers, in marked contrast to the behavior of all the
other kids. Why is he presented so differently?
> Basically he's very beautiful and for Gus that's
> reason enough to put him on screen.
Is this all that different from Hollywood's usual? Louis B. Mayer told
Elia Kazan, "Young man, you have one thing to learn. We are in the
business of making beautiful pictures of beautiful people and anybody
who does not acknowledge that should not be in this business." - Dan
3843
From: Paul Fileri
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 7:32am
Subject: Re: Elephant
Tristan, then David:
> "First question that has been
> bugging me, what was the purpose of Bennie? I know he
> had a purpose,
> I'm just not quite sure yet."
>
> Portland is a VERY racially exclusive city.
>
> Bennie is there to speak to that exclusion.
>
> Among other things.
>
> Basically he's very beautiful and for Gus that's
> reason enough to put him on screen.
Yes, but he does more than simply put him on the screen and let his
presence speak to the community's racial exclusivity in some suggestive
way. Why is it Benny who performs the most unintelligent action in the
film once the massacre has begun? He hears gunfire, automatic weapon
fire, sees one victim of the shootings in the classroom, then for some
reason, chooses to go out into the school's corridors rather than exit.
A course of action which seems decidedly odd to say the least. His
beauty and/or his ethnicity could have entered into the picture without
the film having him die in such a confounding way.
David, I'd be interested to read your thoughts on the "other things."
Dan:
> All the other major characters are shown throughout the film, but
Benny
> appears near the end, much later than all the other characters who
have
> title cards to introduce them.
Benny actually does appear early in the film, playing football outside
on the field, though nothing substantial is made of his presence --
he's in the background as much as other students who we never focus on
again.
- Paul
3844
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 7:40am
Subject: Re: Spielberg
> I'm surprised that none of the discussion so far (at least if I've
> followed it all) deals with the metaphorical and allegorical side
of A.I. whereby feeling invested in nonhuman matter becomes the
> fundamental experience (and the moral paradox) of cinema itself.
This is the point where Kubrick's and Spielberg's obsessions come
> together. And, as I tried to argue in my Reader piece about the
film, every Spielberg heart-tug in the story is counteracted by a
sardonic Kubrick kickback. Therefore those who reject the final scene
> as a gooey Spielbergian wet dream seem to be overlooking that this
goo is occasioned by a robot going to bed with the clone of his
adopted mother and this act constitutes the final gasp (or echo of a
> gasp) of humanity--a sicko shadow dance if I ever heard of one. I
suppose one could also argue that Spielberg deconstructs Kubrick to
the same degree that Kubrick deconstructs Spielberg--but one should
bear in mind that Spielberg's contribution WAS PART OF KUBRICK'S
> EVOLVING CONCEPTION OF THE PROJECT. So I'm afraid I can't buy the
arguments that dismiss whole sections of the film as anti-Kubrick. As
with Welles, it was an essential part of Kubrick's genius to
> invariably confound whatever expectations we had about him.
Allegorically, one might say Kubrick is the father and Spielberg is
the mother -- which probably makes Ian Watson (the brilliant SF
writer whose contribution to the script has gone largely
unrecognised) the midwife.
Here are some of Watson's comments from a great interview at the
Science Fiction Weekly site
(www.scifi.com/sfw/issue268/interview.html):
"I adore Spielberg's A.I. Of course I'm a wee bit prejudiced, since
so much of my story got used, and Jude Law is so wonderful as Gigolo
Joe. Dr. Know didn't much appeal to me, being so much like a Disney
cartoon, but nothing is perfect for everyone. A.I. seems to have
polarized opinion considerably, some people deriding it and others
loving it and weeping in the cinema and writing passionately about it
as something very special, quite different from the usual Hollywood
movie, and important—even philosophically so. There's been quite a
bit of confusion among critics, especially about the final 20
minutes, which aren't Spielberg being sentimental (his main addition
was the cruel, brutal Flesh Fair), but are exactly what I wrote for
Stanley and exactly what Stanley wanted. And as for sentimental,
well, at the end of his perfect day David is alone without his mother
for ever and ever in a universe which contains no other life, only
the evolved Mecha (robots, not visiting aliens!) who can only study
the traces and leftovers of extinct human life. David miraculously
sheds a tear, and I don't exactly blame him."
A.I. is certainly rich enough for any number of interpretations, but
I think that seeing the final scene as cynical is just as one-sided
as seeing it as sentimental. The union with Monica is after all not
the end of the film -- the crucial moment comes AFTER she(or her
clone) has vanished for the second time, meaning that David is forced
to accept the reality, which he's resisted throughout, of having lost
her forever. As I think Watson indicates above, it's this acceptance
of death and loss which finally (miraculously?) renders him "human".
JTW
3845
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 7:42am
Subject: Everyone Says I Love You
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Tonguette"
wrote:
>The great one for me is "Everyone
> Says I Love You"; there are many people whose taste in film I have
> great respect for who find its upper class attitudes completely
> offensive, but that final scene between Woody and Goldie is just
> magical.
Everyone Says I Love You is such a warm, lovely and under-rated
film. So often I think about the movie and immediately begin
grinning, even from such throwaway moments as the delighted look on
Alan Alda's face when the kids come in trick-or-treating.
And truly the only appropriate word for the final scene
is "magical." I mentioned to you that every time I go to Paris I
stay on Ile St.-Louis. The base of the Pont de la Tournelle where
that scene was shot is on the Left Bank right across the Seine from
the Ile, and we often go down there below the bridge to pay happy
homage to Woody and Goldie engaging in their terpsichore.
3846
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 10:08am
Subject: Re: Spielberg collaborations
> "Was it Bill who wrote that John Glover's warm-
> hearted corporate madman in "Gremlins 2" (also
> produced by
> Spielberg's company) was probably a parody of
> Spielberg?"
Daniel Clamp is a hybrid of Donald Trump and Ted Turner. Dante smacks
both with jokes, as when Clamp Cable Network shows "Casablanca" - NOW
IN COLOUR WITH A HAPPIER ENDING.
According to Tobe Hooper it was Spielberg who directed "Poltergeist",
according to Spielberg he only directed himself (the sequence where
one of the scientists rips his face off is Spielberg's, its his hands
and his idea). I believe it was in Fangoria where Hooper spoke out
about how Spielberg constantly interupted shooting, since Hooper
wanted "Poltergeist" to go in one direction and Spielberg wanted
something else, and directed behind Hoopers back.
3847
From: Eric Henderson
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 1:26pm
Subject: Re: Poltergeist
--- "Henrik Sylow" wrote:
> According to Tobe Hooper it was Spielberg who
directed "Poltergeist",
> according to Spielberg he only directed himself (the sequence where
> one of the scientists rips his face off is Spielberg's, its his
hands
> and his idea). I believe it was in Fangoria where Hooper spoke out
> about how Spielberg constantly interupted shooting, since Hooper
> wanted "Poltergeist" to go in one direction and Spielberg wanted
> something else, and directed behind Hooper's back.
I imagine Tobe Hooper may very well have known what he was saying
when he called "Poltergeist" a film by Spielberg, but I think he was
ignoring a great many shots and sequences that feel a lot more like
classic Hooper (or, at least, the Hooper who had just finished
directing the equally liquid Scope "The Funhouse"). For instance,
while the first climax might be all light and wind, the film's second
climax (which Spielberg, in some biography or another, all but
disowned as his "least favorite part" of the film) is characterized
by freshly-bathed bodies being soiled with mud, sweat, leaves,
terror... this is a quality that echoes "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" far
more than any other Spielberg film. The scene that I've pointed out
to skeptical friends as being an acknowledgement of the film's double-
director tensions is the scene of the two parents in bed together.
Though they're obviously enjoying eachother's company, one can't help
notice that the mother is smoking pot while the father's reading a
biography of Reagan.
3848
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:00pm
Subject: Re: Elephant (Bennie)
I cut two paragraphs from my Elephant review (for length) before
posting it here, and one had to do with Bennie. First of all, he IS
introduced earlier in the film - he's one of the touch football
players.
Second of all SPOILER as I hinted in an earlier post, he is an
hommage to Scatman Crothers in The Shining. (J. Hoberman's rather
supercillioius review, like mine before I started trimming,
emphasizes the similarities between the corridors of the school and
the corridors of the Overlook.)
Like Crothers, Bennie is an aborted deus ex machina, whose entire
trajectory we follow only to have the mission brutally and stupidly
terminated seconds after he comes within sight of one of the killers.
(According to Newsweek, by the way, SK filmed the last shot of
Crothers getting out of the Snowcat and going up to the door of the
Overlook 85 times.)
The moment where Bennie helps the girl out the window is indeed
touching, and continues the Kubrick analogy because at the end Danny
and Wendy drive off in Scatman's Snowcat, which wouldn't have been
there if he hadn't driven it there and gotten killed - Bennie's
heroism is also not completely in vain.
His ambling walk through the carnage is an absolutely wonderful piece
of behavior in itself, as David observes. As for his being the only
black kid, this is Portland, and my understanding is that it's a
pretty white town. A last puzzling fact: Whereas most of the
characters have the same first names as the actors, his changes one
letter: "y" to "ie."
3849
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:05pm
Subject: Clamp and Spielberg
If I said that, I lifted it from JR. (I think. I keep having these
Muriel moments as I get older...)
3850
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:09pm
Subject: Spielberg and Gremlins
Spielberg wanted a gory horror movie, and Joe took it in an other
direction. A lot of what ended up in the movie was devised during
production, while SS was away making an Indiana Jones movie. But he
stuck up for it when he saw it - for example, refusing to let Warners
take out the Dad-in-the-chimney speech, which was originally spoken
by a minor character in Columbus's script and reassigned by JD to
Phoebe Cates.
3851
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:11pm
Subject: Joe Blow
Fred, Thanks for reminding me. Just remembering it brought a smile -
what a great strip that was!
3852
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:18pm
Subject: Cowboy
Actually, I liked it when I saw it at around age 6, with my aged
cowboy friend Lon Deaton, who said he used to take care of the
buffalo on the nickel when he worked for Wild Bill Cody's Wild West
Show. He was contemptuous of the "drugstore cowboys" in the movies I
saw every Saturday at the Liberty (the theatre in our town that
played only kid movies), but we went to Vernon nearby to see Cowboy,
and we both thought it was darn good. I hope I'm remembering it
right: It's the one where the guy gets a rattlesnake wrapped around
his neck during a bit of horseplay?
3853
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:35pm
Subject: Re: Spielberg
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> I'm surprised that none of the discussion so far (at least if I've
> followed it all) deals with the metaphorical and allegorical side of
> A.I. whereby feeling invested in nonhuman matter becomes the
> fundamental experience (and the moral paradox) of cinema itself.
That's a good point. I had some thoughts along those lines in a
news group discussion: "I think there is _A.I._ an opposition
between object and subject that parallels the opposition between
film and spectator. Hence David progresses from being an object --
a machine -- to a subject -- a conscious being -- to, at the end,
some kind of reflexivity, in which machines observe themselves,
and which is ambiguously identified with both dreams and death. David
is originally like a movie: an artifact for the humans' amusement
and emotional benefit; he becomes like a film spectator when he
gazes at the Blue Fairy; at the end he lives out an illusion,
like a character in a film, or a film viewer losing himself
in a film."
I also was reminded of the argument that a function of fairy tales
is to help male children work through the Oedipal complex: "I
think one can find parallels to normal childhood development
(in which, says Freud, the superego is formed through working
through the Oedipus complex), except that something goes a bit awry in
that David returns to the mother, rather than becoming autonomous;
the father (and the entire human species) is dead; and David is
blind to reality, dreaming, or dying." I suppose there is a
parallel between the mother's symbolic threat of castration,
according to Freud, and Monica's ability to deactivate David, and
I noticed some similarities to the story of Oedipus: Monica like
Jocasta, who abandoned Oedipus in the woods for fear he would kill;
Dr. Know and the Blue Fairy like the Sphinx, or archaic mother or
mother goddess, whose form is halfway between the inhuman and
human, a whose riddle is described as 'the founding moment of a
subjectivity that is centered on human consciousness'; and there
might be an analogy between Oedipus' self-blinding and David's
fate. I'm an amateur at these sorts of interpretations, and rather
skeptical of them, but in the case of _A.I._, some Freud (which
Monica reads in the bathroom) seems hard to avoid.
Paul
3854
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:38pm
Subject: Re: Spielberg and Gremlins
Quite true about Spielberg standing up for Joe.
Phoebe Cates' speech is one of the most-discussed
aspects of "Gremlins." Joe loved the way it confounded
everyone.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
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3855
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:43pm
Subject: Re: Re: Elephant
The "other things" would be his evocation of Scatman
Crothers in "The Shining."
--- Paul Fileri wrote:
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3856
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:43pm
Subject: The ending of A.I.
David has been conscious all along, but at the end we're told he has
acquired an unsconscious: "For the first time he went to the place
where dreams are born." Anyone who thinks Spielberg could've come up
with that is a bigger Spielberg fan than I am. But he filmed it
beautifully.
3857
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 2:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: Elephant
"Is this all that different from Hollywood's usual?
Louis B. Mayer told
Elia Kazan, "Young man, you have one thing to learn.
We are in the
business of making beautiful pictures of beautiful
people and anybody
who does not acknowledge that should not be in this
business." - Dan"
Gus is more a gay Busby Berkeley than a gay Louis
B.Mayer.
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
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3858
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 3:16pm
Subject: Re: Re: Elephant (Bennie)
> Like Crothers, Bennie is an aborted deus ex machina, whose entire
> trajectory we follow only to have the mission brutally and stupidly
> terminated seconds after he comes within sight of one of the killers.
This is my sense too. What feels odd to me is that the rest of the film
doesn't really emphasize the causal aspects of narrative, so a deus ex
machina, aborted or not, seems an odd thing. - Dan
3859
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 4:31pm
Subject: LA: Five Years
For those of you in the L.A. area, Brett Wagner's family drama FIVE
YEARS, which I thought was one of the best films of 2002, is playing at
the American Cinematheque on Thursday, November 20 at 7:30 pm as part of
the Alternative Screen series. - Dan
3860
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 6:18pm
Subject: Re: Woody Allen's Anything Else
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Tonguette"
wrote:
> I'm always very moved by "Another Woman." I wonder if I can ever
> find someone who makes a case for the despised "September"...
>
> I did -- in "50 ans de cinema americain" although I called
it "minor" and more of an exercise than an achievement. I wrote one
could watch it several times without getting bored. I should watch it
again!
JPC
3861
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 7:39pm
Subject: Re: Delmer Daves
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
>
>
> I'm not as enthusiastic for Dark Passage as some other folks – the
> camera-as-proxy for Bogart in the early part of the film strikes me
> as a gimmick the movie never quite recovers from. (Another movie
> using the camera subjectively as a character, Robert Montgomery's
> Lady In The Lake was a year earlier -- Does anyone know if the
> Montgomery was in release when Daves began his movie?) The same
year
> as Dark Passage (1947) made better use of San Francisco locations
in
> Nora Prentiss. I think Agnes Moorehead's performance does cross
into
> camp, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable or effective.
>
>
The subjective camera in the opening sequences of DARK PASSAGE may be
a gimmick, but it's a necessary one (they couldn't show Bogart's face)
and it also makes sense on several (dramatic, metaphorical, poetic)
levels since, through changing his face, the Bogart character "dies"
and is reborn, going through gestation in a woman's womb-like
apartment (she even feeds him through an umbilical cord -- a glass
straw! She even gives him his new name...) These scenes are
absolutely wonderful -- and the Bogart-Bacall rapport so warm and
real, so far from the adolescent snickering innuendos of the two
Hawks movies (one of the lines I hate most in movie history is the
famous "You know how to whistle..." Sorry). I also feel that the film
has the best use of San Francisco locations this side of VERTIGO.
In LADY IN THE LAKE the subjective camera is indeed a gimmick and
nothing else. The movie is interesting, even fascinating (the weird
LA Christmas atmosphere, the dialogue with many great lines, some
from the book some not) but in spite of and not because of the
gimmick.
JPC
3862
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 8:11pm
Subject: Pretty good use of SF locations by neither Hitchcock nor Daves
The Lineup and Dirty Harry.
3863
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 8:29pm
Subject: Damn good use of SF locations by neither Hitchcock nor Daves
Bullit
3864
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 8:49pm
Subject: more daves
Out of the Delmer Daves filmography I would also recommend THE RED
HOUSE, a strange, hallucinatory gothic melodrama from 1947 with
Edward G. Robinson, Judith Anderson and a young, quite beautiful
Julie London. The film is around in a lot of dreadful public domain
prints and videos. It awaits an "offical" restoration available to
the general public although you can catch a glimpse of a good 35mm.
print of the film in Scorsese's BFI documentary on Hollywood cinema.
This has often been noted elsewhere (although not on any of the posts
here that I saw)but DARK PASSAGE was widely admired by the post-war
Surrealists (Coursodon briefly refers to this in his essay). Gerard
Legrand was moved to cite Breton and Lautreamont[how do you create
accents in these texts?] in his discussion of DARK PASSAGE, a film
which he considered a "multi-level masterpiece." However, the
Surrealists largely appreciated the film in a non-auteurist fashion,
a great film which "the ordinary Delmer Daves" (Legrand's term)
created in spite of himself. (They had the same attitude, wrongly
again I think, in terms of LAURA and Preminger.)
I agree with Coursodon on the superb use of San Francisco locations
in DARK PASSAGE and in fact I've shown the film in my VERTIGO
seminars for this reason. (All of Daves's major work is marked by
his attention to urban and rural landscape and to architecture.) And
I also agree in terms of the very special rapport that Bacall and
Bogart have here (very delicate and nuanced at times, especially the
dinner scene on the terrace of her apartment)that is unlike the one
they have in the Hawks films -- although I would not go so far as to
prefer it OVER the Hawks. It is just of a different nature. Within
the context of CAHIERS-inspired early auteurism Daves may even be
seen as a kind of straw man to Hawks, who often cited 3:10 TO YUMA
(along with HIGH NOON) as the kind of false "adult" western he was
responding to when he made RIO BRAVO. As Daney notes in his interview
with Bill Krohn, CAHIERS was always drawn to a cinema which
demonstrated "the excess of writing over ideology, and not the
reverse (Huston, Daves, Wyler, today Altman."
At any rate,the special air of l'amour fou which surrounds DARK
PASSAGE affected a male student I had about eight years ago who
became so smitten with Bacall's character in the film he told me it
was seriously threatening his relationship with his girlfriend, who
was now failing to measure up to Bacall in his DARK PASSAGE-inspired
fantasies. Alas, Bacall herself dislikes the film (she and Daves did
not get along). KEY LARGO, she says, is the film she gets the most
letters on today. So much for cinephilia, auteurism...and l'amour
fou.
The Warners melodramas of the late fifties and early to mid-sixties
are in need of some kind of re-appraisal although I'm not sure of
what nature. As essentially 1960s texts (with icons of the period
like Sandra Dee, Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, and Suzanne
Pleashette) they just miss falling under the "Tales of Sound and
Fury" category of Thomas Elsaesser's. I loathe the term "guilty
pleasure" but the atmosphere of "glazed chestnuts" which envelops
these films is highly seductive to anyone who is deeply attached to
post-war American melodrama. The final group of Daves films seems to
represent a final voluptuous gasp of this tradition, all lacquered-
up, as Max Steiner's music reinforces the hysterically glamorous
atmosphere. John Epperson, best known as the drag character
Lypsinka, is a fan of late Delmer Daves and repeatedly uses Sandra
Dee hysterically screaming "I've been a good girl!" and "Please, I
want my father!" from A SUMMER PLACE in his latest show, AS I LAY LIP-
SYNCHING. John Waters also includes some frames from (I think) SUSAN
SLADE in his DIRECTOR'S CUT book, including the credit: "Written and
Directed by Delmer Daves."
3865
From: Peter Tonguette
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 8:55pm
Subject: Re: Pretty good use of SF locations by neither Hitchcock nor Daves
Blake Edwards' "Experiment in Terror" and Peter Bogdanovich's
"What's Up, Doc?" both use their SF locations to full advantage.
Peter
3866
From: filipefurtado
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 9:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: Pretty good use of SF locations by neither Hitchcock nor Daves
> Blake Edwards' "Experiment in Terror"
I just saw this today. The use of locations is really pretty
good, but the movie stuck me as mechanical and overlong. It
has almost none of Edwards usual sense of character and the
film most of the time never came to life (the investigations
sequences specially). I'm curious about what Damien might
think of it.
Filipe
and Peter Bogdanovich's
> "What's Up, Doc?" both use their SF locations to full advant
age.
>
> Peter
>
>
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3867
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 9:40pm
Subject: Experiment in Terror, SF
It had big influence on the second season of Twin Peaks (the name of
which appears at the end of the credits).
Siegel did such a good job making SF a noir city that Hitchcock kept
hesitating to return to it for Family Plot. (He was also afraid of
the audience's memories of all those Streets of San Franisco
episodes.) He ended up using San Francisco for most of it, but made
it as unlocalisable as Cary Grant's "mid-Atlantic") accent.
3868
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 9:41pm
Subject: sf cinema
Any list of great San Francisco films would have to include Ernie
Gehr's SIDE/WALK/SHUTTLE.
3869
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Elephant (Bennie)
> This is my sense too. What feels odd to me is that the rest of the
> film doesn't really emphasize the causal aspects of narrative, so a
> deus ex machina, aborted or not, seems an odd thing. - Dan
I had the feeling that, without the killers, the film would have
followed its characters as they played out a very low-frequency
narrative, no big events but a quiet "slice of life" type story
(closer to KILLER OF SHEEP - which I just saw today - than to DAZED
AND CONFUSED); in any event I think the way Van Sant highlights
personality traits, conflicts, and concerns that raise characters out
of the noise of the rest of the school's population amounts to an
emphasis on a kind of "micro" narrative structure independent of the
invasion of the two killers.
Bennie is the only character whose presence in the movie is
*dependent* on the *fact* of the killers, and who probably wouldn't
have been foregrounded otherwise. That's kind of interesting.
-Jaime
3870
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 10:22pm
Subject: Re: Elephant (Bennie)
> Bennie is the only character whose presence in the movie is
> *dependent* on the *fact* of the killers, and who probably wouldn't
> have been foregrounded otherwise. That's kind of interesting.
Also this would mean that the killers (and/or Van Sant) created and
destroyed Bennie in one continuous take. At least as far as he's a
foreground rather than a background character.
-Jaime
3871
From:
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 6:35pm
Subject: Re: Looney Tunes Back in Action
I LOVED this picture. I think David E. is right on in what he says about
subtext/text; Looney Tunes and Chuck Jones have arguably had an influence on just
about every film Dante has made, but here Bugs and Daffy are front and
center. From an auteurist perspective, this is mighty fascinating viewing, watching
Dante work with (and pay tribute to) some of the art which inspired him as a
filmmaker. But simply from an 'entertainment' perspective, it's glorious,
roomy, beautifully done filmmaking. A bright, vivid, colorful movie packed with
Dante's via-Tashlin satirical perspective. David mentions the Paris segment;
I think I'm partial to Dante's vision of Las Vegas, which rivals Gilliam's in
"Fear and Loathing" in terms of sheer visual excess.
The minute I learned (from the making-of documentary) that Brendan Fraser's
role was that of a stunt double for Brendan Fraser, I predicted that "Back in
Action" was going to be a tough sell with audiences. This is a pretty radical
movie in many respects. And I loved every second of it.
Peter
http://hometown.aol.com/ptonguette/index.html
3872
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 8, 2003 11:55pm
Subject: Hello Frisco Hello
The various films mentioned in today's posts mostly give us the
traditional, tourist-oriented San Francisco, with cars careering down
steep streets etc... But the San Francisco of DARK PASSAGE is a SF of
the mind, an oneiric (and somewhat nighmarish) space no other film to
my knowlege has conjured up.
Yes the film was loved by the post-war French surrealists. What
actually alerted me to its existence when I was 16 or 17 was reading
an article about it in the surrealist film mag L'AGE DU CINEMA which
started publishing in 1951 and folded the same year after six issues.
I had 3 or 4 issues and wish I had not somehow lost them.
JPC
3873
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 2:50am
Subject: [Fwd: Looney Tunes Back in Action]
I forward this to the group because the poster, our irrepressible Mr.
Ehrenstien, sent to to me by clicking on "email to group owner" or
something like that. I'm not sure exactly what he did because as group
owner I don't see whatever button y'all are using -- because this has
happened before. No big deal, but watch it, as I'm not necessarily at my
computer 24/7, so your email sent to the owner may not reach the group
right away.
- Fred
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Looney Tunes Back in Action
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 13:39:47 -0800 (PST)
From: David Ehrenstein
To: a_film_by-owner@yahoogroups.com
Essential viewing for anyone interested in Joe or
Warner Bros. cartoons but I don't know how this is
going to go down with the general public. Plenty of
kids at the screening I attended, but they were quite
restrained, as the verbal wit was over their heads and
the visual wit too fast even for them.
More extreme than "Gremlins II," in that by the
quarter mark it's plain that the ostensible text ( the
plot) is a pretext and the REAL text is what would
ordinarily be the subtext of references to everything
Joe has ever seen and loved. At the 3/4 point it's
clear that unlike "Roger Rabbitt" the actors and the
characters they play are of only marginal concern to
Joe. The stars of this movie are Duffy Duck and Bugs
Bunny.
I love the notion of a Paris in which the Eifll tower
and the Louvre are right next to one another, with
cineplexes along side them showing obscure Jerry Lewis movies.
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3874
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 3:15am
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Looney Tunes Back in Action]
-------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Looney Tunes Back in Action
> Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 13:39:47 -0800 (PST)
> From: David Ehrenstein
> To: a_film_by-owner@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> .
>
> I love the notion of a Paris in which the Eifll tower
> and the Louvre are right next to one another, with
> cineplexes along side them showing obscure Jerry Lewis movies.
>
> __That's the way they do it in Las Vegas, right?
The French they are a funny race. They love Jerry Lewis movies
(they also wear funny berets and silly mustaches and walk around
carrying baguettes)
This gag (about the French and Lewis) is so old it has whiskers
(to quote, inter alia, Preston Sturges)
JPC (unashamed French person)________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
> http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
3875
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 5:44am
Subject: Looney Tunes
> This gag (about the French and Lewis) is so old it has whiskers
> (to quote, inter alia, Preston Sturges)
The reference to Jerry Lewis in LOONEY TUNES is a poster for WHICH WAY
TO THE FRONT? in a galeria outside the Louvre (or not really the Louvre
but some kind of concoction of the Louvre and other museums with
artwork that doesn't even belong to the Louvre). I guess what's so
funny about it is the randomness of choosing one of Lewis' least
successful films not to mention the randomness of everything
surrounding. Dante is perfectly aware of the old joke (just as he's
aware that his fans will find it obvious and unchallenging that he has
chosen to pay homage to Roger Corman again) but he does it any way,
just to cram in one more gag. Anyway the film balances between the
ingenious and the fluff and I didn't find it stupid and in fact, very
fresh and very true to its roots.
I think Dante's main weakness is in casting. For some reason I have
always been indifferent to his leads. Brendan Fraiser is fine, I
suppose, but Jenna Elfman, Heather Locklear (ick!), Goldberg (why?),
and a few others unsettle me, as opposed to his character actors (this
film's got a who's who of 'em). Nice to see Dean Cundey shooting a film
I am actually interested in for a change. As far as laughs, I doubt
even STUCK ON YOU will be this funny.
The anti-SPACE JAM indeed!
Gabe
3876
From: cjsuttree
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 8:16am
Subject: Re: Spielberg
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jaketwilson" wrote:
"
>
> A.I. is certainly rich enough for any number of interpretations, but
> I think that seeing the final scene as cynical is just as one-sided
> as seeing it as sentimental. The union with Monica is after all not
> the end of the film -- the crucial moment comes AFTER she(or her
> clone) has vanished for the second time, meaning that David is
forced
> to accept the reality, which he's resisted throughout, of having
lost
> her forever. As I think Watson indicates above, it's this acceptance
> of death and loss which finally (miraculously?) renders him "human".
>
> JTW
I agree.
I don't find David's obsession for Monica gooey or sentimental.
I find it intensely creepy. Monica and her family are disturbed
by it, to say the least, so I certainly think it is a valid
response. It is only after all of David's travails and 2000
years of praying that his sentimental obsession passes so deep
into madness that it finally breaks through to a sort of saintliness.
During the last 20 minutes it was hard for me not to view his
singleminded quest with a great deal of awe and respect.
The last 20 minutes of AI really makes no sense. The blatantly
contrived narrative and sheer excessiveness -- 2000 years of
burial in the snow, reviving Monica for exactly 24 hours
only to lose her for eternity -- they deliberately call attention
to themselves. I guess this is what is meant by Spielberg
and Kubrick desconstructing one another? The fact is, if David
just wanted a dreamlike fulfillment, one can just plug him to a
program and (a la the _Matrix_ or any number of science
fiction that came before it) he can have his mother
for eternity. But a dream is not what he wants. He wishes to
be a "real boy." So Monica must be revived for a day and is
torn from him forever after. Which is ridiculous, and it forces
you to detach yourself from the story and meditate a little bit.
Apart
from the privileging of DNA and living flesh over sensations that
can presumably be easily be recreated on a chip, being "real"
does seem to imply mortality and death. (As Jake suggested.)
And not just in a personal
sense either. The mortality of the human race is repeatedly
raised in the film. And maybe it isn't DNA and flesh that
defines being human after all, or even consciousness, but perhaps
humanity can only be defined in terms of our relationship to others?
(A definition that would be dear to the heart of Spielberg, although
a chorus of objection would scream: what about whales and monkeys?)
These days our
concerns have become so small and cinematic inquiry into our future
has become so narrow. _AI_ has the kind of transcendental ending
that just cannot be dismissed. I truly think this is best
American film I've seen this decade, despite the fact that I
don't particularly care for Spielberg or Kubrick. I'm rambling
and being sophomoric at this point, but I thought I might also try
to defend AI (to the extent it needs to be defended).
And let's now forget just how beautifully shot it is, either.
3877
From: George Robinson
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 8:50am
Subject: Re: Re: [Fwd: Looney Tunes Back in Action]
Odd, the last time I was in Paris, people were wearing baguettes, and
carrying mustaches.
Must have been a convention of surrealists in town.
g
The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
--Mark Twain
----- Original Message -----
From: "jpcoursodon"
To:
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 10:15 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: [Fwd: Looney Tunes Back in Action]
> -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: Looney Tunes Back in Action
> > Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 13:39:47 -0800 (PST)
> > From: David Ehrenstein
> > To: a_film_by-owner@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> > .
> >
> > I love the notion of a Paris in which the Eifll tower
> > and the Louvre are right next to one another, with
> > cineplexes along side them showing obscure Jerry Lewis movies.
> >
> > __That's the way they do it in Las Vegas, right?
>
> The French they are a funny race. They love Jerry Lewis movies
> (they also wear funny berets and silly mustaches and walk around
> carrying baguettes)
>
> This gag (about the French and Lewis) is so old it has whiskers
> (to quote, inter alia, Preston Sturges)
> JPC (unashamed French person)________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
> > http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
>
>
>
> 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/
>
>
>
>
3878
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 4:27pm
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Looney Tunes Back in Action]
-
The last time you saw Paris, George, your heart was young and gay,
obviously...
And the last time I saw Dali (in the lobby of the Sherry
Netherland) he was not even wearing a loaf of bread on the top of his
head.
JPC
-- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
wrote:
> Odd, the last time I was in Paris, people were wearing baguettes,
and
> carrying mustaches.
> Must have been a convention of surrealists in town.
> g
>
> The man who does not read good books
> has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
> --Mark Twain
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jpcoursodon"
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 10:15 PM
> Subject: [a_film_by] Re: [Fwd: Looney Tunes Back in Action]
>
>
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > > Subject: Looney Tunes Back in Action
> > > Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 13:39:47 -0800 (PST)
> > > From: David Ehrenstein
> > > To: a_film_by-owner@yahoogroups.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > .
> > >
> > > I love the notion of a Paris in which the Eifll tower
> > > and the Louvre are right next to one another, with
> > > cineplexes along side them showing obscure Jerry Lewis movies.
> > >
> > > __That's the way they do it in Las Vegas, right?
> >
> > The French they are a funny race. They love Jerry Lewis movies
> > (they also wear funny berets and silly mustaches and walk around
> > carrying baguettes)
> >
> > This gag (about the French and Lewis) is so old it has whiskers
> > (to quote, inter alia, Preston Sturges)
> > JPC (unashamed French person)________________________________
> > > Do you Yahoo!?
> > > Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
> > > http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
> >
> >
> >
> > 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/
> >
> >
> >
> >
3879
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 5:07pm
Subject: Dante's Inferno
The "reality" of the "Paris" confected in "Looney
Tunes Back in Action" has only one
objective-correlative: Las Vegas.
The film puts the characters "Back in Action" by
sending them to Las Vegas (with Bugs singing "Viva Las
Vegas" as they do) and in many ways it never leaves
there. The "Paris" and "Africa" we go to afterwards
are basically reworkings of Vegas hotels.
I long read Umberto Eco's review of Joe's film.
Not to mention Jean Baudrillard's.
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3880
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 5:16pm
Subject: Hello Dali
The only time I saw Dali, he was holding court in the Oak Room at the
St. Regis, surrounded by epigones in matching black vinyl raincoats,
his ocelot with the diamond collar parked at the door. I had just
come from seeing Bunuel's Diary of a Chambermaid (just out), with its
last image of the marching fascists being double jump-cut into
nothingness, followed by Bunuel's signature in a bolt of lightning. I
looked at Dali and thought, "You putz..."
3881
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 6:32pm
Subject: Re: Hello Dali
Bill, the St Regis is actually where I saw Dali (in the early
eighties). That's where he always stayed. Don't know why I wrote
Sherry Netherland. I've seen Diary of a Chambermaid again in DVD last
week -- an absolutely wonderful film, one of the great Bunuels, don't
you think? "Chiappe" of course was the notorious Prefect of Police
that the Surrealists hated (he banned L'Age d'or).
JPC
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> The only time I saw Dali, he was holding court in the Oak Room at
the
> St. Regis, surrounded by epigones in matching black vinyl
raincoats,
> his ocelot with the diamond collar parked at the door. I had just
> come from seeing Bunuel's Diary of a Chambermaid (just out), with
its
> last image of the marching fascists being double jump-cut into
> nothingness, followed by Bunuel's signature in a bolt of lightning.
I
> looked at Dali and thought, "You putz..."
3882
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 6:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: Pretty good use of SF locations by neither Hitchcock nor Daves
Umm...
"Song 7" by Stan Brakhage. His fingers in front of the lens and his
titling camera dance with the city's diagonals.
"The End" by Christopher Maclaine, one of the great under-seen
masterpieces of avant-garde film. Predating "Dog Star Man," he tilts to
exaggerate the hills, and the city's verticality suggests a fragility
that works perfectly with the film's end-of-the-world theme.
"Side/Walk/Shuttle" by Ernie Gehr.
Full length reviews of the last two are on my Web site.
"Vertigo" is a partial exception to the fact that cities are backgrounds
-- sometimes used effectively, but backgrounds nonetheless and not
explored on their own -- in most Hollywood films.
Why does it seem so odd to me that lovers of Hollywood films often
praise them for doing things that avant-garde films do so much more
profoundly? This act is akin to praising the end of the Beach Boys' "God
Only Knows" (choosing a song I like enormously rather than an easy
target) for its "polyphony" without mentioning Bach.
- Fred
3883
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 6:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: Pretty good use of SF locations by neither Hitchcock nor Daves
"Why does it seem so odd to me that lovers of
Hollywood films often
praise them for doing things that avant-garde films do
so much more
profoundly?"
Because Hollywood films sport a sensuality that isn't
easily achieved by the a-g. MacLaine's, Brakhage's and
Gehr's films (all quite different) are quite
noteworthy for their use of SF. But "Vertigo" is a
story with a lot of literary fascination to bolster
it's visual fascination -- and consequently operates
on viewers on a different level.
Incidentally, Warren Sonbert shot tons of SF material
for his films -- frequently paying hommage to
"Vertigo" in the process. Back when the film was stil
semi-unfashiionable Warren used to give people
"Vertigo-Tours" of San Francisco, taking them to all
the places where the film was shot.
--- Fred Camper wrote:
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3884
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 7:08pm
Subject: Re: Re: Spielberg
Neither Damien's defense of "A.I." (nor -- yikes! -- Woody Allen) nor
Henrik's attack on it convince me one way or the other. They talk about
themes, they talk about emotions. If everything they said were true
those things still wouldn't make it a good, or a bad, film as far as I'm
concerned.
I guess Jaime is right that I'm our most radical formalist or something,
because so often when I see an argument for a film, I think, even if
everything the writer says is true, none of this would make it a good
film for me.
Jonathan Rosenbaum's argument is more convincing, and I think I agree
with it up to a point. It's just that the process he describes, which I
do see in the film, didn't come across as especially interesting in my
one viewing of "AI," though it was perhaps the most interesting thing
about the film. We have so many greater "allegories of cinema" (to filch
the title of David James's book) -- in Hitchcock, in Rivette, in
avant-garde film -- that the curious push-pull of "AI" doesn't seem
especially complex. Also, no degree of complexity for me could redeem
its Norman Rockwell imagery, or the characteristically Rockwellian
little movement of the teddy bear (is this right?) in the final shot, a
kind of "cute" touch like the curls or hair or dirty feet or other
little details on Rockwell's kids.
Most discussion about films based on characters, themes, or moods evoked
by the films don't leave me convinced that the film being praised is
defensible aesthetically. The basic mechanism of narrative cinema seems
to involve an engaging story involving attractive people (that's a great
quote about "beautiful pictures of beautiful people" -- it reminds me
of Howard Hughes's lines to Bergman about "Stromboli" as quoted in Tag's
book; he asks her if she'll be beautiful in the film and "wear beautiful
clothes") that "sucks you in." This for me alone would have no
particular aesthetic interest, nor do directorial "touches" that add
mood do all that much for me either. It seems to me that one could even
make an aesthetic-social-political argument against this way of seeing
films: if you're not looking at the form, and interrogating the form for
something of substance, you're just letting yourself be manipulated.
Since I just mentioned underground comic artist R. Crumb, I'll cite
another comic of the period, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, in which
one of the brothers watches a TV commercial that says "Vote for Foont
Because He's a Real Man," is seen thinking "Foont is a real man," and
then is suddenly interested in voting.
A film with a significantly complex form achieves its effects through
its form. To take our favorite horrible example, "The Triumph of the
Will" creates an aesthetic of both hero-worship (with Hitler as the
object or worship) and of fascism generally through composition and
movement and editing. You could argue that this makes it more dangerous
and more evil than the average pro-fascist film, but for a formally
aware viewer, you can't just sit back and let the subject matter of the
pictures engage you; you're engaged by (and hopefully also repulsed by)
the film's whole ethos, because you see it expressed as a manner of
visual thinking.
It's fine to like films for any number of other reasons, but those
reasons generally seem to me to be idiosyncratic rather than potentially
trans-personal.
- Fred
3885
From:
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 2:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Spielberg
In a message dated 11/9/03 2:33:30 PM, f@f... writes:
>Neither Damien's defense of "A.I." (nor -- yikes! -- Woody Allen) nor
>Henrik's attack on it convince me one way or the other. They talk about
>themes, they talk about emotions. If everything they said were true
>those things still wouldn't make it a good, or a bad, film as far as I'm
>concerned.
I've got a whole heap of posts to reply to, but just a quick response to Fred
here. I won't speak for Damien, but I know that I sometimes jot off posts
here without detailing why a film is aesthetically great. And yet I basically
think of myself as a formalist in that the elements of a movie's form are the
things that matter most to me. So when I talk about the "other stuff" in a
film I regard as great - the themes, the emotions, the performances, whatever - I
may be getting a little lazy, but rest assurred that I feel I could defend
that film aesthetically. I'd wager Damien could do the same for "Everyone Says
I Love You" and "A.I." or any film he speaks of as being great. And as for
me, the mise-en-scene of Woody Allen's "Anything Else" is the MAIN thing I talk
about in my piece on that film.
Peter
3886
From:
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 3:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: Pretty good use of SF locations by neither Hitchcock nor Daves
In a message dated 11/9/03 2:10:19 PM, cellar47@y... writes:
>But "Vertigo" is a
>story with a lot of literary fascination to bolster
>it's visual fascination -- and consequently operates
>on viewers on a different level.
But this goes back to my comments on space a week ago! I think it's possible
to watch "Vertigo" and be pulled in on a visual level alone. In fact, I've
seen the film so many times and know the story so well that I kind of have to
make an effort to get "pulled in" by the plot as such. I still find it
incredibly moving for the ways the visuals relate to the story and character, but I
have no trouble zoning out on these things and simply relating to the film as a
profoundly beautiful work of visual art. Part of my quandry from last week's
discussions was whether or not this was a valid way to look at narrative
film... my gut tells me that it is.
Peter
3887
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 8:17pm
Subject: Re: Our Daily Bread
Jaime, it's great to hear that the film got to you "my way."
Other viewing suggestions (along the lines of Amazon.com's "people who
bought this book also bought"):
The montage sequences in "An American Romance"
All of Eisenstein
Brakhage's "Cat's Cradle"
The films of Artavazd Peleshian (not so easy to see, admittedly)
- Fred
3888
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 8:32pm
Subject: Re: Hello Dali
J-P, Your post adds to what I felt at the time re: Bunuel and Dali.
Bunuel had never stopped being a revolutionary, and Dali had sold out
everything the two of them ever believed in. It showed in their
respective work of the time.
3889
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 8:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: Spielberg
"Also, no degree of complexity for me could redeem
its Norman Rockwell imagery, or the characteristically
Rockwellian
little movement of the teddy bear (is this right?) in
the final shot, a
kind of "cute" touch like the curls or hair or dirty
feet or other
little details on Rockwell's kids."
Teddy appears in the penultimate shot, but there's
nothing "cute" about him.In fact his emotional
detachment stads in stark contrast to David's
insistence on producing emotional involvement.
Gort, the robot in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is
a predecessor to Teddy, IMO.
--- Fred Camper wrote:
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3890
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 8:53pm
Subject: Re: Pretty good use of SF locations by neither Hitchcock nor Daves
Peter wrote:
> I have no trouble zoning out on these things and simply relating to
> the film as a profoundly beautiful work of visual art. Part of my
> quandry from last week's discussions was whether or not this was a
> valid way to look at narrative film... my gut tells me that it is.
Relating to the film purely visually would, for one thing, mean
you're not paying attention to rhythm, pacing, sequence, or sound.
Which I somehow doubt is the case, Peter! I don't think there's
anything wrong with refining a view of narrative art to its non-
narrative aspects, particularly when you know the art well. But if a
film engages you on a narrative level (that is, if a narrative
exists, not if it successfully pulls you in), there seems to me to be
an obligation to acknowledge the narrative. I think art is
fundamentally about experience, and part of the transpersonal
experience that Fred goes for (and which I go for as well) can be, to
me, communicated in narrative film throughout character psychology.
On one hand, I--like any good auteurist--am willing to overlook
conventionally awful narratives and poorly drawn characters in
certain films maudit (?) if the auteur is doing so many other great
things. On the other hand, if someone wrote of LATE SPRING or SUMMER
OF '42 or SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON that its issues of character (and)
psychology were irrelevant to the achievements of the film, I'd get
the dry heaves. I think it's up to the viewer to distinguish between
what we might call 'simple' identification (paraphrasing:
Durgnat's 'We give our sympathy to on-screen figures simply because
they're human and we identify') and 'complex' identification (part of
Mulligan's overpowering conception of the world involves our
understanding of his adolescent boys' conceptions of the world and
their 'character traits'). Both forms of identification matter and
might in their own way contribute to a film's greatness (or failure).
--Zach
3891
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 8:58pm
Subject: Triumph of the Will
Fred, The best critique of Triumph is by Kracauer, who talks in the
appendix to Caligari about how Riefenstahl's style unconsciously
betrays the nihilism of the Nazi movement by turning the physical
world into an apparition. Bernard Eisenschitz picked up on this in
his addendum to Sadoul's dictionary entry on Olympia, where he speaks
of her distrust of physical reality. Writing on Olympia, I was
stunned by Kracauer's comments, which pointed me to the argument I
ended up making: In the same way The General Line is a delirium of
Stalinism - made by an artist committed to Stalin's [murderous]
policies for transforming the countryside - Olympia (whose
propagandistic aims have been well documented and analyzed) is a
delirium of Nazism.
This extends to the way she films the nude male bodies in the Olympic
Village (the steam bath!) and in the opening shots of the nude
Olympians and the teenage torchbearer (with whom she had an affair),
which SHE directed - Willy Zielke directed the buildings, the statues
and the nude temple dancers - as well as the more discreet shots of
Jesse Owens and the decathalon champion Glenn Morris (with whom she
also had an affair, comically described in her memoirs) among others
(those reenacted pole vaults!). Whereas Nazism desxualized the body
via mass compositions (like Zielke's "Eurythmic" images of the temple
dancers), Riefenstahl filmed male bodies one by one and gave them a
strong sexual charge. Fitted into the continuum of other shots of men
marching etc., her sexy shots of men, which appear homoerotic in this
context, ultimately reveal - as in a fever dream - the repressed
desire underlying the sexless homosocial bonds (men with men, women
with women) that were part of the Nazi ideal.
So those two films are not JUST beautiful, and it is not JUST up to
us to resist their beauty because of knowledge we bring to them from
life, or because certain types of beauty are inherently fascist (the
Sontag argument: But really, what's fascistic about Busby Berkeley,
for heaven's sake?). Because they were made by an artist (like
Eisenstein) who believed in what she was filming and put her guts
into the job, they denounce what they depict by the way they depict
it. A DELIRIUM of Nazism. No one can look at these films today
without seeing that slightly creepy mysticism, that flaunting of
disavowed homosocial desire (ironically, because it's a woman
directing the filming) and also the enormous amount of sheer Kitsch
they contain, Time's revenge on BAD art. All of these things are part
of the film now, and we need more than a formal analysis to
understand them.
3892
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 9:32pm
Subject: Re: Triumph of the Will
"No one can look at these
> films today
> without seeing that slightly creepy mysticism, that
> flaunting of
> disavowed homosocial desire (ironically, because
> it's a woman
> directing the filming) and also the enormous amount
> of sheer Kitsch
> they contain, Time's revenge on BAD art."
And for further perspective on all of this seek out
"Desire" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129033/
by Stuart Marshall.
Alas it was th only film he lived to make.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
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3893
From:
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 6:01pm
Subject: France: We Love You!
I can see why J-P. Coursodon is a bit concerned, after the radical right's
horrendous barrage of anti-French propoganda during the past year. In fact, I
would not blame any French people in the States for being "Very, Very Nervous",
as Mel Brooks once put it.
All of this ignores the deep love most Americans have always had for the
French. French painting has been the model for most American painters for over 100
years now.
My own family history is perhaps typical. Although my father was not French,
he took French in high school in the 1930's, here in Michigan. He took part in
the Liberation of France in 1944 - his unit went in 14 days after D-Day. He
served as unofficial translator for his battalion. He took more French in
college after the war, and married my Mother, who was also fluent in French
(Italian and Spanish, too!) My folks made sure I took French in college. I came from
a home where French culture was treated with reverance. Cocteau was one of the
three painters who most influenced my painting as a child - the other two
being Klee and Miro. I read Rimbaud's "Le Bateau ivre / The Drunk Boat" at an
early age, and later on tons of other French poetry - Andre Chenier, Vincent
Voiture, Louise Labe, Chretien de Troyes (so I knew his Perceval long before the
Rohmer film), Joachim Du Bellay, Maurice Sceve, Du Bartas, Saint-Amant,
Lamartine, Gerard de Nerval. We used to go to the Art Institute in Chicago, where my
Mother would always reverently exclaim, "They have one of the largest
collections of French Impressionist paintings in the world!"
This was all in a non-affluent middle class family in Lansing, Michigan - my
father was assistant manager of a credit union with 8 employees.
The current political climate will soon pass - and the sooner the better!
The deep love Americans have for France will endure.
Mike Grost
3894
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 11:30pm
Subject: Re: France: We Love You!
I'm not as confident as Mike about "the deep love most Americans have
always had for the French". However, the political agenda that fueled
the Franco-bashings was truly offensive, particularly since it
represented some of this country's most ignorant and yahoo elements.
I was quite surprised that the artistic (and especially film)
community protested so little. At the time of the conservative
attacks and "freedom fries" absurdities, , I sent a statement
to the Film-Philosophy group, that read in part:
"Pseudo-populists in the media are of course waging an information
war to inflate the prejudices of ordinary folk, manipulating facts,
twisting logic, and appealing to jingoism. In the context of this
group, it is deeply embarrassing to witness the crude xenophobia
that insults the country that gave us Mélies, the Lumières,
Gance, Jean Vigo, 'La Grande Illusion', 'Les Enfants du paradis',
'La Belle et la bête', 'Jeux Interdits', 'Madame de...', 'Le
Salaire de la peur', the entire Nouvelle Vague, 'Hiroshima,
Mon Amour', Godard, 'Au hasard, Balthazar', 'Z', Rohmer,
Rivette, Derrida..."
It still surprises me that so few voices were raised in France's
defense. Where is Vincente Minnelli when we really need him?
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> I can see why J-P. Coursodon is a bit concerned, after the radical
right's
> horrendous barrage of anti-French propoganda during the past year...
> Mike Grost
3895
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 11:56pm
Subject: Re: Triumph of the Will
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
No one can look at these films today without seeing that slightly
creepy mysticism, that flaunting of disavowed homosocial desire
Would that it were so, but as for TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, it remains a
favorite of neo-nazis, particularly neo-nazi teenagers who do not
perceive anything kitschy about it.
Richard
3896
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Nov 10, 2003 0:04am
Subject: Re: Re: France: We Love You!
"Where is Vincente Minnelli when we really need him?"
Mista Minnelli he dead.
The horror! The horror!
--- Robert Keser wrote:
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3897
From:
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2003 7:05pm
Subject: Re: SF Locations
"Greed" (von Stroheim) has some interesting early glimpses of the city.
"Fog over Frisco" (1934) is a mystery thriller. It is full of location
photography of San Francisco. 1934 was right in the center of the studio bound era
of the 1930's. Films often had a few establishing scenes of stock footage of
some city; they also often had exteriors shot on studio back lots that
represented a "typical New York street" or "average London set of houses". The studios
maintained standing sets of their lots that represented such familiar
locations. "Fog over Frisco" is completely different. It actually takes us out on the
streets of San Francisco, in a way that is typical of 1970's TV crime shows,
but which looks utterly unlike most 30's films. The city revealed in its images
looks at once much like modern Frisco, with its distinctive buildings on
steep hills, and also much different from the modern town, with old cars, clothes
and 1930's style building facades everywhere. These scenes make a fascinating
historical document.
Mike Grost
PS I never could enjoy "The Streets of San Francisco" or any other of the
"Quinn Martin Productions" TV crime shows. They were inoffensive - but deadly
dull. I tended to like more comic crime shows - "Burke's Law", "Riptide",
"Moonlighting", "Simon and Simon", "Remington Steele".
3898
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Nov 10, 2003 0:06am
Subject: Re: France: We Love You!
"All of this ignores the deep love most Americans have
always had for the
French."
Which has always been accompanied by a deep
ambivalence as France is an intellectual culture and
America is a deeply anti-intellectual culture.
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
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3899
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Nov 10, 2003 0:07am
Subject: Re: Spielberg
> Teddy appears in the penultimate shot, but there's
> nothing "cute" about him.In fact his emotional
> detachment stands in stark contrast to David's
> insistence on producing emotional involvement.
Without Teddy, the ending wouldn't be half as great as it is.
A shot like that makes nonsense of attempts to separate the "visual"
and "narrative" aspects of cinema -- a remarkably complex set of
meanings, gradually established over the previous two-and-a-half
hours, are condensed there into a single, lucid image.
JTW
3900
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Nov 10, 2003 0:12am
Subject: Re: Hello Dali
I think he sold out very early in his career. "Avida Dollar," you
know. L'Age d'or is not Dali-esque at all, thank God! Although he was
credited as co-screenwriter he had very little to do with the film.
Bunuel said "I would burn all my films without hesitation if I was
asked" (of course there was little chance he were asked, but I think
he really meant it, because, as he put it, "I'm not interested in
art, I'm interested in people.") Dali spent his later years signing
fake Dalis to line his already well-filled pockets.
JPC
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> J-P, Your post adds to what I felt at the time re: Bunuel and Dali.
> Bunuel had never stopped being a revolutionary, and Dali had sold
out
> everything the two of them ever believed in. It showed in their
> respective work of the time.
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