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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.
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4501
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 6:33am
Subject: Re: film and theatre
Welles loved Guitry and credited him with inventing the form he used
in The Fountain of Youth, F for Fake and Filming Othello.
4502
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 10:02am
Subject: Re: film and theater
"Glengarry Glen Ross" is an actor piece. The dialogue is great, but
needs really great actors to keep the tension. Mamet's characters
never have a dialogue, they have dual monologues, they talk to
eachother and not with eachother. As much as I adore Mamet and
"Glengarry Glen Ross", it lacks participation of the actors. Its
mastubation, not sex.
I prefer "Inherit the Wind" and (especially) "12 Angry Men" which to
me is far more "theatre". It is limited in space, it celebrates the
actor and dialogue / monologue alike and both stories are dialogue
driven. Where "12 Angry Men" is ensemble and basicly 12 supporting
actors competing for the lead, "Inherit the Wind" is a game of chess,
where the actors try to outstage eachother. It is not only the
dialogue and story that gives the tension, it is this inner
competition aswell.
"Inherit the Wind" is even more interesting, as Tracy was filmactor
and March was theatreactor and Tracy fought one hell of a battle
showing March, that he was a great actor, and March commented Tracy's
final monologue, which lasted about ten minuts, as "damn impressive".
On the completely different side of the spectrum is a film like
"Dogville", which really IS theatre recorded.
So, is Theatre only dialogue and setting? and is Film everything else
added?
Henrik
4503
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 1:34pm
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
>I believe most of us would agree that one of Cukor's greatest
>sequences is "The Man That Got Away" from A STAR IS BORN.
> Garland's vocal apart from the image is enormously dramatic and
>emotional. But in the sequence itself her facial expressions and
>body language are quite playful and even comic at times, as though
>she is winking at her own intensity. (She even literally winks at
>the end of the number and laughs.) It's a quintessential Cukor
>moment, I think.
> >
> > Joe
>
> Sometimes the auteurist has to step back in the face of common
> sense.
I'm not entirely certain what you mean by common sense. All I am
getting from your response are your own opinions and interpretations
which are on no firmer "common sense" ground than my own.
>Garland did what you are describing here in every film and
> every performance (stage or otherwise) I can think of.
Two issues here: First, these "in the same breath" emotional states
I was trying to trace out in my last post as being central to Cukor
are indeed part of Garland's later, post-MGM stage personality. I am
not suggesting that Cukor invented the concept. But I do think that
Garland is a perfomer with whom Cukor is extremely compatible
precisely because her style of performance comes (in a sense) ready
made for Cukor, like Hepburn's or Judy Holliday's, all of them able
to rapidly shift from comedy to melodrama. Second, it is not true
that Garland does what I am describing in "The Man That Got Away" in
every film performance. She does not play on two emotional levels at
once in, for example, "The Boy Next Door" or "Have Yourself a Merry
Little Christmas" or "Better Luck Next Time." I could cite many
others but you get the point.
>I doubt very much that Cukor had anything to do with her "winking at
her own intensity".
Perhaps not but how do you know? This number was shot and re-shot so
many different times by Cukor and his crew to get it right and almost
all the original versions survive. The problem was partly one of
getting the visual style of the number right but also of properly
staging it, of simplifying Garland's movements. In one version she
delivers the number in a style in which there is pretty much a one-to-
one relationship between the seriousness of the song and the
seriousness of her own gestures and facial expressions. This version
was discarded. In none of these earlier versions does she wink and
laugh at the end. Whether Cukor added this or Garland did herself is
neither here nor there. It "naturally" arises out of the way that
Cukor and Garland handle the sequence.
>She winks at the end of the performance and laughs
> because she has to sort of apologize to her fellow musicians for >
>her intensity and she does because the situation is ridiculous: it's
>an after-hour jam session between jazz musicians which is treated
>with the utmost Hollywood schmaltz (with a big written
>arrangement!)
Well, maybe. But that's just your interpretation.
> by a director who probably had no clue about what such a situation
and such musicians might be or do.
I'm not sure where you're getting this. What makes you think that
Cukor is clueless about these kinds of situations? Anyway, it's not a
documentary about jazz musicians and Garland is not jazz singer.
>And sure it's a great scene and I'll never tire watching it and it
>gives me goosebumps everytime but come on! It's a quintessential
>Cukor moment, sure, but not for the reason you imagine.
Then what makes it a quintessential Cukor moment? It's not clear at
all from your post since what you've written is entirely negative in
tone.
>Then again, auteurism makes you free to imagine anything.
First of all, my post on this matter of how Cukor handles these two
emotional states was written in response to an earlier post of Dan's.
If you've followed that particular thread at all, Dan put forth an
idea about these rapid changes in performance tone in Cukor which I
found interesting and I asked him if he could supply some examples.
He cited something from HOLIDAY but said he would have to think
further about the matter. I thought up a bit on my own and quickly
tossed off a post. It was not meant to be definitive, some kind of
airtight argument. I was trying, very tentatively, to trace out a
basic emotional thread or drive to Cukor's work. If you think that
you are in firm possession of common sense on this matter and that I
am imagining things...well, again that's your opinion. However, I
still stand by my post since I don't agree with anything you've said
here.
4504
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 2:45pm
Subject: The Best Picture of 2003
Barring no contenders between now and the end of the
year -- which doesn't seem likely:
http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2003-11-19/film.html/1/index.html
__________________________________
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4505
From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 2:50pm
Subject: Re: The Best Picture of 2003
"Furtive anonymous sex and deep psychological insight don't usually
accompany one another."
David, you've got to start living right.
George (deeply furtive) Robinson
Suppose you were an idiot.
And suppose you were a member of Congress.
But I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain
4506
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 3:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cukor and Emotion
> It seems to me that Garbo's entire performance in Camille
> is based on a bemused appreciation of her own romantic
> folly of falling for the young pup Armand (and no less
> bemusement at his sweet naiveté). The knowledge of
> unspoken motives also underlies the power of the "piano"
> scene where Garbo and Henry Daniell reach a frenzy of
> acknowledging the truth but refusing to speak it.
>
> The Philadelphia Story also seems shot through with
> scenes of Hepburn and Stewart pulling back and
> self-consciously commenting on their emotional situations
> (this is also clear in Joan Crawford's constant self-deprecation
> in A Woman's Face and the self-consciousness about her
> drives makes Claire Bloom's destructive behavior in The
> Chapman Report all the more poignant).
Thanks for the help, Robert! I keep thinking of entire performances,
but I was trying to come up with actual lines of dialogue and behavioral
moments, and failing - like the Cukor-Kanin thread, this one is making
me realize I haven't seen any Cukor in a while.
This way of directing actors has an interesting effect. The acting
itself is larger than life, very colorful, almost over the top in the
intensity of the emotion. But then there's the little feint toward the
mundane, the little gesture or laugh that shows the actor aware that he
or she (often she) is flying off into emotional space. The mundane
element has a sleight-of-hand effect, fooling us, in a way, into
accepting some really extreme acting as part of a naturalistic context.
Without some tool like this, Cukor's acting would probably seem pretty
campy. (And maybe it is by some definitions: some commentators consider
camp as both the extreme gesture and some way of integrating it into the
fiction. I tend to think of camp more as something that bursts the
fictional bubble.) - Dan
4507
From: samfilms2003
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 3:06pm
Subject: Re: film and theater
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> In other words, a person might argue, a film is a
> storytelling medium, or that a film is *great* because of the
> performances.
Since there are "*great*" films with no storytelling (in any conventional sense) and no
performances, I'd just argue (this is Film 101) A film may be a storytelling medium,
but film is.... well hey good question ;-)
> but I can't imagine a persuasive argument that tries
> to put across the notion that film is about good actors and a good
> script.
No I can't either, but a film can be that, or not that at all !
(OTOH I read Micheal Feingold in the Voice not that long ago saying, to the effect,
re film 'it's not acting, acting is something that's done on the stage' -- interesting
take -- an "actress" I worked with on my last film and I agreed at one point to say we
were simply collaborating in making images --)
But there are hybrids which are very interesting, when they work ---
I'm thinking Schlondorff's Death of a Salesman - which I saw on CBS and was a bit
stunned by.
Also a Richard Foreman video piece I saw on NY Public TV (Channel 13) called "City
Archives" -- cinema but not exactly film, video but not exactly television, performance
by a theater group (Ontologic Hysteric Theater) but not exactly theater...
http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/City363.HTML
-Sam
4508
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 4:09pm
Subject: Re: film and the creative process / Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time
Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time is another look at
the creative process, but ask FRED says 'a series of pretty pictures.'
Indeed, even more than pretty; for me, the images were abstractly
expressive in their clarity of strength against the nature of time.
I couldn't get FRED's review other than
Chicago Reader / Fred Camper:
Doesn't add up to much more than a series of pretty pictures, and
Goldsworthy's gnomic statements about the "energy" he perceives in "the
plants and the land" are never fully explored.
> Message: 11
> Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 02:54:31 -0000
> From: "jpcoursodon"
> Subject: Re: film and the creative process / PICASSO paintings
>
>
>
> That's Clouzot's 1955 "Le Mystere Picasso". Doesn't come close to
> what Erice did but it's still a fascinating endeavor. Even though
> it's very much a Picasso "stunt" -- but then again most of what
> Picasso was doing in his later years were stunts.
> JPC
>
>
> Message: 13
> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 22:19:00 EST
> From: MG4273@a...
> Subject: Re: film and the creative process
>
> Here's a real grab bag of films, that have a little to do with this
> subject.
> Many are more "biographies" than direct looks at the creative process.
> Mike Grost
>
> The Great Garrick (James Whale, 1937) Comedy about actors.
> The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (Irving Cummings, 1939) Biopic of
> scientist.
> The Magic Alphabet (Jacques Tourneur, 1942) Biopic of scientist (short
> film).
> The Great Moment (Preston Sturges, 1944) Biopic of scientist.
> Motion Painting No. 1 (Oskar Fischinger, 1947) Animated look at a
> creation of
> a painting. Delightful.
> Savage Messiah (Ken Russell, 1972) Biopic of pioneer modern sculptor.
> The Draughtsman's Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982) Strange story about
> 1600’s
> artist.
> Good Morning, Babylon (Taviani Brothers, 1987) Fiction about Italian
> sculptors and their life.
> Dale Chihuly: Glass Master (Vicki Dunakin, 1987) Documentary about
> abstract
> artist.
> Hear My Song (Peter Chelsom, 1991) Music in life.
> Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey (Steven M. Martin, 1993) Documentary
> about
> inventor.
> Unzipped (Douglas Keeve, 1995) Documentary about fashion designer.
> Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper (Hiro Narita, 1997) Documentary about
> abstract artist.
> Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997) Scientists hunt for extra-terrestrial
> life.
> Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998) Fiction about Elizabethan
> theater.
> Goya (Carlos Saura, 1999) Fiction about the painter.
> Hit and Runway (Christopher Livingston, 1999) Comedy about
> screenwriters.
> Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel, 2000) Biopic of Cuban poet.
> The Impressionists (Bruce Alfred, 2001) Biographical film about the
> French
> Impressionist painters.
> Herb Alpert: Music for Your Eyes (Tom Neff, 2002) Documentary about
> musician
> Herb Alpert's abstract paintings and sculptures.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
4509
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 4:49pm
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "joe_mcelhaney"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> >
> >I believe most of us would agree that one of Cukor's greatest
> >sequences is "The Man That Got Away" from A STAR IS BORN.
> > Garland's vocal apart from the image is enormously dramatic and
> >emotional. But in the sequence itself her facial expressions and
> >body language are quite playful and even comic at times, as
though
> >she is winking at her own intensity. (She even literally winks at
> >the end of the number and laughs.) It's a quintessential Cukor
> >moment, I think.
> > >
> > > Joe
> >
> > Sometimes the auteurist has to step back in the face of common
> > sense.
>
> I'm not entirely certain what you mean by common sense. All I am
> getting from your response are your own opinions and
interpretations
> which are on no firmer "common sense" ground than my own.
>
> >Garland did what you are describing here in every film and
> > every performance (stage or otherwise) I can think of.
>
> Two issues here: First, these "in the same breath" emotional
states
> I was trying to trace out in my last post as being central to Cukor
> are indeed part of Garland's later, post-MGM stage personality. I
am
> not suggesting that Cukor invented the concept. But I do think
that
> Garland is a perfomer with whom Cukor is extremely compatible
> precisely because her style of performance comes (in a sense) ready
> made for Cukor, like Hepburn's or Judy Holliday's, all of them able
> to rapidly shift from comedy to melodrama. Second, it is not true
> that Garland does what I am describing in "The Man That Got Away"
in
> every film performance. She does not play on two emotional levels
at
> once in, for example, "The Boy Next Door" or "Have Yourself a Merry
> Little Christmas" or "Better Luck Next Time." I could cite many
> others but you get the point.
>
> >I doubt very much that Cukor had anything to do with her "winking
at
> her own intensity".
>
> Perhaps not but how do you know? This number was shot and re-shot
so
> many different times by Cukor and his crew to get it right and
almost
> all the original versions survive. The problem was partly one of
> getting the visual style of the number right but also of properly
> staging it, of simplifying Garland's movements. In one version she
> delivers the number in a style in which there is pretty much a one-
to-
> one relationship between the seriousness of the song and the
> seriousness of her own gestures and facial expressions. This
version
> was discarded. In none of these earlier versions does she wink and
> laugh at the end. Whether Cukor added this or Garland did herself
is
> neither here nor there. It "naturally" arises out of the way that
> Cukor and Garland handle the sequence.
>
>
> >She winks at the end of the performance and laughs
> > because she has to sort of apologize to her fellow musicians for
>
> >her intensity and she does because the situation is ridiculous:
it's
> >an after-hour jam session between jazz musicians which is treated
> >with the utmost Hollywood schmaltz (with a big written
> >arrangement!)
>
> Well, maybe. But that's just your interpretation.
>
>
> > by a director who probably had no clue about what such a
situation
> and such musicians might be or do.
>
> I'm not sure where you're getting this. What makes you think that
> Cukor is clueless about these kinds of situations? Anyway, it's not
a
> documentary about jazz musicians and Garland is not jazz singer.
>
> >And sure it's a great scene and I'll never tire watching it and it
> >gives me goosebumps everytime but come on! It's a quintessential
> >Cukor moment, sure, but not for the reason you imagine.
>
> Then what makes it a quintessential Cukor moment? It's not clear
at
> all from your post since what you've written is entirely negative
in
> tone.
>
> >Then again, auteurism makes you free to imagine anything.
>
> First of all, my post on this matter of how Cukor handles these two
> emotional states was written in response to an earlier post of
Dan's.
> If you've followed that particular thread at all, Dan put forth an
> idea about these rapid changes in performance tone in Cukor which I
> found interesting and I asked him if he could supply some examples.
> He cited something from HOLIDAY but said he would have to think
> further about the matter. I thought up a bit on my own and quickly
> tossed off a post. It was not meant to be definitive, some kind of
> airtight argument. I was trying, very tentatively, to trace out a
> basic emotional thread or drive to Cukor's work. If you think that
> you are in firm possession of common sense on this matter and that
I
> am imagining things...well, again that's your opinion. However, I
> still stand by my post since I don't agree with anything you've
said
> here.
We can agree to disagree and there's no reason to get
cantankerous about it. Actually, unlike you, I don't disagree with
everything you said at all, I'm just not convinced by the example you
chose. You keep saying "It's your interpretation" but I can return
the compliment.
My point about the music was that Cukor is giving us a (wonderful)
Hollywood version of an after-hours jam session (at the time only
jazz musicians got together after work in the middle of the night to
play for fun -- the band is basically a dance band, of course, but at
least some of the musicians in it are enough "into" jazz to have a
jam session after work; and don't forget that dance/pop/jazz still
overlapped at the time, so the fact that Garland is not a jazz singer
is irrelevant) and I doubt that Cukor had ever attended the real
thing. In McGilligan's biography of Cukor the point is made several
times that he was not interested in music at all ("One thing I always
missed [at Cukor's house] was the total absence of music," Lon
McCallister, an old friend of Cukor's, told the author)so it seems
unlikely that he was at all attracted to or knowledgeable about jazz.
This is not "negative", it is not a judgement on my part. It does not
make the scene any less good. I wouldn't want it any other way.I was
just interpreting Garland's attitude in a different way from yours. I
may be wrong. You may be wrong too.
JPC
4510
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 5:58pm
Subject: Rivers and Tides
I was on the jury that gave that best documentary at the SF
Festival, after which it played a year at the Castro - still running,
for all I know.
I haven't read Fred's review either, but I'm sorry he didn't like the
film. maybe he feels about it as Andy Klein feels about
Crouching Tiger: Here's this thing getting all this attention, and
he knows 50 films that did it first and better.
Like most jury awards it was a compromise - my first choice
would've been The Edge of Time: Male Domains in the
Caucasus, which everyone must see. There were some other
outstanding docs, all different: Stalin the Red God, Hell House,
Tribute (about tribute bands, which will never be released
because of clip rights, even though Soderbergh signed on as
exec producer) and one of those accidntally-good docs that was
made for PBS: Daughter from Danang.
4511
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 6:46pm
Subject: Film, theatre, Bazin
"Jaime N. Christley" wrote: In other words, a person might argue, a film is a
storytelling medium, or that a film is *great* because of the
performances. Acting is very often different in films than in
theater, and writing is very often different in films than in theater
and literature, but I can't imagine a persuasive argument that tries
to put across the notion that film is about good actors and a good
script.'"
And this what RICK SEGREDA has to say:
There ARE differences between stage acting and movie acting, but they are not significant, and the differences between writing for the stage and for the screen is negligible, which is why so many good and even great movies have been made from plays with minimal changes.
I have to admit, frankly, that I'm with the vulgar hoi poloi in being drawn towards movies for good acting and good scripts, I agree with the late, great Andre Bazin a the quality of a great film, such as in the works of Renoir, Rosellini, and Chaplin (and, I would add, Cukor and Preminger), as opposed to the manipulative, form-centered cinema of Eisenstien and Pudovkin, in allowing the viewer/listener to absorb the spectacle of actors acting in relationship to their setting.
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4512
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 7:07pm
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
George Sidney says Garland did her big number in the train
station at the beginning of Harvey Girls with no rehearsal, all in
one take with no retakes, and it involved many extras, many
camera moves and a lot of real estate. So she was a quick
study, to say the least, but apparently Cukor made her keep
redoing The Man Who Got Away. Which is a comment on the
difference between a director like Cukor and one like Sidney.
Joe, where are those outtakes????
4513
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 7:13pm
Subject: Re: Film, theatre, Bazin
Rick Segrada wrote:
> There ARE differences between stage acting and movie acting, but
> they are not significant,
Um, try telling this to an actor!
> I agree with the late, great Andre Bazin a the quality of a great
> film, such as in the works of Renoir, Rosellini, and Chaplin (and,
> I would add, Cukor and Preminger), as opposed to the manipulative,
> form-centered cinema of Eisenstien and Pudovkin, in allowing the
> viewer/listener to absorb the spectacle of actors acting in
> relationship to their setting.
There are many form-centered approaches to cinema, and Preminger is
no less a formalist than Eisenstein.
--Zach
4514
From: Rick Segreda
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 7:19pm
Subject: Re: film and theater
"Richard Pryor: Live at the Sunset Strip" may not be "pure" cinema, but it works just the same as far as I am concerned because Pryor is a brilliant artist (as a stand-up comedian, less so as the star of schlocky comedies), capable of casting a charismatic spell on both his live audience and the one in a movie house. When I saw "Sunset Strip" back in 1982, me and everybody in the theatre was blown away. It was certainly as edifying as anything I'd seen involving actors, a script, and a mise-en-scene. So why split hairs over whether something is "pure" cinema or not.
The most extreme example of "pure" cinema I know of is avant-garde, which, with the exception of a few examples (Bunuel, Cocteau, Anger), bores the heck out of me due to it's generally bloodless absence of compelling performers in front of the camera, and all too often when an avant-garde directer is lucky enough to find someone whom you do want to look and listen to for more than a moment, I find myself resisting the director's attempts to be "cinematic."
What drew me to movies in the first place was their emotional power, and generally, without human beings as fuel, you can't generate too many feelings in this particular medium.
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4515
From: dougdillaman
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 7:35pm
Subject: Re: TRIBUTE (was: re: Rivers and Tides)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Tribute (about tribute bands, which will never be released
> because of clip rights, even though Soderbergh signed on as
> exec producer)
If you know, could you provide a little more info here? Is it that
some of the participants who didn't sign releases, or what?
I saw TRIBUTE earlier this year, and loved it; it's depressing to
think that I'll never get a chance to see it again.
(www.tributethemovie.com hasn't been updated for over a year,
unfortunately.)
Doug
4516
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 8:22pm
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> George Sidney says Garland did her big number in the train
> station at the beginning of Harvey Girls with no rehearsal, all in
> one take with no retakes, and it involved many extras, many
> camera moves and a lot of real estate. So she was a quick
> study, to say the least, but apparently Cukor made her keep
> redoing The Man Who Got Away. Which is a comment on the
> difference between a director like Cukor and one like Sidney.
> Joe, where are those outtakes????
They're on the DVD for A STAR IS BORN. Only the first version, the
one shot in academy ratio, is not there and I don't even know if it
exists. I've only seen stills of it. Cukor's obsession with doing an
above-average number of takes was a bone of contention during
production between the powers-that-be and Cukor. And James Mason
later complained of Cukor's fussiness in terms of details in
staging. Mason felt that the elaborate lead-ins and lead-outs to
scenes that Cukor was laboring over slowed down the picture and added
to its already problematic length. You can see what Mason's talking
about in the Copa scene early in the film when he goes looking for
Garland although I think that's also one of the most beautifully
staged long take scenes in the film. Mason told Rex Reed that he
thought the Wellman version was better because it was more simply and
economically handled.
Scorsese makes a similar kind of argument in last month's SIGHT AND
SOUND. In a piece on Thorold Dickinson, Scorsese declares his
preference for Dickinson's GASLIGHT over Cukor's.
4517
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 8:27pm
Subject: Re: Tribute
Doug,
It's a great film, isn't it? The problem isn't releases - the tribute
bands in the film perform a number of hits by the groups to
whom they're paying tribute, and the licensing rights for those
songs is probably around a million dollars. Soderbergh loved
Tribute, put his name on it and gave the filmmakers his music
supervisor, who cuts high-level film music deals with the labels
all the time and hopefully could pull some favors, but the lack of
activity suggests that hasn't happened. The film can still be
shown in festivals, but not distributed in theatres or on video.
Ken Kwapis (Dunston Checks In) shot a yearly Dylan imitators
contest in Greenwich Village for a film that was going to be
called "It Ain't Me, Babe." When he called the record companies
to ask about special dispensation they laughed at him, so the
film will never be finished.
The same is true of Tim Burton's "Vincent [Price] and Me," which
is all but finished but needs to pay 250,000 in film clip rights -pin
money to Mr.B, but people in Hollywood don't like to "spend their
own money" on a film. Too bad - it's very good, partly because TB
obvious didn't think about what the clips would cost while
making it.
Long story: Mark Rappaport flies under the radar; Godard
brazened it out on tv with Histoire(s) du cinema, but eventually
Gaumont had to pony up a lot of money for clips to distribute
them; Thom Andersen (Red Hollywood, Los AngelesPlays Itself)
is content with festival screenings. Many solutions, one big
problem.
4518
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 8:29pm
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
In a piece on Thorold Dickinson, Scorsese declares his
preference for Dickinson's GASLIGHT over Cukor's.
He's making his Journey Through English Cinema doc - reason
has fled.
4519
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 9:06pm
Subject: Numéro zéro
Bill:
> Numero Zero - Eustache filming his grandmother in one shot without
> intervening
Isn't this sort of a lost film? I talked to several people who were
excited to see it in the Rotterdam '03 program book (as a near Eustache
completist, I immediately flipped), but never ended up getting around
to it because the only print was unsubtitled (and Rotterdam doesn't
seem to soft-title any of their films). As someone who couldn't make
heads or tails of the French being spoken in the original ROSIERE DE
PESSAC, I wasn't going to risk it (especially since NUMERO ZERO runs a
full two hours, with non-stop talking). Where did you see it Bill? And
should I regret missing it?
Gabe
4520
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 9:46pm
Subject: Numero zero
The Cahiers ran a big article about it recently - I understand it
has been found and restored and screened again. But like most
Eustache, I'm sure it hasn't been subtitled. I remember when I
was living in Ny in the 70s and Eustache was still with us,
Catherine Verret of Unifrance was a fan but could never find
money to have Une sale histoire subtitled. Obviously these films
generally involve a lot of talk, usually very colloquial. It's tragic that
he committed suicide, and part of the reason was that lack of
success after the big splash with The Mother and the Whore.
Subtitling something like Numero zero - which I haven't seen
myself - would be a pure labor of love, as filmmaking was for
Eustache.
4521
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 9:58pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cukor and Emotion
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> In a piece on Thorold Dickinson, Scorsese declares
> his
> preference for Dickinson's GASLIGHT over Cukor's.
>
> He's making his Journey Through English Cinema doc
> - reason
> has fled.
Not atall. The Dikinson is admirable, and Anton
Walbrook is the greatest actor in the history of the
cinema.
(I'm braced for the screaming to begin)
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4522
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Nov 21, 2003 11:28pm
Subject: Eustache
> The Cahiers ran a big article about it recently - I understand it
> has been found and restored and screened again. But like most
> Eustache, I'm sure it hasn't been subtitled. I remember when I
> was living in Ny in the 70s and Eustache was still with us,
> Catherine Verret of Unifrance was a fan but could never find
> money to have Une sale histoire subtitled. Obviously these films
> generally involve a lot of talk, usually very colloquial. It's tragic that
> he committed suicide, and part of the reason was that lack of
> success after the big splash with The Mother and the Whore.
> Subtitling something like Numero zero - which I haven't seen
> myself - would be a pure labor of love, as filmmaking was for
> Eustache.
A good many of Eustache's films were subtitled at the time of his Walter
Reade retro a few years ago, including both versions of LA ROSIERE DU
PESSAC and both halves of UNE SALE HISTOIRE. But NUMERO ZERO was
conspicuous by its absence. LA COCHON was shown, but without subtitles:
the Walter Reade program notes breezily assured us that subtitles
weren't needed, which turned out to be the truth only if you think the
film is about a pig's slaughter instead of about a society and its
customs. If I recall correctly, LES MAUVAISES FREQUENTATIONS was
subtitled, but in such a way that very few of the titles were readable
against their background. - Dan
4523
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 0:35am
Subject: Re: Eustache
Glad to hear about Sale histoire. Actually, I rented it and ran it last
time I was in France, and I was a little let down. It's kind of
conceptual. I have yet to see either Rosiere, or Le cochon.
4524
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 1:07am
Subject: Re: Eustache
UNE SALE HISTOIRE is still available through Marie Bonnel (Veronique
Godard's replacement) at the French Film Office. At least in *one* of
its halves, last time I checked. The Eustache retro also flew to a few
other cities, and the print of MES PETITES AMOUREUSES was brand new and
gorgeous. It's my favorite Eustache, though I've only had the
opportunity to see it once. By default, you can't really go wrong with
the distributed MOTHER AND THE WHORE -- I put my video of it on every
time I feel lonely in the suburbs (just to check out the Parisian cafe
scene).
One more title for Bill's list of performance pieces: JACQUES LACAN'S
TELEVISION PSYCHOANALYSIS (director unknown).
Gabe
4525
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 1:09am
Subject: Re: Eustache
--- Gabe Klinger wrote:
>
> One more title for Bill's list of performance
> pieces: JACQUES LACAN'S
> TELEVISION PSYCHOANALYSIS (director unknown).
>
Pas de tout!
It was directed by Benoit Jacquot.
>
>
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4526
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 1:09am
Subject: Re: Numero zero
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> The Cahiers ran a big article about it recently - I understand it
> has been found and restored and screened again. But like most
> Eustache, I'm sure it hasn't been subtitled. I remember when I
> was living in Ny in the 70s and Eustache was still with us,
> Catherine Verret of Unifrance was a fan but could never find
> money to have Une sale histoire subtitled. Obviously these films
> generally involve a lot of talk, usually very colloquial. It's
tragic that
> he committed suicide, and part of the reason was that lack of
> success after the big splash with The Mother and the Whore.
> Subtitling something like Numero zero - which I haven't seen
> myself - would be a pure labor of love, as filmmaking was for
> Eustache.
Speaking of the problems in subtitling, I seem to remember that in
the U.S. release prints of La mamam et la Putain the poor subtitler
completely gave up during the scene where Leaud tells some punning
jokes ("Quel est l'arrrondissement le plus sale?" "Le seizieme parce
que c'est la qu'on enleve la mere Dassault.") and just wrote
something like "These are untranslatable puns."
I saw "Une sale histoire" in New York but can't remember that it
wasn't subtitled.
JPC
4527
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 1:22am
Subject: Re: Eustache
David wrote on JACQUES LACAN ON TV:
> Pas de tout!
>
> It was directed by Benoit Jacquot.
Yes that's right! Thanks for reminding me.
By the way, is anyone on the list going to see THE CAT IN THE HAT? I
need a *really* good reason for this one, guys.
Oh, and back to Eustache momentarily, JP writes:
> Speaking of the problems in subtitling, I seem to remember that in
> the U.S. release prints of La mamam et la Putain the poor subtitler
> completely gave up during the scene where Leaud tells some punning
> jokes ("Quel est l'arrrondissement le plus sale?" "Le seizieme parce
> que c'est la qu'on enleve la mere Dassault.")
It was newly subtitled in recent times (I think spearheaded by a
British rerelease -- or American, je ne sais pas)....
4528
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 1:21am
Subject: Jacquot
David's mention of Benoit Jacquot just reminded me of Jacquot's
absolutely wonderful filmed version of Marivaux's La Double
inconstance -- one to add to the list of "100% theatre and 100%
cinema" films. I saw it in Paris two years ago one afternoon in an
empty theater.
JPC
4529
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 1:33am
Subject: Re: Eustache
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Gabe Klinger wrote:
>
> David wrote on JACQUES LACAN ON TV:
>
> > Pas de tout!
> >
> > It was directed by Benoit Jacquot.
>
> Yes that's right! Thanks for reminding me.
>
> By the way, is anyone on the list going to see THE CAT IN THE HAT?
I
> need a *really* good reason for this one, guys.
>
> Oh, and back to Eustache momentarily, JP writes:
>
> > Speaking of the problems in subtitling, I seem to remember that in
> > the U.S. release prints of La mamam et la Putain the poor
subtitler
> > completely gave up during the scene where Leaud tells some punning
> > jokes ("Quel est l'arrrondissement le plus sale?" "Le seizieme
parce
> > que c'est la qu'on enleve la mere Dassault.")
>
> It was newly subtitled in recent times (I think spearheaded by a
> British rerelease -- or American, je ne sais pas)....
So how did they translate that joke in the new version?
By the way, although most everybody on this Group is francophile
and familiar with the language maybe a few would like to know exactly
what that joke meant. "On enleve la mere Dassault" (an allusion to
the kidnaping of Mrs Dassault) sounds exactly like "on enleve la
merde a seau" ("they remove shit by the bucketful"). Hard
to "translate" no doubt. There sure must be something lost in
translation.
JPC
4530
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 5:16am
Subject: More on Eustache
> > Oh, and back to Eustache momentarily...
It may interest members to know that Cinema 06 (the 4th issue to date
of the excellent new biannual magazine edited by Bernard Eisenschitz)
contains a DVD with two fascinating and little-known late works by
Eustache--Le Jardin des delices de Jerome Bosch and Offre d'emploi,
both done for French TV. The first is sort of a lecture on the Bosch
painting; the last, a commissioned work, is a didactic fiction about
a man applying for a job; the man is played by Michel Delahaye, and
other parts are played by Michele Moretti and Jean Douchet. The same
issue contains essays on these films by Eisenschitz, on Numero Zero
(a film I personally find rather tedious--a rather straightforward
home movie about Eustache's grandmother, although I suppose it
has "theoretical" interest) by Jean-Pierre Rehm, and a reprint of an
essay by Eustache about his own work.
I happened to get the issue this week because I have something in it
as well (about The House is Black), but I urge members who know
French to track down all the issues. (The previous one had another
DVD--of the restoration of Mizoguchi's 1929 La Marche de Tokyo, or at
least what survives of it. It's published by Leo Scheer
(www.leoscheer.com)...Sorry I didn't include any accents, by the way;
my Earthlink browser makes them difficult to access.
By the way, I've seen Le cochon only once--without subtitles, at the
Viennale, as part of a Luc Moullet retrospective (because Moullet
produced it)--but consider it one of Eustache's two greatest films,
second only to La maman et la putain.
Jonathan
4531
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 5:53am
Subject: Mike Kamen is Dead
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/20/arts/20KAME.html
Went to High School with him. Great guy. Great film
composer.
DAMN!
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4532
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 6:48am
Subject: Re: film and theater
Jaime M. Christley wrote:
>To make it a bit more clear, it seems that people who care for the
cinema less than the theater, or like them both the same, often argue
>against the restrictive language employed at the service of cinematic
specificity. In other words, a person might argue, a film is a
> storytelling medium, or that a film is *great* because of the
performances. Acting is very often different in films than in
theater, and writing is very often different in films than in theater
> and literature, but I can't imagine a persuasive argument that tries
to put across the notion that film is about good actors and a good
> script.
My position is that movies which work for us are "cinematic" by
default -- I don't know how to define a "good" performance except as
one that succeeds in a given context. For example, one major way
performers achieve their effects is through gestures which define
relationships with other performers and elements of decor, and our
sense of these relations is automatically altered when a performance
is transferred from one medium to another. In theatre, the actor
defines his/her position in relation to the total space of the stage,
which the audience is more or less free to scan as they please; but
the tendency of conventional movie editing at least since the 1920s
has been to carve up space into discrete chunks, giving us a
fundamentally different way of looking at performers and interpreting
their movements. A good director will capitalise on these kinds of
differences, without necessarily wanting to draw our attention
towards camera movement, say, at the expense of the actors. By the
same token, shooting long takes from a fixed angle a la Warhol DOES
draw our attention to the camera -- and thus registers as a quite
flamboyant form of "cinematic" style!
Speaking of road-to-Damascus experiences, as people were a while
back, here's one of mine: a few years ago I sat down to watch a few
taped episodes of FAWLTY TOWERS, the British sitcom with John Cleese,
which I hadn't seen for about a decade. As a child I enjoyed the show
as a "naive" viewer -- responding to the characters and situations
rather thinking about acting (much less "camerawork" or "editing").
So on my later viewing, I was startled by the extreme, non-
naturalistic contortions of Cleese's face and body -- bugging his
eyes, bending himself double, etc. I felt that I was SEEING his
performance for the first time, rather than taking it for granted,
and learning to "see" performance in this way seems to me no
different from learning to "see" camerawork or editing or any other
aspect of film craft.
A further moral I draw from this is that as adults we typically
respond to fiction narratives on two levels. One is the "naive"
level, where we're drawn into the illusory world of the story; the
other is the level of connoisseurship, where we look beyond the
illusion in order to appreciate the artistry that went into creating
it. Critics, maybe auteurists in particular, often write as if these
two ways of looking (which are symbiotic rather than opposed) could
be mapped onto a distinction between "the act of filming" and "the
objects that are filmed". As I've argued before, this is a spatial
metaphor that rests upon personifying the camera as a stand-in for
the director. But depending on circumstances, this metaphor isn't
always particularly useful. After all, cameras don't make films,
people do, and the creative work of shaping and maintaining an
illusion occurs (under the director's supervision) on both sides of
the lens.
JTW
4533
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 7:14am
Subject: THE CINEMATIC IMAGINATION; two eyes only
I'm in Palm Springs and don't have the book available but I believe THE
CINEMATIC IMAGINATION was written in 60's by PETER MURRAY. My memory
is that the cinematic imagination for the screenwriter is very
different than the story telling of the play writer. Indeed, many of
the great play writers of the 40-50's could not make the transition
from the stage to the screen.
A film is not great because of performances, as such performances can
happen without the camera. Even though we might all be appreciative
for seeing the dramatic performance saved on film and brought to
millions, such is not great cinema. A film is great because of what is
brought to you by the camera.
I watch many movies that leave me to wonder where is the core of the
story; sometimes less satisfactory is the good story which
unfortunately had no need to be a film because everything is 'said' in
the story.
On another level, without ever talking about story or actors, I play
with developing a rating system for films based on the sensory organs
so needed to experience the film
two eyes only most cinematic, 2 eyes referring to full
visual attention, one for perception, the other for interpretation of
the visual info
two eyes, one ear
one eye, one ear maybe the category into which most movies fall, 1
eye, just for perception, no interpretation of the visual info
one eye, two ears
two ears only least cinematic, could be followed by a blind
person.
> "Jaime N. Christley" wrote: In other words, a person might argue, a
> film is a
> storytelling medium, or that a film is *great* because of the
> performances. Acting is very often different in films than in
> theater, and writing is very often different in films than in theater
> and literature, but I can't imagine a persuasive argument that tries
> to put across the notion that film is about good actors and a good
> script.'"
>
>> And this what RICK SEGREDA has to say:
>> There ARE differences between stage acting and movie acting, but they
>> are not significant, and the differences between writing for the
>> stage and for the screen is negligible, which is why so many good and
>> even great movies have been made from plays with minimal changes.
>>
>> I have to admit, frankly, that I'm with the vulgar hoi poloi in being
>> drawn towards movies for good acting and good scripts, I agree with
>> the late, great Andre Bazin a the quality of a great film, such as in
>> the works of Renoir, Rosellini, and Chaplin (and, I would add, Cukor
>> and Preminger), as opposed to the manipulative, form-centered cinema
>> of Eisenstien and Pudovkin, in allowing the viewer/listener to absorb
>> the spectacle of actors acting in relationship to their setting.
4534
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 8:19am
Subject: Re: film and theater
I think that Benoit Jacquot's version of Tosca is an outstanding
example of a stage adaptation in which the director does not attempt
to hide or run away from the theatrical origins of a piece, but which
remains thrillinginly cinematic nevertheless. The heightened
emotionalism rendered by Jacquot's constantly exploring camera (even
when it is stationary) is electric.
I also love how each sequence of Morton Da Costa's Auntie Mame ends
with a fading out of the lights, as if we were sitting in a Broadway
house watching a play and there was a scene change. It works as a
perfect correlation for the utter theatricality and self-creation of
the Mame Dennis character.
4535
From: vincent lobrutto
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 10:37am
Subject: Re:Mike Kamen is dead
Michael Kamen was a great film composer. It is a tremendous loss because he was a man dedicated to fusing classical music with jazz, rock and many other influences. His experiments with David Sanborn, Metalica and others proved that all music is to be taken seriously and should intercommunicate - a great message for all the arts. May he rest in peace.
Vinny
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4536
From:
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 8:46am
Subject: Curtis Harrington's Queen of Blood
Just saw "Queen of Blood" (Curtis Harrington, 1966). AKA "Planet of Blood".
This is a mixture of science fiction and horror. It is visually very creative,
like just about everything else ever made by Curtis Harrington. The film is in
rich, non-naturalistic colors. It takes place on spaceships, and the sets and
costumes are a riot of burning, acid red, green, yellow, blue and silver. The
spaceship is full of strange geometric forms, both straight lines and curves,
that Harrington is always working up into complex geometric compositions.
Each segment of the compositions usually has its own intense color. Truly, this
is a film that looks like no other. It shows what film makers can do, if they
completely abandon "realism", and take off into a visual world of their own
invention.
I still have not managed to see Harrington's experimental short, "Usher"
(2001). Harrington is one of my favorite filmmakers - he is a master of
mise-en-scene.
Mike Grost
4537
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 1:56pm
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
It's hard to come up with specific moments, but
you're definitely on to something, Dan. Still,
after mulling this over for a while, I think it's
true that Cukor sometimes uses (or allows)
the distancing laugh or self-conscious remark
to defuse big emotional moments. But I wonder
whether such moments are integral to his style
or just unpredictable performance notes that he
preserves (as he kept in Jean Simmons'
nervous giggle as Spencer Tracy chews her
out in The Actress).
To me the most moving moments in Cukor
films are the ones that are openly emotional
and without this self-conscious element.
For example, the motel honeymoon scene
in A Star Is Born, which uses Garland's
singing "It's a New World" to show the
direct emotional connection between Mason
and herself. Or the wrenching shot (my
favorite in all of Cukor) where Mason lies
in the shadows, recuperating from his stint
in the drunk tank, but overhears his wife
making plans to give up her hard-won career
in order to devote herself to his well-being.
This is so moving because watching his pain
as he realizes that he's destroying her conveys
the emotion so directly and without mediation.
To use another film, when Claudette Colbert
(in Zaza) sets out to break up her lover's happy
home to ensure her future with him, she finds
herself unexpectedly moved (and shamed) by
the decency of his wife and child. Throughout
quite a long sequence (an entire act?), her
growing awareness of the base selfishness
of her own motives becomes really poignant,
and there's no attempt to lighten the emotion
(as I recall), as if the stakes are so significant
that there's no room for self-conscious irony.
On the other hand, in A Star Is Born, there's
the mordant sarcasm when Charles Bickford
visits the detox facility, and Mason says, "We
dine early here. It makes the nights longer!"
(the line is also in Wellman's version).
Certainly, Cukor's characters seem to be
more aware of their own motivations and
dilemmas and contradictions than the leading
characters in many other films, but my hunch
is that Cukor uses distancing moments when
his material is not so strong or when certain
actors suggest such readings.
If I ever get around to excavating Our Betters
and Two-Faced Woman out of my closet, I'll
report on the awareness factors in them!
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Thanks for the help, Robert! I keep thinking of entire
performances,
> but I was trying to come up with actual lines of dialogue and
behavioral
> moments, and failing - like the Cukor-Kanin thread, this one is
making
> me realize I haven't seen any Cukor in a while.
>
> This way of directing actors has an interesting effect. The acting
> itself is larger than life, very colorful, almost over the top in
the
> intensity of the emotion. But then there's the little feint toward
the
> mundane, the little gesture or laugh that shows the actor aware
that he
> or she (often she) is flying off into emotional space. The mundane
> element has a sleight-of-hand effect, fooling us, in a way, into
> accepting some really extreme acting as part of a naturalistic
context.
> Without some tool like this, Cukor's acting would probably seem
pretty
> campy. (And maybe it is by some definitions: some commentators
consider
> camp as both the extreme gesture and some way of integrating it
into the
> fiction. I tend to think of camp more as something that bursts the
> fictional bubble.) - Dan
4538
From:
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 8:57am
Subject: Film and Theater - Clark Jones
When I was a kid, I loved the TV version of "Annie Get Your Gun" (Clark
Jones, Jack Sydow, 1967). This was a filming of the stage musical - it had Ethel
Merman and the rest of the Broadway revival cast. It was basically filmed
theater - but none the less thrilling for all that.
Clark Jones worked with Sid Caesar in the 1950's on TV. Then in the sixties,
he became one of the two main directors of "The Carol Burnett Show", with all
its classic comedy sketches and parodies. Perhaps he is some sort of auteur -
one who seems to be completely forgotten now by film history.
Mike Grost
4539
From:
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 9:08am
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
One of the best Cukor scenes in which an apparently serious subject turns
into comedy is the big seduction scene in "It Should Happen to You". Peter
Lawford tries to seduce Judy Holiday with venerable, cliched lines. It does not
exactly work... The feel of this sequence is unique - a mixture of personal
interaction and absurdity. It conveys a strangely introspective quality - Cukor
wants us to look at our feelings, and see their absurd or human side, to get a
perspective on our self-absorbtion.
"Our Betters" is terrific, too!
Mike Grost
4540
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 2:56pm
Subject: Re: Jacquot
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> David's mention of Benoit Jacquot just reminded me
> of Jacquot's
> absolutely wonderful filmed version of Marivaux's La
> Double
> inconstance -- one to add to the list of "100%
> theatre and 100%
> cinema" films. I saw it in Paris two years ago one
> afternoon in an
> empty theater.
That same Marivaux play was utilized by Rivette for
the opening of "La Bande des Quatres" -- or as I like
to think of it, "Bulle Ogier's School For Women."
Patrice Chereau filmed his famous production of
Marivaux's "La Fausse Suivante" with Michel Piccoli
and Jane Birkin, for television. He also made a TV
film of the Bernard-Marie Koltes play "In the Solitude
of Cotton Fields" starring himself and Pascale
Greggory.
This opens onto a whole area the group hasn't
discussed yet -- TV movies. More than half of
Fassbinder's output was made for television,
yetoutside of Germany these films have only been shown
theatrically. Are there major differencs between film
and TV to the extent that anyone seeing "Berlin
Alexanderplatz" in a theater might be said to be
experiencing it in a "false" or "inauthentic" manner?
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4541
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 3:50pm
Subject: Re: Jacquot (and correction)
After I hit Send" and went to bed last night I realized that I had
probably given the wrong title. I did. The Marivaux play filmed by
Jacquot I meant was "La fausse suivante" (2000. It's played by a
wonderful quartet: Huppert, Kiberlain, Arditi and Almaric. Sorry for
the confusion.
JPC
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
> > David's mention of Benoit Jacquot just reminded me
> > of Jacquot's
> > absolutely wonderful filmed version of Marivaux's La
> > Double
> > inconstance -- one to add to the list of "100%
> > theatre and 100%
> > cinema" films. I saw it in Paris two years ago one
> > afternoon in an
> > empty theater.
>
> That same Marivaux play was utilized by Rivette for
> the opening of "La Bande des Quatres" -- or as I like
> to think of it, "Bulle Ogier's School For Women."
>
> Patrice Chereau filmed his famous production of
> Marivaux's "La Fausse Suivante" with Michel Piccoli
> and Jane Birkin, for television. He also made a TV
> film of the Bernard-Marie Koltes play "In the Solitude
> of Cotton Fields" starring himself and Pascale
> Greggory.
>
> This opens onto a whole area the group hasn't
> discussed yet -- TV movies. More than half of
> Fassbinder's output was made for television,
> yetoutside of Germany these films have only been shown
> theatrically. Are there major differencs between film
> and TV to the extent that anyone seeing "Berlin
> Alexanderplatz" in a theater might be said to be
> experiencing it in a "false" or "inauthentic" manner?
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
> http://companion.yahoo.com/
4542
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 4:11pm
Subject: Re: film and theater
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
> I think that Benoit Jacquot's version of Tosca is an outstanding
> example of a stage adaptation in which the director does not
attempt
> to hide or run away from the theatrical origins of a piece, but
which
> remains thrillinginly cinematic nevertheless. The heightened
> emotionalism rendered by Jacquot's constantly exploring camera
(even
> when it is stationary) is electric.
>
>
>
I haven't seen Jaquot's Tosca but what you said applies exactly
to his "La Fausse Suivante". As it does to Resnais' "Melo" (or, in a
different way and maybe to a lesser degree, to Hitchcock's "Rope") --
and of course to Pagnol and Guitry. It seems that the more you
acknowledge the stage origin of the material the likelier it is to
become truly cinematic. Bazin said pretty much the same thing in his
essay "Theater and Cinema".
JPC
4543
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 4:47pm
Subject: Re: film and theater
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jaketwilson" wrote:
> the tendency of conventional movie editing at least since the 1920s
> has been to carve up space into discrete chunks, giving us a
> fundamentally different way of looking at performers and interpreting
> their movements. A good director will capitalise on these kinds of
> differences, without necessarily wanting to draw our attention
> towards camera movement, say, at the expense of the actors.
> Speaking of road-to-Damascus experiences,
Encountering Hou Hsiao-hsiens films was sort of Damascus road-like for me *in that*
- well "Goodbye South, Goodbye" and "Good Men, Good Women" the balance between
the "framed" (as constraint of 'action') and the "free" (as possibility of 'action' was
nothing quite like what I'd seen before. There are those who frame inwards
(Eisenstein) and those who frame outwards (can't think of just one or two typological
examples -- ) but Hou seems to do both at once...and as I said in a kind of perfect
balance...
> After all, cameras don't make films,
> people do,
I'd practically have to write a book in full response to that -- in short, the eye is a
lens, a lens is a lens, the existence of lenses proves the eye is a lens, a lens is a
model......
-Sam Wells
4544
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 5:28pm
Subject: performance in the context of the entire story
It is not the performance alone, but the performance in the context of
the entire story.
I sometimes think of the struggle and conflict common to so many films
as similar to that of a sport competition. Basketball is good for
this. A game with a 2-4 point spread through out is not really
exciting until it comes to the end. Neither is a blow out from the
start with one team playing catch up fun to watch, unless the team does
catch up. Keeping the drama is a fine balancing act.
A great play against a poor team is not marveled at, regardless of the
score.
A great play against another great team is only considered mediocre if
the win has already been determined.
A mediocre play can be considered great if it creates the winning score
in a close game in championship setting.
And an accidental score, such as a tap in for the opposing team, would
be immortalized if it lead to a win in the championship game.
4545
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 5:42pm
Subject: Re: Curtis Harri
Harrington is one of my favorite filmmakers - he is a master of
mise-en-scene.
Mike Grost
I'll send word to him that you think so. Maybe I can squeeze out a
cassette of Usher for you. Nice film.
I haven't seen Queen, but it sounds a lot like Bava's Planet of the
Vampires, made the year before.
4546
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 5:59pm
Subject: Re: Performance in the context of the story
ER, Your sports/film analogy is illuminating - in fact, I am inclined
to think that people who make movies are well aware of it. I'm sure
it can be used ell, but it can also lead to cliched work. One of many
things I objected to in the 80s was all the Rocky copying: a sports
contest with an underdog who wins at the end is such an easy
substitute for dramatic invention, and it's so easy to film a
sporting contest so that the audience knows who's winning, whose
losing, and each shift is an emotional moment. I don't say that
filmed sports can't be great cinema, just as filmed theatre can, but
usually these days it's just one emotionally undernourished medium
piggybacking on a more robust one.
I do believe that the real thing can be electrifying, although I
almost never watch sports. I happened to be watching with my French
family when the girl with the sprained ankle did her last jump
because she had to and won for her team at the Olympics. You can't
beat that! John Carpenter tells me that he's so fed up with movies
(meaning today's Hollywood movies seen as one vast Matrix, with all
the computer interfacing, from tacky CGI effects to f***ing popup
advertising on your computer) that he has taken to watching live
sports instead.
4547
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 6:00pm
Subject: Jacquot's Lacan
Is that now available?
4548
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 6:05pm
Subject: Re: Performance in the context of the story
Once watched an NFL game on TV played at Denver's Mile High Stadium in
extremely thick fog --
One of the best moving images experiences I ever got off the tube !
-Sam (probably says something about my sense of aesthetics I've got no idea who
the Broncos were playing, or who won....)
4549
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 6:17pm
Subject: Re: Film and theatre
Pretty profound post, Jake. Where did you wrote about the false
director/camera analogy? Has anyone read Robin Wood's new BFI book on
Rio Bravo? It appears to be a defense and restatement of the auteur
theory along the humanistic lines Jake is championing. I can't wait
to read it.
Your John Cleese moment sounds very illuminating - I'm going to try
it. Manny Farber is good at observing and describing performance, and
so is Luc Moullet, in his little book La politique des acteurs, where
he analyzes four film actors. The chapter on Jimmy Stewart is
called "L'homme aux mains" - "The Hand Man."
I saw the semi-restored Swiss print of The River at UCLA last night,
and I must admit I warched Mary Duncan most of the time. It's a
pretty radical performance, one that I can imagine would have been
noted at the time and could have influenced other actresses - even
directors. The film is beyond great, and I kind of like the fact that
the front and back are lopped off: It's just those two people on one
set for most of the the movie now, like a scene from Breathless or
Contempt plunked down in the silent era. Conversely, while I wouldn't
want to lop out the middle of Borzage's career and go right from The
River to Moonrise, as we did at Melnitz last night, those are much
freer films, IMO.
I'm waiting for someone to inform me sonorously that Moonrise is "too
flashy."
4550
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 6:25pm
Subject: The Cat in the Hat...
...defines "sucks."
4551
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 6:27pm
Subject: Film music
The sad exchange on the above topic reminded me - am I the only one
who loved Jerry Goldsmith's score for Looney Tunes? He composed a
great symmphonic suite for the end credits, which are magical to
begin with.
4552
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 7:15pm
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser" wrote:
>
>
> To me the most moving moments in Cukor
> films are the ones that are openly emotional
> and without this self-conscious element.
I looked at THE CHAPMAN REPORT again a few months ago. I had always
found the Claire Bloom scenes to be the strongest in the film but
this time around it was the Shelley Winters scenes which I personally
found the most affecting, perhaps because they fit into this "openly
emotional" category that you're describing: her monologue with the
sex researcher, the extended single take scene on the houseboat when
she awkwardly recites a passage from MADAME BOVARY to her lover, and
especially the scene near the end when she has to go crawling back to
her husband after her lover has deserted her. The Bloom scenes are
still effective but in a more synthetic way, perhaps a little too
influenced by Kazan/Tennesse Williams.
> > Certainly, Cukor's characters seem to be
> more aware of their own motivations and
> dilemmas and contradictions than the leading
> characters in many other films, but my hunch
> is that Cukor uses distancing moments when
> his material is not so strong or when certain
> actors suggest such readings.
I wonder to what extent, then, this interesting idea that Dan has put
forth and that Robert has provided so many interesting examples of
can be discussed in terms of Cukor wanting to, as Hitchcock used to
phrase it, avoid the cliche: How can I work with my actors to make a
scene be dramatically effective but without falling back on exhausted
methods of staging and performance? I know this is a basic question
many directors ask but I think that for Cukor it is a fundamental one
that he almost continually asked himself and attempted to resolve
primarily through the performances. Hence the need for repeated
takes, for the endless fussing over details in terms of gesture and
movement, etc. The ideal is most likely what Robert suggests above,
in which a scene works in a directly emotional way which reaches some
level of emotional "truth," a word that often turns up in Cukor's
interviews. But if the scene suggests any possibility of cliche then
the method is to direct somewhat against the material, as in his
direction to Joan Crawford during her monologue on A WOMAN'S FACE in
which he told her to recite this very emotional material in a dry,
non-emotional manner. In this regard, like Hitchcock, the idea of
contrast is central to Cukor although for Hitchcock contrast most
often determines the entire formal structure of the film itself while
for Cukor it is a question of an attitude the actor takes towards the
material.
Along these lines, he loved the Morrissey/Warhol films, like LONESOME
COWBOYS, FLESH and TRASH and their deadpan outrageousness. He seemed
to particularly love the moment in COWBOYS when Viva does a big
emotional scene with the sheriff "who's calmly making up and getting
into drag."
>
>
>
>
>
> >
4553
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 7:34pm
Subject: Re: Curtis Harrington
Bill wrote,
>I haven't seen Queen, but it sounds a lot like Bava's Planet of the
>Vampires, made the year before.
I hosted a show of this film for Curtis and a couple of his friends
not long ago. Curtis made clever use of effects footage from an
elaborate late 1950s Soviet science fiction film. He said that a lot
of work went into matching the Soviet Agfacolor tones with our
Eastman Color palate. Russians in long shots were matched with Basil
Rathbone, John Saxon etc. in close-up, dressed in identical costumes.
The result is an epic on a minuscule budget. There's a real creepy,
otherworldly feel to this film, which maintains its effectiveness
even when the effects shots slip out of the story and the
mise-en-scene is limited to a small spaceship with only a couple of
characters.
The Queen was played by Florence Marly, who was supernaturally
young-looking, though she'd been something of a star of pre-World War
II French cinema. Apparently she had an authentic aristocratic
title, countess I think.
--
- Joe Kaufman
4554
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 8:03pm
Subject: Re: Curtis Harri
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Harrington is one of my favorite filmmakers - he is a master of
> mise-en-scene.
> Mike Grost
>
> I'll send word to him that you think so. Maybe I can squeeze out a
> cassette of Usher for you. Nice film.
>
> I haven't seen Queen, but it sounds a lot like Bava's Planet of the
> Vampires, made the year before.
In an interview with Stephane Levy-Klein
(Positif January 1975) Harrington stated that Queen of Blood (which
he shot in seven days) was built around a Russian Science Fiction
movie bought by Corman. C.H said he rewrote the whole thing but used
footage ("stock shots" in the interview)from the original, such as
the "landing on Mars". ... The AFI Catalog describes the film
as "Based on an unidentified story, 'The Veiled Woman'." According
to the same AFI Catalog both Harrington's film and Bava's "Planet of
the Vampires" have had the same alternate title: "Planet of Blood" --
and both of course were distributed by American International (AA
also seems to have co-produced the Bava). Both are precursors
to "Alien" at least in subject-matter.
When he was 14 Harrington made a five-minute 8mmm adaptation of
The Fall of the House of Usher. Is the "Usher" you mention a "remake"
of that early work?
I thought "Games", Harrington's rip-off of "Les Diaboliques", was
much better than the Clouzot but this may be a minority opinion.
JPC
4555
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 9:52pm
Subject: Re: Curtis Harrington
I like "Ruby" Kinda reflexive !
It'd make a good double bill with "Targets"
-Sam
Actually worked in a Drive-In once....
4556
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 10:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: Curtis Harri
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> Harrington is one of my favorite filmmakers - he is
> a master of
> mise-en-scene.
> Mike Grost
>
> I'll send word to him that you think so. Maybe I can
> squeeze out a
> cassette of Usher for you. Nice film.
>
> I haven't seen Queen, but it sounds a lot like
> Bava's Planet of the
> Vampires, made the year before.
>
I saw it when it came out in 1966 -- on a double
feature on 42nd street where it was playing with
"Planet of the Vampires."
Curtis is an upholder of the Val Lewton tradition in
"Night Tide" and his TV movie "Cat Creature."
"Queen of Blood" is visually ambitious, as Mike has
said, in that it apes and expands upon the style of
the Soviet Sci-Fi film from which much of its "2nd
Unit" work is derived. The plot is in many respects
quite like "Alien" and "It: The Terror From Beyond
Space."
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
http://companion.yahoo.com/
4557
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 11:07pm
Subject: Re: More on Eustache
Yes, Jonathan, I just got the magazine in the mail today, but
unfortunately the DVD won't play on my DVD player because of area
coding. Drat!
JPC
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
>
> > > Oh, and back to Eustache momentarily...
>
> It may interest members to know that Cinema 06 (the 4th issue to
date
> of the excellent new biannual magazine edited by Bernard
Eisenschitz)
> contains a DVD with two fascinating and little-known late works by
> Eustache--Le Jardin des delices de Jerome Bosch and Offre d'emploi,
> both done for French TV. The first is sort of a lecture on the
Bosch
> painting; the last, a commissioned work, is a didactic fiction
about
> a man applying for a job; the man is played by Michel Delahaye, and
> other parts are played by Michele Moretti and Jean Douchet. The
same
> issue contains essays on these films by Eisenschitz, on Numero Zero
> (a film I personally find rather tedious--a rather straightforward
> home movie about Eustache's grandmother, although I suppose it
> has "theoretical" interest) by Jean-Pierre Rehm, and a reprint of
an
> essay by Eustache about his own work.
>
> I happened to get the issue this week because I have something in
it
> as well (about The House is Black), but I urge members who know
> French to track down all the issues. (The previous one had another
> DVD--of the restoration of Mizoguchi's 1929 La Marche de Tokyo, or
at
> least what survives of it. It's published by Leo Scheer
> (www.leoscheer.com)...Sorry I didn't include any accents, by the
way;
> my Earthlink browser makes them difficult to access.
>
> By the way, I've seen Le cochon only once--without subtitles, at
the
> Viennale, as part of a Luc Moullet retrospective (because Moullet
> produced it)--but consider it one of Eustache's two greatest films,
> second only to La maman et la putain.
>
> Jonathan
4558
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2003 11:43pm
Subject: Re: mary duncan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>>
> I saw the semi-restored Swiss print of The River at UCLA last
>night, and I must admit I warched Mary Duncan most of the time. It's
>a pretty radical performance, one that I can imagine would have been
>noted at the time and could have influenced other actresses - even
>directors.
Mary Duncan is truly amazing, isn't she? The performance itself has
this quality that people usually refer to as modern these days, like
Eleanor Boardman's performance in THE CROWD, although she's more
sexual than Boardman -- although I think Borzage's camera is almost
as taken with Farrell as it is with Duncan. Apparently the eroticism
of the film was too much for some in 1929 since it was thought to be
a scandalous film, banned in several states, newspapers refusing to
review it and ads for the film refused in certain places. Duncan's
wonderful in CITY GIRL, too, and probably was as well in the lost
FOUR DEVILS. Howard Mandelbaum told me once that the only surviving
print (a nitrate one) of FOUR DEVILS survived for a number of years
(Lotte Eisner saw it for her book on Murnau)until one of the
actresses in the film (I think it was Nancy Drexel) had Fox ship the
print to her home in Florida so that she could show it to her
friends. She was married to someone wealthy and could afford to do
it. But someone told her it was a nitrate print and highly flammable
and so she panicked, thinking that her lovely Florida home would go
up in flames, and threw the print in the ocean. And that was the end
of FOUR DEVILS. I don't know if this is true but it's a good story
if you feel like getting angry.
> I'm waiting for someone to inform me sonorously that Moonrise
is "too flashy."
Now who would say a damnfool thing like this?
Joe
4559
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 0:02am
Subject: Re: More on Eustache
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> Yes, Jonathan, I just got the magazine in the mail today, but
> unfortunately the DVD won't play on my DVD player because of area
> coding. Drat!
> JPC
For whatever it's worth, I strongly believe that all dedicated
cinephiles with an interest in DVDs should have multiregional
players, which are quite inexpensive these days and automatically
multiply the number of available films if one orders from abroad
(which is quite easy to do on the Internet, and not necessarily
expensive either).
End of sermon.
4560
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 1:12am
Subject: Re: More on Eustache
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> >
> > Yes, Jonathan, I just got the magazine in the mail today, but
> > unfortunately the DVD won't play on my DVD player because of area
> > coding. Drat!
> > JPC
>
>
> For whatever it's worth, I strongly believe that all dedicated
> cinephiles with an interest in DVDs should have multiregional
> players, which are quite inexpensive these days and automatically
> multiply the number of available films if one orders from abroad
> (which is quite easy to do on the Internet, and not necessarily
> expensive either).
>
> End of sermon.
Not a sermon. Sound advice. I must live in the past, I wasn't
even aware that there are multiregional players available, let alone
affordable ones.
JPC
4561
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 2:11am
Subject: Re: Film and theatre
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Where did you wrote about the false
> director/camera analogy?
It's a post somewhere in the archive, but I can't find it at the
moment.
I seem to remember that Deleuze argues in his Cinema books against
personifying the camera's p.o.v., saying we should view a film as an
ensemble of images defined by their relations with each other rather
than by reference to a central focal point comparable with a human
observer. I'm probably paraphrasing very inaccurately -- I've only
read it in translation, and I don't have the reference handy.
Joe's online article on SOME CAME RUNNING in 16x9, which I just
caught up with, has some really good, detailed analysis of the kind
of thing I was trying to talk about -- how the gestures of actors
take on meaning in relation to how they're framed.
> Manny Farber is good at observing and describing performance, and
so is Luc Moullet, in his little book La politique des acteurs, where
> he analyzes four film actors. The chapter on Jimmy Stewart is
> called "L'homme aux mains" - "The Hand Man."
Acting is probably the hardest aspect of film to discuss profitably,
because the lack of a shared technical vocabulary, and because how we
interpret details of behaviour depends so much on personal cultural
background and experience of the world (not just of cinema!). Theatre
people tend to know more about acting than film people do, and some
of this knowledge is transferrable from one medium to the other -- I
second the recommendation of Simon Callow's books. Pauline Kael also
did some good criticism of actors, despite all the flak she's
received around here.
If I can mention a writer who's recently been contributing to Senses
of Cinema, someone else I think has interesting things to say about
performance is Lesley Chow. People who've been talking about self-
consciousness in Cukor might like to look at her piece on Katherine
Hepburn:
www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/27/katharine_hepburn.html
I will definitely check out Robin Wood's Rio Bravo monograph.
JTW
4562
From: Eric Henderson
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 2:56am
Subject: (moderately OT): multi-region request
--- "Jonathan Rosenbaum" wrote:
> For whatever it's worth, I strongly believe that all dedicated
> cinephiles with an interest in DVDs should have multiregional
> players, which are quite inexpensive these days and automatically
> multiply the number of available films if one orders from abroad....
I've been meaning to purchase a multi-region player for some time now, but
I've been led to believe that a great deal of them can be a bit sketchy from
time to time (and not just from Best Buy employees, either). So, I'd like to
request from those who have them which open-region player would be worth
the purchase. -- Eric
4563
From: programming
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 3:25am
Subject: Re: (moderately OT): multi-region request
On 11/22/03 8:56 PM, "Eric Henderson" wrote:
> --- "Jonathan Rosenbaum" wrote:
>> For whatever it's worth, I strongly believe that all dedicated
>> cinephiles with an interest in DVDs should have multiregional
>> players, which are quite inexpensive these days and automatically
>> multiply the number of available films if one orders from abroad....
>
> I've been meaning to purchase a multi-region player for some time now, but
> I've been led to believe that a great deal of them can be a bit sketchy from
> time to time (and not just from Best Buy employees, either). So, I'd like to
> request from those who have them which open-region player would be worth
> the purchase. -- Eric
I bought an Akai (Japanese brand) dvd player at a Middle Eastern store in
Chicago for $100. It plays both NTSC and PAL and the store modified it to
play all regions.
I've not watched a lot of PAL or non-region 1 dvds yet, but have had no
problems with the few I have watched.
Patrick (Chicago)
4564
From: Tristan
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 3:45am
Subject: Re: (moderately OT): multi-region request
The Cyberhome 402 is worth the price: $35. I got it at Best Buy. The
quality isn't that great, but it looks fine to me, especially for the
price. You can learn how to modify it to play all regions here:
http://www.nerd-out.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27133
4565
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 3:51am
Subject: Re: Cukor and Emotion
Even though Cukor repeatedly dissed A Life Of Her Own
as a trivial project, I find it fascinating (and perhaps
appropriate for these questions) because it illustrates
what Cukor would do with a relatively conventional script
and a leading actress (Lana Turner) who was professional
and a star but not exactly a creative participant, certainly
not at the level of Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, or
even Ava Gardener. With the male lead in the hands of
the slick but limited Ray Milland (who was also openly
homophobic), it seems there was not much to work with.
What did Cukor do? He provided highly detailed
mise-en-scene, including several sequences with
complex staging and downright Ophulsian camera
movements, yet still hit the emotional notes in a
consistently fresh way. For example, when Turner goes
to see her lover's wife (just as Colbert did in Zaza), the
scene takes many unexpected behavioral turns, with
the wife turning out to be rather a different person than
anyone expected, partly conveyed through some
intelligently crafted dialogue, partly through the
performance by Margaret Phillips.
Edward R. O'Neill had a very good discussion of the long
takes in this film (in Cineaction 50). One provocative comment
he makes is that "For Cukor theatricality is...a performative
question of a human relation to the world based on doing,
play, involvement and ultimately love...It is the real capacity
of humans to create and to transform by means of their
actions which interests Cukor, even if their efforts come
in the end to naught."
He also comments that "Cukor's concern with psychological
realism is difficult to separate from the care with which
he observed and manipulated his actors' performances.
It is this collapse of Cukor's observational realism and
his theatrical care which makes the term 'realism'
somewhat inadequate at capturing what's happening
in Cukor's work..." I would opt for a term like "emotional
realism", I think.
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "joe_mcelhaney"
wrote:
> I wonder to what extent, then, this interesting idea that Dan has
put
> forth and that Robert has provided so many interesting examples of
> can be discussed in terms of Cukor wanting to, as Hitchcock used to
> phrase it, avoid the cliche: How can I work with my actors to make
a
> scene be dramatically effective but without falling back on
exhausted
> methods of staging and performance? I know this is a basic
question
> many directors ask but I think that for Cukor it is a fundamental
one
> that he almost continually asked himself and attempted to resolve
> primarily through the performances. Hence the need for repeated
> takes, for the endless fussing over details in terms of gesture and
> movement, etc. The ideal is most likely what Robert suggests
above,
> in which a scene works in a directly emotional way which reaches
some
> level of emotional "truth," a word that often turns up in Cukor's
> interviews. But if the scene suggests any possibility of cliche
then
> the method is to direct somewhat against the material, as in his
> direction to Joan Crawford during her monologue on A WOMAN'S FACE
in
> which he told her to recite this very emotional material in a dry,
> non-emotional manner. In this regard, like Hitchcock, the idea of
> contrast is central to Cukor although for Hitchcock contrast most
> often determines the entire formal structure of the film itself
while
> for Cukor it is a question of an attitude the actor takes towards
the
> material.
4566
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 4:20am
Subject: Re: (moderately OT): multi-region request
I have an Apex AD-500W with regions disabled in the factory.
So far it has worked perfectly fine for British, Hong Kong, and
Japanese DVDs (and American ones, of course). The region
disabling cost extra, but I think the total came to about $170
two years ago (when they were more expensive).
--Robert Keser
4567
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 5:01am
Subject: multi-region confusion
I am getting more confused about this topic every post I read.
Someone says "the store changed it but I haven't watched anything
outside of region 1 yet but it's fine" (I paraphrase). Someone else
says you should go to www.nerd and learn how to fix the player.
Perhaps Jonathan who started this has more helpful information?
Maybe it doesn't bother anybody, but it may not be irrelevant to keep
in mind that "zone-free" players are, after all, illegal. Am I being
hopelessly naive? If I'm buying an illegal piece of equipment, what
is my protection against defective or unsatisfactory product? If I'm
stealing cable service, can I complain to the cable company when
reception is poor?
In a Jan-Febr. FILM COMMENT article Alex Leeds wrote: "The region-
free DVD player currently most available in the U.S. is the Chinese-
made Malata DVP-520, which is also progressive-scan and comes with a
built-in PAL to NTSC converter chip."
He also added "We're simply reporting all of this, not endorsing it."
JPC
4568
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 6:14am
Subject: Re: multi-region confusion
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> I am getting more confused about this topic every post I read.
> Someone says "the store changed it but I haven't watched anything
> outside of region 1 yet but it's fine" (I paraphrase). Someone else
> says you should go to www.nerd and learn how to fix the player.
> Perhaps Jonathan who started this has more helpful information?
The nerd-out.com website is very useful, and one of the first places
I usually recommend to people who have expressed an interest in
region-free players. It is definitely a subject that can quickly get
bogged down in technical jargon, but essentially what you need to
know is that most region-free players have either been physically
modified to be region-free (less common) or have a "hidden menu"
that is accessible via entering a certain sequence of keystrokes on
the remote which will allow you to then change the region the player
is set to.
> Maybe it doesn't bother anybody, but it may not be irrelevant to keep
> in mind that "zone-free" players are, after all, illegal. Am I being
> hopelessly naive? If I'm buying an illegal piece of equipment, what
> is my protection against defective or unsatisfactory product? If I'm
> stealing cable service, can I complain to the cable company when
> reception is poor?
Region-free players are not illegal. Their manufacturers have violated
the technology licensing agreement that all manufacturers must
enter into which stipulates mandatory region coding as part of the
DVD technical standards, but that is a matter between the licensing
organization and the manufacturers, not between law enforcement and
consumers.
> In a Jan-Febr. FILM COMMENT article Alex Leeds wrote: "The region-
> free DVD player currently most available in the U.S. is the Chinese-
> made Malata DVP-520, which is also progressive-scan and comes with a
> built-in PAL to NTSC converter chip."
Without getting too technical, the issue of video standards and PAL to
NTSC conversion is almost as important as region coding. Most
region-free players don't do a very good job of converting widescreen
PAL discs to display on an NTSC TV, with the result that the aspect
ratio looks way off (typically 2.35:1 looks more like 1.85:1 on players
afflicted with this problem). The Malata is one of the few players that does
this conversion properly. The Cyberhome CH-500, which I have, is
another, and it's a lot cheaper than the Malata:
http://www.cyberhome.com/products.asp?Product=500
but I'm not sure it's still available. It has the advantage of only needing
to be set up once, so you don't have to keep switching between
regions or video standards: you just put a disc in, and it plays,
regardless of what region it is or whether it's PAL or NTSC. It
also has very nice picture quality - I bought one intending to use it
as a backup player, and wound up using it as my main player
after it turned out to be significantly better than the Panasonic I
had been using.
There are many more region-free players out there with varying
strengths and weaknesses; again, a perusal of the forums at
nerd-out.com should be very informative. You can walk into
practically any large electronics retailer in the US and find
region-free players, although most people have no idea they
can be made region-free, since most people have little or no
interest in anything besides the latest R1 blockbuster. I suspect
the reason more of a stink hasn't been made about "hidden
menu" region-free players is that it's only a relatively small
number of people who go to the trouble of seeking out non-R1
discs.
Dave
4569
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 7:18am
Subject: Re: multi-region confusion
I strongly recommend that any cinephile purchase a region free and
format converting DVD player. It opens up enormously what is
available to be seen. I've acquired a couple of dozen other-region
titles, none of them being offered by American companies. It isn't
anything akin to piracy, since purchasing a foreign disc still
involves making a payment to a copyright holder. In Europe and Asia
such players are sold openly in major electronics chains. Here in
the US they are fairly readily available if not quite so publicly.
In Los Angeles, Amoeba Records has a large section of other-region
DVDs for sale, as does Kim's in New York City.
The UK video magazines have monthly columns telling readers how to
modify their players so as to make them multi-region, something that
no commercial publication here in the US has been willing to do so
far.
In addition to the several such players mentioned here previously,
the JVC models also will display anamorphic discs correctly.
As an aside I was able to use a Pioneer player and an outboard
conversion box to make a rough-and-ready transfer of Dan Sallitt's
most recent feature, which was shot on PAL video and memorialized on
a DVD.
--
- Joe Kaufman
4570
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 7:31am
Subject: Re: Curtis Harri
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Curtis is an upholder of the Val Lewton tradition in
> "Night Tide" and his TV movie "Cat Creature."
> "Queen of Blood" is visually ambitious, as Mike has
> said, in that it apes and expands upon the style of
> the Soviet Sci-Fi film from which much of its "2nd
> Unit" work is derived. The plot is in many respects
> quite like "Alien" and "It: The Terror From Beyond
> Space."
NIGHT TIDE seems more Tourneur than Lewton to me, but CAT CREATURE is
in the Lewton tradition. According to Robert Bloch who wrote the
teleplay Harrington wanted to do straight re-make of CAT PEOPLE but
reconsidered. Bloch credits Harrington with transforming his
original uninspired male villian into the character played by Gale
Sondergaard. They collaborated again on THE DEAD DON'T DIE which
wasn't nearly as good as CAT CREATURE.
As for ALIEN and IT: THE TERROR FROM BEYONFD SPACE, both were
inspired by A. E. Van Vogt's 1940s story BLACK DESTROYER. Van Vogt
was paid by the producers of IT for using his story but sued (and
recieved a settlement) for ALIEN. I believe that Harrington was
acquainted with Van Vogt through Forrest Ackerman.
Richard
4571
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 7:48am
Subject: It: The Terror From Beyond Space
David:
The plot is in many respects
> quite like "Alien" and "It: The Terror From Beyond
> Space."
Is this the film whose villain is a brain with an attached spinal
cord? My father (not in general a moviewatcher) has mentioned this
film to me on numerous occasions, which I think he only saw once on TV
in the 1960s.
PWC
4572
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 8:03am
Subject: Re: It. the Teror from Beyond Space
Patrick wrote: "Is this the film where the villain is a brain with a
spinal cord attched?" No. That's Fiend without a Face, where multiple
brain creatures who can wrap their spinal cords around your neck
invade. They reappear in the Area 52 sequence of Looney Tunes: Back
in Action.
It, the teror from Beyond Space is about some people coming back from
a space trip who have a killer alien stowaway.
Both are excellent films.
4573
From: Damien Bona
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 8:38am
Subject: Re: Curtis Harrington
Curtis's house is decorated exactly as you'd expect -- and want -- it
to be: it's all very gothic with art nouveau accessories, and on his
bedroom night stand there's a stuffed raven.
4574
From: Greg Dunlap
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 0:29pm
Subject: Re: Re: multi-region dvds - Chicago
--- Joseph Kaufman wrote:
> In Los Angeles, Amoeba Records has a large section of other-region
> DVDs for sale, as does Kim's in New York City.
I normally wouldn't clog up a list with a request as local as this, but
I know that there are a significant number of other Chicagoans here.
Are there any good places to get non-region-1 dvds in the city? Last I
checked Facets doesn't seem to be involved in this yet, and that would
have been the first place I suspected would deal with this kind of
thing. For rent would be even better, since I am currently only
semi-employed, but I know I'm grasping at straws there. I continually
hear stories of people going into Kim's and getting the most amazing
things, and I'm horribly jealous.
=====
--------------------
Greg Dunlap
heyrocker@y...
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
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4575
From: Michael Brooke
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 2:52pm
Subject: Re: multi-region confusion
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Kaufman wrote:
> I strongly recommend that any cinephile purchase a region free and
> format converting DVD player. It opens up enormously what is
> available to be seen. I've acquired a couple of dozen other-region
> titles, none of them being offered by American companies. It isn't
> anything akin to piracy, since purchasing a foreign disc still
> involves making a payment to a copyright holder.
This is absolutely correct - and a happy side-effect of people being only too ready to
shop abroad for their DVDs has been to stimulate far greater efforts on the part of
distributors to meet their requirements, as they know full well that if their discs aren't
perceived as being up to scratch, their potential market will simply go elsewhere.
A good example of a distributor taking this into account is Tartan in the UK - round
about Easter 2001 they released a pretty crappy single-disc version of 'In the Mood
for Love', but six months later it was comprehensively blown out of the water by a
magnificent double-disc French edition that also offered English subtitles on just
about everything. Very sensibly, Tartan bought the UK distribution rights to this
version and had it in British shops within weeks.
That said, this kind of cross-border co-operation can have its downside - MK2 in
France used to put English subtitles on all their DVDs (including extras and
commentaries) as a matter of course, but since Artificial Eye and Tartan started
distributing their discs in Britain, as a quid pro quo MK2 have agreed to drop English
translations from the DVDs they sell in France - which, annoyingly, usually come out
several months before the UK editions, and I personally prefer MK2's cover artwork.
Similarly, distributors are sometimes contractually compelled to feature nonremovable
subtitles in order to restrict the appeal of their DVDs to their own territory - I know
BFI Video has run into difficulties on that score.
> In Europe and Asia
> such players are sold openly in major electronics chains. Here in
> the US they are fairly readily available if not quite so publicly.
> In Los Angeles, Amoeba Records has a large section of other-region
> DVDs for sale, as does Kim's in New York City.
Tragically, this isn't true in the UK, thanks to the absurdly draconian 1984 Video
Recordings Act, which requires all videos and DVDs on sale in Britain to have official
approval by the British Board of Film Classification (roughly our equivalent of the
MPAA) - which in effect restricts the market to UK labels only. Fortunately, the VRA
doesn't cover personal imports from abroad, which are perfectly legal unless they
contravene Customs regulations (which really only cover extreme sexual violence and
child pornography these days).
> The UK video magazines have monthly columns telling readers how to
> modify their players so as to make them multi-region, something that
> no commercial publication here in the US has been willing to do so
> far.
Multiregion players are vastly more common on this side of the Atlantic, partly
because there's more incentive to buy them (I'd say roughly 50% of my thousand-
strong DVD collection was US-sourced) but also because it's apparently much easier
to make a PAL player and TV NTSC compatible than vice versa - most British VCRs can
at least play back NTSC tapes, even if you need multistandard equipment to actually
record or edit the format.
If multiregion equipment was illegal in Britain, God only knows how many
prosecutions would result! What tends to happen with the most popular players is
that they're sold as Region 2, but the manufacturers "accidentally" leak a secret code
that, when entered into the remote, unlocks the player's region setting and either
makes it region-free or (more usefully, as this defeats the dreaded RCE "region coding
enhancement") lets one set a specific region. And of course a similar code is provided
to lock the player back to Region 2, should one need to return the player for servicing
and wish to cover one's tracks.
Put it like this, I don't know any serious British cinephiles who haven't either gone
multiregion already or have definite plans to do so - there's no real argument against
it.
Michael
4576
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 4:01pm
Subject: Re: multi-region confusion
> The Malata is one of the few players that does
> this conversion properly. The Cyberhome CH-500, which I have, is
> another, and it's a lot cheaper than the Malata:
> http://www.cyberhome.com/products.asp?Product=500
>
> but I'm not sure it's still available.
I know that people have gotten the CyberHome 500 at www.newegg.com (I probably would have, if I hadn't bought a previous player), which still seems to list them ($70 + $10 shipping). Kim's Video in New York were also selling them (for over $100), don't know if they still are.
4577
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 5:05pm
Subject: confusion allayed
Thanks to Dave, Joseph, Michael, Jess for the wealth of info on all-
region DVDs. I checked the CyberHome CH-500 and it is available on
amazon.com for $64.99 and free shipping. Although not in stock right
now it will be by the end of the month, they say, and you can place
an advanced order, which I did.
JPC
4578
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 5:34pm
Subject: mary duncan correction
My non-educated guess in a previous post that Nancy Drexel was the
actress responsible for destroying the only surviving copy of FOUR
DEVILS by tossing it in the ocean is probably wrong. Sorry to say if
this story is true at all, it was most likely Mary Duncan who did it
since she became part of a Palm Beach society set after her
retirement.
Of course I hope that all of this is just a myth and that the print
was lost for other reasons.
4579
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 6:36pm
Subject: Re: confusion allayed
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> Thanks to Dave, Joseph, Michael, Jess for the wealth of info on all-
> region DVDs. I checked the CyberHome CH-500 and it is available on
> amazon.com for $64.99 and free shipping. Although not in stock
right
> now it will be by the end of the month, they say, and you can place
> an advanced order, which I did.
>
> JPC
Sorry I haven't been contributing to the latter portions of this
discussion. The fact is, I bought a $300 multiregion player before
the prices went down, and others in this group seem to know a lot
more about the subject than I do from an updated perspective. But I
can at least alert members to a couple of valuable web sites that are
excellent guides for keeping up with what films are or are becoming
available overseas: www.mastersofcinema.com and www.dvdbeaver.com.
The former is more comprehensive, but the latter has the
irreplaceable feature of comparing frame enlargements from separate
versions of the same film, and offering expert advice about which
versions are better from other standpoints. The new UK version of
Lang's M, for example, which is much superior to Criterion's, was
something I learned about from DVD Beaver. It may also be worth
mentioning that one can now get a superb version of the restored
PLAYTIME in stereo from France, issued by the same people responsible
for the Tativille web site.
Jonathan
4583
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 6:48pm
Subject: Re: confusion allayed
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum" wrote:
> It may also be worth
> mentioning that one can now get a superb version of the restored
> PLAYTIME in stereo from France, issued by the same people responsible
> for the Tativille web site.
Another data point: Criterion has reacquired the US DVD rights to several of
the Tati films which they formerly made available on disc, but which went
out of print in the not-too-distant past. As a result, they will be reissuing
new pressings of M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY, MON ONCLE, and PLAYTIME
soon. I've read that the new pressing of PLAYTIME may well be the restored
version, although I'm not certain this has been confirmed yet.
Dave
4584
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 6:51pm
Subject: Re: confusion allayed
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> Thanks to Dave, Joseph, Michael, Jess for the wealth of info on all-
> region DVDs. I checked the CyberHome CH-500 and it is available on
> amazon.com for $64.99 and free shipping. Although not in stock right
> now it will be by the end of the month, they say, and you can place
> an advanced order, which I did.
Bookmark this page, for future reference when your CH-500 arrives:
http://www.nerd-out.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27133
It will tell you all you need to know regarding setting up the player to
enable its multiregion capabilities.
Dave
4585
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 7:18pm
Subject: Movies: November 23, 1963
Today the New York Daily News publised a reproduction of their
complete Nov. 23, 1963 edition, covering the Kennedy's assassination.
Since the paper in reproduced in toto, there are film advertisements
(no listings, except for times of main features). Anyway, here's
what's advertised:
CLEOPATRA
HOW THE WEST WAS WON
IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD
INCREDIBLE JOURNEY + THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS
PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND
TWO WOMEN + THE SKY ABOVE, THE MUD BELOW
NAKED AUTUMN ("Adult in the purest sense of the word--Herald Tribune")
ALL THE WAY HOME
MCCLINTOCK
TWILIGHT OF HONOR
THE CONJUGAL BED
FANTASIA
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
THE HAUNTING + THE SQUARE OF VIOLENCE
DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP + ROCK-BYE BABY
JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS + GIDGET GOES HOME
TRAVELING LIGHT + THE AMOUROUS SEX (The former is billed: "Join
Nudists at Play--See Beautiful Sun-Kissed Maidens Frolic Au Naturel in
the Water of the Exotic Isle of Corsica" How much could they show in
these films?)
THE WHEELER DEALERS
UNDER THE YUM YUM TREE
A NEW KIND OF LOVE
TAKE HER, SHE'S MINE
HIS NAME IS PARRISH + RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE
ALL THE FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS
8 1/2
PWC
4586
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 7:31pm
Subject: Re: multi-region confusion
Michael wrote:
>Multiregion players are vastly more common on this side of the
>Atlantic, partly because there's more incentive to buy them (I'd say
>roughly 50% of my thousand-strong DVD collection was US-sourced) but
>also because it's apparently much easier to make a PAL player and TV
>NTSC compatible than vice versa - most British VCRs can at least
>play back NTSC tapes, even if you need multistandard equipment to
>actually record or edit the format.
True. Playing a PAL signal on an American TV set, if it displays at
all, results in a flickery blank and white image with the bottom 100
lines cut off.
--
- Joe Kaufman
4587
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 9:14pm
Subject: Re: confusion allayed
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum" wrote:
> I
> can at least alert members to a couple of valuable web sites that are
> excellent guides for keeping up with what films are or are becoming
> available overseas: www.mastersofcinema.com and www.dvdbeaver.com.
> The former is more comprehensive, but the latter has the
> irreplaceable feature of comparing frame enlargements from separate
> versions of the same film, and offering expert advice about which
> versions are better from other standpoints. The new UK version of
> Lang's M, for example, which is much superior to Criterion's, was
> something I learned about from DVD Beaver.
It should also be noted, if it hasn't been already, that Jonathan has been writing mouth-watering columns on the subject (imported DVDs) for Cinema Scope. Now, when is that magazine going to start including DVD samplers? (Somehow I keep thinking of the "Preminger" issue of On Film in the '70s which included a floppy phonograph record containing an interview with Preminger ... which I currently can't play.)
4588
From: J. Mabe
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 10:26pm
Subject: where to find import DVDs
I don’t like watching video very much, so I’ve never
looked into the import DVDs, but I was wondering what
resources you folks might recommend. For example, I
heard there was a R2 release of a bunch of Rhitwik
Ghatak DVDs. Where could I find those? And are any
Kiarostami documentaries available? I would buy a
region free DVD player if I could find those.
Thanks,
Josh Mabe
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4589
From:
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 5:34pm
Subject: Re: Curtis Harrington
Very informative posts on Curtis Harrington! Thank you!
Have never seen any of his early, experimental films. Impression from
Harrington interviews: the recent "Usher" is not so much a remake of the "Fall of the
House of Usher" Harrington made as a child, as a new response to a Poe story
that is one of his all-time personal favorites.
Mike Grost
Ratings for Harrington's feature length films:
Night Tide (1960) Writer: Curtis Harrington ****
The Four Elements (1965) (Documentary) Writer: Curtis Harrington (Not Seen)
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965) Writer: Curtis Harrington;
incorporates extensive footage from Planeta Bur / Planet of Storms (Pavel Klushantsev,
1962) (Seen, but this is mainly a paste-up of the remarkable special effects
from this Russian film)
Planet of Blood (1966) Writer: Curtis Harrington ****
Games (1967) Writer: Gene Kearney, based on a story by George Edwards and
Curtis Harrington ****
How Awful About Allan (1970) (September 22, 1970) Writer: Henry Farrell,
based on his 1963 novel ****
What's the Matter With Helen (1971) Writer: Henry Farrell ***
Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) ****
The Killing Kind (1973) (not seen)
The Cat Creature (1973) (December 11, 1973) Writer: Robert Bloch, based on a
story by Bloch, Douglas Cramer & Wilford Lloyd Baumes ***1/2
Killer Bees (1974) *1/2 (although I'd like to see it again!)
The Dead Don't Die (1975) (January 14, 1975) Writer: Robert Bloch, based on
Bloch's 1953 novella **1/2 (great scene in a funeral parlor)
Ruby (1977) ** (apparently much not directed by Harrington)
Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978) *
Mata Hari (1985) *** (the first half is ****, the second half is weaker)
Among Harrington's TV series episodes I've seen:
Baretta
· Set-Up City (October 29, 1975) Writer: Michael Butler **
Logan's Run
· Stargate (February 6, 1978) Writer: Dennis O'Neill *
Sword of Justice
· The Executioners (October 14, 1978) *1/2
Vegas
· Kill Dan Tanna (January 10, 1979) Writer: Larry Forrester ****
(haunting, beautiful, poetic and original!)
4590
From: Michael Brooke
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 11:22pm
Subject: Re: confusion allayed
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> But I
> can at least alert members to a couple of valuable web sites that are
> excellent guides for keeping up with what films are or are becoming
> available overseas: www.mastersofcinema.com and www.dvdbeaver.com.
> The former is more comprehensive, but the latter has the
> irreplaceable feature of comparing frame enlargements from separate
> versions of the same film, and offering expert advice about which
> versions are better from other standpoints.
Seconded, with a couple of tiny caveats - I'm not always convinced by DVDBeaver's
arguments, most notably in the case of 'The Red Shoes', where they come down in
favour of the Carlton edition over the Criterion on the grounds that the colours are
"more accurate", which ignores the fact that Powell and Pressburger weren't exactly
aiming for realism, especially when it came to colour! (I also have to say that even on
the basis of the frame grabs, I'd still favour the Criterion: the Carlton looks a little
pasty for my taste). To be fair, Gary W Tooze does qualify his comments heavily, but
it would have been nice to acknowledge that the Criterion disc was personally
supervised and approved by Jack Cardiff - which suggests that the slight red colour
cast that Tooze complains about may well have been intentional (and indeed entirely
appropriate).
The other caveat is that often what's being compared isn't the DVDs directly but frame
grabs taken by different people with different software, often in different continents -
so while the comparisons are still very useful, they don't necessarily tell the whole
story. Oh, and while I'm being picky, whenever they discuss discs produced by the
Russian Cinema Council, they seem to invariably pick the NTSC versions for analysis,
though Ruscico also produces PAL versions and the master transfers are apparently
PAL as well, so I'd expect the latter to be noticeably better (certainly, I've had far fewer
complaints with the PAL Ruscico discs that I've bought than I've seen being made in
connection with the NTSC transfers).
Michael
4591
From:
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 6:48pm
Subject: Re: Curtis Harrington
Curtis Harrington has long seemed to be a Pantheon director.
Like Sternberg and Tourneur, (the two directors his work most resembles) he
is a Pictorialist filmmaker: someone whose films are rich in visual beauty and
creativity.
Mike Grost
PS The Sarasota, Florida-based film historian / mystery writer Stuart M.
Kaminsky is a big admirer of Harrington's work. Kaminsky did an article/ interview
with Harrington in the 1970's, if memory serves.
4592
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Nov 24, 2003 0:06am
Subject: Re: Numero zero
> Speaking of the problems in subtitling, I seem to remember that in
> the U.S. release prints of La mamam et la Putain the poor
subtitler
> completely gave up during the scene where Leaud tells some punning
> jokes ("Quel est l'arrrondissement le plus sale?" "Le seizieme
parce
> que c'est la qu'on enleve la mere Dassault.") and just wrote
> something like "These are untranslatable puns."
But what other subtitler even bothers to let you know what's going
on? The others are happy to lose the pun if it saves them a few
keystrokes. THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE's subtitling job, by Jonathan
someone-or-another, is my favorite ever; the fellow took a lot of
care, and he did translate what puns he could (like "Vitamin
M/Aime"). - Dan
4593
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Nov 24, 2003 0:09am
Subject: Re: Eustache
> UNE SALE HISTOIRE is still available through Marie Bonnel
(Veronique
> Godard's replacement) at the French Film Office. At least in *one*
of
> its halves, last time I checked.
I'm pretty sure the two halves are always distributed together -
that's the way I've always seen them, and they're listed together in
reference books. - Dan
4594
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Nov 24, 2003 0:55am
Subject: Re: Numero zero
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Dan Sallitt" wrote:
> > Speaking of the problems in subtitling, I seem to remember that
in
> > the U.S. release prints of La mamam et la Putain the poor
> subtitler
> > completely gave up during the scene where Leaud tells some
punning
> > jokes ("Quel est l'arrrondissement le plus sale?" "Le seizieme
> parce
> > que c'est la qu'on enleve la mere Dassault.") and just wrote
> > something like "These are untranslatable puns."
>
> But what other subtitler even bothers to let you know what's going
> on? The others are happy to lose the pun if it saves them a few
> keystrokes. THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE's subtitling job, by Jonathan
> someone-or-another, is my favorite ever; the fellow took a lot of
> care, and he did translate what puns he could (like "Vitamin
> M/Aime"). - Dan
Not knowing (or not remembering) that Jonathan someone-or-other
did the subtitling is unforgiveable and I sincerely apologize to him
(I haven't seen the American print in at least 20 years; also, being
French, I didn't have to read the subtitles, although I was curious
to see how difficult stuff was translated).I was not putting him down
for not translating a truly untranslateable pun, or for informing the
viewer that it couldn't be translated. He was right. I was just
pointing out the obvious -- that things often get lost in
translation.
I saw the film again in Paris two years ago. It's still as great as
ever. I've just re-read the script (in the "Petite Bibliotheque des
Cahiers du Cinema" edition)and all the inflections, especially
Leaud's and Lebrun's are still in my head as a read. And i can't get
rid of that final song. JPC
4595
From:
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 7:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Curtis Harrington
I agree with Mike Grost 100% on Curtis Harrington being a Pantheon director.
There are still a few films of his I haven't seen (among them both of his
versions of "Usher"), but I've not been let down once by what I have. Particular
favorites of mine are "Night Tide," "Games," and "Who Slew Auntie Roo?"
Mike, I understand that there's been a DVD released of a version of "Ruby"
closer to Harrington's original cut. I've not seen any version of the film, so
I can't comment on differences in quality, though I'd expect Harrington's
version (or a version approximating Harrington's version) is of course better.
I've also never seen "Mata Hari," which I see you rate quite highly. I wonder
if it falls into that wonderful, diverse category of 'art movies' financed by
Golan Globus (others include two masterpieces [or near-masterpieces] by John
Cassavetes and Norman Mailer, "Love Streams" and "Tough Guys Don't Dance," and
Godard's "King Lear.") I know Jonathan's written about this sub-sub-sub-genre
before and the weird coincidence that many of these movies were shot in their
directors' homes.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
4596
From: Fred Camper
Date: Mon Nov 24, 2003 1:20am
Subject: Re: Re: Curtis Harrington
I haven't seen as many Harringtons as Mike, and I probably don't rate
him quite as highly, but I agree with Mike's ratings on most of the
films I have seen. In particular, "Night Tide," "Games," and "Queen of
Blood" are all terrific, in a wonderfully creepy almost fetishistic kind
of way.
Curiously, I don't like his 1940s avant-garde films very much. They have
all the trappings of avant-garde films of that period -- the influences
from surrealism; the theme of the seeker -- but visually they aren't
very interesting. He knew Markopoulos and Anger and some members of our
group know him; someone should do an oral history with him (if I ever
get to LA and he's willing I could) about his early years, whether he
was influenced by other avant-garde filmmakers, why he switched to
narrative features, etc.
If someone can report that "Ruby" is (a) a good film and (b) is
available in the good, closer-to-director's-cut DVD version Peter
mentions, please do so and include ordering information. Maybe this will
be a first for me: paying to buy a DVD.
- Fred
4597
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Nov 24, 2003 1:38am
Subject: Re: Curtis Harrington
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
masterpieces] by John
> Cassavetes and Norman Mailer, "Love Streams" and "Tough Guys Don't
Dance," and
> Godard's "King Lear.") I know Jonathan's written about this sub-
sub-sub-genre
> before and the weird coincidence that many of these movies were
shot in their
> directors' homes.
>
> Peter
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Peter I hope you don't include "Love Streams" in a "sub-sub-sub
genre" whatever that means. I don't care about the others but the
Cassavetes is a great film in any "genre".
JPC
4598
From: Tristan
Date: Mon Nov 24, 2003 1:43am
Subject: Re: confusion allayed
>The new UK version of
> Lang's M, for example, which is much superior to Criterion's, was
> something I learned about from DVD Beaver. It may also be worth
> mentioning that one can now get a superb version of the restored
> PLAYTIME in stereo from France, issued by the same people
responsible
> for the Tativille web site.
>
> Jonathan
Criterion is apparently going to release a new version of Lang's M in
this country with the new transfer in supplement. No word on when it
will be released. They are also releasing the restored full length
Playtime and Jour de Fete next year.
4599
From:
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2003 9:17pm
Subject: Re: Re: Curtis Harrington
JPC writes:
> Peter I hope you don't include "Love Streams" in a "sub-sub-sub
> genre" whatever that means. I don't care about the others but the
> Cassavetes is a great film in any "genre".
I was half-kidding when I was referring to the 'art films' financed by
Golan-Globus as a 'sub-sub-sub-genre"; obviously, they don't constitute one despite
some interesting similarities (mainly the thing I mentioned about how the
Godard, Cassavetes, and Mailer films were all shot in large part in the homes of
Godard, Cassavetes, and Mailer.) I just find it striking that G-G got behind
such bold filmmakers for a brief spell in the '80s.
"Love Streams" is probably one of my twenty favorite movies ever made and I
wouldn't think of consigning it to a genre.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
4600
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Nov 24, 2003 2:45am
Subject: Re: Curtis Harrington
>
> "Love Streams" is probably one of my twenty favorite movies ever
made and I
> wouldn't think of consigning it to a genre.
>
> Peter
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Peter I love you for that! What are the 19 others?
JPC
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