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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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It is possible to email the author of any post by finding a post
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emailing them from that Web site.
7401
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:16pm
Subject: Re: 400 Blows Today
Dear Disgusted Film Student,
Shoot the Piano Player was the first French film I saw, and I was
continually struck by its poverty - the poverty of the means
deployed, and the apartments people lived in. But I loved it, and I
ended up writing for Truffaut's magazine.
It's too bad about the kids who go to film school knowing nothing
but the most superficial Hollywood films, hoping to do the same
and be "King of the World" someday. But brains and talent will
eventually out. My stepson, who has always refused to look at
black and white, has seen almost all of my collection in color, so
apparently he watched Kiss Me Stupid last night, and he
revealed to me on his way out the door this morning that it was
not his first b&w. (He didn't much like it, but it's a hard film for
most people to even watch.)
And good work continues to be done - you can't turn your back on
Hollywood films in disgust because of other people's bad
attitudes. I'm just discovering the Farrelly brothers, whom I now
much prefer to the Coen brothers, so don't narrow your viewing
range too much. There are also the great Hollywood films of the
past, and as many here would be quick to point out, the great
avant-garde films of past and present. Along with films flooding
in from Asia and Europe, World Cinema in all its variety is a
reality the retards you went to school with will have to confront
when some guy from Taiwan or Brazil who does "stupid films"
gets a production deal at the company that hasn't been returning
their calls about making You Can Drive My Car 2 with Heather
Graham playing the mother. As for you, your real education is
just beginning, so keep your eyes (and mind) open, and keep
checking in to a_film_by.
7402
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:17pm
Subject: Cineaste, auteur etc.
I'll post some capsule definitions tonight. Yes, they do overlap.
7403
From:
Date: Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:45pm
Subject: Re: Pasolini
Pasolini's career was certainly a strange beast. His first films,
ACCATONE and MAMMA ROMA, while beautiful in many ways, for me don't
quite break free of the melodramatic conventions of many of the
Italian films at the time. (I don't mind these conventions,
actually, but I suspect Pasolini's heart wasn't quite in them.) He
really picked up, however, with GOSPEL and HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS,
his two greatest films (in my opinion) and the ones where he managed
to meld his political and spiritual obsessions with the tradition of
neorealism and the emerging art film. (HAWKS, especially, is a
masterpiece in this regard -- it encapsulates Pasolini's career in
so many ways, both reflecting on his previous work and predicting
the later works. Endlessly fascinating, eminently watchable.)
I'm not a huge fan of TEOREMA or PIGSTY (PORCILE) but I'd like to
see them on a big screen. MEDEA is absolutely gorgeous, an ice-cold
but lovely wonder. OEDIPUS REX is probably the most personal film he
ever made, with an autobiographical framing device about his own
family. The "Trilogy of Life" - DECAMERON, CANTERBURYY TALES,
ARABIAN NIGHTS - was something of a hit at the time, but in some
ways it turned "Pasolini" into an international cliche. I like these
films okay -- I love ARABIAN NIGHTS, and CANTERBURY TALES ends with
one of the most fascinatingly disgustings setpieces I've ever seen --
but over the years these films have been relegated to second-tier
Pasolini status for me. The director himself reportedly disowned
them before making SALO.
What more is there to say about SALO? It's a perfect movie, and as
such, utterly unwatchable. It's not a movie, it's a rape. I saw it
years ago, own a DVD of it but have been too afraid to pop it in the
player, doing so only to check and make sure it was the right one.
And a word on this disc: The out-of-print Criterion edition does
indeed go for $500 or so on eBay, but there's a bootleg of the
Criterion edition that you can get for much much cheaper, which
looks fine as well. (This film never looked particularly good, which
of course heightened the effect that you were watching some kind of
renegade snuff film.)
-Bilge
7404
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:58pm
Subject: Re: Pasolini
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> While "Salo" is out of print at the moment almost all
> of his major films are available on DVD. I have
> "Oedipus Rex" and "Porcile" on laser. My DVD
> collection consists of "Salo," "Canterbury Tales,"
> "The Gospel According to Matthew" and "The Decameron."
Actually, all of the Pasolini DVDs that were released by Image in the US have
been out of print for some time now. Anyone know if there are any alternatives
outside of Region 1?
Dave
7405
From: A R Ervolino
Date: Wed Feb 11, 2004 11:40pm
Subject: RE: Re: Pasolini
I know there are a lot of R2 DVDs of Pasolini's work. In NYC Kim's
sells a few of them. You can also find them on Ebay.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Garrett [mailto:dave@c...]
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 5:59 PM
To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Pasolini
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> While "Salo" is out of print at the moment almost all
> of his major films are available on DVD. I have
> "Oedipus Rex" and "Porcile" on laser. My DVD
> collection consists of "Salo," "Canterbury Tales,"
> "The Gospel According to Matthew" and "The Decameron."
Actually, all of the Pasolini DVDs that were released by Image in the US
have
been out of print for some time now. Anyone know if there are any
alternatives
outside of Region 1?
Dave
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7406
From: Frederick M. Veith
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 0:14am
Subject: Re: back issues of Movie
I've found that, generally speaking, the Performing Arts Library at
Lincoln Center has *far* more extensive (film) holdings than either NYU or
Columbia. It has the added benefit of being open to the public at
large. They hold both the English Movie and (albeit partially) an
Australian one as well. They also provide access (on site only) to FIAF's
International Index to Film Periodicals which so far as I recall NYU and
Columbia do not.
Caveat: they charge twice as much for photocopies as Bobst (but then NYU
doesn't have to depend on Mike Bloomberg et al. for its funding).
On the other hand, for those willing to be mildly dishonest, access to
Bobst can be had by claiming to use the Tamiment Library, a publicly
accessible collection of material on labor and radical politics, housed
within Bobst.
F.
On Wed, 11 Feb 2004, Jaime N. Christley wrote:
> NYU's Bobst Library carries back issues of Film Comment, Positif,
> Cahiers, etc. It's there that I found the only article I'm aware of
> that discusses Tati's last last last film, the one about the soccer
> team. I have to assume they have Movie. You should be able to search
> for articles (keywords, etc) through this web page:
>
> http://library.nyu.edu/
>
> If you give me as much information as possible I can go to Bobst and
> find the articles, scan them or photocopy them, etc.
7407
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 0:36am
Subject: Re: Cineaste, auteur etc: A group FAQ?
To Bill, definitions would be great. Thanks in advance. To all, perhaps
we should gradually construct a FAQ for our group? ("FAQ" = a very
common 'Net term for "Frequently Asked Questions")
For example:
What is the "auteur theory"? (Here I'd want a citation to the Truffaut
article, citation to the most easily available English translation,
reference to any predecessor theories, to Sarris, to why most don't
consider it a "theory," etc.)
The definitions of the terms Jaime mentioned (with citations?)
Perhaps something in answer to "what about the producer, scriptwriter,
etc" -- and here Peter and I could perhaps agree on something to the
effect that even auteurists consider that for some films there's a
dominant creative force other than the director, and we could also cite
particularly illuminating posts in the archive, and if know of one of
those, let us know -- I remember a couple of excellent ones from Tag and
one from Zach.
I haven't discussed this with Peter at all, but if he agrees that its' a
good idea, and no one else objects credibly, this might be something we
could construct gradually, with others' help, starting with Bill's
definition, and put it in the "Files" section with a link from the main
page.
I'd like to see somewhere in there a refutation of the common and
mistaken belief that for an auteurist the director has to have full
control, write the script, et cetera -- an explanation of the notion
that a tension between the director and his material is sometimes
thought to send the director to new heights (and as we all know,
sometimes to new depths too).
I envision something Peter and I construct with extensive quotations
from material provided by members and quotations from minority views
among our members too (within reason).
- Fred
7408
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 1:12am
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
> I'd like to see somewhere in there a refutation of the common and
> mistaken belief that for an auteurist the director has to have full
> control, write the script, et cetera -- an explanation of the
notion
> that a tension between the director and his material is sometimes
> thought to send the director to new heights (and as we all know,
> sometimes to new depths too).
I'm having a hell of a time duking it out with some youngsters on the
Rotten Tomatoes discussion board
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=309894
My arguments may be a little more messy, a little less educated (which
is why I wanted to get definitions of those terms - an FAQ is a swell
idea), than those of the more esteemed a_film_byers, the longtime
auteurists...but I'd like to think I'm fighting the good fight, waving
the flag, etc.
Boy, this guy I'm arguing with keeps bringing up the most damned
uninteresting literary/stage movies to back up his anti-auteurist
arguments - LORD OF THE RINGS, Branagh's HAMLET, THE SILENCE OF THE
LAMBS - and sure enough, I keep having to explain, over and over
again, the Tired Old Arguments:
> mistaken belief that for an auteurist the director has to have full
> control, write the script, et cetera
And this line had me throwing up my hands:
"Those things you mention [the director's aesthetic decisions] are
means to an end, that end being presenting as best as possible the
content of the scribt [sic]."
I must be convincing some people, but it sure gets tiresome after a
while.
-Jaime
7409
From:
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 1:16am
Subject: Re: Pasolini
>
> Actually, all of the Pasolini DVDs that were released by Image in
the US have
> been out of print for some time now. Anyone know if there are any
alternatives
> outside of Region 1?
>
So these aren't the Water Bearer releases? Those (GOSPEL, ACCATONE,
HAWKS, OEDIPUS REX, PORCILE, COMIZI D'AMORE) are still widely
available in very good copies (I recently purchased a bunch of them
from Deepdiscountdvd.com.) I keep running into the Trilogy of Life
films at stores but that may be just remaining copies. But those are
available in UK editions as well. Which ones besides SALO are hard
to find?
-Bilge
7410
From:
Date: Wed Feb 11, 2004 8:50pm
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
Do the people you talk with watch many silent movies?
It is hard to look at the visual glories of Griffith, Eisenstein, Sternberg,
Stroheim, Keaton, etc, and just assume they are illustrating some script.
The same with experimental films: Jordan Belson, James Whitney ("Lapis" is
one of the all time masterpieces), Ron Rice, Jack Smith, Brakhage...
When I was a teenager, silent movies were my deep love, and my intro to
cinema. Campus screenings of "Way Down East" (with Lilian Gish introducing the film
no less!) and "Potemkin" opened my eyes to cinema. I still love silent films,
and watch them every chance they are shown.
Watching such films - and really, really WATCHING them with your eyes and
mind - will reveal the visual glories of cinema.
Mike Grost
Waxing nostalgic for his teen age years, after reading the admirable pieces
from the young cinephiles on the list.
7411
From:
Date: Wed Feb 11, 2004 8:59pm
Subject: Re: Antonioni - suggestions
Certainly agree with Bill Krohn that Antonioni is one of the giants of film
history.
Suggestions were asked for.
At the risk of being obvious: L'Avventura is a great masterpiece. Right after
that in quality come La notte / The Night, and Il deserto rosso / The Red
Desert. All of these films contain awesome visual beauty. The recent "Beyond the
Clouds" is also good.
Antonioni is slow moving. His films are designed to be looked at. Don't
hestiate to push the pause button, and just stare at his images for 10 minutes or
so. His compositions are superb.
Mike Grost
7412
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:13am
Subject: Re: Re: Antonioni - suggestions
I would put "Eclipse" in first place, followed by
"Cronica di Un Amore," and "Identification of a
Woman," then "L'Avventura," "Red Desert," and
"Blow-Up."
And don't forget his great "film maudit" "Zabriskie
Point."
And am I among the happy few to have seen his episode
form "I Tre Volti"?
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> Certainly agree with Bill Krohn that Antonioni is
> one of the giants of film
> history.
> Suggestions were asked for.
> At the risk of being obvious: L'Avventura is a great
> masterpiece. Right after
> that in quality come La notte / The Night, and Il
> deserto rosso / The Red
> Desert. All of these films contain awesome visual
> beauty. The recent "Beyond the
> Clouds" is also good.
> Antonioni is slow moving. His films are designed to
> be looked at. Don't
> hestiate to push the pause button, and just stare at
> his images for 10 minutes or
> so. His compositions are superb.
>
> Mike Grost
>
__________________________________
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7413
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:07am
Subject: Les quatre cent coups today
I saw the film called in this (USA) country The 400 Blows at Cannes
in 1960 and thought it was a very old-fashioned film (steeped in the
very same "French quality" which Truffaut had been vilifying in
print) and couldn't understand all the fuss about its newness and
originality. Of course I was partly wrong and Truffaut went on to do
great things, and 400 was not all that bad. But I am not all that
surprised if today's students still in their teens find this 40 year
old movie ridiculous. To most young people, anything 40 year old has
to seem ridiculous -- until they learn any better... It proves
nothing, except that you wonder why they would take film courses,
except in the hope of learning how to become a highly-paid
screenwriter or director, which unfortunately is probably the case.
Oh well...
JPC
7414
From: Jess Amortell
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:25am
Subject: Re: Les 400 Coups today
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "A R Ervolino" wrote:
> Just a little into the movie people could see a 'poor' production style
> . it wasn't flashy or bright, and people got bored. Because it didn't
> look nice people actually didn't care as much.
I assume the instructor at least pointed out that Decae's available-light lensing for Truffaut was widely considered poetic and innovative ... wasn't it? Anyway, that assumes that the class was even shown a (good) Scope print, and that's a question I'm not sure I even want to ask.
> most of them look down on my because of my age
> and lack of experience.
Bertolucci made La Commare Secca at 22...
7415
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:34am
Subject: Re: Pasolini
:
> Thanks for the information . I was just reading about Red Desert last
> night, it's such a shame that a movie can be so damaged . to never see
> it as it originally was created.
Damaged how ? I saw a quite goodlooking print of it at the Phila Festival
of World Cinema 96, 97 maybe. Not Technicolor IB, but good enough to
have that color-you-could-scoop-off-the-screen-like-gelato quality.
Or do you mean their were cuts, etc... ?
David E> And don't forget his great "film maudit" "Zabriskie
Point."
Yes, that film should NOT be dismissed.
(Although I'd prefer to see it dubbed into a language I didn't understand)
-Sam (who also likes "The Passenger")
7416
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:56am
Subject: Re: Welles prints
> I know what you mean re: over-detailed prints, harking back to
> criticism of the KANE restoration and the overly "correct-ified"
> OTHELLO, etc.
I'm curious, what do you mean by over-detailed ?
Timed too bright (this can acentuate edges sometimes and unnaturally
bring up shadow areas altho technicallythat would not really mean
more detail) ? Or were there Digital Intermediates ?
Is "The Lady From Shanghai" in this show ? I saw a great print of it in
well that summer where half the people in the USA were talking about
"The Blair Witch Project" and the other half about "Eyes Wide Shut"
but The Lady From Shanghai was THE film of the summer for me...
I don't know if its the "best" Welles, but it's probably my persona fave -
I mean there is a ~ 5 min scene with Welles, Hayworth & Everett Sloane
on the boat with the characters just seething - to me ut said more
about sexual jealousy than all of "Eyes Wide Shut".
Plus if I even *start* to talk about Harry Stradling, Jr's cinematography
I'd have to write an essay.
-Sam
7417
From: A R Ervolino
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:14am
Subject: RE: Re: Pasolini
I can give a long explaination, and I apologize for the length, but I
think it's all relevant . please point out any thing that would need
correcting.
In the early 50s Eastman Kodak introduced a color negative material with
a system of "masking" which improved color in the final printing. This
caused Technicolor negatives to soon become obsolete. However, the
Technicolor dye-transfer printing process remained in use from the
belief stated by most cinematographers who said the Technicolor
dye-process produced better and more precise colors. Technicolor then
closed in the late 1970s in the US, and about the same time the
dye-transfer process was being phased out, mainly because technicians
were becoming aware of the significant issues with the Eastmancolor
process.
"The colors fade very quickly and never in relationship to each other.
Unless Technicolor dye-transfer prints, or expensive three-strop black &
white color records were preserved, most color films of the 50s, 60s,
70s, and even 80s will deteriorate beyond help." - James Monaco.
The 1964 film Red Desert was one film that has slightly deteriorated
overtime, and it is a sad thing. The vivid colors that once were will
never be seen exactly again. There are color restoration projects that
help, but it's still a major problem with Master Prints.
If that all makes sense at all .
-----Original Message-----
From: samfilms2003 [mailto:samw@v...]
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 11:35 PM
To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Pasolini
:
> Thanks for the information . I was just reading about Red Desert last
> night, it's such a shame that a movie can be so damaged . to never see
> it as it originally was created.
Damaged how ? I saw a quite goodlooking print of it at the Phila
Festival
of World Cinema 96, 97 maybe. Not Technicolor IB, but good enough to
have that color-you-could-scoop-off-the-screen-like-gelato quality.
Or do you mean their were cuts, etc... ?
David E> And don't forget his great "film maudit" "Zabriskie
Point."
Yes, that film should NOT be dismissed.
(Although I'd prefer to see it dubbed into a language I didn't
understand)
-Sam (who also likes "The Passenger")
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7418
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:20am
Subject: Re: Welles prints
Timed too bright: In Wise's timing of the Kane re-release prints you
can see Joseph Cotten in the screening room at the beginning. Or so
Dick Wilson told me.
Certainly my experience of Arkadin/Confidential Report the various
times I've seen it has always been one of pretty unconventional
cinematography, but Welles was in love with Paola Mori, and I wonder
if he would really have wanted to make her look ugly.
My favorites: The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, The
Fountain of Youth, Chimes at Midnight, the garden fragment of The
Dreamers. My biggest regrets: Carnaval and Quixote (both of which may
be, with different degrees of probability, possible to correct.) I
hope I see the real Moby Dick before I die, but I'll never see King
Lear because of the treachery of the French government, and that's a
bitter pill to swallow. Welles + Shakespeare - it doesn't get much
better than that.
7419
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:36am
Subject: Red Desert Color (was: Re: Pasolini)
Actually if stored properly, the colors in the OCN may not deteriorate
all that quickly. If someone had access to the B&W separations that
(I presume) Technicolor Roma had made, a pretty good print might be
made, but there the issue would be shrinkage in the separations
I suppose). Lotta digital work would be needed in that case.
In any case the print I saw was not bad at all (yes I know what real Tech IB
looks like).
I saw a few mins of the restoration work on Lola Montes last year, looks
promising.
-Sam
7420
From:
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 1:04am
Subject: Favorite Welles
Bill Krohn wrote:
>My favorites: The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, The
>Fountain of Youth, Chimes at Midnight, the garden fragment of The
>Dreamers.
I literally love them all - something I can't say about any other filmmaker -
but my favorites would be, in order: "Chimes at Midnight," the garden
fragment from "The Dreamers," "The Immortal Story," and "The Magnificent Ambersons."
(Did I just leave out "Touch of Evil"?!)
While we're at this, here are my favorite Welles moments, the moments when
his cinematic form ascends to heights out of the reach of mere mortal
filmmakers:
- "I know thee not, old man" and the alternating close-ups of Hal and
Falstaff ("Chimes")
- The Battle of Shrewsbury ("Chimes")
- Eugene's line, "There aren't any old times. When times are gone, they're
not old, they're dead! There aren't any times but new times," combined with
the camera dollying backward as Eugene and Isabel dance out of frame, just as
George and Lucy enter it and have their dialogue exchange in two shot. A
soaring moment. ("Ambersons")
- "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" - and the iris out.
("Ambersons")
- The seashell dropping to the floor. ("Immortal")
- Pellegrina walking up to the gate of her garden, back to the camera, as she
talks about how wonderful it would be to become other people. ("The
Dreamers")
- Quinlan wandering over to Tanya's for the first time. ("Touch of Evil")
... and a hundred more. But the scenes and moments I've listed above are
representative of what I cherish about Welles' cinema. I could watch them (and
have watched them) hundreds of times.
> I'll never see King
>Lear because of the treachery of the French government, and that's a
>bitter pill to swallow.
Oh God, it's a tragedy that "Lear" wasn't made. A tragedy. To hear of
Welles' plans for the film makes it that much more of a loss. ("It won't just be a
new kind of Shakespeare," he said, "but a new kind of film.") For starters,
it was gonna be in B&W. And filmed primarily in close-ups.
Peter
7421
From: Dave Garrett
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:22am
Subject: Re: Pasolini
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ebiri@a... wrote:
> > Actually, all of the Pasolini DVDs that were released by Image in
> the US have
> > been out of print for some time now. Anyone know if there are any
> alternatives
> > outside of Region 1?
> >
>
> So these aren't the Water Bearer releases? Those (GOSPEL, ACCATONE,
> HAWKS, OEDIPUS REX, PORCILE, COMIZI D'AMORE) are still widely
> available in very good copies (I recently purchased a bunch of them
> from Deepdiscountdvd.com.) I keep running into the Trilogy of Life
> films at stores but that may be just remaining copies. But those are
> available in UK editions as well. Which ones besides SALO are hard
> to find?
Well, I somehow missed the Water Bearer releases before, so I'll
definitely have to check those out.
Image released the Trilogy of Life films on DVD several years
ago, but the release window was pretty brief and they went
out of print quickly. The ones you're seeing in stores are almost
certainly remaining inventory that is (inexplicably) languishing
on the shelves. The last time I checked on eBay for them,
they were selling at a premium, but nowhere near the insane
prices that SALO commands.
Dave
7422
From: Frederick M. Veith
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 7:03am
Subject: Re: Re: Antonioni - suggestions
I certainly haven't seen them all, but I'd like to chime in for Chung Kuo
China. Problematic (not least for availability) but deeply fascinating.
Fred.
7423
From:
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 7:14am
Subject: Re: Pasolini
Dave Garrett:
>
> Image released the Trilogy of Life films on DVD several years
> ago, but the release window was pretty brief and they went
> out of print quickly. The ones you're seeing in stores are almost
> certainly remaining inventory that is (inexplicably) languishing
> on the shelves.
I think the confusion might be resulting from the fact that MGM/UA
appears to have also released THE DECAMERON on DVD, and that title
*is* widely available, for something like $19.99 retail.
(Apparently, the disc came out in 2002.) But it's possible that
ARABIAN NIGHTS and CANTERBURY TALES are unavailable. (I can't
confirm that I've seen the entire trilogy on shelves in the US,
although it is out in England.) But maybe MGM will come out with the
others soon as well. They played the Film Forum in NY for a week
last year, in new prints, so there's cause for hope.
Do check out the Water Bearer releases if you can. They were done
with the help of the Pier Paolo Pasolini Foundation in Italy
apparently, and they look quite nice. (GOSPEL is the only one that
isn't in a restored print, for some reason.) They're also available
as two 3-disc sets.
-Bilge
7424
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:49am
Subject: Re: Pasolini
>I think the confusion might be resulting from the fact that MGM/UA
>appears to have also released THE DECAMERON on DVD, and that title
>*is* widely available, for something like $19.99 retail.
I can report that the quality on MGM's DECAMERON is excellent, much
better than the Water Bearer versions of the trilogy.
--
- Joe Kaufman
7425
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 10:02am
Subject: Re: Cineaste, auteur etc: A group FAQ?
>I'd like to see somewhere in there a refutation of the common and
>mistaken belief that for an auteurist the director has to have full
>control, write the script, et cetera -- an explanation of the notion
>that a tension between the director and his material is sometimes
>thought to send the director to new heights (and as we all know,
>sometimes to new depths too).
I always found Dan's formulation to be extremely useful, that the
auteur theory isn't really a theory so much as an aesthetic. As such
it allows that there might be other relevant aesthetics relating to
film (the screenwriter as creator, for instance). As an aesthetic it
doesn't argue for an absolute regarding the importance of director,
so much as a valuable and relevant way to look and and understand
film.
--
- Joe Kaufman
7426
From: jaketwilson
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 11:46am
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
Jaime M Christley wrote:
> I'm having a hell of a time duking it out with some youngsters on
the
> Rotten Tomatoes discussion board
>
> http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=309894
Pretty interesting discussion, though I got exhausted well before the
end. One thing that struck me was the mention of Paddy Chayevsky, who
also turns up in an interview I was reading today with a more recent
champion of the screenwriter-as-author:
www.theonionavclub.com/4006/feature1.html
I'm not very familiar with Chayevksky's work, but I saw THE GODDESS a
couple of months ago and it did indeed seem like "a film by" its
screenwriter -- quite good on its own terms but basically treating
the film medium as a delivery system for the script. It may be that
I'm unfair to Chayevsky or to the film's director, John Cromwell, as
I don't know much about either of them -- I believe that G. Cabrera
Infante, who had pretty hip tastes in the '50s, admired Chayevsky's
work.
> And this line had me throwing up my hands:
>
> "Those things you mention [the director's aesthetic decisions] are
> means to an end, that end being presenting as best as possible the
> content of the scribt [sic]."
Wasn't Biette quoted as saying something superficially similar --
that the director "extracts the content of the script" or some such?
These terms are very ambiguous: I suspect that "realising" a script
in cinematic terms is diametrically opposed to trying to preserve the
integrity of that script as a (verbal) artwork in its own right,
which I presume is what Chayevsky wanted.
A question I have left over from when people were discussing comic
books -- could there be a comic book equivalent to auteurism,
maintaining that the guy who draws the pictures automatically takes
precedence over the guy who writes the story? If not, why not?
JTW
PS: I remember seeing an interview with Nancy Meyers where she said,
roughly: "Nobody cares what the actors are saying in a Scorsese
movie, but in a James L. Brooks movie, it's all about the words." She
thought this was paying Brooks a compliment. Actually Brooks' mise-en-
scčne isn't bad, from what I remember.
7427
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- jaketwilson wrote:
>
> I'm not very familiar with Chayevksky's work, but I
> saw THE GODDESS a
> couple of months ago and it did indeed seem like "a
> film by" its
> screenwriter -- quite good on its own terms but
> basically treating
> the film medium as a delivery system for the script.
> It may be that
> I'm unfair to Chayevsky or to the film's director,
> John Cromwell, as
> I don't know much about either of them -- I believe
> that G. Cabrera
> Infante, who had pretty hip tastes in the '50s,
> admired Chayevsky's
> work.
>
Chayevsky is the auteur of all the films written by
him with the exception of "Altered States." Cromwell
and Lumet are both very fine directors (and Cromwell
in his later years acted in "Three Women" and "A
Wedding" to great effect) but -- I don't know how else
to put it -- SOMETIMES WORDS TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER
IMAGES.
We've all just got to learn to live with that and deal
with it as critics accordingly.
> I suspect that
> "realising" a script
> in cinematic terms is diametrically opposed to
> trying to preserve the
> integrity of that script as a (verbal) artwork in
> its own right,
> which I presume is what Chayevsky wanted.
>
Not at all. The verbal is not diametrically opposed to
the visual.
As for G. Cabrera Infante ( a great novelist AND a
greatfilm critic) he is without question the "autuer"
of "Vanishing Point" -- a film directed by Richard C.
Sarafian but written by "G. Cain" ie. G. Cabrera
Infante.
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7428
From: filipefurtado
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:00pm
Subject: Re: Favorite Welles
Mine (I haven't seen Chimes and Filming Othello): F for Fake,
Immortal Story, The Trial, Touch of Evil, Othello, Lady from
Shanghai, Ambersons, Kane.
Filipe
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7429
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:06pm
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
> -- I don't know how else
> to put it -- SOMETIMES WORDS TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER
> IMAGES.
Do you ever know any other way to put things?
> We've all just got to learn to live with that and deal
> with it as critics accordingly.
Obviously a strong writer will overpower a weak director. But that
doesn't make the writer an auteur. Unless he directs.
-Jaime
7430
From: filipefurtado
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:29pm
Subject: Contracampo's Top 10
Peter asked for it some time ago. The criteria was films
release commercially in Rio last year (which is why Ten isn't
here). The Son would have probably made to the top 10, if it
didn´t have only a one week run there (thank to a certan fil
critic review).
1. Mystic River (Clint Eastwood)
2. Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma)
3. Far from Heaven (Todd Haynes)
4. Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki)
6. The Lady and the Duke (Éric Rohmer)
The Man without a Past (Aki Kaurismäki)
The 25th Hour (Spike Lee)
9. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Jonathan Mostow)
10. Dolls (Takeshi Kitano)
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (Joe Dante)
Spider (David Cronenberg)
13. Hulk (Ang Lee)
The Son (Dardenne Brothers)
15. Charlies Angels: Full Thorttle (Mcg)
Kippur (Amos Gitai)
The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
Separaçőes (Domingos de Oliveira)
19. O Homem que Copiava (Jorge Furtado)
Russian Ark (Alexandr Sokurov)
Va Savoir (Jacques Rivette)
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7431
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:54pm
Subject: Re: Favorite Welles
> Mine (I haven't seen Chimes and Filming Othello): F for Fake,
> Immortal Story, The Trial, Touch of Evil, Othello, Lady from
> Shanghai, Ambersons, Kane.
Mine's KANE! Which makes me a fuddy-duddy these days. After that
probably CHIMES and AMBERSONS. I've never been able to enjoy TOUCH OF
EVIL, for some reason.
Is there anyone else in the world who has a substantial preference for
the old 90-minute version of MACBETH (which is hard to find now) over
the expanded version? - Dan
7432
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
> PS: I remember seeing an interview with Nancy Meyers where she said,
> roughly: "Nobody cares what the actors are saying in a Scorsese
> movie, but in a James L. Brooks movie, it's all about the words."
See, I take issue with Meyers' assumption that there is an innate
dominance at work within any particular movie. And she's far from the
only one who talks this way. I think this is a problem which still
haunts the auteurist movement.
There are a number of people in any movie who can be working at their
full creative energy. Which one of them matters the most, or how many
of them matter, is an aesthetic judgment.
That's why I don't like to say, "Chayevsky is really the auteur of THE
HOSPITAL," or whatever. This is just another way of saying, "I think
the film is worthy, and I think Chayevsky is the reason" - an aesthetic
judgment, not an act of identification and classification. For me,
Hiller is the most important person on the set of THE HOSPITAL, because
I needed something from him that I didn't get. But I don't want to
convert that statement into "Hiller is the auteur." I don't feel
comfortable using the word "auteur" to mean "the most powerful or most
crucial contributor," because I think that's an aesthetic judgment, and
should be exposed as such instead of hidden behind an illusory system of
objective classification.
I consider someone an auteurist if he or she generally considers the
direction the most important factor in a film's value. If there are too
many films like THE HOSPITAL in your canon, maybe you need to think
about turning in your membership card. But that's no big deal, really -
it's not as if all the auteurists in the world have that much in common,
as we have learned on this list.
- Dan
7433
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:35pm
Subject: Re: Favorite Welles
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> Mine's KANE! Which makes me a fuddy-duddy these
> days. After that
> probably CHIMES and AMBERSONS. I've never been able
> to enjoy TOUCH OF
> EVIL, for some reason.
>
Well TOUCH OF EVIL is a very disturbing film.
My fave is F FOR FAKE, both for itself and the
Reichenbach connection. It also relates to a
little-discussed Welles influence -- Sacha Guitry.
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7434
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> Obviously a strong writer will overpower a weak
> director. But that
> doesn't make the writer an auteur. Unless he
> directs.
>
You act as if there's something "unnatural" about
this.
It doesn't "diminish" the work in question at all.
It's a simple fact of film history and aesthetics.
Get used to it.
__________________________________
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7435
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:41pm
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> --- "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Obviously a strong writer will overpower a weak
> > director. But that
> > doesn't make the writer an auteur. Unless he
> > directs.
> >
> You act as if there's something "unnatural" about
> this.
> It doesn't "diminish" the work in question at all.
> It's a simple fact of film history and aesthetics.
What? I don't follow.
> Get used to it.
How can I get used to something that registers as just plain
incorrect, and barely makes sense?
-Jaime
7436
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:55pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> How can I get used to something that registers as
> just plain
> incorrect, and barely makes sense?
>
What's incorrext or nonsensical about it? Chayevsky
didn't just write "Network" -- he produced it. He
HIRED Sidney Lumet to direct his script and had
ccomplete control over all other aspects of the
production. You're free to approve or disapprove of
the result as you choose but the fact that it's Paddy
Cheyevsky's film is incontrovertible.
You seem to think that anyone who directs a film has
magical powers capable of absorbing script, actors,
sets, costumes and every other aspect of filmmaking
into himselef -- like The Blob!
The faster you relieve yourself of this inane fantasy
the better.
__________________________________
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7437
From: filipefurtado
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:55pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
> There are a number of people in any movie who can be working
at their
> full creative energy. Which one of them matters the most, o
r how many
> of them matter, is an aesthetic judgment.
>
> That's why I don't like to say, "Chayevsky is really the aut
eur of THE
> HOSPITAL," or whatever. This is just another way of saying,
"I think
> the film is worthy, and I think Chayevsky is the reason" -
an aesthetic
> judgment, not an act of identification and classification.
Chayevsky is the major creative force behind The Hospital,
but well that´s true to every Arthur Hiller film doesn't
matter who write it. So I guess this says more about Hiller
than Chayevsky. I guess even Chayevsky knows that, he always
carefullt choose his directors, the only two times (if I'm
not mistaken) that he work with directors with some
reputation were Network and Altered States. And Sidney Lumet
was a filmmaker who never made secret of how important he
think writing were; which lefts the Russell film that
Chayevsky himself disowned.
I do think that sometimes a film can survive lousy direction,
which doesn´t mean someone else is really the film auteur. I
have a auteurist friend who wrote once that The Hospital was
the only good Arthur Hiller film, thanks to George C. Scott
(not that Scott was the auteur, only that he beieve his
performance makes for the mediocre direction). I think the
reason why early Marx Brothers is better than the late ones
has little to do with Norman Z. Mcleod being better or worse
director than Sam Wood or David Miller (of course that Duck
Soup is by far their best film has something to do with Leo
McCarey).
Filipe
For me,
> Hiller is the most important person on the set of THE HOSPIT
AL, because
> I needed something from him that I didn't get. But I don't
want to
> convert that statement into "Hiller is the auteur." I don't
feel
> comfortable using the word "auteur" to mean "the most powerf
ul or most
> crucial contributor," because I think that's an aesthetic ju
dgment, and
> should be exposed as such instead of hidden behind an illuso
ry system of
> objective classification.
>
> I consider someone an auteurist if he or she generally consi
ders the
> direction the most important factor in a film's value. If t
here are too
> many films like THE HOSPITAL in your canon, maybe you need t
o think
> about turning in your membership card. But that's no big de
al, really -
> it's not as if all the auteurists in the world have that muc
h in common,
> as we have learned on this list.
>
> - Dan
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
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7438
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:18pm
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> --- "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
>
> >
> > How can I get used to something that registers as
> > just plain
> > incorrect, and barely makes sense?
> >
> What's incorrext or nonsensical about it? Chayevsky
> didn't just write "Network" -- he produced it. He
> HIRED Sidney Lumet to direct his script and had
> ccomplete control over all other aspects of the
> production. You're free to approve or disapprove of
> the result as you choose but the fact that it's Paddy
> Cheyevsky's film is incontrovertible.
I mean, could you support your argument with another film? I mean,
the circumstances you describe would seem to support auteurism because
the strong and powerful writer overpowers a fairly bland director.
But then, consider Schulberg or Ray's relationship with WIND ACROSS
THE EVERGLADES.
> You seem to think that anyone who directs a film has
> magical powers capable of absorbing script, actors,
> sets, costumes and every other aspect of filmmaking
> into himselef -- like The Blob!
No, not just any director, only the great ones. But the writer
doesn't do it at all.
-Jaime
7439
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
I think I agree with both David and Jaime here, if that's possible. I
saw "Network" on its initial release. I enjoyed it mildly for the bitter
and telling script (and if that's the origin of the "I'm mad as hell and
I'm not gonna take it anymore" line, then Cheyevsky gave us a line that
has made it into the culture, but, ironically, without his intended
irony) but hated the direction, which seemed visually mindless. So
because Lumet is so bland, Cheyevsky's script was the element that stood
out.
But, per Dan, because auteurism is an "aesthetic" for me, I also have to
rate "Network" as a bad film from an aesthetic point of view, even if
worth recommending for elements within it. The director was asleep at
the switch, and had nothing to offer except making the script into a
picture-book, and with none of the skills of the great book illustrators
of the past such as Gustave Dore. For me a film becomes a work of art
only when its images are organized into visual expression. I don't like
dogmas, and exceptions are possible, but because my auteurism was
arrived at empirically I think it's not a dogma, and I've found very few
exceptions.
Now for someone who values script or acting as much as anything a
director might contribute, an aesthetic such as mine (or, perhaps, Dan's
and Jaime's) makes no sense. But I'd question whether that person is
really a 99 and 44/100ths per cent pure (quoting an old soap advertising
line) auteurist. The whole point of auteurism, as far as I'm concerned,
is to say that by and large and most of the time if a film is great it's
great because the director has created an emotionally powerful,
intellectually engaging, visually expressive and even beautiful work of
art. And the kinds of things a director can add can really not be added
by other crew members, as already discussed here many times.
- Fred
7440
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- filipefurtado wrote:
I
> have a auteurist friend who wrote once that The
> Hospital was
> the only good Arthur Hiller film, thanks to George
> C. Scott
> (not that Scott was the auteur, only that he beieve
> his
> performance makes for the mediocre direction).
Nope. "The In-Laws" -- and Andrew Bergman film
directed by Arthur Hiller -- is superiror.
I
> think the
> reason why early Marx Brothers is better than the
> late ones
> has little to do with Norman Z. Mcleod being better
> or worse
> director than Sam Wood or David Miller (of course
> that Duck
> Soup is by far their best film has something to do
> with Leo
> McCarey).
>
Or not.
7441
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:48pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
Fred Camper wrote:
>
>But, per Dan, because auteurism is an "aesthetic" for me, I also have
to rate "Network" as a bad film
>
and
>because my auteurism was arrived at empirically I think it's not a
dogma, and I've found very few exceptions.
>
Fred, arguing with himself: Aren't you contradicting yourself there?
Yes, because I stated my point poorly.
I remain anti-dogma, in that I believe as a matter of principle
that a script directed by an anonymous hack could still result in a
"great" film. I just haven't seen one yet. Maybe if the only way one
could experience "King Lear" was in a statically framed film, I'd count
that one as a great film. The point is, "Network" looked like other
terrific scripts I've seen by bad directors, giving me an experience of
verbal wit that seemed to lose, rather than gain, for being filmed. Just
as I'd rather read a poorly directed play than see it produced, so I
probably would have enjoyed reading the script more than seeing Lumet's
film, which, by the way, especially blunted Cheyevsky's points through
the fact that the way it was shot made it look as if it would appear
quite at home on network TV. To paraphrase the opening of an old R.
Crumb comic, I believe I can make up better images in my head than those
Lumet provided.
And David, don't take the "maybe you're not an auteurist" stuff the
wrong way! If you're not, you can come out of the closet about it here
and still post about what Charles Walters said after Judy Garland did a
great number, or who Bertolucci boffed during which picture he was
making. Maybe it will be healthy for our group to have one knowledgeable
and witty anti-auteurist.
- Fred
7442
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> I mean, could you support your argument with another
> film? I mean,
> the circumstances you describe would seem to support
> auteurism because
> the strong and powerful writer overpowers a fairly
> bland director.
>
Look at "The Best Man" -- written and produced by Gore
Vidal and directed by Franklin Schaffner. Not bland at
all.
> But then, consider Schulberg or Ray's relationship
> with WIND ACROSS
> THE EVERGLADES.
>
Right. Much like Russell's relationship to Chayevsky
on "Altered States."
The auteur? Gypsy Rose Lee!
> > You seem to think that anyone who directs a film
> has
> > magical powers capable of absorbing script,
> actors,
> > sets, costumes and every other aspect of
> filmmaking
> > into himselef -- like The Blob!
>
> No, not just any director, only the great ones. But
> the writer
> doesn't do it at all.
>
But the writer doesn't do NOTHING either -- as many in
here appear to believe. The writer isn't some looney
to be kept in the attic and never spoken of -- like
Rochester's wife in "Jane Eyre."
>
>
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7443
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:57pm
Subject: Re: Antonioni - suggestions
I'd like to mention
N.U.
TENTATO SUICIDIO episode from L'AMORE IN CITTA
CRONACA DI UN AMORE
and the PASSENGER. All of these are available on video (or once
were). This is the only way I've seen them, in these horrible video
transfers, and they remain the films of my life. The first, a short
film, strikes me as one of the greatest political films made out of
blocks, lines, and discontiuity. It is Vertov, Griffith,
Straub/Huillet, and Burnett all at once. It is neither a city
symphony, nor a poetic documentary, it's genre is totally mysterious
to me. Maybe it's like a string quartet of concreteness, or the first
real objective poem, for certain a great neo-realist interlude.
Best,
andy
7444
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:58pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- Fred Camper wrote:
>
> And David, don't take the "maybe you're not an
> auteurist" stuff the
> wrong way! If you're not, you can come out of the
> closet about it here
> and still post about what Charles Walters said after
> Judy Garland did a
> great number,
I don't consider Chuck Walters to be an auteur, Fred.
or who Bertolucci boffed during which
> picture he was
> making.
Or Allen Midgette either.
Maybe it will be healthy for our group to
> have one knowledgeable
> and witty anti-auteurist.
>
You rang?
Seriously, I consider "auteurs" to be a very select
group of film diretors: Fellini (curiously despised by
most auturists), Hitchcock, Bergman, Bresson, Dreyer,
Welles, Cocteau, Sturges, Wilder, Resnais, Sacha
Guitry, Rivette, Chris Marker, Jacques Demy, Godard,
Visconti, Franju, Whale, Agnes Varda, Pasolini,
Mankiewicz, Warhol (but not Morrissey), and Patrice
Chereau.
Non-"autuers" -- like Walters, Cukor, Wyler, Stevens
-- are perfectly capable of making great films.
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7445
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:56pm
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
> Look at "The Best Man" -- written and produced by Gore
> Vidal and directed by Franklin Schaffner. Not bland at
> all.
I'll check it out when I get a chance.
> Right. Much like Russell's relationship to Chayevsky
> on "Altered States."
>
> The auteur? Gypsy Rose Lee!
I disagree and feel you're misusing the term, but you know I think that.
> But the writer doesn't do NOTHING either -- as many in
> here appear to believe. The writer isn't some looney
> to be kept in the attic and never spoken of -- like
> Rochester's wife in "Jane Eyre."
Straw man. Never said that.
-Jaime
7446
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:58pm
Subject: Re: Antonioni - suggestions
I'd like to mention
N.U.
TENTATO SUICIDIO episode from L'AMORE IN CITTA
CRONACA DI UN AMORE
and the PASSENGER. All of these are available on video (or once
were). This is the only way I've seen them, in these horrible video
transfers, and they remain the films of my life. The first, a short
film, strikes me as one of the greatest political films made out of
blocks, lines, and discontiuity. It is Vertov, Griffith,
Straub/Huillet, and Burnett all at once. It is neither a city
symphony, nor a poetic documentary, it's genre is totally mysterious
to me. Maybe it's like a string quartet of concreteness, or the first
real objective poem, for certain a great neo-realist interlude.
Best,
andy
7447
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>Seriously, I consider "auteurs" to be a very select
>group of film diretors: Fellini (curiously despised by
>most auturists)
>
As we've discussed before, "auteur" can mean "great director who is the
author of his films," but it can also mean "director who is clearly the
author of his films which have a distinctive style and set of meanings
et cetara, whether or not I like them." For me, Fellini is obviously an
auteur in the latter sense, even if not in the former.
The rest of your list is fine. I agree with most of them, especially
> Warhol (but not Morrissey)
>
So maybe you're just a far more "discriminating" auteurist than the rest
of us, a man of very refined tastes, notwithstanding any interests he
might have in Charles Walters's towels.
- Fred
7448
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:44pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
>>Chayevsky
>>didn't just write "Network" -- he produced it. He
>>HIRED Sidney Lumet to direct his script and had
>>ccomplete control over all other aspects of the
>>production. You're free to approve or disapprove of
>>the result as you choose but the fact that it's Paddy
>>Cheyevsky's film is incontrovertible.
Obviously, having power over a film is very important. But this idea
way pre-dates auteurism. America has always lavished attention on
powerful directors and producers, and other countries probably have as
well. What's more or less original about auteurism is the idea that a
submerged craftsperson, working on a tight budget, with no script
control or final-cut rights, and usually no aspiration to being an
artist, might turn out important art. - Dan
7449
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 7:09pm
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
What's more or less original about auteurism
> is the idea that a
> submerged craftsperson, working on a tight budget,
> with no script
> control or final-cut rights, and usually no
> aspiration to being an
> artist, might turn out important art.
And then they might NOT.
I'm perfectlyaware of the fac that this is Absolute
Sacrilege, but Howard hawks is wildly overrated.
He's a good director, and when I first because
interested in auteurism a pivotal figure. But no more.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
7450
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 8:06pm
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
Dan:
> There are a number of people in any movie who can be working at
> their full creative energy. Which one of them matters the most, or
> how many of them matter, is an aesthetic judgment.
Excellent observation as usual, Dan. We should really slide away
from the "X is *really* the auteur" statements (and even, "X and Y
are both the real auteurs"), in my opinion. It's obvious that
Hollywood filmmakers are situated amidst multiple craftspersons,
sometimes stronger (aesthetically, financially, etc.) than
themselves. The fact that Laird Cregar is fucking awesome does not
change the fact that the bottom line, when it comes to how I feel
and think about THE LODGER ('44), is John Brahm, 'true auteur' or
not.
Is it a matter of identification, perhaps? Do we find ourselves
putting more imaginative investment in a 'creative' role or
a 'spectatorial' role? I think people of the former stripe find
themselves gravitating to that thing called auteurism more often
than not. So to what extent do our identifications inform our
aesthetics?
Another question:
What would explain the fact that we've devoted more intelligent
script to writers and actors (and their sex lives) than most online
forums of comparable size? Is it, perhaps, partly caused by the
fact that many auteurists, after getting their polemics out early
on, have found themselves more sensitized to the myriad non-
directorial forms of encoding that go on in the making of a film?
--Zach
7451
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:20pm
Subject: Re: The Same Old Arguments
I think we keep having them because the (American) auteur
theory didn't move forward after 1968, except to annex more
directors, while the (French) politque des auteurs did, and in fact
already had by the time The american Cinema appeared --
precisely in the direction of theory, which we as a nation don't do
too well. The proof: look at what we do to French theories when
we get hold of them!
Sarris's section on "The Auteur Theory" in the introduction to The
American Cinema is still the best English-language statement
on the subject that I've seen, and it's 35 years old! And far from
perfect!
There are many directions we can move in, but we do need to
move to be, as Dan says, "ready for our closeup" if Mr. DeMille
calls again before we all croak.
A direction I find fruitful is production research. Let's take two
limiting cases I haven't had a chance to explore yet:
1. Lewton and Tourneur - Why are even Mark Robson's films for
Tourneur great? Did Tourneur create the template for others to
follow? What role did Lewton play in writing? Directing? By the
way, Tourneur's srcipts are now available online, and they make
interesting reading if you know the films. But one would have to
delve deeper in the RKO files than that, and deeper than we CAN
delve at the moment until all the files are available to
researchers again.
2. Kiss Me Deadly - Bezzerides or Aldrich or both? I haven't seen
a script, but Greg Ford tells me that a lot of the visual ideas are
already in it. And Buzz told me he wrote alone. So...
There are real answers to all these questions. Where I have
been able to look beyond Hitchcock, I have found and whenever
possible written that a great variety of films' production histories
confirm auteurism: The Space Children, The Naked Dawn,
Sodom and Gomorrah, Heartbreak Ridge, Fixed Bayonets (proof
by opposite: I still love it - it's a gorgeous film - but I love it a bit
less since I know how Zanuck warped it), Sleepy Hollow, Night of
the Hunter, Bringing Up Baby.
I should add that my approach includes visual analysis and
appreciation, but is not limited to it. I think that empirically, just
looking at films, that is mainly what you have to go by in judging
whether the director is an artist, but to understand the whole
work and understand it as the director's, you need to get into
interpretation as well.
In other words, Sodom and Gomorrah would still look pretty
much the same if Aldrich had done no director rewrites, but the
ones he did also diverted it from Hugo Butler's communist
statement into being a rather weird blend of liberalism and
sadism. For the curious, my article, which is pretty rudimentary,
is posted on sensesofcinema.
Bottom line: My auteurism is inflected by Cahiers developments
in auteur criticism in the 60s and 70s, which means that it is very
meaning-oriented - or in certain cases, ANTI-meaning-oriented.
Much as I agree with "the primacy of the visual," I think that in its
extreme form it runs the same risks as auteurism that might just
as well be about the script, which is even more widespread.
Cameramen make a huge contribution to the look of a film, and
separating out the director's contribution is important there, too.
That contribution will involve meaning, because when a film is
JUST beautiful colors and nifty compositions and rockin' camera
moves, it isn't a film that interests me. Those things, and the
performances, and the script all have to pass through the lens of
one artist's sensibility, which is virtually the same thing as saying
they have to mean something - or not mean something (hard
work, too) - or mean many things, etc. etc.
One more point that needs to be understood about this kind of
auteurism: It isn't the meanings that I love - it's how they are
produced, channeled, erased, disseminated (in the Derridean
sense - see my article on Cruising, those who have it), strangled
etc. And often, I believe, that's what we find beautiful in a film:
HOW it means. Which usually includes colors, angles etc. and
their harmonious deployment within the whole. Often (take the
case of Tourneur) this is all the director really CAN control, so it
is indeed primal to our concerns. But it should not be identified
with them.
Two big omissions in this approach:
-much of the avant-garde, which to me has always appeared to
be purely sensory, although God knows I'm willing to read, study,
revisit, even get stoned again if that's what it takes.
-Farber, who doesn't dig wholes - he digs parts, and parts of
parts: the termite approach.
That these two interests AND my Frenchified approach AND
classical homegrown auteurism AND David's iconoclasm and
much, much more all co-exist more or less peacefully in this
group - and within single members of this group in many cases -
is a great thing, but it may also indicate an eclecticism which
isn't well-suited to theoretical formulations, or to arguments
about them. It can also lead to people who give one word many
different meanings arguing needlessly about that.
I promise to translate Biette's definitions - or whatever they are -
this weekend at the latest - AS GOD IS MY WITNESS. For me,
they work, and once they have been set down, or sooner, I would
suggest that those who keep getting dragged into these
discussions do likewise with their own definitions of that one
simple word: auteur. We may find out that we're all talking about
different things!
7452
From:
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:27pm
Subject: What is an Auteurist?
A proposed definition:
An auteurist is someone who thinks that:
1)some film directors are artists
AND
2) Their art is best understaood within the context of their whole career.
This definition encompasses most, maybe all, of the people who have labelled themselves as auteurists over the years (on and on our list) and excludes most of the non-auteurists.
The above definition does not say that the film director has to be the most important creative contributor to a specific film (although quite a few gifted directors are, IMHO).
Nor does it specify whether scriptwriters, cinematographers, designers, etc are considered artists or not. (Auteurists do not have a consensus on this subject - it's a historical fact in 2004).
Historically, many auteurists:
1) like most of the directors in the first four catgeories in Sarris' "American Cinema"
2) like many of the same Italian, French and Japanese directors.
Important issues in which there is not consensus among auteurists:
Some auteurists (including myself) are deeply interested in visual style (composition, camera movement, color, etc). As a group, auteurists have made major contributions to the study of visual style. But it is a fact that some auteurists discuss films entirely in terms of themes and meanings (Robin Wood, Jim Kitses, Joseph McBride).
Aueturists are also divided by whether they like or dislike Hollywood movies of the last 30 years (no consensus), and whether they like televison (no consensus), whether they like experimental films (no consensus). These are very important issues - and many auteurists have much that is creative to say about them. But they cannot be used currently to decide who or who is not an auteurist.
All of the above ideas might be wrong. They are a proposal, designed to stimulate and clarify disussion.
Mike Grost
7453
From:
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:53pm
Subject: In praise of theory; science fiction
I would echo the call by Dan Sallitt and Bill Krohn for auteurists to develop
more theory.
Perhaps I am just getting paranoid, but often times when reading contemporary
cinephiles (auteurists and non), I get the feeling that they have a "hidden"
set of tastes, ideas and values that inform their work, but which are
frustratingly non-explicit. I would welcome their making these explicit.
For example, I enjoy a lot of science fiction and fantasy films and TV (as
well as books and comics). Most current cinephiles rarely express much interest
in such works. But they do not have any sort of explicit aesthetic on the
subject, either. They just "never seem to like any sf".
By contrast, two critics have explicitly declared themselves.
Andrew Sarris condemns science fiction, and feels it is worthless, because it
is a pointless "escape from reality". In The American Cinema, he explicitly
described "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (Don Siegel) as one of the "few good
science films".
By contrast, Jonathan Rosenbaum admires prose science fiction. He is
interested in the rash of sf films made around 1970 by prestige directors (eg,
"Farenheit 451" (Truffaut)).
I might agree with Rosenbaum, and disagree with Sarris, but feel grateful to
both writers for have an explicit set of theoretical ideas informing their
writing. I can understand their ideas, agree or disagree, learn, and build on
them. I respect their approach.
By contrast, in the case of most film writers, I am completely up a creek.
They never like sf, never notice they never like sf, have no ideas that can be
thought about.
Talk about "The Blob". It is like dealing with an invisible, amorphic force -
something that is there is their writing, but which cannot be understood or
adressed or thought about or learned from.
Mike Grost
7454
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 0:01am
Subject: Re: Favorite Welles
There's also the exquisite and underrated HEARTS OF AGE. It continues to
baffle me that Welles thought it so trivial; it features some of the most
extraordinary montage sequences.
-Matt Teichman
>--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> >
> > Mine's KANE! Which makes me a fuddy-duddy these
> > days. After that
> > probably CHIMES and AMBERSONS. I've never been able
> > to enjoy TOUCH OF
> > EVIL, for some reason.
7455
From:
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 7:18pm
Subject: Re: Re: Favorite Welles
Matt Teichman wrote:
>There's also the exquisite and underrated HEARTS OF AGE. It continues
>to
>baffle me that Welles thought it so trivial; it features some of the most
>extraordinary montage sequences.
There are a whole bunch of interesting posts I want to respond to, but for
now let me just say that this is fascinating to me. I love "Hearts of Age" too
and I think you're just about the first person I've ever heard who rates it as
a great work, Matt. Glad to know that I'm not alone!
Now anybody with me that "The Stranger" is hugely underrated and in some ways
superior to "Kane"? "Kane" fans, please feel free to agree that it's hugely
underrated, just not superior to "Kane"!
Peter
7456
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 0:19am
Subject: Another Marker article
Chris Marker seemed to be so secretive, and then there was
the article last spring for the DVD release, and I even saw
a letter he wrote in to Film Comment.
But if anyone's interested, he wrote another article for
Libération this week, on the same film he mentioned last
time, Isild le Besco's "Demi tarif". He mentioned that she
was part of the Kourtrajmé collective, but I don't think
their earlier DVD release involved her at all.
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=177797
On the subject of Marker, did anyone on the list ever contribute
to his "Rosebud" collective memory project? I inputed some stuff
while it was in Barcelona, but never heard anything since.
Jonathan
7457
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 0:31am
Subject: Re: Favorite Welles
> Now anybody with me that "The Stranger" is hugely underrated and in
some ways
> superior to "Kane"? "Kane" fans, please feel free to agree that
it's hugely
> underrated, just not superior to "Kane"!
Yes for the second option - I saw it recently and found it not only
very strong but more Wellesian than its reputation, and the
circumstances of its produciton, seem to suggest. But it doesn't
touch KANE.
-Jaime
7458
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 0:47am
Subject: Re: In praise of theory; science fiction
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
.
> For example, I enjoy a lot of science fiction and
> fantasy films and TV (as
> well as books and comics). Most current cinephiles
> rarely express much interest
> in such works. But they do not have any sort of
> explicit aesthetic on the
> subject, either. They just "never seem to like any
> sf".
Maybe it's because many notable science fiction films
have been made by unfashionable directors like Robert
Wise ("The Day the Earth Stood Still") and Stanley
Kubrick ("2001" was scarcely a critical fave in 1968)
"Alien" and "Blade Runner" are enormously important
sciene fiction films -- both directed by that
latter-day Michael Curtiz, Ridley Scott.
"Fahrenheit 451" was made in 1966. A few years back
Melvin "Jesus H. Christ" Gibson was threatening to
remake it.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
7459
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 0:53am
Subject: Re: the Same Old Arguments
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> I'm perfectlyaware of the fac that this is Absolute
> Sacrilege, but Howard hawks is wildly overrated.
>
> He's a good director, and when I first because
> interested in auteurism a pivotal figure. But no more.
>
> ____So overrated that you dropped the cap (hawks)?... Actually
there's at least one other member of this group who is willing to
join in the absolute sacrilege -- myself. There are three, maybe four
Hawks films I love and place as high as anything. The rest I find
either boring, second-rate or even in some cases awful. This type of
reaction is, of course, thoroughly un-auteurist (especially
concerning the auteur by excellence). But then i never considered
myself a real auteurist, no matter that I have often been pigeon-
holed as one.
JPC
>
7460
From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 0:55am
Subject: Fw: [DVDBeaver] MY REVISED CLEMENTINE
Just thought I'd pass along this horror story about film restoration gone
nuclear; I suspect that everyone on this list at the very least likes My
Darling Clementine.
g
[A]rmaments were not created chiefly for the protection
of the nations but for their enslavement.
--Mark Twain
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick"
To:
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 3:53 PM
Subject: [DVDBeaver] MY REVISED CLEMENTINE
> > If any of you have the Fox Classics My Darling Clementine disc, the
> > commentary mentions that Murnau and John Ford were good friends and
> > that
> > Murnau was "a mentor" to Ford.
>
> Haven't got to the commentary yet, but I saw the Zanuck version last
> night (the version I saw back in uni, which, incidentally, is on the
> "supplements side"), and then I saw the documentary...
>
> I COULDN'T BELIEVE what has gone on with this... in the "Ford/preview"
> version on the disc... (which is now on SIDE ONE, and being referred to
> as "the film") the "restorer" had remixed some sound over a scene which
> didn't have it, recropped a shot from later in the film of a carriage
> coming round the corner (*and* reframed it so you couldn't see Henry
> Fonda on the right) - just to help continuity...
>
> My jaw was on the floor. He even prefaced his explanation of this with
> "Of course, restorers shouldn't alter the original film in any way,
> but..."
>
> Where did this chap learn his trade? Ruscico?
>
> -N>-
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
7461
From:
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 7:57pm
Subject: Re: Favorite Welles
I think "The Stranger" is greatly underrated, too. It has a highly Wellesian
visual style. And aural style as well - the complex interplay of voices at the
dinner table shows Welles' rhythms. Welles always did remakable things with
sound.
It is also notable for its subject matter. Serge Daney's "Kapo" article says
incorrectly that Hollywood refused to make films about the Holocaust, before
1978. But here is a 1946 Hollywood film on the subject. In "This is Orson
Welles", Welles speaks proudly about this (with good reason!).
I would not rate "The Stranger" as highly as "Citizen Kane". It does not
seem as complex as Kane, or as innovative. Of course, with Kane and Welles, we
are talking at a very high level here. Nor does "The Stranger" seem as
outstanding as such later Welles masterpieces as "Touch of Evil" or "The Immortal
Story".
I have never seen "Hearts of Age". And the earliest Antonioni seen here is
the fascinating "Il Grido". I would really like to see the Welles fragments and
the early Antonioni!
Mike Grost
7462
From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 1:01am
Subject: Re: In praise of theory; science fiction
In reply to Mike:
I'm all for theory, as long as it's acknowledged that useful theories
are derived from tastes and not the other way around. There are many
preferences and aversions I have which I'd struggle to "justify", but
I assume the point of criticism and discussion is trying to do so!
> For example, I enjoy a lot of science fiction and fantasy films and
TV (as well as books and comics). Most current cinephiles rarely
express much interest in such works. But they do not have any sort of
explicit aesthetic on the subject, either. They just "never seem to
> like any sf".
I'm not so sure. I think most would acknowledge that SF and fantasy
have been a major part of the history of cinema from Méličs on,
particularly if the latter term is taken to encompass fairy tales,
allegories, and modernist "fabulations" (e.g. Cocteau or Ruiz). Take
Kubrick, one of the most widely respected modern filmmakers -- three
of his best-known films are technically SF, and he was working on a
fourth when he died. Does anyone look down on him for that?
Literary SF, to my mind, remains much more ghettoised. I like a lot
of authors in the genre, but I believe that SF movies are
fundamentally different from SF books (depending on images rather
than concepts) and that there are theoretical reasons for this to do
with ontology, i.e. the differing ways that fictional worlds can be
said to "exist" in the two media. This helps to explain, for example,
why BEM (bug-eyed monster) stories were regarded as old-hat by SF
writers of the 1940s but still worked well onscreen a decade later --
and even today.
JTW
7463
From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 1:27am
Subject: Re: What is an Auteurist?
I think this is too broad as a definition, allowing critics like Kael to
define themselves as auteurist -- not that she would.
I think almost anyone would accept your two propositions -- they're too
inclusive and not specific enough. "Some" film directors are artists? Sure,
everyone can buy that. You have to put a film in the context of someone's
career to get it? Okay, also an unexceptional statement.
I don't see how your definition excludes anyone.
I think there is a confusion here, also, between criticism as an act of
evaluation and canon-building and an act of interpretation. I suspect that
we all make that mistake frequently when we are writing about some
directors.
Why is it necessary to examine a film's context to evaluate it? I'm not
saying it isn't; of course it is. But I find the second of your propositions
a bit ambiguous.
Perhaps the real question you need to address is what the purpose of
auteurism is.
The primacy of the director in the filmmaking process, while frequently a
debatable premise in reality, was always a significant article of faith as
an opening gambit in auteurist aesthetics. Certainly none of us would
disagree that others can and often are the true auteurs of a film -- I've
been arguing for years that Gone With the Wind is a joint work of William
Cameron Menzies and Max Steiner (although I hate the film itself).
But I firmly believe -- and have believed since the first time I read
Sarris's The American Cinema -- that the director is the guiding creator
behind the best films.
Not utterly without exception but in the vast, indeed overwhelming majority
of cases.
Of course, Sarris once needled me in conversation, "George, don't be more
royalist than the king. He'll make a deal with the revolutionaries and
you'll be in trouble." (Hey, Andy, I'm still waiting to see that happen.)
My own inclination is syncretist; I find useful tools in many methodologies,
including standard-issue auteurist/mise-en-scene interpretation. But I also
have drawn on psychoanalytic criticism, Marxism, structuralism, feminism,
socio-criticism, you name it. Films aren't made in a vacuum, and analyses
that pretend they are short-change the artists and the audience. (That's why
the New Critics never entirely "got" some authors.)
George (both royalist and revolutionary) Robinson
[A]rmaments were not created chiefly for the protection
of the nations but for their enslavement.
--Mark Twain
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 4:27 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] What is an Auteurist?
> A proposed definition:
> An auteurist is someone who thinks that:
> 1)some film directors are artists
> AND
> 2) Their art is best understaood within the context of their whole career.
>
> This definition encompasses most, maybe all, of the people who have
labelled themselves as auteurists over the years (on and on our list) and
excludes most of the non-auteurists.
>
> The above definition does not say that the film director has to be the
most important creative contributor to a specific film (although quite a few
gifted directors are, IMHO).
> Nor does it specify whether scriptwriters, cinematographers, designers,
etc are considered artists or not. (Auteurists do not have a consensus on
this subject - it's a historical fact in 2004).
>
> Historically, many auteurists:
> 1) like most of the directors in the first four catgeories in Sarris'
"American Cinema"
> 2) like many of the same Italian, French and Japanese directors.
>
> Important issues in which there is not consensus among auteurists:
> Some auteurists (including myself) are deeply interested in visual style
(composition, camera movement, color, etc). As a group, auteurists have made
major contributions to the study of visual style. But it is a fact that some
auteurists discuss films entirely in terms of themes and meanings (Robin
Wood, Jim Kitses, Joseph McBride).
> Aueturists are also divided by whether they like or dislike Hollywood
movies of the last 30 years (no consensus), and whether they like televison
(no consensus), whether they like experimental films (no consensus). These
are very important issues - and many auteurists have much that is creative
to say about them. But they cannot be used currently to decide who or who is
not an auteurist.
>
> All of the above ideas might be wrong. They are a proposal, designed to
stimulate and clarify disussion.
> Mike Grost
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
7464
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:19am
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
> What's more or less original about auteurism
>>is the idea that a
>>submerged craftsperson, working on a tight budget,
>>with no script
>>control or final-cut rights, and usually no
>>aspiration to being an
>>artist, might turn out important art.
>
> And then they might NOT.
Sure, but...? No one would disagree with this.
> I'm perfectlyaware of the fac that this is Absolute
> Sacrilege, but Howard hawks is wildly overrated.
Sacrilege is fine - I certainly don't like every director in the
auteurist canon. But I'm trying to make a general point about what
auteurism can and can't lay claim to. No one needed auteurism to
appreciate Fellini - no one had any trouble dealing with Griffith, von
Stroheim, and Eisenstein before auteurism. Auteurism did not contribute
the idea that some directors are powerful personalities, create their
own universes, etc. - Dan
7465
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:24am
Subject: Re: Another Marker article
> But if anyone's interested, he wrote another article for
> Libération this week, on the same film he mentioned last
> time, Isild le Besco's "Demi tarif". He mentioned that she
> was part of the Kourtrajmé collective, but I don't think
> their earlier DVD release involved her at all.
Isild le Besco is a director now? She'll probably be the president of
France by the time she's 30. She was absolutely amazing in Emmanuelle
Bercot's LA PUCE, when she was only 17 or something. - Dan
7466
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:33am
Subject: Re: Re: the Same Old Arguments
I think Dan is right on target about what auteurism contributed. An
addendum, though:
Dan Sallitt wrote:
> no one had any trouble dealing with Griffith, von
>Stroheim, and Eisenstein before auteurism.
>
I think maybe auteurism was needed to appreciate some *late* Griffiths.
Something like "Isn't Life Wonderful," which isn't particularly
consciously artful, is my favorite Griffith up until that time. And then
there's the generally reviled "The Struggle," which I think is great. A
key early moment for me was going to the MoMA's Griffith retrospective,
I believe in the summer of 1964, and reading about his "decline" in the
catalogue and elsewhere, and then seeing the counter-evidence on the
screen: "Orphans of the Storm," "The Sorrows of Satan," "Abraham
Lincoln" -- all of them, really.
- Fred
7467
From: Tosh
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 4:34am
Subject: Welles around the world
I just purchased the DVD copy of 'Around the World with Orson
Welles,' and I found it weird and fascinating at the same time. My
guess he did these films for money - but still, Welles is such an odd
duck on what he focuses on and what he doesn't focus on in this
series.
I mostly bought it for the Saint-Germain-des-Pres episode - and
strange enough he sort of ignored the Boris Vian connection and went
full-throttle on the Raymond Duncan interview - which was interesting
- but more interesting is watching Welles giving the interview. The
way he projected himself with half-smiles, hesitation before asking a
question - is in a sense a performance in itself.
Also I got the impression that he told the producer 'hey I am going
to do these great shows' but once there he had to make up stuff on
the fly - either due to money, etc. I was disappointed he didn't
interview Julitte Greco or Cocteau (both are in the film within
seconds.). I guess the strongest documentary in the series is the
bullfight one. It was interesting - and again Welles made a great
presence as the narrator. Also I got the impression that there was
something else going on to have Kenneth Tynan and his wife do the
introduction to the bullfight sequence. Is there a behind the scenes
story regarding Tynan and this sequence?
--
Tosh Berman
TamTam Books
http://www.tamtambooks.com
7468
From: Tosh
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 4:44am
Subject: Howard Hawks
>Why is this the case? To me Hawks seems very consistant, no?
>
>He's a good director, and when I first because
>interested in auteurism a pivotal figure. But no more.
>
--
Tosh Berman
TamTam Books
http://www.tamtambooks.com
7469
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 4:44am
Subject: pre-code question
Just watched Frank Capra's 1931 THE MIRACLE WOMAN, a fine film with
three brilliant and enthralling scenes in the first two reels.
(Florence's sermon, her debut as an evangalist, and the bit where she
inadvertantly saves John from suicide over the radio.) Less concerned
with attacking phony evangalism than seeing the boy and girl's love
triumph in the end, etc., but still a fast-moving and smartly made
picture.
Talk of sexual innuendo aside (the usual focus of pre-code
fascination), there's a scene in which a character gives another
character "the bird"; for our non-U.S. readers, that's a gesture made
by pointing the middle finger upwards while keeping all other fingers
and the thumb folded. It means "fuck you," "go fuck yourself," or
"fuck off" or "up your ass," pretty much whatever the occasion calls
for.
In this film, given the context of the scene and circumstances, it's
not a gesture made by chance, or accidentally. It means just what it
would mean today, right now. I absolutely cannot recall a Hollywood
(or from anywhere) movie made before the 1960s in which anybody makes
this gesture.
Anyway, I just thought it was interesting - is there a proper history
for non-verbal vulgarity? The Hays Office and the Church must have
been well-informed. What little I know, etc.
Oh wait, I just thought of another one I (possibly). When Turner
Classic Movies had their month-long tribute to Ealing Studios, there
was a clip of a British comedy, 1940s-ish, in which a lecture hall
full of Nazis is taught that the new "Sieg Heil" salute is to be the
British variation on "the bird," a disrespectful and profane hand
gesture which looks like a reverse "peace sign," and - correct me if
I'm wrong, British friends - raised up and down to mimic
finger-fucking. So the big laugh is that the scene ends with a
roomful of Nazis making an extremely vulgar hand gesture in the
direction of a portrait of thir Fuhrer.
Ain't life grand?
-Jaime
7470
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:08am
Subject: Re: Welles around the world
--- Tosh wrote:
It was interesting - and again Welles
> made a great
> presence as the narrator. Also I got the impression
> that there was
> something else going on to have Kenneth Tynan and
> his wife do the
> introduction to the bullfight sequence. Is there a
> behind the scenes
> story regarding Tynan and this sequence?
> --
There might have been, but it's lost to the mists of
time. I ove these little films too as they look
forward to the discursive Welles of "F For Fake" and
"Filming Othello." They connect to his Sacha Guitry
side. There's something very casual and off-hand about
them tha's ingratiating.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
7471
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:10am
Subject: Re: Science Fiction and Theory
I am an absolutely fanatical devotee of sci-fi, written, radioed and
filmed. I will watch anything if it's sci-fi. I love, beyond all
telling, crap like The Monolith Monsters, and no, it's not a camp
taste.
Joe Dante is someone who shares my tastes; we discussed them at
length at the beginning of a book-length interview I did with him,
and it's no accident that the sequence he told Warners not to cut or
he'd take his name off Back in Action was "Area 52." He loves and
collects (on film) all those films. But so do John Carpenter
(references to Robot Monster in In the Mouth of Madness, Quatermass
and the Pit in that and Prince of Darkness, The Thing in Halloween,
etc.), James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd (who plagiarized Outer Limits
in The Terminator), Veerhoeven producer Jon Davison (who is Joe D's
Siamese twin), and many others making H'wd films: John Landis, George
Lucas, Victor Salva, Stuart Cornfeld, Steven Spielberg, Ed Wood, Jr.,
etc. When doing a piece on the specificity of American cinephilia for
a Lyon symposium I asked around: the film that made Mike Schlesinger
(Sony Repertory, and the guy who got It's All True greenlighted at
Paramount) a cinephile was The Satan Bug; for Joseph K. (check me on
this Mr. K.) it was Forbidden Planet.
I even wrote a piece based on my Lyon presentation for CdC, which is
unfortunately not in my computer, called The God of Cinephiles, in
which I posit that one important strain of American cinephilia (as
opposed to auteurism, which certainly overlaps but doesn't subsume
cinephilia) is based on almost uncritical devotion to sci-fi, fantasy
and horror cinema. There is a strain like this in France, too - they
used to have their own theatre, called Mini-Minuit, but they were
just low-brow surrealists with a penchant for retro eroticism.
I believe that the American strain, which has typically produced a
lot of films and little theory, is religious, specifically Gnostic -
that's what I argue in that article. One of the ways the cult formed
in the 50s was around Shock Theatre hosts - the weathermen in fright
wigs who introduced the 30s and 40s horror films from those Universal
tv packages that caused such, uh, shockwaves when they started
turning up on local stations on Friday or Saturday night, giving me
and millions of others our first glimpse of German Expressionism. I
could see that kiddy cult leading to a kind of Satanism - that's what
the rock 'n' roll offshoots are - but I think it was really the night
side of the official Christian or Jewish religions of the time. For
me, seeing Shock Theatre on Saturday night and going to church on
Sunday made perfect sense. And going to see The Rocky Horror Picture
Show on Friday or Saturday night at midnight actually became a cult
in its own right.
But like my insufferable blowhard mentor Harold Bloom, I believe that
all true American religions, including American Protestantism, are
forms of Gnosticism, and that's what I see unconsciously embodied in
those old grey-and-white double bills from Universal and AIP -
particularly in the films of Jack Arnold, who was some kind of
prophet who didn't recognize his own mission, but fulfilled it
brilliantly.
I haven't followed written sci-fi much lately, but I'd argue that a
seminal book like Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination is a
Gnostic gospel for our time - I know it was for mine. I'll ask Dan
O'Bannon, who has been trying to get the rights to film it for over
20 years, when I see him at UCLA's Sunday screening of his
incomparable masterpiece, Return of the Living Dead.
Feel less lonely, Mystery (and Scifi) Mike?
7472
From:
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 0:11am
Subject: Re: Re: Favorite Welles
Jaime N. Christley wrote:
>Yes for the second option - I saw it recently and found it not only
>very strong but more Wellesian than its reputation, and the
>circumstances of its produciton, seem to suggest. But it doesn't
>touch KANE.
I suppose I'm being more than a little polemical in talking about "Kane"
here. It is frustrating (and I'm sure you can relate to this) when the film is so
frequently bandied about as the greatest American film, the greatest film
ever made, etc., etc., while Welles' other work is nowhere close to being as
widely recognized. Even if I felt that "Kane" was the greatest Welles film, I
think I'd still feel that the praise lavished upon it is excessive when we live
in a world where clearly masterful films such as "The Magnificent Ambersons,"
"Touch of Evil," and "Chimes at Midnight" languish in its shadow. To say
nothing of the fragments or unfinished films.
But apart from my polemical stance, I've honestly never connected with "Kane"
in quite the same way that I have "Ambersons" or "Chimes" or "The Immortal
Story." I love many parts of it dearly - God knows, the scene where Kane writes
the statement of principles is right up there with the great Welles scenes -
but it just can't touch the others in overall visual/emotional power. For me.
These are all old, well known arguments, of course, which everyone here
undoubtedly know well. Bogdanovich was talking about "Kane" as overrated in
comparison to the other Welles films way back in the '60s.
But I'm with you 100% on "The Stranger," Jaime. The scenes with Billy House
as the pharmacist feel straight out of the Welles of "Ambersons."
Dan, what do you like more about the 90-minute "Macbeth"?
Peter
7473
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:17am
Subject: Re: Welles Around the World
The only time I talked to Welles we discussed his essay films at
length, and he specifically and at great length atributed the form of
those films, and of the essayistic fiction The Fountain of Youth, to
Guitry.
7474
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:40am
Subject: Re: The Same Old Arguments
Fred raises an interesting point. The first person to call my
attention to Abraham Lincoln was Biette, who wrote a so-so short
piece about it for Trafic. Before that Joseph K. happened to be
playing One Million B.C. at a get-together, and I was stopped in my
tracks by its beauty en route to the dip. (It was obviously directed
by Griffith.) And after Biette's tip, I looked at The Struggle and
saw one of the most innovative and daring films of the early sound
period - especially in its use of sound! I also recall that one of
us - was it Marty Rubin? - wrote a defense of the Dempster films -
was it in Film Comment? - back in the day. In other words, even
Griffith, universally famous and revered by non-auteurist film
historians, needed auteurist eyes to appreciate his late period.
I believe the same thing is true of Hitchcock, whose last four films
(with the occasional exception of Frenzy, and the even more
occasional exception of Family Plot) are routinely dismissed by
auteurists and non-auteurists alike. Maybe a proper restoration of
Topaz will begin to turn the tide (Ronnie Scheib, who was at the San
Francisco preview, is the only auteurist I know who saw the
director's cut, and she loved it), but I'd say at this point that
late Hitchcock is just about auteurism's last stand, and right now I
seem to be vastly outnumbered by the cavalry. Here I gratefully
except Ken Mogg, whose appreciations of Topaz in particular have
given me the strength to keep pulling arrows from my quiver and
firing back. I might also mention that Wim Wenders wrote an article
in defense of Topaz in a German magazine. There are a few others like
us - desperately few.
7475
From:
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 0:54am
Subject: Re: Re: The Same Old Arguments
Bill Krohn wrote:
>I believe the same thing is true of Hitchcock, whose last four films
>(with the occasional exception of Frenzy, and the even more
>occasional exception of Family Plot) are routinely dismissed by
>auteurists and non-auteurists alike.
Yes, it's interesting how many fans of "Family Plot" you'll meet; I adore it
and I'm always surprised to meet others who feel like-minded. But apparently
they're out there. As far as the other late Hitches, though, they are
certainly in need of some critical resurrection. For some reason, I've long felt
that "Torn Curtain" is the one that's going to emerge one of these days as a
recognized major Hitchcock film. At least two formidable auteurists I know - Dave
Kehr and Dan Sallitt - like it. The murder scene (which takes forever; it
was made as a reaction against quick deaths in the movies) should be legendary.
Kehr made some interesting observations about the first half of the film
being Julie Andrews' character's story. I love it.
Peter
7476
From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 6:49am
Subject: Re: Science Fiction and Theory
hotlove 666 wrote:
> But like my insufferable blowhard mentor Harold Bloom, I believe
that all true American religions, including American Protestantism,
are forms of Gnosticism, and that's what I see unconsciously embodied
in those old grey-and-white double bills from Universal and AIP -
> particularly in the films of Jack Arnold, who was some kind of
> prophet who didn't recognize his own mission, but fulfilled it
> brilliantly.
>
> I haven't followed written sci-fi much lately, but I'd argue that a
> seminal book like Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination is a
> Gnostic gospel for our time - I know it was for mine.
All this sounds right to me. Phil Dick's late novels, like UBIK and
VALIS, are very explicitly Gnostic-influenced, and I believe that the
convergence of SF and spiritual themes in Spielberg works along
similar lines (apologies for dragging him in again). I'm less sure
how Kubrick fits into this picture; my impression is that 2001 has
always been disliked by a lot of hardcore SF fans. If Dan O'Bannon
ever gets to make THE STARS MY DESTINATION I'll be there the day it
opens.
JTW
7477
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 6:50am
Subject: Re: HEARTS OF AGE
Really. Wow.
Then I guess I wasn't kidding when I said it was underrated. But it really
is an astonishing gem of a film; in a way I think Welles beat Pudovkin at
his own game, and the fact that from his point of view he was only goofing
around with J. Cotten makes it all the more unbelievable.
I suspect that Bruce Posner is also a fan of the film, as he has included
it in his Unseen Cinema program. Also, I'm showing it in a class this
semester, so maybe it will catch on!
-Matt
>There are a whole bunch of interesting posts I want to respond to, but for
>now let me just say that this is fascinating to me. I love "Hearts of
>Age" too
>and I think you're just about the first person I've ever heard who rates
>it as
>a great work, Matt. Glad to know that I'm not alone!
>
>Peter
7478
From: Brian Darr
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 7:21am
Subject: Re: pre-code question
Jaime,
I really like THE MIRACLE WOMAN- it's probably my favorite of the
12-15 or so Capra films I've looked at on video (haven't seen any in
theatres, except ARSENIC AND OLD LACE which I didn't care for much,
though it was long ago).
I don't know if this even comes close to helping answer your
question, but I just thought I'd share that using an extended middle
finger as a sexual-related insult goes back at least to the late 1800s
in the US (where it was widely understood as we understand it today),
and perhaps as far back as a few thousand years ago or more. Contrary
to the TITANIC anachronism-seekers who couldn't buy its usage in the
Cameron film.
I can't remember any other early instances of that gesture in
pre-60s films I've seen, though that doesn't mean I haven't seen any.
I don't have the kind of memory that holds that kind of stuff too
well; I'd forgotten about that scene in THE MIRACLE WOMAN until you
mentioned it.
The main reason I'm answering is because I was so enjoying the "Same
Old Argument" thread so much that when I started thinking about
nonverbal communication (such as a "bird"), I continued on to think
about just how impossible it is for a script to convey body language,
and how it is used so powerfully in film. In this example, reading
the words to Barbra Stanwyck's sermon/rant on the page, they might
seem a bit over-the-top, but on film, the actress is positioned
forward, her motions so earnest, it becomes an almost cathartic scene
(especially for an opener) and it sells the whole concept of the film,
which goes in a completely different direction than one might expect
watching the film without reading a synopsis first.
-Brian Darr
> In this film, given the context of the scene and circumstances, it's
> not a gesture made by chance, or accidentally. It means just what it
> would mean today, right now. I absolutely cannot recall a Hollywood
> (or from anywhere) movie made before the 1960s in which anybody makes
> this gesture.
>
> Anyway, I just thought it was interesting - is there a proper history
> for non-verbal vulgarity? The Hays Office and the Church must have
> been well-informed. What little I know, etc.
>
>
> -Jaime
7479
From:
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:07am
Subject: Re: What is an Auteurist?
George Robinson writes:
I think almost anyone would accept your two propositions -- they're too
inclusive and not specific enough. "Some" film directors are artists? Sure,
everyone can buy that. You have to put a film in the context of someone's
career to get it? Okay, also an unexceptional statement.
I don't see how your definition excludes anyone.
Mike here again:
Today they is a huge group of academic theorists, who deny the existance of
works of art, and of artists. They regard films (and books and paintings) as
the product of the culture, not of authors. They relentlessly cite works on the
non-existance of "authors" in any medium, and see works as sociological
phenomena, expressing economic and cultural forces. This group of scholars is
numerically larger (as best as I can tell) than people who regard films, books,
music as art works produced by artists. They are apparently the dominant groups in
most university Humanities departments, and in many scholarly journals. They
have a right to their opinions and ideas, and should be treated with respect
by people (like myself) who are disagreement with them. They are certainly NOT
"auteurists".
Is this wrong? I think the great majority of academics do NOT see any film
directors as "artists".
It seems that today (2004), auteurists are a fairly small minority among
people who publish on culture. Even by my (deliberately) inclusive definition of
what an auteurist is.
I believe that films are works of art. And many film directors are artists.
Mike Grost
(who was apparently the 2nd person on the entire Internet to declare himself
publicly an auteurist, after Tag Gallagher.)
7480
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 8:20am
Subject: Re: Science Fiction and Theory (and All the Ships at Sea)
Jake, I'll tell him you said so!
2001 is a Gnostic parable. Man's purpose is transcendence, becoming a
God, not oneness with Nature, and the only way he can do that is
through the intervention of God, who is explicitly located "Beyond
Infinity," to quote the last intertitle.
I am well aware that some - perhaps many - auteurists loathe Kubrick
in general and 2001 in particular. I obviously don't - quite the
contrary. But I wonder if this and Mike's observation that all
auteurists he happens to know "just don't like science fiction"
points up a division within the American cinephile community that is
religious in essence. In fact, that is the subject of All the Ships
at Sea, Dan's new film, which is about a dialogue between two
sisters: one a traditional Catholic and one a cultist whose invented
cult is partly modelled on the extreme (fatal) Gnosticism of the
Heaven's Gate sect. The film is about sisters, about the historical
conflict now raging (often with churches) between traditional and
charismatic religions, about European and Hollywood (FX) cinema, and
ultimately about mediated and unmediated knowledge of God -
unmediated knowledge being Gnostic (=gnosis; direct knowledge
of/oneness with the divine).
The latter also happens to be the all-but-explicit subject of Jack
Arnold's The Space Children, where the alien that plays the same
role as Kubrick/Clarke's monolith is a giant glowing brain
(=knowledge, gnosis) that some commentators have taken for an angel.
At the end, after having filmed his planned credits - shots of the
beach, the point where the key symbolic spaces of his previous films,
desert and sea, seem to meet - Arnold then took several minutes out
of his dwindling (and very tight) schedule to film closeups of each
of the children who are transformed by the brain, which he
superimposed over photographs of galaxies for a new credit sequence:
seven Star Children for (much less than) the price of one.
7481
From:
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:24am
Subject: Re: Science Fiction and Theory
Thank you Bill Krohn, for a very good article on science fiction and modern
filmmakers!
It DOES make me feel less lonely.
In fact, the entire group of a_film_by means a lot! It really is a window on
the world of film.
Thank you all,
Mike Grost
7482
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 8:30am
Subject: Re: Re: The Same Old Arguments
> I believe the same thing is true of Hitchcock, whose last fo
ur films
> (with the occasional exception of Frenzy, and the even more
> occasional exception of Family Plot) are routinely dismissed
by
> auteurists and non-auteurists alike.
Well, Family Plot is my favorite Hitchcock after Under
Capricorn and The Wrong Man. And I´m a big fan of Topaz. Torn
Curtain isn´t as good bur it´s also underated, one actually
feels like a complement to the other. I guess the "problem"
with this two films is that as thrillers they aren´t "fun",
early Hitchcock films shows a critical position toward their
spy leads, but they still have many trills. Somehow this
chang in Torn Curtain and (even more in) Topaz, this films
are set in ugly worlds with dislikable leads and the overall
tone is of an horror outrage. While Hitchcock didn´t seem
pleased with the material he have at hand, he never throw
away them. I don´t know what Bill research on their
production show, but i don´t bought the idea that he didn´t
care much for either.
Filipe
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
7483
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 8:32am
Subject: Re: What Is an Auteurist?
Well, Mike, I publicly declared myself (and Serge Daney) to be an
auteurist at that Harvard conference last week, and afterward a
professor from Film Studies in the audience said that "having worked
through the denial of auteurism, we are now coming out the other
side." Another professor who was there, who strongly disagreed with
my position (essentially yours: that auteurism is now a minority
belief, and even an oppressed one), sent me a nice e-mail afterward
saying that after rereading the introduction to one of his books he
realized that he was an auteurist, too.
But it's still going to take work on our part to turn the tide, and
the opposition isn't only within the university - the studios, all
the while they are using a weakened form of the auteurist virus to
beef up their marketing campaigns ("An Extraordinary Film By John
Malkovich"), do everything they can to stamp out creativity that gets
in the way of making money (most of the time). Sometimes, as I was
just discussing with Peter T., they even use a crude form of
auteurism (so-and-so can't do adult subjects; so-and-so can't do
films with women as central characters) against auteurs who want to
expand the reach of their art!
7484
From:
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:37am
Subject: Late Griffith and Hitchcock
Fred Camper's praise of "Isn't Life Wonderful" is dead on. This is one of
Griffith's most beautiful and heart felt films. Often wish that it were regularly
shown on cable TV, so that the whole world could see it easily. And shown in
theaters...
Have never had the chance to see "The Struggle".
On late Hitchcock:
"Torn Curtain" and "Topaz" are both favorites here. They seem like deeply
personal works for Hitchcock. Did not know there was a longer director's cut of
"Topaz" somewhere - would love to see this!
Mike Grost
7485
From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 8:41am
Subject: Re: Science Fiction and Theory
Bill wrote:
>When doing a piece on the specificity of American cinephilia for
>a Lyon symposium I asked around: the film that made Mike Schlesinger
>(Sony Repertory, and the guy who got It's All True greenlighted at
>Paramount) a cinephile was The Satan Bug; for Joseph K. (check me on
>this Mr. K.) it was Forbidden Planet.
Right. I was thinking about FORBIDDEN PLANET today in light of
auteurism. Clearly it isn't an auteurist piece, but somehow its
pop-culture Freudian/Shakespearian storyline (much changed from the
early drafts of the script) and wonderful production design and set
decoration, the slight stiffness of the acting, the "electronic
tonalities" of the music, all go directly to evoke a psychology that
I'm not sure I don't still believe in 48 years after I first saw the
film.
>One of the ways the cult formed in the 50s was around Shock Theatre
>hosts - the weathermen in fright wigs who introduced the 30s and 40s
>horror films from those Universal tv packages that caused such, uh,
>shockwaves when they started
>turning up on local stations on Friday or Saturday night, giving me
>and millions of others our first glimpse of German Expressionism.
I'd argue that the horror hosts gave an entre of hipsterism into the
general culture. Vampira (something of a friend of mine, if I dare
say so) was famously buddies with James Dean, but also travelled in
circles that included Lenny Bruce. Zacherley on the east coast,
known as the "cool ghoul," had a dry, arch humor that made him a hero
to millions of kids.
>I haven't followed written sci-fi much lately, but I'd argue that a
>seminal book like Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination is a
>Gnostic gospel for our time - I know it was for mine. I'll ask Dan
>O'Bannon, who has been trying to get the rights to film it for over
>20 years, when I see him at UCLA's Sunday screening of his
>incomparable masterpiece, Return of the Living Dead.
John Carpenter also wanted for a time to make a film of THE STARS MY
DESTINATION.
--
- Joe Kaufman
7486
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 10:15am
Subject: Re: The Same Old Arguments
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Fred raises an interesting point. The first person to call my
> attention to Abraham Lincoln was Biette, who wrote a so-so short
> piece about it for Trafic. Before that Joseph K. happened to be
> playing One Million B.C. at a get-together, and I was stopped in my
> tracks by its beauty en route to the dip. (It was obviously directed
> by Griffith.) And after Biette's tip, I looked at The Struggle and
> saw one of the most innovative and daring films of the early sound
> period - especially in its use of sound! I also recall that one of
> us - was it Marty Rubin? - wrote a defense of the Dempster films -
> was it in Film Comment? - back in the day. In other words, even
> Griffith, universally famous and revered by non-auteurist film
> historians, needed auteurist eyes to appreciate his late period.
>
> I believe the same thing is true of Hitchcock, whose last four films
> (with the occasional exception of Frenzy, and the even more
> occasional exception of Family Plot) are routinely dismissed by
> auteurists and non-auteurists alike. Maybe a proper restoration of
> Topaz will begin to turn the tide (Ronnie Scheib, who was at the San
> Francisco preview, is the only auteurist I know who saw the
> director's cut, and she loved it), but I'd say at this point that
> late Hitchcock is just about auteurism's last stand, and right now I
> seem to be vastly outnumbered by the cavalry. Here I gratefully
> except Ken Mogg, whose appreciations of Topaz in particular have
> given me the strength to keep pulling arrows from my quiver and
> firing back. I might also mention that Wim Wenders wrote an article
> in defense of Topaz in a German magazine. There are a few others
like
> us - desperately few.
I fail to understand why "Topaz" would be auteurism's last stand.
Has Hitchcock been uncovered and x-rayed to such a degree, that one
now has to apply, adapt and attune "auteurism" of any form to his last
films, which as Bill says "routinely dismissed by auteurists and
non-auteurists alike", because of multiple reasons?
Or has auteurism been driven so much into defensive, and been attacked
to such a degree, that in order to uphold its integrity, it has to use
a film, which is weak and flawed for numerous reasons: Hitchcock's
declining health and power, his age, the fall of the studiosystem, the
story and more?
I love auteurism. Its very idea touches upon the soul of filmmaking. I
remember a while ago, when in chat, Peter and I discussing Welles and
how the main character always falls by his own hands, as if his work
mirrored his own career. Would such a casual talk have been possible
if it wasnt for the presence of auteurism? I think not. I find the
idea a logic part in the evolution of filmtheory. But it is with
dismay I read lesser film, who for one or the other reason are nothing
more than footnotes in a masters production, being mentioned as "best
work" and similar; or even "auteurisms" last stand.
Is Auteurism, in its present form, distancing itself from filmtheory
to such a degree that it needs to do a last stand? Shouldn't one
instead of, IMO, grapping to such drastic measures, take a step back
and try to get a new perspective on the issue?
Henrik
7487
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 1:44pm
Subject: Re: The Same Old Arguments
> I fail to understand why "Topaz" would be auteurism's last stand.
>
> Has Hitchcock been uncovered and x-rayed to such a degree, that one
> now has to apply, adapt and attune "auteurism" of any form to his last
> films, which as Bill says "routinely dismissed by auteurists and
> non-auteurists alike", because of multiple reasons?
>
> Or has auteurism been driven so much into defensive, and been attacked
> to such a degree, that in order to uphold its integrity, it has to use
> a film, which is weak and flawed for numerous reasons: Hitchcock's
> declining health and power, his age, the fall of the studiosystem, the
> story and more?
>
> I love auteurism. Its very idea touches upon the soul of filmmaking. I
> remember a while ago, when in chat, Peter and I discussing Welles and
> how the main character always falls by his own hands, as if his work
> mirrored his own career. Would such a casual talk have been possible
> if it wasnt for the presence of auteurism? I think not. I find the
> idea a logic part in the evolution of filmtheory. But it is with
> dismay I read lesser film, who for one or the other reason are nothing
> more than footnotes in a masters production, being mentioned as "best
> work" and similar; or even "auteurisms" last stand.
>
> Is Auteurism, in its present form, distancing itself from filmtheory
> to such a degree that it needs to do a last stand? Shouldn't one
> instead of, IMO, grapping to such drastic measures, take a step back
> and try to get a new perspective on the issue?
Hmm - I guess if you want to be suspicious of everyone's motives for
being excited about film art, and you think the canon is rightfully
and filmly established and doesn't need re-examination and possible
expansion, and that auteurists are being led around by the impulse to
make a show of their obscure and unorthodox tastes rather than the
experience of watching great, fascinating, if flawed movies...
Then yeah, your "argument" makes sense. Otherwise, I don't see it.
-Jaime
7488
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 1:45pm
Subject: also
"grapping to such drastic measures"
What does this mean?
-Jaime
7489
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:35pm
Subject: Re: Late Griffith and Hitchcock
Thanks, Mike - now I feel less lonely!
Ronnie Scheib told me an interesting reading of Topaz and Torn
Curtain as personal films. After being made to feel like a dirty old
man for falling in love with Tippi, and after being given a contract
to sign by his longtime buddy Lew Wasserman giving him the right to
personally greenlight any film he wanted to make if it cost three
million or less AND wasn't Mary Rose, he made those two spy films at
LW's request (everyone had been dying for him to make "another North
By Northwest," which he chose not to do because he had already MADE
North By Northwest), with two of his coldest heroes. Their shared
motto: "Be cold. Do your job." When Wasserman destroyed Topaz AH then
made Frenzy and Family OPlot for under 3 million. Both got good
reviews, and Frenzy made more money than Psycho. God knows what Mary
Rose would have done if he'd made it, but it woiuld have been a
fitting conclusion to the Tippi trilogy and one of his most
heartfelt, beautiful films. Assumptions that he was "senile" at this
point in his life (later he had ALzheimer's) are simply unwarranted,
as usual.
Universal put out Topaz with 17 minutes more of the preview print in
1999, but they used the second ending AH filmed after a few people at
the preview laughed at his original ending, a duel between Picolli
and Stafford in an empty stadium, ending w. P being shot in the back
by an unseen sniper. Afterward FS leaves the stadium and meets his
wife, and they have a wordless scene of total devastation,
shot/reverse shot, not touching.
Then the music was supposed to come up - an elegaic version of the
love theme associatted with FS's murdered Cuban mistress: end of the
film, end of the genre, end of classical cinema. Not the horrible
upbeat march music that is on there now, over the third ending AH
contrived when Samuel Taylor told him theat the 2nd ending (P and FS
saluting each other ironically at the airport as they fly of to
Russia and the US respectively) was "a betrayal of the film you made,
which says that politics destroys caharacter, destroys lives."
In the longer version that's available on tape and probably DVD you
have the airport ending, for complex reasons (all dumb) which are
explained in an article I did for Video Watchdog in 2000, dealing in
detail with the various versions and the history of the film's
creation, which is very interesting. All they have to do now is pop
on Hitchcock's real ending (which he smuggled off the lot and hid in
his garage, where filmmaker and cinephile Richard frankolin - another
Topaz nut - unearthed it after his death) AND the original end music.
You can see the duel ending - with the wildly inappropriate miltary
march at the end - on the old Criterion laserdisc.
7490
From: Doug Cummings
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 4:28pm
Subject: Re: Science Fiction and Theory
>I haven't followed written sci-fi much lately, but I'd argue that a
>seminal book like Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination is a
>Gnostic gospel for our time - I know it was for mine.
I'm quite the devotee of SF film & literature and Alfred Bester
myself. The other book I *constantly* keep thinking of these days,
which is somewhat Bester-like, is Pohl and Kornbluth's classic "The
Space Merchants." I know of no other book written fifty years ago
that so pinpoints life today.
Supposedly, Oliver Stone was developing Bester's "The Demolished Man"
for some time, but personally, I'm really glad he never got his paws
on it. I'm not a Stone fan.
Doug
7491
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:11pm
Subject: Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only
Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111307,00.html
If you live on the west side of Manhattan, on most of western Long
Island, or in Beverly Hills and you want to see Mel Gibson's controversial =
new movie "The Passion of the Christ," you will be out of luck.
When the film — which some critics are calling anti-Semitic and
inflammatory — opens on Feb. 25, it will be in very select theatres only.
Even though the makers of "The Passion of the Christ" are touting its
2,000 screen premiere, the movie's Web site and another Web site,
moviefone.com, tell a very different story.
For example, in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, the film
will play in a handful of out-of-the-way-theatres — one in Times Square,
two in fringe areas of the East Side, one second-run theatre at Broadway
and 100th St. and one in Harlem. There will be one screen below 34th St,
and none from 42nd St. to 96th St. on the West Side. This excludes
all prestige venues like the Ziegfeld, the Paris, the Beekman and Sony
Lincoln Square.
Theater-goers will also be hard-pressed to find "The Passion of the
Christ" in Nassau County, Long Island on either the south or north shore,
or in affluent Westchester County, New York.
The pattern, for the most part, highlights black neighborhoods and
poor neighborhoods. For example, all the Magic Johnson theatres in
the country will show the movie, as will multiplexes in urban centers.
Gibson obviously thinks there's a potential problem in Chicago, where =
"Passion" will be on only two screens. Otherwise, Chicagoans will have to
go to the suburbs.
The same goes for the wealthier and trendier parts of Los Angeles
such as Beverly Hills and Century City. Those who are curious will have
to seek their "Passion" in odd places, in out-of-the-way cineplexes. You
won't be able to see it at the Beverly Center, for example. But four theatr=
es
in economically less desirable San Jose, Calif. will show the film.
All of this seems designed to keep "The Passion of the Christ" out of=
neighborhoods that are considered Jewish, upscale or liberal. =
On the other hand, Tennessee is targeted for "The Passion of
the Christ" with eight locations in Memphis and four each in Nashville
and Knoxville. The number of theaters in many more states like Florida,
Kentucky, Alabama and Oklahoma is high, especially in rural areas. In
Florida, for example, Jacksonville and Tampa — more northern and
central cities — will have "Passion" on four or more screens, while
typically Jewish areas like Boca Raton will have it one screen if at all.
In Miami, where there's a huge Catholic-Cuban population, "The
Passion of the Christ" will play in 10 theaters. In Houston and the
Dallas-Fort Worth areas of Texas, there are the same number of theaters
or more. Texas, in fact, will offer the most opportunities in the country t=
o
see the film.
Newmarket Films, which is distributing the movie, seems to have
picked a pattern that concentrates heavily on the south and the Midwest,
focusing on the Bible Belt and locations where "The Passion of the Christ" =
will meet with the least resistance. West Virginia will have about three
times as many theaters as Rhode Island, for example. Vermonters have
three theatres while their more conservative next-door neighbors in
New Hampshire, a state equal in size, will have twelve.
Calls to Newmarket and to its public relations firm were not
returned to this column yesterday. But in the positioning of "The Passion
of the Christ," Gibson has consciously created a divisive atmosphere
for the presentation of his film. For example, he has screened the movie
widely for groups on the religious right while avoiding all mainstream
groups, as well as film critics for fear of poor advance word.
"The Passion of the Christ" has come under intense criticism for being
anti-Semitic from many groups Jewish and otherwise as well as journalists
who've seen advance prints. In the current issue of Newsweek, reporter
Jon Meacham also accuses director Gibson of completely changing historical =
references to suit his own agenda in an article called "Who Killed Jesus?" =
Meacham writes: "To take the film's account of the 'Passion' literall=
y
will give most audiences a misleading picture of what probably happened
in those epochal hours so long ago. The Jewish priests and their followers =
are the villains, demanding the death of Jesus again and again; Pilate is
a malleable governor forced into handing down the death sentence."
The battle over "The Passion of the Christ" is coming quickly now, and
I for one am sorry that Gibson and Newmarket chose to keep it out of
places where they thought the reception would be less than positive.
Everyone should have the chance to see this film and decide for
themselves if Gibson has done the right or wrong thing with his
$25 million.
What will be interesting is seeing how the annual Oscar party given
by Gibson's agent, Ed Limato, at his palatial Beverly Hills home will be
received two days after the movie's premiere. And then there are the
Oscars, where Billy Crystal is no doubt thinking of clever ways to spoof
the movie.
7492
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:21pm
Subject: Re: pre-code question
MICK LASALLE's books might interest you
Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-code Hollywood
Dangerous Men: Pre-code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man
MICK LASALLE also has a listmania on amazon for an 8 week course
on Pre-Code Hollywood.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/2X5I8M1MVIN76/
qid=1076692430/sr=5-1/ref=sr_5_1/104-3281241-7653500
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley" wrote:
> Just watched Frank Capra's 1931 THE MIRACLE WOMAN, a fine film with
> three brilliant and enthralling scenes in the first two reels.
> (Florence's sermon, her debut as an evangalist, and the bit where she
> inadvertantly saves John from suicide over the radio.) Less concerned
> with attacking phony evangalism than seeing the boy and girl's love
> triumph in the end, etc., but still a fast-moving and smartly made
> picture.
>
> Talk of sexual innuendo aside (the usual focus of pre-code
> fascination), there's a scene in which a character gives another
> character "the bird"; for our non-U.S. readers, that's a gesture made
> by pointing the middle finger upwards while keeping all other fingers
> and the thumb folded. It means "fuck you," "go fuck yourself," or
> "fuck off" or "up your ass," pretty much whatever the occasion calls
> for.
>
> In this film, given the context of the scene and circumstances, it's
> not a gesture made by chance, or accidentally. It means just what it
> would mean today, right now. I absolutely cannot recall a Hollywood
> (or from anywhere) movie made before the 1960s in which anybody makes
> this gesture.
>
> Anyway, I just thought it was interesting - is there a proper history
> for non-verbal vulgarity? The Hays Office and the Church must have
> been well-informed. What little I know, etc.
>
> Oh wait, I just thought of another one I (possibly). When Turner
> Classic Movies had their month-long tribute to Ealing Studios, there
> was a clip of a British comedy, 1940s-ish, in which a lecture hall
> full of Nazis is taught that the new "Sieg Heil" salute is to be the
> British variation on "the bird," a disrespectful and profane hand
> gesture which looks like a reverse "peace sign," and - correct me if
> I'm wrong, British friends - raised up and down to mimic
> finger-fucking. So the big laugh is that the scene ends with a
> roomful of Nazis making an extremely vulgar hand gesture in the
> direction of a portrait of thir Fuhrer.
>
> Ain't life grand?
>
> -Jaime
7493
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:25pm
Subject: Re: pre-code question - POW's
I cannot remember if it is in a movie or in real life, but I think some
Vietnam POW's used the raised index finger as a signal in photographs
intended to show how well they were treated.
Recently, a USA tourist in a South American country, did the same in a
photo required for admission to the country. He was fined $17,000.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley" wrote:
> Just watched Frank Capra's 1931 THE MIRACLE WOMAN, a fine film with
> three brilliant and enthralling scenes in the first two reels.
> (Florence's sermon, her debut as an evangalist, and the bit where she
> inadvertantly saves John from suicide over the radio.) Less concerned
> with attacking phony evangalism than seeing the boy and girl's love
> triumph in the end, etc., but still a fast-moving and smartly made
> picture.
>
> Talk of sexual innuendo aside (the usual focus of pre-code
> fascination), there's a scene in which a character gives another
> character "the bird"; for our non-U.S. readers, that's a gesture made
> by pointing the middle finger upwards while keeping all other fingers
> and the thumb folded. It means "fuck you," "go fuck yourself," or
> "fuck off" or "up your ass," pretty much whatever the occasion calls
> for.
>
> In this film, given the context of the scene and circumstances, it's
> not a gesture made by chance, or accidentally. It means just what it
> would mean today, right now. I absolutely cannot recall a Hollywood
> (or from anywhere) movie made before the 1960s in which anybody makes
> this gesture.
>
> Anyway, I just thought it was interesting - is there a proper history
> for non-verbal vulgarity? The Hays Office and the Church must have
> been well-informed. What little I know, etc.
>
> Oh wait, I just thought of another one I (possibly). When Turner
> Classic Movies had their month-long tribute to Ealing Studios, there
> was a clip of a British comedy, 1940s-ish, in which a lecture hall
> full of Nazis is taught that the new "Sieg Heil" salute is to be the
> British variation on "the bird," a disrespectful and profane hand
> gesture which looks like a reverse "peace sign," and - correct me if
> I'm wrong, British friends - raised up and down to mimic
> finger-fucking. So the big laugh is that the scene ends with a
> roomful of Nazis making an extremely vulgar hand gesture in the
> direction of a portrait of thir Fuhrer.
>
> Ain't life grand?
>
> -Jaime
7494
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:41pm
Subject: Re: Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only
Why am I not at all surprised?
The craven, cowardly and thoroughly despicable way
Gibson has gone about promoting this movie clearly
indicates its aesthetic value is likely nil while its
usefulness as an anti-semitic propaganda tool is
undoubtedly quite high.
--- Elizabeth Anne Nolan wrote:
> Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only
>
> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111307,00.html
> If you live on the west side of Manhattan, on
> most of western Long
> Island, or in Beverly Hills and you want to see Mel
> Gibson's controversial =
>
> new movie "The Passion of the Christ," you will be
> out of luck.
> When the film — which some critics are calling
> anti-Semitic and
> inflammatory — opens on Feb. 25, it will be in very
> select theatres only.
> Even though the makers of "The Passion of the
> Christ" are touting its
> 2,000 screen premiere, the movie's Web site and
> another Web site,
> moviefone.com, tell a very different story.
> For example, in the borough of Manhattan in New
> York City, the film
> will play in a handful of out-of-the-way-theatres —
> one in Times Square,
> two in fringe areas of the East Side, one second-run
> theatre at Broadway
> and 100th St. and one in Harlem. There will be one
> screen below 34th St,
> and none from 42nd St. to 96th St. on the West Side.
> This excludes
> all prestige venues like the Ziegfeld, the Paris,
> the Beekman and Sony
> Lincoln Square.
> Theater-goers will also be hard-pressed to find
> "The Passion of the
> Christ" in Nassau County, Long Island on either the
> south or north shore,
> or in affluent Westchester County, New York.
> The pattern, for the most part, highlights
> black neighborhoods and
> poor neighborhoods. For example, all the Magic
> Johnson theatres in
> the country will show the movie, as will multiplexes
> in urban centers.
> Gibson obviously thinks there's a potential
> problem in Chicago, where =
>
> "Passion" will be on only two screens. Otherwise,
> Chicagoans will have to
> go to the suburbs.
> The same goes for the wealthier and trendier
> parts of Los Angeles
> such as Beverly Hills and Century City. Those who
> are curious will have
> to seek their "Passion" in odd places, in
> out-of-the-way cineplexes. You
> won't be able to see it at the Beverly Center, for
> example. But four theatr=
> es
> in economically less desirable San Jose, Calif. will
> show the film.
> All of this seems designed to keep "The
> Passion of the Christ" out of=
>
> neighborhoods that are considered Jewish, upscale or
> liberal. =
>
> On the other hand, Tennessee is targeted for
> "The Passion of
> the Christ" with eight locations in Memphis and
> four each in Nashville
> and Knoxville. The number of theaters in many more
> states like Florida,
> Kentucky, Alabama and Oklahoma is high, especially
> in rural areas. In
> Florida, for example, Jacksonville and Tampa — more
> northern and
> central cities — will have "Passion" on four or more
> screens, while
> typically Jewish areas like Boca Raton will have it
> one screen if at all.
> In Miami, where there's a huge Catholic-Cuban
> population, "The
> Passion of the Christ" will play in 10 theaters. In
> Houston and the
> Dallas-Fort Worth areas of Texas, there are the same
> number of theaters
> or more. Texas, in fact, will offer the most
> opportunities in the country t=
> o
> see the film.
> Newmarket Films, which is distributing the
> movie, seems to have
> picked a pattern that concentrates heavily on the
> south and the Midwest,
> focusing on the Bible Belt and locations where "The
> Passion of the Christ" =
>
> will meet with the least resistance. West Virginia
> will have about three
> times as many theaters as Rhode Island, for example.
> Vermonters have
> three theatres while their more conservative
> next-door neighbors in
> New Hampshire, a state equal in size, will have
> twelve.
> Calls to Newmarket and to its public relations
> firm were not
> returned to this column yesterday. But in the
> positioning of "The Passion
> of the Christ," Gibson has consciously created a
> divisive atmosphere
> for the presentation of his film. For example, he
> has screened the movie
> widely for groups on the religious right while
> avoiding all mainstream
> groups, as well as film critics for fear of poor
> advance word.
> "The Passion of the Christ" has come under
> intense criticism for being
> anti-Semitic from many groups Jewish and otherwise
> as well as journalists
> who've seen advance prints. In the current issue of
> Newsweek, reporter
> Jon Meacham also accuses director Gibson of
> completely changing historical =
>
> references to suit his own agenda in an article
> called "Who Killed Jesus?" =
>
> Meacham writes: "To take the film's account of
> the 'Passion' literall=
> y
> will give most audiences a misleading picture of
> what probably happened
> in those epochal hours so long ago. The Jewish
> priests and their followers =
>
> are the villains, demanding the death of Jesus again
> and again; Pilate is
> a malleable governor forced into handing down the
> death sentence."
> The battle over "The Passion of the Christ" is
> coming quickly now, and
> I for one am sorry that Gibson and Newmarket chose
> to keep it out of
> places where they thought the reception would be
> less than positive.
> Everyone should have the chance to see this film and
> decide for
> themselves if Gibson has done the right or wrong
> thing with his
> $25 million.
> What will be interesting is seeing how the
> annual Oscar party given
> by Gibson's agent, Ed Limato, at his palatial
> Beverly Hills home will be
> received two days after the movie's premiere. And
> then there are the
> Oscars, where Billy Crystal is no doubt thinking of
> clever ways to spoof
> the movie.
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
7495
From: Rick Curnutte
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 6:19pm
Subject: Re: Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Why am I not at all surprised?
>
> The craven, cowardly and thoroughly despicable way
> Gibson has gone about promoting this movie clearly
> indicates its aesthetic value is likely nil while its
> usefulness as an anti-semitic propaganda tool is
> undoubtedly quite high.
Yeah, I never really had much hopes for this picture (I mean, I have
eyes and I HAVE SEEN Gibson's other directorial efforts...which left
much to be desired), but now I'm almost angry at its existence. It
sounds like a very dangerous film. I come from an overtly religious
family, and all of my family members are basically frothing at the
mouth over this movie...it scares me a little bit.
Also, just to see how accurate the article was, I checked it
out...THE PASSION etc. is opening EVERYWHERE here in Columbus...no
big surprise there, I guess.
I'll see it, of course, if for no other reason than to have
ammunition when I make the attacks that I expect I will be making.
I mean, Mel Gibson basically thinks that the contemporary Catholic
Church is too leftist...this guy is frighteningly zealous.
Rick Curnutte
7496
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 6:38pm
Subject: re: Science Fiction and Theory
Doug - I'm enough of a Stone fan that I could see Ben Reich as a
Stone character - I had never heard about that project. De Palma
was also interested in making The Demolished Man in the 70s.
And of course it would be fun to see Cronenberg, with his long
interest in telepathy (Stereo is a beautiful film on the subject,
one of DC's very best) tackle that book. My understanding is that
the family doesn't want the books filmed...by anyone.
The Space Merchants is indeed prophetic. For those who don't
know, it's about a future world controlled by ad agencies - one of
a couple of excellent "dystopias" written by Frederick Pohl and C.
M. Kornbluth in the 50s. Someone else did a Pohl-Kornbluth
imitation (Prime Risk) about a world controlled by insurance
companies (sound familiar?), which won a best first novel prize
and was serialized in Galaxy Magazine, where Pohl, Kornbluth
and Bester all held forth.
As did Robert Sheckley, whose fine novel Immortality Inc. was
filmed as Freejack, but I never saw it. I must someday - Geoff
Murphy isn't a bad director, assuming he had a good script to
work from, and not something that just took the premise and
made it an action film. I fear it was probably the latter.
The other very prophetic book is The Golden Kazoo, which
described the first presidential campaign run by an ad agency.
Published, I believe, in 1960, it was barely science fiction at the
time, and is now just a pale projection of the horrors we face.
One reason those of us who love the genre are grateful to
Kubrick, Lucas and Spielberg is that they put it on the big screen
the right way. A.I. in particular is a gift from both Spielberg and
Kubrick to those of us who cut our teeth on visionary dystopias of
the 50s. But all of this is in some way I don't understand either
irrelevant to auteurism or opposed to a specific form of it. I
suppose the same could be said of any genre addiction,
westerns, sci-fi, mysteries or whatever: it goes back to what Fred
says about loving what's IN a film as opposed to loving the film
itself. Nonetheless, as a book called "The Dreams Our Stuff Is
Made Of" argues, sci-fi and contemporary reality are in a mirror
relationship with each other, and the genre seems to have
assumed an historical importance within H'wd cinema that
dwarfs (and absorbs) preceding genres.
Maybe it's a religious thing, as I suggested; maybe it's "mankind
preparing itself through symbolic action for the leap into space"
as Michel Chion, a good French critic who is a big Kubrick fan,
has argued; or maybe it's just what Jean-Pierre Oudart predicted
in CdC in 1971: an exhausted, near-moribund cinema
continuing to simulate life by endlessly rushing into the gap
between "deja vu" ("already seen") and "jamais vu" ("never
seen"), which moves with it, so that THAT cinema seems to be
endlessly running in place, at great expense and exertion,
without really progressing, while real progress is being made in
Iran, China etc.
7497
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 6:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only
--- Rick Curnutte wrote:
>
> I mean, Mel Gibson basically thinks that the
> contemporary Catholic
> Church is too leftist...
Oh yes and then he staged this phny P.R. stunt by
sending a tape of the film to the Pope and then
claiming the Pope approved -- which was, of course, a
lie.
If he's against the Pope then why was he seeking his
approval?
__________________________________
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7498
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 7:12pm
Subject: Not True: Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only--
The Fox News article--surprise--isn't remotely accurate; here's the
pedantic e-mail I sent them this morning:
Dear Fox News:
I found Roger Friedman's column of today on the release plan for the
Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST intriguing, but it appears to be
balderdash, as a couple minutes of Internet research show that the
film is opening in New York in many of the locations Friedman claims
that it does not. According THE PASSION's official web site
(http://www.thepassionofthechrist.com), the film will open at:
New York, NY Clearview Chelsea West
New York, NY Kip's Bay
New York, NY Loews 34th Street
New York, NY Loews 84th Street
New York, NY Magic Johnson Theatre-Harlem
New York, NY Metro
New York, NY Union Square Stadium 14
That is, at at least two downtown locations, and one right in the
middle of the Upper West Side. Further, on looking up moviefone.com's
listings, I see that most of the Manhattan theaters where THE PASSION
is set to play have not yet put up their Ash Wednesday showtimes, but
one prominent, huge Times Square theater has:
AMC Theatres Empire 25
234 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10036, 0.4 miles (map)
The Passion of the Christ
12:45pm | 4:00pm | 7:15pm | 10:15pm
That location is an easy walk from my place of work at 7th and 38th,
and surely an easy walk from Fox News' Manhattan headquarters as well.
Yours,
Patrick Ciccone
PS: Basic proofreading too, would be useful: e.g. "'The Passion of
the Christ' are touting its 2000 screen premiere." Gibson's Christ
will have His first coming in 2004, not at the start of the second
millenia anno domini.
7499
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 7:19pm
Subject: Re: Not True: Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only--
Patrick:
> PS: Basic proofreading too, would be useful: e.g. "'The Passion
> of the Christ' are touting its 2000 screen premiere." Gibson's
> Christ will have His first coming in 2004, not at the start of the
> second millenia anno domini.
I thought they were referring to the number of screens ...
--Zach
7500
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Fri Feb 13, 2004 7:22pm
Subject: Re: Not True: Gibson's 'Passion' to Open in 'Select' Theatres Only--
You are correct, sir; but they forgot a hyphen!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
wrote:
> Patrick:
> > PS: Basic proofreading too, would be useful: e.g. "'The Passion
> > of the Christ' are touting its 2000 screen premiere." Gibson's
> > Christ will have His first coming in 2004, not at the start of
the
> > second millenia anno domini.
>
> I thought they were referring to the number of screens ...
>
> --Zach
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