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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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7801
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2004 11:25pm
Subject: re: 6 Good JCs
.and the one in Bunuel's The Milky Way. Why is he scampering
like that?
7802
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 0:57am
Subject: Re: Six good JCs (two more)
Rossellini's "The Messiah"
Brakhage's "Jesus Trilogy and Coda" (silent, handpainted, 17 minutes)
- Fred
7803
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 1:15am
Subject: Re: Six good JCs
--- Travis Miles wrote:
> Warhol¹s Imitation of Christ, with Nico as Mary
> Magdalene, sort of
And the Christ in that one is played (embodied) by
Patrick Close. A former actor (he played one of the
Roosevelt children in "Sunrise at Campobello" on both
stage and screen) he became a sort of American Pierre
Clementi with more than a bit of Julius Orlovsky for
good measure. Patrick was QUITE a character. In his
last years he drove a cab in L.A. -- and loved doing
it more than anything he'd ever done.
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7804
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 1:30am
Subject: re: 6 Good JCs
Have we mentioned Brakhage? "Walk Like a Man..." And a
Bunuel approximation: the Host in Exterminating Angel. And of
course Oliveira's film of a rural Portugese Passion Play.
Something Primavera - I never saw it. There was a portentuous
art film in the 50s about people putting on a Passion Play - could
it have been a Dassin? And there's pasolini's workup to St.
Matthew, La Ricotta, where Welles is filming the crucifixion.
My friend Michael Singer, creator of the Blackhawk Directors
Book (which he cut loose from at the start of the millenium),
wrote a definitive article on Jesus Movies several years ago. It
was never published as far as I know, but I have a copy at home.
There were some major oddities in it.
7805
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 2:34am
Subject: Six good JCs + "I'm a Genius Too, Brian."
If there the kitsch-Christ chorus-line did in fact number six during
the masturbation-montage in 'A Clockwork Orange,' then I vote for them.
(I think it was actually three; maybe four.)
This might also be a bit off-topic, but since Bill mentioned "Child Is
Father of the Man" last week, whether this was the intended reference
(and not Wordsworth or just general Sixties innocentia) or not --
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/04-02/24.shtml
The day I never thought would come -- fingers crossed that it's being
finished (and ends up sounding) the way it should.
craig.
7806
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 2:37am
Subject: Re: 6 Good JCs
Yes, that's Dassin's Celui qui doit mourir, from the Kazantzakis
novel, and recently available on DVD (but not nearly as pretentious
as Phaedra).
And then there's the guy who rides the bus in Chicago all dressed
up as Jesus and carrying the cross! I guess it's performance art...
Apparently some historians are pointing out that, apart from
everything else, Gibson's movie gets the languages wrong: the
everyday lingua franca on the street was supposedly Greek,
with Latin reserved for public announcements, and common folk
communicating in both Hebrew and Aramaic. I'm just picturing
Monica Bellucci trying to memorize her (few) lines in Latin...
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> There was a portentuous
> art film in the 50s about people putting on a Passion Play - could
> it have been a Dassin?
7807
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 2:37am
Subject: Re: Six good JCs + "I'm a Genius Too, Brian."
"A Clockwork Orange" is most a propos re Melvin's
"NASCAR Jesus" in that Alex loved all the story's
blood and gore.
--- Craig Keller wrote:
>
> If there the kitsch-Christ chorus-line did in fact
> number six during
> the masturbation-montage in 'A Clockwork Orange,'
> then I vote for them.
>
> (I think it was actually three; maybe four.)
>
> This might also be a bit off-topic, but since Bill
> mentioned "Child Is
> Father of the Man" last week, whether this was the
> intended reference
> (and not Wordsworth or just general Sixties
> innocentia) or not --
>
> http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/04-02/24.shtml
>
> The day I never thought would come -- fingers
> crossed that it's being
> finished (and ends up sounding) the way it should.
>
> craig.
>
>
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7808
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 4:51am
Subject: Re: "I'm a Genius, Too, Brian"
That's the best news I've heard in years. Where do we download the
concert?
7809
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:41am
Subject: Capturing the Friedmans article
This article,
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/movies/oscars/24FRIE.html ,
in yesterday's New York Times rather fascinated me, because from the
film I had concluded that Jesse Friedman was likely innocent, and that
this was another of the many cases of fake therapist-induced memories.
Now I think the opposite, that it's more likely that he's guilty. The
victim's mom who says, "What fame is there in making a film about a
pedophile who's a pedophile? " is right, of course, and there's always a
devil's incentive for journalists -- the film is a form of journalism,
I'd argue -- to create a story when there is none. I'm not saying that
Jesse is or isn't guilty, and unlike many I actually didn't like the
film very much, but now I like it a lot less. Lie detector tests are
not truly reliable, but they are at much better than 50-50, I believe,
and Jarecki left out the fact that Jesse flunked his. Jeracki seems
confused as to whether he was trying to make on "objective" documentary
or write a legal brief for Jesse, and that confusion, which shows in the
film, now seems much more questionable.
- Fred
7810
From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 1:48pm
Subject: Re: Re: 6 Good JCs
Actually, Bellucci's lines (in Aramaic) provided one of the few moments of
comedy relief for me at the screening. In the press notes she is quoted as
saying that the Aramaic was easy for her because she's Italian.
Sure, lady. And I speak French easily because I'm Jewish.
George (I can be incoherent in five different languages) Robinson
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
7811
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 2:40pm
Subject: Re: Capturing the Friedmans article
I don't think the film came to any conclusion about
Jesse Friedman -- or anything else for that matter.
Clearly "something" happened. The father "did" collect
kiddie porn. But what and to what extent has been
drowned in the mass hysteria of that moment. Living in
L.A. I saw the McMartin case first-hand. The
entire"repressed memory" thing is a scam. A reporter
for a local TV station was having an affair with one
of the "therapists" in the case(!) alllowing him all
manner of "scoops." There was another case in the
mid-west wher two teenage girls acused their father of
witchcraft and rape.he was so upset that he 'admitted"
commiting acts that proved to be untrure. There was a
verylong "New Yorker"piece about this, plus a book.
The daughters still insist to this day that their
"witch" father (who of course had the ability to fly
through the air) raped them.
--- Fred Camper wrote:
> This article,
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/movies/oscars/24FRIE.html
> ,
> in yesterday's New York Times rather fascinated me,
> because from the
> film I had concluded that Jesse Friedman was likely
> innocent, and that
> this was another of the many cases of fake
> therapist-induced memories.
> Now I think the opposite, that it's more likely that
> he's guilty. The
> victim's mom who says, "What fame is there in making
> a film about a
> pedophile who's a pedophile? " is right, of course,
> and there's always a
> devil's incentive for journalists -- the film is a
> form of journalism,
> I'd argue -- to create a story when there is none.
> I'm not saying that
> Jesse is or isn't guilty, and unlike many I actually
> didn't like the
> film very much, but now I like it a lot less. Lie
> detector tests are
> not truly reliable, but they are at much better than
> 50-50, I believe,
> and Jarecki left out the fact that Jesse flunked
> his. Jeracki seems
> confused as to whether he was trying to make on
> "objective" documentary
> or write a legal brief for Jesse, and that
> confusion, which shows in the
> film, now seems much more questionable.
>
> - Fred
>
>
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7812
From: iangjohnston
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 4:04pm
Subject: Spanish films
Does anyone have any recommendations (or otherwise) for any of the
following Spanish films?
TAKE MY EYES (Iciar Bollain, 2003)
THE HOURS OF THE DAY (Jaime Rosales, 2002)
TORREMOLINOS 73 (Pablo Berger, 2003)
SMOKING ROOM (Julio D. Wallovits & Roger Gual, 2002)
I've tracked down reviews of the others below, all of which seem
less than compelling. But speak out if you think differently:
MONDAYS IN THE SUN (Fernando Leon de Aranoa, 2002)
MADNESS OF LOVE (Vicente Aranda, 2001)
KILOMETER ZERO (Yolanda Garcia Serrano & Juan Luis Borra, 2000)
MY MOTHER LIKES WOMEN (Ines Paris & Daniela Fejerman, 2002)
BULGARIAN LOVERS (Eloy de la Iglesia, 2003)
THEY'RE WATCHING US (Norberto Lopez Amado, 2002)
Thanks.
Ian
7813
From: iangjohnston
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 4:14pm
Subject: Chinese Films
I'd appreciate comments on any of these Chinese films:
FEAR OF INTIMACY (Vincent Chiu, H.K., 2004)
CHEN MO AND MEI TING (Liu Hao, PRC, 2002)
UNIFORM (Diao Yinan, PRC, 2003)
FEEDING BOYS, AYAYA (Cui Zi'en, PRC, 2003)
THE ONLY SONS (Gan Xiao'er, PRC, 2002)
THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS (Duan Jinchuan, PRC, 2002)
THIS HAPPY LIFE (Jiang Yue, PRC, 2002)
ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES (Yu Lik-wai, H.K./PRC/France, 2003)
BUFFERING... (Hung Wing-kit, H.K./GB/Switz., 2003)
SECONDARY SCHOOL (Tammy Cheung, H.K., 2002)
RICE DISTRIBUTION (Tammy Cheung, H.K., 2002)
FUBO (Wong Ching-po & Lee Kung-lok, H.K., 2003)
AND ALSO THE ECLIPSE (Chang Wai-hung, H.K., 2003)
Ian
7814
From: alsolikelife
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 5:05pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson
I agree that there's ridiculous homophobia found in BRAVEHEART;
what's interesting is that Gibson ties it into his larger thesis that
the welfare of nations is tied to a procreative imperative (this
coming from a director who by my last count has sired 7 kids, at
least he practices what he preaches). William Wallace becomes a
revolutionary because all Scottish women are systematically raped by
British soldiers on the night before their weddings; Wallace tries to
elude this humiliating form of genocide by eloping with his own wife,
ultimately leading to her death and his vow to become a revolutionary
leader. The English prince is portrayed as a queer unable to fulfill
his procreative duties, and lo and behold it is Wallace who finally
beds the princess and thus secures the welfare of the people by
infusing the future King of England with Scottish blood. For an
avowed Creationist, his argument bears a startling Darwinist/genetic
streak!
I also agree with Jaime that the battle scenes in BRAVEHEART are
remarkably done in that visceral, Mel Gibson kind of way (which
evidently is also in full force in THE PASSION, judging by clips I've
seen). I wonder if Gibson studied ALEXANDER NEVSKY because his way
of filming battle is strikingly similar to what Eisenstein does in
that film. I think he'd make a much better football movie than
Oliver Stone. So would have Eisenstein, come to think of it.
The ideology of the warfare in the film is simply of "liberation" --
which is generic enough to please just about anyone (except maybe the
British who were depicted as the raping oppressors). I saw this in
China with a packed audience and they were cheering and applauding by
the end of it; I wondered if in their subconscious it struck a
resonant chord with the anti-Imperialist Communist Revolutionary
narratives they'd known all their lives. In that sense it serves the
same purpose for certain audiences as, say, BATTLE OF ALGIERS.
(Mike, do you dislike all "pro-war" films or does it come down to the
fspecific film's ideology driving the urge to war?) Though I wonder
if it's more comforting to dwell on the differences...
Kevin
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> I wouldn't want to go on defending Gibson, since the Playboy
interview
> makes it clear that the elevator doesn't go all the way to the
top...
> nor would I wish to make the gay stereotypes in BRAVEHEART seem less
> than totally stupid and unnecessary. Just wish to maintain that I
> found it a powerful piece of movie storytelling, with gripping
battle
> scenes and a message that can't be called pro-war, at least not in
the
> same sense that the Dubya administration is pro-war.
>
> -Jaime
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> > Today, everybody knows exactly what they are doing, when it comes
to
> the
> > portrayal of minority groups on the screen.
> > If a filmmaker like Julian Schnabel makes a non-stereotyped
portrait
> of gay
> > people in "Before Night Falls" (2000), it is because he is clearly
> sympathetic
> > to equal rights for homosexuals. (And "Before Night Falls" is one
of
> the best
> > contemporary films.)
> > If Mel Gibson includes negative stereotypes of gays
in "Braveheart"
> and "The
> > Passion of the Christ", it is because he hates homosexuals, and
> wants to see
> > them discriminated against by society.
> > I find it hard to believe in 2004 that anyone making films does
not
> know
> > EXACTLY waht they stand for, in their treatment of minority
groups.
> > As far as war goes, I remember Shelley's point: Violence used to
defend
> > "noble" causes is even more insidious than violence used for
> obviously bad ones.
> > This is even more true today, with the terrifying weapons that
> exist, than in
> > the 1820's when Shelley pointed this out.
> > We desperately need pro-peace movies.
> > Mike Grost
7815
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 5:55pm
Subject: Re: Capturing the Friedmans article
Ahem, people, please do NOT quote entire messages before replying. Turn
off your email's damned auto-quote feature, or learn the simple key
commands (in Windows; CTRL+A followed by the delete key) which will
delete the quoted message before you start typing in the message window.
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>I don't think the film came to any conclusion about
>Jesse Friedman -
>
Not exactly, but it left me with the strong impression that he was
completely innocent, and that his dad was probably innocent of molesting
anyone too. I think it's true that there are pedophiles by inclination
who go through their whole lives without molesting anyone.
I agree with you completely about the McMartin case and the case
documented in that New Yorker article, which I read (I think that case
was in Washington state, actually). The therapeutic climate that emerged
a few decades ago resulted in massive cases of the abuse of very young
children BY THERAPISTS, who would take three year olds, whose grasp on
reality is tenuous at best, in inject them with the suggestions that
they had been raped, fondled, abused. It turns out that experiments done
much later with kids of that age show that they are suggestible: a
therapist who asked a kid who had never been to the hospital about his
"operation" would get "no operation" the first time, but on repeated
asking over a period of weeks would get an elaborate story about surgery
for a broken leg or something. And their experimenters were far more
gentle than those insistent therapists, who would keep pressuring kids
who said nothing had happened. The result is that there are hundreds of
teenagers who now think they were abused as toddlers, and many people
(there have been other cases like McMartin) languishing in prison. In
that context I thought this was another such case. But none of this
means that abuse doesn't happen, because it does, and kids in the
"Friedmans" case were older, and while I can't be sure the Times article
convinced me that the film is biased, had an agenda, and probably had
the wrong agenda, which is of course much worse.
- Fred
7816
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 6:20pm
Subject: Re: Spanish films
> Does anyone have any recommendations (or otherwise) for any of the
> following Spanish films?
>
> TAKE MY EYES (Iciar Bollain, 2003)
I was quite impressed by Bollain's previous film FLOWERS FROM ANOTHER
WORLD, and was disappointed when this one didn't appear at any of the
North American festivals that I attend.
> THE HOURS OF THE DAY (Jaime Rosales, 2002)
I think this film is very good.
- Dan
7817
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 6:21pm
Subject: Re: Chinese Films
> I'd appreciate comments on any of these Chinese films:
> ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES (Yu Lik-wai, H.K./PRC/France, 2003)
I didn't care for this movie - it struck me as posturing and pretty
pictures. - Dan
7818
From:
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 6:46pm
Subject: War films
Just about all war films except the most anti-war films disturb me.
Most contemporary Hollywood war films seem to be legitimizing war. Their message: "War is normal and legitimate. It achieves good, practical real world results that make the world a better place."
I have a lot of non-cinephile friends. They directly apply everything they see in war movies to real life.
One man in his 20's: "It's tragic that my generation was never involved in a war. When I see [at the movies] what other generations accomplished at war, it seems that my generation is not making the world a better place."
A friend in his forties: "I studied U-521 [a WWII submarine movie] for lessons over the wekend. It teaches us how wars should be fought [in real life]".
Another person: "Independence Day shows us how we should not be afraid of nuclear war in real life, the way stupid liberals are always telling us. Without nukes, we would not be able to repel enemies."
People are dead serious about such things. Each and every war film is scrutinized for real life clues and political lessons, that can be directly applied to foreign policy, and how the world is conducted.
One also notes that films with what I see as positive messages are also treated with literalness by viewers. For example, a business leader at work began a team meeting by telling us he had just seen "Schindler's List". He spoke about the need for everyday human beings to work against racism. I will never forget this!
People do not seem to say "Ingrid, it's just a movie!" (Alfred Hitchcock). Instead, they treat everything they see on the screen with extreme literalness.
I do too.
As I said in a previous post, I think every image of a minority person on a screen, whether black, Jewish, Arab, Chinese or gay, expresses directly how the filmmaker sees these groups. I think both the filmmakers and the public see films this way.
Mike Grost
7819
From:
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:03pm
Subject: Comic Footnote: Racing Films
I felt a sneaking sympathy awhile back, to the film students who said their favorite movie was "The Fast and The Furious" (a Hollywood race car movie directed by Rob Cohen, 2001). Admittedly, these people have a desparate need to get to that Frank Borzage film festival, and see some real major film classics!
But, within the (admittedly too narrow) world of modern Hollywood films, "The Fast and The Furious" is actually one of the more life affirming movies. Its message is "racing cars is fun!" It is surrounded by Hollywood films whose message is: "War is good. We need to start as many wars as possible". It is a bit of life in the middle of an endless death head of glorified war.
At least these students did NOT say their favorite movie was "Braveheart" or "Lord of the Rings". Those films are leading us to mass death.
Mike Grost
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
- Thomas Gray
PS I liked the motorbike racing film "Torque", too!
7820
From: alsolikelife
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:21pm
Subject: Capturing the Fog of Documentary "Truth"
Fred Camper wrote --
"But none of this
means that abuse doesn't happen, because it does, and kids in the
"Friedmans" case were older, and while I can't be sure the Times
article
convinced me that the film is biased, had an agenda, and probably had
the wrong agenda, which is of course much worse."
This is interesting and troubling to me, though in a good way. It
clarified something that's been bugging me ever since I read some
critical postings and reviews of THE FOG OF WAR, a film that was one
of my favorites of last year. It seems that in both films there is a
divide between what it is that makes me embrace them and what makes
others critical of them. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Gabe Klinger's
critiques of THE FOG OF WAR resemble your complaint with FRIEDMANS in
that you are suspicious of the filmmaker's possible intention of
facilitating (willfully or not) the subject's deliberate
attempt at self-exoneration. To be honest, I didn't feel like either
film was making a singular case for or against their subject's guilt
or innocence in the crimes in which they were implicated. Perhaps
because such issues weren't central to my interest in the films. My
main reason for liking both films is that they seem to interrogate
both the subjectivity of truth itself and the process of truth-
making. Which leads me to a troubling dilemma, as I am trying to
resolve your point with mine. I put a lot of value in how vividly
and purposefully a film can raise a viewer's awareness of what they
are seeing, what they are being *made* to see, and what this tells
them about the relationship between life and the medium of cinema.
This is why Rossellini is one of my favorites (and yours too, I
believe). The problem you and Rosenbaum and Gabe raise for me is,
can such a preoccupation with the "process" of truth actually serve
as a diversion from truth itself? With these films, do the "meta-
narrational" qualities of the film actually disable the viewer from
getting to the facts (assuming those facts are to be had)?
Can such a bottom be found? What Jarecki and Morris (and come to
think of it, Morris may have been an influence in Jarecki's style)
seem to conclude in their respective films is that truth is almost
entirely subjective, well beyond the reach of a single perspective,
and that men merely clutch at it and try to bend it to their own
will. Like Rosenbaum's complaint (which I'm somewhat sympathetic to)
that Morris should have been harder on Robert McNamara and nailed him
on Vietnam, your feeling that there's something being misrepresented
reveals an insistence that the filmmaker should be accountable to
*some* truth to this morass of manipulations on all levels. I'm not
sure if I agree, but in any case it's worth clarifying what's at
stake. Maybe what's really at stake is not entirely with the films
but what we as different viewers want out of them.
Expanding this issue into the realm of narrative fiction films, I
think similar criticisms can be (and have been) laid at DOGVILLE and
ELEPHANT, two more of my favorites from last year, again for how
vivdly they present the process in which reality and
perception are formulated. They too were attacked for their lack of
substantive insight concerning America and Columbine. So perhaps a
simple way to sum this up is that form-as-Truth is still no subsitute
for the Truth? One could bring in a range of other filmmakers as
well: Marker, Resnais...
Hope some of this encourages a response, as I sincerely want to
understand this better...
Kevin
7821
From: alsolikelife
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:43pm
Subject: Re: War films
> People are dead serious about such things. Each and every war film
is scrutinized for real life clues and political lessons, that can be
directly applied to foreign policy, and how the world is conducted.
> One also notes that films with what I see as positive messages are
also treated with literalness by viewers. For example, a business
leader at work began a team meeting by telling us he had just
seen "Schindler's List". He spoke about the need for everyday human
beings to work against racism. I will never forget this!
> People do not seem to say "Ingrid, it's just a movie!" (Alfred
Hitchcock). Instead, they treat everything they see on the screen
with extreme literalness.
> I do too.
Thanks for your post, Mike. I can hear you on some level because
what you're talking about speaks to why LORD OF THE RINGS, both the
trilogy itself and the mind-boggling phenomenon of its popularity,
gives me the creeps. But even taking into account my enormous
problems with it and what it's "really" saying with its spectacular
sequences of mass destruction and heroic slaughter of a digitized sub-
human scourge, I can allow that my view isn't the same as everyone
else's. I don't think an interpretation of a film starts and ends
with its "literal" qualities, and surely you would agree that just
because your friends found their particular "lessons" from those
films, doesn't mean everyone else will get the same thing out of it?
After all, how does one read a fantasy picture like LORD OF THE
RINGS "literally" for lessons towards real life application? It's
that kind of uncertainty that makes it all the more important for
people to account for their responses, literal or otherwise.
And with a war film like BRAVEHEART or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN or THE
DEER HUNTER or APOCALYPSE NOW, it's still worth acknowledging a
certain aspect of brilliance involved in its creation, if only to get
a better grasp of what might make it otherwise deplorable.
> As I said in a previous post, I think every image of a minority
person on a screen, whether black, Jewish, Arab, Chinese or gay,
expresses directly how the filmmaker sees these groups. I think both
the filmmakers and the public see films this way.
>
This brings up another recent case study, COLD MOUNTAIN, a film I
actually enjoyed quite a bit but started to wonder about when I
realized how little screentime was afforded to black characters. So
to invert your statement, what does the film express in how the
filmmaker *doesn't* see this group? Actually one of the most
refreshing views I read on the film was by a black critic, Wesley
Morris, who said he had no problem with a Civil War movie that for
once didn't feel obliged to tackle the race issue, in which case the
film could be evaluated on the terms it set out for itself. (It was
those terms, which Morris characterized as the "grandiose war epic"
that he felt the film failed. Ha!) In any case my own opinion on the
film is that it's one of the best semi-submerged attacks on John
Ashcroft I've seen come out of Hollywood. But again, that's just
what I choose to take from it.
7822
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:47pm
Subject: Re: Capturing the Fog of Documentary "Truth"
--- alsolikelife wrote:
Like Rosenbaum's complaint (which I'm
> somewhat sympathetic to)
> that Morris should have been harder on Robert
> McNamara and nailed him
> on Vietnam, your feeling that there's something
> being misrepresented
> reveals an insistence that the filmmaker should be
> accountable to
> *some* truth to this morass of manipulations on all
> levels. I'm not
> sure if I agree, but in any case it's worth
> clarifying what's at
> stake. Maybe what's really at stake is not entirely
> with the films
> but what we as different viewers want out of them.
>
No it's with the films. If you're interviewing
McNamarra and allow him to get away with lying about
the Gulf of Tonkin incidnet you're in a world of
trouble -- with those who know th truth.
> Expanding this issue into the realm of narrative
> fiction films, I
> think similar criticisms can be (and have been) laid
> at DOGVILLE and
> ELEPHANT, two more of my favorites from last year,
> again for how
> vivdly they present the process in which reality and
>
> perception are formulated. They too were attacked
> for their lack of
> substantive insight concerning America and
> Columbine.
Well "Dogville" is a work of pure fiction whereas
"Elephant" is a re-imagining of Columbine in Portland.
Rather different things IMO.
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
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7823
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:56pm
Subject: Re: Capturing the Fog of Documentary "Truth"
Kevin,
You raise a lot of intriguing points. Unfortunately I haven't seen "The
Fog of War," but I have a chance to see "Elephant" soon that I'm
planning to take advantage of, so perhaps I'll put off a full response
for ten days or so. But here's one thought: "Capturing the Friedmans" is
a kind of journalism. Jarecki is telling a story. And since I've written
journalism as well as criticism, I know one thing for sure: that the
journalist is always sorely tempted to tell an interesting story.
Editors, and the public, are often more interested in a well-told
entertaining story than in the truth. And so the temptation is always
there to embellish in one way or another, or to tilt in one way or
another, as the mom quoted by the Times suspects. One of my
disappointments with "Friedmans" is that it didn't seem all that
profound an investigation of the "process," though I do suspect all such
investigations are slanted one way or another. Vertov's "The Man With a
Movie Camera," which is a profound investigation, certainly is also
slanted. I suspect that every film, especially every film that's any
good, somewhat "disables" (your word) the viewer, because every film is
skewed somehow. I take that skewing to be an inevitable result of human
subjectivity, not a necessary product of the investigative process,
except insofar as that process depends on humans.
But the Vertov film is honest in its way. It espouses a certain
ideology, and tries to be true to that ideology in its choice of subject
matter, framing, and especially in its editing. "Capturing" purports to
be an objective investigation, and it apparently was not. The Times
article had two real red flags for me. One was that Jesse flunked a lie
detector test. I'd want to learn that from the film, and what his
"excuse" was, and also hear from an expert on how reliable such tests
are. I know they're not reliable enough to use in court, but I suspect
they are reasonably reliable. The other was the interview Jesse
supposedly gave from prison in which he admitted he molested and also
said his dad had molested him. If his guilty plea was the lie that he
now claims it was, what reason did he have for continuing that lie in
prison? There may be a good rebuttal to both of those pieces of evidence
against him, and he should also be allowed to give it. I can see how a
viewer of the film might be left wondering if some kids had been
molested by Jesse's dad, but I can't see how a viewer would seriously
believe that Jesse too had done it -- I certainly didn't.
- Fred
7824
From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:41pm
Subject: Fw: [AMIA-L] Fwd: The Cinematheque quebecoise is threatened! / La Ciné mathèque québécoise est menacée
Apologies for cross-posting but I think you will find this of interest.
George Robinson
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Doros
To: AMIA-L@L...
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 2:55 PM
Subject: [AMIA-L] Fwd: The Cinematheque quebecoise is threatened! / La Ciné mathèque québécoise est menacée
Dear Friends,
An urgent message from Quebec...
Dennis
Milestone Film & Video
Dear friends,
Chers amis,
The Cinémathèque québécoise is going through a major crisis. A lot of our activities could be abandoned. The unionized employees of the Cinémathèque is running that petition in order to save our jobs - yes - but most important in order to save our institution.
Please read the petition below. You have two choices:
You can sign this petition by sending an email at petitioncinematheque@y.... Just put your name, city and country in the message.
Or you or your company can send a support letter at cinematheque@f...
Don't hesitate to transfer this message to anyone you know.
The petition will be delivered to the National Assembly (Quebec's parliament) around March 10 at the opening of the 2004 session.
Thanks for helping us!
----
February 12, 2004
To National Assembly Members,
The Cinémathèque québécoise is threatened!
In 1963, a group of enthusiastic film fans founded the Cinémathèque. In 2004, the new generation of enthusiastic film fans who replaced the founders, barely bother to look to the future because the distress is too great.
Due to insufficient financing, the entire structure which makes up the fame of the Cinémathèque in Québec as well as abroad is threatened. We have to act before draconian and irreversible changes affect the institution and shrink it forever.
The frequency and variety of the shows could be affected.
The Cinémathèque does not only hold films; in its vaults, we find a considerable number of posters, scripts, photos, drawings and equipment which could be without curators.
The Cinémathèque could no longer organize exhibitions to show the value of these treasures.
The animated films, a historical specialty of the Cinémathèque, would no longer be one of its priorities.
Children and adolescents would no longer enjoy visiting the Cinémathèque because one mandate would be abandoned: education.
To enable the Cinémathèque to continue as is, the unionized employees request that the government of Québec support the Cinémathèque by putting into effect concrete actions, creative solutions (a 25 cents tax on each cinema ticket sold, help from national lotteries, as in other countries, etc.) and other encouraging measures so that the film and television industry contribute more towards its financing in order to help quickly increase its operating budgets.
Québec citizens could be pround of their Cinémathèque because it preserves their cinematography and television patrimony.
This cultural and memorial site must benefit equally for its prestige, reputation, excellence, ability and ambitions.
Save the Cinémathèque!
Marco de Blois
Conservateur, cinéma d'animation
Cinémathèque québécoise
335, de Maisonneuve est
Montréal (Québec)
H2X 1K1
Tél. : 514 842-9763
Fax : 514 842-1816
mdeblois@c...
www.cinematheque.qc.ca
Dennis Doros
Milestone Film & Video
PO Box 128
Harrington Park, NJ 07640
Phone: (800) 603-1104 or (201) 767-3117
Fax: (201) 767-3035
Email: milefilms@a...
www.milestonefilms.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
7825
From: Frederick M. Veith
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:53pm
Subject: 75 Million NASCAR fans *are* wrong [was Re: Comic Footnote: Racing Films]
As far as the filmic representation of very bad things as positive goods,
I'd rank car racing somewhere just below war and slightly above say
vivisection. (Which is not to diminish the achievement of, e.g., Two-Lane
Blacktop.)
Car culture may well be leading us to mass death as well.
That said, I kind of enjoyed The Fast and the Furious, although I'd
personally supervise the burning of the negative before I'd let anyone
scratch one frame of a single print of a Borzage film. It suffers by
comparison to what it seemed to be aspiring to be: Point Break.
Fred.
7826
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 9:05pm
Subject: Re: Spanish films
> MONDAYS IN THE SUN (Fernando Leon de Aranoa, 2002)
I advise strongly against this one. Unless you think Ken Loach was one of
the major moviemakers of the 90s, 'cause in that case you won't care for its
political naiveté and outdatedness. I don't know if there's an equivalent in
english, but that one is a dull "fiction politique de gauche".
ruy
7827
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 9:09pm
Subject: Re: Chinese Films
I find it somewhat interesting, fair enough to be seen, but not at all a
must-see.
it's kind of a "bonus track" for Jia Zhangke's UNKNOWN PLEASURES. or a minor
B-side.
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Sallitt"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 3:21 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Chinese Films
> > ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES (Yu Lik-wai, H.K./PRC/France, 2003)
>
> I didn't care for this movie - it struck me as posturing and pretty
> pictures. - Dan
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
7828
From: alsolikelife
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 10:12pm
Subject: Re: Capturing the Fog of Documentary "Truth"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> No it's with the films. If you're interviewing
> McNamarra and allow him to get away with lying about
> the Gulf of Tonkin incidnet you're in a world of
> trouble -- with those who know th truth.
Perhaps you're right. I don't know as much about these events as
others including yourself so I can only take your word for it that
this Morris mis-represents the facts. My own take on this film is
that Morris tries to let McNamara speak for himself while at the same
time trying to expose fissures in McNamara's self-portrayal (via
startling jumpcuts in the interview footage mixed with floridly
assembled stock footage illustrations of McNamara's points, and of
course the "lessons" McNamara imparts that become increasingly
dubious and contradictory as they accumulate). Many of Morris' films
have tried to straddle the mystery of how people present themselves,
trying to be both sympathetic and critical at once. I don't think
McNamara gets nailed in the way you would like, but I don't think he
gets exonerated either... at least I find it a worthwhile argument
(if not a bit dour and pessimistic) that Morris is saying that the
McNamara's failings -- the limitations of human perception and
judgment -- could very well be anyone's.
> Well "Dogville" is a work of pure fiction whereas
> "Elephant" is a re-imagining of Columbine in Portland.
> Rather different things IMO.
>
True, but I don't think that was the point I was making. I was
saying that both films seem occupied with questions about perception
and narrative framing, and what moral implications these have for
both the filmmaker and audience (I still can't forget how the packed
NY Film Fest audience cheered the DOGVILLE massacre like a
bloodthirsty throng at a gladiatorial match -- it scared the crap out
of me but convinced me that von Trier was on to something).
shit, I'm going to be late for OSAMA.
Kevin
7829
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 10:39pm
Subject: Calling William Castle...
Drudge Report
HEART ATTACK DURING 'PASSION OF CHRIST'; WOMAN
PRONOUNCED DEAD AFTER VIEWING
FILM IN KANSAS
**Exclusive 4:09 PM ET, 2/25/04** KAKE TV in Wichita, Kansas
set to report a woman, in her 50s, suffered a heart attack during
a morning screening of Mel Gibson's controversial film PASSION
OF THE CHRIST. "She later died at the hospital," a station
source tells the DRUDGE REPORT. Scheduled to be lead
story on the station's 5 PM news. "She went into seizure during
one of the film's most dramatic moments," a station source
explains. The woman attended a 9:30am screening, first public
viewing at Warren East Theaters in
Wichita... Developing...
7830
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 11:00pm
Subject: Re: Re: Capturing the Fog of Documentary "Truth"
--- alsolikelife wrote:
> Perhaps you're right. I don't know as much about
> these events as
> others including yourself so I can only take your
> word for it that
> this Morris mis-represents the facts.
Start reading. There are any number of books about
Vietnam. Thoser who do not learn from history are
condemned to listen to murderers like McNamarra paint
themselves men of honor.
My own take
> on this film is
> that Morris tries to let McNamara speak for himself
> while at the same
> time trying to expose fissures in McNamara's
> self-portrayal (via
> startling jumpcuts in the interview footage mixed
> with floridly
> assembled stock footage illustrations of McNamara's
> points, and of
> course the "lessons" McNamara imparts that become
> increasingly
> dubious and contradictory as they accumulate).
Piffle!
Had he cared (which he doesn't -- Morris is a pompos
ass) he would have brought in any number of other
people to expose McNamarra's shameless lies. Instead
he polishes an apple for the teacher and then pretends
that he wasn't the one who put it on his desk.
Many
> of Morris' films
> have tried to straddle the mystery of how people
> present themselves,
> trying to be both sympathetic and critical at once.
There is nothing "mysterious" about the way people
present themselves. The lie. They create myths. They
become Marlene Dietrich-- or George W. Bush.
> I don't think
> McNamara gets nailed in the way you would like, but
> I don't think he
> gets exonerated either... at least I find it a
> worthwhile argument
> (if not a bit dour and pessimistic) that Morris is
> saying that the
> McNamara's failings -- the limitations of human
> perception and
> judgment -- could very well be anyone's.
>
No they couldn't. Not at all. That's like saying
Adolph Eichmann's failings could be the failings of
anyone.
(I still can't
> forget how the packed
> NY Film Fest audience cheered the DOGVILLE massacre
> like a
> bloodthirsty throng at a gladiatorial match -- it
> scared the crap out
> of me but convinced me that von Trier was on to
> something).
>
Naw. He just made a bloody spectacle. People love to
watch anything knowing they won't get their hands
dirty.
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
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7831
From: A R Ervolino
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 11:29pm
Subject: John Agar ...
Would anyone on the group know anything about the actor John Agar? He
has been in some old movies that were really fun, I used to watch them a
lot, like the movie "Mole People" and many others. I was just wondering
if the guy was still around, or even alive.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
7832
From: jaketwilson
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 0:12am
Subject: Re: Capturing the Fog of Documentary "Truth"
David, didn't you write a couple of weeks ago that "there is no such
thing as revealed truth in cinema"? Not that I'm trying to catch you
out, but I'm curious about how you reconcile your insistence on facts
here with your scepticism in other contexts.
I think of Morris as a good journalist with some unfortunate arty
pretensions -- I wish he'd concentrate on his often fascinating
subjects without trying to turn every movie into a "philosophical"
investigation of the nature of truth, etc. It does depend what you
want out of a movie, but to most people McNamara is probably more
interesting as a foreign policy player than as a human enigma, and
rightly so.
JTW
7833
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 0:22am
Subject: Cold Mountain
> actually enjoyed quite a bit but started to wonder about when I
> realized how little screentime was afforded to black characters. So
I don't read many reviews, but I read a lot of discussion board posts,
and while this point is mentioned again and again (justifiably,
perhaps), I haven't come across anyone who mentions the brilliant
moment during the crater attack when the Native American on the
Confederate side and the black Union soldier, before they begin
fighting each other, stare at one another in what I hope is disbelief.
They fight anyway - it isn't some Stanley Kramer fantasyland picture
- but the idea conveyed by that moment (that the two men were fighting
for an economic machine that treated them as inferior beings, and
might on another day will their extinction for different reasons) is
missing from every other Civil War picture I've seen. Nor can I
recall an equivalent moment in another movie about a different war.
What bothers me about COLD MOUNTAIN - a film I think is pretty good,
actually, and I say this as one for whom THE ENGLISH PATIENT is like
antimatter - is that it doesn't go far enough in questioning our
preconceived notions about the war. That is to say, there's a degree
of "demystification" in depicting men reduced to savagery, with
scarcely any noble intentions to go around. Still, the feeling that
Minghella could have done more nagged at me during and after the
movie. Minghella depicts a damaged and desiccated country, but at the
end, all wounds are healed - in other words, it's not about the Civil
War at all. By contrast, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN ends with the feeling of
"all's not well," or "scarred ever after" in place of "happily ever
after."
-Jaime
7834
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 0:31am
Subject: Re: Re: Capturing the Fog of Documentary "Truth"
--- jaketwilson wrote:
> David, didn't you write a couple of weeks ago that
> "there is no such
> thing as revealed truth in cinema"? Not that I'm
> trying to catch you
> out, but I'm curious about how you reconcile your
> insistence on facts
> here with your scepticism in other contexts.
>
Because in the context I was referring to then
Absolute Truth was the question.
Here we're talking about the much simpler truth of
events taking place -- and being lied about.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
7835
From: Robert Keser
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 1:09am
Subject: Re: John Agar ...
John Agar died in 2002. He was an Air Force
officer who got the chance to escort Shirley
Temple to a party given by David Selznick. After
he became her first husband, he won star-making
roles in A-list pictures like Ford's Fort Apache and
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, plus Dwan's Sands of
Iwo Jima.
He had a lot of alcohol-related problems and
apparently was really ungracious in his relationship to
Temple, quite apart from his tomcatting behavior.
Following her divorce suit in 1949, he hit the headlines
for drunken driving arrests and basically couldn't get
better roles than in movies like Tarantula and
Daughter of Dr. Jekyll.
John Wayne tried to give him a second wind in
some of his later movies like "Chisum", but Agar
survived selling real estate. In later years he said,
"Yes, I drank too much, and I drank at the wrong time...
Heck, I drank no more than John Wayne or Ward Bond
or Spencer Tracy or Alan Ladd or Robert Walker. But
it got me into a lot more trouble."
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "A R Ervolino" <
divinopenombra@m...> wrote:
>
> Would anyone on the group know anything about the actor John Agar?
He
> has been in some old movies that were really fun, I used to watch
them a
> lot, like the movie "Mole People" and many others. I was just
wondering
> if the guy was still around, or even alive.
>
>
7836
From: George Robinson
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 2:11am
Subject: Re: Calling William Castle...
You sure she wasn't attacked by a big, plastic, glow-in-the-dark skeleton?
g
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
----- Original Message -----
From: "hotlove666"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 5:39 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Calling William Castle...
> Drudge Report
> HEART ATTACK DURING 'PASSION OF CHRIST'; WOMAN
> PRONOUNCED DEAD AFTER VIEWING
> FILM IN KANSAS
>
> **Exclusive 4:09 PM ET, 2/25/04** KAKE TV in Wichita, Kansas
> set to report a woman, in her 50s, suffered a heart attack during
> a morning screening of Mel Gibson's controversial film PASSION
> OF THE CHRIST. "She later died at the hospital," a station
> source tells the DRUDGE REPORT. Scheduled to be lead
> story on the station's 5 PM news. "She went into seizure during
> one of the film's most dramatic moments," a station source
> explains. The woman attended a 9:30am screening, first public
> viewing at Warren East Theaters in
> Wichita... Developing...
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
7837
From: rpporton55
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 2:14am
Subject: Re: Capturing the Fog of Documentary "Truth"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jaketwilson" wrote:
> David, didn't you write a couple of weeks ago that "there is no such
> thing as revealed truth in cinema"? Not that I'm trying to catch you
> out, but I'm curious about how you reconcile your insistence on facts
> here with your scepticism in other contexts.
>
> I think of Morris as a good journalist with some unfortunate arty
> pretensions -- I wish he'd concentrate on his often fascinating
> subjects without trying to turn every movie into a "philosophical"
> investigation of the nature of truth, etc. It does depend what you
> want out of a movie, but to most people McNamara is probably more
> interesting as a foreign policy player than as a human enigma, and
> rightly so.
>
> JTW
Although he's not a film critic, and views the film from a purely politcal
perspective, Alexander Cockburn offers a particuarly savage critique of Morris at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01242004.html
R. Porton
7838
From: George Robinson
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 2:24am
Subject: The Passion redux
I can't say that it will make you have a heart attack, but the revised
version of my review of the Gibson gorefest is available online at:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
The final third is substantially rewritten from the earlier draft that I
e-mailed, for anyone who cares.
George Robinson
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
7839
From: A R Ervolino
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 3:01am
Subject: RE: Anyone Can Help?
As many of the people on this group know already, I'm a student of film
in Philadelphia, I have studied film very closely for the last 4 years,
holding on to it as a mothers, and filmmakers such as Godard,
Bertolucci, Scorcesse, and Herzog as fathers ... I am at the stage of my
life where I feel I need to actually just get something done. I've done
plenty of student films, but I am ready to do more, and I very much want
to. But I'm not sure what to do. I have an idea for a film that I want
to do, and I want to meet people that could possibly help, does anyone
know of anyone in NY or Phili area that could help at all? I'm looking
at a very small production, but I would still need people to help. I
feel like I need to just stop worrying over little details and just do
it. Anyone that could point me in the right direction, it would be
really helpful, and if anyone on this board would be able to help in any
way I would love to have that kind of input and help and would gladly
help in any way I could as well. Thanks!
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
7840
From: iangjohnston
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 3:46am
Subject: Ken Loach (WAS Re: Spanish films)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> > MONDAYS IN THE SUN (Fernando Leon de Aranoa, 2002)
>
> I advise strongly against this one. Unless you think Ken Loach was
one of
> the major moviemakers of the 90s, 'cause in that case you won't
care for its
> political naivet?and outdatedness. I don't know if there's an
equivalent in
> english, but that one is a dull "fiction politique de gauche".
> ruy
Ruy,
Thanks for the warning against this one, although I'll always
prefer "fiction politique de gauche" rather than "de droite", but
not if it's dull!
So am I misreading here an antagonism towards Ken Loach on the basis
of *his* "political naivete and outdatedness"? I don't know if I'd
claim Loach as one of the major filmmakers of the 90s (Lynne
Ramsay's RATCATCHER, which in a sense launches into Loach territory
but with a heightened aestheticism, has more appeal for me), but I
think he's made some fine films since the early 90s: RIFF RAFF,
RAINING STONES, THE NAVIGATORS, and especially SWEET SIXTEEN and
(above all) MY NAME IS JOE. Granted, the way in interviews he places
all the meaning of his filmmaking practice on the stories he tells
and on the actors and how he downgrades the aesthetic aspects
probably won't find much resonance on this forum. (No doubt it also
explains the films that are less successful - e.g. LADYBIRD
LADYBIRD - or the ones that really don't work - e.g. CARLA'S SONG.)
Maybe it's my own political naivete, but I really respond to the
integrity of the man and his work, his commitment to giving a voice
to stories and protagonists generally unaddressed by British cinema,
his belief in the value of those stories and protagonists.
Ian
7841
From:
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2004 10:50pm
Subject: TV alerts
I realize the group has many thriving topics at the moment, but I wanted to
quickly post a note on some noteworthy films on television this coming week.
On Monday, March 1, Peter Bogdanovich's new tele-film, "The Mystery of
Natalie Wood," is airing on ABC. I've seen it and it's very fine: a tragedy set in
Hollywood to go alongside "The Cat's Meow." His mise-en-scene very subtly
frames almost the entire film from Wood's perspective. Highly recommended.
On Friday, March 5, there's another tele-film airing, one I haven't seen:
from 1997, it's Lamont Johnson's "All the Winters That Have Been." It's on the
Lifetime Movie Network (yes, there is such a thing, apparently). I consider
this noteworthy because it appears that it may turn out to be Johnson's final
film; he's in his early 80s now and the only thing that the IMDB lists him
directing after "All the Winters..." are some episodes of a TV series. Anyone seen
this?
And now I must go set the tape for tomorrow morning's showing of Vidor's
"Hallelujah" on TCM! (7:30 AM EST, for those interested.)
Peter
7842
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:02am
Subject: Re: The Passion redux
Excellent work George. I can't wait for "NASCAR Jesus"
to pack up its 30 million pieces of silver and go
home.
--- George Robinson wrote:
> the Gibson gorefest
>
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
7843
From: George Robinson
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:15am
Subject: Re: The Passion redux
Many thanks, sir.
I had an interesting talk with my mom, who converted from a Judaism she
never felt attached to and became a Lutheran (go figure), very active in the
Evangelical Lutheran Conference of America -- which contrary to its name is
very, very liberal and not to be confused with the Missouri Synod which is
very, very reactionary. She asked me if I thought my nephew, age 13, should
see the film, 'cause he was curious and asking. I told her, not without a
heck of a lot of preparation beforehand. I'm not sure I'd want any child of
mine to see a film this violent until they were in the mid to late teens.
g
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ehrenstein"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:02 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] The Passion redux
> Excellent work George. I can't wait for "NASCAR Jesus"
> to pack up its 30 million pieces of silver and go
> home.
>
>
> --- George Robinson wrote:
> > the Gibson gorefest
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail.
> http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
7844
From: George Robinson
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:21am
Subject: Re: TV alerts
I would add to this list a couple of real doozies from TV5 for those of you
who get it (times are approximate 'cause they never stick to the schedule;
if you're taping start a few minutes early and go a few minutes late):
Les Cousins (Chabrol) 2/26 10:25 p.m(Eastern)
Le Diable Probablement (Bresson) 3/4 10:25 p.m. (Eastern)
Le Fiancee du Pirate (Nelly Kaplan) sometime after 3/10 TBA
For more info, check out their website at
http://www.tv5.org/TV5Site/programmes/accueil_continent.php?tps=1066952023
g
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
7845
From: Tristan
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 5:58am
Subject: Re: The Passion redux
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=filmNews&storyID=4439248
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A middle-aged woman died of an apparent heart
attack on Wednesday while watching the climactic crucifixion scene
in "The Passion of the Christ" at a morning showing in Wichita,
Kansas, a television station reported.
The film was stopped and a nurse in attendance went to the
unidentified woman's side, a spokeswoman for KAKE-TV in Wichita said.
"It was the highest emotional part of the movie," she said. A crew
from the TV station was at the special showing, which was sponsored
by a radio station.
The woman, who was in her 50s, was pronounced dead at a nearby
hospital, where a spokesman would only say she had been attending a
movie. The county coroner's office said an autopsy would be
performed.
-----
I thought some of you may find this interesting. This is the first
instance I've heard of a film killing someone, anyone know other
examples? (Please don't say Triumph of the Will) I also wonder if
this will keep people from taking five year olds to see it. It seems
the film needs some sort of prior warning.
I haven't seen this yet, but I'm thinking of seeing it this week or
something, I'm not sure though.
7846
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 9:04am
Subject: Re: TV alerts (the calendar)
All members can use the calendar function to post these TV alerts,
don't forget.
Under the March schedule, I posted an alert for Howard Hawks' DAWN
PATROL, which will air on TCM. It's listed as FLIGHT COMMANDER (a
name it was given for TV broadcasts, so that it wouldn't be confused
with the Edmund Goulding/Errol Flynn remake). I'm sure that's one of
many; TCM is an excellent resource for auteurists and movie lovers in
general.
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson" wrote:
> I would add to this list a couple of real doozies from TV5 for those
of you
> who get it (times are approximate 'cause they never stick to the
schedule;
> if you're taping start a few minutes early and go a few minutes late):
>
> Les Cousins (Chabrol) 2/26 10:25 p.m(Eastern)
> Le Diable Probablement (Bresson) 3/4 10:25 p.m. (Eastern)
> Le Fiancee du Pirate (Nelly Kaplan) sometime after 3/10 TBA
>
> For more info, check out their website at
>
http://www.tv5.org/TV5Site/programmes/accueil_continent.php?tps=1066952023
>
> g
>
>
> People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
> -- Logan Pearsall Smith
7847
From:
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:53am
Subject: Mel Gibson Renounced
More thoughts on the loathsome Mel Gibson.
I confess I am really upset by having an anti-Semitic movie everywhere in the
world . And on Ash Wednesday!
I am a Roman Catholic. I wish to explicitly denounce a film that depicts Jews
as "Christ Killers". It is a betrayal of humanity.
I will NEVER accept such a movie. Never! Never! Never!
I am deeply, totally ashamed that some officials of my Church are supporting
this film.
This is in direct contradiction to the Second Vatican Council. I was a strong
supporter of the Council in the 1960's, and have continued to be a strong
supporter to this day.
It is also a betrayal of all moral principles.
Mike Grost
7848
From:
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 5:30am
Subject: The Nickel Ride (Robert Mulligan)
Just saw "The Nickel Ride" (Robert Mulligan, 1975).
Peter Toungette is right. This film is full of remarkable compositions and
camera movement. Mulligan is especially good at exploring urban landscapes.
These include both exteriors, and traditional urban interiors such as warehouses,
old office buildings, bars, etc. The slow, stop and start camera movements are
remarkably vivid and atmospheric.
This film is being shown on Fox Movie Channel, letterboxed, apparently in its
original aspect ratio. Its visual beauty and inventiveness stand revealed.
After just the first viewing, I was unable to follow the gangster plot of the
film. This does not matter. The characters and emotional mood of each scene
come through loud and clear. I've never been able to understand the plot of
"Tokyo Drifter" (Seijun Suzuki), either, although I love that film's color! "The
Nickel Ride" has a cryptic, surreal quality. It seems as close to such
avant-garde plays as "Waiting for Godot" or "Tiny Alice" as it does to traditional
gangster movies as "Scarface" or "The Public Enemy". There is little violence.
Instead, we are loose in a strange, dream like world we do not understand,
drifting from one emotionally compelling scene to another.
Also just saw "To Kill a Mockingbird" (Mulligan) for the first time in its
original aspect ratio (letterboxed). It too is full of surreal touches, and a
pervasive sense of strangeness.
When Mulligan spoke after the preview of "Summer of 42" (1971), he was
wearing a dazzling Mod white suit, that was typical of the fashion of the era. At
the time I thought, "So that's how a glamorous Hollywood director dresses!"
Jason Miller is sporting a somewhat similar off-white suit during the first third
of this movie (Nickel Ride). He looks very similar to how I remember Mulligan.
One wonders if the protagonist is in someways a stand-in for Mulligan,
drifting through a sureal, dream like experience. The whole film is full of Mod
fashions of the era. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck in Mockingbird) also wears a lot
of white suits.
Mike Grost
7849
From:
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 5:36am
Subject: Les Cousins (Claude Chabrol)
Les Cousins (Claude Chabrol) has a remarkable set, representing the cousins'
apartment. It is fascinating, and Chabrol's camera is always moving around it,
exploring its every detail in depth.
Even more complex is the apartment in Chabrol's "The Champagne Murders". This
second apartment is only seen in a ten minute party sequence towards the end
of the film. It is so endlessly complex that one can watch it again and again
on video, and still not understand all of its details.
Mike Grost
7850
From: Jason Guthartz
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 1:06pm
Subject: Re: The Passion redux
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Tristan" wrote:
> I thought some of you may find this interesting. This is the first
> instance I've heard of a film killing someone, anyone know other
> examples?
I think it's safe to say that people die at the movies all the time,
and frequently in response to what they're watching, but it's only
reported in connection with films hyped by the media as
"controversial" or "shocking". (Such media practices make me ill, but
that's another matter.)
> It seems the film needs some sort of prior warning.
Oh, haven't you heard -- in the U.S., warnings are only demanded of
films that show penises and show people using them for pleasure.
-Jason
7851
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 2:40pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson Renounced
The damage this desperately sick movie by a
desperately sick man has caused has yet to be fully
catalogued. There was an article in the NYT yesterday
saying that Gibson's career as an actor in studio
films is now over as a result of this.
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> More thoughts on the loathsome Mel Gibson.
> I confess I am really upset by having an
> anti-Semitic movie everywhere in the
> world . And on Ash Wednesday!
> I am a Roman Catholic. I wish to explicitly denounce
> a film that depicts Jews
> as "Christ Killers". It is a betrayal of humanity.
> I will NEVER accept such a movie. Never! Never!
> Never!
> I am deeply, totally ashamed that some officials of
> my Church are supporting
> this film.
> This is in direct contradiction to the Second
> Vatican Council. I was a strong
> supporter of the Council in the 1960's, and have
> continued to be a strong
> supporter to this day.
> It is also a betrayal of all moral principles.
>
> Mike Grost
>
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7852
From: Joshua Rothkopf
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:04pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson Renounced
David:
> There was an article in the NYT yesterday
> saying that Gibson's career as an actor in studio
> films is now over as a result of this.
If you're referring to Sharon Waxman's piece in the Arts section, then this is an
overstatement, David. The article was a piece of reportage; it certainly didn't "say" that
Gibson's career is over. (Headline: "New Film May Harm Gibson's Career")
There was speculation among certain studio heads (all of which reequested
anonymity) that the film MIGHT damage his career, and that they personally would
choose to not work with him. There was also speculation that if the film did well, faith
in Mel would continue; Hollywood is a business town, and deals will be struck with
anyone if it means asses on seats.
Why overdramatize, David? I read your liner notes in the Criterion DVD for the
Scorsese LAST TEMPTATION and they're redolent of the same overstatement.
-joshua
7853
From: L C
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:10pm
Subject: "Slave of Desire" by George Baker
In the last month, there was a great French Film Archives retrospective at the Cinémathèque québécoise in Montréal which is now in financial danger as shown by a recent post. I saw "Salammbo" which starred Jeanne de Balzac who, according to Imdb, is a niece of Balzac! A great-great niece maybe. Researching her on google, I found that the Balzac museum in Paris has a copy of a 1923 film magazine showing a pic of Jeanne working in Hollywood on "Slave of Desire' based on a famous novel by her relative. Does anyone know if the Imdb credits are complete because they don't list Jeanne de Balzac.
Thanks Luc Chaput, film critic, Séquences, Montréal
---------------------------------
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7854
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson Renounced
--- Joshua Rothkopf wrote:
>
> Why overdramatize, David? I read your liner notes in
> the Criterion DVD for the
> Scorsese LAST TEMPTATION and they're redolent of the
> same overstatement.
>
I'm not overdramatizing at all. Strictly speaking even
if Gibson have never made "NASCAR Jesus" his future as
an A-list star was in question. He no longerappeals to
the much prized youth demographic and he hasn't
acquired the rep among older audiencs that Nicholson
and Keaton have.
Do you want to see some of the anti-semitic hate mail
I got over "Last temptation"? I've got a TON of it.
It's not pretty. My life was threatened on several
occasions.
Now the people who threatened me have a movie they can
call their own.
__________________________________
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7855
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 9:41pm
Subject: Re: Tv alert - Natalie Wood
I don''t have tv, but Joseph K says the American version of
Bogdanovich's three-hour Wood biopic starts Wednesday, on
one of the regular networks. Peter T. has seen it and says it
kinda swings.
7856
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:14pm
Subject: Re: Cold Mountain
Repeating an earlier post about the lit crit side of this film, read
Leslie Fielder's The Accidental Epic, about trash novels for
female readers which constitute an unofficial counter-myth to the
bloody paternalistic myths of America embodied in the classics
we were taught in school: the counter-tradition being Uncle
Tom's Cabin, Gone with the Wind and Roots. The feminine
utopia, and the feminist antiwar message, are there in Cold
Mountain, but not the utopian anti-racism of those novels, except
in the one shot Jaime mentions. Renee Z's character is a hillbilly
equivalent of Hattie McDaniel, whose character, of course,
couldn't even be in a film today.
But I don't see the omission as sinister - it's a felt absence with
respect to the genre, but not really with respect to the implied
subject, which is the "war on terrorism," still ramping up, but
hopefully soon to be ramped down by a coalition of the CIA, the
Pentagon and now Alan Greenspan, of all people, who seem to
have had it with the gang of reckless, murdering crooks that has
seized the executive branch of government. Cold Mountain will
have played it's small part, I suppose, when the dust settles in
November and (hopefully) the perp walk chorus line begins. But
as Jaime observes, the country isn't going to come out of it
looking as fabulous as Nicole Kidman, whose hair and makeup
excesses quite rightly kept her from even getting a nomination.
7857
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:16pm
Subject: Re: TV alerts
These take me back to the glory days of my own early auteurism,
when I would studiously annotate the movie listings in TV Guide
from Sarris while Ronnie Scheib picked the seeds out of the
latest grass shipment. Ah, the times that we have seen...
7858
From: Joshua Rothkopf
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:34pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson Renounced
David:
> I'm not overdramatizing at all. Strictly speaking even
> if Gibson have never made "NASCAR Jesus" his future as
> an A-list star was in question. He no longerappeals to
> the much prized youth demographic and he hasn't
> acquired the rep among older audiencs that Nicholson
> and Keaton have.
No. STRICTLY SPEAKING, you posted that the NYT *said* that "Gibson's career as an
actor in studio films is now over as a result of this." Which is patently false. The New
York Times didn't say this (some interviewees speculated on the possibility), nor
should a piece of reporting from a journalist as reputable as Waxman be characterized
that way. Overstatement.
> Do you want to see some of the anti-semitic hate mail
> I got over "Last temptation"? I've got a TON of it.
> It's not pretty. My life was threatened on several
> occasions.
I've not suggested that those death threats are overdramatized. And as a Jewish critic,
I've received some as well (though certainly not as many); I can sympathize.
But from your liner notes:
"Fueled by half-truths, outright lies, and anti-Semitic slurs -- the likes of which
haven't been heard in this country since the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
-- this well-orchestrated campaign..."
Not since the Rosenbergs? That's a lot of anti-Semitism you're skipping over, in
spheres such as labor, politics and community civics, with real-life detriments to
people's livelihoods (not to mention lives) -- much more substantial than the fate of a
single film. How did you quantify that?
Or this:
"All of this, needless to say, means nothing to the film's enemies, who have used it as
little more than a ploy to regain ground lost in the wake of the Jim Bakker and immy
Swaggart money and sex scandals."
You make it sound like a principled, reasoned rejection of the film (of which there
were many, and also to N.K.'s novel) was an impossibility. Nope, all just a "ploy."
The irony of this is that you and I agree on the film; it's my favorite Scorsese, his most
moving and adventurous piece of work. But why imply that everyone who hated the
film was a loony?
We also agree on this:
> Now the people who threatened me have a movie they can
> call their own.
This is a film for hateful people. Mel is a closet Roman.
-joshua
7859
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:50pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson Renounced
--- Joshua Rothkopf wrote:
>
>
> No. STRICTLY SPEAKING, you posted that the NYT
> *said* that "Gibson's career as an
> actor in studio films is now over as a result of
> this." Which is patently false. The New
> York Times didn't say this (some interviewees
> speculated on the possibility), nor
> should a piece of reporting from a journalist as
> reputable as Waxman be characterized
> that way. Overstatement.
>
Pish-Tush!
>
>
>
> Not since the Rosenbergs? That's a lot of
> anti-Semitism you're skipping over, in
> spheres such as labor, politics and community
> civics, with real-life detriments to
> people's livelihoods (not to mention lives) -- much
> more substantial than the fate of a
> single film. How did you quantify that?
Just trying to save time and space.
>
> Or this:
>
> "All of this, needless to say, means nothing to the
> film's enemies, who have used it as
> little more than a ploy to regain ground lost in the
> wake of the Jim Bakker and immy
> Swaggart money and sex scandals."
>
> You make it sound like a principled, reasoned
> rejection of the film (of which there
> were many, and also to N.K.'s novel) was an
> impossibility. Nope, all just a "ploy."
>
Not at all. it never began! "The Last Temptation of
Christ" has been forgotten.
> The irony of this is that you and I agree on the
> film; it's my favorite Scorsese, his most
> moving and adventurous piece of work. But why imply
> that everyone who hated the
> film was a loony?
>
>
Everyone I ran into WAS a loony. It gets tiring after
awhile.
I prefer "The King of Comedy" and "Casino," frankly.
But these days I'm sick to death of Jesus Christ.
We also agree on this:
>
> > Now the people who threatened me have a movie they
> can
> > call their own.
>
>
> This is a film for hateful people. Mel is a closet
> Roman.
>
I'd say he's a closet National Socialist.
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7860
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 4:01am
Subject: Re: Ken Loach (WAS Re: Spanish films)
I don't like the way he builds his characters. Also I find this
conscience-grabbing film structure to be very heavy-handed (his great
artistical flop as an artist, I'd guess) and outdated in a sense that "prise
de la conscience" is the key to sartrean (existencialist) 50s drama, and he
fills his films with it. We know since late 60s that even if a big part of
people take conscience of its role in society and its surroundings, nothing
will change much. Also the way he clings to romantic revolutionary idealism
(land & freedom), unions (navigators) or working-class drama (passim) is
politically void in the sense that he frames his films on former
"revolutionary hopes" that now have little to add in the political agenda. I
think meantime, by mike leigh, is much more interesting (to talk of another
british filmmaker i'm not fond of... come to think of it, I'd almost agree
to truffaut's motto that england and cinema are two incompatible words) in
the way it pictures british working class people.
this being said, i find NAVIGATORS interesting. never seen sweet16, ladybird
or riff raff. don't care for joe, carla, land&freedom, and loathe hidden
agenda.
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "iangjohnston"
To:
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 12:46 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Ken Loach (WAS Re: Spanish films)
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
> wrote:
> > > MONDAYS IN THE SUN (Fernando Leon de Aranoa, 2002)
> >
> > I advise strongly against this one. Unless you think Ken Loach was
> one of
> > the major moviemakers of the 90s, 'cause in that case you won't
> care for its
> > political naivet?and outdatedness. I don't know if there's an
> equivalent in
> > english, but that one is a dull "fiction politique de gauche".
> > ruy
>
> Ruy,
>
> Thanks for the warning against this one, although I'll always
> prefer "fiction politique de gauche" rather than "de droite", but
> not if it's dull!
>
> So am I misreading here an antagonism towards Ken Loach on the basis
> of *his* "political naivete and outdatedness"? I don't know if I'd
> claim Loach as one of the major filmmakers of the 90s (Lynne
> Ramsay's RATCATCHER, which in a sense launches into Loach territory
> but with a heightened aestheticism, has more appeal for me), but I
> think he's made some fine films since the early 90s: RIFF RAFF,
> RAINING STONES, THE NAVIGATORS, and especially SWEET SIXTEEN and
> (above all) MY NAME IS JOE. Granted, the way in interviews he places
> all the meaning of his filmmaking practice on the stories he tells
> and on the actors and how he downgrades the aesthetic aspects
> probably won't find much resonance on this forum. (No doubt it also
> explains the films that are less successful - e.g. LADYBIRD
> LADYBIRD - or the ones that really don't work - e.g. CARLA'S SONG.)
> Maybe it's my own political naivete, but I really respond to the
> integrity of the man and his work, his commitment to giving a voice
> to stories and protagonists generally unaddressed by British cinema,
> his belief in the value of those stories and protagonists.
>
> Ian
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
7861
From: jl
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 5:13am
Subject: The Strawberry Statement
Has anyone seen this movie? I love the book but can't seem to track this
one down (the VHS is apparently rare and goes for around $60). The book is
about the author's personal involvement with the Columbia U. riots in the
late 60s, among other things...on my paperback (1970), the copy reads, "Soon
a New Kind of Movie From MGM!"
Released 1970,
Directed by
Stuart Hagmann
Writing credits
James Kunen (novel)
Israel Horovitz
Starring...
Bruce Davison
Kim Darby
Bud Cort
Murray MacLeod
As a bonus, if you know where to rent this in Chicago, give me a tip.
Respond offlist, unless you feel the urge to raise list-relevant issues, of
course.
Joey Lindsey
jlinds@a...
7862
From: Jess Amortell
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:24am
Subject: Re: The Strawberry Statement
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, jl wrote:
> Has anyone seen this movie? I love the book but can't seem to track this=
> one down (the VHS is apparently rare and goes for around $60). The book =
is
> about the author's personal involvement with the Columbia U. riots in the=
> late 60s, among other things...on my paperback (1970), the copy reads, "S=
oon
> a New Kind of Movie From MGM!"
Saw it back when -- my recollection is dim, but I'd have thought 60 cents m=
ight be more like it... Andrew Sarris' review, evoking something of the pol=
itics of the day, is collected in his "The Primal Screen," and recalls what =
could have been part of the problem: the film is not set at Columbia, but "=
in some anonymous institution in the San Francisco Bay area [...] The book =
makes no sense apart from the uniquely incestuous power relationships at Col=
umbia University and throughout Manhattan Island..."
7863
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:50am
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson
> I also agree with Jaime that the battle scenes in BRAVEHEART are
> remarkably done in that visceral, Mel Gibson kind of way (which
> evidently is also in full force in THE PASSION, judging by clips I've
> seen). I wonder if Gibson studied ALEXANDER NEVSKY because his way
> of filming battle is strikingly similar to what Eisenstein does in
> that film. I think he'd make a much better football movie than
> Oliver Stone. So would have Eisenstein, come to think of it.
Add me to the list of people who thinks the battle scenes (but not the
characterization) in BRAVEHEART are interestingly directed. Hadn't
thought of Eisenstein (King Vidor occurred to me), but it makes sense.
Haven't seen his new film yet, but the same thought always occurs to me
when films are widely decried as racist: the racism issue is almost
identical to the bad filmmaking issue. Racism is basically the process
of substituting simplistic preconceived notions of people for the real,
complex thing - and bad filmmaking is basically that too. Only
simplistic villains come across to me as racist: if the villainy is
complex, then it doesn't easily serve a social agenda, and people
generally lay off. - Dan
7864
From:
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:11am
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson
Dan:
>> I wonder if Gibson studied ALEXANDER NEVSKY because his way
> > of filming battle is strikingly similar to what Eisenstein does
in
> > that film. I think he'd make a much better football movie than
> > Oliver Stone. So would have Eisenstein, come to think of it.
>
> Add me to the list of people who thinks the battle scenes (but not
the
> characterization) in BRAVEHEART are interestingly directed.
Hadn't
> thought of Eisenstein (King Vidor occurred to me), but it makes
sense.
>
I'm sure NEVSKY played into it as well, but the obvious link here is
Kubrick's SPARTACUS, which is the main influence on BRAVEHEART, both
in its narrative trajectory and its battle scenes, and which was
itself sort of a reinvention of NEVSKY's battle-scenes.
-Bilge
7865
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 2:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
> when films are widely decried as racist: the racism
> issue is almost
> identical to the bad filmmaking issue. Racism is
> basically the process
> of substituting simplistic preconceived notions of
> people for the real,
> complex thing - and bad filmmaking is basically that
> too. Only
> simplistic villains come across to me as racist: if
> the villainy is
> complex, then it doesn't easily serve a social
> agenda, and people
> generally lay off. - Dan
>
>
Then you're removing art from ALL historical
specificity.
That's specious, corrupt and immoral.
I don't care how beautiful the camera movements are if
your soul is rotten.
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7866
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 3:11pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson
> Then you're removing art from ALL historical
> specificity.
>
> That's specious, corrupt and immoral.
>
> I don't care how beautiful the camera movements are if
> your soul is rotten.
That wasn't exactly what I was saying....
I guess this argument depends on your definition of racism. I was using
the word to mean, more or less, making judgments about people on the basis
of race. In this sense (which I prefer), racism is a form of bad
thinking, something that we all do at times. And, in cinematic form, it's
hard to distinguish it from run-of-the-mill mediocre filmmaking, which
uses the same shorthand to depict people.
If you prefer to add a component of hatred to your definition of racism,
then I would agree that bad filmmaking does not necessarily encompass
that. - Dan
7867
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 3:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
In this sense (which I prefer), racism is
> a form of bad
> thinking, something that we all do at times.
Not just thought -- action.
And we don't "all do it at times." Not at all.
Racism is NOT a universal state of consciousness
natural to all.
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7868
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:31pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
I'll see your SPARTACUS and raise you... THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD
(1938, Curtiz)! I'm not kidding. I watched it this morning and there
are as many threads to connect to it as to Kubrick's. It too is a
liberation romp concerning a ragtag band of oppressed revolutionary
outcasts. Both feature raucous, slap-on-the-back initiation scenes
(the big linebacker dude who plays Gibson's sidekick fits into the
Robin Hood/Little John mold) and a sequence where one villain after
another is killed without warning by our hero lurking in the shadows.
(since I brought up ALEXANDER NEVSKY earlier, I'd like to say that I
was every bit as impressed by Korngold's deft score as I was by
Prokoviev's famous accomaniment to NEVSKY.)
I'll grant you that the homophobic depictions of BRAVEHEART's
imperials resonates with the homophobia (or is it just homoeroticism?
I don't remember) discernible in the "oysters and snails" scene in
SPARTACUS.
7869
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:45pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
--- alsolikelife wrote:
>
> I'll grant you that the homophobic depictions of
> BRAVEHEART's
> imperials resonates with the homophobia (or is it
> just homoeroticism?
> I don't remember) discernible in the "oysters and
> snails" scene in
> SPARTACUS.
>
>
In SPARTACUS it's homoeroticism. Moreover while
Olivier wants Tony Curtis sexually (and sexually
alone), it's Kirk Douglas who's involved with him
romantically to a surprisingly large extent for the
period. There's nothing homophobic about SPARTACUS.
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7870
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:56pm
Subject: Re: Guru Dutt & others/ Bollywood recommendations? Programme
Maxime, you are one lucky grumble grumble grumble...
Just as a follow up, I want to report on PYAASA, which I watched last
week on a bad second generation copy taped from TCM, but since then I
got my hands on a slightly better first generation copy. In any
event, based on my very limited expertise I want to call this the
most "lyrical" of the few Bollywood films I've seen. The story
didn't do much for me but perhaps that gave Kamal Amrohi all the more
reason to focus on music, visual texture, emotion, such that one may
realize that those elements are the real reason we watch Bollywood
movies (or any movie) to begin with, plot and other structural
concerns are just chaff. One might call it a post-modern Bollywood
movie, if one can say the same of Leone's Westerns (not that his
Westerns are devoid of structure, but that there's a significant
shifting of what gets emphasized).
Also a shout out to Fred -- I read your capsule of Pooja Kaul's
videos, and they sound very cool. Wish some programmer in New York
would bring them our way...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin"
wrote:
> --- alsolikelife" wrote: Maxime, could you please post the list of
> films being shown at this retrospective?
>
>
http://www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/Actualites/142D35CD4
> FF1B2A0C1256DB400444C43?OpenDocument&sessionM=2.4.1&L=1
>
> Kaagaz Ke Phool , Guru Dutt, 1959
> Mr & Mrs '55 , Guru Dutt, 1955
> Pyaasa , Guru Dutt , 1957
> Aag , Raj Kapoor, 1948
> Awaara , Raj Kapoor, 1951
> Barsaat, Raj Kapoor , 1949
> Shree 420 , Raj Kapoor , 1955
> Aan, Mehboob Khan , 1952
> Andaz , Mehboob Khan , 1949
> Humayun, Mehboob Khan , 1945
> Mother India , Mehboob Khan , 1957
> Admi, Rajaram Vankudre Shantaram , 1939
> Amar Bhoopali , Rajaram Vankudre Shantaram , 1951
> Do Aankhen Barah Haath , Rajaram Vankudre Shantaram, 1957
> Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani , Rajaram Vankudre Shanttaram, 1946
> Bandini, Bimal Roy , 1963
> Devdas, Bimal Roy, 1955
> Madhumati, Bimal Roy , 1958
> Sujata, Bimal Roy , 1959
> Pakeezah, Kamal Amrohi , 1971
> Bandit Queen , Shekar Kapur , 1994
> Bhavni Bhavai , Ketan Mehta , 1980
> Chandni Bar , Madhur Bhandarkar , 2001
> Chandralekha , S. S. Vasan , 1948
> Company, Ram Gopal Varma, 2002
> Deewaar, Yash Chopra , 1975
> Devdas , Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 2002
> Devdas, Pramatesh Chandra Barua , 1935
> Devdas, Sanjay Leela Bhansali , 2002
> Dil Se , Mani Ratnam , 1998
> Ishanou, Aribham Syam Sharma , 1990
> Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Karan Johar, 2001
> Kalpana , Uday Shankar , 1948
> Kandukondain, Kandukondain , Rajiv Menon , 2000
> Kismet, Gyan Mukherjee , 1943
> Lagaan, Ashutosh Gowariker , 2001
> Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon , Chandan Arora , 2003
> Mughal-e-Azam , Karimuddin Asif , 1960
> Nayakan , Mani Ratnam , 1987
> Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam , Abrar Alvi et Guru Dutt, 1962
> Sant Tukaram, Vishnupant Damle et Sheikh Fattelal , 1936
> Satya, Ram Gopal Varma , 1998
> Sholay, Ramesh Sippy , 1975
> Sikandar, Sohrab Modi , 1941
> Street Singer , Phani Majumdar , 1938
> Tere Ghar Ke Saamne , Vijay Anand , 1963
> Umrao Jaan , Muzaffar Ali , 1981
7871
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:02pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
> There's nothing homophobic about SPARTACUS.
Phew! That's a relief! So I'll just stick to harping on Kubrick for
his cumbersome and cynical use of race in THE KILLING.
btw did you guys hear the news about John Ford's alleged bisexuality?
From another message board:
"I just read in Entertainment Weekly that Maureen O'Hara's just
released memoir describes an incident where she walked into Ford's
office unannounced and discovered him kissing another man (she
doesn't say whether it was John Wayne or not)!
Now she could be getting a little revenge on the man as she also
talks about the time that he socked her in the jaw because she didn't
do something he wanted her to do...still, I kinda like the idea that
one of the most "manly-of-manly" directors might have been some
guy's "boytoy" at one point in his life. And...if it is true...I
wonder if he was a "pitcher" or a "catcher"!"
7872
From:
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 2:13pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
> > There's nothing homophobic about SPARTACUS.
>
> Phew! That's a relief! So I'll just stick to harping on Kubrick for
> his cumbersome and cynical use of race in THE KILLING.
>
I'm assuming you're being facetious here which means you do, in fact, find
the oysters scene homophobic. Care to explain?
Kevin
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
7873
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:20pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson
> And we don't "all do it at times." Not at all.
> Racism is NOT a universal state of consciousness
> natural to all.
You're going at two different angles with the above, David. It's not
a universal state of consciousness natural to all. Fine. But that's
not the same as denying that we're all guilty of it.
We all have blood on our teeth, as Philip E. Marlow wisely observed.
-Jaime
7874
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:20pm
Subject: Re: racism and "typing" (was: Mel Gibson)
Dan and David - During the Maoist period the Cahiers dealt at
length with the theory of "typing" in film, which is an important
topic, very much related to racism. Dupont Lajoie was the film
under the microscope, as I recall. Let me throw out a title by a
great filmmaker which shows a highly stereotypical Jewish
moneylender at the beginning of an epic about late 19th Century
capitalism in Poland: Wajda's The Promised Land. Has anyone
in the group seen it? If so, what do you make of that scene?
7875
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:23pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "alsolikelife"
wrote:
> I'll see your SPARTACUS and raise you... THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD
> (1938, Curtiz)!
And I'll see your ROBIN HOOD and raise you WINSTANLEY (1975, Brownlow
and Mollo), which is what BRAVEHEART would look like if Wallace's
people were essentially pacifists, and Gibson only had a budget of
$16,000 with which to make his movie.
-Jaime
7876
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:26pm
Subject: Re: Cold Mountain
> I don't read many reviews, but I read a lot of discussion board
posts,
> and while this point is mentioned again and again (justifiably,
> perhaps), I haven't come across anyone who mentions the brilliant
> moment during the crater attack when the Native American on the
> Confederate side and the black Union soldier, before they begin
> fighting each other, stare at one another in what I hope is
disbelief.
> They fight anyway - it isn't some Stanley Kramer fantasyland
picture
> - but the idea conveyed by that moment (that the two men were
fighting
> for an economic machine that treated them as inferior beings, and
> might on another day will their extinction for different reasons) is
> missing from every other Civil War picture I've seen. Nor can I
> recall an equivalent moment in another movie about a different war.
I wish I could recall one myself, after 100 years of cinema there's
GOT to be an equivalent, but in any event point taken. I think this
moment rhymes somewhat with a later moment when Jude on the run
brushes by an escaped slave and his family and they exchange hard
glances, this too before the shit goes down. They too find
themselves at an impasse, not quite able to help each other --
thinking about what you said, what's interesting is that this time
it's not just the black and the Native American who are equated as
pawns, this time it's the white and the black! In other words Law
the soldier has become as enslaved by the system as the slave. It
seems consistent with Minghella's overall thesis that deep down, in
the end, the Civil War wasn't really about Race. A touchy point to
make, perhaps, but a ballsy one, in its own vanilla way. As much as
I find this interesting, I still kind of wish the black experience of
the Civil War in this movie didn't amount to a couple of hard stares.
Still, the feeling that
> Minghella could have done more nagged at me during and after the
> movie. Minghella depicts a damaged and desiccated country, but at
the end, all wounds are healed - in other words, it's not about the
Civil War at all.
Right... the problem starts when one feels that Minghella isn't
making a statement about the lingering effects of the Civil War, but
offering a palliative image of healing in the wake of All Wars, at
which point it starts to feel generic. (actually
Rosenbaum had a similar problem with THE THIN RED LINE)
By contrast, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN ends with the feeling of
> "all's not well," or "scarred ever after" in place of "happily ever
> after."
Hmmm... on the one hand you've got grampa Damon, his 2 kids and half
dozen grandkids which serve as a resounding image of triumph: his
life was saved, and he has prospered; his family is good and decent
(we can tell this because they're white, clean and well-dressed), and
therefore the sacrifice of Hanks & co. is justified. Or is it? His
last lines are like a reprise of Schindler's repent: "Tell me I'm a
good man! Tell me I've lived a good life!" Spielberg is like the
most guilt-ridden psuedo-Catholic Jewish director ever - I wonder
what his PASSION would have looked like? I dig his concept of
history though: your ancestors suffered, therefore you better get
your shit together, work hard and be nice to others! I've always
thought of Spielberg as Kurosawa's disciple, but this social
philosophy is kind of Mizoguchian in a way...
;-)
Kevin
7877
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:31pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
no, honestly, I haven't seen SPARTACUS in 15 years so I can't
comment. I was just wondering why the movie's most explicitly
homosexual scene would involve the film's "villain" lording it over a
slave. (or was Olivier's character more complicated than that?)
Actually, though, there's another gay bathing scene in BARRY LYNDON
whose purpose seems ambiguous. Is it simple, somewhat derogatory
comic relief or a pointed comment on public vs. private lives and
emotions? I think both.
Kevin
7878
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:31pm
Subject: Re: racism and "typing" (was: Mel Gibson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> Dan and David - During the Maoist period the Cahiers dealt at
> length with the theory of "typing" in film, which is an important
> topic, very much related to racism. Dupont Lajoie was the film
> under the microscope, as I recall. Let me throw out a title by a
> great filmmaker which shows a highly stereotypical Jewish
> moneylender at the beginning of an epic about late 19th Century
> capitalism in Poland: Wajda's The Promised Land. Has anyone
> in the group seen it? If so, what do you make of that scene?
I haven't seen it, but Charles Dickens was a great writer who thought
nothing of a little pre-Nazi Jewish "typing": Fagin in OLIVER TWIST
(especially as Alec Guinness plays him) and the nameless Jew who calls
the lawyer Jaggers "Yaggerth" in GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
Orson Welles' image of Shakespeare's Shylock might be taken as a
grotesque Jewish stereotype, but then again, that play contains the
most powerful anti-anti-Semitism speech imaginable. (Hard to tell
where it's used to more heartbreaking effect: Lubitsch's TO BE OR NOT
TO BE or in Welles' sans makeup performance, which can be seen in
ONE-MAN BAND.)
Speaking of Welles and caricatures, how about when his Chinese
peepshow proprieter in ONE-MAN BAND? And on that tangent, James
Caan's horrifying impersonation of a Chinese in EL DORADO might be the
worst moment in any Hawks film, but the film overall is still great.
-Jaime
7879
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:35pm
Subject: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
sheeet, now I got some viewing to do. I guess I'll have to fold.
Next time hopefully I'll be in a position to call your bluff!
K
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "alsolikelife"
> wrote:
> > I'll see your SPARTACUS and raise you... THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN
HOOD
> > (1938, Curtiz)!
>
> And I'll see your ROBIN HOOD and raise you WINSTANLEY (1975,
Brownlow
> and Mollo), which is what BRAVEHEART would look like if Wallace's
> people were essentially pacifists, and Gibson only had a budget of
> $16,000 with which to make his movie.
>
> -Jaime
7880
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:35pm
Subject: Re: Cold Mountain
> Hmmm... on the one hand you've got grampa Damon, his 2 kids and half
> dozen grandkids which serve as a resounding image of triumph: his
> life was saved, and he has prospered; his family is good and decent
> (we can tell this because they're white, clean and well-dressed), and
> therefore the sacrifice of Hanks & co. is justified. Or is it? His
> last lines are like a reprise of Schindler's repent: "Tell me I'm a
> good man! Tell me I've lived a good life!"
Hmm - I don't see why he can't have both. We're complex beings, we
humans! You observe this contradiction yourself, but find it
ridiculous whereas I find it compelling. To each his own, I guess.
(I also don't see what his being white has to do with it.)
-Jaime
7881
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:37pm
Subject: Winstanley (1975; Brownlow and Mollo)
It's on DVD, if you're interested. Good film and educational, though
a bit too unilateral to generate a great deal of drama.
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "alsolikelife"
wrote:
> sheeet, now I got some viewing to do. I guess I'll have to fold.
> Next time hopefully I'll be in a position to call your bluff!
>
> K
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "alsolikelife"
> > wrote:
> > > I'll see your SPARTACUS and raise you... THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN
> HOOD
> > > (1938, Curtiz)!
> >
> > And I'll see your ROBIN HOOD and raise you WINSTANLEY (1975,
> Brownlow
> > and Mollo), which is what BRAVEHEART would look like if Wallace's
> > people were essentially pacifists, and Gibson only had a budget of
> > $16,000 with which to make his movie.
> >
> > -Jaime
7882
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: Guru Dutt & others/ Bollywood recommendations? Programme
> Just as a follow up, I want to report on PYAASA, which I watched last
> week on a bad second generation copy taped from TCM, but since then I
> got my hands on a slightly better first generation copy. In any
> event, based on my very limited expertise I want to call this the
> most "lyrical" of the few Bollywood films I've seen. The story
> didn't do much for me but perhaps that gave Kamal Amrohi all the more
> reason to focus on music, visual texture, emotion, such that one may
> realize that those elements are the real reason we watch Bollywood
> movies (or any movie) to begin with, plot and other structural
> concerns are just chaff. One might call it a post-modern Bollywood
> movie, if one can say the same of Leone's Westerns (not that his
> Westerns are devoid of structure, but that there's a significant
> shifting of what gets emphasized).
Amrohi directed PAKEEZAH, right? Is that the film you're discussing?
PYASSA doesn't seem too postmodern to me. - Dan
7883
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:51pm
Subject: Re: Cold Mountain
Don't get me wrong, Jaime. I cried my eyes out the first time I saw
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. AND the second time, when I showed it to a bunch
of Chinese college students who were bawling their eyes out by the
end. Since then I've acquired a new set of eyes that sees the film
less favorably, but I can't deny my initial experience of it. So
maybe my flippancy has to do with having to account for those two
almost mutually exclusive responses. In some ways SAVING PRIVATE
RYAN is impeccably constructed. Perhaps then I feel compelled for
some reason to rail against that impeccability.
> (I also don't see what his being white has to do with it.)
>
Well I was just poking around at matters of presentation and the
codes they carry. But you now have me wondering how this film would
have played out if it were Cuba Gooding Jr and not Matt Damon being
saved??? Better? or worse???
7884
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:57pm
Subject: Raja (Jacques Doillon, 2003/4)
I just received a message from a company called Film Movement telling
me that Doillon's latest film, RAJA, a very serious comedy about
romance and colonial domination, will open in New York at the end of
March. Dan Sallitt holds it as his favorite 2003, and I desperately
need to see it again. (I didn't love it when I saw it at the New York
Film Festival, but its drama stuck in my craw and stayed there.)
Outstanding use of 'Scope framing that emphasizes the interplay (and
conflict) of a half dozen or so distinct emotional spaces - reflected
against a backdrop of a few deceptively wide-open and revealing
physical spaces (how's that for a non-vague use of the term?), and a
tough non-sitcom, non-romcom situation that offers no easy answers for
its protagonists. It's not a coincidence that all of the above sounds
a lot like Preminger's BONJOUR TRISTESSE.
New York readers will find it at Cinema Village and the Two Boots
Pioneer starting March 26th.
If it doesn't come to your city, the company that's controlling the US
release is also selling an anamorphic widescreen DVD on their website,
http://www.filmmovement.com .
-Jaime
7885
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:00pm
Subject: Re: Guru Dutt & others/ Bollywood recommendations? Programme
Well it ain't no Resnais or Marker or Tarantino or whoever, but
perhaps along the continuum of Bollywood history it strikes me as an
instance where the film makes fetish objects out of the moods and
emotions and all the other things that make Bollywood Bollywood,
placing them not as the emotional or aesthetic result of the content
but as the content itself. Could this be described as "post-modern"
or is it something else? Perhaps the film doesn't do enough to show
the viewer that it is aware of its reprioritizing of elements. Would
you agree that Leone is post-modern?
On the other hand, I haven't seen anything by Ritwik Ghatak, who
while not being a Bollywood filmmaker is often described as India's
Godard, and who made his most significant films before PYAASA. We
should import a Bollywood expert into this board, I for one would
gain much from that...
7886
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:04pm
Subject: Re: Cold Mountain
I feel protective of Spielberg because he gets no play from
auteurists. Which is unusual, since Sarris dug A.I. and EMPIRE OF THE
SUN in a big way.
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "alsolikelife"
wrote:
> Don't get me wrong, Jaime. I cried my eyes out the first time I saw
> SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. AND the second time, when I showed it to a bunch
> of Chinese college students who were bawling their eyes out by the
> end. Since then I've acquired a new set of eyes that sees the film
> less favorably, but I can't deny my initial experience of it. So
> maybe my flippancy has to do with having to account for those two
> almost mutually exclusive responses. In some ways SAVING PRIVATE
> RYAN is impeccably constructed. Perhaps then I feel compelled for
> some reason to rail against that impeccability.
>
> > (I also don't see what his being white has to do with it.)
> >
>
> Well I was just poking around at matters of presentation and the
> codes they carry. But you now have me wondering how this film would
> have played out if it were Cuba Gooding Jr and not Matt Damon being
> saved??? Better? or worse???
7887
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:07pm
Subject: Re: Raja (Jacques Doillon, 2003/4)
Awesome. This was one of my favorites of last year and of the NYFF
films I saw it came in at #4 after DOGVILLE, ELEPHANT and THE FOG OF
WAR (well maybe I'd put it at #3 since the recent Morris-bashing has
left me with cinepsychic scars). It's a messy film about messy
feelings between people who keep failing to connect whether they want
to or not. Perhaps a bit hard to get into at first but very relevant
to life in the dysfunctional neighborhood known as our world today.
In other NYFF '03 news, I was talking last night with a fellow Tsai
Ming Liang fan about why we were disappointed with GOODBYE DRAGON
INN... not sure why this is so high on the list of so many respected
critics...
7888
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:09pm
Subject: Re: Raja (Jacques Doillon, 2003/4)
correction: by "messy film" I mean the emotions depicted are messy
but Doillon's filmmaking (as Jaime describes) is remarkably
controlled and precise. (all the more remarkable as this time he
doesn't have 5-year olds to push around)
7889
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: racism and "typing" (was: Mel Gibson)
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> Speaking of Welles and caricatures, how about when
> his Chinese
> peepshow proprieter in ONE-MAN BAND? And on that
> tangent, James
> Caan's horrifying impersonation of a Chinese in EL
> DORADO might be the
> worst moment in any Hawks film, but the film overall
> is still great.
>
> -Jaime
>
It's a long road from a handful of distasteful
stereotypes and the likes of "Jud Suss" and "NASCAR
Jesus."
>
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7890
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:38pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
--- alsolikelife wrote:
> no, honestly, I haven't seen SPARTACUS in 15 years
> so I can't
> comment. I was just wondering why the movie's most
> explicitly
> homosexual scene would involve the film's "villain"
> lording it over a
> slave. (or was Olivier's character more complicated
> than that?)
>
He's quite complicated. Kubrick isn't interested in
cardboard villainy.
> Actually, though, there's another gay bathing scene
> in BARRY LYNDON
> whose purpose seems ambiguous. Is it simple,
> somewhat derogatory
> comic relief or a pointed comment on public vs.
> private lives and
> emotions? I think both.
>
It's played for a mild chuckle. fascinating bit
nonetheless in what I think is Kubrick's best-- and
most Jewish -- film.
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7891
From: alsolikelife
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:41pm
Subject: Re: Cold Mountain
> I feel protective of Spielberg because he gets no play from
> auteurists.
Maybe because he's the most obvious choice in the current spectrum of
filmmaking to merit a full-scale auteurist study, but people are
either too resentful or too chickenshit to do so. Did you read AO
Scott's article in a NY Times magazine from late December? He
presented the case that Spielberg has really come into an artistic
blossoming over his last three films. What did you think of
sensesofcinema's Spielberg articles from last year?
Spielberg, Kurosawa and Zhang Yimou make up my own "axis of
ambivalence"; I've defended and attacked all three of them on various
occasions. These are gifted filmmakers whose skills are undeniable
but I find myself constantly questioning the deployment of said
skills. It's not that their films lack for interesting ideas, not in
the least; it's just that sometimes they resemble A-list pitchmen
deploying a stunning arsenal of razzle dazzle effects building to
unequivocal emotional catharsis and attendant moral rectitude. It's
the films that I find deeply self-conflicted and unsure of what
message they have to sell (i.e. A.I., HERO, SEVEN SAMURAI) that I
feel like I can take an active part in exploring the worlds they've
created. But in any case their careers, if anything, are even more
fascinating than their movies and most certainly have a lot to tell
us about what it means to be a popular artist.
7892
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:00pm
Subject: Re: Re: Raja (Jacques Doillon, 2003/4)
RAJA: I didn't like it very much, but don't disregard it also. A good
Doillon is a dry Doillon, so Le Petit Criminel is my pick (didn't see the
one David loves, have taped it on TV5). It didn't look to me as similar to
Preminger but rather to Bertolucci (it reads: not a great Klee but a
mediocre Dali), in special Besieged. Those who love it might as well take
the tram...
GOODBYE DRAGON INN: Count me in for one that didn't like it, even being a
Tsai fan (and maybe mainly for that reason). I've written on why I dislike
it for a piece on the festival films of 2003 for Contracampo. For matters of
provocation only (it reads: :))) ): Cinema Paradiso of auterists, anyone?
ruy
ps.: anyone on the list is an user of e-Mule? With it I got to download
fairly good copies of films as Seijun SUZUKI's "Branded To Kill", HONG
Sang-Soo's "Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors", "King HU's "Come Drink
With Me", Fruit CHAN's "Made In Hong Kong", TSUI Hark's "The Legend Of Zu",
JIA Znahgke's "Xiao Wu", Jean EUSTACHE's "Une Sale histoire" and Mikio
NARUSE's "When a Woman Descends a Staircase", as well as every Chris
CUNNINGHAM video I could find (now dowloading TSUI's "The Blade", the
stationary YANG's "Mahjong" and HU's "A Touch Of Zen"). The toy of the
century. Pirate internet is not only filled with bills killed, rings burned
or matrixes trespassed...
----- Original Message -----
From: "alsolikelife"
To:
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 5:07 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Raja (Jacques Doillon, 2003/4)
> Awesome. This was one of my favorites of last year and of the NYFF
> films I saw it came in at #4 after DOGVILLE, ELEPHANT and THE FOG OF
> WAR (well maybe I'd put it at #3 since the recent Morris-bashing has
> left me with cinepsychic scars). It's a messy film about messy
> feelings between people who keep failing to connect whether they want
> to or not. Perhaps a bit hard to get into at first but very relevant
> to life in the dysfunctional neighborhood known as our world today.
>
> In other NYFF '03 news, I was talking last night with a fellow Tsai
> Ming Liang fan about why we were disappointed with GOODBYE DRAGON
> INN... not sure why this is so high on the list of so many respected
> critics...
7893
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson
Ah but I've got an electric toothbrush!
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> We all have blood on our teeth, as Philip E. Marlow
> wisely observed.
>
> -Jaime
>
>
__________________________________
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7894
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:05pm
Subject: Re: Re: Raja errata
the correct name of the Mikio Naruse film is "When a Woman Ascends The
Stairs (Onna ga kaidan o agaru toki , 1960)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054144/
And the correct JIA first name (do you say that regarding oriental names?)
is Zhangke
ruy
> JIA Znahgke's "Xiao Wu", Jean EUSTACHE's "Une Sale histoire" and Mikio
> NARUSE's "When a Woman Descends a Staircase", as well as every Chris
> CUNNINGHAM video I could find (now dowloading TSUI's "The Blade", the
> stationary YANG's "Mahjong" and HU's "A Touch Of Zen"). The toy of the
> century. Pirate internet is not only filled with bills killed, rings
burned
> or matrixes trespassed...
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "alsolikelife"
> To:
> Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 5:07 PM
> Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Raja (Jacques Doillon, 2003/4)
>
>
> > Awesome. This was one of my favorites of last year and of the NYFF
> > films I saw it came in at #4 after DOGVILLE, ELEPHANT and THE FOG OF
> > WAR (well maybe I'd put it at #3 since the recent Morris-bashing has
> > left me with cinepsychic scars). It's a messy film about messy
> > feelings between people who keep failing to connect whether they want
> > to or not. Perhaps a bit hard to get into at first but very relevant
> > to life in the dysfunctional neighborhood known as our world today.
> >
> > In other NYFF '03 news, I was talking last night with a fellow Tsai
> > Ming Liang fan about why we were disappointed with GOODBYE DRAGON
> > INN... not sure why this is so high on the list of so many respected
> > critics...
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
7895
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:48pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mel Gibson influences five card stud
--- alsolikelife wrote:
>
> btw did you guys hear the news about John Ford's
> alleged bisexuality?
> From another message board:
>
> "I just read in Entertainment Weekly that Maureen
> O'Hara's just
> released memoir describes an incident where she
> walked into Ford's
> office unannounced and discovered him kissing
> another man (she
> doesn't say whether it was John Wayne or not)!
>
Yes I read "Datalounge" too. Maureen doesn't want
Esther Williams having all the fun.
I'd say Woody Strode was more likely object of Fordian
affection. At any rate he was a lot more kissable than
"The Duke."
Have you read Paul Mazuresky's piece in the "Vanity
Fair" Hollywood issue about lunch at Cukor's where he
was assigned to water Ford's wine and keep him away
from
sweets? Great stuff.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail.
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7896
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cold Mountain
all three please the common sense a lot, even though I'd say Kurosawa
pleases "intelectual common sense", the way a Lars Ovni (Omni?) Trier does
today. Not that easy, but may do for a start.
I like ET alot, as well as To Live, and think at least 5 Kurosawas are
great.
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "alsolikelife"
To:
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 5:41 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Cold Mountain
> > I feel protective of Spielberg because he gets no play from
> > auteurists.
>
> Maybe because he's the most obvious choice in the current spectrum of
> filmmaking to merit a full-scale auteurist study, but people are
> either too resentful or too chickenshit to do so. Did you read AO
> Scott's article in a NY Times magazine from late December? He
> presented the case that Spielberg has really come into an artistic
> blossoming over his last three films. What did you think of
> sensesofcinema's Spielberg articles from last year?
>
> Spielberg, Kurosawa and Zhang Yimou make up my own "axis of
> ambivalence"; I've defended and attacked all three of them on various
> occasions. These are gifted filmmakers whose skills are undeniable
> but I find myself constantly questioning the deployment of said
> skills. It's not that their films lack for interesting ideas, not in
> the least; it's just that sometimes they resemble A-list pitchmen
> deploying a stunning arsenal of razzle dazzle effects building to
> unequivocal emotional catharsis and attendant moral rectitude. It's
> the films that I find deeply self-conflicted and unsure of what
> message they have to sell (i.e. A.I., HERO, SEVEN SAMURAI) that I
> feel like I can take an active part in exploring the worlds they've
> created. But in any case their careers, if anything, are even more
> fascinating than their movies and most certainly have a lot to tell
> us about what it means to be a popular artist.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
7897
From: Jess Amortell
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 9:02pm
Subject: Re: racism and "typing" (was: Mel Gibson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> Let me throw out a title by a
> great filmmaker which shows a highly stereotypical Jewish
> moneylender at the beginning of an epic about late 19th Century
> capitalism in Poland: Wajda's The Promised Land. Has anyone
> in the group seen it? If so, what do you make of that scene?
It couldn't be much worse than the one in Gremillon's great LA PETITE LISE from 1930, to take something seen recently -- a caricature that arguably went way beyond "typing," although presumably generic to its period (though obviously not present in every French film of the period) (and probably no worse than the likes of S. Fetchit at the time). This Gremillon seemed directly comparable to Barnet's OKRAINA in its still startling sound design, by the way; I wondered if its disturbing "Fagin" stereotype might have helped account for its absence from BAM's retro last year.
7898
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 9:26pm
Subject: Re: Racism and "typing"
Jaime wrote: "I haven't seen it, but Charles Dickens was a great
writer who thought nothing of a little pre-Nazi Jewish "typing":
Fagin in OLIVER TWIST(especially as Alec Guinness plays him)
and the nameless Jew who calls the lawyer Jaggers "Yaggerth"
in GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
"Orson Welles' image of Shakespeare's Shylock might be taken
as a grotesque Jewish stereotype, but then again, that play
contains the most powerful anti-anti-Semitism speech
imaginable. (Hard to tellwhere it's used to more heartbreaking
effect: Lubitsch's TO BE OR NOTTO BE or in Welles' sans
makeup performance, which can be seen inONE-MAN BAND.)"
I just saw a series of Welles Shylocks, which will be playing in
NY this weekend at Film Forum as part of the Theatre and Film
program in the Welles rarities series. The first, done for Dean
Martin, is the best as a performance, and he frames it as a
statement against anti-Semitism.
That's how he saw the character when I talked to him about it,
although he also seemed to acknowledge that Shylock was
originally played as comic - then he added that, like Malvolio,
Shylock is a tragic chaarcter in a comic play.
My insufferable mentor Harold Bloom, on the other hand,
cheerfully acknowledges that the play is anti-Semitic and
dangerously so because Shakespeare created an Evil Jew who
will live forever.
The really fascinating Welles Shylock is the one in the Merchant
of Venice scenes that will also show at Film Forum in that same
part of the program, because here Welles completely backs off
the big, heavily accented and very expresive charcaterization he
had done on tv. The Shylock in the film is heavily made up and
costumed, but he throws his lines away, including the speech
we heard on tv, which is delivered almost in an undertone, and
with no feeling. The film is very much about Venice as a corrupt
society within which Shylock is an outsider, a black dot moving
through a Braoque landscape. Highly intriguing.
Then you see Welles trying it again on location in France and yet
again in Spain, trying to put the character across as deeply felt
and tragic. And there's the lost first version, which he said he did
for BBC the first time anyone ever shot video, as a test - two or
three scenes. (I believe there's a still from this in Stefan's book
Unknown Welles booklet, which also contains my interview with
OW, where he goes into his interpretation.) And the Everybody's
Shakespeare volume of Merchant of Venice, dating from the 30s.
There's no doubt that Welles is innocent of any charges of
anti-Semitism in his performances of Shylock. The question is,
is it a correct reading, or is Bloom right when he says the
character was Shakespeare's attempt to top Marlowe's
exuberantly evil Jew of Malta? This isn't one where we can just
talk about an unpleasant stereotype. The play is about Shylock,
and it either is or isn't anti-Semitic.
If it isn't, it may be homophobic, because Welles told me that he
thinks Shylock's enemies are gay lovers, and he plays them that
way in the film!
No one has seen The Promised Land?
7899
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 9:30pm
Subject: Re: racism and "typing" (was: Mel Gibson)
ADVERTISEMENT
[The stereotype in Promised land] couldn't be much worse than
the one in Gremillon's great LA PETITE LISE from
1930, to take something seen recently -- a caricature that
arguably went way
beyond "typing," although presumably generic to its period
(though obviously not
present in every French film of the period) (and probably no
worse than the
likes of S. Fetchit at the time). This Gremillon seemed directly
comparable to
Barnet's OKRAINA in its still startling sound design, by the way; I
wondered if
its disturbing "Fagin" stereotype might have helped account for
its absence from
BAM's retro last year.>
I haven't seen la Petite lise - and boy would I like to - but it's
1930; Promised Land is way post-Holocaust.
BTW, my favorite Pagnol, Le Schpountz, conatins an anti-racist
"hath not a Jew eyes" speech by the head of the studio that
totally comes out of left field. Pre WWII.
7900
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 9:33pm
Subject: Re: Re: Guru Dutt & others/ Bollywood recommendations? Programme
> Well it ain't no Resnais or Marker or Tarantino or whoever, but
> perhaps along the continuum of Bollywood history it strikes me as an
> instance where the film makes fetish objects out of the moods and
> emotions and all the other things that make Bollywood Bollywood,
> placing them not as the emotional or aesthetic result of the content
> but as the content itself. Could this be described as "post-modern"
> or is it something else? Perhaps the film doesn't do enough to show
> the viewer that it is aware of its reprioritizing of elements. Would
> you agree that Leone is post-modern?
I was just asking which film you were referring to, because you
mentioned PYASSA (which is a Guru Dutt film) but talked about Amrohi
(who directed PAKEEZAH). I'm open to the postmodern argument once I
figure out which film I'm talking about.
Yeah, I guess Leone could be called postmodern.
> On the other hand, I haven't seen anything by Ritwik Ghatak, who
> while not being a Bollywood filmmaker is often described as India's
> Godard, and who made his most significant films before PYAASA. We
> should import a Bollywood expert into this board, I for one would
> gain much from that...
I don't love Ghatak, but he's an interesting guy. My favorite is
SUBARNAREKHA, though I get the feeling that A CLOUD-CAPPED STAR is the
consensus favorite. - Dan
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