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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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8601
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:32pm
Subject: Re: Ripleymania
The Chase is a fascinating film, just reeking with atmosphere.
It *is* available on a DVD from Alpha Video. I found a copy in
a supermarket for five or six bucks, but the visuals look mighty
murky, like a video simply copied onto a disc. It's better than
nothing, but a chance to see it on the big screen should not be
missed.
When is it playing? (I might be in LA at the end of April, so
maybe I could take my own advice!)
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> More good news from the Cinematheque, for Arthur (THUNDER
> ROAD, CANDLE IN THE WIND) Ripley fans who live in LA or
> have frequent flyer miles: their April noir series will include a
35
> print of THE CHASE, long impossible - or very, very hard - to see.
> Well, I sure haven't seen it. Now if they can just find PRISONER
> OF JAPAN...
8602
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: Help locating Bunuel tapes
> >
> > Cela s'appelle l'aurore
Bill, I have this one (with portuguese subtitles). If you
can't find a copy with english subtitles, I can manage to
copy it to you.
Filipe
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
8603
From: filipefurtado
Date: Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Ripleymania
Can someone recommend any writing on Ripley? Or recommend
some films? I really liked Thunder Road, but never find a
copy of anything else (or any good writing on him, even the
ocasional review of Thunder Road usually barely mentions his
existence).
Filipe
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
8604
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 0:04am
Subject: Re: Re: Ripleymania
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "filipefurtado"
wrote:
> Can someone recommend any writing on Ripley? Or recommend
> some films? I really liked Thunder Road, but never find a
> copy of anything else (or any good writing on him, even the
> ocasional review of Thunder Road usually barely mentions his
> existence).
>
> Filipe
>
There is a longish essay on Ripley in "50 ans de cinema americain".
The piece was co-written by Tavernier and myself.
JPC.
> ---
8605
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 1:14am
Subject: Re: Re: Ripleymania
I've seen "The Chase" about twice but decades ago. I liked it very much,
and it has a scene, maybe five minutes, of true delirium, in which a
character as no idea what's happening, full of repetitions or
semi-repitions, that's great. If somenoe remembers the scene and likes
it as much as I do, feel free to provide a better description.
- Fred C.
8606
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 3:53am
Subject: Re: Re: ATSAS screenings
I don't know how anyone can possibly say that. It's
one of Tourneur's loveliest Westerns and it has the
great Hoagy Carmichael song "Old Buttermilk Sky."
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I have a friend whose mother worked uncredited on
> the script of CANYON
> PASSAGE when she was a UCLA student. (I believe
> that Ernest Pascal was
> her professor, and drafted two students to help
> him.) When Lloyd met my
> friend and heard about her mother's connection to
> greatness, he got on
> his knees and bowed to the ground! My friend was
> mighty perplexed, as
> both she and her mother believe that CANYON PASSAGE
> is a piece of junk.
> - Dan
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8607
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 4:47am
Subject: Re: ATSAS screenings
You have to remember that 90% at least of the entire world
population would agree with the lady. Maybe not "piece of junk" but
certainly totally insignificant, forgettable little western. We keep
forgetting that this worship of those old movies that we share is
childish and incomprehensible to most ordinary people. We're still
pretty much like the early Christians in their catacombs. Talk to non
film buffs for a reality check.
JPC
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> I don't know how anyone can possibly say that. It's
> one of Tourneur's loveliest Westerns and it has the
> great Hoagy Carmichael song "Old Buttermilk Sky."
>
> --- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> >
> > I have a friend whose mother worked uncredited on
> > the script of CANYON
> > PASSAGE when she was a UCLA student. (I believe
> > that Ernest Pascal was
> > her professor, and drafted two students to help
> > him.) When Lloyd met my
> > friend and heard about her mother's connection to
> > greatness, he got on
> > his knees and bowed to the ground! My friend was
> > mighty perplexed, as
> > both she and her mother believe that CANYON PASSAGE
> > is a piece of junk.
> > - Dan
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
> http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8608
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 4:48am
Subject: Re: Ripleymania
It's not fair, I think, to describe the "delirium" scene from
The Chase if some people are going to see it for the first time
soon because it's a major plot twist and kicks the movie into
a different register (which is partly what makes it memorable).
A number of elements in the film reminded me of Welles,
especially the Havana scenes that exude that sense of
rotting grandeur in Touch of Evil, and there's a baroque
sort of Chinese curio shop that seems straight out of Mr.
Arkadin. However, it seems a lot more erotic than other
Welles films, except of course Lady From Shanghai, and Ripley
plays with light and shadows and textures enough to satisfy
Sternberg! The lushly neurasthenic musical score (in high 1940s
style) is used in interesting ways too.
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> I've seen "The Chase" about twice but decades ago. I liked it very
much,
> and it has a scene, maybe five minutes, of true delirium, in which
a
> character as no idea what's happening, full of repetitions or
> semi-repitions, that's great. If somenoe remembers the scene and
likes
> it as much as I do, feel free to provide a better description.
>
> - Fred C.
8609
From: Andy Rector
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 6:10am
Subject: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
I disagree JPC, Canyon Passage is a serious film. It would be
recieved that way if certain cultural checkpoints were smashed; if
one viewed it without prejudice, mainly the high/low prejudice
expressed by the UCLA ghostwriter ("it's trash"), or the prejudice
that years of watching television (rarely serious in it's approach,
craft, intention) and being told High Noon or Monster is a good
movie would produce. If one wasn't culturally colonized one could
see it's qualities which speak to colonization, prejudice,
tolerance, and the right to self determination...I think Canyon
Passage has one of the most empathetic portrayals of Native
Americans, even in their strike on the settlers. Weighed better and
less hysterical than The Searchers or even Ride Lonesome.
Besides as David said, it is lovely... and ANY-ONE can see that, not
just specialists, cultists (were we talking about the beauty of
Walsh films, one could make the arguement that it is a specialists
beauty, dealing with knowledge of the way studio films were made...)
Hoagy C's songs are wonderful and in a rather traditional vein, not
trash or hokum but like folk songs. Not a note of cheapness is ever
struck, as in every Tourneur I've seen, not one ignoble moment. My
mother saw Leopard Man and took it quite seriously as art-- it's
hard not to with such sobriety, and this goes for Canyon Passage
too.
cordially
andy
ps- good luck with the film Dan!
8610
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 7:02am
Subject: The Kubrick Estate Archives - Frankfurt Exhibition
I was wondering if anyone on the list was planning on attending this
(in general, or more specifically the press invite early on opening day
with Christiane and Jan Harlan on hand) --
http://www.stanleykubrick.de/
For me, this exhibit is the chance of a lifetime -- I'll probably
attend sometime in June.
craig.
8611
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 4:23pm
Subject: Re: Ripleymania
Filipe:
> even the ocasional review of Thunder Road usually barely mentions
> [Arthur Ripley's] existence).
The book KINGS OF THE B'S (edited by Todd McCarthy and Charles
Flynn, 1975) has a piece on THUNDER ROAD by Richard Thompson.
Although a big photograph of Arthur Ripley occupies the page
opposite the first page of the article ("Thunder Road: Maudit--'The
Devil Got Him First'"), the piece itself focuses entirely on
Mitchum. The one paragraph that seems to mention Ripley (from my
brief scan anyway) says he was a good choice to direct Mitchum's
vision because of his "Stone Age" shooting style.
I keep running into these relevant books at the library purely by
accident ...
--Zach
8612
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 4:52pm
Subject: Re: Ripleymania
>
> When is it playing? (I might be in LA at the end of April, so
> maybe I could take my own advice!)
>
> --Robert Keser
>
Alas, it's April 3 at 9:15.
8613
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 4:59pm
Subject: Re: The Kubrick Estate Archives - Frankfurt Exhibition
>
> For me, this exhibit is the chance of a lifetime -- I'll probably
> attend sometime in June.
>
> craig.
Not quite - many of the key documents from the archives - like maybe
3000 pp. worth! - will be available in book form one of these days,
when the girl laboring in the very same barn has finished her work,
as The Ultimate Kubrick. One of those books-in-a-box.
8614
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 5:03pm
Subject: Re: Ripleymania
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
wrote:
> Filipe:
> > even the ocasional review of Thunder Road usually barely mentions
> > [Arthur Ripley's] existence).
>
> The book KINGS OF THE B'S (edited by Todd McCarthy and Charles
> Flynn, 1975) has a piece on THUNDER ROAD by Richard Thompson.
That description, of course, is uninformed, and typical of the style
even good critics use to write about low-budget films. The book also
contains the famous quote from Ulmer, who finished Prisoner of Japan
at PRC when AR fell ill. "Ripley was a very sick man. Bogdanovich:
Mentally or physically? EGU: Mentally AND physically."
Filipe, I was only able to see Candle in the Wind at the home of a
friend, Lee Sanders, who sold his 16 print to the French
Cinematheque. I hope they are preserving it. It's a beautiful film,
and possible the most despairing film ever made.
8615
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 5:19pm
Subject: Kubrick:Oeuvre + Kubrick Estate Archives - Frankfurt Exhibition
> > For me, this exhibit is the chance of a lifetime -- I'll probably
> > attend sometime in June.
> >
> > craig.
> Not quite - many of the key documents from the archives - like maybe
> 3000 pp. worth! - will be available in book form one of these days,
> when the girl laboring in the very same barn has finished her work,
> as The Ultimate Kubrick. One of those books-in-a-box.
Well, in the "flesh" and all. A catalogue of the exhibit will also be
purchasable -- you can download a PDF of the order-form from the
exhibit's site to print out and mail in.
Is the Taschen project the books of the archive documents that you're
referring to? I know they've got one massive general volume of
works-in-progress and then some ('Aryan Papers,' 'Wartime Lies,'
'A.I.') planned for some point in the future, with Christiane's full
involvement -- and they're putting another volume together that will be
dedicated solely to 'Napoleon,' reproducing his "master script" in full
facsimile.
Ah, here it is, found the site. The project is called Kubrick:Oeuvre --
http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/excerpts/film/show/1/53.htm
Again, joyous excitement -- from me at least.
craig.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
8616
From: Chris Fujiwara
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 5:14pm
Subject: Re: Ripleymania
There is some material on Ripley in Lee Server's Robert Mitchum
biography (St. Martin's Press, 2001). Ripley is described as a heavy
drinker with strange personal habits ("he seldom changed clothes or
bathed... he looked so frighteningly unkempt that intermediaries hid
him under blankets" when Walter Wanger visited the set of a film
Ripley was shooting for Wanger; I presume this was I Met My Love
Again).
Server quotes Joshua Logan as calling Ripley "a true movie man.... He
knew everything there was to know. An inspired man, almost a
clairvoyant."
Matthew Bernstein's book on Walter Wanger says that Ripley suggested
ideas for scenes that were added to Borzage's History Is Made at
Night after the film had been finished and previewed.
Edgar G. Ulmer told Peter Bogdanovich that Ripley was "a sick man...
mentally and physically."
Was it mentioned here already that Ripley directed some of the best
W. C. Fields shorts?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
wrote:
8617
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 5:53pm
Subject: Re: Kubrick:Oeuvre + Kubrick Estate Archives - Frankfurt Exhibition
I should also note that in the Weekend magazine supplement of The
Guardian today, there's a big article on the archives in Hertfordshire
-- I don't think this is available online, but I could be wrong. If I
can't find a copy in New York this weekend, a friend already has one
and is making scans for me, so if anyone is interested, just email me
privately and I'll forward them on once I receive them.
craig.
8618
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 6:34pm
Subject: Re: Help locating Bunuel tapes
If Charles Silver (Silvers?) is still there, he might be a good bet--
he's one of the relative old-timers. Larry Kardish, who's definitely
there, would also be worth asking.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
> wrote:
> > His cutting down of "Triumph of the Will" was done for Museum
> of
> > Modern Art, so somebody there would probably know.
> >
> I know - who do I call? (All answers accepted except
> "Ghosbusters.")
8619
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 8:00pm
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
> I disagree JPC, Canyon Passage is a serious film.
Where did I say it was not a serious film?! I love Canyon Passage,
for goodness sake!
o
> Besides as David said, it is lovely... and ANY-ONE can see that,
not
> just specialists, cultists (were we talking about the beauty of
> Walsh films, one could make the arguement that it is a specialists
> beauty, dealing with knowledge of the way studio films were made...)
Yes it's lovely. And maybe ANY ONE can see that, but the fact is
that not every one does and in fact only a few do. The lady's
reaction was typical based on my experience of "ordinary" viewers'
reactions to most old genre movies. Besides, i don't quite see how
the beauty of a Walsh film should be more difficult to grasp than the
beauty of Tourneur's Canyon Passage. Two different stylists but in
the same idiom.
JPC
Hoagy C's songs are wonderful and in a rather traditional vein, not
> trash or hokum but like folk songs.
Sure and I'm a Hoagy fan from wayback myself. JPC
ps- good luck with the film Dan!
8620
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 8:28pm
Subject: Ripley & Langdon
Going back even before Fields shorts, Ripley seems to have had a
considerable influence on Harry Langdon's features (he provided the
story for all but one of them) and Capra himself has written that
Langdon tended to follow Ripley more and more and Capra less and less
until the break with Capra. There is a bizarre, fetichistic, sado-
masochistic trend in those Langdon films that becomes even stronger
after Capra's departure,especially in "The Chaser" directed by
Langdon and written by Ripley. The film is a comic version of a
classic masochistic fantasy about forced transvestism... I discussed
this and the Krafft-Ebingness of much of the Langdon oeuvre in "50
ans de cinema americain".
JPC
8621
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 9:24pm
Subject: Re: Help locating Bunuel tapes
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> If Charles Silver (Silvers?) is still there, he might be a good bet-
-
> he's one of the relative old-timers. Larry Kardish, who's
definitely
> there, would also be worth asking.
>
Merci!
8622
From: Andy Rector
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 11:51pm
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
I know you like the film.
At first you said to talk to others for a reality check about
ourselves, I say that in reality the film is serious and beautiful.
We are not special or outcasts for saying the film is beautiful, it
just is beautiful; I want to say that 90% of the world would find it
beautiful if they saw it (UCLA students and those who share their
world view and taste don't make up 90% of the world population). Old
genre movies do have a hard time with some audiences (in the US
especially) but it's because the audience has been given a vaccine
against them through television, unable to see them seriously.
What's the purpose of pointing out our exceptional viewing habits?
We're not special for seeing movies a certain way, though we are
privledged for seeing films. After a while we can
see the films on their own terms, but this is very difficult if
one's reflex is to make fun of everything. Anybody can do the
opposite. If the "ordinary" viewer can take Godfather films
seriously, why not Tourneur??
The beauty of a Walsh film isn't difficult, it's just more esoteric,
relatively so, than the beauty of light, color, space and lucidity
of Canyon Passage. Walsh, for me, is beautiful like a constant flow
of invention, like a vexation.
yours,
andy
8623
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:23am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
> I know you like the film.
> At first you said to talk to others for a reality check about
> ourselves, I say that in reality the film is serious and
beautiful.
I was not talking about "reality" -- which is your (and my) reality
that the film is beautiful -- but about the reality that a majority
of people are unable to perceive that reality and therefore it is not
reality to them.
> We are not special or outcasts for saying the film is beautiful, it
> just is beautiful; I want to say that 90% of the world would find
it
> beautiful if they saw it (UCLA students and those who share their
> world view and taste don't make up 90% of the world population).
I'm sorry Andy, this is Utopia. How many of the tens of thousands
of people who saw the film when it came out thought it was "serious
and beautiful"? Of course I can't answer my own question but still I
doubt very much that there was one in ten thousand (remember: people
were not "progammed" to respond to movies, especially westerns,
as "serious and beautiful" in those days.) And if you did it today
I'm afraid the result wouldn't be all that much better.
You refer to "UCLA students and those who share their world view"
but what does that mean? Do UCLA students have a world view that is
different from the rest of the world? And what would that be?
Old
> genre movies do have a hard time with some audiences (in the US
> especially) but it's because the audience has been given a vaccine
> against them through television,
Although television is just about the only venue where they can
see "old" films.
unable to see them seriously.
> What's the purpose of pointing out our exceptional viewing habits?
Because it's the reality!
>
We're not special for seeing movies a certain way, though we are
> privledged for seeing films. After a while we can
> see the films on their own terms, but this is very difficult if
> one's reflex is to make fun of everything. Anybody can do the
> opposite. If the "ordinary" viewer can take Godfather films
> seriously, why not Tourneur??
>
Because Godfather films are the opposite of Tourneur.
>
The beauty of a Walsh film isn't difficult, it's just more esoteric,
> relatively so, than the beauty of light, color, space and lucidity
> of Canyon Passage. Walsh, for me, is beautiful like a constant flow
> of invention, like a vexation.
>
And can you imagine your next-door neighbor making a statement
like this?
You know, I'd love 90% of the population to enjoy Proust and
Bach's suites for unaccompannied cello and Konitz-Tristano-Marsh (as
well as Canyon Passage) and I could go on with things I love and few
people even know, but the fact -- the reality check -- is that THEY
DON'T and they love mostly crap. I take no pleasure in being a "happy
few" -- actually being among so "few" makes me unhappy -- but that's
the way it is.
(I hope the readers can make sense out of who's speaking in this
exchange!)
JPC
8624
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:28am
Subject: Re: Help locating Bunuel tapes
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
> wrote:
> > If Charles Silver (Silvers?) is still there, he might be a good
bet-
> -
> > he's one of the relative old-timers. Larry Kardish, who's
> definitely
> > there, would also be worth asking.
> >
> Merci!
It's definitely Silver. How soon they forget!
Now Larry calls himself Lawrence, at least in print, but I guess
he's still the sweet guy I knew.
JP
8625
From: Andy Rector
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:56am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
But why?
Why are "we" able to percieve it and others not? You are not
blessed, nor am I!
Ever heard of the Nation of Islam? The offshoot 5 percenters? They
say 85% of the world is brainwashed by 10% of the world. They are
the remaining 5% percent to change that, to teach: Knowledge Wisdom
and Understanding-Food Clothing and Shelter-Man Woman and Child-Sun
Moon and Stars...
As to the way the film was recieved, I don't know its reputation at
the time. Obviously movies mean different things to different
people, and the time in which they are made and recieved plays a
part.
>(remember: people
> were not "progammed" to respond to movies, especially westerns,
> as "serious and beautiful" in those days.)
Exactly. And they are now? Conditions for the film's viewing have
never been right so when a UCLA student...
>>Do UCLA students have a world view that is
> different from the rest of the world? And what would that be?
...who is of certain class, no doubt, who has certain prejudices
about high/low culture and has such influence on the functions of
movies (UCLA, amongst others!) and politics (the US, ditto) the
result is the neglect, disregard, or denigration of the film, not
based on the film itself, but on a certain cultural fabric.
I was moving under the assumtion that we were being literal when we
said "rest of the world"; those without this cultural
indoctrination, at least with a prejudice less powerful or potent. I
live in LA and most of the people I meet watch TV (and have never
seen a Tourneur film there or elsewhere) though most people in the
world don't have TV.
It sounds to me like you're saying "the film is beautiful to me, but
it wouldn't be to you". That's a horrible thing to say or intimate,
it's complicit posturing, if that IS whats being said.
>Although television is just about the only venue where they can
> see "old" films.
You must not have heard of video tape or DVD. I've never had cable
yet I've seen about 10 Tourneur's. Non-cable TV doesn't show "old"
movies anymore and they haven't for some time.
You're right, Tourneur is the opposite of the Godfather films, it's
what I meant to say. There is a mainstream and Godfather is in it.
But Godfather isn't fundamentally more suited to the average human
than Tourneur. Tourneur who, apparently, is only appreciated by the
cream of the species.
My next door neighbor plays Bach on a casio. My downstairs neighbor
has a family of 4 living in a 1 bedroom apartment. My across-the-way
neighbors sing Armenian folk songs as beautiful as Hoagy's. The
world is full of surprises! Instead of assuming the worst or the
lowest in your next door neighbor, one should assume the highest or
the most, for one discovers so much. Either that or show them the
film and we stop assuming. I'm sure glad I assumed the best when I
started watching "genre movies"; how else could I be open to them
with an upbringing of trash and propoganda?
>I take no pleasure in being a "happy
> few" -- actually being among so "few" makes me unhappy
It makes me unhappy too, but some people seem to bathe in the
exclusivity. I like to proceed as though "happy few" is false and
certainly not absolute; happy all!
>-- but that's
> the way it is.
The thing is, why does it have to go down like that? It doesn't!
cordially,
andy
8626
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 5:46am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
> But why?
>
Ah, that "why" question!
Andy, we pretty much agree on a lot of things. But we have to come
to terms with the fact that everybody including you and me (or I) is
under some kind of what you call indoctrination. And you and I are
culturally indoctrinated to respond to Tourneur and generally to old
genre movies, which a lot of other people are not, unfortunately. If
you don't like the word indoctrination then let's think of a less
pejorative one.
>
> It sounds to me like you're saying "the film is beautiful to me,
but
> it wouldn't be to you". That's a horrible thing to say or intimate,
> it's complicit posturing, if that IS whats being said.
It's beautiful to me and to you and to a few hundred people I can
think of, including most of the people on this Group (but does Fred
Camper think it's beautiful?!)I must admit that until I have shown it
to all of my neighbors and recorded their reactions, I can't say for
sure that they're not all going to swoon over the beauty of Tourneur.
My suspicion is that they won't though. Call me cynical and elitist.
>
>
> >
> You're right, Tourneur is the opposite of the Godfather films, it's
> what I meant to say. There is a mainstream and Godfather is in it.
> But Godfather isn't fundamentally more suited to the average human
> than Tourneur.
You're absolutely right.It's just more "modern".
Tourneur who, apparently, is only appreciated by the
> cream of the species.
>
Not the cream of the species. Just a smaller portion of the
species.
> My next door neighbor plays Bach on a casio. My downstairs neighbor
> has a family of 4 living in a 1 bedroom apartment. My across-the-
way
> neighbors sing Armenian folk songs as beautiful as Hoagy's. The
> world is full of surprises! Instead of assuming the worst or the
> lowest in your next door neighbor, one should assume the highest or
> the most, for one discovers so much. Either that or show them the
> film and we stop assuming. I'm sure glad I assumed the best when I
> started watching "genre movies"; how else could I be open to them
> with an upbringing of trash and propoganda?
So why don't you invite those wonderful neighbors to a screening
of "Canyon Passage" and record their reactions and share them with
us?
>
> >I take no pleasure in being a "happy
> > few" -- actually being among so "few" makes me unhappy
>
> It makes me unhappy too, but some people seem to bathe in the
> exclusivity. I like to proceed as though "happy few" is false and
> certainly not absolute; happy all!
I don't bathe, I shower. Look, I spent years of my life ,
starting in my teens, working hard trying to share my love of movies
(especially movies that were at the time scorned or dismissed as just
mindless entertainement) with as many people as I could (in the cine-
clubs of France especially, way back in the fifties)so don't tell me
now that I bathe in my exclusivity. I'm sorry if I gave that
impression.
JPC
> ,
>
8627
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 8:01am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
Andy and M. C.: I dream of a world where Canyon Passage is playing in
four theatres and Lord of the Rings is released direct to video. When
I first went to Paris in the 60s and saw Fort Apache in playing four
theatres, I thought I'd found that world, but now it seems that a
fair number of French directors just want to make the French Lord of
the Rings. Even so, I haven't abandoned the dream.
I'm even crazy enough that I want the auteur theory to rule the roost
again in academia, the press, publishing and distribution, as it did
briefly in the 70s before it was repressed. Anyone who has been
reading me here knows that I believe that the politique is more
political today than ever, precisely because so many interest groups
seem to have made a common cause of repressing it for the last few
decades. And if you think the politique has triumphed just because
directors' names are used ritually in writing about film, here's a
sobering fact:
Some anti-intellectual jerk who wrote a book with Cineplex in the
title - I have it somewhere, but can't lay hands on it - actually did
this experiment. (Anti-intellectual jerks are good for something.) He
stood outside a large multiplex and asked the people coming out of
the screenings who directed the movie they just saw. Virtually no one
knew. He gives percentages for all the films. The total who knew was
less than 1 percent. Among the films playing was Jurassic Park, and
given Spielberg's fame, even this guy - who had been offended when a
friend of his talked about seeing "the new McTiernan" - was surprised
at that. NB: I loved the last "new McTiernan."
This anecdote - which is a bit more than an anecdote: it seems to
have been a real experiment - doesn't prove that people today
wouldn't love Canyon Passage under the right circumstances. But we've
all gone to screenings where the audience found some classic funny -
the last time it happened to me was with Mogambo at the LA County
Museum. On the other hand, Tag Gallagher likes to tell how, after
being taught right, his students wept over The Long Gray Line when he
screened it for them. Taught RIGHT. Not taught by someone who thinks
it was directed by H. C. Potter. (Don't laugh! I've seen an erudite
book of "close readings" that deals at some length with The Reckless
Moment and attributes it to the wrong director.)
I'll quote again a bit of a conversation with Straub, who said at the
time he made Othon that he made it for a working class audience. I
told him recently that I had finally decided that liking the films we
like was a minority taste. He said that he had just about come to the
same conclusion, citing what Renoir once said: "I make my films to
play at the Gaumont-Palace" - 6000 seats, as I recall - "but I make
them for three people in the audience at the Gaumont-Palace."
At the same time, you never know who's out there and what their
reactions will be. Back in NY in the 70s John Hughes and I were going
to make a movie for a land developer from N. Carolina who had bought
land to develop only to learn that it was a bird sanctuary and he
couldn't touch it. With his support, John's company, The Kino Eye
Group, was going to make a radical hommage to Wind Across the
Everglades in N. Carolina (don't ask me how) with an all-NY cast.
During a discussion with our financier, who had flown up from N.
Carolina, in a loft somewhere, I suggested that the last shot should
be a card reading: "The ending of this story will be written by you."
The developer said: "Run of the Arrow."
So, while like M. C. I have a hide pockmarked with the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune from some of the same battles that have
been alluded to in his posts, I salute the spirit of the next
generation who will carry the torch, remembering with a smile and a
tear, I hope, the Old Ones and the tales they used to tell at
a_film_by. The end of this story will be written by them.
8628
From: Raymond P.
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:55pm
Subject: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
I came back from my screening of Lee Kang-Sheng's "The Missing" with
a single thought - are we facing a brick wall in terms of new
talents?
To be fair, Lee has obviously been greatly influenced by Tsai Ming-
Liang, having starred in every film of Tsai's to date. But with his
debut, it is evident that he is trying TOO hard to be Tsai. The film
ends up being rather shallow, lacking in either Tsai's intelligence
or subtle humour. That it won at Pusan and Rotterdam only makes me
wonder if I perhaps missed something?
Similarly, I also recently saw "All Tomorrow's Parties" by Yu Lik-
Wai. Beautifully shot, for sure, but haven't we seen this before
(sans the quasi-futuristic setting)? As Jia Zhangke's DP, it is
telling from the beginning moment that all of it is a bit TOO
reminiscent of "Platform" and "Unknown Pleasures". In fact, I didn't
even know Yu is Jia's DP until afterwards, when I have already
pointed out the over-familiarities between the two directors!
And then there's my last comment, which may create a bit of
controversy. I finally saw "Elephant", and I'm a bit perplexed. Not
No, I'm perplexed at how a filmmaker can so frankly copy the
techniques of another, then win Best Director at Cannes. I sat there
with utter annoyance at every shot that had been lifted off of
Satantango. Bela Tarr has never won a single major award,
yet "Elephant" is hailed with the Palm D'Or?!?! To be fair, the film
did manage to grab me - for the first half, at least. But "Gerry" is
another example of van Sant's over-eagerness to be the next wave of
Hungarian directors. Unfortunately, van Sant is no Tarr, and the
haunting tone poem atmosphere is just not able to carry through to
the second half, especially during the shootings. With the Laszlo
Krasnahorkai trilogy, Tarr never fails to conduct every film into a
magnificent symphony of virtuoso despair and hope. "Elephant", one
the other hand, is flat-lined: without peaks or valleys. And no,
name-checking your source of copy does not mean you are immediately
exonerated.
I'm interested in seeing some people's comments, especially from
Johnathan Rosenbaum, who gave Elephant four-stars despite having
championed Tarr's works in the past (that great interview with the
director himself was one of the most informative articles ever,
considering how evasive Tarr usually is). Is it just me who feels
that there is a fine line between being "influenced" and outright
copying?
8629
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 6:25pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- "Raymond P." wrote:
Is it just
> me who feels
> that there is a fine line between being "influenced"
> and outright
> copying?
>
>
Gus has been both effusive in his praise of Tarr and
quite explicit as to his debt to Tarr's technique. But
Gus isn't Bela Tarr any more than Portland is the
village in "Satantango." You seem to be saying that
once a filmmaker discovers a technique he has absolute
copyright ownership of it. Should Welles have sued
Wyler for "copying" the deep focus he used in "Kane"
and "Ambersons" for "The Little Foxes"? I think not.
Likewise would you propose that Garrel sue Gus for
"copying" the desert vistas and hypnotic tracks of "La
Cicatrice Interieure" and "Le Lit de la Vierge" in
"Gerry"? Again, I think not.
__________________________________
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8630
From: George Robinson
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 6:48pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
I would go even further than David.
Given that there are a finite number of plotlines (seven, 24, 36, it depends
on who you ask) and a fairly finite number of cinematic devices with which
to limn them, originality may not be the best measure of a film's aesthetic
worth.
"Originality" becomes a fetish for those who believe that every artist
springs alone from the head of Zeus. It just doesn't happen that way.
The fascination with originality for its own sake is a throwback to the
Romantics with their obsession with "individual" creativity. In point of
fact, every artist builds on the work of those who came before her/him. If
van Sant owes a debt to Tarr, Tarr has some debts of his own, to Jancso,
Bresson, the absurdism of post-WWII East European theater, etc. Jancso and
Bresson have debts of their own, too. And so one back to the cave-dwellers
who painted scenes of a hunt in an attempt to make their visions into
reality.
I prefer the Classical model in which originality is less important (for its
own sake) than mastery of form and craft. I am more interested these days in
how filmmakers respond to the restrictions of genre and technique. Is
someone who writes a sonnet stealing from Wyatt, Sidney, Shakespeare,
Petrarch? Or is s/he situating the work in an historical continuity.
George (Never had an original thought in my life but I steal very cleverly)
Robinson
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
8631
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 6:55pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- George Robinson wrote:
If
> van Sant owes a debt to Tarr, Tarr has some debts of
> his own, to Jancso,
"L'Esprit de l'escalier"! I should have mentioned
Jansco, particularly for "Silence and Cry" and
"Sirocco D'Hiver."
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8632
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 7:22pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Raymond P." wrote:
I certainly agree with your take on "The Missing"--though curiously
enough, when I saw "All Tomorrow's Parties" on video at the same
festival (Rotterdam) and I didn't know myself that Yu Lik-Wai had
been Jia Zhangke's DP, I wasn't struck by any slavish indebtedness--
maybe because the SF context changed so much. It reminds me of
Godard's response to Paul Schrader when the latter told him, "I've
taken something from The Married Woman and used it in American
Gigolo": "What matters isn't what you take," Godard said, "but where
you take it to".
This would constitute part of my defense of "Elephant" as well--even
though I would readily concede that "Satantango" is a much greater
film. To be honest, I debated with myself about whether to
give "Elephant" three or four stars, and finally opted for the
latter for a reason similar to my also giving four stars to "Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (which is arguably inferior to
Resnais' "Je t'aime, je t'aime"). A crude journalistic paraphrase of
this argument would be "A bird in the hand is worth two in the
bush." That is, when one is usually expected as a journalist to rank
current films in relation to one another, factoring out films which
aren't available winds up being unavoidable on some level--unless
one wants to be branded (and therefore dismissed as) an elitist.
I've certainly adopted this stance many times, but I'm not sure it's
always and invariably the best position to take. In fact, I keep
changing my mind about this issue. In the case of "Elephant," the
completely unwarranted abuse leveled on it by Todd McCarthy when it
premiered at Cannes--which implied that Gus Van Sant had no right to
make a film of any kind about Columbine--may have raised the stakes
in my mind.
An anecdotal footnote: When I was in Paris in early February and
visited a shop near the Mabillon metro stop that sells educational
materials for French high schools, I noticed DVD study guides for
both "Bowling and Columbine" and "Elephant" there. Isn't that rather
amazing? Not just that these films are already being taught in
French high schools, but that one can acquire study guides for them
on DVD! And meanwhile, of course, you can't find "Satantango" on
video or on DVD anywhere at all, to the best of my knowledge. It
reminds me of Sonny Stitt, a literal imitator and popularizer of
Charlie Parker, making more money and having a more successful
career than his mentor. It's almost a classical definition of the
difference between the avant-garde and the mainstream. But, to
paraphrase something that Adrian Martin recently polinted out to me
in an email, when you've got popularized versions of "Satantango"
and "Je t'aime, je t'aime" in the mainstream, that's good news, not
bad news--even if it shortchanges Tarr and Resnais on some
level....And, in the final analysis, I don't think either Van Sant
or Kaufman-Gondry qualify as plagiarists. Furthermore, just speaking
for myself, I was bored out of my senses by Van Sant's borrowings
in "Gerry" and excited quite a bit by his borrowings
in "Elephant".
Jonathan
> I'm interested in seeing some people's comments, especially from
> Johnathan Rosenbaum, who gave Elephant four-stars despite having
> championed Tarr's works in the past (that great interview with the
> director himself was one of the most informative articles ever,
> considering how evasive Tarr usually is). Is it just me who feels
> that there is a fine line between being "influenced" and outright
> copying?
8633
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 7:26pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- George Robinson wrote:
> If
> > van Sant owes a debt to Tarr, Tarr has some debts of
> > his own, to Jancso,
>
> "L'Esprit de l'escalier"! I should have mentioned
> Jansco, particularly for "Silence and Cry" and
> "Sirocco D'Hiver."
Maybe so. (I've seen the former, not the latter.) But bear in mind
that what's at issue isn't just the plan-sequences that follow
people walking considerable distances, but the Conradian overlapping
time structure showing the same events from different vantage points.
8634
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 7:39pm
Subject: Re: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- Jonathan Rosenbaum
> Furthermore, just speaking
> for myself, I was bored out of my senses by Van
> Sant's borrowings
> in "Gerry" and excited quite a bit by his borrowings
>
> in "Elephant".
>
I initially wrote "Gerry" of a simple experiment and
nothing more but I got the DVD of it recently and I
now think it's among Gus' best works. It's quite a
different expeirce watching it at home as a kind of
"object" you can have in the room with you. The
sequence toward the end of them staggering across an
expanse of white as the run rises is one of the most
beautiful things I've ever seen.
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8635
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 7:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- Jonathan Rosenbaum
wrote:
> Maybe so. (I've seen the former, not the latter.)
> But bear in mind
> that what's at issue isn't just the plan-sequences
> that follow
> people walking considerable distances, but the
> Conradian overlapping
> time structure showing the same events from
> different vantage points.
>
>
Therefore I'd also include Warhol in "Chelsea Girls"
(where Ondine says at the end "I was supposed to talk
to Bridgid,") and ****(Four Stars), the 25-hour movie
with its many repetitions and return to similar or
identical spaces.
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8636
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 8:20pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
wrote:
> "Originality" becomes a fetish for those who believe that every
artist
> springs alone from the head of Zeus. It just doesn't happen that
way.
I blame it all on auteurists !!!
As cinema is stagnating, so is the speed by which new directors
become auteurs. Thus, instead of looking for skill, people look for
signs of originality. It appears that you have to make an original
piece each and every time, even to be considered worthwhile in some
circles these days. Its the paramount of snobbery.
Billy Wilder once made a joke, telling his cameraman: "Keep it out
of focus, I want to win a foreign film award". Watching alot of new
films, I wonder if everyone did just that.
Take Gasper Noë, who faked his way onto every critics lips
with "Irriversible"; Worse was Despentes' "Baise Moi", which is
little more than bad porn, but nevertheless was hailed as a
masterpiece and the most original work to date.
And do I really have to bring out Brown Bunny (or two hours of no
script with a blow job).
I admit there are refreshing original pieces of work out there:
Tsai's "Goodbye, Dragon Inn" and Hiroki's "Vibrator" really opend my
eyes to a new form of telling a story, and I do consider "American
Splendor" the best American Film of this year (I didn't see until
February). But why don't I hear names like Kitano, Breillat, Paul
Thomas Anderson or Lars von Trier? Why does it always have to be
obscure east Europeans or Chinese who get praised for being
originals? Are they more original, because they havnt had access to
western art? Are they more original, because they are inspired by
film, we never heard about? Or is the need for "originality" a
symptom of having lost ones foothold in a world where we see more
and more film and the distance between good film become larger?
Henrik
8637
From: jaketwilson
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 9:02pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
"George Robinson" wrote:
> The fascination with originality for its own sake is a throwback to
the Romantics with their obsession with "individual" creativity. In
point of
> fact, every artist builds on the work of those who came before
her/him.
Of course, but why is that an argument against individual creativity?
That new ideas evolve from older ideas doesn't make them any less
new. Equally, I can't see the point of being interested in "well-
crafted" movies that aren't original. Filmmaking isn't carpentry. Why
repeat something that's already been done?
JTW
8638
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 10:50pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jaketwilson" wrote:
"That new ideas evolve from older ideas doesn't make them any less
new. Equally, I can't see the point of being interested in "well-
crafted" movies that aren't original."
What do you mean by original here? Formal innovation? Stories
never told before?
Good work continues to be done in representaional painting,
Ibsenesque theatre, the 19th century (or bourgeois, if we like) novel
alongside artworks in the respective avant gardes of their mediums
which have themselves become tradional. Are you calling for a new
avant garde? Would such an avant garde be possible in a capital-
intensive commercial medium? (Would that it could be so.)
"Filmmaking isn't carpentry. Why repeat something that's already been
done?"
Of course, there is the East Asian aesthetic tradition where
originality is understood as something that comes almost by accident,
is unpredictable, and is a gift to certain individuals only. It
can't be taught and it's better in small quantities. When it does
appear then there's reason to rejoice becasue it's the real thing
(and the innovation often becomes the tradition of the next
generation.) But to have mastered the tools of one's art and create
beautiful or harmonious if unoriginal works is enough for one
lifetime. Even in the post-Romantic West only a few works like,
say, "Finnegans Wake" remain sui generis, and (excepting avant garde
cinema) there are precious few wholly orignal narrative movies.
Richard
8639
From: Raymond P.
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:28pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
wrote:
> The fascination with originality for its own sake is a throwback
to the
> Romantics with their obsession with "individual" creativity. In
point of
> fact, every artist builds on the work of those who came before
her/him. If
> van Sant owes a debt to Tarr, Tarr has some debts of his own, to
Jancso,
> Bresson, the absurdism of post-WWII East European theater, etc.
Jancso and
> Bresson have debts of their own, too. And so one back to the cave-
dwellers
> who painted scenes of a hunt in an attempt to make their visions
into
> reality.
And therein lies the fundamental difference - Tarr was "influenced"
by Jancso, as evident by the swooping tracking shots which weave in
and out of protagonists (see "Silence and Cry"). I'm not entirely
convinced of the Bressonian techniques in Tarr's films, though it is
arguable that the "underperformances" in both directors' works are
similar. But Tarr's films are, by far, much, much different than
either Jancso or Bresson, in both technique and tone. By now, Tarr
has a definite and unique "signature" on his films, from Autuman
Almanac onwards.
What van Sant has done is not *merely* about being influenced.
Instead, he mapped out Satantango's techniques like numbered
coloring books. And the problem is, it doesn't even quite work,
because the repeating of the hallway scene from being characters'
viewings is nowhere near being as relevant or as powerful as the way
the characters assemble near that miserable bar, where the pained,
drunken town populace are obviously neglecting the outside world
(including the little girl and the doctor). There is depth within
Tarr's usage of his own techniques, while in "Elephant" it is an
exercise in aesthetics: form over content. It's the equivalent of
just copying over Tarr's signature in order to use his credit card
number.
Yes, every director is influenced somehow by others, no doubt about
that. Sokurov follows within the footsteps of Tarkovsky, while von
Trier overdoes the martyring of Dreyer's. But both examples show how
one can be "influenced", yet still create art that is unique from
its source.
I have never been convinced anyway that van Sant is any more than a
for-hire Hollywood director. That he is taking up Tarr's cause is
definitely a step up, but to what end? Will he just continue to use
the Tarr excuse to make films that are just shadows, or will he
actually use that influence to come up with his OWN personal
signature?
8640
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:28pm
Subject: Canyon Passage and hotlove
Very fine post, Mr K.
The Gaumont Palace is long gone of course. That's where I first
saw "The Thief of Bagdad" (Powell's version of course), "The Great
Dictator" and "Fort Apache" among others.
I'm not surprised by the multiplex poll. Now if you stood outside
the Walter Reade or Film Forum you'd get a very different kind of
response. But mass audiences don't care any more about directors
today than they did in the '30s, '40s or '50s. Why would they? Most
of the films they watch look and sound pretty much alike anyway.
JPC
8641
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:44pm
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage and hotlove
> I'm not surprised by the multiplex poll. Now if you stood outside
> the Walter Reade or Film Forum you'd get a very different kind of
> response. But mass audiences don't care any more about directors
> today than they did in the '30s, '40s or '50s. Why would they? Most
> of the films they watch look and sound pretty much alike anyway.
That must have been the case in every decade - if you were to watch a
day's worth of Turner Classic Movies, provided that the slate of films
excluded Official Auteurs and specialty programming like when they ran
a month of Bollywood, I think you'd have trouble distinguishing
between ten or twelve B-grade, nobody-directed mystery or romance
movies from the '30s and '40s. Or a marathon of early early early
cinema, 1895-1900, minus the Melies and a few others. Whereas on the
other hand you couldn't say that about a series of Bresson or Nick Ray
films.
Probably just stating the obvious, but I was spurred by the continued
notion I have that we have more in common with past moviegoers than we
often think.
-Jaime
8642
From: Raymond P.
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:49pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
Just to clarify as well, I did not "hate" Elephant. I thought that,
at least for the initial half, the film managed to be relatively
successful. I gave the film a 6/10, which is a "thumbs-up" in Ebert
terms.
Similarly, I also liked "All Tomorrow's Parties" - the sci-fi
elements and the utterly beautiful cinematography (which I know is
computer-processed afterwards anyways) manage to overcome whatever
stylistic trait that I think is unoriginal. The only film that
doesn't stand up in the list is "The Missing".
Tood McCarthy was abusive to nearly every film at last year's Cannes
anyways, and apparently he was so pissed off that he left in the
middle of the fest. Having viewed a few of last year's selections,
they were nowhere near as bad as most have said, though they are far
from the recent prime of 2000, when "Eureka", "Yi Yi", "Songs from
the Second Floor", "In the Mood for Love", and "Code Inconnu" all
debuted. Plus, I think McCarthy's argument, whether a Columbine film
should be made or not, is not within anyone's rights to dictate.
But is it "elitist" for me to uphold "Satantango" and "Elephant" in
the same light? I don't think so. In fact, the Artificial Eye
release of "Damnation" and "Werckmeister Harmonies" is one of the
best things to happen in a while, opening up people to the works of
the Hungarian master. With the advent of DVD and the rapid releases
of even once-fringe titles, I think it IS fair to consider Elephant
a 3-star film in comparison. I'm not convinced that we should give
credit to those who "borrow" so easily, just because their films are
released to a wider critical mass. Otherwise the term "masterpiece"
starts becoming diluted.
Thanks for your reply, Johnathan. At least now I understand the
rationale behind your review of the film, though I may not agree
with it 100% :)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Raymond P."
wrote:
>
> I certainly agree with your take on "The Missing"--though
curiously
> enough, when I saw "All Tomorrow's Parties" on video at the same
> festival (Rotterdam) and I didn't know myself that Yu Lik-Wai had
> been Jia Zhangke's DP, I wasn't struck by any slavish indebtedness-
-
> maybe because the SF context changed so much. It reminds me of
> Godard's response to Paul Schrader when the latter told him, "I've
> taken something from The Married Woman and used it in American
> Gigolo": "What matters isn't what you take," Godard said, "but
where
> you take it to".
>
> This would constitute part of my defense of "Elephant" as well--
even
> though I would readily concede that "Satantango" is a much greater
> film. To be honest, I debated with myself about whether to
> give "Elephant" three or four stars, and finally opted for the
> latter for a reason similar to my also giving four stars
to "Eternal
> Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (which is arguably inferior to
> Resnais' "Je t'aime, je t'aime"). A crude journalistic paraphrase
of
> this argument would be "A bird in the hand is worth two in the
> bush." That is, when one is usually expected as a journalist to
rank
> current films in relation to one another, factoring out films
which
> aren't available winds up being unavoidable on some level--unless
> one wants to be branded (and therefore dismissed as) an elitist.
> I've certainly adopted this stance many times, but I'm not sure
it's
> always and invariably the best position to take. In fact, I keep
> changing my mind about this issue. In the case of "Elephant," the
> completely unwarranted abuse leveled on it by Todd McCarthy when
it
> premiered at Cannes--which implied that Gus Van Sant had no right
to
> make a film of any kind about Columbine--may have raised the
stakes
> in my mind.
>
> An anecdotal footnote: When I was in Paris in early February and
> visited a shop near the Mabillon metro stop that sells educational
> materials for French high schools, I noticed DVD study guides for
> both "Bowling and Columbine" and "Elephant" there. Isn't that
rather
> amazing? Not just that these films are already being taught in
> French high schools, but that one can acquire study guides for
them
> on DVD! And meanwhile, of course, you can't find "Satantango" on
> video or on DVD anywhere at all, to the best of my knowledge. It
> reminds me of Sonny Stitt, a literal imitator and popularizer of
> Charlie Parker, making more money and having a more successful
> career than his mentor. It's almost a classical definition of the
> difference between the avant-garde and the mainstream. But, to
> paraphrase something that Adrian Martin recently polinted out to
me
> in an email, when you've got popularized versions of "Satantango"
> and "Je t'aime, je t'aime" in the mainstream, that's good news,
not
> bad news--even if it shortchanges Tarr and Resnais on some
> level....And, in the final analysis, I don't think either Van Sant
> or Kaufman-Gondry qualify as plagiarists. Furthermore, just
speaking
> for myself, I was bored out of my senses by Van Sant's borrowings
> in "Gerry" and excited quite a bit by his borrowings
> in "Elephant".
>
> Jonathan
>
>
> > I'm interested in seeing some people's comments, especially from
> > Johnathan Rosenbaum, who gave Elephant four-stars despite having
> > championed Tarr's works in the past (that great interview with
the
> > director himself was one of the most informative articles ever,
> > considering how evasive Tarr usually is). Is it just me who
feels
> > that there is a fine line between being "influenced" and
outright
> > copying?
8643
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:50pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
To sum up my egregiously sexual-harrassing mentor Harold Bloom,
originality is the only thing that matters in art, and it doesn't
exist. Meaning: Nothing comes of nothing - all art is born of
previous art; and all art since the Enlightenment is its' creators'
struggle against their own belatedness. In my eulogy for Welles I
broke out various aspects of this ideal, which I summed up there with
Bloom's word "strength": strong art "makes it new"; forges modernity
out of deep love of the past (Welles the cultural conservative, lover
of Merrie Olde England, horse-drawn carraiges, Praca Onze, raft-
fishing and silent cinema); creates ephebes through its power to
influence others, which its critics are not immune to (cf. the way
Welles seems to have written his own obituaries) and lives forever (=
doesn't date, as Welles put it to me).
That said, despite many gorgeous late-blooming flowers, the
regrettably anti-Semitic classicist and closet Tennysonian T. S.
Eliot was not totally wrong to promote what Northrop Frye calls "the
butterslide theory" of history, where an artform starts off like a
fresh block of butter at the top of the slide, and nothing is left
but a rancid pat by the time it gets to the bottom. Comparing Eliot
to Tennyson, or fascist classicist Ezra Pound to his unacknowledged
master, Robert Browning, kind of makes the case, but there are better
poets than those two who have struggled more powerfully against the
same set of ancestors.
As my choice of straw men, and my near-gratuitous political swipes,
suggest, I prefer Bloom's version of the butterslide: Stevens is less
than Keats is less than Milton along an axis that goes from
exteriority to interiority, and from meaning to no meaning, but
that's art and the results can still be very powerful - more than the
classicist's ideal of respectful emulation of old models. (Pope, a
hero to me, Bloom and Lord Byron, was an avant-garde poet, whatever
his rhetorical stance at the time.) The loss of meaning is one of the
most pertinent things we can observe about modern and "post-modern"
art, along with the obvious characteristic of growing
internalization. In film, compare Griffith to Hitchcock for
internalization, and Van Sant to Kubrick to Ophuls for loss of
meaning.
Jonathan is right to anguish over these questions: On the one hand,
you don't want to come of as a snob, or worse, as old hat, but on the
other, there are fewer film giants on the earth these days. But the
need (particularly for our younger members) to discover
contemporaries as deserving of their love as Hitchcock or Ray or
Rossellini were of the love of the New Wave generation is quite
understandable. I certainly wouldn't advocate shutting out the New
just because most of it is less than the Old - when it's great, it
speaks to us more directly than the great art of the past. But I do
wonder sometimes, with Henrik and Raymond, if certain rather easy
stylistic choices haven't become too widespread - haven't, in fact,
died. Time will tell.
8644
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:53pm
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
It
> reminds me of Sonny Stitt, a literal imitator and popularizer of
> Charlie Parker, making more money and having a more successful
> career than his mentor. It's almost a classical definition of the
> difference between the avant-garde and the mainstream.
Sorry, but Sonny Stitt was NOT a "literal imitator" of Charlie
Parker (although lots of people have said it, or words to that
effect) and certainly not a "popularizer" of Parker! They were both
in an avant garde that very rapidly became mainstream because the
music evolved and changed so fast in those days. And if Stitt made
more money than Parker, (still very little money considering his huge
output) it has more than a little to do with the fact that he lived
some 25 years longer and didn't destroy himself with drugs the way
Parker did (Parker died at 34!) In spite of his obvious "debt" to
Parker, Stitt remains one of the most brilliant alto saxophonists in
jazz history (and as one musician said: "I wish I could imitate Bird
just half as well as he can!") Sorry for this slightly off topic
diatribe, but I don't think Jonathan's comparison was appropriate.
JPC
8645
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 0:07am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage and hotlove (erratum)
I found the book by the guy who did the survey. Actually it looks
like an interesting book. He apparently waded into the Atlantic to
prove that DiCaprio couldn't have lasted as long as he did in
Titanic, and is in the habit of heckling by (for example) calling out
during a screening of Alive! (a film I rather like) "Eat Vincent
Spano first!" His name is Joe Queenan, and I have slightly misquoted
him. The results were:
Last Action Hero - 0/25 (= knew who directed it)
The Crying Game - 0.5/10 (0.5 = one response of "Michael Jordan")
Guilty as Sin - 0/10
Dave - 0/10
Sleepless in Seattle - 0/10
Mario Van Peebles' Posse - 1/10 (an obvious irony)
Cliffhanger - 0.75/10 (= "Renny Harding")
Indecent Proposal - 0/10
Jurassic Park - 5/10 (much better than I reported)
Menace II Society - 0/10
Howards End - 4/4 (at the Cineplex Odeon at E. 59th)
Orlando - 5/30 at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas ("All five people were
women accompanied by men who could not identify the director.")
The book is called Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler: Celluloid
Tirades and Escapades
8646
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 0:29am
Subject: Re: Walter Hill DEADWOOD
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Graham"
wrote:
> Reminder to those who have HBO.
>
> Tonight's the first episode of "Deadwood", with Hill directing and
> featuring many of his stock: Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Peter
> Jason, etc.
>
> Should be great!
>
> -Aaron
I liked this very much, my only problem was that they should have
called the show FUCKING COCKSUCKERS IN DEADWOOD because "fuck" and
"cocksucker" seemed to be all anybody ever said. I don't have a
problem with cursing (I was a sailor, after all), but if the script
replaced every instance of "fuck" with "Smurf," you'd have a pretty
silly western.
It's altogether a solid show, with Hill's skillful (although for me
still a tad indistinguishable) handling of violence, motion, and
physicality, cutting on action, etc. The wordless encounter on the
road between Hickok and Calamity Jane, when Bullock gives her the
unconscious little girl to carry, is actually pretty magnificent even
if the script fails to build any solid reasons as to why Jane should
be so moved (perhaps we'll find out later). And the show has an
undercurrent of black comedy that is, thankfully, not milked for more
than it's worth. (A recurring problem for THE SOPRANOS.) There's a
great uncomfortable silence after Al Swearengen says to Dan, "Don't
forget to kill Ned," like a father telling his son to take out the
trash, and Ned's standing on the other side of them, completely unaware.
Agree with Gabe about knocking on the Sheriff's door - woulda been a
nicely explicit RIO BRAVO reference if it happened. But I wouldn'ta
noticed it if you hadn't said something.
The show's website has a "Dead Count," keeping track of who gets
killed in each episode. That's kind of crass, isn't it? The OZ
website does the same thing. Would they do that if they had a show
about a Nazi concentration camp, or ethnic cleansing in the Balkans?
-Jaime
8647
From: Andy Rector
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 0:40am
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
Shouldn't we throw the appropriatness of using the Hungarian Tarr's
style to tell a story about US high school kids made by a US citizen
into question before we proclaim it a good thing that it is widely
seen? I know this has been attempted elsewhere but I am not
convinced (that the film is a work of art rather than a work of
imitation, that it's form is in harmony with it's subject, or in any
dialectic opposition to it, or any original variation thereof, that
it isn't really concerned with understanding or helping the
situation at hand).
I wonder if this is a big factor in the "increasing lack of
originality by recent filmmakers"; that filmmakers determine their
influence, their style, prior to working the material and it's
purpose?
Whether in the realm of genre movies or more formally radical films,
there is this lack, I think. Though this doesn't apply to everyone,
or everyone's methods, today or in the past. There's plenty of
exciting contemporary cinema for us young ones to think and talk
about...it's just a matter of seeing it...after all Tarr is
a "recent filmmaker" too....
yours,
andy
8648
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 0:50am
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
Bill wrote:
> To sum up my egregiously sexual-harrassing mentor Harold Bloom,
> originality is the only thing that matters in art, and it doesn't
> exist. Meaning: Nothing comes of nothing - all art is born of
> previous art; and all art since the Enlightenment is its'
> creators' struggle against their own belatedness.
...
> I prefer Bloom's version of the butterslide: Stevens is less
> than Keats is less than Milton along an axis that goes from
> exteriority to interiority, and from meaning to no meaning, but
> that's art and the results can still be very powerful - more than
> the classicist's ideal of respectful emulation of old models.
I don't know if Bloom has written on this (I haven't read it if he
has), but shouldn't we also keep in mind the two-way funneling that
marks our cultural memory? The minds and personalities of an
historical age are 'funneled' from the complex and multitudinous
realities of their time into the present, with only a few major
names remaining to the contemporary non-specialist. At the same
time that these names dwindle, their importance looms over us.
Their are pro's (it's great that Shakespeare is studied so heavily)
and con's (it's stifling that Shakespeare needles so heavily on the
literary consciousness of the West).
People of taste have proven to be wrong or unhelpful about art
before, even if it's taken centuries. (Let's not forget that
Romanesque and Gothic art both went through long periods of
denigration and neglect!) So I prefer to think that art exists in a
vast continuum, and the best we can do is to acknowledge our
perspective from within this continuum, since no theory of art has
been large enough to encompass the reality of art. Given that we
can still make judgments *from an acknowledged perspective*, I
prefer to hear arguments about an art form's decline couched in
extensive, material evidence. To argue that Hollywood (not
necessarily cinema) declined because of factors in the production
and conceptualization of commercial cinema as a result of the
studios giving way to corporations, for example ...
(Bill, I don't know if anyone else finds them funny, but I laugh at
each of the introductions you give your mentor.)
--Zach
8649
From: Andy Rector
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:02am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
JPC wrote:
>And you and I are
> culturally indoctrinated to respond to Tourneur and generally to
old
> genre movies, which a lot of other people are not, unfortunately.
JP, this is an assumption about my background that is totally
untrue, and perhaps my fundamental reason for disagreeing with your
way of speaking originally. Though I was indoctrinated like
most...but I already mentioned that.
If we are or can be in tandum regarding matters of cinema (and I am
grateful for what you've achieved and given me there!) I don't
believe we have the same cultural background.
>so don't tell me
> now that I bathe in my exclusivity. I'm sorry if I gave that
> impression.
And I'm sorry if I sounded too personal, I didn't necessarily mean
you when I mentioned those who bathe in exclusivity, but I was moved
to write it after reading your post, worried that this was the case,
totally ignorant of your background.
Times do change, nevertheless!
>(especially movies that were at the time scorned or dismissed as
>just
> mindless entertainement)
Best,
andy
8650
From: Andy Rector
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:10am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage and hotlove
Bill-
merci, and we won't forget the fatigue and agility.
-andy
8651
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:18am
Subject: Re: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- "Raymond P." wrote:
>
> I have never been convinced anyway that van Sant is
> any more than a
> for-hire Hollywood director. That he is taking up
> Tarr's cause is
> definitely a step up, but to what end? Will he just
> continue to use
> the Tarr excuse to make films that are just shadows,
> or will he
> actually use that influence to come up with his OWN
> personal
> signature?
You are doubtless unaware of his personal signature in
a number of films, particularly such short works as
"My Best Friend," "My New Friend," "Five Ways to Kill
Yourself," "Ken Death Gets Out of Jail," "Flea Sings,"
"Junior" (his cat dances to the light reflected off
Gus' guitar as he plasy it), and the ineffable "Five
Naked Boys With a Gun" (claely self-explanatory.) Gus'
"Psycho" is an extremely rare instance of a major
studio being bamboozled into creating a purely
avant-garde work. It may ostensibly be a "color Xerox"
of Hitchcock but its true precedents are to be found
in Marcel Duchamp's "readymades" and Joseph Cornell's
"Rose Hobart."
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8652
From:
Date: Sun Mar 28, 2004 8:39pm
Subject: Van Sant
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>Gus'
>"Psycho" is an extremely rare instance of a major
>studio being bamboozled into creating a purely
>avant-garde work.
I totally agree with you, David, and am glad to hear from someone else who
finds Van Sant's "Psycho" to be of enormous interest. The only Van Sant
pictures which might be considered to have been made on a "for hire" basis are "Good
Will Hunting" and "Finding Forrester" - not that there's anything about making
films "for hire" that necessarily means the resultant work is no good!
(Although I happen to not be a fan of those two Van Sant films.)
In any case, I'd echo Jonathan's echoing of Godard ("What matters isn't what
you take, but where you take it to") in reference to the Tarr-influenced
"Gerry" and "Elephant" (both of which I'd place among the finest films of their
respective years of release). And I actually think the degree to which he's
'borrowed' from Tarr can be easily overstated; after all, both "Gerry" and
"Elephant" contain sped-up shots of the sky and that's one of the signature Van Sant
visual moves dating back to his earliest features... okay, that's a minor
point, but still...
More as time allows...
Peter
8653
From: George Robinson
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:47am
Subject: Re: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
His credit card? I think stealing Bela Tarr's credit card wouldn't produce
much cash, if the films are any indication.
George (He who steals my purse _really_ steals trash) Robinson
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
8654
From: George Robinson
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:53am
Subject: Fw: [DVDBeaver] Free DVD from The Artfilm Collection
Just checked this website and the selection of "special offer" DVDs is
pretty swell. This is one offer that might be worth taking advantage of.
However, as Brother Henryk noted on the DVDBeaver list, the offer is only
good in North America (and since Mexico is part of North America, not even
all of N.A.).
George (living on an island off the coast of N.A.) Robinson
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Whitelock"
To:
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 5:26 PM
Subject: [DVDBeaver] Free DVD from The Artfilm Collection
> The Artfilm Collection web site (http://www.artfilmcollection.com/) has a
> special offer for new customers where you can select one free DVD from a
> "Special Offer" list if you buy one DVD at regular price (the coupon code
is
> FREEDVD). The "Special Offer" list includes films by Hou Hsiao-hsien,
Peter
> Greenaway, Erich Rohmer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Bruno Dumont, and more,
> so chances are good that you can find something you will want. Also,
> shipping is free.
>
> The prices for the regular DVDs are list price, but when you factor in the
> free DVD you can save 50% or more (depending on which DVDs you select).
>
> Not a place I'd return to (because of the prices), but it's a good deal
for
> a one-time purchase.
>
> Paul
>
> ---
> Paul Whitelock
> Centennial, Colorado, US
>
>
>
> Before posting a question look here:
> http://www.reviews.dvdbeaver.com/
> and
> http://www.compare.dvdbeaver.com/
>
> Do you own all of these DVDs ?
> http://www.essential.dvdbeaver.com/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
8655
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 2:14am
Subject: Re: Van Sant
--- ptonguette@a... wrote:
And I actually think
> the degree to which he's
> 'borrowed' from Tarr can be easily overstated; after
> all, both "Gerry" and
> "Elephant" contain sped-up shots of the sky and
> that's one of the signature Van Sant
> visual moves dating back to his earliest features...
> okay, that's a minor
> point, but still...
>
Moreover there's a huge difference in overall impact
between Tarr's VERY long films and Gus' 90 minute
ones.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8656
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:22am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
> JPC wrote:
> >And you and I are
> > culturally indoctrinated to respond to Tourneur and generally to
> old
> > genre movies, which a lot of other people are not, unfortunately.
>
>
> JP, this is an assumption about my background that is totally
> untrue, and perhaps my fundamental reason for disagreeing with your
> way of speaking originally. Though I was indoctrinated like
> most..
So I didn't know anything about your background and you don't
know anything about mine. But then you admit you WERE indoctrinated.
That's fine. This only means that you heard some ideas that you felt
were right and went along with them. Because they meshed with what
you really felt. I hope you don't imagine I grew up in an environment
where people worshipped things like "Canyon Passage". Quite the
contrary. I'm talking about the early and mid-fifties for godsake,
and we were like the early Christians hiding in caves: the
Cinematheque (in Paris) and those crummmy neighborhood movie theaters
where you could catch a Ray or a Walsh or a Tourneur or a Fuller
(more often than not dubbed and in awful prints). Do you think
Cahiers du Cinema sold a hundred thousand copies at the time? I'm
talking about even before or just after they started publishing. We
were fighting a consensus. It was a rebellion against those people
who loved THE CINEMA but to them that meant "Potemkin" and Bresson
and "Caligari" and social-minded movies ("Bicycle Thief" greatest
film ever made!) and Hollywood genre movies were all trash. And still
some of those despised movies were just about the only thing that
made me feel my life was worth living.
> If we are or can be in tandum regarding matters of cinema (and I am
> grateful for what you've achieved and given me there!) I don't
> believe we have the same cultural background.
It doesn't matter! My cultural background had absolutely nothing
to do with my love of film, and that's the whole point!
>
> JPC
> Best,
> andy
8657
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:01am
Subject: Re: Van Sant
There's only one VERY long Tarr film, and that's SATANTANGO. There's
even one feature--his MACBETH done in only two shots for Hungarian
TV, one of my favorites--that's only 70 minutes.
> Moreover there's a huge difference in overall impact
> between Tarr's VERY long films and Gus' 90 minute
> ones.
8658
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:11am
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
Zach wrote: > I don't know if Bloom has written on this (I haven't
read it if he
> has), but shouldn't we also keep in mind the two-way funneling that
> marks our cultural memory? The minds and personalities of an
> historical age are 'funneled' from the complex and multitudinous
> realities of their time into the present, with only a few major
> names remaining to the contemporary non-specialist.
> (Bill, I don't know if anyone else finds them funny, but I laugh at
> each of the introductions you give your mentor.)
>
Glad you get a kick out of them - they are defensive feints in the
direction of the acerbic M. Ehrenstein, who considers the guy who
taught me half of what I know to be a simpering fathead.
Clarification, please: The Romantics per se, all the way through
Stevens and Crane and on to Merrill and Ashbery and Ammons, were/are
all deeply read. The non-specialist's tunnel vision of the past is
unlikely to be very creative, no matter how large his/her skimpy
sources loom in his/her imagination. My experience has been that most
of the good filmmakers one meets are also broadly learned, and that
their "untutored" predecessors were, too. Walsh stood behind Griffith
and watched how he did it (as well as carrying the complete
Shakespeare everywhere in his knapsack during his youthful travels);
Hitchcock saw just about everything, and only their masks incline us
to think that Hawks and Ford didn't, too. Even Jean Rouch didn't just
head off to the brush with a windup camera - he had seen Las Hurdes,
he had seen Vigo. I'm sure there are exceptions - there must be - but
by and large artists of every kind are in the uncomfortable position
of Cordelia in King Lear: "Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again."
8659
From: Andy Rector
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:22am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
jpcoursodon@y...> wrote:
>But then you admit you WERE indoctrinated.
> That's fine. This only means that you heard some ideas that you
felt
> were right and went along with them. Because they meshed with what
> you really felt.
No the opposite. I was indoctrinated with trash, with no sympathy
for any of the beauties or truths of something like Canyon Passage.
(and you say you weren't either...?? yet you say the above, I don't
understand)
Every swim is against the current, unfortunately.
No I don't think those things about the early Cahiers era, I
understand the prejudices then, and I appreciate the achievement
in elevating the other films (though I like Potemkin, Bresson and
Calagari as much as Tourneur)
If your "cultural background had absolutely nothing to do with
(your) love of film" then why did you say you were indoctrinated in
the direction of Tourneur:
"you heard some ideas that you felt were right
and went along with them".
Precisely I heard some ideas that I felt were
wrong and went against them. (And from what you've just said it's
what you did too).
I am rather confused now (and I'll take the blame for that). But I'm
going to blurt out my orginal objection:
One shouldn't assume that 90% of the population would dismiss Canyon
Passage (that others wouldn't go against their cultural
upbringing...). That's a producers mentality. One other thing, why
the hell couldn't my neighbor say something about Walsh? I am
someone's neighbor and I did.
I don't wish to further convolute so I will cease my improperly
expressed opinions. Hopefully the future of films will manifest
something closer to what we both want, bereft of cynicism.
yours,
andy
8660
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:35am
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
> I am rather confused now (and I'll take the blame for that).
.
Sorry I confused you. You confused me too. It's the old story, you
know. Two people think they're talking about the same thing and
they're actually talking about totally different things (although in
the end they might be the same after all).
> I don't wish to further convolute so I will cease my improperly
> expressed opinions. Hopefully the future of films will manifest
> something closer to what we both want, bereft of cynicism.
>
I love your choice of words. I'm all for not convoluting,
although that's what most of us are doing here, isn't it?
JPC
8661
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:07am
Subject: Re: Van Sant
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> There's only one VERY long Tarr film, and that's SATANTANGO. There's
> even one feature--his MACBETH done in only two shots for Hungarian
> TV, one of my favorites--that's only 70 minutes.
WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES is at least an hour longer than ELEPHANT, as are most of
Tarr's other films (if memory serves), and anyway, the only Tarr film that Van Sant
cites having seen is SATANTANGO. I agree with David that time is a crucial element in
Van Sant's films, and that without the notion of impending doom in ELEPHANT, the
film might not work at all, or work on an entirely different level that would make it
more of a mood piece like GERRY. One noticeable point of differentiation between
SATANTANGO and ELEPHANT is that as the Van Sant film moves along it fights to be
more realistic and graphic, whereas the Tarr grows progressively more surreal and
dream-like. I began writing an essay on ELEPHANT that I never finished, with the idea
that, for both filmmakers, time is an inconvenience, only more so for Van Sant
(because of commitments to HBO, etc.), and ELEPHANT is partly interesting because
there is this problem of time, of the actions coming to their foreseen conclusion.
The other connection to Tarr that no one seems to share with me is that both films
seem to suggest parallel worlds, heaven and hell -- or at least that's what I took from
ELEPHANT, especially the penultimate shot. The meaning might be more explicit in
the Tarr, but, well, the mood felt very similar.
Gabe
8662
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:12am
Subject: Tarr / Van Sant
> There's only one VERY long Tarr film, and that's SATANTANGO. There's
> even one feature--his MACBETH done in only two shots for Hungarian
> TV, one of my favorites--that's only 70 minutes.
Also his 1979 début, 'Family Nest,' which ran at MoMA Film at the
Gramercy in New York two weeks ago (in a pristine print). This was
about 100 minutes long.
I saw it with my friend, who is Hungarian, and she informed me that a
more accurate translation for the title -- 'Családi tüzfészek' -- would
be 'Familial Firetrap.'
craig.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
8663
From: Raymond P.
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:31am
Subject: Re: Tarr / Van Sant
"Family Nest" is pretty darn fantastic - one of his best early works. Very =
caustic, with an
uncomfortble Cassavetes closeness to the huddled family on the verge of imp=
loding from
all sorts of societal - and personal - issues. Actually, the only film that=
I did not like from
Tarr is "The Ousiders".
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller wrote:
> Also his 1979 début, 'Family Nest,' which ran at MoMA Film at the
> Gramercy in New York two weeks ago (in a pristine print). This was
> about 100 minutes long.
>
> I saw it with my friend, who is Hungarian, and she informed me that a
> more accurate translation for the title -- 'Családi tüzfészek' -- would
> be 'Familial Firetrap.'
>
> craig.
8664
From: Raymond P.
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:35am
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
Actually, I thought the Psycho remake was quite interesting. I could imagine the Hollywood
execs going up to van Sant, asking him to remake the classic. Van Sant then replies, "Sure,
I'll remake it. In fact, I will duplicate the film exactly shot-for-shot! Hah!"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> You are doubtless unaware of his personal signature in
> a number of films, particularly such short works as
> "My Best Friend," "My New Friend," "Five Ways to Kill
> Yourself," "Ken Death Gets Out of Jail," "Flea Sings,"
> "Junior" (his cat dances to the light reflected off
> Gus' guitar as he plasy it), and the ineffable "Five
> Naked Boys With a Gun" (claely self-explanatory.) Gus'
> "Psycho" is an extremely rare instance of a major
> studio being bamboozled into creating a purely
> avant-garde work. It may ostensibly be a "color Xerox"
> of Hitchcock but its true precedents are to be found
> in Marcel Duchamp's "readymades" and Joseph Cornell's
> "Rose Hobart."
>
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
> http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8665
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:33am
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
> What do you mean by original here? Formal innovation? Stories
> never told before?
Yes, and yes. Surprise, by whatever means. "Making it new."
> Good work continues to be done in representaional painting,
> Ibsenesque theatre, the 19th century (or bourgeois, if we like)
novel
> alongside artworks in the respective avant gardes of their mediums
> which have themselves become tradional.
Sure. Originality isn't particularly a matter of surface idiom.
Living traditions themselves evolve and take on new kinds of
significance, not only through the efforts of brilliant individuals
struggling to surmount their influences, as Bill says, but in
response to the larger historical shifts that encompass and define
them. Rohmer's "classicism", if we call it that, means something very
different from Buster Keaton's. Actually I think the idea of
classicism is only doubtfully relevant to the telescoped history of
movies, where it would be hard to argue for a static "tradition"
passed down from one generation to another; but then I'm not
sure "traditional" forms in any medium are especially pure,
consistent or straightforward to start with, whatever they look like
from a distance.
> Of course, there is the East Asian aesthetic tradition where
> originality is understood as something that comes almost by
accident,
> is unpredictable, and is a gift to certain individuals only. It
> can't be taught and it's better in small quantities. When it does
> appear then there's reason to rejoice becasue it's the real thing
> (and the innovation often becomes the tradition of the next
> generation.) But to have mastered the tools of one's art and create
> beautiful or harmonious if unoriginal works is enough for one
> lifetime.
I'm not blaming anybody for not being a genius, but the question is
how I want to spend my time as a viewer. Plenty of people work hard
and long at what they do and become "good craftsmen" (and women) and
die and are forgotten, which is sad but the natural way of things.
Art is long and life is short, as they say.
JTW
8666
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:38am
Subject: World's greatest filmmaker to do Napoleon pic
Has Kubrick invented a technology to return from the dead? No, it's
Patrice Chereau, per Variety:
NAPOLEONIC PROJECTS GIRDING FOR COMBAT
War of words waged as Chereau-helmed pic joins fray
8667
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:43am
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
>
> > Of course, there is the East Asian aesthetic tradition where
> > originality is understood as something that comes almost by
> accident,
> > is unpredictable, and is a gift to certain individuals only
I used this line from Basho to conclude my article on Full Metal
Jacket: "I do not seek to imitate the men of old. I seek the thing
they sought." Of course, I found it staggering around the offices of
Fox Publicity at 4 in the morning looking for an ending, when I
happened to stumble into the office of Joel Coler, the Head of
Foreign Marketing, who had a postcard someone had sent him fro,m
Japan with that line tacked up on his wall...
8668
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:42am
Subject: Re: World's greatest filmmaker to do Napoleon pic
Could you possibly include the gist of the article?
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> Has Kubrick invented a technology to return from the
> dead? No, it's
> Patrice Chereau, per Variety:
>
> NAPOLEONIC PROJECTS GIRDING FOR COMBAT
> War of words waged as Chereau-helmed pic joins fray
>
>
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8669
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 2:46pm
Subject: Ringmaster of "Mammoth Circus" Dies
The obituaries I've seen so far mention any number of
his films -- except the most important one.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=493&e=19&u=/ap/20040329/ap_en_mo/obit_ustinov
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8670
From: samfilms2003
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 2:49pm
Subject: Re: Van Sant
Perverse thought of the day: a Gus Van Sant version of "Rabbit Proof Fence"
"Gerry" still makes me think of "The Shooting" (Monte Hellman).
-Sam
8671
From:
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:53pm
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
Very much enjoyed (and was touched) by the good posts on audience's response to auteur classics.
Other arts groups are also working on thse tasks. Classical music lovers are struggling to tear down walls between the ardent minority who loves classical music, and everybody else. Here is a research article on this from "Symphony" magazine:
http://www.symphony.org/news/room/04jf_cana.shtml
The author makes some good points:
1) Many newcomers go to the symphony, and feel confused and lost. With the decline of good music education in many schools, many people of good will do not have the "core framework" to enjoy classical music. I loved the "Music appreciation" course took in college, learning about composers, musical periods, forms, the orchestra, etc.
Keep thinking that I need to add an "Auteurism 101" to my web site, that will explain the world of filmmaking to newcomers. Of course, Andrew Sarris' "The American Cinema" served such a role for many people, including myself.
Bill Krohn talked about how good Tag Gallagher's teaching about John Ford was, helping audiences into Ford's world.
2) People today are oriented towards "hype" to learn about art events. They are used to Hollywood movies, best sellers and museum exhibits being heavily publicised. Classical music is rarely hyped in this same way. People today actually believe that hype = significance. According to the article, the lack of hype for classical music is interpreted by many people today as meaing that "musicians don't care about attracting an audience, or informing me about their work. They just don't care about me..."
One could respond in two ways here. Many current cinephiles try to create hype for non-commercial movies (the NEW Bela Tarr!! Must see cinema! The film event of the week!!!!) This is certainly well meant.
An opposite approach: try to get contemporary people to appreciate and go to movies without hype. Rememeber, comic books in the 1950's sold 100 million copies a month, all without any advertising, hype or media buzz.
More on these subjects later...
Mike Grost
8672
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:15pm
Subject: R.I.P. -- Peter Ustinov
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/entertainment-people-ustinov.html
8673
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:18pm
Subject: Re: Canyon Passage (was ATSAS screenings)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Very much enjoyed (and was touched) by the good posts on audience's
response to auteur classics.
> Other arts groups are also working on thse tasks. Classical music
lovers are struggling to tear down walls between the ardent minority
who loves classical music, and everybody else.
Jan Harlin, Kubrick's brother-in-law and producer, who found the
music selections for all SK's films ("I'd like a short piece that
builds to a climax and ends suddenly for when they find the
monolith"), plans to make a series of one-hour films for tv that will
do just that. They should be good - his doc on Kubrick was.
8674
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:29pm
Subject: Re: World's greatest filmmaker to do Napoleon pic
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Could you possibly include the gist of the article?
My free month's trial subscription to Variety online has lapsed, so
this is all they'll let me pull up. It's in the March 29 issue:
NAPOLEONIC PROJECTS GIRDING FOR COMBAT
War of words waged as Chereau-helmed pic joins fray
With two Alexander the Great projects on the way, make room for
competing Napoleon pics as well. Al Pacino will play Monsieur
Bonaparte this fall in "The Monster of Longwood," an adaptation of a
Staton Rabin novel.
8675
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:34pm
Subject: Hype, texture
> An opposite approach: try to get contemporary people to appreciate
> and go to movies without hype. Rememeber, comic books in the 1950's
> sold 100 million copies a month, all without any advertising, hype or
> media buzz.
This is the tricky part. One gets the feeling that ambitious directors
had more room to maneuver when people went to movies without hype. But
television took that audience, and the cinema had to turn every movie
into a media event.
In general, episodic TV doesn't seem to be a director's paradise. But
I've always wondered whether we might some day go back to the
made-for-pay-TV movies of the last decade or two and find a lot of good
stuff there. I don't see enough of it to know whether filmmakers have
much room to maneuver, but it does seem as if a lot of good directors
have taken refuge there.
I don't know if I can defend this, but sometimes I think that being an
auteurist means having learned (or been indoctrinated) to appreciate
texture. What's the difference between CANYON PASSAGE and less
interesting Westerns of the day? The script of CANYON PASSAGE isn't
that impeccable, and there's a bit of Hollywoodish simplification in the
way that its characters are deployed and sympathies are aligned. This
is the only thing that many smart moviegoers, then and now, see about
CANYON PASSAGE. To win over the intellectual filmgoing audience, a film
generally has to establish distance from cliche, present itself as original.
And then, beyond this level of signification, movies can provide a
textural experience that a lot of people don't seem to notice, and I
think that auteurist training makes us key in on this. The textural web
can have to do with space, time, emphasis, character, and other things:
we think of it as form, though sometimes good movies stretch our
preconceptions about what form is. Whatever this texture is, it doesn't
always sync up with the elements I was discussing in the last paragraph.
An iconoclastic director like Welles or a Trojan horse director like
Tourneur can both play with the warp of time and space, but a lot of
filmmakers will notice only when the iconoclastic director does it.
In some ways, this social map forges an uneasy alliance between
non-intellectual audiences and auteurist audiences. When we go to see
CANYON PASSAGE, we sit next to the Susan Hayward worshippers. - Dan
8676
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:55pm
Subject: so where does Scorsese rank?
Patrice Chereau *is* the world's greatest filmmaker, and doesn't deserve to be spoken
in the same breath as a Scorsese, but since we are sharing production news ... this
just in:
Scorsese to direct a remake of INFERNAL AFFAIRS, with Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio, for
Warner Bros.
Lack of originality in filmmaking today, etc. etc.?... ehhh, who cares anymore.
8677
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 6:11pm
Subject: Re: Hype, texture
When we go to see CANYON PASSAGE, we sit next to the Susan Hayward
worshippers. - Dan
But we don't see the same film, unless we are of the cherchez la
femme school of auteurism, which does exist.
The point about hype and texture is absolutely dead on. Mike G's
statement that 100 million comic books sold in this country with no
advertising is stunning. TV is an evil invention, and in its wake has
come the growth of all forms of hype, including the political
variety, which TV makes billions off of, and the equally vast field
of "toxic sludge is good for you" corporate PR. I don't think the ad
agencies would ever have had that power if they hadn't had their
newtork accounts to build on. Hype boosts the cost of everything we
buy, too. Its effect on film - including the "event" sell recently
reinvented for the Gibson film - has been wholly negative. And I
don't believe that tv has yet begun to make up for it, or can, even
if tehy are doing good movies and series on cable now. THEY'RE hyped,
too! There's simply no room for a Tourneur in this landscape. Hype
and texture are antithetical. How the internet ever got up and
running at low or no cost I'll never know, but i'm sure it will be
roped in soon.
8678
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 6:13pm
Subject: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
>
> Scorsese to direct a remake of INFERNAL AFFAIRS, with Brad Pitt and
Leo DiCaprio, for
> Warner Bros.
>
> Lack of originality in filmmaking today, etc. etc.?... ehhh, who
cares anymore.
We do. What's INFERNAL AFFAIRS?
8679
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 6:17pm
Subject: RE: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
> We do. What's INFERNAL AFFAIRS?
Star-studded HK crime drama that has spawned
two sequels already. Entertaining, but I doubt
a remake has anything to add.
Jonathan Takagi
8680
From: filipefurtado
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 6:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
> We do. What's INFERNAL AFFAIRS?
>
A HK action film about a cop who has worked undercover as
gangster for years and a gangster who has worked undercover
as cop. It was a big hit in Hong Kong last year (so much, it
actually already got two sequels). The subject suits Scorsese
very well.
Filipe
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
8681
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 6:54pm
Subject: Infernal Affairs
I thought you said INTERNAL AFFAIRS, and I'd thought, What's next,
Spielberg to remake PACIFIC HEIGHTS or JAGGED EDGE?
-Jaime
8682
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:20pm
Subject: Eustache
I read this on the Lincoln Center e-newsletter:
> CINÉMA, the new magazine from Bernard Eisenschitz and Dominique
> Paini, two of the most enterprising and trailblazing figures if
> French movie culture, has taken the unprecedented step of including a
> free DVD of a restored film with each new issue. The latest will
> include JEAN EUSTACHE’s long unavailable final film, "Offre d’emploi"
Is this available now? Are there English subtitles? - Dan
8683
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:23pm
Subject: RE: Eustache
> Is this available now? Are there English subtitles? - Dan
This is available now through the usual outlets, but
unsubtitled (I think). The next issue will contain a
DVD of "The House Is Black".
Jonathan Takagi
8684
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:33pm
Subject: Re: Re: World's greatest filmmaker to do Napoleon pic
Juliette Binoche is co-starring with Pacino in the
Chereau. Do you know who's doing the other new
Napoleon film?
And BTW, Chereau played Napoleon in Youssef Chahine's
"Adieu Bonaparte."
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
>
> wrote:
> > Could you possibly include the gist of the
> article?
>
> My free month's trial subscription to Variety online
> has lapsed, so
> this is all they'll let me pull up. It's in the
> March 29 issue:
>
> NAPOLEONIC PROJECTS GIRDING FOR COMBAT
> War of words waged as Chereau-helmed pic joins fray
> With two Alexander the Great projects on the way,
> make room for
> competing Napoleon pics as well. Al Pacino will play
> Monsieur
> Bonaparte this fall in "The Monster of Longwood," an
> adaptation of a
> Staton Rabin novel.
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8685
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:33pm
Subject: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Gabe Klinger"
wrote:
> Patrice Chereau *is* the world's greatest filmmaker, and doesn't
deserve to be spoken
> in the same breath as a Scorsese, but since we are sharing
production news ... this
> just in:
>
> Scorsese to direct a remake of INFERNAL AFFAIRS, with Brad Pitt
and Leo DiCaprio, for
> Warner Bros.
>
> Lack of originality in filmmaking today, etc. etc.?... ehhh, who
cares anymore.
If Chereau is the worlds greatest filmmaker, then I'll take up
squaredancing, as that must a more refined artform than Bournonville
Ballet.
Since when has film become a contest? Since when has esoteric taste
become the ruling factor? Where is the passion for film? Where is
the love for film? Where is the enjoyment of cinema?
If we want originality in Cinema, stop writing about film, stop
watching film, stop discussing film. Isolate yourself from any
outside thought that may spark an idea.
Henrik
8686
From: George Robinson
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:54pm
Subject: Re: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
I liked the original a great deal but I thought the ending was a serious
misjudgement by Johnny To (the director). However, I don't think that's
enough reason to remake it.
On the other hand, Scorsese will undoubtedly bring a different perspective
to the material. How different remains to be seen.
g
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Takagi"
To:
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 1:17 PM
Subject: RE: [a_film_by] Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
>
> > We do. What's INFERNAL AFFAIRS?
>
> Star-studded HK crime drama that has spawned
> two sequels already. Entertaining, but I doubt
> a remake has anything to add.
>
> Jonathan Takagi
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
8687
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 9:01pm
Subject: Re: Eustache
How great to hear.
What are the usual outlets?
-Matt
Jonathan Takagi wrote:
>>Is this available now? Are there English subtitles? - Dan
>>
>>
>
>This is available now through the usual outlets, but
>unsubtitled (I think). The next issue will contain a
>DVD of "The House Is Black".
>
>Jonathan Takagi
>
>
8688
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 9:07pm
Subject: RE: Eustache
> What are the usual outlets?
www.fnac.com
www.amazon.fr
Jonathan Takagi
8689
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 9:45pm
Subject: Re: Eustache
wrote:
>
The next issue will contain a
> DVD of "The House Is Black".
>
> Jonathan Takagi
Not to be missed -- lepers! -- there is a copy circulating here w.
titles by Jonathan and his collaborator on the Kiorostami book.
8690
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 9:51pm
Subject: Re: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
--- Henrik Sylow wrote:
>
> If Chereau is the worlds greatest filmmaker, then
> I'll take up
> squaredancing, as that must a more refined artform
> than Bournonville
> Ballet.
>
Well swing your partner, do-see-do!
> Since when has film become a contest?
I have no idea. I happen to prize Chereau highly and
others on this list have chosen to run with that. I
also hold Scorsese in high regard -- though his recent
work has been rather disappointing. I'm greatly
looking forward to "The Aviator." However this remake
of "Infernal Affairs" sounds like "Son of Cape Fear"
from a career perspective.
Since when has
> esoteric taste
> become the ruling factor? Where is the passion for
> film? Where is
> the love for film? Where is the enjoyment of cinema?
>
Where's the glamour? Where's the magic?
Well one place I wouldn't look is Dogma.
> If we want originality in Cinema, stop writing about
> film, stop
> watching film, stop discussing film. Isolate
> yourself from any
> outside thought that may spark an idea.
>
Now you've lost me. What are you talking about exactly?
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
8691
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:18pm
Subject: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>Where's the magic?
Well one place I wouldn't look is Dogma.
Now thats humour :)
8692
From: Jonathan Takagi
Date: Mon Mar 29, 2004 8:30pm
Subject: RE: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
> I liked the original a great deal but I thought the ending was a serious
> misjudgement by Johnny To (the director). However, I don't think that's
> enough reason to remake it.
> On the other hand, Scorsese will undoubtedly bring a different perspective
> to the material. How different remains to be seen.
Johnny To didn't direct any of the movies in the series, did he?
Are you thinking of "The Mission" or "Full Time Killer"?
Jonathan Takagi
8693
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Tue Mar 30, 2004 0:43am
Subject: Re: Increasing lack of originality by recent filmmakers?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
"I used this line from Basho to conclude my article on Full Metal
Jacket: 'I do not seek to imitate the men of old. I seek the thing
they sought.'"
And the corollary from DuFu, "The ideas of a poet should be noble and
simple." And from Ch'an: "Unformed people delight in the gaudy, and
in novelty. Cooked people delight in the ordinary." (How few of us
are cooked, including yours truly.)
Richard
8694
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Tue Mar 30, 2004 1:24am
Subject: Re: so where does Scorsese rank?
> If Chereau is the worlds greatest filmmaker, then I'll take up
> squaredancing,
In case it didn't come across, we are fucking with David E., who has already
proclaimed several times on the list that a certain Chereau film is the greatest single
piece of art the world has ever produced (well, I'm exaggerating, but you get the
idea)...
Henrik, why is it that you make big annoying blanket statements and then never
explain your remarks when people ask you (and usually people ask with genuine
interest)? You never seem to care, or maybe you think everything you say is self-
evident.
I was about to respond to one of your questions ("Since when has esoteric taste
become the ruling factor"), but, Henrik, I don't think you deserve the attention. All
you do anymore is complain. That is, until the new Lars von Trier movie comes out.
Woo-pee-tee-fucking-doo.
Gabe
8695
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:08am
Subject: Re: Mazursky on Showtime/COAST to COAST airing 4/4 and 4/10, SHOWTIME
COAST to COAST airing SUNDAY 4/4 and 4/10 on Showtime, several screenings
> Bill wrote:
> > There's a billboard on Sunset for Coast to Coast, a Paul Mazursky
> > film on Showtime - not yet aired, I believe. Interesting cast,
> > interesting writer, interesting director:
8696
From:
Date: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:13am
Subject: Re: World's greatest filmmaker to do Napoleon pic
>
> NAPOLEONIC PROJECTS GIRDING FOR COMBAT
> War of words waged as Chereau-helmed pic joins fray
> With two Alexander the Great projects on the way, make room for
> competing Napoleon pics as well. Al Pacino will play Monsieur
> Bonaparte this fall in "The Monster of Longwood," an adaptation of
a
> Staton Rabin novel.
That is so weird. Didn't Stanley Kubrick once joke about casting
Pacino in his long-gestating, never-realized NAPOLEON project?
-Bilge
8697
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:38am
Subject: Shorts program at SFIFF
Paolo Cherchi-Usai has curated a program of archival rarities from
George Eastman House for the San Francisco International Film Festival.
The program --entitled "Life is Shorts" - looks pretty great. Have any
of our list members seen any of these films, and if so, care to
comment...?
Une Indigestion: “A Sure Cure for Indigestion,” indeed. This was made
the same year as his famous Voyage to the Moon. (Georges Méličs, France
1902, 4 min.)
Das Ornament des verliebten Herzens: Reininger’s debut marks the first
flowering of her silhouette animation technique. This graceful fantasy
is, as she wrote, “a ballet between a man and a woman within an
animated garland.” (Lotte Reininger, Germany 1919, 7 min.)
Fedora: A 15-minute fragment from a thought-lost Italian silent
feature, starring the immortal Francesca Bertini, legendary Italian
diva. (Gustave Serena, Italy 1916, 15 min.)
The Breath of a Nation: “This spoof of D.W. Griffith’s title is a
lighthearted, anarchic celebration of the strategems devised against
Prohibition.” —Paolo Cherchi Usai. (Gregory La Cava, USA 1919, 7 min.)
There It Is: “The house looks haunted—we better call Scotland Yard.
Stop-motion photography and surrealism galore in this Bowers
rediscovery.” —Paolo Cherchi Usai. (Charles R. Bowers, USA 1928, 15
min.)
The Land Beyond the Sunset: Social problem film, pastoral fantasy, and
cine-poem: This short sponsored by the Fresh Air Fund made Paolo
Cherchi Usai’s top-ten films of all time list for Sight and Sound.
(Harold M. Shaw, USA 1912, 15 min.)
Pass the Gravy: Max Davidson was one of the silent era’s premier
comedians, a silent Woody Allen. Here he demonstrates how, or how not
to, eat a chicken. (Fred Guiol, Leo McCarey, USA 1928, 22 min.)
Gabe
8698
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:51am
Subject: Re: Shorts program at SFIFF
> Pass the Gravy: Max Davidson was one of the silent era’s premier
> comedians, a silent Woody Allen. Here he demonstrates how, or how not
> to, eat a chicken. (Fred Guiol, Leo McCarey, USA 1928, 22 min.)
I saw this one fairly recently - thought it was okay, not that exciting.
- Dan
8699
From:
Date: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:36am
Subject: Re: Shorts program at SFIFF
Have not seen any of these - but would love to!
There is a demented Charles R. Bowers short (if memory serves) on a video of
way-out silent comedy shorts called "Tons of Fun". His special effects driven
comedy is like nothing else (perhaps fortunately!).
Wish all of these were available on DVD!
Mike Grost
PS Just saw "I fidanzati" (Ermanno Olmi, 1962) on DVD. What a super movie.
His "The Tree of Wooden Clogs" is one of the all time great films.
8700
From: Samuel Bréan
Date: Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:56am
Subject: RE: Re: Shorts program at SFIFF
>There is a demented Charles R. Bowers short (if memory serves) on a video
>of
>way-out silent comedy shorts called "Tons of Fun". His special effects
>driven
>comedy is like nothing else (perhaps fortunately!).
>Wish all of these were available on DVD!
>Mike Grost
Actually, Charley Bowers' films are available in DVD. I was going to point
you to the French edition, since it's thanks to collector Serge Bromberg and
his team at Lobster Films that these films have been rediscovered, but it
seems that there is even a Region 1 disc out published by Image.
Anyway, here's Lobster Films' site (in French and English):
http://www.lobsterfilms.com
- Samuel
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