Home Film
Art
Other: (Travel, Rants, Obits)
Links About
Contact
a_film_by Main Page
Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.
Important: The copyright of each post below is owned by the
person who wrote the post, and reproducing it in any form requires
that person's permission.
It is possible to email the author of any post by finding a post
they have written in the a_film_by archives at
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/messages and
emailing them from that Web site.
9501
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 5:06am
Subject: Re: Dairy of a Country Priest BRESSON
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> --- Elizabeth Anne Nolan wrote:
> > The sexuality of the priest in DoaCP for me was one
> > of total
> > repression, neither homosexual or heterosexual. I
> > may be wrong
> > but I imagine at the time it was probably more
> > common to see
> > a man ride on the back of motorbike than to see a
> > woman ride on
> > the back of motorbike.
> >
> >
> That's not really the issue. He gets great, obviously
> sensual pleasure from this bike ride. Don;t forget
> he's hanging onto a very handsome guy in this.
>
> I thought of that bike ride when I saw "Wilde Reeds"
> whose climactic bike-ride (absolutely heart-breaking)
> is quite explicit in its sexual-romantic nature. With
> Bresson everythig is implicit. And this in turn ties
> up with his other concerns and the very unique way he
> has of expressing them in images and sound.
This poor priest was so lonesone, I think he would have
been thrilled to hold onto a dog, human or otherwise...
9502
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 5:07am
Subject: Re: French Gigolo aka Call Me!
---
> >I'd like to find out more about this stuff, I know next to nothing
> >about Bresson's personal life. Where is Jonathan's post? Jeez,
you
> I'd like to hear this fleshed out a bit, too. I'm not so sure it
> qualifies as a bona fide "discovery," does it?
>
> I moderate www.robert-bresson.com and knowing full well how
difficult
> it is to get *any* information regarding Bresson's personal
> life--especially where Mylene Bresson is involved--I'm quite
> intrigued.
>
> Doug
I'm afraid I no longer remember who first told me this rumor (or
information), except that I believed it at the time--and that
Olivier Assayas, a very serious Bressonian, accepts it without qualm
or hesitation as true. (Maybe he knows where the information comes
from; I didn't ask him when we discussed this.) For me, it explains
an enormous amount about the work as well as the life--at least as
much as Bresson's several months in a concentration camp.
Jonathan
9503
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:20am
Subject: Re: sex lives of directors and critics
> It's interesting that the PCE was allowed to acknowledge the
> Revolution while the Comintern adopted a line that denied a
> revolution was taking place so as not to alarm the Capitalist
> countries (the official line at that time was "Socialism in one
> country.") The International Brigades were told that no revolution
> was taking place in spite of evidence to the contrary, and this
> policy produced a lot of disillusionment that ultimately lead to a
> lot of recantations and denunciations of "The Stalinist School of
> Falsification."
My turn to say thanks - I was unaware that Bunuel and Unik were in
any way breaking ranks by making Espagne 1937. I have only seen the
French version; the Spanish version is longer and may be very
different. But hearing that the Comintern wanted to keep a low
profile about Spain certainly sheds a different light on this film,
which shows soldiers in classrooms being educated to become citizens
of the Republic even as the guns are thundering, reading newspapers
and other educational materials in the trenches, and so on.
Pardon me if I gave the impression that this is all proclaimed as
being a communist revolution - the word is never spoken. But for
anyone with much political knowledge it would have been clear at the
time that one was watching a revolution being carried out under fire
because the "other side" (also never named) wants to overturn the
results of a democratic election and is killing people hand over fist
to achieve that. I'll look at the book you recommended and reply with
a more detailed post about how all this is portrayed in the
documentary.
9504
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:21am
Subject: Lang/sex
What about Fritz Lang? What do we make, if anything, of his being
unmarried for 40 years after his divorce from Harbou in 1934? An
interviewer once asked him in his later years "why don't you make a
love story?" and he replied "it's not so simple. What if she's a
Nazi?" (pp).
9505
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:29am
Subject: Re: sex lives of directors and critics
Jean Butler, former wife of Hugo Butler (writer of YOUNG ONE) comes
into the store. She told me Bunuel's touches in YOUNG ONE are
"anarchist and reprehensible". Luckily she holds no rights to the film.
9506
From: iangjohnston
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:59am
Subject: Re: Chabrol
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> I'll second Fred Camper's enthusiasm for "The Champagne Murders"
(Chabrol).
> The apartment scene around 2/3 along is especially well done. The
complex set
> is in the tradition of the apartment in Les Cousins, but even more
> fantastically elaborate. You can watch this repeatedly on tape,
and try to orient
> oneself in its baroque detail.
> The very first shot of "Le Cri du hibou" also has a little of this
feel,
> although it is not sustained.
> I tend to like Chabrol in a lighter mood. Have to agree with Bill
Krohn, that
> Chabrol's heavier works can tend toward the depressing.
Gracefulness,
> imagination and a sense of joy are underrtaed cinematic virtues,
and they are perhaps
> most apparent in Charbrol's more upbeat dramas.
>
> Mike Grost
Certainly, you *will* get "gracefulness, imagination and a sense of
joy" from Chabrol's more "upbeat" dramas - MASQUES being no doubt a
case in point, with good and evil clearly assigned to the
appropriate characters, and a satisfyingly happy ending with the
hero and heroine winning through in the end, all done with such
grace and wit (right through to an allusion to SPIES in the final
scene).
As for LE CRI DU HIBOU, you're right that Chabrol doesn't follow
through the more complex explorations of space that you're getting
in the opening sequence, but that's because it's representing the
perspective of the Christophe Malavoy character, on the outside in
his "peeping tom" role. Once he's invited inside the house, this
form of mise en scene is no longer appropriate. Here, Chabrol's
stylistic choices relate to narrative meaning.
I can't say that personally I find anything depressing about
Chabrol's "heavier" works. With a film like ...HIBOU I respond to
the way there's an ambiguity to the characters and events of the
narrative, an unresolved tone epitomised by that final freeze-frame
of the hand hovering over the knife. The heavier works can lack the
tidy narrative closure of the lighter ones, but that's also part of
their interest.
9507
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:04am
Subject: Re: sex lives of directors and critics
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
> Jean Butler, former wife of Hugo Butler (writer of YOUNG ONE) comes
> into the store. She told me Bunuel's touches in YOUNG ONE are
> "anarchist and reprehensible". Luckily she holds no rights to the
film.
Ask her which ones they are!
9508
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:03am
Subject: Re: Lang/sex
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
> What about Fritz Lang? What do we make, if anything, of his being
> unmarried for 40 years after his divorce from Harbou in 1934? An
> interviewer once asked him in his later years "why don't you make a
> love story?" and he replied "it's not so simple. What if she's a
> Nazi?" (pp).
It happens. Lang did marry Lilly Latte at the end of his life, and
they had been together for quite a while before that. If you want to
talk about Lang's sexuality being reflected in his films, his
reported infatuation with Joan Bennet is certainly visible on the
screen!
The Sternberg-Dietrich paradigm became important in the history of
cinematic modernism, where you had Godard and his two wife-muses;
Truffaut and everyone but Adjani, apparently; Renoir and several
actresses; Bergman and several actresses; Rossellini and Ingrid
Bergman; Fellini and Giulietta Masina; and I suppose Chabrol and
Stephane Audran.
But it was about much more than just making them look great. Some of
the key modernist films are documentaries-imbedded-in-fiction about
the filmmaker and the actress, where the reality of the relationship
on the set sometimes breaks through in a moment of NON-acting, like
Karina turning to the camera in A Woman's a Woman and saying she
doesn't know if she's supposed to laugh or cry. That's a blown take,
but Godard put it in the film. The reality-moment - Harriet Andersson
looking at the camera in Monika made a big impression on the New
Wave - is fetishized as a moment of truth that undermines a world of
false appearances (= the film, the fiction).
What I see in Bresson is the same thing I see in Rohmer - a lot of
leching (sp?) on young middle-class girls with no acting experience,
which produces the kind of limited social criticism implied in the
core modernist films referred to above. But it's certainly true that
Bresson's "models" included good-looking young men from Country
Priest on.
I have said this before: The relationship between directors and
actresses and how it shapes films has been theorized to shreds; the
relationship between directors and actors has been overlooked. I
again recommend an indie film called Cleopatra's Second Husband, now
rentable, which got me thinking about this and sparked an interesting
conversation in 1999 with Jean-Claude Biette, who hadn't seen
Cleopatra's Second Husband but had a lot to say about the subject.
His thoughts are reported at length in a series of posts I did here
shortly after his death last June, if anyone wants to look it up.
9509
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:06am
Subject: Re: Chabrol
> I can't say that personally I find anything depressing about
> Chabrol's "heavier" works. With a film like ...HIBOU I respond to
> the way there's an ambiguity to the characters and events of the
> narrative, an unresolved tone epitomised by that final freeze-frame
> of the hand hovering over the knife. The heavier works can lack the
> tidy narrative closure of the lighter ones, but that's also part of
> their interest.
I'm happy to admit that this reaction is my personal quirk, because
it's extreme. I begin to plunge into a clinical depression 10 minutes
into any Chabrol film. I asked Christa Fuller why, and she
said: "family secrets."
9510
From: iangjohnston
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:07am
Subject: Re: Chabrol (from script to screen)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> On the topic of Chabrol, I have to chime in and say that I think
he's a
> pretty major filmmaker. Maybe I'd even go so far as to say that
his films are the
> best - cinematically speaking - of all of the directors of the
French New
> Wave. I'm not prepared to back that bit of hyperbole up, but the
best Chabrol
> films - "Les Bonnes Femmes," "Le Boucher," "The Unfaithful
Wife," "Ten Days
> Wonder," and the masterful "Merci pour le chocolat" - strike me as
so exquisitiely
> conceived as film: the framing, the movement of the camera, the
montage, even
> the opticals add up to a very richly satisfying visual experience,
one without
> any 'dead spots' in the mise en scene. I can understand what Bill
means when
> he says he finds the films depressing, but in a way I have the
opposite
> experience: they are so beautifully made that I find them kind of
exhilarating.
> Peter
Peter,
I guess you haven't seen LA CEREMONIE (JUDGEMENT IN STONE).
Definitely worth tracking down, and one you'd probably add to your
list of Chabrol's best.
Ian
9511
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:24am
Subject: Re: sex lives of directors and critics
Bill-
I think it's an error to align the realism in the Mexican Bunuels with
Lukacs' notion of realism. Perhaps you will fight me on this and I
might well be wrong, I haven't read very much Lukacs, but a great deal
of what Bunuel does in these films would be, I imagine, decried by
Lukacs as mislead, or even formalist, precisely because Bunuel doesn't
deal out 'types' for the sake of modeling, he contradicts them (in
...Archibaldo, El, El Bruto, especially Young One). Bunuel doesn't, as
Lukacs prescribes for the realist, "seek out the lasting features in
people". If some "lasting features" are present, their violation is
what's valuable, and I would say, more politically astute than Lukacs'
socialist realism. There is something shifty in the Bunuels that moves
me to disagree with the Lukacs parallel, it is a feeling I can't quite
put into words. In what text can one read the "many manifestations of
critical realism analyzed by Lukacs"? From what I've read, Lukacs
seems impossibly narrow and backwards in regard to realism, realism
which surely exists in the Bunuels in very lucid form. I should simply
ask, if there is certainly social reality in Bunuel, does that make
him Lukacsian?
Maybe I'm out of line.
Yours,
andy
9512
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 9:47am
Subject: Re: sex lives of directors and critics
Last year a historian claimed that the CNT (the Spanish Ararcho-
Syndicalists) used "Un chien andalou" to torture their prisoners
during the Spanish Civil War.
"Milicua said there was also evidence that Nationalist prisoners
in Murcia were forced to watch Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel's
film Un Chien Andalou."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2698177.stm
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/27/1043534004548.html
The story is almost certainly false:
http://void.nothingness.org/archives/RA/display/2358
http://void.nothingness.org/archives/RA/display/2356
http://void.nothingness.org/archives/RA/display/2364
http://void.nothingness.org/archives/RA/display/2351
http://void.nothingness.org/archives/RA/display/2360
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=LxJ7b.28442%245g7.19984%
40twister.austin.rr.com
9513
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 2:17pm
Subject: Re: Lang/sex
> What about Fritz Lang? What do we make, if anything, of his being
> unmarried for 40 years after his divorce from Harbou in 1934? An
> interviewer once asked him in his later years "why don't you make a
> love story?" and he replied "it's not so simple. What if she's a
> Nazi?" (pp).
This is a great quote - do you remember where it's from? - Dan
9514
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 2:29pm
Subject: success/sex
> The Sternberg-Dietrich paradigm became important in the history of
> cinematic modernism, where you had Godard and his two wife-muses;
> Truffaut and everyone but Adjani, apparently; Renoir and several
> actresses; Bergman and several actresses; Rossellini and Ingrid
> Bergman; Fellini and Giulietta Masina; and I suppose Chabrol and
> Stephane Audran.
I'm contemplating a theory of personality according to which successful
people have a marked tendency toward promiscuity. The explanation would
be that these people have few inner conflicts about going after what
they desire. Maybe I'm just reacting to having read biographies of
Truffaut, Rossellini and Leonard Cohen in succession. Are there lots of
good counterexamples (i.e, people who transfer energy from sex to
career, instead of expending energy along both lines)? - Dan
9515
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 2:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Chabrol
>>I can't say that personally I find anything depressing about
>>Chabrol's "heavier" works. With a film like ...HIBOU I respond to
>>the way there's an ambiguity to the characters and events of the
>>narrative, an unresolved tone epitomised by that final freeze-frame
>>of the hand hovering over the knife. The heavier works can lack the
>>tidy narrative closure of the lighter ones, but that's also part of
>>their interest.
>
> I'm happy to admit that this reaction is my personal quirk, because
> it's extreme. I begin to plunge into a clinical depression 10 minutes
> into any Chabrol film. I asked Christa Fuller why, and she
> said: "family secrets."
My take on Chabrol is that his oeuvre is about the intrinsic impurity of
people. He is quite capable of creating characters who perform virtuous
acts, even against great obstacles; but he seems to require that these
characters work from a very compromised state of being. (The conflicts
are generally posed in moral, almost religious terms. Chabrol's films
that don't use this vocabulary tend to be more ordinary.) I find this
quite challenging, myself.
Interestingly, the director who I think comes closest to Chabrol in this
regard is Bunuel, who doesn't depress you. Admittedly the approach is
different. - Dan
9516
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 2:50pm
Subject: Re: The Last Taboo (was: Stick in the mud)
> Dan's last film at least takes religion as its pretext (sex,
> religion - that just leaves you one taboo subject you haven't
> tackled, Dan)
I dunno, I thought the last film was kind of about politics.
If I did an overtly political film, I'd need it to be about a
sympathetic, persuasive Cheney-Rumsfeld type.... Communism is not a
taboo among the people I know. - Dan
9517
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 2:57pm
Subject: Re: success/sex
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
"I'm contemplating a theory of personality according to which
successful people have a marked tendency toward promiscuity. The
explanation would be that these people have few inner conflicts about
going after what they desire. Maybe I'm just reacting to having
read biographies of Truffaut, Rossellini and Leonard Cohen in
succession. Are there lots of good counterexamples (i.e, people who
transfer energy from sex to career, instead of expending energy
along both lines)?"
Don't forget to include class and culture as variables when working
out your theory. Mizoguchi was involved with Yamada Isuzu in
the '30s and later Tanaka Kinuya in the '40s and early '50s all the
while married to the same woman since 1932. He was also a patron of
the "licensed quarters." His wife suffered a mental breakdown in
1941 (just after he started GENROKU CHUSHINGURA)and he blamed his
philandering for it (NOT for having transmitted syphilis to her.)
Before his marriage he was involved with a couple of geisha (not at
the same time.) The ability to keep a woman was a sign of worldly
success for men in Japan in those days (it still is though somewhat
less so.) By contrast, Kurosawa never had mistresses or became
involved with actresses and was said to be only happy when he was
working; Ozu was never married or known to have had a mistress,
however I read that he had a crush on a male co-worker when he was in
his early 20s (and there's the love letter he wrote to a fellow-
school boy when he was in his teens,) but he seems not to have acted
on his desires and according to Noda he lived for his work.
Richard
9518
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 2:59pm
Subject: Re: success/sex 'money and honey'
I don't think that 'inner conflict' is the issue here, as much as the
continual growth that 'successful' people achieve, often through
interactions with others on that same upward trend.
Personally, I think having 'money in the bank and a honey in the
bed' is probably quite freeing ... the question is what one does with
that freedom. 'Successful' people keep 'working on their own
interest' and sometime achieve something they and others appreciate.
The college environment in the early coed days when male professors's
wives were stay at home partners was a set up for promiscuity as
professors kept growing intellectually while their wives had other
concerns...and the professors had a lot of young interesting females
in the audience.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I'm contemplating a theory of personality according to which
successful
> people have a marked tendency toward promiscuity. The explanation
would
> be that these people have few inner conflicts about going after
what
> they desire. Maybe I'm just reacting to having read biographies of
> Truffaut, Rossellini and Leonard Cohen in succession. Are there
lots of
> good counterexamples (i.e, people who transfer energy from sex to
> career, instead of expending energy along both lines)? - Dan
9519
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 3:05pm
Subject: Bunuel/Huston
For those interested in Bunuel's relation to the Communist Party, there is
an important and fascinating piece by the all-time Surrealist expert Paul
Hammond, called "Bunuel Bows Out", in the next issue of ROUGE
(www.rouge.com.au), coming soon. It is based on Paul's research into some
documents from the period never before unearthed.
Huston: I am no big fan of his films, but there is one I absolutely cherish,
and it seems to be a 'lost' film: A WALK WITH LOVE AND DEATH (1969),
starring a very young Anjelica Huston. I saw it several times on TV in the
'70s, and it's burned into my brain forever more - minimal but sumptuous
historical film, gorgeous Delerue score, a haunting and 'impossible'
voice-over narration from beyond the grave (the final line is something like
"death came for us, and we were not afraid"), and some passages of mise en
scene that are pure Murnau. Does anyone know if this film is available today
in any format? It was mostly dismissed in its time for projecting some image
of '60s hippie culture back into 14th century France - but that's also
exactly what Robert Benayoun in POSITIF praised it for! I'm with him.
Adrian
9520
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 3:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: success/sex
--- Richard Modiano wrote:
Ozu was never married or known to have had
> a mistress,
> however I read that he had a crush on a male
> co-worker when he was in
> his early 20s (and there's the love letter he wrote
> to a fellow-
> school boy when he was in his teens,) but he seems
> not to have acted
> on his desires and according to Noda he lived for
> his work.
>
Ozu was in love with Chishu Ryu. >
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9521
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 3:31pm
Subject: Re: success/sex
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
>
> Don't forget to include class and culture as variables when working
> out your theory. Mizoguchi was involved with Yamada Isuzu in
> the '30s and later Tanaka Kinuya in the '40s and early '50s all the
> while married to the same woman since 1932. He was also a patron
of
> the "licensed quarters." His wife suffered a mental breakdown in
> 1941 (just after he started GENROKU CHUSHINGURA)and he blamed his
> philandering for it (NOT for having transmitted syphilis to her.)
> Before his marriage he was involved with a couple of geisha (not at
> the same time.) The ability to keep a woman was a sign of worldly
> success for men in Japan in those days (it still is though somewhat
> less so.) By contrast, Kurosawa never had mistresses or became
> involved with actresses and was said to be only happy when he was
> working; Ozu was never married or known to have had a mistress,
> however I read that he had a crush on a male co-worker when he was
in
> his early 20s (and there's the love letter he wrote to a fellow-
> school boy when he was in his teens,) but he seems not to have
acted
> on his desires and according to Noda he lived for his work.
>
> Richard
The American equivalent to Ozu would be John Ford, who stayed
married to the same woman from 1920 to his death, was never known to
have affairs (although he may have had crushes, notably Kate Hepburn)
and was, according to Maureen O'Hara, a repressed homosexual. Another
case, minus (?) the homosexuality, would be Hitchcock. However the
vast majority of film directors, and generally speaking "creative"
people, tend to be sexually polymorphous and hyper-active, at least
partly for the reasons suggested by Dan and his theory. A healthy
disregard for petty middle-class moral conventions allied to a broad
range of opportunities go a long way to explain their "promiscuity".
JPC
9522
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 3:38pm
Subject: Re: Re: success/sex
> Don't forget to include class and culture as variables when working
> out your theory. Mizoguchi was involved with Yamada Isuzu in
> the '30s and later Tanaka Kinuya in the '40s and early '50s all the
> while married to the same woman since 1932. He was also a patron of
> the "licensed quarters." His wife suffered a mental breakdown in
> 1941 (just after he started GENROKU CHUSHINGURA)and he blamed his
> philandering for it (NOT for having transmitted syphilis to her.)
> Before his marriage he was involved with a couple of geisha (not at
> the same time.) The ability to keep a woman was a sign of worldly
> success for men in Japan in those days (it still is though somewhat
> less so.) By contrast, Kurosawa never had mistresses or became
> involved with actresses and was said to be only happy when he was
> working; Ozu was never married or known to have had a mistress,
> however I read that he had a crush on a male co-worker when he was in
> his early 20s (and there's the love letter he wrote to a fellow-
> school boy when he was in his teens,) but he seems not to have acted
> on his desires and according to Noda he lived for his work.
Interesting. Here's at least one variable that needs to be factored in:
the path to success in a given profession, and what personality traits
are helpful to it. For instance, if you cited a bunch of computer
programmers who didn't have a lot of sex with multiple partners, I
wouldn't be in the least surprised. Computer programming is one of
those professions where you can go far with a fairly submissive
mentality - you can succeed by sitting in one place and doing someone's
bidding. (The startup entrepreneurs who hire the programmers, however,
remind me a lot of independent filmmakers: hungry, always in motion,
thriving on chaos.)
I wonder if there's a possibility that the early days of the Japanese
industry encouraged a more employee-like attitude in directors? In
which case the personality profile for success shifts. I know these
definitions are too vague to be tested, and that there are more grays
than blacks or whites. - Dan
9523
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 3:44pm
Subject: Re: Dairy of a Country Priest BRESSON
Just to add that for me, the motorcycle ride at the end of FALLEN ANGELS is
incredibly moving and romantic.
It just is, I don't know what else it means.
-Sam
9524
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 4:26pm
Subject: Re: Re: success/sex
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> The American equivalent to Ozu would be John
> Ford,
I think not. Ozu was legendarily nice to everyone.
Ford was "a piece of work."
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9525
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 4:36pm
Subject: Ozu/Ford
> I think not. Ozu was legendarily nice to everyone.
> Ford was "a piece of work."
Didn't Hideko Takamine jokingly refer to Naruse and Ozu as two "mean old
men" in a memoir of Naruse that she wrote? I've also heard that Ozu was
charming and good company, but it seems to me that I've also heard he
could be tough on the set. - Dan
9526
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 5:54pm
Subject: Re: success/sex
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
"I wonder if there's a possibility that the early days of the
Japanese industry encouraged a more employee-like attitude in
directors? In which case the personality profile for success
shifts."
In the early days of the Japanese industry the relation of the
director to the studio was like that of the artist to the publisher
of woodblock prints at a time when woodblock prints constituted
Japan's most popular art form. A successful artist like Utamaro or
Hokusai was called "sensei" by the publisher and given whatever he
needed to turn out his next work; if he didn't get his way he could
go to another publisher. An artist who's works didn't sell well was
treated as an employee and might be given other tasks to do for the
publisher. For example, Mizoguchi started at Nikkatsu and worked
there for several years utnil he fell out with his producer and
thereafter worked for all the majors during the course of his career
and took several of his favorite collaborators with him from studio
to studio (the Japanese industry didn't have long-term cast iron
contracts like their Hollywood counterparts during the heyday of the
studio system.) By contrast, Ozu and Kurosawa made almost all their
films at Shochiku and Toho respectively.
In general, modern Japanese arts started out by following the pattern
of traditional Japanese arts in their organizational set-ups: there
was a patron/provider of capital, overseer/manager, artist, assitants
and craftspeople. In the movie industry, one took an aptitude test
and then was assigned to to be an assitant director if the test
showed directorial promise, a gaffer if cinematographer was
indicated, etc. For example, Imamura was Ozu's AD on TOKYO STORY and
several other pictures before being allowed to direct. This system
persisted into the 1970s.
The aspiring Japanese director working as an assitant had to be
willing to submit to a hierarchical relationship with the dierector
to whom he'd been assigned and do what he was told without question.
Imamura was entirely at odds with Ozu's world-view and thought his
methods old-fashioned but nevertheless admitted that he learned about
picture-making from Ozu. On the other hand, Kurosawa idolized Yamada
(to whom he'd been apprenticed) and always thought him one of the
greatest of Japanese directors.
Richard
9527
From:
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 1:58pm
Subject: Re: Re: Chabrol (from script to screen)
Ian,
I haven't seen "Le Ceremonie," nor Fred's favorite, "The Champagne Murders,"
so there's obviously still a number of key Chabrols which I must see. Here's
hoping for a major Chabrol retrospective at some point.
Peter
9528
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:04pm
Subject: Re: Ozu/Ford
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
"Didn't Hideko Takamine jokingly refer to Naruse and Ozu as two "mean
old men" in a memoir of Naruse that she wrote? I've also heard that
Ozu was charming and good company, but it seems to me that I've also
heard he could be tough on the set."
Well, Hidechan was a spoiled child star who grew up to be an
imperious prima donna who no doubt tried even the genial Ozu's
patience. In any case, she wasn't part of the Ozu "family" which no
doubt had something to do her feelings about him. And yes, Ozu was a
taskmaster on the set but he was regarded as a benign father-figure
by those who worked with him regularly. As for Naruse, everything
I've read about him indicates that he was taciturn and morose so he
might merit the "mean old man" description.
Richard
9529
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:07pm
Subject: Re: Ozu/Ford
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Didn't Hideko Takamine jokingly refer to Naruse and
> Ozu as two "mean old
> men" in a memoir of Naruse that she wrote? I've
> also heard that Ozu was
> charming and good company, but it seems to me that
> I've also heard he
> could be tough on the set. - Dan
>
Well I'm sure he could be "tough on the set" but not
in the way that Ford sometimes was with his actors. In
hois biography of Natalie Wood gavin lambert points
out how much she loathed Ford. And Wood was famous for
getting along with just about everybody.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9530
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:09pm
Subject: Re: Lang/sex
"why don't you make a
> > love story?" and he replied "it's not so simple. What if she's a
> > Nazi?" (pp).
>
> This is a great quote - do you remember where it's from? - Dan
I can't remember, I searched for it last night. I think it's in Tom
Gunnings book...
-andy
9531
From: Jack Angstreich
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:24pm
Subject: Re: Re: Lang/sex
Tom Gunning wrote on page 204:
[ . . . ] I asked him about the role of love in his films. He
responded, "Love! Tell me, if a man is a Communist and his wife is a
Nazi, what happens to love?"
On Apr 29, 2004, at 2:09 PM, Andy Rector wrote:
"why don't you make a
> > love story?" and he replied "it's not so simple. What if she's a
> > Nazi?" (pp).
>
> This is a great quote - do you remember where it's from? - Dan
I can't remember, I searched for it last night. I think it's in Tom
Gunnings book...
-andy
Yahoo! Groups Links
• To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/
• To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
a_film_by-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
• Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
Service.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9532
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:51pm
Subject: Re: Lang/sex
Damn! Sorry for the misinformation everyone...how terrible.
Thanks for the correction jack and bill!
9533
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:02pm
Subject: Re: success/sex
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> >
> > The American equivalent to Ozu would be John
> > Ford,
>
> I think not. Ozu was legendarily nice to everyone.
> Ford was "a piece of work."
>
>
> I wasn't referring to how nice or nasty they were, David,
only to their love/sex lives, which was the topic.
What's 'a piece of work" anyway? Ford often used the
phrase "a job of work"...
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9534
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:03pm
Subject: Re: sex lives of directors and critics
Bunuel doesn't, as
> Lukacs prescribes for the realist, "seek out the lasting features
in
> people". If some "lasting features" are present, their violation is
> what's valuable, and I would say, more politically astute than
Lukacs'
> socialist realism. There is something shifty in the Bunuels that
moves
> me to disagree with the Lukacs parallel, it is a feeling I can't
quite
> put into words. In what text can one read the "many
manifestations of
> critical realism analyzed by Lukacs"?
Sorry - take "many manifestations of critical realism analyzed by
Lukas" as sloppy shorthand for "Stendahl, Hugo" - and not for
Lukas's reading of them. Your point is extremely well taken:
Bunuel is very shifty - something he shares with his favorite
critical realist novelist, Galdos (Nazarin, Tristana), and that is
indeed key to his approach to the tradition.
It's really something about Galdos that separates him from other
great novelists, except Dostoevsky, and in one way Galdos is
even more "dialogic" than Dostoevsky, because of Galdos' very
modern use of multiple perspectives on his characters. The first
part of Nazarin is "spoken" by Galdos himself - the other four
parts are presented as being of uncertain provenance. The
perspectivism of course comes from Cervantes, who is the
template for Nazarin. But I think it's Galdos' evolutionary view of
character that Bunuel resonated with.
I am periodically reminded of The Naked Dawn as I work on
these Bunuel realist films. The blacklistee who wrote Naked
Dawn, Julian Zimet, was adapting a Gorki story called Chelkash
(thanx to B. Tavernier for finding that out). In the process he put in
a whole sentimental "curve" for the two male characters based
on his experience w. psychoanalysis (which had gotten him
chucked out of the Party) - the bandit sees the peasant as a son,
etc. Ulmer, who never met Zimet and probably didn't even know
that the script was based on Gorki, just eliminated all that
developmental chicken fat and went right back to the sudden
extreme shifts in character that Gorki had portrayed, which
Zimet's H'wd training made him want to smooth out. Domarchi,
who also didn't know about the Gorki connection, compared the
characters to Dostoevky characters when he reviewed ND for
Cahiers, and Truffaut said he realized when he saw ND that he
could film Jules and Jim, which is also built around sudden
shifts.
I don't want to imply that what Jean Butler is griping about in The
Young One was the same kind of thing - by the time Zimet got to
Mexico he was disillusioned with Communism, and I take it the
Butlers weren't. I also have great respect for Butler as a writer -
he wrote The First Time! I haven't seen the script for TYO, but I'd
obviously love to. There was a good account of the making-of in
Cineaste which I can pass on to you.
The real surprise for me was reading Travelin' Man, the Peter
Matthiessen short story The Young One is based on, which is a
masterpiece, and very different from the film, but not in the ways
described in the making-of piece, which focuses on race - not an
issue between the two characters in the story, even though it is
the subject of the story. It's VERY bleak - Lang would've loved it.
9535
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:04pm
Subject: Re: sex lives of directors and critics
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
wrote:
> Last year a historian claimed that the CNT (the Spanish
Ararcho-
> Syndicalists) used "Un chien andalou" to torture their prisoners
> during the Spanish Civil War.
"It was an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny/Yellow polka dot bikini..."
9536
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:15pm
Subject: Re: Re: success/sex
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> What's 'a piece of work" anyway?
Trouble. BIG trouble.
Ford often
> used the
> phrase "a job of work"...
> >
Not the same thing.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9537
From:
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:25pm
Subject: Re: Ulmer (was sex lives of directors and critics)
Thanks to Bill Krohn for a very interesting post on Ulmer!
Ulmer's movies ARE full of sudden shifts. The characters are always getting
involved in completely new situations. Like the trip to the snowy mountain in
"Murder is My Beat". Or the strange events in the castle in "The Black Cat".
Had not realized before that this is a common characteristic.
Have never read any Galdos. Sounds interesting.
The comparisons to literature are helpful here. Blake's "Songs of Innocence"
and Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" are two of my favorites. I don't know
anything about philosophy, but when people cite poetry and plays it allows bulbs
to go on in my head.
Mike Grost
9538
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 0:59am
Subject: Where have all the posts gone?
There haven't been any post between 3PM and 7PM which in itself seems
unusual, plus I sent something around 5PM and it never got posted so
is it again Yahoo fucking up?
9539
From:
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 9:38pm
Subject: Re: Where have all the posts gone?
J-P, I got this one fine but not your 5pm one.
Kevin
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9540
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 1:42am
Subject: Re: Where have all the posts gone?
Yahoo has been down most of the day.
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> There haven't been any post between 3PM and 7PM
> which in itself seems
> unusual, plus I sent something around 5PM and it
> never got posted so
> is it again Yahoo fucking up?
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9541
From:
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 10:11pm
Subject: Re: Where have all the posts gone?
JPC,
I did not get your 5 O'Clock post either.
If you sent it through e-mail, please re-send it - I'd love to read it!
Mike Grost
PS. I suppose this means the list did not get my 5:15 post, in which I share
the amazing secret formula that explains all directors from D.W Griffith to
Hana Makhmalbaf! It is ... ARGH.. The Yahoo demons are attacking!!!
(Just Joking!)
9542
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 2:32am
Subject: RE: Where have all the posts gone?
There's apparently some attack by several new viruses going on
today, causing trouble for many sites. However, Yahoo *does*
have its own demons too. I hope your post eventually surfaces,
and let's hope they didn't swallow another one of Bill's because
that'll make him *really* cranky.
--Robert Keser
>--- Original Message ---
>From: "jpcoursodon"
>To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
>Date: 4/29/04 6:59:51 PM
>
>There haven't been any post between 3PM and 7PM which in itself
seems
>
>unusual, plus I sent something around 5PM and it never got posted
so
>
>is it again Yahoo fucking up?
9543
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 2:33am
Subject: RE: Where have all the posts gone?
There's apparently some attack by several new viruses going on
today, causing trouble for many sites. However, Yahoo *does*
have its own demons too. I hope your post eventually surfaces,
and let's hope they didn't swallow another one of Bill's because
that'll make him *really* cranky.
--Robert Keser
>--- Original Message ---
>From: "jpcoursodon"
>To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
>Date: 4/29/04 6:59:51 PM
>
>There haven't been any post between 3PM and 7PM which in itself
seems
>
>unusual, plus I sent something around 5PM and it never got posted
so
>
>is it again Yahoo fucking up?
9544
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:26am
Subject: Re: Where have all the posts gone?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> JPC,
> I did not get your 5 O'Clock post either.
> If you sent it through e-mail, please re-send it - I'd love to read
it!
> Mike Grost
> PS. I suppose this means the list did not get my 5:15 post, in
which I share
> the amazing secret formula that explains all directors from D.W
Griffith to
> Hana Makhmalbaf! It is ... ARGH.. The Yahoo demons are attacking!!!
> (Just Joking!)
All lost in cyberspace... The answer I guess is blowing in the
wind. JPC
9545
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:04am
Subject: Re: Ulmer (was sex lives of directors and critics)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Thanks to Bill Krohn for a very interesting post on Ulmer!
> Ulmer's movies ARE full of sudden shifts. The characters are always
getting
> involved in completely new situations. Like the trip to the snowy
mountain in
> "Murder is My Beat".
Or the scene on the train when he has to decide whether to believe
her and Ulmer keeps cutting to the inexorable trains wheels taking
them to prison. It's a film about a man whose identity is being a cop
and always being right - suddenly that dissolves. That was expressed
in the poetic first title, Dynamite Anchorage. But I like Murder Is
My Beat, too.
He made those two the same year - Naked Dawn and Murder. That was a
great year for Ulmer!
9546
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:22am
Subject: Re: Bunuel/Huston
> Huston: I am no big fan of his films, but there is one I
absolutely cherish,
> and it seems to be a 'lost' film: A WALK WITH LOVE AND DEATH
(1969),
> starring a very young Anjelica Huston. I saw it several times on
TV in the
> '70s, and it's burned into my brain forever more - minimal but
sumptuous
> historical film, gorgeous Delerue score, a haunting
and 'impossible'
> voice-over narration from beyond the grave (the final line is
something like
> "death came for us, and we were not afraid"), and some passages of
mise en
> scene that are pure Murnau. Does anyone know if this film is
available today
> in any format? It was mostly dismissed in its time for projecting
some image
> of '60s hippie culture back into 14th century France - but that's
also
> exactly what Robert Benayoun in POSITIF praised it for! I'm with
him.
>
> Adrian
I love this film too; it's one of my two favorites, along with WISE
BLOOD. I haven't seen it since the 70s though I do have a scanned TV
copy. I recall Huston actually blamed Anjelica for the film's
commercial failure! (Nice guy.)
Jonathan
9547
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:31am
Subject: Re: Where have all the posts gone?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser" wrote:
>
> There's apparently some attack by several new viruses going on
> today, causing trouble for many sites. However, Yahoo *does*
> have its own demons too. I hope your post eventually surfaces,
> and let's hope they didn't swallow another one of Bill's because
> that'll make him *really* cranky.
>
Nope - I was locked in the Arts Cage at UCLA Library reading Dali's
monograph, The Tragic Myth of Millet's "Angelus." Someone should
reprint that!
9548
From:
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:44am
Subject: Siodmak on TCM - Friday Evening
Four Robert Siodmak films will be shown on TCM, Friday, 8PM - 2 AM, EST:
Phantom Lady
The Spiral Staircase
Criss Cross
Escape From East Berlin
Have seen and recommend the first three, which are Siodmak's highly stylized
contribution to 1940's film noir. The fourth is a rarely shown film rarity -
am looking forward to seeing it.
Also, at 6 AM - 8AM on Saturday morning:
Enchanted Island (Allan Dwan)
Dwan's rarely shown version of Melville's "Typee". Have never seen this
either.
Mike Grost
9549
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 1:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bunuel/Huston
--- Jonathan Rosenbaum
>
> I love this film too; it's one of my two favorites,
> along with WISE
> BLOOD. I haven't seen it since the 70s though I do
> have a scanned TV
> copy. I recall Huston actually blamed Anjelica for
> the film's
> commercial failure! (Nice guy.)
>
And as a result she seriously considered giving up
acting altogether. It's a lovely film, and a great
favorite of "Positif" as I recall.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9550
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 2:54pm
Subject: Re: Bunuel/Huston
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- Jonathan Rosenbaum
> >
> > I love this film too; it's one of my two favorites,
> > along with WISE
> > BLOOD. I haven't seen it since the 70s though I do
> > have a scanned TV
> > copy. I recall Huston actually blamed Anjelica for
> > the film's
> > commercial failure! (Nice guy.)
> >
> And as a result she seriously considered giving up
> acting altogether. It's a lovely film, and a great
> favorite of "Positif" as I recall.
>
>
> Tavernier raves about it in our book. To my shame I never saw
it!
JPC
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9551
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:05pm
Subject: Re: Ozu/Ford
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> >
> Well I'm sure he could be "tough on the set" but not
> in the way that Ford sometimes was with his actors. In
> hois biography of Natalie Wood gavin lambert points
> out how much she loathed Ford. And Wood was famous for
> getting along with just about everybody.
>
>
>
> Ford was not only tough but nasty, abusive, and borderline --
or just plain -- sadistic with most actors, not sometimes but most of
the time. The strange thing is that most of them (unlike Natalie)
loved him anyway and wanted to work with him. In the case of Maureen
O'Hara there must have been something masochistic about her
worshipping of Ford, who kept saying and doing the most horrible
things to her (on the set and off, publicly and in private) and she
kept coming back for more (she tells all about it with a kind of
gloating relish in her book). Actually she seems to have had
masochistic relationships with men in general, including her husbands.
> JPC
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9552
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:43pm
Subject: Maureen O'Hara
> In the case of Maureen
> O'Hara there must have been something masochistic about her
> worshipping of Ford, who kept saying and doing the most horrible
> things to her (on the set and off, publicly and in private) and she
> kept coming back for more (she tells all about it with a kind of
> gloating relish in her book). Actually she seems to have had
> masochistic relationships with men in general, including her husbands.
She certainly seemed to inspire the on-screen sadism of a lot of
filmmakers: she was bound and gagged in JAMAICA INN, humiliated by
pirates in THE SPANISH MAIN, dragged across the countryside in THE QUIET
MAN, publicly spanked in McLINTOCK!....
On a more subtle note: she has a memorable sexual moment in THE
MAGNIFICENT MATADOR, sitting open-legged in a field, watching Anthony
Quinn pacify the bull that had been threatening her. - Dan
9553
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:12pm
Subject: Re: Maureen O'Hara
But wasn't Hollywood all about putting strong women through all
manner of tests? Think of Susan Hayward. She rolled around in the
gutter [I'll Cry Tomorrow], was gassed [I Want to Live], drowned
[Reap the Wild Wind], and revealed as bald [Valley of the Dolls]. She
was forced to operate on Gregory Peck's leg [Snows of
Kilimanjaro] and Richard Egan's leg [Untamed], then had both her
own legs amputated [With a Song In My Heart]. On top of that,
she married both Caligula [Demetrius and the Gladiators] and
Genghis Khan [The Conqueror].
Maybe it's a barely latent aggression against women, or maybe it
has something to do with redheads.
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > In the case of Maureen
> > O'Hara there must have been something masochistic about her
> > worshipping of Ford...
>
> She certainly seemed to inspire the on-screen sadism of a lot of
> filmmakers: she was bound and gagged in JAMAICA INN, humiliated by
> pirates in THE SPANISH MAIN, dragged across the countryside in THE
QUIET
> MAN, publicly spanked in McLINTOCK!....
9554
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:12pm
Subject: Re: Siodmak on TCM - Friday Evening
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Four Robert Siodmak films will be shown on TCM, Friday, 8PM - 2 AM,
EST:
>
> Phantom Lady
> The Spiral Staircase
> Criss Cross
> Escape From East Berlin
>
> Have seen and recommend the first three, which are Siodmak's highly
stylized
> contribution to 1940's film noir. The fourth is a rarely shown film
rarity -
> am looking forward to seeing it.
> Also, at 6 AM - 8AM on Saturday morning:
> Enchanted Island (Allan Dwan)
> Dwan's rarely shown version of Melville's "Typee". Have never seen
this
> either.
>
"Criss Cross" is Siodmak's masterpiece and one of the very best
films noirs. "Phantom Lady" on the other hand is a bewilderingly
overrated little "B" movie replete with unbelievable situations and
plot twists, bland, uninteresting characters, only relieved from
boredom by an occasional campy set piece (Elisha Cook Jr's
laughably "erotic" drum solo). "The Spiral Staircase", Siodmak's most
famous film with "The Killers", is even more overrated. It has one of
the most contrived and dishonest plots ever and enough red herrings
to fill a barrel. It must absolutely be seen, however, for Musuraca's
superb photography, but aside from that I have never understood the
film's high reputation (must have something to do with Dorothy
McGuire playing a mute girl)... To me Siodmak's best American film
with "Criss Cross" is "Thelma Jordon" which I somewhat underrated
in "American Directors" (Wendell Corey is as wonderfully downbeat
there as in "I Walk Alone"). The "extravagantly contrived" (to quote
myself) "The Dark Mirror" is well worth watching as it pushes the
Siodmak/noir theme of the two-faced, treacherous heroine to the limit
by splitting her into two characters (twin sisters, one good, one
bad), one impersonating the other. Siodmak already had used the good
twin/bad twin motif in the charmingly campy "Cobra Woman", and back
in Europe in 1953 he directed a remake of Feyder's "Le Grand Jeu"
with Gina Lollobrigida playing two women (one bad one good, of
course) who look exactly alike...
It does seem that Siodmak was the real "auteur" of "Menschen am
Sonntag" despite the presence of Wilder, Zinnemann and Ulmer (who,
according to Wilder, "owned the camera". Siodmak's early German then
French films already show a very dark (noire?) vision of the world,
and especially of men-women relationships (treacherous women leading
men astray).
Siodmak made some 14 features in Europe (two in France, the rest in
Germany) between 1953 and 1969 and some might be worth
rediscovering. "Escape from East Berlin" (AKA "Tunnel 28")is a US-
German co-prod. (Don Murray stars) and is supposed to be based on a
real incident.
JPC
9555
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:20pm
Subject: Re: Re: Maureen O'Hara
--- Robert Keser wrote:
>
> Maybe it's a barely latent aggression against women,
> or maybe it
> has something to do with redheads.
>
Redheads? Enter Michael Powell -- especially "Black
Narcissus," "The Red Shoes" and "Peeping Tom."
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9556
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:22pm
Subject: Re: Maureen O'Hara
>
> On a more subtle note: she has a memorable sexual moment in THE
> MAGNIFICENT MATADOR, sitting open-legged in a field, watching
Anthony
> Quinn pacify the bull that had been threatening her. - Dan
Not in the book: She had an affair with Quinn and, according to
Boetticher, was radiant with contentment throughout the production.
The "What would you know about it?" closeup of Deneuve in Belle de
Jour.
9557
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:23pm
Subject: Re: Maureen O'Hara
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser" wrote:
> But wasn't Hollywood all about putting strong women through all
> manner of tests? Think of Susan Hayward. She rolled around in the
> gutter [I'll Cry Tomorrow], was gassed [I Want to Live], drowned
> [Reap the Wild Wind], and revealed as bald [Valley of the Dolls].
She
> was forced to operate on Gregory Peck's leg [Snows of
> Kilimanjaro] and Richard Egan's leg [Untamed], then had both her
> own legs amputated [With a Song In My Heart]. On top of that,
> she married both Caligula [Demetrius and the Gladiators] and
> Genghis Khan [The Conqueror].
>
> Maybe it's a barely latent aggression against women, or maybe it
> has something to do with redheads.
>
> --Robert Keser
>
Not latent at all. At the most obvious level, think of the
countless times actresses have been slapped on film.
From her point of view, though, it must be great to be able to act
out one's masochistic fantasies in front of the camera and be paid
handsomely for it... (I wonder if Maureen enjoyed that spanking).
JPC
9558
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: Siodmak on TCM - Friday Evening
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> "Criss Cross" is Siodmak's masterpiece and one
> of the very best
> films noirs.
Look for Tony Curtis in a dance hall scene doing the
rhumba with Yvonne DeCarlo.
"Phantom Lady" on the other hand is a
> bewilderingly
> overrated little "B" movie replete with unbelievable
> situations and
> plot twists, bland, uninteresting characters, only
> relieved from
> boredom by an occasional campy set piece (Elisha
> Cook Jr's
> laughably "erotic" drum solo).
Is it that highly rated? I rather like it but mostly
for Ella Raines. There's no great case to be made for
it. It's just a diversion.
To me Siodmak's best
> American film
> with "Criss Cross" is "Thelma Jordon" which I
> somewhat underrated
> in "American Directors" (Wendell Corey is as
> wonderfully downbeat
> there as in "I Walk Alone"). The "extravagantly
> contrived" (to quote
> myself) "The Dark Mirror" is well worth watching as
> it pushes the
> Siodmak/noir theme of the two-faced, treacherous
> heroine to the limit
> by splitting her into two characters (twin sisters,
> one good, one
> bad), one impersonating the other.
They're both quite good.
Siodmak already
> had used the good
> twin/bad twin motif in the charmingly campy "Cobra
> Woman", and back
> in Europe in 1953 he directed a remake of Feyder's
> "Le Grand Jeu"
> with Gina Lollobrigida playing two women (one bad
> one good, of
> course) who look exactly alike...
>
You've overlooked one of my all-time faves: "Christmas
Holiday"
It was made the same year as "Cobra Woman" and
"Phantom Lady" and it stars Deanna Durbin and Gene
Kelly.
Sounds like fluff, doesn't it? Well the screenplay is
by Herman J. Mankiewicz who adapted it from a Somerset
Maugham story. Kelly plays a homicidal maniac and
Durbin his long-suffering wife who, to make ends
meeet, sings "Spring Will be a Little Late This Year"
(written by the great Frank Loesser expresly for this
film) in a whorehouse.
In the grand finale the cops close in, Kelly goes down
in a hail of bullets and dies in Deanna's arms. Then
she goes to midnight mass and sings "Ave Maria."
Now THAT'S the true spirit of Christmas!
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9559
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:00pm
Subject: Re: Siodmak on TCM - Friday Evening
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> > Four Robert Siodmak films will be shown on TCM, Friday, 8PM - 2
AM,
> EST:
> >
> > Phantom Lady
> > The Spiral Staircase
> > Criss Cross
> > Escape From East Berlin
-
> > am looking forward to seeing it.
> > Also, at 6 AM - 8AM on Saturday morning:
> > Enchanted Island (Allan Dwan)
> > Dwan's rarely shown version of Melville's "Typee".
"Phantom Lady" on the other hand is a bewilderingly
> overrated little "B" movie replete with unbelievable situations and
> plot twists, bland, uninteresting characters, only relieved from
> boredom by an occasional campy set piece (Elisha Cook Jr's
> laughably "erotic" drum solo).
There's nothing laughable about that scene. It portrays impotence.
It's a great scene - one of the most daring ever filmed in H'wd.
It does seem that Siodmak was the real "auteur" of "Menschen am
> Sonntag" despite the presence of Wilder, Zinnemann and Ulmer (who,
> according to Wilder, "owned the camera". Siodmak's early German
then
> French films already show a very dark (noire?) vision of the world,
> and especially of men-women relationships (treacherous women
leading
> men astray).
Where's the treacherous woman in Menschen am Sontag? Authorship
remains up in the air on that one - I don't think Siodmak thought of
the freeze frames.
> Siodmak made some 14 features in Europe (two in France, the rest in
> Germany) between 1953 and 1969 and some might be worth
> rediscovering. "Escape from East Berlin" (AKA "Tunnel 28")is a US-
> German co-prod. (Don Murray stars) and is supposed to be based on a
> real incident.
It's ok.
The American Directors entry on Enchanted Island is discreetly
agnostic, but I rate it high - my Dwan article at screeningthepast
gives my reasons. For one thing, contrary to reports, this is as
close as you could get to Typee and have a releasable picture at that
time. The superb use of locations, as in the two-reelers, shows
Dwan's relief at being freed of the Alton-Polglase flash that, like
trinkets dangled before a savage, dazzles some into prefering even
dreck like Pearl of the South Pacific or Escape to Burma to his real
late masterpieces. The composer worked on a couple of Bunuel's more
melodramatic projects; the cameraman shot La mort en ce jardin,
another jungle picture. The Four Lads acquit themselves honorably on
the title song, Powell was never lovelier and Andrews stays on his
feet. (Maybe the character is an alcoholic!) The wide shot of the
wedding banquet is by Gaugin.
9560
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:00pm
Subject: Re: Siodmak on TCM - Friday Evening
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> > Four Robert Siodmak films will be shown on TCM, Friday, 8PM - 2
AM,
> EST:
> >
> > Phantom Lady
> > The Spiral Staircase
> > Criss Cross
> > Escape From East Berlin
-
> > am looking forward to seeing it.
> > Also, at 6 AM - 8AM on Saturday morning:
> > Enchanted Island (Allan Dwan)
> > Dwan's rarely shown version of Melville's "Typee".
"Phantom Lady" on the other hand is a bewilderingly
> overrated little "B" movie replete with unbelievable situations and
> plot twists, bland, uninteresting characters, only relieved from
> boredom by an occasional campy set piece (Elisha Cook Jr's
> laughably "erotic" drum solo).
There's nothing laughable about that scene. It portrays impotence.
It's a great scene - one of the most daring ever filmed in H'wd.
It does seem that Siodmak was the real "auteur" of "Menschen am
> Sonntag" despite the presence of Wilder, Zinnemann and Ulmer (who,
> according to Wilder, "owned the camera". Siodmak's early German
then
> French films already show a very dark (noire?) vision of the world,
> and especially of men-women relationships (treacherous women
leading
> men astray).
Where's the treacherous woman in Menschen am Sontag? Authorship
remains up in the air on that one - I don't think Siodmak thought of
the freeze frames.
> Siodmak made some 14 features in Europe (two in France, the rest in
> Germany) between 1953 and 1969 and some might be worth
> rediscovering. "Escape from East Berlin" (AKA "Tunnel 28")is a US-
> German co-prod. (Don Murray stars) and is supposed to be based on a
> real incident.
It's ok.
The American Directors entry on Enchanted Island is discreetly
agnostic, but I rate it high - my Dwan article at screeningthepast
gives my reasons. For one thing, contrary to reports, this is as
close as you could get to Typee and have a releasable picture at that
time. The superb use of locations, as in the two-reelers, shows
Dwan's relief at being freed of the Alton-Polglase flash that, like
trinkets dangled before a savage, dazzles some into prefering even
dreck like Pearl of the South Pacific or Escape to Burma to his real
late masterpieces. The composer worked on a couple of Bunuel's more
melodramatic projects; the cameraman shot La mort en ce jardin,
another jungle picture. The Four Lads acquit themselves honorably on
the title song, Powell was never lovelier and Andrews stays on his
feet. (Maybe the character is an alcoholic!) The wide shot of the
wedding banquet is by Gaugin.
9561
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:03pm
Subject: Re: Siodmak on TCM - Friday Evening
David wrote:
> You've overlooked one of my all-time faves: "Christmas
> Holiday"
>
> It was made the same year as "Cobra Woman" and
> "Phantom Lady" and it stars Deanna Durbin and Gene
> Kelly.
>
> Sounds like fluff, doesn't it? Well the screenplay is
> by Herman J. Mankiewicz who adapted it from a Somerset
> Maugham story. Kelly plays a homicidal maniac and
> Durbin his long-suffering wife who, to make ends
> meeet, sings "Spring Will be a Little Late This Year"
> (written by the great Frank Loesser expresly for this
> film) in a whorehouse.
>
> In the grand finale the cops close in, Kelly goes down
> in a hail of bullets and dies in Deanna's arms. Then
> she goes to midnight mass and sings "Ave Maria."
Jesus!
9562
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:45pm
Subject: Re: Re: Siodmak on TCM - Friday Evening
> To me Siodmak's best American film
> with "Criss Cross" is "Thelma Jordon"
I've always thought that this was Siodmak's best period also: CRISS
CROSS, THELMA JORDON, and CRY OF THE CITY stand out for me.
> "Escape from East Berlin" (AKA "Tunnel 28")is a US-
> German co-prod. (Don Murray stars) and is supposed to be based on a
> real incident.
I think ESCAPE FROM EAST BERLIN is a good film, perhaps not notable
enough to be great, but well done. - Dan
9563
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: Maureen O'Hara
> But wasn't Hollywood all about putting strong women through all
> manner of tests? Think of Susan Hayward. She rolled around in the
> gutter [I'll Cry Tomorrow], was gassed [I Want to Live], drowned
> [Reap the Wild Wind], and revealed as bald [Valley of the Dolls]. She
> was forced to operate on Gregory Peck's leg [Snows of
> Kilimanjaro] and Richard Egan's leg [Untamed], then had both her
> own legs amputated [With a Song In My Heart].
I haven't seen all the above, but my impression is that the O'Hara
scenes I cited (with the possible exception of the one in THE QUIET MAN)
are more sex-fantasy-ready than these Hayward scenes. I admit that this
is tricky terrain, though. - Dan
9564
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 6:31pm
Subject: Re: Siodmak on TCM - Friday Evening
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
>
>
> "Phantom Lady" on the other hand is a bewilderingly
> > overrated little "B" movie replete with unbelievable situations
and
> > plot twists, bland, uninteresting characters, only relieved from
> > boredom by an occasional campy set piece (Elisha Cook Jr's
> > laughably "erotic" drum solo).
>
> There's nothing laughable about that scene. It portrays impotence.
> It's a great scene - one of the most daring ever filmed in H'wd.
>
It may be about impotence and it sure is daring, but I still find
it goofy.
> It does seem that Siodmak was the real "auteur" of "Menschen am
> > Sonntag" despite the presence of Wilder, Zinnemann and Ulmer
(who,
> > according to Wilder, "owned the camera". Siodmak's early German
> then
> > French films already show a very dark (noire?) vision of the
world,
> > and especially of men-women relationships (treacherous women
> leading
> > men astray).
>
> Where's the treacherous woman in Menschen am Sontag? Authorship
> remains up in the air on that one - I don't think Siodmak thought
of
> the freeze frames.
>
One is never too careful. I should have written "some of his
early German and French films." ... So it's a film by Siodmak,
Ulmer, Wilder and Zinnemann.
The American Directors entry on Enchanted Island is discreetly
> agnostic,
Myron Meisel wrote that!. Tavernier (in our book) writes it's
awful. I never saw the film myself so I'm lookin forward to Sat.
morning.
but I rate it high - my Dwan article at screeningthepast
> gives my reasons. For one thing, contrary to reports, this is as
> close as you could get to Typee and have a releasable picture at
that
> time. The superb use of locations, as in the two-reelers, shows
> Dwan's relief at being freed of the Alton-Polglase flash that, like
> trinkets dangled before a savage, dazzles some into prefering even
> dreck like Pearl of the South Pacific or Escape to Burma to his
real
> late masterpieces. The composer worked on a couple of Bunuel's more
> melodramatic projects; the cameraman shot La mort en ce jardin,
> another jungle picture. The Four Lads acquit themselves honorably
on
> the title song, Powell was never lovelier and Andrews stays on his
> feet. (Maybe the character is an alcoholic!) The wide shot of the
> wedding banquet is by Gaugin.
9565
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 7:08pm
Subject: Siodmak
David is right about CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY, an astonishing and neglected
work. The finale is indeed extaordinary although I remember it a bit
differently. I remember some rather moist, erotic close-ups of
Durbin's face after Kelly has been killed, a face covered with heavy
make-up signifying her descent into prostitution. On the soundtrack
is the Liebstod from TRISTAN UND ISOLDE as Durbin looks up and we see
her POV shot of clouds passing over the moon. (I wonder if Siodmak
saw UN CHIEN ANDALOU.) Can anyone here confirm, deny or modify my
memory of this, which also places her singing of "Ave Maria" earlier?
I have to say that I often love the illogic of the plots and
psychology of Siodmak's films. Even if this illogic often tips the
films over to the side of the ludicrous, it is also where I think
much of the power of the films comes from as well. I tried to touch
on this with a short piece I wrote once for Senses on PHANTOM LADY, a
film which I particularly like for the sequence of Ella Raines
staring down and then stalking a bartender through the streets of New
York. It doesn't surprise me that CRISS CROSS, indeed a great film,
is so often called his best as it has a (comparatively) logical
quality to it. Curiously, Siodmak disliked CRISS CROSS and thought it
one of his least good films.
I never saw ESCAPE FROM EAST BERLIN but two late German Siodmaks
which are worth seeing are THE DEVIL STRIKES AT NIGHT and MEIN
SCHULFREUND, both of them fascinating takes on Nazi and post-Nazi
Germany.
9566
From: Jess Amortell
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 8:46pm
Subject: Re: Siodmak
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "joe_mcelhaney" wrot=
e:
> David is right about CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY, an astonishing and neglected
> work. The finale is indeed extaordinary although I remember it a bit
> differently. I remember some rather moist, erotic close-ups of
> Durbin's face after Kelly has been killed, a face covered with heavy
> make-up signifying her descent into prostitution. On the soundtrack
> is the Liebstod from TRISTAN UND ISOLDE as Durbin looks up and we see
> her POV shot of clouds passing over the moon. (I wonder if Siodmak
> saw UN CHIEN ANDALOU.) Can anyone here confirm, deny or modify my
> memory of this, which also places her singing of "Ave Maria" earlier?
CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY's flashback structure is so unexpectedly convoluted that =
I probably couldn't have reconstructed its timeline ten minutes after seeing=
it, but James Harvey's chapter on it in "Movie Love in the Fifties" can be =
read, or sampled, online via Amazon.com's "Search within this book" feature =
-- his discussion of the film's ending, and its assorted music, is on pp. 28=
2-83 (on another page, he savors that outrageous cut from Beethoven to "Alwa=
ys"!), and he seems to point to Wagner and the heavens at the close...
9567
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 2:59am
Subject: Phantom Lady: a retraction
Just watched "Phantom Lady" -- not on TCM (I was having dinner) but
later on a tape I made of it years (?) ago and had never watched. To
my surprise, delight and acute embarrassment, it turned out to be a
wonderful little movie, much much better than what I remembered, with
almost constantly inventive direction. Most of my original criticism
of it is still valid but seems about as relevant as complaining that
The Wizard of Oz lacks realism. I feel I have to withdraw most of the
negative stuff I wrote about this movie in various places (including
here). Although this is not a major film by any means, the experience
is still rather upsetting. Just felt I had to share it.
JPC
9568
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 3:53am
Subject: Re: Phantom Lady: a retraction
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
"Just watched "Phantom Lady" -- not on TCM (I was having dinner) but
later on a tape I made of it years (?) ago and had never watched. To
my surprise, delight and acute embarrassment, it turned out to be a
wonderful little movie, much much better than what I remembered, with
almost constantly inventive direction. Most of my original criticism
of it is still valid..."
Saw it about 5 years ago the Cinematheque here in LA and thought it
was pretty good with its main weaknesses stemming from fidelity to
the Woolrich novel; the plot was ridiculously prolix and improbable
(it wouldn't pass muster with Professor Harold Bloom.) I think
Siodmak was a beter director than Woolrich was a novelist. That
said, Woolrich excelled at depicting the subjectivity of fear and
paranoia. It seems that all 9 of his novels were made into movies
(some more than once) and most of his short stories were adapted for
film, radio or television.
Richard
9569
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 5:46am
Subject: Re: Phantom Lady: a retraction
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> Just watched "Phantom Lady" -- not on TCM (I was having dinner) but
> later on a tape I made of it years (?) ago and had never watched.
To
> my surprise, delight and acute embarrassment, it turned out to be a
> wonderful little movie, much much better than what I remembered,
with
> almost constantly inventive direction. Most of my original
criticism
> of it is still valid but seems about as relevant as complaining
that
> The Wizard of Oz lacks realism. I feel I have to withdraw most of
the
> negative stuff I wrote about this movie in various places
(including
> here). Although this is not a major film by any means, the
experience
> is still rather upsetting. Just felt I had to share it.
> JPC
It takes a mighty big man to do what you just did, J-P.
9570
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 5:59am
Subject: Re: Phantom Lady: a retraction
>
> Saw it about 5 years ago the Cinematheque here in LA and thought it
> was pretty good with its main weaknesses stemming from fidelity to
> the Woolrich novel; the plot was ridiculously prolix and improbable
> (it wouldn't pass muster with Professor Harold Bloom.)
You've obviously never read The Flight to Lucifer. PS - Don't.
> Siodmak was a beter director than Woolrich was a novelist. That
> said, Woolrich excelled at depicting the subjectivity of fear and
> paranoia. It seems that all 9 of his novels were made into movies
> (some more than once) and most of his short stories were adapted
for film, radio or television.
>
> Richard
For a Woolrich adaptation that certainly illustrates the flaw you
allude to, check out The Chase, where all plot improbabilities are
erased by one disorienting revelation 2/3 of the way through, only to
give way to a fresh accumulation of improbabilities before the end,
which is improbable.
On the other hand, some people like that. Joel Townsley Rogers' The
Red Right Hand is built on a string of improbabilties - coincidences -
that any beginning writer would know to avoid, and that's it's
greatness.
9571
From: filipefurtado
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 6:26am
Subject: Re: Re: Huston
> Huston's a fascinating character actor, though, and consistently so. He's
> absolutely great in "Chinatown," "The Wind and the Lion," "Winter Kills," and,
> of course, the very few clips I've seen from "The Other Side of the Wind."
> Bill and Jonathan have seen more of him in the Welles film than I have and can
> expand on this.
>
He is especially great in Winter
Kills, a personal favorite of mine.
I've always being curious to know if
William Richert try to get Welles for
the role, and ended going with Huston
because of The Other Side of the Wind,
as the film plays pretty much like the
comic book version of a Welles film.
Filipe
---
Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela.
AntiPop-up UOL - É grátis!
http://antipopup.uol.com.br
9572
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 7:56am
Subject: Re: Huston
> Huston's a fascinating character actor, though, and consistently so.
He's
> absolutely great in "Chinatown," "The Wind and the Lion," "Winter
Kills," and,
> of course, the very few clips I've seen from "The Other Side of the
Wind."
> Bill and Jonathan have seen more of him in the Welles film than I
have and can
> expand on this.
He's very good in what I've seen of TOSOTW, but the real star there is
Welles' superb filmmaking instincts. It's similar to F FOR FAKE and
dissimilar to almost every other Welles film in the way it
subordinates the actors/performers/speakers to the mise-en-scene. In
my opinion, etc.
Huston was nominated for the Supporting Actor Oscar for Preminger's
CARDINAL. As you may already know, Peter!
-Jaime
p.s. Update your friggin' website!
9573
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 1:54pm
Subject: Re: Phantom Lady: a retraction
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> "Just watched "Phantom Lady" -- not on TCM (I was having dinner)
but
> later on a tape I made of it years (?) ago and had never watched.
To
> my surprise, delight and acute embarrassment, it turned out to be a
> wonderful little movie, much much better than what I remembered,
with
> almost constantly inventive direction. Most of my original
criticism
> of it is still valid..."
>
> Saw it about 5 years ago the Cinematheque here in LA and thought it
> was pretty good with its main weaknesses stemming from fidelity to
> the Woolrich novel; the plot was ridiculously prolix and improbable
> (it wouldn't pass muster with Professor Harold Bloom.) I think
> Siodmak was a beter director than Woolrich was a novelist. That
> said, Woolrich excelled at depicting the subjectivity of fear and
> paranoia. It seems that all 9 of his novels were made into movies
> (some more than once) and most of his short stories were adapted
for
> film, radio or television.
>
> Richard
The story is typical Woolrich. He is credited as William Irish
(his other pen name) in the film's credits by the way. In France, if
I remember correctly, all or most of his novels were published under
William Irish, not Woolrich.
JPC
9574
From:
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 11:02am
Subject: Woolrich, Joseph H. Lewis, Francis M. Nevins
Francis M. Nevins' "First You Dream, Then You Die" (1988) is an enormous, in
depth biography and critical study on Woolrich and his work. It is a very
detailed look at Woolrich's world. There is coverage of all the film, TV and radio
adaptations of Woolrich's work. Nevins also edited the best of all Woolrich
collections, "Nightwebs". It contains Woolrich's autobiographical story, "The
Penny-a-Worder" (1958), which is a gentle self portrait of a pulp writer. It
shows the hero, a thinly disguised version of Woolrich himself, virtually going
into a dream-like trance as he creates one of his pulp stories. Woolrich's
work is visionary and dream-like.
"Joseph H. Lewis: overview, interview, and filmography" (1998) by Francis M.
Nevins is a well done overall biographical look at Lewis, combined with a
lengthy interview with the director. Nevins is especially interested in Lewis'
Westerns, a relatively neglected part of his career. The filmography includes
most of Lewis' work for television. Both here and in his study of mystery writer
Cornell Woolrich, Nevins adopts a non-condescending approach to television
work, studying it in depth. This is an admirable attitude for a critic.
Nevins is a famous scholar in the mystery field. He has also published eight
mystery books. I think he is much less known in the film community.
The Lewis book opens with praise from Lewis for Sarris' "The American
Cinema". Lewis credits this book with singlehandedly reviving interest in Lewis'
films. Nevins echoes this praise.
Mike Grost
9575
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 4:17pm
Subject: Re: Woolrich, Joseph H. Lewis, Francis M. Nevins
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Francis M. Nevins' "First You Dream, Then You Die" (1988) is an
enormous, in
> depth biography and critical study on Woolrich and his work. It is
a very
> detailed look at Woolrich's world.
Nevins is the Sarris of mysteries. I refer to his great Woolrich book
in the Rear Window chapter of Hitchcock at Work. Apparently the story
was inspired by Woolrich realizing that a couple of little girls in
an adjoining building were watching him through the window. So the
paranoia of being spied on, not voyeurism, was the trigger experience
for CW. Nevins of course also details the other Hitchcock-Woolrich
connnections -- including the fact (as I recall) that CW felt he had
been screwed on Rear Window and didn't go to the premiere?
He's obviously great movie material in the right hands. I regret to
say, however, that I walked out of I Wouldn't Want To Be in Your
Shoes at the Cinematheque, where it was double-billed with The Chase -
possibly the first screening of IWWTBIYS since its release - because
I didn't have time to sit through a bad movie. I'll definitely locate
the story and read it to find out what happens, however, because the
premise is irresistible: an unemployed musician throws a shoe at a
yowling cat on a hot night in NY and ends up on Death Row...
My earliest recollection of Woolrich is a prize-winning story
published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, One Drop of Blood.
9576
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 4:35pm
Subject: Re: Huston
> He's very good in what I've seen of TOSOTW, but the real star there
is
> Welles' superb filmmaking instincts.
I haven't seen the whole thing, but I've seen at least one scene
where the camera just stays on Huston and the other actors, and he's
scary as hell. OW was making the low budget work, which meant a lot
of jumping around (as in Othello) and few long takes, but he had good
actors and he used them. In the case of F for Fake he's working
mostly with found footage, so editing is all. From his description,
his Lear would have been very actor-centered if the French government
hadn't screwed it up.
Oja showed all the Other Side material to Clint Eastwood before he
went to Africa to shoot White Hunter, Black Heart, because 1) she
hoped to involve him and his clout in finishing it and 2) this is the
role, as she told Eastwood, where you see Huston naked. He lifted a
line from the film (the Marvin P. Fassbinder snipe) for White Hunter
(a terrific film, by the way), said something about maybe helping to
a columnist while doing pr for the White Hunter release; then nothing
happened -- I forget why.
All the Hustons are great, of course. Danny Huston was unbelievably
good in ivan's.xtc.
9577
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 7:59pm
Subject: auteurs on Sundays
Wilder is quoted (in "50 ans..." and elsewhere) as saying of Ulmer
Re "Menschen am Sonntag": "He owned the camera." (implying that that
was the extent of Ulmer's contribution). In Sikov's bio of Wilder he
is quoted as saying: "Robert [Siodmak] was the director for a very
simple reason: he owned the camera." In Crowe's "Conversations with
Wilder" Wilder said: "We borrowed the camera; we had the camera only
on weekends.... The weekend was on Sundays." Like most anecdotes
about that film, you have to take your pick.
Of Course Schufftan is as much the auteur of the film as any of the
others.
9578
From:
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 4:34pm
Subject: Re: Re: Huston
Welles' "Lear" would indeed have been very actor-centric. Gary Graver
recently told me that Welles wanted to shoot all of scenes with actors on videotape
so he could do many takes without incurring a lot of expense. The pageantry
scenes involving a lot of extras and costumes would be shot in 35mm. So that
the material would match, the videotape material would be transferred to 35.
Welles and Graver did shoot some tests to determine the quality of the tape to
film transfer, but Gary believes this footage to be lost.
Jaime, I actually did NOT know that Huston was nominated for his work in "The
Cardinal." He's good in that film too. I've marginally updated my web site
with links to newly published articles and so forth, though a major update is
still forthcoming.
Bill, is the scene with Huston in "The Other Side of the Wind" where the
camera just stays on him the scene where Hannaford humiliates the teacher played
by Dan Tobin? I've never seen this sequence, but you and others have told me
that it's masterful in every way: filmmaking, writing, and acting.
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9579
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 9:27pm
Subject: Re: auteurs on Sundays
As Schufftan's camera assistant, it's doubtful that Zinnemann
actually earned any auteur credit for Menschen am Sonntag. He himself
notes (in his autobiography) that "the sum total of my contribution
was to carry the camera around and stay out of trouble." He also
says that "the director was the young Robert Siodmak, the writer a
highly-strung young man named Billy Wilder. Edgar Ulmer also
worked on the film".
Judging from the film's sly irony, it has always seemed to me more
like Wilder's work than the others, although I've never seen any of
Siodmak's early films. Does anyone know his Depression musical with
Danielle Darrieux, La Crise est finie?
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> Wilder is quoted (in "50 ans..." and elsewhere) as saying of Ulmer
> Re "Menschen am Sonntag": "He owned the camera." (implying that
that
> was the extent of Ulmer's contribution). In Sikov's bio of Wilder
he
> is quoted as saying: "Robert [Siodmak] was the director for a very
> simple reason: he owned the camera." In Crowe's "Conversations
with
> Wilder" Wilder said: "We borrowed the camera; we had the camera
only
> on weekends.... The weekend was on Sundays." Like most anecdotes
> about that film, you have to take your pick.
>
> Of Course Schufftan is as much the auteur of the film as any of the
> others.
9580
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 10:08pm
Subject: Gavin Lambert on Mike Hodges
Here's an excellent career piece just published in
"The Guardian":
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1206271,00.html
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9581
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun May 2, 2004 0:08am
Subject: Re: Huston
>
> Bill, is the scene with Huston in "The Other Side of the Wind"
where the
> camera just stays on him the scene where Hannaford humiliates the
teacher played
> by Dan Tobin? I've never seen this sequence, but you and others
have told me
> that it's masterful in every way: filmmaking, writing, and acting.
>
> Peter
That's it. It is very strong. Just shot/reverse shot, both medium
shots as I recall, black and white. Tobin is like a prisoner at the
bar; Huston, Bogdanovich and a third H'wdian (O'Brien or Foster) are
leaning on an actual bar like three vultures while Huston makes
insinuations about Tobin's sexual preferences. Intercutting, the
camera holds a long time on the trio, a long time on Tobin as he
disintegrates. The dark side of Hollywood.
9582
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun May 2, 2004 0:15am
Subject: Re: auteurs on Sundays
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser" wrote:
> As Schufftan's camera assistant, it's doubtful that Zinnemann
> actually earned any auteur credit for Menschen am Sonntag. He
himself
> notes (in his autobiography) that "the sum total of my contribution
> was to carry the camera around and stay out of trouble." He also
> says that "the director was the young Robert Siodmak, the writer a
> highly-strung young man named Billy Wilder. Edgar Ulmer also
> worked on the film".
>
> Judging from the film's sly irony, it has always seemed to me more
> like Wilder's work than the others,
Ulmer certainly wan't a writer, but he had already directed some two-
reel westerns at Universal (working next door to William Wyler) when
he went back to Germany and, if memory serves, instigated this
production. Arianne Ulmer recently acquired one of them, The Border
Sheriff, on e-Bay. So he may actually have had more directing
experience than the others - and H'wd experience to boot: People On
Sunday was Siodmak's first directing credit. Caveat lector...
9583
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun May 2, 2004 3:20am
Subject: Re: Huston
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
"That's it. It is very strong. Just shot/reverse shot, both medium
shots as I recall, black and white. Tobin is like a prisoner at the
bar; Huston, Bogdanovich and a third H'wdian (O'Brien or Foster) are
leaning on an actual bar like three vultures while Huston makes
insinuations about Tobin's sexual preferences. Intercutting, the
camera holds a long time on the trio, a long time on Tobin as he
disintegrates. The dark side of Hollywood."
Graver screened this sequence as part of his "Unseen Welles" program
at the Cinematheque along with 45 minutes of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE
WIND that he said hadn't been screened before (it included Tobin's
arrival, Foster summoning Huston from the party and Bogdanovich
entering shortly after the inqusition has started.) There were a
couple of close-ups of Huston where he looked like a black and white
Rembrandt study with his eyes and teeth catching the light that made
him particularly demonic. I saw this with a friend of mine who's a
gaffer, and he thought the lighting scheme was fairly radical and
possibly an example of Welles' make-do genius.
Richard
9584
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Sun May 2, 2004 3:40pm
Subject: Contempt shock
Dear friends - I just got the shock of my life lining up a scene for a talk
I'm giving that includes discussion of Godard's CONTEMPT. Watching the
Criterion DVD, the scene about 20 minutes in, in the garden of a villa,
there are two incredible 'montage' flurries (in the middle and the end of
the scene), with shots from all over the film, accompanied by radical music
edits: Delerue's score skips back a few notes and then goes forward again, a
'tape manipulation' that must have been completely unheard before in 1963.
Anyhow, as a technical back-up, I lined up the same scene on a video copy
taped from the extremely reliable SBS channel here in Australia: great
colour, expert subtitle translation, of course it's nothing like the
notorious old dubbed and censored 'TV edit' ... BUT THERE ARE NO MONTAGE
FLURRIES in this scene, both of them are gone, with just a little bump in
the sound (which I never noticed before) to mark that erasure. Is this a
tampered-with version that circulates widely?
Another Godardian question: in MacCabe's biography, there is mention of a
trailer JLG cut for Bresson's MOUCHETTE (Gorin was knocked out by it at the
time). Does this exist today, has anyone in our group seen it?? Come to
think of it, isn't it weird how the official Godard filmographies never list
the trailers he did for his own films: all of which are little works in
their own right, and some of which are possibly better than the films they
proclaim!! At the Godard conference at the Tate in 2001, there was a
terrific session on Godard's trailers, with some amazing examples. I know
some are available on French DVDs (such as the MADE IN USA one, which is
very striking), and Douchet wrote about them in a long-vanished column for
the CAHIERS website. Has anyone been systematically collecting them?
Adrian
9585
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun May 2, 2004 4:37pm
Subject: Re: Contempt shock
--- Adrian Martin wrote:
Watching the
> Criterion DVD, the scene about 20 minutes in, in the
> garden of a villa,
> there are two incredible 'montage' flurries (in the
> middle and the end of
> the scene), with shots from all over the film,
> accompanied by radical music
> edits: Delerue's score skips back a few notes and
> then goes forward again, a
> 'tape manipulation' that must have been completely
> unheard before in 1963.
> Anyhow, as a technical back-up, I lined up the same
> scene on a video copy
> taped from the extremely reliable SBS channel here
> in Australia: great
> colour, expert subtitle translation, of course it's
> nothing like the
> notorious old dubbed and censored 'TV edit' ... BUT
> THERE ARE NO MONTAGE
> FLURRIES in this scene, both of them are gone, with
> just a little bump in
> the sound (which I never noticed before) to mark
> that erasure. Is this a
> tampered-with version that circulates widely?
>
There has always been a musical bump in that montage.
The montage itself is different on the new prints from
the one that was released in '64. Back then the
strangedst shot was one of Bardot running through a
wooded area -- which doesn't relate to anything else
in the film. In the current version (available over
the last 8-10 years or so) there are shots of Bardot
with Piccoli at Villa Malaparte as well as the posed
ones of her looking up at the camera.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9586
From: Andy Rector
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 3:29am
Subject: Re: Contempt shock
That musical/montage disjuction always knocked me too. I noticed in
seeing it projected for the first time 6 months ago that it was
disappointingly smoother than the old cropped video or the criterion
version but I don't remember why. I remember too, in that montage,
seeing scenes that never materialize otherwise in the film, Piccoli's
bald head for instance, covered throughout the rest of the film if I
remember correctly.
Sound wise: not only unprecedented THEN but unheard of NOW....can
anyone cite a similar instance? I can't, except perhaps in a Resnais.
Maybe someone like Oliver Stone has done it but there it would have
no power, intellectual or sensual-- a lame assualt.
As for the trailers, we are missing too many. I saw the ones in
London at the conference, and the Soigne ta droite trailer stands out
in my mind, really lively and irreverent (not as pugnacious as the
film maybe). The idea that Godard has taken great inspiration from
the logic of the movie trailer at large over the years seems worth
investigating and I hope to hear more about it
from Vinzenz Hediger who posited this thought there. I don't have any
of the trailers personally (except for Contempt and Band a part, on
the criterion) but I do have a recording of the Vinzenz Hediger paper
deliverd at the conference, something I hope to make available to
film_by and conference participants soon. Here is the program entry
on Hediger's paper:
"'A cinema of memory in the Future Tense: Godard and the Logic of the
Movie Trailer'
Once Godard is reported to have said that in the future he would be
making trailers instead of movies. Hediger will argue that there are
indeed many affinities between Godard's later works and the logic of
the movie trailer. Both exist in the future perfect: they create a
desire to look back at cinema from a point further on in time. Both
work with collage and enigma: they reduce cinema to a series of
excerpts and confront the audience with the task of reassembling the
pieces into intelligible forms. Hediger will demonstrate that far
from being an avant garde alternative to mainstream cinema, Godard's
later works in fact continue its trailer-logic, subverting the
sequence of announcement and event and replacing it with a cinema of
memory in the future tense."
I don't like the "far from" there, seems a bit rash, but bring on the
evidence!
Yours,
andy
9587
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 7:33am
Subject: Auteurist Adventure (update, kinda)
Everybody remember this? The project that would allow people to
browse through recommendations made by list contributors, so that we
could find out which Sam Fuller films Bill finds essential, which
Charles Walter films are must-see, etc.?
Post of reference
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/2156
Well, due to lack of interest I put it on hold for a long time -
actually, there was a lot of interest in the *idea*, but very little
in the *execution*.
Recently I got it into my head to hire a programmer to make an
automated database, into which contributors would be required to do
very little typing and menu-selecting to posit their recommendations.
This didn't pan out because the few programmers who responded to my
ad demanded huge sums of money, to the tune of hiring them as
full-time contract employees, very nearly, and that's the kind of
money I just don't have (and if I did, I wouldn't spend it on a damned
computer program).
So...it's kind of dead right now, the project, unless someone has any
ideas, something I'm missing, opportunities not heeded, etc.
The main idea is to get a shitload of super-busy people such as y'all
(and myself) to contribute a *very tiny* bit of personal opinion for a
lasting guide to the auteurist universe. Something like Sarris' canon
but spread out, many voices instead of one, constantly growing and
changing. It would be very cool!
O, to be Adrian Martin and to have the connections to make something
like Rouge!
-Jaime
9588
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 10:04am
Subject: O to be ...
"O, to be Adrian Martin and to have the connections to make something
like Rouge!"
Jaime, although I am flattered, let me just put you straight on a few
things!
What 'connections' did I and my two editorial comrades Helen Bandis and
Grant McDonald need to start ROUGE?
NONE. (Anyone can start up an Internet magazine, it's easy.)
How much money do we use to keep it running?
NONE. (Beyond basic internet/website costs)
How much funding do we get from the Australian government?
NONE. (In contrast to another publication, on a subsidy that has approached
50 thousand per year, which does not pay its contributors as it once did,
and which on top of that has the temerity to ask its readers for donations.)
So, Jaime, about your own project, I say: THERE MUST BE A WAY TO GET IT
HAPPENING! Do not wait for phantom 'connections'. (But perhaps consider
emigrating to Australia if you want to be well-subsidised!!) Be a self-made
cinephile!!!
By the way, for everyone on the list: the latest CAHIERS 'World Atlas of
Cinema' issue has some interesting thoughts about film criticism on the Web.
(unconnected) Adrian
9589
From:
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 7:10am
Subject: Re: Auteurist Adventure (update, kinda)
I echo Adrian Martin's reply.
My own web site costs me $20 per month - the web site cost. It has 2500 pages
of text on it. There is no design at all, just simple HTML, thus keeping my
time spent on criticism, not fancy graphics.
Custom software would actually make your site harder to maintain.
On the Adventure:
Why not just list the filmmaker's name, such as Sam Fuller. Then say: Fred
Camper likes films XXX, YYY and ZZZ.
Mike Grost likes AAA, BBB, CCC.
You could put each film name on a separate line. And each filmmaker would
have their own page (a Fuller page, a Preminger page, etc.)
Crude but informative. Easy to update and maintain. Easy to read and search.
Mike Grost
9590
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 2:03pm
Subject: Re: Auteurist Adventure (update, kinda)
Would acquarello be in a position to help? He did a great job on
your site, btw.
Kevin
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> Everybody remember this? The project that would allow people to
> browse through recommendations made by list contributors, so that we
> could find out which Sam Fuller films Bill finds essential, which
> Charles Walter films are must-see, etc.?
>
> Post of reference
>
> http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/2156
>
> Well, due to lack of interest I put it on hold for a long time -
> actually, there was a lot of interest in the *idea*, but very little
> in the *execution*.
>
> Recently I got it into my head to hire a programmer to make an
> automated database, into which contributors would be required to do
> very little typing and menu-selecting to posit their
recommendations.
> This didn't pan out because the few programmers who responded to my
> ad demanded huge sums of money, to the tune of hiring them as
> full-time contract employees, very nearly, and that's the kind of
> money I just don't have (and if I did, I wouldn't spend it on a
damned
> computer program).
>
> So...it's kind of dead right now, the project, unless someone has
any
> ideas, something I'm missing, opportunities not heeded, etc.
>
> The main idea is to get a shitload of super-busy people such as
y'all
> (and myself) to contribute a *very tiny* bit of personal opinion
for a
> lasting guide to the auteurist universe. Something like Sarris'
canon
> but spread out, many voices instead of one, constantly growing and
> changing. It would be very cool!
>
> O, to be Adrian Martin and to have the connections to make something
> like Rouge!
>
> -Jaime
9591
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 3:12pm
Subject: Re: O to be ...
(In contrast to another publication, on a subsidy that has approached
> 50 thousand per year, which does not pay its contributors as it
once did,
> and which on top of that has the temerity to ask its readers for
donations.)
I hate to admit it, but I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I
saw that.
9592
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 5:42pm
Subject: thanks for the advice, everyone!
Yay! I'll start combing the archives *right now*!!
-Jaime
9593
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 8:54pm
Subject: defending oliveira
Well, I think Oliveira's delivery in the 90s range from great to good.
Was asked by Bill (and promised him) of constants in his work. The major
one, I think, is History. Not as this stuff we read in the books, but living
history.
Our portuguese man acknowledges time passes. Some of the things that are now
weren't in the past, and some of the things that were in the past are not
anymore. Some still are, and some today resist. How do they? Through habit
(costums), through memory (wisdom, science, technology), through objects
(memorabilia), through landscape (streets, villages, monuments) and last but
not least, through art. Oliveira dazzles me everytime by short-circuiting
all of it, and consequently questioning and putting into perspective the
statute of History. You could mention tons of examples, from Pedro
Abrunhosa's shoes in The Letter from Leonor Silveira's standing with a
cigarette in front of a trompe-l'oil with a lot of antiques as cenography in
Inquietude. Art, that which remains. The way he mixes it all together in his
films, books, theater, objects, cities (Porto...), in complete anachronic
and artifficial style seem to be way more than just qualité-portugaise
filmmaking with all arthouse-cinema cliches attached to it. It's definetely
for all publics, and maybe sometimes a little boring, but, man, what do you
get in return.
If you pick that (insufficient, in my regard) dichotomy between culturalism
and marxism, Oliveira's definetely a culturalist one, in the sense he
believes culture is not an epi-phenomenon of economy, but a ground of its
own, and that might be a way more politics-interested people would rather
pick the Straubs, but I think Oliveira does to History what the Straubs do
to written text and speaking (it's just that the Straubs stress resistence a
little bit more in their films). This "culturalism" expresses itself in ways
that it doesn't say "all is relative", but rather "we're on a certain moment
in history, or in the history of the occident, and it would be fine to look
at some of the things we inherited, and some that do not apply anymore". I
experience from time to time seeing or re-seeing an Oliveira movie that
famous quote from Napoleon, "From the height or these pyramids, etc." (a
quote he indeed uses in Um Filme Falado) Just that it isn't only beauty
that's produced, but also engagement in History. In that, I think Oliveira,
Godard and the Straubs share the same ground.
I can't help being moved by the non-stanislavskian work of actors, by the
mise-en-scène, by the way objects and places have a real presence and are
not only background, and also for the way he films women. Leonor Silveira,
but also Leonor Baldaque (and Chiara to a lesser extent) have real presence
and force.
what this popist guy wrote on Oliveira:
www.contracampo.com.br/53/umfilmefalado.htm
www.contracampo.com.br/criticas/inquietude.htm
www.contracampo.com.br/criticas/acarta.htm
www.contracampo.com.br/43/principiodaincerteza.htm
www.contracampo.com.br/31/portoinfancia.htm
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabe Klinger"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 8:01 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Oliveira
> I see I will have to defend de Oliveira around these parts.
9594
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 9:13pm
Subject: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
I watched the excellent criterion DVDs of SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS and THE
LADY EVE, and I was amazed at how self-reflexive BOTH of these films
are in terms of their awareness and active critiquing and modifying
of genre conventions, and (of even more significance to me) their
active interrogation of what constitutes reality -- the reality of
other people (Eve vs. Jean and Muggsy's insistence that
she's "positively the same dame!" in LADY EVE; Sullivan's earnest
naivete in seeking the reality of the poor), the reality of life
behind a series of veiled surfaces.
This perception on my part, that Sturges is intensely keen on playing
to the tension between forms/types and realities underlying them, led
to at least a couple of odd moments for me when I wasn't sure how to
react to something. I'll describe them below and would like to hear
others' thoughts:
- Jean's transformation into Eve and Stanwyck's god awful fake trans-
Atlantic accent. I just couldn't buy into it, and I was amazed that
the people around her were eating it up, esp. Fonda. Muggsy, the
eternal skeptic, is the only person who remotely suspects that Eve is
a fraud and may be Jean, but when he brings this to Fonda's attention
Fonda offers the most convoluted rationalization for why Eve and Jean
can't be the same person (something to the effect of "they have too
much in common to be the same person!"). Can we really say in this
case that Sturges is deliberately making the discernible cracks of
Jean's disguise a point of ontological inquiry by making it less than
totally convincing? Is it a kind of alienation effect? Or could it
simply be that Stanwyck's performance was a mistake?
- Similarly, I felt a bit thrown out of the film with the famous
Mickey Mouse in the church scene in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS. There is a
strong level of discernible artifice that pervades this scene. It
starts with the goody-goodiness of the black church and its noble
preacher, flirting dangerously with liberal stereotype. And then
when the prisoners are seated and the movie starts, everyone starts
laughing uproariously in a manner that strikes me as so forced, it
can be interpreted as either bad directing or a deliberate
affectation. In a way that scene amounts to Sullivan being in a kind
of artistic hell, where everyone is laughing their asses off at
something so mindlessly simple as Goofy's nose stuck to flypaper --
there's nothing to aspire to, just offer the dumbest schtick and
people will eat it right up. I feel that this observation (if indeed
it is what the film is intending to make) can be interpreted in
different, even opposing directions. One the one hand, it's one of
the most stunning expressions of contempt for the audience I've ever
seen in a film -- on the other hand, it's a slap in the face to
Sullivan's artistic ambitions/pretensions, that he's been reaching
for these Truths that really have nothing to do with what people need
in their lives. It's a very difficult, complex scene, that's perhaps
as full of humanism as nihilism, and vice versa.
I guess I can make more sense of it than the ending, which really
makes me scratch my head, what with Sullivan's dubious line "There's
a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's
all some people have?" (is Sullivan referring to the dispossessed of
the world, or to his own limited talent as an entertainer?) followed
by the composite shot of McCrea and Veronica Lake's faces surrounded
by the laughing faces from the church screening. There's something
mad and unresolved about this scene, even though on the surface it
seems to be making the most banal, conservative platitude about the
role of art as a palliative for people's suffering, as opposed to an
active agent for social change that the likes of Eisenstein and the
Italian neo-realists firmly believed in (SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS is like a
critique of neo-realism avant lettre). The best light I can see this
incredible film is as a deeply unresolved meditation on the place
that artists have in society; otherwise if I take it at face value I
find it an appaling defeatist apologia for the production of the same
Hollywood crap that's numbing the minds of consumer-viewers today.
Anyway, what do others think about these moments, or these films in
general? On a more broader level, can you recall any significant
debates where you found yourself arguing that what might look like a
flaw in a film (usually in terms of its "craft") may actually be an
artistic virtue that cuts straight to the heart of what the film is
about? and then the other person scoffs at you, "Oh, not the
old 'it's bad, therefore it's good' argument?" I've had this
experience many times, with Godard and Rossellini films in particular.
Kevin
9595
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
--- Kevin Lee wrote:
>
> - Jean's transformation into Eve and Stanwyck's god
> awful fake trans-
> Atlantic accent. I just couldn't buy into it, and I
> was amazed that
> the people around her were eating it up, esp. Fonda.
> Muggsy, the
> eternal skeptic, is the only person who remotely
> suspects that Eve is
> a fraud and may be Jean, but when he brings this to
> Fonda's attention
> Fonda offers the most convoluted rationalization for
> why Eve and Jean
> can't be the same person (something to the effect of
> "they have too
> much in common to be the same person!"). Can we
> really say in this
> case that Sturges is deliberately making the
> discernible cracks of
> Jean's disguise a point of ontological inquiry by
> making it less than
> totally convincing? Is it a kind of alienation
> effect? Or could it
> simply be that Stanwyck's performance was a mistake?
>
Not at all.The audience knows what's really going on
therefore even if Stanwyck's accent was "convincing,"
how could we be "fooled"?
The "logic" is simply that if "Jean" was trying to
fool everyone by creating "Eve" she would have changed
her hair color and any number of other thing sabout
her. Because she's essentially "the same dame" she has
to be someone else.
Even though she isn't.
Mkaes perfect (non)sense to me.
> - Similarly, I felt a bit thrown out of the film
> with the famous
> Mickey Mouse in the church scene in SULLIVAN'S
> TRAVELS. There is a
> strong level of discernible artifice that pervades
> this scene. It
> starts with the goody-goodiness of the black church
> and its noble
> preacher, flirting dangerously with liberal
> stereotype.
In 1941? Would you have preferred the crows from
"Dumbo"?
And then
> when the prisoners are seated and the movie starts,
> everyone starts
> laughing uproariously in a manner that strikes me as
> so forced, it
> can be interpreted as either bad directing or a
> deliberate
> affectation. In a way that scene amounts to
> Sullivan being in a kind
> of artistic hell, where everyone is laughing their
> asses off at
> something so mindlessly simple as Goofy's nose stuck
> to flypaper --
> there's nothing to aspire to, just offer the dumbest
> schtick and
> people will eat it right up.
Not at all. They're desperate for something to take
their mind off their troubles. Goffy will do quite
nicely on that score.
>
> I guess I can make more sense of it than the ending,
> which really
> makes me scratch my head, what with Sullivan's
> dubious line "There's
> a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you
> know that that's
> all some people have?" (is Sullivan referring to the
> dispossessed of
> the world, or to his own limited talent as an
> entertainer?)
He's referring to EVERYONE that's why it's
followed
> by the composite shot of McCrea and Veronica Lake's
> faces surrounded
> by the laughing faces from the church screening.
> There's something
> mad and unresolved about this scene, even though on
> the surface it
> seems to be making the most banal, conservative
> platitude about the
> role of art as a palliative for people's suffering,
> as opposed to an
> active agent for social change that the likes of
> Eisenstein and the
> Italian neo-realists firmly believed in (SULLIVAN'S
> TRAVELS is like a
> critique of neo-realism avant lettre).
Go back further. Remeber the ending of Vidor's "The
Crowd"?
There we are!
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9596
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 11:47pm
Subject: Re: defending oliveira
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
Thanks for your great defense, Ruy, which gets us away from the
notion that De O is great because his films are beautiful to look
at (they certainly are) or because he does wacky stuff or because
he's 92! Or because he's De O...
There's no question that he is dramatizing historical change, and
the traces of the past in the present (those eavesdropping
statues in Le Couvent). It's somewhat different from Godard, who
uses the art of the past as counterpoint to the horror of the
present, and somewhat different from the Straubs, who are
writing a particular history with their films, the history of
resistance to the power of arms and money at all times in
history, with classics like Bach and Corneille being enlisted on
the side of the Resistance -- no one who has seen their recent
films will think of Holderlin as apolitical again.
So what is De O doing with all this culture - mostly past culture -
he keeps making films about? When the hands pull the
manuscript out of the water at the end of 4 hours plus of Ill-Fated
Love, you felt as if a piece of history, a piece of the Portugese
soul, had been retrieved by the film. There was something
atavistic about the act of retrieval -- something you feel rarely
when looking at films. Some of the Klan stuff in Birth of the
Nation (the business with the fire and the blood) has the same
atavistic quality for me. The customs and feelings portrayed in
Branco's novel belong to a more primitive state of human
society, and the film, which is of course very modern in its
technique, is trying to put us literally in contact with that -- that
being the reason for the amazing scenography he invented to
reenact them.
This is also related to what you see in a film like Ana by Cordeiro
and Reis, where you are in a house somewhere in the rural part
of Portugal and assume that you're seeing a reenactment of 19th
Century life, until halfway through a car pulls up! Those layers of
time seem to be part of Portugese experience. The filmmakers
weren't faking it, although they may have been a little selective at
the beginning. I don't really know - it's a mysterious film.
But at a certain point (pardon my stubborness!) the use of past
culture and present culture simply became decorative,
formalistic, in De Oliveira. The settings created for Satin Slipper
are gorgeous, but it's like one of those Easter eggs we used to
get as kids where you look through a little glass window and see
colored cut-outs inside. And the deliberate use of anachronism
doesn't have the impact of that insanely faithful recreation of the
ill-fated loves of Branco's unimaginably distant ancestors.
Shakespeare used anachronism (the gun in Julius Caesar) to
insert his history plays into the historical present - Welles was
doing the same thing when he staged the play in modern dress
and evoked Mussolinni. All that's legitimate, but staging the
Princess of Cleves in modern Portugal and putting funny shoes
on the Other Man... When I went to see Class Relations at UCLA
I took a Polish friend who had just lost her job at a lithograph
place downtown, and throughout the film we -- and she
particularly -- saw and heard the behavior of her bosses in
Kafka's ogres as animated by the Straubs: the tones of voice, the
body language -- the same. The specificity (how German!) and
universality of Amerika were in direct contact with Los Angeles,
1990, in some magic way. It wasn't bric-a-brac.
I love French Cancan and Elena, but Renoir didn't spend
FIFTEEN YEARS remaking them. The Elusive Corporal was
already something new again - you could breathe again.
Obviously, I don't feel much air circulating in 90s De Oliveira,
although I am looking forward to seeing some of the films that
still haven't played LA. I'm not much of a festivalgoer, so I'm stil
lwaiting for some of them. I did feel invigorated by O Fantasma
and Noite when I saw them in Venice, however. It seems that
young Portugese directors have had it with a cinema of Culture
(which is not just De O: it;'s that whole school) and are returning
to Nature. Maybe it's a dead end; maybe it's a glorious last
flaming-up of something I've been too scattered to appreciate. I
do love looking at all of his recent actresses, obviously, and
those aren't the only pleasures. I look forward to seeing what the
little devil has been up to in his fourth childhood.
9597
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 11:59pm
Subject: Re: defending oliveira
De Oliveira have always been a litmus test for most people, and for me I ha=
ve been on
both ends of the liking and disliking his work, when I was younger and felt=
his films
were boring, "the work of an old man", and then revisiting WORD AND UTOPIA,=
and
seeing I'M GOING HOME in Toronto really blew me away and made me want to se=
e
more, going back to NO OR THE VAIN GLORY OF COMMAND (which I programmed for=
my series at Block). Recently I have only seen BENILDE, ANIKE BOBO, and fra=
gments of
a few other things, but I've kept up with his work consistently since THE L=
ETTER, and
usually fresh from festival premieres and such when reactions are still res=
erved to
mainstream critics and distributors, who find his work difficult to handle.=
Seeing A
TALKING PICTURE with a group of people I respect, and later finding out tha=
t only one
in the group liked it immediately (and my friend Olaf Möller has called it =
something of
a fascist film, for some reasons I can see), made me say, well, audacity or=
no audacity,
there's clearly some problematic and unsatisfying things going on, though h=
e is a
master, and the silent film sensibility that comes across in the film, and =
in I'M GOING
HOME in particular, make his films refreshing and worthy of repeat viewings=
.
In an article for In These Times, I talked about de Oliveira as a filmmaker=
who is
interested in polar-ends of society. THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE is about cla=
ss
issues at its root, the tensions between families and their servants, about=
crumbling
dynasties. De Oliveira assigns decadent qualities to old Portuguese familie=
s in a way
that doesn't ever fully engage with today's storytelling sensibilities. Int=
erestingly there
is a big difference between his French productions and his Portuguese produ=
ctions. In
the former he seems to be more of a fabulist, and in the latter he approach=
es
something closer to reality, or as Ruy points out, history. That's why it w=
as interesting
to have the contrast of JE RENTRE A LA MAISON and PORTO DA MINHA INFANCIA i=
n
the same year, as one connects with history in both films but in radically =
different
ways. The former sees the beginning of the millennium, while PORTO backtrac=
ks to
the 20s and 30s, to give us a real sense of autobiographical history. JE R=
ENTRE... I
cannot think of it as a self-reflection on old age, but rather as something=
more
universal about man. In the way that he chose to tell the story, many peopl=
e found
defeatist, but for me it exemplified cycles. The last shot of the boy is no=
t a reaction
(duh), but a still frame that represents a passage.
Like Ruy, I am also moved by Oliveira's women, and in fact, when I put THE =
UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE and Kiarostami's TEN at the top of my list in 2002, I=
thought
i was engaging in some kind of activism against the "sex is cinema" conting=
ent, that
while Leonor Baldaque was about ten times more perverse than the lady with =
the
shaved head in TEN, both were strong successors to the males in their world=
s, with
the intelligence to have their own set of emotions, emotions that weren't n=
ecessarily
defined by their male directors, but rather by a force larger than all that=
-- maybe a
literary force in de Oliveira, and in Kiarostami, something from the 'real'=
. On the other
end there was Brisseau, Noé, Cronenberg, Toback, Clark, Grandrieux -- the "=
bad
guys". In the de Oliveira and Kiarostami, they were secret characters who d=
id not
expose themselves -- Baldaque with her hidden chamber, and in TEN, the girl=
who
conceales her head, while everyone in Brisseau, Noe, Grandrieux are explain=
ing
themselves to the audience, as a form of navel-gazing, they are simply less=
-
interesting characters than in de Oliveira and Kiarostami.
Both WORD AND UTOPIA and PORTO DA MINHA INFANCIA use waves crashing on
rocks as the start of something. In WORD AND UTOPIA it is obvious, it's civ=
ilization,
without the boats, and without a human presence. That's what's great about =
de
Oliveira, because he uses filmmaking like the alphabet; with key images, he=
can put
his story together without the fuss of most filmmakers. In PORTO DA MINHA
INFANCIA, he narrates a story from his youth, intermittently stopping to le=
t a song
play, which evokes time in a way that only becomes apparent with the culmin=
ation of
cuts and scenes. Like the Straubs (the comparison is a good one), the meani=
ng might
not be within the images but rather with the placement of images. Like plac=
ement of
words, which are the basis of de Oliveira's films.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier" wrote=
:
> Well, I think Oliveira's delivery in the 90s range from great to good.
> Was asked by Bill (and promised him) of constants in his work. The major
> one, I think, is History. Not as this stuff we read in the books, but liv=
ing
> history.
> Our portuguese man acknowledges time passes. Some of the things that are =
now
> weren't in the past, and some of the things that were in the past are not=
> anymore. Some still are, and some today resist. How do they? Through habi=
t
> (costums), through memory (wisdom, science, technology), through objects
> (memorabilia), through landscape (streets, villages, monuments) and last =
but
> not least, through art. Oliveira dazzles me everytime by short-circuiting=
> all of it, and consequently questioning and putting into perspective the
> statute of History. You could mention tons of examples, from Pedro
> Abrunhosa's shoes in The Letter from Leonor Silveira's standing with a
> cigarette in front of a trompe-l'oil with a lot of antiques as cenography=
in
> Inquietude. Art, that which remains. The way he mixes it all together in =
his
> films, books, theater, objects, cities (Porto...), in complete anachronic=
> and artifficial style seem to be way more than just qualité-portugaise
> filmmaking with all arthouse-cinema cliches attached to it. It's definete=
ly
> for all publics, and maybe sometimes a little boring, but, man, what do y=
ou
> get in return.
> If you pick that (insufficient, in my regard) dichotomy between culturali=
sm
> and marxism, Oliveira's definetely a culturalist one, in the sense he
> believes culture is not an epi-phenomenon of economy, but a ground of its=
> own, and that might be a way more politics-interested people would rather=
> pick the Straubs, but I think Oliveira does to History what the Straubs d=
o
> to written text and speaking (it's just that the Straubs stress resistenc=
e a
> little bit more in their films). This "culturalism" expresses itself in w=
ays
> that it doesn't say "all is relative", but rather "we're on a certain mom=
ent
> in history, or in the history of the occident, and it would be fine to lo=
ok
> at some of the things we inherited, and some that do not apply anymore". =
I
> experience from time to time seeing or re-seeing an Oliveira movie that
> famous quote from Napoleon, "From the height or these pyramids, etc." (a
> quote he indeed uses in Um Filme Falado) Just that it isn't only beauty
> that's produced, but also engagement in History. In that, I think Oliveir=
a,
> Godard and the Straubs share the same ground.
> I can't help being moved by the non-stanislavskian work of actors, by the=
> mise-en-scène, by the way objects and places have a real presence and are=
> not only background, and also for the way he films women. Leonor Silveira=
,
> but also Leonor Baldaque (and Chiara to a lesser extent) have real presen=
ce
> and force.
> what this popist guy wrote on Oliveira:
> www.contracampo.com.br/53/umfilmefalado.htm
> www.contracampo.com.br/criticas/inquietude.htm
> www.contracampo.com.br/criticas/acarta.htm
> www.contracampo.com.br/43/principiodaincerteza.htm
> www.contracampo.com.br/31/portoinfancia.htm
> ruy
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gabe Klinger"
> To:
> Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 8:01 PM
> Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Oliveira
> > I see I will have to defend de Oliveira around these parts.
9598
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 4, 2004 0:03am
Subject: Re: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
Quickly responding to Kevin:
Check out Stanley Cavell's discussion of The Lady Eve in
Pursuits of Happiness. Without having read it in a long time, I'm
sure he philosophizes about the implausible accent till the cows
come home and probably makes it stick...about half the time. I've
always assumed that Nouvelle Vague was Godard's remake of
Lady Eve. Probably not.
As for Sullivan's Travels, few more divided artists ever walked the
earth than Preston Sturges - his mother hung out with Isadora
Duncan and his father was a businessman with no interest in
culture whatsoever. So you can read the film both ways you want
to have it -- and MORE! -- and be right. (Sturges COULD do
"social consciousness." He wrote William K. Howard's The
Power and the Glory, which is credited with influencing Kane,
and his one serious film, The Great Moment, while more a
self-portrait of the misunderstood inventor/artist than anything
else, is wonderful.) The only thing I can't justify in Sullivan's
Travels is the last line, "the whole cockeyed caravan." That's a
vile phrase no matter how you cut it.
can you recall any significant
debates where you found yourself arguing that what might look
like a flaw in a film (usually in terms of its "craft") may actually be
an artistic virtue that cuts straight to the heart of what the film is
about?
Hundreds of them.
9599
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Tue May 4, 2004 1:49am
Subject: Re: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> - Jean's transformation into Eve
I think it was just meant to be funny in this way:
a heterosexual man will believe whatever he needs to
believe to be with a woman!
> - Similarly, I felt a bit thrown out of the film with the famous
> Mickey Mouse in the church scene in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS.
Again, I think people will laugh at whatever is presented as
funny when in need of a laugh. Remember this is 1930's ...
just seeing a cartoon would be an exceptional experience,
especially for a prisoner.
I like Preston Sturges for the 'cornyness' of his lovable
characters. MIRACLE at MORGAN's CREEK is totally unbelievable
but funny. Preston Sturges seems to be a high-brow humor
often in a working class setting but not at the expense of the
working class.
9600
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Tue May 4, 2004 2:01am
Subject: PECKINGPAH's STRAW DOGS
I know much has been written about the violence of STRAW DOGS.
I saw something not mentioned in any readings:
The relationship between Susan George and Dustin Hoffman is
established, though rocky. In one scene, he comments about
her acting like a 16 year old, then keeps lower his interest level
to 14, 12 year old... maybe even younger.
The character who plays the town idiot is seen with the
child tease... how old is she? Who knows, but in the mind of the
townsmen, the idiot is a child molester (murderer also).
The last scene has Dustin riding off to who knows where
Idiot
I don't know the way home
Dustin
Neither do I
Obviously, the adult Susan George does not interest
Dustin.
Has anyone read anything about this?
There might be violence all around us, but perhaps the
greatest violence is the hidden violence happening to
children.
a_film_by Main Page
Home Film
Art
Other: (Travel, Rants, Obits)
Links About
Contact