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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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9801
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 3:32am
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> In a message dated 5/10/04 8:53:03 PM, jpcoursodon@y... writes:
>
>
> > A film, any work of art, is about what it is, and that's it...
(we're not
> > talking about it's subject matter, of course). But what does it
mean, anyway,
> > this thing about legitimacy and capital? I really would like some
> > clarification of that last paragraph. It made absolutely no sense
to me, but it must make
> > sense since you think it is so important.
> >
> Meaning that if films or any works of art are about what they are
and that's
> it, what purpose does the critic serve? And if the critic serves no
purpose
> and spends their time reading too deeply, then why should they get
paid to do
> that?
>
I am not sure whether the critic serves a purpose or not, but if
he/she does I would say the purpose is to show how a film (work of
art) is about what it is. (this has nothing to do with reading too
deeply or not deeply enough). As for getting paid, I think it's very
high-minded of you to have qualms about it. Myself, I never made a
living out of writing about film, so I wouldn't know. It sure is an
interesting moral issue, but not one I have had a chance to encounter
and deal with. I'd say take the money and run...
>
And if a film is truly about what it is and that's it, then how would
you
> respond if I said that Minority Report was not about some
futuristic device
> called Pre Crime but was really about a birthing myth?
This is part of what it is. That's my point. I said it before: the
film is about whatever you think it's about (getting tired of putting
in those " "). Guess I shouldn't have said "and that's it". That was
misleading.I should have said that the film/work of art/text whatever
is so open to interpretations that saying that it is "about" anything
becomes meaningless. or rather, irrelevant. JPC
Or that Sirk's Imitation of
> Life was not about how well Lora et al treated Sarah Jane but, in
fact, how
> poorly they treated Sarah Jane? Or that Tequila Sunrise was not
about drug
> dealing but really about a repulsion with women? Or that Francis
Veber's The Closet
> was not about homosexuality but rather heterosexuality? Or take out
the
> warring terms like "really" and "rather." What if you read a review
I wrote of
> Minority Report where I never mentioned Pre Crime and wrote about
amniotic fluids
> and pregnancy? Would I have written about what Minority Report was
truly
> about? Would I have written about what Minority Report is and
that's it?
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9802
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 0:17am
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
In a message dated 5/10/04 10:51:15 PM, jpcoursodon@y... writes:
> As for getting paid, I think it's very high-minded of you to have qualms
> about it. Myself, I never made a living out of writing about film, so I
> wouldn't know. It sure is an interesting moral issue, but not one I have had a
> chance to encounter and deal with. I'd say take the money and run...
>
No, no, please don't misunderstand me. I have no qualms whatsoever about
getting paid for writing about film. I get paid about $3000 a year to write about
film and music. I hardly think that's enough (for me, at least) to have qualms
about. Quite to the contrary, I think we should be getting paid more. I think
it's a crime that you have never made a living out of writing about film or
that Ehrenstein is as poor as he said he was a few weeks back.
I was trying to theorize as to why this is so. The question was not "How
could I possibly get paid even $3000 a year to write about film?!?!? Quel
scandale!" Rather, it was "How come I get paid ONLY $3000 a year to write about
film?!?!?" Moreover, I was less lamenting this state of affairs (I realize my
situation is quite nice compared to most people on earth) than I was trying to
determine what the critic's role is and, more particularly, how the critic is
perceived.
I've often thought about what I do compared to what my friend who's a hair
stylist does or my husband who does security. Both get paid significantly more
than I do and I think about why. What services do I provide? Why do I get paid
less?
"I should have said that the film/work of art/text whatever is so open to
interpretations that saying that it is "about" anything becomes meaningless. or
rather, irrelevant."
Or rather, saying that it is about any ONE thing is meaningless, right?
Because if saying it is about anything is truly meaningless, I would ask the same
question: what is the role of the critic then? Why are you even writing?
Kevin
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9803
From: Brian Darr
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 5:30am
Subject: Re: Nuit et Brouillard
If you can get your hands on Humphrey Jennings' "Listen To Britain" it
might make an interesting pairing.
-Brian
9804
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 1:32am
Subject: Re: Re: Walsh
Bill Krohn wrote:
>Peter's scratching around for a Walsh MIA film.
Yep, you found me out! Thanks very much for the tip on the Walsh TV episode.
But, as Robert reminds us, Walsh directed SO much that his output is
overwhelming enough without taking into account 'phantom' film projects!
Apart from any Walsh MIAs, though, I am similarly fascinated by unrealized
projects of great directors, particularly late unrealized projects. I'm
thinking of Hitchcock's "Mary Rose" (which was the perfect note to end your Hitchcock
book on, Bill), Vidor's remake of "The Turn of the Road" (sometimes known as
"The Milly Story"), Tati's "Confusion," Welles' "King Lear," and so many, many
others. So while I doubt there's a "Truth and Illusion" by Walsh buried in a
film vault somewhere, I bet there just might be some scripts or notes for
projects in the years after "A Distant Trumpet." We KNOW there's a novel...
Peter
9805
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 1:43am
Subject: Truffaut
I haven't revisited the non-Antoine Doinel films in quite a few years now,
but my memory is that "Two English Girls" always seemed to me to be Truffaut's
masterpiece. I think "The Green Room" is great too. I also have an
inexplicably high regard for "The Last Metro." I say "inexplicable" because I've never
found anyone else who considers it a major Truffaut in any way. I haven't
seen it since a viewing in 35mm more than five years ago, but it struck me at the
time as being much more than "Day For Night in the Theatre" or whatever.
And "Confidentially Yours" may be allowed into the Truffaut Pantheon just on
the basis of that opening shot.
Peter
9806
From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 5:59am
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
Critics serve various functions, often more than one, depending on the
critic. Critics who work for "general interest" publications usually
have the obligation to try to help readers decide if they would like to
see the film. Critics can also try to educate by providing information
or context that the viewer might not otherwise have. Critics can also
try to change the way people see, by plumbing those valuable aspects of
a film that depend on formal elements that most viewers miss.
About money, film criticism is one of those professions like acting, or
being a "fine art" painter, in which the supply of people who want to do
it is much greater than the demand for it. Hence we have many critics
who write for almost nothing, and many more who write for free, of late
on "Joe's movie page" and the like. Last time I looked, there weren't
any lawyers advising multinational corporations on tax questions for free.
The question of what a good film is "about" is all too often separated
from its style. For a director like, er, Spielberg, that may be the
right approach, but for the filmmakers whose work I love, that's a huge
mistake, in my view. You could look at the script and say "Imitation of
Life" is about race relations, or New York, or the acting profession, or
any one of a number of other things, and if course it is "about" all of
those things, just David is not wrong in his list of what "Seven Women"
is about. But seen through Sirk's lens-eye, the patterns of hopelessness
and notions of "Sirkian impossibility" become controlling, with moments
such as Sarah Jane's grasping at flowers at the end of that great crane
in constituting the not-so-secret-"center" of the film's concerns.
Similarly, the diagonal compositions and lighting, the clutter of the
frames, the mixture of presence and incredible distance in "Seven Women"
create an elegiac vision of a community's collapse, and I find it
impossible to separate the little lesbian sub-plot from all that;
rather, it reinforces it.
I don't mean to suggest that my little blending of formal description
and thematic extraction exhausts these films, and in that sense I partly
agree with JPC; people could easily make plausible cases for the style
supporting other themes. But I think those cases usually have to be made
through the compositions and lighting and editing, if the film meets my
own standards for greatness.
- Fred C.
9807
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 6:24am
Subject: Re: Nuit et Brouillard
Show it with Blood of Beasts. The kids will relate more easily to
that than to something so far in the past - although of course the
photographs we're seeing from Iraq make Nuit et brouillard relevant
again.
I read an interview recently where Resnais said he made the film
because he thought he could change the world. When he realized he
hadn't, he gave up the idea of doing political films, unless a
contemporary situation forced itself into the script as with Muriel.
I guess it had been knocking on the door during the production of
Annee derniere and finally got in...
9808
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 6:27am
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
What if you read a review I wrote of
> Minority Report where I never mentioned Pre Crime and wrote about
amniotic fluids
> and pregnancy? Would I have written about what Minority Report was
truly
> about? Would I have written about what Minority Report is and
that's it?
>
> Kevin
Spoke to Andy Klein tonight after Les egarees. He says he's always
getting razzed for interpreting films, but he loves doing it. I told
him I do too, and to keep ahead on.
9809
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 6:30am
Subject: Re: Truffaut
Peter Tonguette:
> I haven't revisited the non-Antoine Doinel films in quite a few
years now,
> but my memory is that "Two English Girls" always seemed to me to
be Truffaut's
> masterpiece.
I agree. TWO ENGLISH GIRLS, for me, contains all of what makes
Truffaut Truffaut, and then some -- which might be why it also seems
so messy to some viewers. It's also a key transitional work, I'd
say, from his early New Wave days and the Doinel films (LOVE ON THE
RUN and STOLEN KISSES also come close to being masterpieces for me)
to the more prestige-bound adaptations of the past. It's Truffaut
reconciling his past with Le Cinema du Papa, before embracing it
more fully. It's sprawling and complex and lush and full of
contradicitons -- all set to one of the most lovely Georges Delerue
scores I've ever heard. What's not to love?
-Bilge
9810
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 6:31am
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
> Because if saying it is about anything is truly meaningless, I
would ask the same
> question: what is the role of the critic then? Why are you even
writing?
>
> Kevin
My lapidary formula, which I aspire to apply better in some future
writing: What we enjoy in a film is not WHAT it means, but HOW it
means it. Note the old-fashioned Barthesian word "enjoy."
9811
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 6:55am
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
On Adrian's secret center idea: I have always thought that there
could never have been a more perfect project for Cukor than My Fair
Lady - an actress in the center ring, and a Pygmalion director
shaping her performance, with a strong implication that Pygmalion is
gay. But the film is dead on arrival.
Similar cases could be made against other films: I like I Confess,
but it may have been telling too many secrets. Is Land of the
Pharoahs the secret center of Hawks' cinema? Is Socrates just too
much of a portrait of the artist? Are Immortal Story and Belle de
Jour (as Biette claimed) their directors' worst films? Was My Name Is
Nobody a better wrap-up to Leone's career than the long-meditated
Once Upon A Time in America? (That's for you, Adrian.) Is Querelle a
testament or a mistake? (Bring it on, David!) Is it just as well Ford
got sick on Young Cassidy? Would the world be a better place WITHOUT
The Green Room? Etc.
9812
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 1:13pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> What if you read a review I wrote of
> > Minority Report where I never mentioned Pre Crime and wrote about
> amniotic fluids
> > and pregnancy? Would I have written about what Minority Report
was
> truly
> > about? Would I have written about what Minority Report is and
> that's it?
> >
> > Kevin
>
> Spoke to Andy Klein tonight after Les egarees. He says he's always
> getting razzed for interpreting films, but he loves doing it. I
told
> him I do too, and to keep ahead on.
Well, criticism (awful word!) always involves some degree of
interpretation. You can't help interpreting, even if you're Susan
Sontag. But "interpretation" has a bad name. "Oh, that's just your
interpretation..." they'll say, dismissively. Actually your
interpretation is the expression of your emotions, of the way you
responded to the movie. Kevin's mention of his reference to amniotic
fluid and pregnancy Re Minority report, which I find perfectly valid,
reminded me of my "interpretation" of (=response to) "Poltergeist"
where I wrote about the wonderful scene of the rope thrown by the
mother into the fourth dimension (?) of TV screen to retrieve her
captured child, a rebirth in which the rope acts as umbilical cord
and the girl comes out covered with a placenta-like substance. Many
years before I wrote of a somewhat similar metaphor of rebirth in
Daves' "Dark passage" where the protagonist is fed through a tube by
a woman in a womb-like room before he can be re-born with a new
identity... These are not after-the-fact intellectual ratiocinations
but formulations of how those scenes struck and moved me when I saw
them. If I had not responded to them that way they would feel much
less rich, just bizarre or contrived. However, I would never
say "this movie was about birth/rebirth" -- -- as David pointed out,
a movie, especially a great one is "about" everything you can think
it is about.
My objection to a "the film is about" approach is somewhat the same
as to the "the author meant to say" approach. The latter always
reminds me of Valery saying: "I didn't mean to say, I meant to do"
("Je n'ai pas voulu dire, j'ai voulu faire,")I what I did determined
what I said.
JPC
9813
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 1:23pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> > Because if saying it is about anything is truly meaningless, I
> would ask the same
> > question: what is the role of the critic then? Why are you even
> writing?
> >
> > Kevin
>
> My lapidary formula, which I aspire to apply better in some future
> writing: What we enjoy in a film is not WHAT it means, but HOW it
> means it. Note the old-fashioned Barthesian word "enjoy."
"Enjoy" will never be old-fashioned, Bill. Ah, le plaisir du
texte! We write to account for and share that pleasure, Kevin. If we
can get paid for it, fine. But you know, lots of people write poetry
and never get paid for it or even get published. And writing about
film is a lot like writing poetry -- and sometimes it can be pretty
good poetry too.
JPC
9814
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 1:26pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> On Adrian's secret center idea: I have always
> thought that there
> could never have been a more perfect project for
> Cukor than My Fair
> Lady - an actress in the center ring, and a
> Pygmalion director
> shaping her performance, with a strong implication
> that Pygmalion is
> gay. But the film is dead on arrival.
Not dead.There's a pulse, but faint. "The Blue Bird"
is dead.
>
> Similar cases could be made against other films: I
> like I Confess,
> but it may have been telling too many secrets.
About what?
Is
> Land of the
> Pharoahs the secret center of Hawks' cinema?
No, but it's in no way as bad as its reputation would
have one believe.
Is
> Socrates just too
> much of a portrait of the artist?
Just a dull films.
Are Immortal Story
> and Belle de
> Jour (as Biette claimed) their directors' worst
> films?
A truly bizarre statementin both instances. The Welles
is minor but central to auteurist concerns, the bunuel
is major -- Hakims be damned!
Was My Name Is
> Nobody a better wrap-up to Leone's career than the
> long-meditated
> Once Upon A Time in America? (That's for you,
> Adrian.)
Then I'll wait to see what he says first.
Is Querelle a
> testament or a mistake? (Bring it on, David!)
Neither. I'd call it Fassbinder's "One From the
Crotch."
Is it
> just as well Ford
> got sick on Young Cassidy?
Not according to Godard and Rivette.
Would the world be a
> better place WITHOUT
> The Green Room? Etc.
Certianly not! Another great Truffaut and a very
important Henry James adaptation, well beyond the
Merchant-Ivory ken.
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9815
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 2:30pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works/Zizek reference
Kevin, the Zizek reference is "In His Bold Gaze My Ruin is Writ
Large," and it's from his anthology EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO
KNOW ABOUT LACAN (BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK HITCHCOCK). One of the
biggest problems I have with this essay is that I can't accept his
ideas about "what's wrong with THE WRONG MAN" since it is predicated
upon Zizek erecting a system by which he feels Hitchcock's cinema
operates ("the Hitchcockian allegory") and then, since THE WRONG MAN
doesn't fit in with this sytem, it must be a weak film. What clearly
needs to be done instead here is for Zizek to examine the weaknesses
or gaps within his own critical methods for making sense of
Hitchcock.
> --- hotlove666 wrote:
> > On Adrian's secret center idea: I have always
> > thought that there
> > could never have been a more perfect project for
> > Cukor than My Fair
> > Lady - an actress in the center ring, and a
> > Pygmalion director
> > shaping her performance, with a strong implication
> > that Pygmalion is
> > gay. But the film is dead on arrival.
I quite like MY FAIR LADY and for me, aside from hitting a couple of
rough patches, it arrives snugly into port. I'm not certain that it
fits in with Adrian's "secret centre" idea since the film's thematic
is more or less a constant in Cukor and is frequently overt rather
than displaced or hidden. Others here may disagree, but I've never
picked up on any suggestions that Henry Higgins might be gay --
perhaps Rex Harrison precludes such possibilties, even when he's
clearly playing a homosexual (STAIRCASE).
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
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9816
From: programming
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 3:44pm
Subject: Re: Nuit et Brouillard
Hi Josh,
I'm currently teaching a class at Facets Multimedia here in Chicago called
"Documentary Film and the Poetic Imagination." Quite coincidentally, I'm
showing "Night and Fog" tonight, with Blood of the Beasts and The House Is
Black. The "organizing" theme is "Filming the Unfilmable" and I'll try to
get the students to consider and talk about filming "difficult" subjects,
how these filmmakers use "poetic" or "lyrical" elements, and whether that is
successful or appropriate.
You might have to remind me, but I can post a report afterwards.
Best,
Patrick (mostly a lurker) Friel
On 5/10/04 8:28 PM, "J. Mabe" wrote:
> I was thinking about trying to show this film when I
> get back to school in a few months, but I¹m stuck
> trying to figure out what kind of film could be played
> with it in a program. I supposed I could do a
> screening of just this film... If the school¹s library
> had another Resnais print (it doesn¹t) this would be
> much simpler. Nuit et Brouillard just seems to resist
> putting it with any other sort of film, and the being
> limited by the school¹s 16mm collection doesn¹t help.
> It doesn¹t feel right to lump it into a program of
> other short films. Some films like Reel 2 of Dog Star
> Man (we have just reel 2, go figure), Menilmontant, or
> Blood of the Beasts would fit time-wise as a double
> bill, but I just can¹t imagine an appropriate film to
> show along side. Has anyone seen Nuit et Brouillard
> together on a program with films that weren¹t about
> the Shoah or also by Resnais?
>
> Just curious...
> Josh Mabe
9817
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 1:05pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
Ah, this is just too confusing for me! "The Immortal Story"," "I Confess,"
"The Green Room," and "Once Upon a Time in America" are among my most cherished
works of their respective directrors! And I actually really like "My Fair
Lady" too. These all just seem to me impossibly great (except for the Cukor,
which is just very good), alas...
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9818
From: L C
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 6:03pm
Subject: Re = Nuit et Brouillard
Josh, you could show it with other French short films who had problems with "censure" for example Resnais & Marker's "Les Statues meurent aussi " and "Le Sang des bêtes" or "À Propos de Nice" or instead with Von Trotta's " Die Bleierne Zeit/Marianne and Julianne" in which German highschool students view the movie in class and then begin to understand what happened or Resnais' tv doc on "Gershwin" to showcase his understanding of music and sound use in film. Luc
---------------------------------
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9819
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 3:02pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
It's a very intriguing notion that 'secret center' films may be their
director's least interesting. As Adrian suggests, there are certainly instances
where a director's dream project has spent too long on the drawing board, has in
the meantime influenced the director's other films in interesting ways, and by
the time the director gets to make the dream project, it feels stale. On the
other hand, I can think of many films which could be regarded as 'secret
centers' or, at the very least, certainly qualify as lifelong dream projects, which
are their maker's very greatest: the one that immediately springs to mind is
Welles' "Chimes at Midnight." I also, as you all probably are well aware by
now, hold Welles' two Dinesen adaptations in immensely high regard: I think
"The Immortal Story" is one of the three best Welles films and his fragment from
"The Dreamers" to be one of the two best (in other words: second only to
"Chimes at Midnight"). Other great 'secret center' films: Polanski's "The
Pianist," Fuller's "The Big Red One," Vidor's "An American Romance," and, recently
(and quite unexpectedly), Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can."
So I must stubbornly resist believing that Hawks' "When It's Hot, Play It
Cool" (or whatever he was going to call his "Girl in Every Port" remake) and
Preminger's "Open Question" would have been disappointments! It's just the
auteurist in me...
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9820
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 7:07pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works/Zizek reference
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "joe_mcelhaney" .
>
>
> > --- hotlove666 wrote:
> > > On Adrian's secret center idea: I have always
> > > thought that there
> > > could never have been a more perfect project for
> > > Cukor than My Fair
> > > Lady - an actress in the center ring, and a
> > > Pygmalion director
> > > shaping her performance, with a strong implication
> > > that Pygmalion is
> > > gay. But the film is dead on arrival.
>
> I quite like MY FAIR LADY and for me, aside from hitting a couple
of
> rough patches, it arrives snugly into port. I'm not certain that it
> fits in with Adrian's "secret centre" idea since the film's
thematic
> is more or less a constant in Cukor and is frequently overt rather
> than displaced or hidden. Others here may disagree, but I've never
> picked up on any suggestions that Henry Higgins might be gay --
> perhaps Rex Harrison precludes such possibilties, even when he's
> clearly playing a homosexual (STAIRCASE).
>
>
> When MY FAIR LADY came out my opinion was close to Bill's, but I
was young and foolish, a dyed-in-the-wool auteurist. Now I enjoy the
film more every time I watch it. Its only major weakness (Audrey's
dubbing by the ubiquitous Nixon) is not Cukor's fault. As to Higgins'
homosexuality it is of course repressed and/or subconscious assuming
it exists at all. Pickering would be to him what Watson was to
Sherlock, perhaps? He finally falls (sort of) for Eliza, though.
> > JPC
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> > http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
9821
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 7:15pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
--- ptonguette@a... wrote:
> It's a very intriguing notion that 'secret center'
> films may be their
> director's least interesting.
This also brings up the notion of "films maudits."
"Party Girl" comes to mind in this regard, as does
"1941" and (for rather different reasons Rivette's
"Merry Go Round."
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9822
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 7:21pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> Ah, this is just too confusing for me! "The Immortal Story"," "I
Confess,"
> "The Green Room," and "Once Upon a Time in America" are among my
most cherished
> works of their respective directrors! And I actually really
like "My Fair
> Lady" too. These all just seem to me impossibly great (except for
the Cukor,
> which is just very good), alas...
>
> Peter
>
> I agree with Peter, but Bill's (apparent) rejection of a number of
beloved films just reminds us that auteurism is not monolithic. We've
had those discussions before. Was it Daney who loved Anatomy of a
Murder and Biette who hated it or vice versa? (Bill, please remind
us!). JPC
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9823
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 3:28pm
Subject: Chaplin's Limelight
I recently interviewed the actor/producer/director Norman Lloyd about his
extraordinary career, particularly his involvement with The Mercury Theatre. The
roster of giants Lloyd has worked with is staggering: Tourneur, Renoir,
Losey, Mann, Hitchcock (of course), and many others. (My interview, by the way,
will be appearing in an upcoming edition of The Film Journal.)
I've been trying to re-see all of the films by these directors which Lloyd
appeared in. That includes Chaplin's "Limelight," a film I've been
alternatively intrigued and frustrated by over the years. I'm going to be revisiting it
very soon, but first I thought I'd solicit some group opinions. In terms of
the 'script' and tone, it is very much in the 'late film' or 'old man's film'
genre which I am such a fan of. It seems like exactly the sort of thing I
should love. But I never quite have - or, rather, I've never been certain that
it's all that >good<. I've always had difficulties with what I took to be an
absence of truly great mise-en-scene in Chaplin and that includes "Limelight," at
least when I last saw it over four years ago. I don't seem to be alone in
this sentiment: in his capsule for the Chicago Reader, Dave Kehr writes that
it's "visually flat," and that "it isn't cinema on any terms," and yet Kehr
regards the film nevertheless as a masterpiece, presumably for its personal
expression. In his very fine entry on Chaplin in "American Directors," Jean-Pierre
similarly writes of Chaplin's visual style being at a "standstill" and how
"drab and seedy-looking" so many of his pictures are. Yet JP writes that
"Limelight," "A King in New York," and "A Countess from Hong Kong" are "amazingly
daring parables on Chaplin's own destiny, an aging artist's nostalgic musings on
his life and work."
Without having yet re-seen "Limelight," the views of Kehr and Jean-Pierre
kind of sums up my own. It's a fascinating movie, and very moving in many
respects, yet I'm not sure how good is it in terms of "the movieness of the movie"
(Richard Schickel's terrific phrase.) So I ask the group: have there ever been
any defenders of "Limelight" which argue on behalf of its mise-en-scene? As
I type this, I'm just about to read a Peter von Bagh essay on the film at
Senses of Cinema, so I may be in the process of answering my own question. But
I'll post it anyway.
Cheers,
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9824
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 7:39pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
Bill's (apparent) rejection of a number of
> beloved films just reminds us that auteurism is not monolithic.
We've
> had those discussions before. Was it Daney who loved Anatomy of a
> Murder and Biette who hated it or vice versa? (Bill, please remind
> us!). JPC
Daney loved it; Mourlet hated it.
Apparently is the word. I like a number of the films listed - not My
Fair Lady - but I still would consider Pharoahs, for example,
significantly weaker than Only Angels Have Wings, I Confess (good as
it is) distinctly inferior to The Wrong Man (arguably also a secret
center film, but not really: the template for transference is Nos
deux conscience, which haunted him throughout the 30s and 40s).
Socrates is no great shakes next to St. Augustine or Age of the
Medici, Querelle is anything but a testament, The Green Room is
insanely overrated. And I'd much rather watch Nobody, which Leone
didn't even sign, than America, whose huge, great qualities are not
invisible to me by any means.
On the other hand, while I knew when Jean-Claude said there was one
Bunuel he disliked that it would be Belle de Jour, I love it (for
extra-cinematic reasons that would probably not have affected Jean-
Claude), and while I certainly agree with Peter re: Chimes and Red
One as long-cherished projects, the question is, where is the secret
center, in Immortal Story or Chimes, in White Dog (as Tag has
brilliantly sort of argued) or in Red One? I like White Dog, too, but
there's something kind of slender and theoretical about it, and I
agree with Peter re: Dreamers, but Story I have some problems with,
all the while recognizing it as a central film not only for Welles
but for all of cinema.
I don't know if that is what Henrik was getting at in the post that
launched this interesting thread. Secret centers are not really the
same thing as films maudits, although that is also an interesting
topic that Henrik's "sorting" report brings up, and obviously there's
some overlap.
9825
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 7:49pm
Subject: Re: Chaplin's Limelight
So I ask the group: have there ever been
> any defenders of "Limelight" which argue on behalf of its mise-en-
scene?
The only late Chaplin I've seen in ages - the only Chaplin I have
seen lately at all - is King in New York, and it's great. I'm talking
about the mise-en-scene. I'd have to actually rerun it to make more
detailed comments, because the one or two things that really
astounded me are so original they're hard to even remember - you
can't just throw them in a box marked "incredible all-in-one" or "use
of color." There's no box for them!
9826
From: Andy Rector
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 7:52pm
Subject: Re: Nuit et Brouillard
Josh-
In a thread here some time ago on the politics of Nuit...'s
representation, I was moved to bring up Straub/Huillet's "Introduction
to Arnold Schoenberg's 'Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene'".
I've since watched them together and the results are very instructive.
It's not easy to get a print of the Straub/Huillet film, but it's
possible. New Yorker distributes their films if your school doesn't
have it. Blood of Beast would be good, though it may further mystify
the situations, whereas the Straub/Huillet film would do the exact
opposite. Are you familiar with their film?
Maybe it would be fruitful to show Nuit... with chapter 1A of Godard's
Histoire(s) as well: the use of the camp footage and his ideas about
cinema's neglected obligation to film them enough and properly (highly
spurious to some). I could help you get a hold of a DVD of that if it
interests you.
The Facets filming the unfilmable series sounds like a terrific idea.
I makes me think that it would be interesting to show a film like
Nuit... alongside another film on the subject that DOESN'T take it's
signifying practice into consideration, those films that see no
problem in representing the Holocaust in the same manner as, say, a
documentary on Prince Charles. There are thousands of these unconcious
documentaries.
Anyhow I salute your endeavor to show Nuit et Brouillard with anything!
Yours,
andy
9827
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 4:33pm
Subject: Re: Re: Chaplin's Limelight
Bill Krohn wrote:
>The only late Chaplin I've seen in ages - the only Chaplin I have
>seen lately at all - is King in New York, and it's great. I'm talking
>about the mise-en-scene.
That's fascinating. If you see it again, please post your detailed thoughts.
And I can report that Peter von Bagh's "Limelight" essay is wonderful and he
does discuss its mise-en-scene, which he describes as resembling a "Cubist
collage":
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/25/limelight_portrait_artist.html
Maybe the auteurist tide is turning back again on Chaplin? I know that I've
spoken to many autuerists over the years who feel Sarris should never have let
him into the Pantheon (and I'm sort of one of them), but I'm eager to revisit
him now, after interviewing Mr. Lloyd and hearing good things from the likes
of von Bagh and yourself.
Peter
9828
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 9:04pm
Subject: Re: Nuit et Brouillard
> I makes me think that it would be interesting to show a film like
> Nuit... alongside another film on the subject that DOESN'T take it's
> signifying practice into consideration, those films that see no
> problem in representing the Holocaust in the same manner as, say, a
> documentary on Prince Charles. There are thousands of these
unconcious
> documentaries.
>
That's really the thing to do. Or a fiction film like Judgement at
Nuremberg.
9829
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 9:25pm
Subject: Re: Chaplin's Limelight
Rohmer would distinguish between Keaton as an artist of space and
Chaplin as an artist of psychology, and he's right.
However, I've been watching Keaton - some of the lesser ones,
actually - because of Bunuel, and I'm not sure that Keaton's oeuvre
or individual films are as good OVERALL as Chaplin's. The General or
Seven Chances, sure, or to go back to the beginning, a short like The
High Sign - those are flawless. But have you seen Our Hospitality
lately? Or The Three Ages? There are great things in many of the
films and not so great things - we tend to fast-forward through the
lesser features in our memories, even with very good one like
Sherlock Jr. Oeuvre-wise, Keaton also had a falling off in quality,
in no small part because of alcoholism. The year he made The General
he also made College, which is not on that level at all, despite
those wonderful last three shots.
Whereas Chaplin's films are much more consistent, from the shorts to
Countess, and starting with the late 20s they just get better and
better: City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Monsieur
Verdoux... I know you know these titles, but think about the films
for a second. That also gave him a view of a greater swatch of
history, during which as far as I'm concerned he remained a
contemporary, even a modern artist. It just took the critics a while
to catch up.
And while they were still doing that, Raymond Rohauer unleashed
Keaton on the world, and we were all in awe. So naturally there has
been some carping about Chaplin. I don't buy it for a second, and I'm
one of the people who sat there with a headful of hash watching one
Keaton after another in the 70s and going WOW!
9830
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 9:29pm
Subject: Re: Chaplin's Limelight
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
>
> Without having yet re-seen "Limelight," the views of Kehr and Jean-
Pierre
> kind of sums up my own. It's a fascinating movie, and very moving
in many
> respects, yet I'm not sure how good is it in terms of "the
movieness of the movie"
> (Richard Schickel's terrific phrase.) So I ask the group: have
there ever been
> any defenders of "Limelight" which argue on behalf of its mise-en-
scene? As
> I type this, I'm just about to read a Peter von Bagh essay on the
film at
> Senses of Cinema, so I may be in the process of answering my own
question. But
> I'll post it anyway.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter
>
The key book on Chaplin as a metteur en scene is Francis
Bordat's "Chaplin cineaste" (Cerf, 1998)which focusses on Chaplin as
a major "director" and analyzes many of the shorts and all of the
features to prove it (I find him much more convincing on the former
than the latter, but his pages on "Limelight" are worth reading).
Daney had a fine piece in Cahiers (#297) that touched on directing (I
should re-read it, though).
Thanks for your praise of my Chaplin piece, but in my memory it
was not very good (haven't reread it since published!)... In my
Keaton book I did a close analysis of the Chaplin-Keaton routine
in "Limelight". Of course that's in French, like Bordat's book...
JPC
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9831
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 9:47pm
Subject: Re: Chaplin's Limelight
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> And while they were still doing that, Raymond Rohauer unleashed
> Keaton on the world, and we were all in awe. So naturally there has
> been some carping about Chaplin. I don't buy it for a second, and
I'm
> one of the people who sat there with a headful of hash watching one
> Keaton after another in the 70s and going WOW!
I never took hash or anything else and was going WOW as early as
the late fifties (my first published article was on Keaton). I think
most of Keaton's shorts are flawless (and so much funnier than
Chaplin's). I see no decline in his work until the sellout to MGM and
the dreadful talkies. "Steamboat Bill Jr" (1928) is an absolute
masterpiece, and even "Spite marriage", his last "personal" film
(1929), is outstanding. But the old Chaplin-Keaton controversy
became tiresome long ago. I dealt with it in a chapter of my Keaton
book.
JPC
9832
From: Maxime Renaudin
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 9:59pm
Subject: What do you expect from a critic?
I'm not a critic. Many members of this group are, and I'd be curious
to know what's driving them when it's time to fill the blanks on the
paper... Facts? Analysis? Dreams? History? Anedoct? Poetry?
What do I expect from a critic?
Don't tell me the story. I'm as bright as the average, I guess I can
figure who loves who and who kills you.
Don't try politics. I don't understand. You neither.
Don't quote more than once. I know you read books. But I'm pretty
sure that Hegel has nothing to do with that movie.
Don't overstate the id. I have enough troubles with my superego.
Don't tell me the story of your life. If that's funny, write a book.
I'll buy it.
Don't tell me it's good. Or tell me, if you like.
But tell me why...
Tell me why you cried when she moved her shoulders. Tell me why
those thirteen seconds sounded like an eternity. Tell me why you
felt the world was close to the end when the guy pulled his gun.
Tell me why you'll never forget the color of his suit. Tell me why
the happiness of the entire world could fit in his simple smile.
Tell me why you felt like if it was the first day ever when the
sunshine came into the room.
Tell me why I enjoy movies. I'm puzzled.
Maxime
9833
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 0:17am
Subject: Re: What do you expect from a critic?
>Don't tell me the story. I'm as bright as the average, I guess I
can
> figure who loves who and who kills you.
> Don't try politics. I don't understand. You neither.
> Don't quote more than once. I know you read books. But I'm
pretty
> sure that Hegel has nothing to do with that movie.
> Don't overstate the id. I have enough troubles with my
superego.
> Don't tell me the story of your life. If that's funny, write a book.
> I'll buy it.
> Don't tell me it's good. Or tell me, if you like.
>
> But tell me why...
>
> Tell me why you cried when she moved her shoulders. Tell me
why
> those thirteen seconds sounded like an eternity. Tell me why
you
> felt the world was close to the end when the guy pulled his
gun.
> Tell me why you'll never forget the color of his suit. Tell me why
> the happiness of the entire world could fit in his simple smile.
> Tell me why you felt like if it was the first day ever when the
> sunshine came into the room.
>
> Tell me why I enjoy movies. I'm puzzled.
>
> Maxime
YOU'RE HIRED!
9834
From: Jess Amortell
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 0:42am
Subject: Re: Chaplin's Limelight
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> have there ever been
> any defenders of "Limelight" which argue on behalf of its mise-en-scene?
While it wasn't the main thrust of his piece, Sarris' 1964 rave, reprinted in "Confessions of a Cultist," did describe some camera movements, calling them "a Germanic flight of visual exposition..."
9835
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 9:17pm
Subject: Re: Nuit et Brouillard
When this was shown on the Sundance TV channel, they paired it with:
Raw Images from the Optic Cross (Karl Nussbaum, 1998)
This is a half-hour experimental film, which deals with the filmmaker's
family history of the Holocaust. It is not as major as "Nuit et Brouillard", but it
is a worthwhile film. Its avant-garde qualities make it a welcome treatment
of the subject - it is a personal film vaguely like Brakhage, Larry Jordan,
Anger, etc.
Mike Grost
9836
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 9:34pm
Subject: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
Lots of these "secret center" films seem very good, such as the remarkable
"The Immortal Story", "I Confess" and even "My Fair Lady", which seems today so
much better than it did in 1964 to my 10 year old self! It actually seems like
personal Cukor, and a delightful film. Highlight: the Ascot sequence.
"Socrates" (Rossellini) is often dull, but its finale is unforgettable. Would
love to see other late Rossellini works, but they are hard to find. Last saw
"Socrates" in 1973.
Literary note: really admire J. G. Ballard's novel "Empire of the Sun". Did
not enjoy Spielberg's film version, but did like "Catch Me If You Can."
'Amistad" is also a very good Spielberg.
Henrik's original note dealt with films admired by the public, versus those
beloved by auteurists. A classic example: the much greater popularity of "Grand
Illusion", compared with the rest of Renoir, such as "Toni" or "Paris Does
Strange Things". Bazin mentions this in his book on Renoir.
A personal note. It was reading Bazin's book that made me start writing film
criticism, too. I read Bazin on Renoir, and thought, "I can do this too!". And
started my essay on Lang. Bazin is very liberating. If he is this encouraging
and opening in print, one can only guess how powerfully encouraging he was in
person in the 1940's and 50's.
Mike Grost
9837
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 10:25pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
Peter, how is Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" a 'secret center' film?
Kevin
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9838
From:
Date: Tue May 11, 2004 11:17pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
Kevin wrote:
>Peter, how is Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" a 'secret center' film?
I think it's the most personal film he's ever made. In my review, I argued
that the plot - Frank Abagnale, Jr. running from his troubled home life,
constantly assuming the identities of others - is a kind of precis for Spielberg's
career. This is a guy who once said in an interview that he wanted to be (I
think) Antonioni, but mainly he wanted to be "anybody but himself." (For the
life of me, I can't locate that quote right now, but I know I've read it in more
than one place.) I think that the "White Elephant" phase of his career, that
period where he seemed desperate to be accepted by "the Academy" and make
"serious" respected pictures (even if those aren't the sort of films he really
wants to make), is one obvious example. "Catch Me If You Can" is his thinly
veiled autobiography of this tendency. I'm not sure if all this precisely meets
Adrian's definition of 'secret center' cinema, but "Catch Me" surely is a very
personal work and explains (at least for me) a lot of Spielberg's career.
I also think it's a beautifully calibrated piece of filmmaking, his best-made
in years. ("A.I." I like a lot, but it seems a little more schizoid due to
the residue of Kubrick.)
Peter
9839
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 3:22am
Subject: Green Room
> The Green Room is
> insanely overrated.
Does this have a big rep? I always had the feeling it wasn't all that
well loved. - Dan
9840
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 3:22am
Subject: Re: Re: Nuit et Brouillard
>>I makes me think that it would be interesting to show a film like
>>Nuit... alongside another film on the subject that DOESN'T take it's
>>signifying practice into consideration, those films that see no
>>problem in representing the Holocaust in the same manner as, say, a
>>documentary on Prince Charles. There are thousands of these
>> unconcious
>>documentaries.
>
> That's really the thing to do. Or a fiction film like Judgement at
> Nuremberg.
Or KAPO! - Dan
9841
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 3:26am
Subject: Re: Re: Chaplin's Limelight and Keaton
> But have you seen Our Hospitality
> lately? Or The Three Ages? There are great things in many of the
> films and not so great things -
Wow. I agree about THE THREE AGES, but OUR HOSPITALITY?
> The year he made The General
> he also made College, which is not on that level at all, despite
> those wonderful last three shots.
I'm actually a big fan of COLLEGE too - I've always thought it was
underrated.
Guess it's a matter of taste: I think Keaton has ups and downs like
anyone, but I think he sustains as high a level of quality as any
filmmaker. - Dan
9842
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 3:38am
Subject: Re: Green Room
This is because it's so morbid and perverse and goes against the
mythical notion of Truffaut as Mr. Sweetie Pie. Personally I think
it's one of his best and most interesting films, but it sure
isn't "nice".
-- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > The Green Room is
> > insanely overrated.
>
> Does this have a big rep? I always had the feeling it wasn't all
that
> well loved. - Dan
9843
From: L C
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 3:48am
Subject: Re: Nuit, Judgment and Kapo
My suggestion of the Von Trotta's movie was to open discussion on the power of film. According to Von Trotta's sequence, some students get sick watching "Nuit" and also they find out what their relatives might have done. I have another suggestion, Munk's film about memory and Auschwitz: "Pasazerka "(1963) . Luc
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9844
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 4:29am
Subject: Distinctions
Dear friends -
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA? Well, this is obviously the grand exception to
the 'secret centre' rule !!!! (I must also point out to list members that
one of the best appreciations ever written on this film appeared in CAHIERS
by ... what's that name again? ... Bill Krohn!!)
Seriously: I think (and I feel like Jean-Claude Biette writing this) that we
can fruitfully make some distinctions here between:
'SECRET CENTRE' FILMS: as per our discussion so far, films that reveal some
'hidden core' of an auteur's driving obsessions.
DREAM FILMS: projects that auteurs hold in their heads and hearts and
cultivate over many years - and sometimes get to make them, sometimes not.
Sometimes, as Peter rightly says, they may also get to 'preview' them,
filtering a bit of the dream-film into every other one they do get to make!
This is what Elsaesser argued in relation to Losey and his dream of making a
Proust film. Ruiz had his cake and ate it too: he filtered Proust into many
films, and then made the Proust-film! (and it's great, too)
TESTAMENT FILMS: Where would an auteurist be without testament films! (ONCE
UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, for example, was hailed as one the second its
premiere screening was over!) A testament film is the one we feel 'sums up'
and reflects back on the auteur's work. I guess De Oliveira has been making
self-consciously testament films for at least twenty years now?!
FILMS MAUDIT: I'm a little foggy on what this category means these days
exactly. It used to mean 'highly rare and commercially suppressed',
overlooked, unsung, etc - cf. Richard Thompson on THUNDER ROAD which he
called (in the 60s) the supreme film maudit. These days we tend to think of
the film maudit as the 'film folly' (which could be another category in this
Biettean list) - the big expensive, reckless, crazy flop that is wildly
imperfect as a film but all the same magisterially expressive of the
auteur's passion, vision, etc. (Examples: ONE FROM THE HEART, LES AMANTS DU
PONT-NEUF, 1941, etc - cf. the book by Klawans).
But now the work begins, because sometimes these categories can overlap in
one film, and other times not! So: 'dream films' are not always
secret-centre films. (Thus I don't go along with some of Bill's provocations
about BELLE DE JOUR and some other titles he mentioned, which I would not
all rate as secret-centre revelations.) Testament films are not always
dream-films! Etc ... LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST may be a secret-centre film,
and perhaps the dream-film he wanted to make for a time, but is not a
testament film (I don't think Scorsese has made that yet). And we should
also not confuse testament-films simply with 'late works' of an auteur: I
love Bresson's L'ARGENT to pieces (you recall, that's the one with 'more
pretty boys than in an average gay bar in the Marais', according to
Douchet!!), and it has an apocalyptic finality to it in his career (at least
retrospectively), but I don't consider it a testament film. His dream &
testament (but maybe not secret centre) would have been the GENESIS project.
I have many thoughts in response to Kevin's fine questions and ideas about
the 'role of the critic' (paid or unpaid!) in relation to 'secret-centre'
films, and will put them into another message.
Jean-Claude Martin
9845
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 4:29am
Subject: One from the Secret Centre
Kevin - I was moved to a lot of thought by your posting of a few days ago,
where you asked whether the role of the critic was to 'reveal the secret
centre' of films - or whether, implicitly, this was a misguided, elitist, or
in some ways questionable role/posture.
Your discussion and your tremendous Spielberg example reminded me of many
arguments in private and public about what is called the 'surface/depth'
problem in film analysis and aesthetics generally. Briefly: is it an
illusion or a mistake to want to 'excavate depth' from underneath a film's
surface - in other terms, to 'translate' the materiality of sounds, images,
gestures, colours, etc into a 'second-order abstraction' such as a theme, or
even an 'ideology'? I think above all of Bordwell's often withering critique
of 'depth readings' in MAKING MEANING - where he tries to make the activity
look as ridiculous as possible. (I have never encountered a book which has
put so many young students off their tender dreams of becoming film
critics!!!) A totally other tradition (which Bordwell makes reference to) is
the Manny Farber style, which is much more about 'dwelling on the surface'
of a work. In a way, you could say that, instead of the pompous and often
reductive question (as Jean-Pierre and David have pointed out) 'what is this
film about?', the Farberian question is 'what is going on in this film?'-
i.e., what is it playing with, moving around, exploring ... Bordwell's own
alternative to depth-reading - and I will confess to being fairly
underwhelmed by it - is what he calls 'historical poetics', which is in part
to do with situating films in the context of their historical cinematic
conventions, available generic and thematic templates, etc
Kevin, when I introduced the secret-centre idea (which is the subject
flitting through my book PHANTASMS: please address all orders to me, I have
the world's only remaining copies!), I did not actually mean to imply that
the role of the critic is to dig that centre out with hard, rational
certainty, decode it, and 'present' it on a plate it to the previously
unenlightened/superficial reader/viewer. The secret centre is often
something you FEEL or sense might be in a film - the thing which is cohering
it, giving it 'force' and emotion as well as meaning. I am Freudian in my
approach (and I abhor the reflex anti-Freudianism of so much current
'cultural studies') to the extent of considering 'psychic pressure' to be
the source of immense aesthetic energy and invention (and pleasure for
viewers) - but, equally, in believing (as Sigmund said himself of
dream-analysis) that it is likely impossible to ever FIX a secret-centre or
an ultimate meaning, that this centre will always displace, sublimate,
transform itself ... And so, for me, some great film criticism is about
chasing - speculating on - secret centres, and weaving a particular kind of
poetry (as Jean-Pierre suggested) or story-telling around that search for a
'generative logic' - but never presuming to 'tell the ultimate truth' in a
messianic mode about this to the reader.
Joe helpfully filled in the Zizekian line on why an artist should 'keep the
secret centre obscure' - or else! Actually, this is also, apart from its
presence in high theory, something artists - and even normal people - say
all the time in everyday life: 'if I knew the source of all my neuroses,
then I wouldn't be able to write the songs I do, make the films I make, bake
the cakes I bake', etc. There is both a good side and a bad side to this
kind of 'denial' in life and art, as we may all know! Actually, my book was
inspired by a throwaway comment along these lines by Blake Edwards in a
terrific interview he gave to an Australian critic in 1991, when probed
about the unusual sexual fantasy content of SWITCH: he graciously recoiled
and evaded the questions, saying pointedly: 'I can't talk too much about it'
- suggesting that maybe he could, but was refusing to take this dangerous
'plunge' into the secret centre!
A final note on Spielberg - who I regard as the MOST 'unconscious' (and one
of the least intellectual) of all popular filmmakers - for good and for ill.
I find almost all of his films a huge, fucked-up, phantasmatic mess; he
seems 'possessed' by a thousand demons, none of which he has mastered - and
in the amazing AI, he managed to also get possessed and fucked-over by
Kubrick's ultra-perverse ghost, which is quite an achievement!! Curiously,
Kevin, my book alights on the same example as you: a JURASSIC PARK movie.
However, in my analysis, the 'key' to it was not 'ideology of the nuclear
family' (Sam Neill being nice to kids, forming a symbolic family, etc) - but
the exact demonic reverse of that: I think many Speilberg movies are driven
by the obscure desire to KILL (or at least seriously menace) children and
thus destroy the 'altar' of the family, often with extreme sadism generated
within the filmic-mechanism. There is almost not a single Spielberg movie
which is NOT, in this sense, the path to his 'secret centre': EMPIRE OF THE
SUN is the one I personally take as the clearest and truest depiction of his
'abandonment complex' and its monstrous getting-back-at-Mom-and-Dad
consequences. (The most grotesque distortion/rationalisation of these drives
in Spielberg's career is of course SCHINDLER'S LIST.) But the fact that you
and I alighted on different 'keys' to the Spielbergian psyche shows
precisely how the secret centre shifts and cannot be finally nailed down ...
mercifully!
Adrian
9846
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 5:10am
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
--- ptonguette@a... wrote:
> I think it's the most personal film he's ever made.
> In my review, I argued
> that the plot - Frank Abagnale, Jr. running from his
> troubled home life,
> constantly assuming the identities of others - is a
> kind of precis for Spielberg's
> career.
There's something very sentimentally attractive to
that notion, but five minutes with Spielberg would
disabuse you of it, I believe. He's far and away one
of the most interesting people I've met in the
industry since moving to Los Angeles from New York in
1976.
This is a guy who once said in an interview
> that he wanted to be (I
> think) Antonioni, but mainly he wanted to be
> "anybody but himself." (For the
> life of me, I can't locate that quote right now, but
> I know I've read it in more
> than one place.)
Oh maybe on an off day he might. But only the
Antonioni of the penultimate shot of "The Passenger,"
the finale of "Zabriskie Point" and the stock market
crash scene of "Eclipse."
I think that the "White Elephant"
> phase of his career, that
> period where he seemed desperate to be accepted by
> "the Academy" and make
> "serious" respected pictures (even if those aren't
> the sort of films he really
> wants to make), is one obvious example.
His intensely Jewish period. And I'm not talking about
the subject matter of "Schindler's List" -- just the
desire to get the Oscar and make his already proud
mother even prouder.
"Catch Me
> If You Can" is his thinly
> veiled autobiography of this tendency. I'm not sure
> if all this precisely meets
> Adrian's definition of 'secret center' cinema, but
> "Catch Me" surely is a very
> personal work and explains (at least for me) a lot
> of Spielberg's career.
>
Actually I think "Duel" explains his career a lot
better. "A.I." -- which I believe is his masterpiece.
("A.I." I like a lot, but it seems a
> little more schizoid due to
> the residue of Kubrick.)
>
Not at all. Spielberg is Janus-faced. Everybody sees
his sentimental side, his sweetness. But he's a
verydark man. That's clear from "Duel," "The Sugarland
Express," "1941," and the better parts of "Minority
Report" (Lois Smith's scene in particular.)
That's why Godard's cvalier dismissal of him annoys me
so much. He is NOT the Embodiment of American
Imperialism.
That was Disney and DeMille.
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9847
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 5:11am
Subject: Re: Green Room
It's not well-loved at all. It's barely ever
discussed. I find it painfully poignant, particularly
in light of Truffaut's own Death. It's as if he knew
it was coming.
He was quite a fine actor.
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > The Green Room is
> > insanely overrated.
>
> Does this have a big rep? I always had the feeling
> it wasn't all that
> well loved. - Dan
>
>
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9848
From:
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 1:35am
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
David,
I don't mean to suggest that Spielberg is an uninteresting person or somehow
lacks personality; his films alone disabuse me of that notion! I drew the
autobiographical comparison between the hero of "Catch Me If You Can" and
Spielberg himself when I considered that many of his films seem to be made "for"
certain groups which he wants to please - his blockbusters for audiences, his
White Elephant period films for The Establishment. That's a gross
oversimplification, of course, but it's what spurred the train of thought which led me to
regard "Catch Me" as an autobiographical work.
It's when Spielberg relaxes and isn't out to please anybody except himself
that he produces his best work. "E.T." - a film about which Spielberg said, "I
had nothing to prove to anybody but myself" - is one example. And his work
since "Private Ryan" is also an example: I think his two finest films to date
are "A.I." and "Catch Me If You Can."
I agree with the rest of your post. I like the first half of "In Praise of
Love" for its images, but I thought the anti-Spielberg stuff was ridiculous.
What about "Duel" explains his career for you?
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9849
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 6:23am
Subject: Re: Nuit et Brouillard
Actually, Blood of the Beasts sounds absolutely perfect. I can hardly
think of a better film to pair with Night and Fog.
-Matt
J. Mabe wrote:
>Nuit et Brouillard just seems to resist
>putting it with any other sort of film, and the being
>limited by the school’s 16mm collection doesn’t help.
>It doesn’t feel right to lump it into a program of
>other short films. Some films like Reel 2 of Dog Star
>Man (we have just reel 2, go figure), Menilmontant, or
>Blood of the Beasts would fit time-wise as a double
>bill, but I just can’t imagine an appropriate film to
>show along side.
>
>
9850
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 6:53am
Subject: Re: Distinctions
Adrian - I never wrote about Once Upon a Time in America in CdC. I
wrote an obituary for Leone, where I probably said nice things about
Once Upon a Time... It's a great, great film. You're right, I was
being provocative about that one.
I wasn't being provocative about Green Room. I have never, never
liked it, but David, in the circles where I travel you can be shot at
sunrise for even thinking that, for exactly the reasons stated by
Jonathan.
I saw Green Room for the first time in Paris. On the way out Michel
Piccoli was behind me, by chance, talking to a friend about how the
audience had laughed. "They laugh because they're afraid," he said.
No, I thought, they laugh because it's ridiculous. I've seen it four
or five times, and I never changed my mind about it, but I never said
what I really thought of it till now.
Deux anglaises is a special case. Of course I loved it at the time
and would again today if I saw it again, but you have to buy Leaud,
and JP, if not buying him in that means not buying him in Stolen
Kisses, what does that imply? Deux anglaises is a period film! He's
totally out of character for the period, and the film, which is
otherwise pretty flawless. (But a little shapeless in Act 3, no? So's
J et J, of course...)
The film where FT knew he was dying was Vivement Dimanche, according
to Georges Delerue. They had worked together since forever, but
Delerue told me that they had never had dinner together: Truffaut's
choice. Then when they were in London recording the score for VD,
Truffaut suggested they have dinner together. "He knew he was going
to die." To me it's as if he wanted to get the real him on film
before he went. I think the Trintignant character is the real him.
There are minor late Truffauts, failed late Truffauts and great ones.
I much prefer Adele H, Day for Night and The Wild Child to Green Room
or Woman Next Door, which are ambitious failures, IMO, but REALLY
failures, despite the great visual beauty of Green Room. I also
prefer minor films like Stolen Kisses, Small Change and The Last
Metro, because they're perfect, and his late oddball films - Bed and
Board, Gorgeous Kid and Vivement Dimanche - because they're a lot of
fun. But Woman Next Door and Green Room, hailed by the cognoscenti
for their integrity, are major messes, almost as disastrous as his
one minor mess, Love on the Run.
On the other hand, his first nine features are an unbroken string of
masterpieces that rival Hitchcock's run in the 50s and 60s.
Adrian, you left out "grand film malade."
9851
From: iangjohnston
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 9:50am
Subject: Re: Distinctions
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Adrian - I never wrote about Once Upon a Time in America in CdC. I
> wrote an obituary for Leone, where I probably said nice things
about
> Once Upon a Time... It's a great, great film. You're right, I was
> being provocative about that one.
I just rewatched this. Is there no one else who, like me, is so
repelled by the misogyny that this never, never can be considered a
great, great film?
> There are minor late Truffauts, failed late Truffauts and great
ones.
> I much prefer Adele H, Day for Night and The Wild Child to Green
Room
> or Woman Next Door, which are ambitious failures, IMO, but REALLY
> failures, despite the great visual beauty of Green Room. I also
> prefer minor films like Stolen Kisses, Small Change and The Last
> Metro, because they're perfect, and his late oddball films - Bed
and
> Board, Gorgeous Kid and Vivement Dimanche - because they're a lot
of
> fun. But Woman Next Door and Green Room, hailed by the cognoscenti
> for their integrity, are major messes, almost as disastrous as his
> one minor mess, Love on the Run.
I've only seen Green Room once, in the seventies, but I remember
being very impressed by its visual beauty and sombre melancholy.
But how is Woman Next Door disastrous, a major mess? While no
masterpiece, and by no means my favourite kind of filmmaking, it
seems to me a fine, well-focussed film. At the time, preceded by The
Last Metro and followed by Vivement Dimanche!, it seemed a sign that
Truffaut was back on track.
> On the other hand, his first nine features are an unbroken string
of
> masterpieces that rival Hitchcock's run in the 50s and 60s.
Except that I've always found Jules and Jim unbearable. But
Fahrenheit 451 is one of my great Guilty Pleasures. Just love those
gleaming red fire engines!
9852
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 1:03pm
Subject: Re: Re: Auteurs and their 'key' works
--- ptonguette@a... wrote:
> What about "Duel" explains his career for you?
>
In spite of the fact that he's long been regarded (not
without reason) as a "consensus" figure, an embodiment
of the ideological "status quo," Spielberg has a
savage side."Duel" is about assault -- rape in effect
-- by a machine.
And it was made for TV.
"Jaws" was about a shark and therefore "nature," and
rather simple as such."Duel" is about a truck, whose
driver we never discover.
Marco Ferreri was a great admirer of "Duel." And it's
no surprise that the director of "Dillinger is Dead"
and "By Bye Monkey" would find so much to admire in
it.
"Savaing Private Ryan" is a hybrid of Spielberg's
"consensus" and "savage" sides with the latter winning
out. The unalloyed admiration shown towards Schindler
is scotched her byt eh aged Ryan's question "Was I a
good man?"
It goes unanswered.
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9853
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 2:08pm
Subject: Spielberg, dehumanization
>>What about "Duel" explains his career for you?
>
> In spite of the fact that he's long been regarded (not
> without reason) as a "consensus" figure, an embodiment
> of the ideological "status quo," Spielberg has a
> savage side."Duel" is about assault -- rape in effect
> -- by a machine.
I agree with David's take on Spielberg, though I've never been enchanted
by either side of his personality. DUEL is probably the purest example
of Spielberg's dehumanizing side: his approach to suspense/horror is to
push the protagonist to a state of animal desperation in which human
qualities are stripped away. My sense is that he enjoys this state for
its own sake, and pushes it pretty far.
You can see some of the same feeling in SUGARLAND EXPRESS and JAWS,
mostly in the depiction of the threatening or oblivious masses of
humanity, and a little bit in the dilemmas of the protagonists. I
remember also thinking that it colored CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, though I can no
longer remember why. This tendency reemerges with a vengeance in EMPIRE
OF THE SUN, which I believe sets the world record for the number of
times that starving people chew directly through food wrappers.
I notice I often have a Robin Wood/F. R. Leavis-type reaction to
attitudes like this, even though my concepts of morality have pretty
much crumbled into nothingness in the last ten years of my life. Maybe
this kind of crotchety reaction is a holdover. My unverbalized thoughts
are "What possible good can this experience do me?" Perhaps this is
just an aversion in morality's clothing. - Dan
9854
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 2:45pm
Subject: Spielberg
David wrote:
> Not at all. Spielberg is Janus-faced. Everybody sees
> his sentimental side, his sweetness. But he's a
> verydark man. That's clear from "Duel," "The Sugarland
> Express," "1941," and the better parts of "Minority
> Report" (Lois Smith's scene in particular.)
Exactly. He's complex and quite talented figure who needs better
criticism that moves beyond the assumption that he's only
sentimental, only sunshine, only narrative. He emerged at a
fortuitous time in history to become the megastar director-producer
that he is, but I have few doubts that he would have been a very
impressive (if more lifesize) Hollywood talent if you could
transplant his sensibility to the 1930s-50s.
Adrian:
> A final note on Spielberg - who I regard as the MOST 'unconscious'
> (and one of the least intellectual) of all popular filmmakers -
> for good and for ill. I find almost all of his films a huge,
> fucked-up, phantasmatic mess; he seems 'possessed' by a thousand
> demons, none of which he has mastered
This is maybe the best summation of Spielberg, and his strengths and
weaknesses, that I've ever read.
> I think many Speilberg movies are driven by the obscure desire to
> KILL (or at least seriously menace) children and thus destroy
> the 'altar' of the family, often with extreme sadism generated
> within the filmic-mechanism. There is almost not a single
> Spielberg movie which is NOT, in this sense, the path to
> his 'secret centre': EMPIRE OF THE SUN is the one I personally
> take as the clearest and truest depiction of his
> 'abandonment complex' and its monstrous getting-back-at-Mom-and-Dad
> consequences.
As Henry Sheehan has pointed out, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is a film about a
man who wants to 'escape' from the mundaneness of family life--UFOs
and pretty lights and sounds are simply the convenient commercial
manifestation of Dreyfuss' desire to abandon his family. HOOK is
much the same.
I think Spielberg is anxious about adulthood too, and is in a lot of
ways highly connected to his childhood imagination. The anxiety
finds itself cropping up all over, in HOOK, in CATCH ME IF YOU CAN,
in THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS.
Dan:
> My unverbalized thoughts are "What possible good can this
> experience do me?" Perhaps this is just an aversion in morality's
> clothing.
I had a similar reaction to TWENTYNINE PALMS the other day. (Why do
you like that movie, Dan!?)
I think Spielberg can be good at showing people in the face of their
own irrationality or stupidity. The 'sense of wonder' in his films,
surprisingly enough, has a religious fervor but is practically never
religious! People confront the strange, incredible, and/or horrific
events of their own species (if it's not another species; that's
another can of worms): the Holocaust, genetic tampering, pre-crime,
modern warfare, slavery and subsequent revolts. All these things
are the result of humans and the march of progress: and Spielberg
shows them (like the family) failing or representing moral failure.
In film after film, he tackles material centered around a rather big
institutional or social malfunctions. I wouldn't deny a streak of
misanthropy in his work, but I think it's where he begins rather
than ends ...
--Zach
9855
From: samfilms2003
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 2:52pm
Subject: Re: What do you expect from a critic?
> But tell me why...
>
> Tell me why you cried when she moved her shoulders. Tell me why
> those thirteen seconds sounded like an eternity. Tell me why you
> felt the world was close to the end when the guy pulled his gun.
After having my dissertation on Hegel rejected three times, I was standing
on the street (in front of the St. Marks Book Store) and pulled my gun so I could
shoot myself. I knew I had to do this quickly before someone would snatch it
from my hand. Imagine, from here to eternity in thirteen seconds, and all
that would remain in the world would be my lifeless corpse in a bloodstained
white suit.
But somewhere, in that seeming eternity, a beautiful woman walked toward
me, wearing an off-the-shoulder Milk Fed (by Sofia Coppola) dress and the
sight of the late afternoon sun, like the first sunlight in my life, on her bare
ever so undulating shoulder (she was reaching for her cell phone) entranced
me so much I put my dreadful weapon away, hardly noticing the Howard Dean
For President button she was wearing.
I fell into her arms, and vowing to never again to attempt to take my own life,
but instead dedicate it to bringing light for others, and after breathlessly
inviting her to join me for a matinee of a Chris Marker film (Grin Without a Cat)
at Film Forum, listened with rapt attention as she extolled the virtues of the Doctor
from Vermont.
9856
From: samfilms2003
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 3:13pm
Subject: Re: One from the Secret Centre
>Briefly: is it an
> illusion or a mistake to want to 'excavate depth' from underneath a
film's
> surface - in other terms, to 'translate' the materiality of sounds,
images,
> gestures, colours, etc into a 'second-order abstraction' such as a
theme, or
> even an 'ideology'?
Well, from my POV, what else does one do if it is - let's say (to cite an obvious
example), a Brakhage film ? Images, gestures, colors (and sometimes even
sounds) if I / you are not in fact excavating from these - assuming one has
the interest of course) what else could we do except maybe to read on a
purely anecdotal level ("oh that's when Stan first hooked up with Marylin"
etc etc).
Isn't this really at some heart of auteurism as it is practiced on this list ?
What else is all this exegesis say on hands in Fritz Lang films ??
-Sam
9857
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 3:44pm
Subject: Twentynine Palms, sadism
>>My unverbalized thoughts are "What possible good can this
>>experience do me?" Perhaps this is just an aversion in morality's
>>clothing.
>
> I had a similar reaction to TWENTYNINE PALMS the other day. (Why do
> you like that movie, Dan!?)
The talk about sadism on this board has been interesting, and is
broadening my perspective on the subject.
On my first viewing of TWENTYNINE PALMS, I was deeply impressed with
Dumont's astonishing eye for composition, and with his ability to render
the ambient qualities of a location. I'm pretty tolerant of the acting
eccentricities in the film, and sort of liked the way that the problems
of the characters weren't being used to create a narrative structure,
but were just being absorbed into the drift of the exploration of the
desert. Then came the climax (I'll try not to reveal it), and I
thought, "Why? In what way can this be considered an outgrowth of what
came before, on either a character or formal level?" In fact, I
intuited that I wasn't missing anything, that there could be no pulling
this film into the kind of unity I wanted. So I relegated it to the
very-interesting-but-unsuccessful category.
On second viewing, nothing really changed, except I was a little more in
awe of Dumont's eye and sense of location. But I realized that the
logic of the film was conceptual, in a way: that it was an experiment in
a work of art destroying itself, and that most of its point was
contained in its affront to the audience and our desire for a certain
kind of experience. I see the movie as not really even being a movie in
the usual sense, even though Dumont's raw cinematic skills are nearly
without equal. Even the first three-fourths of the film now takes on an
anti-cinema quality in retrospect. Basically, my thinking now goes:
"Well, this is a meta-artistic experience of the sort that I've never
really put much stock in, but it's certainly interesting in that regard,
as shown by our unsettled reactions to its structure. And it's so
damned expressive in nearly every frame, whatever else can be said about
it. So I think I'll tentatively call it an important film that should
be seen, and maybe over the years I'll settle into some relationship
with its meta-ness."
The sadism issue, or rather the issue of when we are repelled by sadism,
is more complex than I'd realized. I just revisited Losey's THE
SERVANT, which I'll probably never like, and which seems to me an
unwholesome, participatory exercise in degradation. But EVE has a very
similar plot, and I really like it! The perspective is quite different,
somehow, though the two films are consecutive works in the same
director's filmography. In a way, THE SERVANT digs its grave by using
horror/suspense/expressionist tropes in rendering the power play between
servant and master. Whereas EVE is largely a comedy, with deadpan long
shots of *exactly the same stuff.*
Some here feel that Noe is a sadist, and I understand when you say it,
but I've always felt some ambivalence of response that gets him off the
hook. Whereas the much less visceral Von Trier has no excuse for me.
The differences aren't necessarily obvious, or rather they aren't
necessarily contained in the simple appellation of sadism. Bill
helpfully pointed out how sadistic one of my own films is: to me, that
film always felt like spinach, something that tasted bad but would be
good for me. (More smuggling in of moral concepts under another name.)
So I've got a complex internal set of criteria for sadism; and so do
others here, but we all don't have the same criteria. We need to break
it down into its constituent parts.
- Dan
9858
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 4:32pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, sadism
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> The sadism issue, or rather the issue of when we are
> repelled by sadism,
> is more complex than I'd realized. I just revisited
> Losey's THE
> SERVANT, which I'll probably never like, and which
> seems to me an
> unwholesome, participatory exercise in degradation.
> But EVE has a very
> similar plot, and I really like it!
I don't find them at all similar. THE SERVANT is about
class and power in Great Britain -- of particular
concern in the wake of the Profumo scandal. This is
referred to almost explicitly in the film as Vera's
seduction of Tony takes place in the same kind of
winged-back cahir that David Bailey placed Christine
Keeler in for her famous, discreetly nude, portrait.
EVE, by contrast, is about an s&m relationship among
persons of the same class. Tyvian is a social-climber,
but Eve is a very high-class call girl -- not at all a
tart like Vera .
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9859
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 6:58pm
Subject: Re: Spielberg, dehumanization
DUEL is probably the purest example
> of Spielberg's dehumanizing side:
It's also the purest imitation of Chuck Jones, complete w. ugly
foreground/background composutions right out of the
Roadrunner cartoons.
The author of the interesting book on the 70s, It Don't Worry me,
says that Spielberg's secret center is horror of the human body,
and that the shark in Jaws is just a pretext for opening up bodies
and showing the insides.
9860
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 7:17pm
Subject: 'Notre musique' - trailer+clips
Posted to the Godard listserv earlier by Shihlun Chang:
Trailer --
http://www.commeaucinema.com/bandeannonces/notremusique/wmp/
notremusique.wmv
Clips --
http://www.commeaucinema.com/bandeannonces/notremusique_ext1/wmp/
notremusique_ext1.wmv
http://www.commeaucinema.com/bandeannonces/notremusique_ext2/wmp/
notremusique_ext2.wmv
http://www.commeaucinema.com/bandeannonces/notremusique_ext3/wmp/
notremusique_ext3.wmv
9861
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 7:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: Spielberg, dehumanization
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> The author of the interesting book on the 70s, It
> Don't Worry me,
> says that Spielberg's secret center is horror of the
> human body,
> and that the shark in Jaws is just a pretext for
> opening up bodies
> and showing the insides.
>
>
Oh "Jaws" is nothing on that score. Real Spielbergian
physical horror is "1941." I was looking at the
jitterbug contest scene last night on my new TV.
Nothing like it since Michael Kidd's barn raising
number in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" or the
Havana sequence (a less-acknowleged Kidd masterpiece)
for Mankiewicz'"Guys and Dolls."
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9862
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 9:08pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, sadism
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> So I think I'll tentatively call it an important film that should
> be seen, and maybe over the years I'll settle into some
relationship
> with its meta-ness."
>
I still haven't seen the film but I find that a lot of what
you're saying about it could equally apply (although perhaps to a
lesser extent)to Dumont's first two features, and especially the
stunning but quite "meta" L'HUMANITE.
>
The sadism issue, or rather the issue of when we are repelled by
sadism,
> is more complex than I'd realized. I just revisited Losey's THE
> SERVANT, which I'll probably never like, and which seems to me an
> unwholesome, participatory exercise in degradation. But EVE has a
very
> similar plot, and I really like it! The perspective is quite
different,
> somehow, though the two films are consecutive works in the same
> director's filmography. In a way, THE SERVANT digs its grave by
using
> horror/suspense/expressionist tropes in rendering the power play
between
> servant and master. Whereas EVE is largely a comedy, with deadpan
long
> shots of *exactly the same stuff.*
>
Both films are masochistic fantasies and it's difficult to
determine what's "sadistic" about them (masochism is NOT
the "reverse" of sadism!)
>
Some here feel that Noe is a sadist, and I understand when you say
it,
> but I've always felt some ambivalence of response that gets him off
the
> hook.
It's the same old ambiguity as in "Does the representation of
violence condemn or condone violence? Does it make it attractive by
aesthetithizing it? Or repulsive by showing its ugliness?"
etc...Substitute "sadism" for "violence" (and both are of course
closely related).
I don't know whether Noe is a sadist or not but I'd like to know
what really goes on in his head (as opposed to what he might be
saying in interviews). The rape scene in "Irreversible", a very long
take in long shot (distanciation!)with fixed camera (actually I think
there are three different camera positions, but always from a
distance and always motionless) is one of the most upsetting scenes I
have ever seen, also one of the most truly obscene. Let's assume he
wants to show us that rape is a very ugly act indeed -- well, he is
very successful, but I was convinced before I saw the film. So what's
the point? He is indeed doing something very sadistic: I am going to
show you something unbearable, and it will go on and on way beyond
the moment you thought it couldn't possibly go on any further. Of
course we have a choice to walk out or stop the disc, but do we? The
most sadistic thing perhaps is what he is doing to the spectator: I
don't want to see/hear this but somehow I can't get away from it. I
become complicit.
Haneke does pretty much the same thing throughout "Funny Games".
> So I've got a complex internal set of criteria for sadism; and so
do
> others here, but we all don't have the same criteria. We need to
break
> it down into its constituent parts.
>
Let's by all means!
9863
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 9:14pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, sadism
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> I don't find them at all similar. THE SERVANT is about
> class and power in Great Britain -- of particular
> concern in the wake of the Profumo scandal. This is
> referred to almost explicitly in the film as Vera's
> seduction of Tony takes place in the same kind of
> winged-back cahir that David Bailey placed Christine
> Keeler in for her famous, discreetly nude, portrait.
> EVE, by contrast, is about an s&m relationship among
> persons of the same class. Tyvian is a social-climber,
> but Eve is a very high-class call girl -- not at all a
> tart like Vera .
>
>
> But isn't the class thing in THE SERVANT just a pretext for
acting out a masochistic (or if you wish S/M) fantasy? And all
masochistic fantasies have pretty much the same plot, only details
differ.
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'
> http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861
9864
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 9:18pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, sadism
I brought this up a propos of Wrong Man, and what interests me
is directorial sadism aimed at the audience. As noted, it's a
means to an end in the revenge film, but there are films where
the initial suffering of the character, which we share, seems
almost to be the reason for the movie: Darkman, say.
Ironically, one of the most sadistic films against the audience I've
seen is Dan Sallitt's Honeymoon, right up there with Wrong Man,
and I suspect the pain it inflicts is shared by men and women in
the audience almost equally, despite the fact that male
impotence is the main thing happening: it strongly affects both
members of the onscreen couple. And I'm still amazed that Dan
says he didn't intend to put us thru it.
9865
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 9:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: Twentynine Palms, sadism
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> > But isn't the class thing in THE SERVANT just a
> pretext for
> acting out a masochistic (or if you wish S/M)
> fantasy? And all
> masochistic fantasies have pretty much the same
> plot, only details
> differ.
> >
No. Because in S&M fantasy players assume roles having
no objective correlative in reality. Genet is very
explict about this in "The Balcomy." All the
characters are "playing roles" of The Bishop, The
General, etc. In "real life" they're simply tradesmen.
Tony in "The Servant" REALLY IS an upper class young
man of means. He plays at taking up a profession: a
"man from Brazil" is supposed to come to talk about
building cities there for people from "Asia Minor" to
live in. "They're having a rough time in Asia Minor."
Barrett REALLY IS a servant. And from his early
dialogue it's clear he's already debauched an upper
class "gentleman" prior to Tony.
When I first saw the film back in 1963 it was the
sexual tension between Tony and Barrett that most
fascinated me, especially because I'd been having a
fling with a Tony of my own, so to speak -- though he
was a lot closer in manner to Jude Law's Dickie
Greenleaf in "The Talented Mr.Ripley" (a highly
Loseyesque film.)
The relative "authenticity" of roles fascinated Genet
ever sicne he saw Jean Rouch's "Les Maitres Fous" --
afilm of incalculable importance.
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'
http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861
9866
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 9:55pm
Subject: Chaplin and Keaton and women
I'll mention that I have just watched VERTIGO and CRISS-CROSS
(with their obsessive male characters) prior to reading the thread on
Chaplin and Keaton so you'll perhaps understand where the following
comes from:
Has anyone made comparative comments of how women are
treated by Chaplin and Keaton?
Chaplin seems to make himself the center of the story as he attempts
to seduce; Keaton is a fellow struggling to approach a female and
has all the help and hindrance of the environment in doing do.
9867
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 10:00pm
Subject: Re: Twentynine Palms, sadism
> > >
> No. Because in S&M fantasy players assume roles having
> no objective correlative in reality. Genet is very
> explict about this in "The Balcomy."
And in The Maids, where the sisters take turn playing the maid
and the mistress enacting S&M rituals, even though the
play-maid is also always a real servant. As The Balcony was
inspired by The Mad Masters, in which Rouch filmed, with a
windup camera, Africans possessed by the spirits of colonial
rulers - The Governor, The General, etc. - The Maids was
inspired by the case of the Papic sisters, which inspired one of
Lacan's first published writings on paranoia (published in issue
#2 of the Surrealist luxury magazine Minotaure). The Soeurs
Papic also inspired The Ceremony (Chabrol) and a recent
docudrama about the actual case.
9868
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 10:02pm
Subject: Re: Chaplin and Keaton and women
>
> Chaplin seems to make himself the center of the story as he
attempts
> to seduce; Keaton is a fellow struggling to approach a female
and
> has all the help and hindrance of the environment in doing do.
Most of Keaton's women are named Mary and are very stock
figures. Exceptions are the ones in Navigator and General.
9869
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 10:24pm
Subject: Re: What do you expect from a critic?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> >Don't tell me the story. I'm as bright as the average, I guess I
> can
> > figure who loves who and who kills you.
> > Don't try politics. I don't understand. You neither.
> > Don't quote more than once. I know you read books. But I'm
> pretty
> > sure that Hegel has nothing to do with that movie.
> > Don't overstate the id. I have enough troubles with my
> superego.
> > Don't tell me the story of your life. If that's funny, write a book.
> > I'll buy it.
> > Don't tell me it's good. Or tell me, if you like.
> >
> > But tell me why...
> >
> > Tell me why you cried when she moved her shoulders. Tell me
> why
> > those thirteen seconds sounded like an eternity. Tell me why
> you
> > felt the world was close to the end when the guy pulled his
> gun.
> > Tell me why you'll never forget the color of his suit. Tell me why
> > the happiness of the entire world could fit in his simple smile.
> > Tell me why you felt like if it was the first day ever when the
> > sunshine came into the room.
> >
> > Tell me why I enjoy movies. I'm puzzled.
> >
> > Maxime
>
> YOU'RE HIRED!
Your selection of 'tell me why' comments suggests you are not
puzzled by cinema at all, but perhaps looking for the words to
describe your feelings.
In my early college years, I was intrigued by how well some people
spoke, until I found they were just repeating comments / opinions
they had read in newspapers, etc. I could read those same
articles myself and be just as articulate... but I would lose some of
my own references to my own opinions.
Post your "TELL ME WHY" comments anytime ... a delightful read!
Elizabeth
9870
From:
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 7:29pm
Subject: Re: Chaplin and Keaton and women
In a message dated 5/12/04 4:57:00 PM, ean@s... writes:
> Has anyone made comparative comments of how women are
> treated by Chaplin and Keaton?
>
Pat Mellencamp wrote very perceptively on the role of women in Keaton's
films, esp. Sherlock Jr. There's a chapter (I believe) called "Made in the Fade" in
her book A Fine Romance: Five Ages of Feminism.
Kevin
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
9871
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 11:59pm
Subject: feeling good about feeling bad (was sadism)
> Some here feel that Noe is a sadist, and I understand when you say it,
> but I've always felt some ambivalence of response that gets him off the
> hook. Whereas the much less visceral Von Trier has no excuse for me.
> The differences aren't necessarily obvious, or rather they aren't
> necessarily contained in the simple appellation of sadism. Bill
> helpfully pointed out how sadistic one of my own films is: to me, that
> film always felt like spinach, something that tasted bad but would be
> good for me. (More smuggling in of moral concepts under another name.)
> So I've got a complex internal set of criteria for sadism; and so do
> others here, but we all don't have the same criteria. We need to break
> it down into its constituent parts.
I spend a lot of time around boards populated by viewers who are very
one-sided about the response/form dichotomy, i.e. that their responses
are above question (and therefore above examination) and will always
dictate if a film is "good" or "bad" based on whether it made them
feel good or bad or, if the latter, as Ray Carney so bluntly puts it,
if they're made to feel good about feeling bad. Which is the
territory not simply of PRIVATE RYAN and SCHINDLER'S LIST - my pick
for Spielberg's two best films, for the record - but of any "pop
tragedy" like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST or AMERICAN BEAUTY.
Perhaps we can go really wide and include a great many action films,
particularly the more bloody ones, like KILL BILL and BRAVEHEART, and
especially the ones that really dwell on pain and anguish, despite
their high profile in Entertainment Weekly/Premiere coverage, like AIR
FORCE ONE, PAYBACK, practically every boxing picture around, and (hey,
I remember you) THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.
So the problem with these pictures isn't, in this regard, these
pictures. Some are, in my book, lousy, while some are really great.
The problem, I reckon, is that few moviegoers actively think about
their response to a film at all, and as a result probably prefer films
that make that kind of film-lifestyle easy to sustain for...forever,
really. (Notice I didn't say that these films discourage examination
- it's safe to say that films can rarely encourage or discourage very
much at all without an a priori willing participant: not war, not gun
control, not the environment, and perhaps not even racial
genocide...?) So a viewer may say, "feel bad, bad film, feel good,
good film," and leave it at that. So Carney's application of "feeling
good about feeling bad" can sound like "a bad thing" if said in a
snide tone, but that doesn't, as a rule, disqualify a film from being
very great.
I guess SCHINDLER'S LIST isn't a mindbogglingly complex work of
cinema, but someone who says to me, "So it makes you feel good about
feeling bad, it must be good, eh?" isn't getting the whole picture of
how I operate. I sure as hell don't feel good about SCHINDLER'S LIST,
but like DOGVILLE (for different, oh lordy, very different reasons)
this "sadistic/masochistic" quality felt constructive to me, as if I
was seeing a part of myself and learning. I'm unable to do that with
L'HUMANITE and FAT GIRL. That makes me a less sophisticated viewer, I
suppose. Or something. But anyway I'm glad we can all agree that AU
HASARD BALTHAZAR, another contender in the feelgood S&M sweepstakes,
is in fact the greatest of all films.
-Jaime
9872
From:
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 8:13pm
Subject: Re: Chaplin and Keaton and women
There is a brief but pungent discussion of this topic in "The American
Cinema" by Andrew Sarris - the Keaton article.
By the way, this same article was read out loud in "The Dreamers" movie just
recently. You cannot get any more 60's than this!
Mike Grost
9873
From:
Date: Wed May 12, 2004 8:19pm
Subject: Re: One from the Secret Centre
Critics do not only "interpret".
They also look for forms and patterns in an auteur's work. These forms can be
visual - composition, camera movement.
Or they can be patterns of plot, or charcater relationships.
Formalism has a long history in criticism - but not long enough!
A lot of my own writing is formalist.
A downside of some formalism - some formalist critics seem to have read
Vladimir Propp (1920's) and not had any more thoughts since! I like Propp, but for
Pete's sake - there are a LOT more forms in artists' work.
Mike Grost
9874
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 0:35am
Subject: Re: Chaplin and Keaton and women
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
>
> >
> > Chaplin seems to make himself the center of the story as he
> attempts
> > to seduce; Keaton is a fellow struggling to approach a female
> and
> > has all the help and hindrance of the environment in doing do.
>
> Most of Keaton's women are named Mary and are very stock
> figures. Exceptions are the ones in Navigator and General.
Both Chaplin and Keaton use women frequently as dance partners, very
close to images-of-themselves-as-women. Hence many Chaplin heroines
are the street urchin or what have you (I haven't seen MODERN TIMES in
years, is the girl there an activist or laborer? MONSIEUR VERDOUX and
THE GREAT DICTATOR might make interesting studies here) while many
Keaton heroines participate in the rube-goldberg tomfoolery. And
there are a lot more damsels in distress in Keaton.
Keaton's dance partners are more fun, and more varied. I like
Virginia Fox (NEIGHBORS) the best. Oh, and the whole female race,
which gets a cameo in SEVEN CHANCES.
-Jaime
9875
From: Paul Fileri
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 0:58am
Subject: Godard in Lesinrocks
Excerpts from the interview with Godard (by Serge Kaganski & Jean-Marc
Lalanne) in this week's Les Inrockuptibles:
"Quand nous étions jeunes, avec les gens des Cahiers, on a beaucoup
défendu le cinéma américain de l'époque, contre le cinema français des
années 50, que nous appelions "la qualité française". Mais ça n'a servi
à rien puisque ce cinéma est revenu. Téchiné aujourd'hui, c'est
Duvivier; enfin non, Duvivier avait plus de talent. Téchiné, c'est
Christian-Jaque...Non, Christian-Jaque était sympa. Téchiné, ça serait
plutôt Jean-Paul Le Chanois, voilà."
...
"Vous savez pourquoi les Américains sont allés en Irak? L'inconscient
du gouvernement sait que là-bas il y a une civilisation, la
civilisation sumérienne. Et ces gens qui n'ont pas d'histoire, juste
deux cents ans, cherchent des niches. Alors ils vont en Irak, pas pour
le pétrole, mais à cause de Sumer."
(my very rough translation:
"When we were young, with those at Cahiers, the American cinema of the
time was defended a lot against the French cinema of the 50s, which we
called "la qualité française". But that didn't do anything because that
cinema has come back. Téchiné today, he's Duvivier; no, actually
Duvivier had more talent. Téchine is Christian-Jaque...No,
Christian-Jaque was good. Téchiné would rather be Jean-Paul Le Chanois,
voilà."
...
"You know why the Americans went to Iraq? The unconcious of the
government knew that down there, there was a civilization, the Sumerian
civilization. And these people that have no history, just two hundred
years, search for niches (?). So they go to Iraq, not for oil, but
because of Sumer.")
Oh boy. Those are some harsh words -- completely unwarranted -- against
Téchiné. And the "analysis" of the US and Iraq is not even worth
commenting on -- blather that is just as mystifying as anything you'll
receive from the US government. I love Godard, but sometimes he can
make it difficult.
In a related note, Gilberto Perez had an excellent review of the new
Godard biography in the London Review of Books a few weeks ago. The
piece also includes Perez's lovely praise of on IN PRAISE OF LOVE.
- Paul
9876
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 1:27am
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
--- Paul Fileri wrote:
>
> Oh boy. Those are some harsh words -- completely
> unwarranted -- against
> Téchiné. And the "analysis" of the US and Iraq is
> not even worth
> commenting on -- blather that is just as mystifying
> as anything you'll
> receive from the US government. I love Godard, but
> sometimes he can
> make it difficult.
Oh he ALWAYS makes it difficult. Back in the 60's when
I was in my 20's Godard was very, very important to
me. Films like "masculin-Feminin" in particular
appeared to eminate directly from my consciousness and
that of my friends. He was a wiser father/brother
figure to us all. But from the 80's on, despite the
clar achievement of films like "Nouvelle Vague" and
"Detective" he has becoming increasingly sour and
unresonant. The anti-Americanism of "In Praise of
Love" is knee-jerk particularly distressing -- when an
in-depth analysis of post-Vietnam imperialism is
sorely needed. The notion that we "have no history"
and therefore want that of other cultures is genuinely
stupid.
Frankly it's not worth serious comment at all.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'
http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861
9877
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 2:10am
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
> The anti-Americanism of "In Praise of
> Love" is knee-jerk particularly distressing -- when an
> in-depth analysis of post-Vietnam imperialism is
> sorely needed. The notion that we "have no history"
> and therefore want that of other cultures is genuinely
> stupid.
But certain angles of his attack are worth considering - the idea that
Spielberg may not be our best cinematic-historical-cultural
ambassador. After all, the violence and serious tone of films like
PRIVATE RYAN and SCHINDLER'S LIST may tempt some viewers to feel that
they've "seen WWII" or "seen the Holocaust," and (even worse, perhaps)
that they now have a souvenir from both histories. When in fact
Spielberg has only given us single strands of each. (I still stand by
both of them, but I have come to terms with what critics have said
about them.)
-Jaime
9878
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 2:35am
Subject: "have no history"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> The notion that we "have no history"
Interesting comment "have no history." I often think the fact
the USA does not have a 5000 year history of in-fighting or
border disputes may be responsible for the major progress in
this country. Granted, the USA is not perfect and has
many dark areas ... but the battles it fights internally at least
have a progressive trend to them: female rights, worker rights,
civil rights, immigrant rights, handicap rights, gay rights, etc.
I would not want the history of other cultures caught in the
mire of border and clan disputes.
> and therefore want that of other cultures is genuinely
> stupid.
>
> Frankly it's not worth serious comment at all.
9879
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 3:19am
Subject: Re: One from the Secret Centre
Yes, and my point (not all that well articulated maybe) was in essence
how can you rope of some areas of what a film is and say "don't go
there critically")
-Sam
9880
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 3:21am
Subject: Re: Chaplin and Keaton and women
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Elizabeth Anne Nolan"
wrote:
> I'll mention that I have just watched VERTIGO and CRISS-CROSS
> (with their obsessive male characters) prior to reading the thread
on
> Chaplin and Keaton so you'll perhaps understand where the following
> comes from:
>
> Has anyone made comparative comments of how women are
> treated by Chaplin and Keaton?
>
There is a whole chapter on Keaton and Women in my Keaton book,
but it didn't occur to me to compare his "treatment" of women with
Chaplin's. By the time I wrote I had already grown tired of the
Chaplin-Keaton thing.
Apparently no one here has read my book or is even aware of its
existence. Oh well! Sic transit...
JPC
9881
From:
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 7:46am
Subject: Re: "have no history"
> > The notion that we "have no history"
>
> Interesting comment "have no history." I often think the fact
> the USA does not have a 5000 year history of in-fighting or
> border disputes may be responsible for the major progress in
> this country.
Couple of things:
1.) While it's true that the US does not have a 1,000 year history
of infighting or border disputes (let's just conveniently ignore the
Indian genocide for the time being), a serious analysis of ethnic
conflicts in the 20th century and earlier reveals that these things
are not actually as old as people like to sometimes pretend they
are. Deep history (over 200 years, say) is rarely the actual cause
for ethnic conflict today; it's merely the justification used by
corrupt governments and other organizations for actions that are
largely political and contemporary in nature. The Serbs and the
Bosnians have *not* been killing each other for 500 years, for
example. They just like to pretend they are. What the US does not
have is a cultural mythology from which to draw out these things.
But if it were to go to war with, say, Mexico one day, I'm sure it
could develop one real quickly.
2.) The US is not as young as people think. As a governmental system
and as a republic, it's older than most countries out there. The
first US president was around well before the first Presidents or
Prime Ministers of most of the countries of the world today,
including some of the older European ones. (Let's not forget that
the French Revolution was influenced by the American Revolution, not
vice-versa.) Of course, one can't expect late period Godard to be
able to address this stuff. For some reason, certain complexities he
has *no* trouble shying away from.
-Bilge
9882
From:
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 4:42am
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
When Godard says that Americans have just 200 years of history, this is
ignoring the record.
The Anasazi culture in the Southwest has two thousand years of continuous
history. The Pueblos are our Chartres.
Some Aleut villages in Alaska have been occupied for over 5,000 years. Of
course, this is only half as long as the oldest Old World city, Jericho.
Also specious in Godard are his assertions that events in Europe are "owned"
by Europeans, and that people from other continents should keep their mitts
off them. History belongs to everybody, all over the world. If Americans or
Israelis or Asians want to make a film about the Holocaust, for instance, it is
their right.
Mike Grost
9883
From: Jerry Johnson
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 11:35am
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
> When Godard says that Americans have just 200 years of history,
this is
> ignoring the record.
> The Anasazi culture in the Southwest has two thousand years of
continuous
> history. The Pueblos are our Chartres.
> Some Aleut villages in Alaska have been occupied for over 5,000
years.
I don' think Godard is as near guilty of ignoring this record as
American filmmakers are. I don't believe Godard differentiates
between 'America" and "American cinema." You could esaily come to the
conclusion, from watching our cinema today, that indeed, we have no
history of our own. Where's John Ford when you need him?
> Also specious in Godard are his assertions that events in Europe
are "owned"
> by Europeans, and that people from other continents should keep
their mitts
> off them. History belongs to everybody, all over the world. If
Americans or
> Israelis or Asians want to make a film about the Holocaust, for
instance, it is
> their right.
Yes, but might it not seem a bit odd to us if a European filmmaker
made a film about the Civil War in black & white, and everybody from
Grant to Lee to the slaves spoke French to each other?
9884
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 0:26pm
Subject: Godard on American History
Isn't this notion that Americans have no sense of history pretty much
the same thing JLG was saying in IN PRAISE OF LOVE? I went into a
coma about halfway through the film so it's a bit of a blur in my
memory. For Deleuze, though, all of American cinema is fundamentally
historical, constantly shooting and re-shooting the birth of its own
nation-civilization: "It is easy to make fun of Hollywood's
historical conceptions. It seems to us on the contrary, that they
bring together the most serious aspects of history as seen by the
nineteenth century." Of course Deleuze is writing here about figures
like Griffith, Vidor, DeMille. Can we make similar claims about
contemporary American cinema? Off the top of my head I would say
that Scorsese has become, for better or worse, primarily an historial
filmmaker.
9885
From:
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 8:53am
Subject: Re: Godard on American History
There are some contemporary American filmmakers with a sense of history.
James Ivory's "Jefferson in Paris" is a classic. Of course, Ivory is an
independent, not a Hollywood figure.
Other recent American, good historical films:
Ghosts of Mississippi (Rob Reiner)
Amistad (Steven Spielberg)
Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper (Hiro Narita)
Kundun (Martin Scorsese)
Dangerous Beauty (Marshall Herskovitz)
Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel)
The Color of Friendship (Kevin Hooks)
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (Aviva Kempner)
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes)
Good Night Valentino (Edoardo Ballerini)
I very much liked a French film about slavery: Sucre amer / Bitter Sugar
(Christian Lara, 1997). This takes place on the French-speaking island of
Guadaloupe. It is a superb film that should be much better known.
Mike Grost
9886
From:
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 8:59am
Subject: Re: Godard on American History
Jonathan Rosenbaum really liked the sets and costumes in the historical "The
Newton Boys" (Richard Linklater). The beautiful 1920's clothes are indeed some
of the snazziest in any recent film.
Coming attractions for "Before Sunset" show that Linklater has shot all over
Paris.
But when he made the depressing "Tape", alledgedly set in my home town of
Lansing, Michigan, he never left that hideous motel room set. The set was
probably in Romania or somewhere. You would never guess that Lansing is almost as
beautiful as Paris! Especially now, when the city is in full bloom. It is a city
full of the most amazing parks and gardens - MSU is a famous agricultural
school. The yearly orchid show attracts huge crowds.
Mike Grost
9887
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 1:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
After all, the violence and serious
> tone of films like
> PRIVATE RYAN and SCHINDLER'S LIST may tempt some
> viewers to feel that
> they've "seen WWII" or "seen the Holocaust," and
> (even worse, perhaps)
> that they now have a souvenir from both histories.
Wellthat's just idiotic. NO film can do that -- I
don't care who it's by.
9888
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 1:25pm
Subject: Re: Godard on American History
--- joe_mcelhaney wrote:
Off the top of my
> head I would say
> that Scorsese has become, for better or worse,
> primarily an historial
> filmmaker.
>
Mos tdefinitely. And I'm not just talking about
something as obvious as "Gangs of new York." "Raging
Bull," "Casino," and "New York New York" are ALL
istorical films, made in rather different styles. "The
Aviator" will obviously continue this tradition.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'
http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861
9889
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 1:40pm
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> Frankly it's not worth serious comment at all.
>
>
> I agree, but the strange thing about Godard is that no matter
how "idiotic" his pronouncements may be, they're always taken
seriously by a lot of people and generate a lot of discussion (which
may be their purpose.) Why would his absurb "theory" of the US's
Sumerian envy generate a series of exchanges on this group? Just
because it emanated from Godard? Who would pay attention if it came
from someone else?
JPC
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'
> http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861
9890
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 1:55pm
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jerry Johnson"
wrote:
>
.
>
> Yes, but might it not seem a bit odd to us if a European filmmaker
> made a film about the Civil War in black & white, and everybody
from
> Grant to Lee to the slaves spoke French to each other?
This is exactly what Hollywood has done to European history ever
since talkies appeared (before that, only the title cards were in
English). It certainly must have seemed a bit odd to French audiences
to hear all those French characters in "A Tale of Two Cities" or "The
Story of Louis Pasteur" or "The Train" and countless others speak
English. (of course at least 99% of audiences saw the French-dubbed
version, which took care of the oddness -- although replacing it with
an oddness of another sort).
9891
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 2:45pm
Subject: Sadism
> I brought this up a propos of Wrong Man, and what interests me
> is directorial sadism aimed at the audience. As noted, it's a
> means to an end in the revenge film, but there are films where
> the initial suffering of the character, which we share, seems
> almost to be the reason for the movie: Darkman, say.
>
> Ironically, one of the most sadistic films against the audience I've
> seen is Dan Sallitt's Honeymoon, right up there with Wrong Man,
> and I suspect the pain it inflicts is shared by men and women in
> the audience almost equally, despite the fact that male
> impotence is the main thing happening: it strongly affects both
> members of the onscreen couple. And I'm still amazed that Dan
> says he didn't intend to put us thru it.
Did I say that? I dunno, it's more as if I felt that I was putting
myself through it too. And that the mission was somehow justified in my
mind, rightly or wrongly.
So maybe I can present this as a first attempt to look at the difference
between sadism that bothers me and sadism that doesn't. Let's compare,
say, THE WRONG MAN (which I admire) and DANCER IN THE DARK (which I
dislike). They're both at least partly about an innocent person charged
with a crime.
Concrete differences:
- Hitchcock has no villain. Everyone behaves methodically, and
Hitchcock is interested in the method as counterpoint to the drama. Von
Trier has a villain, and the villain's motivation is extremely contrived
- moreso than in the melodramas that seem to be inspiring Von Trier.
- Hitchcock focuses on process, detail. Von Trier, who cannot afford to
(his case isn't realistic), shows only the bits of the trial that
condemn his heroine, eliding all the bits that would exculpate her.
- Von Trier assumes the position of social commentator, despite the
dominance of fantasy in his work. Hitchcock refrains, despite the
attention to real procedure.
------------
I guess that's enough. It looks as if I'm not bothered by "putting the
audience through it" in itself. When you think about it, almost all
stories put the audience through it a little - even the sunniest
musicals have painful plot twists where the couple separates through
misunderstandings. (And sometimes this bothers me!)
(Unlike Jean-Pierre, I see an intrinsic connection between sadism and
masochism. It's well known that THE WRONG MAN embodies Hitch's
childhood fear of the police. Is he working out of sadism or masochism?
Both, I'd say.)
If Von Trier convinced me that he was putting me through it to get me to
an interesting place, I think I'd buy it. Or, if he convinced me that
he felt the pain that he was dealing out, I'd be more sympathetic. What
seems to enrage me about him is that he gives me the impression of
inflicting discomfort with a smile, for its own sake. Probably I've got
secret buttons that are being pushed.
No doubt the distinction I'm making is not objectively the most
important distinction, but my point isn't to justify myself. I'm trying
to explore myself - this is new territory for me.
- Dan
9892
From: Sam Adams
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 2:49pm
Subject: Re: Godard on American History
The anti-American sentiments in Eloge are just Euro-snobbism dressed up in intellectual's
clothes. Is there a reason to assume that Godard's criticism of the US is any better
informed than his criticism of Spielberg?
It's a cinch, of course, that the US has a problem with history, but it's not because we don't
have any. It's because in a nation founded on reinvention, history is seen as an
impediment rather than a resource. From the pressure on immigrants to assimilate to the
fact Americans forgave Bill Clinton his infidelity and mendacity because they thought he
ran the country well, we'd rather forget the past or whittle it down into a few easy-to-
swallow lessons.
Bringing this back to film, there's a more enjoyable and (dareIsay) more complicated vision
of how Americans recreate their history on view in Guy Maddin's THE SADDEST MUSIC IN
THE WORLD, where the faux-American impressario Chester (Mark McKinney) stages a
series of fabulous pageants to pay "tribute" to America's national tragedies, from slavery
to the San Francisco quake. As the titular contest goes on, Chester buys up competing
teams from other nations and incorporates them into his act, so that the final victory is
achieved by an "American" team that seems to contain no actual Americans.
I think the last American films I saw that did something interesting with history were both
by Charles Burnett: WARMING BY THE DEVIL'S FIRE, his episode of THE BLUES tv series, and
NAT TURNER: A TROUBLESOME PROPERTY. Both are compromised by a tendency towards
over-explanation (not surprising since they were made for PBS), but they explicitly address
the way history changes through retelling, dramatized in NAT TURNER through the used of
variously-styled reconstructions reflecting the ways Turner's story changes depending on
the teller. The fact that Burnett can't seem to get the funds to make his movies his ways is
about as great a condemnation as I can conceive of the American movie industry. Can only
hope the imminent reissue/DVD for Killer of Sheep and My Brother's Wedding will throw
some light back his way.
Sam
9893
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 3:21pm
Subject: Re: Sadism
Dan, as the person who accused you of being The Marquis de Sallitt,
let me clarify a couple of things, and uncharacteristically reply
paragraph by paragraph. First, Honeymoon is by far one of the best
recent American films I've seen.
>
> Did I say that? I dunno, it's more as if I felt that I was putting
> myself through it too. And that the mission was somehow justified
in my
> mind, rightly or wrongly.
Of course you are.
>
> So maybe I can present this as a first attempt to look at the
difference
> between sadism that bothers me and sadism that doesn't. Let's
compare,
> say, THE WRONG MAN (which I admire) and DANCER IN THE DARK (which I
> dislike). They're both at least partly about an innocent person
charged
> with a crime.
>
> Concrete differences:
>
> - Hitchcock has no villain. Everyone behaves methodically, and
> Hitchcock is interested in the method as counterpoint to the
drama. Von
> Trier has a villain, and the villain's motivation is extremely
contrived
> - moreso than in the melodramas that seem to be inspiring Von Trier.
Hitchcock has villains - the women in the insurance office, who are
hateful. I think there are other villains as well, although all are
part of some incomprehensible system (not capitalism). Remember: "The
more successful the villain..." Nonetheless, Hitchcock adopts a
realist esthetic in WM - a socialist realist esthetic, per Zizek, who
undervalues the film, but is provocative about it. Of
course, "socialist realism by Hitchcock" is Kafka, ie not socialist
realism at all. But the rules of the game are "make it look real,
film it where it happened." LVT starts off with a musical number! So
it's very different game, and as a musical melodrama, at least
theoretically entitled to its villain.
>
> - Hitchcock focuses on process, detail. Von Trier, who cannot
afford to
> (his case isn't realistic), shows only the bits of the trial that
> condemn his heroine, eliding all the bits that would exculpate her.
See above.
>
> - Von Trier assumes the position of social commentator, despite the
> dominance of fantasy in his work. Hitchcock refrains, despite the
> attention to real procedure.
I like social commentary, and I guess I agree with the message of
DITD, as spelled out by Pascal Kane in conversation: "America has
become a fascist country." Right now, we are one, although our
permanent government seems to be taking things out of the voters'
hands and getting rid of the fascist administration for us. But the
images coming out of Abu Ghraib, which could have been photographed
in many an American prison, if cameras were allowed, are every bit as
melodramatic as the execution scene in Dancer in the Dark. In fact,
they go beyond LVT's imaginings because of their Salo-like
pornography.
>
> ------------
>
> I guess that's enough. It looks as if I'm not bothered by "putting
the
> audience through it" in itself. When you think about it, almost
all
> stories put the audience through it a little - even the sunniest
> musicals have painful plot twists where the couple separates
through
> misunderstandings. (And sometimes this bothers me!)
Me too.
>
> (Unlike Jean-Pierre, I see an intrinsic connection between sadism
and
> masochism. It's well known that THE WRONG MAN embodies Hitch's
> childhood fear of the police. Is he working out of sadism or
masochism?
> Both, I'd say.)
Right, but cf infra.
> If Von Trier convinced me that he was putting me through it to get
me to
> an interesting place, I think I'd buy it. Or, if he convinced me
that
> he felt the pain that he was dealing out, I'd be more sympathetic.
What
> seems to enrage me about him is that he gives me the impression of
> inflicting discomfort with a smile, for its own sake. Probably
I've got
> secret buttons that are being pushed.
A friend of von Trier's told me that, while he didn't direct the Pink
Pussy films himself, he would probably like to film De Sade hardcore.
Maybe it would look like the images from Abu Ghraib. I'm sure that
sexual masochism as well as sadism are part of van Trier's imaginary
universe, bigtime. But as Bunuel says, if all you do is imagine....
>
> No doubt the distinction I'm making is not objectively the most
> important distinction, but my point isn't to justify myself. I'm
trying
> to explore myself - this is new territory for me.
So let's revisit Honeymoon. It deconstructs masculinity nut-hair by
nut-hair, and even its happy ending shows that the hero, once
the "balance of power" is re-established by a successful erection, is
already forgetting his wife a little. That may not be social
commentary - call it moral commentary if you prefer - but it
certainly validates what the film puts me through.
>
> - Dan
9894
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 3:27pm
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
> Yes, but might it not seem a bit odd to us if a European filmmaker
> made a film about the Civil War in black & white, and everybody from
> Grant to Lee to the slaves spoke French to each other?
But there are many examples - not of this, but like this. Spaghetti
westerns stand as, among other things, comments on American history by
Italian directors, through the filter of Hollywood and Cinecitta
imagery, of course. It could be argued that a film like COLD MOUNTAIN
reflects a major or minor extra-American sensibility due to the
presence of its director, Anthony Minghella. (Not to mention its
stars, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman, actors Ray Winstone and Brendan
Gleeson, cinematographer John Seale, and production designer Dante
Ferretti.)
And there are stranger examples still, such as a German-language
adaptation of a James Fenimore Cooper novel, CHINGACHGOOK, DIE GROßE
SCHLANGE, in which the British characters continually remind the
audience that they're British by saying "God save the queen," several
times during a scene - in English!
Herzog's COBRA VERDE is about the slave trade in South America and
Africa, and stars Klaus Kinski as a Portugese bandit who gets rich
running a Columbian plantation and a slave trading outpost in Ghana.
Everyone is dubbed in German. Need I mention AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD?
Or Fritz Lang's INDIAN EPIC?
-Jaime
9895
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 3:32pm
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> --- "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
> After all, the violence and serious
> > tone of films like
> > PRIVATE RYAN and SCHINDLER'S LIST may tempt some
> > viewers to feel that
> > they've "seen WWII" or "seen the Holocaust," and
> > (even worse, perhaps)
> > that they now have a souvenir from both histories.
>
> Wellthat's just idiotic. NO film can do that -- I
> don't care who it's by.
David,
I *know* you don't think that that's what I was arguing.
-Jaime
9896
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 3:44pm
Subject: Re: Godard on American History
> Bringing this back to film, there's a more enjoyable and (dareIsay)
more complicated vision
> of how Americans recreate their history on view in Guy Maddin's THE
SADDEST MUSIC IN
> THE WORLD, where the faux-American impressario Chester (Mark
McKinney) stages a
> series of fabulous pageants to pay "tribute" to America's national
tragedies, from slavery
> to the San Francisco quake. As the titular contest goes on, Chester
buys up competing
> teams from other nations and incorporates them into his act, so
that the final victory is
> achieved by an "American" team that seems to contain no actual
Americans.
I completely agree (I saw MUSIC last night*), and this is no
different from Godard's comments, which are about film. So he
extended them to Iraq a bit - that's legitimate provocation. The
important thing is the thesis, which is cinema and historical memory.
And, yes, we're discussing it here because Godard said it. Otherwise
we wouldn't be. Thank you, Godard.
I haven't read the whole interview, but the two paragraphs excerpted
are about the current state of French and American cinema,
respectively, even if the secomn paragraph couches his by now
familiar remarks on America and history (I didn't care much for Eloge
d'Amour, either) in terms of the war.
I saw the new Techine a few days ago, and I agree with Godard's
general comment, although I still think Techine is a good director:
Its recreation of the early days of WWII serves to separate Beart and
her kids from their class situation and throwing together with an
illiterate peasant kid, with results that play out in sexual terms.
It's Scene of the Crime all over again, and the WWII background is
background...for the most part. I thought it interesting that this
was an assignment: The Producer knows Techine well enough to know
that this novel (The Boy with the Grey Eyes) would be right up his
alley, and the result is a "personal" film with none of the power of
Wild Reeds. I would, however, give him a couple of points for showing
an aerial bombardment of civilians - something we do every day when
we're "at war" - from the ground.
But ultimately it is a new tradition of quality, and it's in the same
dead-end that other eras of modernist filmmaking always led to:
French filmmakers are and always have been class conscious, but they
have no sense of history, something American films at the time Godard
championed them have almost as a birthright. This is something
Jacques Ranciere spoke about definitively in CdC in 1974. We have
always been able t orepresent the bloodiest - and even them ost
shameful - founding actions of our history on film, whereas the
French still haven't come to terms with the Commune. So the class-
consciousness of French cinema happens in an historical vacum. The
model is the films of Renoir, which portray the workings of society -
brilliantly - as a clockwork miniature. And of course Renoir is
constantly struggling to break out of that box, whereas most French
filmmakers don't even know it exists.
The question raised by the first paragraph, and the polemic against
Spielberg, is whether American cinema is still, in Ranciere's terms,
a cinema which automatically produces genetic or historical fictions.
He seems to think not, and I pretty much agree. I think that
(following ronnie Scheib) American cinema under Reagan is typified by
the nostalgia of Back to the Future. That is still a film about where
we come from (the 50s), and it even portrays an experiment in
historical engineering, trying to change the past to change the
present. But the result is: No present. We seem to have lost the
ability to portray contemporary American society altogether, and I
don't think American Beauty contradicts what I'm saying.
Godard locates the problem in the question of historical memory,
which he portrays in the rather comic idea of the US, the world's
leading power, ransacking the treasures of other countries in search
of a history it has lost. It's a point worth discussing.
And I also totally agree, Sam, that Charles Burnett is an exception
to all this. So are Thom Andersen, Dan Sallitt and a few other people
whose films barely get seen. What Godard's polemic enables us to do
is focus on them, rather than on Spielberg, and also to understand a
difficult film like The Saddest Music in the World, which you have
brilliantly interpreted.
9897
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 4:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sadism
> Hitchcock has villains - the women in the insurance office, who are
> hateful.
Geez, I can't even remember them. But the overall thrust of the film is
that Fonda is caught in a mechanism that proceeds in a routine fashion, no?
> Of
> course, "socialist realism by Hitchcock" is Kafka, ie not socialist
> realism at all. But the rules of the game are "make it look real,
> film it where it happened."
I could use a little more discussion of the ways in which THE WRONG MAN
is real and unreal. In the terms I'm setting out, the important thing
is to convince the audience that the events of the film could happen in
real life, and perhaps that they are even likely to happen in real life.
It's not as if I think these things are important for their own sake,
but they affect the effect here. When Von Trier flaunts the
contrivance, I feel like he's pushing for the discomfort for its own
sake. When Hitchcock emphasizes the mundane aspects of Fonda's
experience, there's a counterpoint set up between the extremity of the
event and its procedural surface, and that counterpoint yields artistic
benefits.
> I like social commentary, and I guess I agree with the message of
> DITD
I don't mind social commentary either, but I hold it to high standards -
I think it requires balance and fairness. (Whereas art really doesn't
require these things.) If anything, Von Trier was making a
pro-death-penalty film without even realizing it: if you have to go to
these ridiculous lengths to convict an innocent person, you're giving
the impression that it can't happen often.
> But the
> images coming out of Abu Ghraib, which could have been photographed
> in many an American prison, if cameras were allowed, are every bit as
> melodramatic as the execution scene in Dancer in the Dark.
Why melodramatic? You could film that a million different ways.
There's nothing out of the ordinary about torture - people have always
loved to torture others.
Again, the nature of the social commentary depends on the nature of the
aesthetics here. If Abu Ghraib is melodrama, coincidence,
one-in-a-million, then the administration is off the hook! Who could
anticipate such a thing? Whereas if torture is an everyday thing, then
there's no point in finding a few scapegoats: you try to change the
system that didn't try, or didn't try hard enough, to prevent it.
> So let's revisit Honeymoon. It deconstructs masculinity nut-hair by
> nut-hair, and even its happy ending shows that the hero, once
> the "balance of power" is re-established by a successful erection, is
> already forgetting his wife a little. That may not be social
> commentary - call it moral commentary if you prefer - but it
> certainly validates what the film puts me through.
You know, there's another element in there, and one that I sometimes
feel uncomfortable with. Which is that the female protagonist is much
more unstable and difficult than the male one, to the point where some
audiences feel that he's just a victim.
My take is that the guy is easier to get along with, but more of a
closet idealist, so that his love is more damaged by the ordeal. - Dan
9898
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 5:34pm
Subject: Re: Godard on American History
I think that
> (following ronnie Scheib) American cinema under Reagan is typified
by
> the nostalgia of Back to the Future. That is still a film about
where
> we come from (the 50s), and it even portrays an experiment in
> historical engineering, trying to change the past to change the
> present. But the result is: No present.
My goodness, you're right, and now I see how BACK TO THE FUTURE could
be viewed as a blueprint for Zimeckis' major "historical engineering"
experiment, FORREST GUMP. Do you see this as a recurring theme in
Zimeckis' films (how would ROGER RABBIT figure into this? Or CAST
AWAY -- a film that in a sense is about trying to escape from a
seemingly inescapable present?
What Godard's polemic enables us to do
> is focus on them, rather than on Spielberg, and also to understand
a
> difficult film like The Saddest Music in the World, which you have
> brilliantly interpreted.
Could you direct me to said brilliant interpretation -- I am still
trying to figure out what I think about this movie (a great movie but
not sure how much of it is piercingly brilliant and how much of it is
cloy self-delighted pedantry -- Maddin is undoubtedly, and
paradoxically I suppose, a true original of our time but the sense of
rapture I get watching his films makes me wary of giving him an
uncritical free pass.)
9899
From:
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 6:03pm
Subject: Re: Godard in Lesinrocks
JPC:
> It certainly must have seemed a bit odd to French audiences
> to hear all those French characters in "A Tale of Two Cities"
or "The
> Story of Louis Pasteur" or "The Train" and countless others speak
> English.
Well, let's not forget that A TALE OF TWO CITIES is based on a novel
by Charles Dickens, an English novelist. So how does British
literature fit into Godard's theory of civilization-envy? In those
same terms, I wonder what he would think of the Polish miniseries of
the Russian novel THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, the Spaghetti Western in
general, Karl May, the RED HARVEST adaptation YOJIMBO, etc. etc.
-Bilge
9900
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu May 13, 2004 6:24pm
Subject: Spielberg's Secret Centers
> I guess SCHINDLER'S LIST isn't a mindbogglingly complex work of
> cinema, but someone who says to me, "So it makes you feel good about
> feeling bad, it must be good, eh?" isn't getting the whole picture
of
> how I operate.
I studied SCHINDLER'S in college and I think there's a hell of a lot
to say about it, not necessarily in positive or negative terms, but
simply as a multi-layered testament of how culture, history and moral
atrocity are packaged and sold to a global marketplace. I also found
this to be one of the easiest times I've had locating Spielberg in
his films -- Schindler's chillingly honest confession to his wife
that the thing that was missing his whole life that prevented him
from achieving true success was war, does anyone else read this as
Spielberg admitting to how he expects to finally get his Oscar for
going Holocaust on Hollywood?
Adrian: I share your exasperation with Spielberg and his "innumerable
demons" though not necessarily the disdainful tone of your voice
(though as Jaime can attest I've thrown eggs at Spielberg myself).
His films do seem ideologically messy and irresolute and, in the
truest spirit of that All-American quality of optimistic denial,
often too eager to pin a happy ending on a cavalcade of traumas
unleashed and run rampant. But that's exactly why he's so
fascinating. I suspect that he'd be considered one of the most
complex filmmakers of our time if he were not making gazillions of
dollars thus rendering any defense of him on auteurist terms
unwelcome by critics seeking to give voice to undernoticed artists
and who consider Spielberg to be the very symbol of the status quo
they seek to undermine... at least this shall be the case until
something causes a change in critical climate, such as his death.
But great pieces ARE being written on Spielberg at present, such as
this one linked below, which locates a couple of Stevie's "secret
centers" informing CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (which the author describes as
a kind of fantasy autobiography by a man criticizing its own boyhood
fantasies of being accepted on three fronts: his divorced parents,
sexually available women, and mainstream American WASP culture at
large, Christmas trees included. What's fascinating is how
interconnected these three objects of desire are. It also talks about
Spielberg's hatred of his child siblings, which may connect with what
you were saying before Adrian about his onscreen terrorization of the
nuclear family... but read for yourself:
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/41/spiel.htm
Finally, as a self-described "post-realist", I would argue that
Spielberg's last three films, A.I., MINORITY REPORT and CATCH ME IF
YOU CAN, seem to make pathos its hermeneutic subject in addition to
being the readily consumable object it has always been (since CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS at least) -- attention is drawn to how emotions, values
and objectives are achieved through a showmanlike presentation of
surfaces posing as reality. Judging from these last three films
Spielberg has entered a (dare I say it?) "mature" phase where he may
be exhibiting an unprecedented level of self-awareness, one that
approaches self-criticism.
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