Date: Wed May 19, 2004 11:03pm
Subject: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
In the interest of settling - or perpetuating - an argument on another
discussion board, I'd like to get some responses to the following:
How would we characterize the reputations of YOUNG MR. LINCOLN and
DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK? Are they considered canon films, and if so,
by whom? When? What was written about them?
Many thanks!
Jaime
10002
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 0:04am
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
>
> How would we characterize the reputations of YOUNG MR.
LINCOLN and
> DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK? Are they considered canon
films, and if so,
> by whom? When? What was written about them?
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Jaime
LINCOLN was one of four films CdC chose in the 70s to
exemplify classical cinema for their project or Re-Reading
Classical Cinema. The very long article on LINCOLN was
translated and published in Screen, as well as the BFI CdC
collection for that period, edited by Nick Browne. The only
criticism I know which accords DRUMS any importance is Tag
Gallagher's excvellent discussion in his Ford book. I'd say
LINCOLN is canonical, DRUMS not - if by canonical you mean
acknowledged masterpieces. But there may be lots of writing I'm
unfamiliar with.
10003
From: Brian Darr
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 3:15am
Subject: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Thanks for pointing out that article. Truly incompetent, you're
right. You didn't even post the part later in the review where he
refers to the director as just plain "Weerasethakul" - just as much of
a faux pas, I understand, as referring to RED SORGHUM as a film by
Yimou or GOODBYE DRAGON INN by Ming-Liang (or NOTORIOUS by Alfred). I
guess its a fairly common mistake with Thai cinema emerging more
rapidly than the English-speaking world can keep up, but still quite
"unprofessional".
Mike D'Angelo gave TROPICAL MALADY a rare 80 but left it at that, so
far. (I still don't quite get these 100-point scales.)
> Actually his third feature is the transsexual crime flick ADVENTURE
> OF IRON PUSSY, but I was advised by other A.W. fans to avoid it, as
> it was reportedly done as a favor to the screenwriter and doesn't
> bear his signature. I'm still tempted to check it out (if I ever
get
> another chance -- I missed it in both Berlin and San Francisco)
I saw it in San Francisco (where, incidentally, Apichatpong will have
a residency this fall thanks to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts),
and I can see how fans of the beautiful BLISSFULLY YOURS might reject
the film, but I do think it fits in with his other works- especially
other video pieces like HAUNTED HOUSES that try to democratize the
tradition of Thai melodrama. (Not unlike the way MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT
NOON democratizes the process of filming stories). HAUNTED HOUSES is
constructed by "ordinary" Thais re-enacting scenes from well-known
soap operas. I-SAN SPECIAL (not directed by Apichatpong, but inspired
by his concept) uses a similar device, but utilizes a radio soap opera
soundtrack instead of the actors' own voices.
In ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY, on the other hand, Apichatpong hired
veteran actors to dub all the film's dialogue in post-production,
creating humorous incongruities that match the absurdity of seeing
comedian Michael Shaowanasai act the title role in "ladyboy" mode. As
a result, the film is not just another installment in Shaowanasai's
"Iron Pussy" series, but a sort of hearkening back to the days when
Thai films were distributed in silent 16mm prints and local performers
in each city would act the dialogue and play the music along with the
images each night. Not so different from the "benshi" of the Japanese
silent era, except that in Thailand this remained the convention up
until the 1960's!
Anyway, I can't wait to see TROPICAL MALADY!
-Brian Darr
10004
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 3:48am
Subject: Re: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
>>How would we characterize the reputations of YOUNG MR.
> LINCOLN and
>>DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK? Are they considered canon
> films, and if so,
>>by whom? When? What was written about them?
>
> LINCOLN was one of four films CdC chose in the 70s to
> exemplify classical cinema for their project or Re-Reading
> Classical Cinema. The very long article on LINCOLN was
> translated and published in Screen, as well as the BFI CdC
> collection for that period, edited by Nick Browne. The only
> criticism I know which accords DRUMS any importance is Tag
> Gallagher's excvellent discussion in his Ford book. I'd say
> LINCOLN is canonical, DRUMS not - if by canonical you mean
> acknowledged masterpieces. But there may be lots of writing I'm
> unfamiliar with.
This is my impression as well, that LINCOLN is generally accorded
masterpiece status, and DRUMS is considered a good film but minor Ford.
I happen to feel the opposite, though - I think DRUMS is quite
underrated. - Dan
10005
From: Raymond P.
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 4:10am
Subject: Re: Most incompetent professional film review ever?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
> Also, it seems he (or someone) left the "l" off the end of Weerasethakul (and I thought
Thai names were beyond me!...) and stuck it into "Malady." But that's probably not all you
had in mind!
Okay, these are the problems with the article:
1) they spelled the title wrong - MALLADY instead of MALADY
2) They spelled Joe's last name wrong (WEERASETHAKU - without an L)
3) this is actually the FOURTH feature film by the director.
For a professional organization like the Hollywood Reporter, it is incredibly bad. And
obviousy Mr. Honeycutt has no knowledge at all about the director's previous works.
10006
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 4:10am
Subject: Re: My Son John: ending and essence
> Tag's article on Going My Way (in Senses of Cinema) sees the film
> as "a black comedy on how the effect of hunting the witches is to
> *demonize* religion, patriotism, and all human relationships, even
> motherhood". I don't see this at all as the intent of a film
> that reaffirms the rightness of both parents' views, martyrs their
> son, and provides a surrogate son in the FBI agent. Seeing that Dan
> and Jaime (and Jonathan Rosenbaum) all list this film among their
> favorites, I wonder whether anyone has opinions on the black comedy
> interpretation?
I can't see JOHN as an anti-witchhunt film either. There's something
amazing about the things that it's willing to say about the way families
work, but I don't see that as a critique. GOOD SAM's dissection of
altruism is pretty comprehensive, but I don't think that's a critique
either. The parents in MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW are clearly adored, but
also convincingly maddening. No one else but Bunuel would show a nun on
the wrong end of a good sock in the jaw (in THE BELLS OF ST. MARY'S),
but McCarey's feelings about nuns do not seem to be the same as
Bunuel's. There's a peculiar dynamic in McCarey's films, whereby the
beloved object is attacked with ruthless logic. I think McCarey feels
that the beloved object can survive the attack.
> A related point in Glick's piece is that McCarey "cannot reject
> Communism on the basis of its absolute power, because the principle
> most frequently and variously propounded in My Son John is an
> absolutism of its own: the absolute authority of church and parents,
> their exclusive possession of an absolute truth, and the unmitigated
> sinfulness of questioning that truth."
Jeez, those parents seem pretty unsteady at times. I don't think
McCarey dislikes them, but I don't think he's enshrining them that way
either.
> I believe Donald
> Phelps has also written very perceptively about the film in his essay
> on Warshow, pointing out quite persuasively that McCarey is perfectly
> aware of the father as a silly character even if he backs his
> politics.
The key moment in the film pivots on this awareness: the scene in which
Robert Walker patronizes his mother, ever so quietly, and she recoils as
if she had been slapped. She makes it quite clear that Walker has
previously mocked his father in that fashion, and that she understood
the mockery when applied to the father.
I certainly think that the film is truly problemsome, despite its
brilliance. - Dan
10007
From: Raymond P.
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 4:15am
Subject: Re: Most incompetent professional film review ever?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
> Actually his third feature is the transsexual crime flick ADVENTURE
> OF IRON PUSSY, but I was advised by other A.W. fans to avoid it, as
> it was reportedly done as a favor to the screenwriter and doesn't
> bear his signature. I'm still tempted to check it out (if I ever get
> another chance -- I missed it in both Berlin and San Francisco)
>
> Kevin
I thought IRON PUSSY is *fantastic*! A hilarious ode to both Thai classics, Hollywood
melodrama and cheesy Thai-style transvestite cabarets. I was in utter stitches through the
whole film.
Yes, it is the most un-Joe of all Joe Weerasethakul's films, partly because the character of
IRON PUSSY is an established underground gay icon created in 1997 by Michael
Shaowanasai (the main actor) - Joe just helped direct the film. But the result is pure
entertainment nonetheless. Just don't expect the usual elliptic filmmaking that is Joe's
signature.
10008
From: Raymond P.
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 4:18am
Subject: Re: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Darr"
> Thanks for pointing out that article. Truly incompetent, you're
> right. You didn't even post the part later in the review where he
> refers to the director as just plain "Weerasethakul" - just as much of
> a faux pas, I understand, as referring to RED SORGHUM as a film by
> Yimou or GOODBYE DRAGON INN by Ming-Liang (or NOTORIOUS by Alfred). I
> guess its a fairly common mistake with Thai cinema emerging more
> rapidly than the English-speaking world can keep up, but still quite
> "unprofessional".
Huh? Weerasethakul is the last name, where as Yimou and Ming-Liang are first names.
Apichatpong is a first name. You got it the wrong way round - Thai names do not reverse
surnames/first names like Chinese do.
And he goes by the name of Joe, by the way.
10009
From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 4:29am
Subject: Re: Re: Most incompetent professional film review ever?
> Yes, it is the most un-Joe of all Joe Weerasethakul's films, partly
> because the character of
> IRON PUSSY is an established underground gay icon created in 1997 by
> Michael
> Shaowanasai (the main actor) - Joe just helped direct the film. But
> the result is pure
> entertainment nonetheless. Just don't expect the usual elliptic
> filmmaking that is Joe's
> signature.
What's up with the "Joe"? Is this his cognoscenti codename?
craig.
10010
From: Brian Darr
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 4:43am
Subject: Re: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
> Huh? Weerasethakul is the last name, where as Yimou and Ming-Liang
are first names.
> Apichatpong is a first name. You got it the wrong way round - Thai
names do not reverse
> surnames/first names like Chinese do.
Wow. I guess I made a major screw-up there, but are you really
certain this is how it works? I've read lots of articles that go
either way, and after noticing that the more generally knowledgable
ones tended to use the first name as the "auteur" name, I just assumed
that this was correct. But perhaps all those authors were
out-thinking themselves, as it seems I just have.
My assumption was supported (in my mind) by the fact that when I
taught English in Thailand for a couple years, my students and fellow
teachers insisted on calling me Teacher Brian, not Teacher Darr.
That's mererly anecdotal of course. If only I had learned to read
Thai it would be a better way of resolving this.
> And he goes by the name of Joe, by the way.
Its extremely common for Thais to go by a one-syllable nickname, and
Joe is a particularly common one for men.
10011
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 4:28am
Subject: Re: Sadism
> In a message dated 5/13/04 9:58:59 AM, sallitt@p... writes:
> - 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.
>
> Yes but isn't there thus in Dancer in the Dark an extreme devaluation of the
> letter of the law and its patriarchal underpinnings? There's an emotional
> logic to Bjork's actions that has no truck with The Law. That's why Deneuve
> disappears during the law scenes and reappears in the prison immediately afterwards.
> There's a whole womanly continuum that The Law tries to disrupt but keeps
> reasserting itself.
Seems to me that a criticism of the law can't stick if the audience says
to itself, "In real life this could never happen." I've suppressed all
memory of the details, but my impression was that von Trier really had
to railroad Bjork to get her to the gas chamber, that there was
something gleeful about the way he withheld all the considerations that
would have exculpated her. It reminded me of those semi-montage
sequences in old Hollywood films where a gavel bangs a few times, the
framed protagonist looks horrified, and poof! he's serving time. Von
Trier substituted a laborious trial scene for the speedy montage, but
the level of verisimilitude seemed the same. - Dan
10012
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 5:43am
Subject: Hollywood Reporter / Cannes
There's no excuse for poor fact-checking, but I take my hat off to the dail=
y reviewer
at a film festival. They're out there in the trenches, dealing with morning=
press
screenings and filing their pieces shortly thereafter, amidst other screeni=
ngs,
cocktails, yacht excursions, opportunities to meet hot young starlets...
The calmer, more reliable assessments come in the weeks after the festival.=
If you
want to read a really hilarious review, check out David Rooney on Damien Od=
oul's
latest:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?F2E522958
Some choice bits:
"A film of such stunningly rarefied pretentiousness it almost seems like a =
prank, 'After
We're Gone' follows last year's ponderous 'Errance' to further erode the pr=
omise
shown by French writer-director Damien Odoul in his arresting 2001 debut 'D=
eep
Breath.'"
"Ugly visuals also will help ensure this mystifying project's swift burial.=
"
"While a certain auteurist pompousness was evident in "Errance," blocking
involvement in the drama's chronicle of slow marital disintegration, that s=
ame
arrogance reaches masturbatory new heights here in a burlesque tragedy that=
thumbs
its nose at conventional narrative."
Sounds like my kind of movie!
In other news, Jean-Michel Frodon likes the Almodovar, Depardon, Kiarostami=
, Martel,
Hong, Weerasethakul, Nasrallah, and Godard (which he has given a masterpiec=
e
rating). The Kusturica, on the other hand, he has given a "bomb" or "pas du=
tout"
rating.
Also, has anyone been keeping up with Antoine de Baecque's weblog (in Frenc=
h, of
course)?
"Ce matin, le festival a vu la Palme d'or de ce 57e festival de Cannes. C'e=
st mon pari,
et peut-être le perdrais-je samedi soir quand le jury décernera son palmarè=
s. Mais,
en tous les cas, je m'en explique. Ce film, ce sont les 'Carnets de voyage'=
(Diarios de
motocicleta) de Walter Salles."
"This morning the festival saw its Palme d'or. It's my bet, and perhaps I'm=
wrong, etc.
etc., Walter Salles' 'The Motorcycle Diaries'..."
My bet is still on 2046. Wagers?
Gabe
10013
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 5:51am
Subject: our favorite
Or has anyone read this:
Jean-Luc Godard had some harsh words for Michael Moore (news)'s "Fahrenheit 9/
11."
"I haven't seen his latest film, but that won't stop me from talking about it," he told
reporters.
Moore's film, which attacks President Bush (news - web sites)'s handling of Sept. 11,
has been the buzz of Cannes.
Godard, who helped found the New Wave movement, called Moore "halfway
intelligent." Without elaborating, Godard said films like Moore's weren't having the
desired effect.
"I think they help Bush," he told reporters. "In a very vicious way that they (the
directors) are not conscious of."
"Bush is less stupid than (Moore) thinks," he said. "Or else he's so stupid that he can't
change."
10014
From: Raymond P.
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 5:57am
Subject: Re: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Darr"
> Wow. I guess I made a major screw-up there, but are you really
> certain this is how it works?
Oh yes - I speak Thai. In fact, I was the translator at the Hong Kong Film Festival when THE
ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY played here.
> Its extremely common for Thais to go by a one-syllable nickname, and
> Joe is a particularly common one for men.
Actually, it's the name he picked up when he studied in the US. All of his friends call him
"Joe".
10015
From: Eric Henderson
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 6:46am
Subject: Re: Hollywood Reporter / Cannes
--- "Gabe Klinger"
>
> My bet is still on 2046. Wagers?
For your information, the IMDB says Michael Moore will win the Palme. ;)
http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2004-05-19
If 2046 is any good it's probably got the Palme. It might be more fun to try and
guess the SJP. I'm guessing TROPICAL MALADY
-- Eric
10016
From: Samuel Bréan
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 7:49am
Subject: RE: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
>How would we characterize the reputations of YOUNG MR. LINCOLN and
>DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK? Are they considered canon films, and if so,
>by whom? When? What was written about them?
In his massive Dictionnaire du cinéma: les films ("1,725 pages of fine
print," as Adrian Martin put it), French cinéphile Jacques Lourcelles writes
very positive reviews of both titles.
DRUMS: "It's undoubtedly [Ford's] most 'plastic' [i.e. in the sense of
"esthetic"] work of his whole career: a succession of sublime and familiar
tableaux linked between them by the intense emotion that comes out of them
and by their historical value and their universality. In the most Fordian
shots, tragedy is replaced by the characters' then perfect happiness. This
depiction of the origins of the American nation allows Ford's pictorial
genius to achieve a perfect synthesis between esthetic emotion and human
emotion, between history and intemporality." (...)
YOUNG MR. LINCOLN: "One of Ford's most intriguing and personal works.
Unsuccessful critically and publicly at the time of its release, it
gradually gained its reputation and finally became a major title in Ford's
filmography." (...) Lourcelles dismisses Cahiers' famous article, "written
in a materialistic and structuralist perspective full of jargon that's
totally alien to John Ford," although he acknowledges that the article
"gives some interesting historical precisions."
- Samuel
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Search, le moteur de recherche qui pense comme vous !
http://search.msn.fr/
10017
From: Michael Lieberman
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 2:09pm
Subject: Re: Re: Hollywood Reporter / Cannes
Quentin Tarantino is the head of the jury, so 2046 is the favorite to win, as his Rolling Thunder productions released "Chungking Express" in the mid 1990s.
Zhang Yimou has a good shot because QT is
releasing "Hero" in the states. "Tropical Malady" has received some wonderful buzz as well.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Henderson"
Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 06:46:58 -0000
To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Hollywood Reporter / Cannes
--- "Gabe Klinger"
>
> My bet is still on 2046. Wagers?
For your information, the IMDB says Michael Moore will win the Palme. ;)
http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2004-05-19">http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2004-05-19">http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2004-05-19
If 2046 is any good it's probably got the Palme. It might be more fun to try and
guess the SJP. I'm guessing TROPICAL MALADY
-- Eric
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10018
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 2:40pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
Lourcelles dismisses Cahiers' famous article, "written
> in a materialistic and structuralist perspective full of jargon
that's
> totally alien to John Ford," although he acknowledges that the
article
> "gives some interesting historical precisions."
>
> - Samuel
The production history and related topics are the weakest, most
tendentious part of the Lincoln article. I suspect Bernard wrote it
from off-the-bookshelf references.
Then there's Godard's intercutting of the closeups of Jane and Henry
in Letter to Jane, where he descrbes Henry's closeup as showing the
comapssionate way Lincoln looked at the slaves in the film -- anti-
slavery sentiments being, as Bernard or whoever rightly noted, the
one element of Lincoln's later bio that isn't prefigured in the story.
I wrote on this film extensively in a still unpublished piece for
Cahiers on Ford in the 30s which shows that the "unFordian" ideas
Lourcelles dislikes so in the Lincoln piece are useful for explaining
Ford's evolution during that decade, which also includes Drums. I
guess we read different articles. By way of a general comment, I
wasn't aware that critics were limited to using the director's own
ideas to explain his/her work...
10019
From: Brian Darr
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 4:18pm
Subject: Re: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
> > Wow. I guess I made a major screw-up there, but are you really
> > certain this is how it works?
>
> Oh yes - I speak Thai. In fact, I was the translator at the Hong
Kong Film Festival when THE
> ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY played here.
Thanks for setting me straight. I'll go hide now.
-Brian
10020
From: Noel Vera
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 7:29pm
Subject: Filipino film at Cannes
Hi, new member here, writer for a daily in Manila. Just wanted to
let people know that a Filipino feature film is in Cannes'
Director's Fortnight, the first since Lino Brocka's Orapronobis
(Fight for Us, 1989).
Mario O'Hara's "Babae sa Breakwater" (Woman of the Breakwater) is
about the people living literally along the edge of the city, in
shanties alongside the breakwater facing Manila Bay. Not a big
budget film (15 million pesos, or roughly $300,000.00), but I think
story, acting and subject matter make it worthwhile.
It's already had two screenings last May 19; there will be two more
screenings this May 22, Saturday, at 1.30 pm at Studio 13, and at
10.30 pm at the Arcades.
If you're at Cannes covering the festival, I recommend this one.
10021
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 8:00pm
Subject: Re: QT / 2046
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Lieberman"
> Quentin Tarantino is the head of the jury, so 2046 is the favorite
to win
Actually, at the press meeting, QT stated, that he would keep an
open mind and let the jury members decide what film they liked the
best. His words were: "I came here looking forward to see 1,2,3,4 or
5 or 6 films, and I am sure that the other jury members did the
same. So we will enjoy the films we are looking forward to see and
then figure out what film we enjoyed the most". (or something like
that - TV5 last night)
While he sounded like an overstimulated geek talking about how great
it was to be the head of the jury and that it had been his dream
since forever (and said YEAH any other second), his above quoted
words sounded very sincere and with some thought behind them: So I
don't believe that "2046" will win just because of QT. If it wins,
it is because it is good and a majority of the jury liked it.
Having said that, I have not been following the gossip or the
politics in Cannes this year at all. I know that "2046" isnt ready
to be screened yet and that Moore's film made quiet an impact (also
that "Troy" is being laughed at politely).
About QT: Emir Kusturica said something quiet nice in the interview
for Danish television: "I like that QT sweats, which means two
things: (1) He is human, (2) He has a changing metabolism that
reacts to the heat, hence he has emotions. So he will make an
emotional choise."
Henrik
10022
From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 8:19pm
Subject: Re: Re: QT / 2046
> and that it had been his dream
> since forever (and said YEAH any other second),
Don't forget about the most annoying verbal-tic in the history of
speech pathology; every other sentence: "ALL RIIIIIIIIIGHT........."
"ALL RIIIIIIIIIIGHT............."
> About QT: Emir Kusturica said something quiet nice in the interview
> for Danish television: "I like that QT sweats, which means two
> things: (1) He is human, (2) He has a changing metabolism that
> reacts to the heat, hence he has emotions. So he will make an
> emotional choise."
Those are great words.
cmk.
10023
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 8:12pm
Subject: Re: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Don't go hiding for too long -- we need more people to talk up A.W.'s
movies -- and Asian cinema in general.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Darr"
wrote:
>
> > > Wow. I guess I made a major screw-up there, but are you really
> > > certain this is how it works?
> >
> > Oh yes - I speak Thai. In fact, I was the translator at the Hong
> Kong Film Festival when THE
> > ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY played here.
>
> Thanks for setting me straight. I'll go hide now.
>
> -Brian
10024
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 8:42pm
Subject: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
I finally got around to reading the O'Brien piece on THE PASSION, and
yes, I agree, it's the most valuable published work I've read on the
film. It does a lot of the things I wanted to do in the piece I was
thinking of writing -- moving past the rhetoric of both pro and con
camps and opening the film up to new perspectives that are both
discerning and honest.
The second to last paragraph I found really to the point: "Gibson
wants to take us through the needle's eye [great metaphor - ed.] of
violently inflicted death and for us to experience it as a kind of
birth, and he will use every trick in the action-movie book to
accomplish that aim. Small wonder that this movie has terrified as
many as it has uplifted. To encounter, at the movies, a vision of
revealed religion in its savage state - the world literally split
open in the very body of the revealer - is to be reminded of the many
diverse ends toward which the potency of film can be, but so rarely
is, channeled. In the altered world we have lived in since Spetember
11, Gibson's movie can easily be taken as an omen - or an
encouragement - of a cultural shift toward a fierce religious
absolutism that would be all too much in sync with some of the most
destructive forces at large in the world."
That sounds like a admonishment against the fundamentalist thinking
that seems reflected in THE PASSION (and many other places in the
world), but more to the point, I think he's asking us to resist
making categorical dismissals and open ourselves and contend honestly
with the power of cinema evident in this film, how it embodies a
return to a kind of overwhelming primacy of image, sensation,
emotion, the kind of rapture that cinephiles and churchgoers alike
yearn for in their respective pursuits. The dilemma that becomes
apparent is that what we find so abhorrent in this film is
inseparable from what we yearn for in the ultimate cinematic
experience, one that somehow goes beyond mundane convention, defies
all explanation and for those enraptured by it, requires no defense.
If anything in THE PASSION is to be attacked, it is Cinema.
I really want to see SALO now (not just because it may be an even
more relevant point of comparision to THE PASSION than the oft-
referenced GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW, but because I've heard people
comparing it to the photos of Abu Ghraib).
Kevin
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> > How so?
>
> It fits the movie into its own cultural history (he begins by
> discussing medieval passion plays and how they evolved over time),
> what the film may represent in the present (its "role" not only as a
> film experience but as a cultural object), and builds a picture of
the
> film that can accomodate all the conflicting views that have sprung
up
> around it.
>
> O'Brien has, as usual, complicated my view of a film more than any
> other writer or set of writers. It's the article I've been waiting
> for, more or less (less because the film was never a big priority
for me).
>
> > And what else is in the issue?
>
> BIG RED ONE coverage, an upcoming Mike Hodges film, the "new"
> big-business-bashing trend in documentary filmmaking, a long Peter
> Watkins article which I haven't read.
>
> -Jaime
10025
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 9:09pm
Subject: Re: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- Kevin Lee
>
> The second to last paragraph I found really to the
> point: "Gibson
> wants to take us through the needle's eye [great
> metaphor - ed.] of
> violently inflicted death and for us to experience
> it as a kind of
> birth, and he will use every trick in the
> action-movie book to
> accomplish that aim. Small wonder that this movie
> has terrified as
> many as it has uplifted. To encounter, at the
> movies, a vision of
> revealed religion in its savage state - the world
> literally split
> open in the very body of the revealer - is to be
> reminded of the many
> diverse ends toward which the potency of film can
> be, but so rarely
> is, channeled."
Oh Prunella!
ALL Religion is about Death. That's all that it's
about. God is what we have invented to stave off the
reality of our demise. He's our Big Invisible Bi-Pole
Daddy in the Sky who "loves us" so much that he just
has to kill us, the better to do so.
"In the altered world we have lived in
> since Spetember
> 11, Gibson's movie can easily be taken as an omen -
> or an
> encouragement - of a cultural shift toward a fierce
> religious
> absolutism that would be all too much in sync with
> some of the most
> destructive forces at large in the world."
>
Again, that absolutism has always been there -- and we
don't need the stupid cliche of 9/11 to comprehend
that fact.
> That sounds like a admonishment against the
> fundamentalist thinking
> that seems reflected in THE PASSION (and many other
> places in the
> world), but more to the point, I think he's asking
> us to resist
> making categorical dismissals and open ourselves and
> contend honestly
> with the power of cinema evident in this film, how
> it embodies a
> return to a kind of overwhelming primacy of image,
> sensation,
> emotion, the kind of rapture that cinephiles and
> churchgoers alike
> yearn for in their respective pursuits."
Really? Well so did "The Wild Bunch."
The dilemma
> that becomes
> apparent is that what we find so abhorrent in this
> film is
> inseparable from what we yearn for in the ultimate
> cinematic
> experience, one that somehow goes beyond mundane
> convention, defies
> all explanation and for those enraptured by it,
> requires no defense.
> If anything in THE PASSION is to be attacked, it is
> Cinema.
>
> I really want to see SALO now (not just because it
> may be an even
> more relevant point of comparision to THE PASSION
> than the oft-
> referenced GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW, but because I've
> heard people
> comparing it to the photos of Abu Ghraib).
>
I hope to be writing an article about that very thing
shortly. The Abu Ghraib photos are quite like "plates
in an encyclopedia" as Barthes said of "Salo." But
they've been artlessly contrived and Lynddie England
is no Helene Surgere.
__________________________________
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10026
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 10:05pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> In the interest of settling - or perpetuating - an argument on
another
> discussion board, I'd like to get some responses to the following:
>
> How would we characterize the reputations of YOUNG MR. LINCOLN and
> DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK? Are they considered canon films, and if so,
> by whom? When? What was written about them?
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Jaime
I find the very notion of a "canon" and films that are canonical
and films that are not rather unsettling and probably superfluous
even if it can be of help to some in a pedagogical perspective.
Unless you are easily browbeaten into accepting whatever current doxa
prevails you'll probably have your own "canon". Should we care
whether such or such film is or is not within so and so's "canon"? I
consider "Wagon Master" one of Ford's masterpieces. I doubt that it
belongs in any Fordian "canon" but why should I care? (Tag claims
it's his favorite Ford, so I'm not alone). I also think "Drums" is a
great, underrated Ford.
Anyway a "canon" will change over the years with tastes and
fashions. Remember that Cahiers (not only Truffaut ) and many others
(indeed almost everybody!) dismissed "The Searchers" -- now
considered almost universally one of the greatest Fords, if not the
greatest. There was a time when "The Informer" was widely considered
his masterpiece...
The CdC piece on "Lincoln" may have helped place the film in
some "classical Hollywood cinema" canon but the article at the time
struck me as stating and overstating the obvious in fashionable
jargon (which understandably annoyed Lourcelles).
10027
From: Raymond P.
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 1:50am
Subject: Re: Hollywood Reporter / Cannes
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Lieberman"
> Quentin Tarantino is the head of the jury, so 2046 is the favorite to win, as his Rolling
Thunder productions released "Chungking Express" in the mid 1990s. Zhang Yimou has a
good shot because QT is
> releasing "Hero" in the states.
Zhang Yimou's HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS is not in competiton.
10028
From: Raymond P.
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 1:51am
Subject: Re: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Darr"
>
> > > Wow. I guess I made a major screw-up there, but are you really
> > > certain this is how it works?
> >
> > Oh yes - I speak Thai. In fact, I was the translator at the Hong
> Kong Film Festival when THE
> > ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY played here.
>
> Thanks for setting me straight. I'll go hide now.
>
> -Brian
It was a small mistake - no worries! :)
Raymond
10029
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 1:53am
Subject: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
>
> I really want to see SALO now (not just because it may be an even
> more relevant point of comparision to THE PASSION than the oft-
> referenced GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW, but because I've heard people
> comparing it to the photos of Abu Ghraib).
>
> Kevin
>
This is one of the most mindboggling statements I have read in a
very long time. Whatever the reasons to want to see SALO (and there
are both good and bad ones)I would think the photos of Abu Ghraib
should be the least compelling. Those photos are "real life"
pornography of the kind you can find in huge quantities on the
internet -- except that on the internet they are not usually about
real prisoners being tortured -- but about people "pretending" (Safe,
Sane and Consensual, you know)-- although the line between pretending
and the real thing sometimes becomes blurred (and some people
actually reject SSC). To me SALO is repulsive (no matter Pasolini's
artistry) because it embraces and delights in the same obscenity it
claims to be condemning. Yes there is always "ambivalence" in sexual
matters, but I tend to draw the line somewhere. Gibson's film (which
I happen NOT to dislike) has nothing to do with those photos
(although yes Pasolini has those lovely boys on a leash and stuff)
except in the very general sense that the pornography of violence
ultimately is always the same. A lot depends on how you approach it,
though.
10030
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 2:23am
Subject: Re: My Son John: ending and essence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
> And this is precisely why "My Son John" is such an
> important a gay movie. FAR more than "Cruising." ...
> Walker's reactions to an interplay with his parents
> are fairly precise evocations (be it through accident
> or design) of the gay dispora. Alienated from one's
> own parents because of sexual orientation -- not
> conscious decision to 'revolt" -- gays and lesbians
> spend the first half of their lives in flight from
> their own homes and the second half trying to return
> to it in either coporeal or psychic fashion.
The unexplained phone calls and the general aura of concealment
certainly point to the film's gay underbelly, plus Robert
Walker's performance captures this alienation where he goes
through the motions of loving son but is holding back several sets
of truths that he judges his mother can't handle. As Dan noted,
the pivotal scene comes when Mother suddenly perceives the
patronizing edge to his words.
To me, a further tip-off comes when John's mother says, "Aww, you
have a girlfriend", and he instantly launches into a nervously
overelaborate "explanation". It's interesting that the original
ad campaign in 1952 featured the following (wildly misleading) text:
"I was guilty to this extent, Mother. We were very intimate…very
intimate indeed," although this neglects to specify the gender of
"we".
Incidentally, my objections to the film's tonal clashes were
rooted in seeing it on the small screen, where Helen Hayes'
gestures seemed both theatrically studied and much too broad.
In the proper dimensions of the big screen, though, they have
the right space and context to breathe, even though they are
still risky acting choices. Size matters!
> "My Son John" presents the classic image of the "good son" who
> is "corrupted" by "outside forces" -- a sickeningly
> precise embodiment to the crippling
> anti-intellectualism of American life that persists
today.
McCarey's story, remember, finds that only two books are
necessary: the Bible and the cookbook. Unlike any of the other
anti-commie films, the ultimate message here is: it's a bad idea
to be a communist because it'll put your mother through hell.
It's also possible to look at the film as a war between father and
son for the mind of the mother. At the end, we know who won
when she tells Dad, "You've got more wisdom than all of us".
>This was reaching a crisis point during the
> period in which the film was made, as the
>gay/communist connection was all over the place, what
>with Burgess and MacLean in England and Chambers and
> Hiss in the U.S.
>I've just finished reading Deborah Jowitt's excellent
> new biography of Jerome Robbins where the
> gay/communist interface literally explodes.
Arthur Laurents' memoir, Open Book (a title not unlike Open
Secret!), sure was unforgiving about Jerome Robbins: "His death,
for me, was the death of a famous choreographer, not a person…
the theatre would miss him, I wouldn't".
--Robert Keser
10031
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 3:35am
Subject: Drums and Canons
Jaime's question about the status of DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK led me back to
Robin Wood's interesting piece on the film in CINEACTION (Spring 1987). His
first para could be a posting to this group!
"DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK is generally the least valued of the three films
Ford made in 1939, and perhaps the finest. It also offers one of the
completest [sic] elaborations in the classical Hollywood cinema of a
positively conceived ideology of America - an ideology artistically
validated within the workings of the film by the intensity of Ford's
commitment to it, whatever we may think of it politically".
The essay ends five pages later with the thought that the film's "idealism
now appears so much more vulnerable than Ford could have intended".
On another note, I am fascinated by how director-canons shift from country
to country. Perhaps most cinephile-cultures agree that VERTIGO is Hitch's
greatest - but almost no two Welles fans can agree on his best!! The example
of Lang is striking: I think it is fair to say that in France MOONFLEET is
generally regarded as one of his highest masterpieces - I once heard Raymond
Bellour say that "we French of course regard MOONFLEET as Lang's greatest
film" - whereas in English you can hardly find a positive, or extended
discussion of it (at least in 'hard copy' sources - I haven't done a
Net-search on it yet) - an exclusion reinforced by the veil of silence drawn
over this film in Tom Gunning's massive and otherwise brilliant book on
Lang. And indeed, when I wrote about the film (which I absolutely love), I
found it easier to get it published in French than in English!!! It's a
'taste' thing no doubt, but taste always has fascinating cultural
determinations ... (Completely trivial footnote: when I last saw MOONFLEET
in Paris about a year and a half ago, I realised that sitting a few seats
down from me was ... a completely rapt Jacques Rozier!!!)
I would like to hear other people's thoughts on 'canon differences'.
Adrian
10032
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 3:44am
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
> I find the very notion of a "canon" and films that are canonical
> and films that are not rather unsettling and probably superfluous
> even if it can be of help to some in a pedagogical perspective.
> Unless you are easily browbeaten into accepting whatever current doxa
> prevails you'll probably have your own "canon".
I am not easily browbeaten, Jean-Pierre. Thank you.
-Jaime
10033
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:11am
Subject: Re: Drums and Canons
Robin Wood's article:
> "DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK is generally the least valued of the three films
> Ford made in 1939, and perhaps the finest. It also offers one of the
> completest [sic] elaborations in the classical Hollywood cinema of a
> positively conceived ideology of America - an ideology artistically
> validated within the workings of the film by the intensity of Ford's
> commitment to it, whatever we may think of it politically".
This reminds me of Dave Kehr's comment that RIO BRAVO is "the most
optimistic masterpiece on film, valiantly shoring fragments against
human ruin." A notion Wood also expresses about the Hawks film in his
BFI Film Classics volume. This seems a recurring idea among auteurs
like Hawks, Ford, Milius?, Riefenstahl - to create cinematic worlds
that function to convey audiences and characters toward a utopian
existence (or at least to articulate the possibility of one), despite
small or very large problems with the films, i.e. "whatever we may
think of it politically." (Unless I've taken his argument around the
bend, in which case tell me.)
On the other hand, Fritz Lang's utopian visions are rare indeed, even
when he has the opportunity to tell stories of White Man's Adventures
in the Unspoiled East (as with the Indian Epic), he's unable to give
up the insidious world that Mabuse built: hidden trapdoors, secret
passages, intrigue and plotting and conspiracy.
And Sam Fuller's ideas of optimism frequently reject the social for
the private - the guardedly personal, at that, so that the most
valiant act in all his films isn't when Skip defeats the Red Menace in
the New York City subway station, but when he rescues Moe from being
buried in Potter's Field.
-Jaime
10034
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:13am
Subject: Re: Most incompetent professional film review ever?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Raymond P."
> 3) [Tropical Malady] is actually the FOURTH feature film by the director.
>
> For a professional organization like the Hollywood Reporter, it is incredibly bad. And
> obviousy Mr. Honeycutt has no knowledge at all about the director's previous works.
Well, would you believe that now A.O. Scott in the New York Times (who almost certainly should know better) has also called it A.W.'s second feature.
(Probably to be corrected in a later edition...) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/movies/21CANN.html?pagewanted=2
10035
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:14am
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
I
> consider "Wagon Master" one of Ford's masterpieces. I doubt that it
> belongs in any Fordian "canon" but why should I care? (Tag claims
> it's his favorite Ford, so I'm not alone).
Add Sarris to that.
>
> The CdC piece on "Lincoln" may have helped place the film in
> some "classical Hollywood cinema" canon but the article at the time
> struck me as stating and overstating the obvious in fashionable
> jargon (which understandably annoyed Lourcelles).
Sounds like you guys remember what you could understand of the piece,
which therefore struck you as obvious (tautology) - great chunks of
it weren't obvious.
10036
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:25am
Subject: Re: Drums and Canons
Canon formation is an interesting topic. I recommend Frank
Kermode's "Forms of Attention," which contains some good case
histories, and my fershlugginer mentor Harold Bloom's Poetry and
Repression - more interesting than his intro to The Western Canon,
also recommended. Bloom's idea is that we misread an artwork in order
to turn it into a classic. (He offers "antithetical" readings of some
Blake lyrics which have become canonical to illustrate this.) I once
planned to do a study of one aspect of how that happened w. Vertigo.
Michael Wilson wrote the presskits for all five Universal re-releases
in the 80s, and he gave me the materials he submitted; what had been
left out or changed in the published versions was an excellent
example of how we create classics - particularly re: Vertigo.
Canon formation is part of culture - it can't be wished away. As I
wrote to ER, I believe the origin of the term - check me if I'm
wrong - was the decision of some early Church Council of which books
would be let into the Christian Bible.
10037
From: Zach Campbell
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:29am
Subject: Re: Drums and Canons
Bill:
> Canon formation is part of culture - it can't be wished away. As I
> wrote to ER, I believe the origin of the term - check me if I'm
> wrong - was the decision of some early Church Council of which
> books would be let into the Christian Bible.
I thought the origin was with Greek sculpture, particularly the
one 'perfect' example of contrapposto by the famous sculptor whose
name eludes me tonight. The canon is the perfect example or body
from which we can learn and compare our own work or knowledge ...
--Zach
10038
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:51am
Subject: Re: Re: My Son John: ending and essence
--- Robert Keser
>
> Arthur Laurents' memoir, Open Book (a title not
> unlike Open
> Secret!), sure was unforgiving about Jerome Robbins:
> "His death,
> for me, was the death of a famous choreographer, not
> a person…
> the theatre would miss him, I wouldn't".
>
Actually it's "Original Story By." Larents agreed to
talk with me for my book and we had scheduled an
interview, but then I had my stroke and was unable to
go to New York. He told me he was writing the memoir
at the time. I knew all the particulars of his life --
public and "private" -- anyway. But it goes without
saying that he and he alone had all the "juicy"
details.
Farley Granger is penning his memoirs so we'll get to
hear HIS side of their affair sometime soon -- plus
etails about the shooting of "Rope," "Strangers on a
Train" and "Senso." For an actor without much in the
way of "range," Granger managed to grace three very
great films in a completely unique way.
>
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10039
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:57am
Subject: Re: Drums and Canons
--- Adrian Martin
The example
> of Lang is striking: I think it is fair to say that
> in France MOONFLEET is
> generally regarded as one of his highest
> masterpieces - I once heard Raymond
> Bellour say that "we French of course regard
> MOONFLEET as Lang's greatest
> film" - whereas in English you can hardly find a
> positive, or extended
> discussion of it (at least in 'hard copy' sources -
> I haven't done a
> Net-search on it yet) - an exclusion reinforced by
> the veil of silence drawn
> over this film in Tom Gunning's massive and
> otherwise brilliant book on
> Lang. And indeed, when I wrote about the film (which
> I absolutely love), I
> found it easier to get it published in French than
> in English!!! It's a
> 'taste' thing no doubt, but taste always has
> fascinating cultural
> determinations ... (Completely trivial footnote:
> when I last saw MOONFLEET
> in Paris about a year and a half ago, I realised
> that sitting a few seats
> down from me was ... a completely rapt Jacques
> Rozier!!!)
>
> I would like to hear other people's thoughts on
> 'canon differences'.
>
Well Bellour and Rozier are right. And in France at
least "Moonfleet" is canonical. Rivette screened it
for his entire cast prior to the start of shooting his
pirate movie "Noroit."
Interesting too that Liliane Montevecchi, whose gypsy
d
ance is a highlight of "Moonfleet" went on to star on
Broadway in "Nne" -- Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston's
musical version of Fellini's "8 1/2"
She also sings "Ah Paris!" in "Follies in Concert"
which is also available on DVD.
I have "Moonfleet" on laserdisc.
__________________________________
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10040
From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 5:06am
Subject: Re: My Son John: ending and essence
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> >
> > Arthur Laurents' memoir, Open Book
> >
> Actually it's "Original Story By."
And I had the book open right in front of me, too!
>
> Farley Granger is penning his memoirs so we'll get to
> hear HIS side of their affair sometime soon -- plus
> etails about the shooting of "Rope," "Strangers on a
> Train" and "Senso." For an actor without much in the
> way of "range," Granger managed to grace three very
> great films in a completely unique way.
> >
...plus They Live By Night (and arguably Minnelli's "Mademoiselle")..
--Robert Keser
10041
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 6:35am
Subject: Re: Drums and Canons
> > Canon formation is part of culture - it can't be wished away. As
I
> > wrote to ER, I believe the origin of the term - check me if I'm
> > wrong - was the decision of some early Church Council of which
> > books would be let into the Christian Bible.
>
> I thought the origin was with Greek sculpture, particularly the
> one 'perfect' example of contrapposto by the famous sculptor whose
> name eludes me tonight. The canon is the perfect example or body
> from which we can learn and compare our own work or knowledge ...
>
> --Zach
Nope, I looked it up. It's an RC concept.
10042
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 1:29pm
Subject: SALO sites
I know many of you have tremendous libraries and resources
available, but for those of us limited to info available of the
internet (for which I am grateful), I want to re-post this site
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/filmdirectors/
{{ "Helpful site which has collated references to journal
articles
on a large number of directors and their work ... A good site
to use for research" British Film Institute
website
"A great site … valuable resource" Senses of Cinema}}
where I found the following SALO articles available
http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/salo/foreword.html
http://libertus.net/censor/odocs/huntley_salo.html
http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/salo/nowellsmith.html
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/salo.html
http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cine_doc_detai
l.pl/cine_img?22421?22421?1
10043
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 1:31pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
> >
> > The CdC piece on "Lincoln" may have helped place the film in
> > some "classical Hollywood cinema" canon but the article at the
time
> > struck me as stating and overstating the obvious in fashionable
> > jargon (which understandably annoyed Lourcelles).
>
> Sounds like you guys remember what you could understand of the
piece,
> which therefore struck you as obvious (tautology) - great chunks of
> it weren't obvious.
So you're saying that "us guys" can only understand the obvious?
Thanks!
JPC
10044
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 1:50pm
Subject: Moonfleet
My being French no doubt accounts for my undying admiration for
MOONFLEET.
By the way, the French release title is "Les Contrebandiers de
Moonfleet" but I've never heard anybody (in speech or print) refer to
it as anything but "Moonfleet". It was not released in France until
1960, and in one (non-first-run) theater only -- appropriately the
Mac Mahon.
10045
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 1:54pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
>
> > I find the very notion of a "canon" and films that are
canonical
> > and films that are not rather unsettling and probably superfluous
> > even if it can be of help to some in a pedagogical perspective.
> > Unless you are easily browbeaten into accepting whatever current
doxa
> > prevails you'll probably have your own "canon".
>
> I am not easily browbeaten, Jean-Pierre. Thank you.
>
> -Jaime
I was not meaning you, Jaime! I was speaking in general. Guess I
should have said "unless one is easily browbeaten"... However no one
is completely immune to the doxa and its canonical categorizing.
JPC
10046
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 2:07pm
Subject: can be of help to some in a pedagogical perspective
When I was in medical school, there was so much to learn
(esoteric diseases were taught because they were
good models of medical science, but you would probably
never see a patient with the disease) that I had a rule:
If I hear the same thing three times, I'm going to learn it!
Somewhat similar in cinema ... the more I hear about
particular films (from good sources), the more I am
interested in seeing them.
10047
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 2:41pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
> I was not meaning you, Jaime! I was speaking in general. Guess I
> should have said "unless one is easily browbeaten"... However no one
> is completely immune to the doxa and its canonical categorizing.
No problem, sorry to fly off the handle passive-aggressively.
I wish we could make it understood, just as we mean "one" when we
frequently say "you," that on this board, among these many fine minds,
that we're speaking "objectively" about canons, not cowering at the
base of their pedestals. Canons contribute heavily to the shaping of
film history (or our perception of it, which may be the same thing),
so I like to think we can take some pedagogical readings, just to know
where some films or others generally stand, etc.
Was it Sarris who held WEE WILLIE WINKIE to be one of the most Fordian
of his '30s films, moreso than something like STAGECOACH or THE HURRICANE?
-Jaime
10048
From: dave heaton
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 2:58pm
Subject: Re: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
I did an interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul last year - it was over
email, so not especially in-depth, but perhaps some of you who appreciate
his films might find it of interest:
http://www.erasingclouds.com/01april.html
I'm one of those people who loved "Mysterious Object at Noon" and am still
eagerly awaiting the chance to see "Blissfully Yours" and his other works.
dave
>--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
>wrote:
>
>Don't go hiding for too long -- we need more people to talk up A.W.'s
>movies -- and Asian cinema in general.
>
>--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Darr"
>wrote:
> >
> > > > Wow. I guess I made a major screw-up there, but are you really
> > > > certain this is how it works?
> > >
> > > Oh yes - I speak Thai. In fact, I was the translator at the Hong
> > Kong Film Festival when THE
> > > ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY played here.
> >
> > Thanks for setting me straight. I'll go hide now.
> >
> > -Brian
>
_________________________________________________________________
Learn to simplify your finances and your life in Streamline Your Life from
MSN Money. http://special.msn.com/money/0405streamline.armx
10049
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 3:26pm
Subject: Re: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
And it was "Wee Willie Winkie" that spurred Graham
Greene to compose the greatest review in the history
of film criticism.
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> > I was not meaning you, Jaime! I was speaking in
> general. Guess I
> > should have said "unless one is easily
> browbeaten"... However no one
> > is completely immune to the doxa and its canonical
> categorizing.
>
> No problem, sorry to fly off the handle
> passive-aggressively.
>
> I wish we could make it understood, just as we mean
> "one" when we
> frequently say "you," that on this board, among
> these many fine minds,
> that we're speaking "objectively" about canons, not
> cowering at the
> base of their pedestals. Canons contribute heavily
> to the shaping of
> film history (or our perception of it, which may be
> the same thing),
> so I like to think we can take some pedagogical
> readings, just to know
> where some films or others generally stand, etc.
>
> Was it Sarris who held WEE WILLIE WINKIE to be one
> of the most Fordian
> of his '30s films, moreso than something like
> STAGECOACH or THE HURRICANE?
>
> -Jaime
>
>
__________________________________
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10050
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 3:57pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> > >
> > > The CdC piece on "Lincoln" may have helped place the film in
> > > some "classical Hollywood cinema" canon but the article at the
> time
> > > struck me as stating and overstating the obvious in fashionable
> > > jargon (which understandably annoyed Lourcelles).
> >
> > Sounds like you guys remember what you could understand of the
> piece,
> > which therefore struck you as obvious (tautology) - great chunks
of
> > it weren't obvious.
>
> So you're saying that "us guys" can only understand the
obvious?
> Thanks!
> JPC
Nope - I'm saying that if what you remember of this article was
obvious, you are only remembering part of it - the part you could
understand without working at it, and putting some time and effort in
to do so, which is your choice, and perfectly fair - or you are a
genius theoretician for whom the fact that the signifier controls the
subject, for example, was already obvious without further reading or
reflection. Was it already obvious to you - is it obvious today --
that Lincoln as the irepresentative of the Law occupies a place in
Ford's unconscious mythology which belongs to the Mother? If so, my
personal stovepipe hat is off to you and Lourcelles both as genius
auteurist theoreticians too. It took a fair amount of work for me to
grasp the sense and the implications of that -- the fruits can be
seen in my Ford in the Thirties article. But it's UNfair to say that
the article stated things that were already obvious in fashionable
jargon if you really mean that what you remember is what you could
understand on one quick and probably angered reading - that's a
tautology. You were geting out of it what you already knew.
By the way, one of the things that the "easy" part of the article
sets out is that this fictional episode in Lincoln's life was
concocted to foreshadow later events - the mother's refusal to choose
between the brothers prefiguring Lincoln's supposed refusal to choose
between South and North - and selectively: hence the absence of any
anti-slavery sentiments in young Mr. Lincoln. Was this obvious to you
before you read it? It wasn't to me, but I was pretty green then. I
imagine that some of the points about the film as a vehicle for
bourgeois ideology WERE already obvious to you when you read it, but
they were a revelation to me. I can still remember watching Sutter's
Gold not long afterward and realizing, with a shock, that there might
be something to what the anonymous authors of the Lincoln piece were
saying about H'wd. And I repeat, that part of the article -
the "easy" part for a very cultivated reader - probably WAS obvious
to you already.
But I don't think that the observation about "the refusal to choose"
was an obvious thing to say...or that it was said in a jargon-laden
way. As I recall much of the article was designed to be relatively
reader-friendly. I would just guess that your reading of it was
selective and unfriendly. You weren't alone - Dan says he read it in
a rage. Greg Ford told me it was the one piece from the Cahiers Tel
Quelist period that made it all the way to the West Coast while he
was living here, and I'm sure that some of those readers threw it
down in disgust before even finishing it. I still think it's a
terrific job (except for the historical part) and one you might find
well worth rereading someday, now that the polemical passions of the
period have (somewhat) receded.
10051
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 3:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
> Was it Sarris who held WEE WILLIE WINKIE to be one of the most Fordian
> of his '30s films, moreso than something like STAGECOACH or THE HURRICANE?
WEE WILLIE WINKIE is a good film! I do believe Sarris had kind words
for it in his Ford book.
If one can handle Ford's direction of actors in general, it seems to me
that Shirley Temple should pose no additional problem. She's broad, and
she signposts her emotions, but Ford often encourages that behavior
anyway. Sometimes that's not incompatible with emotional complexity. - Dan
10052
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 3:59pm
Subject: Re: can be of help to some in a pedagogical perspective
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Elizabeth Anne Nolan"
wrote:
> When I was in medical school, there was so much to learn
> (esoteric diseases were taught because they were
> good models of medical science, but you would probably
> never see a patient with the disease) that I had a rule:
>
> If I hear the same thing three times, I'm going to learn it!
>
> Somewhat similar in cinema ... the more I hear about
> particular films (from good sources), the more I am
> interested in seeing them.
Very sensible, if you add this caveat: In The Hunting of the Snark
the Bellman tells the crew: "What I tell you three times is true."
And you know what happened to them!
10053
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:02pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt
> > Was it Sarris who held WEE WILLIE WINKIE to be one of the most
Fordian
> > of his '30s films, moreso than something like STAGECOACH or THE
HURRICANE?
>
> WEE WILLIE WINKIE is a good film! I do believe Sarris had kind
words
> for it in his Ford book.
>
> If one can handle Ford's direction of actors in general, it seems
to me
> that Shirley Temple should pose no additional problem. She's
broad, and
> she signposts her emotions, but Ford often encourages that behavior
> anyway. Sometimes that's not incompatible with emotional
complexity. - Dan
I love WEE WILLIE WINKIE - a very important film for Ford's evolution
in the 30s - and I love Shirley. I strongly recommend YOUNG PEOPLE to
all in the group - esp. if you can find it in b&w.
10054
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:03pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
I also recommend reading CHILD STAR, volume one of her autobiography.
It's wonderful.
10055
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:05pm
Subject: Re: SALO sites
> "A great site … valuable resource" Senses of Cinema}}
>
>
>
> where I found the following SALO articles available
One more recommendation, from the other end of the spectrum: Gary
indiana's BFI monograph on SALO is really good.
10056
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:11pm
Subject: what's a Prunella?
>
> Oh Prunella!
>
> ALL Religion is about Death. That's all that it's
> about. God is what we have invented to stave off the
> reality of our demise. He's our Big Invisible Bi-Pole
> Daddy in the Sky who "loves us" so much that he just
> has to kill us, the better to do so.
You sound bored. Well noone said that Death can't be a real drag at
times.
Well of course these concepts are human constructs, but that doesn't
mean that in deconstructing them (as manifested in Gibson's film) we
come up with a big hateful zero. I guess it comes down to whether
one feels that there is something ineffable to it -- obviously many
do not, while as for the rest of us...
> Again, that absolutism has always been there -- and we
> don't need the stupid cliche of 9/11 to comprehend
> that fact.
But there's no denying that 9/11 has catalyzed this absolutism both
in Bushian America's response to it and the Islamic world's response
to that response. Yeah it's a cliche, but it's a pretty damn
critical one I would say? Please don't tell me you're not going to
vote because the choices aren't original enough?
>
> > That sounds like a admonishment against the
> > fundamentalist thinking
> > that seems reflected in THE PASSION (and many other
> > places in the
> > world), but more to the point, I think he's asking
> > us to resist
> > making categorical dismissals and open ourselves and
> > contend honestly
> > with the power of cinema evident in this film, how
> > it embodies a
> > return to a kind of overwhelming primacy of image,
> > sensation,
> > emotion, the kind of rapture that cinephiles and
> > churchgoers alike
> > yearn for in their respective pursuits."
>
> Really? Well so did "The Wild Bunch."
Yeah, another film I have problems with (I once blew up at a friend
who seemed too contented with comparing the Mexicans in the movie to
the ants that get stepped on in the opening) but whose mythical and
cinematic impact I cannot deny. I just feel that blanket
denunciation isn't get me very far.
Look forward to your SALO article (hopefully I'll have seen the film
by then)
Kevin
10057
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 4:39pm
Subject: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
JP, not having seen the film, I obviously know a lot less about SALO
than you do, so in a sense I can't be fully accountable to my reasons
for wanting to see it other than a general curiosity provoked by a
few people comparing it to the images of a current event. I don't
know what relevance if any the movie and the current "reality" have
with each other... though I will say that your claim that the
film "embraces and delights in the same obscenity it claims to be
condemning" certainly speaks for the news media's handling of this
atrocity.
In general I can't get my head around Pasolini. One of my dearest
online correspondents is absolutely devoted to him, and based on what
she's claimed for him (a true radical who challenged the bourgeois
assumptions of both mainstream society and the cinema itself) I
wonder why I don't love his films more unconditionally, say along the
lines of Dreyer, who also has this propensity for presenting
impossibilities that shake the viewer's conception of what's real and
true and acceptable.
I also have a problem with sex in movies -- not in a Puritanical
sense, mind you, but how I feel it's often presented in a cheap,
exploitive, overwrought or self-laudatory way to make an artistic
statement. CLOCKWORK ORANGE, SEVEN BEAUTIES, STRAW DOGS, the rape in
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS, all make my shit list. On the other hand, I
find IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES breathtakingly frank and sincere --
even if it's categorically pornography as its critics claim, I'd
borrow Manny Farber's distinction and call it "termite porn" instead
of the "White Elephant porn" exemplified in those titles I listed.
Did you ever get to write anything on THE PASSION? I'm still upset
that they basically censored you. My reason for saying that THE
PASSION has more in common with SALO than with THE GOSPEL OF ST.
MATTHEW can somehow be summed up in Catherine Breillat's written
reason for listing SALO in her top ten films of all time: "Because
it's essential it exists and it's terrible to watch." There's
something honestly raw and primal in Gibson's vision of humankind's
worst-case scenario and what intellectual, artistic, or just plain
emotional ground we might gain from having such a terrifying vision
exist, to be forced to contend with what bestial brutality lurks
within us, even in our attempts at describing the divine (or does
Bruno Dumont have the sole patent on this?). I think if Guy Maddin's
new film had half the genuine passion and conviction of Gibson's
movie, it would be the true masterpiece that everyone's claiming it
to be -- as Armond White has said, critics seem too eager and
relieved to praise art if it is couched safely in quotation marks.
Kevin
10058
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 5:07pm
Subject: Re: what's a Prunella?
--- Kevin Lee
>
> You sound bored.
No, just annoyed.
Well noone said that Death can't
> be a real drag at
> times.
>
Yeah. Especially during the late 80's and early 90's
when 3/4 of the people nearest and dearest to me died
of AIDS.
> Well of course these concepts are human constructs,
> but that doesn't
> mean that in deconstructing them (as manifested in
> Gibson's film) we
> come up with a big hateful zero.
He didn't deconstruct anything. He's perfectly in line
with the convulsive sado-masochism that's at the heart
of all relgion. Read Bataille.
I guess it comes
> down to whether
> one feels that there is something ineffable to it --
> obviously many
> do not, while as for the rest of us...
>
we have better ways to occupy what's left of our
lives.
> But there's no denying that 9/11 has catalyzed this
> absolutism both
> in Bushian America's response to it and the Islamic
> world's response
> to that response. Yeah it's a cliche, but it's a
> pretty damn
> critical one I would say? Please don't tell me
> you're not going to
> vote because the choices aren't original enough?
>
Oh course I'm going to vote -- even though the
"alternative" is paltry.
>
> Yeah, another film I have problems with (I once blew
> up at a friend
> who seemed too contented with comparing the Mexicans
> in the movie to
> the ants that get stepped on in the opening) but
> whose mythical and
> cinematic impact I cannot deny. I just feel that
> blanket
> denunciation isn't get me very far.
>
"The Wild Bunch" conveys the desire ofcertain males to
detroy and in the process be destroyed than anything I
know.
It was the absolutely favorite film of Jerry harvey,
who ran Los Angeles' "Z" channel for many years before
killing his wife and himself -- an event of stunning
banality if you check the figures on this.
> Look forward to your SALO article (hopefully I'll
> have seen the film
> by then)
>
What I'm planning to write isn't a review of "Salo" so
much as the use of it as a reference point in relation
to "Rummy and Wolfie's Less Than Excellent Iraqi Adventure."
__________________________________
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10059
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 5:09pm
Subject: Re: Re: SALO sites
Indeed it is. Gary's a marvelous writer. In fact I
would go so far as to say that he understands crime
better than any writer since Highsmith -- from a VERY
different perspective needless to say.
--- hotlove666
>
> > "A great site … valuable resource" Senses of
> Cinema}}
> >
> >
> >
> > where I found the following SALO articles
> available
>
> One more recommendation, from the other end of the
> spectrum: Gary
> indiana's BFI monograph on SALO is really good.
>
>
__________________________________
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10060
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 6:08pm
Subject: Re: what's a Prunella?
I think he's asking
> > > us to resist
> > > making categorical dismissals and open ourselves and
> > > contend honestly
> > > with the power of cinema evident in this film, how
> > > it embodies a
> > > return to a kind of overwhelming primacy of image,
> > > sensation,
> > > emotion, the kind of rapture that cinephiles and
> > > churchgoers alike
> > > yearn for in their respective pursuits."
> >
> > Really? Well so did "The Wild Bunch."
>
> Yeah, another film I have problems with (I once blew up at a friend
> who seemed too contented with comparing the Mexicans in the movie
to
> the ants that get stepped on in the opening) but whose mythical and
> cinematic impact I cannot deny. I just feel that blanket
> denunciation isn't get me very far.
Let me strongly recommend J. Hoberman's The Dream Life, a book I
probably wouldn't have read if I hadn't reviewed it for Cineaste, but
found fascinating when I did. The connections he makes between The
Wild Bunch and My Lai are useful and suggestive re: the connections
to be made between current films and 9/11, Abu Ghraib etc. What I
like about the book is that it very boldly (some will
argue "irresponsibly") doesn't attempt to argue rational, real-world
connections between films and events. (My Lai wasn't written about
until after The Wild Bunch wrapped.) Instead he argues for a
dreamlike primary process within which connections spontaneously
occur; I think that with Bush and 9/11 we entered another collective
dream like the one we dreamed in "the Sixties," but this one has the
affect of a nightmare.
10061
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 6:43pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
I still think it's a
> terrific job (except for the historical part) and one you might
find
> well worth rereading someday, now that the polemical passions of
the
> period have (somewhat) receded.
Obviously they have not receded, since we're having this
discussion. You're right, I have to re-read it, and I'll do it no
later than this weekend (provided I can find the issue in my piles of
old Cahiers). At the time and in the following years I read it
several times, not at all in a spirit of hostility. But I haven't
looked at it in maybe twenty years so I have some excuse if my
recollection is shaky. As far as "jargon' is concerned, it was
certainly not as bad as a lot of contemporary and later stuff (both
in CdC and in other venues).
Anyway, no matter how much impressed I am by Lourcelles's
encyclopedic knowledge and eclectic tastes, I don't care to be
put "dans le meme sac" with someone who calls one of my favorite
films ("Le Rayon vert") "one of the worst, if not the worst film"
ever made...
JPC
10062
From: programming
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 7:29pm
Subject: Chicago Filmmakers program in New York
Hi All (well, mostly those of you in NY),
Forgive the shameless self-promotion.
Wanted to let you all know about this upcoming program. If any of you are
able to attend, be sure to introduce yourself!
Best,
Patrick Friel
Thursday, June 3, 2004 -- 8:00pm
Anthology Film Archives (New York) 32 Second Ave.
CHICAGO FILMMAKERS AT 30 - SELECTIONS FROM THE FIRST DECADE
An Anniversary Tribute
Filmmakers Bill Brand, Adele Friedman, & Bruce Wood and Co-curator Patrick
Friel in Person!
Begun as Filmgroup at N.A.M.E. Gallery in 1973, Chicago Filmmakers has
become one of the leading media arts organizations in the Mid-West with
programs in film/media education, equipment rental, independent film and
video exhibition (with a focus on experimental and documentary work), and
two film festivals: Reeling: The Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film
Festival and the Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival. Tonight's
program features a selection of Chicago-made films shown during Chicago
Filmmakers' first decade.
Highlighting the program is the New York premiere of the newly preserved
(under the auspices of Chicago Filmmakers with funding from the National
Film Preservation Foundation) film Papa (1978, 30 mins.), by Allen Ross.
Papa is a lyrical and moving portrait of the filmmaker's grandfather. Using
extreme angles (the camera sometimes on its side) and "accidental" framing
of shots (many of which were filmed without looking through the viewfinder),
Ross creates a fragmented visual style which duplicates his grandfather's
fragile state. Papa is a "photographic record of a divinely shadowed
presence. It is a reflection of a kind of space my grandfather generated"
(Ross).
Also showing is Jerry's (1976, 9 mins.), a documentary on a very manic deli
owner, by Chicago legend Tom Palazzolo.
What the Fuck Are These Red Squares? (1970, 15 mins.), by Kartemquin Films,
documents a "teach-in" at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as
striking students respond to the invasion of Cambodia and the killing of
protesting students at Kent and Jackson State.
Scratchman (1980, 3 mins.): an early classic by filmmaker and cartoonist
Heather McAdams.
Adele Friedman's Sarah and Norman (1983, 4 mins.) is a tender portrait of
her father and grandmother.
Lie Back and Enjoy It (1982, 8 mins.) by JoAnn Elam.
Zip Tone Cat Tune (1972, 8 mins.) by Chicago Filmmakers' co-founder Bill
Brand: A simple home movie of a cat is reprocessed through a "Zip-a-tone"
dot pattern making a complex of layers.
A Prepared Text (1976, 6 mins.) by Dana Hodgdon: "Structural" filmmaking
with a sense of humor.
Once Upon a Time (1978, 5 mins.), by Kevin Dole and Marion Kramer, is a live
action/pixillated "cinesong."
DL #2 (Disintigration Line #2) (1970, 11 mins.): Lawrence Janiak's abstract
animation was made using organic masking and rubber based block-out
materials painted directly on strips of 16mm film.
Edge Forces (1976, 11 mins.), by Bruce Wood, "is an abstract collage of
rapid nebulous forms and calligraphic lines. The frame is used as a "canvas"
for thousands of fleeting images that try to expand beyond its confines."
All 16mm. Curated by Chicago Filmmakers' Executive Director Brenda Webb and
Program Director Patrick Friel.
$8 regular admission, $5 student/senior.
10063
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 7:36pm
Subject: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> JP, not having seen the film, I obviously know a lot less about
SALO
> than you do, so in a sense I can't be fully accountable to my
reasons
> for wanting to see it other than a general curiosity provoked by a
> few people comparing it to the images of a current event. I don't
> know what relevance if any the movie and the current "reality" have
> with each other... though I will say that your claim that the
> film "embraces and delights in the same obscenity it claims to be
> condemning" certainly speaks for the news media's handling of this
> atrocity.
>
I don't think you can compare Pasolini's attitude and the news
media's. The latter are just exploiting the public's "prurient
interest" for what ultimately is always their goal: profits
(circulation, ratings, whatever...). I think Pasolini was trying to
have his cake and eat it too. I'm pretty much convinced that he got
turned on sexually by the scenes he was directing. I don't think you
can somehow "force" yourself to write, stage and film repulsive
activities of degradation/humiliation/torture of the kind shown in
SALO, it has to be a turn on to you at some level. Then, with the
caution of "le nom de l'auteur" and the stamp of "art" you can have
your kick and denounce it too. Film Quarterly put a still from SALO
on its cover: a cute adolescent on a leash. How titillating!
.
>
> Did you ever get to write anything on THE PASSION? I'm still upset
> that they basically censored you.
I didn't write a word about The Passion so I was not
really "censored". Michel Ciment (who had asked me to see the film)
told me on the phone that since "everybody" said it was awful the
whole POSITIF staff had to wait for a screening in order to form an
opinion. But he sounded already convinced that the film was bad and
racist, anti-semitic etc... In this month's POSITIF he himself wrote
a brief note on the film saying basically what he had told me before
seing it (after the French press screenings he told me "We didn't
like it" -- the "We" being not the royal "we" but presumably
referring to the entire staff).
My reason for saying that THE
> PASSION has more in common with SALO than with THE GOSPEL OF ST.
> MATTHEW can somehow be summed up in Catherine Breillat's written
> reason for listing SALO in her top ten films of all time: "Because
> it's essential it exists and it's terrible to watch." There's
> something honestly raw and primal in Gibson's vision of humankind's
> worst-case scenario and what intellectual, artistic, or just plain
> emotional ground we might gain from having such a terrifying vision
> exist, to be forced to contend with what bestial brutality lurks
> within us, even in our attempts at describing the divine (or does
> Bruno Dumont have the sole patent on this?). I think if Guy
Maddin's
> new film had half the genuine passion and conviction of Gibson's
> movie, it would be the true masterpiece that everyone's claiming it
> to be -- as Armond White has said, critics seem too eager and
> relieved to praise art if it is couched safely in quotation marks.
>
I agree with you although I find Pasolini's sado-masochism in SALO
much more objectionable than what is universally branded as
Gibson's "sado-masochism' in La Passion. I agree with Breillat that
SALO is essential and terrible to watch, but that would never suffice
to put it on my ten best list. By the way I found the BDSM sequence
in ROMANCE one of the most affecting "sex" scenes (without any actual
sex in it) ever put on film. Talk about erotic ambivalence.
JPC
> Kevin
10064
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 7:44pm
Subject: Oasis (was: Re: can be of help to some in a pedagogical perspective
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Elizabeth Anne Nolan"
> When I was in medical school, there was so much to learn
> (esoteric diseases were taught because they were
> good models of medical science, but you would probably
> never see a patient with the disease) that I had a rule:
>
> If I hear the same thing three times, I'm going to learn it!
>
> Somewhat similar in cinema ... the more I hear about
> particular films (from good sources), the more I am
> interested in seeing them.
I usually look for some kind of interesting consensus before deciding to pay to see anything -- although on the other hand, some of my favorite films through
the years hardly seemed to have been written about at all.
Several uncommonly persuasive reviews, not least Robert Keser's in his Chicago festival report in Bright Lights, motivated me to catch Lee Chang-dong's
amazing OASIS during the two weeks it was allotted here (the second "week" consisted only of nightly 10:20 screenings in the East Village). Just briefly for
now, and on a vaguely medical note (and with no real basis for the question one way or another), I found myself wondering whether the film's extraordinary
lead actress is faithfully portraying the symptoms of cerebral palsy (if that's the disease the character has) or if she's also drawing on certain traditions
of stylized Asian mime, or perhaps something of each.
It's interesting to find oneself watching a character whose facial expressions (because of her extreme contortions) can't be "read" throughout much of the
story, although a few of her acquaintances in the film seem able to do so (even if not when it counts most)...
Also, Michael Atkinson in the Voice referred to the male protagonist as "Asperger's-esque"; when I looked up the term, I found it refers to Asperger's
Syndrome and that there's actually a website on the subject called O.A.S.I.S. (Online Asperger Syndrome Information Service or some such:
www.aspergersyndrome.org). But the website dates back to 1996, years before the film was made! The film's title, of course, refers to a picture on the wall
of the woman's room. Can this possibly be a coincidence?
10065
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 7:59pm
Subject: Oasis - now this is a Korean movie I can get behind!
That's a really neat coincidence, the O.A.S.I.S. site. It's never
explained what the woman -- and the man, for that matter, who some
have said suffers from a mild form of autism -- is diagnosed with.
One has to wonder how much that matters... You raise a really
interesting point about Moon So-ri's performance, which the second
time I watched the film kind of grated on me, it seemed too mannered
for its own good... and it made me wonder if I was being challenged
to accept it on its own terms much in the way that the film
challenges people both on and off-screen to accept the two lead
characters as dignified human beings.
All the same I think the man's performance in the film is even better
than Moon So-Ri's, I guess because I find it less gimmicky and really
tests the audience's sympathy. Well I guess Moon So-Ri's bucktoothed
mugging is a test as well...
Still, I prefer this, as well as Park Chan-wook's SYMPATHY FOR MR.
VENGEANCE, Bong Joon-ho's BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE, and especially
Jeong Jae-eun's TAKE CARE OF MY CAT (all three films starring Bae Doo-
na, one of the most remarkable actresses working anywhere today) over
Kim Ki-Duk's SPRING, SUMMER, CRAP, CRAP... AND CRAP.
10066
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 8:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- jpcoursodon
> >
> I don't think you can compare Pasolini's
> attitude and the news
> media's. The latter are just exploiting the public's
> "prurient
> interest" for what ultimately is always their goal:
> profits
> (circulation, ratings, whatever...). I think
> Pasolini was trying to
> have his cake and eat it too. I'm pretty much
> convinced that he got
> turned on sexually by the scenes he was directing. I
> don't think you
> can somehow "force" yourself to write, stage and
> film repulsive
> activities of degradation/humiliation/torture of the
> kind shown in
> SALO, it has to be a turn on to you at some level.
> Then, with the
> caution of "le nom de l'auteur" and the stamp of
> "art" you can have
> your kick and denounce it too. Film Quarterly put a
> still from SALO
> on its cover: a cute adolescent on a leash. How
> titillating!
>
I'm sorry but that's a fairly shallow reading in my
book. The key to "Salo" is that Ninetto has no role in
it. He would either have to be a victim or an
executioner and Pasolini couldn't see him as either.
That's clear from "The Paper Flower Sequence" in which
God (voiced by bernardo Berolucci) kills Ninetto
because of his lack of awareness of international news
events. What the film was actually about was Pasolini
trying to imagine Ninetto dead -- a horrible prospect.
So there are cute boys in "Salo." There are pretty
girls too. And then there's Helene Surger and Sonia
Saviange sudeenly breaking intoa scene from Paul
Vecchiali's "Femmes Femmes."
It's pretty easy to reduce Pasolini to
dirty-old-man-hood. But it's far from understanding
him.
__________________________________
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10067
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 8:23pm
Subject: Re: what's a Prunella?
Thanks, I want to check Hoberman's book out -- I'm not sure I follow
what you're saying about his linking My Lai and WILD BUNCH -- are you
saying he's arguing that it's okay to make loose associations that
describe a general psychic state of affairs in the world? If so,
this is a point I tried to argue last winter when I attacked THE LORD
OF THE RINGS in terms of its relevance to today's military political
climate. I have to tell you, I got derided like you wouldn't believe
by people who insisted that it was strictly a fantasy, no more no
less. Sometimes people take things too literally and lose sight of
the big picture.
Sort of following what David wrote (that anecdote is chilling), I
really have a problem with self-romanticizing male chauvinist films
like WILD BUNCH, TAXI DRIVER and APOCALYPSE NOW that glorify their
own hubristic ruin. I feel that ideally these movies should end with
a chorus of little brown brothers laughing their asses off on a
hillside as they witness white civilization blowing itself to
smithereens and a final caption reading "GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF,
GRINGO -- THE END"
Of course, the problem is that these were the same movies that
enthralled me as a teenager, and the fact is that they're pretty damn
alluring (TAXI DRIVER would be one of my favorite films of all time
if I didn't find it ideologically wrong-headed). Therein lies the
dilemma.
Kevin
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> I think he's asking
> > > > us to resist
> > > > making categorical dismissals and open ourselves and
> > > > contend honestly
> > > > with the power of cinema evident in this film, how
> > > > it embodies a
> > > > return to a kind of overwhelming primacy of image,
> > > > sensation,
> > > > emotion, the kind of rapture that cinephiles and
> > > > churchgoers alike
> > > > yearn for in their respective pursuits."
> > >
> > > Really? Well so did "The Wild Bunch."
> >
> > Yeah, another film I have problems with (I once blew up at a
friend
> > who seemed too contented with comparing the Mexicans in the movie
> to
> > the ants that get stepped on in the opening) but whose mythical
and
> > cinematic impact I cannot deny. I just feel that blanket
> > denunciation isn't get me very far.
>
> Let me strongly recommend J. Hoberman's The Dream Life, a book I
> probably wouldn't have read if I hadn't reviewed it for Cineaste,
but
> found fascinating when I did. The connections he makes between The
> Wild Bunch and My Lai are useful and suggestive re: the connections
> to be made between current films and 9/11, Abu Ghraib etc. What I
> like about the book is that it very boldly (some will
> argue "irresponsibly") doesn't attempt to argue rational, real-
world
> connections between films and events. (My Lai wasn't written about
> until after The Wild Bunch wrapped.) Instead he argues for a
> dreamlike primary process within which connections spontaneously
> occur; I think that with Bush and 9/11 we entered another
collective
> dream like the one we dreamed in "the Sixties," but this one has
the
> affect of a nightmare.
10068
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 9:01pm
Subject: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
It's pretty easy to reduce Pasolini to
> dirty-old-man-hood. But it's far from understanding
> him.
>
>
> I didn't reduce him to dirty-old-man-hood (and he wasn't even an
old man, although he was getting there...) but I think it's being in
denial to refuse to acknowledge the erotic kick he obviously derived
from his neo-sadian exploration. And it's not all that easy
to "reduce" him anyway since there is almost universal admiration
among cognoscenti for this and other Pasolini films. Only shallow
people like me can be foolish enough to state the obvious.
> JPC
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Domains – Claim yours for only $14.70/year
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10069
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 9:26pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
As far as "jargon' is concerned, it was
> certainly not as bad as a lot of contemporary and later stuff (both
> in CdC and in other venues).
Actually, except for the part attributed to Oudart, which was the
germ for the "text," Daney told me he ended up writing it himself,
because the "collective" wasn't getting it done and they had to go to
press.
>
> Anyway, no matter how much impressed I am by Lourcelles's
> encyclopedic knowledge and eclectic tastes, I don't care to be
> put "dans le meme sac" with someone who calls one of my favorite
> films ("Le Rayon vert") "one of the worst, if not the worst film"
> ever made...
That IS a strange statement.
10070
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 9:41pm
Subject: Re: what's a Prunella?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> Thanks, I want to check Hoberman's book out -- I'm not sure I
follow
> what you're saying about his linking My Lai and WILD BUNCH -- are
you
> saying he's arguing that it's okay to make loose associations that
> describe a general psychic state of affairs in the world?
Essentially, yes. A fascinating recent case - simultaneously noted by
Andy Klein and Jonathan Rosenbaum, neither of whom quite knew what to
make of it - was Mystic River as an allegory of 9/11: When a
community is devastated by a horrific event, the leaders track down
and execute the wrong guy (= invading Iraq). I'm sure Clint didn't
mean it that way, but there it is.
Hoberman's book does not theorize how these things happen, and
neither do I in my review, but you might find it useful to look up in
the current Cineaste, because I went to some trouble to make it
easier for the unsuspecting reader to get into what is actually a
very difficult book by at least spelling out how I think it functions.
My one attempt at tying JH's method to some theory was quoting a
remark by Andre Breton to the efect that history can be studied in
terms of both manifest and latent content, but he never took that any
further as far as I know. It seems to me that Hoberman has.
10071
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 9:51pm
Subject: Re: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- jpcoursodon
> > I didn't reduce him to dirty-old-man-hood (and
> he wasn't even an
> old man, although he was getting there...)
He was still very hot. I had the pleasure of meeting
him at the New York Film Festival in 1966 and again in
1969 when he came to the Museum of Modern Art to
introduce a screening of "Teorema." Infinitely more
soignee than Foucault -- who I met here in L.A. in the
late 80's and MORE than qualifies as an S&M adept.
but I
> think it's being in
> denial to refuse to acknowledge the erotic kick he
> obviously derived
> from his neo-sadian exploration.
But that's a general category. More specificity is
needed. Easy as pie to identify an erotic scenario
when adapting Sade, or inserting shots of cute boys in
"La Ricotta." The far more wide-ranging erotic
scenario of Pasolini's love of Ninetto (which took
MANY different forms) is another matter entirely.
And it's not all
> that easy
> to "reduce" him anyway since there is almost
> universal admiration
> among cognoscenti for this and other Pasolini films.
> Only shallow
> people like me can be foolish enough to state the
> obvious.
Oh you're not THAT shallow, J-P.
And it's waht happens AFter the obvious is stated
that's most important.
__________________________________
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10072
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 9:59pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> >
> > Anyway, no matter how much impressed I am by Lourcelles's
> > encyclopedic knowledge and eclectic tastes, I don't care to be
> > put "dans le meme sac" with someone who calls one of my favorite
> > films ("Le Rayon vert") "one of the worst, if not the worst film"
> > ever made...
>
> That IS a strange statement.
What statement? Mine or Lourcelles? (he hates Rohmer -- and
most "New Wave" and post-New Wave directors generally -- and writes
that Rayon vert is the worst of his films but not much worse than
the "best" ones).
10073
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 10:08pm
Subject: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon
>
> > > I didn't reduce him to dirty-old-man-hood (and
> > he wasn't even an
> > old man, although he was getting there...)
>
> He was still very hot.
Please tell us about it! it's fun to dish the dirt...
I had the pleasure of meeting
> him at the New York Film Festival in 1966 and again in
> 1969 when he came to the Museum of Modern Art to
> introduce a screening of "Teorema." Infinitely more
> soignee than Foucault -- who I met here in L.A. in the
> late 80's and MORE than qualifies as an S&M adept.
>
Yes, this is well known. Too bad he (Foucault) didn't make a film
about his S&M experience.
> but I
> > think it's being in
> > denial to refuse to acknowledge the erotic kick he
> > obviously derived
> > from his neo-sadian exploration.
>
>
> And it's not all
> > that easy
> > to "reduce" him anyway since there is almost
> > universal admiration
> > among cognoscenti for this and other Pasolini films.
> > Only shallow
> > people like me can be foolish enough to state the
> > obvious.
>
>
> Oh you're not THAT shallow, J-P.
>
> Are you challenging my god-given right to shallowness?
> >
>
> __________________________________
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> Yahoo! Domains – Claim yours for only $14.70/year
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10074
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 10:09pm
Subject: Oasis / pedagogical perspective
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:
I first (and I regret only) time I saw OASIS was in JANUARY2003 at
the Palm Springs International FF. I tend to try to know the least
possible about films before I see them, other than director, writer,
star, etc. I like to see how the story enfolds.
(I was probably the only person who did know the outcome of A
PERFECT STORM while watching it. But I did know about TITANIC.)
I too wondered about the 'baseline' functional condition of the
actress as the role was written to follow her lead. Whatever she did
was appropriate for the scene. I think they referenced cerebral
palsy as her handicap. I thought her performance remarkable and
really beyond most of what I see in USA movies, Charlize Theron's
excepted. Cerebral Palsy is probably more complicated than
anoxia to muscle controlling centers of the brain, but it is
often the case that cerebral palsy people are totally normal as far as
intelligence is concerned. Where confusion might arise, is that
children who are indeed mentally retarded and have cerebral palsy
also are probably labelled as cerebral palsy precisely because
it does not imply a mental limitation.
I know OASIS had a special invitation to CANNES last year, but I am
surprised it has not been picked up here. I would think that some
distributor somewhere has some association with cerebral palsy
patients and a film like this could get some word of mouth beyond
the obvious CP ties. OASIS is entertaining, emotional, educational,
etc.
I liked the subway scene after the Karaoke singing.
I have posted something like the following before (spoiler):
The 'rape' scene is outstanding because while uncomfortable to
watch, the very next day, the woman is seen painstakingly trying to
put on lipstick. You cannot understand what she felt until the
next day.
I think his ASPERGER syndrome is less likely, especially if
ASPERGER includes normal intelligence as one of the first scenes
shows the fellow in the dead of winter with only a short sleeve
shirt on. Certainly, he had few social skills (SEE NAPOLEON
DYNAMITE for more on social SKILLS), but a heart of gold
reference his atonement for his brother's sin.
OASIS is a common acronym.
10075
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 10:21pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
>
>
> What statement? Mine or Lourcelles? (he hates Rohmer -- and
> most "New Wave" and post-New Wave directors generally -- and writes
> that Rayon vert is the worst of his films but not much worse than
> the "best" ones).
Lourcelles', of course. I wasn't aware of that rejection. But of
course Mourlet didn't like the NV either - or Antonioni, or Fellini,
or Welles, or Hitchcock, or Bunuel. And there were anti-Welles, anti-
Bunuel pens at CdC, including Rohmer's.
But this is what canons are about. The American Cinema is a canon,
and its influence has been incalculable. Your American Directors
volumes start from a canon - who's worth an essay? This and its fine-
tuned version - which are the best films of a director? - is not a
purely subjective phenomenon. It's what John Searle (belch!) calls
a "socially created reality," like the legal system or the Mass. And
eventually artistic canons have to have institutions to back them up,
too.
We - you more than I - have lived thru the first stages of a process
of canon-formation, which is still going on. That's why it's
interesting to look up, say, Benayoun's or Legrand's old 10 Best
Lists, which the CdC used to run. You see that the quarrel wasn't an
empty one. And I'm sure Mourlet's make very interesting reading. The
Carre d'as - Preminger, Losey, Walsh, Lang - is a meaningful,
important statement about what does and doesn't constitute film art,
still worth debating.
So is the question of whether we need canons, but it seems to me that
history has shown that we do, and that we will go on making them. We
have to look at what they do, too. The omission of certain books from
the Christian Bible may have had profound effects on culture, on
lives. Ditto the decisions that formed the Hebrew Bible. The fact
that certain books - Job, for example, or Ecclesiastes - are in there
at all is a tribute to the canon-makers' esthetic sense, because they
certainly aren't orthodox!
One reason I like my meshuginah mentor's approach is that he takes
canon-formation very seriously, but questions its readings (ie its
interpretations of the works canonized). And we have to always be
aware that these canons are human creations - as opposed to being
something God wrote with a Bic, for example: "Hm, The Book of Thomas
is really Gnostic - I'd had a bad day, I guess. Into the circular
file...."
Is Mozart a great composer? Is Salieri?
10076
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 10:27pm
Subject: Two essays on the Abu Ghraib photos and videos
Ron Gorman's Torture Tape Undergound - City Beat
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=914&IssueNum=50
Susan Sontag's The Torture of Others, NY Times Magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/23PRISONS.html?pagewanted=1
Obviously, I prefer the Gorman, but Sontag's urn is as well-wrought
as ever...
10077
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 10:22pm
Subject: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
Gary Indiana certainly deals with issues of self-recrimination in his
BFI Salo book.
10078
From:
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 6:55pm
Subject: Re: what's a Prunella?
are
you
> saying he's arguing that it's okay to make loose associations that
> describe a general psychic state of affairs in the world?
In Chesterton's book on Dickens, he said that Dickens intuited things wrong
with British society, not by external analysis, but by listening to his inner
feelings. Chesterton's metaphor was a man on ship knowing something was wrong,
not by navigational observation from the deck, but by experiencing
sea-sickness within. A metaphor that often occurs to me, twenty years after reading this.
(Chesterton also said that Charlotte Bronte was "warm and domestic, like a
burning house").
Artists pick up on all sorts of things!
Also: science fiction and fantasy stories are often allegories about the real
world. That gives them much of their power. I agree with Kevin that the movie
versions of "The Lord of the Rings" are pro-war propaganda. Saying they are
"just a fantasy" is wrong. Most sf works are full of real world meanings, some
admirable, other times deplorable.
A good recent film: "At Five in the Afternoon" (Samira Makhmalbaf, 2003).
Have also been enjoying the Nero Wolfe mysteries on TV (2001, 2002).
Mike Grost
10079
From:
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 11:32pm
Subject: Re: Dream Life etc.
The 9-11 connections continue in MAN ON FIRE, directed by Tony "Not
AO" Scott and adapted by MYSTIC RIVER scribe Brian Helgeland. Forgive
me as I "spoil" the ending to a truly vile film, but it's revealed at
the end of MoF that the main character's vigilante rampage is
entirely without justification: the "death" he's avenging turns out
to be nothing of the sort. And yet, as he slaughters dirty Mexican
after dirty Mexican, he stumbles on a ring of child kidnappers whose
sordid past effectively justifies his actions. Even though he's
wrong, he's right. Let's see: a knee-jerk reign of terror predicated
on false information that's supposed to be vindicated by the end
results -- is there any way *not* to see that as a precis of the Bush
admin's rationale (at least the latest) for the war in Iraq? (Or
maybe it's just habitually devious writing: Helgeland used the same
slippery device in Mystic River, where Sean Penn's killing of Tim
Robbins for a crime he didn't commit can be seen as punishment for
the crime Robbins did commit -- even if Penn doesn't know about it.
Handy.)
I dug Cineaste out of my to-be-read pile, and I do think Bill does a
great job of capturing what's going on in the book, which is both
"difficult" and deceptively simple -- the writing is so well-honed
you can almost miss what's going on under the surface. The book
doesn't make "loose associations" so much as selective
juxtapositions; the My Lai/WILD BUNCH one is particularly a stretch,
but a provocative one. It's endlessly suggestive, but rarely does
anything so crude as argue a point.
Sam
>
> Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 21:41:26 -0000
> From: "hotlove666"
>Subject: Re: what's a Prunella?
>
>--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
>wrote:
>> Thanks, I want to check Hoberman's book out -- I'm not sure I
>follow
>> what you're saying about his linking My Lai and WILD BUNCH -- are
>you
>> saying he's arguing that it's okay to make loose associations that
>> describe a general psychic state of affairs in the world?
>
>Essentially, yes. A fascinating recent case - simultaneously noted by
>Andy Klein and Jonathan Rosenbaum, neither of whom quite knew what to
>make of it - was Mystic River as an allegory of 9/11: When a
>community is devastated by a horrific event, the leaders track down
>and execute the wrong guy (= invading Iraq). I'm sure Clint didn't
>mean it that way, but there it is.
>
>Hoberman's book does not theorize how these things happen, and
>neither do I in my review, but you might find it useful to look up in
>the current Cineaste, because I went to some trouble to make it
>easier for the unsuspecting reader to get into what is actually a
>very difficult book by at least spelling out how I think it functions.
>
>My one attempt at tying JH's method to some theory was quoting a
>remark by Andre Breton to the efect that history can be studied in
>terms of both manifest and latent content, but he never took that any
>further as far as I know. It seems to me that Hoberman has.
10080
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 11:53pm
Subject: Re: Dream Life etc.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, samadams@e... wrote:
> The 9-11 connections continue in MAN ON FIRE, directed by Tony "Not
> AO" Scott and adapted by MYSTIC RIVER scribe Brian Helgeland. Forgive
> me as I "spoil" the ending to a truly vile film, but it's revealed at
> the end of MoF that the main character's vigilante rampage is
> entirely without justification: the "death" he's avenging turns out
> to be nothing of the sort. And yet, as he slaughters dirty Mexican
> after dirty Mexican, he stumbles on a ring of child kidnappers whose
> sordid past effectively justifies his actions. Even though he's
> wrong, he's right. Let's see: a knee-jerk reign of terror predicated
> on false information that's supposed to be vindicated by the end
> results -- is there any way *not* to see that as a precis of the Bush
> admin's rationale (at least the latest) for the war in Iraq? (Or
> maybe it's just habitually devious writing: Helgeland used the same
> slippery device in Mystic River, where Sean Penn's killing of Tim
> Robbins for a crime he didn't commit can be seen as punishment for
> the crime Robbins did commit -- even if Penn doesn't know about it.
> Handy.)
All I know is, MAN ON FIRE made me feel dirty, whereas while I'm not
the biggest MYSTIC RIVER fan, handy was the last word that came to
mind, it's certainly not a comfort film - at least not for me, after
one viewing.
With FIRE, it was just another entry into the long-running redemption
sweepstakes, a total perversion of the original Dostoevsky premise.
We no longer question whether a man can "get away" with heinous crimes
and brutality due to his superior nature, we just (a) assume he's
superman, (b) grant him redemption as a matter of course (he reads the
bible, how novel!), (c) revel in his delivery of frontier justice.
What trash.
It's scarce, the Hollywood film that can beat Joseph Losey's TIME
WITHOUT PITY on its own terms: a tightly-knit, almost pulpy
screenplay that truly earns its Clever ending because everything rings
pyschologically true, there's no exploitation, Losey sells nothing/no
one short, etc.
-Jaime
10081
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 1:14am
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > What statement? Mine or Lourcelles? (he hates Rohmer -- and
> > most "New Wave" and post-New Wave directors generally -- and
writes
> > that Rayon vert is the worst of his films but not much worse than
> > the "best" ones).
>
> Lourcelles', of course. I wasn't aware of that rejection. But of
> course Mourlet didn't like the NV either - or Antonioni, or
Fellini,
> or Welles, or Hitchcock, or Bunuel. And there were anti-Welles,
anti-
> Bunuel pens at CdC, including Rohmer's.
Sure, but that was then and this is now. And Lourcelles is still
stuck in this hatred of "the New Have" and everything that came out
of it. Everybody moved on (perhaps Mourlet didn't, I'm not sure)but
he wouldn't. If a lit critic argued that there hasn't been a decent
novel written since Stendhal, who would take him seriously? That's
where Lourcelles stands.
>
> But this is what canons are about. The American Cinema is a canon,
> and its influence has been incalculable. Your American Directors
> volumes start from a canon - who's worth an essay?
American Directors was a disaster. It was a project that
entirely got out of hands (my hands) because I naively thought I
could do in English what we had done with Tavernier in "Trente ans"
in 1970, but I was pretty much left alone (with a partner who told
me half way through that he didn't really want to write) and
desperately looking for help. (and also I had changed and wanted to
do something different!) So whoever is or isn't in the book
is not really the result of deliberate choices, aside from the
obvious greats.
This and its fine-
> tuned version - which are the best films of a director? - is not a
> purely subjective phenomenon. It's what John Searle (belch!) calls
> a "socially created reality," like the legal system or the Mass.
And
> eventually artistic canons have to have institutions to back them
up,
> too.
What we were doing back in the fifties/sixties was pretty much
like the totally unfettered, wild stuff Jesus and the Disciples were
doing. And then, yes, alas, come the institutions (the Church) and
the fucking Mass...
>
> We - you more than I - have lived thru the first stages of a
process
> of canon-formation, which is still going on. That's why it's
> interesting to look up, say, Benayoun's or Legrand's old 10 Best
> Lists, which the CdC used to run. You see that the quarrel wasn't
an
> empty one. And I'm sure Mourlet's make very interesting reading.
The
> Carre d'as - Preminger, Losey, Walsh, Lang - is a meaningful,
> important statement about what does and doesn't constitute film
art,
> still worth debating.
No question we agree on all this!
>
> So is the question of whether we need canons, but it seems to me
that
> history has shown that we do, and that we will go on making them.
We
> have to look at what they do, too. The omission of certain books
from
> the Christian Bible may have had profound effects on culture, on
> lives. Ditto the decisions that formed the Hebrew Bible. The fact
> that certain books - Job, for example, or Ecclesiastes - are in
there
> at all is a tribute to the canon-makers' esthetic sense, because
they
> certainly aren't orthodox!
>
> One reason I like my meshuginah mentor's approach is that he takes
> canon-formation very seriously, but questions its readings (ie its
> interpretations of the works canonized). And we have to always be
> aware that these canons are human creations - as opposed to being
> something God wrote with a Bic, for example: "Hm, The Book of
Thomas
> is really Gnostic - I'd had a bad day, I guess. Into the circular
> file...."
>
Is Sarris God writing with a Bic?
>
Is Mozart a great composer? Is Salieri?
Mourlet might have voted for Salieri. Myself I tend to prefer minor
musicians (both in classical and jazz).
Someone is screaming at me to run a movie, so I have to interrupt
this very stimulating discussion.
JPC
10082
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 2:00am
Subject: Re: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
> What we were doing back in the fifties/sixties was pretty much
> like the totally unfettered, wild stuff Jesus and the Disciples were
> doing. And then, yes, alas, come the institutions (the Church) and
> the fucking Mass...
If you let me put this paragraph into a screenplay as dialogue one day,
I'll give you co-writer credit and a healthy fee.
craig.
10083
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 2:16am
Subject: Re: Dream Life etc. THE DEBT / DLUG
Anyone see THE DEBT / DLUG, a POLISH movie based on real life events?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> With FIRE, it was just another entry into the long-running
redemption
> sweepstakes, a total perversion of the original Dostoevsky premise.
> We no longer question whether a man can "get away" with heinous
crimes
> and brutality due to his superior nature, we just (a) assume he's
> superman, (b) grant him redemption as a matter of course (he reads
the
> bible, how novel!), (c) revel in his delivery of frontier justice.
> What trash.
>
> It's scarce, the Hollywood film that can beat Joseph Losey's TIME
> WITHOUT PITY on its own terms: a tightly-knit, almost pulpy
> screenplay that truly earns its Clever ending because everything
rings
> pyschologically true, there's no exploitation, Losey sells
nothing/no
> one short, etc.
>
> -Jaime
10084
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 3:20am
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
> > What we were doing back in the fifties/sixties was pretty much
> > like the totally unfettered, wild stuff Jesus and the Disciples
were
> > doing. And then, yes, alas, come the institutions (the Church) and
> > the fucking Mass...
>
> If you let me put this paragraph into a screenplay as dialogue one
day,
> I'll give you co-writer credit and a healthy fee.
>
> craig.
Are you being sarcastic? Nothing here is copyrighted anyway, but
where could you use this kind of stuff?
JPC
10085
From: Robert Keser
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 3:33am
Subject: Re: Film Directors site
Yes, the tiscali/film directors site is an invaluable collection of
the auteurist-oriented studies that are available online. Sadly,
about six months ago Steve Masters--who created and runs the
site--wrote me that his computer had "deconstructed" itself and he
was doubtful if he would *ever* be able to update the information.
One would think that the BFI or some other arts organization could
afford to stand him to some new equipment!
--Robert Keser
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Elizabeth Anne Nolan"
wrote:
> I know many of you have tremendous libraries and resources
> available, but for those of us limited to info available of the
> internet (for which I am grateful), I want to re-post this site
>
> http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/filmdirectors/
10086
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 4:11am
Subject: Re: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
>
> Are you being sarcastic? Nothing here is copyrighted anyway, but
> where could you use this kind of stuff?
Half-kidding, but not being sarcastic. I just thought it was a great
pair of lines that could potentially be barked by a character giving
some testimonial on his backstory or life history, in the face of some
investigating figure. Maybe some cigar ash hits his patent-leather
shoe, and he licks his thumb to rub it off. See, this could be good
stuff.
craig.
10087
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 4:21am
Subject: Re: Oasis / pedagogical perspective
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Elizabeth Anne Nolan"
> I know OASIS had a special invitation to CANNES last year, but I am
> surprised it has not been picked up here.
I should clarify that the film is in distribution (it briefly made the rounds of several theaters hereabouts).
> I have posted something like the following before (spoiler):
> The 'rape' scene is outstanding because while uncomfortable to
> watch, the very next day, the woman is seen painstakingly trying to
> put on lipstick. You cannot understand what she felt until the
> next day.
Actually I was a little nervous about this depiction of a rape with ultimately beneficial effects (even given the obviously extenuating circumstances all
around) -- I wondered how others had seen it.
> Certainly, he had few social skills (SEE NAPOLEON
> DYNAMITE for more on social SKILLS), but a heart of gold
> reference his atonement for his brother's sin.
Really; and that very nearly IS what I'd call a spoiler.
10088
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 4:37am
Subject: Re: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- jpcoursodon
> Please tell us about it! it's fun to dish the
> dirt...
>
No real dirt.he was a very elegantman. he was what I'd
always imagined Visconti would have been like. From
his writings I was expecting an ink-stained wretch
rather than a man of the world. I interviewed him in
his suite at the Pierre. he was quite patient with the
translator, and appeared to understand much of my
English. At the Museum of Modern Art he was quite
magisterial. The audience loathed "Teorema,"
considering it -- and him -- to be Beyond the pale
"outrageous." They heaped insults on him. He laughed,
and very calmly explained to them -- like a Professor
dealing with a loveable but slow student -- why he
made the film. I never saw anyone handle a situation
like this better than Pasolini.
Later, I heard from friends, he "made the scene," both
in Times Square and the West Village.
Too bad he (Foucault)
> didn't make a film
> about his S&M experience.
>
Well maybe Chereau might be encouraged to take a stab
at a film version of "To the Friend Who Would Not Save
My Life."
> >
> > Are you challenging my god-given right to
> shallowness?
> > >
Jamais de la vie!
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10089
From: Noel Vera
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 4:59am
Subject: Re: Digest Number 566
Hallo, David, nice to see you taking up the cudgels,
as usual.
Unfortunately, O'Brien's article seems unavailable
online, so I can't read it myself, and Film Comment is
unavailable in my neck of the woods. This excerpt,
though, which I have to take out of context barring a
full reading, is interesting:
> "Gibson
> wants to take us through the needle's eye [great
> metaphor - ed.] of
> violently inflicted death and for us to experience
> it as a kind of
> birth, and he will use every trick in the
> action-movie book to
> accomplish that aim.
Throw in horror movie books as well. My problem with
Gibson's movie (I hesitate to call it a film) is that
the devices he uses are employed so unimaginatively,
repititiously, and without concern for either biblical
or historical accuracy (plus it makes the Jews look
bad). It's not that it's disturbing, it's that it's so
dull and unoriginal, an emphasis on mere physical
suffering rather than spiritual or psychological
suffering.
Salo is a useful film to compare to Gibson's flick:
the way Pasolini seems to unaplogetically aestheticize
the horrors (far more varied, and more overtly sexual
(Gibson on the other hand seems to avoid overt
sexuality to the point of it being funny--Jesus is
whipped of his skin, but his loincloth stays intact))
has greater impact, I think. Pasolini seems to know,
initimately, of the sadomasochistic practices he shows
us, and he puts them on without apology or attempt to
justify them to us (there's the device of setting the
film in Fascist Italy, but I'd argue it's merely a
device).
> a vision of
> revealed religion in its savage state - the world
> literally split
> open in the very body of the revealer - is to be
> reminded of the many
> diverse ends toward which the potency of film can
> be, but so rarely
> is, channeled.
I thought The Last Temptation of Christ did that job
so much better, and with a far more cinematic style,
myself.
>In the altered world we have lived in
> since Spetember
> 11, Gibson's movie can easily be taken as an omen -
> or an
> encouragement - of a cultural shift toward a fierce
> religious
> absolutism that would be all too much in sync with
> some of the most
> destructive forces at large in the world."
Not his movie so much as the reaction to his movie,
this lemming effect of buying a ticket to see what all
the fuss is about.
> I think he's asking
> us to resist
> making categorical dismissals and open ourselves and
> contend honestly
> with the power of cinema evident in this film
I don't see this as his intent at all (tho I'm sure he
has professed it in his interviews). It's that
hardening of attitudes, a sense of us Christians and
would-be Christians against them, the pagans and Jews.
> The dilemma
> that becomes
> apparent is that what we find so abhorrent in this
> film is
> inseparable from what we yearn for in the ultimate
> cinematic
> experience, one that somehow goes beyond mundane
> convention, defies
> all explanation and for those enraptured by it,
> requires no defense.
I'd argue the exact opposite: the movie needs serious
explaining, as to its context, its anti-Semitism, and
why it goes against mainstream Catholic teaching.
I've written something about it myself (the links at
the end are useful too):
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/noelmoviereviews/message/425
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10090
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 5:21am
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
> >
> > Are you being sarcastic? Nothing here is copyrighted anyway, but
> > where could you use this kind of stuff?
>
> Half-kidding, but not being sarcastic. I just thought it was a great
> pair of lines that could potentially be barked by a character giving
> some testimonial on his backstory or life history, in the face of some
> investigating figure. Maybe some cigar ash hits his patent-leather
> shoe, and he licks his thumb to rub it off. See, this could be good
> stuff.
>
> craig.
I'd love to see a movie about and starring Jean-Pierre, a la TO HELL
AND BACK! No sarcasm there, and I'm certainly not kidding!
-Jaime
10091
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 7:59am
Subject: Schindler's List
There are small parts of Spielberg's Oscar/Oskar epic that seem to
flit by, asking not to be noticed. Insofar as "film form" is
concerned, LIST is the most "arty" of all his films. But early in the
film, hardly twenty minutes have passed, a Nazi officer mentions at a
party that Jewish tailors are quick to adapt, for profit, to the new
institution of the star that is to mark Jews in ghettos. The moment
vanishes and this Spielberg partisan, who has seen the film several
times since it 1993, took no notice, until now.
Now, it reinforces the "message" dramatized by the film, that
something as stigmatized as capitalist greed (an issue that hits close
to home for Spielberg...Spielberg the shrewd, capital-hungry
director-producer) can be aimed towards Absolute Good. No other film
dramatizes or even suggests this notion, to my knowledge.
-Jaime
10092
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 9:38am
Subject: Schindler's List Part 2
In another early scene, Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern discuss the
cost of hiring a Jewish worker versus hiring a Polish worker: the
Jew, who is in danger of losing his life, costs less than the Pole,
who is not. The Jew is worth next to nothing, even nothing, and the
Pole is worth at least a little. Thus, the force of absolute evil
drives the Jew into ostensible worthlessness. But it is precisely
that "worthlessness" that allows Schindler to gather a thousand of
them (and more) and to deliver them to safety.
-Jaime
10093
From:
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 0:00pm
Subject: Re: Two essays on the Abu Ghraib photos and videos
Last night saw Gerd Oswald's version of "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1955). This is a 45 minute version of the story, made for TV and shown on the Fox Movie
Channel as part of the "Hour of Stars" show. It is a powerful, tragic drama. Bill Krohn had previously recommended it on this list, and it was finally shown
on TV again.
The film is a look at a lynching. It shows the hell that ensues when people abandon the law and take things into their own hands. It reminded one powerfully
of Bush and Rumsfeld. Bush trashed the law, running his prison camps outside of the Geneva Convention, and any outside supervision. The horrible results are
available now for everyone to see.
Mike Grost
10094
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 1:55pm
Subject: Re: Two essays on the Abu Ghraib photos and videos
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Ron Gorman's Torture Tape Undergound - City Beat
>
> http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=914&IssueNum=50
>
> Susan Sontag's The Torture of Others, NY Times Magazine
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/23PRISONS.html?
pagewanted=1
>
> Obviously, I prefer the Gorman, but Sontag's urn is as well-wrought
> as ever...
Why "obviously"? Actually the two pieces are not even about the
same subject. Gorman deals with the underground trade in torture
porn. Only obliquely does he tackle the moral (and political) issue
that is at the core of Sontag's article.
Of course the two writers occasionally (and accidentally) meet.
Both use the same formula: "...these people are undeniably us"
(Gorman); "the photographs are us" (Sontag) but neither seem willing
or able to go beyond the facile cliche and support its implications.
Interestingly in both articles that old villain, "The South", rears
its ugly head. Gorman explains away the appalling behavior of the
soldiers at Abu Ghraib by the fact that they come from Southern
Appalachia, apparently according to him a breeding ground for moronic
sadists. Sontag points out that the only earlier known cases of
torturers happily posing for photographs in front of their victims
are of lynchings of blacks in the US (most of which happened in the
South). Sontag, however, does remind us that the practice of
humilation and torture of prisoners (by police or the military)is
universal. So why are the photographs "us"? Who is us? Us as
Americans (include me out!) or us as human beings?... We need
Foucault...
JPC
10095
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 2:02pm
Subject: Re: O'Brien, the latest Film Comment
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
At the Museum of Modern Art he was quite
> magisterial. The audience loathed "Teorema,"
> considering it -- and him -- to be Beyond the pale
> "outrageous." They heaped insults on him. He laughed,
> and very calmly explained to them -- like a Professor
> dealing with a loveable but slow student -- why he
> made the film. I never saw anyone handle a situation
> like this better than Pasolini.
>
> Later, I heard from friends, he "made the scene," both
> in Times Square and the West Village.
>
When was that? I must have been out of town!
> Too bad he (Foucault)
> > didn't make a film
> > about his S&M experience.
> >
> Well maybe Chereau might be encouraged to take a stab
> at a film version of "To the Friend Who Would Not Save
> My Life."
>
>
> Might he? Sounds intriguing.
> > > Are you challenging my god-given right to
> > shallowness?
> > > >
>
> Jamais de la vie!
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
10096
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 2:08pm
Subject: Re: what is the "canon history" for these Fords?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
>
>
>
> I'd love to see a movie about and starring Jean-Pierre, a la TO HELL
> AND BACK! No sarcasm there, and I'm certainly not kidding!
>
> -Jaime
It would make for a pretty dull cinematic experience, I'm afraid.
Even with Audie Murphy playing me...
JPC
10097
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 4:07pm
Subject: Re: Two essays on the Abu Ghraib photos and videos
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Last night saw Gerd Oswald's version of "The Ox-Bow Incident"
(1955). This is a 45 minute version of the story, made for TV and
shown on the Fox Movie Channel as part of the "Hour of Stars" show. It
is a powerful, tragic drama. Bill Krohn had previously recommended it
on this list, and it was finally shown on TV again.
> The film is a look at a lynching. It shows the hell that ensues when
people abandon the law and take things into their own hands. It
reminded one powerfully of Bush and Rumsfeld. Bush trashed the law,
running his prison camps outside of the Geneva Convention, and any
outside supervision. The horrible results are available now for
everyone to see.
How does it compare to the more famous film version of THE OX-BOW
INCIDENT, from 1943, directed by William Wellman? Given that this is
an auteurist discussion group and all.
-Jaime
10098
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 5:19pm
Subject: Re: Two essays on the Abu Ghraib photos and videos
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> > Last night saw Gerd Oswald's version of "The Ox-Bow Incident"
For locals, Oswald's BRAINWASHED is being shown at 2:30 Sunday at the
Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. I have no idea why.
10099
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 5:35pm
Subject: Re: Two essays on the Abu Ghraib photos and videos
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> > Ron Gorman's Torture Tape Undergound - City Beat
> >
> > http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=914&IssueNum=50
> >
> > Susan Sontag's The Torture of Others, NY Times Magazine
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/23PRISONS.html?
> pagewanted=1
> >
> > Obviously, I prefer the Gorman, but Sontag's urn is as well-
wrought
> > as ever...
>
> Why "obviously"?
I thought Gorman was better written, and in the brief passages where
he does analyze the images, he got into the heads of the camera-
people better than Sontag did at greater length -- she is definitely
not "from that neck of the woods." He also had more new information
to offer. But I was interested to learn from Sontag's piece that
we've been looking at cropped photos!
10100
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat May 22, 2004 7:18pm
Subject: Michael Moore takes Palme D'Or
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 just won the top prize at Cannes. The first
documentary to win since the Jacques-Yves Cousteau/Louis Malle film
THE SILENT WORLD, almost fifty years ago.
Of course, almost everyone has decided what they think about the film,
no matter that they haven't seen it yet.
Other winners:
Grand Prix : Old Boy (Park Chan-Wook/Korea)
Jury Prize :
- Irma P. Hall in The LadyKillers (USA)
- Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul/Thailand)
Best Director : Tony Gatlif for Exils (France)
Best Screenplay : Agnès Jaoui & Jean-Pierre Bacri for Comme une Image
/ Look at Me (France)
Best Actress : Maggie Cheung in Clean (Olivier Assayas/France)
Best Actor : Yuuya Yagira in Nobody Knows (Koreeda/Japan)
-Jaime
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