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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.
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It is possible to email the author of any post by finding a post
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emailing them from that Web site.
10501
From: Doug Cummings
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:09am
Subject: Re: On a Dreyer note...
> Holy moley!
> I'll finally get to see Michael, The Parson's Wodw, and Master of the
> House!
I can speak for "The Parson's Widow," which is an absolute gem. The
amount of humor in the film might also surprise those who mistakingly
think of Dreyer as a humorless Scandinavian.
Doug
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
10502
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:11am
Subject: Re: Re: Rockism explained! Kael mentioned!
> I always thought that rock criticism was invented, or at least
> initiated, in the U.S. at least, by Meltzer, Sandy Pearlman, editor
> Paul Williams and others in the original Crawdaddy magazine -- the
> Cahiers of rock? -- from 1966.
What I've read of Pearlman's stuff is really good. The amazing thing
about him, and maybe some of the others, is that the writing actually
incorporates some musical analysis. It didn't take the press long to
figure out that its readership wasn't into music theory. - Dan
10503
From: Andy Rector
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:11am
Subject: Re: Anniversary free-for-all
I'm up for the "big combo" on June 13th. Perhaps instead of just
flailing about, an objective should be sought? Maybe the more seasoned
film_by-ers could even set some questions forth, the ones that
continue to burn after a year of posts. Because of my short tenure I
can only hint at the sort of questions I'm talking about by mentioning
one of my favourite unresolveds: morality and style.
Being one of the younger members I would be very interested in (and in
need of) finding our common ground, our demands, our direction;
something that could give birth to a sharper point of view and perhaps
some objectives for the future (for example, what exactly, everyone,
do we demand when we say "increasing lack of originality in recent
filmmakers", and what would the shapes in the background of Clash By
Night have to do with that?). It's the least us "babies" can do to
repay the "dinosaurs" for their grand communications (and
monologues).
Personally I find the group most interesting when it is in a little
crisis, autuerist or not, like when Adrian Martin brought up the
contribution of editors to a film. As Bill pointed out once, what's
important are ideas, not opinions.
But regardless if anything "gets done" on June 13th, I eagerly
anticipate an actually instantaneous communication on any subject with
all the extraordinary people in the group.
Best,
andy
ps- for the lurkers: I hope we hear some criticism from you!
10504
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:16am
Subject: Fuller on fashion
> In Sam Fuller's autobiography, he talks
> about a soldier who was shot for having his shirt tucked in wrong.
> But then again, this uniform violation revealed him to be a German
> soldier in disguise.
So was the soldier shot for the dress violation, and then they found out
he was German? Or was the dress violation really that good a clue to
his identity? Sounds like something Aldo Ray's character would have
done in MEN IN WAR. - Dan
10505
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:19am
Subject: fashion fascism
> Let's face it - the purpose of dressing stylishly is so that you can move
> through the capitalist machine more smoothly.
I'd agree if you substituted "society" for "capitalist machine." I
doubt there exist societies, capitalist or not, where fashion
nonconformists don't pay a penalty. - Dan
10506
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:34am
Subject: Re: stylish clothing/fashion fascism/Arzner
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Zach Campbell"
wrote:
> David E:
>
> > Mine is Curtis Bernhardt's "Possessed"
>
> *sigh* ... if only the YahooGroup poll function was activated, we
> could see which one we like the best. Such as it is, POSSESSED
goes
> on my to-see list.
POSSESSED is Guy Maddin's favorite as well, judging by an interview
at E-Telegraph UK (though the relevant link stubbornly refuses
to register here).
Personally, my choice would be QUEEN BEE by Ranald Macdougall (who
contrived the great script for MILDRED PIERCE), which offers some
surprisingly precise geometric compositions while Crawford seesaws
between passive-aggressive and active-aggressive behavior, then lets
her loose in a bedroom to trash all the furniture and crockery in
high Citizen Kane style. All this and Fay Wray, too!
--Robert Keser
10507
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:41am
Subject: Joan Crawford
> Lewis Milestone's (or is that Joan Crawford's) Rain is all I can think of at
> the moment but that doesn't really count. Still, it may have been an early
> indictment of fashion bullying given how both the weather and dress are
> practically central characters. No wonder it was a flop. It's my second fave Crawford.
I like RAIN too. Joan Crawford actually made a surprising number of
good films for someone who became more an icon than an actress. It
always amazed me that she could be so downright bad in so many movies
and yet so terrific and nuanced in DAISY KENYON, HUMORESQUE, A WOMAN'S
FACE.... - Dan
10508
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:47am
Subject: Academic Territoriality
I don't entirely mean to fan anti-academic flames - I've stepped inside a
university once or twice myself! - but I have to add another anecdote to
Bill's story of Dudley Andrews' 'territorial' bad-vibe response to
'outmoded' Daney-esque auteurism at an academic conference:
I was speaking at a conference on action cinema in Hong Kong (what better
place!) in 2003, and my paper (I was on a panel with Nicole Brenez) was
about issues of form, style and mise en scene in various action films. There
was huffing and puffing in the (small) room during the panel and a statement
muttered loudly enough for everyone to plainly hear it, from a very
prominent academic who I cannot name for fear of a SOPRANO'S-style whacking:
"Film style, mise en scene, film form ... DIDN'T WE FINISH WITH ALL THIS AT
LEAST TWENTY YEARS AGO?" !!!!!!!
I pity the poor students of this person, there is just so much that, barely
at the age of 20, they are meant to be be utterly 'beyond' these days !!!!
kick-ass Adrian
10509
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:48am
Subject: Petric, Peterlic
> My impression is that Vlada Petric, the curator of the Archive,
> was an old-fashioned formalist a la Arnheim
His idol was Slavko Vorkapich, and he was a tireless advocate of "pure
cinema." Taking his class was a great way to be exposed to a lot of
museum classics that were quickly falling out of the canon. I didn't
see things his way, but he was an amiable sort. Is he still teaching
classes there?
There was a Croatian fellow named Ante Peterlic who taught at Harvard
for a year or two in the 70s. He was the first auteurist I ever
encountered in academia, and a really insightful and very nice guy. I
wonder what he's up to. - Dan
10510
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:50am
Subject: Re: On a Dreyer note...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Doug Cummings wrote:
> > Holy moley!
> > I'll finally get to see Michael, The Parson's Wodw, and Master of
the
> > House!
>
> I can speak for "The Parson's Widow," which is an absolute gem.
The
> amount of humor in the film might also surprise those who
mistakingly
> think of Dreyer as a humorless Scandinavian.
Master of the House has something of a slow fuse: the first half
seems quite tense and serious, but this proves necessary as a
set-up for the very funny second half. I can't think of another
film with this unique structure.
--Robert Keser
10511
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:50am
Subject: Re: On a Dreyer note...
>>Holy moley!
>>I'll finally get to see Michael, The Parson's Wodw, and Master of the
>>House!
>
> I can speak for "The Parson's Widow," which is an absolute gem.
Yeah - to my mind, WIDOW is the pick of that lot, and a very fine film.
I actually have a difficult time with MIKAEL - it feels a bit
lugubrious to me. - Dan
10512
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:38am
Subject: Re: Re: Bill/Paul praised! Rockism in film? Seth welcomed!
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> He can be a bit cruel for my tastes, and I don't
> share his world view,
> but I think there's something admirable about the
> solidity of Meltzer's
> self-presentation. What looks like a persona at
> first glance is really
> pretty rigorously honest and direct. - Dan
>
>
Honesty and directness are two of the easiest things
to fake.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10513
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 4:50am
Subject: Re: Re: On a Gainsbourg note...
> The film is about the "impossibly incestuous" (I think I'm quoting
>SG)'s relationship between an artist/filmmaker (played by SG) and his
>teenage daughter (played by Charlotte, Gainsbourg's own daughter).
>The mother died in a car accident and the girl feels the father is
>responsible. That's your "conflict". But it is really very intense
>and just about one of the most "personal" films ever made. I didn't
>see it when it was released but about five or six years ago in Paris
>in a series dedicated to SG (in a tiny movie theater Rue Mouffetard --
> the kind that always change their program before you have a chance
>to get there, which is how I missed "Smoking/Non Smoking). If you
>read French check out that Positif issue mentioned earlier.
Many thanks! Yes, I'm going to try to find the issue on eBay if possible..
craig.
10514
From: Seth Tisue
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 4:53am
Subject: Re: Anniversary free-for-all
>>>>> "jpcoursodon" == jpcoursodon writes:
jpcoursodon> I don't think David will ever get tired of chatting
jpcoursodon> and quipping and gossiping. But I like Bill's
jpcoursodon> idea. Also, I would like to hear from the dozens of
jpcoursodon> people who have never posted -- must be close to a
jpcoursodon> hundred. I'm curious to know who they are, why they joined
jpcoursodon> the Group, what they get from it, what they like or
jpcoursodon> dislike about it etc... And why they just lurk. (could
jpcoursodon> they be intimidated by the staggering erudition of some
jpcoursodon> of the more frequent posters?)
Yes!! Although I'm not complaining at all: quite the opposite. Also,
enough posters' opinions here are so congenial to my own that often
whatever I wanted to say has been said by someone already by the time
the daily digest shows up. How lame an excuse is that?
Thanks for the introduction, Kevin. I've never seen my name in so many
subject lines. I live in Chicago and if anyone cares, my film-watching
log (I'm just back from Sistiago's "Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua
Aruaren") is at http://tisue.net/watching.html , along with a list of
favorite films, which I might as well reproduce here:
Tati "Playtime", Akerman "Jeanne Dielman...", Hellman "Two-Lane
Blacktop", Tarkovsky "Stalker", Murnau "Sunrise", Welles "Touch of
Evil", Cassavetes "Killing of a Chinese Bookie", Tarr "Satantango",
Dassin "Night and the City", Marker "Sans Soleil", Snow "La Region
Centrale", Bresson "Four Nights of a Dreamer", Malick "Badlands",
Jarmusch "Stranger Than Paradise", Kubrick "Dr. Strangelove",
Brakhage "Mothlight", Denis "Beau Travail", Lynch "Mulholland Drive",
Resnais "Muriel", Wiseman "Welfare", Godard "Contempt", Antonioni
"Eclipse"...
I'm 32. Is that old or young? I don't tuck in my shirt, so I must be
young.
==
Seth Tisue - seth@t... - http://tisue.net
"It is better to stay indoors and not mess around
with useless experiences." - Rudolph Wurlitzer, _Nog_
10515
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:07am
Subject: Re: Noel and Bill, imagined naked.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Noel Vera
wrote:
> > > > Isn't this pushing worship just a wee bit too
> > > far? Did the
> > > two of you actually kneel in front of that toilet?
> > > Come on guys,
> > > those stars are only human, after all (or am I
> > > rocking someone's
> > > dream boat?)
> >
> > No dream was she; two years short of sixty and a
> > grandmother and she's still graceful and gorgeous as
> > she was in her movies.
> >
> >
> > > You didn't keep it?
> >
> > I was afraid they'd chase me to the airport if I tried
> > smuggling it out.
> >
> > I literally blew a chance to
> > > reconcile with my ex-
> > > because I didn't want to miss Sharmilla presenting
> > > Music Room at
> > > LACMA (note correction).
> >
> >
> > I have always known that auteurists are, by definition,
> fetishists. From worshipping "le nom de l'auteur" to worshipping a
> toilet seat, there is, after all, a very thin line.
>
> Bill, you didn't really want to reconcile, come on.
>
There were many factors, JP. For one thing, The Music Room happens to
be my ALL-TIME FAVORITE Satyajit Ray film...
10516
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:17am
Subject: Re: Re: Anniversary free-for-all
Well, we've done a few chats, but typically only Peter and I and our
youngest member, Tristan, "show up," plus one or two other people.
Chats are also pretty hard to control and channel. Various people can
start "talking" at once.
Perhaps a few of us group "founders" (there are seven in all, but Peter
and I are the "founding" and only moderators) can commit to being in
chat for several hours. I could be available from 7 PM to 11 PM Eastern
time, I think. I was half joking about mostly wanting a couple of the
regulars to chat; I agree it would be good to hear from a variety of
people. But if 30 people show up in chat at once it would be hard for
more than a few to "speak," and it's not so easy to moderate a chat
either, so maybe a kind of rolling chat on the 13th would be good. If
some of the more active posters here commit to being in chat for certain
hours (let's stick to Eastern time, just to be consistent), I can post a
schedule that consolidates all of them and then others who post less
often and thus are less known quantities in terms of taste and aesthetic
and which directors' or actresses' naked bodies most interest them can
decide when to show up.
- Fred C.
10517
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:22am
Subject: Re: Anniversary free-for-all
I commit to 9:00 Eastern Time. How does it work?
10518
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:54am
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised! Rockism in film? Seth welcomed!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser" wrote:
> One fascinating study (described in Malcolm Gladwell's book "The
> Tipping Point") shows that people tend to follow new developments and
> new groups in popular music, but only until the age of approximately
> thirty-nine. After that age, for reasons that are unclear (but open
> to speculation, of course), people tend to lose interest in
> up-and-coming artists. They either get mired in nostalgia for the
> music of their youth or else start exploring the historical roots
> of whatever music they prefer. In my personal experience, this
> seems to hold up as a principle, although maybe I held out a year
> or two longer.
>
I'm 39 -- so I'll see what happens. On the other hand, I may not be
able to tell. One of the unfortunate aspects of no longer being
"with it," is that you don't know when you're no longer "with it."
I have taken an interest in the historical roots of music at
various times. A few years ago there was an internet p2p
network called AudioGalaxy, which presented an interesting
opportunity for both nostalgia and historical research, since
it made available (to anyone willing to commit a tort)
vastly more music than any file sharing network before or since.
Here was made freely available for download a collection of
recorded music larger than any physical library or archive.
That provided a kind of immediacy, an unfiltered access to the
past, which seems different from history, that is to say,
from relying on others to sift the past. But I hardly had time
for so much music!
In principle a similar online library of the cinema could exist.
Two things I noticed recently. Serge Daney commented back in 1989
that there were too many films, so that those under 25 could no
longer catch up and as a result could no longer situate themselves
in cinema's history. That got my attention since I turned 25 in
1989, but I don't feel much pressure either to catch up or to
situate myself in history...
I also noticed a discussion in the recent book, "Movie Mutations,"
about "the children of 1960." Although that's close to my age
cohort, I don't identify with the descriptions offered (of course I'm
not a critic), but it does seem plausible that there are generational
patterns in people's perspectives.
Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote:
Almost a year has passed since I wrote in Trafic about
`the taste of a particular generation of cinephiles: an
international and mainly unconscious cabal (or, more
precisely, confluence) of critics, teachers and programmers,
all of whom were born around 1960, have a particular passion
for research (bibliographic as well as cinematic), and (here is
what may be most distinctive about them) a fascination with
the physicality of actors tied to a special interest in the films of
John Cassavetes and Philippe Garrel (as well as Jacques Rivette
and Maurice Pialat).' I named four members of this generation:
Nicole Brenez (France), Alexander Horwath (Austria),
Kent Jones (US) and you, Adrian Martin (Australia)...
I've noted, for example, other common enthusiasms among most or
all of you, starting with Jean Eustache, Monte Hellman and Abel
Ferrara. And differences that usually relate to your (and my)
separate nationalities: Kent and I are much cooler towards
Brian De Palma than the rest of you, and Nicole is the only one
among the five of us not excited - by the recent work of Olivier Assayas.
10519
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:17am
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised! Rockism in film? Seth welcomed!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
> There's a marvelous recollection of Donayle Luna
> chatting with Nico "in their mittle-Martian accents"
> up at John Phillip Law's house on Miller Drive during
> the shooting of "Skidoo" in Bill Reed's "Early
> Plastic."
>
That book is hard to find! Neither NYU's library nor the New York
Public Library has a copy, and copies on Amazon are selling for up
to $211.76.
But while looking for "Early Plastic" in the library, I did find
the book you wrote with him, "Rock on Film," which I very much
enjoyed. It inspires me to see some of the films you recommended and
to resee and reconsider some films (Magical Mystery Tour, The
Man Who Fell to Earth, Performance, Rock and Roll High School),
which I hadn't cared for.
Paul
10520
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:34am
Subject: Re: Re: Bill/Paul praised! Rockism in film? Seth welcomed!
In a message dated 6/2/04 1:09:21 AM, pgallagher4@n... writes:
> Serge Daney commented back in 1989 that there were too many films, so that
> those under 25 could no longer catch up and as a result could no longer
> situate themselves in cinema's history.
>
That sounds fascinating! Where did he say this?
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
10521
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:43am
Subject: Re: Re: Anniversary free-for-all
Fred:
>But if 30 people show up in chat at once it would be hard for
>more than a few to "speak," and it's not so easy to moderate a chat
>either, so maybe a kind of rolling chat on the 13th would be good.
I think an ongoing rolling chat would be a good idea. I can tentatively
commit to being present between 7 PM and 11 PM EST, so at least two founders will
be around during that time period. I've just seen Jacques Tourneur's amazing
"Twilight Zone" episode, "Night Call," so all you Tourneur-nuts - I'll see you
there.
Don't forget that the Chat feature is always accessible, not just on special
occasions (like the group's first anniversary or Orson Welles' 90th birthday
[which will be next year], etc). People should always feel free to schedule a
chat if there's a particular topic they want to discuss.
Peter
10522
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:04am
Subject: Polygons
As the person who is fascinated by polygonal shapes in Fritz Lang, can't
resist a post.
Just saw "Clash by Night" again. It is a visually fascinating film. Both the
interiors and the yards are frequently polygonal in shape, leading to complex
compositions on the screen.
Barbara Stanwyck has two lamps in her bedroom. They are truncated cones, with
circular rings jutting out from their tops and bases. They remind one of
equally complex Constructivist machinery, in the father's office in Metropolis.
There is a portal on my web site, leading to articles in which film style is
discussed in mathematical terms:
http://members.aol.com/MG4273/zmath.htm
Mike Grost
10523
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:13am
Subject: The Music Room (Satyajit Ray)
Jalsaghar / The Music Room (Satyajit Ray, 1957) is one of my favorite Ray
films, too. Also love Charulata and The Chessplayers. Wrote about it,
inadequately, at:
http://members.aol.com/MG4273/sray.htm
Ray is one of the giants of the cinema. I would love to get caught up with
all of his films. As for Daney's comments: It is not just 25 year olds who are
having trouble seeing all the great films. We 50 year olds are struggling, too!
Mike Grost
10524
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:33am
Subject: Film Fashion as Utopia
One of the main reasons, historically, why people have gone to the theater,
movies, opera, rock concerts, or watched TV and music videos, is to look at the
beautiful clothes. Such works create a utopia, in which everyone can look at
the most spectacular fashions. These works share clothes with everyone. You do
not have to be rich, or perfect looking, or a fashion plate yourself. You can
learn all about costumes, and have a great time. These arts are democratic:
they share part of the beauties of life with everyone.
I certainly never meant to hector anyone in real life about their clothes. I
am no Brad Pitt, myself! But I really do enjoy going to the movies, and seeing
the spectacular outfits of the characters.
David Ehrenstein is on target, when he talks about "Stavisky" and "Shanghai
Express". These are two of the more dazzling displays of costumes in cinema
history.
Mike Grost
10525
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 8:16am
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised! Rockism in film? Seth welcomed!
>
> > Serge Daney commented back in 1989 that there were too many films,
so that
> > those under 25 could no longer catch up and as a result could no
longer
> > situate themselves in cinema's history.
> >
> That sounds fascinating! Where did he say this?
>
> Kevin John
It was in Godard's video, "Histoire(s) du cinéma 2A."
Here's part of the discussion between Daney and Godard.
Serge Daney: Histories of cinema and television. That is
your project. You're the only one who has to tell this history.
Godard: "Histories" with a "s."
SD: Yes, OK. The New Wave is the only generation which started
making films in the 50's and 60's, in the middle both of the
century and perhaps the cinema. That was a great privilege.
It occured in the middle of the century and also in
the middle of the cinema.
Godard: It's a nineteenth century problem, which was resolved
in the 20th century.
SD: Your good fortune was to start at the right time. You
inherited a history already rich, complicated, turbulent,
and you all took a lot of time to see a lot of movies,
first as film lovers, then as critics. You had an idea of
what was important in that history: that Griffith came before
Rossellini, that Renoir came before Visconti. You had a sense
of your emergence in a story still capable of being told.
Godard: Fairy-taled, but never really told.
SD: Exactly, but you had enough knowledge and passion to
determine the "before" and the "after." Having begun in the
middle of the century, knowing what you'd inherited,
what you've rejected or accepted...
Godard: I think it took us a long time to get there. I
understood this notion of before and after very, very late,
SD: Someone like Truffaut was more aware of it. I'm speaking
of the generation, of the group, of the Cahiers du Cinema back then.
This understanding couldn't occur earlier. There was the war.
It was hard to see films, criticism was in a sorry state.
It hasn't occured since simply because there are too many films.
No one can catch up with the history of cinema. From the 60's
on we've been seeing films from all over the world. If
someone is under 25 today, it's impossible not only to catch
up on what he missed but also to situate himself in history,
to know what precedes him: you, for example. And he has to define
himself in terms of it.
So what seemed simply a dazzling anecdote in French movie history,
appears now with thirty years of hindsight, to have been the
only occasion to make history.
Godard: The only way of making history. I'll accept that if
you like. Not because there have been too many films, there
are too few. Fewer and fewer. After a while, professors of
literature say, there was Homer and Cervantes, and Joyce, and
then ... something. After these three they mention Faulkner and
Flaubert. So there are very few. I'd say ten films. We have ten
fingers. I'd say ten films. There are ten films.
The cinema, my idea and my desire, it was the only way of
telling, of understanding, that I myself have a story.
If the cinema didn't exist, I'd never have known that.
It was the only way. I owed cinema as much.
It was the only way if we can ever tell a story, and it's never
been done. The history of art, perhaps, but only the
visuals. Cinema is visual in part. Part of the history of
painting has been told, almost only by the French. Diderot,
Baudelaire, Malraux, and I'd put Truffaut next in line.
There is a direct line. Baudelaire speaking of Edgar Poe
is the same as Malraux speaking of Faulkner or Truffaut speaking
of Ulmer or of Hawks. This is typically French. Only the French
have written such history.
SD: Their common denominator is that they placed themselves
in history. They suspeced they were part of history.
And they wanted to know how their history fitted in History.
They also decided not to inherit their art passively, but to
search out their own precursors.
Godard: The greatest story ever told in the history of cinema,
the greatest, because it projects.
----
I'm not sure what to think of some of these statements, since they
contain what seem to me obvious errors, but they're probably
irrelevant to Godard and Daney's main theses.
Paul
I'm
not sure what to think. For example, some of these statements
appear to be false -- literature professors recognizing five
authors, or tracing the origin of critical history to the
French instead of people like Woelfflin, Burckhardt, Warburg,
Panofsky, etc. But with the appropriate qualifications and
an allowance for rhetorical devices, some of the statements are
arguable.
10526
From: Andy Rector
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 9:19am
Subject: Historicizing/Shopping
pcg wrote:
> > Serge Daney commented back in 1989 that there were too many films,
so that
> > those under 25 could no longer catch up and as a result could no
longer
> > situate themselves in cinema's history.
> >
> That sounds fascinating! Where did he say this?
>
> Kevin John
Daney says this, or something like this, to Godard in Histoire(s),
chapter 2A. Situating oneself in history is discouraged today, that's
why there's no pressure around. As far as filmmakers go, it is their
responsibility, and a difficult one. Luckily for most it's not even a
thought, it shouldn't be if one wants to keep things as they are. Can
one say the same thing about catching up with the history of painting?
Is this even a thought for today's artists? Godard, in the OLD PLACE
(made after his Histoire(s) conversation with Daney), says something
like "abstract art today is a retreat from history". A run through
Malraux's Voices of Silence gives the impression that one can try to
catch up. With video, we can come closer perhaps? But not like
monsterous consumers, one must still take care. To my mind, the
filmmaker who embodies too little care, ravenous consumption, and
ahistoricism has to be Wes Anderson. His films are exceptional and
tender, yes, they manufacture "certain excitements and emotions
(which) may possibly be artistic, but their only use is to offset the
fearful boredom induced in any audience by the endless repetition of
falsehoods and stupidities". Like the function of fashion in the world
today (to try to relate it to the other posts), or more exactly, like
shopping: "I like this song, this colour, this actor, this emotion".
Is this all filmmakers are, shoppers?
Best,
andy
PS- I'd like to tuck my shirt in but it wouldn't make me happy unless
everyone could tuck their shirts in. Sharpness for all. Over the past
year I've wondered: IF us anti-war protesters out in the streets would
have made ourselves more presentable, like the Nation of Islam or the
Black Panthers, would we have been more effective? After all doesn't a
uniform connote organization? It would at least be more difficult for
the elite to call revolutionaries "derelicts" like Bunuel's landowner
did in El Bruto. Looking like a slob no longer implies a political
standpoint, as it once may have. I see Dustin Hoffman about once a
month and he looks like he just rolled out of bed everytime. Albiet
one can see through the wrinkles and stubble that they are expensive
clothes he's wearing, undoubtedly made in a sweatshop just like the
cheapest garment at Wal-Mart.
10527
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 1:12pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bill/Paul praised! Rockism in film? Seth welcomed!
Try looking for it on ebay.
--- Paul Gallagher wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> >
> > There's a marvelous recollection of Donayle Luna
> > chatting with Nico "in their mittle-Martian
> accents"
> > up at John Phillip Law's house on Miller Drive
> during
> > the shooting of "Skidoo" in Bill Reed's "Early
> > Plastic."
> >
>
> That book is hard to find! Neither NYU's library nor
> the New York
> Public Library has a copy, and copies on Amazon are
> selling for up
> to $211.76.
>
> But while looking for "Early Plastic" in the
> library, I did find
> the book you wrote with him, "Rock on Film," which I
> very much
> enjoyed. It inspires me to see some of the films you
> recommended and
> to resee and reconsider some films (Magical Mystery
> Tour, The
> Man Who Fell to Earth, Performance, Rock and Roll
> High School),
> which I hadn't cared for.
>
> Paul
>
>
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10528
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 1:23pm
Subject: Re: Film Fashion as Utopia
See if you can score a copy of this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0500014221/qid=1086182485/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-9533150-7932645?v=glance&s=books
It's the catalogue to a show I helped curate at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I did all the
specific film research.
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> One of the main reasons, historically, why people
> have gone to the theater,
> movies, opera, rock concerts, or watched TV and
> music videos, is to look at the
> beautiful clothes. Such works create a utopia, in
> which everyone can look at
> the most spectacular fashions. These works share
> clothes with everyone. You do
> not have to be rich, or perfect looking, or a
> fashion plate yourself. You can
> learn all about costumes, and have a great time.
> These arts are democratic:
> they share part of the beauties of life with
> everyone.
> I certainly never meant to hector anyone in real
> life about their clothes. I
> am no Brad Pitt, myself! But I really do enjoy going
> to the movies, and seeing
> the spectacular outfits of the characters.
> David Ehrenstein is on target, when he talks about
> "Stavisky" and "Shanghai
> Express". These are two of the more dazzling
> displays of costumes in cinema
> history.
>
> Mike Grost
>
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10529
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 1:27pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser"
wrote:
> > One fascinating study (described in Malcolm Gladwell's book "The
> > Tipping Point") shows that people tend to follow new developments
>>and new groups in popular music, but only until the age of
>>approximately thirty-nine. After that age, for reasons that are
>>unclear (but open
> > to speculation, of course), people tend to lose interest in
> > up-and-coming artists. They either get mired in nostalgia for the
> > music of their youth or else start exploring the historical roots
> > of whatever music they prefer. In my personal experience, this
> > seems to hold up as a principle, although maybe I held out a year
> > or two longer.
> >
>
> I'm 39 -- so I'll see what happens. On the other hand, I may not be
> able to tell. One of the unfortunate aspects of no longer being
> "with it," is that you don't know when you're no longer "with it."
It's not hard to tell. Some artist's name starts to ripple
through conversations and writing around you, but the name
is unfamiliar and – more tellingly – you don't care.
Anyway, younger people will be happy to inform you that
are turning hopelessly out of date!
> Two things I noticed recently. Serge Daney commented back in 1989
> that there were too many films, so that those under 25 could no
> longer catch up and as a result could no longer situate themselves
> in cinema's history.
This is a real problem that will only grow increasingly out of
control. They keep making more movies, four thousand new titles a
year worldwide. This makes the construction of canons (and
history-based theories) all the more valuable because they
provide guidance through the entire range of international
cinema from year zero to the continuously moving present.
Amazon.com provides a crude model: "If you liked Hiroshima,
mon amour, you might like India Song". This helps on one
level, but unavoidably contributes to splitting filmgoing
into special interest "boutiques".
This also makes it a fight to get playdates for more
sophisticated works. Supposedly, the number of unreleased titles
has been growing exponentially, with 1988 as a turning point
when "the number of American films which failed to make it
into the cinemas went over the 50% mark for the first time
…up from only 27% only four years earlier".(That's from
Patrick Robertson's "Film Facts").
That got my attention since I turned 25 in
> 1989, but I don't feel much pressure either to catch up or to
> situate myself in history...
Give it time!
>
> I also noticed a discussion in the recent book, "Movie Mutations,"
> about "the children of 1960." Although that's close to my age
> cohort, I don't identify with the descriptions offered (of course
>I'm not a critic), but it does seem plausible that there are
>generational patterns in people's perspectives.
Most people (understandably) seem to think that film history began
when they started to notice films, so each generation has a larger
and larger backlog of works to absorb (or ignore!) and the
critic's job to some extent becomes to hack out paths through the
thicket of titles.
--Robert Keser
10530
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 1:43pm
Subject: Re: On a Gainsbourg note...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
> > The film is about the "impossibly incestuous" (I think I'm
quoting
> >SG)'s relationship between an artist/filmmaker (played by SG) and
his
> >teenage daughter (played by Charlotte, Gainsbourg's own daughter).
> >The mother died in a car accident and the girl feels the father is
> >responsible. That's your "conflict". But it is really very
intense
> >and just about one of the most "personal" films ever made. I
didn't
> >see it when it was released but about five or six years ago in
Paris
> >in a series dedicated to SG (in a tiny movie theater Rue
Mouffetard --
> > the kind that always change their program before you have a
chance
> >to get there, which is how I missed "Smoking/Non Smoking). If you
> >read French check out that Positif issue mentioned earlier.
>
> Many thanks! Yes, I'm going to try to find the issue on eBay if
possible..
>
> craig.
If you don't let me know. I can photocopy the interview and fax
or mail it to you.
JPC
10531
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 1:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: Anniversary free-for-all
hotlove666 wrote:
>I commit to 9:00 Eastern Time. How does it work?
>
>
>
>
When you're logged on as a member to the group's main page, click on the
word "Chat" in the menu at left. If your software is reasonably current,
the chat window should open, though it could take a little while if you
have a slow computer. You might also get prompts asking if you want to
install various applets such as Yahoo chat first, and it seems to be
safe to click on that. Try it in either Netscape or IE before June 13.
If you're logged on successfully, you should see a big chat window at
top, a single line in which you can type messages at bottom, and a list
of people in chat which includes you (and most likely will only be you
in your test) at right. Try typing something in the bottom single line
window and if you see it in the upper window you'll know you've got it
working.
It looks like Peter and I will be there from 7 to 11 Eastern Time
(that's "EDT" Peter, not "EST," as we're now on "Daylight Savings
Time"). I've created a file in the "Files" section (click on "Files" at
left) called "June 13 Anniversary Chat Schedule." I think members should
be able to modify this file; please add the hours you will be in chat,
changing them if your plans change. Others can use this to determine
when to appear. Hacking the file by modifying other members' info or
adding references to seances with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in chat
is not permitted.
- Fred C.
10532
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:27pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
Just yesterday I met a USC film student who was asking
'any advice' of a producer who mentioned a few books.
Afterwards, I commented that he should watch either 2-3 films
daily, or one film 2-3 times daily.
I have watched 2-3 films of all variety and venue (festivals, tv-tivo
combinations, dvd, museum programs, and releases {studio,
art house, independent}) daily for the past few years. If one
adds a few hours of reading, that is a rather full day ... and
most students have other commitments / requirements in
their lives.
It would be a tremendous help if someone (probably some
group) would go beyond the text book chapters and references
and impose some 'shared common base' of background
viewing that 'film students' might share. Even without getting
into esoteric films, there is no common set of knowledge
that film people share... and the situation will only get
worse.
Of course, after all this viewing, one can come to the conclusion
that films can be made about any topic in any fashion ... and
so why not just use one's imagination and skip the films?! I
don't espouse that attitude for myself, but I imagine others
adopt it. At times, I wonder how critics and others select
what films they see.
Would any like to say how they decide what films they will see,
beyond certain directors?
Have there been films you avoided on some pre-determined
criterion but then wanted to see? What changed your mind?
Elizabeth
10533
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:38pm
Subject: Re: Fuller on fashion
It might be that the poorly tucked in shirt brought a
closer examination of the soldier's uniform which showed
insignia in the wrong place or of the wrong design, etc.
At least, I remember a scene like that.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > In Sam Fuller's autobiography, he talks
> > about a soldier who was shot for having his shirt tucked in wrong.
> > But then again, this uniform violation revealed him to be a German
> > soldier in disguise.
>
> So was the soldier shot for the dress violation, and then they found out
> he was German? Or was the dress violation really that good a clue to
> his identity? Sounds like something Aldo Ray's character would have
> done in MEN IN WAR. - Dan
10534
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:46pm
Subject: Fwd: Re: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
I didn't take the butler's comments as poverty to be shunned
because it is unknowable, but undesirable as a experience.
And indeed, the true experience of poverty is more than
just a present want / need unfulfilled, but a mind set that
cannot be experienced momentarily, however extended a
study. It is a hopelessness. I sensed the butler knew of
what he spoke. (Wasn't there a later scene of the two
butlers returning from some act of charity?)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> >> -- as such I guess it answers the question
> >>of "did Sullivan experience poverty?" with a resounding "maybe".
> >>
> > "Slumming" is the correct word. He is playing at being poor
for
> > research purposes, but you can't really know what it is to be
poor
> > when at any time you can go safely back to the lap of luxury.
>
> Seems to me the film tackles this subject head-on with the early,
very
> striking scene with the butler played by Robert Greig. In a
commanding
> closeup and with great authority, the butler goes to great lengths
to
> establish poverty as the unknowable: "It is to be shunned, even for
> purposes of study."
10535
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 2:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- Elizabeth Anne Nolan wrote:
>
> Would any like to say how they decide what films
> they will see,
> beyond certain directors?
>
> Have there been films you avoided on some
> pre-determined
> criterion but then wanted to see? What changed your
> mind?
>
That's a hard one to answer.
I'm from the pre-VCR generation. I had to go to
theaters to see movies. It was exhausting -- but I
made so many friends along the way; Jonathan Rosenbaum
and Martin Scorsese among them.
I'm sure we could all agree on a basic list of
classics everyone should see. But some figures I know
are starting to slip away from canonical view --
Eisenstein and Chaplin among them.
Many films are easily available on home video now that
in the past would have been next to impossible to
find. I stillcan't get over the fact that Rivette's
"Wuthering Heights" is now widely available.
But the Peter Watkins retro currently in New York
reminds us of the wealth of important filmmaking
likely to slip from our grasp if we aren't careful.
__________________________________
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10536
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:02pm
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised etc...
The notion of "catching up" is a tricky but seductive one, something
of a siren song. It certainly doesn't get any easier as the years
roll on, but I wonder how feasible it ever was. (In 1989, I was 16,
so I certainly don't remember a time when watching all the
"important" films seemed feasible.) "Catching up" is more of a
lifestyle than a goal.
Just looking at the Harvard list reveals how canons (or, ahem, "the
canon") continue to change (there was certainly a time when Oscar
Micheaux wouldn't have been on it at all, let alone thrice), and the
paucity of post-1990 movies reveals how much the Big List is
still/always being rewritten. (And even a list that long has notable
omissions; the fact that the Fifth Generation is represented only by
Zhang Yimou would drive at least one person on this list nuts.) A
certain amount of common ground is obviously necessary, but it's
equally interesting to talk to someone whose personal universe
revolves around non-canonical figures like Peter Watkins, or Abel
Ferrara, or King Hu. I think I'm more interested in the aesthetic
underlying a given list than the list itself.
Sam
Paul Gallagher wrote:
At 7:14 AM +0000 6/2/04, a_film_by@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>Two things I noticed recently. Serge Daney commented back in 1989
>that there were too many films, so that those under 25 could no
>longer catch up and as a result could no longer situate themselves
>in cinema's history. That got my attention since I turned 25 in
>1989, but I don't feel much pressure either to catch up or to
>situate myself in history...
10537
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:38pm
Subject: Re: Historicizing/Shopping
Andy Rector:
>"I like this song, this colour, this actor, this emotion".
> Is this all filmmakers are, shoppers?
If that's all the value you derive from those filmmakers, then yes.
How is Godard's "shopping" different, as it pertains to his pre-GAI
SAVOIR stuff? Serious question, not rhetorical.
"The magpie deserves your respect!"
-from The Talking Magpies (1946), featured prominently in the
concluding scene of KILL BILL, VOL. 2
And an excerpt from Jeremy Heilman's review of VOL. 2:
"Even more interesting, however, is the theme of miscegenation that
runs throughout both volumes of Kill Bill. The intermingling of
cultures is a constant in Tarantino's work (it can be seen in
Pulp
Fiction's descriptions of how Amesterdam's Burger King chain
operates
and Jackie Brown's interracial connection through The Delfonics).
In
Kill Bill's world, we meet a half-Japanese-hal
f-Chinese-half-American
Yakuza leader, a blonde white girl who learns to "play with
samurai
swords", a black woman trying to live a suburban lifestyle, and a
white mastermind who seems to extract equal parts of his wisdom from
Eastern and Western sources. In a movie that calls upon this many
other films to construct its pastiche, these strong characters,
suggest that the intermingled sums of who they are, like the movie
they are in, is greater than the individual parts. A snippet of a
cartoon viewed near the end of Volume 2 tells us blatantly that, 'the
magpie deserves your respect.' Perhaps that line best describes the
most fruitful way to view the Kill Bill movies."
> year I've wondered: IF us anti-war protesters out in the streets
would
> have made ourselves more presentable, like the Nation of Islam or
the
> Black Panthers, would we have been more effective? After all
doesn't a
> uniform connote organization?
Just to be tangential, hopefully briefly, but I wonder if anyone
reading this message could point me towards a broad history of
fashion, clothing, uniforms as these histories relate to the dictates
of military organization, battle dress (knights in armor, war paint,
etc)...heck, all the way back to cave dudes in animal skins and what
that was all about. That would be a fascinating history.
So, back to your question, I mentioned yesterday about the "uniform"
worn in the New York business community (which is almost exactly the
same, often *exactly* the same, system as in Frankfurt, Tokyo, St.
Petersberg, London...), and my point in doing so was to observe that
here is a system of "uniform" that has eliminated, or sublimated (by
fashion and money spent), the marks of rank used by the military, the
police, the Boy Scouts of America, the Sea Cadets, and so forth. In
the business community, a green shirt doesn't outrank a blue shirt.
Cufflinks don't outrank conventional cuffs with buttons. A Jones of
New York suit doesn't outrank Tommy Hilfiger suit but if you're
Patrick Bateman and you can identify brands on sight, or you simply
have a good aesthetic sense as regards fashion, then someone who goes
around dressing sharp may deal with consequences that are different
from someone who dresses shabbily or just looks good as he *must*, as
clean as he *must*, as ironed and starched only if absolutely
necessary, etc, in other words somebody who just grabs the cheapest
suit on the rack.
So there's a different dynamic there, quite similar to "military
fashion" but with different pressures in different places.
(I neglect to mention that, in the military, there are constant
adjustments to uniform standards, designs, etc. There is a fashion
ebb and flow there, too, like the Navy, which gives up bell-bottoms
one year and embraces them seven or ten years later. During my time,
1995-2001, the enlisted blue working uniform called "dungarees" went
through a drastic redesign, the difference between male and female
insignia was eliminated completely, and so forth.)
Okay, so I promised to get back to your question about the Panthers
and the Nation of Islam. I can't comment on the traditions of the
latter, but my guess is the Panthers chose to appropriate some of the
characteristics of their oppressors, and all that that entails.
[re Dustin Hoffman]
> undoubtedly made in a sweatshop just like the
> cheapest garment at Wal-Mart.
You see him about once a month, could you approach him and ask about
this issue? There are a few celebrities and movie actors out there
who make a point of thinking about these things and making life and
fashion and food choices accordingly, he may very well be one of them.
Or, you know, not. But I'd be fascinated to know. You'd have to be
very tactful, of course.
-Jaime
10538
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:44pm
Subject: Re: Fuller on fashion (correction)
Oops, didn't see the question.
Notwithstanding Fuller's colorful storytelling style, the scene was
this: the sergeant, who appears in Fuller's war recollections as
more or less a minor god with infallible instincts, encountered a
soldier who'd been separated from his unit.
The sergeant suspected he was a German soldier, even though he spoke
perfect English (recall Walsh's OBJECTIVE, BURMA!), and told him to
take down his trousers. The soldier says, "What are you, queer?"
Again he tells him. The soldier complies, and the seargant shoots
him dead, on the spot. And tells the shocked onlookers that he knew
he was a German because he tucked his t-shirt into his underwear (or
something). Anyway, like I said, probably embellished. Fuller also
said that he and Christa came very close to attending the party at
which Sharon Tate was killed...
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups
.com, "Elizabeth Anne Nolan" wrote:
> It might be that the poorly tucked in shirt brought a
> closer examination of the soldier's uniform which showed
> insignia in the wrong place or of the wrong design, etc.
> At least, I remember a scene like that.
>
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > > In Sam Fuller's autobiography, he talks
> > > about a soldier who was shot for having his shirt tucked in
wrong.
> > > But then again, this uniform violation revealed him to be a
German
> > > soldier in disguise.
> >
> > So was the soldier shot for the dress violation, and then they
found out
> > he was German? Or was the dress violation really that good a
clue to
> > his identity? Sounds like something Aldo Ray's character would
have
> > done in MEN IN WAR. - Dan
10539
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:54pm
Subject: Beatin' WA
> To my mind, the
> filmmaker who embodies too little care, ravenous consumption, and
> ahistoricism has to be Wes Anderson. His films are exceptional and
> tender, yes, they manufacture "certain excitements and emotions
> (which) may possibly be artistic, but their only use is to offset the
> fearful boredom induced in any audience by the endless repetition of
> falsehoods and stupidities". Like the function of fashion in the world
> today (to try to relate it to the other posts), or more exactly, like
> shopping: "I like this song, this colour, this actor, this emotion".
> Is this all filmmakers are, shoppers?
Yes, it's important to call Wes Anderson out. For me, his films are
funny in parts (although 'The Royal Tenenbaums' has a very unsatisfying
second-half -- or is it final third?), but he wears the shoulder-pads
of giants, without guilt. When he composes his symmetrical Scope
frames in 'Tenenbaums,' all I can think of is not "the neurotic anxiety
for order and establishing one's place and anchor within this family,"
but: At a loss for how to compose the frame, he thought of Kubrick. In
two separate interviews -- although I think he's repeated the same
information in several different interviews as part of his
talking-points package for the film -- he's stated that he set up a
long shot and did a zoom (indeed, in his film they struck me as having
no aesthetic purpose whatsoever, and as pure style) because he was so
taken with how Kubrick used these in 'Barry Lyndon.' And that he did
such and such with children, because Truffaut did such and such with
children in 'L'Argent de poche.' His sensibility and approach grate
me; it's as though his films say: It's "moral" (or rather, neither
moral or immoral, simply amoral) just to perform formal maneuvers in a
film because you think they "looked cool" in the films of other
directors.
The fairy-tale fever-dream genre of Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry
establishes itself a priori as having no complicity with history of any
kind except perhaps with that of vacuum-sealed childhoods. Theirs are
narratives set perpetually adrift; Anderson and Gondry are the children
of Coca-Cola and Atari 2600.
craig.
10540
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:56pm
Subject: Re: Beatin' WA
> The fairy-tale fever-dream genre of Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry
> establishes itself a priori as having no complicity with history of
any
> kind except perhaps with that of vacuum-sealed childhoods. Theirs
are
> narratives set perpetually adrift; Anderson and Gondry are the
children
> of Coca-Cola and Atari 2600.
So you take what value that these filmmakers' supporters have and
make that value sound small and petty, and the values they should
have are large and important? Jeez, a popular contemporary American
filmmaker can't catch a break for nothin'!
-Jaime
10541
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 4:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
Elizabeth:
> Would any like to say how they decide what films they will see,
> beyond certain directors?
>
> Have there been films you avoided on some pre-determined
> criterion but then wanted to see? What changed your mind?
It's good to be plugged in to other film buffs - in person, in print, or
on the net - to pick up rumors and recommendations. I have a rule for
myself: I don't let negative buzz keep me away from films unless I have
a lot of respect for the taste of the buzzmakers. It's too easy to miss
good films that way. On the other hand, there's no harm in acting on
positive buzz from unverified sources.
Variety reviews for new films are pretty useful - partly because the
paper reviews so many films, partly because its writers use a
descriptive style which can give you a lot of information even if you
don't share the writer's taste.
Sam:
> (In 1989, I was 16,
> so I certainly don't remember a time when watching all the
> "important" films seemed feasible.)
Seeing all the "important" films is primarily of social value - it makes
your friends say, "Oh, Sam has seen everything." Actual
comprehensiveness was probably always an illusion, even in 1914. The
canon has its uses, but it's just not reliable enough to be a last stop.
- Dan
10542
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 4:11pm
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
> I didn't take the butler's comments as poverty to be shunned
> because it is unknowable, but undesirable as a experience.
But the butler didn't say, "Don't do this: there are rats and lice and
disease, etc." He refused to describe poverty in any way, while
denouncing Sullivan's mission with the film's full authority. He
creates a knowledge black hole, an extracinematic place from which
knowledge can't escape into the movie. - Dan
10543
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:04pm
Subject: Re: The Music Room (Satyajit Ray)
THE MUSIC ROOM is one of Charles Tesson's Top 10 best
CHARULATA, the only film ever that can manage to really film an act of
inspiration, is on my top 20...
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 4:13 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] The Music Room (Satyajit Ray)
> Jalsaghar / The Music Room (Satyajit Ray, 1957) is one of my favorite Ray
> films, too. Also love Charulata and The Chessplayers. Wrote about it,
> inadequately, at:
> http://members.aol.com/MG4273/sray.htm
>
> Ray is one of the giants of the cinema. I would love to get caught up with
> all of his films. As for Daney's comments: It is not just 25 year olds who
are
> having trouble seeing all the great films. We 50 year olds are struggling,
too!
>
> Mike Grost
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
10544
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:19pm
Subject: Fwd: Re: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
I know it is 'extracinematic' info, but do you think the butler
had known the poverty of which he speaks? I think the butler
knew poverty well.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > I didn't take the butler's comments as poverty to be shunned
> > because it is unknowable, but undesirable as a experience.
>
> But the butler didn't say, "Don't do this: there are rats and lice and
> disease, etc." He refused to describe poverty in any way, while
> denouncing Sullivan's mission with the film's full authority. He
> creates a knowledge black hole, an extracinematic place from which
> knowledge can't escape into the movie. - Dan
10545
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:35pm
Subject: Filming inspiration
> CHARULATA, the only film ever that can manage to really film an act
of
> inspiration, is on my top 20...
God knows they keep trying: "You've nailed it, Pollock!" I like
Barton's long-awaited breakthrough in Barton Fink, though -- partly
because it's clear from the last line ("and it won't be a postcard!")
that he still hasn't totally licked his sophomore slump.
10546
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:42pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films
This makes the construction of canons (and
> history-based theories) all the more valuable because they
> provide guidance through the entire range of international
> cinema from year zero to the continuously moving present.
There is a flood of Best Movies books on the market -- there must be
at least 20 in print! But that's good: without Sarris I couldn't have
gone as far and as fast as I did starting out in the 60s. It has
always been useful to have a guidebook of some kind. Then when you've
seen what's on The List, you start filling in the blanks, which all
lists have.
10547
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:42pm
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
> I know it is 'extracinematic' info, but do you think the butler
> had known the poverty of which he speaks? I think the butler
> knew poverty well.
Sure. I think the nature of poverty is "typed" as extracinematic
knowledge, but we are told by the butler himself that he has "made a
study" of poverty: "Most unwillingly, sir, I assure you." - Dan
10548
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:45pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
some figures I know
> are starting to slip away from canonical view --
> Eisenstein and Chaplin among them.
Elaborate. My defense of Chaplin against this trend called down the
wrath of our resident Keatonian, but I keep hearing about it -
incredibly enough.
10549
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:47pm
Subject: Re: The Music Room (Satyajit Ray)
> THE MUSIC ROOM is one of Charles Tesson's Top 10 best
Three critics put THE MUSIC ROOM on their all-time top ten in the 2002
Sight and Sound poll, and I believe that more than three ten-bested it
in 1992 (when Ray died). After PATHER PANCHALI, it seems to be the
current Ray canon contender.
I've always had a pretty modest response to Ray, for some reason. - Dan
10550
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:52pm
Subject: Chaplin and the canon
> Elaborate. My defense of Chaplin against this trend called down the
> wrath of our resident Keatonian, but I keep hearing about it -
> incredibly enough.
I don't think it's a new trend. In the first Sight and Sound poll in
1952, Chaplin put two films in the top three. Up until that time, he
was one of the handful of figures who dominated the canon. But he never
made the top ten again - at least the critics' version. - Dan
10551
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 5:58pm
Subject: catchin up with too many films
> In principle a similar online library of the cinema could exist.
Try www.emule-project.net
Have downloaded Mikio Naruse, Robert Breer, Aki Kaurismaki, Glauber Rocha,
King Hu, Tsui Hark, all Hong Sang-Soo features, Kenji Mizoguchi, Hans
Richter, Luc Moullet, virtually all Buster Keaton shorts, Kiyoshi Kurosawa,
Jacques Tourneur, Chris Cunningham, Claude Lanzmann, Marcel Duchamp...
> Two things I noticed recently. Serge Daney commented back in 1989
> that there were too many films, so that those under 25 could no
> longer catch up and as a result could no longer situate themselves
> in cinema's history. That got my attention since I turned 25 in
> 1989, but I don't feel much pressure either to catch up or to
> situate myself in history...
> I also noticed a discussion in the recent book, "Movie Mutations,"
> about "the children of 1960." Although that's close to my age
> cohort, I don't identify with the descriptions offered (of course I'm
> not a critic), but it does seem plausible that there are generational
> patterns in people's perspectives.
I'm a child of the mid/late 70s. It's hard to catch up with what's being
made today. Living in a country in which there are two 300-plus films film
festivals a year helps a good deal. When I was a college student I had time
to follow all retros or exhibitions that looked amazing or important in
cinema history. Saw some stuff on video, exchanged tapes, etc. Of course I
haven't seen all Lang's films, just a handful of Tourneur's (and not even
one western), never saw Love Streams or Only Angels Have Wings on film (two
of my 10-best list), but got to see on film Griffith (several shorts, Birth,
Broken Blossoms), virtually all Stroheim, some Chaplin, all Buster Keaton,
Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Vertov, Bunuel, Dulac, Richter, Clair, Feuillade,
Peixoto, Vigo, Sjostrom, Stilller.
Could see comprehensive retros of Cassavetes, Tarkovski, Varda, Chabrol,
Rohmer, Godard, Truffaut, Fassbinder, Herzog, Satyajit Ray, Murnau,
Rossellini, Zurlini, Pasolini, Wenders, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Suzuki, Welles (more
than once), Rouch, etc.
That was the closest to catching up I could do :)
Ruy
10552
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:09pm
Subject: Re: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
It'ssimply that I don't very much written about them
anymore. Eisenstein being the leading M.I.A. figure in
my view.
Brownlow has completely overtaken the silent cinema
and all talk about it now proceeds from his work. As
much as I appreciate most of it (scarcely all) his
canonical designs have to my mind stood in the way of
further study -- and more important, reappraisal of
fomerly canonical figure. Eisenstein is a perfect
example. Ton after metric ton of critical and
theoretical study and so far the only person who has
drawn a bead on him is Nestor Alemndros.
"Potemkin" used to be as much part of "film literacy"
as "Citizen Kane," "Rules of the Game," "Open City,"
"Bicycle Thief" and "Tokyo Story." But no more.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
>
> some figures I know
> > are starting to slip away from canonical view --
> > Eisenstein and Chaplin among them.
>
> Elaborate. My defense of Chaplin against this trend
> called down the
> wrath of our resident Keatonian, but I keep hearing
> about it -
> incredibly enough.
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10553
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:09pm
Subject: Re: catchin up with too many films
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> > In principle a similar online library of the cinema could exist.
>
> Try www.emule-project.net
> Have downloaded Mikio Naruse...
Which Naruse films and how was the quality?
And...what kind of subtitles did they have?
-Jaime
10554
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:11pm
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised! Rocco-ism in film? Seth welcomed!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> I'm thinking of Bazin's
> insight that Visconti filmed his fishermen as if they
> were "Rennaissance Princes."
>
That's an interesting thought. David, what do you think of ROCCO AND
HIS BROTHERS? I think one can also apply that phrase to describe
this film, and yet it doesn't account for why it is garbage to me, a
serious step backward into retrograde classicism from the
breakthrough of LA TERRA TREMA (which may always remain my favorite
and most personally inspiring Visconti film).
10555
From: Noel Vera
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:25pm
Subject: Re: Noel and Bill, imagined naked
> > I have always known that auteurists are, by
> definition,
> fetishists. From worshipping "le nom de l'auteur" to
> worshipping a
> toilet seat, there is, after all, a very thin line.
I guess I can say "you aren't an auteurist until you
have worshipped a toilet seat."
I'm for the June 13 free-for-all, but I'd appreciate a
definitive list of rules or schedules, so we know how
to behave ourselves.
And thanks for the Dreyer heads up. I'd like to see
his sense of humor.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10556
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:29pm
Subject: Re: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
> Of course, after all this viewing, one can come to the conclusion
> that films can be made about any topic in any fashion ... and
> so why not just use one's imagination and skip the films?! I
> don't espouse that attitude for myself, but I imagine others
> adopt it. At times, I wonder how critics and others select
> what films they see.
I'm 28 and have teached myself by a mix of respecting and mistrusting
canons. It's glorious when you pick a theory book on a library that no one
has talked about and it turns out to be great. Same with films. I think
curiosity comes first, then "respect for canons" follow (or not). "Know what
turns you on" should be the better advice to make. And there's the chance
factor, obviously. Had Almodovar seen Lang and Herzog and skipped Sirk and
Fassbinder, we wouldn't have the great films by him that we love so much.
And it's not because Lang is not great... it's just a question of what you
are chasing...
> Would any like to say how they decide what films they will see,
> beyond certain directors?
A theater I have sentimental feelings for. If I have free time, I'll see any
film screened on Palacio 1 in Rio, a theater that only screens H'wd
blockbusters (Troy, Van Helsing, Day After Tomorrow).
Beautiful women on it.
Ben Affleck or Sandra Bullock not being on it.
"genre": will pick a romantic comedy or a terror flick rather than a
judicial court-intrigue film or a family drama. But that's more
generalization than my taste stands... :)
The films I've seen recently or if I'm reading something on it. After you
see The Shop Around The Corner, you'll hopelessly see all romantic comedies
around town, only to realize all are crappy (or almost all).
Some uncontrollable urge, to quote the Devo band.
Instinct.
But I should add that I'll prefer to see, actually, a film I have read about
in rather trustworthy sources (Libération or Jean-Sebastien Chauvin's weblog
on Cannes, Cahiers, a_film_by, advice of some friends) or films that are
considered "important" even though I dislike the maker (say, Michael Haneke,
Stephen Frears, Paul Thomas Anderson, Todd Solondz).
But, of course, films by directors whose works I'm familiar with and love
certainly take first pick.
> Have there been films you avoided on some pre-determined
> criterion but then wanted to see? What changed your mind?
Independence Day, but mostly all Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay films. I
didn't want to see basicly because they're talentless; but unfortunately
they set up a new mainstream for action films, and people keep referencing,
so I should catch up. :)
10557
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: catchin up with too many films
They have MOTHER, WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRCASE and his lat one,
MIDAREGUMO. Spanish subtitles. I downloaded those last two, but I am unable
to see them in my computer...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime N. Christley"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 3:09 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: catchin up with too many films
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
> wrote:
> > > In principle a similar online library of the cinema could exist.
> >
> > Try www.emule-project.net
> > Have downloaded Mikio Naruse...
>
> Which Naruse films and how was the quality?
>
> And...what kind of subtitles did they have?
>
> -Jaime
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
10558
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:39pm
Subject: Naruse
> They have MOTHER, WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRCASE and his lat one,
> MIDAREGUMO.
The last one has the English title SCATTERED CLOUDS. A wonderful film.
- Dan
10559
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:42pm
Subject: Re: truncated Naruse
For the record, I'm keeping this on the board instead of going to e-
mail because I think it qualifies as general interest.
Ruy, I have the VHS release of WHEN A WOMAN and LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS
and I can make copies for you if you're able to watch NTSC tapes. I
can acquire a tape of MOTHER and do the same.
I'm aching to see more Naruse, particularly MIDAREGUMO/SCATTERED
CLOUDS, among others.
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> They have MOTHER, WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRCASE and his lat
one,
> MIDAREGUMO. Spanish subtitles. I downloaded those last two, but I
am unable
> to see them in my computer...
10560
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:47pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bill/Paul praised! Rocco-ism in film? Seth welcomed!
--- Kevin Lee wrote:
> That's an interesting thought. David, what do you
> think of ROCCO AND
> HIS BROTHERS? I think one can also apply that
> phrase to describe
> this film, and yet it doesn't account for why it is
> garbage to me, a
> serious step backward into retrograde classicism
> from the
> breakthrough of LA TERRA TREMA (which may always
> remain my favorite
> and most personally inspiring Visconti film).
>
Oh I very much disagree. "Rocco" is brilliant --
albeit very hard to take for any number of reasons,
the most obvious being the climactic murder scene.
Visconti wouldn't regard classicism as being
retrograde and neither would I. "Rocco" is by the
standards set by neo-realism decidedly "impure." It's
not just the fact that one scarcely finds itinerant
peasant youths who look like Alain Delon -- or hookers
like Annie Giaradot. It's that the methods Visconti
uses to dramatize his story and create his charaters
are so multi-faceted. It's stylized yet "real." The
scene where the family arrives at the engagement party
is by most standards "realistic"asare the scenes at
the boxing school. Yet it's all "in quotes" somehow.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10561
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:48pm
Subject: Re: Re: truncated Naruse
> I'm aching to see more Naruse, particularly MIDAREGUMO/SCATTERED
> CLOUDS, among others.
For those who live in NYC and can stay alive for a few more years, Japan
Society has begun to plan another Naruse retrospective. - Dan
10562
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: truncated Naruse
No Naruse film has ever been released in Brazil on VHS or DVD (even though
some had theatrical openings by the time they were made). Fortunately,
virtually all VCR-players in Brazil play both PAL-M and NTSC VHS's... The
film collection of the Japan Embassy has REPAST on 16mm print, and I just
saw it last week (my first Naruse).
Really liked it, but felt the need to see at least 2 or 3 of his films to
fully understand what was so stunning about it. The Jacques Racière piece,
"Naruse, le plan partagé", which appeared on the Cahiers (and which I
reprint below, in french), was of real help. The way the male role is
portrayed on the film, and a tracking shot that ends on the close-up of
Setsuko Hara's friend lead me to throw a hypothesis of the husband being
sterile (the wife has a cat on the house as a substitute). Male existencial
bankruptcy, for what I've read, seems a theme Naruse keeps coming back to.
Jaime, I couldn't thank you enough for that. Just downloaded Midaregumo,
shall know pretty soon if the quality is any good. Can translate it to VHS,
but not here at home...
Ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime N. Christley"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 3:42 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: truncated Naruse
> For the record, I'm keeping this on the board instead of going to e-
> mail because I think it qualifies as general interest.
>
> Ruy, I have the VHS release of WHEN A WOMAN and LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS
> and I can make copies for you if you're able to watch NTSC tapes. I
> can acquire a tape of MOTHER and do the same.
>
> I'm aching to see more Naruse, particularly MIDAREGUMO/SCATTERED
> CLOUDS, among others.
>
> -Jaime
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
> wrote:
> > They have MOTHER, WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRCASE and his lat
> one,
> > MIDAREGUMO. Spanish subtitles. I downloaded those last two, but I
> am unable
> > to see them in my computer...
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
10563
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 7:02pm
Subject: naruse, le plan partagé
a promise is a debt, they say
"Naruse, la plan partagé" par JACQUES RANCIÈRE
Deux fillettes, un chat, un cheval, deux acteurs. Telle pourrait être l'
équation du cinéma de Naruse, la figuration de cette egalité - des raisons
et des situations, des plans et des occu-pants du plan - qui lui donne son
style si particulier.
Commençons par les fillettes, et par cet épisode étonnant de Sincérité. La
petite Nobuko a appris que son père, Kei, avait jadis été fiancé à Utatsa,
la mêre de son amie Tomiko. Passé le traumatisme premier, elles s'amusent à
imaginer ce qui se serait passé si Kei n'avait pas sacrifié son amour à l'
attrait d'un riche mariage. Il n'y aurait eu ni "une ni l'autre d'entre
elles, mais quelqu'un d'autre qui aurait été moitié l'une, moitié l'autre.
Les fillettes rêvent. La caméra, elle, ne rêve pas. Elle met les rêves en
espaces et en figures. Elle s'est donc rapprochée des visages et cadre
maintenant, séparés par le vide central, deux demivisages qui occupent les
deux bords de l'image: deux demi-cercles semblables qui hésitent entre le
tableau abstrait ("Composition aux demifigures") et l'illustration de
comptine enfantine (Pomme de reinette et pomme d'api). Ce plan partagé
pourrait résumer la dramaturgie des films de Naruse, la manière dont la
fable s'y traduit en distribution des plans et partage de l'image.
On sait que l'intrigue, chez Naruse, est marquée par le malheur. Mais il
faut en préciser la nature. Ce n'est pas seulement le fait des vies perdues:
amours sacrifiées à l'argent ou à la convention, vies brisées ou
désorientées par la guerre, servitudes féminines des épouses, servantes ou
geishas. C'est surtout que ces malheurs sont soumis à une grande loi d'
équi-valence. Ceci doit s'entendre en deux sens tout d'abord, un malheur ne
s'échange en général que contre un autre, plus intime. Le spectateur de
Tourments s'attend à voir Reiko, la veuve courageuse, lutter en vain pour
sauver le petit commerce familial, menacé par les grandes surfaces, et
arracher son jeune beaufrère à une vie de voyou. Mais son malheur ira tout à
l'envers. La révolution du commerce permettra de transformer la petite
épicerie en grande surface et à ses belles sours de la mettre à la porte de
l'entreprise nouvelle. La vie erratique du jeune Shoji se révèlerera la
conséquence d'un amour passionné pour Reiko, âgée de douze ans de plus que
lui. Et cet amour impossible se terminera par une mort dont on ne saura pas
si ele est accident ou suicide. Ce passage du malheur au malheur par le
bonheur est au plus loin de tour renversement aristotélicien. Il n'y a
jamais de coup de théâtre chez Naruse: seu-lement des équivalences et des
substitutions. Tomiko et Nobuko sont à la place de l'enfant qu'auraient eu
Kei et Utatsa. Ceux-ci ne se retrouveront que pour un épisode accidentel. Et
l'in-soluble conflit se règlera par l'intermédiaire des allers et retours d'
une poupée. L'échange des enfants, élément important de la dramaturgie de
Naruse, aura une tout autre violence dans Délit de fuite où la mêre de l'
enfant écrasé veut se venger en tuant le fils de la conductrice, sans
parvenir à vaincre le regard de l'en-fant riche, tout semblable au sien. Et
finalement celle qui lui a pris son fils lui dérobera aussi sa vengeance.
Mais l'équivalence veut dire autre chose: il n'y a pas de raison
fondamentale pour que les choses soient autrement qu'elles sont. Pas de
raison de penser que tout irait bien si Reiko se rebellait et acceptait de
reconnâitre son propre amour pour Shoji. Les veuves de Nuages d'été ou Quand
une femme monte I'escalier qui acceptent de nouvelles amours se retrouvent
seules à la fin, l'une à tracer sou sillon dans la rizière, l'autre à monter
l'escalier du bar. Pas de raison décisive non plus de regretter le choix de
Kei et la résignation d'Utatsa. Les mariages d'amour du Repas ou d'Anzukko
ne sont pas plus heureux que les mariages arrangés. Et les petits poings de
Tomiko, massant sa mère, remercient et punissent à la fois ce désir
contrarié qui lui a valu la vie. Un film de Naruse ne tranche jamais entre
les monde et les logiques qu'il oppose. Sa structure ressemble toujours à ce
voyage qui conduit Kumiko, dans Ma femme, sois comme une rose, au second
ménage de son père. Elle vient officiellement pour demander à celuici d'
assister à son mariage, secrètement pour rompre le ménage adultère. La vue
du second foyer la fera renoncer à ce second objectif. Le père la suivra
donc pour remplir ses devoirs et repartira pour rejoindre ce qui est devenu
sa vraie famille. Il n'y pas de raison d'approuver ou de réprouver celui qui
cherche ailleurs son bonheur plutôt que celles qui restent obstinément
fidèles aux morts ou aux infidèles. Iro-niquement la soirée au foyer
illégitime aura été consacrée à la révision d'une leçon de morale sur les
devoirs de la famille, récitée sur le ton de la plus profonde conviction par
le fils adultérin.
Mais ce n'est pas une vanité de toutes fins et un retour schopenhauerien au
néant de la volonté que
la dramaturgie naruséenne oppose au noud aristotélicien des actions. C'est
plutôt une loi d'égalité généralisée. Si nul épisode ne porte la décision,
si nul choix n'est privilégié, nul plan alors ne contraint le plan suivant.
Aucune fatalité ne s'accomplit ni ne se renverse, rien ne se dénoue puisque
rien ne s'est vraiment noué. Cette loi affecte spectaculairement les fins
des films, presque toujours en mouvement vers un avenir indé-terminé,
quelquefois vers un avenir déjà passé, comme dans Hídeko receveuse d'autobus
où la jeune fille déclame joyeusement le boniment de guide qui doit sauver
son bus, sans savoir que celuici est déjà vendu. Ajoutons: sans que cela ait
d'impor-tance. Pas plus que n'a d'importance ce ballon, perdu par les
enfants d'à côté, qui réconcilie au plan final - pour combien de temps? - le
couple désuni de Pluie soudaine. Mais la loi vaut aussi pour tous les
enchaînements: aucun plan n'est hypothéqué par celui qui l'a précédé. C'est
ici que le chat entre en jeu: celui qui s'étire dans Le Repas ou L'Eclair,
indifférent à tout drame de famille, et plus encore celui qui passe sur le
mur dans Au gré du courant. La maison de geishas va à vaul'eau et a des
ennuis avec la police. Pour se ménager un allié, la patronne a invité le
policier de passage. Elle demande à la bonne d'aller discrètement commander
des nouilles chez le restaurateur à l'arrière. Au moment où le plat passe
pardessus le muret, le chat apparaît, marchant résolument dans sa direction.
L'on s'attend à un épisode tragicomique: les nouilles renversées, le
policier alerté... Mais rien de cela ne se passe. La caméra enchaine
simplement sur les occupations du lendemain. Sym-bole peutêtre du plan
naruséen. Celuici peut être lié au suivant par un classique fonduenchainé ou
se raccorder brutalement à un épisode que rien n'annonçait. Il peut nous
trans-porter sans transition dans le passé ou traduire à l'inverse l'écart
de la mémoire ou du désir par des procédés voyants - flous introduisant un
flashback (Trois sours au cour pur) ou surexposition des scènes imaginées
(Délit de fuite). Mais il garde toujours quelque chose de la nonchalance du
chat qui s'éveille ou passe, insoucieux de ce qui a précédé et de ce qui
suivra. Cette indifférence du chat est au cour des séquenees les plus
dramatiques de Naruse ainsi lorsque l'enfant que la fausse servaute de Délit
de fuite cherche à faire écraser par vengeanee se tient impertur-bable entre
deux flux de voitures, oppo-sant son sûr instant de petit animal au projet
criminel comme à l'angoisse de le voir réussir. L'invulnérabilité de l'
enfantchat est en défini-tive celle du plan qui ramène à sa seule égalité et
à sa perpétuelle renaissance les diverses apathies fictionnelles: veulerie
des hommes qui ne veulent perdre ni femme ni maîtresse, resi-gnation des
femmes qui n'osent pas suivre leur désir, nihilisme des jeunes qui n'ont
"pas demandé de naître".
La grande affaire, le grand succès des personnages est alors de savoir,
comme les gamines de Sincérité, partager ce plan d'égalité défini par l'
équivalence des raisons contraires. Celuici peut coïncider avec le cadre
visuel du plan et utiliser à cet effet le cadre de la maison traditionnelle
avec ses tensions inverses de promiscuité, interdisant tout secret, et d'
étagements en pro-fondeur où se distribuent des activités qui s'opposent, se
concilient ou s'ignorent. Mais ces distributious savantes des person-nages
et des actions ne sont pas affaire de virtuosité "formelle". Elles
définissent un plan de coexistence où chacun doit apprendre à se loger:
ainsi dans Ma Femme, sois comme une rose, où la visiteuse, d'abord isolée à
l'étage où l'on vient la saluer, peu à peu s'intègre visuellement à l'espace
de la famille illégitime. Le partage peut aussi se définir par le rapport de
deux plans symétriques, comme dans Le Grondement de la montagne où le
beau-père et la bellefille sont unis à distance par la bougie avec laquelle
chacun d'eux, pendant l'orage, inspecte les possibles infiltrations d'eau,
ou par l'intimité distante du champ et du horschamp: ainsi Reiko, après la
déclaration d'amour de sou beaufrère, trembletelle, en l'attendant descendre
l'es-calier et passer contre la cloison qui les sépare: crainte qu'il n'
entre, désir secret qu'il le fasse, honte à l'égard de ce désir. Un
personnage allongé, un personnage debout, telle est la cellule do plan
naruséen: maris boudeurs ou jeunes gens désouvrés auprès d'une mère ou d'une
femme qui s'active; sollicitude d'un corps allongé pour un autre que le
tourment tient debout, ou d'un corps agenouillé au chevet d'un corps
souffrant: comme dans la chambre d'hôtel de Nuages épars, où Mishima atteint
par la fièvre est l'objet des soins de Madame Eda, et où tout est dit par le
jeu des mains qui s'occupent à préparer la glace avant de s'abandonner dans
les mains du malade. Ce partage précaire reste le bonheur essentiel de ceux
que finira toujours par séparer un train ou un bateau.
La persévérance du plan se gagne ainsi sur la simple éthique de la
résignation. Il faut apprendre à s'y tenir - à y rester et à bien s'y
comporter - le temps qu'il faut. La vertu de civilité est alors identique à
celle de l'acteur. Acteurs ambulants: ce film "mineur" contient peutêtre la
poétique et la morale du réalisateur. Il faut dire que les acteurs y sont
peu ordinaires. Leur personnage: celui du cheval. L'on fait les pieds de
devant, l'autre ceux de derrière. II y faut, assurentils, dix ans d'étude.
Et ils ne cessent de se perfectionner en observant pendant des heures les
vrais chevaux. Ce bonheur mimétique se trouble quand la tête de carton du
cheval, endommagée et mal réparée, vient oppo-ser son ridicule à leur
science. Ils font donc grève pour la dignité de l'acteur. Leur patron trouve
la parade: embaucher un vrai cheval savant. Les spectateurs sont prêts à
préférer le réel à la copie, acceptant même qu'il ne sache pas se tenir et
pisse sur la scène. Mais les acteurs ne l'entendent pas ainsi. Piaffant et
hennissant mieux, par étude, que le vrai, par nature, ils sauront à la fin
le mettre en fuite. La mimesis est d'abord une morale: mettre à sa place la
nature, ses besoins et ses douleurs. "Je ne veux pas faire pitié", dit
Michyo dans Le Repas. Mais qui aura jamais pitié de Setsuko Hara? C'est cela
la katharsis. Purifier la pitié, quand la probabilité du malheur a déjà
purifié la crainte, c'est par ce programme que ce cinéma moderne, sans noud
ni dénouement, retrouve la vieille morale de la mimesis.
10564
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 3:11pm
Subject: Bunny Lake Is Missing
To all those with cable: Otto Preminger's masterpiece "Bunny Lake Is Missing"
is airing on Turner Classic Movies tonight at 10:15 PM EDT (sorry for that
dumb mistake, Fred; my excuse can conveniently be that the S and D keys are
right next to each other...) Since it's showing on TCM, I can only assume that
the film is being letterboxed to its original aspect ratio. If that is indeed
the case, it's the first time I can ever remember the film being shown this way
on television; and is thus not to be missed.
Peter
10565
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 8:05pm
Subject: Re: catchin up with too many films
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> They have MOTHER, WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRCASE and his lat
one,
> MIDAREGUMO. Spanish subtitles. I downloaded those last two, but I am
unable
> to see them in my computer...
>
You probably need to install certain codecs on your computer. I think
what you need for these two particular files is the DivX 5.1 codec.
The simplest way to get it is to download it here:
http://www.divx.com/divx/
In order to avoid paying for the DivX player, or using the
version that delivers ads to your computer, you could
download the Standard DivX Codec from that page (or from here:
http://www.codec-download.com/ )
and use another player, such as bsplayer
http://www.bsplayer.org/
or VLC,
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Paul
10566
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 9:53pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> some figures I know
> > are starting to slip away from canonical view --
> > Eisenstein and Chaplin among them.
>
> Elaborate. My defense of Chaplin against this trend called down the
> wrath of our resident Keatonian, but I keep hearing about it -
> incredibly enough.
Would the resident keatonian be me? In that case I don't
remember expressing any wrath. I think I said that by the time I
published the original edition of my Keaton book (1973) I had long
outgrown the rather silly Chaplin vs Keaton debate.
My feeling is not that Chaplin is "starting to slip away from
canonical view" -- quite the contrary. It could have been true 25 or
30 years ago -- when David Robinson, for example, could make the
staggering statement that "At the moment of writing, the eclipse of
Charlie Chaplin's critical reputation is practically complete."
(in "Hollywood in the Twenties", 1968). There has been an enormous
revival of interest in Chaplin in the past dozen years or so,
starting with Robinson's own mammoth biography in 1985.
Brownlow's "Rediscovering Chaplin"; Francis Bordat's
important "Chaplin cineaste" (1998)which brilliantly and generally
convincingly makes a case for Chaplin's genius as a director; the
bilingual "Chaplin Project" ("Documents and essays from Chaplin
Archives)of the Cineteca Bologna (2002); the Bergala docus; and lots
more. Meanwhile very little has been published on Keaton in the past
ten or even twenty years, aside from John Bengston's
fascinating "Silent Echoes" (2002).
I don't see how Chaplin could ever slip away from the canon, if a
canon has any meaning.
JPC
10567
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 9:58pm
Subject: Re: The Music Room (Satyajit Ray)
>
> I've always had a pretty modest response to Ray, for some reason. -
Dan
It would be interesting to know the reason. He's on my top five
director's list.
10568
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 9:59pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> .
>
> "Potemkin" used to be as much part of "film literacy"
> as "Citizen Kane," "Rules of the Game," "Open City,"
> "Bicycle Thief" and "Tokyo Story." But no more.
>
Who says so? How do you determine that "Potemkin" is no longer
part of "film literacy"? What is film literacy anyway? The "must have
seen" titles? in that case I'm pretty sure it's still there, although
i have no idea what's going on in film schools... If one film in your
list is likely to be slipping it would be the De Sica (always
immensely overrated unlike the others) rather than the Eisenstein.
JPC
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
> http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10569
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:05pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
so far the only person who has
> drawn a bead on him is Nestor Alemndros.
>
> "Potemkin" used to be as much part of "film literacy"
> as "Citizen Kane," "Rules of the Game," "Open City,"
> "Bicycle Thief" and "Tokyo Story." But no more.
I guess that's true. Bonitzer wrote a good piece on The General Line,
and of course there's Barthes' The Third Sense, which is mostly about
SME frame enlargements. Where's Almendros' piece? I'd like to read it.
Your observation re: Brownlow is very interesting. I know from Tag
that the restorations aren't always impeccable. Of course he has done
some great things - not the least of which is Behind the Mask of
Innocence. Having gotten to know Schickel re: The Big Red One, I'm
curious now to see his documentary on Chaplin.
10570
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:11pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
There has been an enormous
> revival of interest in Chaplin in the past dozen years or so,
> starting with Robinson's own mammoth biography in 1985.
> Brownlow's "Rediscovering Chaplin"; Francis Bordat's
> important "Chaplin cineaste" (1998)which brilliantly and generally
> convincingly makes a case for Chaplin's genius as a director; the
> bilingual "Chaplin Project" ("Documents and essays from Chaplin
> Archives)of the Cineteca Bologna (2002); the Bergala docus; and
lots
> more. Meanwhile very little has been published on Keaton in the
past
> ten or even twenty years, aside from John Bengston's
> fascinating "Silent Echoes" (2002).
>
> I don't see how Chaplin could ever slip away from the canon, if a
> canon has any meaning.
>
> JPC
Thanks for the corrections, JP. I'll go looking for some of that. I
believe I heard there was an interview w. Kiarostami recently on The
Kid, run with the film on IFC or TCM or some other channel I only
hear about.
10571
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:17pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Music Room (Satyajit Ray)
>
> It would be interesting to know the reason. He's on my top five
> director's list.
Curious to know who the other four are, unless it's a revolving four...
craig.
10572
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
> Thanks for the corrections, JP. I'll go looking for some of that. I
> believe I heard there was an interview w. Kiarostami recently on The
> Kid, run with the film on IFC or TCM or some other channel I only
> hear about.
Yes -- these and the other mini-documentary interviews included across
the Warner/MK2 Chaplin DVD releases are the Bergala docs. Although
note that, if you haven't picked these up yet, it's best (albeit very
pricey for us Americans -- I haven't gotten them yet myself) to order
the collection from the UK, or from France, as the mastering was
botched on the first set, and then the more recent second set, of
releases. I think this has been discussed before on here, but just for
the sake of easy reference, check out the details of the whole sordid
affair here:
http://dvdscan.com/chaplin.htm
craig.
10573
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:30pm
Subject: Re: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> Who says so?
Me.
How do you determine that
> "Potemkin" is no longer
> part of "film literacy"? What is film literacy
> anyway?
Interest in any movie over a year old.
The "must have
> seen" titles? in that case I'm pretty sure it's
> still there, although
> i have no idea what's going on in film schools...
They're studing Spielberg in the hope of being the
next Spielberg.
If
> one film in your
> list is likely to be slipping it would be the De
> Sica (always
> immensely overrated unlike the others) rather than
> the Eisenstein.
>
Ya think?
I prefer it to Rossellini. In fact while the bulk of
DeSica's careeris merely employment undertaken to
cover gambling debts the best of him is preferable to
early Rossellini.
After he met Bergman things picked up -- especially
with "Europe '51"
Of the late works only "La Prise de Pouvoir par Louis
XIV" continues to enchant.
And the less said about "Ano Uno" the better.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10574
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:33pm
Subject: Re: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> I don't see how Chaplin could ever slip away from
> the canon, if a
> canon has any meaning.
>
> JPC
>
>
Well neither do I. Thanks for the update. I guess the
Chaplin vs. Keaton debate in "The Dreamers" put me in
a melancholy mood.
I haven't spoken about Chaplin with anyone for over 20
years.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10575
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Your observation re: Brownlow is very interesting. I
> know from Tag
> that the restorations aren't always impeccable. Of
> course he has done
> some great things - not the least of which is Behind
> the Mask of
> Innocence.
That's a pretty good book.
However I prefer Noel Burch going nutso over
L'Herbier's "L'Argent" to Brownlow on Gance.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10576
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:45pm
Subject: The Magpie can kiss my ass
Sorry Jamie, couldn't resist.
I think Jeremy is one of the most gifted critics under 30 that I've
encountered
online, even if he doesn't respond to my emails. And I admire his
sticking to
KILL BILL and trying to validate it on artistic terms in an earnest
effort to rebuff
the Tarantino-bashers. But that excerpt from his review (which you
should
link so that people can read the whole review and better yet discover
his site)
left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Okay, so there's a lot of
mixing and
matching going on across cultures, but to what end? It's just a big
cinematic
rave party, a mix tape. What is QT actually saying about all this
so-called
miscegenation other than that it's cool? Well, maybe that's a
meaningful
political statement in itself, but a rather one-dimensional one if
you ask me. I
think the last two Jarmusch genre pics do more to interrogate and
reflect on
the morality and the meaning of all this cultural "miscegenation."
The ending
of GHOST DOG with the black girl reading a book while holding a gun
is a far
more loaded political statement than mommy Uma and her daughter
curling
up in a warm and fuzzy ball. (The Chicago Reader review of the ending
of
KBV2 is a particularly inspired assault on this resolution as a
betrayal of what
makes Tarantino worth watching, at least on formalist terms.) I
would give a
lifetime supply of lunch money for there to be a movie where the girl
in
GHOST DOG has a deadly showdown with Uma's kid -- not only would it
be a
fucking great shoot-em-up, but the ideological conflict would be
historic.
In any event, there IS a big difference between this and the
auto-critical
complexity that you'll find in Godard. With Godard, his references
weren't just
to razzle-dazzle his viewers with his sleeve-worn cinematic
credentials,
though he's certainly been criticized for doing as much (and who
knows but
that most viewers appreciate him mainly on this level, the level of
surface
pleasure). He actually was commenting on the act of cultural
appropriation,
whether by others or by himself, its cultural implications, its
problems, its
politics, whether it's Seberg at the end of BREATHLESS parodying
Belmondo
aping Bogart, or the fatuous heroic soldier posturing inspired by one
too many
war movies in LE PETIT SOLDAT and LES CARABINIERS, or Lang sniping at
Palance's vain attempt to go Greek in CONTEMPT. IN PRAISE OF LOVE is
as
bracing a jeremiad on appropriation as any you'll find. But as you
say, it's up
to us what value we want to derive from these filmmakers. On that
note, I
wouldn't rule out that there is substance in KILL BILL and that there
may or
will be some great writing out there to elucidate it (it's taken
decades to make
total sense of Godard and we're still not finished). For now, I'll
have my
magpie cooked medium.
Kevin
10577
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:51pm
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised etc...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, samadams@e... wrote:
I think I'm more interested in the aesthetic
> underlying a given list than the list itself.
B
I
N
G
O
that's why they called him BINGO!
I guess I'm thrilled to read this because this is precisely the point
I've been
trying to make to a legion of humbuggers on another message board who
are
having major problems with Rosenbaum's list of 1,000 "essential"
films. (Not
to say that I don't have problems with it myself, but I'd rather hear
more about
"the aesthetic underlying" the list rather than just gripe at the
titles in front of
me.
10578
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 6:54pm
Subject: Brownlow, Ray
Bill Krohn wrote:
>Your observation re: Brownlow is very interesting. I know from Tag
>that the restorations aren't always impeccable. Of course he has done
>some great things - not the least of which is Behind the Mask of
>Innocence.
Well, I love "The Parade's Gone By." I think it's the one book that has been
most inspiring to me in my ongoing quest to conduct oral histories with all
of the living Welles associates. I also greatly admire Brownlow and David
Gill's "Hollywood" and "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow."
I'm also fascinated to know the other four directors in your top five, Bill.
About Satyajit Ray, I'm very embarrassed to say that I've not yet seen a lot
of the films of his being discussed here. There's no excuse for that since
most of them are on tape and are gradually making their way onto DVD. What is
it about him that puts him in such a rarefied class for you?
Peter
10579
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 10:59pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > "Potemkin" used to be as much part of "film literacy"
> > as "Citizen Kane," "Rules of the Game," "Open City,"
> > "Bicycle Thief" and "Tokyo Story." But no more.
> >
> Who says so? How do you determine that "Potemkin" is no longer
> part of "film literacy"? What is film literacy anyway? The "must have
> seen" titles? in that case I'm pretty sure it's still there, although
> i have no idea what's going on in film schools... If one film in your
> list is likely to be slipping it would be the De Sica (always
> immensely overrated unlike the others) rather than the Eisenstein.
> JPC
I think DeSica will get more references because his neo-realism
is more readily copied / emulated when 'guerilla' filmmakers use
non-professional actor for their docu-dramas, at least that was the
case when RIKER's THE CITY was screened last week. But modern
editing machines could bring Eisenstein forward. ... whose
skill will be adopted?
10580
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:02pm
Subject: Re: Brownlow, Ray
> I'm also fascinated to know the other four directors in your top five,
> Bill.
> About Satyajit Ray, I'm very embarrassed to say that I've not yet seen
> a lot
> of the films of his being discussed here. There's no excuse for that
> since
> most of them are on tape and are gradually making their way onto DVD.
My Ray-watching is also insanely incomplete. But as a sister-note to
my earlier Chaplin note, be aware that the American DVD releases of the
films that form the Apu Trilogy were horribly, carelessly transferred
by Columbia; if you want to start building (or add these to) a Ray
collection, go for the Artificial Eye releases on Region 2 UK DVD. See
frame comparisons at http://www.dvdbeaver.com.
craig.
10581
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:03pm
Subject: Re: The Magpie can kiss my ass
> It's just a big
> cinematic
> rave party, a mix tape.
That's only exactly the assumption I was trying to question, maybe I'm
wasting my time.
> What is QT actually saying about all this
> so-called
> miscegenation other than that it's cool? Well, maybe that's a
> meaningful
> political statement in itself, but a rather one-dimensional one if
> you ask me.
I'm not sure how to respond to this. What kind of dimensions are you
looking for?
I used to think that for a film or character or idea or whatever to be
"three-dimensional" meant that it had to have different sides to it.
Hence: three-dimensional. And one-dimensional stuff is unilateral,
you know, Bushy. The 3D stuff keeps the viewer on his toes, creates
intellectual excitement, and so forth.
But then I started thinking, wait a minute, that doesn't really apply
to all of the films I treasure. So maybe three-dimensional can also
mean a film/character/etc that's so vivid and surprising that it seems
"real" (I don't mean "realistic"), as in...three-dimensional. A world
that can be entered.
Or an idea.
Like this so-called miscegenation.
Which is pretty cool, and also kind of bittersweet, since it can only
exist so blissfully in a comic book world like Tarantino's.
The Magpie part at the end signals that he may very well be aware of
this. That's all. Sorry it made you have a bad taste in your mouth.
-Jaime
p.s. One of my favorite shoppers right now is DJ Shadow.
10582
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:05pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> > Who says so?
>
> Me.
>
Oh well then...
>
?
>
>
>
>
>
> If
> > one film in your
> > list is likely to be slipping it would be the De
> > Sica (always
> > immensely overrated unlike the others) rather than
> > the Eisenstein.
> >
>
> Ya think?
>
> I prefer it to Rossellini.
Non sequitur. We were discussing your list, not Rossellini vs De
Sica
>
> Don't start me on Rossellini anyway. I just finished translating
Tag's huge RR book and I watched ALL of his films (including the TV
stuff) in the process. Except, as it happens, "Anno Uno".
> _____JPC_____________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
> http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10583
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:10pm
Subject: Re: Historicizing/Shopping
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector" wrote:
To my mind, the
> filmmaker who embodies too little care, ravenous consumption, and
> ahistoricism has to be Wes Anderson. His films are exceptional and
> tender, yes, they manufacture "certain excitements and emotions
> (which) may possibly be artistic, but their only use is to offset the
> fearful boredom induced in any audience by the endless repetition of
> falsehoods and stupidities". Like the function of fashion in the world
> today (to try to relate it to the other posts), or more exactly, like
> shopping: "I like this song, this colour, this actor, this emotion".
> Is this all filmmakers are, shoppers?
>
> Best,
> andy
>
There is definitely a purposeful distinction to be made between Art and
Fashion, and to me recent Anderson, Tarantino and Princess Sophia would
squarely belong in the latter. (I make a pointed exception with Michel Gondry
whom Craig had consigned to the slagheap of contempt). But I would argue
that Anderson wasn't always like this -- in BOTTLE ROCKET there's a real
palpable sense of freedom, existential as well as stylistic, a movie that
followed its own whim and could have done so forever. Christ, the original
script was something like 800 pages!
RUSHMORE might have been the key transitional moment to a more studied
mannerism, but it still had that freshness and offbeat charm... and then came
the ROYAL UNTENABLE BOMB. What a disappontment!
But the final straw for me (and one that I think aligns with your point about his
wearing film styles the way Ashton Kutcher wears a trucker's cap) was seeing
his full color spread in the style section of the New York Times Magazine of all
places, talking about how wonderful it is to have his own Upper East side
tailor (2001 NYFF moment of Zen: hearing a NYU film school student come up
to him and offer to do his dry cleaning). And now he's irretrievably tangled in
the hipster mafia doing coke or whatever stimulant du jour with the Wilson
Bros., the Coppola Jrs. and eminence grise Bill Murray. Blah.
on a related note, hey all you anti-rockists, here's a question: what are your
thoughts on the concept of "Selling Out"? Heavenly commandment, overused
cliche, what?
10584
From:
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:12pm
Subject: Re: Rocco
David Thomson uses the murder scene, with its blatant crucifixion
imagery, to attack Visconti as a middlebrow darling, which gets it
just about exactly wrong. True, Visconti inititally films her death
as an almost over-the-top Christ allegory, as she raises her arms to
accept death. But then there's a cutaway (I don't remember to what)
and when he returns to the murder scene, the tone shifts to a
bloodcurdling naturalism. It's as if Visconti lures you in with an
aestheticized version of death, then slams you with something
approaching the real thing. It's easy to write Visconti off as a
rococo stylist, but I think that ignores a lot of the underlying
tensions in his work. Not that it makes me like THE DAMNED any more.
Sam
>David Ehrenstein wrote:
>
>--- Kevin Lee wrote:
>
>> That's an interesting thought. David, what do you
>> think of ROCCO AND
>> HIS BROTHERS? I think one can also apply that
>> phrase to describe
>> this film, and yet it doesn't account for why it is
>> garbage to me, a
>> serious step backward into retrograde classicism
>> from the
>> breakthrough of LA TERRA TREMA (which may always
>> remain my favorite
>> and most personally inspiring Visconti film).
>>
>
>Oh I very much disagree. "Rocco" is brilliant --
>albeit very hard to take for any number of reasons,
>the most obvious being the climactic murder scene.
>
>Visconti wouldn't regard classicism as being
>retrograde and neither would I. "Rocco" is by the
>standards set by neo-realism decidedly "impure." It's
>not just the fact that one scarcely finds itinerant
>peasant youths who look like Alain Delon -- or hookers
>like Annie Giaradot. It's that the methods Visconti
>uses to dramatize his story and create his charaters
>are so multi-faceted. It's stylized yet "real." The
>scene where the family arrives at the engagement party
>is by most standards "realistic"asare the scenes at
>the boxing school. Yet it's all "in quotes" somehow.
10585
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:12pm
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised etc...
>
> I guess I'm thrilled to read this because this is precisely the point
> I've been
> trying to make to a legion of humbuggers on another message board who
> are
> having major problems with Rosenbaum's list of 1,000 "essential"
> films. (Not
> to say that I don't have problems with it myself, but I'd rather hear
> more about
> "the aesthetic underlying" the list rather than just gripe at the
> titles in front of
> me.
Yeah, I dig that, too. And I've been on the same campaign trail. I
love the way people find it so fucking impossible to get past their
own self-loving urge to piss on someone else's movie love because they
think they're, I dunno, defending democracy from the encroaching
darkness. When in fact all they're doing is
But some lists are essential to me because of the writer. Dan
Sallitt's "favorite films" page
http://www.panix.com/~sallitt/bestfilm.html
May seem nuts to the fifteen year-old who can't comprehend the absence
of LORD OF THE RINGS, the auteurist snob (present company excluded)
who can't grasp the absence of PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, the
sophomore-year Euro-classic snob who can't comprehend the absence of 8
1/2 or THE SEVENTH SEAL, the Asian film snob who can't comprehend the
absence of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, etc. Or the snob in me, unable to
grasp the absence of Jerry Lewis, Chris Marker, Jacques Tati, Steven
Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, almost all John Carpenter,
almost all Kurosawa, almost all Sam Fuller, etc.
To me they aren't absent........they're on other lists by other people!!
BINGO!!!
-Jaime
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, samadams@e... wrote:
> I think I'm more interested in the aesthetic
> > underlying a given list than the list itself.
>
> B
>
> I
>
> N
>
> G
>
> O
>
> that's why they called him BINGO!
10586
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:13pm
Subject: Re: Academic Territoriality
Let me guess, he wasn't David Bordwell? (God forbid if Bordwell was in that
room, and given the topic my hunch is he probably was?)
So if he was pissing on those fundamentals, what may I ask was this
unnamed da capo of academia advocating?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> I don't entirely mean to fan anti-academic flames - I've stepped inside a
> university once or twice myself! - but I have to add another anecdote to
> Bill's story of Dudley Andrews' 'territorial' bad-vibe response to
> 'outmoded' Daney-esque auteurism at an academic conference:
>
> I was speaking at a conference on action cinema in Hong Kong (what better
> place!) in 2003, and my paper (I was on a panel with Nicole Brenez) was
> about issues of form, style and mise en scene in various action films. There
> was huffing and puffing in the (small) room during the panel and a
statement
> muttered loudly enough for everyone to plainly hear it, from a very
> prominent academic who I cannot name for fear of a SOPRANO'S-style
whacking:
>
> "Film style, mise en scene, film form ... DIDN'T WE FINISH WITH ALL THIS
AT
> LEAST TWENTY YEARS AGO?" !!!!!!!
>
> I pity the poor students of this person, there is just so much that, barely
> at the age of 20, they are meant to be be utterly 'beyond' these days !!!!
>
> kick-ass Adrian
10587
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:17pm
Subject: Re: Historicizing/Shopping
> There is definitely a purposeful distinction to be made between Art and
> Fashion, and to me recent Anderson, Tarantino and Princess Sophia would
> squarely belong in the latter.
Why is it important to "beat down" these directors? You want to make
sure people don't love them too much? You want to set the record
straight? Open people's eyes to the truth?
I don't know how helpful you think that would be. When it appears
that people have nothing better to do than to say a director is
"overrated," it makes me sad.
-Jaime
10588
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:19pm
Subject: Fwd: Re: Preston Sturges - Sullivan's Travels - opinions sought
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> >> -- as such I guess it answers the question
> >>of "did Sullivan experience poverty?" with a resounding "maybe".
> >>
> > "Slumming" is the correct word. He is playing at being poor for
> > research purposes, but you can't really know what it is to be poor
> > when at any time you can go safely back to the lap of luxury.
>
> Seems to me the film tackles this subject head-on with the early, very
> striking scene with the butler played by Robert Greig. In a commanding
> closeup and with great authority, the butler goes to great lengths to
> establish poverty as the unknowable: "It is to be shunned, even for
> purposes of study." Much like the pre-anaesthesia surgery mentioned in
> the stern introductory title cards of THE GREAT MOMENT, poverty is
> posited as a subject beyond the scope of cinema, evoked to contextualize
> the function of the movie. - Dan
and yet the whole point of the film is to challenge this assumption. I don't find
the results unequivocally rested on any particular position, and certainly don't
take McCrea's final quasi-defeatist sentiments at face value.
Well, I guess this makes a film like KILLER OF SHEEP all the more valuable
for offering a look at poverty from the inside instead of outside.
10589
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bill/Paul praised etc...
> Yeah, I dig that, too. And I've been on the same campaign trail. I
> love the way people find it so fucking impossible to get past their
> own self-loving urge to piss on someone else's movie love because they
> think they're, I dunno, defending democracy from the encroaching
> darkness. When in fact all they're doing is
It's like God himself pulled the plug on your vitriol.
craig.
10590
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:20pm
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised etc... correction
> When in fact all they're doing is
I meant to finish that sentence. Oh well. My whisky's calling.
-Jaime
10591
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:21pm
Subject: Re: Bill/Paul praised etc...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller wrote:
> > Yeah, I dig that, too. And I've been on the same campaign trail. I
> > love the way people find it so fucking impossible to get past their
> > own self-loving urge to piss on someone else's movie love because they
> > think they're, I dunno, defending democracy from the encroaching
> > darkness. When in fact all they're doing is
>
> It's like God himself pulled the plug on your vitriol.
>
> craig.
Maybe he did. Maybe he should spread it around.
-Jaime
10592
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:31pm
Subject: Re: Rocco
I quite like THE DAMNED, but I can't stand RAPE-O IS MY BRUDDA. It's so
fucking caught up in using the poor as pawns for its glorious fetishization of
melodrama. I don't think the problem lies so much in its being middle-brow
(which I don't necessarily agree with anyway) as being middle-class.
To David's point about the usefulness of classicism, what I had in mind in
making that point was David Walsh's criticism of Mystic River, which I think
applies even more aptly to ROCCO:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/myst-n03.shtml
"The tragedies that need to be written and filmed in America today, in any
event, will not reprise ancient concerns with Fate or Elizabethan studies of
individual passion. Writers and directors will be obliged, first of all, to uncover
the real driving forces in society, the real existing social relationships, not
mythologized ones based on "tribal codes of kinship, blood and honor." On
that basis, one is confident, there will be no shortage of material."
I dunno, maybe I'll revisit the film with your comments about the naturalism in
mind. Maybe Visconti had achieved a synthesis of old and new styles,
naturalism and allegory that is worth regarding. But in this vein I much prefer
Pasolini. Dave Kehr once wrote that George Stevens was trying too hard to
have the last word on the Western with SHANE, and the results smelled of his
monumentalizing effort (though I actually like SHANE more than I like
ROCCO). ROCCO also feels like it's trying to make a final declaration on
something, neorealism, socialism, I don't know what, but it feels like it's etched
in marble and it stinks. LA TERRA TREMA for me represents an artist
discovering his material for the first time, and I find that act of discovery
infinitely more inspiring than someone trying to make a grand statement.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, samadams@e... wrote:
> David Thomson uses the murder scene, with its blatant crucifixion
> imagery, to attack Visconti as a middlebrow darling, which gets it
> just about exactly wrong. True, Visconti inititally films her death
> as an almost over-the-top Christ allegory, as she raises her arms to
> accept death. But then there's a cutaway (I don't remember to what)
> and when he returns to the murder scene, the tone shifts to a
> bloodcurdling naturalism. It's as if Visconti lures you in with an
> aestheticized version of death, then slams you with something
> approaching the real thing. It's easy to write Visconti off as a
> rococo stylist, but I think that ignores a lot of the underlying
> tensions in his work. Not that it makes me like THE DAMNED any more.
>
> Sam
>
> >David Ehrenstein wrote:
> >
> >--- Kevin Lee wrote:
> >
> >> That's an interesting thought. David, what do you
> >> think of ROCCO AND
> >> HIS BROTHERS? I think one can also apply that
> >> phrase to describe
> >> this film, and yet it doesn't account for why it is
> >> garbage to me, a
> >> serious step backward into retrograde classicism
> >> from the
> >> breakthrough of LA TERRA TREMA (which may always
> >> remain my favorite
> >> and most personally inspiring Visconti film).
> >>
> >
> >Oh I very much disagree. "Rocco" is brilliant --
> >albeit very hard to take for any number of reasons,
> >the most obvious being the climactic murder scene.
> >
> >Visconti wouldn't regard classicism as being
> >retrograde and neither would I. "Rocco" is by the
> >standards set by neo-realism decidedly "impure." It's
> >not just the fact that one scarcely finds itinerant
> >peasant youths who look like Alain Delon -- or hookers
> >like Annie Giaradot. It's that the methods Visconti
> >uses to dramatize his story and create his charaters
> >are so multi-faceted. It's stylized yet "real." The
> >scene where the family arrives at the engagement party
> >is by most standards "realistic"asare the scenes at
> >the boxing school. Yet it's all "in quotes" somehow.
10593
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:37pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rocco
--- samadams@e... wrote:
> David Thomson uses the murder scene, with its
> blatant crucifixion
> imagery, to attack Visconti as a middlebrow darling,
> which gets it
> just about exactly wrong.
Par for the course for Thomson. he gets everything
wrong.
True, Visconti inititally
> films her death
> as an almost over-the-top Christ allegory, as she
> raises her arms to
> accept death. But then there's a cutaway (I don't
> remember to what)
> and when he returns to the murder scene, the tone
> shifts to a
> bloodcurdling naturalism. It's as if Visconti lures
> you in with an
> aestheticized version of death, then slams you with
> something
> approaching the real thing.
Precisely.
It's easy to write
> Visconti off as a
> rococo stylist, but I think that ignores a lot of
> the underlying
> tensions in his work. Not that it makes me like THE
> DAMNED any more.
>
Oh I like "The Damned" a lot, but it's a different
sort of film. Fassbinder praised it, but the Visconti
film that really mattered to him was "Rocco." The
climactic murder in "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is a
remake of the one in "Rocco" -- albeit without the
crucifixion imagery.
__________________________________
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10594
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:39pm
Subject: Re: The Music Room (Satyajit Ray)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
> >
> > It would be interesting to know the reason. He's on my top five
> > director's list.
>
> Curious to know who the other four are, unless it's a revolving
four...
>
> craig.
Hitchcock, Hawks, Godard and Ulmer.
10595
From: Damien Bona
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:39pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> Who says so? How do you determine that "Potemkin" is no longer
> part of "film literacy"? What is film literacy anyway? The "must
>have seen" titles? in that case I'm pretty sure it's still there, >
although
> i have no idea what's going on in film schools... If one film in
your
> list is likely to be slipping it would be the De Sica (always
> immensely overrated unlike the others) rather than the Eisenstein.
When I took film classes at Columbia back in the mid-70s, Potemkin
was already being treated as more or less a necessary evil -- it was
considered joyless but becuase it was so much a part of the canon, a
film professor was still obligated to teach it. I always disafreed
with that assessment, I've always found the film to be exhilerating.
De Sica, on the other was generally ignored, not even mentioned in
passing except to point out the failings of the mid-century liberal
humanist film reviewers (as epitomized by Bosley Crowther)who had
lionized him.
Of course, this era was the height of auteurism in academia. My
comedy course (taught by Mike Stern, who's now a food writer) didn't
include any Chaplin films, but we did see Sirk's Weekend With Father
and No Room For The Groom, and a whole slew of Tashlin. Ahh,
precious memories.
10596
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:45pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
> > Don't start me on Rossellini anyway. I just finished
translating
> Tag's huge RR book and I watched ALL of his films (including the TV
> stuff) in the process. Except, as it happens, "Anno Uno".
And???
10597
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:47pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rocco
--- Kevin Lee wrote:
> I quite like THE DAMNED, but I can't stand RAPE-O IS
> MY BRUDDA. It's so
> fucking caught up in using the poor as pawns for its
> glorious fetishization of
> melodrama.
Not of melodrama -- of Alain Delon and Renato
Salvatore. Someone (I think kael) compared Delon in
"Rocco" to Hedy Lamarr. Point taken.
Salvator was a great actor who never became a star.
See also his marvelous performance in "The Organizer."
I don't think the problem lies so much
> in its being middle-brow
> (which I don't necessarily agree with anyway) as
> being middle-class.
>
Visconti was NEVER middle-class. Not even
Upper-Middle.
> To David's point about the usefulness of classicism,
> what I had in mind in
> making that point was David Walsh's criticism of
> Mystic River, which I think
> applies even more aptly to ROCCO:
>
>
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/myst-n03.shtml
> "The tragedies that need to be written and filmed in
> America today, in any
> event, will not reprise ancient concerns with Fate
> or Elizabethan studies of
> individual passion. Writers and directors will be
> obliged, first of all, to uncover
> the real driving forces in society, the real
> existing social relationships, not
> mythologized ones based on "tribal codes of kinship,
> blood and honor." On
> that basis, one is confident, there will be no
> shortage of material."
>
Eastwood is no Visconti. The young Eastwood
(particularly in "Revenge of the Creature" and "The
First Travelling Salkeslady") would have been a
sublime Visconti subject.
> I dunno, maybe I'll revisit the film with your
> comments about the naturalism in
> mind. Maybe Visconti had achieved a synthesis of
> old and new styles,
> naturalism and allegory that is worth regarding.
> But in this vein I much prefer
> Pasolini.
Well Visconti is his only rival on that score.But it's
a strange rivalry in that Pasolini takes the whole
issue into a completely different direction than
Visconti -- who wouldn't have given Ninetto the time
of day.
Dave Kehr once wrote that George Stevens
> was trying too hard to
> have the last word on the Western with SHANE, and
> the results smelled of his
> monumentalizing effort (though I actually like SHANE
> more than I like
> ROCCO). ROCCO also feels like it's trying to make a
> final declaration on
> something, neorealism, socialism, I don't know what,
> but it feels like it's etched
> in marble and it stinks.
Actually it's a transitional film -- a "goodbye to all
that" of the neo-realist impulses of his youth. With
"The Leopard" he finds his true subject once again--
himself.
LA TERRA TREMA for me
> represents an artist
> discovering his material for the first time, and I
> find that act of discovery
> infinitely more inspiring than someone trying to
> make a grand statement.
>
Maybe.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
10598
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:54pm
Subject: Re: Historicizing/Shopping
what are your
> thoughts on the concept of "Selling Out"? Heavenly commandment,
overused
> cliche, what?
Complicated. If you keep doing good work, it doesn't matter what they
pay you for it. Sometimes selling out destroys the work, no matter
how good you were to start with: Dali. If you do it reluctantly to
keep going in a tough game, you deserve all the help you can get from
critics to get both hands free again. There are as many answers as
there are artists. Hitchcock said - and no one seems to have heard
this - that he had to make the films he made because the critics
DIDN'T support him. I wonder if he was thinking of Under Capricorn,
when it really would have made a difference. He still made my Top
Five, which just shows how relative these things are.
10599
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Jun 2, 2004 11:57pm
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> And???
I just want to move on. You know the feeling.
10600
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Jun 3, 2004 0:05am
Subject: Re: Too Many Films will see / avoided, wanted to see
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> > And???
>
>
> I just want to move on. You know the feeling.
Sure I do, but when I got back from promoing Hitchcock au travail I
immediately watched Fahrenheit 451 to see if I got anything new out
of it (still so great...), and a few weeks later I was back at the
Herrick plowing through the Family Plot files, finding wonderful new
surprises. But that's the incredible thing about Hitchcock -- he is
endlessly pleasurable. It's virtually impossible for me to get tired
of him, unlike, say, Lang. It is at the heart of his "secret."
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