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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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13101
From: Nick
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:26am
Subject: Re: Before Sunset (Was: juvenile thrills)
> In the article I read, Linklater, Delpy and Hawke said that the
> actors wrote dialogue for each other as well as themselves.
All three are credited with the screenplay.
[With all the dough from SCHOOL OF ROCK, and the good reception that
BEFORE SUNSET is receiving, things bode well for A SCANNER DARKLY...
but the cast is odd..... Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson, Keanu,
Winona... (I'd prefer less well-known actors)]
-Nick Wrigley>-
13102
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:59am
Subject: Re: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)
>
> Thanks for the birthday wishes, Bill. But saying that "nothing much"
> of interest has been written in New Yorker film criticism in fifty
> years is a little bit harsh. Granted, it's not the kind of stuff you
> read in Cahiers, but then, vice versa. I would never make such
> sweeping statements myself, although I may have made some in my
> wayward youth.... And I'd still like to know why Denby and Lane are
> so despicable. Because they have a cushy well paid job at the New
> Yorker perhaps?
My two cents (and just going through my mail for the night from
beginning to end, I'm sure thirty-eight cents have already been thrown
in) = the Denby-Lane continuum consistently demonstrate pretty bad
taste and contempt for "the exception" (in the sense put forth by JLG
in 'JLG/JLG'), and adhere to easy truisms -- yet sometimes, Lane can be
lucid, as in, most recently, his well-written (and enjoyable to read)
assessment of the Bergman overview at Film Forum. I won't begrudge
anybody a high-paying/cushy job if that's what they've landed -- good
for them. It's just hard for me to accept that the same magazine who
employs Hendrik Hertzberg and Adam Gopnik also "must" tow the
middle-brow line when it comes to the Current Cinema section -- my own
suspicion (and I could be wrong -- there are others here much more 'in
the know' about the New Yorker internal-workings, I'm sure, although
maybe not necessarily under the leadership of Remnick, certainly
different than The New Yorker under William Shawn et al) is simply that
it's their own taste, and it's not much different than, say... Michael
Atkinson's, maybe worse. Personally speaking, I never understood why
in the hell Denby kept going on about the desecration of the human body
in 'The Passion of the Christ,' when he's never given much of a damn
not only about the human body and tactility in all manner of films that
have played and taken on, over time, either a relevance or irrelevance,
but also much of a damn about movement, framing of actors, etc; and
therefore, I suspect he "found a handleable angle" for analyzing the
film, and this, in addition to his credentials, is what made his
presence appealing to the producers of no less than three U.S.
television programs, on which he espoused the same argument nearly
verbatim (on Charlie Rose, CNN, and the third escapes me). And due to
of my personal hierarchy of parrains du cinéma, I'll never forgive Lane
for his review of 'Eloge de l'amour,' nor for his starstruck
fascination with Spielberg and the "wunderkind" troping he whips out
whenever discussion heads down the SS track, as though Steven were at
once both the never-grown-up-Mozart of some desert-island Hollywood
oasis, and the ultimate cinephile, with veins wrought from celluloid
and a Harryhausen penis.
I declare this an abrupt non-sequitur (in an effort to stave off any
"segue" mis-reading from the last sentence to this one!) and also yell
out -- happy birthday, J-PC!! (eastern standard time 1:58am
technicalities aside)
best,
craig.
13103
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 6:04am
Subject: Re: Re: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)
> And while we're on the subject of awful film reviewers, IMHO theirs
> is no one who surpasses Slate's David Edelstein.
I'm laughing out loud at this, because only a month and a half ago (or
thereabouts) I listened to him read-talk about 'The Stepford Wives'
(new version) on NPR, and he exclaimed: "For the some the film, and
Bette Midler, might go 'over the top' -- but for me, it was
-delicious-. I -reveled- in every moment of it.." He became, before
my ears (I'd never paid attention to him before), an inside-out Michael
Musto.
craig.
13104
From: Michael Worrall
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 6:33am
Subject: Re: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
)But by and
> large there is a certain accepted way to write about movies for
this
> kind of press (upper-middle-brow/lowerhighbrow, maybe) that
> absolutely everybody practices -- from Sarris to everybody at
the
> VOICE and other venues (I am talking about the US of course.
> Differences are minimal because both the attitude and the
style are
> similar.
> JPC
JP,
Could you expand this observation a little more, in particular to
the Village Voice and what you think of J. Hoberman? I am very
interested in your observations of the similarites of style and
attitude.
Michael Worrall
> >
13105
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 7:38am
Subject: Rafferty (was: Re: Atkinson)
> > Yahoo!, which may be conspiring with the New York Times
> to
> > limit Bressonian discourse, screwed up the link in my previous
> > message. Here goes again:
> >
> > http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/robert-
> > bresson.com/Words/KevinLee.html
> It says I don't have permission.
An "austere" filmmaker deserves an austere, and hopefully clickable, link...
http://tinyurl.com/6xh5k
What of Rafferty's Peckinpah piece last Sunday? I'm in no position to evaluate it, although I suppose we can almost hear the cocktail clinking again as he now offers this - almost predictable - punchline, "Watching these 13 black-and-white half-hours, in which Peckinpah learned how to be Peckinpah, is like seeing Jesse James rob his first bank."
13106
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:02am
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)
>
> Lane I rather like. Unlike a number of well-placed
> film critics he freely admits to that which he doesn't
> know -- and relates hi enthusiasm in learning. Of
> course film criticsim shouldn't be an
> on-the-job-training affair, but the fact that editors
> continue to appoint people they find "interesting" and
> "lively" to the job -- rather than someone with actual
> knowledge -- shows the low estate in which film is
> held.
Actually, I read him every chance I get -- he can be funny, although
the strain shows more now than it used to. I guess we have to
distinguish types of critics: those who we read for consumer
recommendations, those we read for amusement and those we read for
insight. Lane is the middle kind.
13107
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:05am
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Oh yes -- Happy Birthday, Jean-Pierre!
>
> --- Damien Bona wrote:
> > Many happy returns, Jean-Pierre. I hope your day
> > has been to
> > birthdays what the films of [insert your favorite
> > director here] are
> > to other movies.
> >
There's a lot of love here tonight.
13108
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:16am
Subject: Re: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)
> > By the way, I'm not sure I could tell a piece by Denby from one
by
> Lane (although if I studied them a bit I probably could.) But by
and
> large there is a certain accepted way to write about movies for
this
> kind of press (upper-middle-brow/lowerhighbrow, maybe) that
> absolutely everybody practices -- from Sarris to everybody at the
> VOICE and other venues (I am talking about the US of course.
> Differences are minimal because both the attitude and the style are
> similar.
> JPC
> >
That's why I waved a red flag when someone I had been kind of
thinking of as a promising critic referred to the "giddy fun" of
Stephen Hopkins' The Mummy, referencing Brendan Fraser's "goofball
grandeur" as a factor in the fun. That kind of thing has to be
stamped out before it spreads to the vital organs. But I didn't name
the carrier.
13109
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:17am
Subject: Re: Before Sunset (Was: juvenile thrills)
> said some of her
> > favorite romantic movies were HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT and MINNIE
AND
> > MOSCOWITZ and that SOME CAME RUNNING was one of the best American
> > movies of the '50s.
>
> Can you get mail-order brides from Paris? - Dan
She lives here, Dan. And she has sunken eyes.
13110
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:22am
Subject: Rafferty (was: Re: Atkinson)
> What of Rafferty's Peckinpah piece last Sunday? I'm in no position
to evaluate it, although I suppose we can almost hear the cocktail
clinking again as he now offers this - almost predictable -
punchline, "Watching these 13 black-and-white half-hours, in which
Peckinpah learned how to be Peckinpah, is like seeing Jesse James rob
his first bank."
Which 13 black-and-white half hours might those be?
13111
From:
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 4:27am
Subject: Birthday Greetings, JPC!
Happy Birthday, Jean-Pierre!
It is great reading your ideas and insights.
Mike Grost
13112
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:34am
Subject: Re: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)
> he only revealed himself as the clown he is.)
> he's the type of nimrod
> who was (with good reason) picked on a lot as a kid.
>
>
> He's been a fool
> from the first day he wrote for the Voice
Ouch, couldn't we maybe just call them a pair of Paulettes and leave it at that...
Anthony Lane has claimed he worships Kael, but at least he doesn't try to write like her. I don't read nearly as much of the magazine as I should, but I've been known to find him impressive. I remember being especially impressed by his review of Code Inconnu -- hm, was that the one? -- at any rate it was a type of film I wouldn't have expected to see celebrated in the New Yorker. His presentation didn't really capture its style and seemed to transform it into a kind of New Yorker story instead, but even that was an achievement.
13113
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:36am
Subject: Re: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)
>
> Could you expand this observation a little more, in particular to
> the Village Voice and what you think of J. Hoberman? I am very
> interested in your observations of the similarites of style and
> attitude.
>
> Michael Worrall
This is Bill, not Jean-Pierre:
You can't talk about this subject without referencing Richard
Corliss. I like Corliss (not personally: I never met him), but I
don't like watching other kinds of critics try to imitate his style --
say, at Film Comment, where it has become very noticeable since they
went into survival mode. Behind Corliss you have Timespeak, on the
one hand, and Sarris on the other -- because Sarris can be witty with
his alliterating antitheses. Yet another writer many try to imitate
because he's fun: Farber. They shouldn't.
I don't mind film criticism being fun to read -- why on Earth else
would I have learned French to read the Cahiers all those years ago!
-- but I dislike servile imitation. We're all smart people who should
be able to write in our own distinctive styles, or our own
distinctive versions of whatever essayistic tradition we find
ourselves at home in.
Anthony Lane, being British, has his own style, which comes out of
another tradition -- one that is fortunately not limited to the film
critics of Albion. If you think we've had it bad here, read the
British reviews of Peeping Tom reprinted in the BFI Powell-
Pressburger volume sometime! Lane has that foul wind in his sails,
too, but he manages not to let it infect his writing.
And while wit can be demeaning to the subject when applied with a
trowel, let's not forget the besetting counter-sins of pomposity,
pretentiousness, preachiness and pecksniffery. A little of that goes
a long way with me.
13114
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:50am
Subject: Rafferty (was: Re: Atkinson)
> "Watching these 13 black-and-white half-hours, in which
> Peckinpah learned how to be Peckinpah, is like seeing Jesse James rob
> his first bank."
>
> Which 13 black-and-white half hours might those be?
"The Westerner," currently airing (although in fact the piece says Peckinpah directed five episodes and "wrote or helped write three others").
13115
From:
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:08am
Subject: Re: The Long Riders
Have not yet seen "The Long Riders".
But really enjoyed "Streets of Fire" (Walter Hill).
MIke Grost
13116
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 10:54am
Subject: morning everybody
Must. Have. Caffeine.
1) I don't do birthday greetings or that other stuff. Oh, all right,
happy birthday, JP.
2) Kevin Lee's Bresson rebuttal looks pretty awesome and I'll read it
after my blood starts flowing, however I noticed he couldn't write a
whole article in praise of Bresson without taking a swipe at
Tarantino, which seems pretty [expletive deleted] to me...and
basically a disservice to Bresson. I wrote three, long articles in
praise of Marker, Tati, and Welles and resisted taking swipes at
directors I don't like (unless you count saying a pool of filmmakers
"have had varying degrees of success" with a certain genre as a swipe;
I wouldn't). So it can be done, trust me.
3) Lane seems like a smart guy, just not a film guy. Denby is
neither. But they both pretend, therefore fie, fie, I bite my thumb
at them, etc.
4) As Rob Gordon said in the movie (and to my knowledge, not the
novel) HIGH FIDELITY, Julie Delpy has just become "unassailably cool"
in my eyes.
5) Pialats to-day. Woo-hoo.
13117
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 11:54am
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence
> > > > I agree that the mainstream media and the state encourage a
> kind
> > > of
> > > > laziness in the consumer, I still believe in individual
> > > > responsibility for whether you succumb.
> > >
> > > Succumb to what?!
> >
> > I think that sentence is pretty clear: "a kind of laziness in the
> > consumer."
> >
> Yes, I should have asked "succumb"? But I think my questioning
still
> holds.
OK, to the question "Succumb?" I'd say - I don't think it's too
strong a word to describe being lulled into a state where you don't
care what you watch, read, drink, eat, smoke, inject etc.
> But David, I am little less inclined to respond if you are going to
> reply to my asking you to explain yourself with a
exasperated "sigh".
Sorry, taht was unnecssary and rude. But it stems from my feeling
that we can't make much progress with an exchange of views when you
keep rolling back the ground under my feet.
Example a:
> If you have not already, go and read my "What is an auteur?" post
> where I state that I was not implying that studio directors did not
> have a hand in the writing of the script.
I find this hard to square with your "Debatable" paragraph where you
cite Ford Hitchcock and Hawks. I said that many/some/a few directors
were involved in script preparation/writing and you said this was
debatable.
> Keep in mind that
> many/some/a few -you pick the variable that you are comfortable
with-
> - studio directors did not "choose" their script or subject matter
> but rather it was assigned to them.
Absolutely accepted, but this does not mean the reverse is not true
in other cases. And I believe we both feel that in some cases a
filmmaker assigned a script can make it their own by adapting it in
the filming (without necessarily changing a comma). But it's far
harder for me to see how a filmmaker can sweat blood over a
screenplay, developing it perhaps from nothing, and not care about
it. Which makes the idea of considering a film in isolation from it's
script and narrative values kind of anathema to me.
> Finally, by something that is debatable I mean it can be
> quesioned,re-thought or revised, not something to win or declared
> over by submission of evidence.
But if something is provably true, is it still debatable? I mean, if
it's obvious to anyone that certain directors worked on their own
scripts, well documented and attested to, and perhaps apparent in the
work itself, is it really debatable? Or at least, is the debate
likely to be profitable? Is debating this more useful than debating
the roundnes sof the Earth?
Please keep in mind that the statement you labelled debatable was
that SOME directors take an acticve interest in the script. Do you
really think that's debatable?
13118
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 0:07pm
Subject: Re: Script - screen
> Seems to me that the director's job
> when saddled with a weak script isn't to impose visual style from
the
> outside, but to see past the "literary" inadequacies, locate the
> basic appeal of the material, and figure out how the emotions which
> arise from this can be most effectively and thoughtfully brought to
> life.
I like that a lot. It follows that bad dialogue, illogical plotting
etc aren't as big a problem as undramatic situations, where nothing
is really being worked through, nothing is at stake.
THE FEARMAKERS is maybe Tourneu'r worst film, for this reason. it
starts great, because JT is able to concoct a terrific opening, but
it soon gets bogged down in unprofitable talk about nothing. Tourneur
was undoubtably handed dud assignments in his time, but none of them
is as hard to sit through as this.
13119
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 0:51pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling (belated reply to michael)
> I also took an interest and paid
> attention to what was there in the subject/area of cinema, but that
> was MY OWN interest in cinema not other peoples'. I didn't hold it
> against them then, and I still do not now.
I can see where I might be coming off as arrogant here. To clarify,
the people that kind of drive me crazy are specific folks I've talked
to, who get pissed off after seeing a bad film. But it's a bad film
they could have avoided by applying the same effort they use when
buying a paperback - look who's responsible for it! (The
author/auteur.)
These are people who DO care, who want their cinema money to go
towards a good experience not a bore, but refuse to take cinema
seriously enough to consider that the people making the film may have
something to do with how worthwhile it winds up being.
As to people who simply don't care what they see - I still find that
faintly sad, but if they're happy with that, fine.
Since we were talking about Rosenbaum's arguments, and you seemed
broadly in support of them, it surprises me that you don't apprently
find it regrettable that people don't seek out better films. We agree
that the media limits their ability to do so, and that this is bad,
but if it doesn't ultimately matter that a lot of people only see
Hollywood junk, why is Rosenbaum's book meaningful?
> >Everybody has some kind of access to the media,
>
> Yes, but what kind?
Well, I'm online at work but not at home, so I'm not that far from
your position. But my interest in cinema stems from before there WAS
an internet, and the only newspapers I had access to were from big
corporations. It needn't be an insuperable barrier.
> I do not blame them for not knowing who
> wrote "Batman & Robin". And if they go home or to the theater to
> watch "Batman & Robin", why should it offend me? If they come into
> work the next day and tell me they liked it, I'll ask what they
> liked about it.
See above: what offends me (not to the extent that I wouldn't have
these people as my friends, it just makes me a bit sad/frustrated) is
people who see B&R and HATE IT, then merrily go to see the next
schumacher or Goldsman opus and are surprised when that's a load of
mince too.
> How about who directed it?! Joel Schumacher! When I see an ad or
> information about a film, be it in print or visual medium, the
first
> thing I look for is the director's name and then the
> cinematographer. The screenwriting name of Goldman probably will
> not keep me away, but the name Schumacher will.
Like you, I'd probably chance a Goldsman script if directed by
someone I respected, but my hopes would be lowered (still I'd prepare
to be perhaps pleasantly surprised. If a good director thought the
script deserved making, perhaps there's something in it). Whereas
Schumacher filming something by a good writer would make me think "it
must be a bad one if JS likes it" or "it was probably OK but JS will
have ruined it."
So I agree that Schumacher may have been a bigger factor in BATMAN
sucking (but the script DID apparently contain lines like "Batman
jumps into his new Batboat - the marketing people will love this."
Can we say "corporate whore?")
Incidentally, Schumacher seems a great example of the phenomenon of
the Bad auteur. He works across a wide range of genres, and imposes a
distinctive aesthetic on all of them. And they all suck.
> Of course, i don't
> > expect everybody to take films as seriously as we do here,
>
> You don't expect? Well it seems to me that you certainly do with
> your comments above.
Well, then my comment IMMEDIATELY above should cure you of that
misconception. I don't.
> Who decides just what is an "intelligent"
> choice in regards of what film to see.
Again, I can see why you think I'm being an arrogant jerk here.
An "intelligent2 choice is one that works for the viewer, that
enables them to accurately track down the kind of films they like, so
they don't waste their hard earned money.
> What's the old saying? "You can
> lead a horse to water but you can'r make him/her drink."
I thought it was "A horse will go to water but a pencil must be
lead." (Thanks, Stan Laurel.)
> > That sounds like another of my
> > absolutist statements, but I doubt you disagree with it
> personally,
> > and it was also Ray's view. The degree to which the scripts
> inspired
> > him is on record.
>
> How can you make ANY assumption on what I feel about the film?
Not an assumption, just a guess. Was I right, or are you in fact a
huge fan of KNOCK, rating it amongst Ray's most satisfying work?
> Also,
> what a director says about his/her own work does not make it the
> absolute.
Sure, Ray hated JOHNNY GUITAR and I and a lot of people love it. I'm
quite prepared to disagree with the artist. if I happen to agree with
him I feel on slightly surer ground, is all. From the above it's
fairly easily inferred that Ray's support of my view is NOT an
absoulte - I casually through it in with an "also."
> > a script needs to be about something to work, and a filmmaker
> > needs to believe that the script works (and I'll now add) OR BE
> MADE
> > TO WORK in the filming.
>
> I didn't say you were arguing that, but what is this "something"
you
> are talking about? Define that and what you mean by "worthwhile."
The "something" can be just about anything. We call it the central
theme. It's helpful if the writer and director believe this theme
is "worthwhile" - something worth basing a film on. It's hard to be
more specific because really it depends on the filmmakers' judgement
alone. I don't have to agree that it's a great theme in itself, if
the director can invest such skill and passion in it to make the film
a great cinematic expression of that initial spark.
> David, this is a difference between us. I am not so concerned with
> being satisfied by plot or theme than I am with mise-en scene. This
> is what I was saying when I responded to Elizabeth's post about the
> style needing to be at the service of the script. Though JPC said
> it was "at best" that mise-en-scene made a bad script irrevelant,
> and disturbing as it may be to you, I will always come out on the
> side of mise-en-scene, it is what really makes cinema to me.
> Dialogue, spine and plot really do become irrelevant to me. I am
> not asking you to adopt this, just consider the argument.
am considering. Have been arguing that mise-en-scene DERIVES from the
spine (also plot, character etc) so to consider it apart from these
elements which inform it is to reduce it to window dressing.
But if you want to go into more detail and explain why that isn't so,
I'm definitely interested in the argument.
A minor example of my side of things: in Mike Nichols THE GRADUATE,
Nichols decided that one of the themes was "a character out of his
depth". phrased like that, it's not going to astonish or move us.
Nichols then framed a lot of shots of his protagonist through glass,
water, fishtanks etc, visualising the theme. now, the theme, baldly
stated, is not that interesting, but the visuals, removed from what
they are there for, are not that interesting either. They look nice
(it's a very nicely shot film) but really it's the combination of the
visuals and the meaning that make them interesting to me. The sense
that these are not just pretty shots.
in TAXI DRIVER, Scorsese tracks away from DeNiro as he's on the phone
to Shepherd and the camera looks at, essentially, an empty space.
Scorsese says the shot gave a feeling of loneliness. Which is a good
thing only BECAUSE that's what the movie's about.
whatever we think of these films, they illustrate the thought
processes of the filmmakers quite well, and I submit that if we
divorce the films from those processes we reduce them.
> > OK, but INVIS GHOST is at least as inventive as GUN CRAZY, but it
> > makes no sense and the whole thing is silly.
>
> I do not think those elements would a make a film to be considered
> any less greater.
Check out INVISIBLE GHOST then. if you like Lewis' work at all you'll
dig it anyway. But I'd still be surprised if you like it as much as
GUN CRAZY or MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS. But I'm guessing that Lewis is a
great example of the kind of filmmaker you like. (Improving on banal
scripts with great filmmaking.)
> Well David, I do not agree with Bigelow's recent work being
> disappointing. So where does that put us? Can you just say what
you
> think instead of trying to work into some general conscensus, like
> our minds are in unison or poising it as some given.
My mistake. Am constantly seeking SOME kind of common ground, as it's
hard to discuss anything with someone without the slightest agreement
being in place, at least in terms of what "theme" means (I'm still
uncomfortable about it including "techniques"). But the attempt to
forge common ground over Bigelow's films was misguided.
> What is this "promotion to better scripts" and how does a director
> win that prize? Does a director need a "better script" to keep
> making good films?
If the filmmaker has a commercial success, they get more choice of
scripts - they are offered more scripts, and hopefully can pick good
ones. Or they can develop their own projects, and their earlier
success may help them get these projects made. It's a fairly well
documented process.
> David, where did you make this great leap with me saying that
> scripts had no part in the medium?
You SEEM to be saying that theme, plot and dialogue have no role in
your appreciation of a film, which you're quite entitled to say, but
as they're irrevocably tied up in the auteur's mise-ene-scene choices
it seems to me an unprofitable attitude, and one I certainly resist
when you suggest that discussion of these attributes bogs us down and
takes us away from the topic of the auteur's work.
> I was
> only suggesting an alternative to the script/plot/theme centered
> bias of film criticism and evaluation.
I'm sincerely interested and would like to know about how we can
meaningfully discuss mise-en-scene in isolation from
script/plot/theme. Obviously it's quite possible in discussing non-
narrative or abstract avant garde work in cases where these things
are never meant to play any role, but I find it very hard to appraise
mise-en-scene in total isolation from narrative, in a narrative film.
Even if a film is in a language I don't understand, one of the roles
of mise-en-scene is very often to express plot and theme in a visual
way. To escape this I'd have to be autistic to the point where all
human interaction became meaningless to me. So how DO you look at
mise-en-scene in isolation?
13120
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:50pm
Subject: Re: "Fun"
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
Kevin Lee's Bresson rebuttal looks pretty
> awesome and I'll read it
> after my blood starts flowing, however I noticed he
> couldn't write a
> whole article in praise of Bresson without taking a
> swipe at
> Tarantino, which seems pretty [expletive deleted] to
> me...and
> basically a disservice to Bresson.
Not at all. Kevin takes note of Rafferty talking about
experiencing Bresson in terms of "fun." This is the
giveaway to the current brand of post-Pauline
anti-intellectual cant. Films are supposed to be
"fun." As mostof us remember she staked her reputation
on attacking the pomposity of "art" cinema of the
950's and the brand of ciriticism and "cocktail party
chat" it created. Well pauline's gone but now we have
Quentin as a supposedly living and breathing example
of "fun."
Its "cine que non" in fact.
I can't think of anyone whose films I find less fun --
not to mention "fun" -- than Quentin Tarantino.
There are innumerable pleasures to be culled from
Bresson -- and I'm not just talking about boys more
beautiful than any to be found in the Marais, or the
glorious discovery of Dominique Sanda. "Les Dames du
Bois du Boulogne," "A Man Escaped," "Pickpocket" and
"Le Diable Probablement" (my personal favorites)
display an aesthetic perfection on every imaginable
level that never cease to take my breath away. But as
they fail to conform to Kael/Tarantino "standards" it
falls to the likes of Rafferty to convert them from
the gold of art into the dross of "fun."
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13121
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Storytelling (belated reply to michael)
--- cairnsdavid1967 wrote:
>
> Sure, Ray hated JOHNNY GUITAR and I and a lot of
> people love it. I'm
> quite prepared to disagree with the artist.
I tend to think that what Ray hated about "Johnny
Guitar" was Joan Crawford. Be sure to read "The Closed
Set" chapter of Gavin lambert's "The Slide Area" for
some dishy-yet-profound insight on Crawford and to
some extent Ray.
Itshould alos be pointed out that when "Johnny Guitar"
premiered in France someone had the wit to have it
French-dubbed into Alexandrines -- rhymed couplets. I
have no doubt this played a role in its high
reputation among the "Cahiers" crowd.
I also think it accounts for Jean-Pierre Melville's
disdain.
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13122
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:05pm
Subject: Re: Before Sunset (Was: juvenile thrills)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> In the article I read, Linklater, Delpy and Hawke said that the
actors
> wrote dialogue for each other as well as themselves.
>
> > said some of her
> > favorite romantic movies were HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT and MINNIE
AND
> > MOSCOWITZ and that SOME CAME RUNNING was one of the best American
> > movies of the '50s.
>
> Can you get mail-order brides from Paris? - Dan
Her high admiration for Some Came Running is also something she
shares -- or may have inherited from -- Linklater. It's one of his
favorite films. Linklater was a good friend of a good friend of
mine, the late George Morris. George was a dyed-in-the-wool auteurist
and Minnelli fan who became close to Linklater and a group of film
students at the University of Texas after moving back to Austin from
New York in the early 1980s and George seemed to exert a certain
influence on this group. George occasionally wrote to me about this
very young (at the time) cinephile crowd that he was becoming
friendly with. Slacker is dedicated to George and after George died
Linklater wrote a very touching piece about him.
13123
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:12pm
Subject: Re: "Wank"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> Not at all. Kevin takes note of Rafferty talking about
> experiencing Bresson in terms of "fun." This is the
> giveaway to the current brand of post-Pauline
> anti-intellectual cant. Films are supposed to be
> "fun." As mostof us remember she staked her reputation
> on attacking the pomposity of "art" cinema of the
> 950's and the brand of ciriticism and "cocktail party
> chat" it created. Well pauline's gone but now we have
> Quentin as a supposedly living and breathing example
> of "fun."
>
> Its "cine que non" in fact.
>
> I can't think of anyone whose films I find less fun --
> not to mention "fun" -- than Quentin Tarantino.
>
> There are innumerable pleasures to be culled from
> Bresson -- and I'm not just talking about boys more
> beautiful than any to be found in the Marais, or the
> glorious discovery of Dominique Sanda. "Les Dames du
> Bois du Boulogne," "A Man Escaped," "Pickpocket" and
> "Le Diable Probablement" (my personal favorites)
> display an aesthetic perfection on every imaginable
> level that never cease to take my breath away. But as
> they fail to conform to Kael/Tarantino "standards" it
> falls to the likes of Rafferty to convert them from
> the gold of art into the dross of "fun."
This camp warring with that camp, blah blah blah. I can asssure you I
find a lot less "fun" or substance than you find in Tarantino. But
this tendency to divide and entrench is precisely what you, Rafferty,
and forgive me but you too, Kevin, have in common. You can have it.
Some words of wisdom from Mike Grost (who may not like Tarantino, but
that's not the point):
"The different kinds of film today have become a battle zone. People
who enjoy foreign language films are accused of being pointy headed
elitists, whose recommendation of films with subtitles is motivated by
snobbery and one upmanship. Conversely, people who like any Hollywood
films at all are accused of promoting trash, sleaze and the betrayal
of film art. And everyone dumps on experimental films, whose often
deliberate lack of narrative is seen as an affront to viewers. As a
person who enjoys many of all of these kinds of films, I feel like my
admiration for any one of these kinds of film is turned into a
controversial issue. Simply adding a new movie to my list of
recommended films today seems like sneaking into a combat zone. Having
fun at the movies has never been so controversial."
-Jaime
13124
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:15pm
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
> >
>
> best,
> craig.
Well you sure said a mouthful, Craig. I have to delete it or Fred
will castigate me again for cluttering the cyberspace... You know, it
always comes down to a matter of personal tastes and convictions. I
agree with you that Lane's piece on the Bergman retro was fine --
unusually sensitive and perceptive. On the other hand I'm not crazy
about ELOGE DE L'AMOUR and couldn't share your wrath (although I
can't remember what he wrote).
Also I don't expect the same kind of writing in NEW YORKER as in,
say, Cahiers, Positif, The Chicago Reader, or on this forum. And I
find it interesting even sometimes worthwhile to know what people
with different approaches and mindsets think and like or dislike.
Anyway, thanks for the birthday wishes.
JPC
13125
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:20pm
Subject: Correcting my "Wank"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> I can asssure you I find a lot less "fun" or substance than you find
in Tarantino.
Means to read "or substance [in the warring-camp business] than you
find..."
Not that I don't have the strong, discouraging feeling that this is
all in vain. If anybody even remotely agrees with me, here's your
chance to come on here with some voice-of-reason type thing in
contrast to my manic-street-preacher screeds. Thanks.
-Jaime
13126
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: "Wank"
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> Some words of wisdom from Mike Grost (who may not
> like Tarantino, but
> that's not the point):
>
> "The different kinds of film today have become a
> battle zone.
Correct. We're in a War on Tara(ntino)
People
> who enjoy foreign language films are accused of
> being pointy headed
> elitists, whose recommendation of films with
> subtitles is motivated by
> snobbery and one upmanship. Conversely, people who
> like any Hollywood
> films at all are accused of promoting trash, sleaze
> and the betrayal
> of film art.
Which doesn't aco8nt for my love of Sirk, Tourneur,
Ken Russell, Frank Tashlin and Joe Dante.
And everyone dumps on experimental
> films, whose often
> deliberate lack of narrative is seen as an affront
> to viewers.
Depends on the viewer. I have never cottoned to
Brakhage -- though his newfound video-availability
threatesns to alter my former reservations.
As a
> person who enjoys many of all of these kinds of
> films, I feel like my
> admiration for any one of these kinds of film is
> turned into a
> controversial issue.
Tough darts.
Simply adding a new movie to my
> list of
> recommended films today seems like sneaking into a
> combat zone. Having
> fun at the movies has never been so controversial."
>
When "fun" is used as brick to bean one in the head
with, we all can't be expected to respond like Krazy
Kat.
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13127
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:27pm
Subject: Re: "Wank"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> Correct. We're in a War on Tara(ntino)
You are, I'm not. Have fun.
-Jaime
13128
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 3:04pm
Subject: Re: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> >
> >
> This is Bill, not Jean-Pierre:
>
> You can't talk about this subject without referencing Richard
> Corliss. I like Corliss (not personally: I never met him), but I
> don't like watching other kinds of critics try to imitate his
style --
> say, at Film Comment, where it has become very noticeable since
they
> went into survival mode. Behind Corliss you have Timespeak, on the
> one hand, and Sarris on the other -- because Sarris can be witty
with
> his alliterating antitheses. Yet another writer many try to imitate
> because he's fun: Farber. They shouldn't.
>
Thanks, Bill, for responding for me -- I agree with most of what
you're saying. However I'm not sure "imitate" is the right word. I
don't really think any critic consciously imitates another -- I'd
rather speak of semi-conscious influence. I also think that there
exists a certain type of "voice" that develops more or less outside
of the speakers' conscious control and that expresses shared tastes
and convictions. For instance, there is -- there has always been --
a "Cahier" voice (which has evolved over time, of course)that is
almost a foreign language, or at least dialect, that other groups may
understand but don't really share (now of course it has spread to
other venues in the French press). You can recognize that voice by
reading just a few lines by almost anybody writing in that dialect --
and it's difficult to put a name on the writer, but that's not
because they all imitate each other. It's because they feel and react
and think pretty much the same and they have found a common voice to
express it.
In this country, I'm not sure how influential Corliss has been.
The "voice' here derives pretty much from (appropriately) Sarris.
There are individual variations but not all that important. How many
individual voices can you identify?
And I don't think Farber can be imitated (except badly).
> I don't mind film criticism being fun to read -- why on Earth else
> would I have learned French to read the Cahiers all those years
ago!
I'm surprised you call reading Cahiers "fun"!
> -- but I dislike servile imitation. We're all smart people who
should
> be able to write in our own distinctive styles, or our own
> distinctive versions of whatever essayistic tradition we find
> ourselves at home in.
>
> And while wit can be demeaning to the subject when applied with a
> trowel, let's not forget the besetting counter-sins of pomposity,
> pretentiousness, preachiness and pecksniffery. A little of that
goes
> a long way with me.
There is a lot of "pomposity, pretentiousness" etc in french film
criticism. On the other hand American criticism (at least mainstream
criticism -- including such venues as The New Yorker) has always
endeavored to avoid it (as well as too much enthusiasm) and for that
purpose used wit, humor, jocularity (whatever you want to call it)
often with the result of giving the impression the critic feels
superior to almost everything he reviews, even when praising it. Even
Agee did it. Denby does it all the time, like countless others.
JPC
13129
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 3:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: Before Sunset (Was: juvenile thrills)
> said some of her
>> > favorite romantic movies were HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT and MINNIE
> AND
>> > MOSCOWITZ and that SOME CAME RUNNING was one of the best American
>> > movies of the '50s.
>>Can you get mail-order brides from Paris? - Dan
>
> She lives here, Dan. And she has sunken eyes.
Still, they must put something in the water over there. - Dan
13130
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 4:12pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)
Don't be. Arnaud Desplechin, for one, felt the same thing as you did (and
I), and wrote about that feeling in the Cahiers.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime N. Christley"
To:
> I've gone into detail in the past (here and elsewhere), but in
> brief: it reminded me, again and again, and again, and again, why
> I've chosen to devote my life to the cinema, and more broadly to art
> in general. All the petty bickering turns into shit compared to
> that.
> I'm sorry to act so petulant and I hate myself for doing so, but at
> the same time I feel I'm just responding as appropriately as the
> situation warrants.
> -Jaime
13131
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 4:40pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling (belated reply to michael)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> Itshould alos be pointed out that when "Johnny Guitar"
> premiered in France someone had the wit to have it
> French-dubbed into Alexandrines -- rhymed couplets. I
> have no doubt this played a role in its high
> reputation among the "Cahiers" crowd.
>
> I also think it accounts for Jean-Pierre Melville's
> disdain.
>
> David, I have never seen JOHNNY GUITAR dubbed (I think the poster
read "JONNY GUITARE")and I have no recollection of hearing or
reading that it had been dubbed in alexandrins (which are twelve-
syllable lines, the kind used in classical French drama -- Corneille,
Racine, Moliere...) I doubt very much that this was the case and I
would like to have proof... considering the nature of the dialogue,
it seems highly unlikely (although it is possible that an occasional
twelve-syllable sentence -- deliberate or not -- may have found its
way into the dialogue). I do know that the dubbing of JG is
considered particularly bad. I have just called a friend in Paris and
asked him to check (he hasn't seen the dubbed version but has the
DVD)...
At any rate the Cahier critics saw subtitled versions, not dubbed
ones, unless there was no VO (Version originale) available, and there
was always one for first runs and the critics (I know that Truffaut,
as I mentioned in an earlier post, saw VERA CRUZ dubbed and liked it
better that way than in English, but that was his own particular
perversion).
Correction: I just checked out Truffaut's review of VERA CRUZ
in "Cahiers" (June 1955). What he actually said, in a footnote, was
this: "If one doesn't understand English, it's better to see the
French version." That was in reference to the name "Ace Hannah",
frenchified into a very Parisian lower-class "Gegene".
Truffaut saw the film on the Champs-Elysees with subtitles and in
Montmarte (Place Blanche)in the dubbed version. In another footnote
he compared the respective reactions of the two audiences. The Champs
public thought the film was naive and silly. The more popular crowd
enjoyed it thoroughly...
By the way, that unusually long review by Truffaut was entirely
focussed on an analysis of the scenario construction rather than on
mise en scene, so it is not quite true to say that early Cahiers
ignored writing to concentrate on direction.
To be continued RE: Alexandrine Johnny Guitar...
JPC
>
> __________________________________
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> Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
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13132
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 4:57pm
Subject: The Westerner (Was: Rafferty)
>> Which 13 black-and-white half hours might those be?
>
> "The Westerner," currently airing (although in fact the piece says
> Peckinpah directed five episodes and "wrote or helped write three
> others").
Some of those "Westerner" episodes are amazingly good for episodic TV.
"Brown" and "Jeff" are the ones I liked best, and I think they're my
favorite works by Peckinpah. - Dan
13133
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:15pm
Subject: Rafferty (was: Re: Atkinson)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:
> > "Watching these 13 black-and-white half-hours, in which
> > Peckinpah learned how to be Peckinpah, is like seeing Jesse James
rob
> > his first bank."
> >
> > Which 13 black-and-white half hours might those be?
>
> "The Westerner," currently airing (although in fact the piece says
Peckinpah directed five episodes and "wrote or helped write three
others").
I've seen them. Two of Peckinpah's episodes -- Eddie and Brown -- are
pretty good (although Eddie is really pretty florid); the other three
are awful: Maverick-y comedies with rib-punching time-to-laugh music
and acting to match. Day of the Gun, directed by De Toth, is an
absolute all-time classic masterpiece. Line Camp by Tom Gries is very
good, too. (Robert Culp appears to have been drunk on camera the
whole time.) I think SP wrote them both. Of course, anything with
Brian Keith is worth watching.
13134
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:18pm
Subject: Re: Script - screen
, nothing is at stake.
>
> THE FEARMAKERS is maybe Tourneu'r worst film, for this reason. it
> starts great, because JT is able to concoct a terrific opening, but
> it soon gets bogged down in unprofitable talk about nothing.
Tourneur
> was undoubtably handed dud assignments in his time, but none of
them
> is as hard to sit through as this.
Never shy about repeating earlier posts: the book was anti-McCarthy;
the script was pro-McCarthy. Maybe JT got blindsided.
13135
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:31pm
Subject: Re: Correcting my "Wank"
> Not that I don't have the strong, discouraging feeling that this is
> all in vain. If anybody even remotely agrees with me, here's your
> chance to come on here with some voice-of-reason type thing in
> contrast to my manic-street-preacher screeds. Thanks.
I'm not sure anymore what this discussion is about, but I'm in the
pro-Tarantino camp. KILL BILL was a disappointment for me, but in
general there's something fascinating (and Hawksian) about the way he
plays with genre.
At first I thought it was weird that a bunch of auteurists can't agree
on a single thing, but now I'm used to it and find it interesting. - Dan
13136
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:35pm
Subject: The Westerner (Was: Rafferty)
>>"The Westerner," currently airing (although in fact the piece says
> Peckinpah directed five episodes and "wrote or helped write three
> others").
>
> I've seen them. Two of Peckinpah's episodes -- Eddie and Brown -- are
> pretty good (although Eddie is really pretty florid); the other three
> are awful: Maverick-y comedies with rib-punching time-to-laugh music
> and acting to match.
I didn't even know there was one called "Eddie." The five that I
thought Peckinpah directed are "Jeff," "Brown," "Hand on the Gun," "the
Painting," and "The Courting of Libby." Do you recall what "Eddie" is
about? - Dan
13137
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:39pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling (belated reply to michael)
People see movies based on who's in them and what they're about. When
Second Civil war was playing on HBO, I had to dig down to the last
paragraph of the LA Times review to find out Joe Dante directed it.
The new way to show credits on a poster is skinny-anamorphic -- you
have to lie on the sidewalk and look up for them to resolve into
names. And whereas the director's credit always used to be last
place, easy-to-find, with a box even, now they've started burying it.
The culture represses the auteur theory everywhere it can. Like
foreign film distribution, this fluctuates over time, but I have the
impression that the repression of auteurism is mostly ideologically
motivated, whereas the repression of the Thai cinema in the US is
really a number of factors working in combination: isolationism, the
dramatic decline of the educational system, the level of H'wd
production, the number of screens built, audiences' love of Bitish
and American indy work, on reverse order of importance.
The two repressions seem to have gone hand-in-hand at some points,
which may create an optical illusion. For example, the growth of
foreign film distribution (which was never that large or that
widespread) coincided with the rise of the auteur theory in the
press, and the two seem to have declined at around the same time. But
I see more of a real correlation between the "boom" of foreign film
distribution in the 60s and the decline in H'wd production than I do
between what happen to be two of our favorite causes.
Of course a huge factor in the decline of institutions serving
minority tastes (auteurism, foreign films) is the growth of home
video, which is also what makes both of these questions kind of moot.
If I had TCM, I'd have access to incredible numbers of classics, and
buying the right cheap DVD player gives me access, through the Net,
to films from abroad that would never have played US theatres even in
the best of times. Sure I'd like for my sister to see And Life Goes
On, so that she would at least get some information about Iran that
isn't on the news. But she's never going to see it at her local
theatre, which barely plays the H'wd product that's out there. She'll
see it if I send her a tape, or if it plays on Bravo sometime while
I'm visiting and I switch it on. Thirty years ago it wouldn't even
have been on.
13138
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:50pm
Subject: Re: The Westerner (Was: Rafferty)
>
> I didn't even know there was one called "Eddie." The five that I
> thought Peckinpah directed are "Jeff," "Brown," "Hand on the
Gun," "the
> Painting," and "The Courting of Libby." Do you recall what "Eddie"
is
> about? - Dan
Another Muriel moment. I meant Jeff -- the prostitute one.
13139
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 6:19pm
Subject: Re: Correcting my "Wank"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> At first I thought it was weird that a bunch of auteurists can't
agree
> on a single thing, but now I'm used to it and find it interesting. -
Dan
Well, I'm sure there is widespread agreement about canon directors.
Tarantino is something else.
Even among early auteurists there was disagreement. At "Cahiers"
Bazin and Doniol on one side, the so-called "Young Turks" (Rivette,
Rohmer, Truffaut etc) on the other. In February 1955 Bazin, open-
minded although puzzled, wondered "Comment peut-on etre Hitchcocko-
hawksien?" Years later the question might have become "Comment peut-
on ne pas etre H-H?"
JPC
13140
From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 9:20pm
Subject: Re: The Westerner: Errata - Segues to Windtalkers
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> >
> > I didn't even know there was one called "Eddie." The five that I
> > thought Peckinpah directed are "Jeff," "Brown," "Hand on the
> Gun," "the
> > Painting," and "The Courting of Libby." Do you recall
what "Eddie"
> is
> > about? - Dan
>
> Another Muriel moment. I meant Jeff -- the prostitute one.
Oh woe is me --Hand on the Gun is the masterpiece of the series, and
it was written and directed by Peckinpah. The two De Toths were fine,
but the two best episodes are Hand on the Gun (an enormous giant
classic) and Line Camp, which SP may not have actually written. My
recollection -- it's starting to come back to me now -- is that Jeff
is the kind of daring story that gets points for being on tv, but
maybe a tad overdone, and that Brown was good. I had these tapes
(from Doug Brodoff, who made them for me at Four Star) 6 or 7 years
ago; gave them to Peckinpahist supreme John Woo; never got them back.
I think I still have the one with Line Camp somewhere...
BTW, I hear the Windtalkers is now a director's cut (on the new box
set that's out). Never saw the first cut. Has anyone seen both?
13141
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 9:26pm
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
wrote:
> Don't be. Arnaud Desplechin, for one, felt the same thing as you did
(and
> I), and wrote about that feeling in the Cahiers.
I'd be interested in reading about that, when I get through blushing.
(Not worthy, etc.) Can you direct me to any specific articles/issues?
-Jaime
13142
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 9:27pm
Subject: Re: Correcting my "Wank"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> Well, I'm sure there is widespread agreement about canon directors.
> Tarantino is something else.
>
> Even among early auteurists there was disagreement. At "Cahiers"
> Bazin and Doniol on one side, the so-called "Young Turks" (Rivette,
> Rohmer, Truffaut etc) on the other. In February 1955 Bazin, open-
> minded although puzzled, wondered "Comment peut-on etre Hitchcocko-
> hawksien?" Years later the question might have become "Comment peut-
> on ne pas etre H-H?"
Difference being the lot of us can look back at the early auteurists'
fights with the Dwight MacDonalds of the day and study how reputations
were made and broken, in what circles that mattered, etc., and those
that want to can find ways to "push the bill through congress" insofar
as creating or destroying a filmmaker.
In other news: À NOS AMOURS rocks (primarily for Sandrine Bonnaire's
breasts, the most perfect in all of the cinema; just kidding, there's
more to the film, a lot), and I've just been compared to
Desplechin...what a day!
-Jaime
13143
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 10:52pm
Subject: Re: The Westerner: Errata
> > I meant Jeff -- the prostitute one.
>
> Oh woe is me --Hand on the Gun is the masterpiece of the series, and
> it was written and directed by Peckinpah. The two De Toths were fine,
> but the two best episodes are Hand on the Gun (an enormous giant
> classic) and Line Camp, which SP may not have actually written.
For the record, I see the Rafferty piece is still online (at the moment anyway); he focuses on (tonight's?) "Jeff."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/arts/television/18RAFF.html?pagewanted=1
or
http://tinyurl.com/3sno2
(He has a piece on Sandrine Bonnaire in tomorrow's paper by the way.)
13144
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 11:29pm
Subject: Re: Birthday Greetings, JPC!
Bon Anniversaire, Jean-Pierre :)
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~johnd/Krazy.gif (le present !!!).
Notice: The actualisation of "love" as the brick hits & the HUGE
FALLOS in the background.
Henrik
13145
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 11:59pm
Subject: Re: Birthday Greetings, JPC!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
> Bon Anniversaire, Jean-Pierre :)
>
> http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~johnd/Krazy.gif (le present !!!).
>
> Notice: The actualisation of "love" as the brick hits & the HUGE
> FALLOS in the background.
>
> Henrik
Thank you so much! Just what I wanted! You shouldn't have...
It's the perfect KK panel -- although there are hundreds of
perfect ones.
As both a (past) dispenser and recepient of the "brick" I always
both identified with the "mouse" and the "Kat" (although not with the
adorable Offissa Pup). Maybe it has to do with stradling Leo and
Cancer. Oh, but let's not stray away from "Topic".
Thanks again.
JP
13146
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 0:29am
Subject: Re: The Westerner: Errata - Segues to Windtalkers
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> > >
> > > I didn't even know there was one called "Eddie." The five that
I
> > > thought Peckinpah directed are "Jeff," "Brown," "Hand on the
> > Gun," "the
> > > Painting," and "The Courting of Libby." Do you recall
> what "Eddie"
> > is
> > > about? - Dan
> >
> > Another Muriel moment. I meant Jeff -- the prostitute one.
>
> Oh woe is me --Hand on the Gun is the masterpiece of the series,
and
> it was written and directed by Peckinpah. The two De Toths were
fine,
> but the two best episodes are Hand on the Gun (an enormous giant
> classic) and Line Camp, which SP may not have actually written. My
> recollection -- it's starting to come back to me now -- is that
Jeff
> is the kind of daring story that gets points for being on tv, but
> maybe a tad overdone, and that Brown was good. I had these tapes
> (from Doug Brodoff, who made them for me at Four Star) 6 or 7 years
> ago; gave them to Peckinpahist supreme John Woo; never got them
back.
> I think I still have the one with Line Camp somewhere...
>
> BTW, I hear the Windtalkers is now a director's cut (on the new box
> set that's out). Never saw the first cut. Has anyone seen both?
I also think TROUBLE AT TRES CRUCES (sic?) should be mentioned also.
Although not part of the official WESTERNER series, it was actually
the pilot and was screened on the Zane Grey Western Theatre. The
episode also featured a good performance by Neville Brand playing the
villain and, I think, the series was a Dick Powell production.
Introducing the illiterate character of Blassingame whose possibility
for settling down with a school teacher becomes ruined by the
appearance of the Brand character, this ought to be included in THE
WESTERNER canon - although officially outside it.
On WINDTALKERS, since I saw the theatrical release years ago, my
memory is vague. I believe it ended with a flashback to the memory of
Cage running on the beach. But Woo edited this out of the director's
cut which appears on 2 discs with lots of commentary not just by Woo
and Terence Chang but many others. As you know, the military objected
to lines emphasizing the fact that Cage and Slater were to execute
their Navajo charges should they fall into enemy hands. I don't know
if these lines were actually restored but the theatrical version made
this message implicit. As a professional director, Woo did not need
to spell this message out since it was apparent in various scenes.
13147
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 1:50am
Subject: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
I was shocked - shocked! - in finding out how bad this film is. When
I was a youth it blew me away (pan & scan videotape then, for the
record; letterboxed Criterion laserdisc for recent viewing) and I even
landed it on my "top 20 of all time" for a stretch.
Boring "pretty" visuals hitched to a clumsy screenplay that (icing on
the cake) posits the hero of an absent Japanese war victim as an
ineffectual (unless he's pushed TOO FAR) American. This film has no
particular values to illustrate, illustrates what little it has in a
none-too-compelling manner, and the hero's victory is announced from
his very first engagement with the townspeople.
One scrap of interest lies within the first "man to man" chat between
Robert Ryan and Spencer Tracy, when Ryan's villain character
characterizes the various ways in which the outsiders view The West.
A completely implausable moment of sudden insight that the film cares
about not a whit.
Supporters of the film, I give my apologies and I'm 100% open for a
positive reading of the film.
-Jaime
13148
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:20am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
Haven't seen it for a number of years. Always enjoyed
it, and appreciated a film made so soon after the war
acknowledging white racism and crimes committed
against Japanese-Americans.
> Boring "pretty" visuals hitched to a clumsy
> screenplay that (icing on
> the cake) posits the hero of an absent Japanese war
> victim as an
> ineffectual (unless he's pushed TOO FAR) American.
I like pretty.
A one-armed Spencer Tracy is fitfully amusing. And I
like every movie Lee Marvin ever made because Lee
Marvin is ALWAYS worth watching.
Rather violent for its time. Parallels have been
suggested with (the obviously superior) "Yojimbo." But
they both owe a great deal to "Red Harvest" -- which
belOngs on that list of unmade masterpieces we've been
talking about. Bertolucci spent YEARS planning a film
of that one.
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13149
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:36am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
> Rather violent for its time. Parallels have been
> suggested with (the obviously superior) "Yojimbo." But
> they both owe a great deal to "Red Harvest" -- which
> belOngs on that list of unmade masterpieces we've been
> talking about. Bertolucci spent YEARS planning a film
> of that one.
Didn't the Coens also use "Red Harvest" as the jumping off point for
MILLER'S CROSSING?
I'm salivating at the mouth with the failed Bertolucci project you
mention. I'd assume Vittorio Storaro would have shot it? That would
have been simply wonderful.
-Aaron
13150
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:07am
Subject: Re: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- Aaron Graham wrote:
>
> Didn't the Coens also use "Red Harvest" as the
> jumping off point for
> MILLER'S CROSSING?
>
Yes. It makes a half-hearted atempt atevoking it. But
the Coens are toy nihilists -- not the real thing.
> I'm salivating at the mouth with the failed
> Bertolucci project you
> mention. I'd assume Vittorio Storaro would have shot
> it? That would
> have been simply wonderful.
>
As I recall it was to have been his follow-up to "The
Conformist" with Trintignant starred as the
Continental Op.
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13151
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:37am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> I was shocked - shocked! - in finding out how bad this film is.
When
> I was a youth it blew me away (pan & scan videotape then, for the
> record; letterboxed Criterion laserdisc for recent viewing) and I
even
> landed it on my "top 20 of all time" for a stretch.
>
> Boring "pretty" visuals hitched to a clumsy screenplay that (icing
on
> the cake) posits the hero of an absent Japanese war victim as an
> ineffectual (unless he's pushed TOO FAR) American. This film has no
> particular values to illustrate, illustrates what little it has in a
> none-too-compelling manner, and the hero's victory is announced from
> his very first engagement with the townspeople.
>
> One scrap of interest lies within the first "man to man" chat
between
> Robert Ryan and Spencer Tracy, when Ryan's villain character
> characterizes the various ways in which the outsiders view The
West.
> A completely implausable moment of sudden insight that the film
cares
> about not a whit.
>
> Supporters of the film, I give my apologies and I'm 100% open for a
> positive reading of the film.
>
> -Jaime
We've all had juvenile top tens or top twentys that we may feel
embarrassed about later on, but I don't see any reason to lash out
against the film with the vehemence of a jilted suitor. Neither do I
see how one could love the film in pan&scan, since its main merit is
its stunning use of CinemaScope in exteriors. "Pretty" is certainly
not the word to describe it. I agree with David about Marvin, who was
always great to watch in those days (check him out in I DIED A
THOUSAND TIMES or THE WILD ONE --"Oh, the shame of it all" -- and of
course THE BIG HEAT). The entire cast was great. I know people who
think it's a bad film. I'm not going to bother defending it on
ideological grounds -- I just enjoyed watching it when I first saw it
and still do. I couldn't argue with your negative "reading" anyway
because it's not a reading at all -- just negative. We'd need
something more than vituperations.
JPC
13152
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:42am
Subject: Alexandrine Johnny
David, my friend in Paris got back to me and assured me that there is
no alexandrine rhyming lines in the French-dubbed version of JOHNNY
GUITAR. Just the usual atrocious dubbing. Guess it was a hoax. Where
did you get it?
JPC
13153
From:
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 5:14am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
David Ehrenstein:
> > I'm salivating at the mouth with the failed
> > Bertolucci project you
> > mention. I'd assume Vittorio Storaro would have shot
> > it? That would
> > have been simply wonderful.
> >
> As I recall it was to have been his follow-up to "The
> Conformist" with Trintignant starred as the
> Continental Op.
>
Bertolucci actually came very close to shooting it in the mid-80s,
starring Jack Nicholson. (It was sometime after TRAGEDY OF A
RIDICULOUS MAN, as I recall.) Then, when it fell through, he got his
chance to go to China, and wound up making THE LAST EMPEROR instead.
Anyone interested in RED HARVEST really should see Travis
Wilkerson's fantastic essay-film AN INJURY TO ONE, which ties the
novel into a failed miners' strike in Butte, Montana.
-Bilge
13154
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 6:05am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
> Didn't the Coens also use "Red Harvest" as the jumping off point
for
> MILLER'S CROSSING?
>
Very consciously -- it's their Hammett homage; Blood Simple is their
Caine homage. Hammett=characters; Caine=plot. Or that's how they
explained it to me.
Other Red Harvest films: A Fistful of Dollars (via Yojimbo, of
course) and Last Man Standing (which I haven't seen, but it sure
sounds like Red Harvest).
13155
From: hotlove666
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 6:09am
Subject: James M. Cain erratum
No "e." Sigh. The Man Who Wasn't There is Cain, too, but Cain
reimagined by Camus.
13156
From: Aaron Graham
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 7:19am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
>Last Man Standing (which I haven't seen, but it sure
> sounds like Red Harvest).
Having just recently watched this, I can confirm it was.
An anonymous name ('John Smith'), the tough-talk narration and
the corrupted town with two rival gangs playing against one another
were the main contributions. It took some liberties with how Willis
deals with one of the boss' ladies though, conradicting the
Continental Op's careless prerogatives in the book.
Speaking of the Coens, I always thought THE BIG LEBOWSKI had some
Hammett in it as well; an impromptu, lazy Sam Spade.
-Aaron
13157
From:
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:57am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
The widescreen interiors are pretty interesting, too, in "Bad Day at Black
Rock". Plus the shots of Death Valley are awesome. But dramatically, I found the
film much weaker.
My favorite Sturges is "Mystery Street" (1950). This too has an anti-racism
theme, with Hispanic-American cop Ricardo Montalban tracking down a killer.
On Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest" (1927). Most of the unofficial film
adaptations keep the idea of an outsider pitting warring factions against each
other in a crooked town. But they do not preserve Hammett's absolute brilliant
mystery plotting. There is a "dumbing down" effect here. Let's keep the violence,
and throw out all that plotting stuff that would require the audience to
think!
I have never been able to stand the Coen Brothers' films. And do not "get"
their reputation. "Miller's Crossing" seems closer among Hammett novels to "The
Glass Key" (1930) than to "Red Harvest". The novel's Madvig-Beaumont pairing
of working class mobster ethnic politician with young, college educated
smoothie WASP lieutenant is echoed in the film. It is a pairing that runs through a
lot of Hammett.
Mike Grost
13158
From:
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 4:50am
Subject: Re: Allegory (was Storytelling)
I agree with Bill Krohn. Lots of films made under political repression
feature allegory. It was the only way to sneak out the filmmaker's ideas.
East European films made under the old, unlamented Communist regimes are rich
in allegory. In that masterpiece "WR - Mysteries of the Organism" (Dusan
Makvejev), we see a Yugoslavian figure skater. She is seduced and mistreated by a
Russian male skater. Everyone who saw this "knew" that it was an allegory
about how the Soviet Union mistreated people in Eastern Europe.
Some films are all allegory. Apparently "A Report on the Party and the
Guests", a Czech film which seems to deal with a harmless picnic, is all about real
life political events in the Czech Republic.
And "The Big Animal" (Jerzy Stuhr) is a witty, surrealistic allegory about
life under a Communist regime that distrusts anything individual or different.
There are lots of other examples.
A Western film classic that is allegorical is "Mon Oncle d'Amerique" (Alain
Resnais). The three characters in it stand for capitalism, Communism, and the
Third World.
Mike Grost
13159
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 10:39am
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
>
> > Didn't the Coens also use "Red Harvest" as the jumping off point
> for
> > MILLER'S CROSSING?
> >
>
> Very consciously -- it's their Hammett homage; Blood Simple is their
> Caine homage. Hammett=characters; Caine=plot. Or that's how they
> explained it to me.
>
> Other Red Harvest films: A Fistful of Dollars (via Yojimbo, of
> course) and Last Man Standing (which I haven't seen, but it sure
> sounds like Red Harvest).
"Last Man Standing" was intended to become the first real adaptation
of "Red Harvest", but something certainly went wrong along the way.
But "Bad Day at Black Rock" is more than just a flirtation with "Red
Harvest". It builds upon the myth, which "Red Harvest" also build
upon, and which Sturges continued to examinate in most of his films
"Gunfight at OK Corall", "Law and Jack Wake", "Last Train to Gun
Hill", "Hour of the Gun" and "Magnificent Seven" - by extension also
in "Great Escape" and "Joe Kidd".
Where the Greimasian hero only can act, because he stands outside of
society and thus isnt constrained by its laws and morality, the
Sturges hero is the exact opposite; He stands firmly within society,
being the embodiment of righteousness, having to risk life to undo a
great injustice.
Sturges was not alone in attacking the conventional hero structure.
Mann ans Boetticher did it aswell.
"Bad Day at Black Rock" is a modern western, being set in contemporary
USA, yet it always is pure myth, just as "Shane". And just as "Shane",
it has a "weakling" (even cripple) as hero, and just as "Shane" it has
the perfect heavy (Lee Marvin) - Who but Lee Marvin can play a mean
drunk? As David said, anything with Marvin is good. It marks upon
Sturges' tight direction and amazing use of scope. The drama hits us
right away with the raging train, the pumping score by Previn and the
HUGE red letters spelling the title, and each scene is distilled in
action and words.
Henrik
13160
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 10:41am
Subject: Re: Lebowski / Chandler
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Graham"
wrote:
>
> Speaking of the Coens, I always thought THE BIG LEBOWSKI had some
> Hammett in it as well; an impromptu, lazy Sam Spade.
>
> -Aaron
"The Big Lebowski" is a hypertextualisation of "The Big Sleep", thus
Chandler.
Henrik
13161
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 1:09pm
Subject: Re: Alexandrine Johnny
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> David, my friend in Paris got back to me and assured
> me that there is
> no alexandrine rhyming lines in the French-dubbed
> version of JOHNNY
> GUITAR. Just the usual atrocious dubbing. Guess it
> was a hoax. Where
> did you get it?
>
> JPC
>
I seem to recall Sarris making mention of it.Not in
any article but at a personal appearance many years
ago.
Oh well, "When the legend becomes fact. . ."change it
back.
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13162
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 1:12pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- ebiri@a... wrote:
>
> Bertolucci actually came very close to shooting it
> in the mid-80s,
> starring Jack Nicholson. (It was sometime after
> TRAGEDY OF A
> RIDICULOUS MAN, as I recall.) Then, when it fell
> through, he got his
> chance to go to China, and wound up making THE LAST
> EMPEROR instead.
>
That must have been its Last Stand. I know that
Marilyn Goldin did several scripts of it with
Bertolucci in the early 70's.
>
>
>
>
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13163
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 1:17pm
Subject: Re: Re: Allegory (was Storytelling)
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> A Western film classic that is allegorical is "Mon
> Oncle d'Amerique" (Alain
> Resnais). The three characters in it stand for
> capitalism, Communism, and the
> Third World.
>
That never occurred to me. But Christine Legrand
(Michel'sfirst wife) who adored the filmfelt it dealt
directly with the French National Character as no
other she'd ever seen had done. And She's well-versed
in French cinema.
Jonathan Rosenbaum tells me that the American Lambert
Wilson plays in "Pas Sur la Bouche" is a parody of all
Resnais feels is wrong with the American National
Character -- and is one of the man reasons why he
wanted to make the film.
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13164
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
> "Last Man Standing" was intended to become the first real adaptation
> of "Red Harvest", but something certainly went wrong along the way.
I've never read Hammett - what is it about RED HARVEST that makes for
all these adaptation difficulties?
Someone (Dave Kehr?) once cited Armitage's excellent VIGILANTE FORCE as
being related to RED HARVEST, but I don't recall a man in the middle,
just the two opposing factions.
> But "Bad Day at Black Rock" is more than just a flirtation with "Red
> Harvest". It builds upon the myth, which "Red Harvest" also build
> upon, and which Sturges continued to examinate in most of his films
> "Gunfight at OK Corall", "Law and Jack Wake", "Last Train to Gun
> Hill", "Hour of the Gun" and "Magnificent Seven" - by extension also
> in "Great Escape" and "Joe Kidd".
I like some of these films, but my favorite J. Sturges is ESCAPE FROM
FORT BRAVO, which has an appealing long-shot-ish look that emphasizes
the 1:33 frame. - Dan
13165
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:15pm
Subject: Re: Allegory (was Storytelling)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
"I agree with Bill Krohn. Lots of films made under political
repression feature allegory. It was the only way to sneak out the
filmmaker's ideas."
One of the best examples is DAY OF WRATH made during the Nazi
occupation. In Japan there's a long traditon of setting contemporary
stories in the distant past so as to avoid the hand of the censor.
SANSHU DAYU was written during the Meiji but set during the Heian 800
years earlier and substituted chattel slavery for wage slavery.
Richard
13166
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:21pm
Subject: Re: Script - screen
> Never shy about repeating earlier posts: the book was anti-
McCarthy;
> the script was pro-McCarthy. Maybe JT got blindsided.
That's interesting, but I think the real weakness is the dramatic
structure. JT is unable to enliven it much with mise-en-scene
because there's no strong scene to mise with.
I think even a rabidly McCarthyite film from JT would be more
watchable, if he were able to get behind it. But the film bogs down
in badly worded verbiage with no dramatic purpose. Nobody could make
a good film from that, if compelled to stick to it (and I think the
writers were also producers, so rewrites would not be an option.)
13167
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:26pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> I've never read Hammett - what is it about RED
> HARVEST that makes for
> all these adaptation difficulties?
>
It's relentlessly grim. In Hollywood terms "There's
no one to root for."
Curiously enough the time just might be ripe for "Red
Harvest" what with the fasionable anti-heroes of the
"Bourne" thrillers and "Man With His Pants on Fire"
starring Denzell.
But then maybe not. Hammett is in some way s like
Peckinpah, but without the sentimentality ie. the
first scene of "The Wild Bunch" but not the last one.
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13168
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:26pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling (belated reply to michael)
> I tend to think that what Ray hated about "Johnny
> Guitar" was Joan Crawford. Be sure to read "The Closed
> Set" chapter of Gavin lambert's "The Slide Area" for
> some dishy-yet-profound insight on Crawford and to
> some extent Ray.
Thanks for the tip. I like Lambert's work (apart from his hair).
Yes, the Crawford experience tainted Ray's view of the film, but he
was genuinely vociferous in his opinion that it was not a good film.
He didn't think it was a good film with a problematic performance,
or a good film that was hell to make. Of the French, he said, "I
could never figure out what they saw in it."
So Michael's original point, that a director may not be the best
judge of their own work, is one I'm happy to agree with.
And believe me, it's a relief to agree with him about SOMETHING.
13169
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:32pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
Marlon Brando was going to play the sherrif for Bert.
The Coens swiped even more from THE GLASS KEY as from RED HARV. I
was struck by the colossal debt they owed when I read both works. I
think a credit "Inspired by" would've been appropriate, but that
would have cost them money.
Even the phrase "Blood Simple" comes from RED H.
13170
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:13pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
>
> "Bad Day at Black Rock" is a modern western, being set in
contemporary
> USA, yet it always is pure myth, just as "Shane". And just
as "Shane",
> it has a "weakling" (even cripple) as hero, and just as "Shane" it
has
> the perfect heavy (Lee Marvin) - Who but Lee Marvin can play a mean
> drunk? As David said, anything with Marvin is good. It marks upon
> Sturges' tight direction and amazing use of scope. The drama hits us
> right away with the raging train, the pumping score by Previn and
the
> HUGE red letters spelling the title, and each scene is distilled in
> action and words.
>
> Henrik
It's a puzzle that such an imaginatively directed film as BDABR
stands almost alone in Sturges output. He was definitely not an
auteur. In the sixties and seventies he made a dozen films, all
mediocre or worse, with the exception of his remarkable sequel to
GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL: HOUR OF THE GUN.(I can't stand his biggest
hit, THE GREAT ESCAPE). He was kind of a rip-off artist,
plagiarizing Daves' 3:10 TO YUMA in LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL,
remaking everything from SEVEN SAMOURAI to GUNGA DIN to KIND LADY.
His '50s westerns were sometimes compared to Mann's but are far
inferior (especially in the use of exteriors). I haven't seen MYSTERY
STREET which Dan praised. Among his early efforts I like the
excellent JEOPARDY, a three-character thriller with somewhat
contrived yet terrific suspense. I used to like THE PEOPLE AGAINST
O'HARA (Great John Alton photography) but haven't seen it in ages.
JPC
13171
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:25pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
> I haven't seen MYSTERY
> STREET which Dan praised.
I think that was Mike. I haven't seen MYSTERY STREET either; I praised
ESCAPE FROM FORT BRAVO. - Dan
13172
From:
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:29pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
Dan Sallitt :
> > "Last Man Standing" was intended to become the first real
adaptation
> > of "Red Harvest", but something certainly went wrong along the
way.
>
> I've never read Hammett - what is it about RED HARVEST that makes
for
> all these adaptation difficulties?
>
From Bertolucci:
"Our reading of Red Harvest was much more political than the
original but I was surprised to discover a lack of understanding and
interest for this kind of approach in the States, so natural from a
European perspective...It was a film about the collapse of the trade
union movement in the United States. In the end I realised it was
absurd to try and make a film in America for the Americans; they
would never accept the conflict between the Continental Op (I wanted
Jack Nicholson to play him), drawn from Hammett's first hand
experiences while working for the Pinkerton agency, and Bill Quint
(I wanted Brando to play him), the socialist union man. The world
picture of the Continental Op was liberal and idealist and came
clearly into conflict with the materialist Marxist vision held by
Quint. But in their private lives, their roles were reversed: the
detective was rather liberal and progressive while the revolutionary
was deeply conservative. A characteristic schizophrenic current to
be found in all my movies.
"In the see-saw between repulsion and attraction, the Continental Op
and Bill Quint would end up becoming two sides of the same coin.
When I had either to take action on it or to leave it for a while I
was exhausted, having broken all my bones on 1900..."
When BB revamped the project in the 80s (still with Nicholson
attached) I think they even had the locations set in Montana and
everything, before it all fell through again. He came very close.
Part of the reason RH remains unfilmable to this day is, I
understand, because Alberto Grimaldi still owns the rights, and is
hanging onto them with a vengeance. (This was apparently one of the
reasons LAST MAN STANDING failed to become the first official
adaptation of RH.)
-Bilge
13173
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:38pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> It's a puzzle that such an imaginatively
> directed film as BDABR
> stands almost alone in Sturges output. He was
> definitely not an
> auteur. In the sixties and seventies he made a dozen
> films, all
> mediocre or worse, with the exception of his
> remarkable sequel to
> GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL: HOUR OF THE GUN.(I can't
> stand his biggest
> hit, THE GREAT ESCAPE).
And don't forget "Ice Station Zebra" -- the film
Howard Hughes spent his final years watching over and
over and over and over again.
There's a great use of clips from"Ice Station Zebra"
in John Greyson's video feature "Moscow Does Not
Believe in Queers." John was visiting the (now former)
Soviet Union when Rock Hudson's death from AIDS hit
the news worldwide. At the same time a Soviet sub was
having some trouble -- so you can imagine what he did
with this through editing.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13174
From:
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 0:02pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
Yep - I liked "Mystery Street", but have not seen "Escape From Fort Bravo".
Even "Mystery Street" might owe more of its visual style to John Alton than
Sturges, considering Sturges' not very inspiring track record elsewhere, "Bad
Day at Black Rock" notwithstanding.
And on Tarantino, to answer Jaime's query, I just have not seen his work. I
am afraid of gore... (Except for Al Gore and Gore Vidal. They're cousins!) Have
seen QT as actor in "Destiny Turns on the Radio".
On "Red Harvest": Hollywood has hardly filmed any American prose detective
stories since 1975, when the Ellery Queen TV series made a delightful adaptation
of the classic EQ short story, "The Mad Tea Party" (1933). Condiering the
limitless sums of money Hollywood lavishes on special effects, their disinterest
in the huge body of oustanding crime fiction is puzzling.
There is a recent Hammett collection of short stories called "Nightmare
Town". The title tale (1925), a masterpiece of mystery plotting, cries out for film
adaptation. In fact, I would love to see multiple versions of this story,
done by auteurs all over the world. Everyone from Curtis Harrington to Samira
Makhmalbaf could make a good movie out of this!
"Nightmare Town: The TV Series. 23 adaptations, each one-hour long, of the
Hammett tale. Each one by a great director. Shown each week on CBS!"
Mike Grost
13175
From:
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 4:08pm
Subject: Miller's Crossing (was re: Bad Day at Black Rock)
MILLER'S is a characteristically (for the Coens) idiosyncratic hybrid
of various Hammett works. It's been a good many years since I flipped
through the complete Hammett, but I recall the film cribbing lines
from a number of novels, including the the oft-used "What's the
rumpus," and the phrase "the original Miss Jesus." (If memory serves,
it's Red Harvest that contains the line, "He's gone blood simple.")
MILLER'S plot is most obviously drawn from Red Harvest, but there's
quite a bit of The Glass Key as well. To make it even more confusing,
the latter influence comes mainly by way of the 1942 Ladd/Lake film
version, in which Ladd, like Gabriel Byrne in MILLER'S is beaten to
the point of absurdity by a big-man/little-man team of thugs (and
emerges even dreamier post-pummelling). I saw KEY a few years ago
after seeing MILLER'S many times and was utterly stunned at the
similarities between the two films.
Still not sure how to work that into my feelings about the Coens'
film, which is one of my favorites. I don't think it has anything to
do with nihilism, toy or otherwise: for me, it's about the crushing
power of masculine codes. Byrne's loyalty to his gangster (ex)boss
Albert Finney is so strong that he gives up his one chance at
personal happiness for him (thus making the kind of sacrifice
generally associated with female characters; he's Stella Dallas in a
fedora). The last shot is Byrne adjusting his hat -- the symbol of
his adherence to the codes of the underworld -- as he watches his
former boss walk off after the woman they both love. (The woman who
is, the dialogue repeatedly suggests, more of "a man" than either of
them.) Like BARTON FINK (with which it was co-conceived) MILLER'S is
a symbolic riot, so overloaded with references to male and female
codes, hats and hearts, that it almost dares you to make sense of it
all. (It reminds me, ever so slightly, of Verhoeven's THE FOURTH MAN,
a symbolically overdetermined thriller expressly designed to "fuck
the Dutch critics", who to Verhoeven's mind had taken insufficient
notice of his more naturalistic movies).
MILLER'S strikes me as a movie that's well-liked enough but
insufficiently analyzed, condemned to be viewed as a superior genre
exercise. Seems to me very few critics have a good handle on the
Coens, which is exactly how they'd like it, though Matt Seitz did a
provocative (if not entirely compelling) auteurist reading of the
Coens' career in his NY Press review of THE LADYKILLERS. (I thought
the movie was pretty dreadful, though INTOLERABLE CRUELTY was one of
their best.)
Sam
>
>> Didn't the Coens also use "Red Harvest" as the jumping off point
>for
>> MILLER'S CROSSING?
>>
>
>Very consciously -- it's their Hammett homage; Blood Simple is their
>Caine homage. Hammett=characters; Caine=plot. Or that's how they
>explained it to me.
>
>Other Red Harvest films: A Fistful of Dollars (via Yojimbo, of
>course) and Last Man Standing (which I haven't seen, but it sure
>sounds like Red Harvest).
>
13176
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 4:13pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
I'm very glad that a little bit of whining about BDABR being a bad
film has led to so many interesting conversational tangents. I don't
like the film and feel okay in not liking it but it's great that some
people find a little or a lot of value in it, or were inspired to
bring up other stuff in relation to it: Sturges in general, Cain,
Hammett, Bertolucci, etc.
Just a few words, then, for JP:
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> We've all had juvenile top tens or top twentys that we may feel
> embarrassed about later on, but I don't see any reason to lash out
> against the film with the vehemence of a jilted suitor.
I'm not sure where I suggested that my newly-discovered dislike for
the film had anything to do with embarrassment directed at my youth -
it's simply how things played out: I saw it when I was young and
thought it was fantastic, saw it yesterday and found it a trifle. I
think it's kind of pretentious, too (in a way that may have spurred S.
Kramer - who made a handful of films I've *never* liked - to use Tracy
in a similar manner as Sturges, against three political landscapes
that were as broad and shallowly depicted as the mountains in BLACK
ROCK were tall), which may account for my irritated tone. But it's
not like I'll stay mad at it, it's behind me.
> Neither do I
> see how one could love the film in pan&scan, since its main merit is
> its stunning use of CinemaScope in exteriors.
At the time my feeling for "cinematic" qualities was underdeveloped to
say the least - I only noticed great exteriors if I was hit over the
head with them, i.e. in GIANT or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. I was chiefly
impressed by Sturges ability to tighten the screws until the film
erupts into the long-promised "Spencer Tracy kicks some ass" stuff.
> The entire cast was great.
Agreed!
> I couldn't argue with your negative "reading" anyway
> because it's not a reading at all -- just negative. We'd need
> something more than vituperations.
Ah ha! Now we know how Jaime felt all yesterday, regarding "other
matters."
I don't have a complex reading of BAD DAY and I don't care to give it
one. I'm simply not the "go-to guy for BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK" and I'm
okay with that.
On the other hand, anyone else who wishes to provide "something more
than vituperations" will find a most welcome audience with me - even
if I continue to dislike it, which is likely.
-Jaime
13177
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 7:02pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> I'm very glad that a little bit of whining about BDABR being a bad
> film has led to so many interesting conversational tangents. I
don't
> like the film and feel okay in not liking it but it's great that
some
> people find a little or a lot of value in it, or were inspired to
> bring up other stuff in relation to it: Sturges in general, Cain,
> Hammett, Bertolucci, etc.
>
> Just a few words, then, for JP:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
>
> > We've all had juvenile top tens or top twentys that we may
feel
> > embarrassed about later on, but I don't see any reason to lash
out
> > against the film with the vehemence of a jilted suitor.
>
> I'm not sure where I suggested that my newly-discovered dislike for
> the film had anything to do with embarrassment directed at my
youth -
> it's simply how things played out: I saw it when I was young and
> thought it was fantastic, saw it yesterday and found it a trifle. I
> think it's kind of pretentious, too (in a way that may have spurred
S.
> Kramer - who made a handful of films I've *never* liked - to use
Tracy
> in a similar manner as Sturges, against three political landscapes
> that were as broad and shallowly depicted as the mountains in BLACK
> ROCK were tall), which may account for my irritated tone. But it's
> not like I'll stay mad at it, it's behind me.
>
> > Neither do I
> > see how one could love the film in pan&scan, since its main merit
is
> > its stunning use of CinemaScope in exteriors.
>
> At the time my feeling for "cinematic" qualities was underdeveloped
to
> say the least - I only noticed great exteriors if I was hit over the
> head with them, i.e. in GIANT or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. I was chiefly
> impressed by Sturges ability to tighten the screws until the film
> erupts into the long-promised "Spencer Tracy kicks some ass" stuff.
>
> > The entire cast was great.
>
> Agreed!
>
> > I couldn't argue with your negative "reading" anyway
> > because it's not a reading at all -- just negative. We'd need
> > something more than vituperations.
>
> Ah ha! Now we know how Jaime felt all yesterday, regarding "other
> matters."
>
> I don't have a complex reading of BAD DAY and I don't care to give
it
> one. I'm simply not the "go-to guy for BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK" and
I'm
> okay with that.
>
> On the other hand, anyone else who wishes to provide "something more
> than vituperations" will find a most welcome audience with me - even
> if I continue to dislike it, which is likely.
>
> -Jaime
Yes, I agree. This is a really fascinating discussion particularly in
the significant, but relevant, diversions from the topic.
Here I am going to make a confession. I like BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK
having seen it on first release and was impressed by the use of scope
frame as well as that great gallery of character actors, Marvin,
Borgnine, and Robert Ryan. But after the film disappeared from
theatrical release, I felt that the cropped, pan and scan versions
did it a disservice. The laserdisc version restored my original
feelings concerning the visual aspects of the film.
Sure, the film is a little bit preachy in terms of its leaning toward
Stanley Kramer territory. But we must remember that BAD DAY was the
first film of its type to acknowledge WW2 American racism against the
Japanese which led to Nisei relocation in internment camps. THE STEEL
HELMET also made a nod in this direction.
But living and working in a rural area, I can see how true the film's
depiction of parochial insularity really is. Although access to the
internet, DVD, and other sources do make a difference, this type of
xenophobia does exist - even in a university town. After 9/11
some "patriotic" students began verbally harassing female middle
eastern students on this campus using the event as an excuse for
their own inherent racism. Unfortunately, the world of BLACK ROCK
does exist in some parts of the USA and it is to the director's
credit that he made this explicit as well as referring to one of the
darkest issues in American WW2 society long before it became
fashionable to do so.
13178
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 7:43pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000"
wrote:
"...we must remember that BAD DAY was the first film of its type to
acknowledge WW2 American racism against the Japanese which led to
Nisei relocation in internment camps. THE STEEL HELMET also made a
nod in this direction."
I think one can fairly call the camps concentration camps since
that's how they were called by President Roosevelt and in official US
Government documents.
As far as I know DAISEY KENYON (1947) is the earliest Hollywood film
to acknowledge the injustice of Executive Order 9066; Dana Andrew's
attorney charcter is representing a Japanese-American plaintiff in a
suit against the USA (in the movie he loses.) It's only mentioned in
some dialogue but it's probably an allusion to Koremitsu et al v.
USA. The Supreme Court ruled against Koremitsu, but because of a
technical error the case was reheard in the 9th circuit court and
this time the judgement was against the government. As I recall, the
plaintiff's name in the movie was Noguchi(!), and as it happened
Isamu Noguchi was interned at Heart Mountain.
Richard
13179
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 9:32pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000"
> wrote:
>
> "...we must remember that BAD DAY was the first film of its type
to
> acknowledge WW2 American racism against the Japanese which led to
> Nisei relocation in internment camps. THE STEEL HELMET also made a
> nod in this direction."
>
> I think one can fairly call the camps concentration camps since
> that's how they were called by President Roosevelt and in official
US
> Government documents.
>
> As far as I know DAISEY KENYON (1947) is the earliest Hollywood
film
> to acknowledge the injustice of Executive Order 9066; Dana Andrew's
> attorney charcter is representing a Japanese-American plaintiff in
a
> suit against the USA (in the movie he loses.) It's only mentioned
in
> some dialogue but it's probably an allusion to Koremitsu et al v.
> USA. The Supreme Court ruled against Koremitsu, but because of a
> technical error the case was reheard in the 9th circuit court and
> this time the judgement was against the government. As I recall,
the
> plaintiff's name in the movie was Noguchi(!), and as it happened
> Isamu Noguchi was interned at Heart Mountain.
>
> Richard
Dear Richard,
Thanks for the correction. I used "relocation camps" to distinguish
the American version from the Nazi camps. Although the treatment of
the Niseis was bad enough, they were not (to the best of my
knowledge) starved, worked to death, and subjected to the "Final
Solution." Although the British used "concentration camps" in the
Boer War, the Nazis also borrowed the idea from the Indian
reservation camps. This is somthing Vietnam scholar Kali Tal
discovered when she was working at the Holocaust Museum at one time.
As usual, the Nazis borrowed things and gave them their own dark
perverted resonances, something we see today with the treatment of
Iraqi prisoners, the implications of which are denied by Rush
Limbaugh and conservative politicians.
A difference did exist. This is why I distinguish the "concentration
camp" indelibly printed on our memories by World War 2 from other
examples which can neither be condoned nor forgotten.
Tony
13180
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)
It's an article in Cahiers du Cinéma 589 called "Le cinéma français
existe-t-il?" (Does french cinema exist?). In the sixth paragraph, he talks
about how mainstream french films are terrible and how mainstream american
films are much better than american independent cinema. It goes a little
something like this:
"That's an old one that you know better than me: mainstream french cinema is
mediocre and vain. And hollywood movies are generally a little more
interesting than independent american cinema in general. What's more
inventive, amazing and radical than Kill Bill, Mystic River and
Unbreakable?" (Then he mentions Cassavetes as an exception to the adagio.
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime N. Christley"
To:
Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2004 6:26 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky
Stephens)
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Ruy Gardnier"
> wrote:
> > Don't be. Arnaud Desplechin, for one, felt the same thing as you did
> (and
> > I), and wrote about that feeling in the Cahiers.
>
> I'd be interested in reading about that, when I get through blushing.
> (Not worthy, etc.) Can you direct me to any specific articles/issues?
>
> -Jaime
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
13181
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:38pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)
--- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
> "That's an old one that you know better than me:
> mainstream french cinema is
> mediocre and vain. And hollywood movies are
> generally a little more
> interesting than independent american cinema in
> general. What's more
> inventive, amazing and radical than Kill Bill,
> Mystic River and
> Unbreakable?"
"Gerry," "Elephant," "Far From Heaven," "Son Frere."
(Then he mentions Cassavetes as an
> exception to the adagio.
AS IF!
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13182
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:42pm
Subject: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000"
wrote:
"I used "relocation camps" to distinguish the American version from
the Nazi camps. Although the treatment of the Niseis was bad enough,
they were not (to the best of my knowledge) starved, worked to death,
and subjected to the 'Final Solution'...
"A difference did exist. This is why I distinguish the 'concentration
camp' indelibly printed on our memories by World War 2 from other
examples which can neither be condoned nor forgotten."
You're absolutely right Tony, and the term "concentration camp"
dosen't do descriptive justice to the Nazi camps which were in fact
death camps.
Since you mentioned Fuller, I understand that the first film he ever
shot was of Nazi camp done on orders of his comanding officer and
with a 16mm camera his mother gave him. Fuller was ahead of the
curve in addressing issues like racial injustice. And since Tarantino
has come up in another thread, several years ago I saw him at a
screening of VERBOTEN! with his entourage. At the end of the movie
he stood up and proclaimed it a "mind-blowing masterpiece," so at the
very least he should be credited with a little good taste.
Richard
13183
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:56pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)
I might add that the "you" Desplechin is referring to is Alain Bergala, and
the text is a letter to him (as a response for a Bergala letter to
Desplechin in the previous edition).
I love Kill Bill vol. 1 (the second part hasn't opened in Brazil yet),
Mystic River, Elephant, Far From Heaven. Like Gerry very much.
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ehrenstein"
To:
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 8:38 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky
Stephens)
> --- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
>
> > "That's an old one that you know better than me:
> > mainstream french cinema is
> > mediocre and vain. And hollywood movies are
> > generally a little more
> > interesting than independent american cinema in
> > general. What's more
> > inventive, amazing and radical than Kill Bill,
> > Mystic River and
> > Unbreakable?"
>
> "Gerry," "Elephant," "Far From Heaven," "Son Frere."
13184
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
You may count Sergio Corbucci's "Django" among the "outsider pitting warring
factions against each other in a crooked town" films. Not that I care much
for it...
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 4:57 AM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
> The widescreen interiors are pretty interesting, too, in "Bad Day at Black
> Rock". Plus the shots of Death Valley are awesome. But dramatically, I
found the
> film much weaker.
> My favorite Sturges is "Mystery Street" (1950). This too has an
anti-racism
> theme, with Hispanic-American cop Ricardo Montalban tracking down a
killer.
> On Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest" (1927). Most of the unofficial film
> adaptations keep the idea of an outsider pitting warring factions against
each
> other in a crooked town. But they do not preserve Hammett's absolute
brilliant
> mystery plotting. There is a "dumbing down" effect here. Let's keep the
violence,
> and throw out all that plotting stuff that would require the audience to
> think!
13185
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 0:26am
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> --- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
>
> > "That's an old one that you know better than me:
> > mainstream french cinema is
> > mediocre and vain. And hollywood movies are
> > generally a little more
> > interesting than independent american cinema in
> > general. What's more
> > inventive, amazing and radical than Kill Bill,
> > Mystic River and
> > Unbreakable?"
>
> "Gerry," "Elephant," "Far From Heaven," "Son Frere."
I'd trade all of these (and the careers of their respective directors) for the six or seven
films made by the Farrelly brothers. Well, maybe not ELEPHANT...
The new issue of Senses of Cinema is up and there are many fine new texts in this
number, including an essay on SON FRERE by a friend which I haven't yet read, and
two from Peter Tonguette, one from Christoph Huber, one from Saul Symonds, one
from Tag. New design, too; they've gone pink and girly.
Gabe
13186
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 0:49am
Subject: Cahiers -- June, and July?
I was wondering whether anyone on the list would be able to scan the
"Formats" essay by Godard from the June issue of Cahiers, and email it
to me, or put it up on a site somewhere? Also, if anyone has the July
issue, and can post to the list what articles of note are included...?
My subscription hasn't been reactivated yet, and I'm not going to be in
NYC for an indefinite amount of time, so no trips to Universal News in
the immediate future. (BTW, I questioned them as to whether they could
receive issues of Positif, but the proprietor said if they don't get it
they don't get it.)
thanks,
craig.
13187
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 0:49am
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)
hey, gabe
there aren't so many good directors active right now to dismiss eastwood or
todd haynes like that. anyway, i think they are on the top of what's best in
cinema today. i think the farrellys -- and van sant with "elephant", and
tarantino -- are out there also.
ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabe Klinger"
To:
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 9:26 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky
Stephens)
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> > --- Ruy Gardnier wrote:
> >
> > > "That's an old one that you know better than me:
> > > mainstream french cinema is
> > > mediocre and vain. And hollywood movies are
> > > generally a little more
> > > interesting than independent american cinema in
> > > general. What's more
> > > inventive, amazing and radical than Kill Bill,
> > > Mystic River and
> > > Unbreakable?"
> >
> > "Gerry," "Elephant," "Far From Heaven," "Son Frere."
>
> I'd trade all of these (and the careers of their respective directors) for
the six or seven
> films made by the Farrelly brothers. Well, maybe not ELEPHANT...
>
13188
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 0:58am
Subject: Re: Allegory (was Storytelling)
> A Western film classic that is allegorical is "Mon Oncle
d'Amerique" (Alain
> Resnais). The three characters in it stand for capitalism,
Communism, and the
> Third World.
>
> Mike Grost
That one I'm going to have to resee now -- I love it anyway, so it
won't be hard.
13189
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 0:58am
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (belated reply to Jaime)
> > Re the latter, one of the most suggestive
> > comments I've heard was from a friend who pointed out the
affinity
> > between Bill and Noah Cross in CHINATOWN; don't know if that'll
> > strike a chord with anyone else, but it makes sense to me.
> I'll have to think about that, as there seems to be more
differences
> than similarities, at least as I see it.
There are various arguable similarities, but the obvious one is that
Bill is the Bride's symbolic father as well as her lover. Which is
why he has to die, IMO. I'd be interested in your take on what the
key differences are.
JTW
13190
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:13am
Subject: Re: Miller's Crossing
>
> MILLER'S strikes me as a movie that's well-liked enough but
> insufficiently analyzed, condemned to be viewed as a superior genre
> exercise. Seems to me very few critics have a good handle on the
> Coens, which is exactly how they'd like it, though Matt Seitz did a
> provocative (if not entirely compelling) auteurist reading of the
> Coens' career in his NY Press review of THE LADYKILLERS. (I thought
> the movie was pretty dreadful, though INTOLERABLE CRUELTY was one
of
> their best.)
>
I'd have to look, but when I questioned them about it, they'd
stressed the symbolisom of hats (and heads) as control, and losing
one's hat as losing control.
I've tried to analyze some of the ones I particularly like in CdC in
terms of the conflict between family ties and mercantile ties.
Rplacing one with the other results in characters (or bodies) that
are like money: the Trouble with Harry aspect of who killed Dan
Hedaya, the baby in Arizona who is anybody's baby that wants it, the
dead body in the woods in Miller's, the head in Barton, the CEO in
Hudsucker.
They have always hid their semiotic light under a bushel, but never
wholly -- one of my favorite examples is what's written on the
restroom wall where the brothers go to spruce up in Raising Arizona,
which tells you which director has always been their main reference,
despite all the jokes about films like Where Eagles Dare, which I'm
sure they also love.
I quite liked Ladykillers, but I'm aware that's it's a hard film to
take. I thought that after the idealized portrayal of the South in
O Brother they had made an election year film that went for the
region's jugular. Hence the irritating, unsellable soundtrack.
13191
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:21am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
Also, if anyone has the July
> issue, and can post to the list what articles of note are
included...?
As usual, us west coasters haven't even gotten June yet, although
I've skimmed it at Book Soup. They were putting together a bunch of
filmmaker tributes to Truffaut 20 years after his death. I don't know
if that was folded into July-August or separate -- haven't seen hide
nor hair of it.
13192
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:42am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Also, if anyone has the July
> > issue, and can post to the list what articles of note are
> included...?
>
> As usual, us west coasters haven't even gotten June yet, although
> I've skimmed it at Book Soup. They were putting together a bunch of
> filmmaker tributes to Truffaut 20 years after his death. I don't
know
> if that was folded into July-August or separate -- haven't seen
hide
> nor hair of it.
I can't believe as a contributor you can't get copies air-mail
(priority). Are they THAT cheap? Has LE MONDE been cracking down?
JPC
13193
From:
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:57am
Subject: Godard query
Does anyone know the source of the following, which opens Helas pour Moi? I'm 85% sure I read it somewhere before seeing the film, but can't recall the author and a web search only brings up a reference to the JLG.
brent
When my father's father's father had a difficult task to accomplish, he went to a certain place in the forest, lit a fire, and immersed himself in silent prayer.
And what had to be done was done.
When my father's father was confronted with the same task, he went to the same place in the forest and said:
'"We no longer know how to light the fire, but we still know the prayer."
And what had to be done was done.
Later, he too went into the forest and said:
"We no longer know how to light the fire, we no longer know the mysteries of prayer, but we still know the exact place in the forest where it occurred. And that should do."
And that did do.
But when I was faced with the same task, I stayed home and I said:
"We no longer know how to light the fire, we no longer know the prayers. We don't even know the place in the forest. But we do know how to tell the story."
13194
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:00am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
> I can't believe as a contributor you can't get copies air-mail
> (priority). Are they THAT cheap? Has LE MONDE been cracking down?
>
> JPC
The Cahiers is a place where no one communicates with anyone else, so
the subscription department does whatever it wants, like all the
other departments. I'm sure if I bitched to Frodon he'd see to it,
but it's not that important to me.
13195
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:03am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller wrote:
>
> I was wondering whether anyone on the list would be able to scan the
> "Formats" essay by Godard from the June issue of Cahiers, and email it
> to me, or put it up on a site somewhere?
http://66.108.51.239/formats.gif
http://66.108.51.239/formats.pdf
Paul
13196
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:03am
Subject: Star Wars III
For those who care as much as I do:
Special Announcement: Episode III Title
July 24, 2004
starwars.com is pleased to announce that Star Wars: Episode III
Revenge of the Sith is the full title of the next Star Wars film,
scheduled for release on May 19, 2005.
The Sith are masters of the dark side of the Force and the sworn
enemies of the Jedi. They were all but exterminated by the Jedi a
thousand years ago, but the evil order continued in secrecy. They
operated quietly, behind the scenes, acting in pairs - a Master and
an Apprentice - patiently biding their time before they could take
over the galaxy. In Episode III, they'll finally exact their revenge
on the Jedi.
The title was publicly revealed today in a special presentation to a
packed audience of Star Wars fans at Comic-Con International in San
Diego, California.
13197
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:04am
Subject: Re: Miller's Crossing
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> I'd have to look, but when I questioned them about it, they'd
> stressed the symbolisom of hats (and heads) as control, and losing
> one's hat as losing control.
>
They told me the hat was just a hat (you know, like, sometimes a
cigar...)with no symbolism and I didn't press them because actually I
like it when there's no symbolism where symbolism is expected (L'AGE
d'Or is so much stronger if you don't take anything in it
as "symbolic") but it really doesn't matter much what they say in
interviews. It's up to us to do whatever we want (if anything) with
the hat.
I don't think LADYKILLERS is particularly hard to take. It's
obviously not about the South, or any other actual place (i thought
it was strange that Jonathan spent about half of his review of it
listing the improbabilities as though the film was some dead serious
melodrama). And because of its being so outrageously not about
anything or anywhere it can get away with most anything it pleases.
Maybe I expressed this better in my review in POSITIF...(maybe not)...
JPC
13198
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:37am
Subject: Re: Cahiers -- June, and July?
www.geocities.com/contracampo/godardformats.jpg
#592, july-august
cover truffaut
texts by burdeau, frodon. round table with bertrand bonello, noemie lvovsky,
arnaud desplechin
small testimonials by hou hsiao-hsien, kiyoshi kurosawa, abbas kiarostami,
amos gitai, monte hellman and... carols diegues (!)
specific texts on 9 films
cahier critique: goodbye dragon inn (tsai), coming apart (ginsberg, 1969),
naufrages de l'ile de la tortue (rozier, 1976), the late george apley
(mankiewicz, 1946), ana & the others (murga), arimpara (nair), fahrenheit
9/11 (moore), eleni (angelopoulos), assassination tango (duvall), capsules
of chahine, loach, miike, de vito, varda, dupeyron, cuaron, etc.
journal: short films dossier, discovery of rattana pestonji, festivals of
shanghai and jeonji
douchet on gay films (bouvet, ugolini, blasco, bonello, gisler, kwan,
ozpetek, cuesta)
répliques: françois bégaudeau on "l'esquive" / stéphane delorme on "pickup
on south street" / cyril béghin on a session of films called "hollywood
deconstructed" / cyril béghin on monteiro / emmanuel ethis .
----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Keller"
To:
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 9:49 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] Cahiers -- June, and July?
>
> I was wondering whether anyone on the list would be able to scan the
> "Formats" essay by Godard from the June issue of Cahiers, and email it
> to me, or put it up on a site somewhere? Also, if anyone has the July
> issue, and can post to the list what articles of note are included...?
> My subscription hasn't been reactivated yet, and I'm not going to be in
> NYC for an indefinite amount of time, so no trips to Universal News in
> the immediate future. (BTW, I questioned them as to whether they could
> receive issues of Positif, but the proprietor said if they don't get it
> they don't get it.)
>
> thanks,
> craig.
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
13199
From: Chris Fujiwara
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 3:32am
Subject: Daisy Kenyon - WAS Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
Thank you, Richard, for mentioning this element in Daisy Kenyon,
which has long interested me. The film's reference to the Japanese-
American internment is, to be sure, more veiled than you made out
here. In describing the case, the Andrews character says that his
client was victimized by "some smart operator on the Coast" who stole
Noguchi's home (on the basis of an obscure law "written by Cortez")
while Noguchi was fighting in Europe. He brings suit, not against the
US, but (presumably) against the "operator." (An earlier draft of the
screenplay had a scene in which a judge, characterized as overtly
malicious and probably racist, denies the plaintiff's claim; in the
film, the defeat is just mentioned.)
Still, the Noguchi story must be a reference to the internment, which
affected almost exclusively people living on the West Coast, which
resulted in massive loss of property for the victims (who, given a
day or two to comply with the relocation order, had to sacrifice
their homes and businesses to smart operators or entrust their
property to neighbors), and the injustice of which was pointed up by
the service many thousands of "Noguchis" performed for the US in the
war.
I read here an allusion, not to the Fred Korematsu case (ruled on by
the Supreme Court in 1944, and, I believe, essentially concerning the
constitutionality of the forced relocation of a racial group) but to
the more directly relevant and (in 1947) contemporary issue of how
the government should deal with claims of property loss filed by the
victims.
The Steel Helmet is, to my knowledge, the first American film to
mention the internment directly.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000"
> wrote:
>
> "...we must remember that BAD DAY was the first film of its type
to
> acknowledge WW2 American racism against the Japanese which led to
> Nisei relocation in internment camps. THE STEEL HELMET also made a
> nod in this direction."
>
> I think one can fairly call the camps concentration camps since
> that's how they were called by President Roosevelt and in official
US
> Government documents.
>
> As far as I know DAISEY KENYON (1947) is the earliest Hollywood
film
> to acknowledge the injustice of Executive Order 9066; Dana Andrew's
> attorney charcter is representing a Japanese-American plaintiff in
a
> suit against the USA (in the movie he loses.) It's only mentioned
in
> some dialogue but it's probably an allusion to Koremitsu et al v.
> USA. The Supreme Court ruled against Koremitsu, but because of a
> technical error the case was reheard in the 9th circuit court and
> this time the judgement was against the government. As I recall,
the
> plaintiff's name in the movie was Noguchi(!), and as it happened
> Isamu Noguchi was interned at Heart Mountain.
>
> Richard
13200
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Jul 26, 2004 3:52am
Subject: Re: Daisy Kenyon - WAS Re: Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges - '55)
> Thank you, Richard, for mentioning this element in Daisy Kenyon,
> which has long interested me. The film's reference to the Japanese-
> American internment is, to be sure, more veiled than you made out
> here. In describing the case, the Andrews character says that his
> client was victimized by "some smart operator on the Coast" who stole
> Noguchi's home (on the basis of an obscure law "written by Cortez")
> while Noguchi was fighting in Europe. He brings suit, not against the
> US, but (presumably) against the "operator." (An earlier draft of the
> screenplay had a scene in which a judge, characterized as overtly
> malicious and probably racist, denies the plaintiff's claim; in the
> film, the defeat is just mentioned.)
By the way, this element wasn't in the novel from which DAISY KENYON was
adapted. The novel was set before and during WWII, and Dan O'Mara's
doomed project in the book was to get the Army to adopt a superior plane
engine. The switch from the plane engine to the Noguchi case was partly
because the movie took place post-war; but, obviously, the two lost
causes differ quite a bit in their social-political meaning. - Dan
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