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13801
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:22am
Subject: Re: Director biographies and criticism (Was: Rivette query)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, samadams@e... wrote:
Only a bare handful of people -- if that many -- would know what the
first shot of Othon represents without being told. The film works
well without that knowledge, but the Straubs deliberately left it
out, and the same is true for a lot of location histories in their
films.
13802
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:28am
Subject: Re: Re: Brown Bunny billboard removed from Hollywood
--- hotlove666 wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan
> wrote:
> > Here is a site with a graphic of the BB billboard.
> >
> > http://www.airmassive.com/amblog_080304_1.html
>
> Lawsy me!
>
>
It's like the scene in Morrissey's "Flesh" where Joe
gets a blow-job.
MUCH rather see Joe's ass than Gallo's.
Even today.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13803
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:28am
Subject: Rivette Query: Spectre
Dear friends -
The 'Rivette query' thread has taken many intriguing turns since I
started it. But, just to go back to the spectre of the inaugural case:
I quoted what seems to me a stupid article in SENSES OF CINEMA that
claimed STORY OF MAIE AND JULIEN to be fundamentally 'about' Rivette's
PARTING from Emmanuelle Béart - thus implying a relationship between
them. The piece then goes on solemnly to 'theorise' the need to take
Rivette's autobiography into account in this way.
Now, since no one in this group - not even David! - has ever seen or
heard anything of this specific director-actress revelation, I take the
author's 'speculation' (as he gamely calls it) to be completely
groundless and spurious. Especially as Richard Porton has confirmed,
from his interview with Béart, that she hardly knows him socially off
the set!!!! (Watch it, Richard: I think it will be possible for some to
say that all your critical writing is henceforth 'haunted by your
parting' from Emmanuelle after 30 minutes on the interview couch with
her!!!)
Other issues that have spun out of the thread - such as Rivette's or
any director's feeling/desire (including Platonic) for an actor - are a
completely different matter. We should be careful here, too, though:
anyone seeing the absolutely glamorous way that Rivette eroticises
Pierre Clementi in PONT DU NORD could just as easily 'theorise' that he
was gay or bisexual! It seems to me more the point (if a slightly
old-fashioned one) to observe that Rivette (in the company of many
great directors) RESPONDS fully to his performers (male and female),
and invests himself totally in the full-blooded portrayal of their
physicality and soulful presence. Calling that 'desire', or even worse
taking the shortcut to an implied sexual relationship,simplifies and
cheapens that whole unbelievably complex aesthetic process, in my
opinion.
By the way, I am always fascinated that, when people wheel out the
classic director-actor couples - Sternberg/Dietrich, Karina/Godard,
Rossellini/Bergman, etc - there is so rarely a mention of Cassavetes
and Rowlands. Why is this? Maybe because she is not 'festishised' in
quite the same way, or figures within a sado-masochistic phantasm? But
it is also intriguing to me that the sexual and erotic
aspects/undercurrents of Cassavetes' work are so rarely explored or
discussed (especially by Carney, who completely de-eroticises the
films). Any thoughts from anyone on that?
Adrian
13804
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:46am
Subject: Re: Rivette Query: Spectre
--- Adrian Martin wrote:
> By the way, I am always fascinated that, when people
> wheel out the
> classic director-actor couples - Sternberg/Dietrich,
> Karina/Godard,
> Rossellini/Bergman, etc - there is so rarely a
> mention of Cassavetes
> and Rowlands. Why is this? Maybe because she is not
> 'festishised' in
> quite the same way, or figures within a
> sado-masochistic phantasm? But
> it is also intriguing to me that the sexual and
> erotic
> aspects/undercurrents of Cassavetes' work are so
> rarely explored or
> discussed (especially by Carney, who completely
> de-eroticises the
> films). Any thoughts from anyone on that?
>
Very interesting you should mention that. I think it
derives from the fact that Cassavetes doesn't treat
Rowlands any differently than he does Ben Gazzarra.
"Gloria" is the key to this as it's about a woman who
takes the social role of a "man" upon herself to
become (inadvertently) the "mother" she had never
regarded herself as being.
"A Woman Under the Influence," "Minnie and Moskowitz,"
"Opening Night" and "Love Streams" likewise find
Rowlands playing women who are naything but passive
objects of traditional male adoration.
Glad the Rivette/Beart business has been cleared up.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
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13805
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:46am
Subject: Re: Rivette Query: Spectre
But
> it is also intriguing to me that the sexual and erotic
> aspects/undercurrents of Cassavetes' work are so rarely explored
or
> discussed (especially by Carney, who completely de-eroticises the
> films). Any thoughts from anyone on that?
>
> Adrian
Just one, and a brief thought at that. Last week when I was in New
York, I got to spend some time with Jim Jarmusch, who knows Rowlands
pretty well, and we spoke a bit about her decisions not to include
the original Shadows on the Criterion DVD (which I defend) and not
to publish any of Cassavetes' plays (which I don't support). When I
asked Jim about the latter, he said that she and their kids all had
very mixed feelings about JC--that in some ways they were all still
angry with him (which strikes me as being very plausible as well as
understandable). While reflecting on this, it's occurred to me that
we tend to expect the widows of famous filmmakers to show only
devotion towards their late husbands and never betray any negative
feelings or attitudes towards them whatsoever, which may be an
excessive and unfair expectation.
In contradistinction to Carney's charges that Rowlands might wind up
destroying the print of the original Shadows, I've heard (though not
from Jim) that in fact she's already been in touch with some
university (I don't know which one) about donating files and other
materials relating to the films, so they'll probably wind up getting
the print of the original Shadows along with everything else.
Jonathan
13806
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:47am
Subject: Re: Rivette Query: Spectre
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Dear friends -
I am always fascinated that, when people wheel out the
> classic director-actor couples - Sternberg/Dietrich, Karina/Godard,
> Rossellini/Bergman, etc - there is so rarely a mention of
Cassavetes
> and Rowlands. Why is this? Maybe because she is not 'festishised'
in
> quite the same way, or figures within a sado-masochistic phantasm?
But
> it is also intriguing to me that the sexual and erotic
> aspects/undercurrents of Cassavetes' work are so rarely explored or
> discussed (especially by Carney, who completely de-eroticises the
> films). Any thoughts from anyone on that?
>
> Adrian
Interesting point, Adrian. As I recall, they play exes in Opening
Night and brother/sister in Love Streams. Zero eroticism to either
relationship, which is professional/friendly in ON and
emotional/spiritual in LS. It's acting, of course -- in life they
were a very hot item. The films where she is eroticized are Faces,
Minnie and Moskowitz and Gloria (not Woman...), where JC is in the
offspace. But neither of those -- even Faces, IMO - is a castrated
metteur en scene film, for the simple reason that JC is not a
classical or modernist director (a la Bresson). He shatters all those
repressions. Burns through 'em.
When I talked to Seymour Cassell after JC's death (I never met him)
the word that came up all the time was "love." Love isn't the
opposite of sex, but it also may not what be we are seeing in those
other director-actress films, or even the films where those directors
aren't working with their wives. Certainly von Sterneberg is making a
stand for love over all in Morocco, but the point of Oudart's
unsigned article is that as soon as she tears off the pearls (sheds
her fetishistic accoutrements) Sternebrg's camera re-fetishizes them.
JvS and MD were caught in a system which his genius fought against,
but couldn't really subvert.
13807
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 1:28am
Subject: Re: Rivette Query: Spectre
> Dear friends -
>
> The 'Rivette query' thread has taken many intriguing turns since I
> started it. But, just to go back to the spectre of the inaugural case:
> I quoted what seems to me a stupid article in SENSES OF CINEMA that
> claimed STORY OF MAIE AND JULIEN to be fundamentally 'about' Rivette's
> PARTING from Emmanuelle Béart - thus implying a relationship between
> them. The piece then goes on solemnly to 'theorise' the need to take
> Rivette's autobiography into account in this way.
I'd just like to chime in before I read through this thread (a
sometimes fatal practice, I just can't help myself) and say: Adrian, I
concur. I got halfway through the 'Marie and Julien' piece in the new
Senses and had to click "back." What a lifeless introduction to this
vital, masterly film for the thousands of readers who still haven't
been given an opportunity to see it -- because it barely has
distribution outside of France and film festivals.
'Story of Marie and Julien' is my film of the year (2003 seen in 2004)
thus far. Magnificent.
craig.
13808
From: Chris Fujiwara
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 1:35am
Subject: Re: Rivette Query: Spectre
Fascinating and enlightening to bring up Cassavetes and Rowlands in
this context.
In Faces Cassavetes casts Rowlands as a prostitute - aligning himself
with the Godard/Karina tradition from Vivre sa vie, which Godard
linked in that film to Dreyer's Joan which in turn is a link to
Rossellini and Bergman....
In both Opening Night and Minnie and Moskowitz, Cassavetes hits
Rowlands. It's hard not to read these moments as autobiographical
self-criticism, or more precisely an attempt to expiate a real
offscreen violence (whatever form that may have taken; I have no idea
whether in real life C. was physically abusive) by representing it
onscreen. (And here one could also refer to another director/actress
couple, Nicholas Ray and Gloria Grahame, and a film that in France is
known as Le violent.)
Opening Night is explicitly about the performance of femininity - a
Sternbergian theme (Carney by the way described Killing of a Chinese
Bookie as a critique of Sternberg). It attacks the prerogative of
male artists to control and define women. The Rowlands character
struggles throughout the film against a characterization of the
feminine that is imposed on her by a male director (the Gazzara
character, who, offstage, even says to her at one point, "You're not
a woman"). An interesting ambivalence is added by the fact that the
writer of the play being produced is a woman.
The key problem in Opening Night is... what maybe could be called
fetishization... at any rate, it's a question of desire: Myrtle
(Rowlands) refusing to be pushed into the role of someone who is no
longer desirable, being confronted in the ghost of the teenage girl
by an extreme of desirability (and what is desirable is not just her
body but her emotionality - a trait that is central to how everyone
in the film discusses the feminine).
I don't think I would describe Opening Night as an un-erotic film;
actually I find Rowlands glamorous and erotic in anything, but it's
certainly a film that makes eroticism a problem, or one in which
eroticism is in trouble. If Sternberg had made a film with Dietrich
at 50 or 60.... (Lang wanted to make of Rancho Notorious a film about
a woman aging, and Dietrich resisted this.)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Dear friends -
>
> The 'Rivette query' thread has taken many intriguing turns since I
> started it. But, just to go back to the spectre of the inaugural
case:
> I quoted what seems to me a stupid article in SENSES OF CINEMA that
> claimed STORY OF MAIE AND JULIEN to be fundamentally 'about'
Rivette's
> PARTING from Emmanuelle Béart - thus implying a relationship
between
> them. The piece then goes on solemnly to 'theorise' the need to
take
> Rivette's autobiography into account in this way.
>
> Now, since no one in this group - not even David! - has ever seen
or
> heard anything of this specific director-actress revelation, I take
the
> author's 'speculation' (as he gamely calls it) to be completely
> groundless and spurious. Especially as Richard Porton has
confirmed,
> from his interview with Béart, that she hardly knows him socially
off
> the set!!!! (Watch it, Richard: I think it will be possible for
some to
> say that all your critical writing is henceforth 'haunted by your
> parting' from Emmanuelle after 30 minutes on the interview couch
with
> her!!!)
>
> Other issues that have spun out of the thread - such as Rivette's
or
> any director's feeling/desire (including Platonic) for an actor -
are a
> completely different matter. We should be careful here, too,
though:
> anyone seeing the absolutely glamorous way that Rivette eroticises
> Pierre Clementi in PONT DU NORD could just as easily 'theorise'
that he
> was gay or bisexual! It seems to me more the point (if a slightly
> old-fashioned one) to observe that Rivette (in the company of many
> great directors) RESPONDS fully to his performers (male and
female),
> and invests himself totally in the full-blooded portrayal of their
> physicality and soulful presence. Calling that 'desire', or even
worse
> taking the shortcut to an implied sexual relationship,simplifies
and
> cheapens that whole unbelievably complex aesthetic process, in my
> opinion.
>
> By the way, I am always fascinated that, when people wheel out the
> classic director-actor couples - Sternberg/Dietrich, Karina/Godard,
> Rossellini/Bergman, etc - there is so rarely a mention of
Cassavetes
> and Rowlands. Why is this? Maybe because she is not 'festishised'
in
> quite the same way, or figures within a sado-masochistic phantasm?
But
> it is also intriguing to me that the sexual and erotic
> aspects/undercurrents of Cassavetes' work are so rarely explored or
> discussed (especially by Carney, who completely de-eroticises the
> films). Any thoughts from anyone on that?
>
> Adrian
13809
From: jaketwilson
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 1:36am
Subject: Re: Director biographies and criticism (Was: Rivette query)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jaketwilson wrote:
> (What
> > Ozon, say, does
> > with his actresses is very different.)
>
> Really? Is Ludivine Sagnier in "Swimming Pool" all
> that different from Bardot in "And God Created Woman" ?
I think so. In SWIMMING POOL, Sagnier is much more human, less
goddessy than Bardot, partly because she's presented through the
sceptical eyes of the Charlotte Rampling character.
Which is not to say that gay male filmmakers don't eroticise women in
imagination, straight male directors don't do the same with men, etc.
We're all many-sided creatures.
JTW
13810
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 2:02am
Subject: Re: Director biographies and criticism (Was: Rivette query)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jaketwilson"
wrote:
> I think so. In SWIMMING POOL, Sagnier is much more human, less
> goddessy than Bardot, > JTW
Bardot, "goddessy" (what a word!)? That idiot in that fifth rate
movie?
13811
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 2:11am
Subject: Re: Rivette Query: Spectre
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Dear friends -
>
there is so rarely a mention of Cassavetes
> and Rowlands. Why is this? Maybe because she is not 'festishised'
in
> quite the same way, or figures within a sado-masochistic phantasm?
But
> it is also intriguing to me that the sexual and erotic
> aspects/undercurrents of Cassavetes' work are so rarely explored or
> discussed (especially by Carney, who completely de-eroticises the
> films). Any thoughts from anyone on that?
>
> Adrian
A fetish has to fit a stereotype. All great erotic female fetishes
in film are stereotypes. Rowlands is not. Cassavetes obviously had no
interest in fetishizing her in the usual (Sternberg, Godard, whoever)
way. For once the woman is not a stereotypical object of desire --
she's just a woman. What a turn-off! But what a marvel...
13812
From: Nick Wrigley
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 2:25am
Subject: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
Jonathan wrote:
> we spoke a bit about her decisions not to include the original Shadows
> on the Criterion DVD (which I defend)
Regardless of the Carney/Rowlands politics, "who said what", and
"who'll do what with what" -- the fact that this version of SHADOWS has
been denied to Criterion on the threat of a lawsuit is very worrying.
It was to have been added as a *supplement* to the later version, not
to replace it.
This forthcoming Cassavetes box set is hugely important for Cassavetes'
legacy, it will be the touchstone to his work for generations to come.
Criterion have been denied this 1st version (of which over 2/3rds is
different footage) - and in doing so, the world has been denied the
right to see this film.
Jonathan, I'm curious as to why you've come down on Rowlands' side,
when it probably means that no-one will get to see the 1st version? Or
maybe your standpoint is clouded by the fact that you saw it in
Rotterdam? :)
[I'm on neither side, just trying to see through the haze.]
> so they'll probably wind up getting the print of the original Shadows
> along with everything else.
I wouldn't be so sure. I think if someone other than Carney had found
this 1st version, we might be seeing it in the Criterion Cassavetes
set. Reading between the lines -- (and take my interpretation with a
pinch of salt) -- I think the fact that Carney spent his entire SHADOWS
Criterion commentary yabbering on about the 1st version has really
pissed Rowlands off, and this has perhaps all mushroomed because of
that. Rowlands now associates the 1st version with Carney, and just
wants rid.
-----
I asked Carney for a contribution to a forthcoming MoC article and his
reply is below: (this is a "general statement made to a reporter" so I
don't think I'm betraying any trust by posting this to a_f_b. ----- I
decided not to publish it at MoC on the grounds of all my available
information coming from one source):
-Nick Wrigley>-
> Nick,
>
> Thanks for the offer, but I'm too overwhelmed with the law suit from
> Rowlands to suppress Shadows to respond.
>
> Ray
>
> FYI: Here is a general statement I recently made to a reporter. It may
> give you more information than you currently have. If you want to post
> it, that would be fine with me, but that's your call:
>
> To xxxx:
>
> Thanks for your interest in the first version of Shadows. Most
> American film writers don't give a damn! I have been innudated with
> inquiries and requests to screen the print by European writers and
> programmers. My web site www.Cassavetes.com has more details
> than I can provide here.
>
> As to the film, the legal situation is very clear. I own it and all
> rights to
> screen and distribute it. Without going into legal technicalities,
> this is
> the case because of the particular circumstances of its creation and
> exhibition history.
>
> But Gena Rowlands is suing me to seize and suppress the print. So
> I am doing two things: 1) trying to conciliate her by avoiding all
> screenings or release plans until she can be persuaded to change
> her mind. 2) being forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to
> defend myself from her (frivolous and irrational) law suit.
>
> She is a rich movie star accustomed to getting her way and being
> treated like royalty. She has lawyers on retainer around the clock.
> She has money to pursue cases at leisure. All of which is to say that
> I am suffering the brunt. But I am determined to prevent the film from
> being seized and suppressed, which is what she has told me and
> others is her intention.
>
> I would love to show the film to the world and offered it to Criterion
> for
> the box set for free, but Rowlands threatened a law suit if they
> included it. The same with the long print of Faces I discovered. I
> offered it to Criterion for free, but Rowlands forbade its inclusion.
> In
> fact, she attempted to forbid me from even announcing the discovery
> itself. In the end she had me fired from the Criterion project when I
> even gently, politely, attempted to persuade her otherwise. She is
> accustomed to being deferred to and does not brook disagreement
> easily.
>
> I am a scholar and do things for other reasons than money. I also try
> to tell the truth even if it creates difficulty. Those are my values.
> The
> Cassavetes estate is more concerned about rentals and cutting into
> the rentals of their current listings. Particularly ironic given that
> Cassavetes himself devoted his life to non-monetary values. But the
> artist is one person and his executors and heirs have different
> values. They are businessmen with businessmen's values.
>
> A sad situation for me, but I can't consult my personal pleasure as a
> reason to do or not do something. I am doing this for posterity. I
> feel I
> am on the side of the angels, even if I lose my home and
> possessions defending the world's right to see the print. Such is the
> way the world wags. It has been an eye opener to me about the
> ways of Hollywood and movie stars. Very discouraging.
>
> All best wishes,
>
>
> Ray Carney, Prof. of Film and American Studies
> Director: Film Studies Program and Graduate
> Admissions
-------------
and if you got this far... go here for even more:
http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/shadows/chasing.shtml#pps
-N>-
13813
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 2:31am
Subject: Re: Director biographies and criticism (Was: Rivette query)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> The reported cost of translation and the absence of money to pay
for
> it is the equivalent of the Seacam/NTSC boondoggle in keeping a
> wealth of materials desperately needed in France from being made
> available there. Strangely, this doesn't seem to be as big a
problem
> when it comes to translating French to English, although the
quality
> of the many translation that have appeared over the last 25 years
is,
> to put it kindly, highly variable.
You seem to disregard the fact that an enormous amount of stuff
(mainly fiction but a lot more too) is translated into French each
year while the French-to-English is really paltry in comparison. To
stick to film-related books and to my own experience as a translator
we've done, in the past six years or so, the two volumes of Michael
Powell's autobiography, the memoirs of Andre de Toth, McCarthy's bio
of Hawks, and (still to be published) Wilder's interviews with Crowe
and Gallagher's bio of Rossellini.
This is remarkable if you consider that those books sell at best a
few thousand copies and have to be sponsored not to lose money.
Everytime translating one of my books into English has been
discussed (and i must admit I never pursued it agressively) I have
been told that the cost of translation would be too high. One
publisher offered three thousand dollars as a translator fee for our
huge 50 ANS DE CINEMA AMERICAIN. You'd make more money working as a
sharecropper...
Of course I suppose some people here translate books from French
to English for little or no money hoping that it will help their
academic career. I must say I'm not too familair with such
publications. You say the quality varies. In France too. It's
traditional to use translators who know nothing about film and make
the most outrageous mistakes. Another practice is to drop one third
or so of the original because French readers don't like long books,
or to "modernize" references to "old" directors or movies with
popular contemporary ones.
JPC
13814
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 2:37am
Subject: Re: Re: Director biographies and criticism (Was: Rivette query)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> Bardot, "goddessy" (what a word!)? That idiot in
> that fifth rate
> movie?
>
>
redeemed by a young and gorgeous Jean-Louis
Trintignant.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
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13815
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 2:50am
Subject: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Nick Wrigley
wrote:
> Jonathan wrote:
> > we spoke a bit about her decisions not to include the original
Shadows
> > on the Criterion DVD (which I defend)
>
> Regardless of the Carney/Rowlands politics, "who said what", and
> "who'll do what with what" -- the fact that this version of
SHADOWS has
> been denied to Criterion on the threat of a lawsuit is very
worrying.
> It was to have been added as a *supplement* to the later version,
not
> to replace it.
>
> This forthcoming Cassavetes box set is hugely important for
Cassavetes'
> legacy, it will be the touchstone to his work for generations to
come.
> Criterion have been denied this 1st version (of which over 2/3rds
is
> different footage) - and in doing so, the world has been denied
the
> right to see this film.
>
> Jonathan, I'm curious as to why you've come down on Rowlands'
side,
> when it probably means that no-one will get to see the 1st
version? Or
> maybe your standpoint is clouded by the fact that you saw it in
> Rotterdam? :)
>
> [I'm on neither side, just trying to see through the haze.]
I'll try to keep this short and simple:
Cassavetes never showed the original Shadows to paying customers
and, as far as I can tell, never wanted to. Two free midnight
screenings to see what people thought was apparently all he had in
mind.
I'm of course very glad that I was able to see this film in
Rotterdam. I hope others will be able to see it as well--not as an
accomplished work (it's embarrassingly amateurish in many respects,
unlike everything else being included on the Criterion DVD) but as a
historical footnote to the second and far superior version.
The idea that the public invariably has a right to see rough drafts
and outtakes that the filmmaker chose to suppress needs to be
questioned sometimes. Making it available to scholars is often
desirable, but this is hardly the same thing as releasing it
commercially, with the same implied status as, say, the longer
version of The King of a Chinese Bookie (which Cassavetes released
commercially).
Jonathan
13816
From: samfilms2003
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 4:22am
Subject: Re: Touch of Evil intended ratio question resolved...
It doesn't mean they weren't treating 1.66 as a safe area within the Academy
aperature.
-Sam
> > When someone writes in 1958 of an "old black -and-white, normal
> aperture
> > camera," I don't think he can mean anything other than 1.37:1.
>
> I agree with that.
>
> Welles's letter seems to anticipate a "paradigm shift" with regards to
> the general audience's attitude towards the widescreen format vs. the
> original Academy ratio.
> >
13817
From: samfilms2003
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 4:26am
Subject: Re: Touch of Evil intended ratio question resolved...
> The fascinating letter from Welles suggests other issues, too.
> One of the things one could do in black & white and non-widescreen was depth
> of focus.
But you can get the same focal depth just as easily in 1.66/1.85 spherical,
S35 for that matter (it plays differently with Anamorphic), now pyschologically
it may be a different story....
-Sam
13818
From: samfilms2003
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 4:35am
Subject: Re: Director biographies and criticism (Was: Rivette query)
> "The Lady from Shanghai," however, was a
> revelation; a film I didn't love when I saw it on video, but very much love on
> film.
Well I definitely saw that in 1.37, stunning too.
I could write an almost write an essay on the use of selective focus (within the
context of spatial depth) in that film,
I'd want to see again in 35mm first though.
There's a riff off of the funhouse sequence in "Collateral" (which I rather
liked the HD look of FWIW...)
-Sam Wells
13819
From: Nick Wrigley
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 5:31am
Subject: Re: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
Jonathan wrote:
> I'm of course very glad that I was able to see this film in
> Rotterdam. I hope others will be able to see it as well--not as an
> accomplished work (it's embarrassingly amateurish in many respects,
> unlike everything else being included on the Criterion DVD) but as a
> historical footnote to the second and far superior version.
Interesting to contrast your comments with Carney's hyperbole (I think
it's safe to call it hyperbole, there's lots of other examples on his
website: "America's greatest filmmaker", "It's a little like
discovering five or ten early Picassos", "an unprecedented and almost
unbelievable moment in film history. I had found a new first film by
America's greatest filmmaker", etc.)
Carney says this about the 1st version (at his site): "It exceeded my
expectations in every respect. It was not a rough assembly or
work-in-progress, but a finished work of art, complete in every detail,
down to its innovative sound design and credits sequence. In terms of
its content, there are more than forty minutes of scenes that are not
in the second version."
> The idea that the public invariably has a right to see rough drafts
> and outtakes that the filmmaker chose to suppress needs to be
> questioned sometimes.
Sure, but Cassavetes didn't choose to suppress it, he chose to remake
it. He donated the 1st version to a film school in the Midwest
(Cassavetes told Carney this before he died, and Mekas told Carney the
same story) - hardly suppression. He must've wanted it to be kept, he
didn't trash it. If Gena and children weren't in the equation, I'm sure
the 1st version would be on the Criterion box set for posterity.
> Making it available to scholars is often desirable, but this is hardly
> the same thing as releasing it commercially, with the same implied
> status as, say, the longer version of The King of a Chinese Bookie
> (which Cassavetes release commercially).
That's an excellent point - but why not just change that implied status
for the DVD release? Criterion could've presented it with exactly the
right amount of stature, I'm sure.
All this reminds me of the ten minutes or so of DIARY OF A COUNTRY
PRIEST outtakes that Criterion announced were going to be on their DVD
but then got pulled when Bresson's widow stepped in.
---
[Interesting that Carney gets a few digs in at "Spike Jonz" (sic) in
the course of his latest retort.]
-Nick Wrigley>-
13820
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 7:09am
Subject: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Nick Wrigley All this
reminds me of the ten minutes or so of DIARY OF A COUNTRY
> PRIEST outtakes that Criterion announced were going to be on their
DVD
> but then got pulled when Bresson's widow stepped in.
> -Nick Wrigley>-
When Boetticher finished his ten-year struggle to make Arruza, he
burned all the unused negative.
13821
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:35pm
Subject: Re: And furthermore!
> Well who doesn't? On the "Leopard" DVD she appears in
> the documentary talking about her work with Visconti
> and being most appreciative of the fact that he liked
> her so much. It was right at the begging of her career
> and he gave her a lot of confidence.
Fascinating to see how lovingly he photographs her in Vaghe stelle
dell'Orsa.../Sandra of a Thousand Delights, and how he completely
understands her voluptuous appeal.
By contrast a straight/macho director like Leone makes her look a
dog's breakfast in Once Upon a Time in the West, imho.
Given that gay directors so often excel in presenting women, where
straight guys fail, I wouldn't be surprised if the persistent rumours
aboutr Blake Edwards were true. Not sure if this would revolutionise
the viewing of his films, but it might be interesting...
Damnit, there I go with the gossip again.
13822
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:40pm
Subject: Re: And furthermore!
> but there do exist some negatives: George Brent in Jezebel, Richard
> Whorf in Mrs. Miniver, Samantha Eggar in The Collector, and the
> absolutely godawful performance he forced out of Shirley Maclaine
in
> The Children's Hour. As for How to Steal a Million, he certainly
let
> both Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn slide by on their mannerisms.
I'm about to check out JEZ and CHILDREN'S, have heard that Shirl is
deplorable though. The film as a whole does not have a good name.
Don't agree about Eggar, whose suffering seems (and was) completeky
real to me in that film.
MILLION is just a bad film, possibly the only dramatically unsound
script Wyler ever undertook. In such a situ I don't see what else the
stars could do, certainly it would be COMPLETELY unwatchable if it
didn't have such charmers in the leads. There's no real dramatic meat
for them to get their teeth into so all they can do is coast on
charisma and snazzy costumes.
> > I always get the impression from THE PINK PANTHER that Blake
> >Edwards has a thing for Claudia Cardinale, but then, *I* have a
> >thing for Claudia Cardinale.
>
> Cardinale was the back-up choice after Ava Gardner (mistakenly!)
> turned down the role. But let's not forget Capucine, who proved
> amazingly adept at slapstick.
I kind of dig the whole foreign=foreign equation of Hollywood films,
where an Italian could play an Indian Princess with an Italian
accent. And let's not forget BEN HUR where the Arab is played Welsh!
Ava would've been fine in PP, I've gotta admit. Can't think of many
others I'd accept as a substitute for CC.
13823
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 0:46pm
Subject: Re: Director biographies and criticism (Was: Rivette query)
> That she plays a femme fatale ( one of
> the greatest of them all, IMO) in "Lady From Shanghai"
> doesn't detractfromthe fact that it's a great part and
> she's absolutely smashing in it.
Agreed. Far too much has been made of her hairstyle, it seems to me.
She may not look as good as a blonde, but it seems like nothing more
than an image change to suit the character, preparing the audience
for seeing a very different kind of Rita in this movie.
Paulette Goddard is blonde in NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE and it's a
TERRIBLE choice for her (one of the very finest brunettes ever) but
nobody ever suggested that deMille had some kind of personal
motivation for wanting to destroy her!
This could be a case where knowledge of the director's prior
relationship with his star leads to a complete misreading of the
movie.
On the other hand, given that Dietrich tells us that Orson wasn't
attracted to blondes, perhaps he simnply changed Rita's hair to make
her beauty less distracting to him? Blondes like Dietrich were
Welles' friends, and he was never tempted by her until he saw her in
the (rather ratty) wig she wears in TOE...
13824
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 1:20pm
Subject: Re: Re: And furthermore!
--- cairnsdavid1967 wrote:
> Given that gay directors so often excel in
> presenting women, where
> straight guys fail, I wouldn't be surprised if the
> persistent rumours
> aboutr Blake Edwards were true. Not sure if this
> would revolutionise
> the viewing of his films, but it might be
> interesting...
>
> Damnit, there I go with the gossip again.
>
>
>
Blake Edwards is simply a Metrosexual avant la lettre.
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
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13825
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 1:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: And furthermore!
--- cairnsdavid1967 wrote:
>
> I'm about to check out JEZ and CHILDREN'S, have
> heard that Shirl is
> deplorable though. The film as a whole does not have
> a good name.
I actuallylike her performance in it quite a lot. And
while the film does indeed have a poor reputation,
Jean-Pierre Melville -- of all people -- rose to its
defense.
> Don't agree about Eggar, whose suffering seems (and
> was) completeky
> real to me in that film.
>
I quitelike her in ti too. She simply had a very bad
time with Wyler. Moreover the film went through many
changes with a third character played by (I believe)
Michael Redgrave entirely removed froma sub-pot.
> MILLION is just a bad film, possibly the only
> dramatically unsound
> script Wyler ever undertook. In such a situ I don't
> see what else the
> stars could do, certainly it would be COMPLETELY
> unwatchable if it
> didn't have such charmers in the leads. There's no
> real dramatic meat
> for them to get their teeth into so all they can do
> is coast on
> charisma and snazzy costumes.
>
Which was good enough for me. I quite enjoyed it, and
am rather puzzled by its hotile reception here. hy.
it's not "Trouble in Paradise" OK?
But let's not forget
> Capucine, who proved
> > amazingly adept at slapstick.
>
She was a peerless sohisticated comedystraight-woman.
If only Lubitsch had been around to work with her! But
she's sublime in the bedroom scene with Sellers in
"The Pink Panther" and again with him and also Peter
O'Toole in "What's New Pussycat"
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13826
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 1:35pm
Subject: Off-screen exposition -- NUN Story
At a screenwriting conference last year, a panel of producers
was discussing story telling. One producer mentioned how
a test screen audience did not get one of the story lines
because they had no idea what a NUN was. It is easy to
understand how this can be. When was the last time
you saw a nun in the traditional garb of 50's? Perhaps
it was a woman from an Arab country, sans the rosary beads?
I can understand how a youngster today might be confused.
The producer said that a voice over had to be used to
correct the problem; I'll be curious to see what else will have
to be explained in the future ... the rotary dial phone has
already had its 'what is that' moment.
> MG4273@a... wrote"
> I confess I am dubious about "off-screen exposition" as an approach. I
> am not
> mad at directors who use it - they include some great filmmakers. But
> I would
> never recommend it to anyone. It seems to make all sorts of
> assumptions about
> viewers taking part in some extra-film experience that can be very
> unreliable. A little bit of exposition thrown into a film could make
> everything clear -
> and make the film a self-contained viewing experience.
>
> Mike Grost
13827
From: George Robinson
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 1:44pm
Subject: Re: Off-screen exposition
My favorite example of exposition from a voice-over narrator is "The Master
of Ballantrae."
The film, which would probably be atrocious anyway, is hindered immeasurably
by a non-stop narration
that consists mainly of telling us what is happening before our very eyes.
"And they rode and they rode and then they had a swordfight and then they
rode some more," read by someone with a very potted Scots accent.
Then there's Edward L. Cahn, whose late films make a specialty of the
redundant narrator. Hilarious.
g
He that would make his own liberty secure
must guard even his enemy from oppression;
for if he violates this duty he establishes
a precedent that will reach to himself.
--Thomas Paine
13828
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 1:51pm
Subject: ROWLANDS
I would venture to say that ROWLANDS was not a "classic"
beautiful woman, nor controlled as such, however intriguing
and unusual her roles might have been. Additionally,
it would not have been politically correct of Cassavetes to
present her in such a way... their movies are of another time
and place with more liberal sexual attitudes by a decade or
two. Even the Godard work at times seems somewhat dated.
> By the way, I am always fascinated that, when people wheel out the
> classic director-actor couples - Sternberg/Dietrich, Karina/Godard,
> Rossellini/Bergman, etc - there is so rarely a mention of Cassavetes
> and Rowlands. Why is this? Maybe because she is not 'festishised' in
> quite the same way, or figures within a sado-masochistic phantasm? But
> it is also intriguing to me that the sexual and erotic
> aspects/undercurrents of Cassavetes' work are so rarely explored or
> discussed (especially by Carney, who completely de-eroticises the
> films). Any thoughts from anyone on that?
>
> Adrian
13829
From: Charles Leary
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 2:30pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
> >Cassavetes and Rowlands. Why is this? Maybe because she is not
'festishised'
> in
> > quite the same way, or figures within a sado-masochistic phantasm?
> But
> > it is also intriguing to me that the sexual and erotic
> > aspects/undercurrents of Cassavetes' work are so rarely explored or
> > discussed (especially by Carney, who completely de-eroticises the
> > films). Any thoughts from anyone on that?
> >
> > Adrian
>
> Interesting point, Adrian. As I recall, they play exes in Opening
> Night and brother/sister in Love Streams. Zero eroticism to either
> relationship, which is professional/friendly in ON and
> emotional/spiritual in LS.
I don't think I'd agree that there's zero eroticism in LS, and its
definitely not a friendly relationship in ON. An incestuous
relationship between Robert (Cassavetes) and Sarah (Rowlands) was, from
what I've read, more explicit in the stage version; in the film its
still there; in their reunion in the back of a taxi cab, son Albie to
Robert: "Do you love her?" - Robert: "Not in the way you mean." "Love
is a stream, it doesn't stop," Sarah says; Deleuze/Guattari say
"Incest, a slandered shallow stream" (Anti-Oedipus). And the film may
be Cassavetes' most masochistic - made while he was (visibly) ill, he's
bloody on a number of occasions, falling down stairs, crashing cars,
getting beat up, all these moments bookends to his sexual exploits.
Their reunion in the taxi, brother and sister who haven't seen each
other in a long time, seems to me sometimes like the two finally
getting to kiss onscreen after not doing so throughout their career.
Yes usually they're exes/estranged: ON, Minnie & Moscowitz, Tempest,
Machine-Gun McCain... Rowlands did play Cassavetes' love interest on a
few occasions during their television careers in the 50s.
I think when we think of eroticism in a film, we often think of,
generally speaking, nudity, something which Cassavetes on more than one
occasion denounced. I think it does betrary a degree of puritanism on
his part, but on the other hand, perhaps a greater sense of realism in
his depiction of eroticism. Parker Tyler called HUSBANDS "deliberately
heterosexual" (Screening the Sexes), except that the main characters
can't have sex with their wives, a lack for which Betty Friedan, in her
praise of the film, blamed the wives, and middle-class housewives in
general, for not asserting their equality with men.
Charley
13830
From: Robert Keser
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 3:12pm
Subject: Re: Director biographies and criticism (Was: Rivette query)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
> Blondes like Dietrich were Welles' friends, and he was never
>tempted by her until he saw her in the (rather ratty) wig she wears
> in TOE...
According to Maria Riva's book, the ever frugal Dietrich had saved
her gypsy get-ups from Golden Earrings a decade earlier and just
dusted them off (maybe insufficiently!) for her appearance in Touch
of Evil.
--Robert Keser
13831
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 4:22pm
Subject: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Charles Leary wrote:
>
>
> I don't think I'd agree that there's zero eroticism in LS, and its
> definitely not a friendly relationship in ON.
Charley - Fascinating.
1) I didn't know that there was an incestuous relationship in the
play.
2) The fact that they are not sexually active in the film -- even if
it is hinted at in the past -- completes an 0 for 3 record in the
films, and I suppose the fact that she leaves in the cab with the
other man at the end can be referred back to the castrated metteur-en-
scene model.
3) The least one can say -- and I don't have time to think this
through now -- is that Cassavaetes and Rowland were playing a very
original game in their onscreen appearances together, one that seems
to have freed them up to act love (in the last film especially, but I
would still say in the ON -- the onstage improv at the end) in a way
that totally burns through even that rather sick, controlling
convention.
4) Incest and brother-sister love (two different things) are the
ambiguous final form it finally took in my favorite Cassavaetes film.
Even without the information you have thrown into the discussion,
knowing that they were married in life adds a hint of incest to a
love relation that is unusually pure for cinema, if I may put it that
way, but fails nonetheless.
13832
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 4:26pm
Subject: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Charles Leary wrote:
>
>
> I think when we think of eroticism in a film, we often think of,
> generally speaking, nudity, something which Cassavetes on more than
one
> occasion denounced.
I don't know who you mean by "we" but include me out. Nothing
kills eroticism more surely than nudity. Can you imagine Sternberg
directing Dietrich in a nude scene? I can think of very few nude
scenes that are erotic, and if they are, it's not because of the
nudity... Beart's nudity in NOISEUSE is not erotic (and I don't think
it's intended to be). She's nice to look at but that's not the same.
JPC
13833
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 4:46pm
Subject: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon" wrote:
> I don't know who you mean by "we" but include me out. Nothing
> kills eroticism more surely than nudity. Can you imagine Sternberg
> directing Dietrich in a nude scene? I can think of very few nude
> scenes that are erotic, and if they are, it's not because of the
> nudity... Beart's nudity in NOISEUSE is not erotic (and I don't think
> it's intended to be). She's nice to look at but that's not the same.
I agree with that. Eroticism in a dramatic medium, I think, is
achieved when there's an emotional connection made between
individuals. If I can be allowed to be crude, eroticism is the
difference between a character thinking to another: "I want to
masturbate using your orifice in place of a fist" and thinking to the
same other: "I want to experience pleasure and have you experience
pleasure, too." This electrical charge is in the desire (wanting
Beart...or Miriam Hopkins in a see-through negligee in THE SMILING
LIEUTENANT, oh), rather than the desired object (i.e. Beart's nude
body, or Ms. Hopkins's).
But I could be wrong. I'm sure a dozen philophers and academics have
spent more time on the matter.
-Jaime
13834
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 5:07pm
Subject: Notre musique - Aspect Ratio Letter
Per our recent discussions on aspect ratio and 'Notre musique,' I just
sent the following letter to Wellspring Media --
==
To Whom It May Concern --
I just wanted to write a brief note thanking you for your distribution
of Jean-Luc Godard's 'Notre musique' ['Our Music'] -- distributing it
in the year of its actual premiere no less!
However, there is one -very important- item to which I'd like to bring
your attention -- and of which you might already be aware. At the very
least, please humor me as I emphasize the importance -- the
imperativeness -- of the following:
All of Godard's films from 1967 forward have been shot in, and thus
were meant to be projected at, the aspect ratio of 1.37:1. Having
witnessed what was happening to the recent projection of his last
several features, including, most recently, 'Eloge de l'amour'
(released in the US as 'In Praise of Love') -- projections matted to
1.85:1 (and, of probably little concern to JLG, a typically terrible
release from New Yorker on Region 1 DVD that retains the cropped 1.85
ratio) -- Godard recently wrote and illustrated a brief essay in the
June issue of Cahiers du cinéma, where he spelled out the perils of
cropping the 1.37 image of 'Our Music' to 1.66, or worse still, 1.85.
Godard repeats three times on the page a frame from 'Our Music' that
focusses on the face of his film's young protagonist. He presents the
image on the page in each of the three ratios, and likens 1.37 (in
which we see the full face) to the image of a "person," and 1.85 (in
which the young woman is missing forehead and neck-line) to the
portrayal of a "satellite slave." Additionally, he illustrates by way
of yet another still from the film the dangers of a cropped ratio as
applied to an exterior shot that incorporates as its major background
element a Sarajevo building bombed during the war -- "evidence of
Serbian bombing" (1.37) vs. "extermination of the evidence -- Milosevic
acquitted" (1.85 -- where the ruinous top section of the building is
completely cropped out of the frame).
The 1.37 full-frame "Academy ratio" is the form in which Godard's
recent films are meant to be seen, and for which his images have been
composed. I implore you to present the film in its correct ratio --
and to inform the projectionists or management at the venues where 'Our
Music' will be screening to do the same (not cropping it to 1.85 via an
in-projector "soft matte"). Likewise, I beg that when you release the
film on DVD sometime next year, you retain for its presentation the
full-frame 1.37:1 (1.33:1) original aspect ratio. Please don't butcher
the release of 'Our Music' in the manner of New Yorker Video with their
'In Praise of Love' (the transfer was the pits, too) and its cropped
"widescreen" presentation. In the case of 'Eloge de l'amour,' I (and
most other US-based Godard enthusiasts) was forced to purchase the more
expensive Region 2 PAL UK DVD from Optimum Releasing, who presented the
film in a fine transfer and in its proper Academy ratio (albeit with
burned-in, catch-as-catch-can subtitles).
I am very happy to see that the film is making its New York premiere at
Film Forum -- they're an exceptionally responsible crew who always
endeavor to show films in the best possible conditions with their
original aspect ratios intact (cf. any of the hundreds of pre-'50s
Hollywood pictures they screen annually), and I'm sure they will make a
point of projecting the Godard film correctly. It's the other theaters
afterward, and the subsequent DVD release, that have me concerned.
Please retain the integrity of this great artist's images -- don't
break our hearts!
best regards,
Craig Keller
13835
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 5:41pm
Subject: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> > I don't know who you mean by "we" but include me out. Nothing
> > kills eroticism more surely than nudity. Can you imagine
Sternberg
> > directing Dietrich in a nude scene? I can think of very few nude
> > scenes that are erotic, and if they are, it's not because of the
> > nudity... Beart's nudity in NOISEUSE is not erotic (and I don't
think
> > it's intended to be). She's nice to look at but that's not the
same.
>
> I agree with that. Eroticism in a dramatic medium, I think, is
> achieved when there's an emotional connection made between
> individuals. If I can be allowed to be crude, eroticism is the
> difference between a character thinking to another: "I want to
> masturbate using your orifice in place of a fist" and thinking to
the
> same other: "I want to experience pleasure and have you experience
> pleasure, too." This electrical charge is in the desire (wanting
> Beart...or Miriam Hopkins in a see-through negligee in THE SMILING
> LIEUTENANT, oh), rather than the desired object (i.e. Beart's nude
> body, or Ms. Hopkins's).
>
But I would argue that the "object" (the nude body)
becomes "desired" as a function of its absence, its concealment by
clothing. This of course is a fetishistic view of desire and
eroticism, but I believe that eroticism is by nature fetishistic (or
maybe it's just me!). The main function of clothes is to eroticize
the body, thus making it desirable. Social interaction in the nude
(nudist colonies) is thoroughly anti-erotic. Erections are prohibited
in nudist camps but they wouldn't occur even if permitted because
there is nothing to stimulate desire. Moreover, the fact that just
about anything can become a sexual fetish tends to strip the nude
body of any privileged status as object of desire.
The more nudity we see in films, the less erotic the cinema
becomes.
JPC
13836
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 5:42pm
Subject: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Charles Leary wrote:
> >
>
> >
> > I think when we think of eroticism in a film, we often think of,
> > generally speaking, nudity, something which Cassavetes on more
than
> one
> > occasion denounced.
>
> I don't know who you mean by "we" but include me out. Nothing
> kills eroticism more surely than nudity. Can you imagine Sternberg
> directing Dietrich in a nude scene? I can think of very few nude
> scenes that are erotic, and if they are, it's not because of the
> nudity... Beart's nudity in NOISEUSE is not erotic (and I don't
think
> it's intended to be). She's nice to look at but that's not the same.
>
> JPC
I dunno. I saw The 4th Man for the first time last night, and I
thought Renee Soutendjik's nude scene was pretty hot. I'm sure I
could think of other examples.
13837
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 5:54pm
Subject: Re: Notre musique - Aspect Ratio Letter
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
>
> Per our recent discussions on aspect ratio and 'Notre musique,' I
just
> sent the following letter to Wellspring Media --
>
A great letter, Craig. Why not send a copy to New Yorker Films?
And perhaps other members of our group could write or e-mail
Wellspring Media un support...
JPC
>
13838
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 5:58pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Charles Leary
wrote:
> > >
> >
> > >
> > > I think when we think of eroticism in a film, we often think
of,
> > > generally speaking, nudity, something which Cassavetes on more
> than
> > one
> > > occasion denounced.
> >
> > I don't know who you mean by "we" but include me out. Nothing
> > kills eroticism more surely than nudity. Can you imagine
Sternberg
> > directing Dietrich in a nude scene? I can think of very few nude
> > scenes that are erotic, and if they are, it's not because of the
> > nudity... Beart's nudity in NOISEUSE is not erotic (and I don't
> think
> > it's intended to be). She's nice to look at but that's not the
same.
> >
> > JPC
>
> I dunno. I saw The 4th Man for the first time last night, and I
> thought Renee Soutendjik's nude scene was pretty hot. I'm sure I
> could think of other examples.
I haven't see The 4Th Man but I'd bet what's "hot" is not the nudity
but what's happening (nudity is cold by nature). But again, as i
said, maybe this is just me...
JPC
13839
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 5:59pm
Subject: Fetish Woman (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
eover, the fact that just
> about anything can become a sexual fetish tends to strip the nude
> body of any privileged status as object of desire.
Actual fetishes refer back to a body part -- the mother's phantom
penis, according to Freud. I'm not sure "fetish" and "sexy outfit"
are the same thing. The two often get all muddled up, in part because
Freud's explanation of what a fetish is, based on his climnical
practice and that of Rank and others, is so outrageous that people
tend to kind of forget it.
Grampa Monteil in Diary of a Chambermaid really is a fetishist -- all
he cares about is his collection of boots, and when Moreau is wearing
a pair of them, she doesn't exist for him. (He also calls her "Mary"
because he calls all maids Mary.) That's not the same thing as
finding Moreau sexy wearing a pair of boots, or anything else.
Certainly the nudity paradox has more than a grain of truth. I'm just
not sure what its relationship to fetishism per se -- the
substitution of an object for a person -- really is. Bunuel
said "everyone is a fetishist to a degree," but distinguished between
that and someone like Monteil. Again, what is the relation between
the two things?
In von Sternerg's films Dietrich's "parure" is part of the mise en
scene, part of her sexiness, part of her star image. But Morocco is a
critique of all that -- a critique from inside the cage. When she
sheds her pearls and her high heels to follow Cooper into the desert
at the end, the camera lovingly fixes on the scattered pearls, the
discarded shoes. (Does Menjou order his servant to gather up the
pearls?)
Lacan spoke of "la femme fetiche," the "fetish woman." That's what
Dietrich is. According to the critque that was being made of
classical cinema in the 70s, that woman represents the alienation of
desire -- the Morocco article in CdC is introduced by a quote from
Bataille about this -- into a mirage, and is (for Bataille at least)
associated with capitalism. The femme fetiche as commodity is one way
of definining the star system, which has made H'wd trillions upon
trillions of dollars in profits.
So when we say that Cassavetes didn't make his wife into that
commodity (except pethaps in Gloria, with a wink), we aren't dealing
with a small issue. But we are just at the outset of being able to
really talk about those films.
13840
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 6:05pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> >
> > I dunno. I saw The 4th Man for the first time last night, and I
> > thought Renee Soutendjik's nude scene was pretty hot. I'm sure I
> > could think of other examples.
>
>
> I haven't see The 4Th Man but I'd bet what's "hot" is not the
nudity
> but what's happening (nudity is cold by nature). But again, as i
> said, maybe this is just me...
>
> JPC
It's not just you, and there was some of both things in the scene.
And certainly Playboy and others are into fetishistic display of
their female nudes for quite some time. But wasn't the famous Marilyn
calendar all nude? Maybe we're geting more alienated...
13841
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 6:06pm
Subject: eroticism was Re: Cassavetes/Criterion
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> But I would argue that the "object" (the nude body)
> becomes "desired" as a function of its absence, its concealment by
> clothing. This of course is a fetishistic view of desire and
> eroticism, but I believe that eroticism is by nature fetishistic (or
> maybe it's just me!). The main function of clothes is to eroticize
> the body, thus making it desirable. Social interaction in the nude
> (nudist colonies) is thoroughly anti-erotic. Erections are prohibited
> in nudist camps but they wouldn't occur even if permitted because
> there is nothing to stimulate desire. Moreover, the fact that just
> about anything can become a sexual fetish tends to strip the nude
> body of any privileged status as object of desire.
>
> The more nudity we see in films, the less erotic the cinema
> becomes.
I don't agree with this. Nudity may make it easier for a filmmaker to
rely on nudity alone to communicate eroticism (and again, nudity in
and of itself has nothing to do with my idea of eroticism, as
previously stated), or even to explore other avenues in what a nude
body means onscreen...but a scene can be erotic with or without
nudity, and a nude scene can be or might not be erotic.
And the whole presence/absence/fetish business is a muddle, it sounds
nice on paper but doesn't apply to me. Logically, these ideas would
argue that I'll get an erection from a woman in lingerie, but it'll be
gone when she takes it off - utter nonsense. This isn't to say a
dress or some piece of clothing can't be erotic - that's equally
nonsensical.
I don't think this has anything to do with old-fashioned,
new-fashioned, etc., either. Purely primal, animal, what have you.
-Jaime
13842
From: Craig Keller
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 6:12pm
Subject: Fay Wray Is Dead
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/movies/09CND-WRAY.html?hp
13843
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 6:16pm
Subject: Re: Re: Cassavetes/Criterion - (was: Rivette Query: Spectre)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> The more nudity we see in films, the less erotic
> the cinema
> becomes.
>
I can't quite agree. Nudity "itself" (bang -- naked
body on the screen) isn't necessarily erotic. Consider
the opening of "Contempt." It's all about the
ambiguity of a naked Bardot vs. her talkling about her
physical attributes and asking Piccoli if he finds
them desirable. At this point in the proceedings some
spectators may feel they've "gotten their money's
worth." But as the film progresses a naked Bardot
becomes less and less of an erotic event --
particularly in the scene where she's sunbathing at
the Villa Malaparte and Piccoli picks a paperback book
off her ass to read it. He's more interested in the
book than her body -- which being her husband may be
quite understandable.
However when Palance says "I hear he has a very
beautiful wife" eroticism is evoked without the
benefit of Brigitte.
Speaking to my own tastes, Peter Beard in "Hallelujah
the Hills" and Dan Schor in "Strange Behavior" are two
of the cinema's Greatest Moments in Male Nudity.
But their eroticism is always a POTENTIAL not a
fully-achieved fact. For that you need an entire film,
IMO.
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13844
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 7:47pm
Subject: Re: Fay Wray Is Dead
That is truly sad. She was the hottest babe of horror ever.
...and talking abour erotisism, Im still waiting to see nipples each
time Kong pulls down her dress.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller wrote:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/movies/09CND-WRAY.html?hp
13845
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 7:56pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Charles Leary wrote:
> > >
> >
> > >
> > > I think when we think of eroticism in a film, we often think of,
> > > generally speaking, nudity, something which Cassavetes on more
> than
> > one
> > > occasion denounced.
> >
> > I don't know who you mean by "we" but include me out. Nothing
> > kills eroticism more surely than nudity. Can you imagine Sternberg
> > directing Dietrich in a nude scene? I can think of very few nude
> > scenes that are erotic, and if they are, it's not because of the
> > nudity... Beart's nudity in NOISEUSE is not erotic (and I don't
> think
> > it's intended to be). She's nice to look at but that's not the same.
> >
> > JPC
>
> I dunno. I saw The 4th Man for the first time last night, and I
> thought Renee Soutendjik's nude scene was pretty hot. I'm sure I
> could think of other examples.
How about a tracking shot of Bardot naked in "et Dieu crea la femme"?
or Ingrid Pitt in "Vampire Lovers"?
Personally, I think erotisism is linked to the presentation of the
object, naked or dressed. My favorite moment of erotisism is in
"Tampopo", where the two lovers kiss while having an egg slipping
between their tongues.
13846
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 8:01pm
Subject: Re: Fetish Woman (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> eover, the fact that just
> > about anything can become a sexual fetish tends to strip the nude
> > body of any privileged status as object of desire.
>
> Actual fetishes refer back to a body part -- the mother's phantom
> penis, according to Freud. I'm not sure "fetish" and "sexy outfit"
> are the same thing.
Of course they're not the same thing. I was not/we were not
referring to fetishes in the clinical sense (Monteil: can only be
turned on by boots).I was thinking of an object (other than the human
body, or a body part -- although body parts, hair, foot, whatever,
also do become fetishes -- that is sexually arousing to some
subjects. But to the extent that the "sexy outfit" refers to the body
parts it both conceals and enhances, it also performs a fetishistic
function. (why is the outfit said to be "sexy" anyway?)
I'm willing to accept the Freudian view of the fetish as the mother's
phantom penis (because, like most everything in Freud, I can't prove
he's wrong). But it is a fact that there are literally countless
objects that may (and do, for certain persons) function as sexual
fetishes. Reik mentioned a patient who was sexually aroused by a
chicken leg; I quoted somewhere a man whose fetish -- I read it in
the Letters section of a sex mag -- was "a fresh filet of fish,"
which he liked to bring into bed (there's a long way from filet of
fish to mother's phantom penis but I would trust a Freudian to find
the link in the course of analysis).
>
> Certainly the nudity paradox has more than a grain of truth. I'm
just
> not sure what its relationship to fetishism per se -- the
> substitution of an object for a person -- really is. Bunuel
> said "everyone is a fetishist to a degree," but distinguished
between
> that and someone like Monteil. Again, what is the relation between
> the two things?
I did not say there was a relation. Someone wrote that when we
speak of eroticism we generally think of nudity. I responded that
nudity is by and large anti-erotic. At that stage of the discussion I
was not talking about fetishism at all. Then -- threads being what
they are -- I opined that eroticism is always to some extent
fetishistic.
>
> In von Sternerg's films Dietrich's "parure" is part of the mise en
> scene, part of her sexiness, part of her star image. But Morocco is
a
> critique of all that -- a critique from inside the cage. When she
> sheds her pearls and her high heels to follow Cooper into the
desert
> at the end, the camera lovingly fixes on the scattered pearls, the
> discarded shoes. (Does Menjou order his servant to gather up the
> pearls?)
I don't see it as a "critique" -- even from "inside the cage". But
it can be interpreted in any number of ways. (she sheds the
attributes of bourgeois attachments for "real" love -- but how is
that a critique of the star image?)
>
> Lacan spoke of "la femme fetiche," the "fetish woman." That's what
> Dietrich is. According to the critque that was being made of
> classical cinema in the 70s, that woman represents the alienation
of
> desire -- the Morocco article in CdC is introduced by a quote from
> Bataille about this -- into a mirage, and is (for Bataille at
least)
> associated with capitalism. The femme fetiche as commodity is one
way
> of definining the star system, which has made H'wd trillions upon
> trillions of dollars in profits.
This is true, and even a cliche. Actually I wrote an entire article
on the subject: "UN RITUEL DE LA FRUSTRATION, Notes sur la star comme
marchandise" ("Cinema d'Aujourd'hui" #8) back in 1976.
>
> So when we say that Cassavetes didn't make his wife into that
> commodity (except pethaps in Gloria, with a wink), we aren't
dealing
> with a small issue. But we are just at the outset of being able to
> really talk about those films.
13847
From: mediafun2001
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 8:06pm
Subject: Rowland's "secrets"
Hi group (first time poster here),
I was interested to read Jonathan R.'s post about Gena and clan
being angry at JC--it adds another dimension to the most interesting
unexplored aspect of Cassavetes' life and premature death, namely
his apparently serious alcoholism.
I should note I'm a devoted fan of his work, and yet found it
impossible to plow through Ray Carney's earlier books on him. I was
able to coast easily through "Cassavetes on Cassavetes," though,
primarily becuase it wasn't his (often very dense) writing, but an
assemblage of quotes from the Man himself. What is interesting about
the book is that two paragraphs alone (and those two paragraphs are
the first public acknowledgment at all of this issue) are devoted to
the fact that John apparently had a very serious problem with booze.
His last works (Opening Night, Love Streams, and the play Rowlands
and Carol Kane appeared in) all contain "magical realist"-type
passages--when I asked Rowlands about this in a phone interview I
did a few years ago with her and Seymour Cassel, she merely
attributed it to his changing as an artist (the dog/man scene in LS
alone is plenty strange enough to indicate that something was going
on). The fact that he had a visible belly and thin physique in the
documentary "I'm Almost Not Crazy" shows how badly he was doing when
he made LS, but it's been interesting how any of the details of his
life have been kept out of the limelight by Rowlands, Falk, Gazzara,
Cassel, and anyone else who speaks about him--god knows in this day
and age of constant confessions in the media, it wouldn't be a major
disaster to report that a talented filmmaker had a problem with the
bottle. The four-hour, non-chronological, almost too-much-of-a-good-
thing docu "Constant Forge" that's been shown quite a bit on the
Sundance Channel leaves any discussion of his personal life out
(except to note his constant energy and eccentric behavior--anyone
ever notice that the most undisciplined scene of what looks like
actual on-camera improv is the serious drinkfest in "Husbands"?).
His energy and enthusiasm are what made him such an endearing,
abrasive presence--according to one of the two 'graphs in Carney's
book, he started downing vast quantities of liquor while working as
an actor in NYC during the late '50s. None of this is surprising,
considering the beautiful melancholy that haunts his work--but it is
interesting that his family and friends have pretended as if he
developed "the drinker's disease" (my spelling being so dreadful
when it comes to diseases, I'm not even going to attempt it) for no
particular reason. The fact that Carney even raised this verboten
topic as briefly as he did (and also noted that John liked to tweak
Gena's old-fashioned habits, like her fixation with constantly being
made-up) might've *truly* pissed off Rowlands....
During my interview with Rowlands, btw, I asked her about
the "alternate versions" of his films, whether the scenes/cuts would
ever appear on laserdisc, or be seen in any fashion, and she
patently answered no. Backed up by Cassel (who seemed almost angry
at the notion of releasing them), she noted that what we saw were
John's final versions and the others weren't meant to be seen. It's
all the more interesting then, as was noted on this list, that he
preserve copies of the other versions in several cases, and went
about printing the entire script of FACES as a pop paperback in the
early '70s? (that alone is a major tease, and implied that he wanted
the public at large to be aware of the "larger" work he carved FACES
out of). I've always just assumed that, as has been the case with
Kubrick, we will only see his "rarities" when his widow and possibly
even the children have left this mortal coil--certainly the
grandkids and future generations of Cassavetes won't mind if grandpa
John's outtakes and alternate-cuts are made public (same for the
possible surfacing of that pie-fight finale from STRANGELOVE and any
other rarities that Kubrick didn't see fit to burn).
Ed
13848
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 8:15pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Henrik Sylow"
wrote:
>
> How about a tracking shot of Bardot naked in "et Dieu crea la
femme"?
>
> or Ingrid Pitt in "Vampire Lovers"?
>
> Personally, I think erotisism is linked to the presentation of the
> object, naked or dressed. My favorite moment of erotisism is in
> "Tampopo", where the two lovers kiss while having an egg slipping
> between their tongues.
This is tremendously erotic, Henrik, but not to all people,
unfortunately...
One of the great erotic moments on film (to me) is somewhat more
subdued: Mature lifting up Tierney's dress strap that had slipped
down her shoulder, just for the pleasure of making it slip down
again, in Sternberg's Shanghai Gesture.
13849
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 8:29pm
Subject: Re: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> One of the great erotic moments on film (to me) is
> somewhat more
> subdued: Mature lifting up Tierney's dress strap
> that had slipped
> down her shoulder, just for the pleasure of making
> it slip down
> again, in Sternberg's Shanghai Gesture.
>
>
Jean-Pierre you're a pervert after my own heart.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
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13850
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 8:45pm
Subject: Re: Rowland's "secrets"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "mediafun2001"
wrote:
> Hi group (first time poster here),
>
> I was interested to read Jonathan R.'s post about Gena and
clan
> being angry at JC--it adds another dimension to the most
interesting
> unexplored aspect of Cassavetes' life and premature death,
namely
> his apparently serious alcoholism.
> Ed
Hey, Ed.
It was obvious that he was dying of some liver ailment. BTW, that
happens - Bunuel wasn't an alcoholic, but he consumed heavily
all his life and died of cirrhosis of the liver, according to an obit
Robert sent me.
So far we have the following guesses as to why Cassavetes'
family is still mad at him: spousal abuse (very tentative guess),
alcoholism. Anyone want to guess sexual child abuse?
(Capturing the Cassaveteses...)
the "larger" work he carved FACES
> out of
That "pop paperback" is one of the treasures of my library. He
describes how he lit each scene, what lens he used...It's an
amazing document.
13851
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 8:53pm
Subject: eroticism in strange places
How about the moment near the end of MON ONCLE where M. Hulot opts not
to touch the girl's nose (going for her mother's nose instead) because
he's too taken aback by - or too respectful of - the way she's "all
grown up." If that isn't a charged moment, I don't know what all.
And speaking of Miss Tierney, my all-time favorite kiss in movies (and
it's erotic!) is the brief little peck she shares with Dana Andrews at
the end of LAURA. It's a sudden and jarring gear switch for
Preminger, the characters, the narrative, everything. And it passes
like it's nothing.
I watched ONCE WERE WARRIORS last night. It isn't a great film but
what works in it wouldn't have worked without the fact that there's no
doubt in our minds that the sex is white-hot between Jake and Beth.
Without that there's not much of a basis for her dependence on him,
nor much drama in her eventual decision to leave him. Jeez, Rena Owen
and Temuera Morrison, how great are these actors.
-Jaime
13852
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 9:02pm
Subject: Re: Rowland's "secrets"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> So far we have the following guesses as to why Cassavetes'
> family is still mad at him: spousal abuse (very tentative guess),
> alcoholism. Anyone want to guess sexual child abuse?
> (Capturing the Cassaveteses...)
Oh, jeez, I don't want to guess that. Maybe it's just the hero
worship in me, but still.
Did he cheat a lot on Gena? (Haven't read any biographies, forgive
the ignorance in that question.) That's a solid reason for being
pissed at one's dad, if you ask me - thinking of the scenes with JC
and the young boy in LOVE STREAMS, wherein the boy uses a faked
instance of physical abuse to indirectly punish the Cassavetes
character for his philandering and irresponsible parenting.
But barring some new set of tell-all memoirs, it's all speculation,
isn't it.
-Jaime
13853
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 9:17pm
Subject: Re: Fetish Woman (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
> Grampa Monteil in Diary of a Chambermaid really is a fetishist -- all
> he cares about is his collection of boots, and when Moreau is wearing
> a pair of them, she doesn't exist for him. (He also calls her "Mary"
> because he calls all maids Mary.) That's not the same thing as
> finding Moreau sexy wearing a pair of boots, or anything else.
But doesn't he ask her to "give them life," or something like that?
Sounds as if he needs both the boots and the woman inside them.
> But Morocco is a
> critique of all that -- a critique from inside the cage. When she
> sheds her pearls and her high heels to follow Cooper into the desert
> at the end, the camera lovingly fixes on the scattered pearls, the
> discarded shoes. (Does Menjou order his servant to gather up the
> pearls?)
I don't think we ever get a good look at those scattered pearls, which
fall a number of scenes before Dietrich follows Cooper into the desert.
The string breaks in a longish shot (I think an actual long shot, but
it could be more like medium-long), and we never get a closeup. Menjou
does indeed ask a servant to gather the pearls, in an even longer shot.
The strong feeling I get here is the tension between the procedures of
the household and the big emotional events in progress. I don't think
one could fairly say that the pearls were fetishized in this scene.
The shoes are a little different, of course. There is a surprisingly
long take of Dietrich trying to walk in the shoes in the sand, and then
the camera remains on them after she has discarded them and moved on. I
guess people can reasonably disagree on whether the shoes are the focus
of attention here, or whether the film is using synecdoche to suggest
the place where Dietrich no longer is. Perhaps I'd be willing to say
that a hint of fetishization, maybe a reference to previous
fetishization, is involved in the creation of this very complicated
moment. - Dan
13854
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 9:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
> I haven't see The 4Th Man but I'd bet what's "hot" is not the nudity
> but what's happening (nudity is cold by nature). But again, as i
> said, maybe this is just me...
I don't think it's just you, but on the other hand I don't think it's
everyone either. Any analysis of what is or isn't erotic should start
with surveys and statistics, or else one winds up describing one's own
tastes. - Dan
13855
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 9:49pm
Subject: Re: Off-screen exposition
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
wrote:
"My favorite example of exposition from a voice-over narrator is "The
Master of Ballantrae." The film, which would probably be atrocious
anyway, is hindered immeasurably by a non-stop narration that
consists mainly of telling us what is happening before our very eyes."
Hanoun's UNE SIMPLE HISTOIRE also has narration that is mainly
describing what we're seeing, but to much different effect than
MASTER OF BALLANTRAE. Hollis Frampton's NOSTALGIA starts out
describing just what we're seeing as it's happening and gradually
starts describing what we're not seeing.
Richard
13856
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 10:08pm
Subject: Discretion required?
Dear friends - This may be something better commented upon by Fred &
Peter as convenors of this group, but: I feel it is necessary to point
out or remind everyone here that 'A Film By' is NOT a closed pr private
discussion group,that anyone can access its archives, and that I have
stumbled upon at least one public notice board which eagerly recycles
any 'salacious' tidbits generated here in anger, passion or mirth -
especially stuff about the Cassavetes family. So, please - I am only
speaking for myself here - a little discretion may be required when
reporting on private conversations or indulging in sensational
speculations, however fundmanetally intellectual or cinephilic in
nature!
sotto voce Adrian
13857
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 10:08pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I don't think it's just you, but on the other hand I don't think
it's
> everyone either. Any analysis of what is or isn't erotic should
start
> with surveys and statistics, or else one winds up describing one's
own
> tastes. - Dan
I'm afraid that's what I've been doing all along. But who doesn't?
What is erotic is what turns the subject on. If two subjects are
turned on by the same thing, they know it's erotic for them... JPC
13858
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 10:33pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> >
> > One of the great erotic moments on film (to me) is
> > somewhat more
> > subdued: Mature lifting up Tierney's dress strap
> > that had slipped
> > down her shoulder, just for the pleasure of making
> > it slip down
> > again, in Sternberg's Shanghai Gesture.
> >
> >
>
> Jean-Pierre you're a pervert after my own heart.
>
> "Un homme perverti en vaut deux"
But then that's hardly perverse in my book. Omar is just a refined
soul, as befits a Doctor of nothing.
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
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13859
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 10:38pm
Subject: Re: Fetish Woman (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
"Lacan spoke of "la femme fetiche," the "fetish woman." That's what
Dietrich is. According to the critque that was being made of
classical cinema in the 70s, that woman represents the alienation of
desire -- the Morocco article in CdC is introduced by a quote from
Bataille about this -- into a mirage, and is (for Bataille at least)
associated with capitalism. The femme fetiche as commodity is one way
of definining the star system, which has made H'wd trillions upon
trillions of dollars in profits."
It may be worth considering Marx's version of fetishism. He starts
his essay "On the Fetishism of Commodities" by saying that under the
alienated conditions of capatilaism people are treated like things
and things are treated like people. Commodities are fetishes because
they are expected to fulfill needs beyond their use value. He
develops his theory fetishism from the anthropological notion of
fetishism which postulates that a fetish is an object which is
possessed of mana or a spiritual power that enables it fufill wishes
or satisfy desires that are not inherent to its actual use. Freud
started from the anthroplogical definition too.
It's interesting to note that contemporary with Freud, Marx and late
19th century anthropology Kraft-Ebbing was working out his taxonomy
of sexual perversion. It seems to me that the usage of fetishism in
this thread partakes of various definitions which are not necessarily
mutually exclusive.
Since you mentioned Bataille, he was very influential on the Japanese
left of the 1960s. Oshima was attracted to the true story of Abe Sada
(subject of AI NO CORRIDA/IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES) because of his
reading of Bataille's "Eroticism," his statement that eroticism is
consenting to life up to the point of death. Wakamatsu Koji
explicitly linked eroticism to revolution and rebellion in YUKE YUKE
NI DOME NO SHOJO/GO GO SECOND TIME VIRGIN and TENSHI NO
KOKOTSU/ANGELIC ORGASM as did Yoshida in EROS PURASU GYKUSATSU/EROS
PLUS MASSACRE.
Richard
13860
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 11:13pm
Subject: Re: Discretion required?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
> Dear friends - This may be something better commented upon
by Fred &
> Peter as convenors of this group, but: I feel it is necessary to
point
> out or remind everyone here that 'A Film By' is NOT a closed pr
private
> discussion group,that anyone can access its archives, and that
I have
> stumbled upon at least one public notice board which eagerly
recycles
> any 'salacious' tidbits generated here in anger, passion or
mirth -
> especially stuff about the Cassavetes family.
I've been guilty of this in talking about directors' drug habits, and I
I erred on the side of mirth by saying, re: the Cassavetes family,
"What next - sexual child abuse?" My point was that when you
show people a Rorschach test, they see the most amazing
things in it, whereas "it" (baldly stated) probably isn't anything
nearly as bad as they will come up with. Jonathan was discreet
in reporting Jarmusch's statement that the family is still mad at
the late JC, without saying what Jarmusch said they are mad
about, so let's respect that discretion, even though the
temptation to fill in the blanks is strong. That was my point,
poorly expressed.
13861
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 11:17pm
Subject: Re: Hitchcock Bio? (WAS : Director biographies and criticism)
is
> there a
> > Hitchcock bio or book on the films that is fairly accurate and
> > reccommended (for the US) ?
> >
> > thanks,
> > Joey Lindsey
>
>
> We were discussing Pat McGilligan's Hitchcock bio
> (ReganBooks/HarperCollins) published late last year, and praised by
> Bill K. in a post earlier this afternoon. It is accurate and highly
> recommended. Anthony Slide called it "a definitive biography". and
> such people as Kevin Brownlow and John Baxter praise it very highly
> on the dust jacket. I have read only portions of it but I think it's
> a great book.
I wish to add a word of caution. Ken Mogg of the MacGuffin Hitchcock
Web Site is currently ploughing through the 800 plus pages for a
future review and word has it that his comments may not be favorable.
However, I think everyone would agree that it is much better than
Spoto's sensationalist DARK SIDE.
Tony Williams
13862
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 11:25pm
Subject: Re: Discretion required?
Jonathan was discreet
> in reporting Jarmusch's statement that the family is still mad at
> the late JC, without saying what Jarmusch said they are mad
> about, so let's respect that discretion, even though the
> temptation to fill in the blanks is strong. That was my point,
> poorly expressed.
Thanks, but I wasn't being discreet, I was being complete. JJ didn't
say anything else, and I didn't ask.
13863
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Aug 9, 2004 11:53pm
Subject: Re: Discretion required?
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> Jonathan was discreet
> > in reporting Jarmusch's statement that the family is still mad
at
> > the late JC, without saying what Jarmusch said they are mad
> > about, so let's respect that discretion, even though the
> > temptation to fill in the blanks is strong. That was my point,
> > poorly expressed.
>
> Thanks, but I wasn't being discreet, I was being complete. JJ
didn't
> say anything else, and I didn't ask.
The plot thickens.
13864
From: Michael Worrall
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 0:13am
Subject: Dialogue from "Heaven's Gate"
I haven't had the time to respond or add to some threads on the
board --particularly my experience with projecting 16mm prints in
regard to filmmakers framing for academy or 1:85) but a friend
brought up a question that we have been meaning to post to the
board:
In "Heaven's Gate" during a scene with Kris Kristoferson, Jeff
Bridges and Christopher Walkin, one of them says: "you're
talking like you have a paper asshole." What does that mean?
The possibilities have been a topic of discussion since I first
saw the film in Eighth grade on The Movie Channel. (It was the
full cut, but unbeknownst to me it was pan and scan.)
Michael Worrall
13865
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 0:21am
Subject: Re: Dialogue from "Heaven's Gate"
--- Michael Worrall
wrote:
> In "Heaven's Gate" during a scene with Kris
> Kristoferson, Jeff
> Bridges and Christopher Walkin, one of them says:
> "you're
> talking like you have a paper asshole." What does
> that mean?
> The possibilities have been a topic of discussion
> since I first
> saw the film in Eighth grade on The Movie Channel.
> (It was the
> full cut, but unbeknownst to me it was pan and
> scan.)
>
Did you ever get stung by a dead bee?
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13866
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 1:53am
Subject: Re: Dialogue from "Heaven's Gate"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- Michael Worrall
> wrote:
>
>
> > In "Heaven's Gate" during a scene with Kris
> > Kristoferson, Jeff
> > Bridges and Christopher Walkin, one of them says:
> > "you're
> > talking like you have a paper asshole." What does
> > that mean?
> > The possibilities have been a topic of discussion
> > since I first
> > saw the film in Eighth grade on The Movie Channel.
> > (It was the
> > full cut, but unbeknownst to me it was pan and
> > scan.)
> >
>
> Did you ever get stung by a dead bee?
>
>
> David, I'm dying to hear you do your Walter Brennan imitation.
I can't remember that paper asshole line. I must say a lot of the
dialogue was murky when I saw the film the day it opened in New York -
- so much noise on the sound effects track ...
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13867
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:10am
Subject: Re: Re: Dialogue from "Heaven's Gate"
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> > David, I'm dying to hear you do your Walter
> Brennan imitation.
>
Mine's not as good as the gatekeeper to the Malibu
Colony in "The Long Goodbye."
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13868
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:38am
Subject: Re: Dialogue from "Heaven's Gate"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> > > David, I'm dying to hear you do your Walter
> > Brennan imitation.
> >
>
> Mine's not as good as the gatekeeper to the Malibu
> Colony in "The Long Goodbye."
>
>
> But his is not appreciated, sadly.
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13869
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:51am
Subject: Re: Discretion required?
> >
> > Thanks, but I wasn't being discreet, I was being complete. JJ
> didn't
> > say anything else, and I didn't ask.
>
> The plot thickens.
Not that much. To be slightly less discreet and then to be done with
this subject, I've always been under the impression that Cassavetes,
like many of his married characters, not only drank, but probably
did some carousing with other women. Which often goes with drinking.
Rightly or wrongly, I've always assumed that this was probably why
the family has discouraged biographers.
13870
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:16am
Subject: Re: Re: Discretion required?
--- Jonathan Rosenbaum
> Not that much. To be slightly less discreet and then
> to be done with
> this subject, I've always been under the impression
> that Cassavetes,
> like many of his married characters, not only drank,
> but probably
> did some carousing with other women. Which often
> goes with drinking.
> Rightly or wrongly, I've always assumed that this
> was probably why
> the family has discouraged biographers.
>
>
Well "Husbands" is all about carousing with other
women, and "Opening Night" is about getting roaring
drunk. One needn't require any level of biographical
expertise to note that Cassavetes wrote from the
heart. How much "actually happened" is rather an
academic question. As for autobiography, I can well
imagine Cassavetes being against it on principle --
the work "telling all" as it were.
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
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13871
From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:35am
Subject: Re: Dialogue from "Heaven's Gate"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Worrall"
wrote:
>
> In "Heaven's Gate" during a scene with Kris Kristoferson, Jeff
> Bridges and Christopher Walkin, one of them says: "you're
> talking like you have a paper asshole." What does that mean?
> The possibilities have been a topic of discussion since I first
> saw the film in Eighth grade on The Movie Channel.
This might be helpful:
http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss1.asp?Num=4843
Paul
13872
From: Craig Keller
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:50am
Subject: Re: Re: Dialogue from "Heaven's Gate"
>
> This might be helpful:
> http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss1.asp?Num=4843
Re: "paper asshole" --
At first I thought the phrase was a delightful absurdity whose
resonance came from some canny inscrutability (cf. also "gay as a
window" -'Brass Eye,' Chris Morris), but this selection from the above
link put paid to it all --
“You sound like a man with a paper asshole. Think of the resonance. A
loud fart amplified by the paper passing through a paper asshole. Lots
and lots of noise, much thunder, but no lightning!”
back to Episode 5 of 'Scenes from a Marriage' -- "The Illiterates,"
craig.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
13873
From: Michael Worrall
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 7:49am
Subject: Re: Dialogue from "Heaven's Gate"
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Gallagher"
> This might be helpful:
>
http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss1.asp?Num
=4843
>
> Paul
Thanks for the link Paul. I was inclined to think it meant that
someone was full of it and it easily showed. (A paper ass
cannot hold much.)
There are other metaphors in the film that use the word asshole,
such as: "welcome to the asshole of creation."
Michael Worrall
13874
From: George Robinson
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 10:38am
Subject: Curtain to Rise on Manhattan's Only All Latin Movie Theatre - Clearview Cinemas Announces the Grand Opening of Cinema Latino
This is potentially a very interesting new venue. Also says something
about the rise of the Latino audience in the US.
(Thanks to Ira Hozinsky for pointing this item out.)
g
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-09-2004/0002227792&EDATE
<http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-09-2004/0002227792&EDATE>
--
What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.
-- Theodore Roethke
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
13875
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 11:24am
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
> > I don't know who you mean by "we" but include me out. Nothing
> > kills eroticism more surely than nudity. Can you imagine
Sternberg
> > directing Dietrich in a nude scene?
I can imagine the one which begins BLONDE VENUS.
I know you don't see a whole hell of a lot, but that can make nudity
more powerful.
My own sexiest scene, offhand, is a dialogue between two clothed
people in Clouzot's LA PRISONNIERE, but hell, I like lookin' at
nekkid people, and it can be sexy.
>I can think of very few nude
> > scenes that are erotic, and if they are, it's not because of the
> > nudity... Beart's nudity in NOISEUSE is not erotic (and I don't
> think
> > it's intended to be).
Well, life drawing/painting is not a turn-on, I can testify. You
quickly forget there's a naked person in front of you. I was amused
to hear heteromales expressing their puzzlement at how Beart's nudity
quickly ceased to affect them - I'd had that experience, though not
with Beart, in life classes already.
Nudity PER SE is not erotic, then, but it's all about context. I find
the frisson of pre-code naughtiness very sexy, where there might be
nudity and it's entirely unexpected and seemingly anachronistic.
The obligatory love scene where the two leads get it on is usually
unsexy 'cos it's so predictable.
13876
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 11:30am
Subject: Re: And furthermore!
HOW TO STEAL A MILLION
> Which was good enough for me. I quite enjoyed it, and
> am rather puzzled by its hotile reception here. hy.
> it's not "Trouble in Paradise" OK?
You said a mouthful. It's a BAD script - the lines are just feeble
and unfunny. The story may be passable but there's such a dearth of
wit along the way I can never muster any interest in what happens
next.
I know all this is just opinion, but...I think one reason outside of
the superior dialogue that TROUBLE leaves MILLION sputtering in it's
wake, is that the characters in TIP are genuine thieves, naughty
people who have a lot of fun, and the folks in HTSAM are
unenthusiastic amateurs. The fact that they have a strong motivation
to steal should help, but they're just not wicked enough for me!
13877
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 1:14pm
Subject: unreliability of widescreen credits
In the aftermath of that long thread on the question of Touch of
Evil's proper aspect ratio, I was recently reminded of another
problem in terms of widescreen cinema, this time in relation to
contemporary films. I just had another look at two Michael Mann
films, Heat and The Insider, on DVD. Heat, which was shot in
Panavision, does not contain a direct Panavision credit at the end of
the film but merely the standard credit of Cameras and Lenses by
Panavision, which films projected at 1.85:1 often carry if the
filmmakers use non-anamoprhic Panavision equipment. The Insider, on
the other hand, which was shot in Super 35, contains a Filmed in
Panavision credit at the end. This is not the first time I've seen
this happen with a contemporary film. Often when I stick around
during a theatrical screening for an anamorphic film in order to see
what the widescreen process was, the credits often tell me nothing
(rarely have I seen a film shot in Super 35 actually credited as
such) or if they do tell me something concrete only later do I find
out that the information was wrong.
13878
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 2:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
> Well, life drawing/painting is not a turn-on, I can testify. You
> quickly forget there's a naked person in front of you. I was amused
> to hear heteromales expressing their puzzlement at how Beart's nudity
> quickly ceased to affect them - I'd had that experience, though not
> with Beart, in life classes already.
>
> Nudity PER SE is not erotic, then, but it's all about context.
Seems to me that you've argued, not that nudity per se is not erotic,
but rather that the erotic response gets worn down when the stimulus
doesn't change for a long time.
> The obligatory love scene where the two leads get it on is usually
> unsexy 'cos it's so predictable.
This scene is a blight on commercial cinema. Sweet music on the
soundtrack, lots of dissolves between semi-legible closeups of body
parts in golden shadowy lighting. And the next day, the plot picks up,
uninflected by the exchange of bodily fluids. The point seems to be to
contain and neutralize sexuality, not to express it. - Dan
13879
From: samfilms2003
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:18pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
> This scene is a blight on commercial cinema. Sweet music on the
> soundtrack, lots of dissolves between semi-legible closeups of body
> parts in golden shadowy lighting. And the next day, the plot picks up,
> uninflected by the exchange of bodily fluids.
Every angle, every "what you see and what you don't" worked out by
agents and written in the contracts !
Hands moving across breasts like a tentative driver crossing a speed
bump....
>The point seems to be to
> contain and neutralize sexuality, not to express it. - Dan
The point seems to be to have a sex scene where the actors are
doing there damndest to actually NOT have sex ;-)
-Sam
13880
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:37pm
Subject: 37 million LATINO / Spanish / Hispanic
There are about 37 million LATINO / Spanish / Hispanic people in the
USA, about 1/4 illegal.
There is no question that the LATINO dollars are being recognized by
marketing.
It is a trend called the BROWNING of America, which is unique in terms
of sheer numbers but also the maintenance of SPANISH as the primary
language at home as well as frequent return visits to the homeland
because of proximity. Besides coastal areas, LA, Miami, NY,
many middle America States are having increases in Latino populations.
Some say that the Browning of America will conflict with the BLACK
movement.
From what I have seen at the LATINO FILM FESTIVAL in San Diego, NY
should have an increased opportunity to see good films, especially any
retrospectives.
> From: George Robinson
> Subject: Curtain to Rise on Manhattan's Only All Latin Movie Theatre -
> Clearview Cinemas Announces the Grand Opening of Cinema Latino
>
> This is potentially a very interesting new venue. Also says something
> about the rise of the Latino audience in the US.
>
> (Thanks to Ira Hozinsky for pointing this item out.)
> g
>
> http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/
> story/08-09-2004/0002227792&EDATE
> <http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/
> story/08-09-2004/0002227792&EDATE>
13881
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:58pm
Subject: NYC: A High Wind in Jamaica
For those of you in NYC, I strongly recommend tomorrow's rare screening
of Mackendrick's A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA at BAM (4:30pm, 6:45 pm, 9 pm).
It's a CinemaScope film. - Dan
13882
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:17pm
Subject: Re: NYC: A High Wind in Jamaica
The web site says 4:30, 6:45, 9:30pm, which makes sense if the Elliot
Stein chat is to occur after the 6:45 screening.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> For those of you in NYC, I strongly recommend tomorrow's rare screening
> of Mackendrick's A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA at BAM (4:30pm, 6:45 pm, 9 pm).
> It's a CinemaScope film. - Dan
13883
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: NYC: A High Wind in Jamaica
Oops - sorry. - Dan
Patrick Ciccone wrote:
> The web site says 4:30, 6:45, 9:30pm, which makes sense if the Elliot
> Stein chat is to occur after the 6:45 screening.
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
>>For those of you in NYC, I strongly recommend tomorrow's rare screening
>>of Mackendrick's A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA at BAM (4:30pm, 6:45 pm, 9 pm).
>> It's a CinemaScope film. - Dan
13884
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 6:18pm
Subject: Re: NYC: A High Wind in Jamaica
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> For those of you in NYC, I strongly recommend tomorrow's rare
screening
> of Mackendrick's A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA at BAM (4:30pm, 6:45 pm, 9
pm).
> It's a CinemaScope film. - Dan
Seconded. It's a wonderful film, a neglected or underrated
masterpiece -- Mackendrick's other masterpiece. For those who can't
see it tomorrow in Brooklyn (where I hope they show a good print)the
film is finally available on DVD in letterbox. JPC
13885
From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 6:32pm
Subject: Re: 37 million LATINO / Spanish / Hispanic
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan
wrote:
> There are about 37 million LATINO / Spanish / Hispanic people
in the
> USA,
>
Romancing the Stone was the first film released domestically
day-and-date in English and Spanish versions simultaneously.
Michael Douglas was the producer.
13886
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 6:46pm
Subject: Re: NYC: A High Wind in Jamaica
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Oops - sorry. - Dan
>
> Patrick Ciccone wrote:
> > The web site says 4:30, 6:45, 9:30pm, which makes sense if the
Elliot
> > Stein chat is to occur after the 6:45 screening.
> >
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt
wrote:
> >
> >>For those of you in NYC, I strongly recommend tomorrow's rare
screening
> >>of Mackendrick's A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA at BAM (4:30pm, 6:45 pm,
9 pm).
> >> It's a CinemaScope film. - Dan
The 9:30PM show will be in competition with the 9PM show at
Anthology Film Archives: Kaurismaki's very hard to see and very
weird "La Vie de boheme". I'd recommend the 4:30 show for the
Mackendrick... Ah, those embarrasments of riches in the big city!
JPC
13887
From: Elizabeth Anne Nolan
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 7:06pm
Subject: Re: 37 million LATINO / Spanish / Hispanic
I just read the number of US Hispanics (from all sources)
rose by 13% in the last three years; the over all US population
grew by just 3% in that same time.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan
> wrote:
> > There are about 37 million LATINO / Spanish / Hispanic people
> in the
> > USA,
> >
> Romancing the Stone was the first film released domestically
> day-and-date in English and Spanish versions simultaneously.
> Michael Douglas was the producer.
13888
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 9:25pm
Subject: Re: Curtain to Rise on Manhattan's Only All Latin Movie Theatre - Clearview Cinemas Announces the Grand Opening of Cinema Latino
This is awesome... but god, between catching Asian flicks at the new
ImaginAsian and trying to catch up on the Bollywood DVDs I buy at
Jackson Heights, my eyes are about to explode!
But it goes to show, the heyday of cinema is far from over.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, George Robinson wrote:
> This is potentially a very interesting new venue. Also says
something
> about the rise of the Latino audience in the US.
>
> (Thanks to Ira Hozinsky for pointing this item out.)
> g
>
> http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?
ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-09-2004/0002227792&EDATE
> <http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?
ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-09-2004/0002227792&EDATE>
>
> --
> What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.
>
> -- Theodore Roethke
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
13889
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 0:31am
Subject: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
For anyone who's seen Thom Andersen's LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF
(now in its final night of release in NYC) --
What did Andersen have to say about Altman's LONG GOODBYE? I
remember him saying it was Altman's "best" film but someone I'm discussing it
with says the "best" was meant to be sarcastic. I could swear that Andersen
had positive things to say about LONG GOODBYE (unlike with THE PLAYER
or SHORT CUTS) but can't recall them (but you can't blame me, there was
oodles of information to digest in this film, more than even FAHRENHEIT 9-11
or THE CORPORATION, I think). Anyone?
And those of you who've talked with Andersen personally, would any of you
know what he has to say about Quentin Tarantino or Paul Thomas Anderson,
who I found conspicuously absent from his sprawling tract?
General thoughts on this film also welcome.
13890
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 0:42am
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
>
> What did Andersen have to say about Altman's LONG GOODBYE?
> And those of you who've talked with Andersen personally, would any
of you
> know what he has to say about Quentin Tarantino or Paul Thomas
Anderson,
> who I found conspicuously absent from his sprawling tract?
>
> General thoughts on this film also welcome.
His liking of THE LONG GOODBYE is by no means sarcastic. As nearly
as I can recall, it has something to do with the handling of Malibu
(at least in the clip he shows).
I don't think he's much of a fan of Tarantino. I don't know about PT
Anderson, but you should bear in mind that even at its present
length, he had to cut a lot he would have wanted to deal with. I
lent him a video of de Toth's CRIME WAVE, for instance, which he
wanted to use at one point. I believe Tarantino and Anderson were
likely in the same category.
13891
From:
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 10:02pm
Subject: Re: Fay Wray
Fay Wray appeared in lots of good pictures besides "King Kong". For example:
The Wedding March (Erich von Stroheim)
Thunderbolt (Josef von Sternberg)
The Bowery (Raoul Walsh)
Viva Villa (Jack Conway - and Howard Hawks)
The Cobweb (Vincente Minnelli)
Crime of Passion (Gerd Oswald)
She made nearly 100 pictures all told. In addition to such much admired
classics, many of her films have not been revived in a long time, and there are
probably some undiscovered gems among them.
I was somewhat taken aback about what was written about Fay Wray recently,
suggesting she was more or less a one-film actress. Not so! One wishes that the
press would take advantage of some of the film experts around, before writing
about film history in such an un-researched way.
Thunderbolt is one of the best American movies. It should be cited in every
article about Fay Wray!
MIke Grost
13892
From:
Date: Tue Aug 10, 2004 10:09pm
Subject: Re: Crime Wave (was help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself)
Have never seen LA Plays Itself.
But have seen and loved "Crime Wave" (Andre de Toth, 1954).
This is a brilliantly photographed film. Locations all over Southern
California are arranged into complex compositions. These in turn are integrated into
complex camera movements. There is also an interior, nearly 360 degree pan in
the police station, that is one of the best pans in de Toth's career. de Toth
specialized in pans.
Mike Grost
13893
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:13am
Subject: Re: Re: Fay Wray
--- MG4273@a... wrote:
> I was somewhat taken aback about what was written
> about Fay Wray recently,
> suggesting she was more or less a one-film actress.
> Not so!
Well that's because her most faous film is arguably
the most signal mythic superstructure of the 20th
Century. So much so that it tends to overshadow even
"The Wedding March."
But she made her peace with her fate. Lovely lady and
a very fine actress.
Looking at "Kong" again just now and her performance
is truly extraordianry. Quite detailed and even
subtle.
One wishes that the
> press would take advantage of some of the film
> experts around, before writing
> about film history in such an un-researched way.
> Thunderbolt is one of the best American movies. It
> should be cited in every
> article about Fay Wray!
>
I agree. But lack of cinematic expertise "out there"
is why we're here.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
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13894
From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:23am
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
My recollection -- possibly faulty -- is that he pointed to it as an example
of a film that overcomes the inertial cyncism of the other neo-noirs that he
takes to task (Chinatown and LA Confidential). As such, I believe he is
quite positive on the film.
Ira Hozinsky and I were most surprised by the omission of "Speed," from
Andersen's gaze. I'd love to know what he thought of that one!
George (I spent a day in LA once) Robinson
He that would make his own liberty secure
must guard even his enemy from oppression;
for if he violates this duty he establishes
a precedent that will reach to himself.
--Thomas Paine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Lee"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 8:31 PM
Subject: [a_film_by] help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and
Altman's Long Goodbye
> For anyone who's seen Thom Andersen's LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF
> (now in its final night of release in NYC) --
>
> What did Andersen have to say about Altman's LONG GOODBYE? I
> remember him saying it was Altman's "best" film but someone I'm discussing
it
> with says the "best" was meant to be sarcastic. I could swear that
Andersen
> had positive things to say about LONG GOODBYE (unlike with THE PLAYER
> or SHORT CUTS) but can't recall them (but you can't blame me, there was
> oodles of information to digest in this film, more than even FAHRENHEIT
9-11
> or THE CORPORATION, I think). Anyone?
>
> And those of you who've talked with Andersen personally, would any of you
> know what he has to say about Quentin Tarantino or Paul Thomas Anderson,
> who I found conspicuously absent from his sprawling tract?
>
> General thoughts on this film also welcome.
13895
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:10am
Subject: Re: Crime Wave (was help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
"...But have seen and loved "Crime Wave" (Andre de Toth, 1954).
This is a brilliantly photographed film. Locations all over Southern
California are arranged into complex compositions. These in turn are
integrated into complex camera movements. There is also an interior,
nearly 360 degree pan in the police station, that is one of the best
pans in de Toth's career. de Toth specialized in pans."
I agree with you Mike, it's one of his best. I was fortunate enough
to able to see a beautiful 35mm print and attend a question and
answer with de Toth after the movie. He was wheel chair bound at the
time but insisted on standing because the rest of us had to stand (we
had to leave the auditorium and stand outside for the q and a.) He
praised Bert Glennon's work on the movie, and someone mentioned that
James Ellroy had called his short story collection CRIME WAVE (in
fact Ellroy was paying homage to the movie as he later said in an
interview.)
CRIME WAVE has a wonderful time retrival quality for people who grew
up in LA. De Toth shows the actual pre-Parker Center LA Police
Department inside and out (recreated for LA CONFIDENTIAL,) and the
bank was in Pasadena. Only the Chinatown location remains relatively
unchanged. Also, I think CRIME WAVE is one of Timothy Carey's first
movies.
Do you recall the passage in "The Little Sister" where Marlow is
describing the tenements of Bunker Hill (it's the best part of the
book)? The very scene he's describing is shown in CRISSCROSS where
Lancaster walks up the long wooden stairway. Aldrich also uses it in
KISS ME DEADLY when Hammer braces Raimundo the opera lover.
Richard
13896
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:32am
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself segues to Altman
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
>
> "...But have seen and loved "Crime Wave" (Andre de Toth, 1954).
Great posts on Thom Andersen's film. I'll rent Crime Wave at the
earliest. He and Noel Burch did a Red Hollywood book; I hope this
project spawns another so that this fascinating topic can be
discussed at whatever length he wants.
I didn't care for Long Goodbye when I resaw it -- to my great
surprise. Of course there is some very good stuff in it. I assume
that California Split holds up, being a perfect film and all. I
regret having to miss it when it was screened recently at MOMA with
other films not out on DVD.
I was surprised at someone's post that RA dopesn't do genre much.
Besides the early tv'ers and the period of Long Goodbye, he has been
doing genre lately faute de mieux, I suppose. The Gingerbread Man got
trashed by critics, as I recall, but I found it an expert,
atmospheric thriller. To knock it for not being "Altmanian" is beside
the point -- "Altmanian" has meant lots of different things
throughout an amazing career.
13897
From: Noel Vera
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:14am
Subject: Re: eroticism in strange places
> Jeez, Rena Owen
> and Temuera Morrison, how great are these actors.
>
> -Jaime
Rena's hot, sweet, and a shameless flirt.
__________________________________
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13898
From:
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:48am
Subject: Re: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself segues to Altman
Bill Krohn wrote:
>The Gingerbread Man got
>trashed by critics, as I recall, but I found it an expert,
>atmospheric thriller.
I love "The Gingerbread Man," and found it to be very Altmanian. The
atmosphere was fantastic, with Hurricane Geraldo (?) coming closer and closer to
shore as the film progressed, and Altman's long lenses and eye-on-the-wall zooming
had the effect, from my perspective, of making a lot of the Grisham courtroom
nonsense look less suspenseful than kind of idiotic. Some of the chase
scenes, however, were genuinely suspenseful. It's also interesting to note how
well Altman uses weather in general; the hurricane in "The Gingerbread Man"; the
tornado in the neglected "Dr. T & the Women"; and the outdoor ballet in the
brilliant "The Company."
I also love "The Long Goodbye" and "California Split," but neither of those
really need defenses from me. The '70s Altman I'd like to stick up for, and
maybe will in an essay someday, is "Quintet."
Peter
13899
From: Adam Hart
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:17am
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
in interviews, andersen has said that he'd like to do a 'los
angeles' book. i'm guessing it will take a while, since every
interview asks at least one question about what he left out - i'd
imagine he has a rather large pile of videos to rewatch and
annotate, as it appears he wants to be pretty damn thorough. but
that's pure conjecture on my part.
as per altman, andersen seemed to approve somewhat grudgingly
of 'the long goodbye'. he seems to dislike altman's films in
general, but likes the way that particular film uses the city. as an
admirer of altman (particularly short cuts, one of my favorite los
angeles films), i should object, but i just love andersen's
determination to make the film so personal.
-adam
13900
From: Brian Darr
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:27am
Subject: Los Angeles Plays Itself & Crime Wave
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> I lent him a video of de Toth's CRIME WAVE, for instance, which he
> wanted to use at one point. I believe Tarantino and Anderson were
> likely in the same category.
I thought he did use a brief clip of "Crime Wave" in a brief sequence
showing how one can trace the evolution of Los Angeles gas stations by
watching movies. But he didn't go into the film at any legnth.
Still, it was one of the noirs shown at the Pacific Film Archive a few
months back when they did a whole series centering around Anderson's
film. I was glad to get a chance to see it for the first time, though
I've been told it was projected in the wrong aspect ratio. I must say
I'm somewhat skeptical. Was "Crime Wave" supposed to be a widescreen
film?
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