Home Film
Art
Other: (Travel, Rants, Obits)
Links About
Contact
a_film_by Main Page
Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.
Important: The copyright of each post below is owned by the
person who wrote the post, and reproducing it in any form requires
that person's permission.
It is possible to email the author of any post by finding a post
they have written in the a_film_by archives at
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/messages and
emailing them from that Web site.
13901
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 11:17am
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself & Crime Wave
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Darr"
wrote:
> --- 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?
I don't think so - in 1954 a widescreen film is going to be in
CinemaScope, unless it's one of the early VistaVision movies. A black
& white noir thriller doesn't fit the profile.
Although it only lists American titles, the Widescreen Museum has a
pretty complete-looking set of filmographies for each of the original
widescreen processes, i.e. the ones that are no longer in use, like
Super 35 and Panavision.
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/filmo.htm
One isn't necessarily able to "prove" that a film is or isn't supposed
to be widescreen, or how, but you can take a film and find out how it
was *not* filmed. And that's a start, anyway.
-Jaime
13902
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 11:19am
Subject: [correction] Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself & Crime Wave
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> widescreen processes, i.e. the ones that are no longer in use, like
> Super 35 and Panavision.
I meant "unlike" Super 35 and Panavision. Dur.
-Jaime
13903
From:
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 0:46pm
Subject: Re: LA Plays Itself
I re-watched THE LONG GOODBYE on the big screen not too long ago, and
it was even better than I remembered (and I remembered it,
unsarcastically, as Altman's best). The motif of reproduction is
worked into the movie in more ways than I'd never noticed before --
sort of a successful version of what Neil Jordan was after in THE
GOOD THIEF -- and Sterling Hayden's performance reminds you what a
great actor he can be. And of course 70s Elliott Gould, particularly
in combination with 70s Altman, makes me want to do cartwheels.
CALIFORNIA SPLIT is exactly as good as you remember it being.
Sam
13904
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 1:02pm
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> General thoughts on this film also welcome.
I utterly loathed this film and found its persistent measuring of
the "reality" of L.A. (oh, excuse me, Los Angeles -- have to be
politically correct here)against the "falseness" of the way Hollywood
films represent the city to be the sort of thing a naive grad
student, coming across various cultural theories for the first time,
would turn out. It is also a kind of "personal" documentary cinema
which I simply can't tolerate, in which the filmmaker imagines that
he is in possession of full knowledge and an all-powerful,
unquestionable insight into his material which he then brandishes for
hour after hour, intimidating the spectator with the incisiveness of
his observations. The reviews this film have gotten are astonishing,
a kind of mass hysteria. No one is calling Anderson to task. But my
sense is that, so far, everyone in this room approves of the film as
well and since I don't feel up to dodging dozens of bullets coming at
me over this one I'll say no more.
However, I did watch Criss Cross again last night, which Anderson
mentions briefly and favorably. In 88 minutes, it is a far greater
film essay on the space of Los Angeles than Anderson's film and,
among many other problems I had with Los Angeles Plays Itself, I was
amazed he didn't make more use of Criss Cross than he did.
13905
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 1:06pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
> 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.
Maybe, althought the popularity of pornography might prove me wrong.
Maybe what I should've said is that the only erotic element of a life
drawing class is when the model first disrobes or emerges from behind
the screen. A person undressing in front of a roomfull of strangers
is weird enough to have a slight sexual charge. But there's a shift
as soon as the first pose is adopted and people start drawing - a
process has begin which is not erotic, and which occupies parts of
the brain that tend to shut off erotic fantasy. For the model, whose
mind is less busy, it may be different.
So it's not just that the model is there for a long time and gets
less sexual as time passes - it's almost like a switch is flipped
when the actual "art" begins.
> > 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...The point seems to be
to
> contain and neutralize sexuality, not to express it.
You said it. Though I think the point MAY be to express sexuality but
the filmmaking is so bland and unimagiunative it has the opposite
effect. Depends if we think a film like NO WAY OUT (my personal
champion for blandest love scene ever) is skillfully doing something
pernicious (making sex unexciting), or incompetently failing to do
something OK (celebrating sex).
13906
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 1:08pm
Subject: Re: NYC: A High Wind in Jamaica
Terrific film. I remember it weirding me out as a kid.
Wish somebody would restore it - all you'd have to do (well, all you
COULD do) is swap a couple of scenes around.
Non-spoiler clue - the mock-funeral scene should come AFTER the
death, thus explaining Quinn's outrage at the "sacrilegeous"
behavious of the kids.
An alteration made against Mackendrick's wishes in a deliberate
attempt to make the film LESS effective!
13907
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 1:13pm
Subject: Re: Re: LA Plays Itself
--- samadams@e... wrote:
> I re-watched THE LONG GOODBYE on the big screen not
> too long ago, and
> it was even better than I remembered (and I
> remembered it,
> unsarcastically, as Altman's best). The motif of
> reproduction is
> worked into the movie in more ways than I'd never
> noticed before --
> sort of a successful version of what Neil Jordan was
> after in THE
> GOOD THIEF -- and Sterling Hayden's performance
> reminds you what a
> great actor he can be. And of course 70s Elliott
> Gould, particularly
> in combination with 70s Altman, makes me want to do
> cartwheels.
> CALIFORNIA SPLIT is exactly as good as you remember
> it being.
>
"The Long Goodbye" also features in a small but
significant role, the current Governor of California.
He plays one of Mark Rydell's thugs.
Typecasting.
Favorite line: "That's what I do to someone I love.
You, I don't even like."
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13908
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
> I utterly loathed this film and found its persistent measuring of
> the "reality" of L.A. (oh, excuse me, Los Angeles -- have to be
> politically correct here)against the "falseness" of the way Hollywood
> films represent the city to be the sort of thing a naive grad
> student, coming across various cultural theories for the first time,
> would turn out. It is also a kind of "personal" documentary cinema
> which I simply can't tolerate, in which the filmmaker imagines that
> he is in possession of full knowledge and an all-powerful,
> unquestionable insight into his material which he then brandishes for
> hour after hour, intimidating the spectator with the incisiveness of
> his observations. The reviews this film have gotten are astonishing,
> a kind of mass hysteria. No one is calling Anderson to task. But my
> sense is that, so far, everyone in this room approves of the film as
> well and since I don't feel up to dodging dozens of bullets coming at
> me over this one I'll say no more.
This was a big component of what I felt too, though I found some of his
inquiries interesting in spite of his attitude. I wrote this for Senses
of Cinema:
One of the most talked about of the Toronto premieres was Thom
Anderson's Los Angeles Plays Itself, a three-hour analysis of the
depiction of Los Angeles in movies, constructed largely of movie clips.
Anderson's running commentary, read by Encke King, first comes across as
sporadically cranky and resentful, and eventually settles into a groove
as a Marxist-influenced lecture on the deceptions of Hollywood ideology
and the turning points of Los Angeles political history. In the last
hour, Anderson threatens to leave movies behind altogether in his
didactic zeal, so that it's easy to forget the loving attention he gave
along the way to documenting the history of some of Hollywood's favorite
locations (the Bradbury Building, the Ennis House) and the location
shooting of key Los Angeles films (Kiss Me Deadly [Robert Aldrich,
1955], Double Indemnity [Billy Wilder, 1946]). Along the way, he
champions neglected films like Gone in 60 Seconds (H.B. Halicki, 1974)
and The Model Shop (Jacques Demy, 1969), praises the direction of Jack
Webb, and takes a few fairly cheap shots at the likes of George Kennedy,
Klaus Kinski, and Henry Jaglom. Like so many other leftist thinkers,
Anderson takes offense at “Hollywood's personal ideology” without
tracing it back to the culture and prejudices of the mass audience that
Hollywood so slavishly courts. Ultimately, Los Angeles Plays Itself
plays out as a document of the conflict between Anderson's love of
movies and his distrust of mass media.
- Dan
13909
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
> Maybe what I should've said is that the only erotic element of a life
> drawing class is when the model first disrobes or emerges from behind
> the screen. A person undressing in front of a roomfull of strangers
> is weird enough to have a slight sexual charge. But there's a shift
> as soon as the first pose is adopted and people start drawing - a
> process has begin which is not erotic, and which occupies parts of
> the brain that tend to shut off erotic fantasy. For the model, whose
> mind is less busy, it may be different.
And the movie spectator's mind is less busy too, so he or she will be in
yet another place.
As a spectator, I generally register the power imbalance when one person
is naked in a movie and another isn't. (The context can eliminate this
effect sometimes - but not in LA BELLE NOISEUSE.) And then the Rivette
film amps up this power imbalance in a restrained way: Piccoli is
peremptory and sometimes inflicts pain without caring, and Beart's role
as a model requires obedience. So I'd submit that there's a shadow
STORY OF O underlying NOISEUSE - the eroticism here isn't just a matter
of nudity. - Dan
13910
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:12pm
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
Your dissenting voice is certainly interesting to hear. But given
the terms you've laid for critiquing Andersen, I'm not sure how
exactly to connect my thoughts with yours. For now I will just say
that I think Andersen's assertion of "Los Angeles" over "L.A." isn't
so much a call for politically correct language policing as it is a
call for people to reconsider their casual attitudes towards Los
Angeles, in line with the film's general project of dispelling myths
and asserting underexposed facts about Los Angeles that critique the
movie versions disseminated throughout the history of popular
culture. I'm not sure why you consider this to be "naive grad
student" level analysis. Would you be willing to describe what a
more advanced level analysis would look like?
Your comments make me curious what you think of other recent
documentaries. Re:
>It is also a kind of "personal" documentary cinema
> which I simply can't tolerate, in which the filmmaker imagines that
> he is in possession of full knowledge and an all-powerful,
> unquestionable insight into his material which he then brandishes
for
> hour after hour, intimidating the spectator with the incisiveness
of
> his observations.
What do you think of FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and THE CORPORATION? The other
week Jaime had posted his comparison of both which no one responded
to, unfortunately. I think Andersen's film demonstrates a more
complex and rigorous treatment of its subject matter than either
Moore's or Abbot/Achbar's. What do you think of
Scorsese's "personal" documentaries on American and Italian cinema?
Kevin
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "joe_mcelhaney"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
> wrote:
>
> > General thoughts on this film also welcome.
>
> I utterly loathed this film and found its persistent measuring of
> the "reality" of L.A. (oh, excuse me, Los Angeles -- have to be
> politically correct here)against the "falseness" of the way
Hollywood
> films represent the city to be the sort of thing a naive grad
> student, coming across various cultural theories for the first
time,
> would turn out. It is also a kind of "personal" documentary cinema
> which I simply can't tolerate, in which the filmmaker imagines that
> he is in possession of full knowledge and an all-powerful,
> unquestionable insight into his material which he then brandishes
for
> hour after hour, intimidating the spectator with the incisiveness
of
> his observations. The reviews this film have gotten are
astonishing,
> a kind of mass hysteria. No one is calling Anderson to task. But
my
> sense is that, so far, everyone in this room approves of the film
as
> well and since I don't feel up to dodging dozens of bullets coming
at
> me over this one I'll say no more.
>
> However, I did watch Criss Cross again last night, which Anderson
> mentions briefly and favorably. In 88 minutes, it is a far greater
> film essay on the space of Los Angeles than Anderson's film and,
> among many other problems I had with Los Angeles Plays Itself, I
was
> amazed he didn't make more use of Criss Cross than he did.
13911
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:19pm
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
> What do you think of FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and THE CORPORATION? The other
> week Jaime had posted his comparison of both which no one responded
> to, unfortunately. I think Andersen's film demonstrates a more
> complex and rigorous treatment of its subject matter than either
> Moore's or Abbot/Achbar's. What do you think of
> Scorsese's "personal" documentaries on American and Italian cinema?
Wow, Kevin throws down Andersen's gauntlet on Andersen's behalf. Now
I'm really eager to see LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF! (As well as other
Andersen films, I've wanted to see EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, ZOOPRAXOGRAPHER
since Jonathan Rosenbaum listed it as part of his "100 greatest
American films" list in 1998.)
-Jaime
13912
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:32pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself & Crime Wave
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Darr"
wrote:
"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?"
CRIME WAVE was made in 1952 so it comes in two years under the wire
for 'scope/wide screen. I saw it projected at the 1.33 aspect ratio
with De Toth in the audience, and he remarked on the quality of the
print and the good projection (it was at a L.A. Cinematheque
screening when the Cinematheque was at the Chaplin Theatre on the
Raliegh Studio lot opposite Paramount.) So if it was projecte at PFA
in the wrong aspect ratio it was cropped at top and bottom and not on
the sides as with a wide screen film.
Richard
13913
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:57pm
Subject: Re: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
Like so many other
> leftist thinkers,
>
I think we're done here.
> - Dan
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13914
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:04pm
Subject: documentary voiceover narrations
I didn't realize that it wasn't Andersen's voice in the narration!
Dan, how would you describe the respective voiceovers of MY
ARCHITECT, FAHRENHEIT 9/11, and THE CORPORATION? I've spoken to
different people who've had problems with the voiceovers of each of
these films. One person described Nathaniel Kahn's ARCHITECT
voiceover as smug and overly knowing in a way that undermined the
film's purported journey of discovery (for the record I disagree with
this). I have problems with the voiceover of THE CORPORATION, a
young analytic hipster drone that sounds like it's been sent through
a digital filter -- combined with the triphop lounge soundtrack it
made the film feel too slick and overtly targeted towards a
particular demographic. But this all goes to show how subjective
this all is -- I agree that there's something kind of crotchety about
the voiceover in LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF, but it grew on me
precisely because of the intimacy and personal conviction that Joe
seems to consider part of the film's shortcomings.
What you describe about the film abandoning its fascinating project
for the sake of diving into its own "didactic zeal" is precisely what
I think goes wrong with the last half hour of THE CORPORATION, where
a complex and generlly balanced look at the legacy of the world's
most dominant institution becomes a rah-rah call to arms. I'd might
as well respond to Jaime's post here and now and say that I think
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is a superior film to THE CORPORATION, insofar that
it works (perhaps unintentionally) in the opposite direction -- at
first it comes off hard and strong as a propoaganda piece but by the
end it has touched on so many disturbing issues that it can't smooth
over or tie up in a bow -- emotional as well as socio-political --
that it leaves the viewer with a more troubled and rough-edged sense
of their world than the slickly packaged CORPORATION. As for LOS
ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF, I don't think he abandons or betrays his
project so much as he crystallizes the opposing perspectives on
cinematic Los Angeles that he sees, and lays it out in terms of class
and race, for better or worse. But I don't think the last segement
is any more didactic than is implicit in any act of cultural and
historical excavation and recovery.
I don't know how much I agree with you that Andersen trains his eye
more on Hollywood than on the audience. This is probably true for
the last section where he takes Kasdan and Altman to task, but on the
other hand when he's talking about widespread conceptions of Los
Angeles (vs. L.A.) as conveyed in the movies, particularly with
CHINATOWN and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, I think he's describing a kind of
collusion between Hollwyood and the audience in determining which
myths will prevail in the mainstream consciousness. Maybe he doesn't
imply the audience's role in this outright, but I don't think he's
obtuse to it either. But examining audiences is always going to be
more challengingly irresolute than examining the ideologies of films,
so perhaps he's better off interpreting the ideologies behind the
films as he does and leaving us with the task of figuring out why
some ideologies prevailed and others did not. In any case I also
don't think he has a monolithic conception of Hollywood mass media as
your words seem to imply -- the film more than amply demonstrates the
diversity of perspectives and worldviews to be found among Hollywood
Los Angeles films, even if the collective Hollywood perspective still
proves insufficient in describing what is Los Angeles.
Your criticism is an interesting one though -- and once again, it
could very well extend again to THE CORPORATION, how it generally
avoids examining to what extent the masses are complicit in
contributing to the phenomenon of corporate dominance in global
culture. On this score I'd say that Michael Moore's film does more,
particularly in how it charts the evolution of Lila Lipscomb. But
that would be something to see, a documentary that actually places
blame at the viewer's feet for whatever societal ill it's addressing!
In minor disagreements with what you wrote, I'd say that he's
critical of Jack Webb but I actually perceived some affection (albeit
in a camp manner) for the clips with Klaus Kinski and George
Kennedy. I wouldn't say it's a backhanded affection either; I think
he's quite fond of these clips as a kind of folk art. On the other
hand he did employ that "high tourist" vs. "low tourist" binary that
implies a kind of reverse snobbery, though both categories had
examples of good and bad films, so who knows...
13915
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:32pm
Subject: Re: documentary voiceover narrations
--- Kevin Lee wrote:
>
> What you describe about the film abandoning its
> fascinating project
> for the sake of diving into its own "didactic zeal"
> is precisely what
> I think goes wrong with the last half hour of THE
> CORPORATION, where
> a complex and generlly balanced look at the legacy
> of the world's
> most dominant institution becomes a rah-rah call to
> arms.
Ah the "Balance Fairy" has arrived!
They say that after spending the night with one of the
giant seed pods she leaves next to your bed there's no
more tears.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13916
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:40pm
Subject: missing the points
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee" wrote:
> I didn't realize that it wasn't Andersen's voice in the narration!
> Dan, how would you describe the respective voiceovers of MY
> ARCHITECT, FAHRENHEIT 9/11, and THE CORPORATION? I've spoken to
> different people who've had problems with the voiceovers of each of
> these films. One person described Nathaniel Kahn's ARCHITECT
> voiceover as smug and overly knowing in a way that undermined the
> film's purported journey of discovery (for the record I disagree with
> this). I have problems with the voiceover of THE CORPORATION, a
> young analytic hipster drone that sounds like it's been sent through
> a digital filter -- combined with the triphop lounge soundtrack it
> made the film feel too slick and overtly targeted towards a
> particular demographic.
This isn't criticism, it's just something you didn't respond well to.
Please focus on what the documentary actually does and says. The
low-key voiceover for THE CORPORATION makes the doc's thesis the
focus. Michael Moore's unusually subdued v/o for FAHRENHEIT seems
also to be stepping towards this direction.
> What you describe about the film abandoning its fascinating project
> for the sake of diving into its own "didactic zeal" is precisely what
> I think goes wrong with the last half hour of THE CORPORATION, where
> a complex and generlly balanced look at the legacy of the world's
> most dominant institution becomes a rah-rah call to arms.
Step one: name the problem
Step two: name some solutions, inspire change
I don't see how this can be sneered at.
I'd might
> as well respond to Jaime's post here and now and say that I think
> FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is a superior film to THE CORPORATION, insofar that
> it works (perhaps unintentionally) in the opposite direction -- at
> first it comes off hard and strong as a propoaganda piece but by the
> end it has touched on so many disturbing issues that it can't smooth
> over or tie up in a bow -- emotional as well as socio-political --
> that it leaves the viewer with a more troubled and rough-edged sense
> of their world than the slickly packaged CORPORATION.
Moore's film only scratches the surface - if you see that as a merit
and cause to put down THE CORPORATION, well...I guess I don't see how
we'd be able to see eye to eye.
> Your criticism is an interesting one though -- and once again, it
> could very well extend again to THE CORPORATION, how it generally
> avoids examining to what extent the masses are complicit in
> contributing to the phenomenon of corporate dominance in global
> culture.
Maybe because blaming (or, uh, crediting) "the masses" is exactly what
THE CORPORATION's targets (corporations, complicit governments) use as
a crutch. You might blame the Jews in their compliance with the
Holocaust, or the Africans for their complicity with slavery in the US
and South America. But that'd be missing the point.
There's more straining towards a "tied up in a bow" in your rhetoric
against THE CORPORATION than in the film itself.
-Jaime
13917
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:49pm
Subject: Los Angeles Plays Itself
> Your dissenting voice is certainly interesting to hear.
But given
> the terms you've laid for critiquing Andersen, I'm not sure
how
> exactly to connect my thoughts with yours. For now I will
just say
> that I think Andersen's assertion of "Los Angeles"
over "L.A." isn't
> so much a call for politically correct language policing as
it is a
> call for people to reconsider their casual attitudes
towards Los
> Angeles, in line with the film's general project of
dispelling myths
> and asserting underexposed facts about Los Angeles that
critique the
> movie versions disseminated throughout the history of
popular
> culture. I'm not sure why you consider this to be "naive
grad
> student" level analysis. Would you be willing to describe
what a
> more advanced level analysis would look like?
I do think that Anderson's insistence upon calling his native city
Los Angeles (formal) rather than L.A. (vernacular) does serve a type
of repressive function consistent with the film's somewhat
puritanical streak(in spite of his use of the Fred Halsted clip).
For example, his take on Chinatown, while interesting in terms of
what it brings forth about that film's reading of California history
(and the film is even more interesting here when it deals with L.A.
Confidential), was very problematic for me in its conclusion that
Chinatown is defeatist and cynical, language which has an almost
Stalinist quality to it. What is naïve about the film in general, I
think, is, as I've already indicated, its persistent weighing of what
Anderson believes to be the reality of L.A. against the falseness of
the images of the city. But L.A. itself (like virtually all cities)
is a kind of image or phantasmagoria of images, something which
Anderson seems to be vaguely aware of but doesn't explore fully
enough. I can't describe a more advanced level of analysis without
actually sitting down and doing it and this would take up more space
and time than is feasible at the moment. But I think that Dan's
brief Senses of Cinema piece on the film does suggest that one major
ideological failing of the film is Anderson's inability to connect
Hollywood's depiction of L.A. with the ways in which mass culture
depicts urban space in general. How, for example, is the manner in
which To Live and Die in L.A.'s linkage of modernist L.A.
architecture with crime and decadence any different from the way that
crime thrillers have always connected modernism with crime and
decadence, regardless of their setting? And is Los Angeles more
falsely represented on film than New York or Tokyo or Paris? I don't
think so but it would have been interesting had Anderson made these
connections instead of showing us that endless parade of excerpts
from second-rate horror and crime films. How many clips from Cobra
do we need?
>
> Your comments make me curious what you think of other
recent
> documentaries. Re:
>
> What do you think of FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and THE CORPORATION?
The other
> week Jaime had posted his comparison of both which no one
responded
> to, unfortunately. I think Andersen's film demonstrates a
more
> complex and rigorous treatment of its subject matter than
either
> Moore's or Abbot/Achbar's. What do you think of
> Scorsese's "personal" documentaries on American and Italian
cinema?
I haven't seen The Corporation and I don't have much to add to the
voluminous commentary on Fahrenheit 9/11. But I do think that Moore
and (from what I've heard) Abbot/Achbar are operating on an overtly
political, didactic level in a way that Anderson is not, although
Anderson's film certainly has political implications, albeit of a
less immediate nature than these other new documentary films.
Anderson has chosen a great subject which, I think, demands a much
more nuanced and subtle approach than he gives it. I was also
surprised at how poorly chosen the clips in Anderson's film were and
at the almost total absence of silent cinema. The Model Shop (which,
by the way, I do NOT think is incoherent, as Anderson claims it is)
has incredibly wonderful footage of Los Angeles streets, of Gary
Lockwood driving (or walking) through some of the more
underrepresented areas of the city. But we get none of this, just
Lockwood talking about the city – a nice moment as well but where's
the rest of the film? Likewise the take on Cassavetes, who is
posited (once again) as some kind of ultimate bearer of truth and
reality and possibly he is. But we see very little of the Los Angeles
of A Woman Under the Influence -- mainly that sequence of Rowlands on
the street trying to find out the correct time, a sequence shot with
a very long lens, thereby obscuring the specifics of much of the
surrounding area. The Love Streams clip emphasizes psychodrama more
than city and I can't recall anything from Chinese Bookie. Etc.,
etc.
I personally find the Scorsese docs on American and Italian cinema
rather boring, going over material I already know by heart, but at
least the clips are well chosen. For me, these films are not
personal ENOUGH and I often feel that Scorsese is being propped up to
say things that he is in agreement with but which don't quite sound
like something he would ever say himself – at least they don't jibe
with his manner of speaking in interviews. There's a half hour
documentary done for Cinemax from about ten or twelve years ago
called Martin Scorsese's Favorite Films which is better than either
of the American or Italian docs and which does feel more "personal,"
closer to that wonderful guilty pleasures piece that he did for Film
Comment in the late 1970s. I have a tape of this Cinemax thing if
anyone would like a copy.
13918
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:53pm
Subject: Re: documentary voiceover narrations
> Dan, how would you describe the respective voiceovers of MY
> ARCHITECT, FAHRENHEIT 9/11, and THE CORPORATION?
Haven't seen any of them! I'm afraid I don't keep up well with
documentaries.
> But this all goes to show how subjective
> this all is -- I agree that there's something kind of crotchety about
> the voiceover in LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF, but it grew on me
> precisely because of the intimacy and personal conviction that Joe
> seems to consider part of the film's shortcomings.
In such situations, how the viewer positions himself or herself with
regard to the discourse seems to make all the difference. If you can
basically get yourself over on the speaker's side out of a sense of
shared viewpoint, so that they are more or less a trusted voice (even if
you preserve the right to disagree about individual issues), you
encounter a lot less turbulence from a contentious sensibility like
Anderson's. But if you're basically hanging back, challenging the dude
to prove himself, you tend to feel unsatisfied and then frustrated,
because the speaker is unlikely to take the time to address your
particular concerns.
> I don't know how much I agree with you that Andersen trains his eye
> more on Hollywood than on the audience. This is probably true for
> the last section where he takes Kasdan and Altman to task, but on the
> other hand when he's talking about widespread conceptions of Los
> Angeles (vs. L.A.) as conveyed in the movies, particularly with
> CHINATOWN and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, I think he's describing a kind of
> collusion between Hollwyood and the audience in determining which
> myths will prevail in the mainstream consciousness. Maybe he doesn't
> imply the audience's role in this outright, but I don't think he's
> obtuse to it either. But examining audiences is always going to be
> more challengingly irresolute than examining the ideologies of films,
> so perhaps he's better off interpreting the ideologies behind the
> films as he does and leaving us with the task of figuring out why
> some ideologies prevailed and others did not.
I remember first having this thought when he was complaining about
Hollywood using modern architecture for villains' houses. But a lot of
it is a question of tone. All that anger (which seems characterological
to me) suggests a fairly specific target. If a lot of what he's upset
about can be traced back to the desires of a mass audience, then his
tone starts to seem inappropriate, because doing anything differently
becomes a complicated business.
> In any case I also
> don't think he has a monolithic conception of Hollywood mass media as
> your words seem to imply --
This partially redeems the film for me. It's not just a movie by a guy
who dislikes everything.
> On the other
> hand he did employ that "high tourist" vs. "low tourist" binary that
> implies a kind of reverse snobbery, though both categories had
> examples of good and bad films, so who knows...
His language just seems to gravitate toward that kind of superior
position, even when he has some ambivalence. - Dan
13919
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:00pm
Subject: Re: documentary voiceover narrations - segue to 1944 film noir
Let me guess, you have a Mr. Monopoly doll hanging in effigy outside
your apartment?
Don't get me wrong, I do think the film is great and important
(enough to make me reconsider the stocks I have invested in my 403
(b) -- okay maybe the film did place the blame on ordinary people at
some points), but as much as I agree with a lot of what the
CORPORATION has to say about what corporations are doing to the
world, I feel that there's a substantial risk that in blaming
everything on corporations we become the green-eyed monsters that
mock the meat that feeds us. I don't think the film goes far enough
in examining why the corporate model has become so dominant, which
obfuscates matters when it comes to asking how and to what extent we
should regulate or diminish their influence.
Anyway, since I have your attention, David, I want to ask you, do you
agree with me that LAURA and DOUBLE INDEMNITY, two films I re-watched
last weekend, have discernible homoerotic undertones? I'd might as
well make a remark I wanted to make yesterday when I saw Jaime's
comment about the subtle eroticism in LAURA in Tierney's and Andrews'
kiss. I saw this film again last weekend, and I'm sorry Jaime, but
there is no chemistry between those two -- for one thing I just don't
get why Tierney falls in love with Andrews, so the effect of the kiss
is lost on me however delicately it's handled. Besides I found more
eroticism in the opening scene with Andrews and Webb in the bathtub.
There's something gay about Vincent Price as well, but I'm not sure
what Preminger is up to with this subtext if it is indeed
intentional. As for DOUBLE INDEMNITY, it became apparent to me by
the end that the film is less about MacMurray's desire for Stanwyck
as it's about his desire to put one over on Robinson -- the voiceover
itself shows how fixated he is on Robinson.
I also think that both Wilder and Preminger did a not-so-great job
directing the actors in both these unassailable classics, though the
bad acting actually helps make both movies more fun.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- Kevin Lee wrote:
>
>
> >
> > What you describe about the film abandoning its
> > fascinating project
> > for the sake of diving into its own "didactic zeal"
> > is precisely what
> > I think goes wrong with the last half hour of THE
> > CORPORATION, where
> > a complex and generlly balanced look at the legacy
> > of the world's
> > most dominant institution becomes a rah-rah call to
> > arms.
>
> Ah the "Balance Fairy" has arrived!
>
> They say that after spending the night with one of the
> giant seed pods she leaves next to your bed there's no
> more tears.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13920
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:13pm
Subject: 1944 File Noir (Was: documentary voiceover narrations - segue to 1944 film noir)
> There's something gay about Vincent Price as well, but I'm not sure
> what Preminger is up to with this subtext if it is indeed
> intentional.
Dunno, but I believe Preminger had to fight hard for Clifton Webb's
casting, over the studio's objection that he was too "swishy." So maybe
there was intention of some sort.
LAURA has beautiful things in it, but I actually like most of the Fox
Preminger melodramas better.
> As for DOUBLE INDEMNITY, it became apparent to me by
> the end that the film is less about MacMurray's desire for Stanwyck
> as it's about his desire to put one over on Robinson -- the voiceover
> itself shows how fixated he is on Robinson.
It's hard for me to tell whether Wilder had an anti-woman streak, or
whether he was just reacting against Hollywood's excessive adoration of
female purity. Maybe the MacMurray-Robinson connection is just a place
for the leftover narrative energy to go after Wilder has torn up the
tracks on the man-woman connection. - Dan
13921
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:18pm
Subject: Re: documentary voiceover narrations - segue to 1944 film noir
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
> CORPORATION has to say about what corporations are doing to the
> world, I feel that there's a substantial risk that in blaming
> everything on corporations we become the green-eyed monsters that
> mock the meat that feeds us.
> I don't think the film goes far enough
> in examining why the corporate model has become so dominant, which
> obfuscates matters when it comes to asking how and to what extent we
> should regulate or diminish their influence.
> kiss. I saw this film again last weekend, and I'm sorry Jaime, but
> there is no chemistry between those two
Good night, everybody!
-Jaime
13922
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:27pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
> I think the point MAY be to express sexuality but
> the filmmaking is so bland and unimagiunative it has the opposite
> effect. Depends if we think a film like NO WAY OUT (my personal
> champion for blandest love scene ever) is skillfully doing
something
> pernicious (making sex unexciting), or incompetently failing to do
> something OK (celebrating sex).
Verhoeven storyboarded the sex in Basic Instinct.
13923
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:29pm
Subject: Re: LA Plays Itself
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> >
>
> Favorite line: "That's what I do to someone I love.
> You, I don't even like."
>
That's one of the great scenes. I think I mainly objecetd to the
ending when I resaw it.
13924
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:33pm
Subject: The Company / VDP
Last night I watched 'The Company,' which I liked. The dance
sequences were shot well, although the company's artistic direction is
often pretty questionable. (Who knew the Joffrey Ballet had such
Cirque du Soleil proclivities?) Also, refreshing to see a blossoming
relationship (Neve + James Franco) completely devoid of dramatic arc.
(Not being facetious.)
The one thing that took me aback, and which I hadn't read anyone
mention on here during the height of 'Company' discussions (unless I
missed it) -- and this is especially directed toward Bill -- what's up
with this opening credit? -- "Original Music Composed By: Van Dyke
Parks." ???!!!
-- So the whole time I'm watching the film, I'm thinking to myself, "My
God, with the exception of the piece playing behind the opening dance,
Van Dyke has embraced Cirque du Scoring..." But then when the end
credits rolled, I didn't spot one composition among the 25-odd that
carried a Written by VDP credit. (Indeed, one of the credits, for the
piece that rips wholesale from the 'Twin Peaks' theme, was written
by... Angelo Badalamenti. Of course, even from the woman's voice alone
I should have known it was the real deal.) I can't remember hearing
any "incidental" music of any kind so I'm wondering -- Did VDP write an
original score that ended up being discarded?
craig.
13925
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:34pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Maybe what I should've said is that the only erotic element of a
And then the Rivette
> film amps up this power imbalance in a restrained way: Piccoli is
> peremptory and sometimes inflicts pain without caring, and Beart's
role
> as a model requires obedience. So I'd submit that there's a shadow
> STORY OF O underlying NOISEUSE - the eroticism here isn't just a
matter
> of nudity. - Dan
You can say that again!
13926
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: documentary voiceover narrations - segue to 1944 film noir
--- Kevin Lee wrote:
I feel that there's a substantial risk that
> in blaming
> everything on corporations we become the green-eyed
> monsters that
> mock the meat that feeds us.
I don't.
I don't think the film
> goes far enough
> in examining why the corporate model has become so
> dominant, which
> obfuscates matters when it comes to asking how and
> to what extent we
> should regulate or diminish their influence.
>
Revolution.
> Anyway, since I have your attention, David, I want
> to ask you, do you
> agree with me that LAURA and DOUBLE INDEMNITY, two
> films I re-watched
> last weekend, have discernible homoerotic
> undertones?
Yes. Incidental in the first and marked in the second.
Parker Tyler is quite eloquent about the
MacMurray-Robinson relationship: "Closer than that."
With "Laura" you have a whole super-sophisticated New
York scene. Vincent Price is clearly a gigolo. And as
the Cole Porter song goes:
"I should like you all to know,
I'm a famous gigolo,
And of lavender my nature has just a dash of it."
I'd might as
> well make a remark I wanted to make yesterday when I
> saw Jaime's
> comment about the subtle eroticism in LAURA in
> Tierney's and Andrews'
> kiss. I saw this film again last weekend, and I'm
> sorry Jaime, but
> there is no chemistry between those two -- for one
> thing I just don't
> get why Tierney falls in love with Andrews, so the
> effect of the kiss
> is lost on me however delicately it's handled.
Well that has nothing to do with gayness.
> Besides I found more
> eroticism in the opening scene with Andrews and Webb
> in the bathtub.
Webb would be most appreciative.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13927
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:35pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> As a spectator, I generally register the power imbalance when one
person
> is naked in a movie and another isn't. (The context can eliminate
this
> effect sometimes - but not in LA BELLE NOISEUSE.) And then the
Rivette
> film amps up this power imbalance in a restrained way: Piccoli is
> peremptory and sometimes inflicts pain without caring, and Beart's
role
> as a model requires obedience. So I'd submit that there's a shadow
> STORY OF O underlying NOISEUSE - the eroticism here isn't just a
matter
> of nudity. - Dan
Not all that shadowy either. It's not typical of Rivette, but here he
seems to identify with the painter -- who keeps "directing" the girl,
literally manipulating her placing her in uncomfortable positions,
the necessary motionlessness adding to her objectification. The
question is, why does she so docilely submit? At some level she must
enjoy her helpless passiveness and reification.
JPC
13928
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:39pm
Subject: Re: The Company / VDP
--- Craig Keller wrote:
> -- Did VDP write an
> original score that ended up being discarded?
>
No, he just wrote the music for the one ballet that we
see being created that climaxes the film.
Van Dyke is more an arranger than a composer for the
movies.
As a child he was an actor,and appeared opposite Grace
Kelly in her very last film "The Swan."
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13929
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:45pm
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley" <> Wow, Kevin
throws down Andersen's gauntlet on Andersen's behalf. Now
> I'm really eager to see LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF! (As well as other
> Andersen films, I've wanted to see EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE,
ZOOPRAXOGRAPHER
> since Jonathan Rosenbaum listed it as part of his "100 greatest
> American films" list in 1998.)
>
> -Jaime
The Muybridge film is great, but you can see the distance travelled
to Los Angeles Plays Itself -- Thom's voiceover for the Muybridge is
a letter-perfect pastiche of what Jean-Louis Comolli might have
written if the film had been shown to CdC during their communist
period (instead of being "rumored" as a film where the Muybridge
montages are made to move, which led to its blanket condemnation by
Yann Lardeau, who hadn't seen it). In other words, it is a completely
impersonal, brilliantly analytic account of the unwitting political
(materialist, anti-repressive) subversions operated by Muybridge with
his proto-films.
Red H'wd is still a neutral voiceover by an all-knowing commentator,
albeit in less technical language.
And Los Angeles Plays Itself is, precisely, a personal voiceover in
which Thom, as a native Angeleno, gripes about how H'wd - and others -
have misrepresented his hometown. It's a bit of a rhetorical conceit,
but I thought it worked to take the film out of the all=knowing voice
category. This was much clearer when I saw it because it was still
Thom's voice. It's odd that Joe should single that aspect out for
dislike -- even using the word "personal" -- because that's the first
compliment I paid Thom after he showed it to me!
13930
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:46pm
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
The
> question is, why does she so docilely submit? At some level she
must
> enjoy her helpless passiveness and reification.
>
> JPC
Spoken like a true son of de Sade, JP.
13931
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:01pm
Subject: Re: documentary voiceover narrations - segue to 1944 film noir
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
I'd might as
> well make a remark I wanted to make yesterday when I saw Jaime's
> comment about the subtle eroticism in LAURA in Tierney's and
Andrews'
> kiss. I saw this film again last weekend, and I'm sorry Jaime, but
> there is no chemistry between those two -- for one thing I just
don't
> get why Tierney falls in love with Andrews, so the effect of the
kiss
> is lost on me however delicately it's handled.
Waldo tells us why she falls in love with Mark. Same reason she
fell in love with Shelby (or thought she did). Fatal attraction for
handsome, virile men (I don't remember the exact quote, but
everything Waldo says about her is quite perceptive). Of course
there's nothing likeable about the detective -- he is a neurotic
bully and Waldo is probably right to predict their life together will
be a disaster (by the way, in david Thomson wonderful novel,
SUSPECTS, Laura and mark do get married, he ends up beating her up
and she commits suicide in 1972).
JPC
> I also think that both Wilder and Preminger did a not-so-great job
> directing the actors in both these unassailable classics, though
the
> bad acting actually helps make both movies more fun.
>
Bad acting in LAURA and INDEMNITY? No kidding! By whom?
> Do you Yahoo!?
> > New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
> > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13932
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:22pm
Subject: good bad acting
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> Bad acting in LAURA and INDEMNITY? No kidding! By whom?
>
Here's what I wrote elsewhere -- ensuing discussion can be found at:
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000010/thread/10799786?
d=10812406#10812406
I was surprised by how much bad acting there is in both of these
unassailable classics, but I think it's bad acting with a purpose. In
DOUBLE INDEMNITY the bad acting, especially Fred MacMurray's, is
totally appropriate to the sad-sack pathos of the movie and its
vision of modern alienation. Wilder's thick-lined characterizations
risk drawing everyone in the film as a Dick Tracy cartoon --
MacMurray is a stiff-necked jerk who tells bad jokes and tries too
hard to be cool; he has no right to earn our sympathies and yet his
lower middlebrow tackiness is endearing, perhaps because we identify
more than a little with it; he's us trying to act like a movie star
and not quite succeeding. Or perhaps because his excessively explicit
voiceover narration insists on crowding our headspace with his, like
Robinson's "little man." Barbara Stanwyck, on the other hand, is
movie star to the nth degree -- she takes a rather thin femme fatale
character and makes an Art Deco statue out of it -- even in as plain
jane a setting as a suburban supermarket, she has a way of looking
down at you even when she looks up at you. Edward G. Robinson,
ostensibly the most virtuous person in the movie, is a borderline
obsessive-compulsive who loves numbers more than human beings, and
living breathing proof of the capitalist ethos as the most insidious
20th century moral depravity. MacMurray's endless monologue to the
dictaphone is enough proof that the film is not about heterosexual
romantic deception, but really a homoerotic cat-and-mouse between an
alienated working stiff and the corpulent corporate ideal he both
idolizes and detests. The ending is a weird moment of homoerotic
reconciliation whose moral could be "The company, like God, loves and
forgives you."
In LAURA the bad acting is also strangely appropriate, insofar as it
makes one feel more comfortable with the even stupider plot details --
why on earth would a detective let anyone tag along while he's
questioning people about a murder??? It plays like a burlesque, each
of the actors disarms you with their campiness, and one can then
embrace the more genuinely touching aspects of the film, how
desperate and possessive many of the characters seem to be to this
empty, shallow Maltese Falconess called Laura, another virgin-in-
peril type played by Gene Tierney, this time so devoid of personality
or sensuality that she only brings out the gayness in the male leads
even more. In its own way its a goofier take on alienation than
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (with that interminable theme played with even more
oppressive insistence than MacMurray's voiceover) -- and the
laughable dinner theater performances of quavery-voiced Clifton Webb
and Transylvanian hick Vincent Price, in their own weird way, further
accentuate their characters' emotional desperation roiling beneath
the surface, making them more sympathetic than the blandly composed
lovers (whose totally unconvincing lack of chemistry is what keeps
this film from YES-ville) who win out in the end.
13933
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:51pm
Subject: Re: Altman on THE LONG GOODBYE (was LA Plays Itself)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
"That's one of the great scenes. I think I mainly objecetd to the
ending when I resaw it."
When UCLA screened THE LONG GOODBYE Altman was there and had this to
say about the ending: "They wanted to make a sequel to MARLOW with
Jim Garner and had a script by the guy who wrote MARLOW. But then
Garner wasn't available and the thing fell apart. Next they brought
in Bogdanovich who comissioned a script from Leigh Brackett.
Bogdanovich had trouble casting the part of Marlow, he wanted someone
like Robert Mitchum or maybe Mitchum himself, I dunno. Anyway,
Elliot [Kastner]brought me the script and I read it and liked it, but
he said 'Don't worry Bob, we'll change the ending,' but that's what I
loved about the script, the ending, that's why I wanted to make the
picture."
And: "Marlow was a loser. I didn't want Mitchum or anyone in that
mold because you had to know this guy was a loser, and Elliot Gould
could do that better than anyone."
Question from the audience: "Why did you use the musical theme on
the door bell chime?" Altman: "Because I wanted you to know that you
were watching another stupid Hollywood movie."
Above taken from my notes made in 1991.
I sat next to Altman during the screening and heard him chuckle at a
few parts, and in spite of his later caustic remarks he seemed to
have enjoyed the picture.
Richard
13934
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:02pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
Hi Joe,
Thanks for taking as much time as you have to clarify your position --
I think I understand your argument now and have a better grasp of
what I agree and disagree with it.
I can see how or why you would read Andersen's take on L.A.
as "repressive" or "puritanical" but I don't agree with this. I
might use the words "possessive" or "overprotective" to describe what
I think you're getting at, but I wouldn't call this film repressive
or puritanical. I mean, it unleashes dozens upon dozens of film
clips from over the decades (okay so it doesn't have as many silent
clips as you or I would prefer, but what it does have is still mighty
overwhelming). Personally, the effect was liberating and refreshing
for me, as I started to see both minor B-films or disposable
Hollywood entertainments I had never taken seriously and unassailable
classics in a whole new light, while being introduced to fascinating
films I'd never heard about, such as THE EXILES. If this exposes my
own naivete to the subject at hand, well in that case I think I can
align my predicament with that of the "mass audience" that you and
Dan wish were examined more directly in this film.
I can't quite follow you on how Andersen's conclusions on CHINATOWN
are "Stalinist" -- if anything Andersen is challenging the quasi-
Stalinist aspects of CHINATOWN's revision of historical fact to
reinforce popular sociopolitical mythology. And I don't think
Andersen is substituting the myths he wants to tear down to replace
with liberal myths of his own -- I think he leaves his film
sufficiently open-ended for us to take whatever we like from his
extended reconsiderations of Hollywood imagery and ideology.
Having said all this, I can see your point about how the film could
have done more to clarify how some of the issues it raises (i.e. the
dubious depiction of modernist architecture, the vacillating
treatment of LAPD) are distinctive to Los Angeles movies as opposed
to movies set elsewhere. I think I'll have to see this film again
though to determine what extent Andersen falls short on this score,
if indeed he did. I think I might have missed a lot in my first
screening due to the sheer number of clips and amount of voiceover I
had to digest.
I venture to say that Andersen is more sympathetic to COBRA than you
are, and I think your dismissal of that film complicates your
implicit claim of being less puritanical in your tastes than
Andersen. Andersen's film did the unimaginable: it made me want to
see COBRA. I don't think Andersen was pulling a cheap, masochistic
Morgan Spurlock stunt in spending years culling through the annals of
Los Angeles "trash" cinema just to find some silly action movie clips
to take potshots at. Even when he trashes a movie like HANGING UP he
demonstrates the generosity to take it more seriously than most, and
derives more insights from it than anyone would think of doing --
which I think is emblematic of what makes the film great in my view,
how it wants to breathe new life into everything it sees.
I somewhat agree with your point about the clip from WOMAN UNDER THE
INFLUENCE not showing the geography of the location enough. But he
was also talking about Los Angeles suburban sociology, the general
messiness of human behavior (in contrast to Altman's "privileged"
depiction, I believe), which prompted that clip from LOVE STREAMS.
Anyway I wouldn't make these criticisms without taking note of how
the film inspired me to think to this extent about the topic in the
first place. Andersen says as much about L.A. CONFIDENTIAL and
CHINATOWN in an interview, that the discourse about the accuracy of
the urban history depicted by these films wouldn't have started
without these films in the first place.
Anyway, I would love to see what your version of LOS ANGELES PLAYS
ITSELF would look like -- if it is as much an improvement over
Anderson's essay as you claim, I would greet it with nothing less
than great enthusiasm. In the meantime I would love to see that
Scorsese Cinemax doc.
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "joe_mcelhaney"
wrote:
> I do think that Anderson's insistence upon calling his native city
> Los Angeles (formal) rather than L.A. (vernacular) does serve a
type
> of repressive function consistent with the film's somewhat
> puritanical streak(in spite of his use of the Fred Halsted clip).
> For example, his take on Chinatown, while interesting in terms of
> what it brings forth about that film's reading of California
history
> (and the film is even more interesting here when it deals with L.A.
> Confidential), was very problematic for me in its conclusion that
> Chinatown is defeatist and cynical, language which has an almost
> Stalinist quality to it. What is naïve about the film in general,
I
> think, is, as I've already indicated, its persistent weighing of
what
> Anderson believes to be the reality of L.A. against the falseness
of
> the images of the city. But L.A. itself (like virtually all cities)
> is a kind of image or phantasmagoria of images, something which
> Anderson seems to be vaguely aware of but doesn't explore fully
> enough. I can't describe a more advanced level of analysis without
> actually sitting down and doing it and this would take up more
space
> and time than is feasible at the moment. But I think that Dan's
> brief Senses of Cinema piece on the film does suggest that one
major
> ideological failing of the film is Anderson's inability to connect
> Hollywood's depiction of L.A. with the ways in which mass culture
> depicts urban space in general. How, for example, is the manner in
> which To Live and Die in L.A.'s linkage of modernist L.A.
> architecture with crime and decadence any different from the way
that
> crime thrillers have always connected modernism with crime and
> decadence, regardless of their setting? And is Los Angeles more
> falsely represented on film than New York or Tokyo or Paris? I
don't
> think so but it would have been interesting had Anderson made these
> connections instead of showing us that endless parade of excerpts
> from second-rate horror and crime films. How many clips from Cobra
> do we need?
>
> >
> > Your comments make me curious what you think of
other
> recent
> > documentaries. Re:
> >
> > What do you think of FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and THE
CORPORATION?
> The other
> > week Jaime had posted his comparison of both which
no one
> responded
> > to, unfortunately. I think Andersen's film
demonstrates a
> more
> > complex and rigorous treatment of its subject
matter than
> either
> > Moore's or Abbot/Achbar's. What do you think of
> > Scorsese's "personal" documentaries on American and
Italian
> cinema?
>
> I haven't seen The Corporation and I don't have much to add to the
> voluminous commentary on Fahrenheit 9/11. But I do think that
Moore
> and (from what I've heard) Abbot/Achbar are operating on an overtly
> political, didactic level in a way that Anderson is not, although
> Anderson's film certainly has political implications, albeit of a
> less immediate nature than these other new documentary films.
> Anderson has chosen a great subject which, I think, demands a much
> more nuanced and subtle approach than he gives it. I was also
> surprised at how poorly chosen the clips in Anderson's film were
and
> at the almost total absence of silent cinema. The Model Shop
(which,
> by the way, I do NOT think is incoherent, as Anderson claims it is)
> has incredibly wonderful footage of Los Angeles streets, of Gary
> Lockwood driving (or walking) through some of the more
> underrepresented areas of the city. But we get none of this, just
> Lockwood talking about the city – a nice moment as well but where's
> the rest of the film? Likewise the take on Cassavetes, who is
> posited (once again) as some kind of ultimate bearer of truth and
> reality and possibly he is. But we see very little of the Los
Angeles
> of A Woman Under the Influence -- mainly that sequence of Rowlands
on
> the street trying to find out the correct time, a sequence shot
with
> a very long lens, thereby obscuring the specifics of much of the
> surrounding area. The Love Streams clip emphasizes psychodrama
more
> than city and I can't recall anything from Chinese Bookie. Etc.,
> etc.
>
> I personally find the Scorsese docs on American and Italian cinema
> rather boring, going over material I already know by heart, but at
> least the clips are well chosen. For me, these films are not
> personal ENOUGH and I often feel that Scorsese is being propped up
to
> say things that he is in agreement with but which don't quite sound
> like something he would ever say himself – at least they don't jibe
> with his manner of speaking in interviews. There's a half hour
> documentary done for Cinemax from about ten or twelve years ago
> called Martin Scorsese's Favorite Films which is better than either
> of the American or Italian docs and which does feel
more "personal,"
> closer to that wonderful guilty pleasures piece that he did for
Film
> Comment in the late 1970s. I have a tape of this Cinemax thing if
> anyone would like a copy.
13935
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:48pm
Subject: Re: good bad acting
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
>
> > Bad acting in LAURA and INDEMNITY? No kidding! By whom?
> >
> Here's what I wrote elsewhere -- ensuing discussion can be found at:
>
> http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000010/thread/10799786?
> d=10812406#10812406
What you are calling bad acting is acting that you yourself define
as "totally appropriate" to the psychology of the characters being
portrayed (a psychology you describe remarkably well, I might add).
In my vocabulary that would be called good acting. What, then, would
be good acting according to you, given the way the characters are
written? And to what extent are OP and BW guilty of bad direction le
for directing the actors the way they did?
Edward G. Robinson,
> ostensibly the most virtuous person in the movie, is a borderline
> obsessive-compulsive who loves numbers more than human beings, and
> living breathing proof of the capitalist ethos as the most
insidious
> 20th century moral depravity. MacMurray's endless monologue to the
> dictaphone is enough proof that the film is not about heterosexual
> romantic deception, but really a homoerotic cat-and-mouse between
an
> alienated working stiff and the corpulent corporate ideal he both
> idolizes and detests. The ending is a weird moment of homoerotic
> reconciliation whose moral could be "The company, like God, loves
and
> forgives you."
>
This is SOOOOO farfetched that I can't help giggling. Neat trick
turning the movie into an anti-capitalist homoerotic tract. Would
have made Wilder giggle too. By the way, do you know any movie that
does NOT have a homoerotic subtext?
> In LAURA the bad acting is also strangely appropriate, insofar as
it
> makes one feel more comfortable with the even stupider plot
details --
> why on earth would a detective let anyone tag along while he's
> questioning people about a murder??? It plays like a burlesque,
each
> of the actors disarms you with their campiness, and one can then
> embrace the more genuinely touching aspects of the film, how
> desperate and possessive many of the characters seem to be to this
> empty, shallow Maltese Falconess called Laura, another virgin-in-
> peril type played by Gene Tierney, this time so devoid of
personality
> or sensuality that she only brings out the gayness in the male
leads
Laura brings out the gayness in Mark? What does he do, make a
pass at Shelby? Fantasize about making it with Waldo? Rewriting
movies to indulge your own fantasies may be fun, but should we take
it seriously?
Tierney's acting is vapid, of course, but again it fits the
character. At least what we know of the character... In her first
encounter with Waldo she is a pest trying to sell him her stupid
fountain pen poster, and he is perfectly right in pointing out her
rudeness -- which doesn't faze her at all. She uses him and his
connections to promote her career, although we never see what she
does or how she become successful. We also know that she is stubborn
and somewhat dumb: she is in denial about Shelby's being a gigolo
with no scruple even when shown the evidence. Then she goes away, is
believed dead, returns and she is a big cipher, with the plot moving
on around her dead weight.
13936
From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:56pm
Subject: Re: good bad acting
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
the blandly composed
> lovers (whose totally unconvincing lack of chemistry is what
keeps
> this film from YES-ville) who win out in the end.
My least favor Preminger noir, lumpy and indigestible. But if you
read how much flack he was getting throughout production from
Zanuck, it's amazing he even got it in the can.
13937
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:07pm
Subject: Re: Re: good bad acting
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
By the way, do you know
> any movie that
> does NOT have a homoerotic subtext?
>
"La Region Centrale"
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13938
From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:10pm
Subject: David Raskin RIP
Since we are talking about LAURA, I should note that the composer of
Laura's theme, David Raskin, just died.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/arts/11raksin.html
Raskin had quite an interesting film/musicography, including many
films by cherished AFB auteurs. Appropriately, his last credit is the
1998 OTTO PREMINGER, which maybe someone here (Peter?) has seen.
His career:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000710/
13939
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:30pm
Subject: Re: good bad acting
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> By the way, do you know
> > any movie that
> > does NOT have a homoerotic subtext?
> >
>
> "La Region Centrale"
>
>
> I'm not so sure. if you dig deep enough...
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13940
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:44pm
Subject: Re: David Raskin RIP
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ciccone" wrote:
> Since we are talking about LAURA, I should note that the composer of
> Laura's theme, David Raskin, just died.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/arts/11raksin.html
>
Well, it's Raksin, not Raskin, but I myself called him "Raskin"
for many years before I realized I was in error. Interesting mistake.
It's like people always calling Joseph Cotten "Cotton" in print
>
He did the score for five OP movies between 1944 and 1949.
His "Laura" theme song is, in Shelby Carpenter's immortal words "not
classical, but sweet."
Raskin had quite an interesting film/musicography, including many
> films by cherished AFB auteurs. Appropriately, his last credit is
the
> 1998 OTTO PREMINGER, which maybe someone here (Peter?) has seen.
>
> His career:
> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000710/
13941
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: David Raskin RIP
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> > His career:
> > http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000710/
>
>
Lots or teriffic items I'd forgotten about like
"Night Tide" and "What's the Matter with Helen?" for
Curtis Harrington.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13942
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:16pm
Subject: Re: good bad acting
> What you are calling bad acting is acting that you yourself
define
> as "totally appropriate" to the psychology of the characters being
> portrayed (a psychology you describe remarkably well, I might
add).
> In my vocabulary that would be called good acting. What, then,
would
> be good acting according to you, given the way the characters are
> written? And to what extent are OP and BW guilty of bad direction
le
> for directing the actors the way they did?
My general take is that the things that make the performances in
LAURA fascinating (a term I'm more comfortable with using to describe
them than "good") were largely accidental, as opposed to an actor (or
director) who seems to have more control over his delivery. But to
really prove this, here's where my characteristic disinterest in
background information on production details betrays me. From what
little I know, I can only infer that in the case of LAURA, as Bill
implies, Preminger had to assume ad hoc control of the film when
Mamoulian (I think it was) dropped out, and probably didn't have the
optimal conditions to shape the material and shooting the way he
liked. I haven't seen that many Preminger films to know what his
characteristic treatment of actors is. I just found the line
readings to sound too much like dinner theatre -- it may just be a
matter of taste. The way that Webb, Price and Anderton emoted just
seemed too obvious and overly desperate in a way that bordered on
caricature. But this awkward, desperate school of acting ends up
echoing the awkward, desperate emotions of each of these characters
and their respective inabilities to control their desires -- this is
especially true of Webb, in one of the most poignant bad performances
ever. I love the way he hurtles himself across the length of the
frame when he dies at the end, as if his death throes were
saying, "This movie is mine, MINE I say!"
Compared to his later films, I'd say Wilder's direction of his actors
in DOUBLE INDEMNITY is stiff, thickly handled, cartoonish. This is
especially true of what he does with Stanwyck. But all of this
contributes to the film's iconic fatalistic force moving the
characters along with puppet strings.
> >
>
> This is SOOOOO farfetched that I can't help giggling. Neat trick
> turning the movie into an anti-capitalist homoerotic tract. Would
> have made Wilder giggle too. By the way, do you know any movie that
> does NOT have a homoerotic subtext?
As I admit later in the thread, I don't think Wilder was trying to
make some overt critique of 20th century capitalist modernity, he
just wanted to make a good movie. But if I'm guilty of reading too
much into it, so is James Naremore!
I don't go out of my way to look for homoerotic subtexts -- for me
it's more pleasurable to look for explicitly hetero-erotic texts,
that is when the wife ain't around.
> Laura brings out the gayness in Mark? What does he do, make a
> pass at Shelby? Fantasize about making it with Waldo? Rewriting
> movies to indulge your own fantasies may be fun, but should we take
> it seriously?
>
The gayness of the two male murder suspects in LAURA baffles me
insofar as I can't explain it any less than I can deny its presence.
Andrews' Detectiv Mark is kind of a blank proto-Tom Cruise type who
could conceivably go either way -- he's far more convincing pitching
woo to Laura's portrait than to the live flesh version.
> Tierney's acting is vapid, of course, but again it fits the
> character. At least what we know of the character... In her first
> encounter with Waldo she is a pest trying to sell him her stupid
> fountain pen poster, and he is perfectly right in pointing out her
> rudeness -- which doesn't faze her at all. She uses him and his
> connections to promote her career, although we never see what she
> does or how she become successful. We also know that she is
stubborn
> and somewhat dumb: she is in denial about Shelby's being a gigolo
> with no scruple even when shown the evidence. Then she goes away,
is
> believed dead, returns and she is a big cipher, with the plot
moving
> on around her dead weight.
I love Gene Tierney even if I could never believe her falling in love
with anyone -- I think THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR is the best love story
I've seen her in, and naturally it's with a dead man. I guess she's
also in love with a dead man in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, her best
performance, I think.
13943
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:22pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> I can't quite follow you on how Andersen's conclusions on CHINATOWN
> are "Stalinist" -- if anything Andersen is challenging the quasi-
> Stalinist aspects of CHINATOWN's revision of historical fact to
> reinforce popular sociopolitical mythology. And I don't think
> Andersen is substituting the myths he wants to tear down to replace
> with liberal myths of his own -- I think he leaves his film
> sufficiently open-ended for us to take whatever we like from his
> extended reconsiderations of Hollywood imagery and ideology.
I didn't say that Anderson's reading of Chinatown was Stalinist.
Rather, the language he was using to describe his own problems with
the film (in particular, its resolution) had a repressive, Stanlinist
tinge to it. Couldn't Greek tragedy be criticized at the same level
that Anderson is criticizing Chinatown? Furthermore, I'm not sure
how Chinatown's own reading of Los Angeles history is Stalinist, as
you claim here. Needless to say, I don't find Anderson's film open at
all, but closed off and sufficient unto itself. Perhaps I'm being
unfair or misreading the film entirely. I'd have to see it again,
although that will have to wait until I can see it for free,
preferably in the comfort of my own living room.
>
> I venture to say that Andersen is more sympathetic to COBRA than
you
> are, and I think your dismissal of that film complicates your
> implicit claim of being less puritanical in your tastes than
> Andersen. Andersen's film did the unimaginable: it made me want to
> see COBRA. I don't think Andersen was pulling a cheap, masochistic
> Morgan Spurlock stunt in spending years culling through the annals
of
> Los Angeles "trash" cinema just to find some silly action movie
clips
> to take potshots at. Even when he trashes a movie like HANGING UP
he
> demonstrates the generosity to take it more seriously than most,
and
> derives more insights from it than anyone would think of doing --
> which I think is emblematic of what makes the film great in my
view,
> how it wants to breathe new life into everything it sees.
I've never seen Cobra and Anderson's film has not sent me running off
to the video store to check it out. Funny what you got out of the
film and what I got out of it. My feeling throughout most of these
horror/action film clips was a constant nudging of the audience to
feel superior, to varying degrees, to what they were watching (also
true of the Jack Webb section, comparison to Bresson or Ozu or
whoever it was notwithstanding). And so if I'm guilty of a kind of
Puritanism myself here it doesn't have to do with the films
themselves so much as the attitude taken towards them. What is the
point of being "generous" to Hanging Up? And of all the films in the
world about L.A., why this one? In fact, I don't think he's generous
to the film at all and that it simply provides him with another
platform on which he can feel (and encourage the audience to feel)
superior to what is being shown.
>
> Anyway, I would love to see what your version of LOS ANGELES PLAYS
> ITSELF would look like -- if it is as much an improvement over
> Anderson's essay as you claim, I would greet it with nothing less
> than great enthusiasm.
I don't know L.A. well enough to make a film about it although I do
like the city (and I also like Point Blank so his argument that
people who hate L.A. love Point Blank doesn't hold water with me).
Anyway, I never claimed that I could come up with something better as
I don't make films. I only write about them (badly, I'm sure) and
teach them (probably even worse). My film, should it ever see the
light of day or the darkness of the auditorium, would largely be a
documentary of the imaginary, fed by seeing so many films set in Los
Angeles that I feel I know the city without having been in it all
that much. But it would probably centrally draw upon (to choose films
Anderson doesn't deal with) In a Lonely Place, Angel Face, Crime of
Passion, the 1954 version of A Star is Born (which is, to follow
Anderson's logic, more about Los Angeles as a space than Hollywood in
contrast to Wellman's version, which is more about the space of
Hollywood), and The Blue Gardenia. I'll stop there.
>
13944
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:26pm
Subject: Re: Re: good bad acting
> Compared to his later films, I'd say Wilder's direction of his actors
> in DOUBLE INDEMNITY is stiff, thickly handled, cartoonish. This is
> especially true of what he does with Stanwyck. But all of this
> contributes to the film's iconic fatalistic force moving the
> characters along with puppet strings.
I find this to be a pretty strange thread, maybe just because I side
with the fact that the acting in these films is "good," through and
through. I don't find Stanwyck's performance (wrought of her own free
will or cultivated by Wilder) to be stiff or "thickly handled." It's a
power-house piece, she's the perfect desperate conniver, even down to
the make-up level; her platinum bang-bob and plasticized lip-plate are
like the grill on a Mack truck, the physical armor for her inner
limpness. Which Stanwyck manages to put forth and hold back all at
once -- one of the great performances of '40s Hollywood.
craig.
13945
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:48pm
Subject: Preminger, Wilder, Tierney (Was: good bad acting)
> I love the way he hurtles himself across the length of the
> frame when he dies at the end, as if his death throes were
> saying, "This movie is mine, MINE I say!"
The framing, at least, should be credited to Preminger. It's a
distinctive shot: going on the basis of the prevailing wisdom about
Preminger's "objective" camera, you'd be surprised at the dramatic
compositions like this that turn up in his movies.
> Compared to his later films, I'd say Wilder's direction of his actors
> in DOUBLE INDEMNITY is stiff, thickly handled, cartoonish.
I would have thought that even Wilder's fans (of which I am not one)
would acknowledge a cartoonish streak in his direction of actors. In
the last year or two, I've seen only KISS ME STUPID and part of SOME
LIKE IT HOT, and the acting in both of them seemed like all cartoon, all
the time.
> I love Gene Tierney even if I could never believe her falling in love
> with anyone -- I think THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR is the best love story
> I've seen her in, and naturally it's with a dead man. I guess she's
> also in love with a dead man in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, her best
> performance, I think.
I resaw HEAVEN CAN WAIT in recent years and was surprised at how well
she did the Lubitsch thing - she got a lot of comedy out of her crying
scene. Really, she's rather more adept in that film than the adequate
Don Ameche. I mentioned her in a piece about Lubitsch and had to fight
my editor, who wanted me to qualify my praise for her performance,
because it was common knowledge that she couldn't act. - Dan
13946
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 2:45am
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
> And Los Angeles Plays Itself is, precisely, a personal voiceover in
> which Thom, as a native Angeleno, gripes about how H'wd - and others -
> have misrepresented his hometown.
A hometown which pretty much exists as what it is due to the industry that
(allegedly) misrepresents it ;-)
I haven't seen the film, how does it deal with this ?
-Sam
13947
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 2:58am
Subject: Re: good bad acting
I always thought Fred McMurray could've done a great Richard Nixon....
(especially after seeing "Pushover")
-Sam
13948
From:
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 3:56am
Subject: re: good bad acting
I was going to see DOUBLE INDEMNITY tonight anyway, but I kept my
eyes peeled for details that might be relevant to the discussion. I
second JPC's point that there is no such thing as "bad acting" per
se, just acting that is in or out of synch with the movie's overall
design, and MacMurray's admittedly flat performance seems very much
in keeping with the movie's approach. The characters are cardboard,
emotionally speaking, soulless connivers with nothing inside; they
don't even make noise when they walk. Even for a noir protagonist,
Walter is especially amoral and dislikable; his blunt come-on to
another man's wife has all the charm of a street-corner transaction,
and he proves to be neither as smart nor as irresistible as he thinks
himself to be.
I don't think it's quite right to say the movie has a hidden
homoerotic subtext -- for one thing, the exchange of "I love you"s
between MacMurray and Edward G. is hardly subterranean -- but the
heterosexuality sure is unconvincing. Off the top of my head, I can't
think of a cinematic crime of passion that involves less actual
passion. Chalk it up to bad chemistry if you will, but Walter's
attachment to Phyllis/Stanwyck's anklet has a creeping fetishism to
it, suggesting that this is a world where sexuality of any kind is
either frustrated or perverted. (The moment when Phyllis' husband's
seltzer bottle emits a short, usless burst of foam is a wicked, if
buried, joke.) Even visually, the movie seems deliberately flat
(although I suspect the print, otherwise in good condition, may have
been a bit overexposed), without depth of field that would allow the
characters somewhere to go. Straight down the line, indeed.
I don't think "cartoony" is at all a fair word to use for the
peformances in Wilder's films (at least the black and whites),
although "stylized" would occasionally be a fair cop.
Sam
13949
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 5:15am
Subject: More on the original Shadows (belatedly)
>
> > 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.
Just because Cassavetes told people that he donated this film to a
Midwestern film school is no guarantee that he did. Indeed, the fact
that the only known print wound up in the lost and found department
of the New York Transit Authority suggests that either Cassavetes
was lying or some Midwestern film school teacher took the print back
to New York and then lost it on the subway--which seems far less
likely. Either way, the fact that the film got lost through some
form of clumsiness or indifference does suggest a kind of
suppression to me.
Jonathan
13950
From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 5:46am
Subject: Re: help with query re: Los Angeles Plays Itself and Altman's Long Goodbye
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003" wrote:
> > And Los Angeles Plays Itself is, precisely, a personal voiceover
in
> > which Thom, as a native Angeleno, gripes about how H'wd - and
others -
> > have misrepresented his hometown.
>
> A hometown which pretty much exists as what it is due to the
industry that
> (allegedly) misrepresents it ;-)
>
> I haven't seen the film, how does it deal with this ?
>
> -Sam
Much more complexly and multifacetedly than your question implies.
13951
From: Brian Darr
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:33am
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself & Crime Wave
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> CRIME WAVE was made in 1952 so it comes in two years under the wire
> for 'scope/wide screen. I saw it projected at the 1.33 aspect ratio
> with De Toth in the audience, and he remarked on the quality of the
> print and the good projection (it was at a L.A. Cinematheque
> screening when the Cinematheque was at the Chaplin Theatre on the
> Raliegh Studio lot opposite Paramount.) So if it was projected at PFA
> in the wrong aspect ratio it was cropped at top and bottom and not on
> the sides as with a wide screen film.
>
> Richard
Well, unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. My skepticism is
removed, and my trust in Bay Area film institutions' projection
practices somewhat damaged, for the second time this year (after the
San Francisco Intl' Film Festival showed "Triple Agent" noticably
cropped).
13952
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:41am
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
> > A hometown which pretty much exists as what it is due to the
> industry that
> > (allegedly) misrepresents it ;-)
You've never been to Hollywood (or Los Angeles) have you?
It's the point of Thom's piece, Los Angeles is not Hollywood, and
both Los Angeles and Hollywood are made up of people who walk and
live in it--who have no connection to the industry at all.
The problem with Thom's film is that it only whispers this out of the
side of its soundtrack. Most of it is crushing and sharp criticism of
Hollywood industry films. Subsequently the film is made up of
Hollywood images with just a taste of the realities outside. It's all
commentary and illustration--not enough construction. "What is
important...is to make films that are giving birth to new films" said
Jean Rouch, and ultimately Thom doesn't provide the tools to fix the
era. It's debatable whether one even emerges from the theater seeing
better.
That said, the film contains a brilliant analysis of Chinatown and
some interesting thoughts on the anti-modernism of Hollywood films in
regard to the use of pre-existing architecture in said films.
UCLA, as a result of Thom's film, screened Bush Mama by Gerima and
Bless Their Little Hearts by Woodberry: the best thing to come of it,
for me.
Eadweard Muybridge: Zoopraxographer is much more vexing and an all
time favourite of mine.
Yours,
andy
13953
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:35am
Subject: Re: More on the original Shadows (belatedly)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
the fact
> that the only known print wound up in the lost and found department
> of the New York Transit Authority suggests that either Cassavetes
> was lying or some Midwestern film school teacher took the print
back
> to New York and then lost it on the subway--which seems far less
> likely. Either way, the fact that the film got lost through some
> form of clumsiness or indifference does suggest a kind of
> suppression to me.
>
> Jonathan
Welles' early botched essay film Portrait of Gina suffered the same
fate -- it sat in the Lost and Found department of the Ritz in Paris
for 20 years before being recovered by accident.
13954
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:48am
Subject: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel
Jim McBride's adaptation of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Flanders Panel
is finally available on DVD. Produced by the late CIBY 2000, it was
never released in the US. Artisan has finally released it on DVD as
Uncovered, a thriller title that refers cleverly to the inscription
uncovered by a young art restorer in a Flemish painting, triggering a
classical detective story that unfolds on two historical levels as
present-day characters start to perish, AND to the breasts of the
actress playing the heroine, a young Kate Beckinsall, whose presence
in the film and rising stardom supply the hook for this belated
release, after a ten-year delay. It was an unusual project for Jim
McBride, but he gave it all he had and made a delightful film which
does everything it can to in-carnate a rather abstract tale without
selling it short. Not for all tastes, but definitely for McBride
fans, mystery fans and lovers of cinema. And speaking of eroticism...
13955
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:07am
Subject: Re: good bad acting
> My general take is that the things that make the performances in
> LAURA fascinating (a term I'm more comfortable with using to
describe
> them than "good") were largely accidental, as opposed to an actor
(or
> director) who seems to have more control over his delivery. But to
> really prove this, here's where my characteristic disinterest in
> background information on production details betrays me. From what
> little I know, I can only infer that in the case of LAURA, as Bill
> implies, Preminger had to assume ad hoc control of the film when
> Mamoulian (I think it was) dropped out, and probably didn't have
the
> optimal conditions to shape the material and shooting the way he
> liked.
Mamoulian didn't "drop out", he was booted. "Booted, sir, is the
word." as Dr Praetorius would say. By Zanuck, for Preminger. Otto
then went on to make himself extremely unpopular with the whole cast,
(except Price) reshaping their performances to his will. Otto never
expressed disatisfaction with what he achieved, and I see no reason
to believe the result were accidental.
As to specific cats members, Webb knows EXACTLY what he's up to, as
does Price, Andrews does what he always does (well) and Tuerney was
still learaning her trade but has come on massively since her
SHOWGIRLS-style histrionics in SHANGHAI GESTURE, and is showing
glimpses of the true skill she would display in alter works like
HEAVEN CAN WAIT and THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR. She plays the part the
way it's written, which doesn't call for massive depth, just beauty
and poise.
> this is
> especially true of Webb, in one of the most poignant bad
performances
> ever.
I'm another one who can't see what "bad" means i9n this context - it
certainly doesn't seem to mean "bad". possibly "good" is the word
you're looking for.
Like it or not, there's a form of emphatisis in 1940s films which is
different to that used today, which can make music, dialogue or
acting seem strange, but it's not "bad", just of its time.
> Compared to his later films, I'd say Wilder's direction of his
actors
> in DOUBLE INDEMNITY is stiff, thickly handled, cartoonish.
Wilder was no doubt conscious he was making a genre film...also, it's
a 40s film (I don't mean these are limitations, just stylistic
background). I don't find any bad acting in the movie.
Melville felt MacMurray "invented underplaying" in that role. He says
that before that, even Bogart wasn't really underplaying.
> > This is SOOOOO farfetched that I can't help giggling. Neat
trick
> > turning the movie into an anti-capitalist homoerotic tract. Would
> > have made Wilder giggle too.
It may not be homooerotic but it's certainly homoemotional. Wilder
went on record to say that the two men were the real love story and
that he cut the original ending when he realised the scene with
MacMurray wounded in the office, by Robinson's side, said everything
that needed to be said abou the relationship.
But the original ending had Robinson leaving the gas chamber after
Mac's execution and reaching for a match to light his pipe (cigar?
whatever) and realising Mac wasn't there to give him a light like he
normally would - he realises how much he's going to miss his friend...
> The gayness of the two male murder suspects in LAURA baffles me
> insofar as I can't explain it any less than I can deny its
presence.
well, Webb seems designed to make Andrews look more manly. Sly
villains like that are common enough. The casting of Price maybe
pushes it too far. The fact that Preminger was careful to restrain
Webb from "flying" (to use a charming 40s term for campery) suggests
that it wasn't his intention to highlight gayness per se, and Price
remains closeted even in death (a skeleton in the closet - not that
he's fooling anyone) so Otto may have simply missed the clues.
I seem to be arguing that there IS an eccidental quality to the perfs
in LAURA now...hmm. Maybe in the gayness alone I'll admit it's more
prominent to our eyes than intended at the time.
> Andrews' Detectiv Mark is kind of a blank proto-Tom Cruise type who
> could conceivably go either way -- he's far more convincing
pitching
> woo to Laura's portrait than to the live flesh version.
According to James Ellroy, homicide detectives love LAURA because
they always fall in love with murder victims too.
A certain cipher-like character is indeed good for Laura's character
since we have to belive that she herself might possibly turn out to
be the killer - or if we don't, Andrews' character has to.
David Raskin, LAURA's composer, just died, btw. Maybe he read the
critique of his score here and keeled over?
13956
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:13am
Subject: Re: Nudity (Was: Cassavetes/Criterion)
> Verhoeven storyboarded the sex in Basic Instinct.
Well, on the one hand, I hate that film.
On the other hand, it hink that was the right approach. People can
look so awkward or unattractive in sex scenes, it has to be planned
to the nth degree, in order to LOOK spontaneous.
Remember a discussion between Hollywood actresses about nude scenes
that appeared in teh Guardian newspaper. On the subject of bad sex
scsnes they cited a few that degraded women, but their least
favourite was BASIC INSTINCT, for a different reason. Rosie
Perez: "Why do I have to look at this creepy old guy's butt?"
13957
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 1:14pm
Subject: Re: Re: good bad acting
--- cairnsdavid1967 wrote:
> Tierney was
> still learaning her trade but has come on massively
> since her
> SHOWGIRLS-style histrionics in SHANGHAI GESTURE,
I beg to differ. There's nothing Elizabeth
Berkeley-like in Tierney's "Poppie." Moreover the
entire film pulsates with a subtle eroticism far
beyond the ken of a vulgarian like Verhoeven.
>
> Melville felt MacMurray "invented underplaying" in
> that role. He says
> that before that, even Bogart wasn't really
> underplaying.
>
And Melville was right. This is even more true of
MacMurray in "The Apartment" where he plays as
character as purely evil as Menjou in "Paths of
Glory." And just as in Kubrick's film the depth of his
mendacity isn't immediately apparant.
Price
> remains closeted even in death (a skeleton in the
> closet - not that
> he's fooling anyone)
And that reminds me of a lunch break during the
shooting of "Gods in Monsters" when the subject turned
to gayness in Hollywood and someone asked "Was Vincent
Price gay?" to which Ian McKellen replied "Of course
he was gay. He was married to Coral Browne, wasn't
he?!"
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13958
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 2:20pm
Subject: Re: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel
> Jim McBride's adaptation of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Flanders Panel
> is finally available on DVD. Produced by the late CIBY 2000, it was
> never released in the US. Artisan has finally released it on DVD as
> Uncovered, a thriller title that refers cleverly to the inscription
> uncovered by a young art restorer in a Flemish painting, triggering a
> classical detective story that unfolds on two historical levels as
> present-day characters start to perish, AND to the breasts of the
> actress playing the heroine, a young Kate Beckinsall, whose presence
> in the film and rising stardom supply the hook for this belated
> release, after a ten-year delay. It was an unusual project for Jim
> McBride, but he gave it all he had and made a delightful film which
> does everything it can to in-carnate a rather abstract tale without
> selling it short. Not for all tastes, but definitely for McBride
> fans, mystery fans and lovers of cinema. And speaking of eroticism...
Thanks for the tip! If anyone in NYC wants to do a group screening to
motivate us to rent this sooner rather than later, let me know. - Dan
13959
From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 3:28pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
> The problem with Thom's film is that it only whispers this out of
the
> side of its soundtrack. Most of it is crushing and sharp criticism
of
> Hollywood industry films. Subsequently the film is made up of
> Hollywood images with just a taste of the realities outside. It's
all
> commentary and illustration--not enough construction. "What is
> important...is to make films that are giving birth to new films"
said
> Jean Rouch, and ultimately Thom doesn't provide the tools to fix
the
> era. It's debatable whether one even emerges from the theater
seeing
> better.
I certainly agree with the spirit of this statement, but I disagree
that Andersen didn't serve up enough instances of an alternative Los
Angeles cinema -- THE EXILES, BUSH MAMA, EL NORTE, L.A. PLAYS ITSELF,
AMERICAN ME, KILLER OF SHEEP and BLESS THEIR LITTLE HEARTS all got
more attention and advocacy than they've ever received in any other
documentary, I think. But most of all I think HIS film succeeds
brilliantly in assembling all those clips to reconstruct the
cinematic geography and history of Los Angeles. (It's wonderful to
be reminded that the oldest regenerative trick in the book, montage,
is still one of the most effective). As I said to Joe, the film gave
me a new set of eyes to see dozens of films in new ways. So I think
the film gives the greatest tools of all to build a new and improved
cinema -- the tools of acute perception, awareness of surroundings,
retrained focus on the people and places we normally take for
granted, resistance to cliche.
13960
From: samfilms2003
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 3:32pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
Jeeeez
What is this, Frameworks circa 2000 ?
OK, what I get for posting on a film I haven't seen.
Now that I don't know better even if I should, yes most people
in "LA" excuse me Los Angle-eese (apologies to Lilly Dillon)
don't work in the Entertainment Industry. Do they, in some
sense, work FOR the Entertainment Industry ? I think that's
actually a fair question.
-Sam
13961
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:05pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
>
> That said, the film contains a brilliant analysis of Chinatown >
andy
With the caveat that I saw a 2,40 roughcut narrated by Thom, not the
3-hr finished film:
1) discussing it afterward, it dawned on me that Chinatown was
influenced by Vertigo;
2) I thought it was ironic that the film ends with Billy Woodbury's
film. Doesn't that make LAPI fall into one of the myths that Thom
analyzes, specifically the one represented by Chinatown?
3) I know I saw a somewhat different film, but I'm puzzled how anyone
could see anything approaching what I saw and not like it! The extra
running time must have pushed some people over the edge.
13962
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:19pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "samfilms2003" wrote:
> Jeeeez
>
> What is this, Frameworks circa 2000 ?
>
> OK, what I get for posting on a film I haven't seen.
>
> Now that I don't know better even if I should, yes most people
> in "LA" excuse me Los Angle-eese (apologies to Lilly Dillon)
> don't work in the Entertainment Industry. Do they, in some
> sense, work FOR the Entertainment Industry ? I think that's
> actually a fair question.
>
> -Sam
It's a company town, but there are even older power centers. Mike
Davis's City of Glass is a good guide to geography and history. So is
Los Angeles Plays Itself!
Los Angeles is almost always a montage effect. The houses et al in
the film Chinatown were scattered about the older and, at that time,
declining parts of town, which the endless cycle of
destruction/construction fueled by money hadn't gotten to. In
Breathless 2 Richard Gere drives down an alley next to where I used
to live in Westwood and emerges in Beverly Hills. Andy Klein recently
commented on a couple of moments like that in Manchurian Candidate 2
-- a perennial ritual for Angeleno film critics. I suggested that
Thom show the finished film to a.d.'s and location scouts at the DGA
-- don't know if he will, but it would be an interesting screening.
If you ride around Paris with Bernard Eisenschitz he can show you
where everything was filmed -- Paris is another location that is
completely "shot out" (although the addition of tv series filming
here makes Los Angeles the champ). Jean Douchet wrote a picture book
about Paris in film that is, of course, very good.
13963
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:34pm
Subject: Re: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
--- hotlove666 wrote:
In
> Breathless 2 Richard Gere drives down an alley next
> to where I used
> to live in Westwood and emerges in Beverly Hills.
> Andy Klein recently
> commented on a couple of moments like that in
> Manchurian Candidate 2
> -- a perennial ritual for Angeleno film critics.
I know what you mean. That's part of the reason why
"Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn" is my favorite bad
made-for-TV movie. In a last ditch attempt to get a
real job and stop hustling, our hero (played by Leigh
J. McClosky) applies for a job at the Baskin-Robbins
that was a block away from where I used to live in
Hollywood.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13964
From: Travis Miles
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:35pm
Subject: Ralph Meeker
Having been reminded of his amazing performance in Kiss Me Deadly by Los
Angeles Plays Itself and then being bowled over again by him last night in
The Naked Spur, I was wondering if anyone could point me toward other
stellar appearances by Ralph Meeker. A quick perusal of his filmography
reveals that I've seen few of his films (Paths of Glory, Dirty Dozen, Winter
Kills).
The guy sure could swagger. And The Naked Spur: good grief, what a film...
13965
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:50pm
Subject: Re: Ralph Meeker
> Having been reminded of his amazing performance in Kiss Me Deadly by Los
> Angeles Plays Itself and then being bowled over again by him last night in
> The Naked Spur, I was wondering if anyone could point me toward other
> stellar appearances by Ralph Meeker. A quick perusal of his filmography
> reveals that I've seen few of his films (Paths of Glory, Dirty Dozen, Winter
> Kills).
> The guy sure could swagger. And The Naked Spur: good grief, what a film...
One famous performance that you don't name above is his evil Army
officer in RUN OF THE ARROW. I haven't seen Walsh's GLORY ALLEY in a
while, but it's one of Meeker's early lead performances, and the film
has fans. - Dan
13966
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 5:13pm
Subject: Re: good bad acting
> I beg to differ. There's nothing Elizabeth
> Berkeley-like in Tierney's "Poppie." Moreover the
> entire film pulsates with a subtle eroticism far
> beyond the ken of a vulgarian like Verhoeven.
Her drunken scene at the end always struck me as preposterously
overemphatic, in much the same way as EB's, and I say that as a
massive Gene fan. Not that any kind of performance is likely to be
out-and-out wrong in a film as delirious as SHANGEST, but it did
embarrass me a bit.
>
> And Melville was right. This is even more true of
> MacMurray in "The Apartment" where he plays as
> character as purely evil as Menjou in "Paths of
> Glory." And just as in Kubrick's film the depth of his
> mendacity isn't immediately apparant.
It's a great performance - he doesn't play the evil at all. Such a
great bit of good luck for film history that Paul Douglas died before
he could play it - you need someone a bit more handsome to explain
how MacLean could be attracted to this creep.
> And that reminds me of a lunch break during the
> shooting of "Gods in Monsters" when the subject turned
> to gayness in Hollywood and someone asked "Was Vincent
> Price gay?" to which Ian McKellen replied "Of course
> he was gay. He was married to Coral Browne, wasn't
> he?!"
Which in turn reminds me of Coral turning up to rehearse in a large
fur hat. After a while, the director asked:
"Miss Brown, are you quite comfortable in that hat."
"To be honest, no. I feel like I'm looking out of a yak's arsehole."
13967
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:15pm
Subject: Re: Ralph Meeker
Then it's high time I alerted tou all to this:
http://www.meekermuseum.com/
--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Having been reminded of his amazing performance in
> Kiss Me Deadly by Los
> > Angeles Plays Itself and then being bowled over
> again by him last night in
> > The Naked Spur, I was wondering if anyone could
> point me toward other
> > stellar appearances by Ralph Meeker. A quick
> perusal of his filmography
> > reveals that I've seen few of his films (Paths of
> Glory, Dirty Dozen, Winter
> > Kills).
> > The guy sure could swagger. And The Naked Spur:
> good grief, what a film...
>
> One famous performance that you don't name above is
> his evil Army
> officer in RUN OF THE ARROW. I haven't seen Walsh's
> GLORY ALLEY in a
> while, but it's one of Meeker's early lead
> performances, and the film
> has fans. - Dan
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13968
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:44pm
Subject: Re: Ralph Meeker
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> Then it's high time I alerted tou all to this:
>
> http://www.meekermuseum.com/
>
> Not to be forgotten is BIG HOUSE U.S.A in which he co-stars with
Broderick Crawford and Charles Bronson in a manner suggeting that a
reissue of this 1050s movies should be retitled TESTOSTERONE U.S.A.
His cameo as declining fighter Gameboy Baker in WINTER KILLS ought
not to be forgotten nor should his attempt to make Charles Bronson
undergo a word association test in THE DIRTY DOZEN be neglected.
>>
Tony Williams
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13969
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:55pm
Subject: Re: Ralph Meeker
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt
wrote:
> One famous performance that you don't name above is his evil
Army
> officer in RUN OF THE ARROW. I haven't seen Walsh's
GLORY ALLEY in a
> while, but it's one of Meeker's early lead performances, and the
film
> has fans. - Dan
I liked him in Bert I. Gordon's Empire of the Ants. "I'm doing it for
the children!"
I am also a fan of Glory Alley, but it helps to see the "normal"
Walshes first: Strawberry Blond and Gentleman Jim, say.
13970
From:
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 5:10pm
Subject: Mulligan's Bloodbrothers
On seeing Robert Mulligan's "Bloodbrothers" again recently, I am tempted to
rank it among his finest films. It was one of two Mulligan films from 1978,
the other being the wonderful "Same Time, Next Year." I can't imagine how
exciting it must have been to get two Mulligan films in the same year, particularly
since he hadn't made any since 1974's "The Nickel Ride" (and wasn't to make
anymore until 1982's "Kiss Me Goodbye.")
I was struck by the grace of Mulligan's mise-en-scene in just about every
shot, but a few scenes that stick out in my mind. There's the very careful way
the scene in Stony's bedroom, when his father confronts him about what he wants
to do with his life, is staged; I think of a particularly powerful extended
close-up of Stony to the left of the frame, with his father in the background
to the right, his back to the camera. I felt a great restraint in the way this
shot was held for several seconds longer than we might expect, and the way
that Mulligan allowed Stony and his father to remain in the same space; it's a
restraint that reminds me of the restraint Fred has talked about in a climactic
scene in "Clara's Heart."
Most impressive, perhaps, is the way Mulligan deals with the construction
scenes. There is something vast, maze-like and imprisoning about the
photographic style of the scenes of Stony on the job. A number of times during these
scenes, Mulligan uses a wide-angle lens to give us this sense. His use of time
is also interesting here, as it feels prolonged to emphasize Stony's
ill-at-easeness on the job when he's rushing up the stairs with cable, and down (and
back up again) the stairs several minutes later to fetch coffee for the crew.
Dave Kehr long ago identified Mulligan's visual style as being a subjective one,
one in which the camera style puts us in the shoes of a character; nowhere is
that clearer than it is in a scene such as this.
These are just a few notes on a great film.
Peter
13971
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 9:17pm
Subject: Re: Mulligan's Bloodbrothers
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> On seeing Robert Mulligan's "Bloodbrothers" again recently, I
am tempted to
> rank it among his finest films.
> Peter
Oudart wrote a rave review at the time-- I'll see if I can dig it out
for you.
13972
From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 9:19pm
Subject: Canons to the Left of Me, Canons to the Right of Me...
Now comes Paul Schrader with a book project he modestly
describes as follows:
...a book assignment from Faber & Faber that Schrader
describes as the film-studies equivalent of [my mad mentor
Harold Bloom's] The Western Canon. "Basically, it means
re-reading and re-viewing the history of the cinema -- the history
of film aesthetics, the history of all the masters, all of it. It will be
a defense of film as high art versus populist entertainment, as a
sort of reaction against all this people's-choice mentality about
movies. I'll be lucky to finish it before I die."
13973
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 9:48pm
Subject: Re: Ralph Meeker
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt
> wrote:
>
> > One famous performance that you don't name above is his evil
> Army
> > officer in RUN OF THE ARROW. I haven't seen Walsh's
> GLORY ALLEY in a
> > while, but it's one of Meeker's early lead performances, and the
> film
> > has fans. - Dan
>
> I liked him in Bert I. Gordon's Empire of the Ants. "I'm doing it
for
> the children!"
>
> I am also a fan of Glory Alley, but it helps to see the "normal"
> Walshes first: Strawberry Blond and Gentleman Jim, say.
I haven't seen GLORY ALLEY since it came out (!) and my dim
recollection is that it was pretty awful, although no movie that
gathers Leslie Caron, Gilbert Roland, Louis Armstrong and John
McIntire in addition to Meeker can be all bad.
Meeker's greatest films are indeed KISS ME DEADLY and THE NAKED
SPUR, but then they are two of the greatest movies ever made in my
opinion. My favorite western and my favorite "noir" (I rank KISS as
high as TOUCH OF EVIL, and I actually like it even better).
JPC
13974
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 9:54pm
Subject: Re: Canons to the Left of Me, Canons to the Right of Me...
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> Now comes Paul Schrader with a book project he modestly
> describes as follows:
>
> ...a book assignment from Faber & Faber that Schrader
> describes as the film-studies equivalent of [my mad mentor
> Harold Bloom's] The Western Canon. "Basically, it means
> re-reading and re-viewing the history of the cinema -- the history
> of film aesthetics, the history of all the masters, all of it. It
will be
> a defense of film as high art versus populist entertainment, as a
> sort of reaction against all this people's-choice mentality about
> movies. I'll be lucky to finish it before I die."
Paul should be on a_film_by. Re-reading and re-viewing the history of
the cinema is what we've all been doing here... But I'm not sure what
he means by "people's choice mentality."
13975
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:05pm
Subject: Re: Mulligan's Bloodbrothers
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, ptonguette@a... wrote:
> On seeing Robert Mulligan's "Bloodbrothers" again recently, I am
tempted to
> rank it among his finest films.
I was disappointed by it when it came out but your post makes me
want to watch it again. Fox Movie Channel showed THE NICKEL RIDE a
few days ago and seeing it again confirmed my feeling that it is one
of the best Mulligan films -- on a par with THE STALKING MOON,
another sadly neglected work.
13976
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel
-> > Jim McBride's adaptation of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Flanders
Panel
> > is finally available on DVD. Produced by the late CIBY 2000, it
was
> > never released in the US. Artisan has finally released it on DVD
as
> > Uncovered,
I was a great fan of McBride after his first three films (David
Holzman's Diary; My Girlfriend's Wedding; Glen and Randa). He then
completely vanished for more than ten years (except for something
called "Hot Times" in 1974, a soft porno, I understand, which I
haven't seen) and came back with immensely disappointing films:
Breathless, The Big Easy, Great Balls of Fire! Do these movies really
have admirers? Anyway "Uncovered" should be worth watching, and
thanks for mentioning it -- I wasn't even aware of its existence...
13977
From:
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:35pm
Subject: Re: Ralph Meeker
Certainly share the high esteem for "Kiss Me Deadly" and "The Naked Spur"!
One Ralph Meeker film that is fun at a much lower level than these is "Code
Two" (Fred Wilcox). This is a semi-documentary crime thriller, about Meeker and
buddies joing the LAPD.
Meeker made an impression on stage in "Picnic", but lost out on the film
version to William Holden (who was actually very good). Meeker spent much of his
career playing losers, sickos, etc, and never really managed to establish
himself as a leading man. This is a pity, because when he unleashed himself, as in
"Kiss Me Deadly", he was really something else!
Mike Grost
13978
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> -> > Jim McBride's adaptation of Arturo
> I was a great fan of McBride after his first
> three films (David
> Holzman's Diary; My Girlfriend's Wedding; Glen and
> Randa). He then
> completely vanished for more than ten years (except
> for something
> called "Hot Times" in 1974, a soft porno, I
> understand, which I
> haven't seen) and came back with immensely
> disappointing films:
> Breathless, The Big Easy, Great Balls of Fire! Do
> these movies really
> have admirers? Anyway "Uncovered" should be worth
> watching, and
> thanks for mentioning it -- I wasn't even aware of
> its existence...
>
>
Well "The Big Easy" is quite entertaining. But Jim has
had a lot of bad luck with projects over the years. He
was part of a whole circle I ran with in New York in
the early 70's. I saw "David Holzman's Diary" right
after it was shot. Almost a 3-D experience as this
fictional character was walking the West Side streets
I knew so well. My closest friend of that era, Lorenzo
Mans, played a brief but pivotal role in the film.
I haven't seen Jim for about a year. Here in L.A.
there was a time when we were running into one another
constantly at various film events. He's married to
Kenneth Tynan's daughter.
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now.
http://messenger.yahoo.com
13979
From:
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:41pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mulligan's Bloodbrothers
Jean-Pierre Coursodon wrote:
>I was disappointed by it when it came out but your post makes me
>want to watch it again.
Let us know if you do. I'd be curious to hear your reaction, Jean-Pierre.
>Fox Movie Channel showed THE NICKEL RIDE a
>few days ago and seeing it again confirmed my feeling that it is one
>of the best Mulligan films -- on a par with THE STALKING MOON,
>another sadly neglected work.
I keep meaning to revisit "The Stalking Moon"; your comments give me a good
excuse to do so. But I have seen "The Nickel Ride" recently and I absolutely
love it.
Only two Mulligans have disappointed me: "Come September" and "Kiss Me
Goodbye." I'd say that Mulligan isn't particularly great with comedy, but, as
Sheldon Kahn reminded me when I interviewed him, there's a good deal of comedy in
"Same Time, Next Year," and it's a great film. So I don't know why those two
don't come off.
Bill Krohn wrote:
>Oudart wrote a rave review at the time-- I'll see if I can dig it out
>for you.
Thanks, Bill - I'd love to read it.
Peter
13980
From:
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:47pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
Elizabeth Ward and Alain Silver's "Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles" (1987) is
a picture book showing photos of the real life sites Chandler wrote about in
his mystery fiction, accompanied by excerpts from his writings, most of which
show Chandler's descriptive powers at their peak. The photographs are
beautiful, and do a great deal towards clueing a non-resident of L.A. into what
Chandler's world looked like. (This is the same Alain Silver who is the film
historian.)
Mike Grost
When I last went to LA in 1985, people asked me what I saw. My answer: "The
UCLA Botanical Garden, The UC-Irvine Botanical Garden, Huntington Gardens, The
LA Arboretum near Pasadena, and Francesci Park in Santa Barbara - all the top
tourist attractions!" I love plants...
13981
From:
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:54pm
Subject: Re: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel
I did not especially like The Big Easy, or Great Balls of Fire, either.
Oddly enough, The Big Easy was spun off into a TV series that was a good deal
of fun, especially in its first season. It had tons of New Orleans
atmosphere, and good comedy. Plus some good Stedicam camera movements. It was much more
enjoyable than the movie.
Will be looking for "Uncovered".
Mike Grost
PS - I love Flemish art. The Detroit Institute of Arts has "The Madonna of
the Rose Garden" - in the background is a cityscape of Bruges in the 1400's. It
is just fascinating, like a setting for a fairy tale.
13982
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:07pm
Subject: McBride (Was: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel)
> and came back with immensely disappointing films:
> Breathless, The Big Easy, Great Balls of Fire! Do these movies really
> have admirers?
Geez, I really like the first two. GREAT BALLS didn't work that well -
but then the next two TV films, BLOOD TIES and THE WRONG MAN, were very
good.
BREATHLESS was slagged mercilessly in 1983 (except at the LA Reader,
where two of us ten-bested it, and the third person felt obligated to
explain in print why he didn't ten-best it), but I have a feeling it
would have been received better a few years later - it was a little
ahead of its time in the way it played with pop culture iconography. - Dan
13983
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:23pm
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
Bill wrote:
> 3) I know I saw a somewhat different film, but I'm puzzled how
anyone
> could see anything approaching what I saw and not like it! The
extra
> running time must have pushed some people over the edge.
Simply put, I was disappointed. I thought going in that I was going
to see the LA I'd never seen before, films I'd never seen before,
and new forms accordingly--AN INSPIRATION! Never found it there,
whether he ends on Woodberry or gives EXILES, KOS, BTLH, BUSH MAMA,
etc a 2 minute clip (like in a PBS documentary), never found it.
As I said in a post long ago, Thom's film is all defence and
illustration.
-andy
13984
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:42pm
Subject: Re: McBride (Was: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > and came back with immensely disappointing films:
> > Breathless, The Big Easy, Great Balls of Fire! Do these movies
really
> > have admirers?
>
> Geez, I really like the first two. GREAT BALLS didn't work that
well -
> but then the next two TV films, BLOOD TIES and THE WRONG MAN, were
very
> good.
>
> BREATHLESS was slagged mercilessly in 1983 (except at the LA
Reader,
> where two of us ten-bested it, and the third person felt obligated
to
> explain in print why he didn't ten-best it), but I have a feeling
it
> would have been received better a few years later - it was a little
> ahead of its time in the way it played with pop culture
iconography. - Dan
They're not terrible movies (although GREAT BALLS comes close) --
they just don't have any of the originality that made his first three
films so involving. THE BIG EASY is particularly trite and
predictable. Even though 1983 wasn't a great year, I find it hard to
see BREATHLESS as a ten-bester. Ahead of its time? Really?
13985
From: Damien Bona
Date: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:55pm
Subject: Mr. and Mrs. Price (was "good bad acting")
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> And that reminds me of a lunch break during the
> shooting of "Gods in Monsters" when the subject turned
> to gayness in Hollywood and someone asked "Was Vincent
> Price gay?" to which Ian McKellen replied "Of course
> he was gay. He was married to Coral Browne, wasn't
> he?!"
>
I've heard that on their wedding night, Vincent and Coral sat up in
bed, eating bonbons and drinking champagne as they went through the
Academy Players Directory. He pointed out all the men with whom he
had slept, she all the actresses she had done.
13986
From: Damien Bona
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 0:04am
Subject: Locatiojn, Location (was Los Angeles Plays Itself)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, hotlove666 wrote:
>
> In
> > Breathless 2 Richard Gere drives down an alley next
> > to where I used
> > to live in Westwood and emerges in Beverly Hills.
> > Andy Klein recently
> > commented on a couple of moments like that in
> > Manchurian Candidate 2
> > -- a perennial ritual for Angeleno film critics.
>
Anytime you see a movie that was shot in a city or town with which
you are very familiar, it's probably inevitable to be driven batty by
picking up all the discrepencies in continuity. In the otherwise
perfect Before Sunset, Eth and Julie are on the Left Bank in the 5th
Arrondissement. They turn a corner and are magically transported to
the Village St. Paul in the Marais.
13987
From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 0:47am
Subject: Re: Ralph Meeker
> Meeker made an impression on stage in "Picnic", but lost out on the
film
> version to William Holden (who was actually very good). Meeker
spent much of his
> career playing losers, sickos, etc, and never really managed to
establish
> himself as a leading man. This is a pity, because when he unleashed
himself, as in
> "Kiss Me Deadly", he was really something else!
>
> Mike Grost
Meeker did play a heroic role in the Cold War Berlin movie FOUR MEN
IN A JEEP (1951) which was his first film dealing with Berlin as an
occupied city divided into American, British, French, and Russian
zones. The film ends very unusually for that time with Meeker and his
Russian counterpart coming to some form of understanding after their
differences.
He also did a lot of television work and was the original "Man Called
Horse" in the 1957 WAGON TRAIN episode of that name. He played an
Easterner victimized by class issues who goes West and becomes
adopted by an Indian tribe. His performance was very nuanced and
sympathetic. It still remains in my mind many years after first
seeing it on British television. Perhaps an excavation of his
television roles may reveal other varied performances? He was also a
guest panelist on WHAT'S MY LINE? for one show.
Tony Williams
13988
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:05am
Subject: Re: Mr. and Mrs. Price (was "good bad acting")
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
>
>
> I've heard that on their wedding night, Vincent and Coral sat up in
> bed, eating bonbons and drinking champagne as they went through the
> Academy Players Directory. He pointed out all the men with whom he
> had slept, she all the actresses she had done.
Maybe this Line should be renamed "The Gay Tatler" or something...
13989
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:57am
Subject: Re: Mr. and Mrs. Price (was "good bad acting")
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
"I've heard that on their wedding night, Vincent and Coral sat up in
bed, eating bonbons and drinking champagne as they went through the
Academy Players Directory. He pointed out all the men with whom he
had slept, she all the actresses she had done."
Sounds apocryphal. Even Price's daughter Victoria, an out Lesbian,
couldn't pin his sexual orientation down when she was researching the
biography she wrote. And if anyone could find out where all the
bodies are buried it would be her.
Richard
13990
From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:42am
Subject: Re: Mulligan's Bloodbrothers
I agree this is a tremendous film, one of Mulligan's best. I had the
privilege of seeing it and "Same Time Next Year" on their initial
releases. The second is great; it's only by comparison to
"Bloodbrothers" that it seemed minor.
I saw it two or three times back then, but not since, but I remember the
construction scenes well. Here, as so often elsewhere, Mulligan's
backgrounds are as important as the characters, adding a kind of
emotional life and color to the scene.
Fred Camper
13991
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:47am
Subject: Re: Re: McBride (Was: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel)
> They're not terrible movies (although GREAT BALLS comes close) --
> they just don't have any of the originality that made his first three
> films so involving. THE BIG EASY is particularly trite and
> predictable.
Well, there's something to what you say. McBride was an indie
filmmaker, with the freedom that goes with the territory; around the
time of BREATHLESS, I think he decided very consciously that he wanted
to have a career, and started doing projects that were not necessarily
of his choosing. But I greatly admire him for trying so hard to make
all these commercial projects into something worthwhile - and I think he
had a pretty high success rate. THE BIG EASY and BLOOD TIES were
problematic in concept, and BREATHLESS and THE WRONG MAN don't seem like
obvious McBride projects. And yet he found something in all of them to
hang his ideas on. - Dan
13992
From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 4:25am
Subject: OT: employment/compensation question
Compensation-related questions come up here from time to time, and
people like Fred have had numerous, helpful things to say about the
matter. My question is broader in scope than writing jobs and writing
gigs.
I just found a job after a long search punctuated by erratic temp work
- it's full-time, with a 60-day, $600 per week "probation period," at
the end of which I may be offered more. It isn't my target salary but
I'm happy to go with it for now.
The thing is, they want to pay me in cash. I'm really uncomfortable
with this idea, but I have no idea why. The problem isn't the taxes -
it's a hassle to handle it myself without a payroll department taking
care of the withholding, but I'm a Good Citizen, I'll pay what's due -
but this nagging, vague feeling of an insecure compensation method.
The company seems to be on the up and up. It's been around awhile
(I've done a little investigating) and no red lights went off (only a
yellow - closer to orange - light for the cash thing), and it's a nice
environment, a 15-person company, a laid-back atmosphere...in other
words, I don't get the feeling that I'm going to be asked for my
credit card number, or that I'll come in one day and the office will
be completely empty, save for an empty soda can and a few coat
hangers. I like to think I can spot a potential hustle, and this
doesn't seem to be the case: it's a regular job-type job, forty hours
a week, intelligent and unpretentious people and a casual dress code.
(Also the co-owner of the company is this lady named Marlena who was
taking a class on Tibetan art *in her office*, which seemed
unassailably cool to me.)
My main question is this: what are the potential problems with this
arrangment, with being paid in cash instead of with a check from
payroll? How am I at a disadvantage? In what way can I be screwed
that can't happen with the regular way?
Feel free to e-mail me offlist to save bandwidth.
Obligatory film content: Anthony Mann is so awesome it hurts.
-Jaime
13993
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 4:31am
Subject: Re: Re: Mr. and Mrs. Price (was "good bad acting")
--- Richard Modiano wrote:
Even Price's daughter Victoria,
> an out Lesbian,
> couldn't pin his sexual orientation down when she
> was researching the
> biography she wrote. And if anyone could find out
> where all the
> bodies are buried it would be her.
>
Oh she was just being "discreet."
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now.
http://messenger.yahoo.com
13994
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:06am
Subject: Re: McBride (Was: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > and came back with immensely disappointing films:
> > Breathless, The Big Easy, Great Balls of Fire! Do these movies
really
> > have admirers?
>
> Geez, I really like the first two.
I love Breathless (known as A bout de souffle Made in USA in France,
where many people I know discovered it on tv and loved it too). In
those off years he also made a documentary I like better than
Girlfriend's Wedding and David Holzman -- Pictures from Life's Other
Side. It and Wedding will soon be available at Cinefile -- Jim lent
them 16 prints to telecine. I love Glen and Randa, too, but
Breathless is Jim's best film. Gere is unbelievable in that. Big
Easy, I agree, is fun, and Great Balls an unmitigated disaster.
Flanders Panel aka Uncovered seems to have hurt Jim's feature career,
but I really like his anti-IRA film for Showtime, The Informant; his
Twilight Zone, Once and Future King, about an Elvis imitator who
accidentally kills Elvis and has to replace him; The Wrong Man, which
contains an all-nighter worthy of comparison to the one in Wind
Across the Everglades; Blood Ties, and the first ten minutes of the
Meatloaf biopic, which Jim disavows utterly. He is trying to get a
sequel he has written of Holzman's Diary made, teaching at AFI and
continuing to work in tv. He did one episode of Six Feet Under, for
example. Pronto, an Elmore Leonard adaptation for Showtime, is better
than ok, not great -- Peter Falk starred in that one. There are 2
other telefilms I haven't seen.
Repeated boast: The Straubs told Jim that the interview Barbara Frank
and I did with him for CdC, covering his career thru Breathless,
changed their lives. I still bump into him at film events: the CAA
screening of Our Lady of the Assassins, the noir series at the
Cinematheque when The Chase (Ripley) played, outside the Nuart when
Bay of Angels was showing. Tracy Tynan, his wife, is Tynan's
daughter, as David mentioned, and the costume designer for many of
the films. In some ways the (surviving) lovers in Uncovered are like
odd reflections of Jim and Tracy when they were younger, if I'm not
imagining things. Very good people.
One key to Jim is that he is inherently raunchy in a way that H'wd
doesn't permit or understand. When I told Tracy how disappoiinted I
was with Wonder Boys, because it needed one good "Jim McBride scene"
that wasn't there to put it over the top, she said you can't do that
kind of scene with a star like Douglas. The motel room scene with
Rosanna Arquette and John Lithgow in Wrong Man is one of those.
He has also become quite a good filmmaker -- one whose instincts to
create authentic films have remained miraculously intact thru much
travail. It helps that he has an inexhaustible sense of humor.
Brad Stevens, author of a must-read book on Ferrara, and a Lurker on
the Site, is working on a McBride book now.
13995
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:08am
Subject: Re: Mr. and Mrs. Price (was "good bad acting")
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I've heard that on their wedding night, Vincent and Coral sat up
in
> > bed, eating bonbons and drinking champagne as they went through
the
> > Academy Players Directory. He pointed out all the men with whom
he
> > had slept, she all the actresses she had done.
>
>
> Maybe this Line should be renamed "The Gay Tatler" or something...
They had me fooled.
13996
From: Henrik Sylow
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 7:26am
Subject: Happy Birthday, Hitch
Happy 105th birthday
13997
From: Hadrian
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 7:41am
Subject: Re: McBride (Was: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel)
I love "Breathless" too --which gave me the courage to ask
McBride if he had copies of his earlier films I could see. Proving
again what an unusually friendly man he is, he happily loaned
me the 16mm's he had in exchange for me making him mini-DV
copies while I was at it.
Incidentally another big fan of "Breathless" is Tarantino, who
regularly lists it in his top 10 favorite movies. With his taste for
the sensory pleasures it makes a lot of sense --an incredibly
beautiful woman (McBride can pick 'em)`, comic book geekery,
wild film stylings (those back screen projections!), and rockabilly
soundtrack. The film's a blast , and for me, captured the spirit of
the original, perhaps not the spirit of the filmmaker's intentions,
but certainly of it's perennial fun-loving collegiate fanbase.
incidentally, the films are transferred and available
hadrian
13998
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 7:44am
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Plays Itself
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector" wrote:
> As I said in a post long ago, Thom's film is all defence and
> illustration.
There's at least one other person out there who agrees with Andy on this -- and that
person isn't even a huge fan of the EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE film. I don't dislike either,
ultimately, but I'm not floored in the way others are.
I'll have to see LA PLAYS ITSELF again to elaborate. THE EXILES on the other hand is a
true revelation, and when I spoke to Thom earlier in the year it was mainly on that
film.
Gabe
13999
From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 7:54am
Subject: Re: McBride (Was: Uncovered IS The Flanders Panel)
Chicago's Film Center will screen McBride's BREATHLESS on August 28 and 31 in an
archival 35.
(Many other goodies in the same series, which is dubbed Beautiful Losers, but could
also be called Auteurist Favorites.)
Gabe
14000
From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 8:31am
Subject: Re: McBride
"... Brad Stevens, author of a must-read book on Ferrara, and a Lurker
on
the Site, is working on a McBride book now" ...
... to be published by your friends at ROUGE PRESS ! (Copies of our
first book, on Ruiz, not replicating the material on-line, are still
available!)
Adrian
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
a_film_by Main Page
Home Film
Art
Other: (Travel, Rants, Obits)
Links About
Contact