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16101


From: Patrick Ciccone
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:14pm
Subject: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
Does any one have a press release naming the films to be shown at the
Film Forum film noir series this November and December?
http://www.filmforum.com/films/essentialnoir.html
Billed as "1941-1958--Four Weeks! 34 Films! All 35mm prints!"

I am giddy with anticipation.

PWC
16102


From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:42pm
Subject: Re: re: Sirk
 
I have heard more than once that Sirk geared his comments to the person
he was speaking to.

Some actual evidence:

1. When the (presumably Marxist) editors of the special issue of
"Screen" on Sirk in 1971 expressed some qualms about the contradictory
positions being taken about him, Sirk wrote them a short letter quoting
Chairman Mao about the virtue of embracing contradictions in all aspects
of life. I wondered at the time if he wasn't chuckling from his safe
Swiss retreat as he wrote it.

2. Unless I'm mistaken and misread the original Cahiers interview with
my dictionary in hand long ago, while Sirk expresses great liberal
interest in the problems of the Indians when talking to Halliday about
"Taza, Son of Chochise," he told the Cahiers interviewers in the mid-60s
that one of the main things he remembered about the Indian extras on
that film was their foul body odor!

3. I met him once, in 1979, for two and a half hours alone. I asked him
if there had been no commercial concerns if he wouldn't have made
different kinds of films, and he proceeded to spin scenarios of
"experimental" films he would have liked to have made. He didn't seem
insincere, but at the same time he knew enough about me to know I would
be receptive to this answer.

To restate the obvious, people are different, and there's good evidence
that personality has some genetic basis. But also remember that we're
talking about a man who grew up between several European cultures, who
managed to make films in the early years of Nazism, survived making
films in several other Euopean countries, and then make a new career for
himself in Hollywood after some difficult early years. If gearing his
speech to his listener wasn't in his genes, he would have had to have
learned this skill pretty early; probably it was second nature by the
time admirers found him.

Fred Camper
16103


From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:58pm
Subject: Re: Head in the Clouds (auteurists versus audience)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666" wrote:
> How did Sirk -- in Imitation of
> Life, if not in Summer Storm -- make a film we can love today that
> was also the biggest grosser in Universal history?

[Was this (16059) the post that Yahoo lost, or is it a recap?]

At least some of the movie's popularity presumably derived from its "imitation," or at least reflection, of Lana Turner's real-life scandal... (Sirk to Halliday: "Imitation of Life could not have been sold without Lana Turner -- and she didn't want to do it.")
16104


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:07pm
Subject: Re: Minnelli (was Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay?)
 
--- Richard Modiano wrote:


>
> I wonder if we can trust the veracity of "Hollywood
> Babaylon"?
> According to Anger's friend David Del Valle Anger
> was staying with
> him while writing "Hollywood Babylon II" and had run
> out of
> scandalous stories, so Del Valle supplied one about
> George Zucco
> wandering out of the mental hospital where he'd been
> committed and
> raving that Great Cthulhu was after him! This story
> was completely
> fabricated. The Hitchcock-Grace Kelly story in the
> same book was also
> bogus. I suspect that there are as many fake
> stories as true ones in
> the "Hollywood Babylon" books.
>
As wildly entertaining as he may be, Anger isn't to be
trusted when it comes to Hollywood history.




__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
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16105


From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:43pm
Subject: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay?
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:

> Sirk may indeed have
> had "the urge to merge with a splurge,"

Won't you be more specific?

> but it counts
> for little in terms of the actual films. Indeed Todd
> made "Far From Heaven" the better to examine
> everything that Sirk wouldn't dream of dealing with.

Haynes talks about Sirk at http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2002/111402/film1.html -- "though he wasn't gay, I always felt there was a strong gay sensibility about his work."

According to the article, "[Haynes] wanted to infuse the film with a homosexual text -- something Sirk had wanted to do, Haynes notes, but hadn't been able to because of censorship constraints."

So is Haynes referring to any Sirk film or statement in particular here?


> there's an enormous difference
> betweena filmmaker who happened to be gay and a gay
> filmmaker. In the former category I'd place Ozu, Cukor
> and Whale.

OK, I'll bite. You actually might be able to place Ozu briefly in the latter category with the (slightly offscreen) lesbian kiss in DRAGNET GIRL -- but, while I do remember reading something about a youthful crush, I didn't know there was evidence for the first category, plausible though it seems...?
16106


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:02pm
Subject: Re: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay?
 
--- jess_l_amortell wrote:

> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
>
> > Sirk may indeed have
> > had "the urge to merge with a splurge,"
>
> Won't you be more specific?

That he may in actual life have had a "sexual
encounter" (as the "mainstream" media love to say)
with another man.

But so have a lot of people and that doesn't "make
them gay."


>
> According to the article, "[Haynes] wanted to infuse
> the film with a homosexual text -- something Sirk
> had wanted to do, Haynes notes, but hadn't been able
> to because of censorship constraints."
>
> So is Haynes referring to any Sirk film or statement
> in particular here?
>

I can't say. I know of no statment Sirk has ever made
in this regard vis-a-vis gayness. Maybe this has to do
with "adult themes" in general which in the 50's were
treated with kid gloves.


>
> OK, I'll bite. You actually might be able to place
> Ozu briefly in the latter category with the
> (slightly offscreen) lesbian kiss in DRAGNET GIRL --
> but, while I do remember reading something about a
> youthful crush, I didn't know there was evidence for
> the first category, plausible though it seems...?
>
>
>
Ozu's gayness is well known in Japanese film circles.
He was thrown out of school when it was discovred that
he had been writing love leters to another boy. This
was referred to in passing in one of his late films (I
forget which) in which the old men having dinner
together mention a schoolmate who had been tossed out
because of a scandal involving love letters to another
boy.

And yes, Ozu was in love with Chishu Ryu.



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
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16107


From: Damien Bona
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:00pm
Subject: Re: Sirk
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
So, there's an element there of Sirk playing up to
> the Marx-Brecht-irony-distanciation sensibility of his
interlocuter - rather
> than the emotive-full-blooded-melodrama sensibility that he
insisted on to
> my friend.
>

Sirk told Mike Stern that among his films there were some narratives
that he related to emotionally and treated much more-head on,
There's Always Tomorrow, Tarnished Angels and A Time To Live and A
Time To Die being two examples. Then there were scripts that he
thought could only be handled with an ironic-distancing approach,
Written On The Wind being key among them. As for Imitation of Life,
he used both styles, emotive melodrama for the Juanita Moore/Susan
Kohner elements, and, to use Kevin John's term,overcoming the
material with Lana Turner and Sandra Dee. It is this melding of
distinctive styles that above all makes, I feel, Imitation of Life
not only Sirk's greatest film but one of the greatest of all films.
16108


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:12pm
Subject: Axel Madsen (was: Sirk)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
> 2. Unless I'm mistaken and misread the original Cahiers interview
with
> my dictionary in hand long ago, while Sirk expresses great liberal
> interest in the problems of the Indians when talking to Halliday
about
> "Taza, Son of Chochise," he told the Cahiers interviewers in the
mid-60s
> that one of the main things he remembered about the Indian extras
on
> that film was their foul body odor!

If he was being interviewed by my predecessor Axel Madsen, he was
preaching to the choir. The only time I met Madsen he told me about
taking two 60s-vintage CdC editors to meet Cukor, after which Cukor
complained to Madsen about their body odor. I was so disgusted by the
anecdote -- which Madsen had probably told as often as Jude Law tells
his "Shania's sandwich" anecdote in I Love Huckabee's -- that I went
out of my way afterwards not to buddy up to directors here by bonding
AGAINST my friends in France.

An appalling person, nothing like the great Herman G., whom I also
met once in Catherine Veret's office in NY. It was a struggle for him
to raise his corpulent, aged body from the couch to shake my hand,
by he was a gent all the way, and he finally made it! Saint Cinema is
a great film book, worth all of Madsen's subsequent publishing
ventures put together. But Madsen was a good reporter (his last
interview w. Ford was astonishing), and I hope his French friends
never got wind (sic) of how he talked about them here.
16109


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:17pm
Subject: Re: Head in the Clouds (auteurists versus audience)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> > How did Sirk -- in Imitation of
> > Life, if not in Summer Storm -- make a film we can love today
that
> > was also the biggest grosser in Universal history?
>
> [Was this (16059) the post that Yahoo lost, or is it a recap?]

Yes. Mysterious are the ways of the aptly-named Yahoo.

> At least some of the movie's popularity presumably derived from
its "imitation," or at least reflection, of Lana Turner's real-life
scandal... (Sirk to Halliday: "Imitation of Life could not have been
sold without Lana Turner -- and she didn't want to do it.")

The answer to my question, which you copied into your post, is: Ross
Hunter. Imitation of Life is brilliantly directed and brilliantly
produced. Hunter threw in every boxoffice ingredient but an actual
knifed gangster. It just about had to be a b.o. behemoth.
16110


From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay?
 
Thanks to all who have replied so far. I especially like the Haynes
quote, for obvious reasons, and David's fine distinctions between having
had sex with men and being gay, and also between being gay and being a
"gay auteur." Even if Sirk had told the second Mrs. Sirk that despite
enjoying women he really was gay, which would be worth knowing about,
that doesn't mean that calling him a "gay auteur" is exactly
appropriate, or at least, it would be debatable as to whether it's
appropriate, especially as the first reference as Doc does, for the
reasons David indicates.

I'll write Doc soon with the evidence gathered here.

Fred Camper
16111


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:29pm
Subject: Re: Sirk
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:

> Sirk told Mike Stern that among his films there were some
narratives
> that he related to emotionally and treated much more-head on,
> There's Always Tomorrow, Tarnished Angels and A Time To Live and A
> Time To Die being two examples. Then there were scripts that he
> thought could only be handled with an ironic-distancing approach,
> Written On The Wind being key among them. As for Imitation of
Life,
> he used both styles, emotive melodrama for the Juanita Moore/Susan
> Kohner elements, and, to use Kevin John's term,overcoming the
> material with Lana Turner and Sandra Dee. It is this melding of
> distinctive styles that above all makes, I feel, Imitation of Life
> not only Sirk's greatest film but one of the greatest of all films.

That makes a lot of sense -- particularly re: the 2 plots in
Imitation -- but I'm a little surprised at the inclusion of Written
in the ironic column -- All, Battle Hymn and Mag Ob, sure, but I
always thought Written was a straight (sic) tragedy, like Tarnished
(same team, same producer).
16112


From:
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 2:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: Sirk
 
In a message dated 9/28/04 1:25:21 PM, damienbona@y... writes:


> It is this melding of distinctive styles that above all makes, I feel,
> Imitation of Life not only Sirk's greatest film but one of the greatest of all
> films.
>
BINGO!! But I'll go one further and state that it is the greatest of all
(classical Hollywood) films.

Kevin John




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16113


From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:08pm
Subject: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay? (Ozu)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> >
> Ozu's gayness is well known in Japanese film circles.
> He was thrown out of school when it was discovred that
> he had been writing love leters to another boy. This
> was referred to in passing in one of his late films (I
> forget which) in which the old men having dinner
> together mention a schoolmate who had been tossed out
> because of a scandal involving love letters to another
> boy.


I may have lost that in translation! In differently subtitled prints they sometimes seem to be having different conversations. In the videotape of EARLY SUMMER, Noriko's boss asks one of her 'girlfriends' if (the unmarried Katharine Hepburn fan) Noriko is a lesbian. (Not that avoiding marriage is exactly uncommon in Ozu's films.) Laughing, the friend replies "No way!" In an earlier videotape edition, "No way" isn't translated as such (maybe the phrase hadn't been coined yet). While in the current theatrical print, if memory serves the exchange seems to go untranslated entirely. (I'm looking forward to seeing how Criterion's new subtitles handle this, and other things.)
16114


From: Maxime Renaudin
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:48pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
Incidentally, very recently I had this foolish idea – pathetic,
silly if you wish – to reveal "The Tiger of Eschnapur" to a couple
of friends, as it was shown on TV. My enthusiasm was not sufficient
to convince them of what could be at stake, but these dear friends,
total neophyte regarding cinema, willingly took part to this little
experience. I did not take the trouble to make any preparatory
introduction, full with trust in the miracle to come. No need to say
it was a complete failure. Sarcastic laughs didn't take a long time
to come. I faced up without blushing, holding back my tears and
swallowing my anger. We didn't wait long to turn the TV off and skip
it for something else.

Anger? Anger at what? With who? My friends? Myself, naïve enough to
believe there are two pairs of eyes in the entire universe that are
able to see the world as only one? Lang and this secret? Which
damned secret?, so well buried that nobody can see it, except for a
handful of fools, masturbating in front of dead images.

There is no secret. Just shit on the eyes – meaning no offence to
anyone, especially to these friends, whose open mind has nothing to
envy to many people I know. But they can't see. They don't know how
to see. They would not even know how to start. And, actually, they
don't care. Corrupted eyes, eager for pre-degisted formatted
programs, with no appetite for the unknown. And yet, all is on the
screen. Nothing to decipher with a secret code. No need to know
twenty movies by Fritz Lang and get familiar with his secrets
obsessions. All is on the screen. The face of Debra Paget coming
trough the stones. Paul Hubschmid yelling at the sun. And don't talk
me about lost innocence. There are only pure innocent hearts here
below.

As a matter of fact, and rather paradoxically in our images world,
there is no place and no time here where one could have the
opportunity to learn how to read images – not even talking about
movies. "Moonfleet", "Mon Cas" and "Street of Shame" should be
compulsory in every single school as part of the regular programme.

Just pissing in the wind anyway. We can live with the divorce
between so-called auteurists and audience. Leaving only one
question: why the taste for beauty?

Maxime
16115


From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:09pm
Subject: Re: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
Maxime Renaudin wrote:

>....the divorce between so-called auteurists and audience.....
>
This has been a kind of disagreement in this group for some time. Some
are of the view that what "we" like is not that different from what most
viewers like, others that there is a big split. I am of the latter view,
which is not to say that David E's mom might not belong with "us," but
just that I don't think most of the "public" does. You might fool
yourself into the former view with a program of "Red River," "Psycho,"
"Hangmen Also Die," "The Searchers," "The Magnificent Ambersons," and
"Pickup on South Street ", but hos would a program of "Red Line 7000,"
"Marnie,"The Tiger of Eschnapur," "Seven Women," "Touch of Evil," and
"Shock Corridor" be received my most movie fans?

Keep in mind that I can remember the time in the mid to late 60s and
even early 70s when people were LAUGHED AT for taking even the films on
the first list of the two above seriously as works of art. I remember
when the only way to see "Red River" and "The Searchers" was on New
York's 42nd Street theaters with their near-hobo audiences, while the
"art" cinemas showed Bergman and Fellini and Antonioni and "The Red
Shoes," and the Rossellini of "Open City" and "Generale Della Rovere"
(both great films) and "Jules et Jim" and perhaps even "Citizen Kane"
but never "Touch of Evil" and never the Rossellini of his films with
Bergman.

It's hard to learn to see films for their deep structures. Everyone
assumes that they know how to see movies from going to light
entertainment's and seeing them that way, as is evidenced by the
superficial judgments of your friends; they're not accustomed to looking
for more. And TV viewings especially encourages such superficiality in
general, especially among the uninitiated. But your friends, if open
minded enough and with at least a smidgen of aesthetic interest, could
probably have their views changed with a long time spent viewing the
"right" films. For Lang I wouldn't start with the late ones, but ease
from some of the best of the German ones into "Fury" and "You Only Live
Once" and "The Big Heat." Once they can see the same principles
operating there, the next step would be the "junkers" -- among which are
also his greatest. that is, the last three Langs.

Fred Camper
16116


From:
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:15pm
Subject: Didn't You Hear... (1970/1983)
 
There's a screening tomorrow night of Didn't You Hear... directed by Skip
Sherwood. It was shot in 1970 and released in 1983. Stars Gary Busey and Dennis
Christopher. Anyone ever see it?

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16117


From:
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
In a message dated 9/28/04 4:11:20 PM, f@f... writes:


> hos would a program of "Red Line 7000," "Marnie,"The Tiger of Eschnapur,"
> "Seven Women," "Touch of Evil," and "Shock Corridor" be received my most movie
> fans?
>
I've had trouble convincing friends that RED LINE 7000 was a masterpiece and
I wouldn't even bother with THE TIGER OF ESCHNAPUR. But the other four have
gone over extraordinarily well with friends and/or large audiences I've been in.
TOUCH OF EVIL and SHOCK CORRIDOR, in particular, are so pulpy and fun that I
have yet to hear someone confess that they felt as if they were being burdened
with something artsy fartsy, difficult, boring, avant-garde, whatnot.

Kevin John




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16118


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:26pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin"
wrote:

Maxime, did they see the film in German or French? It makes a
huge difference. The release of the film on DVD in English and
German versions here enabled me to make the comparison. I
had been seeing it in badly dubbed English or French, and of
course loving it, but to see the film really you have to see it in
German, with Lang's mix -- otherwise it becomes very
disembodied. I'm not just talking dialogue here -- I don't
understand a word of German -- I'm talking dialogue and music
and sound effects. Big, big difference when you finally see it in
German with subtitles. It fills out; it becomes real; and, not
incidentally, it becomes an A film.
16119


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:29pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>

> >
> I've had trouble convincing friends that RED LINE 7000 was a
masterpiece and
> I wouldn't even bother with THE TIGER OF ESCHNAPUR. But
the other four have
> gone over extraordinarily well with friends and/or large
audiences I've been in.

I think we'd all agree that Joe McBrie is a fairly sophisticated
cinephile. He thought I was kidding when I said Red Line was
the film that made me a buff.
16120


From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:34pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
"I had been seeing it in badly dubbed English or French"

But weren't the actors actually speaking English during the
production?
16121


From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:36pm
Subject: Re: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
Kevin John:

> ..... But the other four have gone over extraordinarily well with
> friends and/or large audiences I've been in. TOUCH OF EVIL and SHOCK
> CORRIDOR, in particular, are so pulpy and fun that Ihave yet to hear
> someone confess that they felt as if they were being burdenedwith
> something artsy fartsy, difficult, boring, avant-garde, whatnot.

Sure, but that's because the current taste in our nation and our age
includes an appreciation of things that are "pulpy and fun." But the
films of Russ Meyer are "pulpy and fun" too, for me, and I rather like
them, but I there is much *more* going on in "Touch of Evil" and "Shock
Corridor." These are high art cinema not according to superficial
appearance or genre but in the sense that their forms are profoundly
expressive and meaningful, and that's a level or levels that I think
most viewers don't get.

If they did, they'd like "Marnie" and "Red Line 7000" and "The Tiger
From Eschnapur," or at least some of them would like some of those.

Fred Camper
16122


From: Matt Teichman
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:39pm
Subject: Re: Delon
 
>I like it but not as much as BUFFET FROID.
>
>
>
How to choose between masterpieces..._Buffet Froid_ is of course also
spectacular. More of an emphasis on narrative situations, less of an
emphasis on wordplay (_Tenue de soiree_ is especially attuned to the
rhythms and semantic valences of the dialogue in the way that the best
of Bresson is). Highly recommended for fans of noir.


>LES VALSEUSES is amazing but it kind of makes me squirm.
>
>
>
Interesting to hear... this corresponds rather closely to what Blier has
described as the ideal reaction he'd like his films to provoke,
enjoyment combined with malaise.


>I saw him present LES ACTEURS here in Edinburgh and I thought it was
>terrific - am still waiting for it to become available with subtitles
>though. "My mission is the same as Godard's - to expose the
>mechanisms of cinema but keep the meotion of cinema."
>
>
_Les Acteurs_ is indeed terrific. Metadrama at its finest. And Delon,
since this thread is supposedly still about him, gives a stunning
performance here as well (a hilarious rant about silence, "action,"
speech, camera magazines), although it only lasts for about three minutes.

-Matt
16123


From: Richard Modiano
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:44pm
Subject: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay? (Ozu)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:

"I may have lost that in translation! In differently subtitled
prints they sometimes seem to be having different conversations. In
the videotape of EARLY SUMMER, Noriko's boss asks one of
her 'girlfriends' if (the unmarried Katharine Hepburn fan) Noriko is
a lesbian. (Not that avoiding marriage is exactly uncommon in Ozu's
films.) Laughing, the friend replies "No way!" In an earlier
videotape edition, "No way" isn't translated as such (maybe the
phrase hadn't been coined yet). While in the current theatrical
print, if memory serves the exchange seems to go untranslated
entirely. (I'm looking forward to seeing how Criterion's new
subtitles handle this, and other things.)"

I think she says "Iya," feminine colloquial negative.

Hara Setsuko (Noriko) was close friends with Ozu and Ryu. She never
married and lived in Kamakura with a female companion. After she
retired from movies at age 41 she never gave interviews or made
public appearences, and when Ryu died in 1993 she gave a statement to
the media expressing her grief but didn't appear in public. I think
one can legitimately speculate as to Hara's sexual orientation on the
basis of the "lesbian" line in BAKUSHU/EARLY SUMMER; perhaps it was a
covert acknowledgement on the part of Hara AND Ozu.

I was in Japan at the time and read various acconts of Ryu's life and
career, and as David says, Ryu was the object of Ozu's infatuation in
the 1930s (though sometimes the identity of the "young actor" is not
spelled out.) It's unknown as to whether or not Ozu and Ryu ever got
together, though Ryu was a married family man by the late 1930s.

Richard
16124


From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:46pm
Subject: David Carradine (was Re: Didn't You Hear)
 
"There's a screening tomorrow night of Didn't You Hear... directed by
Skip Sherwood. It was shot in 1970 and released in 1983."

I'd heard that this film was actually directed by David Carradine.
Maybe I'm wrong.

But Carradine has had a most curious directorial careers. He shot
several films in the 70s, but didn't get around to editing them until
yeras later. YOU AND ME (aka CHILDREN OF THE ROAD) was shot in 1972 -
not sure when that was completed, but it might have been 1974 or 1976
(can't quite make out the copyright date on the print). AMERICANA
(aka AROUND) was shot in 1973 and released in 1981. Both films are
remarkable.

Then there's A COUNTRY MILE (aka KANSAS) a musical (I believe
starring Gary Busey) shot in the early 70s and never released
(perhaps never edited).

Carradine has also been making THE TRUE STORY OF MATA HARI since
1977, starring his daughter as Mata Hari at every stage of her life,
with a little more shot every year (or every few years). There was
talk of this being completed (as a film in three parts) in time for
Cannes 1997. Since then, I've heard nothing.

Carradine also shot two episodes of KUNG FU (actually three, since
one was a two-parter) in 1974.
16125


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:06pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> "I had been seeing it in badly dubbed English or French"
>
> But weren't the actors actually speaking English during the
> production?

I hesitate to contradict Brad on anything, but it doesn't sound or
look like that to me. It would also be silly to shoot a 2-part film in
English and release it in here in a 90-minute cutdown. Straub
told me and Tag that Lang wanted to give the German people a
golden calf after the War, and this was it -- I think it is a German
film, and the US DVD treats it that way.
16126


From: Maxime Renaudin
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:10pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> Maxime, did they see the film in German or French? It makes a
> huge difference.

I missed that part. It was the horrible French version indeed! Hate
that version. But I'm not sure It would have make much difference.

BTW, I'm a little disturbed by the pristine colors of the US DVD.
Heard that they were softer in the French release. I'll have a look.

> understand a word of German -- I'm talking dialogue and music
> and sound effects. Big, big difference when you finally see it in
> German with subtitles. It fills out; it becomes real; and, not
> incidentally, it becomes an A film.

I watched movies from Sri Lanka, China, Tunisia... without any
subtitles. Sure I missed some parts, but that's always better than
these crazy dubbed versions.
16127


From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:14pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
"I hesitate to contradict Brad on anything, but it doesn't sound or
look like that to me."

I read somewhere that Lang shot the film in English, but the English
soundtrack on the DVD clearly doesn't match the actor's lip-
movements. I guess it's possible that the dubbed English dialogue
differs from the English dialogue actually spoken on the set. And how
likely is it that Debra Paget spoke fluent German?
16128


From: Kevin Lee
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:18pm
Subject: Re: Adventures of Iron Pussy
 
This is fascinating. How do you know so much about Thai cinema?

What did you think about Ratanaruang's MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON?
Maybe I'm missing something -- it left me wanting.

Those in NYC who haven't yet caught BLISSFULLY YOURS at Anthology
this week, should! (Meanwhile, only four days til TROPICAL MALADY at
the NYFF)



--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Darr"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
> wrote:
> > Has anyone seen it? Tarantino was on line ahead of us at the
> Arclight
> > tonight (where the Silverlake Festival has taken over the top
> floor).
> > I wish I'd followed him -- I assume that's what he was there for.
> > It's playing again Monday. Any comments? Anyone?
>
> Here's what I wrote about ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY in post #10003:
>
> I saw it in San Francisco (where, incidentally, Apichatpong
> Weerasethakul will have a residency this fall thanks to the Yerba
> Buena Center for the Arts), and I can see how fans of the beautiful
> BLISSFULLY YOURS might reject the film, but I do think it fits in
> with his other works- especially other video pieces like HAUNTED
> HOUSES that try to democratize the tradition of Thai melodrama.
(Not
> unlike the way MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON democratizes the process
of
> filming stories). HAUNTED HOUSES is constructed by "ordinary" Thais
> re-enacting scenes from well-known soap operas. I-SAN SPECIAL (not
> directed by Apichatpong, but inspired by his concept) uses a
similar
> device, but utilizes a radio soap opera soundtrack instead of the
> actors' own voices.
>
> In ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY, on the other hand, Apichatpong hired
> veteran actors to dub all the film's dialogue in post-production,
> creating humorous incongruities that match the absurdity of seeing
> comedian Michael Shaowanasai act the title role in "ladyboy" mode.
As
> a result, the film is not just another installment in Shaowanasai's
> "Iron Pussy" series, but a sort of hearkening back to the days when
> Thai films were distributed in silent 16mm prints and local
performers
> in each city would act the dialogue and play the music along with
the
> images each night. Not so different from the "benshi" of the
Japanese
> silent era, except that in Thailand this remained the convention up
> until the 1960's!
>
> -Brian Darr
16129


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay? (Ozu)
 
--- Richard Modiano wrote:


>
> I was in Japan at the time and read various acconts
> of Ryu's life and
> career, and as David says, Ryu was the object of
> Ozu's infatuation in
> the 1930s (though sometimes the identity of the
> "young actor" is not
> spelled out.) It's unknown as to whether or not Ozu
> and Ryu ever got
> together, though Ryu was a married family man by the
> late 1930s.

All the Japanese men I've had sex with have been
married.

I've been informed by a gay Japanese friend that the
acotr who played the young husband obsessed with gulf
in "The Taste of Autumn Mackrel" (Ozu's last film
known here simply as "An Autumn Afternoon") was a
particular pet of Ozu's to the point of inciting
considerable gossip. Ozu died not long after the film
was released and the actor, quite unexpectedly, died
not long after that. His deeply aggrieved widow
declared bitterly to the press "Ozu took him with
him!"
>
> Richard
>
>




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16130


From: hotlove666
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:51pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> "I hesitate to contradict Brad on anything, but it doesn't sound
or
> look like that to me."
>
> I read somewhere that Lang shot the film in English, but the
English
> soundtrack on the DVD clearly doesn't match the actor's lip-
> movements. I guess it's possible that the dubbed English
dialogue
> differs from the English dialogue actually spoken on the set.
And how
> likely is it that Debra Paget spoke fluent German?

Not at all, but the other leads are German.
16131


From: Maxime Renaudin
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:54pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> But your friends, if open minded enough and with at least a
> smidgen of aesthetic interest, could probably have their views
> changed with a long time spent viewing the "right" films.

Probably. But why should they do that?
16132


From: Maxime Renaudin
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:55pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> But your friends, if open minded enough and with at least a
> smidgen of aesthetic interest, could probably have their views
> changed with a long time spent viewing the "right" films.

Probably. But why should they do that?
16133


From: Aaron Graham
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:13pm
Subject: David Carradine (was Re: Didn't You Hear)
 
> But Carradine has had a most curious directorial careers. He shot
> several films in the 70s, but didn't get around to editing them
until
> yeras later. YOU AND ME (aka CHILDREN OF THE ROAD) was shot in
1972 -
> not sure when that was completed, but it might have been 1974 or
1976
> (can't quite make out the copyright date on the print). AMERICANA
> (aka AROUND) was shot in 1973 and released in 1981. Both films are
> remarkable.

I've seen AMERICANA quite awhile ago and liked it a great deal. I
think it would have garnered a bigger reception had it been released
during those counter-culture years it was made, but I assume
Carradine became too busy during the "Kung Fu" years to finish it?

Does anybody know Carradine's opinion of these films now?

Maybe a DVD company, like Blue Underground (who recently put out
Carradine the actor's CANNONBALL and CIRCLE OF IRON, with his
participation) will release them in the near future. I'd love to
revisit the film I've seen, and see the other ones Brad mentions.

-Aaron
16134


From: Fred Camper
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:22pm
Subject: Re: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
Maxime Renaudin wrote:

>--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
>
>>But your friends, if open minded enough and with at least a
>>smidgen of aesthetic interest, could probably have their views
>>changed with a long time spent viewing the "right" films.
>>
>>
>
>Probably. But why should they do that?
>
>
They may not want to bother. This is up to each person. If I were trying
to convince someone to "do that," I would say, "If you really 'learn' to
see narrative films, some films will open up to you, you'll get
incredible aesthetic pleasure and new ways of seeing and thinking about
the world and the mystery of existence, it will be just like listening
to Bach or looking at Rembrandt." Then they'd see "Shock Corridor" and
think I was nuts....

Fred Camper
16135


From:
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:29pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
For what its worth, my late parents always loved Lang films. Even though they
were not "trained cinephile" viewers. My Mother always told everyone how
"Woman in the Window" was one of her favorite movies. They even loved "Spies",
even my Dad, who usually disliked watching silent films.
By contrast, I tried to get a co-worker to watch the TV screening of
Metropolis. He told me the next day that he turned it off after only five minutes (:
He said the "acting in those silent films sure is overdone..."
By the way, I much prefer the intense acting in silent films to the
non-acting in much of today's cinema. The way the hero of Metropolis is appalled by the
killing he sees is deeply moving and profound, and vastly more life affirming
then today's so-called heroes with machine guns.
A substantial crowd enjoyed Metropolis at the Detroit Film Theater. There
were a lot of young guys in the audience - I think it pulled out the high tech,
science fiction crowd. They looked hip and with it... People seemed greatly
impressed by the film.

Mike Grost
16136


From: Maxime Renaudin
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:48pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> "If you really 'learn' to see narrative films, some films will
> open up to you, you'll get incredible aesthetic pleasure and
> new ways of seeing and thinking about the world and the mystery
> of existence

What a program, Fred! Is that for real? (sounds event better than
sex..)
Why do you restrict it to "narrative films"? The narrative part of
the whole thing isn't where there is the more to learn, I guess.
Do we need aesthetic pleasure? Again, why the taste for beauty?
As for the mystery of existence... I don't know...
16137


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:52pm
Subject: James Wolcott on Peter Bogdanovich
 
and his new TV move, "Hustle."

http://www.jameswolcott.com/



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16138


From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 0:12am
Subject: Re: Re: Lang's secret cinema (how to see films; why art)
 
Maxime Renaudin wrote:

>--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
>
>What a program, Fred! Is that for real?
>
Oh, yes, it and I am for real, though I sometimes like to state it all
in an exaggerated manner that verges on self-parody. And of course
you're right to question limiting viewing to narrative film. Given much
time and money to convince someone who laughed at "The Tiger of
Eschnapur" that it was a great film, someone willing to be convinced, I
would show them the Langs I mentioned, but many other filmmakers, Murnau
and Ford and Welles and Hitchcock and Bresson and the rest, and you're
right, I certainly wouldn't restrict it to narrative films, Brakhage and
Kubelka and L'Age d'Or and maybe "Ballet Mechanique" and many others
would be part of the program, as well as looking at painting and
listening to music.

As for whether and why we need aesthetic beauty, I'm not sure I have a
real answer for that, except to ask what justifies our existence as
humans, what makes us different from the animals we are (wrongly)
driving from extinction? The complexities of love at its best might be
one answer. Science -- higher mathematics; quantum mechanics -- might be
another. But art is as good an answer as any, I think. Not that this
will convince someone who thinks he has no need of it. I know art, like
bicycling, and like the s-x you mentioned, makes me feel more alive,
each in very different ways.

Fred Camper
16139


From:
Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:27pm
Subject: Re: James Wolcott on Peter Bogdanovich
 
It's nice to know somebody else liked "Hustle," though I totally disagree
with the idea that his work on the project is at all "anonymous." As I argue in
my upcoming review of "Hustle," it's a film one can readily connect with
Bogdanovich's other biographical films, "The Cat's Meow" and "The Mystery of
Natalie Wood," and the mise-en-scene (which is, to agree with Fred, the most
important thing to me in a movie) is equally distinguishable as his work.

Peter
16140


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 0:29am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema (how to see films; why art)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
>
> Maxime Renaudin wrote:
>
> >--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> >
> >
> >What a program, Fred! Is that for real?
> >
>

I was very moved by Maxime's original post becaue it showed such
strong feelings of anger and despair about not being able to share a
vision of beauty and greatness. This is familiar terrain, we've all
been there. There are countless people who "don't get it" and
probably never will (it's not just about movies) and why should we
agonize about it and try to convert them? It's their loss, Maxime,
not yours. Your friends don't have to love everything you love, and
you don't have to love everything they love, and alternately you can
also change friends. But I mean, Max, it's not THE END OF THE WORLD,
you know, although I understand it may feel like it.

Anyway, I feel your pain. I really do.

JPC
16141


From: thebradstevens
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:00am
Subject: David Carradine (was Re: Didn't You Hear)
 
Just looked up Skip Sherwood on the IMDB. He's credited as
writer/producer/director of DIDN'T YOU HEAR... His only other credit
is as a producer on AMERICANA. I suspect he is David Carradine hiding
behind a pseudonym.

And I wonder if A COUNTRY MILE/KANSAS is simply an alternate title
for DIDN'T YOU HEAR.
16142


From: Aaron Graham
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:28am
Subject: David Carradine (was Re: Didn't You Hear)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> Just looked up Skip Sherwood on the IMDB. He's credited as
> writer/producer/director of DIDN'T YOU HEAR... His only other
credit
> is as a producer on AMERICANA. I suspect he is David Carradine
hiding
> behind a pseudonym.

I don't know if this is all accurate information, but I found this
webpage which details some of the film's history, including info on
Skip Sherwood.

http://www.badmovieplanet.com/unknownmovies/reviews/rev100pointfive.ht
ml

-Aaron
16143


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:29am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> > But your friends, if open minded enough and with at least a
> > smidgen of aesthetic interest, could probably have their views
> > changed with a long time spent viewing the "right" films.
>
> Probably. But why should they do that?

But then again, Fred, who are we to say what the "right" films
are? And why would they spend the time in the first place? They
would have to be convinced that there is something there, and they
obviously are not. Old story. You just can't force beauty down
people's throats -- they'll choke on it.


Maybe Maxime's friends like other films that you and I and most
auteurist like. We don't know. You might even conceive that they're
right and we're wrong.

Or maybe his friends are like those people who would rather have
a painting of Elvis on velvet, or of a crying clown (without irony)
on their wall rather than a Cezanne or a Braque. Or who would never
listen to classical music (except for some middle-brow "classical
favorites") or to good jazz but just to pop rock or whatever. But I
doubt it. Maxime must have some good reasons to have such friends.
They must have "redeeming" features.

It would be nice if everybody liked and understood the "right"
things. But that's just not the way it works. And Maxime has to
learn about this tough fact of life.

JPC
16144


From: Richard Modiano
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:55am
Subject: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay? (Ozu)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:

"All the Japanese men I've had sex with have been
married."

Yes that's true about previous generations of Japanese gay men, most
famously Mishima.

"I've been informed by a gay Japanese friend that the
acotr who played the young husband obsessed with gulf
in "The Taste of Autumn Mackrel" (Ozu's last film
known here simply as "An Autumn Afternoon") was a
particular pet of Ozu's to the point of inciting
considerable gossip. Ozu died not long after the film
was released and the actor, quite unexpectedly, died
not long after that. His deeply aggrieved widow declared bitterly to
the press 'Ozu took him with
him!'"

It was Sada Keiji, who died in a car accident just months after Ozu
died. I read that Ozu favored him excessively. Sada's son eventually
became an actor.

Richard
16145


From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:15am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema (how to see films; why art)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
>
> Maxime Renaudin wrote:
>
> As for whether and why we need aesthetic beauty, I'm not sure I
have a
> real answer for that, except to ask what justifies our existence
as
> humans, what makes us different from the animals we are (wrongly)
> driving from extinction? > each in very different ways.
>
> Fred Camper

The "Tiger" films by Lang are so beautiful. I remember seeing them
both on BBC2 in German with subtitles many years ago when British
television acted as a repertory theatre for those of us who did not
live in urban centers.

The color was beautiful and the aesthetic qualities remained in my
mind for years. Furthermore, Debra Paget's dancing was so
extraordinary. It again revealed the nature of a creative director
who could bring out something touching in an actress mostly
associated with routine work.

It is really remarkable that these films are now available for us
on DVD - again, for those of us who can not see them on the big
screen - taking Fred's earlier remarks on this subject to heart and
regarding the serious points he has made before.

Tony Williams
16146


From: Andy Rector
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:20am
Subject: Dear Maxime (re: Lang's secret cinema)
 
Dear Maxime, the one who sold me a poster of Numero Deux perhaps two
years ago for next to nothing,

The Numero Deux poster still sits there in a small stack of images:
xeroxes of Histoire(s) stills, Losey's Prowler, Bunuel getting a
haircut, Jean-Marie and Daniele recording sound with giant flowers
behind them, Playtime in the drugstore, a blowup of Ann Dvorak from
The Crowd Roars (nothing from Red Line; too aryan for my wall,
however I'd still defend the film, shirt open pounding my chest), a
child from Homework, Amere victoire poster, the many B's; Boudu,
Braque, Bresson, Bardot (Contempt), Brecht....

The only Poster actually tacked up in my tiny room, emblazoning 4
feet of space above my tiny television reads (from top to bottom):
Connaissance du cinema presente, 2 films de FRITZ LANG,(huge image of
painted roaring tiger), LE TIGRE DU BENGALE ET LE TOMBEAU HINDOU.

Down with sarcasm! Sarcastic laughs are only a subtitute for the
involvment that they are too brash and willingly fragmented to bestow
upon the work at hand! Do the bourgeosie have to see their own
laughter on the screen in order to find it ridiculous and
uncomfortable (Faces)? Unfortunately they run in packs and transfer
their appetite for the saftey valve of camp into a competition in
flippancy. They are the police and the victim at the same time.

Death to secrets! The maharaja cutting through the crowd and entering
the temple, tremendous grottos, the fakir show!

If I agree with you that "all is on the screen", then why even boster
ourselves with "taste for beauty"? The glory of Lang is normal. We
should struggle to make it an everyday occurance. What television and
predigested films do is NOT normal.

Corruption of the eyes, mind, or anything else shouldn't be
normalized, it should be fought. I suppose that those who don't
recognize this just laugh! Naturalization of corruption leaves us
fair game to the manufactured imbalance of outrage which could allow
one of the most barbarous equations of "satiating" vindication in
history to occur: thousands of completely innocent Afghani corpses
for a few thousand American ones (not to mention Iraq which isn't a
quagmire/folly but a crime). Did that "satiation" reside within the
people of the US? No, it was manufactured. How was it fought (when it
was fought)? With more sniggering at those who would actually believe
it! TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE is as poisonous as the real deal.

Respectfully yours,
andy

ps- How can someone laugh when Welles is trying to get his Shylock
monologue down in an anywhere golden background? They did just that
at the American Cinemetheque! That's not bourgeois, its just cold
hearted, which is a requirment today.
16147


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:55am
Subject: Re: Minnelli (was Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay?)
 
--- thebradstevens wrote:


>
> Several accounts of the Judy Garland/Minnelli
> wedding suggest that it
> was a kind of theatrical event stage-managed by
> Louis B. Mayer.
>
>
I would tend to doubt that. He was the kind of man she
liked to marry.



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16148


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:58am
Subject: Re: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay?
 
--- hotlove666 wrote:


>
> Internal evidence: Directors who occassionally made
> films aimed
> specifically at female audiences include Cukor
> (gay), Minnelli and
> Rapper (both bi). Sirk, because of Ross Hunter's
> decision to go after
> that audience in the 50s, made a series of films
> that were very
> female-targeted. Was he gay? Was Hunter? As my
> father would say, "I
> wasn't holding the lantern..."
>
>
Rapper was WAY gay! And so was Hunter, whose boyfriend
was Jacques Mapes.

As I point out in my book towards the end of his life
Hunter insisted that he was "dating" Nancy Sinatra Sr.
and was thinking about marrying her.



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16149


From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:16am
Subject: Fw: [JunkMail] EFF: Call On Congress to Oppose the Induce Act Tomorrow
 
Here's that nasty piece of work from Orrin Hatch that I warned you about.
Sorry for cross-posting but anyone interested in film or TV should know
about this extraordinary bill. And like the NRA says, they'll get my VCR
remote away from me when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

g

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor,
never the victim. Silence encourages the
tormentor, never the tormented.
--Elie Wiesel


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ren Bucholz"
To: "George Robinson"
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 5:57 PM
Subject: [JunkMail] EFF: Call On Congress to Oppose the Induce Act Tomorrow


Dear George,

Earlier this month, thousands of EFF supporters called on
Congress to throw out the Induce Act, a bill that threatens
the future of innovation in America. We need your help
again. Last time, we targeted the committee that is
reviewing the bill. Tomorrow, we want to be sure that
*every* Senator hears from constituents who oppose the
Induce Act. Sign up here to add your voice:

http://www.savebetamax.org/eff

The Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (S.2560) would
extend copyright liability to companies that "induce"
copyright infringement. This profound change in the law
would make it nearly impossible for a company to bring
innovative new technologies to the market. Under the threat
of entertainment industry lawsuits based on the Induce Act,
technology companies would be forced to first ask permission
from Hollywood and the record labels. If the entertainment
industry had this kind of veto power in the past, it's
likely that technologies like the VCR, iPod, and CD burners
would never have seen the light of day. That's why we need
you to speak out against the Induce Act:

http://www.savebetamax.org/eff

Our friends at Downhill Battle are coordinating the calls at
SaveBetamax.org, a site that gives you the information you
need to make a quick, easy call to Congress.
SaveBetamax.org also provides background on why the Induce
Act is so misguided, including an overview of the Supreme
Court's decision in the famous Sony Betamax case, which
established that the maker of a technology cannot be held
liable for copyright violations by users as long as the
technology has substantial non-infringing uses. This
"Betamax doctrine" spurred two decades of unprecedented
technological innovation - and enormous profits for the very
companies that ironically want to reverse it with the Induce
Act.

Make sure Congress knows you oppose the Induce Act by
signing up today. Thanks for taking action!

http://www.savebetamax.org/eff

Sincerely,

Ren Bucholz
EFF Activism Coordinator
http://www.eff.org

To remove yourself from this mailing, please go to
http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M6552777469757649000055&iEvent=57079
16150


From: iangjohnston
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:58am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> "I hesitate to contradict Brad on anything, but it doesn't sound
or
> look like that to me."
>
> I read somewhere that Lang shot the film in English, but the
English
> soundtrack on the DVD clearly doesn't match the actor's lip-
> movements. I guess it's possible that the dubbed English dialogue
> differs from the English dialogue actually spoken on the set. And
how
> likely is it that Debra Paget spoke fluent German?

Patrick McGilligan in his Fritz Lang bio claims that the US version
was dubbed, and that the French-language version used substitute
French actors in the main roles (true?). If Debra Paget didn't speak
German, she would have been only one of a host of American actors of
the day dubbed in a European-language film of which they were the
star.
16151


From: iangjohnston
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:08am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> Maxime Renaudin wrote:
>
> >....the divorce between so-called auteurists and audience.....
> >
> This has been a kind of disagreement in this group for some time.
Some
> are of the view that what "we" like is not that different from
what most
> viewers like, others that there is a big split. I am of the latter
view,
> which is not to say that David E's mom might not belong with "us,"
but
> just that I don't think most of the "public" does. You might fool
> yourself into the former view with a program of "Red
River," "Psycho,"
> "Hangmen Also Die," "The Searchers," "The Magnificent Ambersons,"
and
> "Pickup on South Street ", but hos would a program of "Red Line
7000,"
> "Marnie,"The Tiger of Eschnapur," "Seven Women," "Touch of Evil,"
and
> "Shock Corridor" be received my most movie fans?

Granted that there's going to be some kind of disjunct between
auteurists and the general audience over a film like MARNIE. But I
suspect that the disjunct might cover a wider range of films the
younger the audience gets. A 19-year-old student of mine almost
broke my heart when she told me how her class was shown NORTH BY
NORTHWEST and couldn't understand why it was so famous -- all too
slow and boring for them...
16152


From: iangjohnston
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:17am
Subject: Re: Delvaux
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
> Cinephilic Initiation: at the age of 15 I forced my mother to take
me to an
> Adult Education Camp - sounds a bit sinister, but it's an
institution here
> in Australia - which had a special film component: I spent the
week watching
> several times 16mm prints of Renoir's GOLDEN COACH and Delvaux's
RENDEZVOUS
> AT BRAY among other films: what an introduction to cinema!!! The
painting
> students at the camp also had to produce images inspired by
RENDEZVOUS. This
> marvellous film has Anna Karina in it, so many excellent nudes
resulted ...
>
> BELLE is also pretty remarkable. Immortal moment: when the
> literature-professor intellectual-hero, in the midst of a total
> between-reality-and-fantasy breakdown, is approached by a nervous
but
> evangelical young student after a lecture that has been picketed by
> radicals: the kid offers him a copy of a book that will lead him
out of the
> old-fashioned lit-crit darkness - it's by Roland Barthes !!!
>
> Delvaux used to be a big cheese in the mid 60s to early 70s:
CAHIERS and
> others always used to cite him in that bracket with PERSONA,
Skolimowski,
> Bertolucci, THE BIG MOUTH, etc !!!! Another unfairly forgotten
figure
> outside his home country.
>
> Adrian

BELLE was likewise an important "cinephiliac initiation" for me too.
Which I'd likewise highly recommend, with the proviso that I haven't
seen it again since!

And Delvaux's not the only 60s-70s big cheese that seems to have
dropped off the critical radar. What about Alain Tanner? -- whose
string of films up to MESSIDOR are simply remarkable.
16153


From:
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:43am
Subject: Re: David Carradine (was Re: Didn't You Hear)
 
Well, now I'm definitely going to see it. I'll report back dutifully.

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16154


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 0:59pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
Almost wish I had kids so that I could start showing them stuff at an
early age. A friend has done this and finds they'll watch ANYTHING if
you get them young enough.

The best audience for Lang's late films would be an audience of kids
who haven't been programmed with the aesthetics of modern cinema to
the extent that anything else seems "wrong". It's true that the
beauty and quality of Lang's films is right on the surface -
accessible to anybody. But if you've grown up on Michael Bay and
James Cameron and MTV, it may be hard to see beyond this, and it can
take a long time to break down the prejudices caused by viewing one
kind of product.

I find the more films I see, the less I'm affected by quirks of 40s
aesthetics, say. I totally accept the rear projection in hitchcock,
for instance, where in my teenage years it bothered me a touch.

In a sense, it seems to me that seeing a variety of film, becoming
educated about different film-making modes, restores the innocence
that Cocteau calls for at the start of LA BELLE ET LA BETE. One
becomes more able to accept a filmmaker's most eccentric choices, and
appreciate them on their own terms.
16155


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:11pm
Subject: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
> I am giddy with anticipation.

What would everybody like to see in such a programme? Off the top of
my head, I'd go for:

Precedents:

1) M
2) HOTEL DU NORD
3) THE PUBLIC ENEMY
4) THE BAT WHISPERS

Canonical works:

5) THE MALTESE FALCON
6) THE BIG SLEEP
7) DOUBLE INDEMNITY
8) THE KILLERS
9) MURDER, MY SWEET / FAREWELL MY LOVELY
10) OUT OF THE PAST / BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH
11) GILDA
12) LADY FROM SHANGHAI
13) LAURA
14) THE BIG HEAT
15) NAKED CITY

Termite art:

16) DETOUR
17) THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY
18) I WAKE UP SCREAMING
19) PHANTOM LADY
20) THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER
21) THE BIG COMBO
22) THE RECKLESS MOMENT

Late noir aberrations:

23) TOUCH OF EVIL
24) SHOCK CORRIDOR
25) KISS ME DEADLY
26) KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL

Neo-noir

27) CHINATOWN
28) BLADE RUNNER
29) SE7EN

Noir abroad;

30) NIGHT AND THE CITY
31) RIFIFI
32) LE DIEUXIEME SOUFFLE
33) ALPHAVILLE
34) UN FLIC

Just to get the ball rolling. But that leaves off LEAVE HER TO
HEAVEN, FALLEN ANGEL and all kinds of cool stuff!
16156


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:15pm
Subject: Re: Delon
 
> >LES VALSEUSES is amazing but it kind of makes me squirm.
> >
> Interesting to hear... this corresponds rather closely to what
Blier has
> described as the ideal reaction he'd like his films to provoke,
> enjoyment combined with malaise.

Heh. MON HOMME and LES ACTEURS both contain moments that seem like
wry sort-of apologies for the misogyny many have seen in Blier's
earlier work. Especially like Blier himself, in LES ACTS. telling
Claude Brasseur to soften his line reading of "That fucking bitch!"
because he doesn't want it to come across as "too misogynistic."

> _Les Acteurs_ is indeed terrific. Metadrama at its finest. And
Delon,
> since this thread is supposedly still about him, gives a stunning
> performance here as well (a hilarious rant about silence, "action,"
> speech, camera magazines), although it only lasts for about three
minutes.

Was very impressed with his looks too. If he's had plastic surgery,
he's sensibly used it to maintain his slightly-rumpled middle-aged
look from NOTRE HISTOIRE, rather than hang onto his incredible
youthful beauty.
16157


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:36pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "iangjohnston" wrote:

A 19-year-old student of mine almost
> broke my heart when she told me how her class was shown NORTH BY
> NORTHWEST and couldn't understand why it was so famous -- all too
> slow and boring for them...

Speed is a big dividing factor. When I was at Fox and we were
releasing Raising Arizona, I suggested distributing a Roadrunner
cartoon with it to get people in the right frame of mind -- the idea
had been suggested to me by the fact that the Coens had shown Duck
Amuck with the film when they screened it for the NY press. (One
critic, whose name I forget, thought it was part of the film.) Tom
Sherak misheard the suggestion and showed Duck Amuck to the marketing
department. I'm sensitive to the reactions of people I see films
with, and sitting with my colleagues in that tiny screening room was
the longest seven minutes of my life, because for that audience, Duck
Amuck was a slow film!

Another grim experience: watching Mogambo, which Peter Bogdanovich
had recently described to me as a "modern" film, with an audience at
LACMA, who are usually old people anyway. Don't know why, but the
crowd I saw Mogambo with was laughing at the film. After that I
commented to a friend that we may have crossed a divide -- between
classical and contemporary films: say post-60s -- comparable to the
divide between silent and sound, where more and more people no longer
get the older cinema at all.

Of course, I was being somewhat alarmist -- one of the few good thing
television has done for the culture is to create channels where
people can see old movies and maintain or acquire some sort of
connection to the past...even with silents.
16158


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:58pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
> Almost wish I had kids so that I could start showing them stuff at
an
> early age. A friend has done this and finds they'll watch ANYTHING
if
> you get them young enough.

I've made no effort to do that because it wouldn't work with my
stepsons.

The younger one watched cartoons 24 hours a day from age 9 to around
16, sequeing from 11 to 18 to only action films. (As soon as he was
able to drive, the first thing he did was practice making the tires
screech when he took off. When he got his license and started driving
for real, he did it in front of a black and white that was waiting
behind him at a stop sign and began to learn the facts of life.)

Then I noticed a shift, when we saw Wonder Boys together and he
really liked it, more than I did -- he must have still been pretty
young, because he said something like, "I really like the actor who
played the young writer. Too bad he's gay." Another landamrk day: he
couldn't wait to see the Bruckheimer Gone in 60 Seconds, and
announced that it had disappointed him when he finally did. I had
given him the old one to look at, and he preferred it. Lately (dope
aidant) he and his girlfriend have been watching whatever films I
furnish, because they see three a night and don't have enough extra
cash to rent a lot of the time. They. Never. Go. Out.

So far my Dr. Spock approach has only encountered three stubborn
obstacles: he won't watch black and white or silents, and he can't
watch films with subtitles (dyslexia). Within his two languages,
French and English, he seems able to see just about anything at this
point, although "anything" really means carefully selected films -- I
wouldn't dream of giving him a Mann western, for example. But despite
the dyslexia, he has a genius IQ, and he'll get there some day.

One huge development: I got four Mr. Show tapes from Cinefile and
passed them on to them. I don't know if those shows were the cause,
but he just announced he's getting cable for his room, and for a
dollar a month more I can have it in the living room. This is good
timing because Marvin, who tapes stuff for me, is moving to Berkeley
next month. Hopefully by the time it's installed I won't have to see
Bush's ugly mug on the news. As with my son, I have faith in the
American people.
16159


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:03pm
Subject: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:

We're spoiled in LA. The Cinematheque has had so many noir festivals
that we're now seeing stuff so obscure only one print exists, like
Ripley's The Chase or I Wouldn't Want to Be in Your Shoes, a dreadful
Woolrich adaptation by PRC, I think. Dennis Bartok has a guy who
programs these for him -- a noir expert -- so the last round, which
included the two above-mentioned titles, was all films based on
stories by great noir fiction writers.
16160


From: thebradstevens
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:50pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
"Don't know why, but the crowd I saw Mogambo with was laughing at the
film."

This is the main reason I stopped going to see older films in the
cinema. I particularly recall a screening of Minnelli's THE COBWEB at
London's National Film Theatre (this would have been late 80s or
early 90s) during which the entire audience (or so it seemed) kept
bursting into laughter. They were mostly laughing at 'dated' moments
of melodramatic rhetoric, though at several points I have absolutely
no idea what they were laughing about - but they were all laughing
together, as if on cue. I considered shouting "What the fuck are you
yuppie scum laughing at?", but decided against it. What really
baffles me is: Why do these 'people' go out of their way to see a
film that they must know in advance they're going to feel superior
to? Does it give them some kind of a rush to show how 'sophisticated'
they are? I guess they must be the kind of cinema-goers who consider
AMERICAN BEAUTY a profound experience.
16161


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:50pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "iangjohnston" wrote:
>

>
> Another grim experience: watching Mogambo, which Peter Bogdanovich
> had recently described to me as a "modern" film, with an audience
at
> LACMA, who are usually old people anyway. Don't know why, but the
> crowd I saw Mogambo with was laughing at the film.

Where they actually laughing "at" the film (derisively)or
enjoying the way it plays with familiar stereotypes, with the
censors, with expectations...? Anyway I'm not sure what PB meant by
calling it a "modern" film. Modern compared to what? It seems very
classical to me.

After that I
> commented to a friend that we may have crossed a divide -- between
> classical and contemporary films: say post-60s -- comparable to
the
> divide between silent and sound, where more and more people no
longer
> get the older cinema at all.
>
> Of course, I was being somewhat alarmist -- one of the few good
thing
> television has done for the culture is to create channels where
> people can see old movies and maintain or acquire some sort of
> connection to the past...even with silents.

I wonder what kind of audience watches silents on TCM.
16162


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:00pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> What really
> baffles me is: Why do these 'people' go out of their way to see a
> film that they must know in advance they're going to feel superior
> to?


That's the very reason why they go. To feel superior. To laugh
at the silliness of something they see as hopelessly old-fashioned.
And to feel that they are part of a "sophisticated" community that
laughs together at such things.

.
16163


From: Richard Modiano
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:16pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:

"I wonder what kind of audience watches silents on TCM."

As to silents, it seems that comedies can draw mainstream audiences
more than any other kind of silent picture. I saw STEAMBOAT BILL,JR.
at the 900 seat LACMA theatre (almost all seats taken)with some non-
cinephile friends who enjoyed it tremendously as did the rest of the
audience; they even wanted to see more Keaton movies. But when I
took these same friends to see DOCKS OF NEW YORK they couldn't
relate, too slow, too gloomy though "nicely photographed."

Richard
16164


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:20pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:

>
> Where they actually laughing "at" the film (derisively)or
> enjoying the way it plays with familiar stereotypes, with the
> censors, with expectations...?

At.

Anyway I'm not sure what PB meant by
> calling it a "modern" film. Modern compared to what? It seems very
> classical to me.

He felt that the portrayal of the triangle and of men and women was
modern. Also the absence of music, probably. It's in the Ford hors-
serie of CdC. He had Sheperd crying while watching it in Texasville,
then took it out when I reminded him that that happens in Courtship
of Eddie's Father. I never actually saw the movie with Mogambo in.
>
> After that I
> > commented to a friend that we may have crossed a divide --
between
> > classical and contemporary films: say post-60s -- comparable to
> the
> > divide between silent and sound, where more and more people no
> longer
> > get the older cinema at all.
> >
> > Of course, I was being somewhat alarmist -- one of the few good
> thing
> > television has done for the culture is to create channels where
> > people can see old movies and maintain or acquire some sort of
> > connection to the past...even with silents.
>
> I wonder what kind of audience watches silents on TCM.
16165


From: samfilms2003
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:34pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
> Almost wish I had kids so that I could start showing them stuff at an
> early age. A friend has done this and finds they'll watch ANYTHING if
> you get them young enough.

Results may be unpredictable.

My teenage daughter's all time favorite film is now Kim's "Spring, Summer,
Fall, Winter, Woodcarving"

Well ~4 years ago it was "The Fast And The Furious"
(she may actually buy a car this week so Hurray for Kim Ki-Duk I say :)

-Sam
16166


From: Joseph Kaufman
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:02pm
Subject: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
>Dennis Bartok has a guy who programs these for him -- a noir expert --

Yes, Eddie Muller. The noir series at the Cinematheque has been so
in depth that I'll be surprised if the Film Forum doesn't follow some
of the leads here.

Anyway, I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE IN YOUR SHOES proves that you should
never, ever, toss your shoes out the window.
--

- Joe Kaufman
16167


From: George Robinson
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:58pm
Subject: Fw: Film Forum Noirs
 
From our friend Ira Hozinsky,
g

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor,
never the victim. Silence encourages the
tormentor, never the tormented.
--Elie Wiesel


----- Original Message -----
From: HOZEE@a...
To: grcomm@g...
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 9:27 AM
Subject: Film Forum


The Fall rep calendar can be downloaded from their website as a PDF file.

The noir series doesn't boast any surprises, but they're all 35MM prints, including Thieves' Highway and a "new restoration" of Force of Evil.

I keep hoping that Columbia will roll out new prints of My Name is Julia Ross, So Dark the Night and The Undercover Man.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16168


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:07pm
Subject: Re: Fw: Film Forum Noirs
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
wrote:
>
> The noir series doesn't boast any surprises, but they're all 35MM
prints, including Thieves' Highway

For those who don't know it, this is a don't-miss Dassin scripted by
the great A.I.Bezzerides (Kiss Me Deadly) from his own novel -- and
experience as an indy trucker.
16169


From: Andy Rector
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:15pm
Subject: Re: Fw: Film Forum Noirs
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "George Robinson"
> wrote:
> >
> > The noir series doesn't boast any surprises, but they're all 35MM
> prints, including Thieves' Highway
>
> For those who don't know it, this is a don't-miss Dassin scripted
by
> the great A.I.Bezzerides (Kiss Me Deadly) from his own novel -- and
> experience as an indy trucker.

I agree, Thieves' Highway is tremendous, Dassin's finest in my
opinion. Bezzerides is an unsung hero. His novel is instructively
called Thieves' Market. On Dangerous Ground astonishes me everytime I
see it. I know a 98 year old woman who used to work across from
MussoFranks in the old days, she said Bezzerides was the most
intersting guy around, John Fante was an asshole.

yours,
andy
16170


From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:38pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Maxime Renaudin"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> > But your friends, if open minded enough and with at least a
> > smidgen of aesthetic interest, could probably have their views
> > changed with a long time spent viewing the "right" films.
>
> Probably. But why should they do that?

I've found a lot of common ground with some of my some non-cinephile
friends.

In the late 1990's I had several roommates and we viewed together a
lot of videotapes of films. I didn't notice any great chasm of
sensibility between me and everybody else. We more or less responded
in the same way. The roommates, mainly in their twenties, had no
objection to black and white films. Although most of the films I
rented were from the 1970's onward, this was my doing. I was afraid of
losing my audience with older films.

I hardly went to the movies in the 1990's, and took the opportunity to
catch up. Most of the films we watched are very different from those
esteemed by the people in this discussion, but we did see much of
Cronenberg, Ferrara, Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Jim Jarmusch,
David Lynch, Brian De Palma. My roommates in particular took to some
of the titles I chose from among the best of the year lists in Cahiers
from the 80's and 90's. I experimented with what I thought of as
critics' favorites, but not Cahiers' favorites, but my roommates
didn't like the films: they didn't like some Egoyan, Campion,
Greenaway, and Davies films I rented. I made no effort to proselytize
or to educate or to even speak; I'd rent several films by the same
director in a row but not even mention the director. When their
friends would visit, their responses would be similar. I remember one
roommate's friend stopping by and she was astonished by Woo's "The
Killer." (I know that several people on this group don't care for
Woo.) Another roommate, who sometimes worked as an actress, took a
strong interest in Bette Davis and in Cassavetes' films.

I suppose there are lots of flaws to my experiment. I tended not to
rent classics. I have a preference to view certain films only in the
theater. And I'm a lowbrow a heart. I recall wanting to watch, I think
it was, 'Up!' or 'Supervixens' -- which my female roommates didn't
much care for -- and one roommate instead requested, 'Imitation of
Life,' which had long been one of her favorite films, even though
she didn't know about Douglas Sirk. Once I rented 'Pattes Blanches,'
and another roommate asked why we couldn't watch good films like
this more often. But she more often expressed a preference for lots of
violence.

What to conclude from this? I'm not so sure. I might think of them as
my "enfants sauvages," but of course they'd been watching and loving
movies all their lives. I had only skewed their menu a little. But I
shouldn't act superior. I'm not so sure I should count myself among
the cinephile Elect. (How can you tell? How are the Elect justified?
By cinematic faith or by cinema-going works? Or is it predestination?)

I remember, in contrast, my early encounters with the American cinema
at the Brattle Theater and the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, in the 1980's, and the laughter and condescension I
overhead. In contrast to my roommates who didn't get a college
education, these college kids had learned prejudices that alienated
them from the cinema. Discovering the cinema may involve unlearning as
well as learning. I think of Rivette's comment: "What is the meaning
of this revolution? ... a return to lyricism, powerful feelings,
melodrama (the audience at the smart halls sneer at Ray's films as
they did at Allan Dwan's); the rediscovery of a certain breadth of
gesture, an externalizing of the roughest and most spontaneous
emotions; in short, the rediscovery of naiveté."

Paul

"...and *no* funny stuff; and by funny stuff I mean, handholding,
goo-goo eyes, misdirected woo (which is pretty much any John Woo
film...
16171


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:45pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
>
> He felt that the portrayal of the triangle and of men and women
was
> modern. Also the absence of music, probably. It's in the Ford hors-
> serie of CdC. He had Sheperd crying while watching it in
Texasville,
> then took it out when I reminded him that that happens in
Courtship
> of Eddie's Father. I never actually saw the movie with Mogambo in.
> >

I find it difficult to imagine anyone crying at MOGAMBO!
16172


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:49pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
>
> "I wonder what kind of audience watches silents on TCM."
>
> As to silents, it seems that comedies can draw mainstream
audiences
> more than any other kind of silent picture. I saw STEAMBOAT
BILL,JR.
> at the 900 seat LACMA theatre (almost all seats taken)with some
non-
> cinephile friends who enjoyed it tremendously as did the rest of
the
> audience; they even wanted to see more Keaton movies. But when I
> took these same friends to see DOCKS OF NEW YORK they couldn't
> relate, too slow, too gloomy though "nicely photographed."
>
> Richard

Great silent comedy doesn't suffer from the lack of sound (dialogue)
whereas most dramatic silents do for a modern viewer unaccustomed to
silent cinema. It can even be argued that silence made the great
silent comedy of Keaton and others possible, and sound destroyed it.
JPC
16173


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:07pm
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> >
> > He felt that the portrayal of the triangle and of men and
women
> was
> > modern. Also the absence of music, probably. It's in the Ford
hors-
> > serie of CdC. He had Sheperd crying while watching it in
> Texasville,
> > then took it out when I reminded him that that happens in
> Courtship
> > of Eddie's Father. I never actually saw the movie with
Mogambo in.
> > >
>
> I find it difficult to imagine anyone crying at MOGAMBO!

Well watch Courtship of Eddie's Father! I think Minnelli used Ava
Gardner singing "When a Body Meets a Body"," and so did
Peter, until he realized he was quoting -- something he had
decided not to do any more at that point in his career. It ended up
being a clip from Gloria, in tribute to Cassavetes, who helped w.
the Texasville script.
16174


From: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:55pm
Subject: Re: Head in the Clouds (auteurists versus audience)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
> "When I told an elderly aunt that I didn't like the film "Gandhi,"
> she looked at me increduously and said, "How could you say it's not
> good, it's a true story."
>
> I recall Jean-Luc Godard defending the 'implausible' ending of
> Hitchcock's THE WRONG MAN in exactly the same terms!

Yes, that was in his interview with me about Histoire(s) du cinema.
And in fact the "miracle" he was defending in the film wasn't in the
least bit true!

Jonathan
16175


From: hotlove666
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:58pm
Subject: Re: Head in the Clouds (auteurists versus audience)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Rosenbaum"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
> wrote:
> > "When I told an elderly aunt that I didn't like the film "Gandhi,"
> > she looked at me increduously and said, "How could you say
it's not
> > good, it's a true story."
> >
> > I recall Jean-Luc Godard defending the 'implausible' ending
of
> > Hitchcock's THE WRONG MAN in exactly the same terms!
>
> Yes, that was in his interview with me about Histoire(s) du
cinema.
> And in fact the "miracle" he was defending in the film wasn't in
the
> least bit true!
>
> Jonathan

As Hitchcock always admitted. He later told Truffaut he regretted
changing anything from what really happened.
16176


From:
Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:14pm
Subject: Re: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
This is a terrific list of movies!
Those I haven't seen (but would really like to):
HOTEL DU NORD
THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY
THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER
THE RECKLESS MOMENT
RIFIFI
LE DIEUXIEME SOUFFLE
UN FLIC

"Un Flic" is available on DVD at the video store - will definitely have to
rent this.
Your list should add: White Heat (Walsh), Crime Wave (de Toth), Murder Is My
Beat (Ulmer).

My favorite no-budget Cornell Woolrich adaptation:
Mark of the Whistler (William Castle, 1944)

Even below "termite art", are films even more modest in scope. We can dub
them "thrip art", in honor of the world's smallest insects. These include such
pleasant noirs by directors with no reputations:

Shadow of a Woman (Joseph Santley, 1946)
Dead Reckoning (John Cromwell, 1947)
Homicide (Felix Jacoves, 1949)
The Street With No Name (William Keighley, 1948)
Mystery Street (John Sturges, 1950)
No Questions Asked (Harold F. Kress, 1951)
The Racket (John Cromwell, 1951)
Tomorrow is Another Day (Felix Feist, 1951)
Code Two (Fred Wilcox, 1953)
The Glass Wall (Maxwell Shane, 1953)
Hell’s Half Acre (John H. Auer, 1954)
Suddenly (Lewis Allen, 1954)

Mike Grost
16177


From: Matt Teichman
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:24am
Subject: Re: Delon, Blier, etc.
 
cairnsdavid1967 wrote:

>Heh. MON HOMME and LES ACTEURS both contain moments that seem like
>wry sort-of apologies for the misogyny many have seen in Blier's
>earlier work. Especially like Blier himself, in LES ACTS. telling
>Claude Brasseur to soften his line reading of "That fucking bitch!"
>because he doesn't want it to come across as "too misogynistic."
>
>
All this talk of Blier is rather exciting.

I don't think these are meant to be apologies. Gerard Lanvin's
character is certainly apologizing to Grinberg's and Tedeschi's when he
ends _Mon Homme_ with "Pardon, les femmes." But as a moment in a film,
the line works as a kind of slap in the face of the critics who have
been waiting to hear Blier himself say it for years; implanting the
"apology" in the discourse of a character with whom neither he nor
anyone else is meant to identify is about as close as he's ever going to
come. Which ends up being a lot farther away than not having said anything.

Similarly, the scene in _Les Acteurs_ is a potshot at the kind of bad
ideological reading that robotically mines a text for offensive words
and ignores their context. Here Blier is locating political values such
as misogyny in the particular use of a word, rather than in some
timeless semantic meaning. Telling Brasseur to make "trainee" into a
word of love (a peculiar order, which Brasseur is nonetheless able to
execute rather brilliantly) is an annoyed response to a critical
tradition that has repeatedly misunderstood the register on which
Blier's texts are working by mindlessly searching them for "blacklisted"
vocabulary.

-Matt
16178


From: iangjohnston
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:21am
Subject: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Or: Doing Bad Politics
 
I'm sure there are a lot of admirers here (as I am) of Hou Hsiao-
hsien, but I wonder how many have read the discussion that was
published in the July-August New Left Review with Hou, his
scriptwriter Chu Tien-hsin, writer Tang Nuo, and academic Hsia Chu-
joe. If you have read it (it's essentially a discussion, recorded a
few days after the March presidential election, on "ethnic tension"
by the organisers of a supposedly non-partisan Alliance for Ethnic
Equality), I'd want to issue a general consumer warning not to
accept as fact this collection of biased opinions, distortions, and
misrepresentations.

Without getting into the details of countering individual points
that they make (a little off topic on this forum, anyway) I'd make a
couple of general comments. One is that all four talk of Chen's DPP
government as a monolithic force, in the same way that you might
talk of the KMT in the eighties. The opposite is in fact the case --
Taiwan's legislature is controlled by the pan-Blue opposition
(something Hou et al never mention). It's almost as if they haven't
quite caught on to the changes in political culture on the ground.

Secondly, the non-partisan nature of this Alliance for Ethnic
Equality is a little questionable. You never seen the "Mainlander"
pan-Blues taken to task in the way that the pro-government pan-
Greens are. Furthermore, Hou -- consciously or not -- has
subsequently moved even further into the pan-Blue camp. He's now the
president of a new "non-partisan" institution, the Taiwan Democracy
School,which plans to offer candidates for the end-of-year
legislative elections; "non-partisan", but in fact clearly in the
pan-Blue camp.

So what's my take on Hou Hsiao-hsien in all of this? Wishful
thinking on my part perhaps, but his contributions to the NLR
discussion strike me as rather naive and idealistic. Certainly, he's
the only one of the four to say "yes" to the question "Should we
also try to move ahead together towards an independent Taiwanese
state, in which there is ethnic equality?"

Hou's conclusion to his discussion is this:

"Regional diiferences have faded. [Young people] listen to the same
music. For them, unlike our generation, everything is similar. Their
world has changed. I always say, why can't the DPP leave the
possibility of nation-building, or many other options, to our next
generation? How do you know what they are capable of? You should
just mind you own business and leave resources to them. Perhaps ther
way of handling things will be far simpler than you imagine."

Well-intentioned, I'm sure; but hopelessly naive, and not much of a
political programme for Taiwanese (like my wife) living right now.

Ian

For an editorial, highly critical of the NLR discussion
participants, see:

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Editorial/2004/08/11/1092192346.htm
16179


From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:47am
Subject: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Even below "termite art", are films even more modest in scope. We
can dub
> them "thrip art", in honor of the world's smallest insects.

Great new term, Mike. More termitic in scale, but never mentioned,
are Jack Arnold's noirs: Man in the Shadow (the termitic pendant to
Touch of Evil), The Tattered Dress and The Glass Web.
16180


From: Richard Modiano
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:53am
Subject: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:

"Even below "termite art", are films even more modest in scope. We
can dub them "thrip art", in honor of the world's smallest insects.
These include such pleasant noirs by directors with no reputations:

"... The Racket (John Cromwell, 1951)
Hell's Half Acre (John H. Auer, 1954)
Suddenly (Lewis Allen, 1954)"


Nicholas Ray shot 10 minutes of footage for THE RACKET, and Howard
Hughes fooled around with the rest of it; interesting for that.

HELL'S HALF ACRE is of particular interest because it's a record of a
former low rent crime area of Honolulu demolished in 1968-69; I think
every exterior was shot on location there with great night-for-night
photography. It's worth reviving.

SUDDENLY exists as a sell-through DVD made from a passably good
print. I think it's better than Wyler's THE DESPERATE HOURS.

Wouldn't those Lewis Bowery Boys pictures qualify as "thirp art?"

Richard
16181


From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:39am
Subject: Re: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Or: Doing Bad Politics
 
>"Regional diiferences have faded. [Young people] listen to the
>same
>music. For them, unlike our generation, everything is similar.
>Their
>world has changed. I always say, why can't the DPP leave the
>possibility of nation-building, or many other options, to our next
>generation? How do you know what they are capable of? You
>should
>just mind you own business and leave resources to them.
>Perhaps ther
>way of handling things will be far simpler than you imagine."

Ian: thanks for posting this!

I've always found Hou's politics questionable. He's a great
filmmaker, but he's also a great evader of important issues, and
his recent films -- Cafe Lumiere and Millennium Mambo --
suggest his blind faith in (often idiotic) youth.

I'm known as a champion of Hou's films (and I count myself
among the lucky few who have actually seen him do karaoke!),
but his startlingly passive youth characters are beginning to
leave me pondering.

I had thought these characters pointed more to his form: an
insistence on holding back from the audience, rather than
revealing the full psychological profile of a character. But it now
appears that he is recording a full observation of how he sees
Taiwanese youth: as dissonant, estranged, and careless, really.

Though I need to see it again, "Cafe Lumiere" is far less
ambivalent about youth than "Millennium Mambo", and it deals
with national identity more explicitly (though in both films
Taiwanese characters find themselves transposed in Japan),
but their muted, almost robotic behavior is a troubling sight,
speaking as a young person. It suggests their personalities are
formed by mass culture (pop music, cell phone culture, etc.)
rather than by personal intricacies.

If this is how Hou sees Taiwanese youth, I would be offended if I
were one.

Gabe
16182


From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:41am
Subject: Re: Re: Was Douglas Sirk gay?
 
The woman who wrote that Sirk blurb for Doc replied to me promptly that
she's going to rewrite it. She had heard that Sirk was gay but doesn't
remember where and acknowledges that the blurb needs to be fixed. So
there's a good outcome here: one Web page gets corrected, and one young
writer says she is going to be much more careful about facts in the
future. I was impressed with her reply, in fact.

As I told her, Sirk may have been gay in the sense of his main
attraction being to men; I just don't have any evidence of it, other
than some possible hints in his films, and we do on the other side have
two wives and one son. Also, I agree with David that in short blurbs
"gay auteur" is not appropriate for all directors who happen to be gay.

Case closed, for now, I guess. Or perhaps not. Are there any German
speakers in our group who can search German new and used book Web sites
for a book by Mrs. Sirk? I can do this in a limited way with my eleven
words of German, but I don't know the sites; http://www.amazon.de/
yields no books by any Sirk who sounds like his second wife (I'm almost
sure her first name was Hilde). If there's a German site that's the
equivalent of the really useful Library of Congress Web site (you can
browse the whole catalogue there) that could be checked. If anyone knows
Tony Rayns, I think the rumor I heard originated with him.

If I could go back in time I would pop the question to Sirk myself the
one time I met him, just as I was leaving (in case he was going to be so
insulted that he would throw me out). I'm still in mourning, in a way,
over all the things I never got to ask Brakhage. If you know an artist
whose work you love, and who isn't getting a lot of attention, gather facts!

Fred Camper
16183


From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 5:10am
Subject: Re: Intention (Was: Licensing From Studios)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
> This issue is on my mind from having just seen a lot of Murnau films
with
> musical accompaniment, sometimes improvised and sometimes issued by
the
> studio, but often terribly destructive in either case. I know
silent
> movies were never intended to be seen silent, but I don't care
anymore:
> I've learned how to enjoy unaccompanied silent movies over the
years, and
> I'm unwilling to risk what an oblivious score can do to a subtle
movie.
> Someday I want to see TABU with the volume turned off and see if
that will
> help me love the film as much as everyone says I should. - Dan

I haven't seen TABU for a long time. I wasn't able to see it at the
Film Forum recently. But I remember liking the score, as well as
loving the movie. But I should see it again in case my memory is
deceiving me.

With the other Murnau films, I didn't find the live piano too
obtrusive, though I sometimes would have preferred to have seen the
films in silence. At times I would have preferred Bruce Goldstein not
try to act when he read the intertitles, but at other times it was
charming. FINANCES OF THE GRAND DUKE worked best. I think Murnau's
sunniness went well with the Film Forum's staffs' slightly overacted
piano-playing and narration.

I did overhear Goldstein and the pianist discussing after PHANTOM
whether they ought to have projected it at a higher speed. That got me
curious: first, whether it would have helped PHANTOM; second, how
PHANTOM would have been projected back in the 1920's. My understanding
is that 'silent speed = 16 fps' is a myth. Hand cranked cameras were
common, and DC powered, variable speed cameras and projectors were the
norm throughout the silent era. Second run theaters would typically
project films faster to fit in more shows per day. And projection
speeds apparently increased toward the end of the silent era,
approaching 24 fps. 16 fps creates a flickering effect on projectors
with 2-bladed shutters, so it is likely films were projected faster
for that reason alone.

Paul
16184


From:
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:13am
Subject: Re: Re: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Or: Doing Bad Politics
 
In a message dated 9/29/04 11:42:20 PM, gcklinger@y... writes:


> It suggests their personalities are
> formed by mass culture (pop music, cell phone culture, etc.)
>

Oh don't forget film.

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16185


From:
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:25am
Subject: Didn't See (Or Hear) DIdn't You Hear...
 
The print for Didn't You Hear... was fucked up (apparently, reel 5 was from a
completely different movie) so Silent Partner was shown instead. Therefore, I
have nothing to report. But if anyone ever manages to see Didn't You Hear...,
please let us know what you thought.

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16186


From: Damien Bona
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 5:54am
Subject: Re: Head in the Clouds (auteurists versus audience)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> I submit: What we mean when we say the spectator wants a
> story is really -- as your aunt's comment shows : The spectator
> wants knowledge. The need to know more, and more, is what
> pulls her thru the film. This is something AH understood. And it's
> a matter of mise-en-scene.


I think Hitchcock was a special case, being one of the few directors
known by general audiences. When "regular moviegoers" went to a
Hitcchcock movie, they were looking for thrills and examples of
Hitchcock touches -- the particular plot did not have the same import
as it did for a movie directed by, say Jack Conway. With Hitchcock,
it was much like today's audiences going to a summer blockbuster such
as "The Day After Tomorrow." Surely no audience at a Hitchcock film
back in the day discussed Catholic themes in his work.
16188


From: Damien Bona
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:23am
Subject: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
>
> Wouldn't those Lewis Bowery Boys pictures qualify as "thirp art?"
>

Just to be exact -- and a bit anal -- the pictures Lewis directed
weren't in the Bowery Boys series, but were East Side Kids movies.

The first Bowery Boys film was Phil Karlson's "Live Wires" from 1946.
16189


From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:23am
Subject: Re: Re: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Or: Doing Bad Politics
 
> I'm known as a champion of Hou's films (and I count myself
> among the lucky few who have actually seen him do karaoke!),
> but his startlingly passive youth characters are beginning to
> leave me pondering.

Thanks to Ian and to Gabe for their thoughts -- I myself am a naïf (or,
let me level, am generally clueless) when it comes to current Taiwanese
politics, and found the editorial in Ian's link to be quite
illuminating. I didn't know, for example, that the assassination
attempt on Chen was being "spun" by pan-Blue propagandists as a staged
event (akin to John Kerry's "self-infliction" of wounds x 3?). (Let me
state, however, that I'm always a little wary when distortions become
"too numerous to relate").

Branching from the topic of Hou's current and direct political
involvement, I'd be interested to hear thoughts from members of the
group on the topic of "the obligations of the artist." But first, a
quick prelude by way of digression: I get something from Gabe's post,
and from other recent discourses in other fora on Hou's cinema from
'Goodbye South, Goodbye' on -- most significantly with 'Millennium
Mambo' -- that his portrayals of youth culture are now too dislodged
from a "political milieu" -- that Hou was primarily of interest as an
historico-political filmmaker, but now reprazents like a filmmaker
"gone electric." In the face of these criticisms (or my own paranoia),
how am I to reconcile my own evaluation of 'Millennium Mambo' as
top-three (maybe top-five) Hou? If I pause to reflect... I suppose I
retain a clear conscience: along with the diverse tectonics of history
and politics as illustrated by Hou, I've always been tremendously
impressed (more impressed) with his mise en scène, and with the
behavior of his characters. For me, 'Millennium Mambo' is to date the
eminent "youth culture" film of my generation. In my opinion. Of the
films I've seen that date from 1997-2004. (Maybe it's just the
misanthropist in me who rates it as such -- the same one who opines
that the second-most-eminent [peneminent?] film of this youth culture
is 'Choses secrets.' Just kidding. Though I do love that film.) A
can of worms indeed: What constitutes a "youth" "culture" "film"? What
constitutes "the" youth culture of any given point in time? What's the
cut-off for membership? Why does 'Vladimir et Rosa' speak to me as a
youth-culture work before a cod-Maoist work? These are rhetorical
questions that demand subjective answers -- and all I can express, on
the topic of 'Millennium Mambo,' is that of a certain technologized
East-West pop-cultural thang of a global youth culture, I find the
relationships between humans in a room, the decor of the rooms, the
tones of voice, the ribboned cadences of the conversations, the
portrayal of "wind-down," the lost hours and the good intentions, to be
rather indicative -- to be something I know -- and furthermore, this
grand portrayal seems broad enough to transpose globally, across
first-, second-, and third-world cultures at this point in history as
something that gets close to the modern "jeune ennui." With Vicky's
and Hao-hao's apartment, Hou achieves a kind of "realistic" domestic
perfection that I've only glimpsed in two other films so far this
decade, for reasons too numerous to relate -- the mansion at the end of
'Crimson Gold' and Barry's house in 'Punch-Drunk Love' -- but Hou's
apartment has an atmosphere that seems to be definitively and fluidly
representative of a late-teen/20-something space, maybe in large part
because, production-design aside (and that's a large part in and of
itself), if we're seeing it from a north angle most of the time in the
film, we rarely see it from a south angle, and it thus seems even more
tableau-like, more announcing of something "writ large" -- I don't
know. What more can I say? I sensed what I'm feeling when I saw Shu
Qi light a candle.

> I had thought these characters pointed more to his form: an
> insistence on holding back from the audience, rather than
> revealing the full psychological profile of a character. But it now
> appears that he is recording a full observation of how he sees
> Taiwanese youth: as dissonant, estranged, and careless, really.

+

> ...
> but their muted, almost robotic behavior is a troubling sight,
> speaking as a young person. It suggests their personalities are
> formed by mass culture (pop music, cell phone culture, etc.)
> rather than by personal intricacies.

+

> If this is how Hou sees Taiwanese youth, I would be offended if I
> were one.

And this is why I wanted to pose the question of 'what are a
filmmaker's obligations.' Are you suggesting that Hou shouldn't
present a relentlessly cynical portrayal...? Or, rather, erm, he
should think twice when he decides not to crush his protagonist at the
end, but give her some kind of hope for a future? (Thinking here of
'MM' and 'Good Men, Good Women,' not 'Goodbye South, Goodbye' or
'Flowers of Shanghai.') Has he somehow "betrayed himself"? The truth,
as I see it -- truth as only one opinion -- (a) I understand the bulk
of my generation as dissonant, estranged, and careless. For the most
part. Even the ones who have their shit together in the eyes of
General Society, like, say, the alpha-prime contestants on The
Apprentice. "The young" are out to fucking lunch, dislocated from
intellectualism -and- emotion, but still somehow (or something like)
human. This is fact. They're the products of fake-education,
globalized American ephemera, and the over-stimulating affects
[intended with an "a"] of technology. Strangely enough, they make good
buddies, and they're often fun to have sex with. (b) "It suggests their
personalities are formed by mass culture ... rather than by personal
intricacies." That's precisely what it suggests, but I personally
don't find the aesthetic in which this is couched in Hou's films to be
banal -- nor, fascinatingly, condescending in the least. (c) "If this
is how Hou sees Taiwanese youth, I would be offended if I were one."
Why be offended? A squirt of zeitgeist up the nose never hurt a soul
-- otherwise we'd never have (even subconscious, which the best usually
are) "generational statements" in art. It's certainly the way I see
the average American youth. Adrift, noncognizant, sedated, illiterate,
obnoxious, crude, crass, super-sentimental, sillily scientific,
terminally facile "satellite slaves" (to quote JLG in a
removed-from-context way). And it's not going to get better -- it's
only gonna get pathetically worse until civilization as the ancient
Greeks and Northrop Frye understood it is eradicated. The million
exceptions to my crude caricature will eventually dwindle to ten
thousand and then a baker's dozen. The free-market virus is only
beginning its dread spread. We are -doomed-. It's the other kids in
the room with 'The Tiger of Eschnapur' who are the dominant reality and
whose mores are the norm, not the person who put the disc in the player
to begin with.

If I sound optimistic anywhere above, it's only because I take solace
in the fact that privatized spaceflight, coupled with the recent and
ongoing barrage of planetoid discovery, has given me a renewed sense of
hope and, when I wake up in the morning, a fresh outlook on the day.

craig.
16190


From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:22am
Subject: Ruiz film in LA
 
Los Tres Tristes Tigres (Three Sad Tigers, Chile, 1968) is playing at
the Redcat theater on October 1st, this Friday, at 8pm.

Yours,
andy
16191


From: Aaron Graham
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:26am
Subject: Re: Didn't See (Or Hear) DIdn't You Hear...
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> The print for Didn't You Hear... was fucked up (apparently, reel 5
was from a
> completely different movie) so Silent Partner was shown instead.

Any thoughts on "The Silent Partner"?
16192


From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:43am
Subject: Re: Ruiz film in LA
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
> Los Tres Tristes Tigres (Three Sad Tigers, Chile, 1968) is playing
at
> the Redcat theater on October 1st, this Friday, at 8pm.
>
> Yours,
> andy

See you there, comrade.
16193


From: Damien Bona
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:35am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
From experience, I fully agree with Maxime that there is a huge
dichotomy between the films most people consider best and those
favored by auteurists. (One need only look at what gets shown on the
TCM series, "The Essentials": If a film treasured by auteurists is
shown, it's only by coincidence, an "auteurist film" that has general
appeal/social impact: Rebel Without A Cause" or "To Kill A
Mockingbird.") It is true that some movies that initially were
championed by auteurists have made it into the general canon (such
as "The Searchers" and "Vertigo" and "Touch of Evil"), you still
won't find your general movie reviewer extolling the virtues
of "Donovan's Reef" and "Family Plot" and "Mr. Arkadin."

Most of us on this board seem to love Douglas Sirk and consider it
non-negotiable that he's one of the screen's great artists. And yet
here is Slate's David Edelstein -- whom I consider to be the biggest
twit currently typing about movies:

"When I heard that the next project of Todd Haynes would be a 1950s-
set, Douglas Sirk-style soap opera called Far From Heaven (Focus), I
let out a groan. Unlike a lot of auteurists, gays, and gay
auteurists, I've never been overly enraptured by such lush Sirk/Jane
Wyman/Rock Hudson weepers as Magnificent Obsession (1954) and All
That Heaven Allows (1955); and I couldn't imagine how Haynes could
reproduce the stylized Hollywood "woman's picture" conventions of a
half-century ago without drifting into high, hooting camp. After Safe
(1995), his stunning depiction of Reagan-era soul-sickness, and
Velvet Goldmine (1998), his fractured eulogy for glam-rock artifice,
this sounded like a foolish regression—at once blandly nostalgic and
archly postmodernist.

"As it turns out, Far From Heaven is Haynes' breakthrough. It isn't
as daringly elliptical as Safe, but it's so intimate, accessible, and
passionate that it makes every other current movie seem anemic. It
makes even Sirk seem anemic."

Never mind that as far as I'm concerned, any two minutes of "Weekend
With Father" or "Thunder On The Hill" is infinitely more profound
than the entirety of "Far From Heaven," Edelstein's comments show
that Sirk continues to be considered a ghetto-ized commodity among
the mainstream, middle-brow press.


-- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
> Maxime Renaudin wrote:
>
> >....the divorce between so-called auteurists and audience.....
> >
> This has been a kind of disagreement in this group for some time.
Some
> are of the view that what "we" like is not that different from what
most
> viewers like, others that there is a big split. I am of the latter
view,
> which is not to say that David E's mom might not belong with "us,"
but
> just that I don't think most of the "public" does. You might fool
> yourself into the former view with a program of "Red
River," "Psycho,"
> "Hangmen Also Die," "The Searchers," "The Magnificent Ambersons,"
and
> "Pickup on South Street ", but hos would a program of "Red Line
7000,"
> "Marnie,"The Tiger of Eschnapur," "Seven Women," "Touch of Evil,"
and
> "Shock Corridor" be received my most movie fans?
>
> Keep in mind that I can remember the time in the mid to late 60s
and
> even early 70s when people were LAUGHED AT for taking even the
films on
> the first list of the two above seriously as works of art. I
remember
> when the only way to see "Red River" and "The Searchers" was on New
> York's 42nd Street theaters with their near-hobo audiences, while
the
> "art" cinemas showed Bergman and Fellini and Antonioni and "The Red
> Shoes," and the Rossellini of "Open City" and "Generale Della
Rovere"
> (both great films) and "Jules et Jim" and perhaps even "Citizen
Kane"
> but never "Touch of Evil" and never the Rossellini of his films
with
> Bergman.
>
> It's hard to learn to see films for their deep structures. Everyone
> assumes that they know how to see movies from going to light
> entertainment's and seeing them that way, as is evidenced by the
> superficial judgments of your friends; they're not accustomed to
looking
> for more. And TV viewings especially encourages such superficiality
in
> general, especially among the uninitiated. But your friends, if
open
> minded enough and with at least a smidgen of aesthetic interest,
could
> probably have their views changed with a long time spent viewing
the
> "right" films.
16194


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:43am
Subject: Re: Lang's secret cinema
 
That's a really nice, hopeful story.

I was actually thinking about catching 'em even YOUNGER. My friend
was screening silents and subtitled film to his kids when they were
7, 5 and 3. While running a cheap and scrappy VHS of Lon Chaney's
HUNCHBACK, he asked the youngest "What do you think of the picture
quality?"
"It's..." said the lad, taking his thumb from his mouth,
thoughtfully, "...fizzy-facky."

Which is a word I've used ever since to describe scratched prints.
nobody's heard the expression but everybody understands it.

My pal also ran LA BELLE ET LA BETE for them, which they were tickled
by, as "It's the same story as the Disney one!"

The anti-black-and-white thing only emerges if given time - if
they're watching b&w at aged 4 then they'll likely to continue. His
kids love Buster Keaton, and the critic Jonathan Romney's toddler
often requests "Loll-an-Addy" films.
16195


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:46am
Subject: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
> Anyway, I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE IN YOUR SHOES proves that you should
> never, ever, toss your shoes out the window.

Heh. Woolrich's stories are full of such chance calamities. The
killer in RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK gets started after a beer bottle
chucked from an aeroplane stoves in his best girl's head, and there's
another in which the suicidal heroine fires at her own head, misses,
and kills a passerby. Resolving to take over her victim's life and do
whatever she would have wanted, our heroine discovers that the main
thing the victim wanted was to kill a bunch of people. And so it
goes...
16196


From:
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 9:26am
Subject: SILENT PARTNER (WAS: Re: Didn't See (Or Hear) DIdn't You Hear...)
 
SILENT PARTNER SPOILERS BELOW

I saw SILENT PARTNER before and was kinda miffed about the screening snafu.
So I just went back home (and a nasty bug found its way into my shirt and I
drove the wrong way on a one-way street). But I was mixed on SILENT PARTNER when
I saw it a few years back. It's an expert thriller, tighter than my tummy used
to be. But all of the violence is against women and none of it is examined.
Very rote and it left me with a bad taste. And the bad guy is in drag when he
finally gets offed. Yawn. And ugh.

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16197


From:
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 9:27am
Subject: Fizzy-facky!!! (WAS: Re: Lang's secret cinema)
 
In a message dated 9/30/04 5:50:06 AM, skuttrusk@h... writes:


> "It's..." said the lad, taking his thumb from his mouth,
> thoughtfully, "...fizzy-facky."
>

My vote for best post so far! Thanx (Scott?)!!!

Kevin John

16198


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:03pm
Subject: Fizzy-facky!!! (WAS: Re: Lang's secret cinema)
 
> My vote for best post so far! Thanx (Scott?)!!!
>
> Kevin John

Thanx Kevin!

David Cairns
16199


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:06pm
Subject: Re: Fw: Film Forum Noirs
 
> I agree, Thieves' Highway is tremendous, Dassin's finest in my
> opinion.

I like it a lot but wish the ending was darker and more hard-hitting.
I feel the same about ON DANGEROUS GROUND, but there you can kind of
imagine it with the studio ending simply removed and Ray's bleaker
finish in place.

For me, Dassin really kicks in with the magnificent NAKED CITY, and
my favourite is NIGHT AND THE CITY. Also love TOPKAPI.

His last film, with Tatum O'Neil and Richard Burton, is available on
cheap DVD but I'm afraid to look.
16200


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:13pm
Subject: Re: Film Forum Noir (NYC)
 
> Those I haven't seen (but would really like to):
> HOTEL DU NORD
> THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY
> THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER
> THE RECKLESS MOMENT
> RIFIFI
> LE DIEUXIEME SOUFFLE
> UN FLIC

All highly recommended. I think HOTEL DU NORD is a really underrated
Carne, with great performances from all and sundry, and a sympathetic
gay character who's fairly "out" in terms of narrative
representation. Interestingly, the women all know he's gay, but the
straight men can't figure out why a nice chap like that hasn't got a
girlfriend. Film also features Annabella, whose father introduced the
Boy Scout movement to France, as I'm fond of saying.

UNCLE HARRY is a masterpiece, with George Sanders as a shy, virginal
wallpaper designer (!!!) The studio-imposed ending is the worst I've
ever seen, and was voted for by an audience who chose it from six
options, which must prove something. Fortunately it's easy to
mentally cut the ending off and then the film is great.

RECKLESS MO is, after LETTER FROM AN UNK, Ophuls' best US film, imho.

And LE DIEUXIEME SOUFFLE maybe Melville's most sympathetic film - not
that one necessarily watches Melvilel for his compassion, but it's
nice to see he can do it.

> "Un Flic" is available on DVD at the video store - will definitely
have to rent this.

REALLY interesting late Melville.

> Your list should add: White Heat (Walsh), Crime Wave (de Toth),
Murder Is My
> Beat (Ulmer).

And dozens more! Haven't seen the Ulmer and would love to.

> My favorite no-budget Cornell Woolrich adaptation:
> Mark of the Whistler (William Castle, 1944)

Wow - one of the few major Castles I haven't seen, and it's a
Woolrich. Hot damn!

> Shadow of a Woman (Joseph Santley, 1946)
> Dead Reckoning (John Cromwell, 1947)
> Homicide (Felix Jacoves, 1949)
> The Street With No Name (William Keighley, 1948)
> Mystery Street (John Sturges, 1950)
> No Questions Asked (Harold F. Kress, 1951)
> The Racket (John Cromwell, 1951)
> Tomorrow is Another Day (Felix Feist, 1951)
> Code Two (Fred Wilcox, 1953)
> The Glass Wall (Maxwell Shane, 1953)
> Hell's Half Acre (John H. Auer, 1954)
> Suddenly (Lewis Allen, 1954)

Haven't seen ANY of them, though I have SUDDENLY and must get around
to looking at it. Nice-looking group though.

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