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16501


From: Andy Rector
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 6:47pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
Bill wrote:
> That strain of populism appeared in CdC during its previous
> incarnation, too. A couple of the people doing it were friends of
> mine, so I never felt, as Toubiana remarked to one of them, that
they
> had "betrayed the traditions of the Cahiers" -- obviously from this
> discussion, quite the contrary -- but I will admit that I found
> little nourishment in what they wrote, and stopped contributing
> myself, in large part because I don't have television. Ironically,
> I've started watching tv on tape since the purge and am finding
> things I like -- 24, CSI, which they espoused; K-Street and Mr.
Show
> which I heard about here -- but there just isn't time. I don't know
> how Mike does it!

I remember just a few years ago I was in Chicago to visit my mother.
I stopped by the Facets store/theater and browsed their impressive
array of magazines. I did not however see Cahiers and up to that
point had never seen a physical copy of it in my life (but of course
I'd read tons of it in translation and was rather anxious). I asked
the man behind the register if Facets carried Cahiers and he pointed
it out to me. It was the issue entirely devoted to video games.
Well....I was let down! I could only be interested in this if it was
from the old position of militantcy. I say this because I've seen
video games ruin people, friends. Likewise in regards to analyzing a
show like 24, which is clearly a mouthpiece for the Pentagon/LAPD.


I ended up buying an issue of Positif. It had pieces on Panahi,
Chaplin, and La nuit du carrefour, but also Cast Away.

yours,
andy
16502


From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 7:02pm
Subject: Re: Re: Travestied 'Notre musique' (was: Triple Agent AR / NYFF)
 
>
> I was waiting for Craig Keller or others more Godardian than I to
> comment on the screening, but I think it should be reported that his
> intervention was successful: the film was shown at Academy ratio, or
> what passes for it -- I say that because, trying to pay attention to
> the edges of the image in this case, I kept noticing that, even on the
> Alice Tully screen, the tops of figures -- architectural forms for
> example -- were often just above the frame line. One could only value
> every square centimeter of Sarajevo that was spared and left standing
> by the framing.
> One curiosity: the Wellspring logo at the beginning was letterboxed,
> as if cueing the projectionist to mask the frame accordingly. And
> while their subtitles were also slightly raised -- into the "safe
> area" presumably -- I would think a 1.66:1 screening would have just
> about grazed them, while 1.85 would surely have trimmed them out
> altogether...?

Hmm... very interesting, and thanks for reporting on this. I wouldn't
have known as I wasn't going to be attending the screening. However, I
did see Frodon in Pleasantville last night -- great stuff!

craig.
16503


From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 7:45pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
I searched around online and found this article by James Naremore. I'm
not persuaded, and I'd never heard of the book he discusses in this
quote, but it's interesting.

I don't think the Cahiers critics were representatives of high culture
appropriating bits of mass culture. Instead, they were claiming films
to be great works of art. "We said that Hitchcock was a great painter,
a great novelist, not just a director of murder stories, so it was
more democratic." "We won the day in having it acknowledged in
principle that a film by Hitchcock, for example, is as important as a
book by Aragon. Film auteurs, thanks to us, have finally entered the
history of art." - Godard

Here's Naremore's article.

http://godard.cjb.net//naremore_authorship.pdf

"Auteurism, by contrast, emerged in the declining years of the studio
system, at the dawn of the television age. This is not to say that the
auteurists and their earliest followers in Britain and America
literally watched films on TV; on the contrary, their cult enthusiasms
were nourished by select revival theaters and museums. They belonged,
however, to a generation of people everywhere who would begin to use
TV like a cinematheque, viewing films in no historical order,
regarding the classic cinema as something distant or dying... As a
result, whereas the movies were an invention of modernity, all film
culture and all writing on film since the late fifties has had
something of a postmodern character.

"There are also stylistic or methodological reasons for describing the
early Godard as a postmodernist. What I have in mind is the account of
postmodernism offered by Andreas Huyssen in his influential book,
After the Great Divide. The tenth chapter of that book, entitled
"Mapping the Postmodern," argues that sometime around 1960 coincident
with the historical situation outlined above -- a new aesthetic began
to appear in Western society. Huyssen argues that the new sensibility
was signalled especially by the Pop movement in American art, by the
literary criticism of Susan Sontag and Leslie Fiedler, and by the
later architectural writings of Robert Venturi. What all these events
have in common, in Huyssen's words, is a 'break with the austere canon
of high modern[ism]' and an 'espousal of the commercial vernacular of
consumer culture.' They involve a sometimes baffling mixture of
elitism and populism, and they adopt a critical strategy that's
currently being rediscovered in some quarters of academe. As Huyssen
puts it, 'Pop in the broadest sense was the context in which a notion
of the postmodern first took shape, and from the beginning until
today, the most significant trends within postmodernism have
challenged modernism's relentless hostility to mass culture.'
Huyssen doesn't mention Godard or Truffaut, but it seems to me that
auteurism and the New Wave belong on his list of postmodern artifacts.
Godard's early work is roughly contemporary with Pop, and it clearly
draws inspiration from the American commercial scene. To be sure,
there was nothing special about a French intellectual who praised
American movies -- a phenomenon that dates back at least as far as the
surrealists. There was also a quality of old-fashioned enthusiasm
about Godard and the auteurists, who were never so coolly uncritical
as Andy Warhol, and never so condescending to movies as Leslie Fiedler
or Susan Sontag. Nevertheless, as a writer Godard used the language of
high art to praise certain 'pulpy' Hollywood auteurs, and as a
film-maker he borrowed imagery from such films as Some Came Running,
which director Vincente Minnelli had designed to resemble what he
described as 'the inside of a juke box.'"
16504


From: Kevin Lee
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 8:28pm
Subject: Re: New Bollywood website
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
>
> AWAARA - Rosenbaum on Charlie Chaplin: "No one else in the history
of art has
> shown us in greater detail what it means to be poor." Except Raj
Kapoor.
> >
> Kevin John

The thing with Indian cinema is that poverty is such a central theme
(at least up until recently?) that you could subcategorize Indian
films by how, or in what milieu, they deal with poverty. For
example, Raj Kapoor shows us in great detail what it means to be
urban poor, while Mehboob Khan's MOTHER INDIA shows what it means to
be rural poor. I only say this because had a loooong argument with
someone once as to which film did a better job of showing a lower
caste perspective and I pretty much came to the conclusion I just
stated. Then there's Guru Dutt who in his two most famous films
negotiates a kind of solidarity between outcasts and artists (though
the outcome is invariably tragic).

Anyway I caught up with this post just now and didn't want to let it
die -- Any friend of Raj Kapoor is a friend of mine.
16505


From:
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 9:43pm
Subject: Re: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
In a message dated 10/6/04 1:50:34 PM, kinoslang@h... writes:


> It had pieces on Panahi,
> Chaplin, and La nuit du carrefour, but also Cast Away.
>

Which latter is a masterpiece.

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16506


From:
Date: Wed Oct 6, 2004 9:49pm
Subject: Re: Re: New Bollywood website
 
In a message dated 10/6/04 3:30:06 PM, alsolikelife@y... writes:


> Any friend of Raj Kapoor is a friend of mine.
>
He IS the most but MERA NAAM JOKER was rough going for me (although the
crying scene is pretty freakin' jawdropping - the quintessence of melodrama).

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16507


From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 6:13am
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
> > It had pieces on Panahi,
> > Chaplin, and La nuit du carrefour, but also Cast Away.
> >
>
> Which latter is a masterpiece.
>
> Kevin John

I hope you mean La nuit du carrefour.
16508


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 0:21pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
> I think that the auteurists took pleasure not so much in trumping
> the "elitist" critics (whom I take to mean people like Dwught
> MacDonald, John Simon, Stanley Kauffmann), but rather in revealing
> the vapidity of the middle-brows (epitomized by Bosley Crowther)
for
> over-praising movies by the likes of Fred Zinnemann, Wyler, George
> Stevens, Delbert and Daniel Mann and, of course, Stanley Kramer,
> based on their social issue content. The elitists pretty much saw
> through these guys, but Arthur Knight and Judith Crist didn't.

Well, the auteurists were fairly pro-Wyler until BEN-HUR pushed him
beyond the pale - a hugely expensive, hugely profitable film with no
obvious personal significance to its maker. But Wyler undertook it
purely for the visual possibilities made possible by the epic form,
a respectable enough project for the auteur. Writing on Wyler's work
with Toland generally acknowledged him as a magnificent technician
of mise-en-scene. And you'd be hard-pressed to see films like THE
GOOD FAIRY, THE WESTERNER, BEN-HUR and ROMAN HOLIDAY as social issue
based.

Zinnemann and Stevens also made many excellent films
without "worthy" social content - and it's worth noting that when
Truffaut said that the more important a film's subject, the less
likely it was to be any good, he didn't go so far as to say that a
film with an important subject was BOUND to be poor - see DR
STRANGELOVE.

Lumping all these filmmakers together irks me a bit, and reminds me
of the uncritical trashing of "cinema du papa" filmmakers like
Duvivier, Carne and Clair by film-lovers who haven't actually taken
to the trouble to look at the individual works.
16509


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 1:40pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
>
>
>
> I ended up buying an issue of Positif. It had pieces on Panahi,
> Chaplin, and La nuit du carrefour, but also Cast Away.
>
> yours,
> andy

You may be confusing two issues of POSITIF. The Panahi interview
with a review of THE CIRCLE and a still from the film on the cover
was in # 480, Febr. 2001, but it had nothing on either Chaplin or LA
NUIT DU CARREFOUR. It did have a highly favorable review of CAST
AWAY. Also pieces on Ulmer, Flaherty, and a "Dossier" on Russian
cinema. The Chaplin dossier was in #499 (Sept. 2002) with a few
lines on the Renoir in the June "Bloc Note" (Viviani didn't like it).

JPC
16510


From:
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 9:53am
Subject: Re: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
In a message dated 10/7/04 1:15:09 AM, kinoslang@h... writes:


> I hope you mean La nuit du carrefour.
>

Nope, never seen it. I mean Cast Away.

Kisses,

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16511


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 2:13pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
>
>
> Well, the auteurists were fairly pro-Wyler until BEN-HUR pushed
him
> beyond the pale


The auteurists were never even fairly pro-Wyler, although they
did become even more anti-Wyler (understandably so) after BEN HUR.
Roger Leenhardt's famous/infamous "Down with Ford!, Long Live
Wyler!" 1948 article was pre-Cahier auteurism. In the January 1964
special issue on American Cinema the Wyler entry for the Dictionary,
written by Chabrol, rejected Wyler's work as a whole including the
pre-BEN HUR periods (he made the point that Wyler's so-
called "qualities" in the past were actually weaknesses). It was
probably the most savagely negative entry in the entire Dictionary.


JPC
16512


From:
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 2:21pm
Subject: Nobel Prize versus Popular Culture.
 
Here is an example of what many anti-popular culture critics think:
The Nobel Prize was just awarded to Elfriede Jelinek, author of the novel "The Piano Teacher":
From news accounts:

A controversial figure in her homeland, Jelinek belonged to the Austrian Communist Party from 1974-91.

"She is perhaps one of the few writers who, in an advanced sense, masters the symbols and myths of mass culture, films, publicity, soap opera and comics -- the whole industry of entertainment," said Horace Engdahl of the Swedish Academy.

"She is a political writer and she believes this gigantic industry of entertainment affects people in a way that makes them susceptible to the manipulation of the economic elite," he said. "Through the use of mimicry and irony she wants to destroy these discourses."

Mike Grost again:

That's right - the Nobel committe believes Hitchcock, Sternberg, Borzage and Ophuls are responsible for much of the evil in the world. They want to see their works "destroyed".
16513


From:
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 2:40pm
Subject: Re: Nobel Prize versus Popular Culture.
 
This Nobel Prize citation should serve as a wake up call to auteurists.
It denounces all commercial films and comics, and calls for their destruction.
I have heard similar statements all my life.

I feel like a lonely voive, insisting that many films and comics are among the great works of art produced by humanity.

Mike Grost
16514


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 4:00pm
Subject: Re: Nobel Prize versus Popular Culture.
 
--- MG4273@a... wrote:

>
> That's right - the Nobel committe believes
> Hitchcock, Sternberg, Borzage and Ophuls are
> responsible for much of the evil in the world. They
> want to see their works "destroyed".
>
>
>
Well there goes Michael Hanneke's film adaptation of
her novel "The Piano Teacher" starring Isabelle Huppert.



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16515


From: Kevin Lee
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 4:02pm
Subject: The Nobel Prize in Cinema
 
"She is a political writer and she believes this gigantic industry of
entertainment affects people in a way that makes them susceptible to
the
manipulation of the economic elite," he said. "Through the use of
mimicry and
irony she wants to destroy these discourses."

Mike Grost:

That's right - the Nobel committe believes Hitchcock, Sternberg,
Borzage and
Ophuls are responsible for much of the evil in the world. They want
to see their
works "destroyed".

I dunno Mike, I share your concern but I don't think this citation is
necessarily anti-populist, but anti-corporate.

Three years ago I discussed this very idea on the IMDb Classic Film
board, and several of us went ahead and conducted a historical
simulation starting at the end of World War II, awarding 57 laureates
in the process. The issue of art vs. popular entertainment in
defining what achievements in cinema were truly laudable was hotly
contested throughout the four months we conducted this exercise.
Results can be found here:

http://www.alsolikelife.com/FilmDiary/Listomania/cinobels.html

I'm sure there are selections as well as omissions that may upset or
provoke, but hopefully we got some right as well. And hopefully the
citations we wrote for each laureate will draw less ire than the one
for Jelinek.

Kevin

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> This Nobel Prize citation should serve as a wake up call to
auteurists.
> It denounces all commercial films and comics, and calls for their
destruction.
> I have heard similar statements all my life.
>
> I feel like a lonely voive, insisting that many films and comics
are among the great works of art produced by humanity.
>
> Mike Grost
16516


From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 4:06pm
Subject: Re: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
>> I hope you mean La nuit du carrefour.
>>
>
> Nope, never seen it. I mean Cast Away.
>
> Kisses,
>
> Kevin John

Ooh! How -scandalously- provocative!

Prove it.
16517


From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 4:12pm
Subject: Re: Nobel Prize versus Popular Culture.
 
> "She is a political writer and she believes this gigantic industry of
> entertainment affects people in a way that makes them susceptible to
> the manipulation of the economic elite," he said. "Through the use of
> mimicry and irony she wants to destroy these discourses."
>
> Mike Grost again:
>
> That's right - the Nobel committe believes Hitchcock, Sternberg,
> Borzage and Ophuls are responsible for much of the evil in the world.
> They want to see their works "destroyed".

I don't think so, Mike. I have no room in my life for VH-1's I Love
the '90s, Enrique Iglesias or reportage of his mole removal, another
crappy Eminem video where he dresses up in costumes, the latest series
of Survivor (frankly, I lost interest when it became clear there was
never going to be a season taking place in polar straits), five-page
"in-depth exposés" on the Kabbalah, or clips from a star-studded 'Shark
Tale' junket -- and I have no problem with someone setting their
missiles to "destroy" this all-consuming amoeba gone mad. If the Nobel
committee has to start wearing kid gloves when it comes to the
discourse on popular culture (and really, the statement is just making
use of Jelinek's own world-view -- it is honoring her work and what's
more or less been her position after all), then it no longer carries
any of the legitimacy it's still accorded in some circles as the
globally sampling representative of a high literary culture. (Which
certainly isn't to say Nobel is above criticism by any means, that
their neglect to recognize certain authors hasn't been highly
exasperating, that some of their choices aren't themselves silly picks,
et cetera.)

I don't see why every attack on "popular culture" has to draw some kind
of bemoaning from certain quarters about an implicit attack on comic
books, or draw suppositions that Fritz Lang is being cast as Frito-Lay
-- it seems to me popular culture is so beyond criticism in most areas
of the media and writing, in fact -is- the dominant American and
first-world discourse at this juncture, that someone running counter to
the all-embracing, Prozac'y, chipper acceptance of what Peter Watkins
would call the insipid Monoform should be praised as a freedom-fighter.

Mike Grost on the Nobel Prize: "It denounces all commercial films and
comics, and calls for their destruction." How do you know the
selectors or Jelinek have in mind "all commercial films" and "comics"?
I think the phrase "this gigantic industry of entertainment," which is
what the statement said, isn't being used so narrowly as to disallow
the existence of real art in media considered popular. There are some
novels that go to #1 which have artistic qualities, ditto some movies,
and as far as I can tell "the comics rot the mind" brigade started
dying off fifteen years ago. Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize and
'In the Shadow of No Towers' has been written up in every forum, 'Ghost
World' is widely well-regarded in film and comic form, The New Yorker
gives regular two-page full-color spreads to R. Crumb and his wife,
many of the old broadside strips are regarded now in academic halls and
published criticana as treasures of storytelling and graphic ingenuity,
and the McSweeney's literary quasi-journal recently ran an all-comix
issue.

Pulp high or low, the forest for the trees, Mike!!

craig.
16518


From: thebradstevens
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 4:56pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
"Ooh! How -scandalously- provocative!"

I think Robert Zemeckis has improved out of all recognition since the
days of BACK TO THE FUTURE (a typical example of 80s reaction). He's
even identifiable as an auteur, with a consistent emphasis on lost
men and driven women, and on characters haunted by the memory of
paternal figures (Jodie Foster's father in CONTACT, Harrison Ford's
in WHAT LIES BENEATH). But WHAT LIES BENEATH is the only Zemeckis
film I'd care to make great claims for (Philip Strick's SIGHT AND
SOUND review is a model piece of auteurist writing).
16519


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 4:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rivette's Evidence
 
> "I get the feeling you're taking a holistic view of mise-en-scene
> here. In other words, you're rejecting the idea that the viewer can
> respond primarily to the story, or to the actors, without that
> response being mediated by the mise-en-scene in a decisive way.
> True?"
>
> Absolutely. I don't deny that a lot of people would claim they
> respond only to the story or the actors. But that's simply because
> they haven't consciously grasped how the director has used mise en
> scene to shape their viewing experience.
>
> I wonder how many people would enjoy watching a group of actors
> sitting around a table doing a read-through of a screenplay. Let's
> face it, that would be the only way to appreciate the story and the
> actors in their purest form, without any interference from mise en
> scene.

It's certain that shot selection, editing, and camera placement can affect
storytelling and shift audience sympathy, sometimes quite substantially.
I actually hesitate to think of these functions as part of
"mise-en-scene," somehow. But that term is historically so difficult to
pin down that I certainly wouldn't put much energy into defending my
tentative position.

Let me try another tack. Soap operas are generally pretty thin in the
mise-en-scene department, I'd say. Obviously, they're post-Griffith, they
make use of classical decoupage, they're not not-directed. And yet they
kind of are: there seems to be no opportunity for camera expression as far
as I can see, and next to no opportunity to direct actors. (I always
think of soap operas as documentaries on the common personality types
exhibited by actors.) Many, many people are completely happy with this
means of telling stories - in fact, I'd say that soap opera is the
distilled, no-frills essence of storytelling for a lot of people. I
don't think these audiences are being moved by mise-en-scene, even though
the camera is part of the storytelling process. What do you think? - Dan
16520


From: thebradstevens
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 5:02pm
Subject: Re: Nobel Prize versus Popular Culture.
 
""She is perhaps one of the few writers who, in an advanced sense,
masters the symbols and myths of mass culture, films, publicity, soap
opera and comics -- the whole industry of entertainment," said Horace
Engdahl of the Swedish Academy. "She is a political writer and she
believes this gigantic industry of entertainment affects people in a
way that makes them susceptible to the manipulation of the economic
elite," he said. "Through the use of mimicry and irony she wants to
destroy these discourses.""

Has this Horace Engdahl guy been in deep freeze, or just doin' time?
Mimicry and irony were co-opted by the entertainment industry
centuries ago!

Brad Stevens (with apologies to Mario van Peebles in HEARTBREAK
RIDGE).
16521


From: thebradstevens
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 5:08pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
 
Soap operas have their own form of mise en scene - an extremely crude
form, but one which a lot of people respond to positively (I guess
because it's so lacking in troubling ambiguity).

As I said in a previous post, my claim is that general audiences
respond to mise en scene, not that they have great taste!
16522


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 5:47pm
Subject: Re: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
--- thebradstevens wrote:


>
> I think Robert Zemeckis has improved out of all
> recognition since the
> days of BACK TO THE FUTURE (a typical example of 80s
> reaction). He's
> even identifiable as an auteur, with a consistent
> emphasis on lost
> men and driven women, and on characters haunted by
> the memory of
> paternal figures (Jodie Foster's father in CONTACT,
> Harrison Ford's
> in WHAT LIES BENEATH). But WHAT LIES BENEATH is the
> only Zemeckis
> film I'd care to make great claims for (Philip
> Strick's SIGHT AND
> SOUND review is a model piece of auteurist writing).
>

I can't agree. Zemeckis is interesting for "I Want To
Hold Your Hand," "Used Cars" and -- above all else --
"Death Becomes Her."

"Forrest Gump" is right up there with "Hitler Builds a
City for the Jews."

It is an obscene desecration of American history that
is not to be forgiven.




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16523


From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 6:36pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
> You may be confusing two issues of POSITIF. The Panahi interview
> with a review of THE CIRCLE and a still from the film on the cover
> was in # 480, Febr. 2001, but it had nothing on either Chaplin or
LA
> NUIT DU CARREFOUR. It did have a highly favorable review of CAST
> AWAY. Also pieces on Ulmer, Flaherty, and a "Dossier" on Russian
> cinema. The Chaplin dossier was in #499 (Sept. 2002) with a few
> lines on the Renoir in the June "Bloc Note" (Viviani didn't like
it).
>
> JPC

Yes that's right. As soon as I saw Barnet's name I bought it. I'm
still searching for stuff on him without much success.

yours,
andy
16524


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 7:10pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rivette's Evidence
 
> Soap operas have their own form of mise en scene - an extremely crude
> form, but one which a lot of people respond to positively (I guess
> because it's so lacking in troubling ambiguity).
>
> As I said in a previous post, my claim is that general audiences
> respond to mise en scene, not that they have great taste!

At the risk of appearing to reduce the discussion to the semantic level, I
wouldn't say that the mise en scene is what people are responding to in
soap operas. But it's hard to devise a thought experiment to test this,
because mise en scene is hard to define with precision. In this
particular discussion, I'd probably need to start constructing a
distinction between directorial art and directorial craft - no easy feat.
- Dan
16525


From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 7:36pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:

Zemeckis is interesting for "I Want To
> Hold Your Hand," "Used Cars" and -- above all else --
> "Death Becomes Her."

I also like the "Back" films quite a bit. He was a good farceur, but
his recent work is H-E-A-V-Y and L-A-B-O-R-E-D. I haven't seen
Cast away, but that judgement extends to Contact and It Lies
Beneath.
>
> "Forrest Gump" is right up there with "Hitler Builds a
> City for the Jews."
>
> It is an obscene desecration of American history that
> is not to be forgiven.

I'll repeat a previous post. I was one of the first to scream with
outrage when people poured out of the all-media proclaiming it a
masterpiece. On reflection, I decided that while it is definitely a
right-wing film, its more egregious aspects are the result of the
kind of naivete that comes from spending your entire adult life on
soundstages.

I was around when RZ wed and lost (in a matter of a couple of
months) Diane the Cinderella Girl who wrote Romancing the
Stone, his first hit -- she racked up the Porsch she bought with
her winnings on PCH and left him bereaved. She was an
obvious predecessor for Robin Wright in Gump, although that
portrayal (it WAS a book, of course) has a few layers of
hatefulness added. We can be sure of the autobiographical
resonance bnecause that's really that's the closest Zemeckis
ever came to a real-world experience, and it still shows. As it
does with Spielberg.
16526


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 7:45pm
Subject: Re: Panfilov
 
> Any Panfilov fans out there?

I like him - I've seen four or five of his films, and he's definitely an
interesting guy. I think VASSA from the early 80s might be my favorite. -
Dan
16527


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 7:50pm
Subject: Re: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
>> When he was distributed, super-intellecvtuals and the
>> people were united in their love for (Chaplin) (except for the
>> Surrealists, who preferred Keaton).
>
> Yes but we're living now, not 80 years ago. I thought you wanted to
> discuss your belief/fantasy theory in relation to what we feel now.
> Auteurists of course have a tendency to live in the past. Most of
> the films we discuss here were made 40, 50 years ago or more.
>
> Is it possible today to have a phenomenon similar to the love for
> Chaplin that was shared by intellectuals and the man in the street?
> I doubt it. But then, Chaplin himself was a unique phenomenon

There's the Beatles in pop music. Maybe it's possible at the beginning of
a popular art (or when the popular form is first considered art) for a few
artists to be both wildly popular and critically deified. After a while,
it seems almost obligatory that critics and the masses part ways.

> Jerry Lewis, of course, was admired by French intellectuals AND very
> popular audiences, but the intellectuals in question were fairly limited
> to cinephile/auteurist critics. And again, we're talking about 30-40
> years ago...

My understanding was that Lewis was adored by both film intellectuals and
the unwashed masses in France, but was loathed by the middle, just as in
America. Not true? - Dan
16528


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 8:16pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
We can be sure of the autobiographical
> resonance bnecause that's really that's the closest Zemeckis
> ever came to a real-world experience, and it still shows. As it
> does with Spielberg.

And what, pray, gives us the right to think that our experiences
are "real-world" experiences while the experiences of people in show
business are not? Why do we have to equate "real" with mundane, non-
glamorous? Everybody is equally real (or unreal, if you prefer. that
includes you and me). JPC
16529


From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 8:25pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
 
> At the risk of appearing to reduce the discussion to the semantic level, I
> wouldn't say that the mise en scene is what people are responding to in
> soap operas.

When I used to follow several soap operas -- fascinated by the potential (more suggested than realized, alas) of the form, and charmed by the resourcefulness and resilience of many of the regular players (including, by the way, such survivors of the Pantheon and Far Side of Paradise as James Mitchell, Phil Carey, and the now deceased Anna Lee) -- I couldn't help noticing that one or two directors' episodes were usually superior both visually (which I grant in these circumstances isn't saying that much) as well as in the additional spark and unaccustomed colors they were able to get from the performers. Auteurism never sleeps...
16530


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 8:32pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>!
>
> At the risk of appearing to reduce the discussion to the semantic
level, I
> wouldn't say that the mise en scene is what people are responding
to in
> soap operas. But it's hard to devise a thought experiment to test
this,
> because mise en scene is hard to define with precision. In this
> particular discussion, I'd probably need to start constructing a
> distinction between directorial art and directorial craft - no
easy feat.
> - Dan

"Mise en scene" is a simple French term that merely
means "direction" -- first stage direction (scene=stage) then film
direction. Now, imported into English, it seems to create all sorts
of "semantic" problems (definition) that "direction" apparently
doesn't.

As long as there is a "director" there is mise-en-scene. "Mise-en-
scene" is not, or shouldn't be, a qualitative concept referring to
the highest forms of film direction.R.G. Springsteen and Murnau are
both "metteurs en scene."

Soaps on TV are directed by someone, therefore they are "mis en
scene" -- of course it's the crudest form of direction -- I haven't
watched a soap in years but I can't remember any bit of soap I ever
watched that showed the slightest trace of directorial
inventiveness. I think what people like about them is the
comforting predictability of the formal presentation (see, for
instance, how a scene preceding a commercial break always ends with
the same slow tracking in on one character) which matches that of
the dialogue and performances.

JPC
16531


From: Adrian Martin
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 8:45pm
Subject: re: Jelinek
 
Mike, don't believe everything you read in press releases! Jelinek has
written wildly celebratory as well as fascinatingly intellectual pieces on
CARNIVAL OF SOULS, VERTIGO, Peter Lorre, and ALIENS! A selection of these
will be appearing in English translation in a forthcoming issue of ROUGE,
courtesy of the Nobel Prize Winner herself!

And THE PIANO TEACHER is remarkable both as a novel and a film. Jelinek has
'rage against the machine' for sure, but she doesn't reject popular art in
toto.

I think you have picked the wrong target here!

Adrian
16532


From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 8:46pm
Subject: Re: Re: Rivette's Evidence
 
> As long as there is a "director" there is mise-en-scene. "Mise-en-
> scene" is not, or shouldn't be, a qualitative concept referring to
> the highest forms of film direction.R.G. Springsteen and Murnau are
> both "metteurs en scene."

At this point in time, though, we can't just go back to the root of the
words: we have to make the meaning fit semi-well with existing usage.

"Metteur en scene" was sometimes used as a pejorative by auteurists, seems
to me.

> I think what
> people like about them is the comforting predictability of the formal
> presentation (see, for instance, how a scene preceding a commercial
> break always ends with the same slow tracking in on one character) which
> matches that of the dialogue and performances.

I'm reading Robert Warshow now - interesting guy - and his words on genre
were, "Originality is to be welcomed only in the degree that it
intensifies the expected experience without fundamentally altering it."
He was talking about the way audiences seem to cherish familiarity, not
making an artistic case for it. - Dan
16533


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 8:58pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:

> > Jerry Lewis, of course, was admired by French intellectuals AND
very
> > popular audiences, but the intellectuals in question were fairly
limited
> > to cinephile/auteurist critics. And again, we're talking about
30-40
> > years ago...
>
> My understanding was that Lewis was adored by both film
intellectuals and
> the unwashed masses in France, but was loathed by the middle, just
as in
> America. Not true? - Dan

True. Except that there were no film intellectuals who adored
Lewis in America.
16534


From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 8:59pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt
wrote:
> >> When he was distributed, super-intellecvtuals and the
> >> people were united in their love for (Chaplin) (except for the
> >> Surrealists, who preferred Keaton).
> >
> > Yes but we're living now, not 80 years ago. I thought you
wanted to
> > discuss your belief/fantasy theory in relation to what we feel
now.
> > Auteurists of course have a tendency to live in the past. Most
of
> > the films we discuss here were made 40, 50 years ago or
more.
> >
> > Is it possible today to have a phenomenon similar to the love
for
> > Chaplin that was shared by intellectuals and the man in the
street?
> > I doubt it. But then, Chaplin himself was a unique
phenomenon
>
> There's the Beatles in pop music. Maybe it's possible at the
beginning of
> a popular art (or when the popular form is first considered art)
for a few
> artists to be both wildly popular and critically deified. After a
while,
> it seems almost obligatory that critics and the masses part
ways.
>
> > Jerry Lewis, of course, was admired by French intellectuals
AND very
> > popular audiences, but the intellectuals in question were
fairly limited
> > to cinephile/auteurist critics. And again, we're talking about
30-40
> > years ago...
>
> My understanding was that Lewis was adored by both film
intellectuals and
> the unwashed masses in France, but was loathed by the
middle, just as in
> America. Not true? - Dan

Not really -- even here.
16535


From: hotlove666
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 9:01pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"

> wrote:
> >
> We can be sure of the autobiographical
> > resonance bnecause that's really that's the closest Zemeckis
> > ever came to a real-world experience, and it still shows. As it
> > does with Spielberg.
>
> And what, pray, gives us the right to think that our experiences
> are "real-world" experiences while the experiences of people in
show
> business are not? Why do we have to equate "real" with
mundane, non-
> glamorous? Everybody is equally real (or unreal, if you prefer.
that
> includes you and me). JPC

Nope. Hollywood is a very unreal environment. I watched the first
Presidential debate in the Newsroom, a cafe downstairs from
New Line. There were people who watched 5 minutes and
returned to their conversations, and people who never looked up.
You may say: That could happen in any cafe, but not really.
These people live in the Twilight Zone.
16536


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 9:10pm
Subject: Re: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
>
>> I'm reading Robert Warshow now - interesting guy - and his words
on genre
> were, "Originality is to be welcomed only in the degree that it
> intensifies the expected experience without fundamentally altering
it."
> He was talking about the way audiences seem to cherish
familiarity, not
> making an artistic case for it. - Dan

Warshaw's definition of genre is excellent and applies to anybody's
relationship to a genre film, not just "general audiences". Genre is
defined by the expectations that we bring to it. If all
expectations are betrayed (as through excessive "originality") then
the work no longer belongs to the alleged genre and self-destructs.
The greatest genre films do "intensify" the expected experience
rather than frustrating it.

JPC
16537


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 9:23pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
>
> > wrote:
>> Nope. Hollywood is a very unreal environment. I watched the first
> Presidential debate in the Newsroom, a cafe downstairs from
> New Line. There were people who watched 5 minutes and
> returned to their conversations, and people who never looked up.
> You may say: That could happen in any cafe, but not really.
> These people live in the Twilight Zone.

Why "not really"? It could and it does. Lots of people are
indifferent to politics. Lots of people have their minds made up
about the election anyway (if the debate had had any impact then
Bush's ratings should have dropped at least 20% by now. They're
still as high as ever...) My point was that those people who "live
in the twilight zone" are real people like you and I, no matter how
much you dislike and despise them. What makes them so non-human in
your eyes? How do you define "reality", a "real" environment?
Frankly, I'm puzzled.
JPC
16538


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 9:26pm
Subject: Re: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- jpcoursodon wrote:

. Except that there were no film
> intellectuals who adored
> Lewis in America.
>
>
>
>
Hey J-P, what am I? Chopped liver?



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16539


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 9:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
--- jpcoursodon wrote:

(if the debate had had any
> impact then
> Bush's ratings should have dropped at least 20% by
> now. They're
> still as high as ever...)

They're dropping even as I post. The last gives Kerry
a substantial lead well past the margin of error.



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16540


From:
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 6:55pm
Subject: Re: Jelinek
 
Adrian, my apologies to you.
Had I any idea about your and Rouge's connection to Jelinek, I would have not
have posted about this.
Clarification:
My original post was careful not to criticize Jelinek, or state anything
about her convictions. It restricted itself to the statements of the Nobel people.
And these were only cited because they are typical of widespread attitudes
about film and comics, not because I was trying to make personal remarks about
the Nobel people. Personal comments are always wrong.

Mike Grost
16541


From:
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 7:07pm
Subject: Re: Genre (was: Rivette's Evidence)
 
In a message dated 04-10-07 17:14:59 EDT, JPC writes:

<< Genre is defined by the expectations that we bring to it. If all
expectations are betrayed (as through excessive "originality") then
the work no longer belongs to the alleged genre and self-destructs.
The greatest genre films do "intensify" the expected experience
rather than frustrating it. >>

A good point!
A sidelight on this, from the prose mystery field.
A catch-phrase among mystery reviewers in recent years: "Author John Smith's
mystery novels transcend the genre".
Translation: "Smith is really a literary writer like Dickens or Dostoyevsky,
with just a thin layer of mystery on top of what is really Serious Literature.
This makes his books much better than the swill that is traditional mystery
fiction."
This whole "transcend the genre" business is beginning to really annoy the
hell out of a lot of traditional mystery writers, who love and value the mystery
genre (myself included).
"Transcend the genre" is now a widely known catch-phrase among mystery fans,
up there with "Hey Rocky, Watch me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat!"

Mike Grost
16542


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 11:35pm
Subject: Film Director Abdicates
 
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=9&u=/ap/20041007/ap_on_re_as/cambodia_sihanouk

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16543


From: Paul Gallagher
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 11:45pm
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Rector"
wrote:
>
> Yes that's right. As soon as I saw Barnet's name I bought it. I'm
> still searching for stuff on him without much success.
>
> yours,
> andy

I did a search for articles about Barnet, but I haven't had the chance
to look for them.
http://66.108.51.239/barnet.html

Here are the articles in Variety.
http://godard.cjb.net//young_barnet_1.pdf
http://godard.cjb.net//young_barnet_2.pdf
http://godard.cjb.net//young_barnet_3.pdf
http://godard.cjb.net//young_barnet_4.pdf

Paul
16544


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2004 11:57pm
Subject: Re: Genre (was: Rivette's Evidence)
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 04-10-07 17:14:59 EDT, JPC writes:
>
> << Genre is defined by the expectations that we bring to it. If
all
> expectations are betrayed (as through excessive "originality")
then
> the work no longer belongs to the alleged genre and self-
destructs.
> The greatest genre films do "intensify" the expected experience
> rather than frustrating it. >>
>
> A good point!
> A sidelight on this, from the prose mystery field.
> A catch-phrase among mystery reviewers in recent years: "Author
John Smith's
> mystery novels transcend the genre".
> Translation: "Smith is really a literary writer like Dickens or
Dostoyevsky,
> with just a thin layer of mystery on top of what is really Serious
Literature.
> This makes his books much better than the swill that is
traditional mystery
> fiction."
> This whole "transcend the genre" business is beginning to really
annoy the
> hell out of a lot of traditional mystery writers, who love and
value the mystery
> genre (myself included).
> "Transcend the genre" is now a widely known catch-phrase among
mystery fans,
> up there with "Hey Rocky, Watch me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat!"
>
> Mike Grost

Well, you can say that any really good genre product (film or
novel or whatever)"transcends the genre." Meaning that it brings you
a lot more than the basic expectations of the genre. Chandler was a
good example. But "transcending" shouldn't be construed as"improving
upon" or "leaving behind" or "rejecting." It's rather "gloryfying
the genre" -- revealing and illuminating its potential. "Kiss Me
Deadly" or "Touch of Evil" "transcend the noir genre in that way.
They are works of genius, but couldn't have existed without the
existence of the genre they "transcended".

So, long live popular culture.

JPC
16545


From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 1:11am
Subject: re: Jelinek
 
No offense taken, Mike - I figured you were targeting the kinds of
statements made 'on behalf of' Jelinek, not her actual work.

By the way: THE PIANO TEACHER is, among other things, an amazing
exploration/critique of HIGH culture - the highest, in fact! - but made from
WITHIN that culture, so that we have to grapple both with the sublimity of
the high art presented (ie classical music, Viennese architecture, etc) and
the rather less sublime power games these institutions mask! It's
interesting to me that that what some critics credit wholly to Haneke (I am
thinking here of Robin Wood's excellent essay) comes absolutely straight
from Jelinek's book - right down the to the specific choice of classical
music pieces. Nonetheless, after Jelinek had a shot at the screenplay
adaptation, Haneke took that role over. The final result is indeed an
excellent collaboration of auteurs!!!

Adrian
16546


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 1:12am
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> . Except that there were no film
> > intellectuals who adored
> > Lewis in America.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> Hey J-P, what am I? Chopped liver?
>
>
> Were you writing about Lewis in the early sixties? If not,
how was I supposed to know you adored him at the time?
> _______________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
> http://vote.yahoo.com
16547


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 1:18am
Subject: Re: Jelinek
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
> No offense taken, Mike - I figured you were targeting the kinds of
> statements made 'on behalf of' Jelinek, not her actual work.
>
> By the way: THE PIANO TEACHER is, among other things, an amazing
> exploration/critique of HIGH culture - the highest, in fact! - but
made from
> WITHIN that culture, so that we have to grapple both with the
sublimity of
> the high art presented (ie classical music, Viennese architecture,
etc) and
> the rather less sublime power games these institutions mask! It's
> interesting to me that that what some critics credit wholly to
Haneke (I am
> thinking here of Robin Wood's excellent essay) comes absolutely
straight
> from Jelinek's book - right down the to the specific choice of
classical
> music pieces. Nonetheless, after Jelinek had a shot at the
screenplay
> adaptation, Haneke took that role over. The final result is indeed
an
> excellent collaboration of auteurs!!!
>
> Adrian


Yes yes and I'm sorry to say, Adrian, but I think the film is an
awful piece of crap that does not make sense on ANY level. And
believe me, I'm as kinky as the next person and probably more.
That's part of the reason why it so totally turned me off.

But I'm not going to challenge Robin Wood, whose excellent essay I
haven't read.

JPC
16548


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 1:27am
Subject: Re: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- jpcoursodon wrote:

> >
> >
> > Were you writing about Lewis in the early
> sixties? If not,
> how was I supposed to know you adored him at the
> time?


You would have been hanging out with Marty Scorsese
and me on 42nd Street.
>
>




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16549


From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 2:09am
Subject: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
> I also like the "Back" films quite a bit. He was a good farceur,
but
> his recent work is H-E-A-V-Y and L-A-B-O-R-E-D. I haven't seen
> Cast away, but that judgement extends to Contact and It Lies
> Beneath.

I havent' seen What Lies Benath, but Contact had many very funny
moments, most of it unintentional (the only one in the cast who seems
to have any idea of just how funny is James Woods). Cast Away,
though, had a pretty good, physically eloquent performance by Tom
Hanks. Hanks is always good at physical acting.

> On reflection, I decided that while it is definitely a
> right-wing film, its more egregious aspects are the result of the
> kind of naivete that comes from spending your entire adult life on
> soundstages.

I agree with this.

> I was around when RZ wed and lost (in a matter of a couple of
> months) Diane the Cinderella Girl who wrote Romancing the
> Stone, his first hit -- she racked up the Porsch she bought with
> her winnings on PCH and left him bereaved. She was an
> obvious predecessor for Robin Wright in Gump

Oho! That explains a lot. Winston Grooms' book doesn't oppress her
character to the same degree--it's as if Zemeckis was punishing her
for every liberal idea ever created, up to free sex resulting in AIDS.

In fact, the contrast between book and film is quite startling; both
go for a picaresque romp, but Groom's book has no sentimentality
whatsoever. And in fact Gump in the book says something to the effect
that "life AIN'T no box of chocolates." The distorting of the
character into a simpleminded noble hero of the times (Reagan?) is
purely the filmmakers' doing.

The closest thing in the movie to Groom's book, actually, is Hanks'
Gump--he looks as he would in the book, with erect stance and stiff
neck, looking around like a nervous duckling for incoming danger. But
all Zemeckis lobs at him are softballs.
16550


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 3:08am
Subject: Re: Re: cinephilia & populism
 
And what he lobs at viewers is the message that if you
protested the Vietnam war you'll die of AIDS.

FUCK HIM AND THE HORSE HE ROSE IN ON !!!!


--- Noel Vera wrote:


>
> The closest thing in the movie to Groom's book,
> actually, is Hanks'
> Gump--he looks as he would in the book, with erect
> stance and stiff
> neck, looking around like a nervous duckling for
> incoming danger. But
> all Zemeckis lobs at him are softballs.
>
>
>
>


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16551


From: Adrian Martin
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 3:41am
Subject: re: The Piano Teacher
 
Jean-Pierre, I am shocked, SHOCKED at your damnation of this fine film !!
Seriously, for what it's worth, here is the newspaper review I did of the
film in THE AGE in August 2002:

THE PIANO TEACHER
I have long had a soft spot for films that are about rigorous, musical
education in the conservatories of Vienna, Leipzig or Prague. Hollywood once
made many exotic melodramas of this sort, in which the iron will of a
teacher or conductor clashes with the maverick visions of hot-blooded, young
students.

Occasionally such films go well beyond camp into full-out tragedy. In my
favourite example, Frank Borzage¹s delirious I¹ve Always Loved You (1946), a
brilliant female pianist is emotionally traumatised on stage whenever she
comes up against the stern but devilishly attractive father-figure conductor
whose motto is **there is no woman in music**.

This could also be the tag line for Michael Haneke¹s searing The Piano
Teacher. Not for nothing does Haneke describe it as the ³parody of a
melodrama². In the clinical, highly formalised manner that has become his
signature in such films as Benny¹s Video (1992) and Funny Games (1997),
Haneke strips away the romantic lushness of the melodramatic genre to expose
a cold, alienated social structure founded on abuse.

While Hollywood dramas of the 1940s and 50s often played up to rather
kitschy ideas about the ennobling wonders of Œhigh culture¹, The Piano
Teacher attempts something that few films ever tackle. It is about the
psycho-sexual neuroses underlying, even generating, the intensity of great
art and the rituals we build around it.

Isabelle Huppert gives the performance of her life as Erika, a piano teacher
who may have once been destined for greatness as a performer. When she is
not politely terrorising her students or obediently plodding the path laid
out for her by genteel, high society, Erika explores a secret world of kinky
desires.

The director Douglas Sirk once said of Barbara Stanwyck that her gift was an
absolute stillness before the camera. Huppert adopts that immaculate poise,
but adds a deeply disquieting element ­ a slight, nervous tremor, an
unshakeable tension arising from the interplay of fierce repression and wild
longing.

Since there can be no Œpublic¹ release for Erika, she turns her complexes
inward. The Piano Teacher coolly details the horrendous, private wounds
Erika inflicts on herself, culminating in a pre-concert gesture that few
viewers will ever be able to forget.

Haneke, whose work is sometimes dry and schematic, has never cared much for
the vulgar sensations of narrative intrigue. But here, adapting Elfriede
Jelinek¹s 1983 novel, he expands his steely control of the medium and its
storytelling capacity. Fiction enters the film with the arrival of Walter
(Benoit Magimel), a charismatic student fatally besotted with the
untouchable Erika. The big question is, what will Erika want from him?

From the point that Erica and Walter actually connect (in a toilet, of
course), The Piano Teacher embarks on a relentless demonstration of the ways
in which the sexual desires of a man and a woman manage not to coalesce. The
poster image used for the film is in fact its least characteristic moment, a
kiss.

Beyond that first conventional peck, we are treated to a grim parade of
refusals, frustrations, misunderstandings and violations. Haneke engineers
an odd and compelling kind of sympathy for Erika. The moment she gives away
her haughty, dominating posture for the sake of passion, she loses
everything. The more she tries to fit Walter¹s image of ideal femininity,
the weaker and more pathetic she becomes.

The Piano Teacher is an extraordinary study of emotional abuse. At its
grimmest, it reminded me of the darkest pronouncements of twentieth century
psychoanalysis, such as Freud¹s theories on the inevitability of debasement
and self-abasement in love, or Jacques Lacan¹s contention that any truly
reciprocal sexual relationship between men and women is an impossibility.

Haneke and Jelinek seem to share this fatalism to some degree. But both
place it within a social context. Haneke¹s familiar target is
institutionalised behaviour. The Viennese music academy provides a fine
metaphor for this, with its rigid discipline and brutally hierarchical
rituals.

Jelinek adds to this a severe, hard-line, 70s-style feminism. In these days
of hopeful reconciliation on all levels, one does not hear the ugly word
Œpatriarchy¹ bandied around much anymore. But for Jelinek, patriarchy is the
awful truth, the open wound of the Western world. Erika submits to the
Œgreat masters¹ of music, all of them male composers, just as she submits to
the pretty but brutish Walter.

The author has made clear that, for her, Erika is a sexual maverick, a
misfit within patriarchy. She claims for herself erotic behaviour considered
masculine, from gazing at hardcore porn to laying down the law about how she
wishes to be pleasured. But, at every turn, she encounters social structures
and conformist individuals who shun or revile her, with disastrous
consequences. (A scene in which Erika indulges her voyeuristic bent at a
drive-in is a small masterpiece both of suspense and black comedy.)

But this is a complex film which does not stop at a simple, ringing
denunciation of male society. The neuroses that rack Erika go far beyond the
frustration of her heroic libido. As one commentator remarks, Jelinek is an
³equal opportunity hater². Matriarchy, embodied by Erika¹s fearsome, unnamed
mother (Annie Giradot), is portrayed as every bit as abusive and twisted as
patriarchy. And Erika herself is no slouch at dishing out violence (both
physical and emotional) to her poor students.

The complexities and paradoxes of The Piano Teacher are contained in the
classical music (especially Schubert and Bach) it so generously uses.
Allusions to the critical writings of Theodor Adorno pepper the film. Haneke
and Jelinek worry over the same issues that Adorno did. Can the sheer,
soulful beauty of music remain untainted by the vicious power structures
that contain and channel it to social ends? Can great art, despite
everything, offer hope, a glimpse of a more humane future?

It would have been too facile to juxtapose beautiful music and horrible
world. Jelinek gives this opposition a further twist in the psycho-sexual
significance she accords to Schubert¹s music. Its majesty, she maintains in
a 1998 essay, is in the ³abasement² it forces upon the listener who, under
the ³time-whip of sound² is ³estranged forever from himself or herself². If
that sounds uncannily like a description of Erika¹s sexuality, this is
surely not accidental. The Piano Teacher invites us to step, at least in our
imaginations, into the murky zone between Œcivilisation¹ and perversion.

Adrian
16552


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 4:23am
Subject: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
> Jean-Pierre, I am shocked, SHOCKED at your damnation of this fine
film !!
> Seriously, for what it's worth, here is the newspaper review I did
of the
> film in THE AGE in August 2002:
>

I am shocked, SHOCKED that you could be taken in by such
pretentious, vulgar, meaningless crap. A study of sado-masochism in
the spirit of the Three Stooges. I say it's spinach and I say the
hell with it!

But thanks for the review. It's very fine although it doesn't
convince me a bit, quite the opposite.

JPC

PS Hope we're still friends...

> THE PIANO TEACHER
> I have long had a soft spot for films that are about rigorous,
musical
> education in the conservatories of Vienna, Leipzig or Prague.
Hollywood once
> made many exotic melodramas of this sort, in which the iron will
of a
> teacher or conductor clashes with the maverick visions of hot-
blooded, young
> students.
>
> Occasionally such films go well beyond camp into full-out tragedy.
In my
> favourite example, Frank Borzage¹s delirious I¹ve Always Loved You
(1946), a
> brilliant female pianist is emotionally traumatised on stage
whenever she
> comes up against the stern but devilishly attractive father-figure
conductor
> whose motto is **there is no woman in music**.
>
> This could also be the tag line for Michael Haneke¹s searing The
Piano
> Teacher. Not for nothing does Haneke describe it as the ³parody of
a
> melodrama². In the clinical, highly formalised manner that has
become his
> signature in such films as Benny¹s Video (1992) and Funny Games
(1997),
> Haneke strips away the romantic lushness of the melodramatic genre
to expose
> a cold, alienated social structure founded on abuse.
>
> While Hollywood dramas of the 1940s and 50s often played up to
rather
> kitschy ideas about the ennobling wonders of Œhigh culture¹, The
Piano
> Teacher attempts something that few films ever tackle. It is about
the
> psycho-sexual neuroses underlying, even generating, the intensity
of great
> art and the rituals we build around it.
>
> Isabelle Huppert gives the performance of her life as Erika, a
piano teacher
> who may have once been destined for greatness as a performer. When
she is
> not politely terrorising her students or obediently plodding the
path laid
> out for her by genteel, high society, Erika explores a secret
world of kinky
> desires.
>
> The director Douglas Sirk once said of Barbara Stanwyck that her
gift was an
> absolute stillness before the camera. Huppert adopts that
immaculate poise,
> but adds a deeply disquieting element ­ a slight, nervous tremor, an
> unshakeable tension arising from the interplay of fierce
repression and wild
> longing.
>
> Since there can be no Œpublic¹ release for Erika, she turns her
complexes
> inward. The Piano Teacher coolly details the horrendous, private
wounds
> Erika inflicts on herself, culminating in a pre-concert gesture
that few
> viewers will ever be able to forget.
>
> Haneke, whose work is sometimes dry and schematic, has never cared
much for
> the vulgar sensations of narrative intrigue. But here, adapting
Elfriede
> Jelinek¹s 1983 novel, he expands his steely control of the medium
and its
> storytelling capacity. Fiction enters the film with the arrival of
Walter
> (Benoit Magimel), a charismatic student fatally besotted with the
> untouchable Erika. The big question is, what will Erika want from
him?
>
> From the point that Erica and Walter actually connect (in a
toilet, of
> course), The Piano Teacher embarks on a relentless demonstration
of the ways
> in which the sexual desires of a man and a woman manage not to
coalesce. The
> poster image used for the film is in fact its least characteristic
moment, a
> kiss.
>
> Beyond that first conventional peck, we are treated to a grim
parade of
> refusals, frustrations, misunderstandings and violations. Haneke
engineers
> an odd and compelling kind of sympathy for Erika. The moment she
gives away
> her haughty, dominating posture for the sake of passion, she loses
> everything. The more she tries to fit Walter¹s image of ideal
femininity,
> the weaker and more pathetic she becomes.
>
> The Piano Teacher is an extraordinary study of emotional abuse. At
its
> grimmest, it reminded me of the darkest pronouncements of
twentieth century
> psychoanalysis, such as Freud¹s theories on the inevitability of
debasement
> and self-abasement in love, or Jacques Lacan¹s contention that any
truly
> reciprocal sexual relationship between men and women is an
impossibility.
>
> Haneke and Jelinek seem to share this fatalism to some degree. But
both
> place it within a social context. Haneke¹s familiar target is
> institutionalised behaviour. The Viennese music academy provides a
fine
> metaphor for this, with its rigid discipline and brutally
hierarchical
> rituals.
>
> Jelinek adds to this a severe, hard-line, 70s-style feminism. In
these days
> of hopeful reconciliation on all levels, one does not hear the
ugly word
> Œpatriarchy¹ bandied around much anymore. But for Jelinek,
patriarchy is the
> awful truth, the open wound of the Western world. Erika submits to
the
> Œgreat masters¹ of music, all of them male composers, just as she
submits to
> the pretty but brutish Walter.
>
> The author has made clear that, for her, Erika is a sexual
maverick, a
> misfit within patriarchy. She claims for herself erotic behaviour
considered
> masculine, from gazing at hardcore porn to laying down the law
about how she
> wishes to be pleasured. But, at every turn, she encounters social
structures
> and conformist individuals who shun or revile her, with disastrous
> consequences. (A scene in which Erika indulges her voyeuristic
bent at a
> drive-in is a small masterpiece both of suspense and black comedy.)
>
> But this is a complex film which does not stop at a simple, ringing
> denunciation of male society. The neuroses that rack Erika go far
beyond the
> frustration of her heroic libido. As one commentator remarks,
Jelinek is an
> ³equal opportunity hater². Matriarchy, embodied by Erika¹s
fearsome, unnamed
> mother (Annie Giradot), is portrayed as every bit as abusive and
twisted as
> patriarchy. And Erika herself is no slouch at dishing out violence
(both
> physical and emotional) to her poor students.
>
> The complexities and paradoxes of The Piano Teacher are contained
in the
> classical music (especially Schubert and Bach) it so generously
uses.
> Allusions to the critical writings of Theodor Adorno pepper the
film. Haneke
> and Jelinek worry over the same issues that Adorno did. Can the
sheer,
> soulful beauty of music remain untainted by the vicious power
structures
> that contain and channel it to social ends? Can great art, despite
> everything, offer hope, a glimpse of a more humane future?
>
> It would have been too facile to juxtapose beautiful music and
horrible
> world. Jelinek gives this opposition a further twist in the psycho-
sexual
> significance she accords to Schubert¹s music. Its majesty, she
maintains in
> a 1998 essay, is in the ³abasement² it forces upon the listener
who, under
> the ³time-whip of sound² is ³estranged forever from himself or
herself². If
> that sounds uncannily like a description of Erika¹s sexuality,
this is
> surely not accidental. The Piano Teacher invites us to step, at
least in our
> imaginations, into the murky zone between Œcivilisation¹ and
perversion.
>
> Adrian
16553


From: George Robinson
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 5:20am
Subject: Some possibly useful websites
 
From the various newsletters of new webpages that cross my virtual desk:

This "is an online resource developed by the Korea Foundation to
meet the need for broader access to information about Korean arts
and culture." This Web site provides information about current and
upcoming Korean cultural events around the world, a directory of
Korean studies scholars and students, and a collection of essays
translated into various languages (including English, Spanish, and
Chinese). Searchable.

http://www.clickkorea.org


Legends Online: Avedon: The Sixties
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpts from a 1999 book by photographer Richard Avedon and Doon
Arbus, his long-time creative collaborator. Features selected
images of '60s personalities such as Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, John
Lennon, and Twiggy. Also includes an interview with Avedon and
Arbus, brief biographies of featured subjects, and a chronology of
events for 1960 through 1973.

http://pdngallery.com/legends/legends9

Richard Avedon
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Official site for this photographer who died in October 2004.
Features a chronology of his life and work, examples of his
editorial and advertising work from 2004, lists of his one-man
exhibits and awards, a bibliography of books by him, and excerpts
from his writing and interviews.

http://www.richardavedon.com



LII Tip of the Week, October 7, 2004: Photograph Collections
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We are pleased to announce Photograph Collections, a major new
browsing collection in LII. We offer over twenty major categories
of photo collections, from children to cowboys, fires to weather,
railroads to riots. Thanks to Jennifer English, our project editor
for this new collection. Enjoy!

http://lii.org/search/file/photocollections



g




Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor,
never the victim. Silence encourages the
tormentor, never the tormented.
--Elie Wiesel
16554


From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 5:49am
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
> . Except that there were no film
> > intellectuals who adored
> > Lewis in America.

And many others. Sarris was an exception among auteurists.

People who hate Lewis anywhere are in the minority. Some press who
may never have seen one of his films, cynical industry types (like
the theatre manager who answered when my friend asked what kind of
pewople came to Lewis films: "We don't think of them as people") or
the owner of the H'wd Cafe, where I used to eat all the time, who
refused to turn on the Telethon for me last year. He was subsequently
closed for running a drug dealer convention in his back room. But
most ordinary people love him, and there have always been cinephiles
here who recognized his genius.

For me the transition from adoring Scared Stiff at age 8 to making my
family stop in Roswewll on a cross-country trip so I could see The
Nutty Professor at age 18 to buying the Cahiers in English with the
Lewis lexicon after I went off to college was seamlees and easy. But
he has never been a marginal taste. I remember riding on a crowded NY
subway and hearing two office workers discussing a filmmaker (or
actor, however they perceived him): "That's the one where he plays
the whole scene with his own thumb." The nasty cliches are the
province of a few moron pundits, really. (Excepting the great Harry
Shearer, who can be wrong, and is when it comes to Jer.)
16555


From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 5:52am
Subject: Re: Jelinek
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Adrian, my apologies to you.
> Had I any idea about your and Rouge's connection to Jelinek, I
would have not
> have posted about this.
> Clarification:
> My original post was careful not to criticize Jelinek, or state
anything
> about her convictions. It restricted itself to the statements of
the Nobel people.
> And these were only cited because they are typical of widespread
attitudes
> about film and comics, not because I was trying to make personal
remarks about
> the Nobel people. Personal comments are always wrong.
>
> Mike Grost

In her case I might make an excpetion. I saw her on tv tonight
griping that getting the award means that her happy anonymity will go
away. Any one believe that? Show of hands?
16556


From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 5:52am
Subject: Re: Jelinek
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Adrian, my apologies to you.
> Had I any idea about your and Rouge's connection to Jelinek, I
would have not
> have posted about this.
> Clarification:
> My original post was careful not to criticize Jelinek, or state
anything
> about her convictions. It restricted itself to the statements of
the Nobel people.
> And these were only cited because they are typical of widespread
attitudes
> about film and comics, not because I was trying to make personal
remarks about
> the Nobel people. Personal comments are always wrong.
>
> Mike Grost

In her case I might make an excpetion. I saw her on tv tonight
griping that getting the award means that her happy anonymity will go
away. Any one believe that? Show of hands?
16557


From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 6:58am
Subject: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin wrote:
> Jelinek gives this opposition a further twist in the psycho-sexual
> significance she accords to Schubert's music. Its majesty, she maintains in
> a 1998 essay, is in the 'abasement' it forces upon the listener who, under
> the 'time-whip of sound' is 'estranged forever from himself or herself'.

Hmmm.... and here it is in English translation ("Of all the music I know it is the most certain of nothing") on her website, to which the eyes of the world must now be turning: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/elfriede/schubere.htm

Since you're publishing translations of her work, I will point out the mistaken reference here to "Schubert in his later period, in the mental asylum," clearly a typo: the German original on another page correctly has Schumann. I frankly hated the use of Schubert in the film: I may never be able to hear the trio again without being reminded of that "pre-concert gesture that few viewers will ever be able to forget," among other things!
16558


From: thebradstevens
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 10:30am
Subject: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
"But thanks for the review. It's very fine although it doesn't
convince me a bit, quite the opposite."

If you require more convincing, you can find Robin Wood's text here:

http://www.filmint.nu/pdf/english/121/doidisgustyou.pdf
16559


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 2:32pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> >
> > --- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> > . Except that there were no film
> > > intellectuals who adored
> > > Lewis in America.
>
> And many others. Sarris was an exception among auteurists.
>

I was referring to a lack (to my knowledge) of written apparaisal
of Lewis in the US in the late fifties-early sixties. At the time I
lived in Paris and had no contacts with American cinephiles (didn't
even know if there was such an animal)...

Personally I didn't care for the few Martin-Lewis movies I had seen,
and I even wrote some nasty things about Lewis in one of my very
earliest published articles. Then I saw THE BELLBOY and was
convinced of his genius.
JPC
> People who hate Lewis anywhere are in the minority. Some press who
> may never have seen one of his films, cynical industry types (like
> the theatre manager who answered when my friend asked what kind of
> pewople came to Lewis films: "We don't think of them as people")
or
> the owner of the H'wd Cafe, where I used to eat all the time, who
> refused to turn on the Telethon for me last year. He was
subsequently
> closed for running a drug dealer convention in his back room. But
> most ordinary people love him, and there have always been
cinephiles
> here who recognized his genius.
>
> The nasty cliches are the
> province of a few moron pundits, really. (Excepting the great
Harry
> Shearer, who can be wrong, and is when it comes to Jer.)

If that's the case, how do you account for the American media's
enduring tradition of always referring to the French as those weird
people who love Jerry Lewis?

Actually I don't think new generations of French cinephiles care
much for Lewis. And the general public has forgotten about him.
16560


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 3:24pm
Subject: Re: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- jpcoursodon wrote:


>
> If that's the case, how do you account for the
> American media's
> enduring tradition of always referring to the French
> as those weird
> people who love Jerry Lewis?
>

American "mainstream" culutre is unspeakably lazy.
They hug onto discredited info because it's "familiar"
and "everybody knows it."

> Actually I don't think new generations of French
> cinephiles care
> much for Lewis. And the general public has forgotten
> about him.
>

Now they prefer Woody Allen




_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
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16561


From:
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 11:32am
Subject: Re: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
Brad, thanx for posting Wood's review. Is this the same one that appeared in
CineAction?

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16562


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 4:18pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
> The auteurists were never even fairly pro-Wyler, although they
> did become even more anti-Wyler (understandably so) after BEN HUR.

Bazin, it seems, liked him, disagreeing with Truffaut over his merits.
So did Melville, so maybe this admiration was confined to the pre or
proto-auteurists before the later Cahiers gang.

> Roger Leenhardt's famous/infamous "Down with Ford!, Long Live
> Wyler!" 1948 article was pre-Cahier auteurism. In the January 1964
> special issue on American Cinema the Wyler entry for the
Dictionary,
> written by Chabrol, rejected Wyler's work as a whole including the
> pre-BEN HUR periods (he made the point that Wyler's so-
> called "qualities" in the past were actually weaknesses). It was
> probably the most savagely negative entry in the entire Dictionary.

That's interesting, and I'd be fascinated to read it. None of which
makes it true - I'd say Wyler knew more about mise-en-scene and
montage than Chabrol has expressed in his whole voluminous body of
work, and is dramaturgically perhaps the finest Hollywood director
ever - his mastery of story, presentation and emotion is second to
none. Fortunately Wyler had enough confidence in his achievements to
be merely amused by the auteurists' dismissal of his work, and got
more than enough plaudits elsewhere. He remains an example of the
kind of filmmaker auteurists have trouble with, since he makes a
virtue of versatility and doesn't attempt to artificially impose a
personal style - though it's there for all to see, regardless.
16563


From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 4:26pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
>
> > The auteurists were never even fairly pro-Wyler, although
they
> > did become even more anti-Wyler (understandably so) after BEN HUR.
>
> Bazin, it seems, liked him, disagreeing with Truffaut over his
merits.

He didn't just like him -- he made him a prime example of his
theories about film form in a couple of key articles. Greg Ford used
to say that that fact alone was enough to raise serious questions
about the theories.
16564


From:
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 0:45pm
Subject: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?
 
Last night, I took in Rhino's 3-DVD set (the bastards! it could all fit on
one!) of PINK LADY...AND JEFF, a 1980 TV variety show that tanked after only 5
episodes (along with a similar outing from The Brady Bunch, it's blamed for the
demise of the variety show genre. True? Mike Grost, please advise). Pink Lady
were a Japanese pop duo whose original shtick was supposedly flattened out
for the American market. I'll never know. Jeff is "comedian" Jeff Altman who did
abysmal impersonations and told jokes that, when they're weren't targeting
the girls' phonetic English and eye shape, weren't even bad enough to count as
surreal (as on HEE-HAW, say).

So after doing the nod for about four fitfully fast-forwarded episodes, out
pops Jerry Lewis, his id gushing forth like a particularly choice money shot.
All of a sudden, I was awake, laughing, marvelling.
In 5 minutes, he indulged in a tripartite structure (with a flashback!)
replete with familiar themes: doubling, fear of the Symbolic (for all you Lacan
fans), exposing the apparatus, etc. If you've ever doubted this man's genius, sit
through one of these horrors and watch how utterly he transforms it.

And fuck "Fuck" as a great last line (from EYES WIDE SHUT). Us Imaginary
types much prefer "Maw. MAAAAAW!" from THE LADIES' MAN.

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16565


From: thebradstevens
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 4:54pm
Subject: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
"thanx for posting Wood's review. Is this the same one that appeared
in CineAction?"

Pretty much. It was very slightly revised for CINEACTION. There's
actually a wealth of good auteurist writing on Film International's
website, including Wood's text on Noe's IRREVERSIBLE.
16566


From: thebradstevens
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 5:00pm
Subject: Lewis and BEN CASEY (was Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?)
 
Lewis fans should make a point of seeing the BEN CASEY episode Lewis
directed and starred in (as well as anonymously co-writing). A truly
astonishing psychological study of Lewis' persona, in which the Lewis
character's clowning is seen as a defence against feelings of
inadequacy. I'd trade William Wyler's entire oeuvre for this any day.
16567


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 6:28pm
Subject: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> "But thanks for the review. It's very fine although it doesn't
> convince me a bit, quite the opposite."
>
> If you require more convincing, you can find Robin Wood's text
here:
>
> http://www.filmint.nu/pdf/english/121/doidisgustyou.pdf

I'm certainly not convinced by the collection of platitudes in
Wood's jeremiade. He spent a good portion of his article speaking
about his own sexual preferences and activities, and although film
criticism is or can be as autobiographical as any other writing, I
think telling us that he is "very attracted to the pleasures of
group sex," or of his "experience of being merely 'used' to perform
certain tasks" in gay bathhouses is going just a bit too far...And
then Wood, who notes that pornography turns him off and never gives
him an erection (at least one thing in common we have)deplores that
Haneke could not show us Huppert's act of fellatio: "We need," he
writes, underlining 'need' "to see Isabelle Huppert actually sucking
Benoit Magimel's cock." Do we really? Might be interesting but I
don't really "need" it, even if "to conceal it is to continue the
repression that is the mere obverse of our 'liberation.'"

Wood does write strange things in that piece. item: "The rationale
for monogamy (surely by now thoroughly discredited)..." The
overwhelming majority of couples in our western culture don't seem
to be aware that monogamy is thoroughly discredited. Sure, there's
quite a bit of extra-marital stuff going on, as there always has
been (because, let's face it, monogamy gets pretty dull after a
while) but people still get married in droves and swear to forsake
all others and even believe it or think they do. Is Wood advocating
polygamy as a means to render our culture "healthy"? And what does
that have to do with THE PIANO TEACHER/LA PIANISTE anyway?

Haneke "throws an extraordinary vivid and searching light on certain
major aspects of western culture's progressive deterioration..."
Well, western culture has been gradually deteriorating ever since it
was born. Decline and fall is the fate of civilizations. We are no
worse off than a hundred years, or four hundred years, ago. But it
always makes good copy to commiserate about the decline of the west.

Wood does not fail to analyse sex in a politically correct fashion:
sado-masochism (which raises its ugly head in PIANO TEACHER) is "all
about power and domination, the very structure of capitalist
culture, pervading and corrupting all relationships within it." (and
then to clinch it Wood throws in President Bush's desire
to "dominate the entire world.") So if I enjoy spanking my
girlfriend (who gets a big kick -- pardon the expression -- out of
it) or being spanked by her, we're both victims of the capitalist
culture. (oh by the way there is no such thing as power and
domination in non-capitalist cultures, right? or in Eastern
cultures.) Gimme a break, Robin!

"Erica's behavior ... seems to me... absolutely logical, step by
step," Wood writes (he completely identifies with the character,
which is a bit like identifying with Hannibal Lekter). Her behavior
is "logical" (despite the fact that it is thoroughly unbelievable,
but that shouldn't bother us) because the character is less a human
being than a theoretical construct. Wood is pretty good at analyzing
that construct but it hardly needs analyzing; the film spells
everything out in its perverse deconstruction of any vestige of an
impression of reality.

Wood tells us he took the film very personally (I would venture, too
personally for his own good). It has something to do with his coming
out of the closet at age 39 and still not feeling "liberated". So
that's why he "identifies" with that nut, a poor victim of
capitalist culture. One might approach the whole thing from a
different angle.

Just a few disorganized thoughts, I didn't want to write a rebuttal.

JPC
16568


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 6:32pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"

> wrote:
> >
> > > The auteurists were never even fairly pro-Wyler, although
> they
> > > did become even more anti-Wyler (understandably so) after BEN
HUR.
> >
> > Bazin, it seems, liked him, disagreeing with Truffaut over his
> merits.
>
> He didn't just like him -- he made him a prime example of his
> theories about film form in a couple of key articles. Greg Ford
used
> to say that that fact alone was enough to raise serious questions
> about the theories.


Please remember that when we're talking about "auteurists" in the
context of French film criticism we are NOT talking about Bazin, a
pre-auteurist then reluctant quasi para-auteurist. JPC
16569


From:
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 7:06pm
Subject: Re: Lewis and BEN CASEY (was  Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?)
 
Brad, is this BEN CASEY episode readily available on video or DVD?

Kevin John
16570


From: thebradstevens
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 7:21pm
Subject: Lewis and BEN CASEY (was  Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?)
 
"is this BEN CASEY episode readily available on video or DVD?"

Not as far as I know. It turned up on on a UK cable channel dedicated
to medical documentaries some time back - they ran episodes of BEN
CASEY in the afternoon, since the series had a hospital setting.
Several episodes were directed by Irving Lerner, who a few years
earlier had directed the series' star Vince Edwards in MURDER BY
CONTRACT, one of the great film noirs.
16571


From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 8:21pm
Subject: Re: Panfilov
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
> Glancing through our members' fascinating 'best film' lists, I
noticed that
> Gabe listed a movie by the Russian director Gleb Panfilov.

Alla Verlotsky turned me (and I imagine several other U.S.
moviebuffs) on to Panfilov, who I had never heard of -- along with
Marlen Khutsiev (whose I AM TWENTY is also one of my faves),
Kozintsev (HAMLET), and Shagelaya (PIROSMANI) -- and whose
lead actress in two of his best films, NO FORD THROUGH FIRE
and THE DEBUT, Inna Churikova, is up there in the ranks with
the great actresses of all-time. Panfilov fell in love with her and
married her after they made NO FORD THROUGH FIRE -- a real
Godard-Wiazemsky kind of thing -- and then gave her the second
role of her life in THE DEBUT, one of the most heartbreakingly
happy films I have seen.

Not much has been written on Panfilov, but you can actually find
THE DEBUT (and a couple others, I think) indexed in the Cahiers
du Cinema Antoine de Baecque double-history (I've never looked
up the articles themselves), and Judy Stone, who did a massive
"world cinema" directors interview book, actually encountered
Panfilov somewhere along the way. The interview is nothing
revelatory but I found it useful mainly for facts.

My dream is actually to one day meet Churikova; perhaps when I
am curating a film festival and I can honor her with an award...
(dream a little dream...)

And yes, Panfilov is still working: his last film was big-budget
historical epic called The Romanovs, which had an inauspicious
U.S. premiere on a college campus somewhere. It was made in
'00, and was his first in over a decade. Haven't really heard a
word about it. His films in the '80s, MOTHER, VASSA, and THE
THEME, are all equally of note and worth seeking out. (Tapes of
the latter two have been known to circulate.)

> By the way, the new version of LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN
WOMAN that Gabe
> mentioned is very highly regarded by Bérénice Reynaud, which
is enough
> recommendation for me.

Berenice programmed it for the Viennale. I will see it there and
report back.

Gabe
16572


From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 10:15pm
Subject: Lewis and BEN CASEY (was  Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?)
 
What is the title of this episode in case I can help with
contacting my various bootleg sources?

Tony Williams



--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> "is this BEN CASEY episode readily available on video or DVD?"
>
>.
16573


From: thebradstevens
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 11:38pm
Subject: Lewis and BEN CASEY (was  Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?)
 
"What is the title of this episode in case I can help with contacting
my various bootleg sources?"

The episode title is A LITTLE BIT OF FUN TO MATCH THE SORROW, though,
according to Shawn Levy's biography of Jerry Lewis, it was originally
called OF IMPOVERISHED FROLIC AND EARNEST TEARS.
16574


From:
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 8:10pm
Subject: Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?
 
I remember this variety show - but not the episode with Jerry Lewis.
Both liked and felt sorry for Pink Lady, a sweet Japanese duo of two ladies,
who were trapped in this hopeless turkey - it was a notorious bomb in its day.
Somehow, felt that the shoddy material thrust on them was an insult to the
laws of hospitality - as guests in our country, they should have been treated
better! The show's publicity said they were big stars back in Japan.
Am amazed that this is out on DVD, and not in a landfill somewhere!
Jerry Lewis had many TV shows - do not know if any of this material is
available.
As a guest star, he did a nice turn on "Mad About You". He played a zany but
kind hearted billionaire who hired Paul Reiser to make a documentary film
about his life. It gave Jerry a chance to do some highly effective clowning.

My all time favorite TV comedian is Jackie Gleason. He has little auteurist
reputation, pro or con, and probably did not direct his material. Still, many
of the skits on his variety show ("The American Scene Magazine") were gems of
comedy. They don't call him The Great One for nothing.
While playing a freezer salesmen on TV, he offered the "first forty viewers
to call in and buy a freezer, an autographed picture of the ever-popular Mae
Busch". This was the the first I ever heard of Mae, who had been out of the
limelight since she starred in von Stroheim's "Foolish Wives" (1922).
How Sweet It Is!

Mike Grost
16575


From: George Robinson
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 0:18am
Subject: Fw: [AMIA-L] FW: Victory on INDUCE! Thanks for your great work.
 
Chalk one up for the good guys.
g


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



> For those of you who were following the INDUCE Act, an update.
>
>>
> Dear Save Betamax supporters,
>
> Congratulations! Late yesterday, the news from Washington was in: the
> INDUCE Act is dead for the rest of the year. Thank you so much for the
> effort you put into contacting your Senators. Your work has made a
> difference, and if the RIAA and MPAA try again to pass INDUCE, we're 7,000
> voters strong, we'll rally even more support, and we'll stop them.
>
> The victory today was due in large part to amazing lobbying work done by
the
> internet, telecommunications, and consumer electronics industries. Their
> people fought hard on Capitol Hill, and we came through with a strong
public
> outcry to back them up. But it's our hope that, as the movement for sane
> copyright law continues to grow, it will be voters that lead the fight,
with
> industry doing back-up. That's when politicians will start to realize
that
> if they take orders from the RIAA and MPAA, there will be consequences on
> election day.
>
> On that note, there's a new organization you all need to know about: IPac.
> IPac exists to "preserve individual freedom through balanced intellectual
> property policy." What distinguishes IPac from groups like the EFF or
> Public Knowledge is that their legal status lets them give money to
> candidates who are on our side, as well as attack politicians in the
pocket
> of the big content lobby.
>
> This is extremely important: IPac will be able to get people elected, and
> get people voted out (if you are considering running for office in 2006,
> please let them know by emailing matt@i...). IPac is the first of
> its kind and represents a huge step forward; please visit their webpage
and
> consider donating to one of their candidates, or at the very least
> subscribing to their announcements list:
>
> http://ipaction.org/
>
> Finally, credit for this INDUCE Act victory goes to many groups: the EFF,
> Public Knowledge, librarian groups, the American Conservative Union, tech
> industries, and many others. But the infrastructure for the Save Betamax
> call-in day was a Downhill Battle production, and we need your help to
cover
> our costs and support future efforts like it.
>
> Most of all, we want to pay the developer who wrote the Save Betamax
backend
> to build this tool into something that *any* group can use to coordinate
> *any* call-in day of their own. When this project is finished (we need to
> add an admin interface and several new features) we're going to release it
> under the GNU GPL. For all you non-geeks, that means we'll release the
> program and the source code as free for everyone to use.
>
> Our fundraising goal is $1200. To make a donation, see how the expenses
> break down, or see more info on our plans for call-in day software, go
here:
>
> http://downhillbattle.org/Betamax_and_Beyond/
>
> Thank you everyone for your support. And again, congratulations,
>
> Sincerely,
> Holmes Wilson
> Rebecca Laurie
> Tiffiniy Cheng
> Nicholas Reville
> Downhill Battle Team
>
16576


From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 0:35am
Subject: Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:

"...Both liked and felt sorry for Pink Lady, a sweet Japanese duo of
two ladies,who were trapped in this hopeless turkey - it was a
notorious bomb in its day. Somehow, felt that the shoddy material
thrust on them was an insult to the laws of hospitality - as guests
in our country, they should have been treated better! The show's
publicity said they were big stars back in Japan."

I never saw the US incarnation of Pink Lady, but in Japan they had 9
straight number 1 hit singles. They got their break on an amateur
talent show called STAA TANJO/BIRTH OF A STAR, and their popularity
in part was due to their ability to sing in near perfect harmony and
synchronize their dance moves. Mii and Kei played Las Vegas and the
Village People covered "Pink Typhon," one of their hit songs.
Evidently the failure of their US tv show doomed them when they
returned to Japan; they failed in front of foreigners and so Japan
lost face. Mii had a solo acting career for awhile and Kei retired
in the early 1980s.


"My all time favorite TV comedian is Jackie Gleason. He has little
auteurist reputation, pro or con, and probably did not direct his
material. Still, many of the skits on his variety show ("The
American Scene Magazine") were gems of comedy. They don't call him
The Great One for nothing."

I read somewhere that it was Orson Welles who named Gleason The Great
One, and like you Mike I enjoyed his variety show hugely.

Richard
16577


From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 1:01am
Subject: Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Modiano"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
>
>
> I read somewhere that it was Orson Welles who named Gleason The
Great
> One, and like you Mike I enjoyed his variety show hugely.
>
> Richard

The actual episode of BEN CASEY featuring Jerry Lewis was
broadcast on August 3, 1965 and was titled "A Little Fun to Match
the Sorrow" co-starring Robert H. Harris.

Many interesting names appeared on Ben casey including Sam's
favorite rednecked peckerwoods Strother Martin and L.Q.Jones in a
November 1962 episode.

For those interested I could supply the address of the dealer
involved but I must caution that many television episodes (apart
from those remastered for overseas syndication such as GUNSMOKE)
often come from local affiliate broadcast stations or 1980s cable
stations and the quality is often not perfect. This is not the fault
of the dealer concerned but an industry which has allowed valuable
historical material to either deteriorate or become disposable due
to the supposedly obsolete format of black and white.

Also, the market ideology of "new is better" operates here.

Please email me personally and I can supply the address. Usually,
the cost is $20 per tape for a two episode compilation.

Tony Williams
16578


From:
Date: Fri Oct 8, 2004 9:51pm
Subject: Re: Re: Speaking of Jerry Lewis...Pink Lady?
 
In a message dated 10/8/04 7:36:33 PM, tharpa2002@y... writes:


> their popularity in part was due to their ability to sing in near perfect
> harmony and synchronize their dance moves.
>
Ah I get it now! The US variety show tried to give each woman her own
recognizable identity. It was even deemed necessary to emblazon "Mie" and "Kei" on
their outfits for later (!) episodes. Sad.

Kevin John




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16579


From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 11:30am
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
> > He didn't just like him -- he made him a prime example of his
> > theories about film form in a couple of key articles. Greg Ford
> used
> > to say that that fact alone was enough to raise serious questions
> > about the theories.

This would suggest that Bazin came up with some theories
that "proved" Wyler was good, then decided to like him on that basis.
More likely is that Bazin liked Wyler's films and came up with the
theories to account for what seemed so good about them. So one can
fault his taste if one likes, disagree with his theories, but Ford's
argument seems ass-backwards to me.

Personally I agree with Bazin about the quality of the films but
don't find any particular merit in the theory - I don't think Welles
and Wyler are any more "realist" than Eisenstein, even if they work
in longer takes.

> Please remember that when we're talking about "auteurists" in
the
> context of French film criticism we are NOT talking about Bazin, a
> pre-auteurist then reluctant quasi para-auteurist. JPC

Looking at what I actually wrote, I observe that I *did* in fact
remember that:

"So did Melville, so maybe this admiration was confined to the pre or
proto-auteurists before the later Cahiers gang."

Please remember to read what I've written before correcting me. In
all other circumstances I positively welcome criticism, I'm here to
learn.
16580


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 1:22pm
Subject: Re: The cinephile and the Peopl (Was: Rivette's Evidence
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
>
> > > He didn't just like him -- he made him a prime example of his
> > > theories about film form in a couple of key articles. Greg
Ford
> > used
> > > to say that that fact alone was enough to raise serious
questions
> > > about the theories.
>
> This would suggest that Bazin came up with some theories
> that "proved" Wyler was good, then decided to like him on that
basis.
> More likely is that Bazin liked Wyler's films and came up with the
> theories to account for what seemed so good about them. So one can
> fault his taste if one likes, disagree with his theories, but
Ford's
> argument seems ass-backwards to me.
>
> Personally I agree with Bazin about the quality of the films but
> don't find any particular merit in the theory - I don't think
Welles
> and Wyler are any more "realist" than Eisenstein, even if they
work
> in longer takes.
>
> > Please remember that when we're talking about "auteurists" in
> the
> > context of French film criticism we are NOT talking about Bazin,
a
> > pre-auteurist then reluctant quasi para-auteurist. JPC
>
> Looking at what I actually wrote, I observe that I *did* in fact
> remember that:
>
> "So did Melville, so maybe this admiration was confined to the pre
or
> proto-auteurists before the later Cahiers gang."
>
> Please remember to read what I've written before correcting me. In
> all other circumstances I positively welcome criticism, I'm here
to
> learn.


I may not remember right but I think I was referring to someone
else's remarks, not yours (which stated the same thing I did)--
could be Bill's (but then Bill doesn't need to be "corrected"
either). This is a result of posts containing statements from
several different people who end up being mistaken for one another
because the authors' respective names have disappeared or become
mixed up. It has happened more than once and will again, considering
the carelessness with which replies to posts are often handled... I
apologize if I unintentionally offended you. JPC
16581


From:
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 11:11am
Subject: Re: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
JP, I wasn't a fan of Wood's review of LA PIANISTE (mostly because his review
failed to live up to all the hype I read about it), but I think you
misunderstood a few of his points.

Why is it NECESSARILY "going just a bit too far" for Wood to admit that he is
"very attracted to the pleasures of group sex," or that he has
"experience(d)...being merely 'used' to perform certain tasks" in gay bathhouses? Perhaps in
the confines of this review, it doesn't work. But should we avoid sexually
explicit autobiography in criticism AS A RULE? No intelligent, insightful
analyses could come of it?

Next, when Wood writes that "We need to see Isabelle Huppert actually sucking
Benoit Magimel's cock," he doesn't mean that we need to see it to satisfy our
sexual urges. Quite the opposite, such an image needs to be banalized. Of
course, the conundrum here is that, at least from my perspective, seeing Benoit
Magimel's ANYTHING would DEFINITELY satisfy my sexual urges (his delish nude
scene in the overrated LES VOLEURS was a highpoint for me). BUT lots of
"non-sexual" images satisfy that urge. So why should a more sexually explicit image be
left out? Magimel getting his cock sucked should have the same impact as
Magimel playing the piano or running down the hall (again, all of which may still
satisfy our sexual urges...or not). That is what Wood is calling for. Is it
attainable? Probably not in our lifetimes. For more, see Terese De Lauretis on
Michael Snow's PRESENTS.

Also, you say that "Wood does write strange things in that piece. item: "The
rationale for monogamy (surely by now thoroughly discredited)..." You have to
keep reading the sentence, though. Wood is saying that the RATIONALE for
monogamy is now discredited, that rationale being, as he goes on to say,
maintaining "the sanctity of the patriarchal line." He's definitely not saying that
monogamy itself is now thoroughly discredited. In fact, he even spends a great
deal of time castigating ideas on "normal" sexuality of which monogamy is a major
component. And, of course, that's why he mentions it in relation to LA
PIANISTE which is obsessed with the lines around "normal" behavior.

And I'm not sure how "thoroughly unbelievable" Hupert's character comes
across to certain people. Take Winslet in HOLY SMOKE. What I took to be a wild
ping-ponging, a friend took as an even-keeled realistic portrayal. The constant
back-and-forth was perfectly understandable to her. Now I know they're very
different movies. But I imagine she would have found Hupert much less a
theoretical construct than you did.

BUT I do agree that he flubs western culture and S/M. He initmates that we
should all be familiar with "Schubert's ever-astonishing song cycle," because
"it is one of the essential landmarks of our cultural history - but do we even
have a cultural history any more?" To paraphrase Christgau on Peter Gabriel,
what you mean OUR, white man? Also, after seeing the film, wouldn't we want to
dismantle such a mind-fucking, power-drunk cultural history?

And ugh, the S/M stuff is the pits. Lester Bangs flubbed it too (no surprise,
really). I'm no devotee or practitioner or whatever. And leather fags are
some of the meanest people I've ever encountered. But more often than not, S/M is
an ESCAPE from power relations (or, at least, a reversal) rather than an
reaffirmation of them. So spank away, JP. Bush has much more at his disposal to
transform capitalism into the new feudalism.

In this light, the bathhouse material was absurd. Oh, you can establish love
with someone you just met three minutes ago but not in an S/M relationship?
I'm not saying it's impossible. But sheesh - there are probably more power games
in bathhouses than in most dungeons.

For the record, I liked LA PIANISTE a lot. At the very least, it gives us
much more chew on than the hateful FUNNY GAMES.

Kevin John


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16582


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 3:44pm
Subject: Derrida is Dead
 
One of my all-time favorite literary critics (among
other possiblde descriptions) now exists solely as
text

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3729844.stm

The last of the French Intellectual Mohicans of the
1960's (Barthes, Lacan and Foucault being the others)
he has always been a great influence on my writing,
and reading and thinking.

And he was really a treat in Kirby Dick's documentary
about him.

Insanely prolific he leaves a mountain of books
behind, my forvoites bieng "Le Carte Postale" and
"Glas."



_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com
16583


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 4:04pm
Subject: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, LiLiPUT1@a... wrote:
> JP, I wasn't a fan of Wood's review of LA PIANISTE (mostly because
his review
> failed to live up to all the hype I read about it), but I think
you
> misunderstood a few of his points.
>
> Why is it NECESSARILY "going just a bit too far" for Wood to admit
that he is
> "very attracted to the pleasures of group sex," or that he has
> "experience(d)...being merely 'used' to perform certain tasks" in
gay bathhouses? Perhaps in
> the confines of this review, it doesn't work. But should we avoid
sexually
> explicit autobiography in criticism AS A RULE? No intelligent,
insightful
> analyses could come of it?



I don't think it's going too far for him to "admit" anything
about his sexuality. My point was exactly the one you make: "Perhaps
in the confine of this review it doesn't work." I failed to see any
relationship between Wood's sexual preferences and experiences and
the film he was discussing. He is particularly inept on the subject
of sado-masochism, which is central to the film (the film is not
about gay experiences in bathhouses, after all. Actually Wood goes
out of his way to point out that although he "identifies with Erika
totally" he has "never done the things or wanted those that she ....
believes she wants." In other word he lectures us about sado-
masochism (as a by-product of capitalism)while warning us that he
has no taste for it and no experience of it whatsoever. You
wrote: "Should we avoid sexually explicit autobiography in criticism
AS A RULE?" Of course not. Where did I say such a thing? JPC
>


> Next, when Wood writes that "We need to see Isabelle Huppert
actually sucking
> Benoit Magimel's cock," he doesn't mean that we need to see it to
satisfy our
> sexual urges.


I didn't understand "need" as referring to a sexual urge to
satisfy. I think I understood it as he meant it. An aesthetic and/or
moral necessity. The need to be honest.JP


>Quite the opposite, such an image needs to be banalized.

I'm not quite sure why it "needs" to be banalized. Whatever is
banalized loses its power. That's why porn is so boring. I didn't
say fellatio should never be shown. I wrote that it would
be "interesting" to see one of the most famous and admired actresses
in french cinema suck a guy's cock on screen. But if we "banalize"
such acts then they become cliches, just as nude scenes have
become.JP

Also, you say that "Wood does write strange things in that piece.
item: "The
> rationale for monogamy (surely by now thoroughly discredited)..."
You have to
> keep reading the sentence, though. Wood is saying that the
RATIONALE for
> monogamy is now discredited, that rationale being, as he goes on
to say,
> maintaining "the sanctity of the patriarchal line." He's
definitely not saying that
> monogamy itself is now thoroughly discredited. In fact, he even
spends a great
> deal of time castigating ideas on "normal" sexuality of which
monogamy is a major
> component.

I admit that I cheated a bit there! But don't forget: you can
have very kinky, far from so-called "normal" sexual practices within
a monogamous relationship. Makes no difference whether you practice
BDSM with a group in a "dungeon' or alone with your wife at home
(although personally I much prefer the latter.) JP




And, of course, that's why he mentions it in relation to LA
> PIANISTE which is obsessed with the lines around "normal" behavior.
>
> And I'm not sure how "thoroughly unbelievable" Hupert's character
comes
> across to certain people. Take Winslet in HOLY SMOKE.

Haven't seen it, can't follow you there.


> And ugh, the S/M stuff is the pits. Lester Bangs flubbed it too
(no surprise,
> really). I'm no devotee or practitioner or whatever. And leather
fags are
> some of the meanest people I've ever encountered. But more often
than not, S/M is
> an ESCAPE from power relations (or, at least, a reversal) rather
than an
> reaffirmation of them. So spank away, JP. Bush has much more at
his disposal to
> transform capitalism into the new feudalism.
>


Now you're talking, Kevin!



> In this light, the bathhouse material was absurd. Oh, you can
establish love
> with someone you just met three minutes ago but not in an S/M
relationship?
> I'm not saying it's impossible. But sheesh - there are probably
more power games
> in bathhouses than in most dungeons.
>
> For the record, I liked LA PIANISTE a lot. At the very least, it
gives us
> much more chew on than the hateful FUNNY GAMES.
>

Ah, but I'm conflicted about FUNNY GAMES. It is hateful alright
but it does give you a lot to chew on. And I'm not going to dismiss
a film that upset me so profoundly and for so long. JP
> Kevin John
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
16584


From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 4:24pm
Subject: Re: Derrida is Dead
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> One of my all-time favorite literary critics (among
> other possiblde descriptions) now exists solely as
> text
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3729844.stm
>
> The last of the French Intellectual Mohicans of the
> 1960's (Barthes, Lacan and Foucault being the others)
> he has always been a great influence on my writing,
> and reading and thinking.
>
> And he was really a treat in Kirby Dick's documentary
> about him.
>
> Insanely prolific he leaves a mountain of books
> behind, my forvoites bieng "Le Carte Postale" and
> "Glas."

I'll comment later -- this is the first I've heard of it. I've lived
with Derrida's ideas since 1967. It's always a shock when suddenly
the author isn't there. He's been writing about dying for a while now.
>
>
> _______________________________
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16585


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 4:36pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
--- jpcoursodon wrote:



> I don't think it's going too far for him to
> "admit" anything
> about his sexuality.

When it comes to Robin Wood there's no stopping him
from admitting anything. Remember the conclusion of
his book on Bergman where he blathered on about the
fragility of life as he watched his children play
outside? Yep, it was fragile alright, cause Daddy was
planning on ditching straight domesticity for the gay
open road.


My point was exactly the one
> you make: "Perhaps
> in the confine of this review it doesn't work." I
> failed to see any
> relationship between Wood's sexual preferences and
> experiences and
> the film he was discussing. He is particularly inept
> on the subject
> of sado-masochism, which is central to the film (the
> film is not
> about gay experiences in bathhouses, after all.


And speaking as someone who has actually been in a gay
bathhouse with Robin Wood (no we weren't romantically
or even physically involved at the time --
thankyouverymuch!) I can say that his comments have
less to do with actual lived epexperience that Wood's
agressive solopsism. He likes a film only insofar as
he can "relate" to it.

Now lord knows it's perfectly valid to relate to a
film because of one's own experiences (ie. me on
Chereau), but that should serve only as a point of
departure, not an ultimate destination.





I'm no devotee or practitioner or
> whatever. And leather
> fags are
> > some of the meanest people I've ever encountered.

The inept ones, Kevin. True adepts the souls of savoir
faire.

> But more often
> than not, S/M is
> > an ESCAPE from power relations (or, at least, a
> reversal) rather
> than an
> > reaffirmation of them. So spank away, JP. Bush has
> much more at
> his disposal to
> > transform capitalism into the new feudalism.

Bush is a classic "Bottom who thinks he's a top,"
Kevin.

And so is Robin Wood.




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16586


From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 4:36pm
Subject: Re: Derrida is Dead
 
With apologies to those who hate it (and have seen it), there's a
silly article from Reuters on the Heaven's Gate screening at Film
Forum, quoting a writer at the NY Times who said that the
accompanying documentary is "ten times as interesting as the film."
Strange that Reuters would get it wrong -- the National Film Theatre
was one of the places where the long version was shown and its
reputation strated to revive. Not strange that the Times would
continue to get it wrong at all -- Judith Miller has never apologized.
16587


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 4:37pm
Subject: Frank Morgan Tribute
 
http://www.newyorkslime.com/bush-man-behind-curtain.html



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16588


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 5:03pm
Subject: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
>
> > I don't think it's going too far for him to
> > "admit" anything
> > about his sexuality.
>
> When it comes to Robin Wood there's no stopping him
> from admitting anything.
>

We live in confessional times. Everybody's coming out with some
admission or other. I'm considering exposing my sexual turpitudes on
a_film_by (POSITIF is to staid and proper for that)


>
> And speaking as someone who has actually been in a gay
> bathhouse with Robin Wood (no we weren't romantically
> or even physically involved at the time --
> thankyouverymuch!) I can say that his comments have
> less to do with actual lived epexperience that Wood's
> agressive solopsism.


You've had such an exciting life, David! Do tell us. Does he have
a big cock?




He likes a film only insofar as
> he can "relate" to it.
>


But don't we all, though -- to a certain extent?



> Now lord knows it's perfectly valid to relate to a
> film because of one's own experiences (ie. me on
> Chereau), but that should serve only as a point of
> departure, not an ultimate destination.
>
>
>
>
>
> I'm no devotee or practitioner or
> > whatever. And leather
> > fags are
> > > some of the meanest people I've ever encountered.
>
> The inept ones, Kevin. True adepts the souls of savoir
> faire.
>
> > But more often
> > than not, S/M is
> > > an ESCAPE from power relations (or, at least, a
> > reversal) rather
> > than an
> > > reaffirmation of them. So spank away, JP. Bush has
> > much more at
> > his disposal to
> > > transform capitalism into the new feudalism.
>
> Bush is a classic "Bottom who thinks he's a top,"
> Kevin.
>
> And so is Robin Wood.
>
> But the question is: "Do they try to top from the bottom?"
That's a no-no, as you know.
>
>
> _______________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
> http://vote.yahoo.com
16589


From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 5:16pm
Subject: Resend: Heaven's Gate
 
With apologies to those who hate it (and have seen it), there's a
silly article from Reuters on the Heaven's Gate screening at Film
Forum, quoting a writer at the NY Times who said that the
accompanying documentary is "ten times as interesting as the film."
Strange that Reuters would get it wrong -- the National Film Theatre
was one of the first places where the long version was shown and its
reputation strated to revive. Not strange at all that the Times would
continue to get it wrong -- Judith Miller has never apologized.
16590


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 5:17pm
Subject: Re: Re: The Piano Teacher
 
--- jpcoursodon wrote:


>
> You've had such an exciting life, David! Do tell
> us. Does he have
> a big cock?
>
>
I had absolutely no desire to get close enough to see.



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16591


From: thebradstevens
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 5:19pm
Subject: Heaven's Gate
 
"silly article from Reuters on the Heaven's Gate screening at Film
Forum, quoting a writer at the NY Times who said that the
accompanying documentary is "ten times as interesting as the film.""

What's the documentary?

"the National Film Theatre was one of the places where the long
version was shown"

I think it's worth pointing out that the long version of HEAVEN'S
GATE was released on video in the UK long before the NFT screening. A
lot of people must have seen it that way (though, sadly, it was
panned-and-scanned, as well as missing some of the cockfighting).

Incidentally, I notice that the roller-skating sequence appears in
color in both the American and European DVD transfers. Older prints
of the long version go into sepia half way through this scene, and
stay that way until Huppert and Kristofferson depart. The short
version always ran this scene in color.
16592


From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 5:31pm
Subject: Re: Heaven's Gate
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> "silly article from Reuters on the Heaven's Gate screening at Film
> Forum, quoting a writer at the NY Times who said that the
> accompanying documentary is "ten times as interesting as the film.""
>
> What's the documentary?

Between screenings of the feature, Film Forum is showing "Final Cut:
The Making and Unmaking of 'Heaven's Gate,"' a documentary by Michael
Epstein narrated by actor Willem Dafoe, which The Times describes
as "10 times as engrossing as the film that is its subject."
>
> "the National Film Theatre was one of the places where the long
> version was shown"
>
> Incidentally, I notice that the roller-skating sequence appears in
> color in both the American and European DVD transfers. Older prints
> of the long version go into sepia half way through this scene, and
> stay that way until Huppert and Kristofferson depart.

That's how I've always seen it. I saw it projected at full length
before I interviewed Cimino. After that I had a copy recorded off Z
Channel, the great cable service where I got half my film collection
before the owner blew his brains (and those of his family) out during
an access of amphetamine psychosis and the operation folded.

I now own the full-length double cassette box, but have not yet
looked at it. The film is not to be seen on a small screen -- there's
too much detail to SEE in that format!
16593


From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 5:54pm
Subject: Re: Frank Morgan Tribute
 
Except that Frank Morgan was a liberal Democrat.

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
> http://www.newyorkslime.com/bush-man-behind-curtain.html
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
16594


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 5:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: Heaven's Gate
 
--- hotlove666 wrote:


>
> That's how I've always seen it. I saw it projected
> at full length
> before I interviewed Cimino. After that I had a copy
> recorded off Z
> Channel, the great cable service where I got half my
> film collection
> before the owner blew his brains (and those of his
> family) out during
> an access of amphetamine psychosis and the operation
> folded.
>
I saw it at a screening arranged for the Z channel
showing. It was in the big room at MGM. Charles
Champlin was there. And so was Jeff Bridges. I asked
him "You never got to see it?" And he said "No, this
is my fourth time!"

I didn't like it. But then I didn't like "The Deer
Hunter" either. In fact I haven't liked a single thing
Cimino has ever done.

"Heaven's Gate" nonetheless retains a peculair
fascination. Not somuch fo its rep as a collasal flop,
but for its look. It's an ENORMOUS movie, that doesn't
seem to have any idea of where it's going but is
determined to "get there" somehow. Formally the use of
circular imagery (the waltz at the opening is echoed
in the skating scene and parts of the final shoot-out)
suggest Garrel's "La Cicatrice Interiere."

But Huppert is no Nico.

I find her fascinating and disappointing in equal
measure. She's brilliant under Chabrol's direction --
especially in "La Ceremonie" Elsewhere she's hit and
miss. Hated "The Piano Teacher" (though not because of
her.)

She's utterly marvelous in "I Heart Huckabees" but not
good at all in Werner Schroeter's recent, rather
unaccountable disaster, "Deux." (She was excellent in
Schoeter's film about opera singers, however.)




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16595


From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 6:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: Frank Morgan Tribute
 
True. And that's why the Wizard resembles FDR in his
awarding of heart, brain, courage and home.

But the lin itself ("Pay no attention to the little
man beind the curtain") remians the most important in
the American cinema.

Love him in "Hallelujah I'm a Bum."

--- Damien Bona wrote:

>
> Except that Frank Morgan was a liberal Democrat.
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
>
> wrote:
> >
>
http://www.newyorkslime.com/bush-man-behind-curtain.html
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail
> SpamGuard.
> > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
>
>
>
>




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16596


From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 6:08pm
Subject: Re: Heaven's Gate
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
>
>
>
> I now own the full-length double cassette box, but have not yet
> looked at it. The film is not to be seen on a small screen --
there's
> too much detail to SEE in that format!

I agree. That's one of the films I have always refrained to watch on
TV. I saw it twice in the full version -- the day it opened in New
York and again the next day.
16597


From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 6:08pm
Subject: Re: Heaven's Gate
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> > But Huppert is no Nico.
>
> I find her fascinating and disappointing in equal
> measure. She's brilliant under Chabrol's direction --
> especially in "La Ceremonie" Elsewhere she's hit and
> miss. Hated "The Piano Teacher" (though not because of
> her.)
>
> She's utterly marvelous in "I Heart Huckabees" but not
> good at all in Werner Schroeter's recent, rather
> unaccountable disaster, "Deux." (She was excellent in
> Schoeter's film about opera singers, however.)

Agree that Huppert sucks (sic) in Heaven's Gate, rules in Huckabee's.
She's France's best actress, as opposed to its greatest star -- that
being Adjani, IMO. In person Huppert is about two feet tall and
utterly unremarkable -- on screen, Wham-O!
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________
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> Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
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16598


From: thebradstevens
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 6:37pm
Subject: Re: Heaven's Gate
 
"Z Channel, the great cable service where I got half my film
collection before the owner blew his brains (and those of his family)
out during an access of amphetamine psychosis"

Have you seen Xan Cassavetes' documentary about Jerry Harvey and the
Z channel? I haven't had the chance to see it yet. Harvey was the co-
writer of Monte Hellman's CHINA 9, LIBERTY 37, in which he makes an
uncredited cameo as a brothel client. I guess Paul Schrader will
eventually get around to making a film about him.

I've heard various rumors about a version of the long HEAVEN'S GATE
that ends with a still frame of Averill in the doorway of his boat's
cabin, but I've never actually seen this.

16599


From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 6:58pm
Subject: Re: Heaven's Gate
 
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:


"I've heard various rumors about a version of the long HEAVEN'S GATE
that ends with a still frame of Averill in the doorway of his boat's
cabin, but I've never actually seen this."

I saw a screening at UCLA about 10 years ago, and the presenter (I
forget who it was at the monent) alluded to the freeze frame ending.
He also said that the currently extant long version was Cimino's
compromise from his 5 plus hour version. The next day I watched the
laser disc (letter boxed) and it was undoubtedly mastered from the
print I saw at UCLA, and though I haven't seen it I suspect that the
pan and scanned video tape comes from the same source.

Richard
16600


From:
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 3:05pm
Subject: Re: Re: Heaven's Gate
 
Richard Modiano wrote:

>He also said that the currently extant long version was Cimino's
>compromise from his 5 plus hour version.

Is this 5+ hour version some sort of rough cut or is it actually Cimino's
preferred version? My understanding is that the currently extant long version -
the one which was savaged by Canby after its New York premiere and which is
available on American DVD today (albeit with color instead of sepia during the
roller-skating scene) - was Cimino's final cut, and it's only the subsequent,
shorter edit that he disowns.

For what it's worth, I think "Heaven's Gate" is a complete masterpiece, as
are "The Deer Hunter," "Year of the Dragon," and "The Sunchaser." "Thunderbolt
and Lightfoot," "The Sicilian," and "Desperate Hours" are all wonderful also.
That's his entire filmography. He's like Welles!

Peter

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