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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by
This group is dedicated to discussing film as art
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18201
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:29pm
Subject: Re: Re: 2 types of revenge (was: Revenge is sweet?)
> Has anyone else seen OLD BOY, which takes the traditional revenge story and
> refracts it almost to the point of infinite regression? There was something
> about the bravura of this film that really affected me. Much has been made
> of its evocation of classical tragedy, but I have to say there's a horrible,
> hysterical grandeur to it that is not off the mark.
I didn't enjoy it, but sometimes I wonder if my age or something prevents
me from appreciating this kind of action film. The violence struck me as
a little too gleeful, the visual style as a little too autonomous and
pumped-up, the themes (which were expressed quite clearly and seriously)
too often at odds with a certain pleasure in the exercise of power. - Dan
18202
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:32pm
Subject: Re: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
>> At first I thought I disliked this Rivette film. Then I looked at the
>> book -- and realized it was actually the novel itself I disliked --
Really? Can you say why? It's one of my favorites. - Dan
18203
From: Michael E. Kerpan, Jr.
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:48pm
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> >> At first I thought I disliked this Rivette film. Then I looked
at the
> >> book -- and realized it was actually the novel itself I disliked --
>
> Really? Can you say why? It's one of my favorites. - Dan
I'm a classicist, I guess. (Jane Austen is one of my favorite
novelists). The unrestrained romanticism of the Bronte sisters (well,
of the two whosework I have read) just doesn't do much for me. ;~}
MEK
18204
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:11pm
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
German television (which I can receive via a satellite dish) is a
great source for rare Rivettes, all with German subtitles. Over the
years, they've screened LE COUP DU BERGER (a short film which I was
surprised to find is actually an unofficial adaptation of the Roald
Dahl story MRS BIXBY AND THE COLONEL'S COAT), the complete 13-hour
version of OUT 1, DUELLE, NOROIT, MERRY-GO-ROUND (which is mostly in
English), and the complete 336-minute version of JEANNE LA PUCELLE,
as well as a dubbed version of LE PONT DU NORD.
Haven't yet seen L'HISTOIRE DE MARIE ET JULIEN (2003), but I know
that this was also the title of a film Rivette began shooting in
1975, only to abandon after two days. Is the new project connected
with the old one (which was to be part 1 in Rivette's LES FILLES DU
FEU series -DUELLE was part 2, NOROIT part 4 - part 3 was never made)?
18205
From: Michael E. Kerpan, Jr.
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:21pm
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> German television (which I can receive via a satellite dish) is a
> great source for rare Rivettes, all with German subtitles. Over the
> years, they've screened LE COUP DU BERGER (a short film which I was
> surprised to find is actually an unofficial adaptation of the Roald
> Dahl story MRS BIXBY AND THE COLONEL'S COAT)....
There are now (at least) two ways to get "Le coup du berger" -- both
of which involve Korea. The (English-subbed) Korean DVD release of
"La belle noiseuse" has this as an extra. There is also a Korean DVD
called "Their First Films", which has not only this Rivette film, but
also first films by Pialat, Resnais, Godard, Truffaut, Leconte,
Doniol-Valcroze and Melville.
I am jealous about all the other stuff shown on German TV -- which
satellite service provides this? I wish Australia's SBS was carried
by someone in the US (they have traditionally done a great job of
showing non-English language films, with excellent "homemade" subtitles).
MEK
18206
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:40pm
Subject: Re: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- thebradstevens wrote:
>
> Haven't yet seen L'HISTOIRE DE MARIE ET JULIEN
> (2003), but I know
> that this was also the title of a film Rivette began
> shooting in
> 1975, only to abandon after two days. Is the new
> project connected
> with the old one (which was to be part 1 in
> Rivette's LES FILLES DU
> FEU series -DUELLE was part 2, NOROIT part 4 - part
> 3 was never made)?
>
Yes but apparently re-written. The aborted first
version starred Lelie Caron and Albert Finney.
The original cycle, first caled "Les Filles du Feu"
was later retitled "Scenes de la vie parallele." All
were to involve a Rivette-created myth about a battle
between Goddesses of the Sun and the Moon for a blue
diamond called "The Fairy Godmother." The diamond had
the power to make immortals mortal and vice versa.
Rivette claims to have derived his ideas for the
series from two books: "La Femme Celte" by Jean
Markale and "Le Carnival" by Claude Gaignebet and
Marie-Claude Florentin. Each film was to be in a
different style. "Duelle" a film noir (with references
in it to everything from "Kiss me Deadly" to "Les
Dames du Bois de Boulogne"), "Noroit" a pirate film
(the cast was shown "Moonfleet" before the shooting.)
"Marie and Julien" was a romance in which the
goddesses observed the principle humans from the
sideslines. In the new version I understand that the
goddesses have been replaced by ghosts.
"Merry Go Round" isn't part of"Scenes" but has many
echoes of it. Rivette has spoken of the film as being
a way to "bury" the "Scenes" project.
The fourth film in the series, never shot and I gather
never completely written, was supposed to have been a
musical -- hence "Haut/Bas/Fragile"
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18207
From: thebradstevens
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:53pm
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
"I am jealous about all the other stuff shown on German TV -- which
satellite service provides this?"
There's a string of connected channels (3 Sat, WDR) which share
films. The excellent ARTE screened JEANNE LA PUCELLE. ARTE show a lot
of rarities, including Jacques Demy's LADY OSCAR, which I don't
believe is available anywhere else.
18208
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:55pm
Subject: Brontes (Was: All the MIA Rivette films)
> I'm a classicist, I guess. (Jane Austen is one of my favorite
> novelists). The unrestrained romanticism of the Bronte sisters (well,
> of the two whosework I have read) just doesn't do much for me. ;~}
My take is that Emily's romanticism is only half her personality - the
romance in the book is basically a forced march to a damp grave, and she
knows it and observes its progression with a cold eye.
Charlotte, who doesn't do much for me, strikes me as a self-possessed,
practical gal more than a romantic. - Dan
18209
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 8:27pm
Subject: Re: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- thebradstevens wrote:
>
> There's a string of connected channels (3 Sat, WDR)
> which share
> films. The excellent ARTE screened JEANNE LA
> PUCELLE. ARTE show a lot
> of rarities, including Jacques Demy's LADY OSCAR,
> which I don't
> believe is available anywhere else.
>
>
LADY OSCAR is truly strange. It's an adaptation of a
Japanese comic strip,"Rose of Versailles," about a
cross-dressing "Scarlet Pimpernel" type woman (played
by Catriona McColl) in France during the revolution.
It was shot in english. I saw it at the Kokusai
theater here in L.A. where it was shown with Japanese
subtitles along the right border. It has one of Michel
Legrand's loveliest scores.
In some ways it's one a piece with "The Pied Piper"
being a fable "outside time." Not a complete success
but not neglible either. Its shooting was also the
occasion of the last great love affair of Jacques'
life.
>
>
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18210
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 10:39pm
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
>
> In some ways it's one a piece with "The Pied Piper"
> being a fable "outside time." Not a complete success
> but not neglible either. Its shooting was also the
> occasion of the last great love affair of Jacques'
> life.
> >
> >
>
> You mean he was UNFAITHFUL to Agnes??!! I'm dashed!.
> __________________________________________________
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18211
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 10:59pm
Subject: Re: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> > You mean he was UNFAITHFUL to Agnes??!! I'm
> dashed!.
So was she.
That's why she made "Jacquot de Nantes" -- for revenge!
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18212
From:
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:43pm
Subject: Brontes + Mike Leigh
Emily Jane Bronte's novel "Wuthering Heights" has a strong structure. The
novel splits in two parts, with a whole new cycle of events starting at its exact
half way point. This has been influential on a lot of subsequent works. When
I saw "Vera Drake" (Mike Leigh) last weekend, I knew in advance how long it
was (theaters always tell this). Poor Vera gets arrested at the exact mid-point
of the film, thus changing the entire work. My thought at the time: "This is
just like Wuthering Heights!" One can find lots of other examples - some of
John Dickson Carr's mystery novels have the same sort of mid-point shift, for
instance. Such shifts are usually done with extreme mathematical precision. This
seems part of the tradition...
For the record, I love both Charlotte and Emily Jane. In Charlotte, the great
works are "Jane Eyre" and "Shirley", with "Captain Henry Hastings" being
pretty good among her early Angria works. For Emily Jane, both her surviving works
are important: the "Complete Poems", an absolutely terrific book, and he sole
surviving piece of prose fiction, "Wuthering Heights".
"Charlotte Bronte was warm and domestic - like a house on fire." - G.K.
Chesterton
Mike Grost
18213
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:44pm
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
"LADY OSCAR is truly strange. It's an adaptation of a
Japanese comic strip,"Rose of Versailles," about a
cross-dressing "Scarlet Pimpernel" type woman (played
by Catriona McColl) in France during the revolution.
It was shot in english."
It gets even stranger. The manga goes on for about 100 volumes (of
200 pages each,) and I'm guessing Rivette adapted the stage version
which was put on by the Takarazuka All Girls Opera where women play
all the roles. It had a 3 yaer run and has been revived from time to
time. Stranger still is the Takarazuka GONE WITH THE WIND with a
female Rhett wooing Scarlet in Japanese.
Richard
18214
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:58pm
Subject: Re: Brontes + Mike Leigh
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
"For Emily Jane, both her surviving works are important:
the 'Complete Poems', an absolutely terrific book, and he sole
surviving piece of prose fiction, 'Wuthering Heights'.
'Charlotte Bronte was warm and domestic - like a house on fire.' -
G.K. Chesterton"
I was waiting for one our French literature experts to cite
Bataille's essay on Jane in "Literature and Evil": "Though few people
could have been more severe, more courageous or more proper, she
fathomed the very depths of Evil."
Richard
18215
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 0:32am
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> > >
> > > You mean he was UNFAITHFUL to Agnes??!! I'm
> > dashed!.
>
> So was she.
>
> That's why she made "Jacquot de Nantes" -- for revenge!
>
>
> But "Jacquot" is a "loving tribute." Or did I miss an
undertone of resentment?
> __________________________________
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> Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
> http://my.yahoo.com
18216
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 1:05am
Subject: Re: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- Richard Modiano wrote:
>
> It gets even stranger. The manga goes on for about
> 100 volumes (of
> 200 pages each,) and I'm guessing Rivette adapted
> the stage version
> which was put on by the Takarazuka All Girls Opera
> where women play
> all the roles. It had a 3 yaer run and has been
> revived from time to
> time. Stranger still is the Takarazuka GONE WITH
> THE WIND with a
> female Rhett wooing Scarlet in Japanese.
>
I've seen videos of Takarazuka stage productions. They
do a teriffic all-girl "Guys and Dolls."
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18217
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 1:08am
Subject: Re: Re: Brontes + Mike Leigh
--- Richard Modiano wrote:
>
> I was waiting for one our French literature experts
> to cite
> Bataille's essay on Jane in "Literature and Evil":
> "Though few people
> could have been more severe, more courageous or more
> proper, she
> fathomed the very depths of Evil."
>
Beat me to the punch by nanoseconds, Richard! That
volume includes pithy essays on Baudelaire, Michelet,
Blake, Sade, Proust, Kafka, and Genet.
>
>
>
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18218
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 1:11am
Subject: Re: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> > But "Jacquot" is a "loving tribute." Or did I
> miss an
> undertone of resentment?
Resentment leavened by posessiveness. The film is
Varda's way of bringing Jacques back to her on HER
TERMS.
She's in denial about AIDS -- unlike Mathieu who made
"Jeanne and the Perfect Guy" in tribute to his father.
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18219
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 2:38am
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> --- jpcoursodon wrote:
>
>
> > >
> > > But "Jacquot" is a "loving tribute." Or did I
> > miss an
> > undertone of resentment?
>
> Resentment leavened by posessiveness. The film is
> Varda's way of bringing Jacques back to her on HER
> TERMS.
>
> She's in denial about AIDS -- unlike Mathieu who made
> "Jeanne and the Perfect Guy" in tribute to his father.
>
> __How do you know all those things,David? Is there anybody in the
world whose sex life you are not thoroughly familiar with?
Although you're on a first-name basis with so many people, maybe
some on this Group are not too sure who Mathieu is, so let's make it
clear that he is Mathieu Demy, son of Jacques, and the film, "Jeanne
et le garcon formidable" is a French musical about, of all things,
AIDS. I saw it once and disliked it intensely, but that's
irrelevant. So you're telling us Demy died of AIDS and Varda is in
denial about it? Was she supposed to come out as an advocate for the
fight against AIDS or something? Please...
JPC ________________________________________________
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18220
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:02am
Subject: Re: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- jpcoursodon wrote:
> >
> > __How do you know all those things,David? Is there
> anybody in the
> world whose sex life you are not thoroughly familiar
> with?
>
One or two.
> Although you're on a first-name basis with so
> many people, maybe
> some on this Group are not too sure who Mathieu is,
> so let's make it
> clear that he is Mathieu Demy, son of Jacques, and
> the film, "Jeanne
> et le garcon formidable" is a French musical about,
> of all things,
> AIDS. I saw it once and disliked it intensely, but
> that's
> irrelevant.
Really? Love to hear more about why.
So you're telling us Demy died of AIDS
> and Varda is in
> denial about it? Was she supposed to come out as an
> advocate for the
> fight against AIDS or something? Please...
I have no idea what I would have done if I were in her
shoes. There are no "right" answers in an impossible
situation. But she made her film (which is rather nice
all things considered) and that's that.
Jonathan Rosenbaum has written about this, BTW.
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18221
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 4:40am
Subject: Re: All the MIA Rivette films (was: 2 types of revenge )
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
>
>
> Jonathan Rosenbaum has written about this, BTW.
>
>
> Well, one can't have read everything, like you, David.
>
>
> __________________________________
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18222
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 4:43am
Subject: publication versus screen titles
> From either JPC or Craig:
> point was simply that you shouldn't routinely capitalize all the
> words in French titles -- the longer they are the more annoying it
> becomes to the reader.
Thanks for the info.
A question remains about the capitalization of a movie title as it
appears on the screen (which is the only way I would see the title as I
do not read French publications).
Is this same rule* applied to the titles as seen on the screen?
*essentially only the first article and then the subsequent {{for the /
le and its variants, but not for a / un and their variants}} first noun
or gerund or verb are capitalized .
> Jeunet's film which Elizabeth brought up should be: "Un long dimanche
> de fiancailles".
I'm not being petty, but on the screen is anything capitalized other
than Un? Actually, I should just stay with the publication information
as I will not be printing any titles for the screen, in English or
French!
Elizabeth Nolan
18223
From: Noel Vera
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:30am
Subject: Re: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...)
Does Dreyer's The Passion of Joan qualify (how long a period of
one's life does the film have to cover?)? Because if it does, that
goes on top of the list.
Some of the stranger biopics I know of are Mike de Leon's "Bayaning
Third World," more a footloose and witty essay (in black and white)
on the impossibility of making a film on Jose Rizal (an important
historical figure in Philippine history) than an actual film, and
Mario O'Hara's "Sisa," a fantastical 'biopic' about Rizal and the
great love of his life--Sisa, a fictional character from one of his
novels.
18224
From: Noel Vera
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:52am
Subject: Re: Brontes + Mike Leigh
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
> Emily Jane Bronte's novel "Wuthering Heights" has a strong
structure.
It's strong but complex, three generations, the story of each how it
struggled with and survived the previous generation. I don't see how
a two hour film can summarize or contain the whole thing, and none
of the versions I've seen do a very good job.
Love Emily--the wildness, the pagan spirit behind her prose.
18225
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:56am
Subject: Re: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...)
> Does Dreyer's The Passion of Joan qualify (how long a period of
> one's life does the film have to cover?)? Because if it does, that
> goes on top of the list.
When I see the word "biopic," the first thing that comes to mind is the
blurb on the original one-sheet for 'Let It Be' -- "An intimate biopic
experience." When I was little I used to misread this as "intimate
bioscopic experience," and drew whatever conclusions one might. It's
almost no less psychedelic, if significantly less scatological (though
even more "investigative"), when one considers "biopic" as an adjective
(bye-AHP-ic).
That said, I'll vote for Lester's 'A Hard Day's Night,' because it's a
fiction film starring and about its own subject, contemporaneous and in
some scenes simultaneous with the events of the times. (Or hours and
times, I might say, and one could then nominate Christopher Münch's
film.) In those sequences where the film slides into "documentary," it
all goes weird, as the Fabs slid so easily in and out of their
respective personae they played reality like a fiction!
craig.
18226
From: Noel Vera
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 6:08am
Subject: Lady Windermere's Fan
Ernst Lubitsch's Lady Windermere's Fan is surprisingly good. Take
away Wilde's bon mots and what you have left is a pretty engaging
melodrama, with a suspenseful, and ultimately moving, conclusion.
Lubitsch pours the wit instead into the performances, which are
wonderful, and the visual compositions, which are startling--there's
a mini-essay on the various ways various men ring a woman's doorbell
(foreshadowing, perhaps, the more elaborate sequence in Welles'
Magnificent Ambersons?); there's a sequence in a garden humming with
symmetries and geometrical shapes and the heads of various
characters popping in and out that's just wonderful.
18227
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 0:31pm
Subject: Re: 2 types of revenge (was: Revenge is sweet?)
> Actually it's Elizabethan theatre, and "The Revenger's Tragedy"
is
> the title of a play by Cyril Tourneur (1607) -- they had a Ford and
> a Tourneur too in Shakespeare's time! -- But revenge was indeed a
> major theme in the theatre of the time. Isn't "Hamlet" about
> plotting a revenge?
You're right re Elizebethan, and HAMLET is indeed asked to "avenge
(or revenge) my murder most foul".
Not sure which unmade film I'd rather see: Hitchcock's HAMLET with
Cary Grant or Bruce Robinson's with Richard E Grant. Actually, I DO
know - the Hitchcock, by a mile.
18228
From: Michael E. Kerpan, Jr.
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 0:55pm
Subject: Re: Lady Windermere's Fan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera" wrote:
>
> Ernst Lubitsch's Lady Windermere's Fan is surprisingly good.
It's almost certainly better than Wilde's play (my least favorite
Wilde play). I agree this is a quite impressive film (we saw it
live, with the accompaniment played live by the pianist who provided
the score on the recent DVD version). All the same, I much prefer the
deliciously mean-spirited humor of "Marriage Circle" to the melodrama
of this film.
MEK
18229
From: acquarello2000
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 1:20pm
Subject: Re: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...)
> Some of the stranger biopics I know of are Mike de Leon's "Bayaning
> Third World," more a footloose and witty essay (in black and white)
> on the impossibility of making a film on Jose Rizal (an important
> historical figure in Philippine history) than an actual film...
I must admit, I was quite disappointed with Mike de Leon's "Bayaning
Third World"; it seemed like something of a naive derivative between
"Looking for Richard" and "Citizen Kane", replete with a lot of
self-conscious, odd angle shots that were definitely imitated from Welles.
Anyway, within the theme of the impossibility of making a film on a
near-mythical historical figure/national hero, there's Theo
Angelopoulos' "Megalexandros".
acquarello
18230
From:
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 8:37am
Subject: Re: publication versus screen titles
A book that really helps with French titles is Roy Armes' "French Cinema"
(1985). This is a survey of the whole course of French film up to 1985 (written
in English). It is written from an auteurist perspective, and usually has
something interesting to say about French film classics. Plus it gives authentic
French versions of all the titles! Recommended.
On "publication versus screen titles": the strangest screen title seen here
is of Howard Hawks' airplane melodrama from 1939. The on-screen title is in
quotes. It is all lower case, starts with a hyphen, and is plainly meant to be
the second half of a quotation:
" - only angels have wings"
Every print publication ever seen has this changed to "Only Angels Have
Wings".
Mike Grost
18231
From:
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 9:08am
Subject: Re: Jacquot (was: All the MIA Rivette films)
Jacquot (Varda) is a good movie. It seems utterly respectful at all levels of
its subject.
For those who have not seen it, the film is a dramatized biography of the
late director Jacques Demy, focussing on his childhood and teenage years. It
concentrates on his development as an artist and novice filmmaker. Interspersed
throughout are clips from Demy's films, showing how his youthful efforts and
life experiences gave rise to ideas in his later films. There are also interviews
conducted by Varda before Demy's death.
While Varda and Demy were married for decades, the film does not pry into
their marriage, Demy's adult life, or his death. It is not a "tell-all" and a
good thing too! This would have been tasteless in the extreme, and artistically
pointless as well. The subject of the film is not "Demy the man", but rather
"Demy the auteur". We learn about Demy's childhood in its particulars, but
mainly so we can understand Demy's films better. And Demy's struggles with a
hostile world and discouraging teachers are an archetype of the struggles many
artists face from a philistinish planet. They have a universal meaning, as well as
being a particular story.
Varda is an artist who has always mixed documentary and fiction in her films.
Even a fictional film such as "Cleo from 5 to 7" is as much a documentary
about Paris as it is the story of its characters. And her recent films tell much
about the creative life of both Demy and Varda. She is one of those directors
like De Mille, Hitchcock, Truffaut, Olmi, Fellini who want to put their life
and/or personalities on film. (By contrast, Anthony Mann seems to have
maintained a Thomas Pynchon like reclusiveness - have never even seen an interview
with him!) Because of this, it is sometimes a bit hard for viewers and critics to
draw the line, on respecting Varda's privacy. Still it is clear: the creative
lives of Demy and Varda belong to the world - this is Demy and Varda as
auteurs. But their personal lives are none of our business.
Mike Grost
18232
From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:49pm
Subject: The Sting sweet, but 'not enough.'
The Sting seems like a real 'sweet' revenge movie as you know they
won't kill Lonagan, they just take his money; still, the last
'important' line says it all: "Not, enough."
Elizabeth
18233
From: Craig Keller
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 4:08pm
Subject: Re: Re: 2 types of revenge (was: Revenge is sweet?)
\Not sure which unmade film I'd rather see: Hitchcock's HAMLET with
> Cary Grant or Bruce Robinson's with Richard E Grant. Actually, I DO
> know - the Hitchcock, by a mile.
Or Nabokov's, as detailed in 'Bend Sinister'!
Are there any fans of Larry Olivier's version here? I find the mise en
scène engrossing, and Olivier's performance ridiculous.
craig.
18234
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:14pm
Subject: Re: publication versus screen titles
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> > From either JPC or Craig:
> > point was simply that you shouldn't routinely capitalize all the
> > words in French titles -- the longer they are the more annoying
it
> > becomes to the reader.
>
> Thanks for the info.
>
> A question remains about the capitalization of a movie title as it
> appears on the screen (which is the only way I would see the title
as I
> do not read French publications).
> Is this same rule* applied to the titles as seen on the screen?
> *essentially only the first article and then the subsequent {{for
the /
> le and its variants, but not for a / un and their variants}} first
noun
> or gerund or verb are capitalized .
>
> > Jeunet's film which Elizabeth brought up should be: "Un long
dimanche
> > de fiancailles".
>
> I'm not being petty, but on the screen is anything capitalized
other
> than Un? Actually, I should just stay with the publication
information
> as I will not be printing any titles for the screen, in English or
> French!
>
> Elizabeth Nolan
Good question, Elizabeth. No, the rules don't really apply to
titles as printed on credits titles (or posters) because in most
cases the entire title will be in capital letters. I have just
checked at random a few of the French films I have on video. The
title on screen is always entirely capitalized. L'ANNEE DERNIERE A
MARIENBAD, L'ENFANT SAUVAGE etc... So I'm sure, although I haven't
seen the film, that Jeunet's title on screen is UN LONG DIMANCHE DE
FIANCAILLES -- unless he opted for the more recent affectation of
putting everything in lower case: "un long dimanche de
fiancailles."I haven't seen enough recent French films to know for
sure whether this is a trend or not.
So if you want to be on the safe side you can always capitalize
everything. Of course if you write an article for an American
magazine and spell French titles correctly, a copy editor will be
sure to reintroduce capital letters to conform to local tradition.
JPC
18235
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:20pm
Subject: Re: publication versus screen titles
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, MG4273@a... wrote:
>
> On "publication versus screen titles": the strangest screen title
seen here
> is of Howard Hawks' airplane melodrama from 1939. The on-screen
title is in
> quotes. It is all lower case, starts with a hyphen, and is plainly
meant to be
> the second half of a quotation:
> " - only angels have wings"
> Every print publication ever seen has this changed to "Only Angels
Have
> Wings".
>
> Mike Grost
Countless titles of Hollywood films used to be in quotes in the
credit titles although not being quotations at all. But the Hawks is
a special case. If it is indeed a quotation, where is it from? It's
not in Bartlett...
18236
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 6:04pm
Subject: Re: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...)
> Does Dreyer's The Passion of Joan qualify (how long a period of
> one's life does the film have to cover?)? Because if it does, that
> goes on top of the list.
Trying to address Fred's objections to genre discussion, at least to an
extent:
The best case one can make for genre, I think, is as a system of
expectations, resulting in narrative codes that can be exploited,
undercut, or what have you. It's easy to use this as a springboard to
discussions of directoral style (although Tag G. doesn't like it).
So the "biopic" is most interesting to me when one defines it narrovly
enough that it presents a set of expectations - when one can talk one's
way through a set of cliches that more or less sums up the less
imaginative entries in the genre.
The biopic poses one problem more serious than all the others: that the
disorder of a real life will be turned into the dramatic structure of a
fictional life, and that the seams will show. Whenever this problem shows
up, or is circumvented by original means, it is probably legitimate to
talk about the genre as genre.
There's probably not much value to calling any film suggested by a
real-life incident a biopic. As for THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, it
suggests to me more the historical drama (in which the outcome is known,
and the story sufficienly known that the filmmakers can use ellipsis
freely) than the classic biopic structure. Same with Bresson's take on
the story. But Fleming's and Rivette's have some biopic elements. -
Dan
18237
From: Robert Keser
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 9:37pm
Subject: Re: Lady Windermere's Fan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
wrote:
> Ernst Lubitsch's Lady Windermere's Fan is surprisingly
>good...there's a mini-essay on the various ways various men ring a
>woman's doorbell...there's a sequence in a garden humming with
>symmetries and geometrical shapes and the heads of various
>characters popping in and out that's just wonderful.
Lubitsch also supplies a dazzling display of point-of-view shots
when Mrs. Erlynne attends the races, and fully a half-dozen other
spectators observe her from various angles.
But why call it "surprisingly" good? *I'm* not surprised!
--Robert Keser
18238
From: Fred Camper
Date: Wed Nov 24, 2004 9:50pm
Subject: Re: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...) (Hawks & Air Force)
I don't disagree with Dan's comments. I mean, sure, genre loses meaning
if you stretch it too much as a concept, and sure, genre films play off
against expectations and when they depart in some ways, that suggests
meanings.
I think my point is that this way of looking at films usually don't go
far enough for me in accounting for the really great films. The great
ones may or may not fulfill genre expectations, and may or may not
differ, but the ways in which they are great are much more "global" than
can be accounted for by genre analysis.
Consider, for example, Howard Hawks's "Air Force." I may be losing most
group members here anyway when I say I think this is a tremendously
great film. It may be a relatively minor Hawks, but it's a great film by
any other standards. But it certainly fulfills a lot of the standard
expectations for a war movie, especially a World War II movie, with its
crew that includes one of each of us, with of course some exceptions so
it's not quite "each of us."
What's great about it? I don't know exactly; it's been too long. But
small gestures, compositions, the use of light, the relationship of
editing rhythm to the characters, all amount to a very total vision that
is never going to be accounted for by comparing specific correspondences
and differences against other examples of its genre.
Fred Camper
18239
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Thu Nov 25, 2004 3:01am
Subject: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...) (Hawks & Air Force)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
"I think my point is that this way of looking at films usually don't
go far enough for me in accounting for the really great films. The
great ones may or may not fulfill genre expectations, and may or may
not differ, but the ways in which they are great are much
more "global" than can be accounted for by genre analysis.
"Consider, for example, Howard Hawks's 'Air Force.' ...
"What's great about it? I don't know exactly; it's been too long. But
small gestures, compositions, the use of light, the relationship of
editing rhythm to the characters, all amount to a very total vision
that is never going to be accounted for by comparing specific
correspondences and differences against other examples of its genre."
I had the interesting experience of seeing a double bill of JOYU
SUMAKO NO KOI/THE LOVE OF THE ACTRESS SUMAKO by Mizoguchi and JOYU
SUMAKO/ACTRESS SUMAKO by Kinugasa. Both movies were made the same
year. Like AIR FORCE THE LOVE OF THE ACTRESS SUMAKO isn't one of
Mizo's finest pictures but it's still great. ACTRESS SUMAKO was not
particularly bad but it wasn't compelling the way the Mizoguchi
version was and could probably be best appreciated as a biopic (it
reminded me of a tragic YANKEE DOODLE DANDY and had certain Hollywood
biopic conventions,) so here's an interesting but not great movie
seen right before a great movie, and the great movie calls for
another kind of analysis to do it justice.
One of the best parts of the Mizoguchi version is sequcence showing
one of Sumako's performances in a theatre that's perfectly edited and
composed. Another striking difference between the between the two
was the distance between the camera and the characters which in
Mizo's film is at the service of his vision but in Kinugasa's movie
follows conventional rules that don't seem part of any larger
aesthetic vision. If I understand you correctly, this seems to be
what you're getting at.
Richard
18240
From: Craig Keller
Date: Thu Nov 25, 2004 4:42am
Subject: MoMAnts choisis (correction)
I wrote the other day about a "new" addition to JLG's 'Moments choisis'
at MoMA, regarding Selznick and 'Bird of Paradise' -- cue my faulty
memory, this section actually already exists in Episode 3A of the
series, which I just finished rewatching. Quoting from a section of
the text transcript in the ECM book: "Oui -- quelle histoire
voulons-nous à supporter que nous soyons dignes de la chartreuse et des
crimes et des châtiments. Voilà ce que demendait David O. Selznick:
'Je veux del Rio et Tyrone Power dans une romance ayant pour cadre les
Mers du Sud, peu m'importe l'histoire pourvu qu'elle s'intitule 'Bird
of Paradise' et que del Rio saute à la fin dans un volcan.' " / "Yes,
what story do we want, considering we're worthy of the charterhouse and
crimes and punishments. Look what was ordered by David O. Selznick: 'I
want del Rio and Tyrone Power in a romance set in the South Seas, the
story doesn't matter to me provided it's entitled 'Bird of Paradise'
and del Rio jumps into a volcano at the end."
craig.
18241
From: Andy Rector
Date: Thu Nov 25, 2004 6:54am
Subject: Re: Revenge is sweet?
For me it's Underworld USA.
yours,
andy
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Martin
wrote:
> Dear friends, I know this is a vast question, but I shall put it
to all
> the erudite cinephiles here: I am doing some research into movies
about
> revenge. What would you recommend as your favourite revenge-based
> films? Has anybody ever 'broken down' the various types of revenge
> plots?
>
> vengeance is mine, Adrian
18242
From: Noel Vera
Date: Thu Nov 25, 2004 6:56am
Subject: Re: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...)
> I must admit, I was quite disappointed with Mike de
Leon's "Bayaning
> Third World"
Where did you see it, may I ask?
>it seemed like something of a naive derivative between
> "Looking for Richard" and "Citizen Kane", replete with a lot of
> self-conscious, odd angle shots that were definitely imitated from
Welles.
Not just Welles; Antonioni, and not a little Kubrick as well.
And de Leon is nothing if not self-conscious; he knows exactly what
he's doing, and how he's doing it. I suppose that kind of hyper-
awareness can turn off people (non-Kubrick fans for one, I notice).
Basically the joke of the film is like Magritt's "this is not a
pipe:" he demosntrates the impossibility of doing a definitive Rizal
film by trying to do as definitive a Rizal film as possible (to the
degree whether he succeeds or not, he proves or disproves his point--
or at least I believe that's the intent).
I do think it isn't De Leon's best work--that would be his great
Kisapmata (Blink of an Eye, 1981), an improvement, in my opinion on
Kubrick's The Shining, from which it's partly inspired. Still I
don't think it's at all bad, and I'm sure de Leon had nowhere near
the budget or shooting schedule Angelopolous would have had.
That said, I do think Bayaning Third World isn't half as imaginative
as Mario O'Hara's Sisa (which has an even smaller budget and
shooting schedule).
18243
From: Noel Vera
Date: Thu Nov 25, 2004 7:28am
Subject: Re: Lady Windermere's Fan
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Keser"
wrote:
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Noel Vera"
> wrote:
>
> > Ernst Lubitsch's Lady Windermere's Fan is surprisingly
> >good...there's a mini-essay on the various ways various men ring
> But why call it "surprisingly" good? *I'm* not surprised!
Considering it's a Wilde play, Wilde known for his witticisms, and
this being a silent film, etc., etc....but more than that, it's just
how beautifully Lubtisch is able to capture the spirit of the play
(and, as someone believes and mentions earlier, improves on it). The
recent rather wan adaptation of Earnest (with all of Wilde's lines
intact) seems to throw a brighter glow on the achievement.
18244
From: cairnsdavid1967
Date: Thu Nov 25, 2004 11:14am
Subject: Re: 2 types of revenge (was: Revenge is sweet?)
> Are there any fans of Larry Olivier's version here? I find the
mise en
> scène engrossing, and Olivier's performance ridiculous.
I'm with you there. I try to make allowances for the performance, but
I very rarely find Olivier convincing or effective, the key
exceptions being CARRIE and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING, where what Mamet
calls his "grudging" quality actually works beautifully. Mamet also
says that Larry gives the only BAD performance in a Powell and
Pressburger film, his hilarious "Canadian" in 49TH PARALLEL, which is
more or less true, though check out Robert Arden in A MATTER OF LIFE
AND DEATH...
18245
From: Fred Camper
Date: Thu Nov 25, 2004 0:48pm
Subject: Re: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...) (Hawks & Air Force)
Richard Modiano wrote:
> ...Another striking difference between the between the two
> was the distance between the camera and the characters which in
> Mizo's film is at the service of his vision but in Kinugasa's movie
> follows conventional rules that don't seem part of any larger
> aesthetic vision. If I understand you correctly, this seems to be
> what you're getting at.
Yes, and thanks for the comparison of the two films.
It's my claim that an overridingly great "aesthetic vision" ultimately
transcends and destroys any analysis. So the approach Dan suggested, of
noticing the differences between genre conventions and an auteur film in
a genre, is fine as a starting point, and may also be fine as an ending
point for a minor "personal" director who has a style and themes but
isn't very great. But when I think of films that are, for me, at the
limits of cinema's greatness -- "Sansho Dayu," "Voyage to Italy," "Au
Hasard, Balthazar," "Tabu," "The Tarnished Angels," "The Man Who Shot
Liberty Valance," "Lola Montes" (sticking to narrative films here for
the sake of this discussion) -- what's great about them seems to me to
obliterate talk of differences with genre, directorial "stategies," et
cetera. That's not to say that such talk might not provide a useful way
into a masterpiece, because it can, but in the end you're just blasted
away by the light, or even, dare I say it, the comnbination of light and
story. The last (and maybe 8th or 9th) time I saw "Sansho Dayu," which
was also my first in 35mm, I was in tears almost from the beginning, and
emerged stupefied and as silent as that placid limitless sea at the end.
The first time I saw "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," at maybe 18 but
when I'd already seen and loved a bunch of other Fords, I certainly
noticed the film's more "critical" attitude toward Western myths (not
exactly a hard-to-decode subtext here), but the main thing I remember
was that the street lights, and even the elaborate curves of Harvard's
Carpenter Center (where I saw it), all looked like the vertical wooden
shacks in a John Ford town for a little while afterwards, the film's
transformative vision was that strong.
The same point actually can be made about avant-garde films, I think.
One could profitably discuss Sharits (whose work I like but consider
relatively minor) in relation to earlier flicker films, noting how his
differ, but when confronted with Brakhage's "The Process," what happens
is so complex that you need a bunch of other ways to account for it, and
even then, you're mostly left just dazzled.
Fred Camper
18246
From: acquarello2000
Date: Thu Nov 25, 2004 4:47pm
Subject: Re: Biopics (WAS: Re: A Very Long...)
> Where did you see it, may I ask?
Before my cousin entered the convent, she was a missionary serving in
the Philippines so I gave her a wish list of filmmakers whose work I
wanted to see and she hunted them down for me. :)
> I do think it isn't De Leon's best work--that would be his great
> Kisapmata (Blink of an Eye, 1981), an improvement, in my opinion on
> Kubrick's The Shining, from which it's partly inspired. Still I
> don't think it's at all bad, and I'm sure de Leon had nowhere near
> the budget or shooting schedule Angelopolous would have had.
I think part of the disappointment stemmed from my own expectation of
the film. I guess I was hoping for something more indigenous looking,
I didn't expect the film to look so technically by the book "western".
I can see that he is definitely a skilled filmmaker though.
Anyway, I don't mean to suggest that the films should all be about
abject poverty like Ditsi Carolino's "Life on the Tracks" or look
primitive and "third world" but rather, I would really like to see
something of the Filipino experience portrayed more broadly in
international cinema for more than just as migrant domestic workers
(like "The Flor Contemplacion Story" or the sassy, religious maid in
Fruit Chan's "Little Cheung").
acquarello
18247
From: Noel Vera
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2004 7:56am
Subject: Filipino films (WAS: Biopics)
> I think part of the disappointment stemmed from my own expectation
of
> the film. I guess I was hoping for something more indigenous
looking,
> I didn't expect the film to look so technically by the
book "western".
Part of the reason for the look is the budget (he didn't have any)
and the essay form he's trying to do would have a more free-
wheeling, less location-based style, I imagine.
> Anyway, I don't mean to suggest that the films should all be about
> abject poverty like Ditsi Carolino's "Life on the Tracks" or look
> primitive and "third world" but rather, I would really like to see
> something of the Filipino experience portrayed more broadly in
> international cinema for more than just as migrant domestic workers
> (like "The Flor Contemplacion Story" or the sassy, religious maid
in
> Fruit Chan's "Little Cheung").
Ditsi is quite good; the definitive "Manila" look would be found in
Lino Brocka's "Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag" (Manila in the Claws
of Neon, 1975)--produced and DP'd, incidentally by Mike de Leon, so
he's no stranger to that "indigenous" look you mentioned.
"Flor Contemplacion," however--that's Viva films at its most glossy
and melodramatic (the DP, Romy Vitug, is known for his picture-
postcard photography). Let me recommend Tikoy Aguiluz's "Bagong
Bayani," done in docudrama style. I think that one hews much closer
to the real thing.
18248
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2004 0:15pm
Subject: Emmer
Has anyone seen a film by Luciano Emmer? He's great!
18249
From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2004 0:21pm
Subject: Le moindre geste
Only had time to see one film in Paris, but it's a honey: Le moindre
geste was filmed over a period of two years in the early sixties,
abandoned, picked up by a young editor in 1968 who spent two years
cutting it w. an assist at the end from Chris Marker, shown to
Truffaut who recommended trimming 30 minutes and adding a narration
(suggestion not accepted), shown once at Cannes (cover of CdC at the
height of the Tel Quelist era), only to disappear again and return
end of 2004 in a commercial engagement here.
B&w, starring a young autistic man who escapes from an asylum and
wanders about a barren part of the French countryside w. a younger
autistic kid, who falls in a hole halfway thru the film. The hero
sporadically tries to save him, braiding ropes, etc., but mostly
forgets him. (Occasionally his cries are heard emerging from the
earth.) Long occautistic v.o. tirades by the hero, recorded
separately and mounetd with natural sound. Quite the most singular
film I have ever seen -- it could have been made yesterday, or
tomorrow.
18250
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2004 6:13pm
Subject: Re: Emmer
> Has anyone seen a film by Luciano Emmer? He's great!
Not me. Tell more. The dude's been directing for 64 years, and I never
heard of anything in his filmography. - Dan
18251
From:
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2004 4:33am
Subject: Hans Memling (OT) (was: Torino) + Thanks!
Thanks to Fred Camper for pointing the way to the Hans Memling site. It is
just fascinating. Memling was just a name & occasional illustration in art
history books before. But by looking at a lot of his paintings at once, one begins
to understand his world, his approach to art, his buildings, landscapes,
portraits, the emotional feel of his work, and his storytelling - "Scenes from the
Passion of Christ" is definitely a narrative work. This is the most complex
Memling painting ever seen here.
The auteur theory works for painters, too! By looking at an artist's whole
career, one begins to understand them far more deeply than by seeing a single
work, whether a painting or film.
Also looked deep into the Internet presentation of another Flemish artist of
the era - Lucas van Leyden. He too had a highly individual style (and was a
superb colorist, with a special feel for strange but riotously colorful clothes
worn by his characters).
Thanks,
Mike Grost
18252
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2004 2:16pm
Subject: Re: Hans Memling (OT) (was: Torino) + Thanks!
Mike,
I'm of course delighted that you have been excited by Memling.
The whole Northern Renaissance period is one of painting's very
greatest. The best of all is van Eyck, whose works spectacularly and
gloriously disprove the myth of progress in art. His works, made right
at the beginning of oil painting, are as great as anything we have seen
since.
Other favorites of mine include, besides Memling, Rogier van der Weyden,
Robert Campin, Gerard David, Quentin Massys. But this only scratches the
surface. Lucas van Leyden is great too, though with him I've seen only a
few paintings (and many more prints).
I agree about the auteur theory, of course, but it's also the case that
in this period artists were less concerned with creating individual
styles than they have been after the Renaissance. I'd venture that there
are no two early Flemish painters who are as different from each other
in style and meaning as Ford is from Hawks.
What I love about most of these painters is the incredible vividness
they bring to the discovery of painting's new-found ability to offer a
near-photographic depiction of reality. Every surface, every object, is
imbued with a near-spiritual sense of wonder.
But at the risk of seeming rather predictable, I'd say that like film,
paintings simply don't reproduce. You can get some of what's great about
most artists from reproductions, but so much of what great is incredibly
subtle, and happens on the surface, where the eye comes alive as it
meets the paint on the support, where the paint seems to really breathe,
each artist's paint in a different way. I don't in general speak
evaluatively of paintings I've seen only in reproduction, and if I do,
I'll always qualify what I say by saying I've only seen it in reproduction.
Few van Eycks survive. The van Eykcs in the U.S. are at the Met in New
York (an incredible set of two small panels), in Washington, and in
Philadelphia (though I'm not sure if the Philadelphia one is generally
accepted). The Detroit Institute of Arts claims a van Eyck but almost no
one else accepts it and while it's very good it's not that great.
The great sites for van Eyck are Bruges and Ghent. London has one or two
that look great but I've not seen them.
Many major American museums claim a Memling or two, but they seem to
vary a lot in quality. This may have less to do with Memling being
uneven than with some not really being Memlings and also with varying
degrees of preservation; many old paintings have surfaces that are
seriously abraded, or otherwise damaged, which can reduce their beauty
enormously. Most major museums do have collections of early Flemish
painting.
The great city for Memling is Bruges. The one in Turin is incredible,
and there's a fantastically great large altarpiece in Gdansk.
Time to do some traveling, if and when you can!
The filmmaker Peter Kubelka takes the same attitude toward recorded
music that I take toward reproductions of paintings and films. "This is
not music" would be something like his position. He's a trained musician
who has given a number of concerts and I don't have his experience with
music, but for me, a recording is close enough to the live experience as
to count as "the work." (I'm talking about so-called "classical" music
here. I recently went to a rock concert in which the music was
immeasurably worse than the recorded versions, which I've been told is
not that uncommon.) Many times I've been to bad performances which I
have to correct by going home and listening to a good recording. The
times I've heard a great performance live and the same group doing the
same work in recording, the recording does seem to me to be reasonably
close. In a sense I'm echoing the complaints of the pro-video people
about bad prints, bad projection, and bad audiences here. I once heard
Tom Koopman, my current favorite Bach intepreter, with his group
presenting live versions of Bach cantatas, about as great as music gets
for me. The experience was fantastic, but poor acoustics in the hall
made some of the voices harder to hear. In some ways the recording is
better.
Or course all this is very OT, but I'd also make the point that my
notion of the aesthetics of great cinema places great films alongside
great works in other media, and that my viewing of other art feeds into
my undrstanding of film.
Fred Camper
18253
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2004 2:29pm
Subject: Re: Hans Memling (OT) (was: Torino) + Thanks!
> Few van Eycks survive. The van Eykcs in the U.S. are at the Met in New
> York (an incredible set of two small panels), in Washington, and in
> Philadelphia (though I'm not sure if the Philadelphia one is generally
> accepted). The Detroit Institute of Arts claims a van Eyck but almost no
> one else accepts it and while it's very good it's not that great
Well whoever painted the Philadelphia St. Francis had it goin' on ;-)
-Sam
18254
From:
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2004 10:19am
Subject: Re: Hans Memling (OT) (was: Torino) + Thanks!
What works best for me, is a combination of seeing real paintings, together
with an auteurist experience of the artist's world as a whole, which can be
obtained only from art books, the Internet, and one-man shows & retrospectives in
museums & galleries (rare but wonderful experiences - the best of both
worlds). Both seem to be key to actually understanding an artist's work. Seeing the
detail in real paintings, as Fred says, is like nothing that can usually be
obtained from books. Plus scale is important. Large paintings especially lose
detail in books. When the painting known as "Whistler's Mother" came to Detroit
recently, was amazed to see it was 2 meters high and three meters or so wide -
just gigantic. Nearly all the detail of this work has been lost in every
reproduction ever seen of it. Still, the reproductions are beautiful too, and have
spread this work to millions of people over the last 100 years.
I love Van Eyck. His paintings are so widely reproduced in art books that I
have come to feel I know him as an artist - which is probably not fully true,
because have never seen most of the originals. Rogier van der Weyden is also
much reproduced in books (& in "The Gleaners and I", too!). But have never liked
him as much.
But for Robert Campin, Gerard David, Quentin Massys, have never had the
"auteur experience" with them. I'm sitting here looking at reproductions of their
works in an art book on my computer table. They are obviously very gifted. Yet
I know nothing about their worlds. I would not be able to pick their works out
of a room of unlabeled paintings (or art post cards). It looks as if the
Internet is going to allow me to do this, in the not too distant future. Good
news! Plus, I suspect that I am looking right at parts of their paintings that I
do not "see", or do not process in my brain - because my eyes have not been
opened to what is important in these artists' works.
Mike Grost
18255
From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2004 5:37pm
Subject: Re: Hans Memling (OT) (was: Torino) + Thanks!
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
"...I'd say that like film, paintings simply don't reproduce. You
can get some of what's great about most artists from reproductions,
but so much of what great is incredibly subtle, and happens on the
surface, where the eye comes alive as it meets the paint on the
support, where the paint seems to really breathe, each artist's
paint in a different way."
Color and scale are lost in reproductions of paintings but the design
and drawing usually survive. Drawings in good reproductions retain
90% of their value. Fratelli Alinari in Florence and Rome produce
excellent reprodutions of old master drawings.
"The filmmaker Peter Kubelka takes the same attitude toward recorded
music that I take toward reproductions of paintings and films. "This
is not music" would be something like his position. He's a trained
musician who has given a number of concerts and I don't have his
experience with music, but for me, a recording is close enough to
the live experience as to count as "the work." (I'm talking about so-
called "classical" music here."
What does Kubelka think of Glenn Glould given that Gould's later
performances were highly edited recordings even down to a single
note? Though I can't detact them myself a musician friend claims she
can hear the splices.
"...my notion of the aesthetics of great cinema places great films
alongside great works in other media, and that my viewing of other
art feeds into my undrstanding of film."
Is it a matter of seeing influences of one art form on another or are
you talking about connections between the auteur of one medium and
the auteur of another, or broad relations between cinema and music
because both are temporal and cinema and painting because both are
visual?
Richard
18256
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2004 7:20pm
Subject: Re: Hans Memling (OT) (was: Torino) + Thanks!
Richard,
I'm pretty sure Kubelka doesn't like Gould's performance style, too
"mannered."
He doesn't object in theory to sound works created for the recording
medium, or for loudspeakers. Bach didn't write for loudspeakers, and he
didn't write for Gould's piano either. I'm not going to dismiss all
variations on Bach, never having listened to Walter/Wendy Carlos too
much; I mean, I still think anything can be great.
Perhaps I should sometime try to get Kubelka to listen to Buddy Holly's
early experiments in overdubbing, music that really exists only as
recording.
About the effects of other arts on my appreciation of film, it's not
anything specific I'm thinking of; it's not like Memling's compositions
help me see Fritz Lang's mise en scene or anything like that. It's more
a question of learning to focus one's attention in a particular way, and
notice particular kinds of things with a great intensity. It's more a
matter of learning to see how the particular luminousness of van Eyck's
colors, lost in reproduction, is a lot of what's great about him.
Similarly, there are tactile qualities to most great films that often
don't survive, or don't fully survive, bad prints, bad projections, bad
video versions.
I've long been a bit saddened by the way when younger people say
"music," they almost always mean some form of rock, and that only. I
like lots of rock, though I don't listen that much today, but it would
be my claim that the kind of concentration required by the music of
Bach, or (to pick a particular personal favorite) Ockeghem, or most
great classical composers, is very different from what most rock
requires, and that this classical music has a density of formal beauty
and texture that is kin to what I like in great films. Rock seems to me
more about creating an overall mood rather than articulating a complex
structure, and I note that very often defenses of films I don't care for
are couched in similar terms: it was good because it conveyed a certain
feeling, rather than for the kinds of formal, almost architectural
structures I prefer, in which compositions and cuts create a certain
kind of space which has certain effects.
Fred Camper
18257
From: samfilms2003
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 0:43am
Subject: Re: Hans Memling (OT) (was: Torino) + Thanks!
> What does Kubelka think of Glenn Glould given that Gould's later
> performances were highly edited recordings even down to a single
> note? Though I can't detact them myself a musician friend claims she
> can hear the splices.
Most classical music perfomances, especially solo pieces are highly edited recordings.
Five edits per minute is not unusual, according to an engineer I know.
They can definitely be edited down to just a single note.
Sonic Solutions probably stayed in business due to classical recordings, as its
workstations were the system of choice in this field.
-Sam (who prefers Bach played on the harpischord but who likes Glenn Gould)
18258
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 1:16am
Subject: Re: Re: Hans Memling (OT)
Sorry to continue this OT stuff, but:
samfilms2003 wrote:
>
> -Sam (who prefers Bach played on the harpischord but who likes Glenn Gould)
No comment on Gould, and there are great harpsicohrd recordings (Verlet,
Koopman), but Ralph Kirkpartick also performed the WTC on the
clavichord, which some would argue is even more historically correct,
and whatever one thinks of that the recordings are sublime.
Fred Camper
18259
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 3:26am
Subject: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> I've long been a bit saddened by the way when younger people say
> "music," they almost always mean some form of rock, and that only. I
> like lots of rock, though I don't listen that much today, but it would
> be my claim that the kind of concentration required by the music of
> Bach, or (to pick a particular personal favorite) Ockeghem, or most
> great classical composers, is very different from what most rock
> requires, and that this classical music has a density of formal beauty
> and texture that is kin to what I like in great films. Rock seems to me
> more about creating an overall mood rather than articulating a complex
> structure
I have trouble with the "argument from complexity" often used to argue the
superiority of classical music to popular music. The playing field isn't
quite level: long-form classical music, the kind that supports the
complexity argument best, evolved in a time before recorded music, and
seems designed to give listeners an "evening out" experience. It was
inevitable that the availability of recorded music should result in
shorter musical forms, forms that necessarily try to do other things
besides develop themes over and over again.
My definite impression is that today's Mozarts and Beethovens are not, for
the most part, finding their way to the rather rarified world of today's
art music. I think they would have to be making pop music. One can, of
course, argue that all these young geniuses are being stifled by
unfavorable formal restrictions. But pop music certainly has had a lot of
vitality in this century - I think of it as anything but stifling. - Dan
18260
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 3:42am
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
Dan Sallitt wrote:
> I have trouble with the "argument from complexity" often used to argue the
> superiority of classical music to popular music. The playing field isn't
> quite level: long-form classical music, the kind that supports the
> complexity argument best....
I suppose some sense of "superiority" was in my mind, but I was trying
to not use that judgmental a word. Pop music can be wonderful, and I've
not heard much of the recent stuff that people make serious cases for.
I'm not interested in running down pop music, but in arguing for a
certain kind of experience. And some of my very favorite pop songs --
say, Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat" or "Umm Oh Yeah" or Brian Wilson's "Wild
Honey"or "Heroes and Villains" -- have got at least some of it.
And my argument has nothing to do with "long-form," as the reference
Kirkpatrick and Bach should have made clear. The preludes and fugues of
"The 48" (The Well-Tempered Clavier, both books) are only a minute or
two or three in length, and they support my argument as well as any
music. It's not complexity across length I'm talking about, but the
quality of attention they ask for and encourage.
This is really a defense of "high art," not from the point of view of
the old elitist arguments against popular art, but from the point of
view of a certain quality of aesthetic experience. The images in a great
Ford or Sirk film (films the high art mavens of yore would presumably be
appalled by) vibrate and resonate and create a feeling of infinite
possibility, as if you could keep plumbing them almost endlessly, like
one of those very short pieces in "the 48." These are not terms
typically used to defend Hollywood cinema, even among many auteurists.
Fred Camper
18261
From:
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2004 11:13pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
The "argument from complexity", the idea that complex patterned art is
superior to simpler patterned art, is deeply embedded in the aesthetics of classical
music. It is used not only to assert that classical music is superior to
popular, but to distinguish between different grades of classical music. Bach is
superior to Bizet, because his music is far more complex. Beethoven's music
became greater and greater throughout his life, as it became more complex.
Schoenberg is a great composer because his music is "dense" (filled with complexity
in every moment), while Messian's simplicity indicates his second-rateness
(according to Igor Stravinsky). Such ideas pop up all the time in classical music
commentary.
Similarly, traditional mystery fiction often used the same idea of
complexity, applied to plot. Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr are at the peak of
mystery writers, beacuse their plots are so complex. Complexly plotted tales are
called "dazzling" and "Masterpieces". And so on. Similar ideas are used in
science fiction and fantasy to advocate the greatness of complex-plot writers as
Asimov, Tolkien, etc.
I grew up on these ideas (am a hard core classical music & mystery fiction
fan). I try to be open minded, and consider other approaches to art. But they
are deeply embedded in my entire life history of experiencing art, both
high-brow and popular. They are in my response to film, too. Such filmmakers as the
great auteur directors or the great experimental filmmakers tend to the very
complex in their filmmaking. Sternberg and Brakhage are very complex visually.
This is hardly the whole of my aesthetics. But still, it is a way of thinking
about art that seems natural to me, after years of exposure to it.
Mike Grost
18262
From:
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 0:03am
Subject: I saw DIDN'T YOU HEAR?
So I did get a chance to see DIDN'T YOU HEAR? this week and I strongly
recommend it. Most of the film's impossible surrealism stems from a dream conceit
which will no doubt diminish any sense of originality for some. But so many
scenes wander away from the dreamer that you (thankfully, to my eyes) lose track
of that conceit in the first place. Very few lines follow one another
logically. It's as if the characters cannot even hear one another, transforming every
goofball philosophical pontification (and there are many!) into a moment of
epistemological quicksand. You can never gain your bearings, particularly as some
trippy, almost LAUGH IN-like études are wedged in here and there. Ridiculous,
inevitably boring in spots, probably a put-on but definitely sui generis.
According to the link below, director Skip Sherwood is not David Carradine,
as someone here speculated. And apparently, it was shot in 1970-1. The 1983
that IMDb advertises is the video release date. But that would mean that star
Dennis Christopher would have been 15 or 16 at the time of filming. Plausible but
he looks an awful lot like the Dennis Christopher of BREAKING AWAY from 1979.
My conspiracy-addled mind prevents me from believing any of the testimonies
on that site. But here ya go:
http://www.badmovieplanet.com/unknownmovies/reviews/rev100pointfive.html
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
18263
From:
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 0:22am
Subject: THE BIG CUBE
Don't listen to Maltin. I'm a camp follower and THE BIG CUBE was not for me.
Too serious, too talky, too, well, uncampy. BUT what saves it in the end is
that the climax is quite possibly the most preposterous plot device known to
mankind. Or, more precisely, the most meaningful presposterous plot device for
what it reveals about the melodramatic form. I won't ruin it for you but you
should at least know that it stars Lana Turner as (what else?) a stage actress
whose sanity has been compromised by several drinks spiked with LSD. And there's
reason to suspect that Desplechin saw it while toiling and troubling over
ESTHER KAHN, one of the finest films of this decade (whatever it's called).
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
18264
From:
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 0:29am
Subject: MEAN GIRLS stunk
I was very disappointed with MEAN GIRLS. It lacked the Gen X context of
HEATHERS (not to mention the Gen Y context of ELECTION or the underrated JOSIE &
THE PUSSYCATS), it ends with a heterosexual coupling and it pairs off everyone
except the chunky gay boy. But it does have a nifty dance number like every
Hollywood film today. Tina Fey - what an opportunist!
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
18265
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 3:15pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> It's not complexity across length I'm talking about, but the
> quality of attention they ask for and encourage.
This seems to me a sticky wicket, though, at least for an auteurist.
It's quite similar to the reaction people used to have to
Hawks/Ford/Hitchcock: they're just entertainers, they might be good at
times, but they simply can't be compared to Fellini/Bergman/Antonioni,
who are artists and therefore working in a higher realm.
And I would say that Hawks/Ford/Hitchcock do not, in fact, ask for as
much attention as Bergman/Antonioni. (I'm leaving Fellini out at this
point.) Which is not the same as saying that they don't repay the
attention that the viewer is willing to give.
I presume that, in using the word "ask," neither one of us is venturing
into the realm of the artist's intention, but rather talking about the
way the films/pieces invite the viewer in. - Dan
18266
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 4:26pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> This seems to me a sticky wicket, though, at least for an auteurist.
> It's quite similar to the reaction people used to have to
> Hawks/Ford/Hitchcock: they're just entertainers, they might be good at
> times, but they simply can't be compared to Fellini/Bergman/Antonioni,
> who are artists and therefore working in a higher realm.
Entering abruptly the thread, I should say that the clivage is not between
complexity of structure, but by prejudices of "seeing". Some Ford tableaux
(remade by Shyamalan's last shot in The Village) or Hawks rhythms are more
complex than Bergman's whole career! I'd just go on and say that after
Cage/Pollock (Schwitters before him?)/Godard/jazz you have to rethink the
role of structure when dealing with certain works. The "living thing" or the
haecceitas (Eustache as well as Beuys or... Weerasethakul) accounts for more
than the most complex structure. As I know Fred also worships structure-less
conceptual works, I don't think his struggle is against works with "little
structure", but against conventional narrative mainstream and arthouse films
that seem to have structure (or are accounted by narrative-only-film-lovers
as having structure) but don't.
Ruy
> And I would say that Hawks/Ford/Hitchcock do not, in fact, ask for as
> much attention as Bergman/Antonioni. (I'm leaving Fellini out at this
> point.) Which is not the same as saying that they don't repay the
> attention that the viewer is willing to give.
>
> I presume that, in using the word "ask," neither one of us is venturing
> into the realm of the artist's intention, but rather talking about the
> way the films/pieces invite the viewer in. - Dan
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
18267
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 4:30pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > It's not complexity across length I'm talking about, but the
> > quality of attention they ask for and encourage.
>> way the films/pieces invite the viewer in. - Dan
This slightly (?) OT discussion of "classical" music "vs" pop
music started me wondering about what is meant by this curious
label, "popular music" (and by the way does "pop" really mean the
same as "popular"?) Leaving out the "exotic" (to us) music of other
cultures (the quaintly labelled "world music")we may say that in the
second half of the XXth century (and certainly since the
sixties)"pop music" became largely, if not entirely, dominated by
rock (as Fred -- ? -- pointed out) -- although country music in its
various forms also has an enormous audience in the USA. But before
the sixties, what was pop music in the USA? For a fairly brief
period in the mid-thirties to early forties it was jazz-oriented,
mostly big-band dance music. As far as you can imagine from what has
been known as pop in the past 40 years or so. And there was the huge
output of popular songs, both from Broadway musicals and revues and
from Tin Pan Alley, many of which fed the jazz repertory (another
unthinkable phenomenon today, when no self-respecting jazz musician
would dream of playing a current pop song). Jazz for a while was
the pop music of this country (it's amazing that Coleman Hawkins'
stunningly complex 1939 improvisation on "Body and Soul" -- which
totally discarded the melody only to retain the chord structure --
became a huge record hit ) whereas now it is considered as highbrow
and irrelevant as classical music by pop fans.
To veer back to Topic, there were dozens of Hollywood films of
the mid-thirties to forties that dealt with the "conflict"
between "serious" (classical") music and pop (mostly, at the
time, "swing"). In an obscure 1937 little B film, "Swing It
Professor," a music teacher loses his university job because his
courses are unpopular among students (he dislikes swing music).
Later he writes a song praising old-fashioned melodies but is asked
to "swing it." By the end of the movie he writes and sings swing
tunes... It's amusing in the film "The Benny Goodman Story" to see
how this virtuoso clarinetist, a big hit with kids, is looked down
upon by most serious music lovers (who don't seem to have a clue how
jazz improvisation works) until he plays a Mozart clarinet concerto.
But by and large, and to the risk of alienating rock fans on this
Group, I'd say that comparing classical music and pop/rock is like
comparing Hans Memling and paintings of sad clowns on velvet.
JPC
18268
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 5:42pm
Subject: Re: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
Jean-Pierre:
> we may say that in the
> second half of the XXth century (and certainly since the
> sixties)"pop music" became largely, if not entirely, dominated by
> rock
Terminology discussions are tricky, but, as a fan of much popular music of
the last several decades, I hesitate to describe it as "rock" or "rock 'n'
roll" except as a shortcut in conversations where I'm sure I won't be
misunderstood. Certainly the components that people once called rock 'n'
roll - a reliance on the beat, some inherited characteristics of blues and
country - were more often ignored than honored even in the heyday of the
Beatles, and have almost no relevance to the current state of pop music,
where variety seems to be prized almost for its own sake (at least in the
pop music that critics like).
Every kind of artistic enterprise looks more uniform and rule-bound if you
don't like it!
Ruy:
> As I know Fred also worships structure-less conceptual works, I don't
> think his struggle is against works with "little structure", but against
> conventional narrative mainstream and arthouse films that seem to have
> structure (or are accounted by narrative-only-film-lovers as having
> structure) but don't.
My point here was simply that it's tricky to praise a work for how much
attention it seems to demand, because that's generally a function of how
out in the open its artistic ambitions are. And auteurists have a history
of defending works that were dismissed because they looked like (and were,
in most cases) entertainments. It is certainly not my goal to argue that
Hawks is less complex than Bergman. But you simply can't appreciate some
Bergman films without wrestling with their complexity. In other words,
they ask openly for our attention. Whereas many people love Hawks films
without thinking them complex, or without identifying the nature of their
complexity. - Dan
18269
From: thebradstevens
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 5:42pm
Subject: The Unknown Raoul Walsh
I recently picked up Patrick McGilligan's book FILM CRAZY: INTERVIEWS
WITH HOLLYWOOD LEGENDS, which contains a fascinating interview with
Raoul Walsh. Walsh talks a little bit about how he came to take over
THE ENFORCER from Bretaigne Windust, eventually directing "way more
than half" of the film.
Walsh then went on to add "I've done that ten or fifteen times. I
can't tell you the names of some of them. The director would get
drunk or wouldn't show up. Warner would send for me and have me
finish it, but I always insisted that the other director's name went
on it, no matter what I did. I did one with Bette Davis which I won't
mention, because we had a lot of trouble".
Anyone have any idea what this Bette Davis film might be?
At one time or another, the following nine films have been said to
contain material directed anonymously by Walsh:
ROSITA (1923, Lubitsch)
HELLO, SISTER! (1933, the remains of Von Stroheim's WALKING DOWN
BROADWAY)
ACTION IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC (1943)
EDGE OF DARKNESS (1943, Milestone)
SAN ANTONIO (1945)
STALLION ROAD (1947)
MONTANA (1949)
THE ENFORCER (1950)
HELEN OF TROY (1955, Wise - Walsh apparently directed scenes showing
the Greeks disembarking, the siege of Troy, and the final night
battle around the wooden horse)
18270
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 5:47pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> Some Ford tableaux
> (remade by Shyamalan's last shot in The Village) or Hawks rhythms are
> more
> complex than Bergman's whole career!
I've loved a Ford tableau or two in my time, and never met a Hawks
picture I didn't admire (and since the two are almost always joined at
the hip in discussion, I'll disclose I love Ford more than I love
Hawks), but I'm repeatedly astounded by this polemic (although I guess
that's why they call it a polemic), one that's resounded through the
a_f_b valley countless times from what has seemed to me an aerie of
almost certain madness (or, again, dire polemic). Hawks's rhythms (in
one shot? film? oeuvre? bowel peristalsis?) are more complex "than
Bergman's whole career"! (And indeed: !!!) What gives? Ah, I've got
it -- this must be a different Bergman than the one I'm familiar with
-- maybe a Schecky Bergman from Chicago, or Lon Bergman from Tombstone.
C'est ça. That, or... perhaps... maybe, just maybe... I'm unable to
hallucinate deeply enough into the Hawksian rhythms!
Why does it so often seem to me around a_f_b Way (paranoia aside) that
Ford and Hawks are used like some kind of weapon fashioned to destroy
the legacy, or besmirch the merits, of the European art cinema? Must
the poles be at extremes? I'm not sure I understand the rationale, nor
all the implications, of this curious (and somehow extremely
conservative in its would-be radicalism) reversal of roles in which the
European high-art auteur / auteur of resistance becomes "the haughty
bourgeois," and the Hollywood genre cinema stands in for "the salt of
the earth."
As though Ingmar (if it's really Ingmar we're talking about!) were
running some aesthetic or intellectual con game, psychologically
dishonest (with regard to the intentions of his own expression, and the
emotions of his characters), tailor-made only for canon-cementing
jessies like David Thomson* -- as though "the Bergman film" were only a
byword for "surely pretentious guff" rather than highly personal,
complex, honest, taut, scorching, distraught, and sometimes
uncomfortable works of art like 'The Seventh Seal' (oh, too easily
parodied!), like 'As in a Mirror' / 'Through a Glass Darkly' (too
"existential"), like 'Persona' (too close for comfort), like the five
hour 'Scenes from a Marriage' (be still my breaking heart).
To say "Ford over Bergman," or "Hawks over Bergman" seems unfair,
uncalled for, one nonpareil in relation to another -- it also says to
me that British schoolmaster'ism might sometimes lurk behind this mask
of "auteurism" (and, really, every "ism" is a mask to begin with), in
that what's aspirational shall be rebuked on the grounds of
"pretentious," and that to have ambition (or, less ambitiously even, to
make as your subject psychology) shall serve as grounds for
excommunication.
Surely everyone can pray in this church, even our greatest atheist.
craig.
* = (Are "cinemignorance" and "cinematherapy" one and the same?)
18271
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:08pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> Terminology discussions are tricky, but, as a fan of much popular
music of
> the last several decades, I hesitate to describe it as "rock"
or "rock 'n'
> roll" except as a shortcut in conversations where I'm sure I won't
be
> misunderstood.
I used "rock" as a shortcut too,for convenience sake, as a
generic label, for lack of any term encompassing the whole spectrum
of contemporary pop music (of which I must admit I am not a fan).
Certainly the components that people once called rock 'n'
> roll - a reliance on the beat, some inherited characteristics of
blues and
> country - were more often ignored than honored even in the heyday
of the
> Beatles, and have almost no relevance to the current state of pop
music,
> where variety seems to be prized almost for its own sake (at least
in the
> pop music that critics like).
>
True. The Beatles, aside from some very early efforts, have almost
nothing to do with rock 'n' roll.
> Every kind of artistic enterprise looks more uniform and rule-
bound if you
> don't like it!
>
18272
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:24pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
>
> To say "Ford over Bergman," or "Hawks over Bergman" seems unfair,
> uncalled for, one nonpareil in relation to another -- it also says
to
> me that British schoolmaster'ism might sometimes lurk behind this
mask
> of "auteurism" (and, really, every "ism" is a mask to begin with),
in
> that what's aspirational shall be rebuked on the grounds of
> "pretentious," and that to have ambition (or, less ambitiously
even, to
> make as your subject psychology) shall serve as grounds for
> excommunication.
>
> Surely everyone can pray in this church, even our greatest atheist.
>
> craig.
>
I couldn't agree more with the whole post, Craig!
And after all, Bergman's cinema, no matter
how "ambitious"(or,sometimes, grim) is entertainment too, like
Hawks'; like -- to quote Jack Buchanan -- Bill Robinson and Bill
Shakespeare -- all entertainers.
"If we define 'entertainment' as something that engages and holds
the recipient's attention, then what are we to say of a work of art
that isn't entertaining?" Robin Wood (Intro to his "Howard Hawks")
JPC
18273
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:55pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
This thread is developing in an interesting way (and I think Ruy does
understand my aesthetic), and I should have more to say later, but for
now I just want to reply briefly to Craig.
You're entitled to love and defend Bergman, as is Dan, but it seems to
me that I'm also entitled to dislike his films, or at least, not find
that much of interest in them. They may be "complex" in their way, but
complexity and aesthetic resonance are not equivalent. Anyone can make a
"complex" film that's very bad. And it's not a question of dissing
"European art cinema." You won't find me (and I suspect you won't find
Ruy) using Hawks and Ford as weapons against Bresson or Ophuls or
Rossellini.
It is true that when many U.S. auteurists of my generation "came of
age," film art in the U.S. meant mostly Bergman, Fellini, and Antonioni,
with occasional nods to things such as "The Red Shoes" and the like, or,
if one was lucky, something like Welles's "The Trial" (based on an "art"
novel, after all). That's what "art houses" showed. These were
particular kinds of theater with names like the "Fine Arts" where they
played Vivaldi before the film began. I liked Antonioni at first, but
never liked the other two, and perhaps because the people who did like
Fellini and Bergman at that time thought that taking Brakhage or Hawks
seriously was a joke worthy of derision I bear an added animus toward
them. But I'm also capable of making up my own mind; my gradual loss of
enthusiasm for Antonioni (who I will still acknowledge is a serious film
thinker and stylist) came out of my own viewing experiences more than
anything else.
And Ruy, who is in his 20s and lives in Brazil, must have come to film
in a very different cultural environment from mine. Maybe he dislikes
Bergman because he looked at a bunch of his films and just didn't get
much out of them? Just a thought.
Fred Camper
18274
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:13pm
Subject: Bergman (Was: Classical vs. Pop)
> You're entitled to love and defend Bergman, as is Dan
I have mixed feelings about Bergman, by the way. I'd defend him to an
extent, but his considerable gifts come with a bunch of problems. - Dan
18275
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:51pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> it's tricky to praise a work for how much
> attention it seems to demand
Fred's phrase "quality of attention" may or may not have meant the "amount" of attention. I suspect the difference may lie elsewhere, and that it may not even necessarily have anything to do with how much attention one is required -- or prepared -- to pay. (On radio programs about opera, I used to notice that whenever the question of the precise difference between opera and musical comedy came up, the experts could never seem to agree on the distinguishing factors.) For the record, I can testify that it's possible to listen, in no doubt ignorant bliss, to Bach cantatas as background music (even Bergman-who-requires-your-attention used Bach as background music), while I stopped listening to rock at least in part because it was too distracting while trying to work!
18276
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 8:12pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> You're entitled to love and defend Bergman, as is Dan, but it seems to
> me that I'm also entitled to dislike his films, or at least, not find
> that much of interest in them. They may be "complex" in their way, but
> complexity and aesthetic resonance are not equivalent.
Of course everyone is entitled to dislike the films of any artist -- I
suppose that whatever one thinks, it's a dismissal with a hint of sneer
that gets to me (Hawksian rhythm over all of Bergman, etc.). But what
rubs me the wrong way in the above is the fact that while graciously
extending the olive branch to both sides (not that they should even be
called sides), you implicitly slag the Bergmanites by putting "complex"
in quotes, and remarking that, well, of course, complexity and (solemn
cellos sound now) -aesthetic resonance- are simply not equivalent. As
though Bergman defenders were deluding themselves into mistaking
"complexity" in his work for complexity, and that regardless of the
actual or delusional presence of the former or the latter, the films
are bereft of aesthetic resonance; and, aesthetic resonance being
altogether absent, the case is closed. Just because you personally
haven't had a Blakean seizure during any viewing of Bergman doesn't
mean the films are incapable of inducing such rapture in others or
myself, even on the basis of their quality of light, interplay of
depths, gestural/bodily rhythm or any of the other more planar (and
extraplanar) delights that usually redeem a film for your personal self.
Springboarding from that fact to a more general notion of "qu'est-ce
que le cinéma" -- cinema here as a term meant not merely to signify the
medium, but as a qualifier for a film's degree of purity, or vicinity
of apotheosis, relative to the ontological precepts of the medium -- I
would argue that it's not the medium which sets the ground rules for
purity and success (how would it?) (and: I refute that those notions
should be interchangable, and while I used to believe in the former I
no longer think I do), it's the work of art itself that sets the rules
-- the artist alone shall determine the concerns of his artwork and
define his medium. There is no Ultimate Cinematic Aesthetic that alone
is capable of inducing resonance and reverence -- the cinema will be
different things at different times.
Sometimes it will be 'Battle Hymn' and at other times it will be 'The
Silence,' but I have a hard time accepting the notion that, as a rule,
rhythm of gesture should "trump" more consciously intellectual theses
-- which are, to my mind, no less matters of cinema than, say, the
subconscious tension and emotional torque of an I.V.-rack in left
center frame. I argue for the presence and resonance of all of the
above, in equal parts, both in Sirk, and in Bergman.
craig.
18277
From:
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 3:51pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
Dan Sallitt, your posts on music are full of grace and are just plain
knowledgeable. Clearly, you know what the fuck you're talking about. Just wanted to
let you know that I appreciate them. Thanx!
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
18278
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 8:51pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
Craig,
If I don't like a film, it seems to me that I should feel free to say
that I don't like it, how bad I think it is, and so on. That doesn't
mean that others may not find all kinds of stuff there, just that I
don't. We should talk about what we see and how we respond without
having to hedge very sentence with an "in my opinion, and I could be
wrong," which I think among intelligent film aficionados ought to be
understood.
Example: the first Bergman I saw was "Wild Strawberries," and to be
honest, I thought it was sentimental and pretentious garbage. At the
time, I couldn't imagine anyone's taking it seriously as cinema. That
doesn't mean I think someone who does is provably wrong; I could be
wrong. "Persona" is much better, but I still don't care for it all that
much. Nor am I interested in getting into a big discussion about
Bergman; I actually haven't even seen all that many.
I agree with you that there are no rules for good cinema. Art is like a
game in which the rules are made up by each work or each artist, to
paraphrase what I think was a remark of Wittgenstein's. I have never
seen a film that I thought was a great work of art mostly because of the
acting, but that could be my bias, and I don't want to deny the
possibility. Cinema for me is most often great on the level of screen
textures and compositions and rhythms, rather than, say, complex
symbolic meanings contained in a well-mounted and well-acted story. I'd
like to think this is just an empirical observation, and I know I'm open
to more conceptual possibilities for cinema too (how could I not be if I
like, as I do, films with no images, such as Maurice Lemaitre's "Le Film
Deja Commencer" and Michael Snow's "So Is This"), but others are free to
see it as a bias of mine.
Fred Camper
18279
From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 9:13pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper wrote:
>
> , and I know I'm open
> to more conceptual possibilities for cinema too (how could I not
be if I
> like, as I do, films with no images, such as Maurice
Lemaitre's "Le Film
> Deja Commencer" and Michael Snow's "So Is This"), but others are
free to
> see it as a bias of mine.
>
> Fred Camper
Well, Fred, it's "Le Film est deja commence" (with accents on
the "e" and the "a" of "deja" and the final "e")and NO CAPITALS
after the first noun (here's that pesky Frenchman again making a
fuss about nothing!)... I remember missing Lemaitre's "film"some 40
years ago because the show was already started.
JPC
18280
From:
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 4:28pm
Subject: More French film titles stuff (Was: Classical vs. Pop)
Just so you know, J-P, I have never figured out how to make an accent grave
with my Mac. So if I ever talk about the Lemaitre (though isn't it Lemaître?)
film in question, I'd have to write Le film est déja commencé. And actually,
since italics don't travel well over the internet and I loathe putting film
titles in quotes, I guess it'd have to be LE FILM EST DEJA COMMENCE. And my
computer (or the particular font or AOL or whatever) won't allow any useful accents
in caps.
Kevin John
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
18281
From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 9:52pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> Dan Sallitt, your posts on music are full of grace and are just plain
> knowledgeable. Clearly, you know what the fuck you're talking about.
Not really, but thanks! - Dan
18282
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 9:56pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
--- Fred Camper wrote:
> If I don't like a film, it seems to me that I should
> feel free to say
> that I don't like it, how bad I think it is, and so
> on. That doesn't
> mean that others may not find all kinds of stuff
> there, just that I
> don't.
Quite true.
>
> Example: the first Bergman I saw was "Wild
> Strawberries," and to be
> honest, I thought it was sentimental and pretentious
> garbage. At the
> time, I couldn't imagine anyone's taking it
> seriously as cinema.
Raher surprised you took exception to taht one rather
than "The Seventh Seal." I greatly enjoyed "Wild
Strawberries"when it came out and about year ago I
got the DVD and enjoyed it just as well, especially in
light of its influence on other films and fimmakers.
But Bergman has never been a particular favorite of
mine -- though I do adore "Persona" and "All These
Women."
> I agree with you that there are no rules for good
> cinema. Art is like a
> game in which the rules are made up by each work or
> each artist, to
> paraphrase what I think was a remark of
> Wittgenstein's. I have never
> seen a film that I thought was a great work of art
> mostly because of the
> acting, but that could be my bias, and I don't want
> to deny the
> possibility.
And Wittgenstein loved Betty Hutton and Carmen Miranda
movies.
Cinema for me is most often great on
> the level of screen
> textures and compositions and rhythms, rather than,
> say, complex
> symbolic meanings contained in a well-mounted and
> well-acted story.
Which is why you're so ideal for explicating Brakhage.
I've never really responded to Brakhage. In fact my
book,"Film: The Front Line -- 1984" was largely about
my lack of response to Brakhage. Partially this had to
do with the work itself, but the degree to which he
was promoted by P. Adams Sitney and Jonas Mekas over
filmmakers I felt were equally or arguably even more
important at the time annoyed me to no end. Seeing
Brakhage on DVD recently has made me realize I sold
him short.
Still there's the GreatMan Theory of Art involved in
all of this -- a role Brakhage sprang to with an
enthusiasm that put showboats like Rex Ingram and
Orson Welles to shame.
Felllini has always been an enormously important
touchstone for me and I cannot fathom the dismissive
antipathy with which his work is regarded in auteurist
circles.
__________________________________
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18283
From: Craig Keller
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 10:25pm
Subject: Re: More French film titles stuff (Was: Classical vs. Pop)
>
> Just so you know, J-P, I have never figured out how to make an accent
> grave
> with my Mac. So if I ever talk about the Lemaitre (though isn't it
> Lemaître?)
> film in question, I'd have to write Le film est déja commencé. And
> actually,
> since italics don't travel well over the internet and I loathe putting
> film
> titles in quotes, I guess it'd have to be LE FILM EST DEJA COMMENCE.
> And my
> computer (or the particular font or AOL or whatever) won't allow any
> useful accents
> in caps.
Hold "option" and press the "` / ~" button -- voilà.
craig.
18284
From: Fred Camper
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 10:37pm
Subject: You can't prove good and bad (Fellini, also Brakhage) Was: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
David Ehrenstein wrote:
> ...Felllini has always been an enormously important
> touchstone for me and I cannot fathom the dismissive
> antipathy with which his work is regarded in auteurist
> circles.
I started with "Juliet of the Spirits," when it came out, and thought it
was ridiculously bad, laughable really. Later, I mildly enjoyed some of
the earlier ones, causing me to theorize that while great filmmakers get
better as they deepen their styles, bad filmmakers get worse as they
develop their styles more distinctively and elaborately. This is offered
in a fanciful and polemical spirit, and no more than that.
Anyway, some years after having decided that Fellini was horrible, I
became a teaching assistant in NYU Cinema Studies, at what I thought was
the beginning of a teaching career. The year was 1972, and the "reward"
for being a TA for someone else's course was that the next semester I
was getting to teach a course of my own design (I chose "Four American
Directors: von Sternberg, Hawks, Borzage, and Sirk," designed around two
pairs of opposites). Suddenly I had to lead discussion sections on
"8-1/2." I approached reseeing it with dread, but when I viewed it, I
did so with an eye toward trying to find interesting things to talk
about. Suddenly I saw a very consistent style, and not only that, a
style that seemed linked to its theme: circular almost womb-like camera
movement expressing repetition and failure and self-absorption, or
something like that. So I did a style/theme analysis typical for me,
while also telling the students I didn't really like the film.
This was a very important moment for me because I realized that the
things I can uncover with my "method," which I had thought were useful
in justifying a film's greatness, have nothing to do with whether I
think a film is good or not, though they might help distinguish between
a film that's a controlled piece of expression and a random and
anonymous piece of storytelling or an out-of-control avant-garde film.
Since then I've come to think that criticism is more akin to
storytelling than analysis. I try to tell stories that will help people
see a film more thoughtfully, or see some of what I see.
David, thanks for your comments on Brakhage and me, as well as the
interesting news about Wittgenstein's film tastes, which were obviously
more catholic than my own. I'm glad you've found some merit in Brakhage.
I know others who had been put off by various things about him --
sometimes by his imperious presence, or by the claims of his advocates,
or by his general reputation -- who, after viewing his films in some
depth, changed their minds. His work is pretty vast: if you don't like
the pseudo-narratives, there are the hand-painted films; if you don't
like the completely abstract photographed films, there are the poetic
and allusive photographed ones; if you don't like the long ones there
are some very short ones; if you don't like the mythic films there are
the documentaries.
Fred Camper
18285
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:04pm
Subject: Re: You can't prove good and bad (Fellini, also Brakhage) Was: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
--- Fred Camper wrote:
> I started with "Juliet of the Spirits," when it came
> out, and thought it
> was ridiculously bad, laughable really.
Well you definitely started out "on the wrong foot" as
it's his most problematic work by far. I had enjoyed
"La Strada" and "Nights of Cabriria" but"La Dolce
Vita" was the one that wiped me out. I flet as if I'd
fallen right through the screen and into that world --
which was not at all unrelated to my own at the time.
(I was in high school.)
Suddenly I had to lead
> discussion sections on
> "8-1/2." I approached reseeing it with dread, but
> when I viewed it, I
> did so with an eye toward trying to find interesting
> things to talk
> about. Suddenly I saw a very consistent style, and
> not only that, a
> style that seemed linked to its theme: circular
> almost womb-like camera
> movement expressing repetition and failure and
> self-absorption, or
> something like that.
Well now you've really scored a bulls-eye because that
very stylistic consistency is the essence of why the
film (which is Fellini's masterpeice) is so great. The
protagonist is a director but the film isn't about
filmmaking at all. Rather it's about fantasy and
memory brought to bear with life as it's experienced
IN THE MOMENT in a very absolute way. The most
beautiful things in the film require no "explanation"
at all - their obvious. Guido wrestles with the notion
that Claudia must "represent" something.But the ruth
is , as he comes to learn, she needn't "represent"
anything other than herself. Her beauty is reason
enough for her inclusion in the film.
>
> David, thanks for your comments on Brakhage and me,
> as well as the
> interesting news about Wittgenstein's film tastes,
> which were obviously
> more catholic than my own.
Derek Jarman's "Wittgenstein" (shot when Derek was for
all intents and purposes blind) features a scene of
Wittgenstein at the movies, grooving to Carmen
Miranda.
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18286
From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:09pm
Subject: Re: The Unknown Raoul Walsh
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "thebradstevens"
wrote:
>
> I did one with Bette Davis which I won't
> mention, because we had a lot of trouble".
>
> Anyone have any idea what this Bette Davis film might be?
IN THIS OUR LIFE
18287
From:
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:28pm
Subject: Re: The Unknown Raoul Walsh
Always thought "In This Our Life" stood head and shoulders over most of John
Huston's other films.
Now - is it true that much of it was really directed by Raoul Walsh?
This could explain a lot.
How much of it is Walsh - is this known?
Mike Grost
18288
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:59pm
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
Craig,
I didn't "choose" Bergman, the name popped out on the thread. For starters,
let me say that I dearly love Scenes From a Marriage, From the Life of
Marionettes, Monika and some others. I like more Bergman films than I
dislike (Shame, Seventh Seal) or feel lukewarm to. And still some of his
films I deeply admire, but don't love completely: Silence, Persona (Have
seen nearly all his films in print, but let's just pick some).
I agree with you that Bergman is an easy target for auteurists. And so are
Fellini, Kubrick, Kurosawa A., etc., which are generally picked by
mainstream taste film lovers as "the greatest of all" alongside, say,
Spielberg (sorry, Jaime) and the supreme cliché "early Godard". I feel that
there's a certain amount of prejudice in that. And a strange feeling, not
very rational, that you feel tempted to bash Kurosawa in order to defend
Mizoguchi. All this happens, and even though I don't get the why, I think it
acts like a natural 'acted out' answer to the "pantheon". I once or twice
felt the urge to bash these directors (except for Fellini) because they are
the only ones that people generally go to when trying to see some arthouse
cinema.
Having said it all, I think that some of Bergman's films from late 50s to
early 70s get some praise I don't understand. I don't think they are
"complex" for people who have the same background as Bergman (Freud,
Tchekhov, Ibsen), and I don't think his style (I'm not counting his pre-55
or post Scenes films) is as distinctive as generally claimed, and his
pompousness bothers me (the dream sequences in Wild Strawberries are Freud
trivia, Shame is what Tarkowski's Sacrifice would be had it failed, etc.).
Of course, I'm not the one to debunk Bergman since I like him more than
dislike, but I prefer others...
Ruy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Keller"
To:
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> Some Ford tableaux
> (remade by Shyamalan's last shot in The Village) or Hawks rhythms are
> more
> complex than Bergman's whole career!
I've loved a Ford tableau or two in my time, and never met a Hawks
picture I didn't admire (and since the two are almost always joined at
the hip in discussion, I'll disclose I love Ford more than I love
Hawks), but I'm repeatedly astounded by this polemic (although I guess
that's why they call it a polemic), one that's resounded through the
a_f_b valley countless times from what has seemed to me an aerie of
almost certain madness (or, again, dire polemic). Hawks's rhythms (in
one shot? film? oeuvre? bowel peristalsis?) are more complex "than
Bergman's whole career"! (And indeed: !!!) What gives? Ah, I've got
it -- this must be a different Bergman than the one I'm familiar with
-- maybe a Schecky Bergman from Chicago, or Lon Bergman from Tombstone.
C'est ça. That, or... perhaps... maybe, just maybe... I'm unable to
hallucinate deeply enough into the Hawksian rhythms!
Why does it so often seem to me around a_f_b Way (paranoia aside) that
Ford and Hawks are used like some kind of weapon fashioned to destroy
the legacy, or besmirch the merits, of the European art cinema? Must
the poles be at extremes? I'm not sure I understand the rationale, nor
all the implications, of this curious (and somehow extremely
conservative in its would-be radicalism) reversal of roles in which the
European high-art auteur / auteur of resistance becomes "the haughty
bourgeois," and the Hollywood genre cinema stands in for "the salt of
the earth."
As though Ingmar (if it's really Ingmar we're talking about!) were
running some aesthetic or intellectual con game, psychologically
dishonest (with regard to the intentions of his own expression, and the
emotions of his characters), tailor-made only for canon-cementing
jessies like David Thomson* -- as though "the Bergman film" were only a
byword for "surely pretentious guff" rather than highly personal,
complex, honest, taut, scorching, distraught, and sometimes
uncomfortable works of art like 'The Seventh Seal' (oh, too easily
parodied!), like 'As in a Mirror' / 'Through a Glass Darkly' (too
"existential"), like 'Persona' (too close for comfort), like the five
hour 'Scenes from a Marriage' (be still my breaking heart).
To say "Ford over Bergman," or "Hawks over Bergman" seems unfair,
uncalled for, one nonpareil in relation to another -- it also says to
me that British schoolmaster'ism might sometimes lurk behind this mask
of "auteurism" (and, really, every "ism" is a mask to begin with), in
that what's aspirational shall be rebuked on the grounds of
"pretentious," and that to have ambition (or, less ambitiously even, to
make as your subject psychology) shall serve as grounds for
excommunication.
Surely everyone can pray in this church, even our greatest atheist.
craig.
* = (Are "cinemignorance" and "cinematherapy" one and the same?)
Yahoo! Groups Links
18289
From: Ruy Gardnier
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 0:09am
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
Fred,
Almost leaving my 20s, as in January I turn 29, unfortunately... But, as
from my other post, you might get that the environment was not much
different from yours (and I like Bergman)...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Camper"
To:
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: [a_film_by] Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> And Ruy, who is in his 20s and lives in Brazil, must have come to film
> in a very different cultural environment from mine. Maybe he dislikes
> Bergman because he looked at a bunch of his films and just didn't get
> much out of them? Just a thought.
18290
From: samfilms2003
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 1:07am
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
> I didn't "choose" Bergman, the name popped out on the thread. For starters,
> let me say that I dearly love Scenes From a Marriage, From the Life of
> Marionettes, Monika and some others.
A personal favorite, beautiful - and as cruel as Mizoguchi......
> >And a strange feeling, not
> very rational, that you feel tempted to bash Kurosawa in order to defend
> Mizoguchi.
A shame as each has a unique use of space; Kurosawa the samurai of the
long lens, Mizoguchi the strategist; somehow I imagine a mythical
Japanese director who uses Kurosawa's frames with Mizoguchi's encirclements
(his most profound narrative strategy)....
-Sam
18291
From: Matt Teichman
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 7:37am
Subject: Re: Classical vs. Pop (Was: Hans Memling)
David Ehrenstein wrote:
>And Wittgenstein loved Betty Hutton and Carmen Miranda
>movies.
>
>
And Betty Grable, no?
Craig Keller wrote:
>Sometimes it will be 'Battle Hymn' and at other times it will be 'The
>Silence,' but I have a hard time accepting the notion that, as a rule,
>rhythm of gesture should "trump" more consciously intellectual theses
>-- which are, to my mind, no less matters of cinema than, say, the
>subconscious tension and emotional torque of an I.V.-rack in left
>center frame. I argue for the presence and resonance of all of the
>above, in equal parts, both in Sirk, and in Bergman.
>
Not sure what the argument is here. What do you have in mind when you
speak of "consciously intellectual theses"?
-Matt
18292
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:24am
Subject: Vecchiali
Still in Paris. Saw 2 Vecchialis at the local Outfest: Change pas de
main, a hard core remake of Big Sleep with a female private eye,
which influenced Duelle, and La machine, an M-style SK film where the
actors all express themselves in their own words. Both starring a
young Jean-Michel Bouvet, who is brilliant. Vecchiali says he has 2
films in the can that he needs a little more money to finish and
release, and another in the works. He has published two novels while
waiting.
18293
From: Samuel Bréan
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:38am
Subject: RE: Vecchiali
Hey, Bill, I saw you at the screening of CHANGE PAS DE MAIN! I was about to
ask Vecchiali about Howard Vernon, too. A VOT' BON COEUR *is* finished: I
saw it in the same room a few months, when the Forum des Images showed the
movies from the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs selection. For some time, he had
decided to stop making films, but he changed his mind after Danielle
Darrieux gave him some courage. A VOT' BON COEUR is a farce inspired from
Vecchiali's experience: he plays his own role, a director whose projects are
refused by the Commission d'avance sur recettes. He then decides to shoot
all the members of the commission, played by Vecchiali's friends (including
Michel Delahaye). Françoise Lebrun has a part too, and she's very moving
(she sings a song about Jacques Demy).
LA MACHINE is a great film, too, as are most of Vecchiali's films I have
seen.
BTW, it's Jean-Christophe Bouvet, not Jean-Michel.
Samuel.
18294
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:51pm
Subject: Re: Vecchiali
That's great news! I have the issue of Cahiers where
both films were written about.
In some ways Vecchiali is the gay French Sam Fuller.
There's another film with a female private eye played
by catheirne Deneuve that was apparently inspired by
Change pas de Main" but I can't recall the title. I
think -- but I'm not sure - that Cozarinsky had
something to do with it.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Still in Paris. Saw 2 Vecchialis at the local
> Outfest: Change pas de
> main, a hard core remake of Big Sleep with a female
> private eye,
> which influenced Duelle, and La machine, an M-style
> SK film where the
> actors all express themselves in their own words.
> Both starring a
> young Jean-Michel Bouvet, who is brilliant.
> Vecchiali says he has 2
> films in the can that he needs a little more money
> to finish and
> release, and another in the works. He has published
> two novels while
> waiting.
>
>
>
>
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18295
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 3:25pm
Subject: Gloria in Excelcis
Here's that Catherine Deneuve movie I was thinking
about:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078549/
I've never seen it, but Jonathan Rosenbaum has and his
description has always intrigued me. The notion of a
female private eye leads to the whole concept of
putting a woman "in charge" of a narrative and working
against the grain of narrative passivity to which
women are inevitably assigned. I believe Fuller's "The
Naked Kiss" avoids this as does Godard's "Made in
USA." But Cassavetes'"Gloria" is a real high water
mark.
I caught a little bit of the Sidney Lumet /Steve Antin
remake starring Sharon Stone on TV last night. Awful.
Every effort was made to turn into the sort of
conventional "gun moll" figure that Cassavetes
scrupulosly avoided.
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18296
From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 6:50pm
Subject: Re: I love PEPPERMINT CANDY - and Korean Cinema
> Everything Lee has directed has
> > been worthy: OASIS is as good as PEPPERMINT CANDY, I think, and
> > even the early GREEN FISH is distinctive and expressive.
>
> "Green Fish" seems more interesting conceptually than visually
> somehow. It was as if LEE was still more in screen writer mode than
> visual director mode. (Great acting though).
On a first viewing the other day, GREEN FISH (beginning with that stunning train sequence with the red scarf) impressed me as, if anything, the most visually ravishing of the three! It's not just a matter of the luminous cinematography by (You Yong-kil/Yoo Young-gil?); there's something about the dynamic way the actors inhabit the frame, the way their movements serve to enliven the compositions, rather than being frozen in them (and incidentally, Shim Hye-jin as the gangster's moll has the most extraordinary expressivity): within the duration of each sinuously worked-out shot, the rhythms seem to evolve, in a way I associate with Mizoguchi (or Hou Hsiao-hsien) -- every shot seems to entertain, as if by a poetic or dramatic principle, at least one reversal, or surprise, or unpredictable grace note.... But the clarity and dynamism also extend to the cutting (which I'm not sure could be said of, for ex., the ultra-refined POWER OF KANGWON PROVINCE, another first viewing*). It's a little like watching an Anthony Mann film!
And yes, there's even a 'trademark' palsied character (more marginal but, perhaps for that reason, even more outrageous and disturbing than the one in OASIS), but basically Lee Chang-dong is working with more generic material here than in the two later films: an innocent, or perhaps not so innocent, tragically drawn into a criminal world of garish violence: a socio-political metaphor -- even the World Socialist Web Site liked it! But the play of its formal energies is so keen and enlivening that, if asked the film's real subject, I would be tempted to say something like: cinema as a way of imagining, cinema as a way of knowing. (Hopefully, of course, I'd manage not to say it, since it would suggest a stylistic "self-consciousness" that's simply not the case.)
Unfortunately I missed the now Culture Minister's announced appearance earlier in the month with PEPPERMINT CANDY, so would be interested in any reports. Most crucially: is he still making films?
---
* Though really, I need to see both these again, POWER probably more so -- only my second Hong Sang-soo (or Song Sung Blue, as they irresistibly call him on another list). It makes it tough when they only play for a day, and next to impossible to spread the word -- not to mention everything else one is missing...
18297
From: Michael E. Kerpan, Jr.
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 8:21pm
Subject: Re: I love PEPPERMINT CANDY - and Korean Cinema
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jess_l_amortell"
wrote:
> On a first viewing the other day, GREEN FISH (beginning with that
> stunning train sequence with the red scarf) impressed me as, if
> anything, the most visually ravishing of the three!
Oh well, I'll need to re-watch this one of these days. But I did
watch all three LCD films on successive days -- and I was definitely
least satisfied with this one overall (not that I disliked it, by any
means). It seemed to me very much a "screenwriter's movie". You've
certainly made an eloquent argument suggesting I missed something. ;~}
> Unfortunately I missed the now Culture Minister's announced
> appearance earlier in the month with PEPPERMINT CANDY, so would
> be interested in any reports. Most crucially: is he still making
> films?
My understanding is that he has retired from his government role --
but I'm not certain whether he has gotten back into film-making yet.
The best place to inquire about such topics (or comb through archives)
is probably, the Korean Film Discussion Board:
http://www.koreanfilm.org/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=100
> Though really, I need to see both these again, POWER probably more
> so -- only my second Hong Sang-soo (or Song Sung Blue, as they
> irresistibly call him on another list).
Still waiting to see "Power", but just watched Hong's latest "Woman is
the Future of Man". My (very sketchy) first thoughts.
This is the fourth film I've seen by Hong, and while it was impressive
in a number of respects, it is probably the one that satisfied me
least. His male characters are always flawed, but interestingly so.
Here his two male leads are mainly little more than annoying jerks
(not an acting problem -- rather an intrinsic element of the script).
One is an up and coming (and boringly married) assistant professor,
the other a (single) would-be director who seems not to be having much
success -- and is thinking of teaching film courses. During a drunken
reunion after a separation of a few years, the two decide to track
down a woman (formerly an artist, now proprietor of a bar in a
not-so-affluent suburb) who both had loved and left in the past. They
proceed to do just this. The woman seems reasonably pleased to see
them both, but the past is not so easily recaptured. Some lovely
winter cinematography here softens (a bit) the savagely humorous
takedown of male ineffectuality. All in all, I think I would have
preferred to see this tale from the viewpoint of the woman -- who,
though seen only obliquely here, would seem to have had a more
interesting viewpoint (and would have been a more sympathetic central
character). But this is Hong's story, and it is generally well
presented -- though a bit sketchy (did foreign producers pressure him
into telling a story that was too slimmed down -- this is more than 20
minutes shorter than his next shortest film).
I have just made a serendipitous discovery of yet another wonderful
Korean film -- BYUN Hyuk's 2000 film, "Interview" (which is apparently
Dogme Film No. 7).
A thoroughly unexpected masterpiece (or near enough). I got this for
free because I ordered three other Korean DVDs from YesAsia. I picked
this particular freebie because it starred SHIM Eun-ha in her last
role (she retired at the age of 27 or after this was made). Until her
premature retirement (supposedly to be an artist), Shim was one of the
best young actresses in the world -- and this film further confirms my
already high opinion of her.
This is essentially a meta-film. In it, a director is making a
documentary movie (called "Interview") about ordinary Koreans' views
on love (and sex and marriage). When filming one interviewee (an
actress), the crew meets a friend of hers -- a rather introverted
hairdresser/grocery store clerk (played by Shim), who is in love with
a soldier, to whom she writes everyday. As it turns out, Shim's past
(and present) is just a bit more complicated than she initially lets
on. Meanwhile, the director reflects back on his own past, to the time
a couple of years earlier when he worked as an apprentice director in
France -- and was given the opportunity to direct a short documentary
about a visiting Korean ballet troupe. Shim's story begins to unravel
when the crew asks the hair salon for permission to film her at work
there (she expressly had only agreed to be filmed at her other
workplace). What could have been a somewhat calculating exercise
becomes heartbreaking (and maybe, at the end, possibly heartwarming),
due to a large extent (albeit not solely) to the talent of Shim.
> It makes it tough when they only play for a day, and next to
> impossible to spread the word -- not to mention everything else one
> is missing...
Even when one gets two chances to see a given retrospctive film, it
seems impossible to see everything. I only managed to get to 15 or so
of the Ozu films that were screened by the Harvard Film Archive -- and
even that took a toll on me. I wouldn't be nearly so devoted to the
cause of any other director (except perhaps Naruse).
Michael Kerpan
Boston
18298
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 8:36pm
Subject: Re: Vecchiali
--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Samuel Bréan wrote:
> Hey, Bill, I saw you at the screening of CHANGE PAS DE MAIN!
Why didn't you say hi?!
18299
From: hotlove666
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 8:39pm
Subject: Tropical Malady
Being in Paris for a few days gives you a whole new slant. Just saw
the above: deep, difficult, gorgeous {when you can see it). Seeing
the trailer for the new Techine just before aroused no desire to see
it.
18300
From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:04pm
Subject: Re: Tropical Malady
Strand is releasing "Tropical Malady" early next year.
Remarkable film.
--- hotlove666 wrote:
>
> Being in Paris for a few days gives you a whole new
> slant. Just saw
> the above: deep, difficult, gorgeous {when you can
> see it). Seeing
> the trailer for the new Techine just before aroused
> no desire to see
> it.
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